Cartoons Wednesday, Plus New Music and 'Sesame Street" vs. Trump

And Fiona Apple returns.

Okay, friends and neighbors, asking for a bit of help here. While I appreciate the continuing strong interest from all of you (free) subscribers, it is harder and harder to reach new readers, thanks to politically-inspired partial suppression of my feeds at Twitter and Facebook—though nothing special, I am one of many millions. But you could help attract more readers here if you’d take the trouble to “share” below, or post a link on your other outlets, or recommend to a friend in a good old fashioned email. Thanks again for your support! And all subscriptions remain free.

Let’s open with an interesting and catchy new single by Fiona Apple just released and the title kind of says it all: “Pretrial (Let Her Go Home).” Video opens with her revealing that it is based on her attending “thousands” of court hearings for two years and witnessing so many women, some with kids, not convicted but sent to jail because they could not afford bail.

In a different vein, Fiona also has out a new piano-based cover of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold.”

And more music: As I’ve mentioned, off to see Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings in NYC tonight, but here they were last night on Colbert doing “Empty Trainload of Sky” from last year’s Grammy-winning lp.

Is Trump’s de-funding vendetta against PBS derived from all the mockery he suffered via “Sesame Street” years ago as “Donald Grump”? We report, you decide:

Why does it take the Financial Times of all mainstream media outlets to declare this flatly?

Crypto-Fascist?

Steve Brodner: