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.

The Lydster, Part 97: One Surprise After Another

The Daughter always seemed to have far fewer birthday parties with her friends than most of her classmates. Oh, there would be the gatherings with family, including her maternal grandparents, and usually a pair of her cousins and an uncle and aunt. But it has been unbalanced. Once a couple of years ago, we did a party at the State Museum with her friends, but that was it.

She indicated a few months ago that she wanted a surprise party; not sure why. But we decided to make it so. First, we had a little gathering the weekend before her birthday with her mom, dad, and grandparents, so she didn’t think we’d blown her off. Then we rented a room at the local bowling alley for a few hours.

The morning of the party, I put together the gift bags for the children attending, distracted the Daughter while her mother sneaked the cake she made out of the house, got her dressed, and so forth.

I also got her to help clean the house based on the rumor that Grandma and Grandma might be staying over. That was actually unlikely, but it was possible that her other uncle/aunt/cousin from southern Pennsylvania, might be staying over.

About a half-hour before showtime, we tell the Daughter we are going bowling, so she’d be wearing socks. As we walked into the room, and people yell “Surprise”, she’s confused and a little frightened; she sees some unfamiliar people, a couple of siblings and parents of her friends, who she does not know. But soon, she has sussed out that this is the surprise party she had requested and smiled broadly.

The kids, and some of the parents, bowled for an hour. Then we had pizza (quite good, actually), cake that the Wife made, plus supplied ice cream. The time was too short to actually open presents, though (or we planned it not so well.) All of my wife’s family went over to our house.

You may recall that the TV set died last month. Well, this was the next day, and my two brothers-in-law said they’d take me shopping – two shopping trips in two weekends, which was unprecedented for me. At least this one was singular in focus. Went to Radio Shack, which had TVs either too large or way too small. Then to Green Furniture – the running joke was that it was my cousin’s place – but they’re out of the TV business. Eventually, we make it to BJ’s Wholesale; one brother-in-law has a membership. We need something that will fit into a 29″ wide and 18″ high space, and we find something. The old TV had a tube; this TV, the screen part was thinner than a sturdy book.

Oh, and that brother-in-law decided that, instead of him paying for the adults bowling (which he had offered), and for his share of the dinner (previously agreed to), he’d just pay for the TV and call it even, or part of MY birthday present! In any case, an unexpected turn of events.

The family gathered for dinner, after which there was a second surprise party, for Lydia’s grandma, who was turning a certain age divisible by five. Among her presents, a certain number of wishes, written by her four granddaughters. Eventually, one of Carol’s brothers and his family returned home; the other brother and his family, with the longer trip, went to his parents’ house.

A glorious day.

Drug Ad Interdiction

My favorite celebrity ad featured former US Senator (R-Kansas), and 1996 Presidential candidate BobDole for something called ED.

 

One of my colleagues REALLY hates those commercials featuring non-medical celebrities who hawk prescription medicines. For instance, if she develops osteoporosis, she’s not going to use Boniva just because actress Sally Field has recommended it in a series of advertisements; I assume she actually has the condition. Among other things, some Boniva ads are misleading, according to Consumer Reports. Google Sally Field Boniva and you’ll see Sally Field – The Boniva Drug Pimp, and other less than flattering characterizations.

Now, actress Blythe Danner is plugging a similar product, Prolia, for a condition she has. The elaborate staging of Gwyneth Paltrow’s mom is unconvincing from a viewer’s POV. Actress Janine Turner, who has chronic dry eye, used to promote Restasis.

Of course, my favorite celebrity ad featured former US Senator (R-Kansas), and 1996 Presidential candidate BobDole for something called ED. The initials are made up by the pharmaceutical companies, in part to avoid addressing embarrassing topics, in this case, erectile dysfunction, a/k/a impotence, for which he was taking Viagra after prostate cancer surgery. But initials are more memorable in pharmaceutical advertising. Indeed the direct-to-consumer drug ads prompt patients ask their doctor for various prescriptions, generally more than what is medically necessary.

I so wish the flood of pharmaceutical ads would end in the US. But we’re quite unlikely to see that genie put back into the bottle.

O is for Old, Out-of-date, Obsolete?

It’s interesting how data goes from current, to out-of-date, to history.

“Technology is so much fun but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge.” – Daniel J. Boorstin, Librarian of Congress (1973-85) on the computerization of libraries, 1983.

One of the things I learned in my first year in library school was that information disappears over time for a number of reasons, but that three are foremost: war, when the other side wins; commerce, when there is not enough of a perceived market for the cost; and technology when the newer methodology renders a previous iteration obsolete.

I remember seeing pictures of these massive computers back in the 1960s, storing all sorts of seemingly important information. Unless ALL of it got transferred to a later technology, and then the one after that, one must assume that some of that data is lost and irretrievable. How many of you had files on 5 1/4″ floppy discs, or even 3 1/2″ discs, but your current computer has no place for them?

Take music. Some of the symphonies originally recorded on those shellac 78 RPM records made it into 33 RPM LPs, but surely not all. And the music on 33s and 45s might have made it onto 8-tracks and cassettes, but did all of it make it to CDs? Certainly not, let alone other digital forms. Or take movies on Betamax/VCR tape, only some of which made it to DVD/BluRay.

So it is heartening to see that some old forms of technology are still hanging on. The LP, while still a small segment of the music business, continues to grow, as the sales of other physical forms of music continue to decline. There was a piece on CBS News Sunday Morning about the resurgence of – are you ready for this? – the typewriter.

Data goes from being current, to woefully out-of-date, to important history. A map of Europe showing the USSR, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and two Germanys might have been tossed at the end of the 20th century, but now has contextual value. Check out these old maps online.

Old cars, if they avoid the junk heap, might become antiques; old books, perhaps collector’s items.

I started thinking about this because of an article a young woman wrote, in part speculating whether the book will become obsolete in favor of Kindles, Nooks, and the like. I sure hope not.
***
LISTEN to Neil Young – Old Man (from the Harvest album )

ABC Wednesday – Round 10

The Vacation in Newport

He says, “My name is Peter.” I say, “Hi, Peter. Would you like me to call 9-1-1 for you?”

I recently mentioned visiting the mansions in Newport, Rhode Island, but not much else. It was school vacation week, and the Wife suggested that we could go to a timeshare of my parents-in-law there. The Wife, the Daughter, and I had been to visit a friend of mine in another part of the state some five years earlier, and we briefly visited Newport as well.

What she didn’t tell me until the morning we were leaving was that her brother, his wife, and their twin 11-year-old daughters were ALSO going on the trip, staying at a different resort. Not that I minded; I just didn’t know.

We got to Newport in reasonably short order. As you enter the city, the first major street is called Farewell Street. Can you guess what dominates the road?

That’s right, a cemetery; someone with a grim sense of humor. Then we found the wrong part of Thames Street. The street, BTW, is pronounced as though it rhymes with ‘tames’, not like the river in England. The part of Thames we lived on was very narrow, streets like one might find in older parts of Europe. We eventually found our way, via a street called America’s Cup. But it took a while because of the number of one-way streets.

This explains why we saw at least four of the scooters pictured here. We also saw EIGHT Segways in a row; I’d never seen more than two at a time.

On the second night, I was awakened at 12:34 a.m. by someone clearly trying the electronic key in the door at least a half dozen times; my wife, a much more sound sleeper, was oblivious to this. I looked out the peephole, and I see some guy in an orange jumpsuit – not prison garb, just loud colors – lying on the floor. I open the door tentatively, and he slowly staggers to his feet; even from a distance, I could tell he’s been drinking.

He sees me and says, “Is this your room?” I reply, “Yes. Would you like me to call 9-1-1 for you?” He says, “My name is Peter.” I say, “Hi, Peter. Would you like me to call 9-1-1 for you?” He says, “Nah. I must be in the next room.” I had the sense if I hadn’t spoken to him, he might have slept there all night since the resort desk was closed from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. I went back to sleep, but my wife, overhearing my conversation with Peter, was awake for the next several hours.

The great thing about the in-laws on the trip was that we were only about five minutes away from each other, by foot. One night, they watched The Daughter so that The Wife and I could go out to dinner. Another night, we watched the girls while their parents went out. And the final night, we made dinner together, at their place, since they had an oven (we had just a stovetop and a microwave). Their place also had a swimming pool, so the girls all swam together thrice. We also played a card game called Apples to Apples Junior, which was great fun. And we went to three mansions together, which made it easier for the grownups to switch off watching the three girls.

Of course, the worst part of vacation is coming back. This was literally true; we spent an hour stuck on the Berkshire spur portion of I-90, evidently as a result of an auto accident up ahead. But the vehicle looked awful, and sitting on an interstate is not the worst outcome at the end of a trip.

You can’t get to heaven on a pair of skates

In my less holy days, my conclusion might have been, “well, if THINKING them is the same as DOING them, you might as well just DO them; same penalty, after all.”

“…’cause you’ll roll, right past those Pearly Gates.” Old song that popped into my head.

So Chris Honeycutt found my villainous thoughts totally inadequate; I’m unsurprisingly all right with that, and she came up with her own here and here and here. My, she’s thought about this a LOT, it would seem.

But in between, she poses this question: Can you be a good Christian and fantasize about being a villain? In the main, I totally agree with her that “we should want to be Christlike, but in reality, we’re, well… not.
“Story is good, IMHO, for exploring those un-Christlike qualities that we possess. If we don’t face them as a reality, we can become repressed. And while suppression (holding back emotion and thought until an appropriate time and expressing them in appropriate ways) is good, repression (trying to hold back emotion forever until we blow like a tea kettle) is very bad.”

Yes, that’s why I read Tea Party blogs, to understand how the minds of people not like me think.

And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have any less-than-ideal thoughts of my own regarding others now and then. It was that I never really identified with a particular archetype or methodology. Moreover, I just find my own failing less reprehensible than sad. What can I say?

I’d long wondered about those quotes attributed to Jesus, that if you think evil thoughts, it’s the same as doing so. For instance, in Matthew 5:28 “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Now in my less holy days, my conclusion might have been, “well, if THINKING them is the same as DOING them, you might as well just DO them; the same penalty, after all.” My approach these days is more nuanced.

In any case, I was watching Easter Sunday’s This Week on ABC News. Jake Tapper interviewed Rick Warren of the huge Saddleback church. He shared the fact that dogs and even cats go to heaven. He managed to sound like a politician when he talked about J-O-B-S. But Warren also complained about how magazines exploit Christmas and Easter with religious covers:

JAKE TAPPER: This week’s “Newsweek” magazine, which has a very provocative cover, has a different perspective on what ails America’s religious communities, under the headline “Forget the Church, Follow Jesus,” Andrew Sullivan argues that American Christianity is in a crisis, it’s too focused on politics and policy, too little on spirituality… So what is your reaction to this line of criticism from people who like faith but don’t like religion?
WARREN: Sure. Well, first place, let me give a little personal gripe. I think it’s disingenuous that magazines like “Newsweek” know that their circulation goes up at Christmas and Easter if they put a spiritual issue on the cover, but it’s always bait-and-switch. They never tell the stories, never tell the stories of what the good — what good the church is doing. Never. It’s always some obscure scholar, who’s debating something that kind of supposedly disproves this or that, or Andrew Sullivan — I don’t consider Andrew Sullivan to be a religious authority, okay?
And so it is — they know they’re going to make money, every time you put Jesus on the cover of a magazine, it skyrockets. You go do the history. “Time” magazine, “Life” magazine, “U.S. News and World Report,” those are always the best issues. So they make money on it, but then it’s a bait and switch, and it’s always a disappointment. And I wish they would have a little bit more integrity than that, and tell the other side of the story, maybe just occasionally.

While his premise may be technically true, it’s not Time’s or Newsweek’s job to promote Christianity. On Easter Sunday in my church, we said, “Christ is risen indeed.” We said that last year and we’ll probably say that next year. The magazines’ job is to find a different spin. I didn’t see the Newsweek article, but I did read Heaven Can’t Wait By Jon Meacham, the cover story in TIME. And I found this interesting:

“Yet we don’t necessarily agree on what heaven is. There is, of course, the familiar image… But there is also the competing view of scholars… What if Christianity is not about enduring this sinful, fallen world in search of a reward of eternal rest? What if the authors of the New Testament were actually talking about a bodily resurrection in which God brings together the heavens and the earth in a wholly new, wholly redeemed creation? As more voices preach a view that’s at odds with the pearly gates (but supported, they note, by Scripture), faithful followers must decide which approach they believe in.

“It’s a distinction with some very worldly implications. If heaven is seen as life’s ultimate reward, then one’s vision of paradise shapes how one lives. It is an essential tenet of Christian faith, of course, to love one’s neighbor. But if you believe the world will be destroyed at the last day while the blessed look down from a disembodied heaven, then you are most likely going to view the things of this world in a different light than someone who believes there will be a bodily resurrection on an earth that is to be, in the words of a great hymn, ‘our eternal home.’ Accepting the latter can mean different priorities, conceivably putting issues like saving the environment up there with saving souls.”

So I hope the “secular” press keeps observing the sacred world with a journalist’s eye, rather than a believer’s.

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial