An Odd Musical Fact: Jussie Smollett

Last week we learned that actor Jussie Smollett is facing new charges of lying to the police concerning the attack that he claimed to have experienced last year.

This is the sort of serious, political topic that I do not cover on this blog.  

However, it is a good opportunity to remind the world that Smollett once recorded a rap version of one of my favorite songs, “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straits, as I originally blogged back in 2015.  

No, really, it happened:

In my earlier post I described this recording as a “potential sign of the apocalypse”, but somehow our world has managed to survive.  

Ten Years

It was ten years ago today that I began this blog.  It seems crazy that it’s been ten years, but then it seems crazy that I’ve done anything for ten years.  My original hope was to do something like two posts per week, but I just don’t have the energy to do that.  (I barely have the energy to get out of bed in the morning.)  I eventually settled on the goal of at least once post per month, and I have managed to meet that goal, with the exception of June of 2013.

I had also hoped to cover scientific fields that I find interesting, like paleontology and herpetology.  But that would require not only lots of research, but also coming up with something interesting and original to say about topics that other people cover in much greater depth.  And so I usually end up  posting random digital photographs, or writing commentary on shallow matters of pop culture combined with vague attempts at being funny.

The blog provides me with a minimal, old-school way of using the internet to keep in touch with people, without falling into the Sarlacc pit that is Facebook.  That’s useful, since almost all of my friends and family are now in other parts of the country,  

But the most enduring and important reason that I blog is that it gives me a false sense of accomplishment, thus making easier for me to sleep at night.   

The Turtles

Here are twenty-three turtles on a log in the Potomac River.  They are all Red-bellied Turtles (Pseudemys rubriventris).  (The species has appeared on the blog twice before.) 

I took the picture in May; now those turtles are sleeping in the mud at the bottom of the river.  And at this time of year we should all be sleeping in the mud at the bottom of the river. 

If you’re not able to sleep in the mud at the bottom of the river, at least take a few moments to think about the turtles who are.