Musing of the Moment: "Then Came Moscow Don"

Here's a great article people should read by the reporters who covered the Nixon administration. 

It's in The Washington Post. 

It's "Bob Woodward and Carl Berstein Thought Richard Nixon Defined Corruption. Then Came Trump." 

Some snippets of note are the following:

Donald Trump not only sought to destroy the electoral system through false claims of voter fraud and unprecedented public intimidation of state election officials, but he also then attempted to prevent the peaceful transfer of power to his duly elected successor, for the first time in American history.

Both Nixon and Trump had been outsiders, given to paranoia, relentless in their ambition, carrying chips on their shoulders. Trump from the outer boroughs of New York City, not Manhattan. Nixon from Yorba Linda, Calif., not San Francisco or Los Angeles. Even after achieving the most powerful office in the world, these two men harbored deep insecurities.

Our conclusions come from covering Nixon and Watergate for half a century. And from reporting on Trump for more than six years — Woodward in three books (“Fear” in 2018, “Rage” in 2020 and “Peril” with Robert Costa in 2021); Bernstein as a CNN reporter and commentator, analyzing Trump, his behavior and its meaning from 2016 through this year. Bernstein reported in November 2020 that 21 Republican senators were contemptuous and disdainful of Trump in private, despite regularly voicing their support for the president in public. After the story ran on CNN — which named the 21 senators — another senior Republican senator said that the number was closer to 40.

Random Notes from a Crank

 As a follow up on the my Music Friday post, here's an op-ed from the Daily Eastern News: "Thoughts and Prayers Isn't Enough." 

Fuck your thoughts and prayers.

This is a fun video to watch if you're a Spurs fan. 

Here in East Central Illinois, the candidates for the GOP primary for governor and  House reps are trying to out-crazy each other. The TV political ads are nonstop.

Darren Bailey is a ultra-conservative moron, and Richard Irvin is a scam with well-endowed backers. And Mary Miller, she's downright nuts. 

Representative democracy can do better. 

You realize how often you wash your hands when you have a band-aid on one of your fingers. 

Music Friday: "Shit Shots Count"

The Drive-By Truckers have a new album out that I purchase this morning. I haven't listened to it yet, but I'm looking forward to it. 

Here's the opening song from 2014's English Oceans. 

Music Friday: "Thoughts and Prayers"

The GOP representatives and senators are fucking cowards.

They need to stick their useless thoughts and prayers up their asses. 

Random Notes from a Crank

I grew radishes this year in my garden, and they're going great. I use them as an alternative to potatoes when I make pot roast in the slow cooker, and you cannot tell much of a difference when the radishes have been in the slow cooker for about eight hours. 

It's clear that industrial ag sprays something on the radishes after they've been picked because I picked a few a couple of days ago, and when I tried to use them for a salad, they were all soft and not good eats. 

After I cut up a ton of radishes for the pot roast dish, I got to thinking. All these leaves that I'm composting - are they good to eat? 

Apparently they are. 

You can use them similar to any other kind of greens. So I'm going to add a few to when I wilt some spinach, which I'm doing quite regularly since my spinach is kicking it right now. 

The culinary scions of the InterWebs tells us that they have a peppery flavor. I chewed on one raw leaf, and it reminded me of the taste of mustard greens. 

And apparently you can substitute radish greens for basil and make a pesto. 

I've been making my own salad dressings for the last year or so, and the quality of homemade ones is such much better than that store-bought stuff. 

My go-to recipes are thousand island and blue cheese dressing, and occasionally I make a balsamic vinaigrette. 

Music Friday: "I Wanna Keep Your Dog" & "Pressed 2 Death"

I missed last Music Friday because of my daughter's high school graduation and all the hullabaloo associated with such an event. 

So here's a duo of songs to make up for it from the illuminati hotties.  

Random Notes from a Crank

Here are some factoids from the most recent editions of "Harper's Index":

• Percentage of Afghans who are expected to be living in poverty in August: 97
• Percentage of Americans who approve of labor unions: 68
• Percentage change since 2019 in U.S. labor union membership: -4
• Portion of Americans who think Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech is no longer relevant: 1/4
• Percentage by which Republicans are more likely than Democrats to think so: 94
• Percentage of U.S. educators who plan to retire earlier than they had expected: 55
• Percentage of U.S. workers who received raises in the past year that kept pace with inflation: 17
• Percentage by which men with a dog in their dating-app profiles are more likely to want a long-term relationship: 90
• Increase, in years, of the average age of marriage for U.S. adults since 1970: 7

The Guardian has an interesting article that relates recent research by archeologists that goes against the traditional narratives about prehistoric men and women. The depictions follow gender-based cliches. Check out "Prehistoric Women Were Hunters and Artists as Well as Mothers, Book Reveals." 

Some of these organizers for travel baseball tournaments are sketchy as hell. My son's team had a tournament in Peoria this weekend. We were originally set to have our first pool-play game at 5pm on a Friday, which is a shitty draw. 

With all the rain, our pool-play games got switched to Sat morning, so my son and I drove in a steady drizzle and checked into the hotel and ordered pizza. Then a couple of hours later, our coach was notified that the tournament is cancelled because of rain. 

So by not telling us ahead of time that it's likely to be cancelled, they made many people pay for hotel rooms and also made money hand over fist for the sponsoring team. With a $75 admin fee multiplied by 19 teams, the sponsoring team made $1,425 with no games being played.

Thievery. 

A waste of my time. A waste of gas. A waste of my preparation. A waste of my money. 

A lot of frustration and anger. 

Music Friday: "It Aint' Easy"

Delta Spirit is a band that has grown on me over the years. 

The band has a new album titled What's Done Is Done that is coming out May 20. 

When I heard about the new album last month, I realized I never got the previous album, What Is There. 

Here's a tune from that album. 

Music Friday: "Wishlist"

I heard this song the other and was reminded of how much I liked it. 

Random Notes from a Crank

I was naughty this past week and didn't provide a Music Friday post. Bad blogger...

Jennier Rubin has a good op-ed piece in The Washington Post that should be read to figure out what extreme right-wingers and FauxNews is up to: "The GOP Is No Longer a Party. It's a Movement to Impose White Christian Nationalism." 

Here's a significant ¶ to read: "In a real sense, the MAGA response is an effort to conserve power and to counteract the sense of a shared fate with Americans who historically have been marginalized. The right now defines itself not with policies but with its angry tone, its malicious labeling and insults (e.g., "groomer," "woke"), and its targeting of LGBTQ youths and dehumanization of immigrants. Right-wingers' attempt to cast their opponents as sick, dangerous and -- above all -- not "real Americans" is as critical to securing power as voter suppression."

Who the hell is using the term "groomer." That's sick. 

The rhetorical dark arts that the right wing uses reminds of one of the better books I've in the past couple of years: America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States by Erika Lee. 

Check Your Head by the Beastie Boys turned 30 this year. I would argue that it is the group's best album. 

NPR has a feature on the album: "Why Beastie Boys' Check Your Head Album Still Matters 30 Years Later." 

Random Notes from a Crank

I haven't grown a beard during the pandemic because my job required me to be masked. I work in a public setting, and I was perfectly fine with wearing one for safety and for the safety of others. 

It's science, people. Water droplets travel widely when a person is unmasked. 

Now that masks are optional at my place of work, I've been contemplating growing a beard. While it's only spring, summer will fast be upon us, however. I've never had a beard during the summer. What to do? 

If I do grow one, I'll eventually cut it off and have a Zappa-like 'stache. 

Chance and luck plays into our lives all the time. 

A few weeks ago, I saw a call for proposals come across my email, and it intrigued me. So I wrote one to see if I could write an article for what was proposed.

It got accepted. So now I need to work on something this summer. Past me was not thinking of future me. That future me has work to do. 

If the pandemic taught me anything beyond the obvious, it's that an old coach-speak maxim is true: "Excuses are like assholes. Everyone has one, and they all stink." 

I've been slow on releases of new music over the last two years, but I'm looking forward to the new album by Delta Spirit. 

The new album from Father John Misty hasn't grown on me yet. 

Music Friday: "Wee-Dot"

I need to get to posting more than just Music Friday posts. I'm slacking. 

Regardless, here's a classic from the Art Blakey Quintet on their live album, A Night at Birdland. 

Music Friday: "Too Much Information"

Talk about a song connecting to the fancy word called "prescient." 

The Police were on it way before we got too disinformation at our fingertips all the damn time. This tune is from my favorite album by the band, Ghost in the Machine.

Music Friday: "Currency"

I haven't listened to the Black Angels in a good while, and this song is playing as I'm typing this. It's from the band's album Death Song. 

Musing of the Moment: Lime Water

When you go to restaurants, servers often bring your water with lemon on one of the rims. I don't like lemon in my water. 

But I like limes. 

And apparently lime water has a number of health benefits. 

If you're interested in reading that information, here are some links:

• Healthline's "Lime Water Benefits"
• Medical News Today's "12 Health Benefits of Lime Water"
• VeryWellFit's "7 Lime Water Benefits"