In the previous post, I said that I didn't think Burke Moses was the gent playing Gaston in the excerpt of Beauty and the Beast performed on the Jerry Lewis Telethon. Well, Galen Fott — who seems to know a lot about such things — wrote me and seems sure that it was Burke Moses. I've decided he's almost certainly right. (By the way, Mr. Moses was not only great as Gaston but I saw him play the title role in Li'l Abner in a limited-run revival of that show in New York and he was real good as a hero, too.)
The fires in Southern California are still awful and still far, far from where I live. The National Weather Service is forecasting somewhere between a quarter and a half-inch of rain this weekend which will be wonderful if it happens. It would be enough to dampen things down but not so much as to create major mudslides. Mudslides are always a problem after big fires.
I'm not watching the news much and have nothing to say about the first days of Trump II that others aren't saying more eloquently and with more outrage than I can muster at the moment. Kevin Drum posted a good scorecard of where this country stood, statistic-wise, on the last day of Joe Biden's presidency. This might be handy to keep around. Inflation, for instance, is at 2.7%. A former friend of mine who loves everything Trump does even if it's illegal, was insisting inflation was at something like 20% under Biden and will be celebrating if Donald gets it down to 5%.
Posting here may be sluggish for a few days but we'll get it back up to speed.