June 15, 1987: Pet Shop Boys released the single ''It's a Sin''.
'When we brought out “It’s a Sin,” it was quite interesting, because people took it really seriously; the song was intended as a camp joke and it wasn’t something I consciously took very seriously. The local parish priest in Newcastle delivered a sermon on it, and reflected on how the Church changed from the promise of a ghastly hell to the message of love.'' - Neil Tennant
''I’ve become less religious as I’ve got older. Even when I wrote ''It’s a Sin'' part of me was probably still a Catholic. The thing that I always liked about Catholicism they got rid of! I liked the Latin and the incense and the sort of music and plainsong. When I was eight years old I could sing the Latin mass in plainsong because I was an altar boy.'' Neil Tennant
''When I first walked into a big gay disco, my first thought was, “This is like a Cathedral, this is like a Church.” The combination of this transcendent music, a lot of...
Send help......and a storage unit. He kept the m'fer a secret. Maybe I should come home with a pair of $1000 shoes.
Congratulation to @SGKusmertz, @bek1, and @wilbner. Your questions were chosen for tonight’s Ask Joe and the Panelists.
@SGKusmertz If you could have one song play when you enter a room, what would it be?
@bek1 Do you usually feel excited or stressed out about going back to school after summer break?
@wilbner What was the best prank you’ve ever pulled?
One more.
In 1957, a Russian immigrant published a novel of more than a thousand pages built around one question: what happens if the people who make the world run simply stop?
Its title is Atlas Shrugged. In France it's called La Grève, The Strike. It wasn't even translated into French until 2011. That tells you something.
This morning, I think Elon Musk wrote the sequel.
A. Where the book comes from.
Ayn Rand was born Alisa Rosenbaum in Saint Petersburg in 1905. As a teenager, she watched Bolshevik soldiers walk into her father's pharmacy and seize it in the name of the people. Her family lost everything. Not to a competitor. To a committee.
She fled to America in 1926 and spent the rest of her life writing about one distinction: those who create, and those who seize.
B. The story.
In Atlas Shrugged, America is sliding into decline. Not because of war. Because of rules. Year after year, a growing class of bureaucrats, regulators and planners decides that production must be controlled, shared "fairly," frozen. They never build anything....
