Stranger than Fiction

Weather-Induced Government Follies Post #4

2011-08-01T22:36:00.000-04:00

Today, severe thunderstorms and torrential downpours caused all kinds of damage across Westchester County. Downed power lines, downed trees, power outages, and so forth, and so on. No real surprise, right? Today's the first of August; this is just summertime weather.

OK. But why does Westchester County and Liberty Lines, the company that operates the county's Bee-Line bus system, allow buses to travel down streets that have become all but impassable?

When I got on the bus to come home from work, after leaving really late to avoid getting drenched -- I forgot my umbrella -- the driver told me I wouldn't be able to get off at my usual place ("Your stop is canceled," he actually said), because power lines were down at the intersection just before my usual stop. I wound up getting off one block away, which is no big deal. But the driver didn't say anything to any of the other passengers to let them know there was a detour, he just crossed Scott's Bridge and followed the course this particular route used to run the MTA complained that the buses were causing extra wear and tear on all the bridges over the Metro-North tracks. But buses headed in the opposite direction -- some of them double-length -- went right up to the intersection where the wires had come down, then were forced to wind their way through streets too narrow for such large and wide vehicles. Why didn't someone somewhere redirect the westbound buses to follow the same course the eastbound ones were taking? Or would that have made too much sense?

Government Follies Post #3

2011-07-31T23:57:00.000-04:00

One thing that's all over the news here in the NYC area is a referendum before the Nassau County taxpayers to fund a new arena to replace the old Nassau Coliseum. The owner of the NHL's Islanders, Charles Wang, has said he will move or sell the team if Nassau County doesn't provide his team a new stadium.

It seems like every professional sports team pulls this stunt, or tries to, at some point. Why do these multimillionaires think the public is supposed to build them a place of business? Do you ever hear of Walmart threatening to relocate one of their stores because the local government won't provide a new building for their business? If Charles Wang wants a new stadium, he should build one. Period.

Government Follies Post #2

2011-07-31T23:52:00.000-04:00

I was all set to rant about how all this stupid political posturing in Congress was about to create financial chaos, when lo! the sparring parties managed, somehow, to put aside their ideologies and agree to some kind of compromise. Of course, the sticking point were these Tea Party rookies who haven't yet learned that in strong winds, grass survives because it bends, while trees stand stiff and resist the wind and thus they break.

Earlier tonight I saw some talking-head show where one of the Tea Party rookies naturally said, "Hey, it wasn't us, it was the oldsters who've been there 30 years who made this mess." And yeah, he was right. The underlying mess wasn't created by the Tea Party rookies. But if everybody stuck to their guns, with no chance for compromise, millions of people who did all the things they were supposed to do, and contributed to the Social Security kitty all those years, would have been told, "Sorry, we can't pay you." And the military members who the Tea Party people seem to think they emulate would have gone unpaid also.

Of course, it's not really over just yet. Everybody still has to vote, and let's face it, little bits of the crisis they're supposed to be trying to prevent will still come to be. The US economy, and the US government itself, will not stop on a dime. It's more like one of those oil supertankers that need thousands of feet to make even the smallest course changes.

And, for what it's worth. a balanced budget is mandatory. There's no way it can just be pushed aside. But adding a constitutional amendment saying the budget must be balanced cheapens the Constitution. You don't have to add an amendment in order to do it. Just... do it.

Mass T-RANT-sit (Government Follies Post #1)

2011-07-31T23:35:00.001-04:00

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a New York State agency that manages public transportation systems in and around New York City, wants to charge $1 for Metro Cards. They've been trying for awhile now to encourage reloading existing cards rather than buying new ones. That's well and good for people who use the subway or the city buses every day, or at least live near a subway station where they can recharge their card before going on the bus.

But for us in Westchester County, which signed on to using MetroCards a couple of years ago, this amounts to a tax or a fee, for using a system we didn't ask for. I happen to live in Mount Vernon, which borders the Bronx. I can walk to the 241st Street subway station to recharge my card... theoretically, at least. More about that later. The point is, someone in, say, Tarrytown or in Mount Kisco, doesn't have a subway station nearby to put more money on their cards. Their local Metro North train stations have ticket machines that will dispense MetroCards, since MetroNorth is a division of the MTA, but those machines don't recharge existing cards.

The MTA would probably claim that the cost of allowing for recharging cards outside the city is prohibitive, not cost-effective, and so forth and so on. But there is an obvious solution to that problem. Since the cards are issued by the MTA, and Metro North is run by the MTA, just allow for Metro Card use for Metro North train fares. Metro North is not a closed system as the NYC subways are, but the system could be made to accommodate the cards if the MTA wanted to do it.

As it happened, I went to the 241st Street subway station intending to put some money on one of my Metro Cards, only to see when I got there that I couldn't get into the station. It was closed because of trackwork. Riders were being offered shuttle buses to the 180th Street station, but I wasn't about to ride to 180th Street just to put money on my card. I wound up using the remaining balance on my one Metro Card with money on it to go to a local store, then taking a cab home, since I didn't have change or a Metro Card for the bus. Again, if there were a way to recharge the cards in Westchester, I wouldn't have to go the subway station just to find that I can't get in.

Yeah, I know, I didn't have to wait until I had only one ride left to recharge. But that's beside the point... ;-)

Of Organ Donors and 'Words (reposted from elsewhere 10/23/07)

2010-07-30T10:44:00.005-04:00

I'm what you could call a "magazinaholic," or "readaholic." I read lots and lots of magazines, and an occasional book. Right now, when I get the chance, I'm reading The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell, about... well, the subtitle is "How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference." For clarification, "tipping point" can be another way of saying "the straw that broke the camel's back."

Anyhow, recently I read a special edition of Scientific American magazine, which I buy when something on the cover catches my eye. This special edition, titled Scientific American: Mind, has articles like "Psychology of eBay" (we shouldn't be so trusting of strangers we don't know and can't see, and yet we are), "Preventing Dropouts," and "How Words Shape Thought."

That last one really stuck with me: it's about how almost everyone who wants to shape people's thought patterns or catch people's attention will do so with careful attention to the words they choose to make their points. One example is ex-US President George W. Bush using the phrase "death tax" in his campaign to abolish what is actually an inheritance tax. By calling it a "death tax," he gained support from people who have little to leave as an inheritance for the ending of a tax that only those US residents inheriting money have to pay. Bush didn't make it clear that this was not a penalty tax on survivors but a tax on interited income. And, of course, Bush did not disclose that sometime soon he himself would have to pay this tax if something were to happen to his father. Conflict of interest, anyone?

Another example was "opt-in" vs. "opt-out" policies for organ donation. In many countries, people who renew their driver's licenses are asked if they want to be an organ donor. In opt-out countries like Belgium or France, where the default is that you are an organ donor, the effective rate of participation approaches 100%, while in opt-in countries like the US and the Netherlands, where you have to explicitly sign a form to donate, the percentage hovers in the twenties.

I'm sure there are those who would screech about freedom and rights and such, but in light of the thousands of people who stay on transplant lists for years while perfectly healthy people who could donate do not, policy makers in this country and elsewhere should think about changing to an opt-out policy. After all, we all have to opt-out to stop receiving postal mail or email that we didn't even ask for, so what's the big deal about making organ donation an opt-out process? It would make many more organs available, and thus prolong and even save lives -- people wouldn't be forced to donate, but many times more people would be checked to see if they're suitable than are being checked now.

I had my kidney transplant three years ago, but if a relative hadn't volunteered to donate, who knows where I'd be now?

Dragging BP through the mud

2010-06-01T13:37:00.000-04:00

I never understood how BP figured that "top kill" thing could work. They had to drill through solid rock in order to get to the oil, which was under pressure. Drilling through the rock relieved the pressure, thus creating a gusher. Did they really think that, with mud and machines, they could exceed the underground pressure pushing the oil up in the first place?

So much commotion over drawings

2010-05-20T13:53:00.003-04:00

Facebook and Youtube are now blocked to Web users in Pakistan because of a Facebook campaign to draw caricatures of the prophet Muhammad, a no-no in Islam. (Culture Wars vs. Censorship: What's a Social Network to Do? from TechNewsWorld.com) But what's all the fuss? Draw Muhammad Ali, or Ali Shaheed Muhammad, or Eddie Mustafa Muhammad. Draw Matthew Saad Muhammad, or Dwight Muhammad Qawi. (I know my examples are loaded with boxers, but so what?) Probably not what the organizer had in mind, but the contest is titled simply Everybody Draw Muhammad Day. It doesn't specify which Muhammad...

Do your homework, iqProsoft.com

2010-03-12T17:02:00.001-05:00

Recently I was re-reading the Writer's Yearbook 2010 issue of Writer's Digest magazine, and saw an ad for a word-processing program targeted for professional writers. In trying to distinguish the program from both open-source programs like Open Office, and from online writing solutions like Blogspot, they made a wild leap of disconnected logic, as thus:

Unlike Open Source, iQ Word is an installed program in your computer. No link to the Internet is required.

Once more, for the class:

Open Source has nothing to do with the program's installation. Open Source simply means the program's source code is made public so that anyone with knowledge of the program's operation can fix bugs, add features, and so on.
Installation, in this context, refers to whether a program places files in the Windows or Windows/System directories, or if it makes changes to the Windows Registry. OpenOffice.org is a suite of open source programs, but it is fully installed in your computer, if you install the full program. There is also the no-install version -- one that does NOT create files in the Windows or System directories, or make changes to the registry -- that can be kept on a USB drive or a CD for use in whatever computer one comes across;
Blogger, WordPress.com, Google Docs, and other online writing systems require an online connection.

Tiger Better Fess Up

2009-11-30T13:50:00.002-05:00

By now, everyone within range of a TV or radio knows that Tiger Woods had some kind of "incident" over the holiday weekend. The official story is that at 2:30am, Woods was backing out of his driveway and ran into a tree and a fire hydrant, injuring himself. His wife supposedly had to break his rear windshield with a golf club to pull him out of the vehicle, and when the police arrived, they found Woods lying in the street, bloody and incoherent. with his wife "standing over him."

Riiiight.

Before any of the inevitable rumors began to swirl, I had my doubts. First I thought, "Tiger Woods had an accident at 2:30 in the morning? Backing up? What was he trying to get away from?" Then I heard more details. Facial injuries, wife with golf club. Immediately, I figured, he wasn't injured from the accident, his wife went upside his head with that golf club. After all, if he injured himself that badly backing up, he would have had to stomp on the gas pedal, meaning at least he would have pulled the hydrant out of the ground (I've seen it happen) and/or possibly backed into -- or through! -- whatever was across from his driveway.

Then it came out that Mrs. Tiger had read a National Inquirer report of her husband having an affair with a woman in New York. That would definitely be a rationale for her working him over with a golf club or whatever. These days the Inquirer has to be taken more seriously than in years past; after all, they stuck to their guns with the John Edwards paternity story, and turned out to be correct.

Eldrick Woods is, and has always been, a private person. I can respect that; I treasure my privacy as well. But Tiger better put aside the worries about his image and just fess up to whatever it is he's so afraid of the police finding out, and just answer their questions. The best way to make the story go away is to tell it. But continuing to stick to an obvious fable, and continuing to hold off the police, will just prolong the publicity until the truth comes out anyway, maybe bringing along with it something else the Woodses would like to keep private.

EDIT: Of course, now more women are stepping up and saying that they've had affairs with Tiger Woods, one even supplying a voicemail recording of Woods asking her to remove her name from her phone so it won't show up in his cell phne's call logs when she calls, because his wife had checked his phone and seen the name. And, typically, Woods is throwing money around to all involved, including his wife, in the hopes that it will keep everyone in their respective lanes.

I will never understand the mindset of someone who apparently values image above reality. Woods is apparently rewriting his prenuptial agreement with his wife to give her more money if (well, basically "when") she leaves but giving her more to stick around for a couple more years. Reminds me of a movie I saw parts of a few years ago, "Love Don't Cost a Thing," starring Nick Cannon and Christina Milian. Tiger comes off as a lot nerdier (and maybe needier?) than Nick here, because Nick's character didn't pay millions to Christina's cool-girl character to pretend to be his girlfriend, the way Tiger's paying Elin millions to stick around and pretend to be his loving wife. (Take note of the title, Tiger; whatever you're paying for ain't love.)

Interesting note from UrbanDictionary.com, in its definition of Kobe Special, named after the ring NBA player (ha!) Kobe Bryant bought his wife after being caught cheating:

Jewelry bought by husbands to appease their angry wives. Usually, the anger concerns extramarital skank diddling on the side. In normal households, a gift of jewelry like this would solve nothing; it would be seen as the empty and loveless gesture that it is. However, in the lives of the rich and famous, empty materialism covers all sins and fixes all problems because they have no souls.

Archos Do-over?

2009-11-27T18:47:00.001-05:00

Back in September I posted my frustrations with my Zune 80 -- its almost total dependence on software, the software in question (which is pokey and ornery), and failure to copy all the files the configuration calls for -- and dithered between the Apple iPod Touch or Archos 5 for my next media player.

A sales clerk at Target tried to make a case for the Zune HD, but my research showed that the Zune HD was still dependent on Microsoft's crippled ("customized") Windows Media Player software. Being able to control the device directly through WMP would have worked out much better, but everyone knows Microsoft cares little for what the buying public wants. And after all the clerk's talking, Target doesn't even carry the Zune HD, only the older Zunes that have been phased out!

I finally settled on the Archos 605 Wifi, the generation before the Archos 5 Internet Media Tablet (which has since been relaunched with the Android OS). I figured that both the Apple and the Archos had too many advantages over the Zune to even consider it seriously: The Apple has a max storage capacity of 64 GB, but it comes with tens of thousands of applications available, while the Archos has much more storage capacity than either of the others (mine has 120GB; I think the largest available is 320GB, which is larger than my laptop's drive). However, this 605 Wifi takes forever to charge, and a nagging flaw with the operating system dating back to my old Archos 420 Personal Video Player still persists: if you add, delete, or refile any photos while the player is connected to a computer by USB, the filing system goes haywire when trying to catalog the changes. It only seems to affect photos, though; I can add, delete, and transfer music and videos to my heart's content and not worry about songs or video clips being resorted.

Oh well, can't have it all, I guess. But I don't want to overtax this thing now by trying to rip any DVDs to it, though that was one of the reasons I decided to buy a player with so much storage space...

Derek Jeter with fewer hits than Harold Baines?!

2009-09-25T12:55:00.001-04:00

When I saw the headline on the Onion Sports Network site, "Derek Jeter Honored for Having 122 Fewer Hits than Harold Baines," I took it for a joke. How could it not be? Derek Jeter is captain of the Yankees, the team's all-time hits leader, got a shout-out from President Obama, stands-for-Truth-Justice-and-the-American (or-at-least-Yankee)-Way, all of that. Harold Baines, on the other hand, is a retired former journeyman outfielder/DH who played for about half a dozen different teams.

But a quick search on Google led to the Baseball Reference site, where, lo and behold, it turned out to be true! Baines retired with 2,866 hits. Where was his fanfare? Did he get a shoutout from President Bush? (Well, OK, that one probably isn't fair, since the US was still reeling from 9/11 at the time.) But the Onion has a point. Jeter has to be put into perspective, and in light of Harold Baines, Jeter is still good, but not really all that...

Bill Gates as Frustrated with Windows As the Rest of Us -- in 2003!!

2009-09-17T15:53:00.000-04:00

TheInternetPatrol.com has a copy of an email Bill Gates sent to various Microsoft personnel six years ago itemizing his frustrations with trying to download Windows Movie Maker and beign made to jump through hoops only to find after numerous s-l-o-w downloads and at least one reboot that the one program he wanted is not there, though plenty of other unwanted stuff was.

Stupid Zune software making decisions for me!

2009-09-14T14:06:00.002-04:00

I've been trying hard to like my Zune 80, but it's been a hassle almost out of the box. The battery life can be measured in minutes, the software is pokey, and often when I try to sync it with my computer the software refuses to add media when it's supposed to (with "unknown error" as the only offered explanation). How am I supposed to identify and fix the problem if the software just shrugs and says "I dunno"? Some websurfing finds that I'm not the only one that feels that way. This CNet article was written a year ago, saying the same things in much more detail: 5 Reasons Why My Zune is Dead to Me

Now the question is, iPod or Archos? Ipod is snazzier, smaller, and has loads more accessories and software, but for the same money I can get much more storage space with an Archos PMP. For instance, the new(ish) 32GB iPod Touch costs just a bit more than an 250GB Archos 5 "Internet Tablet." I have a feeling if I get an Archos I'll opt for the slightly older but less breakable 605 Wi-fi.

Bernazard Must Go!

2009-07-22T10:03:00.002-04:00

I said in another post, back when Willie Randolph was fired, that Tony Bernazard should be next. That his successful efforts to undermine Randolph's authority as manager demonstrated that he had no idea how to conduct team business in a professional manner. But now reports that he ripped off his shirt and challenged members of the Mets' Double-A affiliate in Binghamton to a fight should be the last straw. (See story)

The Mets are doing a good enough job of being the butt of jokes that they don't need team execs adding fuel to the fire. The man has gotten way too much benefit from all the doubt. Fire him, Omar, or whoever his boss is. (Which is another confusing point with the Mets' organization: Bernazard is a VP and the general manager is his boss?)

With the farm teams doing as badly as the Mets, or even worse, it's understandable that Bernazard would be frustrated or even angry. But still there are lines that should not be crossed, and Bernazard stomped all over the line before jumping over it. Get rid of him!

Clowns Packing Up Albany Circus?

2009-07-10T01:59:00.008-04:00

First off, I apologize to any actual clowns or circus performers who may read this and be offended by my decision to characterize the warring New York State senators as clowns. I did not mean to offend your noble profession...

So it's beginning to look and sound like the circus (Bungling Brothers/Empire State Circus) that's been preoccupying the New York State Senate for the past five weeks has finally run its course, with the renegade Democrats Hiram Momserrate Jr. and Pedro Espada finally settling down and dancing with what brung 'em, as the saying goes. Espada has been making a pitiful attempt to frame this as something other than a power play. But he went from an apparently unhappy Democratic senator voting Democratic, to a Democratic senator voting Republican and being appointed Senate Majority Leader by the Republicans, to voting Democratic and being appointed Senate Majority Leader by the Democrats. It's bad enough that he's deluded enough to be clearly unfit for public office, but does he really think anyone else outside of Albany (and Syracuse, where deluded billionaire Tom Golisano lives) shares his delusion?

I say fire all of 'em. Monserrate, Espada, Dean Skelos, everyone who was part of this plot that paralyzed government and cost the state, counties, and municipal governments millions and millions of dollars, while they argued over whose (majority) was bigger. But, of course, they can't just be fired, since they were elected. But they can be denied the opportunity of being rehired (re-elected) when the next terms come up. The people these miscreants represent should make it clear that they shouldn't even waste their time thinking about running for re-election.

But that's not all.

I say, total up the apparent losses to all the affected jurisdictions, and make them pay. Better yet, since billionaire Tom Golisano has nothing better to do with his time than muck up government for his own amusement by instigating political coups, prosecute him for obstruction of government services and make him foot the bill. He has the money, and if the forces lined up against him (there are almost 20 million people in New York State) exert enough pressure, he'll have no choice but to pay up and, in the future, mind his own business and stop using the state government as his own personal sandbox to play with as he pleases.

Them's my two cents...

Let Him Be

2009-07-08T01:46:00.005-04:00

It's over, call it a day
Sorry that it had to end this way
No reason to pretend
We knew it had to end someday
This way
(Written by Nat Kipler / John McIntyre Vallins)

Johnny Mathis sang those words 30 years ago but he could easily have been singing about the circus the media has created around the Michael Jackson situation.

Personally, I stopped really being a "fan" back in the late 80s/ early 90s, when Michaelmania was in full swing. The easiest way to turn me away from something is to assert its popularity, and no one could doubt MJ's popularity in those days. I did manage to come into possession of his Off the Wall album -- yes, an actual vinyl album -- though I didn't buy it, I borrowed it and then the owner gave it to me while preparing to move. I really am sorry his life had to end the way it did, going into cardiac arrest of all things.

That drugs were somehow involved, though, was not much of a surprise to me, once it sank in that he really had died, that the news was not yet another Internet hoax. After all, it was reported far and wide that he had fired his kids' nanny, Grace Rwaramba (sp?), after she had tried to arrange an intervention over his drug use. The stated reason for the firing wasn't slander (accusing him of something untrue with malicious intent) but betrayal (airing business that was supposed to remain private), a tacit admission that he'd had a problem. And being surrounded by yes-people from that point on could only mean more and more of the same. The only mystery was if he would wise up and kick the habits (yes, the plural is intentional) or if he would succumb to them. We now know the answer...

But now that Michael Jackson, who has been treated anew like a personified media event rather than a person, has passed away and is soon to be buried, let's let him rest. So what if he cut his children's mother and his own father out of his will? What business is that of ours?

So what if his financial matters are a tangled web? That money is already well-earmarked, and the scrutiny that the press wants to give it won't change anything.

So what if he wasn't the biological father of the two oldest children? He may not have been the father but he was definitely the Daddy, which in the end mattered much more to those kids.

So what if he was alleged to have molested kids? First off, they were just that -- allegations -- from people who seemed more concerned about payment than justice. And what if they were true? I don't at all condone molestation or harassment of any kind, but come on, the man's dead. Let him rest without having to rehash the seedier stretches of his past. Pete King, a New York politician, expressed his frustration with all the press coverage Jackson's death has garnered, and I can sympathize with the frustration one hundred percent. But why did his statement have to include characterizing Jackson as a child molester, pedophile, and "lowlife"? If King had to vent, it should have been at the media outlets pumping up Jackson's passing to pump up their own ratings so they can make more money off soap commercials and liquor ads. Calling a dead man names is no better than digging in the sewer for sludge to throw at the hearse as it passes on the way to the funeral. I have real reason to doubt King would stoop to that in action, so why do it in words?

And now, of course, the merchandising machine is revving up, churning out CDs and DVDs and books and magazines and any kind of tacky souvenir someone would be willing to buy. And, if Tupac Shakur's situation (and Elvis Presley's) is any indication, it won't be long before some deluded fans and even a so-called investigator or two claims that "Michael Jackson is not really dead! He faked his death because [fill in your preferred rationale here]!!" The rational I'd pick is the number of unreleased recordings that will come out. One of the major beefs that the more vocal disgruntled recording artists have with the industry is how much unreleased music the labels hold onto, waiting for artists to either die or hit it big down the road with another label.

Whatever thoughts people have about Michael Jackson, what he accomplished, what he was accused of, what he could have accomplished if he'd done things differently, it doesn't change what has happened. He has come to the end of his road.

Let him be.

New name for the Albany Follies

2009-06-24T14:26:00.000-04:00

The Bungling Brothers/Skelos & Espada Circus. Let's see if this gets around...

Addendum to Richest Man in Gotham...

2009-06-11T13:15:00.003-04:00

As I went back and re-read this, the song Richest Man in Babylon by Thievery Corporation started playing in my head. I would love to see Bloomberg spend tens of millions of dollars on his illegal re-election campaign, thinking that would put a victory in the bag, only to lose to Bill Thompson or whoever. I'm sure he slapped the Republican party around with his money to be sure they wouldn't back any potential challenger...

It's been a long time...

2009-06-09T17:42:00.002-04:00

...and I've had lots going on. But this one bit, I had to share today. It's now official: you can now find any piece of information that might remotely interest somebody on the Internet. You might not even have to look for it; it might leap out at you.

Microsoft is launching what it's promoting as a "new" Web search tool, Bing.com. It' s really just a relabel of its Live Search. In an article I got in my email from About.com, Jen Hubley compared the responses that Bing and Google provided to the query "what should I do?" She said that the third result in Google's list was an explanation of what she should do "when my eyeballs fall out of their sockets," which I took to be her usual exaggeration.

But just to be sure I did a Google search on the same phrase, and the fifth result in my search was an article on Slate.com titled "My Eyeball Just Fell Out of Its Socket: What should I do?"

No joke. Here's the URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2137959/ The article details an incident where Villanova basketball star Allan Ray had his eyeball literally poked out of its socket by an opposing player in a game. But apparently it doesn't have to happen as violently as all that.

Or, if you would like to check out the search yourself, just Google "what should I do." Here's the URL to my search results page, which may actually turn up different results this time: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22what+should+I+do%22

Possible demerit to the value of Google search: this was third in Jen's search results, and fifth in mine, but the incident happened three years ago - the article is dated March 2006.

Richest Man in Gotham: Mayor Mike

2009-04-14T13:48:00.005-04:00

I've always felt, for some reason, that it can't be a healthy sign when the elected leader of any jurisdiction is its wealthiest citizen. How could he relate to the common people? Would he even try, or would he be biased towards his fellow "-illionaires"?

For example, when Silvio Berlusconi was first elected prime minister of Italy, he was already the country's richest man. But Italy is probably a special case; it has never really coalesced since its consolidation as one country back in the 1870s, as evidenced in its parade of governments since the abolishment of the kingdom after World War II. Italian leaders can see their coalition fail because the PM sneezed without covering his mouth or used the wrong fork at a state dinner.

Then we come to Mike Bloomberg, mayor of New York City. He was already a billionaire when he was first elected, so in order to not threaten his holdings in Bloomberg LP he agreed to take a salary of $1 a year. Immediately I began to figure that NYC residents should only expect a dollar's worth of governance. But my assessment looks like it might have been wrong, at least in the beginning. He actually turned out to be, if not a great mayor, at least pretty good at seeing issues that need to be addressed and actually doing something about them. I guess years of experience as a CEO, rather than as a politician, will do that for a guy.

But it also seems me that years of being a billionaire CEO has distanced him from the common people. He can come across as very callous when speaking of the difficulties that working people might have with his policies.

Now it comes out in Forbes magazine's latest poll of the richest Americans that, apparently, Bloomberg is now the richest man in NYC and the eighth richest in the US. In fact, he is now one of the twenty richest people in the world. Not just New York City, or New York State, or even the United States. The world. But during 2008, when the bottom was falling out of the housing market, the credit market, and the financial sector, leading to people losing their jobs and companies closing down in all kinds of industries, what was Bloomberg doing?

He was busy working on a way to get around term limits, which the people of New York City had voted to keep in place. Twice. And now he's busy slashing the budget on services that New Yorkers need. Where's the concern for the people who put him into office? Where's the common touch? You would think he would at least be a little concerned how it looks when the richest man around is playing Scrooge with the public's money while swimming in his own.

It's pointed out in the comments to the first article referred to above that "if Bloomberg were to give each New Yorker $1000 out of his own personal coffers, he would still have $10 billion left." Not that anyone is seriously expecting the mayor of New York City to start bailing out ailing New Yorkers from his own huge stash of cash, but then he did say that, when he left office, he was going into philanthropy. (Oh yeah, but that was back when we thought he was going to honor the people's wishes and go away after his duly elected terms were up...)

Disclosure: I am not a resident of New York City, but of neighboring Westchester County. I am also not running for office anywhere, or giving support to anyone running. I just had to put this out there.

The Shamwow sells itself, I suppose...

2009-03-28T17:55:00.001-04:00

I actually bought some ShamWows at a computer show a couple of weeks ago, on my way out after the show was over. I saw the infomercials who knows how many times, thought it was a good product but dragged my feet about buying... until I happened to see them at the booth.

MORE Bonuses for AIG?!

2009-03-15T23:08:00.007-04:00

Let's see...
The federal government (that is, We the People) owns 80% of AIG...

AIG is in the process of doling out $165 million in more bonuses...

And, according to the Treasury Department, nothing can be done about it?

That's ridiculous. AIG got over $100 billion in federal bailout funds. That means the people charged with managing the company did not do a good job, by any measure. Bonuses are supposed to be a reward for doing a good job. So, why are these people getting bonuses? More to the point, why is AIG getting federal money?

I say, cut off the bonuses, and let it be known that that's just the way it is. If these people want their bonuses that bad, well, since AIG (standing in for We the People) claims to be contractually bound, make the execs sue the government for the money. Such a lawsuit is bound to be covered as much as possible by the media. Maybe the extra scrutiny is all that's needed to make them fall back and make do with the millions they've already been paid.

AIG also says they'll "work on reducing bonuses in future years by 30%," but they can and should be made to do better than that. As long as the government has a stake in the company, in fact, there should be no bonuses. Make that their motivation for getting the company back on the right track.

To be fair, AIG did not fall into such a deep hole only because of the stupid bets they made with their policyholders' money -- the hole got deeper after AIG started falling, but the company itself dug the original hole. AIG insures the banks and financial service companies that all fell so hard throughout 2008, so they would have landed hard no matter what. AIG is also one of the companies that has to cover the loss for airlines whenever a plane goes down. AIG actually insures ("reinsures") insurance companies. But they wound up falling into the hole in the first place, not because of any of that, but because they violated a cardinal rule of the insurance business: do not risk policyholders' money. When an insurance company begins making high-risk investments in the same mad grab for cash that endangered Wall Street, well, we've all seen the result. In this case, it means the government winds up owning 80% of what should by most accounts have been a private company gone bust. After all, AIG may be a huge company, but it's not the only reinsurer. If it had gone under, there are plenty of insurers that could have taken up the slack. The interim would have been quite bumpy for the policy holders, particularly for the airlines (at least it seems that way for me). Watching such a big company go bust, though, would have sent a message to other companies -- namely, that they shouldn't think they're somehow entitled to a bailout from the Feds. Now, of course, because of all the money that's been handed out, there's that much more anger from the public, because the fat cats have been bailed out but the general public, the ones who are out of work and competing with millions more people for the few jobs available, are only getting crumbs.

And then Dick Cheney goes on TV and says that the Bush administration shouldn't be blamed for the mess "that was handed to the Obama administration." Well, who handed it to them? And who made the policies that created the mess? Cheney also said that the previous administration "achieved all its goals in the campaign in Iraq." Well, that can be true only if its goals included enriching Cheney's friends in the military-industrial complex, companies like Halliburton, and Bechtel, and of course the oil companies that are making billion-dollar deals in Iraqi Kurdistan (I'll add the link when I find the Forbes.com article).

Alex Rodriguez and Steroids

2009-02-10T23:31:00.003-05:00

I'm already tired of all the hand-wringing over A-Rod and his admission that he took steroids, supposedly for only three years while he was playing for the Texas Rangers. OK, it is now and was then a banned substance, but at that time there was no penalty. So why try to whip up grounds to punish him now?

But I have to admit I'm disappointed.

After the furor whipped up by the New York sports media over Mets' then-GM Steve Phillips passing on the chance to trade A-Rod back when the Rangers were shopping him around -- saying that Rodriguez wanted perks that would have created a team of 24+1 -- I started to sour on A-Rod. Before that I had kind of liked him, but as he basked in the glow of both the $25-million-plus he was getting paid plus the "glory" of being with the Yankees, he became really irritating with his obsession with being seen in the best light by the media and the fans. Now I guess we all know why...

But I'm disappointed because, although I had come to dislike Rodriguez, I got the impression that he really was clean. I've even gone on record on this blog, in earlier messages on the Bonds situation, praising Rodriguez for being clean. Now that he's admitted to juicing, it raises a lot more questions:

Was he really using for only those three years?
Why did this supposedly confidential information get out? Who put his name out there? Why now, so much later?
What other supposedly confidential info from that survey is about to come out?
How does baseball think it will get cooperation from players in any other matter that's supposed to be confidential?
When will these overpaid-idiot players realize that they're under so much scrutiny because the leaders of their union have always pushed them to refuse to cooperate with investigations? The word is that they're scared of Don Fehr and Gene Orza, but let's face it, if enough of the players want them out, what power do Fehr and Orza really have?

I, for one, will be glad when this whole mess is over, and we're no longer hearing about steroids in baseball -- or in any sport, for that matter.

Naming Rights vs. Bailout

2009-02-09T13:06:00.007-05:00

I see that I'm not the only one who thinks it's wrong that Citibank and others can give out tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars to sports arenas for naming rights, then turn around and beg the federal government for bailout money. As far as I can tell, the furor seems to be contained to the New York area, since Citibank has agreed to pay the NY Mets $400 million over twenty years for the naming rights for the Mets' new stadium, set to begin use this year. But I wouldn't be surprised if it goes farther than that. This bears some research...

Mets' chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon says Citibank is right in continuing to pay the money. Of course he says that, he and his team are getting those millions. But I can't help thinking that his perspective is corrupted by the estimated half-billion dollars that the Mets' parent company, Sterling Equities, is rumored to have lost in the Bernie Madoff scandal.

It looks to me like the Feds are paying Citibank to replace what the Mets lost to Madoff. Pretty good deal, if you can arrange it...

Fractal Broccoflower

2009-02-09T12:35:00.002-05:00

Part of a balanced fractal diet.

(PS -- it's real. It's called Romanesco broccoli.)

Interesting quote for the day...

2009-02-04T13:56:00.001-05:00

...from Shirley MacLaine, of all people:

It is useless to hold a person to anything he says while he's in love, drunk, or running for office.

CHECK YOUR TIRES!!

2009-01-23T09:20:00.004-05:00

Attention United States drivers: Your tires can be a lethal hazard waiting to happen, even if you just bought them "new" at the store. The key isn't how long they've been used or not used, but how long ago the tire was made. Tires over 15 years old are still being sold as new in auto centers across the country, accidents waiting to happen. Here's an ABC News video about old but unused tires being sold as new, and what the hazard is: Aged Tires: A Driving Hazard?

For some reason, the same companies that issue "strongly worded" warnings abroad about old tires don't think they're necessary in the US, and are lobbying against them.

He Has Hurt Us -- No More Corinthian Leather

2009-01-15T11:40:00.008-05:00

Ricardo Montalban, who played possibly the best opponent to Captain James T. Kirk in the Star Trek movie series, has passed away. He was maybe best known as Mr. Roarke on Fantasy Island and as the commercial spokesman for Chrysler in the 70s, praising the carmaker's "rich Corinthian leather" seats. He's best known to Star Trek fans as Kirk's nemesis, Khan Noonien Singh, in both an episode of the original TV series and in the second Star Trek movie, The Wrath of Khan.

The subject title comes from a famous exchange between Kirk and Khan from The Wrath of Khan, after Kirk taunts Khan on his apparent failed attempt to kill him:

I've done far worse than kill you, Admiral. I've hurt you. And I wish to go on... hurting you.

Black Bond part 2

2008-12-31T16:37:00.004-05:00

A few days ago Jamie Foxx was on Jay Leno's show, and among other things he discussed the idea of a black James Bond again. And maybe he came across the idea on his own, or maybe he saw the idea here on my blog, but he also likes the idea of a James Brown-ish black Bond.

Thanks for the kind-of shoutout, Jamie, but, um... get your own ideas, divo!

It's Been Way Too Long (part one)

2008-12-31T11:09:00.000-05:00

What with a governor trying to auction off President-elect Obama's Senate seat, the New York media trying to anoint Caroline Kennedy as Hillary Clinton's successor in Congress, Ponzi scammer Bernie Madoff (the fifty-billion-dollar man), the government throwing billions of dollars after companies that will probably collapse anyway, and God knows what else means I would have had plenty to write about -- but I've had some personal issues that kept me from posting. But the news that some person going by the handle of Fishgrease Jenkins is being blamed for encouraging shootings in Brooklyn (like the ones in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn last night) and attempting to defend himself that finally pushed me to go ahead and post something.

First off (and in no way am I suggesting this is most important): ¡¿FISHGREASE?! Of all the things this thug could have chosen to call himself, he couldn't come up with anything better than ¿Fishgrease? But then, judging from that lightweight ringtone-jingle of a rap he calls "I'm from East New York," Fishgrease is probably about as original as he can manage. (Why do these rappers all try so hard to sound just like everybody else?)

I do have to say, though, that it's kind of a knee-jerk reaction, to make a scapegoat of this one video and its apparently challenged author for five people being killed in Brownsville. Unfortunately this is all too common in Brooklyn and anywhere people can easily get guns, and see them as the go-to method for settling "disputes."

Blagojevich: Jay Leno's been calling him "Governor Sonofabitch," and understandably so. And yet the governor says he did nothing wrong, I'm guessing because no actual money changed hands. But if there are FEDERAL wiretap recordings proving that he was soliciting offers for Obama's former Senate seat, how can he claim innocence? Conspiracy is just as much a crime as bribery, in case you didn't know, Governor...

Bailout: Speaking of Leno, he's been making a good point about this bailout situation -- the government was all too quick to throw billions of dollars at the financial "industry," when all they really do is move other people's money around. But when it came to the car manufacturers, who actually make and sell a physical product, they're hemming and hawing. Rightfully so, since the Big Three car companies have waved their wastefulness and arrogance in everyone's faces -- flying to Washington separately in corporate jets to beg Congress for money -- but it would have made a lot more sense if Congress had been as cautious with Wall Street as they're being with Detroit. And notice that, when it looked like whatever help they got from Congress would come with conditions, Ford suddenly didn't have an immediate need for the money. So why were they there begging for it?

And now the sports industry is getting into it. Sports teams have a long history of raking in millions of dollars during the season and then, when they decide they want/need a new home, they beg their home city and state for help. Why would the New York Yankees, about to move into a brand-new stadium, be in need of help if they can afford to set aside $420 million-plus for three players? I know this amount is a multi-year commitment and not a one-time expenditure but still, if you have that kind of cash to hand out, why should you get any money out of We the People?

And why isn't the federal government forcing sports teams to give back any naming-rights money from banks and other financial-industry players getting bailout money? The naming rights money doesn't nearly match what the bailouts will add up to, but every dollar these companies get back from the sports teams is a dollar the Treasury Department (that is, We the People) won't have to dole out.

First (and hopefully LAST) Paris Hilton comment

2008-11-21T14:00:00.003-05:00

A comment from an old thread in my Gmail account, referring to That Person, after someone mentioned who should NOT be used in a future casting call for the Sue Storm/Sue Richards character in a future Fantastic Four movie:

She was already miscast as a human. Now let's not make any more responses involving that grotesque creature. Every time the name of the terrible spawn is mentioned, her power grows.

Stupid Headline

2008-11-15T21:19:00.001-05:00

There's a headline on the front of today's NY Daily News about the Yankees offering free-agent pitcher CC Sabathia $140 million, which would be the most expensive contract for a pitcher IF Sabathia signs, $2.5 million more than the contract the crosstown Mets signed Johan Santana to just last year. But some genius at the paper chose to advertise the story by focusing on the pitcher's weight -- he weighs 290 pounds -- and then they broke that down to $482,000 per pound.

If this was supposed to sound like the offer was somehow tied to his weight, it didn't take into account that a smaller man would be making *more* per pound. If he were 210 pounds, for example, he'd be making almost $667K per pound; a 175-pounder with the same offer would be getting $800K per pound.

Maybe it was just a stray point, just something to throw on the front page, which is possible since the actual article doesn't mention Sabathia's weight at all. But whatever the rationale, it was stupid.

Meeting of the Presidents

2008-11-11T21:04:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I saw a paper with a cover photo of the Obamas and the Bushes in front of the White House, as I'd imagine most papers had in the US. But apparently none of Bush's people involved with arranging the photo-op thought about how this photo would work wih a tabloid paper like the NY Daily News. With the paper fully opened out, it's a wraparound photo of both couples; but on the newsstand it's the Obamas on the front cover and the Bushes on the back. To most people, apparently, that's just about right. Oh well...

A Black James Bond?

2008-11-11T19:32:00.003-05:00

Daniel Craig, the current James Bond, says that Barack Obama's election as US president may open the way for a black James Bond, which Craig says the audience is ready for. But NY Daily News entertainment critic adds that Craig is quick to admit that Ian Fleming "no more envisioned a black Bond than he envisioned his suave spy driving a station wagon."

So why bring it up? Sure, after 40+ years of dark-haired Bonds, the audience accepted the blond Craig. But at this point, 45 years after Dr. No, I think if some producer wants to introduce a suave black spy character, he should be Bond-like, not Bond himself. A black James Bond would be too much change after all this time.

But when I decided on this post, the idea popped into my head of someone who I think could have killed in such a role if he'd had the acting ability.

Brown. James Brown.

I'm not saying that The Godfather didn't have acting ability, I just don't know if he did or not. The only acting I'd ever seen him do was a cameo in Jackie Chan's movie The Tuxedo -- though I know he did some cameos in movies before -- but they don't really count because he was basically playing himself.

THIS IS NOT SPAM!!

2008-08-01T10:13:00.001-04:00

Just a pre-emptive note should those stupid Google anti-spam bots decide to attack this blog, like they did to my fiction blog. There is NOTHING even remotely spammy about any of my blogs or my fiction, but until somebody at Google gets around to checking it out for themselves, there's nothing I can do.

Nor is there anything I can do to prevent such an attack here, but this is for whoever checks out the blog after such an attack -- and yes, if Google's robots lock my blog for no good reason, I call it an attack.

Big Ass Fan Delivers Brooklyn Church From Sweltering Heat

2008-08-01T10:11:00.006-04:00

It cracks me up when you hear reporters (especially on the radio) when they get ahold of a story that lets them say something they might not get away with otherwise, like the name of Vincent Pastore's character from the Sopranos ("Big Pussy"), or, in this case, the Kentucky company that will relieve a Brooklyn church of the sweltering heat that's been one cause of steadily dwindling attendance every summer.

Cowards in the Night

2008-06-18T14:04:00.004-04:00

So the New York Mets have finally done what every one of the team's fans knew they would have to do, eventually: they fired manager Willie Randolph. But did they have to do it in such a cowardly way? To let the man fly 3,000 miles away to the West Coast, only to fire him after the game ended, was, as the NY Daily News put it, "a classless, cold-hearted and cowardly act."

It's apparent from the way it was handled that general manager Omar Minaya had decided -- that someone had decided -- to fire Willie days before the midnight hatchet job actually took place. Randolph actually asked Minaya on Sunday if he should bother taking the trip with the team to the West Coast, and was given a noncommittal answer that amounted to a firing right then.

But what I don't understand through all of this is, why isn't Tony Bernazard's job on the line? Supposedly a major issue in Randolph's relationship, or non-relationship, with the players was Bernazard's personal campaign against Randolph, making sure that each and every one of the organization's Hispanic players -- not only on the NY Mets, but even in the minor leagues -- had Bernazard's personal phone number so that they could contact him if they had any issues with the manager. So, naturally they felt that there was little need for them to pay any attention to Willie. Minaya, as the general manager, should have nipped that in the bud as soon as it became an issue. Personally, I think this is exactly the reason for Randolph's perceived lack of fire. If Bernazard and team COO Jeff Wilpon wanted Willie's head on a plate, what good would a display of fire really do in the long run? Bernazard is personally responsible for the sinkhole this team has fallen into, and because of that he should be bodily thrown into it. I feel a little bad about saying that, because I liked Bernazard as a player, but he's more trouble than he's worth in the front office. "Instigator" isn't a requirement of any major-league front-office job, at least not to my knowledge.

There was an article also in yesterday's NY Daily News that suggested that the Randolph saga provided the Mets' TV network, SportsNet NY, with riveting content even when the team was underperforming. It's natural to assume that Randolph's treatment had nothng to do with TV ratings, but then I remember reading that Ted Turner originally bought the Atlanta Braves in order to provide content for his then-newly-purchased WTBS television station. So who really knows...

NOW Pay-Rod Says He Shoulda Been A Met

2008-03-25T19:45:00.001-04:00

The back page of today's New York Daily News has habitual attention-hog Alex Rodriguez moaning that he should have signed with the Mets back in 2000, instead of taking the record-setting $252 million ten-year contract that Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks threw his way.

I think I speak for many Mets fans when I say, So freakin' what?

If Pay-Rod had signed with the Mets back when they were hot-and-heavy over him, we might not be enjoying the contributions of homegrown Jose Reyes and David Wright. After all, the kind of money the Mets would have wound up paying him -- probably not $252 million over any number of years -- would definitely have prevented Reyes from coming aboard, at least as a shortstop (Rodriguez' original position). The Mets have had a history of shifting promising players to different positions in the past -- Edgardo Alfonzo's late-90s third-to-second-to-third shuffle comes to mind -- but chances are that Rodriguez' presence would have jammed up the shortstop position for years to come and, if there had been a third-base or second-base prospect considered more promising than Reyes, the jam might have prevented him from becoming a Met at all.

Last year Rodriguez was foolish enough to follow the advice of his mercenary agent, Scott Boras, and turn down a sure-thing offer from the Yankees in favor of testing the free-agent market. Apparently $25 million a year was no longer enough to live on, or maybe Boras' share, $2.5 million or so, wasn't enough for him. There was plenty of speculation that the Mets might sign him, and David Wright had gone on record during the season to assert that he'd gladly shift to second base if that was what it took to land Pay-Rod. Thankfully that didn't happen, because this lifelong Mets fan was ready to shift allegiance to the Yankees for good if they had signed Mister Me for all the money the Wilpon family had in the bank. When Steve Phillips, the Mets' general manager back in 2000, claimed that he had stopped negotiations for fear that signing Rodriguez would create a team of 24+1 instead of a 25-man unit, he was widely ridiculed. I think the time that has passed, and Rodriguez' true contributions to the terrible Texas Rangers team and the not-good-enough Yankees, have proved Phillips right. Yeah, OK, A-Rod won an MVP award with the Rangers, but on a last-place team that's meaningless. What could it mean: that the team wouldn't have been as deeply in last place? The basement is still the basement, whether the team in front of you is only one game ahead or 20.

Having said all that, though, I could easily be wrong. I cried foul when the Mets let Alfonzo go in favor of an unknown thrid baseman named Ty Willingham. I figured he'd be just another in the series of forgotten names on the list Mets' third-basemen. But Willingham turned out to be a good hitter and fielder. During Ty's second year, though, there was all this talk about this wunderkind in the minors named David Wright.

"Oh no, not again," I thought. I figured the Mets had just "lucked out" this time with Willingham and that there was no reason to tinker with a good thing. Again, I was wrong -- Wright has turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to the Mets team.

Hookers and Cheaters and Britney, Oh My!

2008-03-25T19:36:00.000-04:00

I'm back. Sorry if it looked like I'd abandoned this blog...

Spitzer and Paterson

By now everyone on the planet knows about former New York State governor Eliot Spitzer and his foolishness with high-priced prostitutes and with money-laundering, both on his own end (moving money between accounts to avoid triggering bank secrecy procedures) and in his dealings with the escort service that got him busted (paying a shell company that was under surveillance). He is both a former prosecutor and a former state attorney general, so I think it's fair to say that he couldn't possibly have been any dumber in how he went about his business.

All concerned parties in Albany breathed a sigh of relief at the prospect of dealing with the incoming governor, Spitzer's lieutenant governor David Paterson. But now it's come out that Paterson and his wife have both had affairs in the not-so-distant past. Since he came out with it -- actually they both admitted to having cheated -- it shouldn't really be a major issue, though of course the media is going to milk every drop of coverage they can wring out of it. A greater issue, maybe, is that he misused campaign funds at various times, usually reimbursing the payments later. So what? What politician hasn't dipped into the till and then repaid it later? The crime, when there is one, is using taxpayer funds, or campaign funds, for personal things and then not reporting or repaying. But, as was pointed out today, there are probably plenty of people not at all happy that the man at the top of New York State's government is black. If they can find something, anything, that might discredit him, they could consider it worth their while to fling it at him and see what happens.

That includes today's page 5 article in the New York Daily News on Paterson's past experiments with drugs. There were "whispers" circulating Albany about his past drug use, so he admitted to having used marijuana and cocaine a few times. This was in the 70s, when he was in his early 20s. The man is 53 now. Let it rest.

Or would those same folks rather have to deal with... Governor Joe Bruno, with the potential to be the Republican version of the Democrat "bulldog" Spitzer?

And on top of all this, it now comes out that some political sleazebag (his own self-description) named Stone now claims that he was the one that tipped the Feds off to Spitzer's wrongdoing while he was being paid consultant's fees of $20K a month by Bruno and other Republicans. But -- get this -- Stone claims also that, although Spitzer was in the middle of a smear campaign against Bruno, he
did not tell Bruno about the Spitzer dirt he mailed off to the Feds.

And this is someone with no sense of loyalty (but what sleazebag is ever loyal?) -- he hates Bruno's top aide so much that, even though he considers Bruno his mentor, he'd "happily" bring Bruno down if that's what it takes to put the aide out of the picture.

And they call "Kristin" a whore...

(Except for this line, I don't think Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick deserves even a mention here. "Liar liar," etc.)

Get Your Britney Fix Here

I'm not one to join the Britney Spears media pileon, especially since I'm NOT member of the media, but it's interesting that Britney decided to start her "artistic reputation rehab," as NY Daily News entertainment writer David Hinkley puts it, by taking a cameo role in a sitcom. In this case, "How I Met Your Mother." I've never watched the show, and didn't get a chance to see it last night, but by all accounts she did good. Let's see what happens next...

D'oh! Somebody needs a lesson in marketing...

2007-12-19T10:30:00.000-05:00

Yesterday on my way home from work I stopped at a 7-Eleven and bought the Simpsons Movie on DVD. I had wanted to see the movie when it was in theaters but never got there while it was still running.

Anyway, for almost a week now I'd seen a big banner in the front window of a 7-Eleven I pass most days on my way home from work, with red type on a yellow background, advertising the 12/18/07 DVD release date of the movie. I saw it yesterday, but I was almost a block past it when I realized that yesterday was 12/18. But instead of turning around, I figured I'd go to another 7-Eleven closer to home.

But when I got to the other store, it was a totally different situation. No sign on the window advertising the movie, no banners inside the store. I had to ask one of the clerks if they had it, and how much it was. English was not his native language -- I think he and his coworkers are Cambodian, or Vietnamese, or otherwise Southeast Asian; I can't put my finger on the reason but I don't think they're Chinese -- and it took a couple of tries to get him to understand what I was asking. And when he did, he and his fellow clerks all began laughing. Finally, one asked, "Why you want dis?" -- as if a customer should not want to buy something the store sells.

Now, I'm a 42-year-old man, not a kid. But the Simpsons was never meant to be a kids' show. And even if it was, these guys worked at 7-Eleven, which made a major promotional push for the movie when it came out, with Simpson-related stickers and such all over their stores. They should have known that this DVD was intended to be a major seller, just like the movie had been.

I guess the "fault," if there is one, would fall on the manager for not seeing merchandising potential in what could have been a major seller. I'm not a gambling man but I'd be willing to bet that the Central Avenue store with the big bright sign probably sold the DVD's at a steady clip, while I was probably the first person to even ask for it in the Bronx River Road store I went to.

Pay-Rod staying put?

2007-11-16T13:58:00.000-05:00

I just don't get it. I thought that Hank Steinbrenner wanted it to be known that the days of handing over millions upon millions of dollars to spoiled media hogs just for star power was over. Besides that, I thought the Yankees wanted to finally win another World Series. But apparently, I was wrong, because the Yankees are about to re-sign Alex Rodriguez for a reported $275 million over ten years.

I suppose that the Steinbrenners and their front-office people probably thought that Rodriguez's agent, Scott Boras, had just overstepped his bounds, and that maybe if they deal directly with Rodriguez they might be able to work something out. But still, in light of A-Rod's record of leaving teams just as they finally hit the big time (Seattle's record for wins in a season, Texas's first playoff spot in ages) I thought maybe the Yanks had a shot at winning the Series next year (should they make it) by letting Pay-Rod go. But, alas, it appears they'd rather have controversy than World Series rings...

But I am glad of one thing -- if Rodriguez had to stay in New York, I'm glad it's with the Yankees, and not with my Mets. I would have seriously considered switching my allegiance to the Yankees if Omar Minaya had signed Rodgriguez. Ever since David Wright opened his big mouth earlier this year and said he'd eagerly switch to second base to make room for A-Rod, I've wanted to grab him by the collar and shake some sense into him, to keep him from saying such things in the future. The Mets have enough trouble without that Primo Uomo (male Prima Donna) on the team.

One thing I have to say in A-Rod's favor, though: I'll be glad when either he or Ken Griffey Jr. breaks whatever Barry Bonds' final home run total is (probably what it is now) just to erase that asterisk from the record books.

Chickens coming home to roost?

2007-11-16T13:38:00.000-05:00

So the Feds have finally made some kind of case against Barry Bonds. I know, as it has been pointed out numerous times before, that there has not yet been a positive steroids test result -- but based on my own experiences from taking a corticosteroid that's medically necessary due to transplant surgery, he shows all the signs of steroids use, at least in the past. He missed an entire season and all but fourteen games of another due to knee problems, right in the same period of time that he had bulked up and almost doubled his yearly home-run output, and joint problems (usually knees, hips, or shoulders) are a hallmark of steroid use. (My experience is having to have hip surgery -- not a replacement -- after only nine months of everyday use of prednisone, an anti-inflammatory medication. Not the same as what Bonds is alleged to have taken; his "meds" are much worse on that score.) No telling when the IRS will turn its attention to his tax-evasion case...

Derek Cheater?

Not only are the Feds after Bonds, but now the New York State income tax officials have turned their attention to Derek Jeter, New York Yankees shortstop, who is accused of not paying three years worth of taxes and claiming he lived in Florida while actually living in New York.

At a salary of $20 million per year, Jeter can definitely afford to pay his fair share of taxes, so I don't know why this should even have to be an isssue. If it's true, that is; there's always a chance that the state is overzealous and that Jeter's claims of being a Florida resident are accurate. But if it is true, then it looks like just another example of an athlete thinking that, because of what they do and all the money they make, they're invincible. (Look at OJ, who's about to go away for a long, long time.)

Journey of a Thousand Miles -- step two

2007-11-16T10:21:00.000-05:00

Well, the lawyer's office not only accepted my offer, but adjusted the monthly due date to make things easier for me. Not any closer to increasing my income just yet, but I am working on it. Putting together a blog to promote different products through affiliate programs; it can be a lot of work, but I plan to stick with it, because that's the only way to make affiliate money. Folks generally won't flock to any website from just one link on one page posted one time. I've learned that...

Journey of a Thousand Miles

2007-10-19T13:15:00.000-04:00

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Today I start my journey.

I am now 42 years old, and I'm renting a bedroom in a friend's apartment because at the moment that is all I can afford, though I've been working for 24 years now.
I just negotiated what I hope will be an acceptable payment schedule with a law office representing a collection agency representing a bank that took over another bank that I opened a credit card account with twelve years ago. The balance is three times the set credit limit of the account I opened, because of long-standing delinquencies. From that time until now I could probably have paid the account many times over, except for a very old habit of letting things go until, and often way past, the last minute.
Because of this longstanding habit, my credit rating is somewhere in the 400s. I'm driving a six-year old car that was probably meant to last only five, and only God knows what will happen when it needs major repairs, or when it gives out completely and I try to get another car.

With all that said, I'm stating my goal now: to buy a house. It won't happen this year, or next. It may not happen until sometime in the next decade, if then. In all likelyhood it will be a repossessed or foreclosed house, a fixer-upper, or something along those lines. And it may even turn out to be, not a house, but a condo or a co-op apartment. And it may very well turn out to be somewhere outside the NYC area, where I was born and have lived all my life. But I'm making it my goal to get a house or something owned in my own name in order to significantly improve my financial situation. I don't want to be rich, but it's time for a change.

I'm tired of just scraping by.

I've been saying that to myself for some time now, but now I will start putting myself on the spot by saying it to others. The part about buying a house I may keep to myself for awhile...

I've also been saying for years that I wanted to start some kind of business, and I've researched just about every manner of business that could be started and run by mail-order and possibly online, but up until now really haven't taken any steps to put the research to work and get something, anything, off the ground. Today, that changes.

What prompted this decision? Well, it’s been on my mind for awhile now due to the chronic near-brokeness, for one thing. But the decision kind of made itself last night, while I was out driving around and around my new neighborhood trying to find somewhere to park. I was thinking, "if I had my own house, with a garage or at least a driveway, I wouldn't have to be out here wasting time circling the neighborhood looking for a space."

In any situation you can never predict just what the "last straw" will turn out to be, but I think that was it. When I was in my former neighborhood, I had the same problem, since only about every third house had a driveway or garage. I swore that my next apartment would be somewhere with more parking. That didn't happen.

But it will.

Hillary in 2008 Flash Animation at FlowGo

2007-10-18T12:08:00.000-04:00

Hillary in 2008

Bush, Cheney, Obama: ALL RELATED?!

2007-10-17T11:14:00.000-04:00

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/familytree/545460,BSX-News-wotreea09.article

Bush and Obama have a common ancestor.

Cheney and Obama have a common ancestor.

Bush and Cheney have a common ancestor.

Each of the common ancestors is a different person -- none is common to all three.

So far, though, no sign of any of the three being related to any of the Clintons…

Go figure.

Westchester Tornado

2007-10-15T17:18:00.000-04:00

I thought I had posted this a long time ago. This is based on the Wikipedia article Westchester Tornado...

The Westchester Tornado was an F2 tornado that touched down in central Westchester County, New York at around 4:00 p.m. EST on July 12, 2006 with winds that at times exceeded 150 miles per hour. The tornado may have began on the Rockland County shore of the Hudson River, moving at 25 mph across the river toward Sleepy Hollow, just north of the Tappan Zee Bridge. It began to cut a 200 to 300 yard wide path straight across Westchester and into Fairfield County, Connecticut. While no deaths were reported, it is very rare for F2 or greater tornadoes to strike the New York Metropolitan Area, due to tornadoes being rare on the Eastern Seaboard. Enough damage occurred to cause an appeal for FEMA funding.
On July 12, 2006 a strong south westerly wind on the surface acted in conjunction with a strong upper level jet to cause conditions to become ripe. The tornado spawned as a waterspout over the Hudson River in the southwest quadrant of the storm and traveled in the northeast direction, something that is distinctive with most tornado causing thunderstorms. Once it reached the Westchester side of the river it became a tornado and roared up Beekman Ave., one of the main streets of Sleepy Hollow. The tornado reached F-2 status as it crossed over the Sleepy Hollow village line into Hawthorne. From there it tore across Hawthorne, New York, destroying a California Closets office and warehouse. It then proceeded up Stevens Ave. and crossed into Valhalla, New York inflicting much damage. It finally crossed the Kensico Reservoir and caused slight damage in Greenwich, CT before going out to the Long Island Sound.
The tornado left much of Hawthorne and Valhalla without power and many streets were covered with trees for much of the next few days. Power was restored to most of the area within the next two or three days, with some areas regaining power within the next week.

The article says the tornado "may have begun" in Rockland County, but there was documented damage in Grandview, on the Rockland side of the Hudson River, before the waterspout crossed the Hudson and became a tornado again in Sleepy Hollow. It picked up a New York State trooper’s car while he was driving along the Sprain Brook Parkway, dropped it, picked it up again, and dropped it a second time. The trooper was bruised a bit and spent a couple days in the hospital; the car, though, was totaled, since the first drop was nose-first.

But before it reached the area of the Sprain Brook, it tore through the area of Tarrytown Lakes, near the former Rockefeller estate. There are new houses that were recently built in wooded areas that had for decades, maybe centuries, been natural growth. I have to admit wanting to see that some damage had been done (without hurting anyone) to send a message that it's better to leave nature alone, that not all "progress" is actually progress. But, alas, though there were downed trees all around the area, none of the houses appeared to be damaged.

T.I. = I.D.I.O.T.

2007-10-15T13:31:00.000-04:00

His lawyer says there are two sides to every story. Yeah, his client's and the truth. Anyone should know that a convicted felon is asking for trouble when he tries to buy, not just handguns, but machine guns and silencers. I don't claim to know all the details, but even if it was a setup, he deserves whatever he gets for falling for it.

Some chuckles

2007-10-15T13:01:00.000-04:00

The original email said "Only in America" for the first few, but I'm sure they're fairly universal, especially the first one...

Only in America...

...do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.
...do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a diet coke.
...do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.
...do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage.
...do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight.
...do we use the word 'politics' to describe the process so well: 'Poli' in Latin meaning 'many' and 'tics' meaning 'bloodsucking creatures'.
...do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille lettering.

EVER WONDER ....

why the sun lightens our hair, but darkens our skin?
why women can't put on mascar a with their mouth closed?
why you don't ever see the headline 'Psychic Wins Lottery'?
why 'abbreviated' is such a long word?
why it is that doctors call what they do 'practice'?
why lemon juice is made with artificial flavor, and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons?
why the man who invests all your money is called a broker?
why the time of day with the slowest traffic is called rush hour?
why there isn't mouse-flavored cat food?
why Noah didn't swat those two mosquitoes?
why they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?
why sheep don't shrink when it rains?
why they are called apartments when they are all stuck together?
You know that indestructible black box that is used on airplanes?
Why don't they make the whole plane out of that stuff?!
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?

Now that you've smiled at least once, it's your turn to spread the stupidity and send this to someone you want to bring a smile to (maybe even a chuckle)...in other words, send it to everyone. We all need to smile every once in a while.

Breast Cancer Site Needs Your Help

2007-10-15T12:52:00.001-04:00

I thought this was one of those bandwidth-wasting chain emails at first, until I did some checking and found it to be legit. The Breast Cancer Site has arranged for sponsors to donate towards free mammograms for women who can't afford to pay for them in exchange for clicks on a banner on the site. Here's the text of the email I got this morning:

Please tell ten friends to tell ten today! The Breast Cancer site is having
trouble getting enough people to click on their site daily to meet their quota
of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman. It
takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on "donating a mammogram"
for free (pink window in the middle). This doesn't cost you a thing.
Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate
mammogram in exchange for advertising. Here's the website! Pass it
along to people you know: http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/

Odds and ends for today

2007-10-12T17:25:00.000-04:00

Intelligent Design: What’s the Big Deal?

I subscribe to Wikipedia’s Featured Article of the Day by mail, and today’s article is Intelligent Design. This is basically a way for religious-minded individuals to frame “creation” in a way to hopefully get around the objections of those who reject creation accounts on “scientific” grounds.

Personally, I don’t see the supposed disconnect between religion and science. After all, the root meaning of the English word “science” is “knowledge.” Wikipedia’s article on science defines it as follows:

“Science (from the Latin scientia, 'knowledge'), in the broadest sense, refers to any systematic knowledge or practice.[1] In a more restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on the scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research.”

In other words, science is what is known. The fact that a particular group of scientists don’t know, for example, how the earth was created, doesn’t make the method used any less scientific. It just means that they don’t know or cannot reproduce the method. Many times arguments against creation accounts are no more than the egos of the objectors acting out.

World Trade Bomber has a change of faith

According to reports in today’s edition of the New York Daily News, convicted terrorist Ramzi Yousef, who detonated the truck bomb that destroyed a basement garage in the World Trade Center in 1993, has abandoned Islam and is now a Christian convert.

The report states that he has stopped reading the Koran, shaved his beard, and even eats pork.

I’m sure that there are conspiracy theorists claiming that he’s putting on a show in hopes of getting some kind of early release from prison (which could never happen in a post 9/11 world, especially since he’s serving a life sentence). But, in fact, even a discussion of changing religions could get someone killed by fundamentalist Muslims, to say nothing of eating pork. So I’d have to say this is real. And if it is real, he’d best hope that he never gets out of prison. Because if he did, he could never be at ease – besides those who would be willing to hunt him down over the bombing, there would be people who consider his “conversion” as blasphemy.

Kid Singers in NYC? OK. But Baby Races?

A ten-month-old baby was just crowned “fastest crawler” at a “Baby Derby” in Union Square, in New York City. He competed against seven other babies in crawling along a ten-foot-long course, sponsored by Babies “R” Us as a trial run for races to be held this weekend at the American Baby Faire (?!) in Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum.

Maybe I’m overreacting, but this seems just a little bit exploitive… but then somebody thought the same thing about 17-year-old American Idol winner Jordin Sparks and fellow contestant Sanjaya Malakar, who turned 18 just after the performing the New York shows on this years American Idol tour. The organizers got hit with fines after a clerk at the NYS Labor Department took note of the fact that Jordin and Sanjaya, both featured performers, were under 18. She did some digging, and turned the info over to investigators who then found that the company that organized the tour didn’t have the correct permits filed for using underage performers.

I know that laws and standards exist for a reason, but there is a huge difference between teen performers who have parents, managers, and so on with them to monitor them and make sure they’re not being exploited or overworked, and kids enslaved in some sweatshop making sneakers or pocketbooks for pennies an hour. It was “only” a $5,000 fine, though, so they didn’t get too carried away, but I still think it probably should have been let go.

Interesting quote from Charlize Theron

2007-10-10T16:37:00.000-04:00

Esquire magazine's annual poll claims that Charlize is the "sexiest woman alive." She is a good-looking woman, though I have major qualms with the idea of her being the sexiest alive. (Esther Baxter, anyone? Somaya Reece? I could name others...) But she had an interesting quote in the article; after speaking about working with director John Frankenheimer, she made a comment about, as the paper said, "a different kind of American director -- one that frequents the Oval Office instead of the back lot." She says, "I grew up in a country that learned the lesson that you can't impose your way of life on 26 different kinds of people just because you call yourself righteous... I think there are lessons this country still has to learn."

NY Daily News article: Charlize winner of battle of the babes

Great book

2007-10-10T13:00:00.000-04:00

i've been reading The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell. It's a fascinating book about what makes some trends, fads, and ideas take off, while others are dead in the water. It first came to my attention when the phrase was chosen for the title of a CD by Tha Roots. But I guess if that's gonna be my criterion for choosing books to buy then I have to get Things Fall Apart next -- that was a Roots CD title also...

Fred Thompson needs to do his homework

2007-10-09T16:21:00.000-04:00

In today's NY Daily News it's reported that Thompson has hired ex-Virginia senator George Allen to be a top advisor to his presidential campaign team. Allen was forced from office after the controversy that came out of his using a racial slur (macaca) to refer to an Indian-American man who was tracking Allen's campaign for a political rival. He claimed he didn't know what it meant, but what kind of person calls people names without knowing what the name means? And even if he really didn't know, why did he feel the need to single out this particular person for namecalling? I'm sure questions about this will come up on Thompson's campaign stops. If he wants to be President, he'd better be ready.

Wikipedia article on macaca

GEICO Cavemen's Self-Help Book

2007-09-25T13:37:00.000-04:00

We all know by now about the GEICO cavemen now having their own show. A sitcom set in Atlanta, which has me wondering if they're supposed to represent blacks, or gays, or both. Now they have a self-help book out -- I saw it in Barnes & Noble last night -- called "Keep Chewing Until It Stops Moving."

Reposted responses:

T-Mc, Sep 21 2007, 03:03 PM
Are you saying Atlanta is filled with Blacks and Gays?
Me, 9/24, 02:36 AM
Well, Atlanta has been a Black American Mecca for a long time now. And it has gained a reputation, maybe unfairly I don't know, of being a haven for closeted gays. At least this is what Wendy Williams would have us believe, but an old friend of mine down there has me wondering if there's something to it after all. And on the commercials the cavemen do seem rather... genteel... (Not that being genteel is a bad thing.)
They could easily have put the cavemen in NYC or LA. Remember that the Men In Black series put the aliens in NYC because they said it would be the easiest place to blend in and in LA, the cavemen could pass themselves off as "practicing for a part." But the show's synopsis says the cavemen are supposed to be trying to make their way in the face of prejudice and stereotypes.

The moderator at the Jazzyville forum where I had originally posted this thought it should be posted in a blog so more people could see it, and maybe comment... ?

Notes from the road

2007-09-20T10:48:00.000-04:00

(reposted from my soon-to-be-defunct blog on the Jazzyville message board)

I've been in Indiana for the past few days for a funeral, and seeing the conditions my uncle is living in (and with), and hearing about his past from him and from my parents, some thoughts come to mind:

To paraphrase the Bible, "What you can do, do while you can." My uncle has all kinds of health problems but no health insurance because, well, he's kind of averse to work. He got hurt while he was able to work but not working and not looking, and now he can't get any help. He gets help with his prescriptions, but it's a few drops in the bucket.

To quote Rick James, "Cocaine is a hell of a drug." Stay away. Nuff said. (I don't really know what his "drug of choice" was, or even if "was" is the right word. But you get the point.)

Same with alcohol. Too much is too much, never mind that "you can handle it."

If you are injured (or get sick) due to others' actions, take advantage of every resource available to you to get the care you need as soon as possible, not after ten years have gone by. The help won't be available, and the problems will be much worse.

Try, try to position yourself in some kind of positive surroundings. Gary, Indiana is one of the most depressing places I have ever seen up close. I've seen some beautiful houses across the street from dilapidated, boarded-up places that would keep the value of the good houses down and make the owner a bit nervous about some of his neighbors (depending, of course, on what he/she does for a living... )

I'm sure I could come up with more, but it's almost midnight, and I'm typing this on a computer in a Comfort Inn lobby on my way back home...

Celebrity girls gone wild

2007-09-20T10:36:00.000-04:00

(Reposted from a soon-to-be-defunct blog at the Jazzyville message board)

I can't help wondering how Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and the others have avoided ending up on one of those videos all these years. Lohan, in particular, seems to be in a bottomless pit, and it's gonna be really ugly when she hits bottom.

Reposted comments

From T-Mc, 7/26/07 11:30am: I am getting tired of Blonde Bimbos.
From Me, 7/26/07 12:07pm: You and me both. Lohan needs to go back to her natural color...
I recall a photo contest at Worth1000.com that featured "cloned" pix of stars, and one featured Lohan with rather dark (tanned?) skin and red hair, and standing next to her was another, almost-albino Lindsey with bottle-blond hair, and the caption "Yeah, they're really both her. Scary."
Maybe somebody needs to have Robert Downey Jr. to sit down and have a talk with the bunch of them, and let them hear the details of his long, strange trip. (That is, of course, if he's dedicated to staying clean.) In fact, since Lohan and Spears were willing to pay megabucks for those country-club rehab programs, maybe Downey should charge them something...
From T-Mc, 7/26/07 1:15pm: People don't know what they will miss, until it is gone.

Race in a Bottle

2007-08-06T10:44:00.000-04:00

Drugmakers are eager to develop medicines targeted at ethnic groups, but so far they have made poor choices based on unsound science

Two years ago, on June 23, 2005, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first “ethnic” drug. Called BiDil (pronounced “bye-dill”), it was intended to treat congestive heart failure—the progressive weakening of the heart muscle to the point where it can no longer pump blood efficiently—in African-Americans only. The approval was widely declared to be a significant step toward a new era of personalized medicine, an era in which pharmaceuticals would be specifically designed to work with an individual’s particular genetic makeup. Known as pharmacogenomics, this approach to drug development promises to reduce the cost and increase the safety and efficacy of new therapies. BiDil was also hailed as a means to improve the health of African-Americans, a community woefully underserved by the U.S. medical establishment. Organizations such as the Association of Black Cardiologists and the Congressional Black Caucus strongly supported the drug’s approval.

A close inspection of BiDil’s history, however, shows that the drug is ethnic in name only...
Click here to read the rest of the article

Frustrated Video Dater Loses It

2007-07-26T14:12:00.000-04:00

Video

Seems just a little excitable until the end, when he really loses it...

Man's smelly feet trigger police raid

2007-07-24T13:53:00.000-04:00

Article

I've known some smelly-feet people but I don't think I've ever come across someone whose feet inspired a call to the local police station!

This Slim is in Fat City in more ways than one

2007-07-20T14:16:00.000-04:00

Mexico's richest man casts controversial shadow -- article no longer found...

...but according to a more recent article, Carlos Slim is now the world's richest man.

Bill Gates Ousted; Carlos Slim Now Holds World's Fattest Wallet, Report Says

The Internet Patrol - Sprint Cellular Disconnects Customers Who Call Sprint PCS Customer Service Phone Number Too Often

2007-07-09T12:48:00.001-04:00

I knew from my own experience that Sprint's customer service was nothing short of crappy, but this takes the cake! They're actually canceling customer's accounts if Sprint decides the customer has called customer service or billing too often!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: The Internet Patrol <info@theinternetpatrol.com>
Date: Jul 9, 2007 10:50 AM
Subject: The Internet Patrol - Sprint Cellular Disconnects Customers Who Call Sprint PCS Customer Service Phone Number Too Often

The Internet Patrol

The Latest News at the Internet Patrol

Here is today's news from the Internet Patrol!

Sprint Cellular Disconnects Customers Who Call Sprint PCS Customer Service Phone Number Too Often

2007-07-08 03:04:17-04
If you have a Sprint cellular phone and Sprint cell phone service, or are considering getting a cell phone from Sprint, you'll want to know just how the Sprint phone company treats customers of their Sprint wireless phone service when they call Sprint PCS customer service. Because customers calling the Sprint customer service phone number too often are being terminated by the Sprint/Nextel service!
Read more...

Count Your Blessings

2007-06-27T13:05:00.001-04:00

I don't normally repost or post links to things like this, but for some reason this one touched me...

Count Your Blessings

Sick Health Care System

2007-06-26T16:01:00.000-04:00

It didn't just become news when Michael Moore said it, but he's right. The health care system in the United States needs fixing. Whenever your level of care depends on what a supervisor at an insurance company is willing to allow, rather than what trained medical personnel (and the patient!) deem necessary, something needs to be done. And when the time of day can have life-or-death effect on your level of care in a hospital, changes need to be made...

Seattle Times review of Sicko

Night Shift Nightmare (Reader's Digest)

I can vouch for the differences in the level of care, not only between the day and night shifts, but also between the intensive care unit staff and the "regular" nursing staff. I was in ICU and, well, constipated for the whole time I was there. On the evening of the fifth day, I was transferred to a regular room, and when I told the duty nurse that I was consipated and had been since I got there, she gave me this stuff that looked like chocolate milk and smelled (and probably tasted) like nail polish remover. It did the trick, though, but not until the next morning. Unfortunately, that was when someone was going around taking patients' temperature and blood pressure. The nurse came around, found I was still in the bathroom, and went ballistic! Like my whole reason for being in there was less important than their need to follow procedure. (Granted, blood pressure problems was part of the reason I was there, but still...)

The woman taking the readings, for her part, was quite understanding, but I'd expect a nurse to have been a bit more understanding. After all, she has had medical training and is supposed to play a part in putting the patient at ease.

Though it turned out that the stuff they gave me to get me "moving" again (they called it a "black and white"; I have no idea what was in it) was NOT supposed to be given to me because of the nature of my particular problem. The nurse had reacted to my complaint, but without checking into what my medical issue was. And again, this was a night-shift nurse.

Not to put down the night shift -- I know they're called on to do more work, since there are fewer people on hand after dark. But, still, it's not too much to expect them to do a thorough job no matter what. And my story isn't anything like the one in the Reader's Digest article...

Not Really News, But...

2007-04-23T12:02:00.000-04:00

...When my union's website dedicates an entire page to Wal-Mart and how they muscle vendors into either redoing their whole business model (and giving up profits) in order to keep Wal-Mart's prices low, including laying off workers and sending jobs overseas, I have to take note of it.

The Wal-Mart You Don't Know (posted at www.CSEA9200.com; article originally published in Fast Company, December 2003, page 68

Excerpt: "The giant retailer's low prices often come with a high cost. Wal-Mart's relentless pressure can crush the companies it does business with and force them to send jobs overseas. Are we shopping our way straight to the unemployment line?"

The CSEA Unit 9200 site includes much more info about Wal-Mart and how it's bullying vendors and costing American workers their jobs and/or fair wages: Wal-Mart Awareness

Tom Joyner, are you reading this? You're all about supporting causes benefiting African-Americans, but who (among others) do you think is hurting when your favorite retailer is causing jobs to be sent overseas and driving companies out of business? Or have you been paid to NOT mention certain kinds of things that would point a finger at them?

Big Brother? No, more like Big Nanny

2007-03-02T14:21:00.000-05:00

Towards a Nanny Internet -- "Are we moving towards a Nanny Internet? Between network neutrality, laws requiring dating sites to perform background checks and ISPs to rat out their users, laws banning anonymous posting, and cyberbullying legislation, one might argue that the Nanny Internet is shaping up nicely. Or not."

BUMP: Signs (and billboards, and spam) of the times

2007-02-25T11:00:00.000-05:00

I found the following post while I was Googling for something else (never mind what).

I see ads when I watch television, or read a newspaper or magazine. I hear ads when I listen to the radio.
The football stadium in my city is Invesco Field. The baseball stadium is Coors Field. The basketball/hockey arena is the Pepsi Center.
When I surf the web I get hit with banner ads, pop-up ads, and an email inbox full of spam.
Companies buy product placement in the movies I watch and the video games I play.
I go to get the mail and come back with a fistful of credit card solicitations and other junk. I have to sign up for a no-call list to avoid getting a dozen telemarketing calls each day.
There exists something called the "Insight.com Bowl."
Billboards litter the landscape. When I pump gas, an ad on the pump handle informs me that candy bars are 3 for 99 cents. NASCAR... 'nuff said.
Ads are stuck to the floor at the grocery store, spoken in pleasant tones over the sound system, and printed on the back of my receipt. An ESPN college football analyst casually refers to the late-December bowls as "Capital One Bowl Week". During the half-hour before movies, when people used to chat pleasantly, we are now shown continuous ads for soda and pop music.
Blimps and airplanes pulling banners turn the heavens into ad space. A Super Bowl champion announces that he is going to Disneyland.
Am I worth anything beyond my ability to consume?

My apologies to Lonnie Jordan and WAR, but the following "lyrics" popped into my head as I reread this post:

Don't you know that it's true
That for me, and for you,
The world is a billboard...
(from The World is a Ghetto, by WAR)

When I first found this blog post, two things came to mind. First of all, the poster was absolutely correct. Advertising has gotten entirely out of hand, and the recent boom in stadium naming rights fees is a perfect example. I remember when the indoor arena at the Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey was first built, and the area was named the Brendan Byrne Arena, after the governor whose efforts were instrumental in getting it built. Made perfect sense to me. But then some years later, when the naming rights craze came along, the arena was renamed the Continental Airlines Arena. I suppose it made a kind of sense, since the Meadowlands complex is right next to Newark Airport, but still, to discount the man who built the place in favor of the highest bidder just seemed stupid to me.

Then the whole naming rights thing caught fire. Now it's actually rare to see stadium names like Camden Yards, named after the section of Baltimore where the stadium is located, or Shea Stadium, named after Bill Shea, who was instrumental in getting National League baseball back in New York (in the form of the Mets). Who can work up enthusiasm for the ridiculously named 3Com Park, or Minute Maid Park? I would think the Astros (who play in Minute Maid Park) were probably happier, at least from a stadium-name standpoint, with the Astrodome. Too bad the former Enron Field (now there was a cool name) couldn't have been built as a domed stadium, and too bad about that Ken Lay business that forced the team to strip Enron's name from the building in favor of Minute Maid...

My New York Mets will begin playing in a new stadium in the 2009 season, and there was much public support for the idea of naming the new stadium after Jackie Robinson. Even the City of New York got into the spirit of things by giving Interborough Parkway the new name Jackie Robinson Parkway, since its northern end lies right next to Shea Stadium. But then the team went and sold the naming rights to Citigroup, and so the new stadium will be Citi Field, which sounds utilitarian if you don't know the story (or see the spelling).

Another thing that struck me with this post, was that that original blog, and the site that hosted it, have disappeared into the ether. I don't really want to go trampling on anyone else's "intellectual property," but is it wrong to repost a blog entry or article from a defunct site? I totally agree with the sentiment, but with the site being down there's no way for me to contact the blogger to get permission to repost...

When the Past Comes to Visit

2007-02-24T12:20:00.000-05:00

Reposted from a Yahoo mailing list related to writing...

One of the strange aspects of web publishing is that it's ethereal. Unlike books, where the public can usually get their hands on an original edition. How many hard print authors would like to expunge their earlier works if only they could? A lot, I bet. Well, I can to some degree, and I've been exercising that right to date. But I probably won't forever. It's just going to take a lot of work to sort out and remove references to some early writers, artists and models who have asked to be 'edited out' of the history, or I have chosen to remove. That's the real work -- honoring those wishes.
Of course, as all the Myspace and other social network participants are about to find out, it's hard to totally remove your presence from the Net. How many people in their 40's to 60's are going to be haunted by strangeness they posted on Myspace in their teens or twenties? A lot. Especially given that everything on the net has been archived since the relatively recent arrival of the likes of Google. I've read that they have vast disk farms which will allow future wayback machinery to dig it all out as a function of time, even if the system today is clearly focused on caching and delivery current content. That old stuff, uncounted terabytes of content, is getting stored. Future detectives are going to have some very interesting and rewarding work (like publishing something in 2038 about a congressional candidate's Myspace postings in 2006).
Imagine if the detailed records of our current politician's activites in the Frat house in the 1960's or 70's was possible to dig out? Down to every girlfriend, every drug taken, every beer consumed, not to mention their immature thoughts about
everything imaginable. Every forgettable event and mistake in their lives. Despite pseudonyms, real identities aren't hard to figure out. A person's foolish youthhood should be forgotten and forgiven, not recorded in intimate detail forever. But I guess the Myspace bloggers will also represent most of the voters and journalists eventually, so maybe that strangeness will just be accepted as part of the culture. But that seems hard to believe today.

When I asked Shadar, the original poster, for his OK to repost this here, this was his reply:

Feel free to echo my comments into any forum you wish... although please attribute it to me as you indicate below. I suspect you might get some heated discussions out of it on some forums.
Digital culture is changing so fast its impossible to predict the future, but I do know that I'm glad I (and more importantly everyone else) has forgotten most of the insanity of my first 25 years on this planet. Also that I've never had to explain away any of that stuff in an interview because it was never recorded (we're talking 1960's and 70's). . Privacy and the forgetfulness of time are wonderful, wonderful things. People could re-invent themselves, and unless you had a criminal record (those were recorded for all time), then the 'old self' disappeared to be be replaced by the new.
And our ideas definitely change during our lifetime.
Problem with digital is that its all there staring at you forever... every single bit. Even if you erase it, if it left your PC, odds are somebody's else is keeping it. And now we have Google's disk farms recording (or about to record) the entire friggin' world. Ouch.

I'm glad to see a blog post about "booming systems"

2007-01-20T23:12:00.000-05:00

I actually thought about looking into making LL Cool J's "The Boomin' System" or "Cheesy Rat Blues" play in the background for this post page...

http://www.eie.fceia.unr.edu.ar/~acustica/biblio/boom.htm

UPDATE: Sony BMG music group resorting to spyware

2007-01-20T13:50:00.000-05:00

It just occurred to me today, over a year after I'd posted this article, that the Jakarta Post could have another motive for running this story. Indonesia is not a party to the current copyright, trademark, and patent conventions, and thus is a haven for illegal duplication of music and movies, largely for distribution in so-called developing countries. Since the multinational major labels like Sony BMG, Universal, and the others have been pressuring the Indonesian government to adopt the international intellectual property protections, it must make the Indonesians feel good to be able to point out the egg on Sony's face over this spyware mess. Yet another example of opposing parties pointing out the dirt on the other guys just to divert attention from their own dirty doings.

(Original post date 11/14/05)
The Jakarta Post, an Indonesian newspaper, has reported on its website that a number of new music CD releases from Sony BMG actually install spyware on users' computers. The article also points out that, with all the means now at new artists' disposal to completely bypass music companies altogether, such a move on Sony's part can only alienate consumers, some of whom are even considering lawsuits. I recently bought Shakira's new CD, Fijacion Oral volumen 1, which I haven't installed on my computer just yet, and now I'm not sure if I should, even though I really want La Tortura in my MP3 player (and I barely understand what she's singing, with my poor Spanish). I may even have to pass entirely on buying Oral Fixation volume 2 when it comes out this month.

Lorem ipsum, with an explanation

2007-01-18T23:08:00.000-05:00

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Curabitur ultrices lectus. Donec porta. Quisque pharetra. Nullam posuere semper nisl. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Vivamus tempor. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Morbi imperdiet nisi eu orci. Sed convallis sapien a lectus. Maecenas tincidunt elit ac sem. Fusce fringilla. Ut sed nisi. Mauris consectetuer leo id ante. Morbi sit amet metus nec ligula nonummy facilisis. Aliquam a justo vitae nulla sollicitudin ultrices. Fusce nec mauris. Pellentesque leo turpis, venenatis sed, interdum nec, commodo faucibus, sem. Aliquam erat volutpat. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.

Keep reading...

Vestibulum volutpat. Donec mauris elit, molestie non, mollis sit amet, rhoncus nec, diam. Integer lectus metus, porttitor ut, auctor at, imperdiet bibendum, dolor. Vestibulum quis tellus id nulla cursus hendrerit. Quisque in dolor eu felis ullamcorper faucibus. Praesent luctus, ipsum a molestie adipiscing, felis lorem porta urna, nec posuere ligula nibh vel nisl. Suspendisse et purus. Donec lacus. Praesent aliquam sem ut nisl. In libero. Suspendisse quis nisi. Morbi tempor. Sed condimentum, ligula in mollis nonummy, arcu magna sodales tellus, eu venenatis dui neque vel augue. Fusce id purus sit amet augue dignissim consectetuer.

Don't stop yet...

Nam iaculis fringilla tellus. Suspendisse tempor varius nulla. Quisque facilisis, lacus at condimentum semper, pede leo congue tellus, eget ultricies neque eros quis neque. In quam velit, varius vel, luctus nec, volutpat eu, sapien. Morbi consectetuer lacus a elit. Aliquam erat volutpat. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Aenean orci massa, commodo at, fermentum id, fermentum malesuada, velit. Phasellus ultricies, elit in rutrum egestas, est dui convallis nisi, commodo blandit arcu magna sit amet sapien. Mauris posuere mauris eget nulla.

Curabitur aliquam. Ut sit amet ipsum non dolor consectetuer dapibus. Curabitur ac nulla id nibh rutrum imperdiet. Nunc nisl. Sed velit ante, molestie a, sagittis ullamcorper, nonummy a, pede. Sed magna. Donec nec nulla id eros interdum convallis. Proin dapibus. Donec malesuada. Sed cursus dui. Pellentesque feugiat. In augue. In elit. Sed id nisi. Aliquam erat volutpat. Phasellus ipsum elit, porta tempor, semper vitae, venenatis ac, purus. Sed tempus. Donec euismod aliquet est.

Just a little farther...

Morbi purus eros, feugiat gravida, pulvinar ac, scelerisque gravida, dolor. Sed elit tortor, eleifend vel, bibendum ut, rhoncus non, purus. Etiam egestas tortor vel felis. Nullam aliquam. Vivamus ut augue pellentesque leo pretium aliquam. Vestibulum diam neque, hendrerit nec, convallis vulputate, hendrerit eget, augue. Sed sit amet metus eu orci pulvinar dignissim. Praesent tempor dictum sem. Morbi metus turpis, facilisis sed, vehicula vel, sodales commodo, erat. Nam sapien. Nam ut augue.

This is an experiment. If you've read this far, do me a favor and post a comment, just to let me know someone is reading this thing.

Europeans say (North) Americans have no sense of irony

2006-12-26T13:55:00.000-05:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,4699357-103425,00.html

I absolutely love it when people make sweeping generalities like this, especially when it includes a part of the population that includes me. More, please! More! And when they say that faith and irony can't coexist, again putting all (North) Americans of a great variety of races and cultures and income groups and religions in one basket -- I can't get enough! And I have a feeling that the writer said North Americans rather than just "Americans" because they'd rather deal with irritated Canadians and Mexicans than singled-out angry United-States-ians.

Smells Like Mass Media 3

2006-11-18T11:37:00.000-05:00

I came across a story online (lost the URL) saying that Angelina Jolie is looking to 'rescue another baby from an atmosphere of terrible strife.' Word is the baby she has in mind is Sean Preston Federline.

Syndicated radio host Wendy Williams, among others, have expressed surprise that Britney Spears apparently expected some behavior from her husband other than what she's getting. Common sense says that if he cheated on someone else by seeing you, it's only a matter of time before he cheats on you by seeing someone else. What goes around, comes around. Shar Jackson must be laughing and gloating all the way to the bank -- she reportedly has a reality show in the works.

Then again, who doesn't? Even rapper DMX showed up in court for his sentencing appointment (late, and with an attitude) with reality-show cameras in tow. Of course, DMX's fifteen minutes of fame have expired, which probably explains why he stays in trouble with the law, so that his name can stay in the papers just a little bit longer.

Earlier this week, the comic strip Blondie had a gag about reality shows. Dagwood was watching a reality show where contestants were locked in a room and fed a constant diet of nothing but reality shows on TV. When each had all they could take, they would run screaming from the room, trying to get out. The last one in the room would be declared the winner. It's probably only a matter of time before someone tries that idea for real...

None of the reality-show producers seem to be aware of the scientific principle that an observer cannot fail to have an effect on the thing being observed. The only way any of these shows could be "reality" would be to conceal the cameras from the contestants. Because once they see them, they're more aware of how they look to potential onlookers, which will naturally affect their actions.

Of course, when there are no more potential onlookers -- that is, when TV viewers have started staying away from reality TV in droves -- we'll finally get relief from this broadcast infestation. Until then, as always, we'll find other things to do...

Shat Overboard!

2006-11-16T14:24:00.000-05:00

ABC has gone overboard in advertising William Shatner's new game show, Show Me the Money! Especially when every sentence finds ways to stick the first syllable of Shatner into legitimate words like "fantastic" and "outrageous."

Here's word from others who agree:

Things That Make Me Die Inside, part 4 (Entertainment Weekly Popwatch)
Dancing with the Stars Finale: Touchdown! (obviously not really about Shat, but check the fourth paragraph after Emmitt's photo)

Kool Aid Fools

2006-11-09T11:07:00.000-05:00

Remember the Mickey D clown car? Well, here's a couple of fools for Kool Aid. I hope they have endorsements or sponsorships or something to show for this...

If Charles Barkley Were President

2006-11-02T00:42:00.000-05:00

Video interview of Charles Barkley, pointing out what he sees wrong with politics as it's done today. He makes some good points, too...

If Sir Charles Were US President

It just occurred to me that if "Sir" Charles Barkley were to become president, we'd have to call him "Lord President."

NOT!! :-)

Why Friday the 13th Really Is Unlucky for Some

2006-10-13T13:33:00.000-04:00

(taken from the UrbanLegends.About.com site)

Paraskevidekatriaphobia: Fear of Friday the 13th

I just finished reading the abstract of a study published in the British Medical Journal in 1993 entitled "Is Friday the 13th Bad for Your Health?" With the aim of mapping "the relation between health, behaviour, and superstition surrounding Friday 13th in the United Kingdom," its authors compared the ratio of traffic volume to the number of automobile accidents on two different days, Friday the 6th and Friday the 13th, over a period of years.

Incredibly, they found that in the region sampled, while consistently fewer people chose to drive their cars on Friday the 13th, the number of hospital admissions due to vehicular accidents was significantly higher than on "normal" Fridays.

Their conclusion:

"Friday 13th is unlucky for some. The risk of hospital admission as a
result of a transport accident may be increased by as much as 52 percent. Staying at home is recommended."

Paraskevidekatriaphobics — people afflicted with a morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th — must be pricking up their ears just now, buoyed by seeming evidence that their terror may not be so irrational after all. But it's unwise to take solace in a single scientific study — the only one of its kind, so far as I know — especially one so peculiar. I suspect these statistics have more to teach us about human psychology than the ill-fatedness of any particular date on the calendar.

Friday the 13th - The Most Widespread Superstition?

The sixth day of the week and the number 13 both have foreboding reputations said to date from ancient times, and their inevitable conjunction from one to three times a year portends more misfortune than some credulous minds can bear. Some sources say it may be the most widespread superstition in the United States. Some people won't go to work on Friday the 13th; some won't eat in restaurants; many wouldn't think of setting a wedding on the date.

Just how many Americans at the turn of the millennium still suffer from this condition? According to Dr. Donald Dossey, a psychotherapist specializing in the treatment of phobias (and coiner of the term "paraskevidekatriaphobia"), the figure may be as high as 21 million. If he's right, eight percent of Americans are still in the grips of a very old superstition.

Exactly how old is difficult to say, because determining the origins of superstitions is an imprecise science, at best. In fact, it's mostly guesswork.

13: The Devil's Dozen

It is said: If 13 people sit down to dinner together, all will die within the year. The Turks so disliked the number 13 that it was practically expunged from their vocabulary (Brewer, 1894). Many cities do not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue. Many buildings don't have a 13th floor. If you have 13 letters in your name, you will have the devil's luck (Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey
Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names).
There are 13 witches in a coven.

Though no one can say for sure when and why human beings first associated the number 13 with misfortune, the belief is assumed to be quite old, and there exist any number of theories — all of which have been called into question at one time or another, I should point out — purporting to trace its origins to antiquity and beyond.

It has been proposed, for example, that fears surrounding the number 13 are as ancient as the act of counting. Primitive man had only his 10 fingers and two feet to represent units, this explanation goes, so he could count no higher than 12. What lay beyond that — 13 — was an impenetrable mystery to our prehistoric forebears, hence an object of superstition.

Which has an edifying ring to it, but one is left wondering — did primitive man not have toes?

Despite whatever terrors the numerical unknown held for their hunter-gatherer ancestors, ancient civilizations weren't unanimous in their dread of 13. The Chinese regarded the number as lucky, some commentators note, as did the Egyptians in the time of the pharaohs.

To the ancient Egyptians, these sources tell us, life was a quest for spiritual ascension which unfolded in stages — 12 in this life and a 13th beyond, thought to be the eternal afterlife. The number 13 therefore symbolized death — not in terms of dust and decay, but as a glorious and desirable transformation. Though Egyptian civilization perished, the symbolism conferred on the number 13 by its priesthood survived, only to be corrupted by subsequent cultures who came to associate 13 with a fear of death instead of a reverence for the afterlife.

Anathema

Other sources speculate that the number 13 may have been purposely vilified by the founders of patriarchal religions in the early days of western civilization because it represented femininity. Thirteen had been revered in prehistoric goddess-worshiping cultures, we are told, because it corresponded to the number of lunar (menstrual) cycles in a year (13 x 28 = 364 days). The "Earth Mother of Laussel," for example — a 27,000-year-old carving found near the Lascaux caves in France often cited as an icon of matriarchal spirituality — depicts a female figure holding a cresent-shaped horn bearing 13 notches. As the solar calendar triumphed over the lunar with the rise of male-dominated civilization, it is surmised, so did the number 12 over the number 13, thereafter considered anathema.

On the other hand, one of the earliest concrete taboos associated with the number 13 — a taboo still observed by some superstitious folks today, evidently — is said to have originated in the East with the Hindus, who believed, for reasons I haven't been able to ascertain, that it is always unlucky for 13 people to gather in one place — say, at dinner. Interestingly enough, precisely the same superstition has been attributed to the ancient Vikings (though I have also been told, for what it's worth, that this and the accompanying mythographical explanation are apocryphal). The story has been laid down as follows:

Loki, the Evil One

Twelve gods were invited to a banquet at Valhalla. Loki, the Evil One, god of mischief, had been left off the guest list but crashed the party, bringing the total number of attendees to 13. True to character, Loki raised hell by inciting Hod, the blind god of winter, to attack Balder the Good, who was a favorite of the gods. Hod took a spear of mistletoe offered by Loki and obediently hurled it at Balder, killing him instantly. All Valhalla grieved. And although one might take the moral of this story to be "Beware of uninvited guests bearing mistletoe," the Norse themselves apparently concluded that 13 people at a dinner party is just plain bad luck.

As if to prove the point, the Bible tells us there were exactly 13 present at the Last Supper. One of the dinner guests — er, disciples — betrayed Jesus Christ, setting the stage for the Crucifixion.

Did I mention the Crucifixion took place on a Friday?

Bad Friday

It is said: Never change your bed on Friday; it will bring bad dreams. Don't start a trip on Friday or you will have misfortune. If you cut your nails on Friday, you cut them for sorrow. Ships that set sail on a Friday will have bad luck – as in the tale of H.M.S. Friday ...
One hundred years ago, the British government sought to quell once and for all the widespread superstition among seamen that setting sail on Fridays was unlucky. A special ship was commissioned, named "H.M.S. Friday." They laid her keel on a Friday, launched her on a Friday, selected her crew on a Friday and hired a man named Jim Friday to be her captain. To top it off, H.M.S. Friday embarked on her maiden voyage on a Friday, and was never seen or heard from again.

Some say Friday's bad reputation goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. It was on a Friday, supposedly, that Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit. Adam bit, as we all learned in Sunday School, and they were both ejected from Paradise. Tradition also holds that the Great Flood began on a Friday; God tongue-tied the builders of the Tower of Babel on a Friday; the Temple of Solomon was destroyed on a Friday; and, of course, Friday was the day of the week on which Christ was crucified. It is therefore a day of penance for Christians.

In pagan Rome, Friday was execution day (later Hangman's Day in Britain), but in other pre-Christian cultures it was the sabbath, a day of worship, so those who indulged in secular or self-interested activities on that day could not expect to receive blessings from the gods — which may explain the lingering taboo on embarking on journeys or starting important projects on Fridays.

To complicate matters, these pagan associations were not lost on the early Church, which went to great lengths to suppress them. If Friday was a holy day for heathens, the Church fathers felt, it must not be so for Christians — thus it became known in the Middle Ages as the "Witches' Sabbath," and thereby hangs another tale.

The original About.com article ran a poll for readers to see what percentage is superstitious about Friday the 13th. To participate in the poll, click here.

The Witch-Goddess

The name "Friday" was derived from a Norse deity worshipped on the sixth day, known either as Frigg (goddess of marriage and fertility), or Freya (goddess of sex and fertility), or both, the two figures having become intertwined in the handing-down of myths over time (the etymology of "Friday" has been given both ways). Frigg/Freya corresponded to Venus, the goddess of love of the Romans, who named the sixth day of the week in her honor "dies Veneris."

Friday was actually considered quite lucky by pre-Christian Teutonic peoples, we are told — especially as a day to get married — because of its traditional association with love and fertility. All that changed when Christianity came along. The goddess of the sixth day — most likely Freya in this context, given that the cat was her sacred animal — was recast in post-pagan folklore as a witch, and her day became associated with evil doings.

Various legends developed in that vein, but one is of particular interest: As the story goes, the witches of the north used to observe their sabbath by gathering in a cemetery in the dark of the moon. On one such occasion the Friday goddess, Freya herself, came down from her sanctuary in the mountaintops and appeared before the group, who numbered only 12 at the time, and gave them one of her cats, after which the witches' coven — and, by tradition, every properly-formed coven since — comprised exactly 13.

The Unluckiest Day of All

The astute reader will have observed that while we have thus far insinuated any number of intriguing connections between events, practices and beliefs attributed to ancient cultures and the superstitious fear of Fridays and the number 13, we have yet to happen upon an explanation of how, why or when these separate strands of folklore converged — if that is indeed what happened — to mark Friday the 13th as the unluckiest day of all.

There's a very simple reason for that — nobody really knows, though various explanations have been proposed.

The Knights Templar

One theory, recently offered up as historical fact in the novel The Da Vinci Code, holds that it came about not as the result of a convergence, but a catastrophe, a single historical event that happened nearly 700 years ago.

The catastrophe was the decimation of the Knights Templar, the legendary order of "warrior monks" formed during the Christian Crusades to combat Islam. Renowned as a fighting force for 200 years, by the 1300s the order had grown so pervasive and powerful it was perceived as a political threat by kings and popes alike and brought down by a church-state conspiracy, as recounted by Katharine Kurtz in Tales of the Knights Templar (Warner Books: 1995):

"On October 13, 1307, a day so infamous that Friday the 13th would become a synonym for ill fortune, officers of King Philip IV of France carried out mass arrests in a well-coordinated dawn raid that left several thousand Templars — knights, sergeants, priests, and serving brethren — in chains, charged with heresy, blasphemy, various obscenities, and homosexual practices. None of these charges was ever proven, even in France — and the Order was found innocent elsewhere — but in the seven years following the arrests, hundreds of Templars suffered excruciating tortures intended to force 'confessions,' and more than a hundred died under torture or were executed by burning at the stake."

A Thoroughly Modern Phenomenon

There are drawbacks to the "day so infamous" thesis, not the least of which is that it attributes enormous cultural significance to a relatively obscure historical event. Even more problematic, for this or any other theory positing premodern origins for Friday the 13th superstitions, is the fact that no one has been able to document the existence of such beliefs prior to the 19th century. If people who lived before the late 1800s perceived Friday the 13th as a day of special misfortune, no evidence has been found to prove it. As a result, some scholars are now convinced the stigma is a thoroughly modern phenomenon exacerbated by 20th-century media hype.

Going back a hundred years, Friday the 13th doesn't even merit a mention in E. Cobham Brewer's voluminous 1898 edition of the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, though one does find entries for "Friday, an Unlucky Day" and "Thirteen Unlucky." When the date of ill fate finally does make an appearance in later editions of the text, it is without extravagant claims as to the superstition's historicity or longevity. The very brevity of the entry is instructive: "A particularly unlucky Friday. See Thirteen" — implying that the extra dollop of misfortune attributed to Friday the 13th can be accounted for in terms of an accrual, so to speak, of bad omens:

Unlucky Friday + Unlucky 13 = Unluckier Friday.

If that's the case, we are guilty of perpetuating a misnomer by labeling Friday the 13th "the unluckiest day of all," a designation perhaps better reserved for, say, a Friday the 13th on which one breaks a mirror, walks under a ladder, spills the salt, and spies a black cat crossing one's path — a day, if there ever was one, best spent in the safety of one's own home with doors locked, shutters closed and fingers crossed.

Day Old Post

2006-10-11T00:12:00.000-04:00

Of course, all the stuff in that post about Joe Torre being fired turns out to be idle speculation, since General von Steingrabber has apparently consented to let Joe Torre at least finish out his contract.

Baaaasebaaaall, movies, and the Mets

2006-10-10T23:18:00.000-04:00

It's been a long time, I shouldn't'a left you,
Without a dope post to read (or two)
Think about all the weak posts you slept through --
Time's up! Sorry I kept you...

(apologies to Rakim, and for this post title, more apologies to the guy who wrote that baseball song that he then customized for every major league team)

But it has been too long since a new post has shown up here. I created a post offline last night, then forgot to save it to my flash drive so I could take it to work and post it from there. They always say the memory is the first thing to go. (grin)

So the Yankees, embarrassed and angry that the $200-million-plus paid to their band of suspects didn't get them past the first round of the playoffs for a second straight season, want to fire Joe Torre and replace him with Lou Piniella. Well, they're right about someone having to lose their job for incompetence and lack of foresight. Too bad that somebody can't be George Steinbrenner.

In yesterday's NY Daily News Mike Lupica makes all the all the right noises to avoid sounding like a Steinbrenner hatchet-man when he says, in so many words, that Torre isn't responsible for the free-agent acquisitions that turned the Yankees from a team to a bunch of individuals who take the field at the same time and play wearing the same uniform. He admits that firing Torre won't make the pitching staff any younger or any better. It won't solve Alex Rodriguez' protracted I-problem. But then he says that some kind of change has to be made, and that nobody gets to be Yankees manager forever, not even Torre.

Well, he's right that nobody gets to be Yankee manager forever, and I never thought Torre would even try to bend that rule. But firing him for the failures of his team is the wrong move. What they need to do is get rid of the guys who are too wrapped up in themselves (Alex RodrIguez, Gary SheffIeld) to be team players. A caller to a radio call-in show on WFAN here in New York pointed out this past Sunday that during post-elimination interviews, Jeter's sentences were dominated by "we," while Pay-Rod's were dominated by "I" (hence my mention of his "I-problem"). Kinda vindicates Steve Phillips, former Mets general manager, for breaking off negotiations with Rodriguez back when he was a free agent, claiming that Pay-Rod wanted his own publicity staff and an office with a secretary. Phillips probably exaggerated when relating what he says Rodriguez wanted, but A-Rod definitely turns any team from a unit of 25 players to a "24+1" unit, and that never works. Even Reggie Jackson, king of I-problems, knew that he couldn't be that separate from the team for very long and expect success. At least I think he did...

Bill Madden of the Daily News suggests that some apparently believe that if Piniella is hired in Torre's place, he might be able to get more out of Rodriguez. They got along well when Piniella was managing the Seattle Mariners and Rodriguez was their start shortstop. But that same story also points out that it was after Rodriguez left, winding up in Texas with a $252 million contract and a nickname ("Pay-Rod") I'm sure he hates, that the Mariners set a regular season record with a 116-46 record. I'm sure that's not a coincidence.

Even Derek Jeter gets some of the blame in the Daily News stories, which point out that Jeter was quick to come to Jason Giambi's defense when the sterioids stories began hitting the news, while doing and saying absolutely nothing to bring A-Rod into the fold when he began floundering. Maybe Jeter, the team captain, could have been more supportive of A-Rod, but that wouldn't change the fact that Jeter is a team player, and Rodriguez is not. Case closed.

Meanwhile, there's a report that, if Joe Torre is indeed fired, the Texas Rangers would be interested in hiring him, since the recent firing of Buck Showalter leaves the managerial position open. If Torre goes down there and tears up the American League the way the Mets did the National League this year, Buck Showalter will be vindicated in the claims he made back in 2002, that he planted the seeds that grew into Yankee world championships in the late 90s and the Arizona Diamondbacks championship in 2001. After all, Showalter, who was given an unusual amount of say in personnel decisions, helped create the teams that went on to win it all in New York and Arizona. If Torre gets fired in NY, takes the Texas job, and wins it all in 2007 or 2008, it would probably be right to conclude that Showalter should be in the front office, not on the field. Not that he's a bad manager, per se, but if Texas winds up being the third consecutive team he helped put together that goes on to win a World Series within two seasons of firing him as manager, he should seriously consider seeking a front office job and leave the field managing to others.

There's also an article in the sports section of yesterday's Daily News suggesting that maybe Torre isn't as close to being fired as all the screaming headlines suggest, that this might be Steinbrenner's way, though an underling, of making sure the Yankees remain the top baseball story in New York, even though the Mets are the only New York baseball team whose season is not over. Wouldn't surprise me at all; they say Steinbrenner hates it when the Mets make the front or back pages of the NY newspapers for any reason, baseball-related or not. Even in the aftermath of 9-11 it became an issue when Mets players were in the Ground Zero area volunteering their services -- visiting the injured in area hospitals, helping to feed the rescue and cleanup workers, etc. -- while Yankees players were conspicuously absent. The Yankees players, no doubt egged on by the front office, accused the Mets players of grandstanding to make the papers, while the Mets players accused the Yankees of not taking the opportunity to do something to help.

Meanwhile, outside the stadium...

This, from yesterday's New York Daily News, near the very end of the Lupica article calling for Torre's dismissal and replacing him with Lou Piniella:

Across Rupert Place, a couple of kids from the neighborhood, Nelson and Alvin G, from 162nd and Woodycrest, were playing basketball at Macombs Dam Park, which will be razed soon for the new Yankee Stadium.
"What did you think about the Yankees?" Nelson G was asked.
The kid smiled. "Let's go, Mets!" he said. Then, he was chanting it. "Let's go, Mets! Let's go, Mets!"
Then there were two more kids coming from the next court... laughing and yelling for the Mets across the street from Yankee Stadium.

Take that, General von Steingrabber!

"The Last King of Scotland"

Stanley Crouch, professional grouch for the NY Daily News, has good things to say about this movie, namely how it personalizes Uganda dictator Idi Amin Dada, generally portrayed by history as a monster in a uniform. Crouch says it does a good job of showing how Amin was able to sway people into seeing him as "not the animal he's made out to be," and that in doing so Forest Whitaker does the "unimaginable."

What I want to know is, why is this movie called "The Last King of Scotland"? I know a pivotal part of the story is how Amin manages to get a young doctor from Scotland to agree to be his personal physician, and how this man tries to reconcile the man he knows as his patient with the animal Amin was made out to be by the rest of the world. But it's a bit... disconcerting, to see a pic of a maniacally-grinning Whitaker, in uniform as Amin, with "The Last King of Scotland" as the caption to the photo.

"One team plays games, the other plays baseball"

That is the headline at the top of Lisa Olson's story comparing the Mets NLCS team and the Yankees' failure to launch.

She make some good points in comparison, but the point, not mentioned in the story, that resonates with me is this:

Pedro Martinez, the staff ace, was unavailable for much of the season, and totally unavailable for the postseason; Orlando Hernandez, not the staff ace but maybe the best postseason pitcher in the game, was also unavailable for the postseason -- and still, the Mets swept the Dodgers. They needed a lot of help from the bullpen -- in fact, no team that has swept the first round of playoffs has had the starting pitchers consistently leave the games so early -- but the bullpen came through, as bullpens are supposed to, and the Mets are in the league playoffs while the Yankees can only "participate" in the postseason as spectators.

Mark Twain quote on Iraq, um, I mean the Phillippines

2006-09-22T23:15:00.000-04:00

Mark Twain could have been a prophet, it looks like. As you read the following quote, change "the Phillipines" to "Iraq," "Filipino(s)" to "Iraqi(s)," and "Spanish" to "Saddam Hussein's," and this quote could have been made recently about the current war in Iraq, instead of one hundred years ago about a war halfway around the world in the Phillipines (from Wikipedia):

"There is the case of the Philippines. I have tried hard, and yet I cannot
for the life of me comprehend how we got into that mess. Perhaps we
could not have avoided it -- perhaps it was inevitable that we should
come to be fighting the natives of those islands -- but I cannot
understand it, and have never been able to get at the bottom of the
origin of our antagonism to the natives. I thought we should act as
their protector -- not try to get them under our heel. We were to relieve
them from Spanish tyranny to enable them to set up a government of
their own, and we were to stand by and see that it got a fair trial. It was
not to be a government according to our ideas, but a government
that represented the feeling of the majority of the Filipinos, a govern-
ment according to Filipino ideas. That would have been a worthy
mission for the United States. But now -- why, we have got into a mess,
a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of
extrication immensely greater. I'm sure I wish I could see what we
were getting out of it, and all it means to us as a nation."

As always, this quote refers to a miscalculation on the part of the US government. Or, rather, it resulted from the custom of going in shooting first, then figuring out what the suitation is and what is at stake. In this case, Spain had lost the Spanish-American War -- which many believe the US provoked by blowing up an American ship docked in Cuba and blaming it on the Spanish -- resulting in the US gaining rulership over Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Phillipines. Since Filipinos had been putting up an armed resistance to Spanish rule, the US mistakenly thought the Filipinos would be happy with their new rulers.

Wrong. They didn't want new outside rulers, no matter who they were. The result was four years of war in a land where both the terrain and the culture were totally unfamiliar to the US forces, resulting in four years of war and over four thousand of American solders killed.

Seem the least bit familiar?

Free Dunkin Donuts Coffee?? Where?! When?! Oh, Iced Coffee...

2006-09-22T12:18:00.000-04:00

I got an email this morning from TheInternetPatrol.com about a supposed Yahoo promotion, offering free Dunkin Donuts iced coffee to anyone who visits Yahoo's site and prints out a coupon. I've never been a fan of cold coffee, but hey, it's free, and I like their hot coffee. So, I went to Yahoo, and there's no mention of it on the site's front page.

OK, I thought, they want to make you work for it. No problem. So, I did a Y!Search (I tack a "Y" onto all things Yahoo) found a bunch of sites with varying versions of the same story, but no actual links to a Yahoo page with a printable Dunkin Donuts free coffee coupon. One of those sites suggested that it may be just a publicity stunt. Its version of the story claimed that you had to make Yahoo your Web start page in order to be given access to the Web coupon, raising the question (as that particular site did) of how Yahoo could even know that you've switched your start page in the first place.

But, hey, free coffee, even if it is cold. So, I clicked on the link at the top of Yahoo's front page that's supposed to make it my computer's start page, and it didn't work. Not a surprise, since I work in a government office, and the combination spyware/anti-spyware that runs on all our computers probably prevents that kind of thing.

It's looking more and more like a publicity stunt by the second...

Somaya Reece

2006-09-20T23:59:00.000-04:00

(that's a link, son)

Nothing more needs to be said. Somaya Reece is a beautiful woman, a nice person, and takes great photos (on both sides of the camera!) Also, her standalone website is being reorganized, so the link leads to her MySpace portfolio.

Check out the Somaya Reece music page also: http://www.myspace.com/somayareecemusic

Stop snitching? How about "Grow up"!

2006-08-25T15:15:00.000-04:00

Every time I hear about these idiot rappers and others going around talking about "stop snitching," I just want to wring somebody's neck. People have a right to be able to go about their lives confident in the fact that, if they are done wrong, somebody who saw something till speak up on behalf of the person who was hurt. Instead, you have these fools talking about some "code of the street."

When I was much younger, I understood that there were certain things that distinguished "grown-ups" from kids. One of them was that grown-ups had to go to work, while kids didn't (and usually couldn't). More importantly, I know that when you passed a certain point in your life, you were expected to take responsibility for your actions. If an eight-year-old breaks a neighbor's window, his (or her) parents have to pay for it. But if a working teenager or adult does the same thing, he or she is responsible for it. To run away from responsibility was to avoid "being a responsible person," that is, an adult.

Which means that these idiots pressuring people to "stop snitching" are basically overgrown boys and girls trying to pass themselves off as men and women. Do you hear me, Tony Yayo? You "had something to do" with a shooting that escalated from your G-Unit crew's stupid tactic of starting beef with any- and everybody just to get headlines, and it ended up with a man being killed in cold blood. Until this matter is settled (and if you did the shooting, that means you behind bars), YOU CANNOT CALL YOURSELF A MAN. Grow up, and take whatever the law has coming to you like a man.

But wait, there's more...

The New York State Metropolitan Transit Authority has a slogan, "If you see something, say something," to prevent would-be terrorists from disrupting services or taking lives. The saying also applies to those "stop snitching" idiots. If you see a crime being committed, especially against someone who did nothing to merit being wronged, you have a responsibility (there's that word again) to speak up. To do otherwise, again, is avoiding being a responsible person, an adult.

Did you hear that, Busta Rhymes? Until you do right by the family of your slain bodyguard, YOU CANNOT CALL YOURSELF A MAN. "Doing right" by them doesn't mean only paying for the funeral arrangements and whatever else you might have done to ease a guilty conscience. It means speaking up so that the triggerman, be it Tony Yayo or whoever, will go to jail and pay for what he did. As for you, Busta, you don't have to prove anything to people who don't want to grow up, unless you yourself don't want to grow up either. Until this thing happened I had always thought you were a stand-up guy, as they say. I guess I was wrong...

Being responsible also means not blaming others for your own stupidity or lapses of judgment. You hear, Lil Kim? You refused to testify against people who cooperated with the police. What in God's name was the poInt of that? Don't you know that anytime you even refuse to answer a cop's question on the street, they can get you for obstruction of justice? Even if you harbor a fugitive that you know is innocent, you are still guilty of obstruction even after the person's innocence is proved. That charge doesn't mean allowing someone to get away with something, it means not cooperating. You chose not to cooperate, so you went to jail. Case closed. Yet you run around, yapping to anyone who will listen that your former friends "snitched" on you. But they didn't make you decide not to cooperate, that was your choice. Until you can own up to that (and shut up and move on) , YOU CANNOT CALL YOURSELF A WOMAN.

I could go on and on -- the hip-hop world, in particular, excels in providing examples of this kind of stupidity -- but I've made my point. Once you pass a certain age, you take responsibility for your actions. That is what "responsible adult" means. If you won't do that, YOU ARE NOT AN ADULT. Period.

And just for the record, I am not some old, conservative, Frank Sinatra contemporary who just "doesn't get the younger generation." Nor am I Stanley the Grouch, um, I mean Stanley Crouch writing incognito. I'm 41 years old; I grew up with rap but I remember when there were no rap records. I remember when there weren't so many thirtysometings walking around acting and talking like teenagers to appeal to an audience who will forget all about them in six months.

I'm boss, Hil tells Bill (updated)

2006-08-21T15:14:00.000-04:00

Originally posted 3/21/06 -- update at the end

It will be interesting to see just how this works out. Hillary Clinton, the wife if I understand correctly, wants to OK all public statemens by Bill Clinton, her husband, before he makes them, in order to make sure he doesn't say or do anything to hurt her chances of getting the Democratic Party's endorsement for President in the 2008 election.

I'm boss, Hil tells Bill

The thing is, I don't see a whole lot of conflict in some of what the press is portraying as conflicting statements made by the two in recent weeks. For instance, Hillary Clinton made it clear that she voted in favor of the resolution to remove Saddam Hussein from power, seeing it as a move to stabilize the Middle East. Bill later went on record as saying that the Bush administration made errors in judgment in determining just how long it would take to remove Saddam and his supporters and oversee the transition to a democratic government.

Where's the conflict? Did Hillary say that she thinks the President and the military are doing exactly what needs to be done? I don't recall reading or hearing that. Nor do I recall Bill Clinton saying that Saddam should have been allowed to stay in power. The conflict, if there is any, is just the press making a mountain out of a molehill in order to sell newspapers and attract TV news viewers. After all, the NY Daily News article this post links to is advertised with a cartoon of Hillary Clinton pulling the strings of a zipper-mouthed Bill.

UPDATE: Suddenly I'm picturing Hillary Clinton dancing around the house in Chappaqua, singing along to Kelis' "Bossy."

Google Ice Cream

2006-08-14T15:44:00.000-04:00

I've been saying for years that I live on the wrong coast. I should be out on the West Coast, preferably California, where (if I find the right place) I can throw out my winter clothes, and maybe even my allergy medicine. But now I find that even if I did move to the West Coast I'd probably be working for the wrong company. Google has specially-made ice-cream sandwiches that are only served in their company cafeteria.

*sigh*

Rude Cell Phone Callers

2006-08-10T11:08:00.000-04:00

Interesting article here about rude cell-phone use. This one starts off with something I wish I'd see more often -- a rude cell phone user who insists on finishing her conversation when the counterperson in Starbucks it ready to wait on her gets tossed out of line when the clerk calls for the next customer. Rude talker stomps off, still talking. Probably doesn't think she did anything wrong, the twit.

Wired News

OK, so these things happen (re: Abreu on the Yankees, Nady gone, Sanchez on the DL, etc.)

2006-08-08T17:00:00.000-04:00

All right, I guess nobody on the Mets front office staff is a fortune teller. They had no way of knowing that the Yankees would make a move to get Bobby Abreu before the Mets could get him. They had no way of knowing that some wild driver in Miami would sideswipe the taxicab carrying pitcher Duaner Sanchez, separating his shoulder and ending his season, making it necessary to trade right fielder Xavier Nady, the man whose presence in the Met outfield made a trade for Abreu unnecessary. They also had no way of knowing that the day Abreu first suited up in a Yankee uniform for a game, the Yankees would move back into first place, stealing some of the Mets' thunder. They couldn't have known any of that in advance.

But now I find myself thinking about how the Mets season might wind up with their most dependable reliever (Sanchez) out of the game and a popular and steady outfielder (Nady) now playing for another team. And about the popular and steady outfielder (Abreu) that could have been a Met but is now a Yankee...

Roberto Hernandez should be able to pick up the slack, I guess. I mean, even at 40 years old, he was the highlight of the Mets bullpen last year, and by all accounts was headed to a similar record this season. He's even on the top-ten list for career saves, which came as a surprise to me, since I had never heard of him before the Mets got him last year.

I just don't want to watch somebody else's team in the playoffs again this year. I want to see the Mets there, and I want to see them there because they won their way there, not because they slid in through the backdoor via the wild card.

Bobby Abreu on the Yankees?! I can't believe it!!

2006-07-31T15:08:00.000-04:00

Ever since the 2000 season, when the New York Yankees and the crosstown Mets played each other in the World Series, I've wanted to see Bobby Abreu, from then until yesterday the right fielder for the Philadelphia Phillies, in a Mets uniform. I don't recall just what happened in 2000 that made me aware of Abreu, but I just wanted to see him on the Mets. He was a dependable hitter with some power, had a powerful throwing arm, and didn't mouth off much in the papers.

And they've had plenty of opportunities to make it happen. In particular, when the Mets were trying to get rid of Anna, um, I mean Kris Benson, they could have made a trade for Abreu. Instead, they made headlines by trying to get their hands on Manny Ramirez, the much flashier and crankier right fielder for the Boston Red Sox. I remember having fits because the Phillies were making Abreu available, and the Sox had also been in talks with the Phillies about a possible Abreu-for-Ramirez swap. It seemed to me that if Benson=Ramirez and Abreu=Ramirez, then Benson=Abreu. Instead the Mets sent Anna and her husband to Baltimore in a trade, and wound up with neither Abreu nor Ramirez.

And now Abreu is on the Yankees.

Granted, the Yankees have more of a need for an outfielder of Abreu's caliber. They're one game out of first place, which in the Yankee mindset is like being only one foot underwater. They want to get up where they think they belong. The Mets, on the other hand, are enjoying the largest lead of any division leader in the majors, 14 games as of today. The Mets are so far out front that only self-destruction could prevent them from making it into the post-season. Their outfield may not have the total star power of Hideki Matsui, Johnny Damon, and Garry Sheffield, but even with Curt Floyd, Carlos Beltran, and the more "pedestrian" Xavier Nady, Endy Chavez, and Eli Marrero, they've been doing just fine. If they'd gotten Abreu, then most likely Nady, who's become a fan favorite, would have to sit.

I guess what sickens me about the whole thing is that, as much as I wanted to see Abreu on the Mets, the Yankees were able to get him because the Mets don't really need him. A good problem to have, I suppose...

Who woulda think it? (Barry Bonds' indictment)

2006-07-25T13:14:00.000-04:00

According to SI.com, Bonds [is] relieved not to be indicted. Who woulda thunk it? I'd have thought he'd be eager to spend time in court listening to government prosecutors repeat over and over again how he's guilty of something he contends he's not.

NOT.

Actually, I wouldn't believe Barry Bonds if he tells me there's solid ground under my feet even as I feel it there for myself. I say this because due to a medical situation I have to take steroids myself, though not anabolic, and I've already had to have surgery on my hips after less than a year on the meds. His intermittent hobbling around on bad knees, bad enough at one time to have cost him almost a whole season, are a dead giveaway of steroid use.

Steroids block delivery of oxygen to blood vessels in joints. It can happen in any joint but is most common in the shoulders, hips, and knees. Bonds has never been overweight, per se, and probably had little or no knee trouble before 1998, when Mark McGuire (and Sammy Sosa) threatened to make him an afterthought. But when Bonds saw what "andro" did for McGwire's production (and the attention he got), he decided to go in that direction himself, even as it became obvious that McGwire's body was breaking down prematurely because of the stuff.

Now, I know Bonds has steadily denied knowingly using steroids, and that he has never failed a drug test. But from my own experience I have to believe he's using, no matter what he says. It's just too bad that his own stubbornness won't allow him to fess up to what he's done and take his punishment like a man.

Equally shameful is the fact that fake-commissioner Selig hems and haws and hopes the federal government takes Bonds off his hands, so he won't have to make a decision himself. He knows that the Bonds situation is bad for baseball, but I wonder if he has given any thought to the possibility that the delay by the Feds could simply be part of making a case against continuing baseball's anti-trust exemption? He should give that some thought, because if the exemption is revoked, Selig is sure to be out of a job. If that were to happen, it would quickly point out the sham of the so-called blind trust that owns the Brewers, openly owned by Selig until his occupation of the commissioner's office (not the Commissioner's Office -- he's not doing the job, he's just using the room). Because Selig would be back in Milwaukee running the Brewers as if nothing had happened.

Because nothing has.

Who knows? Things could turn around. Now that the Washington Nationals have more-or-less been bought by someone, finally, there will be less excuse for Selig's refusal to do something about the Bonds situation. Selig has to have a roomful of advisors for even the most trivial decision. Let's see if he or his advisors will realize everything that could be at stake here, and finally do something about Bonds, before the rug gets pulled from under them.

Sidekick 3 Will Erase Your Credit Cards! and Quickly!

2006-07-10T15:20:00.000-04:00

Not spam, not a scam, this is real, and this site has the photos to prove it!

Sidekick 3 Warning: Sidekick 3’s Magnet Will Erase Your Credit Card in Under a Second

This seems just really stupid to me. Don't they test these things? I mean, not just for the unit's functionality, but for things like this? When people start finding they have dead credit/debit cards and unusable electronic media and connect it to the Sidekick 3, there will be lawsuits. And all because somebody didn't think that maybe such a strong magnet would cause problems...

Create Your Own Customers

2006-06-19T13:02:00.000-04:00

Nestle has decided that it was time to create a market for themselves, or to put themselves in a position to do so. Nestle AG is buying Jenny Craig Inc.

Here's the reposted message from another message board:

See this is how the rich stay rich, you spend all that money, in a self
defeating effort, to get fat. Then you spend all that money, in a guilty
rampage, to lose all that weight. And it all goes in the same
pocket.
VEVEY, Switzerland - In a twist in corporate synergy, chocolate-maker Nestle AG said Monday it will fatten up its weight-loss business by buying Jenny Craig Inc. for $600 million.

The acquisition follows Nestle's purchase for around $670 million last
month of Uncle Tobys, an Australian maker of nutritional cereals and snacks, and is part of the company's "continuing commitment to nutrition, health and wellness," the Swiss company said in a statement.

While best known for its namesake chocolates, Nestle is the world's largest food and drinks company, making baby formulas, nutrition foods such as PowerBar, drinks to aid weight loss and the Lean Cuisine line. The company's purchase of Jenny Craig follows the lead of consumer products company Unilever, which bought both Ben & Jerry's ice cream and Slim Fast in 2000.

Weight management will become a new business within Nestle's nutrition unit and will reinforce its U.S. presence, the company said.

"With this strategic acquisition, the group takes another important step in its transformation process into a nutrition, health and wellness company," said Nestle Chairman and Chief Executive Peter Brabeck-Letmathe.

"The rise of obesity and the resulting metabolic disorders, such as
diabetes and cardiovascular disease, is a major public health concern,
not only in the USA but also the world over," Brabeck-Letmathe said.

Jenny Craig, which has more than 3,000 employees and more than 600 centers in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, generated sales of more than $400 million in the past 12 months and achieved double-digit internal growth.

Patrik Schwendimann, analyst for Zuercher Kantonalbank, said the purchase will likely further boost the prospects of Nestle's nutrition division. Zuercher Kantonalbank and Helvea both said the purchase comes at an affordable price of 1.5 times sales.

Nestle is buying Jenny Craig from two private equity groups, ACI Capital and MidOcean Partners. The current management team of Jenny Craig, which is based in Carlsbad, Calif., will continue to run the business and report directly to Nestle.

"We are excited to be partnering with Nestle Nutrition and believe Jenny Craig will fit nicely into, and in fact complement, their portfolio of branded nutritional products and services," said Patti Larchet, CEO of Jenny Craig. "We also believe being a strategic pillar within the Nestle organization will provide us with technical, scientific and nutritional resources to further develop our program and continue to enhance our client experience and results."

The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter, the private
equity firms said in a statement.

Nestle shares gained 0.3 percent to 370.00 Swiss francs ($300.58) in Zurich trading.

On Disney, Laziness, and Cannibalism

2006-06-19T12:23:00.000-04:00

Disney and Why the Anasazi Ate Themselves (from VagueButTrue.com)

J.Lo as Sue Ellen in Dallas? Madness!

2006-06-19T02:16:00.000-04:00

Scoop: To avoid J.Lo, Jennifer ditches �Dallas� role - Examiner.com

New perspective on Barry Bonds issue

2006-05-19T15:00:00.000-04:00

Here's an interesting perspective from a sportwriter boycotting Barry Bonds games, a sportswriter who happens to be a black woman.

SI.com - Writers - Elizabeth Newman: Decision to boycott Barry Bonds is not about race - Thursday May 18, 2006 5:15PM

NFL Commissioner Condi?? Secretary of State Tagliabue?!

2006-05-12T01:30:00.000-04:00

Current NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue has announced that he intends to leave office in July unless the NFL owners haven't found a replacement for him by then, in which case he might stay a bit longer. An article in today's NY Daily News lists ten possible replacements for Tagliabue, among them US Secretary of State Condolezza Rice, ex-US President Bill Clinton, and ex-NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani. Of the three, I'd have to say that Giuliani is probably the one most owners would take seriously. On the other hand, during his tenure as mayor he tended to come across as hall-monitor-in-chief rather than the city's CEO, and the billionaires and multimillionaires that run the NFL might not appreciate someone with that demeanor. (Though I recall some of the members of my high school's Red Brigade, as we called them, and they were a tough bunch. Charlotte Rodriguez could whip the NFL into shape pronto.)

Condi Rice actually said, back when she was national security advisor, that she would be interested in the job once Tagliabue left office, but a story in today's Daily News makes it clear that though she's a huge football fan -- "she thinks football is the greatest sport on earth," according to a spokesperson -- she won't be leaving the White House for the NFL, though at least one owner is clearly in her corner should she change her mind. Bill Clinton is also being touted by another Daily News writer as a good candidate to replace Tagliabue, though dealing with NFL owners' egos could make him nostalgic for Pennsylvania Avenue, according to this article.

[Interestingly, Condi made this statement about wanting to be NFL commissioner during Bush's first term, suggesting that either she didn't expect Bush to be (re-)elected or she didn't plan to stick around for a second term.]

And if Hillary Clinton getting elected to Capitol Hill while her husband was still President made a big splash in the news, imagine Bill as NFL commish while his wife's running for or if she's elected President!

Better the NFL than major league baseball, I say. Hillary's supposedly a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan, she would be hard-pressed to refrain from meddling if Bill were to become MLB commissioner, with all the mess that's going on in baseball these days. There's the Barry Bonds situation (retire, please, NOW); the "ownerless" Washington Nationals, who will never be allowed to become competitive as long as all of baseball's owners officially co-own the team; and who knows what else could pop up.

UPDATE: It has come to light that not only is it Condi Rice's dream job to be NFL commissioner, but it's also Paul Tagliabue's dream job to be Secretary of State! He's already on a couple of foreign policy committees, due to his past high-level employment by the federal government, and still has high security clearance. Maybe the Feds and the NFL could work out a trade?

Send in the clowns!

2006-05-12T01:13:00.000-04:00

The other day, a coworker was telling a story about a family who had appeared on Family Feud or some such show, and it happens they were a family of professional... clowns. Once another coworker I'll call J heajrd the reference to clowns, she just started cracking up laughing for no apparent reason. She didn't even know herself just what she found so funny about a family of clowns, except she did offer this: "Say you're bringing your boyfriend or girlfriend to meet your family for the first time and he or she asks, 'So what do you do?' and the answer comes back, 'We're clowns...'" after which she broke up again. The girl telling the story made sure to emphsize CLOWN everytime she got to that word, just for the reaction, and every time she did J would just dissolve into laughter. I happened to mention the scene in the Charlie Sheen movie "The Chase" where Charlie's character is trying to convince his "hostage" that he's really innocent of the crime he'd been convicted of (just before he accidentally kidnapped her), and the story involves a children's birthday party where he's dressed as a clown. J managed to get "I remember that!" out before cracking up again.

So, the next day, I thought I'd try to put her at ease, especially since her next-cubicle neighbor was still at it. "Don't worry, J, I won't try to get laughs out of you like I did yesterday afternoon," I said in my most soothing voice. "You don't have to worry, 'cause Homey don't play dat."

Caveat Scriptor...

2006-04-29T01:33:00.000-04:00

...or something. I'm trying to say beware of what you post online, because you NEVER know who's reading, or how they might react. You'd think someone in a sensitive profession like law would think long and hard about whether to blog about an ongoing case, complete with enough details for readers to piece together the identity of the writer and of those being written about.

At least I would think so, but what do I know? I'm not a lawyer. Maybe that's a good thing...

The Internet Patrol: Blog Postings Cost Lawyer His Job When Read by Judge

USATODAY.com - Old Man at Shea

2006-04-29T01:30:00.000-04:00

This one isn't "strange," per se, just unusual. The New York Mets' Julio Franco, 47 years old, has just set a record for the oldest player to hit a home run in a regular-season game. Says he wants to hit a homer at 50. More power to him. (OK, that wasn't intended to be a pun.)

USATODAY.com - This player is really, really old school

Update: on Thursday 4/27 Franco stole a base. It wasn't the best situation to steal a base in -- he left first base empty with one out and Carlos Delgado, a power hitter, at bat -- but I like that hustle, especially in an older... make that the oldest player. The only player in major league history older than him to have stolen a base, did it almost 100 years ago. For the Mets' sake, I hope Julio continues to NOT act his age.

Too bad Rickey Henderson didn't have that kind of hustle in him when the Mets had him. His conviction that he is and will always be a SUPERstar is what did him in. He's a year older than Franco, but Franco's been playing continuously since he joined the majors, even going to Japan and Korea when he had to, taking nothing for granted. Superstar Rickey "bided his time" in the minors, convinced that a major-league callup was just minutes away. Well, it's been two years now, and no one's calling. Better hang up that pride, Rickey: retire, and take a coaching or TV job somewhere, instead of hanging around ballparks looking desperate.

At the time, it seemed like the thing to do...

2006-04-13T23:43:00.000-04:00

Four Jobs I’ve Had:

Newspaper subscription telemarketer
Credit information verifier
Cashier
Bus driver

Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over:

Silverado (the 'form' is Western, but they pack mystery, action, romance, comedy, and a fair bit of intrigue into it)
Better Off Dead (from John Cusack's teen-movie phase)
Independence Day (Judd Hirsch is great in this, as are Randy Quaid [yes, really!] and Bill... Pullman? Paxton? I get them confused)
Canadian Bacon (no explanations, no excuses, I just like it. Michael Moore needs to make more narrative movies. And it's great the way he got Canadian actors to play up Canadian stereotypes -- John Lithgow, Steven Wright, etc.)
BONUS: The Core (hey, with Stanley Tucci [The Man], Delroy Lindo [also The Man], and Alfre Woodard showing the others how to act, how could I NOT watch?)

Four -- no, Three Places I’ve Lived:

White Plains, NY, USA
Fort Bragg, Fayetteville, NC, USA (just a couple of weeks, from what I'm told -- it was supposed to be longer, until my mother saw a mouse!)
Mount Vernon, NY, USA

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch:

Monk (Tony Shalhoub is yet another Man)
My Name Is Earl (small-screen Raising Arizona)
Half and Half (mostly to stare at Essence Atkins and Rachel True, I admit)
Caliente (outdoor Spanish-language Soul Train)

Four Places I’ve Been on Vacation:

Disney World
Myrtle Beach (SC)
Virginia Beach (VA)
Martha's Vineyard (MA)

Four of My Favorite Dishes:

Beef stroganoff
Corned beef
Lasagna
Stewed chicken (with curry)

Four Websites I Visit Daily:

DeviantArt
MySpace
Jazzyville
My personalized Google front page -- I have games...

Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now:

Hawaii
Grand Canyon
Mount St. Helens (Washington State, US -- that is, if it's not about to erupt again)
US Virgin Islands

Last four CD's I bought:

Different Strokes by Different Folks, by Sly & the Family Stone with new music added by current stars (some great stuff here, and some stuff better left unlistened to)
Can You Dig It?: The Ultimate Isaac Hayes, by Isaac Hayes
Soundtrack from Shaft, by Isaac Hayes (I bought Can You Dig It specifically hoping that it would have the 19-minute-plus version of "Do Your Thing," where the musicians live up to the song's title. But it only had the three-minute radio version. The CD liner notes said the full-length song was on the Shaft soundtrack, so I went out and bought that the next day)
The Cosmic Game, by Thievery Corporation

Toccara (sigh)

2006-03-20T01:25:00.000-05:00

I've been somewhat fascinated by the living media storm that is Toccara Jones, plus-sized also-ran from America's Next Top Model (I don't know what season, after a while they all run together -- the only one I really followed was the one that came down to Yoanna-vs-Mercedes-vs-Shandy, and I was rooting for Mercedes). Anyway, this article is about the media's various perspectives on America's increasing girth, and one of the touchstones used in the article is Toccara's run on "Celebrity Fit Club."

AlterNet: Weighing Reality