Greg Mitchell has authored more than a dozen books (see most of them here) and directed four recent PBS films, including the current “The Atomic Bowl.” Subscribing to this newsletter is still FREE—so if you want to help fund, maybe purchase one of those books, thanks. Or recommend this Substack to a friend!
Famous animal rights activist dies at 91. Also acted a little when young and became champion of the far-right in France when elderly.
Greg Sargent, The New Republic, on Stephen Miller and ICE arrests looking to 2026:
Miller’s alternative is a horror. He has set in motion a vicious math problem: His deportation machinery is arresting people faster than they are being removed. To hold them, he’s now looking to build out a network of vast warehouses. We’re going to end up with a massively expanded immigrant carceral state at an enormous cost to all of us, both in taxpayer dollars and in the searing social conflict that Miller’s masked storm troopers have unleashed on the streets of U.S. cities.
Meanwhile, CNN:
Oklahoma woman fatally shot while holding a child on Christmas. Authorities say a man was doing target practice in his yard block away
And NY Post:
Drunk Florida man kills wife and shoots teen stepdaughter in face before taking his own life after Monday Night Football spat
Music Picks
Just out, another fine cut from upcoming album from Indie legend Bill Callahan, instead of wild, wild country it’s a “Lonely City.”
Back in 1952 on this date, Hank Williams was about to take his last drive, to Ohio (spoiler, he did not make it), the subject of Emmylou’s “Rollin and Ramblin” assessment….
MoJo magazine a few months back asked various interesting musicians to pick their favorite Dylan records and tabulated a Top 60 list, which they’ve just re-posted. Some of the choices, probably meant to be hip or obscure, are fairly laughable, given the massive number of choices, but fun to ponder and read their reasons. But this one surely belongs, “Idiot Wind.”
Blood On The Tracks engineer Glenn Berger explained:
Dylan was recording ‘Idiot Wind” and I thought this is so powerful. When has Dylan ever been this raw? The amount of rage coming out of him was so powerful. And when you hear something being cut in the studio where it’s directly from his mouth into that beautiful microphone and coming out of those huge speakers – you never hear it like that again. The power was overwhelming. And he gets to the end of the song and waits a few seconds and then turns to us in the control room and sarcastically says: ‘Was that sin-ce-e-e-re enough?’”
From Tunes to Toons
KAL picked two of his favorites from past year:
deAdder:
Barry Blitt:
Kuper on this year’s canary in coal mine:
Clay Jones
Photo Finish
“Early Morning Fog Lifting, Near Bodega Bay”
Ah, you hit on two good memories. I think I replaced my Blood on the Tracks album twice. It made a big impression and expanded my curiosity and appreciation of music genres I wasn't yet familiar with.
Bodega Bay also played a big role. It's a great place for introspection and reading difficult books we've waited to tackle until interruptions are minimal.
Thanks for sharing these.
Time like wind waits for no one.