Hound Dog History

(“You Ain’t  Nothin’ But a) Hound Dog” first became a hit 6o years ago.

“The song was born in the famed Brill Building of New York, written by two Jewish teenagers named Mike Stoller and Jerry Leiber. They had intended it, Leiber later recalled, for a female blues singer, and though they had several candidates in mind, it was Willie Mae Thornton who first took it into the studio on August 13, 1952. Big Mama, as she was known, growled that the songwriters were ‘a couple of kids,’ but the great bandleader Johnny Otis put her through her paces with several takes even as she tinkered with the lyrics, threw in a few suggestive howls, and changed the accent to make ‘Hound Dog’ wholly her own.”

– “‘Hound Dog’: An Old Dog That Keeps on Running,” Gregory McNamee, Britannica blog

Related:

“Mama’s Voice: The lasting influence of Willie Mae ‘Big Mama’ Thornton,” Maureen Mahon, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

“Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller,” Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

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Feline Spies

“Domestic house cats, it seems, may be alien sentinels—sent to spy on us and report their findings back to the mother ship. Or, as some theorists have put it, they’re like alien camcorders tracking our every move.”

– ”Are Cats Spies Sent by Aliens? A Deep Examination of One of the Internet’s Best Conspiracy Theories,” Austin Considine, Motherboard

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Image (“The Blogger and His Cat, After Edward Penfield”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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FBI Has Eyes on Bachmann

“The FBI is investigating complaints of alleged campaign finance violations in Rep. Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign.

Congressman Mark Sanford Sworn In

Disgraced Former Governor Mark Sanford, noted Republican adulterer, was sworn in as the representative of South Carolina’s First Congressional District on Tuesday. Mr. Defense of Marriage Act was accompanied by his paramour, the lovely María Belén Chapur of Argentina. We recognized her from earlier photos.

Low-Power Powerball

“Powerball at an estimated $600 million as jackpot continues to grow,” AP via Fox News

“Got THE ticket for tonight’s big Powerball drawing?,” CNN

Odds of winning: 1 in 175.2 million.

Odds of becoming president: 1 in 43,000,000.

Odds of being struck by lightning this year: 1 in 700,000.

The lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math, according to Ambrose Bierce, but it’s worse than that. It’s a tax on the hopes and dreams of the poor. The only way lottery corporations get away with it is by giving a kickback to state governments, a small cut of their vast profits.

UPDATE:

“$590M-plus Powerball: 1 winning ticket sold in Florida,” Barbara Rodriguez, AP via Boston Globe

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Image (“Investment Portfolio of the Working American”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Cell Phones & High Blood Pressure

The highlight of the 28th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Society of Hypertension this week was a study suggesting that mobile phone calls may raise your blood pressure. The study, conducted at Northern Italy’s Guglielmo da Saliceto Hospital, found that subjects talking on their telefonini had a significant rise in blood pressure, from 121/77 to 129/82. Frankly, we wonder if BP rose because subjects were irritated when their phone calls were interrupted by blood pressure tests.

More:

“New research shows what raises and lowers blood pressure: Cell phones, salt and saying om,” EurekaAlert

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Image (“Cell Phones & Blood Pressure, after Adriaen Brouwer”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Eastern Delights

“For six years, Rafat Shororo longed for the taste of a KFC sandwich he had eaten in Egypt. This week, he got his finger lickin’ fix at home in the Gaza Strip after a local delivery company managed to smuggle it from Egypt through underground tunnels.

‘It has been a dream, and this company has made my dream come true,’ says Mr. Shororo, an accountant, as he receives his order from the delivery guy.

The al-Yamama company advertises its unorthodox new fast-food smuggling service on Facebook. It gets tens of orders a week for KFC meals despite having to triple the price to 100 shekels ($30) to cover transportation and smuggling fees. The deliveries go from the fryers at the Al-Arish KFC joint 35 miles away to customers’ doorsteps in about three hours.”

– ”KFC smugglers bring buckets of chicken through Gaza tunnels,” Ahmed Aldabba, Christian Science Monitor

Also:

“Delivering KFC by Tunnel, Not Too Fast but Satisfying,” Fares Akram, New York Times

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Image (“Arabian Delights, after Ludwig Deutsch [detail]”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Newt Gingrich and His Pocket Communicator

Newt Gingrich, disgraced  former Speaker of the House and future Moon Colony Governor, is baffled by the nomenclature for his … pocket communicator device thingy. It’s a pager, a Personal Digital Assistant, a GPS, a Gameboy, an Email Appliance, a Walkman, a camera, and a can opener telephone, all in one — and it fits in your pocket!

Mr. Gingrich is the leading intellectual of the Republican Party and its chief (perhaps only) Futurist. So what should he call this miraculous machine?

Can the Feds Hear Your Phone Calls?

Did the government eavesdrop on Associated Press reporters? No. G-men subpoenaed the records of phone calls, the numbers of calls to and from AP reporters. Unsavory, but entirely legal. 

But is the Federal government capable of recording and listening to all your phone calls, or are we talking through our tinfoil hat? It’s your call:

“Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?” Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian

“Is the U.S. Government Recording and Saving All Domestic Telephone Calls?” Bruce Schneier, Schneier on Security

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Image by Mike Licht; download it free (no roaming charges!) here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht,NotionsCapital.com.

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Coffee

Coffee conquers Outer Space in this video Hyun Ji A.J. Bae, Janice Ahn, Yoon Sun Lee, and Zach Eastburg produced at Art Center College of Design.

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