February 10, 1961 Pirate radio ship The Voice of Nuclear Disarmament, a pirate radio station, began operation offshore of Great Britain. It was run by John Hasted, a physicist, a musician, and a radio expert in World War II. He was active with mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell in the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament, a group that practiced Gandhian an nonviolent civil disobedience.
February 10, 1964 Bob Dylan’s ”The Times They Are A-Changin’” was released. The album’s title song captured the emerging, principally generational gap in American culture concerning war and racism. Come mothers and fathers Throughout the land And don’t criticize What you can’t understand Your sons and your daughters Are beyond your command Your old road is Rapidly agin’ watch video (1964) the lyrics
February 10, 2003 Iraq acceded to U-2 surveillance flights over its territory, meeting a key demand by U.N. inspectors searching for banned weapons of mass destruction (WMD) there.The 60 weapons inspectors in Baghdad and Mosul were under the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), led by Hans Blix, and the International Atomic Energy Agency under Mohamed El Baradei. The U.N. had destroyed all of Iraq’s banned weapons by 1994, as well as production and development facilities later, though Saddam Hussein expelled the U.N. representatives in 1998. U-2 spy plane. Hans Blix gives his report at the UN as Mohamed El Baradei listens. The economic and trade embargo during the inter-war period prevented resumption of the weapons programs. CIA and other intelligence estimates, however, insisted upon the existence of WMDs in Iraq. None have ever been found.
Since 1997, five Swedish-based scientists were involved in an interesting practice that went on for 17 years, the parameters of which were revealed in 2014. The goal? See who can use as many Bob Dylan songs in their research paper titles before retirement.
John Jundberg and Eddie Weitzburg started the trend. Two professors at Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute, they titled a research paper “Nitric Oxide and inflammation: The answer is blowing in the wind” (Predictably, it was about flatulence). However, in a 2014 story with Swedish outlet The Local, Weitzburg cleared up some things about the wager. (Snip-More; just click the article title)
laughter brings endorphins. She blends humor and current events the same as she’s always done, excellently! (And just look at that salad- )
Hold On, Hold On by Samantha Bee
Marathon conditioning with humor, salads, and Neko CaseRead on Substack
Me. This morning.
Happy New Year, One 👏 Week 👏 Into 👏 The 👏 Trump 👏Administration 👏 And 👏 I 👏 Am 👏 Trying 👏 So 👏 Hard 👏 Not 👏 To 👏 Lose 👏 My 👏 Cool.
Here is the Serenity Prayer, as a quick refresh.
Wait, that’s the wrong one.
Anyway, you get the picture.
Oh believe me I could easily spend every moment of every day flaming the Trump administration for every single catastrophe they lob into the public sphere like tossing a grenade into a cellar full of Bubble Guppies.
Just not sure I’m ready for it, and it’s kind of twisting me up inside a bit.
Anyway, gonna go liquidate all my assets and I guess pour it into $Melania crypto tokens? Do I have this right? We just grift in full view now and that is just what we do? Instagram and Meta are blocking people’s access to healthcare information and it is NBD. This diva fired this woman DURING THE INAUGURAL BALL and a Fox News host runs the DOD now.
I guess…pace yourself? Don’t blow all your outrage in the first week out of…hundreds of weeks?
We must find humor where we can.
I, for example, was talking to my dad the other day about his arthritic hip, and I was like “what about just an aspirin every morning and some stretching and activity?” And he was like “Don’t be ridiculous, I think I’m going to go down a more natural path?”
Meaning?
“My friend has a naturopath and he got a prescription and he is going to give some of the pills to me.” (Which is not, to my understanding, naturopathy? In any case.)
“Well, what is in the pills? Are they unregulated supplements?”
“WHY ARE YOU SUCH A SKEPTIC.”
“I just don’t think it’s advisable to take other people’s medicati–”
*sound of father struggling with reading glasses and fiddling with another man’s bottle of pills*
“Here you go smart guy. It’s something called mi-…miso—…misoprostol??”
Yes, that is correct. MISOPROSTOL.
One man gave another man some Misoprostol, which can be used for ulcers I think, but is also used to procure a medication abortion.
My dad was like “do NOT write about this” and I said “unfortunately that is not possible.”
The elders are giving each other abortion pills for their hip pain. Everything is upside down. GIVE THEM TO ME, we need to stockpile those.
Speaking of open access to abortion pills for all – and not just my Dad, I must plug my most recent Choice Words with Amanda Skinner, who is the President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Southern New England. We have a fascinating conversation about the many misconceptions surrounding Planned Parenthood’s mission and the breadth of healthcare services they actually provide for a variety of patients. Please check it out wherever get your podcasts.
We must nourish our bodies. For example I made Andy Baraghani’s citrus and caramelized date salad from his amazing book, and I swear to God I think about it ten times a day. I gave myself so many high fives for this dish even though I didn’t invent it, and merely followed his highly entertaining instructions. Uncrate the sun!
And we must nourish our minds, or at least distract them a bit.
For example–I am hosting a book event for Neko Case tonight in New York City and friends, I am here to tell you that if you read ONE book in the next ten years, please make it this one. I feel blessed that she asked me to participate in this event, and tbh I pray that I can get through it without crying that she is also writing the music for the Broadway adaptation of Thelma and Louise. Nope. Already misting over like a g-d baby.
I also highly recommend the distraction of rewatching Downton Abbey, which I am embarrassed to tell you I thought was DownTOWN Abbey for three FULL ASS seasons, since I didn’t watch it and never listened to anybody talk about it ever.
Anyway now I’m watching it, and it’s great of course–and gives me that uncomfortable squirmy feeling I used to get as a child from all the awkward misapprehensions of Three’s Company.
Somehow in a time of turmoil, watching people brutally misunderstand each other and demonstrate extreme emotional constipation is just the ticket to relax and unwind my brain! Agonizing!
And something I would like to remind everybody, as we venture forth into semi-uncharted waters: cleanse yourself of social media as much as you are able.
I have put myself on a strict diet of zero brain rot social media time. Sure, I miss all the videos of cats launching themselves into Christmas trees, but this is a price I am willing to pay.
Only for business, only when I have something to say, only when necessary. Watching all of those tech bro Dobby’s on the dais boot licking Trump was brain Ozempic for me; I lost my appetite to carry their water and give them my eyeballs and personal data.
Happy to keep the lights on for the socials and post occasionally on a few platforms, but a better use of all those precious brain cells is to put them toward Neko Case’s new book and rest up for the marathon we are already running.
If you were around in the 1990s, you’ve probably heard of Kris Kross, the pint-sized rap group that had everyone wearing their clothes backwards and moving to their mega hit “Jump.”
With the help of producer Jermaine Dupri, friends Chris “Mac Daddy” Kelly and Chris “Daddy Mac” Smith started a cultural phenomenon. But it wasn’t long before issues with their image and battles with drug addiction brought their success to a screeching halt. We wanted to take a look back at the careers of these talented teens and the impact they made during their time in the spotlight.
This is the story of Kris Kross. (snip-click through; there’s a slide show with captions. Ah, youth! And we were all younger, too.)
(I started a post, looked for a share link, and got this. We’ll see how it goes. I’m not up to much today, but this is so good I want to share it. Totally off topic, just enjoy.)
Even if you weren’t around when the band got their start in the late 1950s, you’ve definitely experienced the music of The Isley Brothers. With a sound that combines R&B, rock, funk and soul, their music has been been heavily sampled and covered by the likes of Ice Cube, The Beatles and Whitney Houston.
But while you surely know their music, you may not know that the Cincinnati, Ohio-born siblings who were known for producing sexy love ballads actually started singing gospel music as teens. Despite label changes, family tragedies and a lawsuit between two of the original members, founding member Ronald and younger brother Ernie Isley still entertain fans with the songs that first made them famous in the 1960s.
To this day, The Isley Brothers are the only act in history to hit the Billboard Hot 100 in six consecutive decades: The 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Here is their story. (snip-go see the photos, listen to the music. While going through the early slides, why not turn on this?or this? )
Snippet (this is so very good, and a bit long, with videos, etc. embedded as well. I know it has blue language; also, it skews Christian, but there’s a point-not proselytization, but Representation-it’s encouragement for all to be who we are):
Flamy Grant, Spencer LaJoye and Crys Matthews, three of the artists on the Make The Yuletide Gay tour. (Courtesy Flamy Grant’s Insta)
Is the world still burning down? Is President Elon Musk shutting down the government, and are his pets Donald Trump, J.D. Vance and Speaker Mike Johnson completely powerless to stop it?
Is this happening?
Oh dear God.
Who wants to take a well-deserved break from talking about all that shit because Christmas is in five days and fuck it?
Let’s shift gears.
In the wee few months since the inception of this right here Moral High Ground newsletter, we’ve talked about lots of things that fall within the site’s description, about white conservative right-wing Christian fascist men, the Phyllis Schlafly clones who support them, and the extremely weird fears, feelings, emotions and autoerotic Braveheart fantasies that make them The Way That They Are.
Obviously we’ve talked a lot in these weekly Friday newsletters about the election and its horrifying aftermath.
But there’s another element here that I said I wanted to be present in this newsletter from the very first post, no matter if it’s just a little Substack or if it somehow grows into a great big media network.
I said this place is called “The Moral High Ground” because the bigoted, misogynistic assholes standing in the way of everything that’s good and holy are 100 percent certain they are the sole possessors of that high ground. I said that’s a toxic tumor of an idea that is unfortunately still given a shameful amount of weight in our society. You see this any time a corporate media source feels the need to host a hate-mongering bigot from a right-wing Christian group, to give “both sides” of whether LGBTQ+ kids should be allowed to live with dignity, or whether people should be forced to submit their bodies to the state for regular uterus inspections.
And I said that toxic tumor of an idea unfortunately still survives within far too many of us who have personally been abused by the conservative Christian church, or who are still currently enduring its abuse. It can be subconscious, like a vicious disease you think is gone, but then it rears its ugly head when something triggers it, telling LGBTQ people they’re not good enough, that maybe they really are going to hell, telling closeted LGBTQ kids in homeschooling households in East Cowfucker, Kansas, that they will never be able to get out, that Jesus really couldn’t ever love them.
And I said fuck that shit.
I said this isn’t a support group, and it isn’t a Christian website, but it’s a safe place for literally whoever you are, and I want the negation of the toxic messages I was just talking about to be loud and clear, front and center at The Moral High Ground at all fucking times.
And I want to showcase and bring together other people who are doing that work in their own brilliant ways.
So let’s talk about Christmas, Christian music, Christian drag queens, lesbians, non-binary people, and just generally ridiculously brilliant Christian and Christian-adjacent artists who, number one, EXIST — that’s right, LGBTQ kids living in right-wing Christian hell, they EXIST! — and who are out there this holiday season making the yuletide extremely totally fuckin’ gay.
I’m talking about Flamy Grant, Crys Matthews, Jennifer Knapp, Spencer LaJoye and Heather Mae, who have been out on tour this month that’s literally called Make The Yuletide Gay. I got to see them — well, three of them — last Friday night in Memphis, and it was so good, y’all.
If you read Wonkette AKA my day job where I am the managing editor, you may have heard of Flamy Grant. I posted the video above in 2022 in a piece about how a gay wedding was happening at Amy Grant’s house, and how it was pissing off pigfucks like Franklin Graham, AKA the ickiest byproduct of Billy Graham’s participation in the human reproductive process.
I mentioned in my post that my own personal first concert was in Little Rock, Arkansas, 1991, Amy Grant, on the Heart In Motion tour, front row, Baby Baby! (My church youth group really had the hookup on that one, I guess.)
Then in 2023, Flamy Grant started taking over the Gospel and Christian charts, for the best, funniest reason. You see, this dildo-witted MAGA preacher named Sean Feucht was birthing entire full-grown cows because Grant — a Christian drag queen for whom listening to Amy Grant was also quite formative — had collaborated with Derek Webb, who had huge success in the Christian music world back in the day with a band called Caedmon’s Call. (Webb, you might deduce, is also in a bit of a different place these days.)
This was obviously a sign of The Last Days to excitable types like Sean Feucht. Also that loud flamboyant Greg Locke creep. He’s real exercised about Flamy Grant.
So God, being the way God is, thought it’d be funny to use that moment to make sure Grant’s song with Webb and the album it came from went straight to the top of the charts. The Gospel and Christian charts.
Scottie's Playtime 