Roger O Green

35th Annual Kennedy Center Honors

I have four or five solo albums by Robert Plant, his duos with Page and with Alison Krauss, and even a cassette of Plant’s group The Honeydrippers.

The television program I always watch between Christmas and New Years is the Kennedy Center Honors; it is generally quite entertaining. “The Honors recipients [are] recognized for their lifetime contributions to American culture through the performing arts-whether in music, dance, theater, opera, motion pictures, or television…” The event took place on Sunday, December 2. The Gala will be broadcast on CBS on December 26, 2012, at 9:00-11:00 p.m., ET/PT.

The awardees this year are Buddy Guy, Dustin Hoffman, David Letterman, Natalia Makarova, and Led Zeppelin.

I admit not knowing much about ballerina/choreographer Natalia Makarova.

The selection of talk show host David Letterman really surprised me. I like him well enough, but his gift just didn’t seem to be at the level of many of the past selections. Maybe it’s that it seems premature; in another decade. Maybe.

Historically, the choices tend to be people such as Buddy Guy, who is a blues pioneer. He has “been a tremendous influence on virtually everyone who’s picked up an electric guitar in the last half-century, including [Eric] Clapton, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Slash, ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and John Mayer.” Here he is playing Sweet Home Chicago. I have only two or three of his albums.

Speaking of Jimmy Page, I have a LOT of albums from Led Zeppelin: the first four albums, and some others, on vinyl; a box set on CD. Additionally, I have four or five solo albums by Robert Plant, his duos with Page and with Alison Krauss, and even a cassette of Plant’s group The Honeydrippers.

It’s Dustin Hoffman, though, who, like Buddy Guy, is the archetypical selection. A LONG career with a lot of success. Hoffman movies I’ve seen:
The Graduate, 1967 – the only one I saw on video, and only in the last four years; I’ve owned the soundtrack for decades.
Midnight Cowboy, 1969 – I saw this four times in the first year or so after its release. Has one of my favorite quotes: “I’m WALKING here!”
Lenny, 1974 – much of what I first knew of Lenny Bruce, i learned from this
All the President’s Men, 1976 – the Watergate film which gave me hope about a free press since dissipated
Kramer vs. Kramer, 1979 – the first “divorce movie” I recall
Tootsie, 1982 – apparently, Hoffman was a PITA making this film, which he poured into the Michael (pre-Tootsie)character
Death of a Salesman (TV movie), 1985 – first version of this I ever saw
Rain Man, 1988 – possibly Tom cruise’s best role, plus a great soundtrack
Wag the Dog, 1997 – a faux war made plausible
Finding Neverland, 2004
I Heart Huckabees, 2004 – did not love this
Meet the Fockers, 2004
Stranger Than Fiction, 2006 – definitely the best film I’ve seen that Will Farrell made

W is for When was the Earth born?

James Ussher “was a prolific scholar, who most famously published a chronology that purported to establish the time and date of the creation as the night preceding Sunday, 23 October 4004 BC

I had this rather awkward time recently. One of my nieces was over, and she and my daughter were reading a book about this young girl in England in the 19th century who had discovered some fossilized items. The book mentioned that the items were millions of years old. This didn’t make any sense to the niece, who believes the age of the earth can be measured in thousands of years.

There is a philosophy called Young Earth creationism, which is “the religious belief that the Universe, Earth, and all life on Earth were created by direct acts of the Abrahamic God during a relatively short period, sometime between 5,700 and 10,000 years ago.” The article notes that, as early as 160 A.D., this theory was established. The key basis of this theory is a literal interpretation of the Bible, and the dates therein.

What I find interesting is that while “support for a young Earth declined from the eighteenth century onwards with the development of the scientific revolution, and scientific paradigm shifts…the rise of fundamentalist Christianity at the start of the twentieth century saw a revival of interest in Young Earth creationism, as a part of the movement’s rejection of the explanation of evolution.” So the concept all but went away, then came back. I did not realize this philosophy had such deep roots.

Possibly the best known historical proponent of YEC was James Ussher (1581–1656), who was an Archbishop in Ireland for the last 30 years of his life. “He was a prolific scholar, who most famously published a chronology that purported to establish the time and date of the creation as the night preceding Sunday, 23 October 4004 BC, according to the proleptic Julian calendar.” Even I don’t agree with his results, I admire the hard work that had to have been necessary to compile it by hand.

I invite you, at your leisure, to read David E. Matson’s refutation of YEC in How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments? Plus this piece on the Big Bang Theory (no, not the comedy on CBS-TV). Generally, scientists believe the earth is about 4.5 billion years old, and the universe thrice that.

There is this struggle between biblical and scientific thought, something I just don’t understand. Any number of scientists feel that their study of the universe strengthens their belief in a Supreme Being, not diminishes it. While I believe in God, I don’t think it conflicts with a scientific explanation of Creation. Something along the lines of “God created the Big Bang.”

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

Friend Bill is 60

Carol, Lois, Karen and I all descended on Bill’s house.

Bill was one of my friends I’ve known since kindergarten at Daniel Dickinson. When we all walked home en masse, we stopped at his house first, since he was less than two blocks away. Actually, we stopped at the candy store across the street from his house, where I usually bought red shoestring licorice.

High school was full of cliques, but Bill was one of those people who got along with the jocks and the politically active freaks. Yet he was always able to be his own guy; I admired how he negotiated that. He was, unsurprisingly, senior class president.

A bunch of the Dickinson kids attended our 10th-year high school reunion, and it was actually quite a bust; i.e., boring as all get out. But some of the Dickinson kids decided to get together ourselves. Some months later Carol, Lois, Karen and I all descended on Bill’s house. We went shopping for food, stayed up all night talking and eating. It was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.

A short time later, I went to his wedding. Don’t remember the service, but I do recall the reception was in a chalet near here.

When we had our 32nd-year reunion(!), it was a better-organized event, or maybe I viewed it differently. Still, it was seeing Bill and the other Dickinson kids that made the trip worthwhile.

Bill and I don’t live that far away, yet fail to see each other that often. I took a train to New York City one time and ran into Bill. I’ve met him unexpectedly other times as well.

Happy birthday to friend Bill.

Another day, another mass shooting

After President Reagan was nearly assassinated in March 1981, there was a “commonsense” limit on assault weapons, but that law lapsed nearly a decade ago.

When I first heard about the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, it wasn’t until about noon on Friday, December 14, a couple of hours after the horrific event. After lunch, I spent about three hours listening to the online reporting, first on NBC News, then ABC News. I figured if I kept following it, perhaps I’d discover they’d gotten it wrong. And they had – it wasn’t 18 dead children, it was 20. The wrong brother was initially named as the shooter. The basic framework, though, remained terribly the same.

Sometimes, when people don’t like a piece of entertainment, they’ll say, “I threw up a little in my mouth.” A crude reference, I think. But, following this story, I literally DID.

My sorrow over the particulars of the story was made worse by the inevitable statements that we need to have a national “conversation” about gun control and mental health. Except that, for some, it’s not the right time; apparently, it’s NEVER the right time, because we’re always reeling from the last event. Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York said, correctly, “If now is not the time to have a serious discussion about gun control and the epidemic of gun violence plaguing our society, I don’t know when is.”

After President Reagan was nearly assassinated in March 1981, there was a “commonsense” limit on assault weapons, but that law lapsed nearly a decade ago. Even before then, we’ve ALWAYS been having “conversations” about these things; we TALKED after the 1999 Columbine, high school shootings in Colorado, and the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings, and the Arizona shootings last year, and the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooters this past summer.

The “conversation” after this latest event thus far is more of the same. Why are mass shootings becoming more common? Some say we should have MORE people carrying guns. Yeah, right, against a guy in a movie theater wearing body armor packing heat, in a dark theater, with smoke bombs; heard THAT argument rehashed Friday night on CNN. At least I didn’t hear anyone suggesting five-year-olds should be packing heat.

More noise: Mike Huckabee uselessly telling us that school “carnage” caused by having “removed God” from schools. Ultimately, I think the Onion got it right.

Here’s my position: the Second Amendment right to bear arms is no more absolute than the First Amendment right to free speech. One cannot yell “fire” into a crowded building; one ought not be able to fire into a crowded building.

I’m done talking about it. If we don’t DO something, I don’t want to listen to more of the same rhetoric when this happens the next time. And there WILL be a next time, with the number of guns in this country.

The one thing I’m still mulling over: how to tell my elementary school-age daughter. She’ll surely find out from her friends. I don’t want her to be afraid to go to school. How do I make her feel safe, even though I can’t promise her it couldn’t happen again?
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Newtown shooting: Names, profiles of the 27 people killed.

Happy memories of Newtown, from the town children’s librarian from 1994-1996.

SCOTUS and marriage equality

I’m expecting some mishmash decision by SCOTUS in the gay marriage case that no one will love.

As an old political science major and a bit of a US Supreme Court junkie, I’ve been musing over what it means that the high tribunal has decided to review two cases testing the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. “In agreeing to examine California’s Proposition 8 (Hollingsworth v. Perry) and the federal Defense of Marriage Act (Windsor v. the United States), the court has created a defining moment, not only for its own legacy but for the country as a whole.”

Got that right. But how will they decide? I think one has to look at the specific people represented in the cases, specifically 83-year-old Edith Windsor who moved to New York State 60 years ago. “Ms. Windsor… married her partner, Thea Spyer, in 2007 [in Canada] after a 40-year engagement. [She relishes] the court’s decision to hear her case, a challenge to the 1996 law, the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited the Internal Revenue Service from treating her as a surviving spouse after Ms. Spyer’s death in 2009, costing her more than $600,000 in state and federal estate taxes.”

The Court does not rule on abstractions. The Court will decide whether Edith Windsor has been inequitably treated by the laws of the United States and New York, denied equal protection due to all people within its jurisdiction; this would then be applicable to anyone in the same circumstances. The decision then is less about “gay marriage” as a concept, as much as whether someone in a same-sex union shall be afforded all the rights and privileges of a marriage between a man and a woman. I’ve heard bandied about that there are at least 1000 legal perks of being married, among them visitation rights to see a sick spouse in the hospital without having to draw up legal papers for that purpose.

The Proposition 8 case, merged with the Windsor case by the high court, has a more convoluted path to SCOTUS, with the surprising legal pairing of liberal attorney David Boies and conservative lawyer Ted Olson, who were on opposite sides in Bush v. Gore, on the same side, in favor of marriage equality.

The Court could vote to limit same-sex marriage. I seriously doubt it would overturn law in the nine states that have already decided to allow it, especially since three states – Maine, Maryland, and Washington – had voter-approved legalization in November 2012. And at least a plurality of Americans polled now support same-sex marriage. On the other hand, 30 states have constitutional bans against it. Pew has a great breakdown of the issue.

The Court could vote to overturn all same-sex marriage bans in the country. It would not be unprecedented: Loving v. Virginia (1967) not only negated laws against racially mixed marriages in Virginia but in more than a dozen other states. But this would be a radical move by a court that is quite conservative, not only from a political point of view but in temperament. Still, the Court tends to believe in precedent, and it has long determined that “marriage is one of the basic civil rights of man, fundamental to our very existence and survival.” It would be surprising, but not beyond belief, that the Court take this route.

I’m expecting some mishmash decision that would overturn the discrimination as it has been applied in the US tax law and other federal issues, and apply these as well to the states that have decided to allow for marriage equality, and including California, while leaving the other states to decide on it on their own timetable, something like Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is now advocating. I would not at all be surprised by a split decision, with three or four voting to support anti-gay marriage laws in the land, three or four voting to limit or eliminate the laws, and one or two (Kennedy, and maybe Roberts) coming up with some grand compromise that no one will love. One could assume that Scalia is in the former group, since he has recently defended comparing homosexuality to murder, and his political clone Thomas will likely vote the same.

I’d love to hear other opinions about what the Court might do.