Tag: News

Friday’s Theme Music

Feels like I’m in a rut. Feels like either dreams, cats, politics, or news (or some Satanic mashup of these influences) push my theme music choices. Today, the wheel turned, and stopped on politics.

This is driven by the Texas lawsuit to throw out the election results in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. There’s no evidence of fraud, mind you, (Trump and his supporters have lost over fifty cases regarding election irregularities, winning one) or that the law was broken, but law, order, and justice means less and less to the GOP these days.

And this is driven by GOP governors and U.S. Representatives joining in this farce. It’s driven by another absurd declaration by Pat Robertson and God’s will. Driving it, too, is the terrorism that Trump supporters are employing to overturn the election results, showing up armed at the Michigan’s Secretary of State’s home to threaten her. Very classy. Very democratic.

Reading summaries and stories on these matters this AM had me shaking my head with growing irritation, culminating in the growl, “One of these days.” You know, as in, one of these days, karma will react and strike all those people down. One of these days, these people will come to their senses or rejoin reality (but can they ever be trusted again?). One of these days…

Well, I don’t need to hammer that nail any more, do I? The gist is driven home.

This led my mind to invite a Foo Fighters 2012 song, “These Days”, into the active stream. “These Days” is not political but is more about love karma, you know? But it works for my purposes. So here’s “These Days”. Remember, stay positive (unlike me…you know?), test negative, and wear a mask, please.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

It’s a cold, wet, chilly, dull, day. Yeah, I know that cold and chilly seem redundant. I think the day calls for it.

Like, where is the sun? Out there somewhere, I surmise from ambient lighting. Just not breaking through. Not warming us up.

We’ve been wanting rain, so complaints are moot. We’ve been enjoying an October and November warm spell. I like that expression, ‘warm spell’. It was in the low seventies here last week, down into the mid forties at night with, as Alexa puts it, “a lot of sunshine throughout the day”.

Of course, we needed rain and wanted rain. Actually need snow to build up our Cascades snowpack. The snowpack is our summer water supply.

But I’m a ranter (which reminds me of the ol’ Dr. Pepper commercial, “I’m a ranter, he’s a ranter, she’s a ranter, wouldn’t you like to be a ranter, too?”). With that done, naturally, my head turned to music. What music speaks to me from this weather and this rant?

Why, the Rascals with their 1968 song, “People Got to Be Free”. Yeah, that makes total sense. Who else do you think of when all the leaves are brown and the sky is gray, right?

I think the Rascals song arrived via a Venn splice in my mental stream, where dreams, current events, and music came together. One dream featured a 1968 Camaro. I had one, once, pushing the nostalgia buttons. That may’ve called the song up on the mental shuffle.

Politically speaking, the song fits the times.

You should see, what a lovely, lovely world this would be
If everyone learned to live together
It seems to me such an easy, easy thing this would be
Why can’t you and me learn to love one another
All the world over, so easy to see
People everywhere just wanna be free
I can’t understand it, so simple to me
People everywhere just got to be free
Ah, ah, yeah . . . ah, ah, yeah
If there’s a man who is down and needs a helping hand
All it takes is you to understand and to see him through
Seems to me, we got to solve it individually
And I’ll do unto you what you do to me

h/t to Metrolyrics.

These are, of course, socialist thoughts that progressives like me push, that so many others fear. Helping others? Everyone equal and free? Why, how barbaric.

Have you read this far? Then, thanks. Have a good one. And wear a mask, please. For all of us. Merry Christmas.

What, too early?

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Former Vice-President Joe Biden has been declared the winner over Trump. Mr. Biden will become the next POTUS.

Many have cried, “At last, the four-year-nightmare is over!”

Yeah, no.

I’ve seen this movie before. Just when you think the Terminator was dead and Linda Hamilton was safe, here he comes again. When you finally believed John McClain had vanquished the terrorists, one more shows up with a final effort to shoot and kill him.

That’s where we’re at in this election scenario. It’s not time for the credits yet.

Trump embraced America’s worst ideals and created a nasty legacy. Raising conspiracy theories and outlandish challenges to science and common decency to new levels he’s enabled the same in people who would otherwise be mostly decent, friendly, capable members of society.

He wasn’t alone, no. Fox News remains out there amplifying the trumpshit. Trump’s GOP enablers, like Mitch McConnell, were re-elected. The slug who screwed the United States citizens countless times during Mr. Obama’s terms, who has stonewalled legislation, remains in office.

Trump and his minions will be out there on Twitter and Facebook, continuing their shameless litany of absurdities and outright garbage. And Trump is still in office for a few more months. As petulant, petty, hateful, cruel, and shallow as he is, I don’t expect these next few months to go without incident. He’s also not likely to accept the results, but continue going to court, demanding recounts, and posting lies about the situation. And his supporters will lap it up and amplify it. So, no, it’s not over.

Chris Rea had the perfect song for it, though. Here’s his 1978 hit, “Fool (If You Think It’s Over)”.

Fool if you think it’s over
‘Cause you said goodbye
Fool if you think it’s over
I’ll tell you why

h/t to Metrolyrics.com

(Yeah, it’s not really the perfect song for the situation, but it’s what came to mind, okay? Okay.)

Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Today’s theme music is “Unbelievable” by EMF from 1990. This song has always sounded like an INXS product. That’s not a bad thing at all. I think “Unbelievable” still has the beat to get people out of their seats.

“Unbelievable” was an easy choice for me. Checking on election updates for the presidency in the U.S., unbelievable is a word that springs to mind multiple times. Unbelievable that the election hasn’t been called, that it’s so tight. Unbelievable, too, the efforts that ConDon is making to stop every vote from being counted. And probably staggeringly unbelievable, former Vice President Joe Biden set a new record for most votes received by a presidential candidate. It’s over 70 million, and they’re still counting. Yet, he might lose.

Unbelievable, no?

More personal reasons for unbelievable are there, but I’ll spare you and keep it short (if you’ve read this far). (Yo, as if you can’t just skip all the text and go right to the music, right?)

Here it is. Feel to dance and sing along. Out.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

I went with an old familiar from David Bowie and Queen today. Queen’s Freddie Mercury is gone, along with David Bowie, unnecessary reminders about our final destinations.

They made their marks, though. Thanks to technology, solace can be had by listening to their performances again and again.

As today is election day in the USA (prompting some mental hearing of Alice Cooper and their song, “Elected”), but “Under Pressure” (released in 1981) seems more of a fit. Sadly, that’s because Trump and his followers, abetted by the GOP, are working hard to create obstacles for this civic duty. Once upon a day, the United States had low turnout but the elections themselves were flawlessly executed. A lot of that changed with the hanging chads debacle in Florida in 2000. At least, such is where it seems to start in my mind, as the SCOTUS was called upon to interpret state laws, halt the recount, and declare a winner. Since then, campaigning and elections have become more contentious in the USA.

The nature of Trump’s campaigning and the attributes of his base have added to the pressure. Trump wants votes to not be counted, squalling like an infant over cheating that doesn’t exist, threatening to challenge results in court beforehand, obviously attempting to intimidate voters. Gun and ammo sales are up. The FBI is warning of the threat of violence from armed Trump supporters.

More pressure yet comes from COVID-19. Again, politics are in play. Republican led states are leading as COVID-19 cases climb. As cases climb, hospitals fill, but our healthcare system under greater and greater pressure.

That pressure comes atop the economic pressure instilled by necessary measures to flatter the curve. Experts consistently warned that a sizeable chunk of the US population is working poor, without emergency savings, living from paycheck to paycheck. All that was swept under the rug. Now, coronavirus has curtailed the service and consumer economy, and people are under pressure to have enough money to pay the rent and buy food.

Yeah, it’s a mess. All of that is just a tiny fraction of the mess we’re in – so many things weren’t mentioned because I didn’t want to go too ranty before my coffee – but it all adds to the pressure that we face in the United States, part of the pressure we’re facing in the world, making the Queen/David Bowie song “Under Pressure” my choice for today’s theme music.

Now I need to go see a machine about some coffee. Cheers

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Bag It

Tucker Carlson has a problem with disappearing papers. From NY Mag Intelligencer:

On Wednesday night’s show, Tucker Carlson reported that his team had acquired incriminating documents. However, they sent them from Washington to Los Angeles, and the documents disappeared. And they neglected to make any copies. So now the only copy of the documents that would nail the probable next president of the United States are gone:

Few believe poor Tucker. He’s being mocked to hell and back.

I understand, though. I’ve been there.

I was taking university classes with the University of Maryland (go, Terps!) around my schedule when I was stationed with the Air Force at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan, back in the eighties. My wife and I lived with two cats in a tiny place off base outside of one of the gates.

Finishing a paper, I put it on the bookcase by the door so it’d be there when I departed and I was less likely to forget it. This was pre-computer days. I’d pounded out the paper on my used government IBM Selectric II typewriter. Our cat, Jade, jumped up on the bookcase and puked on the paper. Gross as was, there was no way I could turn that in. I thought about bagging it for evidence but laughed that off.

Abashed, I reported what happened to my professor and asked for another day. Dismayed, he said, “Well, I’ve heard that before, or variations, but I never expected to hear it from you. Well, okay, I’ll give it a day.” It really pissed me off that he clearly didn’t believe me, but he gave me the day.

Next time, I’ll bag it and turn it in.

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