The Daily Cartoonist covers the introduction of Dilbert’s new character, Dave the Black Engineer.
https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2022/05/03/dilbert-presents-black-character-gets-dragged/
Category: Politics, Religion & Money
Dilbert’s ‘Franklin’ Moment
July 31, 1968 – Charles M. Schulz introduces Franklin.
May 2, 2022 – Scott Adams introduces Dave the Black Engineer.
Beeby Baby
I have been listening to BBC radio stations since they first became available online. Before that, NPR began carrying selected hours of the BBC World Service.
This is the complete list of BBC radio stations.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/stations
Whether it’s the widely heard Radio 2 in London, or local station Radio York, announcers are actively engaged with their listeners in a way that’s nothing like American talk shows. (Which reminds me to say that when I renewed my SiriusXM subscription, I stepped down to the level that doesn’t include Howard Stern. Never have and never will listen to him.)
A favorite BBC station of mine is the sister of spoken word station Radio 4. Radio 4 Extra is where radio plays and features of all sorts from the archives can be heard.
The Beeb is under the same sorts of partisan attacks that NPR gets, with calls to change the funding model. The New Yorker has this to say.
Between 2010 and 2019, the BBC’s budget fell by thirty per cent in real terms. Punishing negotiations with the government have forced the corporation to find savings of up to a billion pounds a year.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/04/18/can-the-bbc-survive-the-british-government
I am sufficiently interested in, and devoted to the BBC, that I have ordered the Kindle edition of the new book that’s cited in the article.
Par-tick-ular viruses
YOW! Deer ticks carrying Lyme Disease have been a concern here in New England for decades. This is the first I’ve heard of Powassan, a potentially fatal virus that can be carried by deer ticks, but also woodchuck ticks. These ticks seem to prefer certain animal hides.
Chronic Conditions
Urban medical centers will pick up the slack for the rural hospitals that are either overwhelmed or don’t even exist. Uh, no they won’t.
Finding My Religion
A recent 88 Rewound on WMBR featured a playlist from May, 1971. I hadn’t heard this song in many years.
Honestly, I’d forgotten how much of an effect the song had on me. Life was changing fast, and I felt extremely unsettled. Six months later, entirely on my own, I started attending a Lutheran church I passed on the way home from my after-school job.
So began my religious period. It lasted until I was in my senior year of college.
Some years ago I attended my nephew’s wedding in the Midwest. My sister mentioned to her mother-in-law that she never knew how she and her husband were given permission to marry in the Lutheran church near our parents’ house. They lived out of state, and their church was in a different Synod. My sister’s mother-in-law smirked and said, “I know how.” My sister seemed surprised that, after so many years, this was the first she’d heard of it. “You do? How?” Her mother-in-law looked at me and said, “You were dating the minister’s daughter.” My mother must have told her. The minister’s daughter was Lori, and she got her dad to perform the ceremony.
