The music world can offer a fascinating look at times ...

FATHER-DAUGHTER? - musicians Edgar Winter and Lady Gaga.

   

Help get through the week by stopping in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....    

When I was a child, Memorial Day weekend was a highly-anticipated holiday in my neighborhood.  It was, of course, the unofficial beginning to summer-the last long weekend of the school year, when those long sunny days of freedom were so close we could almost taste them.

It was a weekend steeped in ritual.  On Sunday morning, my mom and dad load the car with the tools necessary to complete the task.  There would be empty jugs for water, a large screwdriver for prying the vase out of the prison of clay and roots that held it tight,  dowels and a mallet for securing the plant, and towels for the eventual clean-up.  Our first stop would be the local greenhouse where we would pick up two plants.  Chrysanthemums.  Why we never bought cut flowers to put in the vases, I don't know.  One of those questions that will remain unanswered now that my dad is gone, because I neglected to ask while he was still alive.

Now I've seen everything ........

DIRECT DESCENDANTS? - Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman ......

   

Help keep this crazy train rolling, by stopping in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....    

The newsroom and film editing studio has never been closer .....

OLDER-YOUNGER BROTHERS? - film star George Clooney and CNN Washington correspondent Jim Acosta.

   

Yikes ..... well, help keep the crazee at bay, and stop in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....    

Don't look to television to save you from the crazee .....

MOTHER-DAUGHTER? - TV stars Markie Post (from "Night Court", "Hearts Afire") and Nancy O'Dell ("Entertainment Tonight").

   

For the time being: why not stop in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....    

Talk about serendipity... As the Sean Hannity beans-and-rice kerfuffle reached fever pitch, I was halfway through my week's ration of beans and rice.

Hey, times are tough. I'm getting divorced, I have bills to pay, I'm just scraping by. To cope, I've cut way back on groceries. Beans and rice? That's a dish most definitely in my budget.

Check out my recipe.

Florida's douchebag governor, Sick Rott Rick Scott, vetoed $2 million dollars the state legislature had appropriated for legal assistance to the poor.  This is the second year in a row Governor Skeletor has showed his disdain for the legal process and the needs of ordinary Floridians:

A $2 million veto by Gov. Rick Scott will mean fewer attorneys to represent low-income residents through foreclosure proceedings, domestic violence hearings and consumer fraud cases, legal aid officials and a top Democrat lamented Wednesday.

The Florida Bar Foundation describes The Florida Access to Civil Legal Assistance Act's purpose thusly: "Administered by the Florida Bar Foundation, FACLA funds help low-income Floridians with civil legal needs, such as protection from domestic violence, elder and child abuse, and entitlement to federal benefits, including veterans' benefits."  

Not only is this veto hardhearted in the extreme, it's also shortsighted.  According to Florida Bar Foundation President Michele Kane Cummings:

"Based on a recent study The Florida Bar Foundation commissioned from Florida Taxwatch, 2008-09 FACLA funding of $1 million created 170 non-legal jobs in the state economy, produced $13 million of economic output, provided $22 million of disposable income, and generated $13.86 of economic impact for every $1 spent on legal aid by the state for FACLA funding.  That's a pretty good return."

I'm shocked to find that Governor Gollum really isn't all about creating jobs and helping the economy.  Shocked.  Asshole.

You might imagine that reality TV is (in actuality) some form of escapism. Not so fast ...

SEPARATED at BIRTH - retired philosophy professor David Ray Griffin (now a leading "Truther" conspiracy figure) and "Project Runway" star Tim Gunn.

   

As Heidi Klum might say, "You .... are out". But before you go: why not stop in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....  

by WALTER BRASCH

For years, my father, a federal employee with a top secret clearance, carried a copy of his birth certificate when he went into Baja California from our home in San Diego. Many times, when he tried to reenter the U.S., he was stopped by the Border Patrol.

My father had thick black hair and naturally dark skin, and the Patrol thought he was a Mexican brazenly trying to sneak back into the country by claiming to be married to the black-haired, blue- eyed, light-skinned woman he claimed was his wife. Once back home, he faced discrimination because neighbors thought he was Mexican; the ones who knew better discriminated because he was a Jew.

When I was 11 years old, we moved about 120 miles north to a suburb of Los Angeles. My parents bought a house in a new tract of about 150 houses, all owned by Whites and a few Hispanics. Three or four years later, a Realtor came by, plastering flyers on all the houses, announcing he had a special real good, one-time only deal. A few wouldn't sell their houses at any price if it was a Black who was planning to move into the area. Someone in the tract finally took up the offer, and a Black family-he was a mechanical engineer-moved in. It didn't take long before other White families began putting their houses up for sale. Only this time, they weren't getting as much as the first family that sold out. Soon, the prices began tumbling as other Blacks and Hispanics moved in.

Eventually, the first Black family moved out. But my parents refused to sell their house. They had no intention of becoming involved with what was now known as "block busting." A few of our Hispanic and Black neighbors wondered why we stayed; some even said we were crazy. But, until my father died in 1983, he owned that house in a neighborhood that went from almost 100 percent White to almost 100 percent Black, Hispanic, and lower-class White, refusing to be sucked in by racism.  

Been to the movies lately? If so, you might have asked yourself ....

DIRECT DESCENDANTS? - President Coriolanus Snow (from the film "Hunger Games" as portrayed by Donald Sutherland) and Karl Marx, the author of "The Communist Manifesto" and "Das Kapital".

   

Maybe, maybe not .... but either way: why not stop in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....    

A long, long time ago, on a blog much like this one, an occasional feature would appear under the headline "Their Reality has Lapped our Satire."  Though that feature and its author have long since slipped the surly bonds of MLW, the Republicans have not stopped their all-out assault on irony.

My in-box this morning contained a plea:  "Tell Governor Scott: Don't cut funding for survivors of sexual assault."  The first paragraph of the email reads:

Governor Rick Scott just vetoed $1.5 million in funding for rape crisis centers across Florida. Ironically, he did this during sexual assault awareness month.

Seriously?  During sexual assault awareness month?  The Republican legislature passed the increase in funding to rape crisis centers, but Governor Rick Scott, in his infinite wisdom, has chosen to veto the bill.  Could this guy be more oblivious or tone-deaf if he tried?  I'm not so sure.

Ms. Magazine provides a bit more information:

Executive director of the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence, Jennifer Dritt, said "We gave them information about the number of new survivors we have and we showed them that these rape crisis centers have waiting lists. Survivors are having to wait weeks, sometimes six weeks, in some programs three months to be seen.

I can't imagine why anyone would think the Republicans are just a teeny bit misogynistic.