Jaquandor Archives - Page 9 of 49

January rambling: surreal logic

conductor and pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy

4 Ways to Detect Media Bias and Step Out of the Partisan Bubble.

Virtually All Major US Drinking Water Sources Likely Contaminated With PFAS.

Can Bankers Become Allies Against Climate Change?

The forgotten assassination of MLK’s mother Alberta King in 1974.

How do you keep that Christmas Eve feeling?

The Day That Changed Everything. The subhead: “They lost the biggest N.J. high school football game ever played.”

How to treat tennis elbow.

Komodo dragon destroyed BBC camera by trying to have sex with it.

The Critical Importance of Church Choirs.

Can’t find a marriage record? Try looking for a “Gretna Green” marriage location.

Jack Burns, R.I.P.

Every guest star on the TV series Cannon, starring William Conrad. CBS, 1971 to 1976, 122 episodes.

Inequality

World’s 2,153 billionaires hold more wealth than poorest 4.6 billion combined.

Rising inequality affecting 70% of the world.

Americans’ Drinking, Drug Use, Despair Wiping Out Life Expectancy Gains.

Structural Racism in Medicine Worsens the Health of Black Women and Infants.

Healthcare Algorithms Are Biased, and the Results Can Be Deadly.

IRS grabs the money.

The Liberation of Auschwitz: January 27, 1945.

Recommended reading: Joe Kubert’s Yossel.

Work

Illegal Interview Questions You Thought Were Harmless.

Were Your Rights Violated at the Workplace?

FTC Received Nearly 1.7 Million Fraud Reports, and FTC Lawsuits Returned $232 Million to Consumers in 2019.

Astrogate.

Language… has created the word ‘loneliness’ to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word ‘solitude’ to express the glory of being alone.
– Paul Tillich

Books, language, and librarians

Proposed Book Banning Bill in Missouri Could Imprison Librarians.

How One Librarian Tried to Squash Goodnight Moon.

Writing a book series.

You can write “embedded” but you can’t write “imbedded.”

English Needs a Word for the Relationship Between Your Parents and Your In-Laws.

The 5th Annual Tucker Awards for Excellence in Swearing.

IMPOTUS

Expansive Executive Privilege Claims Pose Serious Constitutional Crisis.

The Imperial Presidency Is Alive and Well.

He Boasts Of Obstruction At Davos Press Conference.

Doral Resort Spikes Its Room Rates Ahead Of His RNC Visit.

The Surreal Logic of the China Trade Deal.

“Reckless” Decision to Loosen Firearm Exports Regulations.

The Cost of an Incoherent Foreign Policy.

His Supporters And The Denial Of Reality.

Ten Principles that Unify Democrats (and most of the country).

Now I Know

This Is The Poem That Never Ends. It Just Goes On And On, My Friends. and The Town With No Name and What To Do When Iguanas Fall From the Sky and How a Rock Band Helped Runaway Kids Find Their Way Home and It’s Art Because Someone Says It Is and Why Do Bakers Have Bigger Dozens? and Behold the Power of Dried Plums.

MUSIC

That Don – Randy Rainbow.

On the retirement of conductor and pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy: conducting Debussy’s La Mer; playing Rach and Bach and more.

Coverville 1293: The Neil Peart Tribute and Rush Cover Story III.

The Golden Spinning Wheel by Antonin Dvorak.

Tall Skinny Papa– Annie & The Hedonists [Caffè Lena Late Night Sessions]

All About Falling In Love – MonaLisa Twins

Fiddler on the Roof: Dear, Sweet Sewing Machine – Motel (Adam Kantor) and Tzeitel (Alexandra Silber) and Tradition – Tevye is Anthony Warlow, production done in Australia.

How Long Has This Been Going On – Audrey Hepburn, from Funny Face.

The Inner Light – The Beatles.

January rambling: Liar, con artist

Fahrvergnügen

I Love the 20s — xkcd – This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
This means you’re free to copy and share these comics (but not to sell them).

The Decade of Democracy’s Decline.

He’s a Liar, a Con Artist and a Snitch. His Testimony Could Soon Send a Man to His Death. A Twitter summary.

1 Billion Animals Killed in Australia Wildfires Is “Very Conservative” Estimate and Its Government Must Stop Denying Climate Crisis.

Why Is Middle School So Hard for So Many People?

Go Green: Eco-Friendly Products We Should All Be Using.

“If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.” Henry David Thoreau

‘Here We Go. The Chaos Is Starting’: An Oral History of Y2K. (You may get a popup asking you for an email address before you can read the story.)

How New York’s Bagel Union Fought — and Beat — a Mafia Takeover.

Why Churches Should Ditch The Projector Screens And Bring Back Hymnals. BTW, I own a hymnal from c. 1850.

I ignored warnings from friends and family not to marry my husband. Was I making a big mistake?

Jan Žižka ‘the One-Eyed’ is one of that elite band of great military commanders.

Football Hall of Fame: Congratulations, Coach Cowher.

I Was Captain of the Team that Loses to the Harlem Globetrotters Every Night.

Buck Henry, R.I.P..

Now I Know: How a Flush Beat a Checkmate and The Astronauts Strike Back and The Best-Selling Volkswagen Doesn’t Have Fahrvergnügen and The Soccer Star Who Helped Someone Else Reach Their Goal and Why Public Toilet Seats are U-Shaped.

Cadet Bone Spurs Wags the Dog

Remember Normal Presidents?

7 Stunning New Pieces of Impeachment Evidence Just released by the House.

How He And Mnuchin Slipped Billions In New Tax Breaks To Corporations.

The Year The Press Tried — And Failed — To Stand Up To Trump.

“Men do not learn much from the lessons of history and that is the most important of all the lessons of history. ” – Aldous Huxley

The cost of deceit over Iran and North Korea.

Noam Chomsky: US Is a Rogue State and Suleimani’s Assassination Confirms It.

Trumpist Evangelicals Respond to Christianity Today.

MUSIC

A decade of pop.

It’s Been a Long, Long Time – Kitty Kallen and the Harry James Orchestra.

Spontaneous – Neil Innes.

Never Gonna Give You Up – The Newfangled Four.

A Week and a Day – Boys II Menorah, with James Corden.

Overture in D Major by Franz Joseph Haydn.

Playing for Change: Soul Rebel, featuring Bunny Wailer and Manu Chao. |

Coverville 1292: The R.E.M. Cover Story.

On the Beautiful Blue Danube.

You Can’t Stop the Beat – Masters of Harmony.

Main theme from Star Wars – Attacca Quartet.

Imagine – MonaLisa Twins.

Uptown Funk – Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars.

Albany has fine cultural offerings

the walk signals

Albany cultural The blogger Jaquandor has more questions for Ask Roger Anything.
Do you like the cultural offerings in your area?

I LOVE the cultural offerings in the Capital District of New York State. The Albany Symphony Orchestra received two more Grammy nominations this year. They often perform contemporary, challenging pieces, not just the old warhorses. Although they do those very well.

Proctors Theatre in Schenectady offers a panoply of performances. I have season tickets to see the shows that were on Broadway and are now touring. But there are a lot of other things going on in the former vaudeville venue with 2700 seats.

Capital Rep does very fine theater with mostly Actors’ Equity performers. In the past, I’ve had season tickets. There are many fine other theatrical venues in the area, such as Mac-Haydn Theatre.

Free shows in the good weather include Alive at Five, performances on the Empire State Plaza, the Tulip festival, Larkfest, and many more.

The New York State Writers Institute offers name authors and challenging films throughout the year. The Underground Railroad history project always has informational and educational events.

APL

I can’t forget the Albany Institute of History and Art, since we are members. The New York State Museum is another of the many museums and galleries in the region. I must mention that the Albany Public Library, which offers over a thousand events each year, including a weekly book review at the Washington Avenue branch.

My friend David Brickman writes about a lot of these. Check out Nippertown for more events than I could possibly attend. My theory: if you’re bored here, you’re not trying very hard.

What’s something completely mundane that bugs you or freaks you out? For me, it’s the fact that the buttons on the drive-thru ATM have braille on them. It’s clear why (they probably don’t bother making multiple sets of buttons for those machines), but it still always strikes me as really odd.

It’s the walk signals in Albany. Some of them do nothing except mirror the street lights, so what’s the point? Some of them you press and you get extra time to cross the street – important crossing Madison at West Lawrence. Without, it’s about five seconds, and you’ll probably die.

There’s an intersection a block from there. It has five spurs. The walk sign lights up only if you hit the button crossing Madison at South Allen,. If you cross Western at North Allen, the walk sign lights up regardless of whether you hit the button. But the sequence of when you can cross and when you can not is unchanged.

2019: year in the rear-view mirror

Retiring is work

This is that thing that Jaquandor has done on December 31, but I do on January 1.

And this looking in the rear-view mirror is getting so damn long, I’m going to split it in half.

Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Last year, I noted an article that resonated with me. Talking about making changes will make them less likely to happen. Why you shouldn’t share your goals. It doesn’t help me with mine, for sure.

That said, I did plan on leaving work this year, and I did. But I didn’t talk about it until I had to.

Did anyone close to you give birth?

Anna, who’s named for me, had her second child.

Did you attend any weddings?

Don’t think so.

I attended at least seven funerals

Did anyone close to you die?

Hell, yeah. Bob Lamar and Charlie Kite and Bob Pennock and Tim Ryan-Pepper. Plus a couple moms of friends.

I was really sorry about Sarge Blotto’s passing. To this day, I keep thinking I can ask Dustbury some obscure musical question and that he’d answer.

I never mentioned my high school friend Jane Vandament Clair, with whom I reconnected on Facebook a few years back. She died in August.

Everyone who was a progressive advocate in Albany, and many who were not, were friends with Vera “Mike” Michelson. Among other things, she donated her home to the Underground Railroad history project so they could sell it and raise money. They renamed a street after her.

What countries did you visit?

None, but my passport is in order, just in case. Actually, it expires in 2020, but I got the enhanced DMV thing, which is good for a few more years.

What would you like to have in 2020 that you lacked in 2019?

The ability to read about far fewer examples of amazingly stupid behavior.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Retiring. Retiring is WORK!

What was your biggest failure?

Finding equilibrium

What was the best thing you bought?

A round-trip train ticket to New York to see my friend Karen when she retired.

Human behavior

Whose behavior merited celebration?

A few patriots who honestly testified at the impeachment hearings, in spite of intimidation. John Oliver, Seth Meyers, Samantha Bee, Trevor Noah. Those who helped people dealing with weather disasters. Those who helped the people dealing with the human-made disasters

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

OMG, there are so many of them. Pam Bondi, the terrible former Florida attorney general, turned WH defender; I saw her on CBS This Morning in November. Rudy Guiliani: he wasn’t always this crazy, was he? The racist Stephen Miller.

Members of Congress: Jim Jordan, “the most craven and shameless of the Republican reps available” to try to defend Trump. In his previous career, “he is a man that allowed younger men to be molested and raped by his coworker.”

Devin Nunez, who was the hatchetman behind the Benghazi hearings, and continues his slash and burn. It’s why I couldn’t watch the impeachment hearings. Also, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the enabler.

Virtually the entire Cabinet: William Barr protects illegalities. Rick Perry is one of the three amigos in Ukraine. Betsy DeVos is everything you don’t want in education. Mike Pence. Whoever’s currently destroying the EPA. Wilbur Ross.

Mike Pompeo and his boss make a travesty of foreign policy. See Iran, Turkey, North Korea, Syria – the Russians drinking the Coke abandoned by US troops, et al. The U.S. softens its stance against Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

And of course, the guy who just moved his residence from New York to Florida, and his weaselly eldest son.

Dec. rambling: Lean on Me

I Love Trash

UN: Climate Change Will Create “New Great Divergence” Between Rich and Poor.

Were Other Human Species the First Victims of the Sixth Mass Extinction?

three years running Suicides and overdoses among factors fueling drop in U.S. life expectancy.

The Illusions Underlying our Foreign Policy Discussions.

ALEC Is an Incubator for Efforts to Protect White Supremacy.

“Calvin and the Colonel” – a kids’ cartoon with a shady past.

James Ussher, polyglot, prolific scholar, a man of the church and the man responsible for what we know today as ‘creationism’.

How gender-neutral pronouns can change a culture.

When America Starts to Feel a Little More Soviet.

Articles of Impeachment: Broad or Narrow? – they went narrow.

What Does Trump’s Inner Party Believe?

Letter to the editor: Pattern of misbehavior – Roger Green, Scottsbluff, NE.

Plan to Strip Food Aid From 750,000 Low-Income People by 2020.

He wanted to ban feeding homeless people. Now he’s about to lead a federal homeless agency.

Even if a Democrat wins in 2020, the next president isn’t likely to resurrect a Pax Americana.

The US-Mexico-Canada Trade Deal Is Not as Good as Nafta.

Devin Nunes may regret SLAPPing his critics.

Vicki Van Meter is the youngest female pilot to have made a transatlantic flight when she was aged twelve.

Gender-neutral pronouns can nudge people to see the world a little differently.

Rejection: A Wilderness Guide for Writers, Part 25.

Memories of a map.

How Costco gained a cult following — by breaking every rule of retail.

The Easiest Way to Bike Up a Hill and The One Thing You Can’t Take Home from The Price is Right and The State of Indiana versus Robin Hood and There’s Snow Better Way to Measure and Picasso with the Sharp Elbows and The Federal Bacon Law That Protects Truth in Advertising and The Best Way to Have Your House Cleaned Out By an Intruder.

Obits

Caroll Spinney, Big Bird Muppeteer for Nearly 50 Years, Dies at 85. Check out the 2014 documentary I Am Big Bird.

René Auberjonois, ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Benson’ Actor, Dies at 79. He was also in Boston Legal and a tons of other roles.

D.C. Fontana wrote many great stories and not all of them were for Star Trek, “which is the impression you’ll probably get from some of the obits.”

Ron Leibman, Tony Winner for ‘Angels,’ Is Dead at 82. His IMDB page.

Pete Frates, A Driving Force Behind The Viral Ice Bucket Challenge, Dies At 34.

Wrecked locomotive discovered after 106 years under Lake Superior.

Former chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul Volcker, who was 92 when he died in New York City blasted ‘nihilistic’ Trumpism in final testament.

Daily syndication of Unshelved is available for free to any noncommercial web site.

MUSIC

I Love Trash – Oscar the Grouch.

ABC-DEF-GHI Song – Big Bird.

Going Home, per Dvorak – BYU choir.

Othello Overture – Dvorak.

Coverville 1287: The 15th Annual Beatles Thanksgiving Cover Story and 1288: The 40th Anniversary Tribute to Pink Floyd’s The Wall.

Baby’s in Black – MonaLisa Twins.

21st Century Schizoid Man [Radio Edit] – King Crimson at 1:55.

Lean on Me – Bill Withers.

Why you should learn about the Teskey Brothers.

These men just released their first music album — at age 102 and 88.