Roger O Green

Obama, the Gay President?

I’m working on a theory, not yet totally formulated, that goes like this:

John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic President of the United States, nibbled around the edges in dealing with the civil rights of black people. His heart I believe was always in the right place, but he needed to be pushed by the civil rights community, notably Martin Luther King Jr, culminating in the March on Washington, August 28, 1963, to really get on board.

Barack H. Obama, the first black President of the United States, has nibbled around the edges in dealing with the civil rights of gay people. His heart I believe was always in the right place, but he needs to be pushed by the civil rights community, notably ????, fulfilling the promise of his Democratic nomination acceptance speech on August 28, 2008, to really get on board.

Both as a civil rights supporter and as a data person, I was pleased that the Obama Administration is “determining the best way to ensure that gay and lesbian couples are accurately counted” in the 2010 census. “The Administration had directed the Census Bureau to explore ways to tabulate responses to the census relationship question, to produce data showing responses from married couples of the same sex.” One does not need to “believe in” same-sex marriage to want a reporting of what is actually taking place.

There have been other positives such as the extension of benefits to gay federal employees.

These do not make up for my disappointment with Obama’s foot dragging on the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and his Justice Department’s defense of the deplorable Defense of Marriage Act. But as he reiterated to some GLBT leaders Monday, the day after the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, he says he’s working on it.

As I pondered all of this, I came across a piece by Robert Reich called, What can I do to help Obama? The crux of the issue is in the subtitle: “The public has to force him to do the right thing.” Reiterating, we need to bug him AND Congress to, as the title of the best Spike Lee movie, celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, Do the Right Thing.
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As I’ve mentioned, I only recently discovered that an old friend of mine moved to Canada because same-sex unions were untenable in the U.S. and her now spouse already lived there. This bugs me tremendously. Still, since yesterday was Canada Day, props to the U.S.’s neighbors to the north.
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I came across an interesting survey: Spiritual Profile of Homosexual Adults Provides Surprising Insights. “People who portray gay adults as godless, hedonistic, Christian bashers are not working with the facts…The data indicate that millions of gay people are interested in faith but not in the local church and do not appear to be focused on the traditional tools and traditions that represent the comfort zone of most churched Christians…It is interesting to see that most homosexuals, who have some history within the Christian Church, have rejected orthodox biblical teachings and principles – but, in many cases, to nearly the same degree that the heterosexual Christian population has rejected those same teachings and principles.” As someone noted, some of their margins of error are ENORMOUS. And identifying sexuality on a phone survey, when some people are terrified of answering Census questions about when they go to work, raises an eyebrow. Still, it is is an interesting repudiation of a stereotype, which is always good.
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Here’s a peculiar story briefly referenced in my local paper: Could gay marriage reduce HIV/AIDS? A study by two Emory University economists suggests the answer is yes. They “calculated that a rise in tolerance from the 1970s to the 1990s reduced HIV cases by one per 100,000 people, and that laws against same-sex marriage boosted cases by 4 per 100,000.” Not sure I buy the entire premise of their study, but I accept this sentence: “Intolerance is deadly.”

ROG

X is for Xerox

Xerography is a dry photocopying technique invented by Chester Carlson in 1938. Here’s an interesting story about Carlson. “It was not until 1959, twenty-one years after Carlson invented xerography, that the first convenient office copier using xerography was unveiled. The Xerox 914 copier could make copies quickly at the touch of a button on plain paper. It was a phenomenal success.”

The company Xerox became synonymous with office copiers. Somewhere I recently read that government in particular was partial to having copies. For before the Xerox copier, data were stored in a single location and people had to go to that location. With the ability to duplicate the information, the individual offices wanted their own version. Many trees died.

Being the industry leader, the company became synonymous with making copies. Inevitably, this meant the term risked becoming genericized.

The Free Dictionary still recognizes the term as Xerox would have it. “A trademark used for a photocopying process or machine employing xerography. This trademark often occurs in print in lowercase as a verb and noun.” Xerox can seem rather pedantic in this process. I dare say they would hate the word’s use as Xeroxing DNA as this article on Polymerase Chain Reaction does.

I can’t help but wonder how many Xeroxing policies actually involve actual Xerox machines.

Xerox logos over the years
Xeroxing quotes
Video: Writing Xerox in Chinese symbols – looks more like writing “copying” in Chinese.
Video: The Xerox Star 8010 graphical user interface (or GUI) presented by Xerox graphical interface designer Dave Smith in the 1981-82 time frame.
The final of the World Championship Xeroxing, held in Roelofarendsveen, Holland

For ABC Wednesday.

Xerography is a dry photocopying technique invented by Chester Carlson in 1938. Here’s an interesting story about Carlson. “It was not until 1959, twenty-one years after Carlson invented xerography, that the first convenient office copier using xerography was unveiled. The Xerox 914 copier could make copies quickly at the touch of a button on plain paper. It was a phenomenal success.”

The company Xerox became synonymous with office copiers. Somewhere I recently read that government in particular was partial to having copies. For before the Xerox copier, data were stored in a single location and people had to go to that location. With the ability to duplicate the information, the individual offices wanted their own version. Many trees died.

Being the industry leader, the company became synonymous with making copies. Inevitably, this meant the term risked becoming genericized.

The Free Dictionary still recognizes the term as Xerox would have it. “A trademark used for a photocopying process or machine employing xerography. This trademark often occurs in print in lowercase as a verb and noun.” Xerox can seem rather pedantic in this process. I dare say they would hate the word’s use as Xeroxing DNA as this article on Polymerase Chain Reaction does.

I can’t help but wonder how many Xeroxing policies actually involve actual Xerox machines.

Xerox logos over the years
Xeroxing quotes
Video: Writing Xerox in Chinese symbols – looks more like writing “copying” in Chinese.
Video: The Xerox Star 8010 graphical user interface (or GUI) presented by Xerox graphical interface designer Dave Smith in the 1981-82 time frame.
The final of the World Championship Xeroxing, held in Roelofarendsveen, Holland

For ABC Wednesday.

ROG

I Remember Where I Was When I Heard Michael Jackson Died

I do know and am quite likely to remember how I learned of MJ’s death.

Just as I remember when JFK died – fifth grade, Miss Oberlik’s class, Daniel S. Dickinson School, Binghamton, NY. Just as I remember finding out about the Challenger disaster – working in the back room at FantaCo Enterprises, the late comic book store store on Central Avenue, Albany, NY, while listening to Q-104, when Mary Margaret Apple interrupted the music to give the news.

This is not to say – lest you start to fret – that I’m making a comparison about the import of these events. I am talking about how memory works.

I was at the Albany Public Library, main branch, computer room, shortly after 6 p.m. on Thursday, June 25. I needed to write about my daughter for a blog post the next day. Then I heard someone say to the woman at the desk that Michael Jackson had died. WHA? So I went to CNN and AP, both of whom indicated that Michael had been rushed to the hospital but neither of whom had announced his death. Most sources indicated that TMZ, the Matt Drudge of entertainment sites, WAS declaring Michael dead, but that they were seeking independent verification.

About 15 minutes later, CNN notes that “multiple sources” have noted Michael’s passing. In the moment, I was more peeved that TMZ had been right in breaking the story, that this was a greater sign of the deterioration of the mainstream media, than the death of an entertainer who I’d watched, sometimes with tremendous admiration and other times in disdain, over the past four decades. Someone who, and I ALWAYS hate this, was younger than I am.

The death of Michael Jackson is this fascinating cultural and technological phenomenon. It slowed Twitter to a crawl and taxed much of the rest of the Internet as well.

Here’s what always bothers me about these types of stories. There are folks who say endlessly, “Why do people care about THAT? If people spent more time caring about (pick one or more) world hunger/the health care crisis/the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan/whatever, rather than some entertainer’s death, we’d be better off.” It’s often the same people disdain the use of television (they don’t have one or only watch PBS).

I’m willing to bet that if people spent as much time worrying about the health care industry as they did about Michael or Jon & Kate (who I must admit, I didn’t even know who they were until a month ago) or some other “frivolous” thing, it would have next to zero impact on the important issue. It is as though some individuals feel that passion for Off the Wall, Michael’s best album, could be somehow transferable to other, more “significant” things. (Speaking of which, apparently Michael’s soul has been saved, in case you were wondering.) Thank goodness ABC was planning repeats of Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice last Thursday so they could preempt them for instant specials on Michael and Farrah Fawcett, who, not unexpectedly, had died earlier that day. (What, no special on Sky Saxon of the Seeds?)

So I will remember how I learned of Michael’s death, just as I remember John Lennon’s (heard it from Howard Cosell on Monday Night Football) or the shootings of Lee Harvey Oswald and Robert F. Kennedy (saw them on TV in real time). The intensity of the events will wane, but a piece of the recollection will likely remain.
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Just discovered The Dead Rock Stars Club. Have only been in 2009, but it is quite detailed. Not does it have obvious choices such as MJ, Sky Saxon and Koko Taylor, but more obscure artists such as Viola Wills, and even folks you wouldn’t have thought of in this context: Gale Storm (I’m old enough to remember My Little Margie), Ed McMahon, and David Carradine, e.g.

ROG

Eight Meme

Jacquandor has a quiz thing! And I’m a sucker for them

8 Things I am looking forward to:

1. Riding the bicycle more.

2. Carol finally being done with her schooling in early August. It’s exhausting for all of us.

3. I’m hoping for our annual trip to the Mid-Hudson area of NYS, though the school thing may interfere.

4. That month between Carol being done with school and Lydia entering kindergarten when I can go to racquetball directly from home and Carol will take Lydia to day care.

5. Getting the new Top Pop Singles book from Record Research.

6. September when it’ll presumably gets less hot. I burn incredibly easily these days.

7. September, which is my favorite sports month. U.S. Open tennis, end of the baseball season, beginning of football season.

8. Actually watching those TV shows I’ve recorded but not seen – Scrubs, The Office, 30 Rock.

8 Things I did yesterday:

1. Went to church.

2. Watched the news from Friday and Saturday.

3. Made pancakes.

4. Read old newspapers.

5. Rode the stationery bike.

6. Played board games with the child.

7. Read to the child.

8. Sing to the child.

8 Things I wish I could do:

1. Care about politics. I mean I participate, and I’ll probably be carrying petitions for two candidates this summer, but sometimes I sense a real futility.

2. See better – reading in bad light is a chore.

3. Catch up on some of the “I ought to read that” list.

4. Have my father meet my daughter,

5. Type; I’d make blogging easier.

6. Most of the handiwork (that I’m really quite awful at.

7. Sleep through the night.

8. Lose weight.

8 Shows I Watch

1. JEOPARDY!

2. 60 Minutes

3. This Week (ABC)

4. CBS Sunday Morning

5. Brothers & Sisters

6. Grey’s Anatomy

7. Bill Moyers Journal

8. Scrubs

Just a couple more entries would sum up the entirety of my teevee watching these days.

8 Life Lessons I have benefited from (or am TRYING to put into practice)

1. Listen more, talk less.

2. Please, please: Don’t be a litterbug, ’cause every litter bit hurts.

3. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

4. Do, or do not. There is no try.

5. Take the road less traveled.

6. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

7. Do unto others…

8. Smile, though your heart is aching.

Quizzes! Fun!! I love words with zz -give ’em the old raZZle daZZle.

Roger (Finally) Answers Your Questions, Scott

Scott from the Scooter Chronicles – GIVE THIS MAN A JOB! – wrote several questions:

Since obtaining your current job, have you ever thought of switching careers?

What, and leave show business? Seriously, not really. I learn something new (and sometimes interesting) every day. I work with smart people, and I provide a valuable service, if I do say so.

Besides which, I came to it so late (library school at 37, librarian at 39), I feel behind the curve compared with people who are my contemporaries agewise but have twice as much experience in the field.

Do you think the Obama administration will be able to make changes to the current health care systems? If so, do you think it will truly change for the better?

It’ll be incremental change, and it’ll be marginally for the better. But it won’t be the sweeping changes you righteously ranted about a few months ago. I knew trouble was brewing when single-payer wasn’t even on the table. I blame Sen. Max Baucus for that. Then the single-payer people were at the table but could not speak. Do not underestimate the power of the insurance lobbies.

Who do you think will be in the World Series, and who will win it?

At the beginning of the season, I picked Mets over Red Sox. Still feel the BoSox will be there. I could/should jump on the Dodgers/Cards/Phillies bandwagon, but heck with it, I’ll stick with the Metropolitans.

Oh, there was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about “high-leverage” situation hitting versus the two-run homer in the fifth inning when you’re already ahead 11-1.
These are the best and worst, through June 13.
Crucial/non-crucial
Giants .299/.254
Phillies .288/.247
Marlins .263/.231

Nationals .236/.284
Mariners .252/.279
Rays .257/.276

When growing up, did you play in any organized baseball leagues?

No. Tried out for Little League once. I was a middling to poor fielder, but what really made me give up was being at bat. This kid threw a 3-2 pitch for a strike and I never even saw it.

Is so, what position(s) did you play? (If you didn’t, what position would you have liked to play?)

I played a lot of unorganized baseball. I tended to play the right side of the infield, though I’m right-handed, because my arm wasn’t great. I could throw relatively accurately from second to first, but not from shortstop or third base. Also played first, since I was a large target. Actually got better getting throws in the dirt, but not throws that were too wide or too high.

I also caught some games. Didn’t much enjoy it, but I could block the ball if I didn’t catch it.

Who was your favorite baseball player while growing up?

Clearly, Willie Mays. He could hit for average and power, he could run and he could field well. That said, I always had an affection for National League outfielders such as Vada Pinson (Reds), Lou Brock (Cards), Billy Williams (Cubs), Hank Aaron (Braves), the Alou Brothers (Giants), Frank Robinson (Reds/Orioles), and Roberto Clemente (Pirates); I had a Clemente card that referred to him as “Bob”, but he was no “Bob”.

Do you have a favorite baseball player now? If so, who and why?

Albert Pujois (Cards). Seems like a decent guy and he’s very good.

Any big travel plans for the summer months?

At this very moment, we were supposed to be in Williamsburg, VA with my parents-in-law, my two brothers-in-law, their wives and collectively, their three daughters. But my wife Carol has so much school work to do in preparation for going away to college for 17 days in a row later this summer that we bailed. During that 17-day run, I’ll be doing the solo parenting thing. Having my wife back will be like a vacation; we did this last summer as well, so I know of what I speak.

There’s talk about going somewhere in August, but so far, I’m not feeling it. I don’t know about your experiences with Nigel, but my experience with Lydia is that vacation away from home is more taxing than just staying in the routine. I AM basing that on our vacation when she was three, and she’s more self-sufficient now.

ROG