Sorry about the change up…..

My A/C has been replaced and the new one is working excellently….my wallet is a lot lighter….but Summer in the Deep South demands A/C……

I found a couple of reports that could be amusing as well as informative…..

These days I listen to no rock music…too boring….and country is out because it is NOT country at all…..and now see some else agrees with me on the future of rock.

Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner has a memoir (Like a Rolling Stone) coming out in a few days, and Maureen Dowd of the New York Times is out herself with a lengthy interview/profile/sneak peak that makes for entertaining reading. Up high, Wenner gives Dowd a not-so-optimistic assessment of the fate of rock music. “I’m sorry to see it go,” the 76-year-old Wenner says. “It’s not coming back. It’ll end up like jazz.” Also of note: Wenner says he doesn’t read his old magazine much in its current iteration under son Gus. “I don’t read that many magazines,” he adds. “It’s about people I’m not personally interested in. I don’t really care for K-pop. I don’t really know who Cardi B is.”

Wenner also contrasts his at-the-time controversial cover photo of a naked John Lennon with modern celebs doing much the same. “John Lennon being naked on the cover was a statement,” he says. “How would the most popular man in the world be willing to go out and be naked?” Lennon made himself vulnerable. “Now JLo goes out and it’s like, ‘I’m doing this to sell like hot cakes. I’m not doing this for a reason.'”

Wenner also offers his desert-island song picks (including “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” by Nina Simone and “Speedway at Nazareth” by Mark Knopfler) in the interview, which concludes with a “confirm or deny” segment. For example, “You slept with Mick Jagger,” says Dowd. Wenner: “Swishful thinking, as Bette Midler would say. I never slept with a rock star.” Read the full piece.

There is a report of a new ‘human traicking’ technique….cyber-scammers….

When the subject of human trafficking is raised, it’s common to think of people forced into sex work or perhaps grueling manual labor. But a story at ProPublica digs into human trafficking with a more modern bent—people forced to work as cyberscammers. In this case, the focus is on Chinese criminal syndicates that lure desperate people from China, Thailand, Vietnam, and elsewhere into taking “marketing” jobs that promise lucrative pay. The victims move onto compounds—a major hub is in Sihanoukville, Cambodia—where they soon discover the truth. They’re kept in prison-like conditions, subject to physical and verbal abuse, and forced to learn scripts to dupe victims in the US and elsewhere (language-translation software is used) to hand over their money in get-rich-quick schemes.

Worse, these workers quickly fall into debt to their employers and are told they can buy their freedom again for sums that are out of reach. Trouble-makers get sold to other outfits, with the price of their freedom increasing. The word “sold” is not an exaggeration. The story finds back channels on the Telegram network with chilling ads that read like Craigslist listings, if not for the details: “Selling a Chinese man in Sihanoukville just smuggled from China. 22 years old with ID card, typing very slow,” reads one ad, with a listed price of $10,000. Another reads, “Cambodia, Sihanoukville, six Bangladeshis, can type and speak English.” They read like “handbills in the days of American slavery,” writes Cezary Podkul. Read the full story, which details the “pig butchering” scams in play as well as the experience of one such trafficking victim who made it out.

Now is time for me to sit back and let cool air surround my body while listening to some good tunes and having Thai food.

I hope everyone’s Sunday is good and restful…..be well my friends….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”