No Earthly Good – Johnny Cash. This is a song John wrote. It was on The Rambler album in 1977 and the posthumous Unearthed Collection in 2003; this is the latter version. “Some people are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good” was attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
The gospel ain’t gospel until it is spread But how can you share it where you’ve got your head There’s hands that reach out for a hand if you would So heavenly-minded, you’re no earthly good
I’ve come across responses suggesting the premise is false because they didn’t know anyone so focused on heaven that one could forget their neighbor on earth. In my experience, I have known a few who are so captivated by the hereafter that their Now is bereft of compassion.
I was taken by John Green’s recent four-minute vlog post Empathy and its Limits. Among other things, he notes, as I have noticed for decades, about the word invalid. One meaning is “a person made weak or disabled by illness or injury.” Another is “being without foundation or force, in fact, truth, or law.” They are spelled the same, though pronounced differently. And often, the sickly are invalidated.
Requiem pieces
I’ll admit to feeling a bit grumpy about a snippet of Lacrimosa from the Mozart Requiem being used for a pain reliever advertisement. I was so annoyed that my brain blocked out the product’s name. I’ve sung the Mozart Requiem thrice, the last time on September 11, 2002.
When I was at my former church back in the 1990s, we sang the Rutter Requiem. My favorite section is Out Of The Deep.
How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place is from Brahms’ German Requiem, done in English. Members of the choir of my old church, some other singers, and I sang it at the funeral of my friend Jim Kalas in 2022.
John Aniston, ‘Days of Our Lives’ Star and Father of Jennifer Aniston, Dies at 89. I started watching DOOL, and the evil Victor, in 1990 for about three years.
KFC apologizes after its German Kristallnacht promotion
Russel Kwong, a student worker at Cornell Program on Applied Demographics, has updated New York State reference maps with names and locations of incorporated villages, cities, towns, and American Indian reservations. They are now based on 2020 Census geographies.
She Spent a Decade Writing Fake Russian History. Wikipedia Just Noticed.
Descendants and sponsors traveled from a dozen states to participate in the abolition symposia and inductions of three abolitionists to the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum in Peterboro, NY. Mary Liz Stewart and Paul Stewart nominated and presented Stephen Myers on behalf of the Underground Railroad Education Center (UREC) in Albany, NY. The UREC is located in the 19th C home of Stephen and Harriet Myers. Two descendants of the Myers joined the Stewarts on stage for the unveiling of the banner which will be installed in the Hall of Fame.
Also inducted were Rev. Robert Everett and Calvin Fairbank.
Incidentally, UREC is deactivating its Twitter account “in response to irresponsible decisions at its highest level. Tweets supporting unsubstantiated reports, allowing hate speech, and allowing accounts to be held by dangerous individuals are not acceptable.”
MUSIC
Rebecca Jade has just been nominated for Smooth Jazz Network’s 2022 “Breakout Artist of the Year”! You can vote DAILY from now until December 2nd! Vote HERE. Also, she will be joining Dave Koz and Friends for a very special 25th Anniversary Christmas tour from November 25 to December 23. Tickets HERE.
Drive My Car – Peter Sprague featuring Rebecca Jade
Music from The Story of an Unknown Actor by Alfred Schnittke
Coverville 1419: The Herman’s Hermits Cover Story II
And speaking of which: Rings of Power Cast Slams Racist Threats Against Performers: “Middle-Earth Is Not All White.” This hurts my head. Someone wrote, and I’ve misplaced the attribution, I’m afraid: “When did we stop being able to just sit down and enjoy something that’s been created? Just take all shows and movies as fan fiction of any book that they take it from and enjoy the creators’ stories.”
Sah Quah: More than twenty years after the American Civil War, an enslaved Alaskan walked into a Sitka courtroom and sued for his freedom
The Church Left on the Curb: A chance trash-day encounter reveals a 170-year institutional history
Nebraska HS newspaper and journalism program shut down over student-written commentary on LGBTQ+ issues. The shutdown of the prize-winning student newspaper after 54 years occurred because an edition in June contained student-written commentary on LGBTQ+ issues, the origins of Pride Month, and the history of homophobia, material members of the local school board considered inappropriate.
Demographics
U.S. life expectancy drops sharply, the second consecutive decline
Most and Least Ethnically Diverse Cities in the U.S.
Demographic divide – the key differences in media and entertainment that continue to evolve between younger and older Americans.
New Data Reveal Inequality in Retirement Account Ownership
When and How Often People Marry Changes by Birth Cohort
MUSIC
Behind the Beats article about Rebecca Jade by the Smooth Jazz Network!
Like many, I’m impressed – totally inadequate description – by the pictures from the James Webb Space Telescope. But long before that, I was wowed by the very process.
Back in December 2021, a segment of 60 Minutes explained the intricacies of just getting the mirror launched.
And as this article in Science stated: “The launch of the $10 billion instrument did not end the tension. To unfurl its giant sunshield, swing six of the 18 segments in the 6.5-meter-wide mirror into position, and extend the secondary mirror on its booms, engineers had to navigate some 300 steps, any one of which could have doomed the mission.”
The fact that these folk had the wherewithal to do it right the first time – because there would be NO do-over – is remarkable.
Popular Mechanics covered this topic a lot. “On January 24, the $10 billion spacecraft conducted the last of its three course-correction burns, placing it into orbit around the second Sun-Earth Lagrange Point (L2), a gravitationally semi-stable location in space aligned with Earth and the sun.
“The five-minute-long maneuver marked the final step in a months-long journey (not to mention decades’ worth of delays), which included a number of hair-raising moments: a tedious boat ride through the Panama Canal, its launch from French Guiana’s Kourou spaceport on Christmas morning last year, and a series of complicated mid-flight unfolding procedures to name a few.’
What is this L2 thing?
“L2 is the perfect perch from which to survey the stars.
“It [took] the observatory roughly 180 days to complete its halo-like orbit around the L2 point—the diameter of this orbit is roughly one million miles, approximately the same distance L2 is from Earth. Because Webb will be in lockstep with our planet as it races around the sun, it will be able to survey the entire sky over the course of a year. (At any given time, it can see about 1/3 of the cosmos.)”
Of course, it does.
And what does that mean?
Popular Mechanics: “NASA’s first fully focused images from the James Webb Space Telescope gaze into the origins of the universe and examine exoplanets that could harbor alien life. The… telescope’s sensors scrutinize targets near and far, from a galactic arm of our own Milky Way to never-before-seen galaxies being born in the deepest reaches of space. Its spectrograph has also divined the chemistry of another planet’s atmosphere from more than 1,000 light-years away, finding a gas giant called WASP-96b hazed with clouds of gaseous water. The resulting images and data showcase the telescope’s unparalleled versatility.
“It’s a moment of triumph for scientists around the world, who now have a groundbreaking tool to aim at humanity’s most existential mysteries. But it’s also a victory for the flight operations teams who shepherded the telescope through the first critical weeks of its mission.”
But what does it ALL mean?
Kelly writes, “Darkness doesn’t last, but science and knowledge do!” Hank Green addresses, in four minutes, the feelings of those who feel particularly small after the discovery. Not specifically addressing the Webb telescope, John Green tries to answer, Why Do Things Exist?
For me, it codifies something I’ve been wondering about since at least the 1970s. There must be many other places where life, as we understand it – or maybe DON’T understand – must exist out there. Maybe, God, or Whoever, keeps running the same experiment to see if They finally get it right. Will people, and I use the term loosely, live in harmony?
Or will they obliterate each other and themselves with war, violence, climate change, and starvation? Those things are interrelated, of course. Perhaps Whoever is trying to figure out how to allow free will and still get it right.
Maybe Their first take was that there would be no free will, perhaps idyllic but boring as heck. There was no music, art, or literature because there was no need.
What do the discoveries mean to YOU, if anything? Maybe you think it was a colossal waste of time and money, which I would vigorously dispute.
Fact-checking “2000 Mules”, the movie alleging ballot fraud “uses a flawed analysis of cellphone location data and ballot drop box surveillance footage to cast doubt on the results of the 2020 presidential election nearly 18 months after it ended.”
Mexico to reroute trade railway connection from Texas to New Mexico due to Greg Abbott’s $4 billion stunt
Florida Taxpayers Sue Gov. Ron DeSantis For Eliminating Disney’s Special District. Also, Disney Copyrights Targeted in Bill Proposed by Sen. Josh Hawley. The librarian in me likes it. The fact that it’s meant to target the “woke” corporation, not so much.
Jon Stewart Warns “Authoritarianism” Is the Greatest Threat to Comedy as He Receives Mark Twain Humor Prize
Now I Know: Why the Michelin Man is White (and Maybe an Alcoholic) and Polly’s Neighbor Want a Walnut? and The Mystery of the Missing Internet, Rural Wales Edition, and The Moon Over the Rhine River
Voting
On May 17, many entities in New York State are having their annual budget vote and school board election. Here’s the info for the Albany City School District.
Additionally, the Albany Public Library Albany Public Library budget is on the ballot. “The total tax levy includes a 2.5% increase, which is under the NYS tax cap. The proposed increase would mean that the owner of a $150,000 home would pay approximately $5.98 more in library taxes next year. And there are 10 candidates for the four open trustee seats.
Note that the polling places may be different than the primary/general election sites. Check here. This is the first election for which a certain teenager I live with is eligible to vote.
Passing on
Nate Hopper was a member of our church choir. He was talented, friendly, funny, and generous of spirit in the too-brief time I knew him. The College of Saint Rose wrote on their Facebook page that the college senior had “been a member of the Saint Rose family since 2017. He once served as an RA, was beloved within our music community, and was the president of the Golden Notes, Saint Rose’s only co-ed a cappella group. “
Neal Adams, Comic Book Artist Who Revitalized Batman and Fought for Creators’ Rights, Dies at 80. Mark Evanier shares a few stories but especially here.
George Perez, Legendary Wonder Woman, Teen Titans Comic Book Artist, Dies at 67. He did a couple of pieces for FantaCo, my old stomping grounds, including the cover for our Avengers Chronicles.
Naomi Judd, of Grammy-Winning Duo The Judds, Dies at 76. Her daughters, Wynonna and Ashley, announced her death due to “mental illness”. Why can’t we say suicide?
David Birney, Actor on ‘Bridget Loves Bernie’ and ‘St. Elsewhere,’ Dies at 83. Bridget Loves Bernie (1972-73, CBS), which I watched, was the highest-rated network show, #5, that was canceled after a single season.
Joanna Barnes, Actress in ‘The Parent Trap’ and ‘Auntie Mame,’ Dies at 87. She appears in both versions of The Parent Trap, which I saw during the pandemic.
A new database highlights African American burial grounds across NY state
Some random bits for Lent 2023.
Can conservatives be allies against 
Descendants and sponsors traveled from a dozen states to participate in the abolition symposia and inductions of three abolitionists to the 
