John Oliver Archives - Page 9 of 18

September rambling: end the stigma

Musicians Across Five Continents

post-apocalyptic section
The Most Segregated City

Vlogbrothers: End the stigma

What happened to Jaye McBride could have happened to any of us

WAVE 3 News reporter kissed on live TV; here’s why it’s not cool – Sara Rivest is the daughter of Michael, a guy I know in Albany IRL

The differential privacy video the Census Bureau sponsored from MinutePhysics

Unmarried Partners More Diverse Than 20 Years Ago

Cokie Roberts, Pioneering Journalist Who Helped Shape NPR, Dies at 75

Longtime TV newsman Sander Vanocur dies at 91

Bill Schelly, R.I.P.

Amy Biancolli turns 56

The Surreal End of an American College

What Happens Right Before Your Best Employee Quits

Alan Zweig’s Vinyl documentary – a record collector’s expose

Baking Isn’t Hard When You’ve Got a Library Card

The Guardian: 100 best films movies of the 21st century. 1) I’ve seen 26 of them, at least two of which I disliked; 2) the year 2000 is NOT in the 21st century

Save on Internet Safety guide

Chef Boyardee: The Sine Qua Non of Homemade Pizza

Alex Trebek saying “genre”

Epergne: It’s time this Kitschiest of Obscure Vintage Treasures had a Comeback

The Evolution of a Fractured Coin of the Rebellion

The Modern Jonah

Now I Know: Who is MP and Why Are His Initials on My Checks? and An Aria a Day Keeps the Cougars Away and The Aquarium That Turned a Blind Eye Toward Bullies and The Island That Floated To Safety and Why We Give 21-Gun Salutes

English

The Beauty of Being Bilingual

Merriam-Webster dictionary adds ‘they’ as a nonbinary pronoun – America’s oldest dictionary claps back at grammar snobs as it embraces a more inclusive definition

Public is or Public are: “British English tends to see either a plural or singular verb, pronoun or noun as acceptable, depending on the context in which the collective noun is used. American English, however, is considerably more rigid in sticking with the singular. Though they too may reconsider occasionally, based on context.”

Harry Potter and the Poorly Read Exorcist

Boss Tweet

He is a threat to virtually everything that the United States should stand for

If This Isn’t Impeachable, Nothing Is and If Democrats put off impeachment until he does something worse, he’ll do something worse and His call to Zelensky was not out of the ordinary – for him and With the Gears of Impeachment Finally Grinding, the Hard Part Begins; also Lindsey Graham’s Impeachment Views in 1999 Vs. 2019

Iran Policy Is a Failure

Health Insurance That Doesn’t Cover the Bills Has Flooded the Market

The Race to Prepare for a Potential U.S. Exit From the World’s Mail System

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Legal Immigration

Travel ban really was a Muslim ban, data suggests

Comedian John Mulaney has the perfect analogy for what’s going on in our country today [explicit language]

MUSIC

What’s My Name – Ringo Starr

Playing for Change: The Weight – Robbie Robertson, Ringo Starr, and Musicians Across Five Continents

Old Town Road -Courtney Hadwin

Overture: L’italiana in Algeri, or The Italian Girl in Algiers by Giacchino Rossini

I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) – Sleeping At Last

Happy Birthday, Hans Zimmer edition

Coverville 1278: The Leonard Cohen Cover Story V

Love’s Creeping Up on Me – United Image, a 1971 Stax song that sounds more like Motown to me, and is billed as Northern Soul

All Kinds of Kinds – Miranda Lambert

Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris Trio Documentary

The importance of choir: John Rutter (there are about 20 seconds of him in b&w before he actually begins to speak)

Real Arrogance Over False Humility: The Beautiful Honesty of Joni Mitchell

The First Time I Met Prince, by Sheila E

August rambling: extreme inequality

this is not a drill — Stolen from HERE and HERE

Extreme Inequality Is Driving Anxiety and Depression in the US

Is It Obvious Yet that Tariffs Injure Americans?

#TrumpRecession Trends as he is blamed for rising fears of another economic meltdown

E Pluribus Unum? The Fight Over Identity Politics

A Life of Incalculable Harm: David Koch (1940-2019)

The Amazon isn’t “Burning” – It’s Being Burned

Man cuffed by police, forced out of his own home in his underwear after ‘sleeping while black’

CNN interview with Randy Rainbow

The Simpsons: Fleeing the Squad in ‘West Side Story’ Parody

The Daily Show: Donsplaining

The US is about to withdraw from the United Nations’ Universal Postal Union (UPU) – why?

Art Spiegelman: golden age superheroes were shaped by the rise of fascism

Secrets and Lies in the School Cafeteria; A tale of missing money, heated lunchroom arguments, and flaxseed pizza crusts

I Shared My Phone Number. I Learned I Shouldn’t Have. “Our personal tech columnist asked security researchers what they could find out about him from just his cellphone number. Quite a lot, it turns out.”

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov

Going against the decluttering craze: THE BOOK HOARDERS WHO DEFY MARIE KONDO

There Is No Reason to Cross the U.S. by Train. But I Did It Anyway. I would absolutely do this.

Smoke Detector Placement: Your Guide to Installing Carbon Monoxide and Fire Alarms

Peter Fonda, the ‘Easy Rider’ star and counterculture icon, dies at 79

The acclaimed animator who created Roger Rabbit dies. Richard Williams, 86, who worked on hit films such as The Pink Panther, won three Oscars and three Baftas

Binghamton, NY Broadcasting legend Bill Parker has passed away at the age of 91. I was on his show… in 1958.

John Green: What to Love and How

Anderson Cooper interviewing Stephen Colbert became largely about dealing with grief

Where would Las Vegas be without the fruit machine, the invention of car mechanic Charles Fey?

Norwich Cathedral helter-skelter ‘is a mistake’

Monty Python tease re: the writing and filming of Life of Brian

Commercials that travel well

6 Similarities Between Star Wars And Zen Buddhism

The New Prospectors: Every year, members of the Gold Prospectors Association of America pack up their RVs in search of adventure, friendship, and a bucketful of pay dirt

Now I know: Why Capital Letters are Called “Upper Case” and 1968: A Space, and Financial Services, Odyssey and The Easter Egg Hunt That Caught a Bad Egg and What Are All Those Dots On My Car’s Windshield? and Why We Pour Milk on our Cereal and When Pants Were a Ticket to Jail

Never could figure out these damn things

Record Review- Roger Green

MUSIC

Starman – MonaLisa Twins

16 Revelations About Fiddler on the Roof

Love Letters – Alicia Beale

Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major by Alma Deutscher

Praying For Time / The Rain Song [George Michael & Led Zeppelin mashup] – Puddles Pity Party

Symphonic Dances from West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein

K-Chuck Radio: Paul McCartney’s not quite dead yet and In honor of Kris’ birthday

Pink Panther theme – all about the bass

What About Us [Pink Cover] – One Voice Children’s Choir

Who’s Sorry Now? – Gloria DeHaven

Coverville: 1274: This Day in Covers: August 14, 1984 and 1275: Cover Stories for Thin Lizzy, Jamie Cullum and KISS

Gloria – Los Doltons

All My Happiness Is Gone – David Berman, RIP

1619 to eight encouraging minutes

I need SOMETHING to hold onto

It’s very easy for me to become discouraged about issues of race and ethnicity in America. Every once in a while, I say, “Ooo, I like that!”

HISTORY

Both the New York Times and National Geographic have extensive pieces on the year 1619, 400 years ago, when “enslaved Africans first arrived in Virginia.”

A New York Times magazine article suggests America Wasn’t a Democracy Until Black Americans Made It One, by working towards its 1776 ideals. It’s a slow process: Here’s, for instance, the shameful story of how one million black families have been ripped from their farms.

Meanwhile, their U.S. roots date back centuries, but some Latinos still wonder if it’s enough.

Check out the funny-if-it-weren’t-so-pathetic When The U.S. Government Tried To Replace Migrant Farmworkers With High Schoolers.

NOW

It’s to a point where most Latinos now say it’s gotten worse for them in the U.S.

This Week Tonight with John Oliver unpacks Bias In Medicine, based on both gender and race.

Voter suppression is as alive now as it was in the 1960s and earlier.

The conservative Foreign Policy suggests that white supremacists want a dirty bomb, and the regime “is letting them get dangerously close to acquiring one.” It’s no surprise that the Department of Justice HID a 2018 report on white supremacy and domestic terrorism.

When you talk about these things, those who disagree accuse you of just being PC. It has become “a rhetorical reflex.”

AND YET

I watch the Vlogbrothers’ four-minute videos a lot, and it’s not just because their surnames are Green. The authors have an outsized influence on their online community of Nerdfighters.

I was surprised and pleased when John talked about How I (barely) Passed 11th Grade English, which includes a paean to Toni Morrison. Then Hank responded in …Not My Proudest Moment, which was eerily similar in some respects. In both cases, they acknowledged their privilege and part of that was a result of their skin color.

Undoubtedly I’ve said before that I LOVE it when white people talk about white privilege. When black and brown people talk about it, too often it falls onto deaf ears.

I KNOW it’s a small thing, in the grand scheme of four centuries of racialism in what we now call the United States. Still, I need SOMETHING to hold onto, some sliver that it’s getting better, not worse.

July rambling: Yecch, indeed

stale gum

cliff hang — Courtesy Patty Huang, Angry Art Director

The Boomers Ruined Everything.

Chief Justice Roberts OKs Minority Rule.

Complaints about Government Imposter Scams Reach Record High.

How To Game Google To Make Negative Results Disappear.

The Meritocracy Myth: Why “Success” is More Complicated Than You Think.

Burned out? You’re not alone. And the world is finally paying attention.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Warehouses, such as Amazon’s.

When PEPSI had a navy.

6 tips you need to know to help you spot fake news. All pretty obvious yet often ignored.

Hear, hear, Becca.

The musical Something Rotten national tour, Rob McClure’s town-by-town video diary.

Eugene Schieffelin and the European Starlings.

Necessity’s Child.

Now I Know: How Four Dollars Can Unlock American History and When Yellow Cars Became Protest Vehicles and Why It May Make Sense to Draw Eyes on Cows’ Butts and Badge Boys, Badge Boys, Whatchu Gonna Do?

DEPARTING

Twitter helps reveal deadly toll ocean plastic takes on sharks and rays.

They welcomed a robot into their family; now they’re mourning its death.

The New York Times cuts all political cartoons, and cartoonists are not happy. Nor am I.

MAD magazine: meanderings and Yecch, indeed and Maybe Alfred should finally worry.

Dustbury is winding down at work.

Your Professional Decline Is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think.

It was a really bad month for the Internet.

djt

His nationalism has nothing to do with patriotism.

The military parade only furthers his vision of a dumbed-down America that may no longer be up to the task of global leadership.

Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who is friends with djt and wjc, explained.

UNABASHED PLUGS

Go to Catskill, NY’s adventurous Bridge Street Theatre and see Joy Gregory and Gunnar Madsen’s acclaimed Off-Broadway hit musical “The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World”. Based on the true story of three sisters from rural New Hampshire whose father forced them to form a rock band, and who recorded an album back in 1969 which has since become a cult classic. I saw it last Thursday and it is a revelatory experience. Yes, it features one of my nieces as one of the sisters.

“The Shaggs” will play for four more performances, Thursday through Saturday, July 18-20 ant 7:30 p,m. and Sunday, July 21 at 2 p.m. in BST’s intimate 84-seat Mainstage.

If you’re going to the New York State Fair August 21 – September 2, 2019 in Syracuse, NY, check out Sheila E. on Sunday, September 1 at 2 p.m. Backing vocals by Rebecca Jade, my first niece.

I’ve known Larry Shell since at least since 1981 when he put together the Alien Encounters package for FantaCo. He’s doing a GoFundMe campaign to get work on his house repaired before July 20. “Failure to comply could lead to heavy fines or even the condemnation of the home I’ve lived in for 44 years. The house is livable, it just needs a lot of fixing up,” which he can’t do himself because of health issues.

MUSIC

Manic Monday – Prince.

L.A. – Aubrey Logan (Live Studio Version with niece Rebecca Jade on backing vocals)

The theme from the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon show – vocal quartet called Midtown.

Ur So Beautiful – Grace VanderWaal.
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Vox Maris by George Enescu.

Underground – Lindsey Stirling.

Sensemaya by Silvestre Revueltas.

Coverville 1268: The Jackie Wilson Cover Story.

The national anthem – Device Orchestra, played on seven credit card machines.

K-Chuck Radio: a Quentin Tarantino soundtrack.

You Don’t Own Me, A Feminist Anthem With Civil Rights Roots, Is All About Empathy.

Hello Out There, Hello! – Johnny Mercer w/ Billy May (1952) / Looney Tunes Cartoon 2019 A.D.

June rambling: fragments of finality

new Rebecca Jade and the Cold Fact!

Close but no cigar Their billionaire descendants, who control Krispy Kreme, Stumptown and other brands, are grappling with the exposure of an unspeakable secret.

The Iranian People Are Not Our Enemy.

John Oliver: Mount Everest’s tourist industry.

Nearly 1 in 4 American adults are worse off now than before the Great Recession.

Forgiveness Is a White Privilege.

The “Moral Budget” is a plan for the future, because everybody has the right to live. Rev. William Barber: “Jeremiah 22 tells us that when political leaders abuse their office & hurt the poor, we must show up in person to deliver a prophetic indictment. Now is the time.”

Weekly Sift – Socialism: What’s in a word?

Best game show host. “Who is Alex Trebek?”

Mark Evanier’s Mayberry Monday.

Arthur’s Internet Wading for June 2019.

Now I Know: Why Frogs Ribbit and The Art of No Noises and Rudolph the Red Knows Undersea Warfare, Dear and The Everyday Hockey Superhero For Hire.

Fastest lawnmower.