As a fan of a wide variety of popular (and not-so-popular) music from the 1950s (and sometimes even earlier) up through the present, one of my bucket list projects for years has been to put together a list of my 100 favorite songs of all time. At some point I decided that, once I got around to figuring that out, I could put it out on a blog, for the infinitesimally small proportion of the Internet world that might be interested. So, here we are. While the Top 100 will be a major focus, I also plan to post on a variety of other musical (and occasionally non-musical) topics, in which you may or may not be interested. (If a particular posting doesn’t ring your bell, you’re only a few clicks away from a dancing cat video on YouTube.)
“In a highly controversial decision, the Alabama Supreme
Court rules that frozen embryos are, for legal purposes, children, and
therefore must immediately be thawed out and provided with iPhones.”
“South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a contender to be Trump’s
running mate, bolsters her case with a new book in which she reveals —
apparently on the advice of the same public relations firm used by Boeing —
that she once shot and killed her family dog, Cricket. Many people are appalled
by this revelation, although Noem’s supporters note that she would be a handy
person to have around the White House if Commander ever comes back.”
My jaw dropped when I saw Michael
Conahan, a former judge involved in a notorious “kids for cash” scandal in
Pennsylvania, among the nearly 1,500 people President Joe Biden granted
clemency to last week. The White House portrayed the mass clemency as a historic
moment for justice. But Conahan’s commutation only underscores how broken the
presidential pardon and clemency process is.
I don’t know much about most of the
people on Biden’s list, but I do know a fair amount about Conahan. I started my
career as a journalist in Pennsylvania and had a front-row seat when the scheme
— one of the worst corruption scandals in U.S. juvenile justice history — came
to light in 2008 and 2009.
Conahan and fellow judge Mark
Ciavarella Jr. were accused of receiving cash kickbacks in exchange for helping
to construct two for-profit juvenile detention facilities in Luzerne County and
then sentencing young people to those facilities to keep them full. In total,
they received more than $2.8 million, court documents show. They didn’t do this
a handful of times. They did it to more than 2,500 juveniles over five years.
And the worst part? To maximize the
payout, they often gave kids the harshest possible sentence. Young people who
were first-time offenders and probably should have received a warning or
community service would end up locked up. Some were younger than 13. What the
judges did caused tremendous harm to thousands of young people and their
families. One young man died by suicide. Many youths became depressed and
dropped out of high school.
…
Such dubious grants of presidential
mercy reinforce a belief that America has a two-tiered justice system where the
wealthy and connected fare much better than everyone else — and certainly
better than the young people who came before Judges Conahan and Ciavarella in
Luzerne County.
Yesterday (12/5/2024) WXPN started counting down “The
885 Greatest Songs of the 21st Century,” as voted by its listeners. My
picks are below. I voted somewhat strategically, with the idea that songs that
never got played on the station would have little chance of making the list.
(The exception is #10, which was so huge that I thought it might have a shot anyway.)
