I do not often write about American artists, not because they they are no good (many, many are), but because British ones interest me more.  Here is an exception.  Not only is he extremely talented, he also wrote many of the books, so to speak, for the British Invasion.

The story about him being adopted by Jewish parents is just a myth.  There are elaborate ones about how the white, Jewish family adopted the poor little black boy when he was just a baby and, trying to keep him close to his roots, took him to a black gospel church.  That is nonsense!  Please keep with me to learn more about him, and to enjoy what is likely the very best fusion of rhythm and blues and rock and roll ever.

He did not only perform it, he wrote lots of it!  With no further ado, here is a glimpse into one of my favorite performers.

For good, for ill, or for neither, firearms are an integral part of American life.  Everyone knows in a general sense what guns are, but not so many know much more than that.  The conventional wisdom is that those of us on the left are less familiar with firearms than those on the right (a premise with which I do not agree), but the fact is that it important to have a basic understanding of how firearms work.

At the most basic, a firearm is a device used to deliver a projectile, usually at a high rate of speed, towards some sort of target using chemical propellants that are NOT carried onboard the projectile.  Firearms have evolved over the centuries from quite crude affairs to the highly sophisticated devices that are available currently.

The Kinks are likely the most important British Invasion band that most folks remember only slightly, if even at that.  They were quite good, but completely different from the BIG THREE (The Beatles, The Who, and The Rolling Stones) in that they just never seemed to get things completely right.  I mean no disrespect to them by that statement.

I really like that band!  The problem with them was that they never really penetrated the American psyche like the previously mentioned ones did, although they DID have lots of hits.  I guess that part of it was because they did not have quite the level of genius in writing that The Beatles had, nor the outstanding musicianship that at least three of the four of The Who had, or the showmanship mastery (and good writing) that The Rolling Stones had.

I know that many, many featured writers and other contributors have written about this subject, but I think that I have a bit of a different take on this subject than most have.  I know that there are real, difficult, important, and political implications in this entire affair.  I know that the ravers on the right (interesting, Glenn Beck was not on air tonight) and on the left have their version of things.

My outlook on the entire subject is from the perspective of the people who are either participating or affected by what looks like to be the beginning of a revolution proper in Egypt.  A revolution that is fueled by many factors, including generations of oppression, a lousy economy (the wealth difference betwixt the top and everyone else is much worse there than in the United States), suppression of opinion, and the dreaded “knock at the door in the wee hours” are but a few.  Please bear with me for a few moments.

Oysters are an interesting part of the Mollusc tribe.  They are bivalves, meaning that they have two half shells, which are jointed together on one edge and can open and close as the animal desires, or more properly, is instinctively demanded to do.

Unlike their cousins, clams, oysters are from infancy pretty much fastened onto some sort of support, so they do not move.  Clams are sort of solitary, and like to dig into sandy beaches.  Another relative, the scallop, is so free to move that jet propulsion is the norm for them!

Let us examine some of the natural history of these interesting (and often delicious) animals.  We will point out that edible oysters are quite different from the pearl oysters.

This piece was partially inspired by a conversation that I had with Kossack smileycreek in the comments after my most recent Pique the Geek installment.  That commentor’s sig line included words to the effect that all that the Republicans have is fear.

To a point I agree with that, but I would also add greed to it.  Greed has a component of fear in it, since greedy people always have the fear that they will not get enough of whatever their particular greed includes, but is enough of a distinct desire as to be included separately.

On Wednesday past, I logged all of the adverts on two TeeVee shows, Glenn Beck from the FOX “News” Channel, and The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC.  I believe that most would agree that one is pretty right wing, and the other pretty left wing.

I was originally going to write about the ballistics responsible for sparing the life of Representative Giffords tonight, but decided that some might feel that to be offensive.  Please indicate in comments whether or not you think that this would be an acceptable topic.  The piece is very interesting (the draft is in the can), but I leave it to my readers to determine whether it should see the light of day.

The topic tonight is the physics behind cooking, in the meaning that how heat is added to food makes a huge difference in the rate of cooking, the taste of the final product, and even its texture.

One of the most popular, and in my opinion, most talented of the British Invasion solo acts was Donovan Philips Leitch, known simply as Donovan.  He had several monster hits both in the UK and in the US in the mid 1960s, and many people recognize the music but not necessarily the artist.

His style was more folk than rock, and I personally believe that if it had not been for Bob Dylan Donovan would be remembered as the greatest folk singer of the 1960s.  Fortunately, he is still with us and has a talented progeny as well.  

This is the companion piece to the one about gold from Friday night in Popular Culture.  Obviously, we intend to get geekier tonight than we did Friday.  Then we talked about gold being used primarily as money or other symbols of wealth.

Tonight we will discuss how gold is mined and purified, and the actual industrial uses for it as opposed to jewelry and investment purposes.  The old picture that most folks have about the forty-niner with his gold pan is far from how gold is mined, and was not really very accurate even then, being mostly a product of Hollywood.

This is designed to be a companion piece to a new Pique the Geek installment of the same title that will be published Sunday.  The idea for this dual treatment of gold was inspired by our good friend and supporter from the other two sites to which I contribute, ek hornbeck.

This half of the couple has to do with gold in a nontechnical sense.  The one on Sunday gets, obviously, much more Geeky.  However, technical uses aside, gold has been part of the popular culture since prehistory.  Only recently have truly technical uses for gold been found, and those will be covered elsewhere.

Tonight we shall look at some of the history of gold in popular culture, and finish with a discussion of the so-called gold standard and the numerous sales pitches that dominate the conservative airwaves.  We shall try not to get too Geeky.