Welcome to Winter

The days will begin to grow longer, and the news will keep churning. This week we had a Russian General assassinated, a marathon press conference by Putin, Biden and company trying to spread chaos by firing missiles into Russia, Ukraine losing badly on the battlefield, the continued dissolution of Syria, and the on going genocide in Gaza and the west bank. A US government shutdown was avoided with an emergency stop gap funding bill, but Germany's government has fallen and new election slated. Canada may be next. Macron's government in France managed to survive and a new centrist PM was installed. All these stories and more below the fold.

Afternoon folks!

As always, there's a bunch of great music this week, starting off with one of Chicago's greatest harmonica players in his later years, Big Walter Horton. After that there's an another album in the Living Chicago Blues series featuring A.C. Reed, Scotty and the Rib Tips and piano player Lovie Lee with harmonica player Carey Bell. After that it's an album of r&b from Wilson Pickett followed by some live blues-rock from Creedence Clearwater Revival. Moving on to bluegrass we have an album of Doc Watson with Clint Howard and the Blue Ridge Mountain Boys and we finish up with a rock album from overlooked girl band, Fanny.

Enjoy the tunes and have a great weekend!

Good morning, good people! I am doing a countdown: in 30 days, Biden will be gone! Well, physically gone from office, that is. His brain has long since departed. Out with the old, in with the new, we got screwed in old ways, we'll get screwed in new ways!

We can handle it, friends! Keep an attitude!

Rick Roll:

To send someone a link to 80s pop star Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" video, making them believe that they're gonna see something completely different. The meme originated in 4chan's /v/ (videogame) board, when the official "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" trailer was coming out on the game's website but couldn't be watched due to heavy traffic. Playing a prank on everyone who was reading, an anonymous 4chaner said that the trailer was on YouTube and posted a link to Astley's song. Since then, the Rick Roll has been made countless times, not only on 4chan but on the whole of the Internet.

Source

Over the years there's been many forms of Rick Rolling on the internet, some fairly innocent like the example above and some downright nasty, which I refuse to entertain. I think the first and only time I was Rick Rolled was by the nasty variant. Believe me, you don't want to know, but some of you may already know, unfortunately. It took one time for me to learn my lesson. After that first disgusting example, I set the links to resolve in my browser's status bar when I mouse hover over the address and I haven't been Rick Rolled since.

Rick Rolling has become somewhat passé in modern terms, unless, of course, you're the US Government. There are a few examples of Governmental Rick Rolling below the fold.

Saturnalia is Soon!

Last Sunday I watched a movie! Me! I really, really enjoyed it, which shocked the heck out of me. And, it is a Christmas movie, although that really didn't occur to me when I watched it. I wasn't paying attention to that aspect. Yea, there was a Santa in it but it was more the social and cultural stuff the movie discussed that struck me.

The movie is called 'It Happened on Fifth Avenue'. It was filmed/released in 1947. Yes, it's in black and white. It's a comedy. No, I didn't recognize any of the stars' names, except Alan Hale, Jr (Hi, Skipper!), although I recognized a face or two. You can watch it, or download it, on the internet archive.

Mom (Mary), Jim, Trudy, Dad (Michael J. O'Connor): image from the Movie Database

how to harness not-knowing in the service of wisdom, invention, mutual understanding, and resilience