Hurricane Sandy and incredibly silly people

My ire was predicated by the very real devastation the storm brought to a whole lot of OTHER people.

First off, I should note that I’m fine, we’re fine, in Albany. 150 miles north of New York City, we got a little wind and a little rain, but nothing substantial. They closed our public schools in the city for two days due to an abundance of caution; the new superintendent is from New Jersey and I think she was taking her lead from the mayor, who had proclaimed a state of emergency for a day or more.

And because it wasn’t a big weather event HERE, I’ve heard people calling it a “dud”, that they were “cheated”, which frankly ENRAGED me. (I referred to such people as “idiots” on Facebook; maybe I should stay off Facebook. Someone else called them “callous douchebags”, which I suppose is worse.) I wonder if it’s the result of the infotainment quality of big weather event reportage, alluded to by both Cheri and Mark Evanier?

My ire, though, was predicated by the very real devastation the storm brought to a whole lot of OTHER people, starting in Haiti, Cuba, and Jamaica, then much of New Jersey, Connecticut, and southern New York State, specifically NYC and Long Island. Over 80 dead, at least 33 in the US:
Millions without power
Oyster Creek, New Jersey on “Alert” as Sandy Threatens Nuclear Facilities
NYC flights still grounded by Sandy, and major train disruption as well. LaGuardia airport, in particular, is a mess.

One of my best friends wrote on Tuesday morning: “NYC and the surrounding area are a mess. The transit authority said this was the most devastating storm in the city’s history… The seven subway tubes underneath the East River connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn are Queens are flooded. The subway stations in lower Manhattan are flooded. Depots in all 5 boroughs where trains and buses were parked are underwater… This is the worst storm recorded in the city’s history. A buoy in NY harbor recorded a wave of 32.5 feet, the highest ever recorded. Seawalls in Queens and New Jersey recorded the ocean surging over 13 feet, the highest ever recorded. The creek did rise.”

Meanwhile, in the theater of the absurd, George W. Bush’s FEMA Director During Katrina Criticizes Obama For Responding To Sandy Too Quickly. As opposed to Michael Brown’s more…casual pace in dealing with the 2005 disaster. Also, some anti-gay preacher blamed Hurricane Sandy on “homosexuality and marriage equality”; these clowns seem to pop up every disaster. They should go send money to the American Red Cross, and, as another friend of mine used to say, “zip their traps.”
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What to do after a hurricane – US-specific, though some useful messages about preparation for all.

Kind of stupid stuff

This is actually a legitimate scientific theory…of the 18th century and before.

SamuraiFrog was complaining about some burnt-out rocker claiming President Obama was behind the recent mass shootings in Colorado and Wisconsin so that he can get a gun ban bill passed. And it wasn’t even Ted Nugent, this time. Yeah, it might have bothered me if I had heard of this guy, other than by the stupid things he blathers.

I’m actually much more peeved with the British. Diplomats suggested that they could invoke a little-known law to strip Ecuador’s embassy of diplomatic privileges, meaning police would be free to move in and detain [Julian] Assange. Does this mean that if, say, Iran, decided to threaten to void the diplomatic immunity of some Western country, that would be OK? I am guessing not. Oh, the Brits were just discussing options? Then do it in private. Where’s the “diplomacy” here? And, off topic, but I love the headline of this article: Assange to break silence amid diplomatic stoush. No American media source would use the word stouch – yay, ABC News, i.e., the Aussie version.

Roger Ebert has a good piece about what Thomas Jefferson called a wall of separation between Church & State. He writes: “That’s why it’s alarming to see so many politicians proposing to tear down that wall. It’s most evident in the eagerness of states to permit the teaching of Creationism (in the guise of Intelligent Design) in public schools, despite the ruling of a Pennsylvania U. S. District Court that ‘the overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory.'”

Of course, the Republican candidate for US Senate from Missouri is so lame that the Republican Presidential and VP candidate had to distance themselves from him. “First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” said Todd Akin in an interview posted Sunday. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” This is actually a legitimate scientific theory…of the 18th century and before.

I’ve been following a discussion about the scoring in Olympic events. I must say that the yuckiest moment I saw was when some poor Romanian girl lost her bronze medal when the American coach was able to lodge a protest which went in the American gymnast’s favor. So many of the sports have these somewhat subjective, or at least somewhat mysterious, scoring system. I appreciate the effort by the diving folks, who throw out the highest and lowest scores. It’d be a dull (and short) Olympics if they only included the sports in which people ran the fastest, jumped the highest, threw the farthest, etc., and I am not advocating for this, but I do understand the sentiment.

This whole blog post, though, was really inspired by a trip Saturday to the Altamont Fair, the regional fair in the Albany, NY area. It’s a great event – we spent over six hours there. But on the rides were signs a bunch of rules, all of which made sense. Still, the necessity of the last two lines pained me:
DO NOT FORCE A CHILD TO RIDE IF HE OR SHE IS FRIGHTENED.
A SCARED CHILD ON THE GROUND MAY PANIC IN THE AIR.
The necessity of such a warning suggests that some parents are tools. sad.

So, to return to SamuraiFrog, let’s Dare to be Stupid.

Getting rid of ABC News’ Brian Ross, for starters

In a three-minute span last week, anchor Diane Sawyer made two errors.

I’m forever fascinated by the news media, and how often they get it wrong. Anyone who has appeared in the newspaper will tell you that; “that’s not what I meant.” Often it’s breaking news they botch, such as CNN and FOX News reporting of when it was declaring that the Supreme Court had killed “Obamacare”

But it was some hours after the Aurora, Colorado shootings when ABC News’ Brian Ross, interrupting the news anchor, speculated that the shooter may have been a member of a local tea party chapter. Ah, his investigation seems to be that he Googled James Holmes and Aurora and found A James Holmes in Aurora, who is unrelated. The network issued a public apology. This was hardly the first of Ross’ premature reporting.

Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart totally lambasted Ross (at 5:00 in), and rightly so. Regret the Error explains the network’s mealy apology, while at the same time, making me suspicious of another detail of the story. “The network had reported that Holmes’ mother said ‘you have the right person’ when it contacted her to ask if her son was the shooter. She has since said she was referring to herself to let the reporter know she was Holmes’ mother.” I tend to believe Holmes’ mother’s version.

Ross, however, is hardly the only sloppy newsperson at ABC News. In a three-minute span last week, anchor Diane Sawyer made two errors. First, she noted that the British had 9,500 soldiers in Afghanistan, but 18,200 at the Olympics, which is “MORE than twice as many;” not when I went to school. Then she referred to late actor Sherman Hemsley as “Helmsley.” Forgivable mistake, perhaps, but when the reporter on the piece REPEATEDLY announces his name correctly, you’d think she’d fix it. Or, if she didn’t notice, that SOMEONE would whisper into her headphone about her miscue.

It wasn’t that long ago that the late Peter Jennings, who died in 2005, was anchoring ABC’s evening news. Those types of errors likely wouldn’t have taken place, and if they had, heads would have rolled. I’m reminded once again why I gave up my ABC News habit.

The June swoon

The big thing, though, was that the Daughter had not one, but two dance recitals.


This has been the busiest June I can remember. I was in charge of the Friends of the Albany Public Library annual meeting, which involved arranging for the speaker, planning a dinner for 20, and getting a plaque made, the latter two of which had more complications than I need to go into here. But it ultimately went off successfully. The best part is that I discovered an old-fashioned drink called a sidecar; I loved it!

Our church is in covenant with one of the local schools, and one Saturday, that meant putting together a playground, which entailed, among other things, clearing a field of weeds and a tremendous amount of trash. Here’s a brief news story.

I attended a comic book show. Went to at least three parties, with another two this upcoming weekend. I’m not even counting visits to the dentist and eye doctor.

The big thing, though, was that the Daughter had not one, but two dance recitals. The first was at her public school, where she was a new recruit in something called Step. A couple of weeks later, her ballet school was having its annual recital. That school’s founder is one Madeline Cantarella Culpo. One of her grandsons is Michael Culpo, a Division I basketball player, while one of her granddaughters is the new Miss USA, Olivia Culpo; she is understandably proud.
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Why I am getting so much spam on this site, over 300 per day? The filter catches it, but it’s still tedious to remove. And most of it is of the bad spam variety, from companies selling electronic cigarettes, payday loans, or “pantyhose covered female foot fetish,” filled with suspicious links and unreadable text. Whereas GOOD spam is: “Helpful info. Lucky me I discovered your website by chance, and I am shocked why this accident didn’t happen earlier! I bookmarked it.” I know it’s a lie, but at least it’s pleasing to the eye.

TV: from 90% to 50%

I had been viewing ABC News, more out of habit. I thought the late Peter Jennings was excellent, but through the reigns of Charles Gibson and now Diane Sawyer, the news has gotten softer and mushier.

I don’t write about TV much for one simple reason: the little I watch, I don’t usually see in real-time. Depending on the show, I could be a  week to a couple of months behind, though I tend to stay current with the news. By the time I see it, much of it is an old story. Which begs the question, how long should one wait until writing about “spoilers”? After all, many people timeshift their viewing with the TiVO or VCR or, in my case, DVR. As of this writing, I STILL haven’t seen the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy, which aired two weeks ago, but I read, in a passing message on a blog, a major plot point that I wish I didn’t know. Whereas my wife still doesn’t know who won Dancing with the Stars, at least until she sees her hairdresser Wednesday, though, in fact, I do. It’s not a show I watch, so I’m not upset about that.

When I came back from my trip at the beginning of May, our DVR was 90% full. But with seasons finally ending, first Parenthood, and the The Good Wife in April, then the rest of my shows in May, the list slowly but clearly is on a downward plane, running anywhere from 48-52% full. I’m hoping that by the fall preview season, it’ll be close to zero.

It helps that there are so many reality shows in the summer that I’m not interested in. The only thing on the recording list is the final season of The Closer. And at least so far, I’m not likely to add a show to record in the fall; in fact, I haven’t added a show in a couple of seasons.

And the shows everyone tells me I SHOULD be watching, such as Mad Men, I’ll have to get the DVDs of the previous seasons first. But I never do – I STILL haven’t watched The Wire, and it’s been off the air about half a decade. Instead, I’ll watch baseball or something I already own on DVD, such as an old Dick van Dyke Show.

I have to figure out which national news broadcast I should watch. I had been viewing ABC News, more out of habit. I thought the late Peter Jennings was excellent, but through the reigns of Charles Gibson and now Diane Sawyer, the news has gotten softer and mushier. The final straw was Friday when the SpaceX rocket docked on the International Space Station. The LA Times thought it warranted a special notice, which I Facebooked. The NBC News teased about it. But ABC News had not a word one about it. It’s become almost as bad as ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s the Today show, full of personal dramas and puff pieces; the CBS morning news is CLEARLY better, and on those rare occasions I view morning TV, I watch that.

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