Section 31: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-2024)

Simplex Edition | Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa!

Episode o' the Day
"The Assignment" (season five, episode five; 28 October 1996): Wikipedia-link.

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Mustard Plug, "Sadie May" from Evildoers Beware! (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: I do not recall precisely when I discovered Michigan's own Mustard Plug, but odds are I was not listening to 1997's Evildoers Beware! in 1999. This SKAugust is not about precisely the ska to which your humble narrator was listening in 1999, but the ska to which a hypothetical rude boy could have been listening in 1999.

Section 31: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-2024)

Commentary: In the three weeks since our last "Section 31" installment, I binged a pair of birthday gifts: the seventh & final season of The Venture Bros. & both seasons of Gravity Falls.

Episodes o' the Day
"Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places" (season five, episode three; 14 October 1996): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: The Lady Grilka returns, Quark's Klingon ex-wife from "The House of Quark" (season three, episode three). Grilka is on the starbase seeking Quark's help with the financial straits in which the Klingon war against the Federation has placed her house; Quarks lusts for Grilka, but doesn't know how to woo a Klingon lady; Worf is smitten with Grilka, but cannot pursue her because of his formal dishonor. Actor Michael Dorn, who played Worf, suggested adapting Cyrano de Bergerac for Star Trek. Worf & Dax help Quark win Grilka's favor, after which Jadzia throws herself at Worf, who had been too distracted by Grilka to recognize Jadzia's not-so-subtle pursuit of him.

"Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places" also features an embryonic romance between Major Kira & Chief O'Brien, brought together by Kira carrying the O'Briens' baby & residing in the O'Briens' quarters (since "Body Parts," season four, episode twenty-five). Keiko almost sends Miles & Nerys to one of the most romantic, secluded locations on Bajor, but Miles stays on the starbase & Nerys goes to visit Shakaar, her paramour, instead.

"Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places" is a very light episode, a bit of relief between the intense war stories in "The Ship" & "…Nor the Battle to the Strong."

&

"…Nor the Battle to the Strong" (season five, episode four; 21 October 1996): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: "…Nor the Battle to the Strong" is the Star Trek version of The Red Badge of Courage: Jake Sisko, overconfident from being on Deep Space 9 during multiple assaults, is shocked by the casualties from a Klingon attack on a Federation colony & abandons Doctor Bashir & runs away in a blind panic during an artillery barrage. There is a thoroughgoing exploration of war archetypes: gallows humor from the physicians & nurses, a Starfleet officer who shot himself in the foot with his phaser, a dying Starfleet chief who is disgusted by Jake's cowardice but demands his help to be propped up, so that the chief will die looking up at the sky, not with his face in the mud. Through Jake's writing, & the voiceover narration of such, the episode meditates on the thin line between courage & cowardice in combat.

The title, "…Nor the Battle to the Strong," is drawn from the Bible, the Book of Ecclesiastes, 9:11:

Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the men of skill; but time & chance happen to them all.

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

The Bruce Lee Band, "Gerry Is Strong" from The Bruce Lee Band (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: In 1999, romance left us shipwrecked & marooned, but friendship came to the rescue. In the crude parlance of the times, a phrase I never liked but the sentiment of which I always thought was fundamentally correct: Bros before hoes. Yet we'd each abandon our brothers times & time again in pursuit of some cute new doom.

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust!

The Aquabats!, "My Skateboard!" from The Fury of The Aquabats! (Captain Thumbs Up!)

Skammentary!: In 1999, we knew that romance led only to heartbreak & sadness, yet we all heard the siren song of cute girls & dutifully pursued our own doom.

"It's Friday night, I wanted to go out,
I didn't want to go to no show,
Didn't want to cruise Main Street,
I didn't want to go to no disco, no, no!
I just wanted you to come over,
Sit on my couch, and hold me tight,
But you went out with some dumb jock
And left me alone with my skateboard tonight!…"

Operation ÖSTERREICH: Saint Michael's Lent

Weekly Wednesday Weigh-in
Last weigh-in: 330.2 lbs. (12 June)

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Catch 22, "Kristina" from Keasbey Nights (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary:

"…Kristina, Kristina,
You'll never get to know who I am (Your loss!),
This is goodbye; so, please don't cry,
And I'll let you down as softly as I can.
Kristina, Kristina,
Another name to cross off my list,
In another life it could have been nice,
But Kristina, she won't know what she missed!"

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

"Weird Al" Yankovic, "Your Horoscope for Today" from Running with Scissors (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: Your humble narrator listened to "Your Horoscope for Today" in 1999, without realizing it's a ska song. I've gestured today this cognitive dissonance before, when "Your Horoscope for Today" was part of the SKAfter Party in 2018 & enjoyed the SKApril limelight in 2019, that I listened to Running with Scissors a lot in 1999, but mostly focused on "The Saga Begins" (I saw Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace nineteen times in theaters, including three times within the first twenty-four hours of release, & I regret nothing). I enjoyed "Weird Al" whole catelog for years before realizing that so many of his semingly random songs aren't random at all, they are style parodies—parodies of a whole genre or a particular musician's oeuvre—rather than individual song parodies. "Your Horoscope for Today" is a style parody of third-wave ska-punk, replete with syncopated guitar, toasting, & blaring horns.

The Explorers' Club, № MXLII

Operation AXIOM: Between the Wars—Hyperinflation, Epilogue
30 August 1924: The Reichsmark (ℛ︁ℳ︁) was introduced, replacing the Rentenmark (RM) at a ratio of 1:1, retaining the same exchange rate with the United States dollar ($), 4.2:1 ℛ︁ℳ︁ to $; Papiermark (ℳ) were exchangeable until July 1925 at a rate of 1,000,000,000,000:1 ℳ to ℛ︁ℳ︁; thus, Germany returned to the gold standard for the first time since the outbreak of the Weltkrieg in August 1914.

The Wayback Machine Tour of Hyperinflation
"The Explorers' Club," № DCCXXIII: From Goldmark to fiat currency Papiermark (Part I)
"The Explorers' Club," № DCCCXCII: Printing Papiermark to pay war reparations (Part II)
"The Explorers' Club," № CMXXVI: The French occupy the Ruhr over war reparations (Part III)
"The Explorers' Club," № CMLXXXVIII: An attempted French protectorate in the Ruhr (Part IV)
"The Explorers' Club," № CMXCIII: The Rentenmark replaced the hyperinflated Papiermark (Part V)
"The Explorers' Club," № MXL: The Dawes Plan ended the occupation of the Ruhr (Part VI)

Lest we forget.

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Potshot, "Radio" from Pots and Shots (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: As the turn of the millennium approached, we discovered more & more bands through Mike Park's Asian Man Records. As recently as the Sunday before last (11 August), an Exodus 90 brother expressed surprise at the phrase "Japanese ska." Yes, brother, the ska is worldwide.

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the XX Sunday in O.T.

The Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Audray Assad, "Receive" from the Death, Be Not Proud E.P. (Saint Mike Papa Whiskey)

Commentary:

"Faith is making plain the truth beneath the veil,
Faith supplying where our feeble sense fail.

"To the Father, to the Son,
And to the Spirit be
Blessing, honour, glory, power,
Might, and majesty!
It is God who we encounter,
It is God that we receive
From this altar, we do believe…

Word of God in flesh and blood, we're here for You,
Bread of life, the love of God, our heav'nly food…"

Bonus! Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Less Than Jake, "Dannys Says" from Hello Rockview (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: I turned nineteen years old, the same age as the eponymous Danny, in 1998, the year Hello Rockview debuted. In 1999, I turned twenty. I was, & still am, a late bloomer; so, I experienced much of the typical teenage angst, such as described in "Danny Says," in my twenties.

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "Someday I Suppose" from the Ska-Core, the Devil, and More E.P. (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary:

"There was a girl and I don't know her name either,
She gave me love and I said I'd never leave her,
If I did I'd come back someday and find her,
Maybe I will, I should write down a reminder.

"One day!
One day, who knows?
Someday!
Someday, I suppose.

"There was a verse that I was gonna write,
I haven't yet, but there's still a chance I might,
An open book that I still wanna close,
I'll find the time someday, I suppose.

"A place and time I wanna be and spend
A storyline that's happy in the end,
Plans are made with promises, so certainly uncertain,
I can't wait to set things straight before they close the curtain!

"One day!
One day, who knows?
Someday!
Someday, I suppose.

"The more I sort it out,
The more it gets distorted,
I sort of think I'm better off
Just leaving it unsorted.

"The more I try to change its course
The more off course it goes,
Of course I'll reach my destination
Someday, I suppose…"

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "Royal Oil" from Let's Face It (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: Don't do drugs, kids.

"When you smoke or poke the poison,
You lose the chance to be tomorrow (You lose the chance!),
Look out on the horizon (Look out!),
And see the sadness, the pain, and the sorrow.

"I can't say enough about the stuff
Or what it has in store,
When you smoke or poke the poison
You won't be anymore.

"Royal Oil, come on bubble and boil,
Stabs like dagger, make you stagger on a hot tin foil,
Mind your mind or it will surely spoil,
Then you sleep down in the soil,
Nothing comes from nothing, come on,
Royal Oil!…"

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

RX Bandits, "Gun In Your Hand" from Halway between Here & There (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: The RX Bandits' music had more of a social conscience than most third-wave ska-punk bands, & they didn't sound like anything else I was listening to in 1999. Ska was so new to me then, I didn't really know what "reggae" was. I certainly didn't know anything about the history of reggae growing out of rocksteady which grew out of the original ska.

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Rancid, "Time Bomb" from …And Out Come the Wolves (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: Your humble narrator wasn't listening to "Time Bomb" in 1999, but I could have, the single being released in 1995. I completely missed "Time Bomb" in the '90s, & in my meager understanding of the music scene at the turn of the millennium, I inappropriately put Rancid in a discrete category: punk band. (They are a punk band, to be sure, but also so much more.)

Operation ÖSTERREICH

Weekly Wednesday Weigh-in
Last weigh-in: 330.2 lbs. (12 June)

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

The Chinkees, "Human Race" from The Chinkees… Are Coming! (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: Discovering Mike Park's Asian Man Records was huge, opening up vast new frontiers of ska & punk music. I soon learned that Park wasn't just the owner of Asian Man, but also an active musician himself, fronting The Chinkees & the Bruce Lee Band, after his time in Skankin' Pickle; he would also later release solo albums under his own name.

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Dance Hall Crashers, "Whiskey & Gin" from Honey, I'm Homely! (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary:

"We sat there quietly, purposely ignoring the room,
He smiled wistfully, his shirt was dirty and torn,
Everlasting glances left open-ended chances,
But he stole my heart when he ordered a double for me.

"In the back room of the bar,
In the back room of the bar,
We made a great couple, me and him,
'Cause I drink whiskey, but he only ever drinks gin,
Well, that's the way it is with him…"

The Explorers' Club, № MXLI

The Space Race—Astronaut Group 3 (the "Fourteen"), Part VIII
Ronnie Walter Cunningham (16 March 1932-3 January 2023), Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve—He flew Apollo 7 (1968), one of two Lunar Module Pilots to fly without a Lunar Module; he was only a dissertation short of earning his doctorate in physics; he served as chief astronaut of the Skylab branch of N.A.S.A.'s Flight Crew Directorate; his astronaut memoir was titled, The All-American Boys.

Commentary: Deke Slayton submitted thirteen names to N.A.S.A. brass for Astronaut Group 3. Max Faget, the designer of the Mercury capsule & Director of Engineering & Development at the Manned Spacecraft Center, objected on the grounds of triskaidekaphobia. Cunningham's name was fourteenth on Slayton's list; Walt was the seventh member of the "Fourteen" to fly in space.

In Apollo 7 pre-flight publicity, CDR Wally Schirra, L.M.P. Walt Cunningham, & C.M.P. Donn Eisele were referred to as "Wally, Walt, & What's His Name."

Bonus! Space Race Song o' the Day: The "Fourteen"—Walt Cunningham
Sufjan Stevens, "Particle Physics" from the Silver & Gold compilation (Space Cadet Mike Papa DSKY)

The Wayback Machine Tour of Walt Cunningham
"The Explorers' Club," № DCCLXXVI: The 52nd Anniversary of Apollo 7, Part I
"The Explorers' Club," № DCCLXXVII: The 52nd Anniversary of Apollo 7, Part II
"The Explorers' Club," № DCCLXXVIII: The 52nd Anniversary of Apollo 7, Part III

Requiescat in pace.

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the XIX Sunday in O.T.

The Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
The Daughters of Mary, "Tantum ergo" from De Profundis (Saint Mike Papa Whiskey)

The Explorers' Club Special: August 1914

Operation AXIOM: The World War
I read Barbara Tuchman's far-famed The Guns of August in the 1990s, when I was a bookish teenage boy. I briefly considered re-reading it ahead of the Great War centenary, but did not end up doing so. August 1914 is when the fighting started, when the crisis precipitated by the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian heir presumptive by a Serbian nationalist in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo broke out into open warfare between British & German soldiers in Belgium. I highly recommend The Guns of August to anyone who appreciates "The Explorers' Club's" retrospective on the centenary of the World War & wants to understand better the tangled web of international alliances & secret treaties that turned the outbreak of the war into a global conflagration, a cultural suicide attempt that still haunts us in the West.

The Wayback Machine Tour of the World War: August 1914
"The Explorers' Club," № CDIV: Declarations of War, 1914
"The Explorers' Club," № CDVII: The Battle of Mons (Western Front)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDVIII: The Battle of Tannenburg (Eastern Front)

Lest we forget.

Bonus! Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Edna's Goldfish, "Veronica Sawyer" from The Elements of Transition (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary:

"Looking out my window,
Nothing to do but to drive in circles,
Well, I don't want to have to go home tonight.
Up and down the boulevard,
How did I survive in suburbia
When there's nothing to do
And they take away what I love to do the most? Yeah!

"Friday night, you're not gonna get it,
Saturday, you try to give me one more,
Sunday morning,
Just waiting for the afternoon so I can be a kid again…"

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Goldfinger, "Superman" from Hang-Ups (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: "Superman" was released in 1997, on Hang-Ups, but achieved a new & greater level of popularity in 1999 as part of the sopundtrack for the video game, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Save Ferris, "Spam" from It Means Everything (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary:

"To get me to eat it at dinner,
They said id grow up like Bruce Jenner,
He was a winner that never knew defeat,
And when he got hungry,
When he got hungry,
He'd crack open that special treat!

"Oh, it was Spam!
Its pink and its oval, Spam!
I buy it at the Mobil, Spam!
its made in chernobyl, Spam!…"

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Slow Gherkin, "Shed Some Skin" from Shed Some Skin (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: "Shed Some Skin" is a very wordy song, including a reference to "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" & the longstanding definition of the word "gay." But what I find so compelling about it is the driving rhythm of the electric organ & the blaring horns.

"I saw what's wrong but I didn't see how,
I saw, I saw we're all grown up now…

"And my breathing constricts,
I feel the walls closing in,
Could it be that finally we're all
Shedding some skin?"

The Explorers' Club, № MXL

Operation AXIOM: Between the Wars—Hyperinflation, Part VI
1 September 1924: The Dawes Plan restructured & rationalized Germany's reparations payments, gave massive loans to the Reichsbank (the central bank) to stabilize the economy after hyperinflation & guarantee the new reparations schedule, & ended French & Begian occupation of the Ruhr region; the loans kicked off the "Golden Twenties" (Goldene Zwanziger), five years of prosperity in Germany.

Commentary: Charles G. Dawes, namesake of the committee of the Allied Reparations Commission that devised the Dawes Plan, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1925, & served as Vice President of the United States under Calvin Coolidge from 1925-1929.

In the Ruhr, local control was returned to the Germans on 3 September 1924, though the last French troops would not be fully withdrawn for almost a year, 25 August 1925.

Lest we forget.

Operation ÖSTERREICH

Weekly Wednesday Weigh-in
Last weigh-in: 330.2 lbs. (12 June)

Bonus! Lied von ÖSTERREICH
Operation Ivy, "Healthy Body" from the Operation Ivy compilation (Rude Boy Mike Papa Walrus)

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Mustard Plug, "Lolita" from Pray for Mojo (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: I turned twenty years old in 1999; so, there was nothing wrong with my attraction to eighteen-, nineteen-, & twenty-something-year-old rude girls. "Lolita" is about something else entirely. But let's overlook the creepiness for now & just appreciate it as a catchy & peppy song.

"Lolita,
I wanna meet ya,
I wanna take you in my arms and squeeze ya,
'Cause you amaze me,
Ya really slay me,
And every touch just drives me crazy.

"But the world won't accept the way I feel,
And the man says that our love ain't real.
If only our hearts, they could only see,
But today our love can never be…"

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Less Than Jake, "History of a Boring Town" from Less Than Jake (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: I treasure "History of a Boring Town," even though I never thought I'd be the first to go, & I quite like living a boring life in a boring town.

"She just got a new job, but she doubts it will last;
So, let's take a drink and never think, yeah, here's to the past.
She said it's so funny how life runs out so fast,
It's just another wasted day!

"A boring life in a boring town,
With the same old crowd,
And I used to say that I'd never stay,
But I'm rotting here today,
With that same old crowd,
That's always been around,
And I always thought I'd be the first to go…"

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

The Hippos, "Celebrate" from Forget the World (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary:

"So go out and get with any guy you find,
(Every day I grow farther from you,)
Don't come crawling back when we get signed,
Don't you think that I found something new?
I'm finished with you.

"I celebrate, I celebrate,
My days of hate, my days of hate,
'Cause now I see that you're nothing to me…"

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the XVIII Sunday in O.T.

The Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
The Daughters of Mary, "O salutaris hostia" from De Profundis (Saint Mike Papa Whiskey)

Bonus! Song o' the Day: SKAugust!

The Aquabats!, "Super Rad!" from The Fury of The Aquabats! (Captain Thumbs Up!)

Skammentary:

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Reel Big Fish, "The Kids Don't Like It" from Why Do They Rock So Hard? (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: 1999 was a seminal year, but also an ominous year. The Third Wave of ska had crested & was receding: In 1999, The Aquabats! released The Aquabats! vs. the Floating Eye of Death… & The Hippos released Heads Are Gonna Roll, both bands moving away from their ska sound. Just two years after my introduction to ska & the very year after Reel Big Fish released Why Do They Rock So Hard? & Less Than Jake released Hello Rockview, ska-punk was on the wane.

"Don't you know we tried to do something new?
It may sound real good, but I don't think were getting through!
Because the kids don't like it! (No, no!)
The kids don't like it! (No, no, no!)
The kids don't like it, no, they don't like it at all!
I said, the kids don't like it! (No, no!)
The kids dont like it! (No, no, no!)
The kids don't like it, no, they don't like it at all anymore…"

Section 31: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-2024)

Episode o' the Day
"The Ship" (season five, episode two; 7 October 1996): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: "The Ship" is the one hundredth episode of Deep Space Nine. Cheers!

Sisko & a small crew are trapped inside a crashed Jem'Hadar warship by a troop of Jem'Hadar & their Vorta, sent to retrieve the ship, or more specifically something of unparalleled worth inside the wreck. The "redshirt" alongside Sisko, Dax, O'Brien, & Worf is a gold-shirted engineer (red-shirted in the T.O.S. schema) named Muñiz, who was wounded by a blast from a Jem'Hadar weapon in the initial assault & slowly dies through the rest of the episode. O'Brien & Worf quarrel over Muñiz, the human arguing that his subordinate should be encouraged & reassured about hsi survival while the Klingon believes the engineer should resign himself to his fate & prepare for death; as with the best disagreements, there is validity to both positions. The drama is heightened because Muñiz isn't just a "redshirt," but a recurring character, first introduced in "Starship Down" & then returned in "Hard Time" (season four, episodes seven & nineteen, respectively).

Sisko & the Vorta, Kilana, attempt to negotiate an end to the standoff, but neither negotiates in good faith, distrusting the motives of the other. Sisko wanted only the ship, & for the safe return of his crew to the station; Kilana was willing to let him keep the ship, if only he would allow her to rescue to wounded Founder hidden within. In the end, because Sisko won't allow Kilana to search the ship & Kilana won't tell Sisko what she's seeking, Muñiz dies, the Founder dies, & the Jem'Hadar commit suicide over having failed their god; Kilana retrieves a portion of the Founder's remains to return to the Dominion & the Defiant rescues the Starfleet surviviors & tractors the shp back to Deep Space 9.

The salvaged ship, returned to flightworthiness, will be seen again in "A Time to Stand" (season six, episode one).

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

MU330, "Vow Vow" from MU330 (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: 1999 was a seminal year. I attended my first ska show in February '99: Reel Big Fish at Clutch Cargo's in Pontiac; one of the opening bands that night was MU330, which my kith & I still account the best opening-act find of all time. I began to realize there was more ska than I had previously imagined; there were myriad bands & songs yet to discover! These were the halycon days.

Section 31: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-2024)

Simplex Edition | Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa!

Episode o' the Day
"Apocalypse Rising" (season five, episode one; 30 September 1996): Wikipedia-link.

Saints + Scripture

Simplex Edition | Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa!

Saints of the Day
'Tis the Memorial of Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop & Doctor of the Church, C.Ss.R. (1696-1787), Bishop of Sant'Agata de' Goti & founder of the Redemptorists (C.Ss.R.), formally the Congregation of the Most Holt Redeemer.

Commentary: Wayback Machine '21 & Wayback Machine '19.

'Tis the Thursday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time (Tempus per annum, "time through the year"): Wikipedia-link.

Saint Quote o' the Day

"Acquire the habit of speaking to God as if you were alone with Him, familiarly & with confidence & love, as to the dearest & most loving of friends."
—Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church (1696-1787, feast: 1 August)

The Rebel Black Dot Song o' the Day: SKAugust

Spring Heeled Jack, "Mass Appeal Madness" from Songs from Suburbia (Rude Boy Mike Papa Whiskey)

Skammentary: Welcome to SKAugust 2024! Grab your tooth brush, pack up the tour van, & let's go.

This year, 1999 enjoys the limelight. Yes, 1999, which quite to my astonishment was a quarter of a century ago. Over the next thirty-one days, we'll highlight the music to which we ska kids were listening in 1999, not strictly August 1999 but anything that was released before Y2K, by 11:59 P.M. on 31 December 1999.

"We've been gone for so long
That it doesn't really matter where we're going to,
There's no looking back,
I know I should be strong,
But my heart isn't in it
And I don't know my limit,
So all I can do is move on…"