Rickrolling & Other Phenomena

Here’s a term I’d never heard before, featured in a foxnews.com article by Jessica Napoli, edited by yours truly: “Rickrolling is an Internet prank that started around 2007 when someone sent a person a link that didn’t go to the advertised video but to Rick Astley singing his 1987 mega-smash hit Never Gonna Give You Up. It recently received its billionth hit. The singer has nothing to do with it and sees it as a positive, as it introduces him to potential new fans.

As if the election results and the staggering spending that has followed haven’t signaled an irreversible change in society, this headline from nypost.com might convince the holdouts: “American Express tells its workers capitalism is racist.” I’m not saying it’s true. On the contrary, capitalism has done more far more good than all other systems combined. It’s simply reality. I expect the new normal to be disastrous. I hope I’m wrong. I will save as much money as possible and hope that inflation doesn’t make it totally useless. And here’s a message to conservative athletes from a headline at newsmax.com: “Oklahoma Coaches Claim They Can Discipline Players Over Viewpoints.” Ask volleyball team ex-captain Kylee McLaughlin, who believes The Eyes of Texas should remain rival UT’s fight song. While there are signs that many are fed up with wokeness — witness the Olympics’ ratings — I believe it’s too late to turn the tide. Hope I’m wrong about that too. Enough — I don’t want to be depressed. I want to be happy in my remaining years and the only way I see to do that is to remain aloof, although it’s not easy to watch the country one loves damaged from within by the swamp that rules and its elite acolytes. Recall that the Nazis and Soviets identified as socialists.

I’ve been guilty of hypocrisy so I try to avoid applying the tag to anyone, but lately leftists have accelerated the pace of theirs, no doubt knowing the mainstream media is unlikely to call them on it. Headline from foxnews.com: “John Kerry family jet already emitted estimated 30 times more carbon in 2021 than average vehicle does in year.” It has spent approximately 26 hours in the air.

I don’t use sunscreen, so I find this FN headline darkly amusing: “Researchers call on FDA to pull sunscreens after evidence of potential cancer-causing chemical.”

I spent 90% of today’s session of the floating book shop in the shade. Fortunately, there was an occasional breeze blowing along Avenue Z and I remembered to bring water. My thanks to the women who bought a Russian translation each of Agatha Christie and Nora Roberts; and to the woman who purchased another title in that language; and to the one who took home The Elements of Style by E.B. White and William Strunk Jr.; and to the tall man who chose a pictorial on Pope John Paul II; and to the woman who donated five works of non-fiction; and to the thin elderly gentleman who selected Foods That Can Cause You To Lose Weight II: While You Watch TV by Neal D. Barnard. He’d bought cook books in the past. Maybe he was just being kind, like the Russian lady who gave me a dollar. I wasn’t sure if she were being charitable or settling a tab I’d forgotten about.

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