The front page story in Saturday’s local newspaper was “E. coli threat grows in area”. The subhead notes that “stores, eateries remove spinach.” Guess what I had for lunch on Friday? A spinach salad. I gather I’m OK, but it is a bit disconcerting, to say the least.
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My wife got a video called The Wheels on the Bus for Lydia to watch. It’s a live action plus puppetry production. It was OK for that type of thing. My favorite song was when the dragon bus driver sang “Fill It Up”, a bluesy/R&B-type tune. I happen to catch the credits and diascovered that while the dragon was operated by an actor, the voice of the dragon was provided by Roger Daltry, the lead singer for the Who. He even appears on the “making of” segment. BTW, the Who – is it still a band with two members? – will have a new album out next month, their first in 23 years.
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I went to Larkfest on Saturday. Sorry, now that it’s celebrating its 25th year, it’s now LARKfest. So, THAT’S what Everclear sounds like. I’d heard them before, but must admit that I wouldn’t have been able to pick out one of their songs. At the event, I saw a girl of about 10 point out to her father some buttons that she wanted to buy. He seemed inclined until he realized they were (GAY) PRIDE buttons. He hemmed and hawed, but I don’t know howe the story ended. A real Harold Pinter moment.
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I was reading GP as usual last week. He wrote about national leaders and others who might need some lovin’. Somehow, when I read “Lucy van Pelt”, I practically did a spit take, mostly because it’s SO true. Go read it.
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As a regular viewer of Gilmore Girls, I was interested to see if Luke Danes’ predictition of a much poorer season for outfielder Johnny Damon, when he went from being a hirsute Red Sox to a clean-shaven Yankee, because he’d lose the fear factor. Well, he’s hitting for about 20 points less, but is showing far more power, with 22 HRs to date vs. 10 last season, so I think it’s a wash.
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Only 13% of the registered Democrats voted in the primary that re-nominated Hillary Clinton to run for U.S. Senate, but only 5.5% of all Republicans voted in the primary to pick the Republican, an all-time low for a major party primary in NYS. Add to that the fact that the winner, John Spencer, the former mayor of Yonkers, had had an affair with his secretary, and this compelled Jay Leno to note that this is the first time a Clinton is the “family-values candidate.”
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Isn’t it peculiar that the big issue in the second term of the Clinton administration was “What is sex?”, whereas with the second term of the current administration, the issue is “What is torture?” I’m inclined to believe Colin Powell, et al. on this one. An interesting thing Sam Donalson said on ABC’s This Week was that National Security Asdvisor Stephen Hadley, who was on the show yesterday, made a rational-sounding argument for the administration’s position, but that the President, in attacking Powell and others, seemed a bit crazed. Now that he mentions it, yes, the President did seem a little out of control.
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Did anyone out there actually watch that controversial ABC-TV movie, “The Path to 9/11”? I’ve recorded it. My favorite riff on it comes from here.
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The Manchurian Candidate, the 1962 original version of the movie with Frank Sinatra, is on TCM Saturday night. I will have to record this to watch later. I saw the remake a couple years ago with Denzel Washington, but every critic I’ve read said it does hold a candle to the older film.
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I had a “Eureka!” moment about my wife and me this weekend. When she said to me, “Did I tell you I have a workshop Tuuesday and Wednesday from 3:30 to 5:30?” , I thought that I was annoyed because I would have to take off precious vacation time to pick up Lydia. (I generally drop Lydia off during the school year, and Carol picks her up.) In fact, that was only a minor part of it. It was that she never actually said, or preferably led with, “I need you to pick up Lydia,” but instead spoke with indirectness. She MEANS, “I can’t pick up Lydia. You need to pick up Lydia,” but did not actually SAY that. I told her I would prefer, “I need you to pick up Lydia Tuesday and Wednesday, because I have a workshop those days from 3:30 until 5:30.” If she’s making the request, I don’t want to do the heavy lifting of discerning what the request is. On the other hand, I DO like to pick up Lydia every once in a while, because she gets so excited to see me.
I note this so that, in the future, you’ll know that I like the direct message a LOT more than the “What dioes he/she mean by that?” message.
Author: Roger
I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.
I Do the Math
I like math – well, arithmetic, geometry, algebra. Calculus I didn’t quite get. I was reading about the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), specifically, the average mathematics scale scores of eighth-grade students, by country: 2003, where U.S. kids finished 15th of about 44 nations. This has led to a new found popularity of something called Singapore Math; Singapore was one of those countries that whipped our butts in this category. Don’t pretend that I fully understand it any better than the way I learned it.
Anyway, Lefty asked recently when was the last time we used algebra. On Wednesday, I was eating my Cheerios with bran flakes, which meets my cereal blending criteria, and I was looking at my 2% milk. (Normally, I use 1%, but all of it at the store had short expiration dates.) On the container, it read “38% less milkfat than whole milk”. So, it got me to wondering: how much milkfat does whole milk have? And can I figure it out algebraically?
So my ratios are 62 (100-38) is to 100 as 2 is to what? 62/100=2/x. 62x=200. x=3.226. Then, I had to check it here, where I found out that the milkfat content of whole milk must be a minimum of 3.25%. 3.226, 3.25. Pretty close, yes.
Math is fun. Seriously fun. Keeps the mind sharp.
Oh, and I was listening to the soundtrack of the musical Rent recently, where I first discovered that there are 525,600 minutes in a year. But what about leap years? Well, that’s 527,040 minutes, but I expect the scantion of that lyric wouldn’t really fly.
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On Friday, gas was $2.839 at the Mobil station I pass daily. Two years ago, people would have screamed the lines from another musical I was listening to recently, Oklahoma: It’s a scandal! It’s a outrage! Now, it’s just a relief.
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Right now there’s a vote to determine what design we’ll get for our Christmas card at work. As of yesterday, the vote was 4 for design A, 4 for design B, and 1 (me) for design C, with at least 4 more to vote. If it remains tied, then choice C will be thrown out, and I’ll get to decide. Yet another (if imperfect) example of Instant-runoff voting (IRV).
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The population clock at the Census Bureau website will hit 300,000,000 Americans next month.
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Speaking of numbers, both Brooklyn Dodger great Duke Snider and James Lipton, my favorite sycophant from Inside the Actors Studio, both turn 80 tomorrow, coincidentally the age my father would have turned later this month. Hall of Famer Snider was immortalized in the Terry Cashman song, Talkin’ Baseball, well, at least a few versions thereof. Recently, I saw Lipton’s interview with Dustin Hoffman, which reminded me why I used to actually watch that show before Lipton started picking people such as J Lo: an actor talking passionately about the craft of acting.
Tommy Lee and Oliver W. QUESTIONS
It turns out that both Tommy Lee Jones and Oliver Stone both turned 60 yesterday. Jones has has appeared in two of Stone’s films, JFK (which our group of friends at the time called jif-ka) and Natural Born Killers. So what I’d like to know is what films have you seen of theirs and what you felt about them, which ones do you still want to see, and which ones will you never see. (This is not a complete list.)
For me:
JONES
A Prairie Home Companion (2006) want to see
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) want to see
Space Cowboys (2000) saw, OK entertainment
Men in Black (1997) saw, OK, didn’t need to zee the sequel
Batman Forever (1995) saw, but have only vague recollection of
Cobb (1994) want to see
Natural Born Killers (1994) will not see
The Client (1994) OK entertainment
The Fugitive (1993) liked quite a bit, yet had no need to see the sequel, U.S. Marshals
JFK (1991) sure it’s a paranoid’s delight, but I enjoyed it
“Lonesome Dove” (1989) (mini) TV Series feel like I OUGHT to see this
The Executioner’s Song (1982) (TV) he played Gary Mark Gilmore, and I must have seen it, but I’m not remembering
Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980) want to see
STONE
World Trade Center (2006) probably will see at some point, but not any time soon
Alexander (2004) no interest
Nixon (1995) made me feel sorry for Thelma Ryan
Natural Born Killers (1994) nah
The Joy Luck Club (1993) (executive producer) recall enjoying it, and strangely, relating to it
JFK (1991) yes
The Doors (1991) I should rent this
Reversal of Fortune (1990) (producer) I recall this as a good, if chilling, film
Born on the Fourth of July (1989) I enjoyed most of it
Wall Street (1987) I MUST SEE THIS MOVIE
Platoon (1986) DITTO
Scarface (1983) (screenplay) I’ve actually tried to watch this, but Pacino’s SO over the top
Conan the Barbarian (1982) (screenplay) nah
Midnight Express (1978) (screenplay) scary
Conflicting Principles: It’s NOT the Cookies
This is why I like blogging: I never know where it will take me. I write some heartfelt piece and get no response. Then I find some junk e-mail, post it, and get a half dozen responses.
Similarly, I wrote my 9/11 piece and expected that SOMEONE would complain about my plan to remove bin Laden from the FBI 10 Most Wanted list; no response. The point that became most a point of conversation was about donating blood.
When GayProf noted that, correctly, that gay men cannot donate, (well, only the ones who’ve been sexually active since 1977 can’t), it was an irritating surprise to some readers. It was a surprise to my wife, when I mentioned it to her. If you are a man who has donated blood regularly since 1985, when the prohibition took hold, and the vast majority of the 116 pints I’ve donated have been since then, you’d be quite familiar with the ever-changing donor deferral questions, which include, “Have you had sex even once with a man since 1977?”, an affirmative answer to which means permanent deferral.
But, why?
Should gay men be allowed to donate blood? And, Is the ban on using gay men’s blood homophobic? After reading lots of material, I believe the answer is yes.
Look at any Red Cross literature about donating, and you’ll find that only about 5% of the eligible population donates regularly. Some people are too busy, too queasy, too ill, or weigh under 110 pounds. Others don’t because of various restrictions involved with living overseas for extended periods; these include Sub-Saharan Africa (concern about AIDS), and Europe, especially Great Britain (mad cow). An avowed vegetarian who has spent five years in Europe since 1980 is permanently banned, which I think is just silly. So, the need is great, but some people, including gay men, aren’t allowed, even when they want to, even when they may have a rare blood type that could save a life.
I had thought the ban on using the blood of gay men was just based on a consensus of the scientific community. I was wrong. (It happens twice a year; this was the other time.) When the FDA met in September 2000 to decide whether to continue a ban on gay men donating blood that it imposed in 1985, the vote was 7 to 6, with 5 absent. I was struck by this article, which includes: “Dr. F. Blaine Hollinger, Chair of the FDA Blood Products Advisory Committee said, however: “Personally, I’m very open to a change. It’s discriminatory. We have to see all the data first. If it can be done without changing the safety of the blood supply, it ought to be done.”
More recently, several newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times on June 15, 2006 have editorialized in favor of letting gay men donate blood.
So what to do? Sign an online petition? I’m not much on the efficacy of online petitions. There are some examples, including this one suggesting that gay men just lie about their sexual orientation, though not about their HIV/AIDS status. I’m not hot on lying, though I truly understand the mindset.
Maybe somehow put pressure on the FDA? Even if we could, and “even if FDA decided to modify its policy, the [American Red Cross] can always undercut it by maintaining its own, stricter policy.”
If gay men were allowed to donate, one of the unfortunate side effects, I’m afraid, would be the increase in autologous blood transfusions. Attitudes change slowly.
So, what to do? Not donating doesn’t seem to be the right thing, as it does save lives. Besides which, I donate, at least in part, for a purely selfish reason: I have been long convinced that donating blood is a healthy habit for me. Why do women outlive men? Is it because they menstruate? Why is there such a spike in cardio-vascular incidents in post-menopausal women? I’m convinced that donating blood will keep me alive longer, so I’m disinclined to give it up.
But how DO I address something that I’ve become convinced is an inequity? (I mean, besides blogging about it?)
Getting It Right in the Media
Almost everyone I know has said, when they’ve been in the newspaper, some detail is just wrong. To the degree I can, I try to correct things I read that are factually wrong, on the theory that the misinformation will be repeated. A newspaper columnist, about five years ago, suggested that the term “dramedy” came into being with Ally McBeal, circa 1997. I showed him several articles that proved that the term was in use at least a decade earlier in reference to shows such as Frank’s Place, Hooperman, and The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd. Yet he never corrected it in his column, then made the SAME mistake, probably quoting himself, a couple years later. Of course, I corrected him yet again, he acknowledged it yet again, but did not print a correction.
When I was visiting my in-laws on Labor Day weekend, I saw a story about Bob Dylan playing in Cooperstown. The sentence that jumped out at me was this: “With virtuosity that showed her classical and jazz roots, this fiddler who changed her name from Elana Fremerman to James last year showed why she is the first woman star ever to tour with Dylan.” First woman star ever to tour with Dylan? Where did THAT come from? I found a couple articles indicating that Elena James was the first woman instrumentalist to play with Dylan in 30 years, but that Joan Baez had “starred” with Dylan. I received this reply: “Thank you for the information about women instrumentalists who have toured with Bob Dylan. The newspaper will correct its original story.” I assume they did, but the ONLINE story remains unchanged. Sigh.
Conversely, a nice story about some folks who keep score at the Oneonta Tigers games, including this guy Walt, who I’ve seen at the games, and my father-in-law, from that same week as the Dylan story, is not in the archives at all. Sigh again.
My friend ASP (that’s her acronym, not a reference to her character) sent me a link about Beatles Album Covers Made Into Stamps. Here’s the entire AP piece:
LONDON (AP) – The Royal Mail is saluting the Beatles in January by releasing six commemorative stamps illustrated with memorable album covers.
The set includes ran image of “With the Beatles,” released in 1963, which was the group’s second album. In the United States, it was the first Beatles album to be released and was titled “Meet the Beatles.”
Others in the series include “Help!” (1965), “Revolver” (1966), “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (1967), “Abbey Road” (1969) and “Let It Be” (1970).
There are two factual errors in the middle paragraph. “Meet the Beatles” was NOT the first Beatles album released in the United States, “Introducing the Beatles”, on Vee-Jay Records was. “Meet the Beatles” was the first Capitol Records album, and it was the album that helped propel them to stardom in the U.S.
Also, the tracks on “Meet the Beatles” are NOT the same as “With the Beatles”. While they share the same cover photo, and nine songs, “Meet the Beatles” contains the single “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, its U.S. B-side “This Boy” and its U.K. B-side, “I Saw Her Standing There”, also found on the British album “Please Please Me”; none are on “With the Beatles”. Conversely, “With the Beatles” contains five non-Lennon/McCartney songs that end up appearing on “The Beatles’ Second Album” in the U.S.
I wrote that info to them, but then I discovered I had to register, and was too lazy to pursue it further, except that the local paper, the Times Union, picked up the story verbatim; I let them know about the errors.
Some stories you wonder about in terms of tone. The local story, Spirited couple set sights on church revival, had a picture so poor, especially as printed in the paper, that I didn’t recognize that this story was about MY CHURCH and our new co-pastors. Moreover, the headline, more than the story itself, suggests that the church has been in a sorry state; or maybe, that’s just my inference. Since that was just a matter of tone, and I actually liked the article, I made no comment.
Now, here’s some information that my colleagues who have visited China swear is true, and they had the hangovers to prove it.