Tonight, with election day rapidly approaching and early signs of pessimism threatening to create self-induced voter suppression, we march undaunted into the home stretch with a Liam Clancy classic about faith, hope, courage, and never giving up: here’s Home From the Sea.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.

Ya say yer man is trailing in some polls? Ya say it’s 4 AM and you’re waking up in a cold sweat imagining Justin Trudeau rolling his eyes and sighing as Putin takes Baffin Island? Ya say it’s all over, even though the only poll that counts hasn’t been taken yet? Is that’s what’s troubling ya, fellow?
Well, lift your head up high and never give up, never give up… that ship!
The comments are open for your tips.

In tonight’s amusement en route to the tips we continue our long-term strategy of relentlessly clobbering you with only the finest high-quality entertainment from around the globe: Here are the Kessler Sisters capering their way through Quando Quando.
I think we might be one Quando short there, but still.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.

In the emotionally harrowing documentaries 9/11: Phone Calls from the Towers and Voices from Inside the Towers, distraught and helpless people who knew they were speaking their last words can be heard, in one call after another, saying the only thing they needed to make clear to their nearest and dearest during their final goodbye.
In tonight’s tips music an emotional Mark Knopfler performs a song he was inspired to write after reading a column written by Ian McEwan four days after 9/11: here’s If This Is Goodbye.
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In tonight’s amusement en route to the tips a group of Norwegian bodybuilders find a way to break through that final plateau and get bigger.
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In tonight’s amusement en route to the tips we learn how to draw an Occupy Wall Street Protestor.
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In tonight’s passing amusement en route to the tips we watch two short Plymptoons in one pass: First, a couple of choice moments from “25 Ways to Quit Smoking”, and then a clip from How To Kiss.
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A good vocal duet isn’t always delivered in rhythmic unison; performances that sound for all the world like two strong-headed individuals making a case for their claim on the melody — this 1930 recording being a notable example — are the most entertaining.
Here’s another good one: brother and sister Inez & Charlie Foxx’s original 1963 recording of their own composition Mockingbird.
Pretty catchy!
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.

When SDA commenter Plainzfyre posted tonight’s video in the tips about a month ago, a fellow commenter — can’t remember who it was, sorry! — pointed out that the original version of this popular country music toe-tapper was in fact Australian, which might explain why it sounds so right with all those funny town names (“Birdsville, Emmaville, Wallaville, Cunnamulla…”).
Here are Australia’s bouncy Clabburn sisters, aka The Sunny Cowgirls, singing a sunny-side-up cover of the Aussie original I’ve Been Everywhere.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.

Tonight tips music, floating across the transatlantic ether like a sacrament from a cradle in northwestern Europe, has the Choir of the Diocese of Skara in Sweden performing a psalmic work written by the cathedral’s long-time, now former, organist Karl-Gustaf Gunneflo, called Huru ljuvliga äro icke dina boningar (“How lovely is your dwelling place”).
May it never be elegiac.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.

Tonight, a reprise presentation of The Idan Raichel Project’s exhilarating Back To Jerusalem.
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We got buffalo, deer, T-bone steaks, roots, fish, and fowl; wine and grapes, and figs and dates, and a Chamber of Commerce smile; liquid sunshine, legal moonshine, Reno, Frisco, Tahoe..
Man, you name it, if we ain’t got it…we’ll get it.
That’s what I like about the West.
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Tonight, finally, we break up with Guv.
Music returns tomorrow.
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Question: Does German Chancellor Angela Merkel seem ever so slightly unwell?
I don’t mean physically; it just seems like there’s something a bit off, like she’s losing her grip.

Gov will spend money on you. That’s why you love him.
You can pay later.
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Get undressed for Gov.
You love him.
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He’s only trying to protect you. That’s why you love Gov.
Part two of five.
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If you believe in a big benevolent government that’ll take care of everything, you’ll Love Gov. He’s there for you.
Part one of five.
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Because of the relative isolation and homogeneity of 1971-era New Zealand, tonight’s charming amusement en route to the tips might make you feel like you’re walking into a slightly strange dream, or in a time warp: Here are the Henry Rudolph Singers and Dancers singing and swaying their way through a quaint medley that opens with Knock Knock Who’s There.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.

In tonight’s entertainment en route to the tips John Fogerty and Jerry Lee Lewis team up for a rocking live performance of Good Golly Miss Molly. And by golly, it’s pretty darned good.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.