Independent News
Bloomberg analysts’ 2050 climate scenario shows the world falling far short of needed action
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Technology offers us part of the way out of the technology that over two and half centuries has got us into the climate mess we’re in. The question is whether politics can get us out of the politics that have for three decades obstructed the desperately needed climate-friendly transformation of the energy, agriculture, transportation, and construction sectors, as well as our habits of overconsumption.
Although you can find good news on just about all those fronts every day, from fewer coal-burning plants and better batteries and renewably fueled machinery to the spread of regenerative farming methods; from steadily cheaper electric vehicles with greater range to ever-more efficient residences and commercial buildings that emit zero greenhouse gases and renewably generate at least some of the energy they consume. We have the tools to attenuate many and prevent some of the impacts of climate change.
In addition, we have a political transformation coming in a few weeks when the climate-science denier maliciously occupying the White House is ousted by a president who not only acknowledges that we have a severe climate crisis on our hands but also has nominated a few people for high posts who can legitimately be called climate hawks. Rejoining the Paris Agreement and committing to taking stronger action could change the international dynamic for meeting the goal of keeping global temperature rise this century to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
This good news is undermined by a big problem. We aren’t moving fast enough in the United States and neither are other nations in pushing the spread of these technologies and curbing emissions with enough vigor or speed.
And particularly for Americans, another problem. Even if we win both Senate seats in the Georgia run-off race, there will still be a large cohort of congressional Republicans who think the basic facts of climate change are debatable (or say so to keep those corporate campaign dollars flowing in the door). They are enabled by a cohort of less reactionary Republicans and a few Democrats who claim to accept climate science but prove they don’t really by dragging their feet when it comes to supporting serious legislation that accelerates these interconnected transformations.
In October, BloombergNEF, a provider of research into clean energy, advanced transportation, and innovative technologies and commodities published its New Energy Outlook 2020. (Without paying a fortune, only the 30-page executive summary is available to the general public.) The report analyzes current data and trends to make its Economic Transition Scenario (ETS) forecasts and projections regarding the spread of available technologies up to 2050. In its Climate Scenario, the BNEF team scrutinized possible pathways to lower greenhouse gas emissions. This year their focus was on the clean electricity and green hydrogen pathway.
What their data show that countless other researchers have also found—we’re simply not moving quickly enough to curb emissions and transform any sector. Not even with solar and wind now the cheapest option for new electrical generation here and in dozens of other nations.
BNEF’s ETS forecasts for 2050 show a mixed bag with some obvious positives. But taken as a whole, while progress is being made, not enough is happening fast enough. Scientists say without policy changes we’re consequently headed for a rise of 3 degrees C by 2100. A devastating outcome.
While the ETS forecasts cumulative emissions from all sectors will fall each year between now until 2050, total emissions in 30 years under this scenario would still be twice what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says is the carbon budget we have remaining for a 67% chance of limiting global warming to less than 2 degrees above preindustrial levels. BNEF forecasts an estimated 2.2 degrees of global warming by 2050, and 3.3 degrees by the end of the 21st century.
• Direct emissions from transportation peak in 2033, up about 10% from 2019, according to the report. By 2050, sales of electric vehicles will have reduced emissions by 12% below the pre-pandemic levels. And oil consumption in the transport sectors will fall from today’s 47 million barrels per day to 27.7 million barrels per day by 2050. But, as BNEF notes, this is nowhere near a “climate-safe trajectory.”
• By 2050, EVs are forecast to constitute 73% of all vehicle sales and make up 54% of the global passenger-car fleet, though higher in other places, up perhaps to 80% in Europe, the U.S., and China. Of the 1.5 billion passenger vehicles on the road in 2050, BNEF says 800 million will be EVs. A big part of this transition will be the continuing plunge in battery prices, already down 86% since 2010 and likely to cost less than 50% of today’s price by 2030. But having nearly half the planet’s vehicles still consuming fossil fuel 30 years from now is not a “climate-safe trajectory” either.
• Worldwide electricity-generating capacity soars between now and 2050, BNEF states. Renewables rise from 35% in 2019—almost half of which is hydro—to 68% in 2050, as wind and photovoltaics expand rapidly. Fossil fuel-generating capacity drops to 24% in 2050, from 56% in 2019. Again, not a “climate-safe trajectory.”
• In 2050, the report forecasts, Europe, wind and photovoltaics will account for 74% of electricity. Wind dominates with more than 50% of generating capacity in 2050. Coal use is practically gone in Europe by 2030, with gas use falling to just 10% of generation in 2050. Gas will still account for 33% of generation capacity in the United States in 2050, with wind growing to 24%, from 8% in 2019. Coal-fired power in China falls to 16% of total generation in 2050, down from 64% today. Renewables in China will make up 59% of capacity and 54% of generation, respectively, in 2050. China’s electricity mix would then be 82% zero carbon, with emissions 62% below 2020.
• Electric vehicles will only provide a third of commercial-vehicle kilometers traveled in 2050.
• In shipping, fossil fuel use will only decrease over 2019 by 8% in 2050 and emissions by only 30%.
• Fossil-derived jet fuel is forecast to be used for more than 98.5% of all aircraft kilometers flown in 2050.
• Today’s passenger rail is 76% electric and this hits 84% in 2050. Freight rail is just 56% electric now, going to 70% by 2050.
• Natural gas use in buildings will expand 33% between 2019 and 2050, according to the BNEF.
• Emissions from energy use in buildings will rise 26% between 2019 and 2050, the researchers calculate. Most of this will come from growth in gas and oil use in India and other rapidly developing countries. Emissions in China, the U.S. and Europe will increase as well, but not nearly so much.
BNEF’s Climate Scenario presents a much better picture, with significantly lower emissions and a more extensive electrification than the ETS. But getting there would require the efforts of national governments from Washington to Beijing, Strasbourg to Canberra. And “there” in that hypothetical scenario still doesn’t go far enough.
The report concludes:
Expanding and decarbonizing the power system to stay on track for warming of as much as 1.75 degrees Celsius would require around $35.1 trillion of investment in power generation assets and batteries over the next three decades. That is almost double the $15.1 trillion needed under our Economic Transition Scenario. Add to this $28.7 trillion for the power grid, between $11.6 trillion and $35.1 trillion for additional, dedicated power capacity to manufacture hydrogen, between $0.7 trillion and $2.7 trillion for hydrogen storage, and between $1.9 trillion and $28 trillion for hydrogen transport. Altogether, our clean-electricity and green-hydrogen pathway to well below 2 degrees requires between $78 trillion and $130 trillion of new investment between now and 2050.
More and faster, please.
Do you think you’d pass the newly revised U.S. citizenship test? Find out here
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The Trump administration changed the naturalization test to make it harder to pass—and you can see for yourself if you’d be able to pass this newly revised version. The New York Times has created a quiz selecting nine of the questions applicants are possibly asked.
“The new test draws from 128 possible questions, up from 100, and prospective citizens now have to answer 12 out of 20 questions correctly in order to pass,” The Times said. “Previously, passing required correctly answering six out of 10 questions.”
A top immigration policy expert noted last month that suspicions that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services made the revisions just to trip up applicants were right on the dot.
“Some of the questions have been made explicitly more difficult—even though there’s no evidence the old test wasn’t challenging enough,” American Immigration Council policy counsel Aaron Reichlin-Melnick wrote.
He notes a Biden administration could easily revert the changes (although the same can’t be said of some of the hundreds of other changes the Trump administration has made). Of course, the problem has never been that the test has been too easy for immigrants to pass. It’s been more the intentional sabotaging by the administration making it harder for immigrants to become naturalized.
Now add the U.S. citizenship test to that list. Click here to test your knowledge and see if you’d pass the revised test, and share your results below.
‘We celebrate the defeat of the worst president in U.S. history’
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The Washington Post editorial board enumerated 20 reasons to celebrate in 2020, but it didn’t get to the kicker until No. 9. “And… he lost,” wrote the board, “We celebrate the defeat of the worst president in U.S. history.”
Amen.
To be honest, many of the items that made the Post‘s list felt like consolation prizes in a year that ground America down to little else but a nub. Even the board itself acknowledged that many items on the list were more “silver lining” additions than things to wholeheartedly celebrate. Sure, it was nice to reconnect with old friends and distant relatives over Zoom and FaceTime more frequently (No. 5), but I would have gladly given that up to skip the wave of suffering that swept over the nation and the globe.
Also, while many of us did gain a much deeper appreciation for “the selfless dedication of nurses, orderlies, doctors and other health workers who risked their lives to save ours” (No. 3), the sentiment seems to whitewash reality. Trump and hordes of his conspiracy-devouring supporters heaped scorn and derision on these tireless heroes all while ensuring that they would experience a maximum amount stress and tumult as they tried to nurse the country back to health. I have never been more grateful for our healthcare/frontline heroes, but it’s rather hard to take the glass half-full view as we enter the holiday with maxed out ICUs across the country. The real saving grace here seems to be the vaccine that hopefully will soon start to ease their tireless days and nights.
The racial reckoning that was jumpstarted this year, however, has been truly moving—a 2020 occurrence that was featured in several of the Post’s entries. The masses who took to the streets following the brutal killing of George Floyd and demanded police reforms have been both inspired and inspiring. And Black women—the backbone of the Democratic Party—leading the way to Trump’s ouster alongside the elevation of the first person of color and woman to be the nation’s second in command was legitimately so sweet and historic. Rounding out the top 20, the Post writes:
After four years of an administration appointing mostly White men to the judiciary and the executive branch, the government was set to look more like America. And not just with its new vice president, but with a plethora of new faces including the most Native Americans elected to Congress, the most trans people elected to state legislatures, a burst of Republican women elected to Congress and a highly diverse and competent array of nominees for the incoming Cabinet.
Oh — and a panda was born at the National Zoo!
Happy new year. May 2021 bring the country and the world far more to truly delight in at this time next year.
Christmas morning explosion in Nashville an ‘intentional act,’ authorities say
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Local and federal agencies, including the FBI and ATF, are investigating an explosion in downtown Nashville early Christmas morning. “We do believe that the explosion was an intentional act,” a Metro Nashville Police spokesman said.
Police responded to reports of a suspicious vehicle around 6 AM, and had already called in the hazardous devices unit when a “significant explosion” occurred. Three people went to the hospital with injuries, which were reportedly not life-threatening.
This story is obviously developing.
Telling the story of humanity one person at a time … in reverse
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Over the last 17 years at Daily Kos (gulp), I’ve written over 7,000 articles. I’m certain that’s a long, long way from the record, but it still seems like a lot. Here’s another way of looking at it: Over three decades, I wrote 46 novels and two nonfiction books. I think. I may have missed a ghostwritten volume or two. Even if I did, what I’ve written at Daily Kos is easily twice as much text as everything I ever shoved onto the shelves under my name or that of anyone else.
Over all that time, the most recommended piece I’ve written remains a eulogy I penned one Tuesday morning in 2008 in the hour after learning that my father had died. Which … thank you. However, I think my favorite article remains one that was written about a decade before I became a Daily Kos employee, back when my major contribution was writing a little weekly bit called “Science Friday.”
Now, over 13 years after that piece was first written, I’d like to turn it into a book. And I’d like your help.
That original piece was called “Sixty Men from Ur,” and it also started off with a kind of eulogy. In this case, the eulogy was for historian Arthur Schlesinger, who actually died about two weeks before the essay was written. Schlesinger’s death caused me to revive an idea I had been kicking around for some time and … Here, I’m just going to embed a big chunk.
A bit over 4,100 years ago, a man named Abram led his family from the city of Ur of the Chaldees to a new home in Canaan. Just two weeks ago, unfailing champion of liberalism Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. died. What’s the connection? Nothing. Everything.
In science, a number of metaphors are employed to cast the huge span of deep time into a frame more easily pondered. If the history of life on earth is viewed as the Empire State Building, all of human history is a dime on top. If the life of our planet is viewed as a year, every event in the history books has raced past in the last few seconds of that year.
These images are generally used to demonstrate the impressive seniority of our universe, and the relative position of major cosmic and/or evolutionary events. For those purposes, they’re fairly effective. It’s certainly easier to wrap a mind used to events measured in minutes and hours around the idea that dinosaurs went extinct the day after Christmas, than it is to come to grips with the term “sixty-five million years.”
One thing that all those metaphors should bring home is not just that the universe is old, but that human history is astonishingly short — and not just in comparison to cosmic events. Whenever anyone with a relatively long life dies, there’s a tendency to indulge in a review of all the things they saw in their life. That’s understandable. There’s also an inclination toward viewing their life as covering the most important decades of man’s story. That’s a good bit more dubious. In honor of Mr. Schlesinger’s career as a historian, this isn’t so much a science Friday, as it is a history Friday.
This is a brief biography of mankind, covering only one twenty-billionth of human diversity, told in reverse.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. died in 2007. He saw the Internet rise to become a new means of communication and worked alongside his son as a blogger. He saw the Soviet Union collapse. He saw the folly of Vietnam and the dangers of an imperial presidency. He saw man walk on the moon. He saw Bobby Kennedy fall, and John. He stood at the pivot point of the Cold War during the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. He saw the end of World War II and the beginning of Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. He saw television begin, and the first planned subdivisions built. He served his country during World War II, after leaving Harvard without completing his Ph. D. He saw the rise of fascism, not just in Europe, but in the United States. He saw the Great Depression. He saw the dust bowl, and the migration of workers to the west. He was two when the “Black Sox” scandal sent Shoeless Joe Jackson into shadow. That same year, the U.S. Cavalry crossed into Mexico in pursuit of Pancho Villa, the 19th amendment — women’s suffrage — was passed, millions died in a worldwide flu epidemic, and the first radio station went on the air. Iraq passed from the Ottoman Empire to the British. Schlesinger had not yet celebrated his first birthday when World War I ended. That same year, William Frederick Cody, also know as “Buffalo Bill,” died.
In the original, I followed that sort of reverse-remembrance of Schlesinger by bridging to the similar unwinding of the life of Bill Cody. From Cody, I dropped into John Quincy Adams. Just like that, I was back to the time before there was a United States. The whole of our history as a nation was, and still is, less than three people deep.
That one sentence embedded in the middle of the piece, the one that says, “This is a brief biography of mankind, covering only one twenty-billionth of human diversity, told in reverse,” is still about as concise a description of the project as I can devise. It’s what I’d like to do at more length in a book. I want to tell 60 stories, each no more than a handful of pages, that put a human life in context against the times in which they lived. Each of those stories will start with the time of their death and walk their lives backwards, showing a fraction of world events, and especially those events that impacted the lives of the subject of each mini-essay.
At some point, once you get in the flip side of years that end with CE, it’s difficult to find well-recorded characters whose description is not something like “fourth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire.” (That would be Ahsiarsu, also known as Xerxes.) But where there is someone other than a guy whose job was killing people to retain personal power, I mean to find them. There actually are quite a few architects, doctors, adventurers, and scribes whose lives can be laid across the centuries.
I’ve thought about restricting the book in different ways. Since the title came to me first, and I intend to stick with it, should I stick with people who came out of that Abrahamic tradition? Should I stick with just men? That second thought appealed to me when I was feeling ambitious enough to think I might do a second volume, something like “Sixty Women from Memphis” that would trace people back again to that period somewhere between 1800 BCE and 2000 BCE using just the biographies of women. (If you’re wondering why Memphis, try Googling “famous women 18th century BCE.” Now, name the ones who are not part of the Egyptian court … the selection is not great. If ordinary men tended to be left out of history before the time of Herodotus, ordinary women just tend to be left out of history.) However … I’m old. It’s taken me 17 years to get back to this project. It seems very unlikely there will ever be a Volume 2.
So with that in mind, the subjects of each biography can be anyone anywhere. Which leaves just one big question, the one that I’d like some real help in solving: Where to start? By that I mean, who is either still alive today, or has died in this interminable year, whose life would be the best thread to take up as we wind back along a path to a dusty Sumerian city-state located in what is now southern Iraq?
There are people who have died in 2020 whose lives, or deaths, have certainly been impactful. But I’m looking for someone who seems definitive of the decades in which they lived. They don’t have to be particularly good, or particularly bad. An ideal candidate would be someone whose name is familiar, but maybe not so familiar that the details of their life were already known almost everyone. For example, Jimmy Carter. He’s been involved in huge events and tiny events that have put him at the center of so much, and I once attended the man’s Sunday School class and found him both genuinely kind and thoughtful. Plus, Carter was born in 1924, meaning his life touched on William Jennings Bryan as well as people like Moses Fleetwood Walker, a Black ballplayer who played in the Major League in 1884, and Fanny Eaton, who was the model for many of the paintings by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
John Lewis might be another good choice because his life in so many ways defined the times. At 80, Lewis’ life doesn’t stretch quite so far back, but his life does overlap with that of actress and activist Henrietta Vinton Davis, as well as physicist Vito Volterra (you can guess what he studied).
To give you a sense of how far afield I was looking when I started this project, I seriously considered starting off the book with Leni Riefenstahl. Not only was she a willing participant in events that placed her at the center of a scheme that killed millions, she went on to spend decades in Africa and in undersea exploration. She died back in a unified Germany at age 101. One of her last recorded quotes resonates all too well today: “I was one of millions who thought Hitler had all the answers. We saw only the good things; we didn’t know bad things were to come.”
But I’m not doing Riefenstahl. Not only did I eventually find that idea too distasteful and off-putting as a place to start the book, my simple delay in starting the process has put her 2003 death too far out of range.
If you’ve stuck with me this long … what’s your suggestion? If you want to tell the story of humankind over the last 4,000 years using someone whose life would best define the decades leading to this day … who would that be? Man or woman. Black, Asian, Latino … Who’s your choice? Obviously because I’m trying to make it back to approximately 1820-ish BCE in just 60 people, I’d like someone who lived (or is still living) a relatively long life.
Give me a hand up and I swear I will actually write this thing.
The world needs love on Christmas—and every day of the year
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In the perilous times we are faced with as the COVID-19 epidemic surges, and as voices of hate try to drown out those of us who celebrate, uplift, and care for our fellow citizens, I had a hard time writing my annual Christmas music story this year. I found myself looking for things to lift my spirits, or simply bring a smile to my face.
I came across a series of humorous exchanges on Twitter, from none other than Miss Dionne Warwick, who celebrated her 80th birthday earlier this month, on Dec. 12. Watching her trade words with “youngsters” as she learned to use Twitter had me laughing, since at 73, I’ve been having fun there as well.
So for this Christmas music special, I bring you Miss Dionne.
I covered Miss Dionne for the #BlackMusicSunday series back in August, but as a belated birthday gift, combined with Christmas, I wanted to highlight her again.
Though it is not a holiday song, the Warwick classic “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” which she reissued last year, fits the spirit of the season. We all could certainly use more love.
The song was originally recorded by Jackie DeShannon, with music by Burt Bacharach and lyrics by Hal David. But as Jennifer Gavin wrote for the Library of Congress in 2009, it’s Warwick’s 1966 version that sticks out to the lyricist.
David said the song has been recorded by more than 100 singers, including Jackie DeShannon, the voice on the original hit version. “My favorite version is Dionne Warwick’s. She always interprets my lyrics in a way that sounds as though she had written them herself,” David said.
Kimberly A. Hines, who writes at SoulBounce as Butta, described the narrative of Warwick’s new video.
We see Auntie Dionne sitting in her posh living room and watching television to open the visual. She’s watching the daily news, and it’s as stressful as ever with stories about everything going wrong in the world. Instead of getting stressed out about the real-life drama playing out on her TV screen, Dionne starts singing to calm her – and our – nerves. The video splits its time between scenes of the singer in present day with vintage footage and photographs of her many performances over the years by herself and with famous friends, such as Stevie Wonder and Gladys Knight; a young girl drawing a picture and a woman returning home from work to an overwhelming pile of bills and notices. The classic clips give the video a nostalgic feel, while the scenes with the young girl and woman play out to reveal a twist that will give you the warm fuzzies when the video reaches its conclusion.
For some background on Warwick’s career, which spans decades, a good place to start is with her 2018 episode of the PBS Documentary series My Music.
The documentary packs so much of Warwick’s career into just 54 minutes.
MY MUSIC: DIONNE WARWICK – THEN CAME YOU traces the singer’s musical roots in the church, where she first performed in a gospel group. She became a background singer performing with classic R&B artists, leading to her discovery by songwriter-producers Burt Bacharach and Hal David, who formed a three-way musical marriage with Warwick on countless hits including “Walk On By,” “Do You Know The Way To San Jose,” “Anyone Who Had A Heart” and “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again.”Among the friends and colleagues celebrating Warwick in the new PBS musical biography are Burt Bacharach, Barry Manilow, Smokey Robinson, Johnny Mathis and Gladys Knight, who joined Warwick, Elton John and Stevie Wonder for the smash anthem “That’s What Friends Are For” in 1985 to raise funds and awareness of the rising AIDS epidemic.
Those who grew up with Warwick’s music probably assume that everyone knows her. Hilarity has ensued as a new generation is now being introduced to her on Twitter. Warwick took to the platform, in part, due to the COVID-19-fueled cancellation of her performance and touring schedule.
Warwick, new to tweeting, kicked off the month of December by “having a ball” and spreading love, along with raising money to help feed the hungry.
Miss Dionne decided she wanted to say hello to Taylor Swift; fans explained that she needed to put an @ in front of Swift’s name. A few days later, Swift responded.
She then sparked a Twitter storm with this humorous query to Chance The Rapper.
Minutes later, she offered this follow up, which had me rolling on the floor laughing.
Chance responded in minutes, with the respect and adulation Warwick deserves.
Then THIS happened.
What started as a Twitter exchange led to this news.
Record producer/manager Damon Elliott, who earned his share of Grammy and platinum-selling success working with Pink and Mya – among others – will produce an upcoming single release he’d written, “Nothing’s Impossible” with (Dionne) Warwick, Chance (the Rapper) and other artists to be announced. Elliott is the son of Dionne Warwick.
“My Mom and I had a moment to speak with Chance after she tweeted him about the word “The” in his name,” explains Mr. Elliott. “They had such an amazing conversation that led to them discussing the Hunger Not Impossible initiative (www.notimpossible.com) – they’ll receive portions of proceeds from her upcoming 80th birthday/holiday celebration. The result of our conversation with Chance is this new single we’ll be recording soon, and we’re all looking forward to this collaboration.”
Miss Dionne hosted one hell of an 80th birthday party, which was not broadcast (sorry, no clips). She featured performers from her 2019 Christmas album; I’ve posted some of those tunes below.
However, she got a surprise “birthday gift” from the writers at Saturday Night Live, who didn’t miss the hilarity of her Twitter debut. Their tribute to her was this sketch, with Warwick being played by Ego Nwodim.
Earlier in December, Miss Dionne queried her Twitter followers about their favorite holiday tunes. She got a response from Questlove (Ahmir Khalib Thompson), who is co-leader of The Roots, a music historian, and the drummer on The Tonight Show.
Here are a few video selections from Questlove’s playlist. Have you heard them all?
Warwick was simply elated with her new Twitter connections.
Warwick, of course, has made several Christmas albums over the years. The most recent one was recorded in 2019, in collaboration with a wide variety of artists including Dianne Reeves, Johnny Mathis, John Rich, Ricky Skaggs & The Oak Ridge Boys, and Michael McDonald.
Dionne Warwick knows music.
For nearly 60 years, she’s delivered hit songs in her distinct, buttery voice.
In the 1960s, Warwick encouraged us to “Walk on By.” In the ’70s, “Then Came You” became her first number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100. In the ’80s “That’s What Friends Are For” — with Warwick singing alongside Gladys Knight, Elton John, and Stevie Wonder — became one of the most popular songs of the decade.
Warwick, 78, has earned six Grammys (including the 2019 Grammy Lifetime Achievement award) and has sold over 25 million albums and 75 million singles, according to Billboard — and she’s not done.
In October, she released her 38th studio album, Dionne Warwick & the Voices of Christmas.
Here she is with jazz singer Dianne Reeves.
One of my favorite Christmas tunes from Miss Dionne is “This Christmas” from the show Some Lovers, with music by longtime collaborator Burt Bacharach, and lyrics by Steven Sater.
For those of you who want some extended musical play on Christmas Day or during the rest of the holiday, 1993’s Christmas Time in Vienna II is a wonderful concert to queue up. Placido Domingo opens the concert with “Hear my Song,” and then introduces Dionne Warwick to hearty applause. She sings “Oh Holy Night,” and they go on from there to sing favorites that are not just holiday tunes. The concert includes “Ave Maria,” “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” “The Christmas Song,” “Feliz Navidad,” and more.
Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it, and a safe and healthy wintry season to all.
Join me in the comments to play your favorite holiday tunes. Let’s gather together in this time of isolation, to share joy and some of that love Miss Dionne’s always singing about.
In case you want to explore some of my other musical stories from Christmases past, here’s a list to make it easy.
Aretha and Nancy sing Christmas
Feliz Navidad: Wishing you a Puerto Rican Christmas
What child is this? St. Francis, crèches and President Obama
Born on Christmas Day: The Chevalier and Cab Calloway
‘O Holy Night’—a gift to us from a Christian, a Jew and an abolitionist
The Christmas flash mob tradition
Christmas in her soul: Laura Nyro
The Year in Bad
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How do I hate thee, 2020? Let me count the ways. Sure, there was plenty of cartoon material, but I’d have much rather we had a boring ol’ year. No such luck this turn around the sun.
We saw everything from a horrible pandemic to a deranged U.S. president trying to overturn the will of the voters (democracy) so he can stay in office to avoid prosecution. As the presidential pardons come fast and furious for scores of Trump-connected criminals, the big question is: will he pardon himself?
Okay, the other big question is: will he leave? Unfortunately, the grand Switch of Awfulness will not magically be turned off in 2021. We are sure to see some crazy things, particularly between now and January 20th. Fingers and toes crossed.
Happy Holidays, stay safe and I’ll see you in the new year! And, once you have given to your favorite local charity or subscribed to a local newspaper, help support my work by joining me on Patreon — where you’ll find prints, sketches, behind-the-scenes videos and other goodies!
Thursday Night Owls: ’twas the night before
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Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week
27 DAYS UNTIL JOE BIDEN AND KAMALA HARRIS TAKE THE OATH OF OFFICE
Scott Simon at NPR writes—‘Twas The Night Before Christmas in 2020:
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all o’er the house
Stirred the clicking — most frantic — of every mouse
All the stockings were hung by the TV with flair
But children played on apps in their rooms without care
Sneaking smart-phones and laptops right into their beds
While visions of going viral danced in their heads
When out on the street there arose such a clatter
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter
When what to my wandering eyes did appear
An electric sleigh, without any reindeer“Self-driving” said the driver, so lively and quick
I knew from his TikToks it must be St. Nick
“I don’t strew CO2,” he said, “on glaciers and meadows
So my polar bear friends can hang onto their ice floes.”
He had a snow-white goatee, and six-pack of a belly
“I just couldn’t go on like a bowl full of jelly.
Now I eat fruits and veggies, meditate, and do yoga
And don’t just watch e-sports — Elf Sports — on the sofa.” […]
If you’re up for another, here’s the first stanza of Niall O’Dowd’s parody published at Irish Central:
‘Twas the week before Christmas and all through the House,
The Republican Congressmen were acting like louts.
Stand aside dirty Biden, they shouted, fists pumped,
The winner is Donald, and Biden, he’s trumped!
From here on, they said, he is Number One,
The man in the White House, he’s certainly not done.
We won Wisconsin, Pennsylvania too,
But Biden, he tried to prove one plus one is two.
But when we add the votes it is plain to see,
When Republicans count one plus one is three.
So we’re the outright winners (let the Dems take their lumps),
It’s victory for us and for the great Donald Trump! […]
THREE ARTICLES WORTH READING
- Trump’s last-minute pardon spree shows why Joe Biden just can’t “move on,” by Amanda Marcotte. The country can’t unite and heal if Republicans believe they have license to cheat in elections and commit crimes.
- The Triumph of Kleptocracy, by Franklin Foer. With Donald Trump’s pardon of Paul Manafort, kleptocracy has successfully waited out its enemies.
- NYC’s Subway Used to Be for Everyone, by Aaron Gordon. What’s Going to Happen Now? The subway is different from every other transit system in the country. If people think that’s no longer true, it might not get the funding it needs.
TOP COMMENTS • RESCUED DIARIES
QUOTATION
“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!” ~~Ebenezer Scrooge, “A Christmas Carol,” 1843.
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2018—Small businesses likely to suffer during Trump’s shutdown:
Republicans talk a good game about loving small businesses, but Donald Trump’s government shutdown is once again showing how true that isn’t. Many small businesses stand to suffer from the shutdown. That includes those with government contracts that will face interruptions, but it’s much bigger than that.
“Retail store traffic fell an average 7.3 percent each week of the 2013 shutdown compared with the same period a year earlier, according to ShopperTrak data obtained by CNBC,” an effect that’s much larger in areas like Washington, D.C., and its suburbs, where many federal workers live, and near national parks, where decreased numbers of visitors meant tourist-oriented businesses took a hit.
Small businesses looking for government loans will also face problems, since the Small Business Administration is closed except for disaster services.
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Settle down by the fire, and have yourself a merry little Christmas
This post was originally published on this site
It’s that time. Time to settle down in front of the virtual fire and enjoy the quiet. Here it is, the granddaddy of the televised Yule logs from 1966, on a continuous loop to keep you mesmerized for hours. Well, minutes.
In case you’re wondering, it was cooked up in 1966 by Fred M. Thrower, president and chief executive officer of WPIX, Inc. who wanted New Yorkers who lived without fireplaces to be able to enjoy the spectacle. At least that’s what Wikipedia says. It also filled up programming time, meaning station staff could be at home with their families. It had a radio simulcast, too. In case this one doesn’t float your holiday boat, there are some variations below.
Here are 10—yes TEN!—hours of Nick Offerman drinking whiskey.
Here’s one with horses, because you need that.
And one with a bunny, because you need that, too.
Or maybe you just need a little weirdness. It is 2020.
Wait a second! Should you be recycling that Christmas wrapping?
This post was originally published on this site
Recycling is a good thing … as long as it’s done right. Done wrong, you’re contaminating what your local trash system is trying to send for recycling and potentially getting a lot more than your stuff rejected. Christmas is a big time for some recycling problems, since gift wrap can generate a lot that we want to recycle, a lot of which, it turns out, we just need to throw out.
You cannot recycle glittery, metallic, or flocked wrapping paper. Do not do it. But plain wrapping paper, even with some tape on it, is fine. One tip from the BBC: “Try to scrunch up the paper into a ball. If it scrunches, and stays scrunched, it can probably be recycled.”
When buying wrapping paper, though, you can look for the recyclable stuff. Bonus points if it’s paper made from recycled content.
You cannot recycle bows. You cannot recycle ribbons.
Or, to put it another way, you cannot put bows or ribbons or glittery or metallic paper into your recycling bin. What you can do is reuse them. The wrapping on last year’s big gift can be cut down a little to be the wrapping on this year’s medium gift. Paper that wrapped a book last year may be the easiest thing to use to wrap a book this year. The bow that’s not quite as sticky as last year can still be taped on this year. And so on.
Christmas generates a lot of additional waste each year. It’s not hard to do a little bit to change that. Start by reducing and reusing, but when you get to recycling, stop to be sure you’re not doing more harm than good by putting something in the blue bin.