Ramblin' with Roger

The torture report

Antonin Scalia believes in the ‘24’ Effect to rationalize torture.

While I’ve had the intention of writing about the disturbing report that the Senate Democrats recently released about the United States and torture, circumstances have not allowed that. So here’s a bunch of links, with brief observations:

From The Implications of the Torture Report by Mike Lofgren, Truthout:

The present writer will take as a given the veracity of its three main findings: that the United States engaged in practices both legally and commonly definable as torture; that the actionable intelligence these practices produced was negligible; and that the practices tainted the moral prestige of the United States government in a manner that damaged its foreign policy. These assertions may be taken as true both because of the abundant evidence presented in the report itself and because of the flailing and hysterical reaction by our country’s national security elites…

[Secretary of State] Kerry: “Lots of things going on in the world; not a good time for disclosure.” But when is there ever not a lot of things going on in the world?

That would be my general view as well.

Another fair representation of my position: 5 Things to Understand About the Torture Report from the Weekly Sift.

I’m particularly intrigued by the Truth and reconciliation section, which almost certainly will not happen because America is AWESOME! and we’re a “let’s move on” people.

The Rank, Reeking Horror of Torturing Some Folks from Truthout:

“In my name. In your name. In our names.” The narrative was that, in the days after 9/11, the “American people” wanted the government to do “anything” to prevent of another one. Instead, the torture and imprisonment have eventually led to the hate-filled ISIS. That may be true, since a majority of Americans say the CIA tactics were justified, which makes me all sorts of sad.

CIA Lied About Torture, Senate Report Suggests from Newsmax:

All sorts of discomforting items therein.

What torture sounds like from BoingBoing.

Karl Rove Says Bush Knew About CIA Interrogation Program, Defends Rectal Feeding from the Huffington Post:

“Appearing on ‘Fox News Sunday,’ [former GW Bush adviser] Rove claimed the brutal forced rectal feedings — which the report said were not medically necessary — were used out of medical necessity.”

Physicians: “Anal feeding” of prisoners is sexual assault, has no medical use, from BoingBoing:

“What a sad world we live in, when a coalition of medical professionals has to issue a press release announcing this most obvious of obvious observations…”

Dick Cheney: ‘I Haven’t Read’ CIA Torture Report but It’s ‘Full of Crap’ from Mediaite:

He doth describe himself instead, and rather well.

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Antonin Scalia’s spirited defense of torture from MSNBC:

“We have never held that that’s contrary to the Constitution. And I don’t know what provision of the Constitution that would, that would contravene.

“Listen, I think it is very facile for people to say, ‘Oh, torture is terrible.’ You posit the situation where a person that you know for sure knows the location of a nuclear bomb that has been planted in Los Angeles and will kill millions of people. You think it’s an easy question? You think it’s clear that you cannot use extreme measures to get that information out of that person? I don’t think that’s so clear at all.”

OMG, OMG. (Facepalm) Scalia believes in The ‘24’ Effect: Did the TV drama convince us that torture really worked? from Matt Bai at Yahoo! News. I stopped watching this show regularly after the first episode of the second season because I decided it was torture porn.

But sometimes, you just need a cartoon to break it down for you:
Tortured logic, from Tom Tomorrow in the Daily Kos
An Illustrated A to Z of Torture from Vice.com

Or satire:
Cheney calls for ban on publishing torture reports from the New Yorker

Baseball Hall of Fame: if I had a ballot

My final Hall of Fame vote was going to to Roger Clemens. But there’s a recent rule change.

Recently, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s Golden Era Committee failed to select anyone to the Hall, with Dick Allen and Tony Oliva coming tantalizingly close, much to my chagrin, especially for Tony O., who was my favorite American League player not on the Yankees when I was growing up.

Once again, time for me to think about the players, who will be voted on by the baseball writers, the results of which will be announced on January 6. “To be enshrined, players must be named on at least 75% of the Committee members’ ballots.”

Here are the players on the ballot. Last year, three players were inducted – Tom Glavine, and Greg Maddux, pitchers for the Atlanta Braves, and Frank Thomas, first baseman for the Chicago White Sox. Still, there are lots of quality picks available. The sportswriters who vote can select up to 10 players, though, clearly, most do not.

These are my picks if I had a ballot:

1. Lee Smith, who had more saves than anyone when he retired in an era when relievers often pitched more than one inning. 13th year on the ballot. He got 29.9% of the vote last year, much worse than the year before. I’ve supported his selection for years.

2. Craig Biggio. Second basemen aren’t usually expected to be selected for power, but for defense. Yet thrice he won both the Gold Glove (for fielding) and the Silver Slugger (for hitting) in the same season. 3rd year on the ballot. Last year, he got 74.8% of the vote, when 75% was the threshold.

3. And if you put in one of the Astros’ B-boys, why not power-hitting first baseman Jeff Bagwell. Last year, he got 54.3% of the vote; this will be his fifth year on the ballot.

4. Mike Piazza. A good hitting catcher, who was never specifically accused of taking performance-enhancing drugs (PED), but everyone who bulked up in that period was suspected by some. There’s no reason to believe it so. Last year, in his second year of eligibility, he got 62.2% of the vote.

5. Randy Johnson, along with Roger Clemens, THE dominant pitcher of his era, mostly with the Seattle Mariners and Arizona Diamondbacks. Definitely should be elected on his first year on the ballot.

6. What the heck, his pitching com-padre with the Diamondbacks, Curt Shilling, who also won the World Series with the Boston Red Sox. For some reason, don’t much like him much, but it does not cause me not to support him. He got 29.2% of the vote last year, but I’m wondering if Johnson on the ballot will help him the third time out.

7. Pedro Martinez is another first-timer I’d support, a pitcher with the Expos, Red Sox, and Mets, among others. Usually the ace of the staff.

8. If he had been eligible last year, first-timer John Smoltz might have been picked with his pitching teammates Glavine and Maddux.

9. Now, we get to the Steroid Era players. No one would argue that Barry Bonds wasn’t the best position player on the ballot and in fact one of the best players ever. The steroids weren’t specifically banned at the time he probably took them. Last year, he got 34.7% of the vote, and in his third year, he’s likely to do no better.

10. My final vote was going to Roger Clemens. But there’s a recent rule change:

On July 26, 2014, the Hall announced changes to the rules for election for recently retired players, reducing the number of years a player will be eligible to be on the ballot from fifteen years to ten. Three candidates presently on the BBWAA ballot (Lee Smith, Don Mattingly, Alan Trammell) in years 10-15 will be grandfathered into this system and remain under consideration by the BBWAA for up to the full 15 years.

So, now Mark McGwire is not in the 9th of 15 years, but the 9th of 10, which seems like an unfortunate bait-and-switch. With 11% of the vote, it’s incredibly unlikely he’ll make it this year or next.

On the other hand, I wouldn’t vote for suspected PED user Gary Sheffield in his first year.

So I’ve left off Tim Raines (in his eighth year, who I supported last year), Jeff Kent and Mike Mussina (both in their second years), as well as PED-tainted Clemens and Sammy Sosa (both in their 3rd year).

Who would you pick?

Weather or not, I write about it

There are a couple of reasons I don’t write much about the weather:
1) it’s so ephemeral
2) if I complain now, there’s the fear the next time could be worse

Still, the weather last week, for whatever reason, beat me down. It wasn’t 70 inches of snow. In fact, in the city of Albany proper, it wasn’t much snow at all, though some of the outlying areas got more than a foot.

That was the problem, really. The meteorologists, even 36 hours out, were candidly unsure of the forecast. The Winter Weather Advisory suggested 1-3 inches of snow, plus sleet and freezing rain.

Tuesday morning: looks dry. I walk out to go to work and realize that walking is treacherous. As bad as it is on the sidewalks, though, it was far worse on the roads. Crossing the streets was hazardous, not just from the fear of falling, but from the very real fear that some car would run me over since they don’t slow down in recognition of the road conditions.

I take two buses to work each morning. Bus number 1 was 5 minutes late, arriving at the transfer point just after when bus #2 should have been arriving.

I’d never seen anything quite like this: all of the traffic at Washington and Lark heading east on Central Avenue and Washington Avenue and north on Lark were backed up a couple of blocks. I heard dozens of car horns beeping, as though that was going to do any good.

The bottom line is that the second bus I took was over a half-hour late, and I ended up 45 minutes late for work.

By Tuesday evening, it had changed to white rain, or the wettest snow I can remember. I got home to try to shovel it, but the water content made it almost impossible. What I needed was not a shovel a Wet Vac, something to suck up the water. A local friend wrote on Facebook: “The Russian word for SNOW is СНЕГ (SNYEK). But many years ago, my dear friend… coined a new word: SNYUCK. That’s half snow and half yuck (ice, rain, sludge, etc.) – and that’s what’s happening outside in Albany, NY. It’s snyucking out!”

Wednesday morning, there were a number of school closings. Not Albany, and not the rural school district the Wife had to work in. By mid-morning, a blast of snow came into the area. I check the notices and while the outlining districts had closed early or canceled after-school activities, Albany merely noted a suggestion to run to pick up pone’s children early.

Still, I called The Wife to pick up the Daughter early, and a good thing too, because her 40-minute trip took an hour. While she was en route, I received a call from the after-care at 3:30, saying they were NOW closing at 4:30.

I went out to catch my bus, only to discover people waiting over an hour for the PREVIOUS bus. I took the westbound bus to Everett Road, deciding to walk home when I saw no connecting bus; this was a TERRIBLE idea. There were no shoveled sidewalks on Everett Road, which is an exit for Interstate 90. I’m walking part of the time in the street, in the dark, wearing a black coat; not recommended.

Thursday morning, Albany was the LAST of the schools to call for a two-hour delay. Surrounding school districts either had declared one 45 minutes or earlier, or had closed. Fortunately, the Wife’s school was also delayed.

I was grateful when The Wife offered me a ride home Thursday night.

So it was oddly enervating.

Picture, taken Wednesday, December 10, used by permission.

A post for ABC Wednesday.

Christmas spirit

It seems that every year, I work harder to get that Christmas spirit, whatever that means. I actively ignored Cyber Monday and Black Friday, and whatever that abomination is that has people shopping on Thanksgiving day.

BTW, had to correct someone about the origins of the term Black Friday; no, it doesn’t have anything to do with slavery.

Maybe taking some Christmas quizzes online will help. Christmas carol quiz: Can you name the song from just one line? Well, of course I got 15/15; I’m a choir person.

Which holiday movie am I? Elf? I have never even seen it!

Speaking of movies never seen, I guess I’ll not be watching Saving Christmas with Kirk Cameron any time soon.

If you’re going to be visiting a bunch of relatives during the holidays (may I say “the holidays”?), this could be useful: Second Cousins Once Removed Explained. It’s easier once you find the common ancestor.

Here are some more Christmas links:

Kristen Bell and Straight No Chaser’s ‘Text Me Merry Christmas’.

Opossum Carols, or Walt Kelly’s Xmas Postludicrosity.

Siren’s Crush, featuring Rebecca Jade (#1 niece) singing Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and Silent Night.

Why the spike in the cost of six geese-a-laying?

I tried to create a link to capture all of SamuraiFrog’s posts of the season, but it missed this Kristen and Dax piece.

I do believe I’ve gotten all of Jaquandor’s seasonal posts.

From the Renaissance Geek: Louisville Underground.

Santastic No. 9 video mashups from christmash.com, including a Beatles one.

Ugly Holiday Sweaters & Suits.

My favorite contemporary (and by that, I mean post-1950) pop Christmas song may be Stevie Wonder – What Christmas Means To Me. But I’m still terribly moved by Julie Andrews – The Bells of Christmas from a Firestone (tire company) LP I still own.

Probably my favorite Christmas comedy routine is Steve Martin – 5 Christmas Wishes.

Oh, the picture: this is my sister Leslie and me, almost certainly at Fowler’s in downtown Binghamton, NY, a couple of years ago.

MOVIE REVIEW: Force Majeure

American audiences don’t much like movies with subtitles.

The problem with describing the Swedish film Force Majeure as a comedy, or even as a dark comedy, which I’ve now read a few times, is that one may look for the humor early on, and that would be a mistake. It looks like the portrait of a perfect bourgeois family, a pretty mom, and nice-looking dad, and their attractive children, a girl, and a boy, on a ski vacation in Switzerland at a chichi resort. Pretty mundane, even boring.

Then the avalanche comes, which, not much of a spoiler, they all survive. Physically, that is. But what goes on emotionally in the relationships among the “perfect” nuclear family, and those with whom they interact is what’s interesting.

I suspected, even before looking up the Rotten Tomatoes scores, that it’d be a movie liked more by critics, 93% positive at last glance at Rotten Tomatoes, than by the general public. 76% positive. One either buys the basic conceit of the narrative, or one does not. It’s also the case that American audiences don’t much like movies with subtitles, though some of the film is in English; it didn’t bother me.

The Wife and I liked it quite a bit when we saw it at The Spectrum in Albany on a recent Sunday afternoon, In particular, the stark use of silence, and the ambiguous and multiple endings, were intriguing. There’s one brief moment when I actually ducked in my chair, and it was NOT the avalanche scene.

I just figured this out: the choice of the dominant music was part of the joke!