Ramblin' with Roger

Anyway, Lefty asked recently when was the last time we used algebra. On Wednesday, I was eating my Cheerios with bran flakes, which meets my cereal blending criteria, and I was looking at my 2% milk. (Normally, I use 1%, but all of it at the store had short expiration dates.) On the container, it read “38% less milkfat than whole milk”. So, it got me to wondering: how much milkfat does whole milk have? And can I figure it out algebraically?
So my ratios are 62 (100-38) is to 100 as 2 is to what? 62/100=2/x. 62x=200. x=3.226. Then, I had to check it here, where I found out that the milkfat content of whole milk must be a minimum of 3.25%. 3.226, 3.25. Pretty close, yes.

Math is fun. Seriously fun. Keeps the mind sharp.

For me:

JONES
A Prairie Home Companion (2006) want to see
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) want to see
Space Cowboys (2000) saw, OK entertainment
Men in Black (1997) saw, OK, didn’t need to zee the sequel
Batman Forever (1995) saw, but have only vague recollection of
Cobb (1994) want to see
Natural Born Killers (1994) will not see
The Client (1994) OK entertainment
The Fugitive (1993) liked quite a bit, yet had no need to see the sequel, U.S. Marshals
JFK (1991) sure it’s a paranoid’s delight, but I enjoyed it
“Lonesome Dove” (1989) (mini) TV Series feel like I OUGHT to see this
The Executioner’s Song (1982) (TV) he played Gary Mark Gilmore, and I must have seen it, but I’m not remembering
Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980) want to see

Similarly, I wrote my 9/11 piece and expected that SOMEONE would complain about my plan to remove bin Laden from the FBI 10 Most Wanted list; no response. The point that became most a point of conversation was about donating blood.

When GayProf noted that, correctly, that gay men cannot donate, (well, only the ones who’ve been sexually active since 1977 can’t), it was an irritating surprise to some readers. It was a surprise to my wife, when I mentioned it to her. If you are a man who has donated blood regularly since 1985, when the prohibition took hold, and the vast majority of the 116 pints I’ve donated have been since then, you’d be quite familiar with the ever-changing donor deferral questions, which include, “Have you had sex even once with a man since 1977?”, an affirmative answer to which means permanent deferral.

But, why?

Should gay men be allowed to donate blood? And, Is the ban on using gay men’s blood homophobic? After reading lots of material, I believe the answer is yes.

Look at any Red Cross literature about donating, and you’ll find that only about 5% of the eligible population donates regularly. Some people are too busy, too queasy, too ill, or weigh under 110 pounds. Others don’t because of various restrictions involved with living overseas for extended periods; these include Sub-Saharan Africa (concern about AIDS), and Europe, especially Great Britain (mad cow). An avowed vegetarian who has spent five years in Europe since 1980 is permanently banned, which I think is just silly. So, the need is great, but some people, including gay men, aren’t allowed, even when they want to, even when they may have a rare blood type that could save a life.

I had thought the ban on using the blood of gay men was just based on a consensus of the scientific community. I was wrong. (It happens twice a year; this was the other time.) When the FDA met in September 2000 to decide whether to continue a ban on gay men donating blood that it imposed in 1985, the vote was 7 to 6, with 5 absent. I was struck by this article, which includes: “Dr. F. Blaine Hollinger, Chair of the FDA Blood Products Advisory Committee said, however: “Personally, I’m very open to a change. It’s discriminatory. We have to see all the data first. If it can be done without changing the safety of the blood supply, it ought to be done.”

More recently, several newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times on June 15, 2006 have editorialized in favor of letting gay men donate blood.

So what to do? Sign an online petition? I’m not much on the efficacy of online petitions. There are some examples, including this one suggesting that gay men just lie about their sexual orientation, though not about their HIV/AIDS status. I’m not hot on lying, though I truly understand the mindset.

Maybe somehow put pressure on the FDA? Even if we could, and “even if FDA decided to modify its policy, the [American Red Cross] can always undercut it by maintaining its own, stricter policy.”

If gay men were allowed to donate, one of the unfortunate side effects, I’m afraid, would be the increase in autologous blood transfusions. Attitudes change slowly.

So, what to do? Not donating doesn’t seem to be the right thing, as it does save lives. Besides which, I donate, at least in part, for a purely selfish reason: I have been long convinced that donating blood is a healthy habit for me. Why do women outlive men? Is it because they menstruate? Why is there such a spike in cardio-vascular incidents in post-menopausal women? I’m convinced that donating blood will keep me alive longer, so I’m disinclined to give it up.

When I was visiting my in-laws on Labor Day weekend, I saw a story about Bob Dylan playing in Cooperstown. The sentence that jumped out at me was this: “With virtuosity that showed her classical and jazz roots, this fiddler who changed her name from Elana Fremerman to James last year showed why she is the first woman star ever to tour with Dylan.” First woman star ever to tour with Dylan? Where did THAT come from? I found a couple articles indicating that Elena James was the first woman instrumentalist to play with Dylan in 30 years, but that Joan Baez had “starred” with Dylan. I received this reply: “Thank you for the information about women instrumentalists who have toured with Bob Dylan. The newspaper will correct its original story.” I assume they did, but the ONLINE story remains unchanged. Sigh.

Conversely, a nice story about some folks who keep score at the Oneonta Tigers games, including this guy Walt, who I’ve seen at the games, and my father-in-law, from that same week as the Dylan story, is not in the archives at all. Sigh again.

My friend ASP (that’s her acronym, not a reference to her character) sent me a link about Beatles Album Covers Made Into Stamps. Here’s the entire AP piece:

LONDON (AP) – The Royal Mail is saluting the Beatles in January by releasing six commemorative stamps illustrated with memorable album covers.

Others in the series include “Help!” (1965), “Revolver” (1966), “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (1967), “Abbey Road” (1969) and “Let It Be” (1970).

There are two factual errors in the middle paragraph. “Meet the Beatles” was NOT the first Beatles album released in the United States, “Introducing the Beatles”, on Vee-Jay Records was. “Meet the Beatles” was the first Capitol Records album, and it was the album that helped propel them to stardom in the U.S.
Also, the tracks on “Meet the Beatles” are NOT the same as “With the Beatles”. While they share the same cover photo, and nine songs, “Meet the Beatles” contains the single “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, its U.S. B-side “This Boy” and its U.K. B-side, “I Saw Her Standing There”, also found on the British album “Please Please Me”; none are on “With the Beatles”. Conversely, “With the Beatles” contains five non-Lennon/McCartney songs that end up appearing on “The Beatles’ Second Album” in the U.S.

I wrote that info to them, but then I discovered I had to register, and was too lazy to pursue it further, except that the local paper, the Times Union, picked up the story verbatim; I let them know about the errors.

Some stories you wonder about in terms of tone. The local story, Spirited couple set sights on church revival, had a picture so poor, especially as printed in the paper, that I didn’t recognize that this story was about MY CHURCH and our new co-pastors. Moreover, the headline, more than the story itself, suggests that the church has been in a sorry state; or maybe, that’s just my inference. Since that was just a matter of tone, and I actually liked the article, I made no comment.

On September 8, 1966, the original Star Trek series debuted on NBC. I must admit that I didn’t “get it” at the time, but my father did. He was hardly a “trekkie” or “trekker”, but he appreciated the fact that the stories were (quoting Brooks and Marsh) “dealing with current social issues thinly disguised in extraterrestrial settings.” BTW, Walter Koenig, who played Ensign Pavel Chekov, will turn 70 tomorrow.

But Dad’s favorite show when I was growing up was probably the original Mission: Impossible series, which debuted on September 17, 1966 on CBS. There was Daniel Briggs, played by Steven Hill (later to play D.A. Adam Schiff on the original Law and Order series); he was replaced by Peter Graves as James Phelps after the first season. Each was the leader of the Impossible Missions Force; in fact, Graves, as Phelps, was also the leader in the 1989-90 TV series. Barney Collier was the technogeek, played by Greg Morris; Greg’s son, Phil, played Barney’s son Grant in the later series. Peter Lupus portrayed strongman Willy Armitage.

Then there was the power couple. Martin Landau was Rollin Hand, master of disguise. And the sultry Cinnamon Carter was played by Landau’s wife at the time, Barbara Bain, who MAY have been an additional enticement for my father’s viewing.

After Landau and Bain left in 1969 in a contract dispute, Landau was replaced by Leonard Nimoy, who had just finished doing Star Trek. A year later, the female role was taken over by Lesley Ann Warren. But the show, save for that great Lalo Schifrin theme was never the same after Rollin and Cinnamon’s departure. Landau and Bain perform together again in the mid-1970s series Space: 1999.