Ramblin' with Roger

What and why IS Armed Forces Day?

“We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence… The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

As a guy who loves celebrating holidays, I must nevertheless admit that I had had no idea what Armed Forces Day was, distinct from Memorial Day and Veterans Day, though I saw it on my calendar each year. And I never even thought much about it until very recently.

From TimeAndDate:

“On August 31, 1949, Louis Johnson, who was the United States’ Secretary of Defense, announced the creation of an Armed Forces Day to replace separate Army, Navy and Air Force Days. The event stemmed from the armed forces’ unification under one department – the Department of Defense. The Army, Navy and Air Force leagues adopted the newly formed day. The Marine Corps League declined to drop support for Marine Corps Day but supports Armed Forces Day too.”

Okay, so Memorial Day honors the war dead, and Veterans Day commemorates, well, military veterans.

“Armed Forces Day was a day for the military to show ‘state-of-the-art’ equipment to Americans. It was also a day to honor and acknowledge Americans in the armed forces. Parades, open houses, receptions and air shows were held at the inaugural Armed Forces Day.” It is celebrated on the third Saturday of May. It is also part of Armed Forces Week, which begins on the second Saturday of May.

Ah, so like that expensive parade scheduled in November that kind of remind me of the Soviet Union or North Korea? And how are we supposed to treat military contractors such as Halliburton, who made nearly $40 million from the Iraq war?

MilitaryInfo adds:

“Since Armed Forces Day is not a federal holiday, many military installations are available for public viewing for those wishing to take part in the celebration or to learn more about our country’s military. Some other ways to celebrate the special occasion include wearing red, white and blue; flying the American Flag, talking with or writing to a military member, donating to military-based organizations, or sending care packages for those serving overseas.”

About three dozen other countries have Armed Services Day, though not at the same time: June 30 in the United Kingdom, October 6 in Egypt. Here are some other dates.

Admittedly, I struggle with militarism, big time. I worry about what President Eisenhower, a former general, called the military industrial complex, “what Eisenhower called a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions… we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence… The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

May rambling: Red-Eyed Tree Frogs

The gayageum is a Korean Instrument Dating Back to the 6th Century

Change Can Happen Faster Than You Think

Sierra Club secures 24,000 pages of EPA emails, calls logs, and documents which expose the culture of corruption in and around Scott Pruitt

NYSUT congratulates Albany Med nurses on the decision to unionize

Waging Peace: Two Billboards Outside Albany, New York

Speaking in Code: Two phrases that no longer mean what they used to

Roy Cohn, the Original Donald Trump

America’s Word is Worthless

‘Project Trumpmore’ to Carve President’s Face into Melting Iceberg

Federal Employees Face Cuts To Retirement Benefits And Pay Freezes

Cartoon: Circular Sarah

What ‘Daily Show’ host Trevor Noah means by ‘the 5:30 curse’

The point at which the US politics firmly pivoted toward the Right

It’s A Toxic Myth That Celibacy Makes Men Violent

Monica Lewinsky: What We All Can Learn from My Disinvitation Debacle

Ancient Mass Child Sacrifice May Be World’s Largest

New Yorker cartoon: Late at night is my sacred time to catalog every single instance of when and how I am a terrible person

Is this the loneliest generation?

She was the first woman senator. Her term lasted exactly a day

Culture Cruise: ‘Homer’s Phobia’

Did Little Syria in Lower Manhattan Consist of Asian-Americans?

Their Ancestors Were on Opposite Sides of a Lynching. Now, They’re Friends

Free press: the future of Boulder, CO’s Daily Camera

The architecture of First Presbyterian Church in Albany, an article by Warren Roberts, who died this week, struck by two cars in Florida.

Science Marches On

Wait But Why: A thing happened while I was at the coffee shop

This Video is about Red-Eyed Tree Frogs? and How to Win

Ken Levine on the state of network TV

Internet Wading: The return

“Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!”

Why Whales Got So Big

Gone to the dogs

Names list offers origins, statistics and popularity rankings for people names

Now I Know: The Color Changing Building (and Democracy Experiment) and The Accident and the Musical Savant and Why Dippin’ Dots Never Became the Ice Cream of the Future and When the NBA Doubled Its Money and I Can’t Believe It’s All Butter

Magnolias In The Park

Credit and Debt Management

The Best Coffee in Every State

MUSIC

Confounds the Science – parody of Sound of Silence

My Last Day Without You – Nicole Behari

Dire Straits’ “Sultans Of Swing” Played on the Gayageum, a Korean Instrument Dating Back to the 6th Century

Birdsong – Kina Grannis

I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal You – Louis Armstrong

I’m Not in Love – Don’s Mobile Barbers (UK surf act)

Slow Turning – John Hiatt

Coverville: 1215: Cover Stories for Adele and Captain & Tennille and 1216: The Irving Berlin Cover Story

Uptown Funk- Big Daddy

When I’m Sixty-Four -MonaLisa Twins

The Hamilton Polka – The Casts of Hamilton

Black Water – some Doobie Brothers and the Playing for Change Band

Riley B King – Keb’ Mo’

In The Mood – Henhouse Five Plus Two

Beatle For 13 Days

Hit Parade: The B-Sides Edition

Hey, 19, it’s anniversary

When she goes out, she sometimes says “Don’t miss me too much.”

From https://www.etsy.com/listing/502738012/19th-anniversary-coffee-mug-6935-days

Like all good marriages, after 19 years, my wife and I have developed a division of labor. I know all the Cabinet secretaries in this administration, difficult because they’re so changeable. She knows what’s in our office secretary, amazing because I can’t find a damn thing.

I know all of the birthdays of the Beatles. She knows how much the mortgage payment is each month. (To be fair to me, the payment is made automatically from our bank account.)

I’m sure that I have inspired her interest in the areas of being aware of the news, of progressive causes, and the issue of inequity. She has pushed me to be more fiscally responsible; for good and ill, I wouldn’t own a house without her.

When went to see our investment adviser in 2017, she was excited and fascinated. Meanwhile, my eyed almost literally glazed over. But she helped point out that we were better off financially long term than I realized, hard to see when the day-to-day bills arrive.

This Blondie strip about housekeeping is absolutely true of her.

Sometimes, we get into that groove where one of us is talking and misspeaks, but the other one says, “Oh, I know what you mean.” This saves an inordinate amount of time.

We very seldom fight. I don’t know if that is a good thing or bad thing, but it is our modus operandi.

I see her family far more than I see mine. My nearest sister and niece are a thousand miles away and my parent are deceased. Meanwhile, her parents, a brother, sister-in-law and two nieces are less than 75 minutes from us. I used to be jealous, I suppose, but now I appreciate the comfort of the love from the in-laws, who are, to a person, generous of spirit.

I haven’t done the math precisely, but, at 19 years, I think we’ve been married longer than the length of time I went out with everyone else I ever dated, combined. Hmm.

When she goes out, she sometimes says “Don’t miss me too much.” I won’t as long as she come back.

S is for journalist George Seldes

George Seldes served on the board of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting ,

Somehow, it wasn’t until the past few months that I heard of journalist George Seldes. This brief biography serves as a emphatic primer.

“The story of George Seldes is the story of the Twentieth Century. He has written 21 books and is the archetype of the independent and crusading journalist. He was a witness to and occasional participant in some of the most important events of this century.”

His interview with Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg, the supreme commander of the German Army during World War I was censored by the Allies. He reported from the Soviet Union for a year in 1922-23 until he was expelled “for not bowing to its censorship of the news.” He was also eventually bounced in Italy after reporting on the rise of Benito Mussolini. He witnessed the fascist dictatorship in Spain.

“Dissatisfied with censorship and the Right-wing bias of the American media,” Seldes and his wife Helen Larkin “started In Fact, the first publication in America solely devoted to press criticism. It was published from 1940 to 1950 and had a peak circulation of 176,000 before being Red-baited out of existence.”

From the Spartacus Educational bio: “One of the first articles published in the newsletter concerned the link between cigarette smoking and cancer. Seldes later explained that at the time, ‘The tobacco stories were suppressed by every major newspaper. For ten years we pounded on tobacco as being one of the only legal poisons you could buy in America.'”

I found his some of his observations, as noted in Wikiquotes, appropriate today. “Never grow weary of protesting. In this sensitive business of dealing with the public which depends on faith and good will, protest is a most effective weapon. Therefore protest.” – Lords of the Press (1938)

And from the same source: “The failure of a free press in most countries is usually blamed on the readers. Every nation gets the government—and the press—it deserves. This is too facile a remark. The people deserve better in most governments and press. Readers, in millions of cases, have no way of finding out whether their newspapers are fair or not, honest or distorted, truthful or colored….”

From the Wikipedia: “Having both staunch admirers and strong critics, Seldes influenced some younger journalists. He received an award for professional excellence from the Association for Education in Journalism in 1980 and a George Polk Award for his life’s work in 1981. Seldes also served on the board of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).”

George Seldes was born in Alliance, New Jersey, on 16th November, 1890 and died at Windsor, Vermont, on 2nd July, 1995, aged 104.

For ABC Wednesday

Mother’s Day is NOT a day for melancholy, is it?

She says goodbye to the seniors, which is difficult for her each year.

Since my mother died in February 2011, with me by her side in a Charlotte, NC hospital, there are periods that are harder than others throughout the year. November, her birth month, and February can sometimes be rough.

Mother’s Day is a mixed bag, emotionally. After all, I can celebrate my wife as the mother of our daughter, and my mother-in-law as the mother of my wife, and all those women, living and dead, who have been like a mother to me over the year.

This May, I attended a production of The Music Man at a high school about an hour south of Albany. My wife’s niece, and therefore my niece, was in the production, as she has for the previous five years, going back to 6th grade. It was quite good.

If you go on Sunday matinee, after the performance, the director thanks various folks individually. Then she says goodbye to the seniors, which is difficult for her each year, as they literally leave their shoes on stage.

One of the seniors, the one who played the mayor’s wife, really bonded with the director. Each of them had lost their mothers, I don’t know when, but recently enough that the sentiment felt really raw.

And damned if seeing them mourning their mothers on stage kicked up similar feelings for me.

Then there was that woman who got partially sucked out of a Southwest Airlines plane and soon died. At least two of the news networks reported on her husband telling her parents of their daughter’s death. But then he had to figure out how to tell their two children that their mom was not coming home. I had no reaction… ah, who am I kidding?

So this Mother’s Day is a tad more melancholy for me, for these reasons, or maybe something else, or for no discernable cause at all. Of course, I know that even if your mom’s alive, one can dread the commemoration.