Comments
jelo 117 • July 28, 2025 8:08 PM
This story has a lot of parallels.
Clive Robinson • July 28, 2025 8:59 PM
Bruce and I are of nearly the same age, and it was around the time we were born that Tom started teaching mathematics at MIT in of all places
“The political science department.”
As a drafted soldier he was sent to work at the “Never Say Agency” and he later claimed he used “working on nukes” as a cover story…
But it was my father that sort of introduced me to Tom Lehrer when I was first “picking locks” at Junior School and doing other apparently weird things –for some one who was not even close to ten– that the teachers just scratched their heads over.
My father had a collection of records including 78’s that had what you might call comedy records.
More accurately amusing word play put to music.
The record of Tom Lehrer’s I remember the most and it’s the first of his I remember hearing was,
“Poisoning pigeons in the Park”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VR9Qm7IXpU8
I was quickly “word perfect” and can still sing it today (even though I sound like a grisly with a sore throat these days).
It was years later when at what we now call “secondary school” I kind of learned the periodic table with,
“The element song”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U2cfju6GTNs
It was unusual for Tom because he actually used the music from Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Major General” from “The Pirates of Penzance”. Which is kind of a “micky take” of educated military officers who know all about everything except how to be a military commander.
I must admit I was surprised when I heard the news of Tom’s death a few days ago. He made it to 97 which we say in the UK “is not a bad innings”. Oddly perhaps for someone so famous quite a bit of his life is unknown.
Any way having mentioned “Bruce” and philosophy earlier and as for some reason Python is a thing in the IT set… How about something in a somewhat less decorous form from the early 70’s, with Montey Python’s
“Bruce’s Philosophers Song”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l9SqQNgDrgg
(The Bruce’s were Python’s Aussie philosophy Dept from the University of Wool-on-a-loo — don’t ask 😉
David_in_Toronto • July 28, 2025 11:15 PM
I first encountered the works of Tom Lerher in Middle school. We used to stay at lunch and there was a shred listening station where you could play tapes and records and there were eight sets of headphones along a thin desk. Later I picked up the albums I could find. And book called Too many Songs by Tom Lerher with not enough drawings by Ron Searle. I also fondly remember listening to him on the Dr. Dimento show. And finally, saw Tomfoolery with an amazing (and exhausting looking) performance of The Elements with the singers doing small quick change sight gags for a lot of the element names.
Fascinating individual. Nothing escaped his razor wit, not the church, NASA, scouting, anything stuffy. He had a song about Harvard, may have scored him points with MIT.
Amazing that even with the paper declassified, nobody caught this. So on point that there was a joke left in store after he passed! (Until the next one, cue the theme from Jaws).
He’ll be missed.
ResearcherZero • August 1, 2025 5:50 AM
That time Russia pranked the Republican party, Democrats, the Murdoch press and the FBI.
‘https://www.deccanherald.com/world/clinton-plan-emails-were-likely-made-by-russian-spies-new-documents-show-3660396
Clinton “had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal” against Trump (claimed information obtained from Russian intelligence).
Buried further down it the Post’s story:
Durham concluded: “The Office’s best assessment is that the … emails that purport to be from Benardo were ultimately a composite of several emails that were obtained through Russian intelligence hacking of the U.S.-based Think Tanks, including the Open Society Foundations, the Carnegie Endowment, and others.”
An example of the stitched together story:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dni-brennan-notes-cia-memo-clinton
ResearcherZero • August 1, 2025 6:14 AM
@Yanis, @ALL
Failing to detect patterns has its advantages if you are being sued by Trump for a story that was published in the Wall Street Journal. Failing to print corrections also has its advantages for media publications that frequently post innuendo, rumor and hogwash.
No-one likes to look like a fool, or that they were fooled. Few politicians these days like to admit that they were fooled publicly (or knowingly printed bulls–t). We will not hear anyone admit that they were warned – long before the Russian disinformation campaign began. Not any of the Democrats, not any of the Republicans. Especially not the Murdoch press.
What will not be declassified is the warnings to Republicans and Democrats that Russia planned to play them off against one another. Which now looks obvious in retrospect.
ResearcherZero • August 1, 2025 6:41 AM
@Yanis
Now if politicians were publicly willing to admit they were fooled, said to journalists, “Ha, ha. You got me!” Or if they said, “The Russians got me good. I admit i was fooled,” perhaps we might take them more seriously. It would diffuse tension. We’d laugh. 😀
Others would admit they were wrong. The press might print a retraction. Diplomats might apologize to one another, hug and make up. A good joke would emerge and do the rounds.
We would all sigh with relief, take ourselves a little less seriously and decide not to shoot up the local mall. Assassinate the president. Fire the nuclear weapons. Kick the dog.
Not sabotage our futures because we were having a bad day, or do any of those silly things.
If we could achieve that – we might not choke on our own smug.
Subscribe to comments on this entry
Leave a comment
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.
Steve • July 28, 2025 5:44 PM
The story about how I came to appreciate Tom Lehrer is far too long and rambling to relate here but for a number of reasons “Lobachevsky” has always been my favorite song of his.
It led the to appreciate the beauty of both satire and mathematics, which, unfortunately, since I’m no good at either, I can only appreciate from afar.