Roger O Green

Literally sick of the topic

I was a believer in the “useful idiot theory” about him, that they’d dump him as soon as they wreaked the havoc to every agency and gotten their murderous health insurance allocation to the rich passed.

A local writer posted about stopping with the no-citations copy and paste stuff on Facebook. “Opinions, OK. Assertions of fact passed along without some source are rumors…Don’t play.”

I replied: “I suppose you’re right, although sometimes I think the info is SO obvious. e.g. someone was complaining about the proposed federal budget cutting EPA, et al, and someone else popped, “Citation, please.” Really? OK, here’s CBS, oh, and here’s WSJ and Common Dreams and… Are there no agreed upon facts anymore?”

Someone else chimed in: “It’s pathetic when Facebook friends have to demand higher standards for reposting than the President of the United States.”

And THAT, I suddenly realized, is one of the reasons it’s been such a tough winter. I wonder if it’s made me literally sick.

My friend Dan Van Riper has been saying for a while now what will bring a country down is “looting by the elites.” The draconian budget that will, among other things, cut medical research 20%, and the awful health plan are going to destroy our country if passed anywhere near their present forms. Why offer such an orgy of unnecessary cruelty?

Yale historian Timothy Snyder warns If We Don’t Act Now, Fascism Will Be on Our Doorstep; comments about fascism always seem to irritate people, but if the regime fits… And who IS running the show?

Most people who have been POTUS have stayed within a fairly wide swath of what one could call “American values.” Not so with this regime, measured by the fact that both GWB and BHO have, uncharacteristically, criticized him. His words before and after the election have inspired a pattern of ugly American behavior.

I won’t even get into his embarrassing behavior with Germany chancellor Angela Merkel or his idiot tweets that required a rare “sort of” apology to the UK’s Theresa May. Some are amused by his behavior, but I’m just horrified.

Last year, I was a believer in the “useful idiot theory”, that they’d dump him as soon as they wreaked the havoc to every agency and gotten their murderous health insurance allocation to the rich passed. But now he’s SO embarrassing on the world stage, and with the “health care” bill in trouble, maybe they need to dump him sooner or later, over some emoluments thing, likely.

(Serious questions that I do not know the answer to: are the tweets on the POTUS accounts buffeted somewhat from libels laws? And is Clarabelle, posting on realClarabelle, more susceptible to libel law?)

In fact, the only thing that makes sense – not “sense” in “that’s a good idea” but some sort of keep himself in power salvo is the Secretary of State’s threat to North Korea. Hey, everybody loves another war, right? Clarabelle will expect the country to rally around their “leader,” and Kim Jung Un is possibly the one head of state even more unhinged.

The “right to be forgotten” bill should be forgotten

This bill is a constitutional and policy disaster that shows no sign that the drafters made any attempt whatsoever to conform to the requirements of the constitution. It purports to punish both speakers and search engines for publishing—or indexing—truthful information protected by the First Amendment.

Intellectual property lawyer/drummer Paul Rapp noted that a “right to be forgotten” bill has been introduced in the New York legislature. “These laws are based on some supposed ‘human right’ that… says you’re entitled to have embarrassing things in your past ‘forgotten’ on the internet.”

From New York Assembly Bill 5323, introduced by Assemblyman David I. Weprin and, as Senate Bill 4561 by state Senator Tony Avella: “Requires search engines, indexers, publishers and any other persons or entities which make available, on or through the internet or other widely used computer-based network, program or service, information about an individual to remove such information, upon the request of the individual, within thirty days of such request.”

The Washington Post writes:

So, under this bill, newspapers, scholarly works, copies of books on Google Books and Amazon, online encyclopedias (Wikipedia and others) — all would have to be censored whenever a judge and jury found (or the author expected them to find) that the speech was “no longer material to current public debate or discourse” (except when it was “related to convicted felonies” or “legal matters relating to violence” in which the subject played a “central and substantial” role). And of course the bill contains no exception even for material of genuine historical interest; after all, such speech would have to be removed if it was “no longer material to current public debate.” Nor is there an exception for autobiographic material, whether in a book, on a blog or anywhere else. Nor is there an exception for political figures, prominent businesspeople and others.

But the deeper problem with the bill is simply that it aims to censor what people say, under a broad, vague test based on what the government thinks the public should or shouldn’t be discussing. It is clearly unconstitutional under current First Amendment law, and I hope First Amendment law will stay that way (no matter what rules other countries might have adopted).

The website Reason received this blistering analysis from First Amendment attorney Ken White of Brown, White & Osborn (and also of Popehat fame):

This bill is a constitutional and policy disaster that shows no sign that the drafters made any attempt whatsoever to conform to the requirements of the constitution. It purports to punish both speakers and search engines for publishing—or indexing—truthful information protected by the First Amendment. There’s no First Amendment exception for speech deemed “irrelevant” or “inadequate” or “excessive,” and the rules for punishing “inaccurate” speech are already well-established and not followed by this bill. The bill is hopelessly vague, requiring speakers to guess at what some fact-finder will decide is “irrelevant” or “no longer material to current public debate,” or how a fact-finder will balance (in defiance of the First Amendment) the harm of the speech and its relevance. The exceptions are haphazard and poorly defined, and the role of the New York Secretary of State in administering the law is unclear. This would be a bonanza for anyone who wanted to harass reporters, bloggers, search engines, and web sites to take down negative information, and would incentivize such harassment and inflict massive legal costs on anyone who wanted to stand up to a vexatious litigant.

Conversely, the Association for Accountability and Internet Democracy (AAID) supports the bill, saying that “that the Right to Be Forgotten has allowed thousands of victims throughout the European Union to reclaim their dignity and their right to live a normal life unaffected by online exclusion from society.”

I remain unconvinced that the possible value of this legislation outweighs the onerous burden of removing true but supposedly “irrelevant” speech, and as a librarian, I actively oppose this bill.

“You complete me”: Ask Roger Anything

This would be a very different experience if you didn’t encourage me with your comments.

“You complete me.” There was this segment on CBS Sunday Morning the day of the most recent Academy Awards called Why do people love to quote movies?? Reporter Faith Salie does not have that affliction, though her husband does.

I’m only so-so at remembering movie quotes, but I surely know the title quote is from Jerry Maguire, which I saw at the cinema, probably in early 1997. It is specifically from a monologue from the title character (Tom Cruise) to his estranged wife Dorothy ( Renée Zellweger).

It occurred to me that, in some metaphysical way, you all complete me, especially blogwise. This would be a very different experience if you didn’t encourage me with your comments.

And what do I do it repay your kindness? I ask for more, more, MORE! I request that you Ask Roger Anything, and I really do mean anything. Of course it’s also more work for me, but it helps with my self-discovery, so I don’t mind at all. I promise to respond, generally within a month, although the last batch of questions I stretched to less than two weeks ago.

I will answer your questions to the best of my ability, though that may be diminishing, as memories are wont to fade. Obfuscation on my part, though, comes with the territory. You know you like it.

You can leave your comments below or on Facebook or Twitter; for the latter, my name is ersie. If you prefer to remain anonymous, that’s fine; you should e-mail me at rogerogreen (AT) gmail (DOT) com, or send me an IM on FB (make sure it’s THIS Roger Green, the one with the duck) and note that you want to remain unmentioned; otherwise, I’ll assume you want to be cited.

K is for kaleidoscopes (ABC Wednesday)

The World’s Largest Kaleidoscope is not all that far from where I live!

There are certain things, such as fireworks and kaleidoscopes, that are never as impressive in graphic representation than they are in real life.

If you read the definition, you get no idea just how wonderful kaleidoscopes can be: “An optical instrument with two or more reflecting surfaces inclined to each other in an angle, so that one or more (parts of) objects on one end of the mirrors are seen as a regular symmetrical pattern when viewed from the other end, due to repeated reflection.

“The reflectors (or mirrors) are usually enclosed in a tube, often containing on one end a cell with loose, colored pieces of glass or other transparent (and/or opaque) materials to be reflected into the viewed pattern. Rotation of the cell causes motion of the materials, resulting in an ever changing viewed pattern.”

I was reminded of this when I was helping The Daughter clean out her room recently. I came across one of my old kaleidoscopes which I either lent her or she “borrowed.” It was so much fun looking through it that I borrowed it back.

NASA has provided instructions on making a kaleidoscope, appropriate, since its Hubble looked into a cosmic kaleidoscope last year.

I’ve just discovered that the Guinness-certified World’s Largest Kaleidoscope is not all that far from where I live, on Route 28 in Mount Tremper, Ulster County, New York. It stands 56 feet tall and is 38 feet in diameter. The family NEEDS to go this year!

Of course, my first thought involving the word is to the song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds by some Liverpudlian band on their Sgt. Pepper album, featuring the line “The girl with kaleidoscope eyes.” Apparently the reference is to one Yoko Ono.

Listen to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds:
The Beatles, from the movie Yellow Submarine
Elton John, #1 in the US for 2 weeks in 1975, with the Reggae guitars of Dr. Winston O’Boogie.

Family health report, March 2017

Oh, my spouse made orange JELL-O with chunks of pineapple!

Anyone get the license plate of the truck than ran me over? Not literally, but…

Let’s back up.

Friday, March 10 – The Daughter was having some muscle pain, and I stayed with her, figuring she was dehydrated or something. But then she developed a fever, and felt lousy, as we tended to her with cold compresses and OTC medicine.

Saturday, March 11 – She seems better. Her fever is gone. She was helping the cleaning for my annual hearts party, which was a lovely event. But beware the two of diamonds! I theorized that she willed herself to be well, because she knew it was important to me.

Sunday, March 12- She’s feeling worse again, and her fever returned. The Wife stayed home with her, while I went to church.

Monday, March 13 – the Wife took the Daughter to the MD, who diagnosed her with strep throat AND either a cold or the flu.

Tuesday, March 14- you may have read how the snow forecast was overblown in the big cities such as Philadelphia and NYC. Well, it wasn’t overblown in much of upstate NY. My hometown of Binghamton got over 30 inches, about 3/4 of a meter, and Albany got a total of 20.5 inches, over half a meter. It was the first time in 36 years, I’m told, that the state closed down, allowing “non-essential” personnel to stay home without having to use a vacation day.

I shoveled the first six inches, no problem. But attacking the next nine was much harder than it should have been. It WAS windy and a near blizzard, but still, I should have been able to handle it. I was grateful for The Wife’s assistance to finish the job. I went to bed early, around 8:30 p.m.

Wednesday, March 15 – I was going to drag myself to work, which, in retrospect, would have been a mistake. But since the Daughter was still recovering, I tended to her. By the afternoon, though, I asked The Wife to take me to the urgent care place. After about three hours there, which included various tests and a chest x-ray, it was determined that I had BOTH pneumonia AND influenza, despite having gotten a flu shot back in November. My wife decided to sleep in the spare room, which I thought was wise.

Thursday, March 16 – Did not sleep well. I was so congested I thought I was suffocating. My attention for anything – the computer, TV – is about 15 minutes. I can’t read a book or anything that requires focus. Oh, my spouse made orange JELL-O with chunks of pineapple! You’d be amazed how for that 10 minutes, how almost happy I was. Being sick will do that.

Friday, March 17 – Tried to write a blog post, but I kept writing the wrong word – “committed” when I mean “commented,”, e.g. I DO know the difference MOST of the time. And it’s exhausting to sit up. We have seven movies (DVDs) we got in anticipation of the snowstorm, but can’t focus enough to watch any of them, but for one we all saw back on Tuesday.

Saturday, March 18 – Lots of strange dreams about aliens, Burger King, the Berman family (my great-aunt Charlotte’s people). The one thing I remember in a dream was that the dreams you have do represent a memory of your life, but it may be an event that has not yet taken place. I think the dreams are a direct result of being dehydrated, probably from some medicine finally kicking in.

This feels like drunk blogging. I’ve started about six posts this week, and, including this one, the number completed so far: one.

Tuesday, I see my primary care physician. Until then, I’m not operating any heavy machinery.