July rambling #1: Joe Sinnott, and Marigolds

Where are the boxed prunes?

I’m told kitten pictures are allowed if they’re yours. One of these is now ours, this from 3 years ago.


My wife had foot surgery on the morning of July 5. It was not required, but it was suggested if she wanted to maintain her mobility as she gets older. She’s recovering well.

NRA Issues Call for White Supremacy and Armed Insurrection

Fundamentalism, racism, fear and propaganda: An insider explains why rural, Christian white America will never change – I don’t believe people can NEVER change

My Aunt Had a Dinner Party, and Then She Took Her Guests to Kill 180 Jews

John Oliver exposes The Right-Wing Media Empire Taking Over Your Local News

I Don’t Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People

My Life With a Pre-Existing Condition

Three Misunderstood Things, including The Masterpiece Cakeshop case

NOT ME: Bello, dressed in a white medical coat to conceal an AM-15 rifle, spotted Dr. Roger Green on the 16th floor. “Why didn’t you help me out when I was in trouble?” Bello demanded of Green as he pulled his AM-15 assault rifle from its hiding spot and took aim. [Green as not hit, but one was killed and several wounded before the gunman at the Bronx hospital killed himself.]

The Hijacked American Presidency

Internet Wading: Pride in June

Unspoken Funeral Etiquette Rules Every Guest Should Follow

Jaquandor on choosing happiness

A Name for the Micro Generation Born Between 1977-1983

Understand The Difference Between Second Cousins And Cousins Once Removed

Inker Joe Sinnott, inking the Spider-Man strip at 90. He is one of the sweetest men I’ve ever met.

I want to see the production of “The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds” at the Bridge Street Theatre in Catskill

Every TED talk ever

Coca-Cola taste test

C’EST MOI: On Bing …Roger’s got the top search result for Spaulding Krullers; also true on Google

Is Cookie Monster part of the resistance?

In case you need to know, the boxed prunes are next to the raisin in the produce section of the Madison Avenue Market 32, fka Price Chopper.

Now I Know: The Sleep-away Camp That Starts At Night and The Color of Feeling Better and Why (Some) Coins Have Ridges and How Long Would It Take to Count to a Million?

Family Feud: Gilligan’s Island Vs. Batman and Gilligan’s Island Vs. Lost in Space

MUSIC

Moby & The Void Pacific Choir’s “In This Cold Place”

Higher Love – Lilly Winwood and Steve Winwood

K-Chuck Radio: Rock Hits in Early Stereo and Making it on Promo CDs

Someday Baby Blues – SLEEPY JOHN ESTES & HAMMIE NIXON (1935)

Too Darn Hot – Charlie Rosen’s Broadway Big Band with vocalist Alan H. Green

Okie From Muskogee – Phil Ochs (1970/Live At Carnegie Hall)

Lists, to music

Paul McCartney Finally Regains Beatles Rights After Near 50-Year-Long Battle

Annie Lennox Has ‘Potential,’ Purported Radio Station Scout Says

May rambling #1: Kings down

Ben E. King’s original version of Stand By Me was inducted into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress.

Rummy.looting
Rumsfeld: Looting is transition to freedom.

11 Stupid Reasons White People Have Rioted.

These 10 Questions Can Mean Life Behind Bars.

US cited for police violence, racism in scathing UN review on human rights.

The History of ‘Thug’: “The surprisingly ancient and global etymology of a racially charged epithet.”

Why are we celebrating the beating of a black child?

So You’re About To Become A Minority…

Part of Michelle Obama’s revealing speech at Tuskegee. The whole thing. Plus the reaction from certain parties.

The NRA’s brazen shell game with donations.

Art Spiegelman: Je Suis Charlie —But I’m Not Pamela Geller. AFDI is “the anti-matter, Bizarro World, flipside, mirror-logic version of what Charlie Hebdo is about.”

Rating Last Week’s Craziness. What should we do when debunking just isn’t enough?

The 10 biggest lies you’ve been told about the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

There is no “Blue Wall” for the Democratic Presidential nominee in 2016.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: American students face a ridiculous amount of testing. Oliver explains how standardized tests impact school funding, the achievement gap, how often kids are expected to throw up.

Former Homeless Teen Cyndi Lauper Testifies Before Congress On Ending LGBT Youth Homelessness.

An open letter to pastors (A non-mom speaks about Mother’s Day). And, from last year, the holiday’s centennial: Its Surprisingly Dark History.

In case you missed it, Harriet Tubman was the selection of the Women On 20s voters. Now tell the President.

Judge Rules Man Fathered Only One Twin.

L’Wren as she was.

Dustbury on the passing of the lead Kingsman, Jack Ely, of Louie, Louie fame; and the wonderful Ben E. King. I’m SO pleased that King’s original version of Stand By Me was inducted into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”, only about a month before King’s death. As Mr. Frog noted, Ben E. King also performed Save the Last Dance for Me with the Drifters.

Then, unsurprisingly, the great bluesman Riley B. King, known as MB.B. King, died this week. From NPR: “He was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1984 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in ’87. He was so beloved that he received honorary degrees from the Berklee College of Music as well as Yale and Brown universities, among others.” Here’s an episode of Sanford and Son, featuring B.B. King.

SamuraiFrog remembers Michael Blake, author of Dances with Wolves.

The Mike Wallace Interview featuring Rod Serling (1959). Serling’s legacy lives on as his hometown of Binghamton, NY opens a museum exhibit in the Bundy Museum of History.

Grief is powerful. “Here are 6 lessons survivors learn from tragedy.”

Will Rogers.war

There’s a Facebook graphic noting that, in the American way of writing dates, all of the days in this 10-day period are palindromes, e.g. 5/17/15, 5/18/15. It was also true in April 2014, March 2013, February 2012, January 2011. It was similarly true in 2001-2009, if you use the leading zero in the day field: 1/01/01. 2/01/02, et al.

It’ll be true next June: 6/10/16 et al., then starting 7/10/17, 8/10/18, 9/10/19, 1/20/21, 2/20/22, 3/20/23, 4/20/24, 5/20/25, 6/20/26, 7/20/27, 8/20/28, and 9/20/29. Then not again until 2101, so prepare your memes now.

Frontier Town: yeah, I visited there a long time ago.

David Kalish: The incredible adventures of my wife’s nose.

Mark Evanier’s 60th birthday, starring his mother. And Ken Levine’s mom gets him a writing gig.

Let it Beep, Apple Computers! And Beep Beep by the Playmates.

Tammy Wynette’s greatest Top Pop success. (It’s NOT Stand By Your Man.)

Omnified G and Turning the Corner and We want our nickel back.

SamuraiFrog ranks Weird Al: 90-81 and 80-71.

Paved in Robbie Williams platinum.

No, beards are no more filthy and dangerous than everything else.

The many MGM logo lions.

JEOPARDY!: Louis Virtel’s one regret after losing (and snapping) on the show. Why Ken Jennings’s Streak Is Nearly Impossible To Break; almost certainly true. Plus 6 Inside Facts; these are totally true.

Nurses from the Opening Credits of MASH, the TV show.

Muppets: a whole lot of stuff, including Orson Welles.

GOOGLE WATCH (me)

Arthur and his blog and Facebook and breaking technology. Something like that.

ADD does the A to Z. So does Monsieur Frog.

Dustbury would LIKE to wear sunscreen. Plus a Stevie Wonderesque medley.

Chuck Miller writes the Best of our TU Community Blogs every Thursday. My posts have been on the list occasionally, but for May 7, my post about Kent State was the READ FIRST.

A declaration of gun independence

It’s really hard to be a good guy with a gun.

In my annual (at least) reading of the Declaration of Independence, I have been thinking a lot about this section:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

There’s a movement of people in the United States that seem to think the law, the government is SO oppressive that it does not apply to them. Notably of late, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy has been grazing his cattle on federal lands for the last twenty years while refusing to pay grazing fees, because he doesn’t recognize the federal government. “The feds ordered Bundy to pay the fees he owed, ordered him to get his cattle off the publicly-owned property and let him know when they would be coming to enforce these orders in person… Between the end of March and April 10th, Bundy supporters whipped each other into a frenzy on social media, grabbed their AR-15s and AK-47s, and swooped down on the Bundy ranch to defend their newest freeloading patriot hero from the federal usurpers of the Bureau of Land Management.”

It appeared that at least some of the Bundy supporters were looking for the federal government to shoot, so they could shoot back and claim it was another Ruby Ridge or Waco. Instead, the feds walked away. FOX News embraced Bundy’s criminal activity, Because Freedom, until Bundy’s racist rants, and I’m STILL at a loss to understand their justification. Then again, I may be looking for the rational when it is not to be found.

I would not be surprised if some of the Bundy supporters were part of the Sovereign Citizens Movement, people who “believe that they — not judges, juries, law enforcement or elected officials — get to decide which laws to obey and which to ignore.”

200148614-001

Also, you have your folks who believe that the Second Amendment of the Constitution means that one has the right to terrorize others by carrying their large weapons around with them. In a climate of regular school shootings – though some of them apparently don’t count – this seems ill-advised. Even the National Rifle Association said this behavior was “downright weird” until the backlash forced them to retreat from that position.

The cartoon How to Tell the Difference Between an Open-Carry Patriot and a Deranged Killer was so good I reposted it on Facebook, to great response. If you were someone with mayhem on your mind, wouldn’t you shoot the Open Carry people first?

The spokesman for NRA, Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, (in)famously said, “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.” This was in response to the Newtown, CT tragedy when 20 children and six adults died in December 2012.

But a recent article in Gawker put factors about the use of even a concealed gun succinctly: It’s Really Hard to Be a Good Guy With a Gun. The guy who tried to stop Jerad Miller, one of the murderers of two Las Vegas police officers was instead killed by that murderer’s wife, Amanda. The Millers’ actions were fueled by anti-government rage.

One of the Gawker commenters added:

What are the chances of [a] situation being one in which you can safely draw your weapon (as defined by a decreased likelihood of hitting an uninvolved civilian, or drawing attention to the uninvolved civilians around you while drawing your gun, or mistaking another “good guy with a gun” for the perpetrator, or being mistaken by the cops as perpetrator)?

The Las Vegas murderers, not incidentally, were supporters of rancher Bundy.

I certainly have my issues with the government overreach – and that is probably its own post – but the behaviors described here, couched in patriotic language, make me feel most unsettled, and not particularly free.

Here’s a great response, though: Texas musicians are planning to answer… Open Carry Texas… These music lovers plan to exercise their right to openly carry guitars on July 4th.

 

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial