Another song I have fond memories of hearing in my youth when it was played on WBCN.
Here’s the entire album. Like Odessey & Oracle by the Zombies, Love’s Forever Changes is a 1967 album that was mostly ignored when it was released, but today it’s considered to be one of the finest of the era and beyond.
Back in May I posted John Oliver’s explanation of how a 2006 law not only clobbered the USPS financially, it hobbled its ability to cope with it. Now that Trump has one of his rich enablers appointed as Postmaster General, the situation is getting worse, and it’s happening fast.
I recently mailed in my application form to vote by mail in the primary and general election. The one thing about it that I’m hoping will keep Trump from interfering with the process is that everything will be, or it should be, local. All the ballots go to the post office, and from there to the town hall or city hall for counting.
Yesterday, Trump doubled-down yet again on dismissing Dr. Fauci’s facts and promoting hydroxychloroquine. Today he’s with Fauci and wearing a mask. The pandemic has Donald reversing himself but only briefly, because reality is forcing him to make occasional nods in its direction. He always returns, without fail, to his make-believe world of conspiracy theories, because he knows that’s what his loyal followers love. His latest false narrative is that voting by mail will lead to a massively fraudulent election.
I know a few people who continue to believe in Trump wholeheartedly, and honestly I just don’t understand why. As I have pointed out before, I spotted him as a con man and called him a freak 30 years ago. He hasn’t changed since then, and his election in 2016 is proof of how much everything else has changed. At this point there’s no turning Trump’s hardcore followers, with many of them brought into the fold by the king of insane conspiracy theories, Alex Jones.
I skipped watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine when the series began airing more than 25 years ago, choosing instead to watch The X-Files. But I’m catching up to ST:DS9 now, during family viewing time.
DS9 shares many similarities with another 90’s TV series, Babylon 5. Something the two shows didn’t share at first was how their outer space effects were done. Babylon used groundbreaking computer graphics effects exclusively for its spaceships, while DS9 relied upon physical models until later in the series.
DS9 is available on Netflix, Amazon Prime, and CBS All Access. It also airs on the over-the-air broadcast channel H&I. All of these outlets are showing the same standard definition copies. I know because I’ve checked. I keep wondering how much better DS9 would look if it could be presented in HD, as was done for the original 1960’s Trek.
Special effects wiz Adam “Mojo” Lebowitz, a 2-time Emmy winner who got his start on Babylon, remastered a scene he worked on in 1997, to demonstrate what’s possible.
Today isn’t quite as hot as yesterday’s scorching heat, when I decided to use the 13′ ladder and replace the coaxial cable on the antenna for the porch TV. The old cable is white, and after four years it’s covered in spots of black mold. I’m not sure how much shielding it has, so I replaced it with a black, quad-shielded RG6 cable. Look carefully, and you’ll see there are actually two antennas in this picture.
With that latest frivolous project out of the way — the house has many other, much bigger, ones that need attention — my thoughts are returning to these unprecedented times. There seems to be an underlying expectation by Trump’s hardcore supporters that everything will return to normal, if we would only let the coronavirus play itself out. Doing that would crush hospitals and result in an even more significant culling of the elderly population, along with people suffering from a compromised medical condition. The same crowd that claimed Obamacare would have death panels and “kill grandma,” are now saying “let grandma die.”
In yet another bizarre bit of irony, Trump is touting the promise of a vaccine to his anti-vax followers! America has yet to get a grip on the pandemic, and the ongoing anti-science nonsense is one reason why. William G. Kaelin Jr., 2019 Nobel laureate in Medicine, expresses his opinion on the need for facts in The Boston Globe. These are his concluding remarks:
I saw an Internet meme that said, “Having some states locked down and others not locked down is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.” It’s true. We are all in this together, and the current coronavirus case spikes in other parts of the country will eventually harm both our health and the economic recovery.
Our fragmented and uneven response to COVID-19 is an unintended consequence of the war on science. We must make decisions based on the best scientific advice available, not on wishful thinking and hunches. It is our best hope for dealing with this crisis.
I enjoy looking at various turntable forums, in particular those about vintage Thorens models. I bought my TD-166 MKII 37 years ago. A frequent topic of discussion on the forums is how to polish a tarnished Thorens platter rim. A lot of devotees want a mirror-like shine, which requires a grinding wheel. I don’t care for that look myself, and I’m happy with the results I get using fine steel wool.
