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Bob Dylan Say Hello to Paul Krugman

Normally, I do not put out two postings in one day, but today I could not resist. The video of Bob Dylan at the end of this posting was the coda to Paul Krugman‘s newsletter today.

On the off chance you are not familiar with Krugman, he is a Nobel Laureate in Economics, the Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and was a columnist with the New York Times for nearly 30 years until the newspaper made a sharp turn to the right and more or less ran him off.  I suppose he is considered a Liberal, I find him to be a little left of center and one of the sanest voices currently in American politics. I used to read him regularly before the newspaper went behind a paywall.  A friend recently gifted me a free subscription to his newsletter on SubStack, which is where he went with his heavily factual opinion pieces after his stint at the New York Times.

Listening to Dylan started me thinking of other times.  I graduated high school in North Kingstown, RI,  in 1970.  For many of us of Continue reading “Bob Dylan Say Hello to Paul Krugman”

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Quote of the Day – Samuel Butler

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.


“The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him, and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.”  ~~ Samuel Butler

To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #4,622

yeah I know you did not ask!

You should so be blessed – well cursed at times actually – with a mind such as mine, making all these weird connections between my rumored neurons. Just be thankful that I do not share all of my random thoughts.

One random thought that I occasionally have while in the throne room “meditating” is why did not the supposed Intelligent Designer makes us photosynthetic creatures. In that case I would be excreting O2  and H2O after producing a nutritious sugar with CO2 and H2O.

Talk about your little green men!

Just saying.

At one point in my life I could have written out the whole chain of chemical reactions involved in photosynthesis or for that matter the Krebs Cycle. Not much call for that when you are twiddling bits and bytes.

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Nicknames for He Who Shall Not Be Named

Trigger warning: This is going to get crude… fast.

Giving nicknames to politicians has long been a popular American pastime, especially for those occupying the White House.  The current occupant stinking up the Oval Office, however, has spawned a whole cottage industry generating euphemisms and nicknames for him.  This quasi-humanoid has an extreme pathological need for attention, which reminds me of a psychology precept from Transactional Analysis, “a soggy potato chip is better than no potato chip.”

One of the ones that I see  most often is tRump, emphasizing the rump part of his name, which to my way of thinking is much too polite. On occasion I have riffed on that one and used tArse.

From the title of this article, He Who Shall Not be Named, obviously a reference to the villainous warlock of the Harry Potter series of books. In Mexico this becomes Innombrable, interesting enough one of the few examples of when it takes fewer Spanish words for a concept than in English. It may be common in other parts of Latin America, but I visit with a few Mexicans on iTalki so I know a little bit more about there. 

Speaking of Spanish, I frequently refer to him as El pendejo, which over time has morphed to El puta pendejo, then El puta pendejo naranja. If you are not up on your Spanish curse words I will let you put these phrases into Google translator yourself. One of the things about Google translator is that it will take the crudest of comments and translate them to something somewhat milder.

I was talking about the current cluster f*** that is the politics in the United States, and I used El puta pendejo with one of my tutors who lives north of Mexico City.  Normally I stay very proper with my tutors except Continue reading “Nicknames for He Who Shall Not Be Named”

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Quote of the Day – Publius Cornelius Tacitus

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“Mental and moral excellence requires peace and quietness.” ~~ Publius Cornelius Tacitus

I’ve been more than a little dark lately.  I was going through my pending posts trying to find one lighter.  Apparently I have been dark for a while. This quote, however, is very applicable to our current times of over stimulation by media in 42 different directions.

Om Mani Padme Hum…

To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #4,902 and a Mark Twain quote

yeah I know you did not ask!

You should so be blessed – well cursed at times actually – with a mind such as mine, making all these weird connections between my rumored neurons. Just be thankful that I do not share all of my random thoughts.

I was lying in bed the other night, the hour very late, staring at the ceiling, ruminating on mortality.

I am not particularly afraid of dying.  As Mark Twain said (and so many others having expressed similar sentiments) :

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.“

The real issue for me is getting from point A to point B. Commonly the transition to not being can be troubling, difficult, painful, unlooked-for. Hence in my late night ruminations, I said to myself that I was more afraid of not dying than dying. While I am still in reasonable health, the last year or two I have become aware of some significant bumps in my path to obscurity that could be popping up soon. It does not help that within our circle of acquaintances there have been a few lingering deaths that were traumatic on the persons and to the family.  Makes you wonder why the supposed Intelligent Designer did not put an on/off switch somewhere on our bodies.

And so it goes.

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Songs of the Season: Let The Joy Ring Out – Allegro’s Holiday Concert 2025

As I have mentioned before, one of the joys of Señora‘s life is music, especially singing.  She has been a member of this 50+ choir since it started up in St. Louis.

I normally attend, but I missed this concert.  The concerts have become so popular that they have started doing two, one on Saturday and another on Sunday.  This last time around they had started requiring tickets to prevent the overfilling of the venue.  While they ask for a $20 donation per ticket, it is not mandatory. I normally donate anyway as I know you cannot put on these sort of events without money, and to support Señora.

Somehow Señora missed the ticket requirement, and I was unable to get one.

Here is the YouTube video of the concert, ENJOY.  Señora is sitting on the far right just behind the piano.

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I Went Cherokee on Him

In 1904 the World’s Fair was in St. Louis. It is less commonly referred to as the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. I mention this as it was an event that is still paying dividends to the metro area, Forest Park and  many attractions therein leftover from the fair.  Forest Park, bigger by 500 acres than the more famous Central Park in New York City.  There are two golf courses within the park with a total of 54 holes. It houses the St. Louis Zoo, considered one of the best in the country. Certainly do not forget The Muny, an outdoor venue, that brings Broadway musicals to St. Louis every summer.  There are multiple museums within the park and many other attractions.  The museums are mostly free, for some events there is a small charge.  The zoo is also free to get in.  The park and it associated attractions are an amazing blessing for the area, and well used.

For the purpose of my current scribblings, I am going to focus on the St. Louis Art Museum. Señora and I recently met some friends there to view the Anselm Kiefer exhibit, Becoming the Sea.  On the day we went, the museum had added a level to the exhibit by bringing a woman, Saundi McClain-Kloeckener, to interpret the art from her personal point of view. She was of a varied but interesting provenance.  She self-described herself as Black, Cherokee – but not on the rolls. Somehow there was Jewishness mixed in there as well. Welcome to America.

She went on to apprise us that she was a retired 1st grade teacher, very active in Native American activities, learning two or three different Native American languages, and a water walker, but, as she quickly added, not the Jesus type.  She and a group of other Native American activists had walked the whole Mississippi River from New Orleans to its source in Minnesota.

Afterwards she graciously spent much time with the folks who took the tour relating Continue reading “I Went Cherokee on Him”

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Astral Weeks – Van Morrison

Assume the lotus position, start this CD on whatever device you use these days to play music, begin slow, rhythmic, deep breathing…

Here is a taste, the eponymous track that starts the CD.

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I Am Guilty Too

Just something to think about next time you buy something from Amazon.  I am as guilty as the next person.  I looked and I bought 52 items from Amazon last year.  That averages out to a purchase about every week. In my defense about half of that number were books or CDs. At one point I was buying used books from a company as a way to avoid Amazon only to find out the company was owned by Amazon. I did not look up the stats on Señora.

I have no problem with someone getting rich from a new idea or a better way of doing something, but IMHO there reaches a point where the wealth is unacceptably obscene.  If for no other reason, it seems to twist the mind and attitude of these people.  In a sane society we would have government policies in effect to prevent this mass accumulation of resources. As I have said ad nauseam, I have no problem with someone taking a second helping, if everyone has at least gotten a first.  That simply does not happen in our society.

Amazon has become so big for many different reasons.  I do not believe any of those reasons were illegal, but a few have pushed ethical boundaries.  I initially started buying from Amazon as they avoided collecting sales taxes for many years, thus making their products cheaper than locally.  As much as we all hate taxes, they are a necessary evil.  And now Amazon has seemed to have become a conduit for cheap Chinese junk. Then there are the labor practices of Amazon…

Thanks for all those folks who refrained from pointing out my math error!!!! Now corrected.

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