Bang the Drum Slowly

RIP Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, 80. He was with the band, which formed in 1962, since ’63. Two others served briefly before him. Thank you, sir.

Headline from nypost.com: “Last act of business Cuomo gives clemency to convicted murderers during final hours as governor.” Trying to do as much damage as possible? Why should it have been any different than the rest of his tenure?

Snippet from a NYP article by David Meyer: “…of 180 million people who received Pfizer’s COVID shot, zero died.”

Like Mexico, Afghanistan is largely a narco state, in this case financed by opium. Business is booming.

Amusing headline of the day, from foxnews.com: “Hundreds of Calif. recall ballots, drugs, loaded gun found in felon’s car: police.” Vote or else.

Also from FN: “CVS workshop tells employees to hold each other ‘accountable’ for ‘non-inclusive’ acts.” Sounds distinctly similar to the USSR and East Germany. Sadly, it’s not surprising.

Let’s add some good news. FN headline: “Stop & Shop throws retired WWII vet, former employee surprise 100th birthday bash.” The store is in Edison, NJ, where Ben Ficeto worked for more than a decade. Kudos.

Interesting headline from foxbusiness.com: “Dollar stores booming amid inflation squeeze, face push back over low prices… US cities exploring ways to limit dollar store growth.” Other stores are losing business to them. There are more than 34,000 in America.

First good business day in a while at the floating book shop. My thanks to those who bought and swapped. Fortunately, the outgoing was a lot more than the incoming. Here’s what sold: four Charlie Brown paperbacks, two huge pictorials on sea life; CDs by Bette Midler and John Williams; a CD of the musical Carousel; four kids books; The NPR Listener’s Encyclopedia of Classical Music by Ted Libbey; God’s Problems: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question — Why We Suffer by Bart D. Ehrman; two books in Russian, including a translation of Scandinavian children’s stories; a thick trivia book; pictorials on the art of Renoir, El Greco, and on a painter I’d never heard of before today, Russia’s Ilya Pepin. Here is his A Demonstration on 17 October 1905:

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