Tom Lehrer Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

December rambling: Fudge

Hanukkah in Santa Monica times 8

cold_complaints — **From https://xkcd.com/2714/**

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Addresses Joint Meeting of Congress

Did George Santos lie about everything? The representative-elect (R-NY), who allegedly made up his life story, explained.

Republicans turn final House hearing on far-right violence into a clown show

Arthur answers Roger: Ranking Choices (voting) and Indepen-dunce

Should Doctors Warn Patients About the Downsides of Medicare Advantage Plans?

Census Bureau: LGBT Adults Report More Anxiety, Depression at All Ages

Book About ‘War on Ivermectin’ Distributed by Major Publishing House — “Infuriating to see misinformation mongers being taken seriously”

Celebrities Shilling Crypto Face More Than Just Mockery

Why Economists Study Demographic Change

Barbara Walters, Trailblazing Broadcast Journalist, Dies at 93 – I started watching her on the TODAY show.

Franco Harris, Pittsburgh Steelers’ legendary running back, dies at 72. He and I had the same birthday, albeit three years apart.

Soccer great Edson Arantes do Nascimento, Pele: 1940-2022

Paul Silas, 3-time NBA champion and longtime coach dies at 79

Walking Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan)

New VIP+ Special Report: Mobile Sports Gambling and Media

How to be a helpful host to your friends with food allergies

John Oliver on trash

Still not sure why a “door” nail, though . . .

Comics arrested onstage

What is the Democracy’s Library?

2022

Academy Awards releases its shortlist of 10-15 nominees in 10 categories

Celebrities who died in 2022 from Vanity Fair and TCM

Cory Doctorow: A Year in Illustration

SATIRE: Elon Musk Named Most Exhausting Person of 2022

Orange crush

Trump still has no credible response to the Jan 6 report

He somehow avoided a Mandatory IRS Tax Audit for two years as President

David Whelan, Paul’s brother, gives him a tongue-lashing for his reaction to Brittney Griner’s release

His trading card images appear to have been lifted from catalogs and stock collections

‘His World Is So, So Small’: Former Adviser Says He Cracked During White House Isolation

Now I Know

He Could See Fine. But He Still Wore His Glasses and Why the NFL Doesn’t Play on Saturdays in October and November and The Town in Alabama That Has Huge, Random Sculpture and The Mystery of the “p” in “pH”

Music

Tell Me If You Still Care – Kevin Flournoy, ft. Phil Perry and Shannon Pearson, with Rebecca Jade on background vocals

Speaking of RJ: 2022 Year-End BEATS Magazine noted Breakout Artist: Rebecca Jade (p. 22) and Best Artist: Dave Koz, with whom Rebecca toured in December 2022

Hollywood Reporter Music Editor Picks the 10 Best Songs of 2022, most of which I have never heard of

AmeriNZ: 2022 pop music mashups

Eight versions of the Tom Lehrer classic Hanukkah in Santa Monica. It also includes the Maccabees ‘ Latke Recipe. which is to the tune of Shut Up and Dance by Walk The Moon, a song from 2014 that I managed to have missed.

Istanbul – They Might Be Giants

Dino Danelli, the original drummer of The (Young) Rascals, dies at 79

Octoberish rambling: Road to 270

Many Tom Lehrer lyrics to the public domain.

election_screen_time — election screen time per xkcd. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.

Road to 270 map

He’d Waited Decades to Argue His Innocence. She Was a Judge Who Believed in Second Chances. Nobody Knew She Suffered from Alzheimer’s.

Franklin Graham Goes Apoplectic Over Pope’s Push for Civil Unions for Gays.

Talk To Your Boss About Burnout Before It’s an Emergency.

Hidden cameras and secret trackers reveal where Amazon returns end up

TELL ME MORE WITH KELLY CORRIGAN: Bryan Stevenson

MyHeritage vs 23andMe vs AncestryDNA – Battle of the Titans 2000

The Town That Went Feral

Yeah, thanks, Zoom

The Commercial that Killed a Fast Food Chain – Rax

Game show legend Tom Kennedy, host of ‘Name That Tune,’ dies at 93

Five Nouns You Didn’t Realize Were Also Verbs

The 25 most spectacular branding fails of the last 25 years

Mistakes You’re Making When Reheating Leftovers That Could Make You Sick

These Are America’s Favorite Halloween Candies By State And Starburst Tops The List

Now I Know: The Most Dangerous Pole Dance and Why Penguins Are a Laughing Matter and The Greatest Soccer Player Who Never Was and The Cheetos Challenge and Where the Cows Go and When Abraham Lincoln Lost New Jersey (and Won Anyway) and Big Yellow Man Washed Ashore on the Beach and Where Men and Women Literally Don’t Speak the Same Language

Coronavirus

How to fight the COVID-19 ‘infodemic’‘

Dynamic Change of COVID-19 Seroprevalence among Asymptomatic Population in Tokyo

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: The World Health Organization

Evidence Points to Role of Blood Type in COVID-19

The US Is Missing a Chance to Tackle Climate Crisis and Pandemic Relief Together

Airport enlists Sniffer Dogs to Test for COVID-19

Analysis Shows Spike in Cases After Numerous Trump Rallies

Wear A Mask (Be Our Guest Parody)

IMPOTUS’ scorched earth policy

Executive Order Letting Him Purge Thousands of Federal Workers for Disloyalty

He demands Barr arrest foes and it hardly makes a ripple

Kavanaugh Parrots His Mail-In Ballot Lies as SCOTUS Bars Extension of Wisconsin Deadline

Lincoln Project Burns Fox News Phonies And Their ‘Trump TV’ National Memo

John Oliver on his immigration policies -‘Truly disciplined about being truly evil’

In the deluded mindset of Trumpworld’s denizens, wearing a mask is: a) a sign of weakness, and b) a sign of, somehow, being a woman—which is itself seen, by them, as equivalent to weakness.

He Confides His Feelings About ‘A Female President’

Columbia University study shows that over 130,000 COVID-19 deaths could have been avoided with a more robust pandemic response

Got the Best COVID Treatment. For the Rest of Us He Wants “Herd Immunity.”

He’s their monster. But suddenly Senate Republicans have never heard of him

A Radical Proposal for Dealing with His Supporters After Biden Wins

The Administration’s Racial Bias — As a Black veteran, I can’t remain silent

The NYT’s shocking report on family separation

British Writer Pens The Best Description Of Trump I’ve Read

MUSIC

Eddie Van Halen, Hall of Famer Who Revolutionized the Guitar, Dead at 65

Coverville: 1329: The Eddie Van Halen Tribute and 1330: John Lennon Cover Story V

Live From SpragueLand Episode 11: Peter Sprague Plays The Beatles

Rhythm’s In the Melody – Soulsha

i carry your heart by Eric Whitacre.

Pop Psalms: Once in a Lifetime – Talking Heads

Italian folksong The Carnival of Venice, played by Wynton Marsalis and the Eastman Wind Ensemble

Sounds from St. Olaf – Episode 2: Cubano Be, Cubano Bop Jazz at St. Olaf

My Old Flame – Spike Jones, with Paul Frees imitating Peter Lorre

Tom Lehrer is officially releasing the lyrics to many of his songs into the public domain.

Sean Ono Lennon talks with Elton John, Julian Lennon, and Paul McCarney about John Lennon. Part 1 and Part 2

E is for Eucharist, communion (ABCW)

I can’t remember the word transubstantiation without thinking of Tom Lehrer.

When I spent five days caring for my sister Leslie in San Diego last month, we talked a lot about her conversion to Roman Catholicism. One of the fundamental questions she had to address in her religious training involved the Eucharist.

Specifically, how she felt about transubstantiation, i.e., whether “the change of substance or essence by which the bread and wine offered in the sacrifice of the sacrament of the Eucharist during the Mass, become, in reality, the body and blood of Jesus Christ.”

When I was a kid, I used to help my paternal grandmother, Agatha Green, pour the Welch’s grape juice into the little glasses (and unless I’m misremembering, pouring the unused juice BACK into the bottle; those were different times.)

Knowing that, I still felt from an early age that communion, as we Methodists and other Protestants used to call it, was a Big Deal, even if we believed the transformation was merely representational.

I certainly remember going to Roman Catholic churches and feeling excluded because we heathen Protestants didn’t believe doctrinally in the transubstantiation. There was an event at the Albany Cathedral of All Saints in the late 1900s, some anniversary service, when EVERYONE was invited to the Table. Some of my Protestant friends refused, but I figured, if thy’re inviting, I’m partaking.

I went to a Coptic church, the Egyptian Orthodox branch, in Albany around the same time. It was not expected that I should take the Eucharist, and I did not, though Roman Catholics could have. After the long service, there was a meal. I had a nice chat with a young man who kindly informed me that I would be going to hell for my Protestant beliefs. OK, then.

At my church in July 2018, I helped prepare communion for the first time. I had served it before, back when I was an elder over a decade ago, but the prep was during choir rehearsal. I HAD cleaned up afterwards in the past. We cut up the pita bread; there are also gluten-free wafers. Ah, still using Welch’s grape juice, I see.

So my sister chooses to believe in the possibility of transubstantiation. I don’t dismiss it out of hand. It’s true, though, that I can’t remember that word without thinking of Tom Lehrer’s irreverent The Vatican Rag from the 1960s, a song guaranteed to offend at least a few.

For ABC Wednesday

April Rambling: Ads about Rape, and Media

“To be able to catch genius when it’s just beginning, just starting out; when it’s in its embryonic form, or in its very nest. It’s an unforgettable experience.”

In response to her strong poem, Reflector Babe, Amy at Sharp Little Pencil received a link from Anna at HyperCRYPTIcal. It is to a UK ad considered the most shocking ad ever? Rape campaign aimed at teens to be shown. It’s sexually explicit (no ‘bits’ are shown), but it is powerful. This could not air in the US, I’m fairly certain, but the problem it addresses is very much an issue here.

What the New Sgt Pepper Cover Tells Us About Modern Britain.

And speaking of the UK, How news coverage evolves. Imagine how the Guardian “might cover the story of the three little pigs in print and online. Follow the story from the paper’s front-page headline, through a social media discussion, and finally to an unexpected conclusion.”

Goldie Hawn recalls an unpleasant encounter with a famous cartoonist.

Sex’s first revolution. The author of “The Origins of Sex” explains how the ’60s – the 1760s – changed our views of lust, adultery, and homosexuality

“ALEC is accustomed to hiding its agenda and its legislation behind closed doors. At secretive conferences and over e-mail chains the public never sees, the organization allows its corporate donors to manufacture bills and then send them to be passed in state legislatures without the public ever knowing about their origin. But these ALEC staffers can’t hide who they are, and what they do for an organization that harms almost every area of American life.” And now, corporate America is jumping off the ALEC ship, and ALEC Retreats, Sort Of, though its vision of pre-empting EPA coal ash regulations passed the House this month.

For China’s driving test, be ready for almost anything: “There are questions on the proper way to carry an injured person in a coma (sideways, head down), the best way to stanch the bleeding from a major artery, and how to put out a passenger on fire (hint: do not throw sand on the victim).”

SamuraiFrog’s 30 Favorite John Williams Pieces (and Then Some).

50 minutes of songwriter-math teacher Tom Lehrer doing a live show in Copenhagen in 1968. Includes that smash hit Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.

Thought the Monkees were a faux band? Wait until you read about Gary Lewis & the Playboys. I was always a sucker for the song Jill, for no discernible reason.

Jaquandor launched yet another series, this one called the ‘A to Z Challenge’ and he decided to “give it a Fantasy and Science Fiction turn,” as is his wont. (I love the word ‘wont’.) So each entry in this series will take its inspiration from something or someone from F&SF, that starts with the respective letter of the day.

Original pitch-reel for the Muppet Show is delightfully bonkers. Plus, the much more recent Kermit’s Party.

To be able to catch genius when it’s just beginning, just starting out; when it’s in its embryonic form, or in its very nest. It’s an unforgettable experience. BTW, the author in question has seen this piece.

Pop culture’s Rosetta Stone. A company known for its memorable full-page comic book ads continues to influence graphic design today.

Robert Crumb: Interview by Paul Gravett

Two actors turned 75 this month and I missed them. So here are Jack Nicholson: Unpublished Photos of an Actor on the Brink from LIFE magazine, 1969, and the website of George Takei.

Mike Sterling’s Progressive Ruin, finally off the daily schedule after 8 years, 4 months. This means, if I keep this up for another year and a half, I can pass him!
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GOOGLE ALERTS

What could Archie Andrews possibly have meant?

Long-time Exploring and Special Programs volunteer and advocate, Roger Green, was presented the 2012 Silver Beaver Award during the Council Court of Recognition Dinner held at Base Camp on Saturday, March 31.

Everything about Roger is designed to impress and attract attention, from his demeanor to his augments to his actions. While he’s naturally piss-poor at stealth or shutting the hell up…

For The Right Price: Roger is willing to render practically any service he’s capable of, provided that he is adequately compensated. He’s not the type to turn his back on his current employer(s), but whatever’s required of him, he’ll do it.

The cartoon is from an e-mail; original source unknown to me.