Now I Know Archives - Page 11 of 36

October rambling: Mental Misfires

tarot cards

Halloween not Xmas

Why Is Pentagon Spending Rising When “We Can’t Afford” Everything Else?

What to Make of the Pandora Papers?

Naming Climate Villains As the World Burns and Indigenous People With Disabilities Are on the Front Lines of the Climate Crisis

Jan. 6 Protest Organizers Say They Participated in ‘Dozens’ of Planning Meetings With Members of Congress and White House Staff; and Trump’s Cryptic Comment From 2017 May Have Foreshadowed His Coup Attempt; and [SATIRE] Trump to Skip 2024 Campaign and Go Straight to Claiming He Won

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Taiwan and Misinformation; related to the latter

Don’t believe corporate America’s labor shortage. This is an unofficial general strike.

Did Texas Legislators Read the “Founding” Documents? and Reading While Texan

What did Thomas Jefferson Buy in October 1803?

North Carolina lieutenant governor calls transgender movement ‘demonic’

Christian Academies: Training the Next Generation of Rightwing White Nationalists? and ‘Great replacement’ belief correlates with Christian nationalist views

What Conservatives Tell Themselves About Critical Race Theory

It’s a camera shutter. It’s not a detonator

Black Children Were Jailed for a Crime That Doesn’t Exist.

What We Lose When We Lose Local News

How a newspaper’s collapse makes people feel: less connected, more alone.

Bez, the final frontier

DNA testing privacy resource

Diet soda may prompt food cravings, especially in women and people with obesity

MMP 25: New Zealand’s proportional representation officially became the way New Zealand was governed.

Hank Green: A Tool With No Blood On It

But wait! There’s more!

Kelly has even MORE links!

Loopy or Stringy: What would Einstein Say?

The nearly forgotten mystical artist who still foretells fates – Pamela Colman Smith might be history’s greatest victim of copyright injustice

The first major city in the United States passes a dark-sky ordinance

A lovely Shari Lewis story

Betty Lynn, the actress best known for her portrayal of Thelma Lou, Barney Fife’s sweetheart on The Andy Griffith Show, has died

Book review: Why We Swim

The Mental Misfires of Matt Amodio

Meet the Two Women Who Give Prescription Drugs Their Generic Names

Bell peppers are mangoes

Now I Know: A Great Example of Quiche Thinking and The Non-Profit That Gives Drivers Sticker Shock and The Accidental Pet Feeding Hero of 2016 and The Toddler Truce and The Great Tattoo Cover Up

When you have “tall ZOOM energy” and show up to the office for the first time, it can get awkward.

Winnie-the-Pooh BEFORE Winnie the Pooh

MUSIC

The Bard by Jean Sibelius

Coverville 1375: The Paul Simon Cover Story III and 1376: The Snoop Dogg Cover Story

Lazy Sunday Afternoon – MonaLisa Twins

Farewell, Paddy Moloney and Late Night with The Chieftains and Earl Scruggs

A Song For You – Donny Hathaway

Celtic Rock – Donovan

Paul McCartney: on writing Eleanor Rigby and Band On The Run BBC Documentary

Sept. rambling: AmeriNZ blog turns 15

Soldier, Sister, Savant

http://www.weblogcartoons.com/2006/06/27/weight-of-the-world/

The wonderful Sharp Little Pencil wrote a response post to my recent piece about neighbors. Hers is entitled The Noisy Neighbor and the Quiet Neighbor. This reminds me of an earlier period of blogging when the late Dustbury and I would inspire to write and expand ideas. Occasionally, Jaquandor and Arthur still do that with me.

And speaking of the guy who moved from Illinois to Kiwiland 26 years ago, he is celebrating his 15th anniversary of blogging. (As I noted to him, blogging that long is a sign of a crazed individual.)

In truth, I’d recommend the entirety of Arthur’s output in September. It is the month in which he deals with grief – two years or 104 weeks since the death of his husband Nigel. But he also addresses the idiosyncrasies of measuring time. (BTW, on that specific subject, see also John Green’s piece How We Spend Our Days.)

Also, I need to check out the book about and co-written by, my friend Diana de Avila, called Soldier, Sister, Savant. As one of the reviewers noted, “She survived a deadly motorcycle accident while serving in the military police; she overcame her devastation when diagnosed with multiple sclerosis; and one day, she awakened as an acquired savant.”

Linkage

Seven Days in January (General Milley)

As a juror in a criminal trial, I had to see the world differently

Disney Princess Theology and Talking About White Supremacy

CIA Factbook

Heroes of Ireland’s Great Hunger

Goodbye, Larry Elder

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Lukashenko

vaccine_research_2x — https://xkcd.com/2515/ his work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.

Patient questionnaires do no good unless we have the resources to provide useful responses

Two-Thirds of Recent First-Time Fathers Took Time Off After Birth

Forbes: The 25 Best Places To Enjoy Your Retirement In 2021. I’m unconvinced about several of these, especially those located in a desert.

The Meaning of Recurring Dreams

Psalms 3:16 and the Mandela Effect

In Memorium, 2021 Emmys

Peter Palmer, the living embodiment of Al Capp’s Li’l Abner, has died at the age of 90.

William Shatner reacts to various impressions of William Shatner…

The Top 10 Micro-Photos of 2021

Now I Know: The Officially-Living Person That Doesn’t Exist and On the Power of Listening and How to Stop a Menacing Walrus and
The Man Who Went the Wrong Way Into the History Books and
Why (and How) a Dead Man Committed a Murder and Ask the Elves for Permission First, OK?

MUSIC

Feeling Good – Nina Simone

Spellbound Concerto by Miklos Rozsa

Worried Blues – Gladys Bentley

End Title from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Ed Sullivan Show clips, all showing up on YouTube in 2021:

In A MellowTone Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong
You’ll Have To Swing It (Mr. Paganini) – Ella Fitzgerald It Ain’t Necessarily So – Cab Calloway You Keep Me Hanging On – Vanilla Fudge
Never My Love – The Association
Up On Cripple Creek – The Band A Girl Named Johnny Cash – Jane Morgan

Coverville 1371: Cover Stories for Florence + The Machine and Beyonce

That Beach Boys mondegreen can get mon-de-violent

Sept. rambling: Suicide prevention

Way Less Sad

NAMI: Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. “It’s Okay to Talk About Suicide”

Food insecurity soared roughly 9% last year for Americans

The LMNOPs of Caring for the Nursing Workforce: Healthcare systems can do more to prevent staff burnout

A Guide on Racism, Inequality, and Health Care for African Americans.

Household COVID-19 risk and in-person schooling

Fines Double for Refusing to Wear a Mask on a Plane

‘I’m learning firsthand how difficult it is to be shunned by people you love’: The vaccine wars are getting personal

Once-in-a-Century Weather Events Every Week

Why ‘I’ Hurricane Names Are Most Likely to Be Retired

What Bobby McIlvaine Left Behind, -Grief, conspiracy theories, and one family’s search for meaning in the two decades since 9/11

How can America wake up from its post-9/11 nightmare?

Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy (Erik Prince, 2010)

A Dozen Observations about Abortion, Texas, and the Supreme Court

Power Move: Charles Blow wants Black people to reverse the Great Migration and form majorities in the Southern states.

Journey with Jesus: Richard Rothstein on “The Color of Law”

Is it Better Not To Know?

‘SNL’ Alum Norm Macdonald Dead At 61

Sporting News

every_data_table — **https://xkcd.com/2502/ Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.**

Pittsburgh Pirates lineup from Sept. 1, 1971, the first time an AL or NL team had fielded an all-Black and Latino starting lineup.

60+ Key Stats About the Olympic and Paralympics

The Woman Who Invented Stuffed Animals

John Green: My Two Favorite Jokes. From the comments: “I went into the library and asked the librarian for a book on turtles. ‘Hard back?’ ‘Yeah, with little heads.'”

How Much of the World’s Bourbon Is Actually Made in Kentucky?

Surf the Vintage Internet

ZOOM: Celebrating 10 Years of Zoom: “Some of you have only known Zoom since early 2020.” Including me.

What Is a Squinting Modifier?

A 13,654 stick bomb

Now I Know: The Friend on the Bench and The Man Who Gets People Out of the Hospital and The Magical Place Where Everyone Can Play

MUSIC

Elegy by Mark Camphouse

I heard this song called Way Less Sad by AJR this week for the first time last week. It came out in February 2021. For the life of me, I recognized but could not immediately place the horn riff. No, not Chicago or Blood, Sweat and Tears or Earth, Wind and Fire. Finally, it came to me, without looking it up: the way too sad My Little Town by Simon and Garfunkel! Paul Simon even gets a writing credit for Way Less Sad.

Times Will Be Better – Elena Romanova

I Bought Myself A Politician – MonaLisa Twins

Flivver Ten Million by Frederick Shepherd Converse, played by the Buffalo Philharmonic, conducted by JoAnn Falletta

Michelle – Julian Neel

Arlington from John Williams’s score to JFK

17 Quotes on the Transformative Power of Music

Aug. rambling: BS asymmetry principle

RIP, Don Everly, Nanci Griffith, Charlie Watts

asymetry principle — Also known as Brandolini’s Law, this is the simple observation that it’s far easier to produce and spread BS, misinformation, and nonsense than it is to refute it. https://sketchplanations.com/the-bs-asymmetry-principle. The original images and associated explanatory text on this website are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Is Religion a Force for Good or Evil?

Amid calls to #TaxTheChurches – what and how much do US religious organizations not pay the taxman?

A Harvard professor predicted COVID disinformation on the web. Here’s what may be coming next

FDA grants full approval to Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer, BioNTech

Jordan Klepper debates anti-vaxxers and Recounts His Wild Experiences at Trump Rallies

This Physicist Discovered an Escape From Hawking’s Black Hole Paradox and Hubble captures an ‘Einstein Ring’

Malware Camouflaged As Code

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver – Ransomware and Opioids III:
The Sacklers

Kids Who Die by Langston Hughes (1902–1967)

For the First Time on Record, Rainfall Observed at Peak of Greenland Ice Sheet

How We Fix the Climate

The Southwest’s most important river is drying up

Census growth data for every city, county, district, and state

Crime and other topics

That afternoon in 1978.

The Dresden Job jewel heist

White Ohio woman gets probation for $250K theft, while Black woman jailed for stealing $40K

A history of the Segway

My Physicalmental Illness – John Green

Why People Who Brush Still Get Cavities

Gene Roddenberry would have been 100 years old

Not me: Colleagues remember Professor Emeritus Roger Green

Strange towers and diverted disasters (Route 20A)

Marvel and DC face backlash over pay: ‘They sent a thank you note and $5,000 – the movie made $1bn

How Extortion Scams and Review Bombing Trolls Turned Goodreads Into Many Authors’ Worst Nightmare

Stealing Books Before Release

America’s Best Convenience Stores, Ranked (Stewart’s is 3rd)

How to reheat and re-crisp French fries

Eight. Missouri and Tennessee Share the Most Borders With Other States

FULL 9TH INNING from Field of Dreams’ CRAZY final inning between White Sox and Yankees

Final Jeopardy! Season Finale 08/13/2021 | Matt Amodio Wins His 18th Game The JEOPARDY season returns on Sept 13

The Solution to Jeopardy’s Hosting Crisis

18 UNEARTHED TV INTROS TO SHORT-LIVED 70s SITCOMS

How to beat the “milk crate challenge” -The first time I’d heard about this. Since then, saw some kids doing this in ALB’s Washington Park.

Last Week Tonight’s Masterpiece Gallery Tour

Uncopyrightable is the longest word we have that doesn’t contain any repeated letters.

Now I Know: A Back-Alley Way To Create a Successful Board Game and You Actually Win Friends With Dirty Salad? and Maybe Adults Shouldn’t Play Kickball and Why Spaceships Need a Foot Bath and When The Robber Hits the Road and How Horses Created Firehouse Poles

MUSIC

Bad Wolves: Rebecca Jade featuring Jason Mraz, Miki Vale and Veronica May, which won a San Diego Music Award

Mighty Quinn – Manfred Mann

RIP, Charlie Watts: Paint It, Black – Rolling Stones; Honky Tonk Women – Rolling Stones; Slow Turning – John Hiatt (namecheck)

The Hymn of Jesus by Gustav Holst

RIP, Nancy Griffith: From A Distance; Drive-In Movies and Dashboard Lights; Heaven

Coverville 1369: Cover Stories for The The and Tears For Fears and 1370: Tributes to The Everly Brothers and Nanci Griffith

Human -The Killers

Er Huang by Qigang Chen.

Novorossiysk Chimes (Flame of Eternal Glory) by Dimitri Shostakovich

Amy Biancolli writes about The Tale of the Bow

August rambling: look to the Founders

148 Bonnie Meadow Road in New Rochelle, NY

Underdog villain Simon Bar Sinister, and a former NYC mayor

When Even the IEA Sounds an Alarm on Climate, the World Must Listen. “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, oceans, and land,” – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Burnt parts of Pacific forests are landing on the Atlantic.

Lying about vaccination status. Some people are going to intense lengths to get unauthorized COVID booster shots and When it comes to COVID vaccines, look to the Founders for answers

The Once and Future Coup

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Housing Discrimination and Emergency Medical Services

After The Fall. Ben Rhodes raises a hard question: How did America get from the pinnacle of our Cold War victory to this sorry place?

Persepolis “Banned” in Commack, NY

Nearly 14M Individual Tax Returns Still Need Processing

The lie of “expired” food and the disastrous truth of America’s food waste problem

Re: Simone Biles: Olympians Are People First and Sports Culture’s Toxic Masculinity and ask yourself the questions on this decision tree

Gender inequality in esports

The Cleveland Indians/Guardians a teachable moment?

Are journalism programs properly training students to navigate harassment?

How Rudy Guiliani Went From 9/11’s Hallowed Mayor to 2021’s Haunted Ghoul

Sure, we got a billion bucks lyin’ around someplace (new Buffalo Bills stadium on the public dole?)

The worst money we’ve ever spent

7 Questions About America (from My Danish Husband) I Just Can’t Answer

Explaining the Different Post-Colonial Trajectories of Ireland and Haiti

Childhood of Some (In)Famous Americans

The culture

There’s a reason for the “k” in “knife”

The floorplan of 148 Bonnie Meadow Road in New Rochelle, NY — home of Rob and Laura Petrie and their son Ritchie.

Mark Evanier: Flying the 747 (1970)

Dream of the Green Turtle, in mid-1944, arguably the first East Asian superhero

Poetry on Vinyl: An Interview with Jeff Alessandrelli of Fonograf Editions

The Oatmeal: Why it breaks your brain to take a compliment and You should love yourself and Leaving your pets at home

Colour trends of the year

Now I Know: The Village That Went Dark and Was Proud of It and The Staircase With the Traffic Light and Happy Belated Birthday, Australian Horses! and The Hidden Danger in the Walls of Your Old House and Why Congress Gets Free Men’s Magazines and Where’d the R in Mrs. Come From? and The Bugs That Make Danger Glow and There was once a Mickey Mouse gas mask. Here’s why and The Great Cookie– er, Biscuit– er, Cake Debate of 1991

FFAPL

2021 Literary Legends Tickets on sale NOW. The program is on Saturday, October 16, 2021, at the Pine Hills branch of the APL. Support the Friends and Foundation of the Albany Public Library and join us as we celebrate this year’s honorees, Lydia Davis and Eugene Mirabelli. General tickets

The Friends and Foundation were very sad to learn that former Friends president Paul Hacker passed away in July. This follows the news about David Colchamiro, who passed away in June.

MUSIC

Sharp Little Pencil: Loving You Today

Find My Way – Paul McCartney and Beck

Drive My Car – MonaLisa Twins

Mr. Popeil – “Weird Al” Yankovic. (RIP, Ron Popeil.)

Overture to La Cenerentola by Giachino Rossini

Rough Boy – ZZ Top

Coverville 1366: The Depeche Mode Cover Story III and 1367: Tribute to ZZ Top’s Dusty Hill, and Cover Stories for Tony Bennett and Martha and The Vandellas and 1368: Track by Track Album Cover – Who’s Next

Footsteps in the Snow by Claude Debussy – Des pas sur la neige (Préludes – Book I)

A Musical

Love and Mercy – Libera

Contrafactum – noun: A composition that makes use of an existing piece of music with different lyrics

Stories Behind 12 of Aretha Franklin’s Greatest Hits

10 Beatles Hits That ‘Rip Off’ Other Songs

Inside the Making of Prince’s Posthumous Album, Welcome 2 America