Category: linkdump

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I’ve been busy on a book project for the last month. Haven’t had time to blog or microblog. Probably this month I’ll catch up a bit.

(Video) This fascinating 13 minute study looks at 3D hair animation in Disney movies — culminating in Encanto.

THREE’S COMPANY HUMOR: Janet: “How are we going to raise the money?”

Chrissy: “We could have a garage sale.”

Janet: “We don’t have a garage.”

Chrissy: “We could rent one.”

Janet: “With what?”

Chrissy: “With the money we make from the sale!”

Timothy Snyder asks why Americans want to sell out Ukraine?

I have heard the excuse that Americans are “fatigued.” I have been in Ukraine three times since the war began. I have been in the capital and in the provinces. I have seen almost no Americans, fatigued or otherwise, in the country. And that is for the simple reason that we are not in Ukraine. How can we be fatigued by a war we are not fighting? When we are not even present? This makes no sense. It causes no fatigue to give money to the right cause, which is all that we are doing. It feels good to help other people help themselves in a good cause.

If we stop supporting Ukraine, then everything gets worse, all of a sudden, and no one will be talking about “fatigue” because we will all be talking about disaster: across all of these dimensions: food supply, war crimes, international instability, expanding war, collapsing democracies. Everything that the Ukrainians are doing for us can be reversed if we give up. Why would lawmakers even contemplate doing so?

If you happened to know lots of Ukrainians, as I do, you would know people who have been wounded or who have been killed. You would know people who get through their days with dark circles around their eyes, because everyone has dark circles around their eyes. You would know people who have lost someone, because everyone has lost someone. You would know people who are grieving and yet who are nevertheless doing what they can do. You would not know anyone in Ukraine who believes that fatigue is a reason to give up. Would you sell such people out?

I have heard the other excuse: that we need to audit the weapons we send to Ukraine. The expenses are minimal and the gains are great: a nickel on our defense dollar, achieving what we cannot ourselves do with all the rest. And here’s the thing: the weapons we send to Ukraine are the only ones in our stockpiles that are being audited. They are being audited not by accountants in suits and ties but by men and women in camouflage. They are being used and used well by people whose lives are at stake and whose country’s future is at stake. Ukrainians have used American air defense more effectively than anyone knew that it could be used.

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Wow, skipped a few months. A lot to catch up.

This must-see latest TED Talk by Al Gore talks less about technology and more about how the fossil fuel companies have impeded the transition to clean energy. At the end there’s good — no great! — news about the ability of the earth to stop increasing temperature in as little in 3-5 years once we have gotten to Net Zero.

What if we could stop the increase in temperatures? Well, if you look at the temperature increases, if we get to true net-zero, astonishingly, global temperatures will stop going up with a lag time of as little as three to five years. They used to think that positive feedback loops would keep that process going. No, it will not. The temperatures will stop going up. The ice will continue melting and some other things will continue, but we can stop the increase of temperatures. Even better, if we stay at true net zero, in as little as 30 years, half of all the human-caused CO2 will come out of the atmosphere into the upper ocean and the trees and vegetation.

Al Gore

Thomas Friedman on why supporting Ukraine is essential:

Ukraine is a game-changing country for the West, for better or for worse depending on the war’s outcome. Its integration into the European Union and NATO someday would constitute a power shift that could rival the fall of the Berlin Wall and German unification. Ukraine is a country with impressive human capital, agricultural resources and natural resources — “hands, brains and grains,” as Western investors in Kyiv like to say. Its full-fledged integration into Europe’s democratic security and economic architecture would be felt in Moscow and Beijing.

Nice comedy sketch to keep you going until the Frasier reboot comes. (Apparently both shows were on neighboring sets )

Jason Alexander kills onstage with TV theme songs. Martin Short does something similar a decade later .

Wow, I suddenly find myself blessed with an abundance of time. Time to get back into blogging!

Factcheck.org on whether Iran is spending the $6 billion they got for exchanging US hostages on Hamas terrorism.

Maybe we live in a post-fact world, but I’ve always been bothered by US hypocrisy on Iran oil sales (starting from the time that US kept billions in oil revenues during the hostage crisis). If they wanted leverage over Iran, they could have just suspended Iran oil sales (directly or indirectly).

Article about the relationship between fiber and weight loss.

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To my amazement (and yes, joy), Conan will be doing a podcast version of a “Hans and Franz” movie from the famous/silly SNL sketch.

COUP LEADER IS NOT A POTENTIAL US ALLY: Last year Prigozhin freely admitted that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 election, and the US State Department offered a reward of up to $10 million for information on Prigozhin in connection with “engagement in U.S. election interference”. Even if you ignore the alleged human rights abuses committed by his mercenary army, Prigozhin could never be described as being a “lesser evil” than Putin.

MORAL BANKRUPTCY OF CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS: Not only is it appalling that House Republicans voted to censure one of the most honorable and well-mannered members of Congress for dubious reasons, one has to ask why these same people never bothered to censure George Santos for lying about just about everything to just about everybody. Or Jim Jordan for his extreme rhetoric. Or Donald Trump for his bigoted statements. I wish we had more Adam Schiffs in Congress — and fewer people like my own congressman Troy Nehls (who described Donald Trump last year as “one of the greatest leaders of our lifetimes.”)

TROY NEHLS (QUOTE): “They’re getting so desperate that they’re going to try to break into his (Trump’s) home on a cheap search warrant to say that he is trying to hide classified information. I beg to differ. … They’re trying to destroy the greatest president we have had in our lifetimes…. He will be the nominee, and he will win. … No question about it; I saddled my horse, and that’s Donald Trump, and he’s going to take us all to the winner’s circle. (Newsmax, Aug 13, 2022)

MOVIE RECOMMENDATION (Streaming on Peacock): “Thousand and one” is a gritty Harlem drama about a mother and son, First time director A.V. Rockwell also wrote the sharp script, with incredible performance by Teyana Taylor who played the mother. Easily the best movie I’ve seen this year.

(NOW ON HBO/MAX). Michael Barrett reviews a recent documentary about a mentally ill 21 year old millionaire who publicly gives away his money in the 1970s. It’s an amazing and tragic documentary, directed by Austenite Keith Maitland.

“NEWHART” on Amazon Prime. Delighted to realize that NEWHART (the 80s sitcom starring Bob Newhart as a Vermont innkeeper) is on Amazon Prime. It’s definitely “comfort food,” but the writing and the characters are always fresh and the 3 brothers (Larry, Daryl and Daryl) always provide laughs.

***

(LONG JOKE) A man is driving down the road and breaks down near a monastery. He goes to the monastery, knocks on the door, and says, “My car broke down. Do you think I could stay the night?” The monks graciously accept him, feed him dinner, and even fix his car. As the man tries to fall asleep, he hears a strange sound. The next morning, he asks the monks what the sound was, but they say, “We can’t tell you. You’re not a monk.”

The man is disappointed but thanks them anyway and goes about his merry way. Some years later, the same man breaks down in front of the same monastery. The monks again accept him, feed him, and even fix his car. That night, he hears the same strange noise that he had heard years earlier. The next morning, he asks what it is, but the monks reply, “We can’t tell you. You’re not a monk.”

The man says, “All right, all right. I’m dying to know. If the only way I can find out what that sound was is to become a monk, how do I become a monk?” The monks reply, “You must travel the earth and tell us how many blades of grass there are and the exact number of sand pebbles. When you find these numbers, you will become a monk.”

The man sets about his task. Some forty-five years later, he returns and knocks on the door of the monastery. He says, “I have traveled the earth and have found what you have asked for. There are 145,236,284,232 blades of grass and 231,281,219,999,129,382 sand pebbles on the earth.” The monks reply, “Congratulations. You are now a monk. We shall now show you the way to the sound.”

The monks lead the man to a wooden door, where the head monk says, “The sound is right behind that door.” The man reaches for the knob, but the door is locked. He says, “Real funny. May I have the key?” The monks give him the key, and he opens the door. Behind the wooden door is another door made of stone. The man demands the key to the stone door. The monks give him the key, and he opens it, only to find a door made of ruby. He demands another key from the monks, who provide it. Behind that door is another door, this one made of sapphire. So it went until the man had gone through doors of emerald, silver, topaz, and amethyst.

Finally, the monks say, “This is the last key to the last door.”

The man is relieved to no end. He unlocks the door, turns the knob, and behind that door he is amazed to find the source of that strange sound.

But I can’t tell you what it is because you’re not a monk.

***

EXPOSE! Comedy writer Merrill Markoe uncovers an international conspiracy of woman pretending to be able to write on their stomachs. Theevidence is damning.

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Dear Mr. Twitter, I see that you have blocked #Substack — blatant censorship. Therefore after this tweet I will stop visiting Twitter altogether and will only return 1 month after you have fully restored Substack links. See everybody else at the ‘don!

More on the Substack crackdown by Musk. “Elon Musk supports freedom of speech (except for journalists, bloggers, critics, competitors, anti-fascist activists and his workers),” writes Max Berger.

Wow, I just created a substack account in order to create a holder page (I wasn’t planning to post content on it, just a link to my blog). To my surprise the edit screen has still not appeared — it’s been 20 minutes! (Days later, the problem appears to be fixed and my holder page is here:

“A man came up to me -a strong man- and he took my hand, with tears in his eyes… and said, “Sir, you have the right to remain silent.”” John Collins (Twitter).

For the record, I rarely link to twitter (and certainly do not embed Tweets) not because I hate Musk and company but because tweets are ephemeral–can’t you just copy/paste the text of it without bothering with hyperlinks? I try to link to their domain or bio page instead.

CLIMATE MATH (Updated): Although the climate change situation has become more dire, the price of renewable energy has improved considerably: according to Lazars, solar power generation costs about $34 per Megawatt Hour; Wind Power generation is $39; natural gas power generation costs 59$ and coal-fired power generation costs $108. Despite this obvious cost advantage, Texas still favors natural gas and coal. For example, my Fort Bend county gets its power from the nearby Parrish coal/natural gas plant — whose air pollution is estimated to cause about 109 premature deaths per year according to a recent Sierra Club report. That is insanity. Wouldn’t it be better for Harris County and Fort Bend County to gets its power from an energy source that won’t also kill us?

I really need to update the Climate Change Cheatsheet. Stay Tuned.

Hence the need for “negative emissions” also known as carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere. The main problems are 1)it’s very very expensive and 2)who will pay? The sad thing is when the Paris Agreement was being hatched in 2015, everybody knew that even under the best case scenario, those Paris Agreement commitments would still fall short. 

Here’s a primer on carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and a nice Vox explainer video.

Jeff Masters on the coming real estate bubble from unpriced flood risk:

FLORIDA REAL ESTATE BUBBLE: A 2023 study in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change has drawn attention to a massive real estate bubble in the U.S. — property that is overvalued by $121-$237 billion because of current flood risk… Florida had the highest property overvaluation — about $50 billion. In 2021, Florida’s real estate industry accounted for $294 billion, or 24% of the gross state product, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors.

Wall Street Journal has made all of Evan Gershkovich’s reports about Russia during the wartime free to read.

NPR leaves Twitter altogether. This comes after Twitter wrongly blocked Substack posts. Wow, I’ve never seen a billionaire CEO ruin a company so rapidly. Timothy Noah: If @elonmusk insists on calling NPR and the BBC “government/public funded” he should do the same for Tesla (“government-funded cars”). A decade ago Musk had sucked $4.9 billion from the federal teat. God knows what that hypocrite’s total is now.

Fun introduction to how to prepare for your Jeopardy appearance. (I’m a big fan of the show, but I know very well that I would be a bad contestant. I’m sloppy about my answers, have huge gaps in my education and can’t figure out the strange word game categories like BEFORE AND AFTER. Also, I have never bothered to learn state capitals or rivers/mountains or US presidents. Interestingly, my killer category is not literature but classical music.

Amanda Lear on paying your taxes vs. playing Dungeons and Dragons.

Natalka Sniadanko on how global crises fade away from public memory:

Turning reality into a metaphor and then back again is an ongoing process. Tragic news, gradually forgotten, resurfaces in poems as metaphors. Conversely, the fatigue from Ukraine, which was initially feared at the start of the war and had seemed like a distant metaphor, became a reality. While sympathy and the desire to help have been solid and widespread, fatigue has become undeniable. We must now confront the fact that Ukraine continues to be a white spot on the mental map of Europe, a blemish that continually generates negative news and danger, prompting us to want to protect ourselves instinctively. It is high time that we seriously thought about what we are going to fill this white spot with other than bad news.

This was mentioned as the funniest SNL sketch ever — and I’m inclined to agree (you have to watch until the end though). Here’s a Barack Obama cameo on SNL and of course my SNL playlist.

Dudewithsign . Apparently this guy (Seth Phillips) is famous by now and people are ripping off his likeness for commercial purposes.

Here are some things I really really despise: Lawn mowers, two stroke leaf blowers, Jim Jordan, fossil fuel companies, Putin, Mike Pence (maybe even more than Trump), Greg Abbott, gun fetishes,

Here are some things I despise: TV morning shows, superhero moves and TV series, Starbucks, anything having to do with real estate, Ted Cruz, zombie-themed books and TV shows, high school football (anything football-related really), anything evangelical, Ellen Degeneres (used to like her, she was ridiculously overexposed on TV during COVID lockdown)

Here are some things I am completely indifferent to: Taylor Swift, people’s birthdays, Costco, videogames, JayZ/Beyonce, Adam Sandler, Game of Thrones, Chick Fil A (totally overpriced processed food), beach time (though I love swimming), Tik Tok, Elon Musk,

Things I’m actually a fan of: sardines, CNN, HBO, country music, Hilary Clinton (and Bernie Sanders!), MacDonalds (well, maybe I mean I don’t despise it), Diet Coke, Eurovision,

Video: Bob Mackie, prolific costume designer for Carol Burnett talks about his iconic costumes.

Sam Levin on Stand your ground laws:

An analysis last year found “stand your ground” laws were linked to an 8% to 11% increase in homicide rates, or roughly 700 additional deaths each year. Florida’s “stand your ground” law has increased both justifiable and unlawful killings, with one study finding a 32% increase in firearm homicide rates; and another analysis showed that in 79% of cases, the assailant could have retreated to avoid confrontation. And research on “stand your ground” laws has found huge racial disparities, with white Americans much more likely to find success with self-defense claims, particularly when they kill Black people.

Sam Levin, The Guardian.

Matthew Rozsa on that crazy movie Soylent Green:

Tribute to Traute Lafrenz (last surviving member of White Rose Resistance)

Here’s an AHA press release about a comparison of various diets: Dash and Mediterranean comes on top, Keto and Paleo diet comes on bottom (surprise, surprise). You can read the actual published study or download a PDF of the study here.

The MIND diet (the anti-Alzheimer’s diet) has gotten a lot of positive coverage. The key thing is eating more leafy vegetables like kale.

Here’s a nice discussion between three intellectuals about Bergman’s Persona (one of my alltime fave films). Author/critic Dan Schneider is an impressive critic who runs the Cosmoetica website and does a video interview series.

El Nino will be coming with a vengeance this winter — and record global temperatures next year.

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Among the true heroes of the Ukraine conflict are the staff of Kyiv Independent, whose reporting has been world-class. Here’s some first person accounts about the first day of the war. Great read.

It’s hard to imagine having to raise a baby during wartime. Tragedy has already visited too many people over this past year. I can only hope that our leaders will find the best way to bring this war to a just end and start the process of healing and recovery.

“Political apathy is the life blood of tyrants.” (random comment found on Youtube)

FUN BOOKS ABOUT US PRESIDENTS: Paul F. Boller collects short biographical sketches about US presidents and puts them into highly readable volumes. He’s collected PRESIDENTIAL DIVERSIONS, PRESIDENTIAL WIVES, PRESIDENTIAL ANECDOTES, PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS and PRESIDENTIAL INAUGERATIONS. These books will entertain history buffs, students and even nonreaders looking for recreational reading. You can buy used copies for very cheap online or at your local used book store.

STREAMING VIDEO SEARCH: For the last decade I’ve been a big fan of instawatcher search engine, a nice way of staying informed about new releases on Netflix. Very recently, they significantly upgraded the site to let you search by one or more streaming services. It’s a good way to learn about non-American (and especially Indian) movies which are highly rated. Click the link for results from a query of highly rated movies on Netflix or Prime).

MY FINAL BREAK WITH DONALD TRUMP: The only thing DJT and I have had in common has been our mutual love for (some might say addiction to) DIET COKE. But its price has steadily increased to the point where I have been exploring alternatives — including store-brand sodas. I am happy to report discovering PEPSI ZERO SUGAR — which tastes pretty fantastic! I never really liked Diet Peps, but ZERO SUGAR is a brand new product I bought by accident because it’s on sale. Apparently 2 Superbowl commercials for it are waiting in the wings. . Ok, it’s a diet drink — no lectures please! But it’s good to finally have a different alternative!

I’ve been a big fan of Hal Hartley’s films (and also the incredible actors in them: Adrienne Shelley, Martin Donovan, Aubrey Plaza, Parker Posey, etc). Now — finally! you can rent/stream older and newer HH titles on Vimeo (which has an app on Roku). My fave are: 1)Trust and 2)Surviving Desire, but the Grim Trilogy is also a lot of fun — the third Film NED RIFLE is loosely connected to the other two and stars Aubrey Plaza and Parker Posey.

ISLAMAPHOBIA IN CONGRESS. I am ashamed that my GOP congressman Troy Nehls (like 217 other Republicans) voted to remove Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs committee. I have followed Omar’s actions and public statements closely over the years; her rhetoric is almost always measured, insightful and dignified. The symbolism of this action is unmistakable. Maybe instead of pandering to our country’s racist elements, our leaders can do a better job of cultivating a diversity of voices.

2023 SITCOM RECOMMENDATIONS: NIGHT COURT reboot is terrible! Supernatural sitcom GHOSTS is a funny guilty pleasure. YOUNG SHELDON is still unbelievably good. THAT NINETIES SHOW (Netflix) is nearly as good as the original THAT SEVENTIES SHOW, but with the same parents (now grandparents) and a new slate of teens. UPSHAWS (Netflix) is great family dramedy. Poker Face (Peacock) is somewhat interesting murder mysteries, but honestly, it’s no better than a Columbo episode. Enjoy!

RUSSIA PROPAGANDA 1. Roman, an Emigre Russian dissident Youtuber mocks Putin’s patriotic celebration of the 1 year anniversary of the Ukrainian war. This 20 minute takedown is both horrifying and hilarious. Here’s a 16 minute video about how Russia punishes Russian musicians.

KING OF THE HILL REVIVAL. Sometimes a decade is enough to revive the creative juices. With animation, the characters can literally never age.

REBUTTING RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA: In a speech to the US Security Council, historian Timothy Snyder delivers a compelling and in-depth rebuttal to Russia’s propaganda about “Russophobia.” QUOTE: The term “russophobia” is being used in this setting to advance the claim that the imperial power is the victim, even as the imperial power, Russia, is carrying out a war of atrocity. This is historically typical behavior. The imperial power dehumanizes the actual victim, and claims to be the victim. When the victim (in this case Ukraine) opposes being attacked, being murdered, being colonized, the empire says that wanting to be left in peace is unreasonable, an illness. This is a “phobia.”

PRAISING IRISH MOVIES: I will not bore you with my effusive praise of the Irish movie, HEAR MY SONG (1991) or BELFAST (2021) or The Commitments (1991). Let me also praise to high heaven WAKING NED DEVINE (1998) which is about an Irish man in a small town who wins the lottery. I have not seen, but but plan to do so very soon, BROOKLYN (2015), a romantic period drama starring Saoirse Ronan. Update: Mom and I saw a terrific Irish dark comedy called “The Guard”. My film critic friend Michael Barrett called it a “Dark, hilarious fish-out-of-water/odd-buddy Irish cop thing with Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle. Post-Tarantino in the best ways. Superficially, that means dialogue out of left field about music, philosophers, Russian novelists, which means it’s automatically smarter and funnier than most dialogue. It also means clarity and exuberance of style. More deeply, it means characters who really think about life, death, existence.” 

See my other social media dumps

Wow, I totally forgot to start a column for Social Media last month so I’m playing catch up.

I never expected the ad-supported version of Spotify to be great, but I’m finding that the ratio of song to ad is about 1 to 1. I only use it occasionally (usually when I can’t stream something elsewhere), but it’s hard to justify listening to using Spotify even on the premium level — considering the paltry payouts they make to musicians.

For my nieces and nephews when I give them gifts which are books, I usually write little messages inside — usually silly messages on one of the pages. But I always include one message which says something like “IF YOU SEE THIS MESSAGE BEFORE FEB 20, 2023, I WILL GIVE YOU $30! (or something comparable). Sometimes I put it on the last page or in the paragraph in one of the middle pages. Alas, none of them have ever called to claim their cash reward until yesterday — my niece Elizabeth who actually read the book — told me that she saw the message. I will be $30 poorer, but I am glad that a young person is actually reading….

QUOTE: Today, the number of political prisoners in Russia is more than the total number in all of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the period of perestroika in the 1980s. ” (Jan Rachinsky of MEMORIAL group from Russia, which shared the Nobel Peace prize with similar groups from Ukraine and Belarus).

Here’s more: QUOTE: “In my homeland, the entirety of Belarus is in a prison. Journalists, political scientists, trade union leaders are in jail, there are many of my acquaintances and friends among them… The courts work like a conveyor belt, convicts are transported to penal colonies, and new waves of political prisoners take their place…” (Co-winner Ales Bialiatski, now in prison in Belarus whose prize was accepted by his wife )

KIRSTIE ALLEY MISSES HER TV FAMILY. She was great in mixing haughtiness with insecurity. Here’s another very risque sketch — even for SNL.

I always tell people that my Harris Country branch library (Maud Marks library) is super-awesome. Yesterday when I was there to check out/return stuff, the librarian called out to me, “Mr. Nagle. It’s too bad you were not here yesterday. You could have seen the reindeer.” Yes, they actually had REINDEER outside for the children to see (she showed me video and pics). In the past, they had talks with a former astronaut, a retired police detective (to talk about murder mysteries), various art shows, India day and author readings. Also free ethnic food for random reasons. Those things are great too, but heck …. REINDEER!?

KIEV TO LVIV (and POLAND). Apparently for reasons of safety, NYT reporters were sent away from Kiev to remain in Lviv and at the Polish border. Monday’s podcast episode was an unbelievable and harrowing account of the journey to Poland through Lviv (which should only take a few hours, but because of traffic jams and checkpoints ended up taking days). Having no place to sleep, they eventually found room sleeping on the floor of a kindergarten class. It’s hard to imagine the extent of how the lives of ordinary Ukrainians are being disrupted.

I PREDICT: Elvis by Baz Luhrmann will win this year’s Oscar for Best Picture.

FUN TRAVEL SHOW FROM 1990-2000s: I was telling a friend about a great & zany travel show called Globetrekker (which appeared on PBS and other channels). I love everything about this show — and although most episodes are not online, some are on YT. Ian Wright started the show and was the main travel guide — but the show had a variety of young hosts — all with their distinct styles. I’ve seen about 90% of the 220 episodes; here’s a sample

This useful article describes how to coordinate your big-ticket purchases with the new green tax credits. Here’s a nice PBS Newshour story about heat pumps.

COOL THING FOR HOUSTONIANS: If you have a Harris County library card, you can use the freegal app to stream unlimited amounts of music from your phone. Frreegal doesn’t have the depth of the music catalog of Spotify or Apple or Amazon, but it still has a ton of music by major labels — plus it’s commercial free! (Previously you could stream it for 5 hours per week).

NOT GOING TO WIN. A few weeks ago I predicted that ELVIS was going to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Don’t know if that will happen, but I can state authoritatively that “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” will NOT win. A mind-bending kinetic, martial arts film with Matrixy/videogame elements and cartoon violence is not the type of movie which has has won their hearts in the past (cf. The Matrix 1999, Terminator 1984, 13 Monkeys (1995)), Movies with strong fantasy elements or dream sequences have sometimes succeeded at the Oscars, (Shape of Water, American Beauty), but overall the Academy has rewarded movies firmly grounded in conventional stories. These kind of mind-bending movies will eventually have their day, but the videogame generation is still growing up.; give it at least a decade.

(Commenting on the Best Film Editing nomination, one naysayer said, “They took a bunch of mish-mash, disjointed scenes and made it into a movie of mish-mash, disjointed story telling.”)

(Sorry, I’ve been putting this off for a while)

Ok, I’ve added a mastadon account: @nagletx@booktoot.club

I realize that I’ve been substituting real posts for Linkdumps. Maybe I should vary things a bit and post separately occasionally. Something to think about.

WEIRD: AL YANKOVIC STORY (on Roku Channel) is a delightfully & predictably strange biopic parody that purports to show the early career of Weird Al and the (totally fictitious) fall from greatness. I’m sure Weird Al’s story is interesting enough to merit a documentary or even a biopic, but the because Yankovic is squeaky clean in real life and cowrote the story himself, the fictional story consists of every single cliche of musical biopics. Probably by the end it is too much, more funny in concept than execution, but I enjoyed the cameos and especially the actress who played Madonna (who was lots of fun). Also revisiting the early songs was always going to be delightful. Not a great film, but lots of silly lines and funny moments (and cameos).

ODE TO BELVEDERE: Here’s a fun car interview (11 minutes) with two of my favorite people: Jay Leno and musician Weird Al. .

WHY HIDALGO’S OPPONENTS ARE BEATING HER: Right-wing multi-millionaires and billionaires opposed to the County’s efforts to prevent flooding and pollution, some contributing as much as $350,000 to $400,000 each, began showering Judge Hidalgo’s opponent with millions of dollars of contributions to pay for deceitful attack ads against Judge Hidalgo. They knew that she could not match the millions flowing in, because Judge Hidalgo pledged in 2018 not to accept any contributions from the County’s vendors. In other words, she lived up to her campaign promise to do what all campaigns should do, but none other do, end “Pay-for-Play” politics. “

Great geo-strategic thinking videos by William Spaniel.

James Fallows on alternatives to Twitter.

PRACTICAL JOKE: This is the first time I’d ever heard of this British practical joke. Because we are educated adults, we know that spaghetti REALLY comes from the intestines of cows….

FAKE CHEVRON COMMERCIAL: Talladega Nights & Don’t Look Up Director Adam McKay makes a petroleum commercial to make a point. You should be skeptical whenever a company relies on stock footage to advertise its product.

Speaking of Andy McKay, an astrophysicist named Michael Siegel evaluates the scientific accuracy of the film Don’t Look Up. (Great channel btw!). He wrote an article about the Rule of Cool — how we accept scientific incongruities in entertainment if it seems “cool.”

MOVIE PLANS: Great to hear that my favorite TV sitcom Community will have a movie — but possibly without Danny Glover and Yvette Nicole Brown. I’ll admit it — I’m a sucker for TV reunion shows — I even liked — no LOVED! — the reunion shows for Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island (even if I didn’t particularly care for the actual shows). For those keeping score at home, my fave episodes are (from Season 2) Cooperative Calligraphy, “Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design”; also “Wedding Videography” (season 6)

BACKSTORY TO ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT (WITH GAGS). I’m a huge fan of AD (even the much maligned Season 5). This 22 minute documentary covers all the bases, and includes a lot of random gags… Speaking of which, This Podcast is Making Me Thirsty (a podcast about Seinfeld).

RISH SITCOM ENDS WITH A BANG: After waiting 3 years for the final season of Derry Girls to make it to Netflix, I am happy to report that Season 3 of this 90s Northern Ireland sitcom was every bit as terrific as I remembered it. Lots of outrageous Catholic humor (Nuns driving Deloreans!), crazy characters and more jokes per minute than almost any other show I’d watched. Also, a great fun soundtrack that will make anyone nostalgic for the 1990s (And not just the Corrs or the Cranberries!)

Everything in Ukraine and Russia is making me angry, depressed & frustrated. It’s a tragedy occurring in slow-motion. Here’s perceptive commentary by Russia expert Fiona Hill. Highlights: She believes that Musk is being used by Putin to water down Western resolve. By dealing with billionaires and oligarchs, Putin is “short-circuiting the diplomatic process. He wants to lay out his terms and see how many people are going to pick them up. All of this is an effort to get Americans to take themselves out of the war and hand over Ukraine and Ukrainian territory to Russia.”

Steve Martin’s business card.

Nathan Robinson on why the worst reporting tends to be free and the best/most accurate reporting is behind a paywall. A meaningful question to ask is how much should it cost to subscribe to a good daily or a good magazine? Wash Post costs 40-50$ with discounts; NYTimes costs $100. Houston Chronicle costs $1 for 6 months, then $28/month after that.

Some of the specialized magazines and sites can get expensive: Intercept, Slate, American Prospect, New Yorker, New Republic, Atlantic, NYROB, Mother Jones, the Nation and Guardian. I love all these sources, but I really can’t afford all of them — maybe 1-2 per year. I hate to have my news source depend so much on income.

For me — who follows the publishing industry and often has to do a lot of research into book reviews, I enjoy having the ability to dig into the archives to find old book reviews. My current media subscriptions: NYT, Washington Post, New Republic, NYROB, Prevention. I’ll probably drop one or two of them next year and maybe add Atlantic, which is becoming indispensable. I also am thinking of adding Slate and Mother Jones. I love the people there.

As someone whose income fluctuates a lot, here are my favorite free news sources: CNN lite, the PBS AP feed, Texas Tribune and Propublica. Also, I find that subscribing to substacks can be a way to get columns for free (although NYT has put a kibosh on newsletter subscriptions for nonpayers).

For international news, I actually follow Radio Free Liberty/Radio Free Europe RFE/RFL which is US taxpayer-funded, but hires a lot of local journalists and translates. Also, the Atlantic Council has lots of great special interest newsletters, especially about Ukraine and Europe.

I’m going to make some predictions for Election Day (without having any special insight here).

• horrifyingly, Republicans will do a clean sweep of Texas. That includes Harris County Judge for that crazy conservative blowhard. I hold out hope that KP George will win as Fort Bend County judge, but not optimistic. I expect that southern Texas will tilt even more conservative than before.
• Senate-wise, I think that Warnock, Fetterman and Ryan will prevail. I’m hoping that Mark Kelley will win in AZ, but who knows? Might depend on if Kari Lake wins the governor’s race.
• Where will the surprises be? Maybe it’s that the indictments will start landing this week. Who knows..
• I expect that Dems will have 2 more Senators, but they will lose 5 House seats. (Hey, there’s a reason why Congress is turning Republicans — gerrymandering!

Update: Well, GOP won 7 in the House, but the Dems gained 1 (and maybe 2) seats, so I wasn’t too far off-base.

I ADMIT IT: I really enjoy checking the tracking information of packages for the latest updates. I currently have a package coming from Fresno California, which has been traveling through Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, Coppell (TX?!), Dallas and most recently Northern Houston. This package seems to have visited more parts of USA than I ever will! (Hopefully when it arrives it will bring souvenirs and amusing travel anecdotes).

I preordered my iPad in 2010 and would be receiving it on the first day. I remember checking the tracking info — and was blown away that it was in China, then Hong Kong, then Alaska. It arrived only about 2 or 3 days after the tracking information started. I remember thinking, the world became a lot smaller after that point.

TRIVIA QUESTION: Which US President lived in Europe for 6 months during a single 12 month period while serving as president? (HINT: He stayed mostly in France). BONUS QUESTION: This president was accompanied by another official who stayed there almost as long — and who later became US president himself. Do you know who this person was?

Amazingly according to Wikipedia although Hoover — who accompanied Wilson traveled a lot too and later did a lot of traveling overseas immediately after his own election — never took an international trip during his own presidency — presumably to stay focused on the Great Depression.

See also:  July 2022 and Oct 2022 (View all)

(Sorry I was working on a writing project most of August. Here are things I found (I’m catching up)

QUOTE: ““The saddest thing is that I won’t see my dog …She won’t be alive by the time I am freed.” (Russian protester Alexei Gorinov, after being sentenced to 7 years imprisonment for criticizing the Russian attack on Ukraine). More:

“War, whatever synonym you call it, is the last, dirtiest, vile thing, unworthy of the title of a man,” Gorinov said. “I thought that Russia exhausted its limit on wars back in the 20th century. However, our present is Bucha, Irpin, and Hostomel. Do these names mean something to you? You, the accusers – take an interest and do not say later that you did not know anything,”

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/30/people-are-turning-off-muscovites-put-the-war-aside-and-enjoy-summer

1ST GILDA RADNER INTERVIEW: This delightful 1983 interview brings 2 hilarious people together. Here Radner talks about her new comedy book and she calls (on the show) the real person who inspired her Emily Litella character on SNL. (here’s the classic Violins on Television editorial).

80s CAMPY COMEDY CLASSIC ON YOUTUBE: I couldn’t find it on the other streaming networks, but was delighted to watch the full movie on youtube. Despite being a commercial flop, this movie is a LOT funnier than I remembered, it looks great and I really enjoyed Julie Brown who wrote the script and sang the crazy songs. Here’s a random musical number from the movie.

MORE FLOODING IN GALVESTON: “High tides could flood Galveston streets as many as 210 days a year by 2050, compared with as many as 17 days in 2022,…The expected number of high-tide flood days in Galveston’s is nearly the worst of any coastal spot in the country because this region suffers from land that’s sinking in addition to sea levels that are rising.”

AMAZING PODCAST EPISODE! The late Gilbert Godfried had a great 90 minute interview with the amazing and versatile Marilu Henner (my celebrity crush). We hear inside scoops about Taxi, Noises Off and Cannonball Run 2 (terrible movie, she said, but a jillion movie stars in it guaranteed that the shooting was fun at least). Learn her hot takes on Burt Reynolds (“lot better actor than people realize”), Danny Devito (“he exudes more sex appeal than Robert Redford”). We also learn why the day Neil Armstrong walked on the moon was a very special day for her. Plus there is singing, etc., etc., (Here’s that trailer to Cannonball Ball 2).

HUMOR WITH SALMAN RUSHDIE AND LARRY DAVID. I’m still horrified about yesterday’s attack on Rushdie. As it happens, Rushdie was supposed to visit my writing workshop at Johns Hopkins in 1989 during his American book tour and was canceled because of the fatwa. Rushdie had managed pretty well over the decades (all things considering). He’s written a lot of respected books and stayed pretty visible (even making this cameo a few years ago in CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM)

Rushdie used to be married to the distinguished novelist Marianne Wiggins (who even went into hiding with him for a few years despite the decline of their marriage). I’d enjoyed her John Dollar novel and recently bought 2 of her ebooks. Can’t wait to read.

MIND-BOGGLING FACT: Although Texas (30 million) has about the same population as Australia (26 million) , Australia is about 11 times bigger than than Texas (7,741,220 sq km vs. 678,000 sq km for Texas). By comparison, Texas is 1.2x the size of Ukraine even though Ukraine’s population is 40 million). Texas is 1.9 the size of Germany (even though Germany’s population is 84 million).

Lately I’ve been fascinated by these interviews with young people on Moscow streets. The pair behind 1420 are clever and absolutely fearless; they are inventing a new kind of “street journalism” which remains slippery even in a society which tries to regulate journalism and self-expression. These quick interviews not only reveal the nihilism of Russia’s younger generation, but also the variety of ways that ordinary citizens make their peace with a bad political climate.

Here’s some murals to celebrate the lives of the fallen children. Abel Ortiz is the person who is organizing this project and provides updates when a new mural is added.

I guess I dislike the fact that this person donated so much to the Republican Party where it will only accelerate political spending on both sides. I just can’t understand why an extremely wealthy person wouldn’t find a better cause to spend money on: a scholarship program for students, a foundation for medical research, a cultural exchange program, United Way, etc. In comparison, spending such a huge amount on a political cause seems petty and almost self-serving.

I totally forgot about the Obama Tan suit controversy.

2 NETFLIX RECOMMENDATIONS: Mo is a trilingual Houston-based dramedy about a young Kuwaiti immigrant and his family waiting on his green card (and dating a Mexican woman at the same time). This 30 minute show has lots of laughs and tears and Houston references. EXTRAORDINARY ATTORNEY WOO is a Korean series about an autistic prodigy woman who works for a leading law firm. The 1 hour episodes provide lots of opportunity for humor and social commentary, plus lots of legal twists and gratuitous mentions of whales (the protagonist has a thing for them). Every episodes has a Eureka moment where the woman magically figures out what is at the crux of the case. Unlike American courtroom shows, these cases are really, really complicated, and it’s impossible to guess what the final outcome will be. Both shows are great!

Sean Burke makes a satirical oil commercial.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: ““Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev gave us 30 years of sunlight. Unfortunately, this time has passed, and there is no more sun, only darkness. But I am deeply grateful to him for these 30 years.” (20 year old student Maxim, about Gorbachev)

ACTING CHOPS: Here’s a fun interview with Julia Garner, the actress from OZARK and INVENTING ANNA (both on Netflix). To my surprise, I really enjoyed INVENTING ANNA — a nice social satire about the fake social heiress — great script and moments of cringey hilarity — and yes, Julia Garner was terrific! Another interview where Dana Carvey (another master impersonator) asks Julia to recite the lines of one character in the other actor’s voice. (starts at 4:50).

NICE MEATY INTERVIEW: (18 minutes) Satirist Andy Borowitz offers some fresh (and serious) political analysis — our basic problem is politicians who don’t read anything and lack any sort of intellectual curiosity.

See also:  Previous and Next (View all)

On this July 4 (an American holiday), I admit that my thoughts go often to Ukraine and the terrible events happening there. This is not even my country, but on any given moment my emotions alternate between anger/disgust/horror/pride/sympathy/admiration/optimism/amazement/detachment/gloom/hope. It’s a good thing that the American government is helping with economic and military aid, but it is late and probably not enough (I hope that this generosity can continue after peace finally comes).

From an article about US vets volunteering to train Ukrainians: (PAYWALL) “They are destroying whole cities, killing civilians indiscriminately. If that’s not escalation, what is? I don’t see this so much as being like the years before Vietnam. To me, it’s more like the years before World War II. People are going to wonder, looking back, why we didn’t do more sooner?”

Best comedy charactes from Conan O’Brien’s show (the original NBC one). It’s possible to be endlessly entertained by some of the TeamCoco playlists.

Article on the art of subtitling.

Watched Season 4 of Ozark (without watching previous seasons). What a bore.

QUOTE: “They have all their heavy technology right up on the border. Every night at 11:00 pm, they just start pounding the city. They don’t even aim anymore; they don’t care who or what gets hit. It’s just a boring job for them,” my friend explains. He’s calm, but only because the panic and worry have already passed for him. No one can remember what life was like before this. My brother and his wife nod in agreement. My friend goes off on a tangent. We’re all taking in the view before us, looking at the city, and doing our mental calculations. “(Memories of living on the battlefront of Kharkiv, Ukraine by Maryna Prykhodko).

I don’t know how it turned up in my feed, but Jimmy Kimmel had a hilarious 2018 interview with Stormy Daniels about Trump. Amazingly, she reports that in one of their encounters, Hilary Clinton had telephoned Trump about something (this was 2006). Says one article summarizing the book, “Then, to make it crazier, Hillary Clinton called…He had a whole conversation about the race, repeatedly mentioning ‘our plan’… Even while he was on the phone with Hillary, his attention kept going back to the sharks,” (of Shark Week). “

MARVIN ZINDLER SPEAKS! Everyone in Houston knows about Zindler, a colorful TV personality and consumer advocate who helped hapless customers who were ripped off by businesses. His most famous claim to fame was closing down the Chicken Ranch brothel (and inspiring a Broadway musical –and movie — about it). Here’s a great 16 minute interview right after the movie came out. Everyone laughed about Zindler’s catchphrases (“SLIME IN THE ICE MACHINE”) but he did a lot of good for the community and seemed in this interview to be a fairly humble man.

MUSK AND TWITTER: “Whatever the outcome, it will be a test of what really matters in billionaire business in 2022. In one corner, there are laws and contracts and old-school conventions about the way negotiations work—most notably, the concept that when someone signs papers agreeing to do something, they have to do it or pay a penalty. In the other corner is complete and total bullshit, wielded by a bullshitter who is attempting to worm his way to a preferred outcome on the strength of being not just the richest person in the world, but also the most annoying. It is a heavyweight bout between how business is done by most people and how it is done by one person. We are all about to locate the outer limit of what hucksterism can achieve.

PLEASE CALL IT TERRORISM: “The deep, unanswerable question is whether war crime is even the correct term for what happened in Serhiivka (UKRAINE). In truth, the war in Ukraine now has a different nature than most of the wars we have seen this century. In the eastern part of the country, soldiers on both sides fight for territory on either side of a discernible front line. But elsewhere in Ukraine, something else is happening, something that looks less like war and more like multiple acts of terrorism…. If terrorism is defined as an intimidation campaign using violence, then the bombing of Serhiivka was terrorism. So was the June 27 bombing of Kremenchuk, in central Ukraine, when another Kh-22 anti-ship missile hit a shopping mall, killing at least 20 people. Terrorism could also describe the repeated use of cluster munitions in residential areas of Kharkiv, bombs that splinter into hundreds of fragments, causing death and injury, leaving traces across playgrounds and courtyards. Terrorism is also a good word for the July 10 attack on Chasiv Yar, where multiple rockets struck a five-story apartment building and emergency services spent many hours digging residents out of the rubble. Russia is not pursuing traditional war aims in any of these places…. But if the bombing campaign is not part of a “war,” as we normally understand it, that doesn’t mean it has no purpose. On the contrary, it seeks to achieve several goals. One of them may be to persuade people to leave, to become refugees, to become a burden and perhaps a political problem for Ukraine’s neighbors. Clearly the bombs are also meant to impoverish Ukrainians, to prevent them from rebuilding, to weaken their state, to persuade their compatriots who are abroad not to come home. Who wants to return to a country that features on the evening news every few nights, as another bomb falls on another apartment building or shopping mall? Who will invest in a place of smashed rooftops and broken glass? Sowing such doubts is a classic goal of terrorism too. ” (ANNE APPLEBAUM)

QUOTE: “Russia is facing a systemic manpower issue, and they are using multiple ad-hoc methods to fill in the gaps with volunteers, mercenaries, prison battalions, and personnel from other parts of the government like the national guard,. It results in minimally trained soldiers and presumable lack of cohesion at the unit level.” (DARA MASSICOT, Policy Researcher, Rand Corporation)

Apparently these crisis pregnancy centers (CPC) received governmental funding, but offered barely any medical services except a strong anti-abortion message. Conclusion:

CPCs are a unique and disconcerting hybrid of anti-choice activism, religious propagandism, and pseudo-medical practice. Their modes of operation are fundamentally unethical and undermine the respect to human life that they claim to protect. Currently, the government faces significant barriers to implementing regulation of CPCs. The overall protected status of CPCs exists in stark contrast to that of abortion clinics. As states across the country threaten to severely restrict, and in some cases eliminate, access to abortion, efforts to limit the influence of CPCs will become increasingly vital. Initiatives to promote transparency and protect people seeking unbiased medical care from deception by CPCs will require creative solutions. On a grassroots level, healthcare providers and pro-choice organizations need to remain knowledgeable about CPC operations within their communities and serve as reliable sources of information for patients. Structurally, in addition to pushing for greater oversight of these organizations, Americans should demand increased accountability from search engines and social media outlets regarding advertising of CPCs and the medical accuracy of their online content. There also needs to be widespread social and political support of public health policies that create legitimate, safe access to medical and financial resources that are currently offered under threat of coercion by CPCs. While reproductive rights advocates continue to demand responsible, appropriate action from local and national governing bodies, increasing patient awareness and education about these centers will hopefully protect anyone capable of pregnancy from erosion of their reproductive freedoms by CPCs.

Happy to learn the news that Albania and N. Macedonia entered accession talks with the EU.

This 30 minute interview takes a look at all the major acting roles of John Lithgow. (my fave actor) I loved him in Third Rock from the Sun, but am pleasantly surprised at how many movies he did in the 1980s and 1990s which I never have seen. (He was good in the underrated movie, 2010: The Year We Make Contact )

In addition to Netflix, full episodes of COMMUNITY are starting to be available on Youtube. Here’s the second episode — about the insane spanish teacher Senor Chang (played by Ken Jeong). I love this series to death.

NETFLIX SITCOM RECOMMENDATION: “The Upshaws” is a hilarious 30 minute sitcom/dramedy about the ups and downs of a workclass family with a complicated history; Bennie the car mechanic dad had a child with another woman; the aunt (played by Wanda Sykes) complains about Bennie but has to bail the family out during crises. Kim Fields plays the ambitious level-headed mother who has to manage all the chaos. This is a lovely show with great characters and outstanding actors. To “keep it real,” the show has a fair amount of profanity and R-rated humor and a lot of story development and unusual plot twists. We sped through two seasons — alas, Season 3 will arrive next summer. Made especially for Netflix with brilliant writing, this is now one of my favorite Netflix-only shows.

Mary Ann — SEQUEL?! A year or so before she died, Gilligan’s Island star Dawn Wells did some short comedy sketches with Terry Ray recreating her iconic character. This playlist contains 3 sketches totaling 15 minutes. These are amateur productions, but still lots of fun…

See also:  May 2022 and Next (View all)

Been late about putting up this monthly pages. I read and discover all kinds of interesting things, but if I never get around to putting up the #$#$ page, I never include them here.

Kate Beckinsale has a thing for Pantomime horses.

NEW WORD: “STROAD” — “It is a street that is designed like a road, and in doing so, it fails at being good at either one. (This 18 minute is a must-watch vid with examples from many cities around the world — including Houston where I live).

See also this amazing anecdote about his visit to Houston and having lots of difficulty just walking 800 meters in North Houston (It starts at 4:13 minute mark). Honestly, this example is just like thousands of places in Houston. Uggh, we Houstonians have to put up with a lot!

Alas, I live in a Republican-leaning district where my congressional rep Troy Nehls hangs out with a lot of GOP crazies and still offers effusive praise for Trump. The irony is that the district is not that conservative (Trump won 50% of the vote here), but thanks to gerrymandering, it is considered a “safe GOP seat.” So I will have to live with Nehls for a fairly long time.

This video about using AI to generate images from text-descriptions really blew my mind. The technology probably is still in its infancy, but it raises a lot of questions. Some of the vid’s commenters pointed to possible uses in music vids, games, literature. Here’s an update discussion about the implication for art and artists.

FUNNY SPELLING BEE CONTEST: Every year Jimmy Kimmel invites the national champion spellers to see if they can spell better than the talk show host. (Here are the 2016 winners). I laughed my head off while watching this. The real 2022 national spelling bee — which I watched earlier tonight was really exciting to watch…. Two other episodes here and here.

Fun compilation of special effect tricks from movies.

Here’s a delightful 18 minute interview with the man who inspired the DiCaprio/Hanks movie, CATCH ME IF YOU CAN. Abagnale has written a memoir and several books about protecting yourself from scammers. Also, he gave a longer version of the speech at Google in 2017.

My first FB post was June 26, 2007. It said simply, “I’m too old for Facebook.” 15 years later, I wonder if anything has changed….

Here’s an incredibly useful guide to new gender identity terms (but were too embarrassed to ask about).

Movie Stuff: Terry Rossio on the importance of having a killer movie title. Wow, he has a lot more fun columns about writing screenplays.

Thread about great rules for screenplay writers.

Why google search is dying. Hey, I already wrote a post about this. Apparently a lot of people are going to google and typing the search term and appending the word “reddit” to it.

Dan Harmon’s story circle for writing scripts. Here’s a longer explanation.

I was going to post an interesting article here; then, I realized only a fraction of my friends would find it interesting (and an even smaller fraction would actually notice it). For everyone else, it would seem dull, irrelevant, distracting. So instead of posting this link, I shall merely note the omission, make an oblique reference to Wittgenstein and point out the difficulty of escaping one’s inner rationalizations. You’re welcome.

“There’s something about a problem being unprecedented in human history that makes applying legal precedent to it seem absolutely clownish.” (TWEET BY CLIMATE CHANGE PODCASTER
AMY WESTERVELT ON TODAY”S SUPREME COURT DECISION BLOCKING EPA”S REGULATION OF COAL POWER PLANTS). Here’s a transcript of her recent podcast about the West Virginia vs. EPA case.

See also:  April 2022 and June 2022 (View all)

I’ve been really behind on a lot of stuff, so I’m keeping my social media in one monthly post.

FILTRATION CAMPS ARE REAL: Perhaps the most shocking thing about the Russian attacks is the least publicized: Russian armies have been capturing Ukrainian noncombatants in Western Ukraine — taking their identity papers and cellphones and deporting them out of Ukraine and deep into Russia. There are scattered media reports, but nobody knows the true number. Some Ukrainian media say that about 1.2 million Ukrainian citizens have been essentially kidnapped into these filtration camps and removed from Ukraine. It may take weeks or even months to know the true number or the true extent of the horrors from this process, but make no mistake: Russia filtration camps are real, and the Russian state bears full responsibility for this awful thing. Here’s a BBC report from April and a first hand account by a Ukrainian writer in late March.

BAD JOURNALISTS WHO WIN PULITZERS: This report retells the story of a terrible US journalist who believed Soviet misinformation about the Ukraine famines and showed pro-Stalin sympathies. This US reporter later won a Pulitzer prize! “Duranty simply toed the line because it was good for his career — excusing and rejecting the deadliness of Stalin’s rule well past any moment of possible denial.”

See also: March 16-31 and May 1-16 (View all)

I’ve been incredibly distracted by things; never had the chance to add things until today.

MY HOT TAKE ON MUSK AND TWITTER: If Musk tries to run Twitter, he’ll probably ruin it for most users. But it won’t matter because most users will have left the platform for something easier to use and more fun…

RESISTING COVID LOCKDOWNS: Wow, this PBS Newshour video report is one of the most shocking news report I have seen. Near the end they interview an English-speaking Ukrainian. “I only want to get out of here. To tell the truth, I definitely cannot wait to go to Ukraine.”

See also: March 1-15 and April 1-30 (View all)

Totally random, but here are two extended newscasts from 1997 about the political turmoil in Albania. I experienced it directly when living there as a Peace Corps volunteer between 1995-7. (I have written about those times here and here .

PBS newshour had 2 excellent segments on March 10 1997 and March 14 1997. On Sunday March 10 I was living with my host family going through a “practice evacuation” which none of us took seriously. Two days later (either Monday night or Tuesday night), they ordered us to report the next morning to the Peace Corps compound to be evacuated. We ended up staying inside the compound for 2 days while waiting for the situation to clear. As it happened, the rebels had already reached the capital, there was nonstop shooting around town, the airport was closed and the so-called emergency evacuation at the football field was cancelled because it was right next door to a military armory! But then early on either Thursday morning or Friday morning, they hustled us to the US embassy by bus to be picked up by the US military helicopters to a battleship and then eventually to the Brindisi airport in Italy (and eventually to Bucharest, Romania).

See also:  Feb 15-28 and March 16-30 (View all)

Note: I’m still updating my Ukraine/Russia page I started to collect all the links and passing observations.

From an Ask Reddit about bad TV plots. (All these are pasted from the discussion, no original thoughts by me). (See my remarks about sitcoms here)

Gray’s Anatomy:

Cheat

Shooting at the hospital.

Cheat because of trauma from shooting at the hospital.

Another shooting at the hospital.

Divorce.

Repeat.

Add:

You forgot the 3 patients on each episode: 1)The one with the weird/funny illness or injury, 2)The one who probably won’t live but somehow is saved miraculously and 3)The one who surprisingly dies and everyone is all sad about.

Hey sometimes there is a bomb threat instead of a shooting. Or a patient dies and that makes them cheat too. You’re about forgetting the natural disasters like an earthquake, ferry crash, or plane crash that can also make someone cheat. That was a particularly memorable one for me. Right about when I stopped watching.

Sex and the City:

“And so I asked myself, is it really that wrong that Big and I have been together for 41.5 years and I can’t keep so much as a hair tie at his house, he’ll never let me meet his mother, he can’t be bothered to be nice to me, and only wants me around for sex? Maybe this is the new progressive normal and we, as women, should start feeling empowered by it for some reason. Being treated like shit is the new black, after all!”

Meanwhile Samantha was downtown…

“Dick dick dick dick diiiiiickkkkkk!!!”

Back to you, Carrie.

in underwear, smokes cigarette while staring out of window at rain *

Maybe charlotte?

“I want a baaaaaby. Let’s just skip to the end already.”

Miranda?

“I’m a bitch.”

Everyone is walking down the sidewalk for some reason?

cue jazzy outro jingle *

Melissa Sue Anderson said about Little House on The Prairie and other shows that once a show starts adding children to the show she knows it’s about done. There was a David Hasslehoff interview where he talked about on Baywatch if they were struggling for ratings they either added some new sexy person, or killed off one of the current cast. It’s always an instant rating booster.

AMERICANS ARE IGNORANT — SURVEY: When US registered voters were recently asked what adjective best describes Russia, 42% said “Communist,” 13% said “Socialist,” 11% said Capitalist, 34% said “Something else/Not sure”. (Wikipedia calls it a “mixed economy”; I personally think labels like “oligarchy, “”crony capitalism” or even “kleptocracy” are more accurate. ). (Source).

Bill McKibben about how reducing natural gas consumption to fight Putin:

FIGHTING PUTIN BY REDUCING NATURAL GAS: “Since the basic support for the Putin regime is oil and gas revenue, anything we can do to use less oil and gas also helps. Not immediately, but this war may grind on for a long time, and eventually our ability to get off hydrocarbons could play a crucial role. The GOP, Joe Manchin, and their patrons in the fossil fuel industry think the answer is producing more American oil and gas. But that’s just dumb, in part because breathing its combustion byproducts already kills 9 million people a year (far far far more than all war and terrorism combined), partly because it destroys the planet (as the IPCC reminded us on Monday) and partly because oil and gas are a global market. In the end, anything that maintains our dependency on them is a gift to Putin.Far smarter would be figuring out how to cut consumption here—keeping demand down would keep the global price down, denying Putin (not to mention Exxon, the Kochs, and the king of Saudi Arabia) windfall profits. And the quicker we build out alternatives, the quicker their power dwindles.

Some of the ways to reduce consumption are time-honored and obvious: if Ukrainians can shiver in bomb shelters, we can put on a sweater or two and turn the thermostat down a few degrees. Or—if you’re in parts of the South or Midwest reporting unprecedented late-winter heat—you could turn up the thermostat a few degrees and let the AC rest. It’s nice that we’re lighting things up in blue and yellow—but we could turn off a lot of other lights. (Environmentalist Bill McKibben)

See also: Feb 1-15  and March 1-15 (View all)

One vicious/ghastly/fascinating fact about every US president. Here’s a direct link to the James Buchanan joke — start at 1:55. Yes, that’s Jan Hooks and Phil Hartman in this sketch.

Here’s an interactive diagram of Minnesota song birds. I wish all states could do something like this.

NEW ON KANOPY: Just noticed that all the episodes to SPACE 1999 are free to watch on KANOPY. I honestly have no idea how disappointing it will be to watch those episodes again. I recently watched one of my guilty pleasures, RED DWARF: The Promised LAND (released in 2020). I had to pay 2.99 to watch it on Amazon non-prime, but boy did it deliver! I laughed and laughed and laughed… It really is amazing how much they have milked that sci fi concept to death.

Here’s a bizarre sing-a-long starring US and European celebrities from the 1980s and 1990s.

***

(A JOKE). So there was this world famous medical clinic in Switzerland. And one day the top doctor in the place called three of his patients into his office for a meeting. One was an Englishman, one was French and the other was a Jewish guy from Cleveland.

And the doctor said: “I have bad news and good news for all of you.”

“The bad news is I have evaluated your cases thoroughly and unfortunately there is nothing more I can do to help you. All of you will die within a month.”

“The good news is that I can grant each of you one wish and this can be anything you desire.”

Hearing this, the Englishman immediately began to describe a month-long series of elaborate meals that he wished to have prepared for him by the most famous chefs in Europe.

Not to be outdone, the Frenchman asked that the ten most beautiful women in Europe be brought to the clinic so that he might be suitably entertained in the last month of his life.

Finally, the doctor turned to his Jewish patient from Cleveland and asked, “And what sir, may I do for you?

To which the Jewish man replied, “Well to tell you the truth, I’d like to see another doctor.”

I’ve been listening to a great podcast about how the Conan OBrien show was made. In the Robert Smigel interview, I’ve learned so many things: how they made the hilarious talking photograph interviews (also known as clutch cargo ) and the Triump the Wonder Dog remotes.

DANGEROUS AND DEADLY POLITICAL THEATER. Houstonian and parent of trans teen Katie Laird speaks out against Texas attorney general’s new rule to label gender-affirming medical procedures as “child abuse”) Quote from a local TV show: “I want ALL of our kids to stay healthy while happy — thriving — while this battle of conflicting mandates is very unproductive and very harmful for every single family in this state…. .We have a lot of things in this state that need to be fixed and tweaked and worked on in Texas. To manufacture these divisions and these grievances does nothing for anybody. It is a waste of our time and our money and our hearts.” (from a local TV interview:

See also: Previous Dump and Next Dump (View all)

Wow, it’s one of those times where I’m doing so many things at the same time that I hardly know where to start.

If you haven’t signed up for Emily Atkin’s substack , you’ve been missing out. In this video clip she talks about how journalists just have to call things stupid sometimes.

More on Chevron/Donziger. According to the Nation,

The documents show that Glavin (the private prosecutor appointed by a hand-selected federal judge) and her assistants met in person with Gibson Dunn’s lawyers at least 32 times. E-mails show numerous additional telephone conferences between the two. In one December 3, 2019, e-mail, Glavin is scheduling a phone call with a lawyer from Gibson Dunn at 10 PM. Charles Nesson, a professor at Harvard Law School who has followed the case for years, and already cites it in his courses, told me, “The biggest evidence of Chevron’s involvement is the size of the legal docket. The docket sets records in legal docketry. Who paid for all of that legal stuff?”

Donziger said, “It seems very clear that Gibson Dunn was either writing her legal papers, or heavily editing them, or writing her drafts, or telling her where parts of the record were. It was a clear, deep collaboration.”

Gibson Dunn insists that it “donated” the hours that it consulted with the Glavin team about prosecuting Donziger criminally. This claim, even if narrowly true, raises plenty of suspicions. Chevron has surely paid Gibson Dunn millions to pursue Donziger. Nesson said, “Chevron and Gibson Dunn have carried out their war against Donziger for years. The idea that Gibson ‘donated’ time is almost laughable.”

Erin Brockovich writes background about the case.

TESTIMONY: In this 5 minute video, Climate expert Michael Mann says that Exxon CEO’s repeatedly have rejected what their own scientists had been telling them privately about the harms of CO2 emissions since the late 1970s. Climatecrocks prepared a video about the extent of Exxon’s knowledge.

Twitter list of truths from social psychology.

Climate change hawk David Roberts examines the available evidence about whether carbon pricing have been popular and whether it has produced good results. For Roberts, the evidence is underwhelming — and citizens in places where carbon pricing was tried (Canada and Switzerland) simply are unaware of the taxes they already pay:

Most people are not aware of exactly how much they pay in gas or carbon taxes a year. Most people do not closely scrutinize their tax returns or health insurance forms. And above all, most people are unaware that they already receive a variety of government benefits, which are often buried in the tax code or otherwise hidden from view. (The best book on this is Suzanne Mettler’s The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy.)

Outside of a focus group, out in the real world, people’s assessments of a carbon refund are less likely to be informed by careful economic cost-benefit analysis than they are to be mediated by identity affiliation. And these days, identity has been subsumed by partisanship.

The comment section to this article are heated and vigorous. One commenter said:

 The major cause of the problem is that people have been conditioned not to trust government. You could explain how carbon rebates will benefit them until you turn blue, and they still wouldn’t believe you. They think crime went up, when it actually went down. They think Obama raised taxes, when he lowered them. It’s almost like there’s a “pessimism bias” that transcends facts and logic.

While more prevalent on the Right, this “government lies” attitude isn’t limited to conservatives. Republicans have spent the last 40+ years destroying trust in our institutions, and honestly I don’t know what you could do to reverse it.

It’s particularly tough when it comes to the climate. “We’re instituting huge new interventions in life-as-usual, so we can make the future *less bad*” is a difficult sale to make. We’re constantly told we need to emphasize how climate action will *improve* our lives, but I don’t see much effort in that direction.

Finally, Charles Komanoff writes a long response on a carbon fee and dividend advocacy blog. First, the Switzerland example is not applicable because the carbon dividend is relatively meager: 95 dollars per year (as opposed to US-based proposals (like CCL) which bring in a dividend which is 15x higher. Second, the political analysis may be a little too gloomy. He concludes:

… the biggest misdirection in the Mildenberger et al. paper and the Roberts post may be their fretting over public opinion in the first place. The public doesn’t have to love carbon fee-and-dividend. It simply needs to embolden political leadership that will enact it (and the raft of complementary policies) into law and ensure that the fee, which shouldn’t be set too high to start, can keep rising over time.

Public opinion increasingly supports climate action, not tepidly but “with alarm,” as the latest Yale – George Mason opinion survey of “Global Warming’s Six Americas” attests (see graphic at right, and more detailed treatment with link here). It’s past time for carbon pricing naysayers to throw off their ideological blinders and get behind policies that can pass and deliver.

The funny thing is that both sides agree on a lot of things about harm and solutions. Roberts simply doesn’t think carbon dividends are politically viable. First, Roberts is someone whose opinion I respect very highly; Roberts has taught me a lot about the issue, and believe me, if carbon pricing had a good track record (or any record at all), Roberts would be the first to advocate it. Perhaps the best climate change plan is the one that’s most likely to pass and continue to bring results over the long term. I have studied some evidence and economic projections, but I don’t have a good enough background in the evidence and political economy. Here’s what I can say based on gut instincts and doing advocacy in my district:

1. It’s important to get conservatives and liberals supporting the same plan, and conservatives are generally receptive to tax cuts. They typically don’t like conditional tax cuts, but tax cuts are better than no tax cuts at all and individual Republicans are likely to support it (as opposed to Republican organizations).
2. You need to give upfront and immediate dollar figures. Also, I’m definitely ok with giving people the money in advance rather than waiting for them to file taxes. If you say, “Pass this bill today, and the government will deposit $1500 per person in the bank tomorrow and raise taxes on fossil fuels. If you reduce your emissions for the rest of the year, you get to keep more money than if you don’t.” That’s a value proposition few Republicans can resist.
3. Whenever I talk to conservatives, I stress the cross border adjustments. That’s a great way to penalize Chinese imports in an WTO-approved way. It’s also a way to avoid European fees.
4. We need to use better language. I don’t call it carbon tax or carbon rebates or dividends or even carbon pricing. I call it Cashback Carbon Pricing.
5. The incentive to reduce emissions will help spread word of undesirable consumer behavior. Coal plants and even natural gas plants seem bad now, but if they hurt your pocket book, a political groundswell will emerge against them. Texas still has a lot of natural gas and coal plants (one such mammoth plant is about 20 miles from where I live).
6. In west Houston where I live, carbon pricing will make a huge difference. Here customers choose their power provider on the free market. They typically renew their energy plans every year. (They often use powertochoose.org to help them). But the price for renewable energy plans for residential customers is the same as the price for dirty fuels. Sometimes in fact the price for renewable plans is cheaper. It would be easy and painless for consumers here to switch quickly. If prices for dirty power plans increased, consumers would switch quickly.