A New Scarlet Letter

Wear it without shame.

Forbidden in the Forbidden City

The Starbuck's in Beijing's Forbidden City has been shut down.

I guess that means this pic of Lois from our 2006 trip to China is now an historical document.

Sumo at the Highest Level

In 1999, Asashoryu, a young Mongolian joined the professional sumo ranks. A fairly small wrestler, by 2003, he rose to the highest category of sumo - Yokozuna - bringing his quick agile style to a level that had been previously characterized by Hawaiian giants Akebono and Musashimaru. He's currently the 5th all-time winningest wrestler in recorded sumo, and still going strong.

Here's a video of a series of his bouts...

Schickele Mix, RIP

"Dedicated to the proposition that all musics are created equal"

That's the tag line of Schickele Mix, the best, broadest, funniest, and most interesting music education program ever heard. Created and hosted by Peter Schickele (best known for his other entertaining music education creation - P.D.Q. Bach - a fictional composer son of Johannes) Schickele Mix juxtaposed Bach with the Beatles, Elgar with Duke Ellington and the Everly Brothers, Tuvan throat singing with twanging Texas Swing, or Schubert with Spike Jones in "suites" demonstrating the universality of musical techniques and themes. Checkout the playlists and you'll see what I mean. Recent news from the Schickele Mix website...

The program was originally produced with funding provided by the American Public Radio Program Fund, whose contributors included the Ford Foundation. Such funding is designed to be gradually replaced by contributions from corporate sponsors, but obtaining sponsorship for the program proved difficult, and ultimately it became impossible to produce new programs after funding ran out in the late 1990’s. Public Radio International continued distributing the program, allowing the episodes to be rebroadcast in order to reach new listeners. Considering that there was only a limited number of programs available to be rebroadcast, PRI kept distributing Schickele Mix for an impressively long time, even as some public radio stations stopped broadcasting the program figuring that after repeating some episodes five times that most of their listeners must have already heard them. It became necessary for PRI to stop distributing the program in June of 2007 after 169 different programs, 12 listener support specials, and 810 weekly broadcasts.

This is a shame, since three and a half years of educational weekly programs could be repeated for new audiences, if not continuously, then with a gap of a couple years until something better comes along. These programs have such rich content, it's a shame future audiences can't be created.

I've got to wonder whether it's not just the 5 cycles of repeated playings (which, by the way, I've never gotten tired of) that's the whole reason for its disappearance from the airways. The program depends on a wide range of recorded music. Perhaps the new proposed performance royalties, or even merely their threat, have managed to claim Schickele Mix as a victim. Many small netcasters, offering the ability to discover new music, have been threatened by these royalties. Even public radio over the web is threatened. With the loss of Schickele Mix, a major source of discovery of "old music" may be gone as well.

As Peter Schickele said at the end of each program, "It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that certain je ne sais quoi." And with the apparent demise of Schickele Mix, we've lost a serious source of that important "je ne sais quoi."

Some Things I Know, and Some Things I Don't

John From Cincinnati Wiki - a Wikia wiki

Generalist Extraordinaire

A man of many talents, apparently...

Tastes Like Cardboard?

Sometimes there's a reason things taste like cardboard.

[Update: Reported to be a hoax by a reporter looking for audience.]

More Lord Buckley

...providing the voice of The Wildman of Wildsville.

Bush's Record of Mercy

"There is none", according to Andrew Sullivan, this liberaltarian's favorite rational conservative. The former executioner/governor of Texas changes his tune when a crony's involved. He and Gonzales (his legal counsel back then) found it within them to send 150 men and 2 women to their death (Note: I'm in favor of careful use of the death penalty.), but for a perjuring crony, a few years of time out is commuted.

More of the same - cronyism, corruption, and incompetence.

Like Sullivan suggests, "Get angrier."

Hero of the Week - Mika Brzezinski

MSNBC Anchor Refuses to Cover Paris Hilton

Fun for the Fourth - Ice Cream in a Bag

Ice Cream in a Bag - I wonder if it would work if you just started with chocolate milk (or vanilla, or strawberry, or even mocha drinks) instead of dealing with the sugar and flavors.

Groucho and Lord Buckley

For all you cats and kitties and finger-popping daddies, dig it...


...via Classic Television Showbiz, which points to other Lord Buckley clips as well.

Also from Lord Buckley - Religion. Wish I had it in audio.