Ramblin' with Roger

Pass the Paste, Please

I remember quite distinctly the first time I recall experiencing déjà vu.

A couple of links, first off.
Arthur and Jason’s 2political podcast makes mention of my article re the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.
Recent articles on my Times Union blog include the old YMCA becoming a church, the collective wisdom of the bus, and me asking if it is the job of a news organization to change behavior.

From Thursday Thunks, and this was the order of the questions; I don’t know why.

1. There is a song out there about you… it’s on the radio, the video is on tv (just not MTV) and everybody in the world knows this song is about you. Who sings it?

For some reason, I’ve had stuck in my head, for a couple of weeks, Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get by the Dramatics, which got to #9 on the pop charts and #3 on the soul charts in 1971. My daughter has been singing, “Some people are made of plastic; You know some people are made of wood”. Then instead of “Some people have hearts of stone; Some people are up to no good,” she makes up something else. It’s something basically honest, and therefore comforting, about WYSIWYG.

4. Have you ever sneaked..snuck…snucked…what is the right word? into a movie?

Actually no, and this proved to be a source of a rather heated discussion. My sister’s dopey then-boyfriend, who always had an angle, boasted how he’d pay for one movie but then see two or three. He was so proud of himself. “Everybody does it,” he proclaimed. “I never did,” I replied and my wife responded likewise. It was also the weekend he went on about what a superior Christian he was. Meh.

3. Déjà vu; meaning “already seen”, is the experience of feeling sure that one has already witnessed or experienced a current situation, even though the exact circumstances of the previous encounter are uncertain and were perhaps imagined. Thoughts on what it is? Have you experienced it?

I don’t know what it is, but I remember quite distinctly the first time I recall experiencing it. I was working at a summer camp when I was 17, mowing the acres of lawn on the boys’ side of the camp, then the girls’ side. I was walking down the dirt road that led from one side to the other, when I had the distinct impression that I had traveled that road before, though, at least in this lifetime, I had not.

2. Stick it to me, baby. What is the last bumper sticker you saw and why do you remember it?

There’s one I see all the time in my neighborhood: “Well-behaved women rarely make history”; seems to be true.

10. Ever wonder what fish think about?

Their school lessons, no doubt.

8. If you could paint President Obama’s fingernails any color, what would it be?

Yellow, for the cowardice he’s shown in a number of issues.

7. Do you have seat covers on your car seats? What do they look like?

No.

6. For the rest of your life you can eat one spice and one spice only (on whatever food you want, of course), what spice do you choose?

Allspice. If you’re going to be a spice, might as well be versatile

9. If you could slide down a rainbow, which side would you slide down?

The outside.

5. So a mom is suing her kids’ preschool because it failed to prepare the child for the kindergarten entrance exam… did you eat paste in preschool?

I’m fascinated by how much homework my daughter had in kindergarten and has in first grade. (I never went to preschool; not sure it’d been invented yet.)

Assuming Facts Not In Evidence

“What has been also interesting is how we have heard from several people how common it is for people to get better before they depart.”

One of the things that have puzzled, occasionally annoyed, but ultimately mystified me was that, when my sisters and I told people that my mother had died, and knowing that she hadn’t died in an accident or the like, not a small number of them, whether they got the news in person or by e-mail, said something along these lines of “I didn’t know she was sick.” Well, that’s just the thing; she wasn’t.

I’m stealing an e-mail my sister Leslie sent to one of those people. “She was not physically ill. In fact, she was feeling great, had just taken her shower and was getting dressed in anticipation of having the bus pick her up to take her to Adult Day Care. She complained about her head hurting but did not have any of the typical stroke symptoms.

[Our sister] “Marcia decided to call 911 to be safe, again, not because she had the typical symptoms. They determined that she had had a massive stroke and moved her to a facility that has a better neuro dept.” This was referred to as a brain bleed, a rarer, and apparently more problematic, type of stroke, which measured 9 cm, when the “average” stroke is 2 to 3 cm.

“She was in ICU for 2 days before they moved her to a regular room in the neuro. dept. They monitored her closely, taking her blood pressure, temp, etc. every few hours.

“On Tuesday, her eyes were opened a bit, so we were feeling very hopeful. When Marcia cleaned out her mouth with a swab, she grimaced, and when Marcia said ‘oh, you don’t like that’ she answered ‘no’.” She also raised her eyebrow in response to another comment. “So, we got all excited, thinking that perhaps she could have pulled out of it, as we know, nothing is impossible to God.

“We met with the Dr. and he said we needed to add the feeding tube or let her go peacefully, which could have been 1 or 2 weeks to live…We agreed to give her a fighting chance and elected for the feeding tube. The MD had agreed to make it so and was going to do so later on Wed. Guess Trudy and God had different plans.

“Roger had spent [Tuesday night in her room]. The nurses had been in and out that [Wednesday] AM, and he was staying out of their way. At 8:56 they told him to call us, which he did, and we went to the hospital immediately. She was already gone…went very peacefully, and looked as if she was just sleeping.

“Interesting that Marcia and I were with Dad when he passed and Roger was with Mom…

“What has been also interesting is how we have heard from several people how common it is for people to get better before they depart.”

BTW, the article title comes from dialogue from one of the countless law shows I grew up watching, from Perry Mason and Judd for the Defense to Owen Marshall and the lawyer section of The Bold Ones.

Westboro redux QUESTION

Nuance sucks.

Sometimes, I’m really quite the talented prognosticator. Back in October, I suggested that the Snyder v. Phelps case, involving this so-called religionist protesting at the funerals of American soldiers killed in action would be decided 8-1 or 7-2 in favor of Phelps, and it was 8-1 in Phelps’ favor. Again, I think it was the right decision constitutionally; indeed, if it had gone the other way, one could reasonably complain about the Court making law. Do not, though, confuse my First Amendment backing for the SOBs with any kind of theological support.

In fact, that handful of inbreed charlatans, like the Florida pastor/rube last year who threatened to burn the Koran, represent such a small segment of theological thought that it’s painful to come to their defense in any way. Nuance sucks.

Yet, I’m reminded of a just as repugnant SCOTUS case, involving a band of Nazi sympathizers wanting to march in Skokie, Illinois. The Supreme Court refused to review the lower court ruling allowing the assembly; ultimately, the march did take place, albeit not in Skokie.

So where should government draw the line regarding free expression? I’m particularly interested in the opinions of those living outside of the United States, and thus without First Amendment traditions.
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And sometimes, I’m a lousy prognosticator. My NCAA men’s basketball picks were SO awful that I haven’t even checked them since the first weekend. I had Pitt, who lost in the second round, in the finals, which should give you some idea.

My new cellphone

I’ll admit it; I’d had real difficulty figuring out how all the fancy doodads on my previous cellphone worked.

But I just got my new cellphone – and it’s one I understand how to operate, compatible with my generally technophobic nature.

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The Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes of All Time

“Fool”ish songs of the 1970s:
Everybody Plays The Fool – The Main Ingredient (1972 – #3 pop, #2 soul on the Billboard charts)
Joe Jackson – Fools in Love (1979)
The Doobie Brothers – What A Fool Believes (1979 – #1 pop, #72 soul)

March Ramblin’

For my birthday this year, I had come across this Facebook thing whereby people could contribute $10 in my name to the American Red Cross. I picked them specifically, not only because they do good things, but because they helped me possibly save a life. Back in May of 1995, I successfully performed the Heimlich maneuver on an older woman in my church at the time who was choking on some meat, without breaking her ribs. I learned that at a Red Cross training that I took in high school.

Anyway, some people did this, some people were confused by how to do it electronically and instead gave me checks. Hey, it’s all good.

And that was before the Japan earthquake, and aid organizations such as the Red Cross in whatever country you are in can use your help even more.

Still, I got a couple of gift cards, one from Amazon, one from Borders. So I got my fix of new music for a while. From Borders, I got the greatest hits albums of the Guess Who (my previous copy had disappeared), and Peter, Paul, and Mary (I saw Peter and Paul at Proctors in the fall of 2010). And I was really pleased with myself with my Amazon purchase. I looked at my wish list and noted that a Sheryl Crow album had gone down from whatever to under $5. A Madeleine Peyroux album was down at least $3 to around $10. And Judy Collins’ cover album of Leonard Cohen songs, used to be $16+ but was down to under $11. The grand total was $25.15, plus 84 cents tax, for a total of $25.99, minus the GC for a massive charge of 99 cents to the credit card. ($25 was the minimum to get free shipping.) Oh, I may have purchased newish albums by Robert Plant, Mavis Staples, and R.E.M. as well.

Carol and I got to see an amazing percussionist, Dame Evelyn Glennie, with the Albany Symphony Orchestra at the Troy Music Hall, performing a piece written by Academy Award-winning composer, John Corigliano (“The Red Violin”). Thanks to our friends Philip and Marilyn who couldn’t use the tickets. In the same week, we also saw The Lion King at Proctors in Schenectady, which was great.

My wife was confounded as to what to get me for my birthday. She thought about getting a bicycle. But, using the $100 from the CSN stores I got from Lily Hydrangea, I bought a Mongoose myself for $59 additional. She thought to buy me a TV, to replace the one we have with only two volumes, inaudible and LOUD; but then my friend Uthaclena and his wife offered their spare set when they showed up with their daughter as a surprise on my birthday weekend; the following weekend, he brought up the set.

And the wife did buy me a book, the autobiography of Ed Dague, the local newsman I admire, but a friend from work had already given it to me.

So she let me have a card party, specifically a HEARTS party, on March 19. There was a period in the 1980s where a group of us would play hearts once, twice, even thrice a week, always at the home of our charismatic and maddening friend Broome and his “this woman is a saint” wife, Penny.

At the card party, I got to see my old friends such as Orchid, who I goaded by e-mail – “You HAVE an A game?”; Jeff and Sandy, Jendy, and of course Broome. As they say, a splendid time was had by all.

So it’s been a pretty good birthday month, thanks to many of you. Well, except for some major computer problems at work, but that’s finally fixed.

Second place in this crossword contest, by my boss, is not bad, especially when the winner was a ringer.

The Cheap Flights song, complete with dancing. And subtitles?

Lots of Elizabeth (“I hate being called Liz”) Taylor tributes out there; here’s the one from Arthur.

In answering my questions, Jaquandor says something shocking about Richard Nixon. Worse, I’m inclined to agree with him.
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My buddy Steve Bissette writes about D.W. Griffith’s two Biograph caveman movies, Man’s Genesis (1912) and Brute Force (1914), with a link to the latter.
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Diagram For Delinquents Kickstarter project:

“This is a documentary film about the most hated man in comics history: psychiatrist Fredric Wertham.

“Beginning in the late 1940s, Wertham began publishing articles linking comic books to juvenile delinquency. This work culminated in his now-infamous 1954 book, Seduction of the Innocent. Burnings of comics were reported across the United States, and Congress held hearings into the matter, which helped spur the creation of the self-censoring body the Comics Code Authority…”
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Google Alert finds – other people named Roger Green:

Roger Green Pt 1/5 ‘Feng Shui & Building Biology’ ‘Conversations with Robyn’
Roger has a background in Chinese Medicine and was a pioneer in introducing the ancient knowledge of Feng Shui to the western world.
This clip also shares some info on the harmful effects of wireless broadband on our health and sleeping patterns.

Custom Knives Created By Roger Green

Patients who walk through the doors of Dr. Roger Green’s clinic are eagerly greeted by Izzy, Green’s 5-year-old Basset hound.

One of those passengers at Narita Airport in Tokyo, on flight No. 276, next in line on the runway when the earthquake hit, was the Rev. Roger Green, longtime pastor at Grace Baptist Church in Middletown.