Goodbye, Smooth Jazz 102.5

Well, I knew it. Nothing good lasts forever. 

For the better part of a year I've enjoyed listening to 102.5, a Smooth Jazz station here in Milwaukee. Ask the kids - I'll spend many days with the station playing on my radio at home, providing a backdrop for my evening.  They even sponsered the jazz festival LuLu and I attended. 

It's a great staion. 

WAS a great station.

A few days ago I tuned in and heard Christian music. Ok, there's a Chrstian station on a similar bandwith that sometimes inteferes with the signal if you drive too far south of Milwaukee. Maybe my radio was just picking that up at home? 

Then too, they kept sprinkling in Christmas music, confusing me even more. 

Then finally, the death knell. It has become a Christan music station, and my radio will be going silent. 

Farewell Smooth Jazz 102.5. You were loved. 

Biden Pardons His Son

 

Yesterday President Biden decided to give his son Hunter a full, blanket Presidential pardon, despite repeated statements in the past that he would never do so. 

I get it, it's his kid. By all accounts, a scummy individual who expolited his Dad's postiion for profit, at times with this nation's enemies, sired and abandoned a child; illegally purchased a gun,  etc. Character wise, he was as far removed from Biden's late son Beau as siblings can be. 

But it's his kid, and morally I can't fault him for pulling him out of the fire. 

Politically tho', what a blunder. 

A - He swore up and down he would never do it, so now it's just one more lie for the public to swallow,  Right now the Democrats have a lot of bad behavior that is excused by "Well, at least he/she isn't Trump." and then tossed aside. That garbage pile is starting to acculumulate some height, and its getting harder to ignore.

B - He did it with six weeks left in office, giving the press and his opponents six weeks to talk about it. Why not have snuck it in at the eleventh hour, as has been the case with many pardons? 

 C - Man, he just handed Trump the Golden Goose. 

Not that Trump *wouldn't* do whatever he felt was best, opinions and correctness be damned, but now he can go ahead and use pardons at will. Who's going to criticize it? The Democrats whose President just gave his POS son a get out of jail card? The media who bought and repeated Biden's lie?  The precedent has been set, and good luck finding a moral soap box to stand on when/if Trump pardons the January 6th participants, his family, or anyone. 

What a Christmas gift to Donald Trump. He should mail Joe a thank you note. 

Hollywood Story

+

I watched this 1951 noir thriller the other day. In 1929 a silent movie director is killed in his home, and the murder goes unsolved. Twenty-one years later a Hollywood producer decides to do a film about it, and inadvertently stirs up trouble. 

Richard Conte is the lead - you'd know him best, as I do, as Barzini in The Godfather, and I've got no complaints about his performance. Julie Adams, three years shy of starring in Creature from the Black Lagoon, plays one of the suspects/romantic interest for Conte, and Jim Backus (Mr. Howell from Gilligan's Island) has a bit role as comic relief and gives a pointless, but thankfully nominal, narration to the film.

Overall I liked the film quite a bit, although no part of it rises beyond the scope of a "made for basic cable" production. 

I will say, applause applause applause for black and white film. This picture is 73 years old and looks crisp and sharp. Now go watch a film from the '80's, where the colors are washed out and the appearance is decayed. 

I grade this a solid B