A Cut to Higher Education That Really Hurts

We’ve had a lot of noteworthy deaths recently (sadly, not him), but none really hit me hard. There was Ozzy Osbourne (Prince of Darkness) followed by Chuck Mangione (Prince of Flugelhorn). I liked a couple of Ozzy songs, but he wasn’t a big favorite, and that Mangione song was pretty nice, back in the 80s, so I was like, “Whatevs.” Then Hulk Hogan went and again, no big deal to me. I figure the biggest impact his passing has will be on the sales of tear-away t-shirts and spray-tan supplies.

Then today, I got word of a passing that really hurt. Many people will be like, “Whatevs,” and many more will be like, “Who?” But today, I must mourn the passing of a legend of musical satire and wordplay, Tom Lehrer.

Lehrer was a Harvard math professor who, in the 50s and 60s, became an underground musical hit, mostly in academic circles. (Full bio in the link above.) He was what you’d get if you crossed William F Buckley with Weird Al Yankovic. He played nightclubs and auditoria, and toured the world performing low-brow humor for high-brow crowds. He also wrote a couple of songs for the old kids’ show, “The Electric Company.” This is a bigger hit to academia than the destruction of the Department of Education

My parents had a Tom Lehrer record that I remember from when I was in first and second grade, simply called “Songs by Tom Lehrer.” It was just him and a piano, and I loved listening to it because it sounded like so much fun. He frequently used different accents when it suited the song, and the music could be quite rollicking. Back then, I mostly had no idea what the songs were really about, so I’d ask questions.

“Mommy, what does plagiarize mean?”

That was from a song called Lobachevski, about a Russian mathematician who encourages and celebrates the copying of others’ work. He sang it with a Russian accent, which I could identify because I often heard it from “Boris Badenov” on the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons, and it had a marvelous Russian-style rhythm to it, often punctuated with cries of “Aye!”

I learned a lot of other words that were far from standard lower-elementary vocabulary lists, and I’m sure it contributed to my lifelong pursuit of wordplay, clever turns of phrase, and tortured rhymes. But more on that in a minute.

It also began honing my appreciation for the taboo, like with the song called “Be Prepared.” If that sounds familiar, it got name-checked in the classic action movie, Speed, when Dennis Hopper tells Keanu Reeves, “Be prepared, Jack, that’s the Boy Scouts’ marching song.” That’s ripped right from the opening line of the song, which goes on to cast aspersions upon the hallowed scout troops:

“Be prepared, that’s the Boy Scout’s solemn creed,

Be prepared, and be clean in word and deed,

Don’t solicit for your sister, that’s not nice...

Unless you get a good percentage of her price!

[Snip to the big finale]

“If you’re looking for adventure of a new and different kind,

And you come across a Girl Scout who is similarly inclined,

Don’t be nervous, don’t be flustered, don’t be scared,

Be Prepared!”

I read that this was the one that got him in the most trouble. In fact, there were some markets where they wouldn’t allow him to play unless he omitted Be Prepared.

That album also contained songs about drug dealers (The Old Dope Peddler), a tribute to effete Ivy League football (Fight Fiercely Harvard) which is sung in an accent Charles Winchester III would later use on MASH, a folk song parody (An Irish Folksong) in which the main character kills everyone in her family, and one even my 6-year old self could understand, The Hunting Song.

“I always will remember, twas a year ago November

I went out to hunt some deer, on a mornin’ bright and clear.

I went and shot the maximum the game laws would allow,

Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow.

[snip to the bridge]

The law was very firm, it

Took away my permit,

The worst punishment I ever endured.

It turned out there was a reason,

Cows were out of season

And one of the hunters, wasn’t insured.

 

People ask me how I do it and I say there’s nothing to it.

You just stand there looking cute,

And when something moves, you shoot.

And there’s ten stuffed heads

In my trophy room right now,

Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a pure-bred Gurnsey cow!”

 Notice the “firm, it/permit” rhyme. I loved those. This guy was a master of creating rhymes out of nothing, bending and combining words into rhymes, the more tortured, the better.

One more tawdry excerpt from this album was a bit from The Weinerschnitzel Waltz, lovingly played in traditional waltz tempo.

From the mid-song interlude:

“I drank some champagne from your shoe, la la la

I was drunk by the time I was through, la la la,

For I didn’t know as I raised that cup,

It had taken two bottles to fill the thing up.

 

It was I who stepped on your dress, la la la,

The skirts all came off I confess, la la la,

Revealing for all of the others to see,

Just what it was that endeared you to me…”

I remember figuring out what he was getting at there, and being proud that I was now in on the joke like the rest of the grown-ups.

Later into my teen years, I obtained two of his other albums, both performed in front of audiences. Those were “An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer” and “That was the Year That Was.” The latter was a TV variety show called That Was the Week That Was, from 1964, in which he’d play a weekly song. While all of his songs were culturally relevant, these were right from the week’s headlines, and definitely some of his best work. A lot of people have heard his song, “Pollution.”

Pollution, pollution, you got smog and sewage and mud,

Turn on your tap, and get hot and cold running crud.”

The album opens with a tribute to “National Brotherhood Week,” talking about how once we behave for the special week, we can go back to being pricks to each other when it’s over.

“Oh the Protestants hate the Catholics,

And the Catholics, hate the Protestants,

And the Hindus hate the Muslims,

And everybody hates the Jews…

But during National Brotherhood Week

New Yorkers love the Puerto Ricans ‘cause it’s very chic,

Step up and shake the hand of someone you can’t stand,

You can tolerate him if you try.”

There was one about how our space program was being led by ex-Nazi, Dr Werner Von Baun.

With thick German accent:

“’Vunce ze rockets are up, who cares vhere zey com down.

Zat’s not my department,’ says Werner Von Braun.”

There was one I loved, called “Alma,” about a woman whose considerable charms allowed her to marry three of the top creative men in Central Europe.

“The first one she married was Mahler,

Whose buddies all knew him as Gustav,

And each time he saw her, he’d holler, (in German accent)

“Ach, that is the Fraulein I must have.”

Alma, tell us,

All modern women are jealous.

Though you didn’t even use “Ponds,”

You got Gustav and Walter and Franz.”

I still get crossword puzzle answers based on knowing who those three guys are.

Who’s Next was about the nuclear race.

(In Egyptian music rhythm)

Egypt’s gonna get one toooo

Just to use on You Know Who

(Now in Israeli music rhythm)

So, Israel’s getting tense,

Wants one in self-defense,

The Lord’s our Shepherd, says the psalm,

But just in case… we better get a bomb!

Who’s next?”

The masterpiece on the album was “The Vatican Rag.” That one shook some people up, but it was so happy and peppy, with its ragtime beat, theycouldn’t stay offended.

I was going to reproduce the whole song’s lyrics, but hell, I might as well just link a performance of the song. It’s short though, only XXX

Look at the rhymes in there… see what I mean? Want if/Pontiff, religion’ll/original. Great stuff.

The other album had the classic “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park,” as well as a tribute to college life, Bright College Days:

“Soon we’ll be out, amid the cold world’s strife,

Soon we’ll be sliding down the razor blade of life!”

How’s that for post-grad pessimism?

If you watched The Big Bang Theory regularly, you might remember an episode where Sheldon gets drunk before giving a presentation and starts singing the names of all the chemical elements. He’s doing a Tom Lehrer song, which is literally the names of the elements on the periodic table, sung to the tune of The Major General’s song from Pirates of Penzance. Sheldon only goes about half-speed. The original is an almost impossible tongue twister, zipping through all those quadra-syllabic names. He concludes with:

“These are the only ones of which the news has come to Hah-vahd…

And there may be many others, but they haven‘t been discaaaavahed.”

This song is similar to another of his called, New Math, where he goes through a subtraction problem, using the new method of teaching I suffered through at the time. From the intro,

“The idea is to know what you’re doing… RATHER than to get the right answer.

He goes on to repeat the problem, this time in “base-8.”

He says, “Base 8 is just like Base 10, really… if you’re missing two fingers!”

You know, I could probably go on indefinitely, calling out favorite bits and clever rhymes, but I think I’ve gone on about it long enough.

For the longest time, I never knew what the guy looked like. None of his album art featured his picture, and he was notoriously camera-averse. Eventually, with the internet, there is a wealth of pictures, lyric sheets, conversations, and whatnot about this slice of 60s talent and wit. If he’d have continued performing into this day and age, he could have dropped the wildest rap lyrics to date. There’s nothing he couldn’t rhyme… I even heard he was able to set up a rhyme with “orange.” (The article wouldn’t play on my browser, so I have to take the word of the headline.)

Whenever I’m in a crowd of unfamiliar people, at a party or whatnot, I can often find a like mind by dropping a line from either Monty Python, or Tom Lehrer. Whoever responded, I knew those were my people.

This is a guy who reveled in taking shots at the upper crust and the status quo, and always with a twinkle and an impish tone. His erudite lyrics padded my childhood vocabulary far beyond what the sisters at St. Euthenasius were teaching. Even though he hasn’t performed in decades, I can’t help but feel that the world is a dimmer place without him. From the halls of academia to the stalls in beer halls, he will be forever missed.

RIP, Professor. Play us out…

We Will All Go Together When We Go, about a nuclear war to end all wars. Check these wicked rhymes.

When you attend a funeral,

It is sad to think that sooner or'l

Later those you love will do the same for you.

And you may have thought it tragic,

Not to mention other adjec-

Tives, to think of all the weeping they will do.

(But don't you worry.)

 

No more ashes, no more sackcloth,

And an arm band made of black cloth

Will someday nevermore adorn a sleeve.

For if the bomb that drops on you

Gets your friends and neighbors too,

There'll be nobody left behind to grieve.

 

And we will all go together when we go.

What a comforting fact that is to know.

Universal bereavement,

An inspiring achievement,

Yes, we will all go together when we go.

 

We will all go together when we go.

All suffused with an incandescent glow.

No one will have the endurance

To collect on his insurance,

Lloyd's of London will be loaded when they go.

 

Oh we will all fry together when we fry.

We'll be French-fried potatoes by and by.

There will be no more misery

When the world is our rotisserie,

Yes, we will all fry together when we fry.

 

Down by the old maelstrom,

There'll be a storm before the calm.

 

And we will all bake together when we bake.

There'll be nobody present at the wake.

With complete participation

In that grand incineration,

Nearly three billion hunks of well-done steak.

 

Oh we will all char together when we char.

And let there be no moaning of the bar.

Just sing out a Te Deum

When you see that I.C.B.M.,*

And the party will be come-as-you-are.

 

Oh, we will all burn together when we burn.

There'll be no need to stand and wait your turn.

When it's time for the fallout

And Saint Peter calls us all out,

We'll just drop our agendas and adjourn.

 

You will all go directly to your respective Valhallas.

Go directly, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollahs.

 

And we will all go together when we go.

Every Hottentot and every Eskimo.

When the air becomes uranious,

We will all go simultaneous.

Yes, we all will go together

When we all go together,

Yes we all will go together when we go.

  

Suspending Disbelief

I saw the new Jurassic World movie a couple of weeks ago, on opening weekend. I loved it, but that was a foregone conclusion. I loved all the Jurassic movies when I first saw them. Some have aged better than others, but I found them all wildly entertaining at the time.

I was one of a legion of Dinosaur Boys back in the day. The best thing about my family moving around from state to state and town to town was that each time we relocated, I’d get to check out a new school’s dinosaur books.

I remember visiting the Field Museum in Chicago and just being gob-smacked at the size and posed ferocity of the dinosaur skeletons. Even in my 30s, visiting New York’s Museum of Natural History was awe-inspiring. They had more skeletons there than I’d ever seen in one place. It truly made one feel insignificant, standing next to the remains of these enormous beasts.

When the original Jurassic Park came out, I was with my first wife, and her young son was around ten. We all went to see the movie, and it looked so realistic, we couldn’t convince the son that dinosaurs didn’t currently exist because he thought there was no way they could fake that so well for the screen.

Personally, I was so excited to see a photo-realistic version of what one could only have imagined. My most exciting frame of reference was the old Saturday morning show, “Land of the Lost,” which featured stop-motion animated dinosaurs. At the time, that was the coolest stuff I’d ever seen.

I could forgive that they made the T-Rex and Allosaurus roughly the same size, not to mention ignoring that they were separated by 85 million years, and they had these furry humanoid-things also running around from an even more distant time period. And then there were the “Sleestacks,” who made a mockery of everything for me. Even then, I knew there was no fossil record to back up those things.

I could never understand why the humans on the show were so afraid of them. All they did was hiss and lumber after you. The dad could have knocked one out cold with a good-sized tree limb. When you think about it, they shouldn’t have been there at all, for the mere reason that they were so slow, the carnivores could have caught and eaten them so easily. Maybe they tasted bad. Anyway, I digress.

While I enjoyed the new JP flick, I walked out of the theater with a major doubt in plausibility. See, I can buy that they cloned dinosaurs from DNA extracted from old mosquitoes. Our tech is steadily advancing to the point that I don’t think that’s an unrealistic jump.

In the story, they mention that all of the dinosaurs have essentially “self-deported” to the areas around the equator because it was the most like their own ecological atmosphere, and now, all such areas are off limits to human residence or travel. And I’m sure there’s a large give or take zone; I mean, the animals were not all arranged in a line around the world, right on the equator. I suggest that they settled in the area between the two tropics.

The blue lines on the left are where I drew in the tropic lines (without extending them), which was pretty good for doing it off the top of my head. When I looked it up later, I was bang on. Whoo hoo, when’s my day on Jeopardy?

So this is my main beef: Does anyone seriously think that the people who live there were all going to just up and move away? Especially in the resort areas! There must be millions, if not billions, of dollars tied up in beachfront resort real estate in the coastal areas between the tropics, such as Rio, Cabo, and Aruba. There’s no way these rich fucks are walking away from that kind of investment. They’d be on the horn to their governmental officers, making sure that their turf remains viable. 

And I’m sure these governments would listen, because they’re probably on the developer’s payroll in the first place. Our current Administration would be all-in because if there’s one thing this president understands, it's resort real estate.  He’d help them find a way to ship the dinos elsewhere, like to inland Africa. There are probably not many resorts located in the interior of the African continent. They’d stick them in Congo, Uganda, and Kenya. If they displace millions of citizens, they don’t give a shit. But those coastal resorts would need to stand. They’ll find a way to fence them off, one way or another, or just mow down the intruders with heavy artillery to protect the assets. I don’t think real dinosaurs would be as bulletproof as the ones in the movies.

I don’t think Indonesia would be too badly affected, though. Only the flying creatures could get there. I know that some of the big guys can swim too, like the Spinosaurus in Jurassic World-Rebirth, but why would it suddenly take off from Southeast Asia and head for some islands it doesn’t even know is there?

So, yes, the basis of the whole new film is preposterous… just not in the way one might think it is. But don’t let that dissuade you from seeing it, if you like this kind of thing. It’s a great “popcorn” movie.

I mean, if you can’t tune out reality long enough to enjoy a movie, you might as well just watch the news, which is far more depressing than the idea of dinosaurs roaming around the earth.

Headline Newz

As one of the dozen or so people who still get a daily paper, I usually scan through the stories at lunchtime, on my way to the crossword puzzles, with an eye out for blogging opportunities, which I capture with my iPhone camera. There’s always something to latch onto, especially with my paper’s new ownership, namely the guy who owns Republican media mouthpiece Sinclair Broadcasting. They never fail to take the Republican side, not only on the editorial page, but throughout what’s supposed to be the straight news.

Very few of the stories are written by in-house staff. Most are farmed out to Sinclair and Fox News outlets. Like this one, from “The National Desk,” which is what Sinclair calls its national 10:00 PM news.

In a nutshell, this story gives credence to the Attorney General from Mississippi, who is complaining that AI is biased against conservatives. He goes on to blame fact-checking.

I can see where he’s got beef. When it functions properly, AI should deliver conclusions based on facts at hand. When these facts run contrary to Republican talking points, they must be “biased,” right? That’s how it works in the Republican media bubble. If the facts go against their dogma, the facts must be wrong. They’ve been believing their own bullshit for so long, it’s become second nature.

Pointing out what’s true and what’s false is not a matter of bias, but proof. And no proof will knock the scales from the eyes of these MAGA idiots.

Two weeks ago, there was a staff-written article about the Nation’s AG blaming lower courts for holding up too many of the president’s orders.

This could have easily been headlined, “President refuses to issue Constitutional orders.” Still, the paper takes the view that all those findings against the clearly unconstitutional executive orders coming from the White House are all a big conspiracy, rather than judges literally doing the jobs they are required to do.

It’s also rich that Republicans have used this very same machine to derail anything Biden or Obama tried to do, by filing lawsuits with judges known to be down with the Republican cause. See, when they do it, it’s fine. When it works against them, it’s a vast conspiracy.

Oh, and if you “have a tip” that makes Democrats look bad, be sure to hit up this writer, because they apparently can’t find enough news to report on their own, once they turn all the local Fox News stories into transcripts.

A couple of days before that last joke, they ran this one:

And this one is from the AP, so it’s presented fairly straight, as they quote someone labeling this attempt to re-categorize natural gas as green energy, as “green-washing.” This is just more Republican sophistry. The gas coming from the Louisiana swamps is cleaner than the hot air from those hyping this ploy.

Republicans are trying to repeat what they did when they created “clean coal,” something that never existed. They just changed what they called it and pretended they were actually doing something about climate change. Republicans understand that so many people never get into the weeds with details. They just skim the headlines and absorb the impressions contained therein. So it doesn’t matter if it’s really green or not; a lot of people will believe it is, which means Republicans have something other than an empty cupboard when their constituents want to know what they’re doing about the obvious weather volatility we’re experiencing.

“Hey, don’t blame us, we’re all-in on green natural gas. But the Democrats want you to give up your cars and ovens!”

Lastly, we have another AP article about one of the last remaining Republican wet dreams, getting rid of all limits on buying politicians political donations. 

As if Citizens United wasn’t bad enough, and to demonstrate how the rich are never satisfied with the billions they already have, now they want to remove all remaining barriers to literally buying federal policy that caters to them. Given how they’ve already ruined government, I have no doubt the Roberts Court will continue ransacking the government until we inevitably start putting the billionaires' pictures on our money.

Retirement Dreams and Reality

I’ve been thinking a lot about retirement. My goal is to wait about two more years and then retire roughly when my wife does. But it’s been on my mind because I’m so looking forward to it.

Of course, the recently passed Big Ugly Trump Tax Shift Act makes me wonder if I should act now.

With all the backroom finagling over Social Security, I don’t know if it’s more advantageous to get into the system now or wait until the dust settles. I understand that they’re unlikely to disturb the soon-to-be retirees, and instead put the screws to those who have to wait awhile. Maybe I should just get my claim in while they still have some money.

You’d like to think that they’ll figure something out once the insolvency date becomes a real threat. But somehow, I just don’t see this group of politicians doing anything to help average Americans. With these guys, I’m thinking the cure will be worse than the ailment. Because it’s the easiest fix in the world: just raise or eliminate the cap on taxable income for Social Security.  But that would negatively affect the rich, so Republicans will never go for it. Any my guess is that if the Democrats ever come into enough power to get it done, the Rich will buy off just enough Democratic votes to shit-can the whole thing. They want Social Security gone, not fixed. Or at least changed into a system they can skim. I’d love to be proven wrong here.

I’ve worked continuously since I was 16, save for a couple of 3-month periods when I was unwillingly unemployed, back in the 90s. So I am ready to chill.  When I retire, I intend to do NOTHING productive. No part-time jobs, no consulting, no nothing. If I do any volunteer work, it would be something like becoming an election official, like those old fucks you always seen checking names when you go to vote.

I want to take care of the house. I’ll finally have time to exercise.  I want to see more movies and ball games. I want to binge on all the TV shows I’ve missed.

I want to take a cruise; though I’m told I’ll probably hate it because they tend to be very “peopley,” I at least want to try one. I want to go to the beach in September or October, which Sweetpea has always wanted to do, but has been barred from doing because that’s when school starts.

I may write a book based on my own and my family’s stories. I definitely want to start writing crabby Letters to the Editor of our local Baltimore Sun, staking my claim as Local Liberal Crank. I want to ramble around the country and visit whatever friends and family I’ve got left.

 I’ve always been easily amused, so I don’t have to seek out big entertainment events. The simple stuff is fine for me.

I know that not everyone can have such dreams. I’ve been fortunate to have found job stability late in life, to the point that after fumbling around in retail during my 20s and 30s, my last chunk of years have been the best-paying. And Sweetpea is situated similarly, so we’ll both have solid Social Security income (assuming original plans stay intact). I’ve been saving like a madman for the last 15 years, so with that, my 401k, and Sweetpea’s teacher’s pension, we should be OK. (Pending debilitating illness, economic or atmospheric collapse, of course.)

So, as I look dreamy-eyed into my retirement future, I see that the Powers That Be just won’t let me enjoy it. There were two stories in my news feed last week that tried to make me feel guilty about my unproductive plans. The first one started by mentioning how 71% of retirees have no plans to take part-time jobs. And that much is fine, but they go on to treat this as some kind of abnormality that needs to be explained.

They also mention how only 11% of “future retirees,” aka younger people, say they would do the same. Now, that’s really an apples-to-oranges comparison. Younger people have started out in a vastly different economic system from that of my generation. They know they may not be able to rely on Social Security. They can’t count on long, well-paying careers, especially with the onset of AI threatening to take over so many office jobs.

My thought on it, if all things were equal, would be that once they actually get to the finish line, they may think completely differently. They don’t know about getting ground down by life yet. They’re still young and their joint don’t ache.

Another article runs with the young person angle, with a story about a young person who was able to retire in her 30s, but went back to work out of boredom.

I don’t think articles like these appear in a vacuum. I think the Powers behind the scenes, the Rich moguls who guide what the media shows us, don’t want us seniors to just sit on our retirement laurels. They want us back out in the workforce. They still want us to retire so they can stop paying the full salaries we’ve earned over our many years, but they want us to come back again and work for a discount, without having to kick in for health care. They like that we’re experienced, hard-working, and reliable; they just don’t want to pay the going rate.

Then, once we accept their proposition that we should continue working, we would be less reliant on Social Security, pensions, and the like; employers can pocket even more of it.

Yes, I may be cynical, but it adds up.

Late Update 7/17/25

More proof that Republicans want to take our retirement away:

And note, it's totally NOT reasonable, even if you do sit behind a desk or a mic for a living. At some point, everyone should be allowed to enjoy life, rather than working for The Man every night and day. These pricks see no problem with working us right into the grave.

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