Ramblin' with Roger

A Sense of Proportionality

Getting lost is the fact that OWS changed the conversation. The narrative that wealth trickling down works has been largely rejected. The notion that your can’t fight back against the banks has been proven to be false.

Things in the world have been annoying me, and I think there’s a common theme: everything seems to be perceived as equal as everything else. I go to a news aggregator and I see the latest on the wars, a bad weather event, and the most recent person voted off a reality show, and it’s all treated similarly, as though they have the equivalent news value.

There has been a run of misstatements by US politicians recently, and they are not the same at all. US Senate Majority leader Harry Reid recently talked about being done before the Easter recess, then quickly corrected himself to say Thanksgiving. In a debate, Republican Presidential candidate Rick Perry has a brain freeze and can’t remember the departments he’d eliminate, and some pundits declare his candidacy over; it WAS bad but human. GOP candidate Herman Cain not seeming to know that China had gotten nuclear missiles – over 40 years ago! – or the US position vis a vis Khaddafy’s Libya seems less like a gaffe, which I think means a relatively trivial matter, and more like a fundamental shortcoming.
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Re; the Occupy Wall Street, et al movement. There were basic truths about income inequality that fueled the protests. But recent polling suggests that the OWS has become less popular, not, I submit, because of the wrongness of the original premise, but because of the obfuscation over whether or not the protesters had the right to essentially live in public parks, and the manner in which they were removed by the police. In fact, it has been the heavy-handed response by authorities in many cities, such as NYC; Oakland, CA; Burlington, VT; Portland, OR; and Chapel Hill, NC, which has actually energized the movement, rather than defeat it. Of course, I know from too many rallies that “the people, united, can never be defeated.”

Getting lost by critics is the fact that OWS changed the conversation. The narrative that wealth trickling down works has been largely rejected. The notion that you can’t fight back against the banks has been proven to be false. There’s a pushback against the idea that unions are all costly, terrible mistakes. There is an economic disparity, and if there is a class war, it isn’t the 99% waging it. So a poll of whether one supports the movement is facile at best.
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Another issue: the alleged sex crimes at Penn State. Jaquandor hit on much of it when he noted that PSU isn’t the victim here; children allegedly are. And I should say here, I suppose, that Jerry Sandusky is innocent of the charges against him until proven guilty. What I am compelled to note, though, is guilty or not, Jerry Sandusky is an idiot. Who thought it was a good idea to agree to a phone interview on national television? His lawyer, who had a child by an underage girl more than 30 years his junior? His lawyer is an idiot too.

I read an article by a local retired journalist, which I cannot now find, that suggests that people have watched so many “real” people interviewed on TV after a tragedy that they feel some sort of obligation to do the same. This is a false assumption, and especially when one has been indicted. Sandusky, from everything I’ve seen of him, seems to think HE’S the misunderstood victim here. Some free legal advice: Jerry Sandusky should say NOTHING, at least until his trial.

What the heck is behind Congress considering a bill counting pizza as a vegetable? A paean to some fast-food lobby or hostility towards Michelle Obama’s efforts towards healthier living? Or something else?

I believe in intellectual property rights, but the Stop Online Piracy Act, proposed in the House of Representatives, and the companion bill PROTECT IP (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act) is a pair of oxymoronic newspeak titles, just like peacekeeper missiles and the USA PATRIOT Act. As an intellectual property attorney I know puts it, the proposed law is “insidious and dangerous. It will change, some say break, the internet as we know it, by turning the internet into a limited portal where you can’t do much more than buy what they want you to buy, and only from them, and to read only what they want you to read, and for a price.”

Yet the legislation has a good chance of passing with bipartisan political support, despite the opposition of Google, AOL, eBay, Facebook, Linked In, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo, and Zynga. This is bad law, and could easily affect those not in the United States as well,

Done ranting. Or, I’ve run out of time.

Would have been Mom’s birthday

One of the things my mom would sing to us on our birthdays and other special occasions was If I Knew You Were Comin’ I’d’ve Baked a Cake.

As I mentioned at the time, I got a lot of wonderful remembrances and condolences regarding my mother’s death in February. And things are usually better now. But the first birthday after her death somehow has a special poignancy. I’m NOT calling her or sending her a card or struggling over the fact that buying stuff for her became increasingly difficult, because she said she wanted for nothing.

This is something one of my SBDC colleagues sent back in February:

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.
Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

One of the things my mom would sing to us on our birthdays and other special occasions was If I Knew You Were Comin’ I’d Have Baked a Cake. Unlike my father, my mom didn’t sing around the house all that often. Here’s the Eileen Barton version of the song.

Smoke Gets In Your Lungs

Non-smokers have come a long way since the days when I had to prevaricate in order to breathe cleanly.

November 17, 2011, is the Great American Smokeout when folks in the USA are encouraged to end their consumption of tobacco. I’m all in favor. I find myself increasingly sensitive to cigarette smoke; if my eyesight and hearing have diminished over time, my olfactory sense has not. In fact, it’s arguably stronger.

As I’ve noted, my father was a cigarette smoker when I was a child, and in those days, he could send me or my younger sisters to the corner store to buy him a pack of Winstons. His smoking was a source of some irritable conversations between us.

At college, I have a clear recollection during my freshman year in college, back in 1972, of going into the Faculty Tower to take the elevator to the 9th floor. Some guy I did not know was going to take his lit cigarette into the conveyance. I said, “Please don’t bring that thing in here.” He snapped, “Why? You have asthma?” “Yes,” I lied. And he then complied!

Non-smokers have come a long way since the days when I had to prevaricate in order to breathe cleanly. Airplanes used to have smoking and non-smoking sections. I remember sitting in row 22, the last non-smoking row. Wouldn’t you know that the smoke did not have the courtesy to go back from row 23, but instead wafted forward?

I still remember the VFW hall where a wedding reception was held and the smoke was so thick that I spent more time outside than in. Or going to a bar called Pauly’s in Albany to hear a band, but ended listening to them from the street; Pauly’s is reopening, I hear, and if I get a chance to see musicians, I believe I’ll be able to do so from inside the establishment.

Just last month, I was on a bus. This guy stood in the entryway of the bus, sucking in as many drags as he could before entering. As he walked down the bus aisle, people said, out loud, “Boy, something really stinks in here,” and the like. Not just one person but perhaps a half dozen. I agreed with their assessment, though not so much with their tactic.

Anyway, read about the Great American Smokeout, even if you’re not American. Here are ways to help you quit.

R is for Recycling

It cost the city tens of thousands of dollars to upgrade the system, but for alleviating my guilt at throwing away a yogurt cup, it was worth every penny.

When we were away this past summer, we had our mail held. And I swear that my favorite item that I saw once we retrieved it was a flier from the city of Albany about its new recycling policy. No longer did the city only take plastic items with the #1 or #2 in the triangle; it’s now taking #1-7!

This was hugely important for us, as we are very active recyclers. So those yogurt and cottage cheese containers, which tend to be #5 or #6, we just hated to throw out.

My wife would sometimes put leftovers in them, but unless they were well-labeled, I’d mistake them for their original packaging info until it was too late. Some were saved for school arts and crafts, but there are just so many craft projects one can do. It cost the city tens of thousands of dollars to upgrade the system, according to the newspaper story at the time, but for alleviating my guilt at throwing away a yogurt cup, it was worth every penny.

I hate going to the returnable center at the local supermarket. A lot of recyclable, but not returnable, items that people bring end up in the trash. I’ve noticed over the years that a lot of people around here just don’t spend the few minutes to separate out the recyclables and it makes me…peevish.

One element of the new city regulations that I ignore is the “Single Stream Curbside Recycling Collection”. I still segregate my paper products from the bottles and cans because of the bottle entrepreneurs who rifle through the recycling bins. I figure when they open up the green bin and see that’s it’s all paper and cardboard, they’ll leave it alone, and only go through the blue bin that has the recyclable – but not returnable – bottles and cans.

ABC Wednesday – Round 9

Firsts

I essentially inherited both jobs from a guy named Walter Jones, who was the godson of my parents; his grandparents were my godparents.

I used to do these things called Sunday Stealing, but I stopped mostly because the questions started getting a bit repetitive. I found that to be somewhat true with this iteration as well -Have I sung karaoke? – no; have I kissed in the rain? -yes.

But there was a section of firsts that was fresher, so I decided I’d do that, and JUST that.

1.Who was your first prom (or homecoming) date?
Cecily. It was her prom, BTW, though she also went to my prom a few months later.

2. Who was your first roommate?
Ron Fields, a graduate student. His most obsessive habit was writing down EVERY SINGLE thing he spent money on, in these little spiral notepads. Coffee – 25 cents, candy bar – 10 cents. One day, he bought a used car ($1000).

3. What alcoholic beverage did you drink when you got drunk the first time? The first time I drank, I got a little tipsy. It was at a bar on Clinton Street in Binghamton, NY, which, according to legend, had more bars per mile at the time than any other street in the United States. My sister was singing there with a band, so my drinks were free. I was 18 and it was legal for me to drink. I had a Tom Collins, and it was so tasty, I had another. I WAS able to walk home.

4. What was your first job?
My FIRST first job was delivering the Evening and Sunday Press in Binghamton, NY. My next job was as a page at the Binghamton Public Library. I essentially inherited both jobs from a guy named Walter Jones, who was a couple of years older than I was. He was the godson of my parents; his grandparents were my godparents.

5. What was your first car?
I don’t remember the make, because it was really the Okie’s car. I know it was red and had a push-button transmission. I knocked a Dumpster over with it once.

6. When did you go to your first funeral and viewing?
Oh, it was so long ago that I can’t remember. Someone from my church, no doubt. The first one that I can remember was Agatha Green, my grandma.

7. Who was your first-grade teacher?
I had two because I had started school in February, and by September the teacher I had left; maybe she got pregnant, which happened a few times in later grades. Anyway, one was Mrs. Goodrich. BTW, I also had 2 teachers each in second, third, AND fourth grade.

8. Where did you go on your first ride on an airplane?
From Binghamton to Albany, when I was about 16. I was going to something called the Governor’s Conference on Children and Youth, and I was one of seven representatives from the Southern Tier. We flew in a plane with about a dozen seats, in a thunderstorm; I was terrified.

9. When you snuck out of your house for the first time?
Undoubtedly to see my HS girlfriend.

10. Who was your first best friend?
Possibly Ray Lia, with whom I was in Cub Scouts.

11. Who was your first Best Friend in high school?
Hard to say. Probably Karen and Carol, who I’d known since kindergarten, and saw just this summer.

12. Where was your first sleepover?
Don’t know that I ever did growing up. People slept over at our house, though.

13. Who is the first person you call when you have a bad day?
Probably Norman.

14. Who’s wedding were you in the first time you were a Bridesmaid or groomsman?
Trying to remember. I was in two weddings on successive weekends, for Ray and Pam, and for Uthaclena and she who shall not be named, in October 1976.

15. What is the first thing you did when you got up this morning?
Check my e-mail.

16. First time you tied your shoelaces?
I was REALLY late at this. I had loafers until I was nine, I think.

17. Are you Facebook friends with your first crush?
No, and I have no idea where my first crush is.

18. Who was the first person you met from the blogosphere?
Gordon from Blog This, Pal! who I met when I went to Chicago for a conference in 2008. Well, there may have been some local bloggers from the Times Union site before that; I don’t remember the chronology.

19. What was the first music album that you bought?
Beatles VI.

20. Who was your first celebrity crush?
Annette Funicello.