July Rambling: Weird Al, and the moon walk

Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. – George Orwell. To that end, Bible Stories for Newly Formed and Young Corporations and Congratulations: It’s a corporation.

An answer to the child immigrant problem at the US-Mexican border? I note that the Biblical Jesus was a refugee, his parents fleeing Herod’s wrath. Yet so many people who profess to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ “are so uncaring and hateful about hungry children trying to get to a better, safer place to live.”

In the non-surprise category: Stand Your Ground Laws Lead To More Homicides, Don’t Deter Crime.

Misleading on Marriage: how gay marriage opponents twist history to suit their agenda.

Yiddish Professor Miriam Isaacs has dug in a previously unknown treasure of over a thousand unknowns Yiddish songs recorded of Holocaust survivors; text is in Swedish, but can be translated. Miriam was my old racquetball buddy decades ago.

The Creation Myth of 20th Century Fundamentalism by Jeff Sharlet, who I also knew long ago.

Australian swimming great Ian Thorpe came out as gay. Arthur explains why it STILL matters. Also: I Can Be Christian, and Gay, and Live in Alabama.

Portraits of people in 7 days’ worth of their own garbage.

Fair and balanced news

Musing on what passes for news these days, I was taken by this story: The distorting reality of ‘false balance’ in the media. It’s saying, essentially, that if you have two people on the news debating whether the Earth is round or flat, you unnecessarily elevate the flat earth argument to be equivalent.

I haven’t written much about either the awful shootdown of Malaysian flight or the Israel-Gaza war, other than I found it depressing as all get out. (What does “depressing as all get out” mean?

Soccer, a.k.a. football; and lies on the Internet

The first time I ever even had a passing interest in soccer was watching some eight-year olds play in the early 1980s. Now my daughter has participated the last couple years, so I’ve become vaguely informed about the nuances. The Daughter wants one of those new soccer balls, called a brazuca, but I hear it costs $160; not happening.

Not that I would dis anyone who didn’t like the sport because they thought it was boring; I used to think so myself. But I figuratively rolled my eyes at certain Americans with their observations.

June Rambling: Hal Holbrook; Marimba Queens

pinned on Pinterest by Roger Green (not me)

My denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) voted for marriage equality at its General Assembly this month. “Ministers will be allowed to marry same-sex couples in states where it is legal.”

On the other hand, Freedom and Faith Coalition’s Road to Majority conference had an Obama figurine in the urinal.

CBS News Sunday Morning did a piece, Born this way: Stories of young transgender children. The ever-interesting Dustbury on Gender Confirmation Surgery.

Writer Jay Lake worked closely with Lynne Thomas, an Illinois-based librarian… to ensure that all his blog posts and essays would be saved for posterity. “Though this is a relatively uncomplicated task for his blog content, which he unambiguously owned, it gets problematic when you wade into the legal rights of preserving your social media presence. ‘You can’t just download Facebook content into an archive.’”

A cartoon from 2008, and still apt: A Concise History Of Black-White Relations In The United States.

Mark Evanier on O.J. Simpson trial nostalgia.

The end of the world

I’m rushing out to go to work last Friday when my eyeglasses break. This isn’t the screw coming out, for which I have tools for fixing the problem – assuming I can find the screw, and the tools. No, this break severed the screw. AND I can’t find the lens because I don’t have my glasses. The Wife comes to my aid.

I seek older pairs of my eyewear. Even days later, I discover: 1) the previous pair of glasses is MIA; 2) the pair before that is broken. I found a couple of eyeglasses cases that are empty. Discovered an old pair from, a decade ago? or longer? that The Daughter thinks are scary

D-Day; Maya Angelou

As D-Day approaches, all I can think about are 90-year-old men who saw awful things, but sucked it up to get through the events, and then stoically never talked about them. That is until 50 or 60 or 70 years later – goaded by family members or in recognition of their own mortality, as at least 600 WWII vets die EVERY DAY in the US – they start telling their stories. And while unique, they are the same story

E is for the Everly Brothers

The Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Bee Gees, Bob Dylan, the Byrds, and Simon & Garfunkel all listed them as influences. In fact, Paul Simon described his solo hit Graceland as an Everly Brothers song. The bonus tracks on Rockpile’s Seconds of Pleasure album features Nick Lowe & Dave Edmunds sing songs by the duo.

Isaac Donald “Don” Everly (born February 1, 1937) and Phillip “Phil” Everly (born January 19, 1939) were known for “steel-string guitar playing and close harmony singing.” They were elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the first class, in 1986.

I remember seeing my father’s single of Bird Dog/Devoted to You on Cadence Records in the house. The brothers got some great songs from the husband and wife Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, as well as tunes they penned themselves. Unfortunately in the early 1960s, the Everlys were shut off from Acuff-Rose songwriters. “These included Felice and Boudleaux Bryant… as well as Don and Phil Everly themselves, who were still contracted to Acuff-Rose as songwriters.” But they remained popular in England and the European continent well after their US popularity waned.

For a time, they had a major falling out, but eventually got back together to play the oldies circuit. Still, their impact on popular music was already settled.

Sadly, Phil Everly died on January 3, 2014 of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He was 74.

My favorite Everly Brothers songs

A long Super Bowl Sunday, Philip Seymour Hoffman edition

My church belongs to this entity called FOCUS, which, among other things, runs a food pantry. Periodically, there is a joint service of the congregations. Usually, I miss the one in early February, because I’m away at a MidWinter’s party Saturday night out of town. But the Wife had an all-day meeting on Saturday, and that rather put the kibosh on that. It was a good service, but it was LONG: at least 100 minutes.

Then the reception afterwards.

46664: Mandela

Random thoughts about the passing of Nelson Mandela:

The forgiveness he showed to his oppressors was the epitome of Christian compassion; don’t know if I would have been so fair, or so shrewd.

I realize that my information about Mandela are at least slightly blurred by the portrayal of him by Morgan Freeman in the movie Invictus. I am assuming the scene is true, because it seems consistent with the man’s actions in real life

August Rambling II: Smart is sexy and stupid is not

The New York Times’ prophetic 1983 warning about the NSA, which naturally leads to Glenn Greenwald killed the internet.

My Feelings About the Harriet Tubman Sex Tape in 10 GIFs.

Invisible Disabilities Day is October 24. I have this friend with rather constant neck pain, but she doesn’t LOOK sick, and therefore feels diminished by those who actually don’t believe her. Conversely, The Complexities of Giving: People with Disabilities as Help Objects.

Photos of the worldly goods of inmates at the Willard Asylum. I backed the Kickstarter for this and wrote about it a couple years ago.

“Each week, TIME Magazine designs covers for four markets: the U.S., Europe, Asia and the South Pacific.” Often, America’s cover is quite, well – different. I had noticed this before. I don’t know that it’s “stunning,” but it IS telling.

The Peanuts gang meets The Smiths, in which This Charming Charlie masterfully blends Charles Schulz’ comics with lyrics by The Smiths.