Bad Idea T-shirts

Bad Idea T-shirts provided a bit of joy this weekend. Our society has been criticized for getting its wisdom from bumper stickers and T-shirts. This post isn't going to help.  The graphics aren't particularly good, but I liked some of what I saw:

"Some people are like Slinkies: They aren't really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs."

What color does a Smurf turn when you choke it?

"DADD: Dads Against Daughters Dating - Shoot the first one and the word gets around"

Is this is a corollary to Dan Hedaya's line in Clueless? IMDB lists the quote as "Anything happens to my daughter, I got a .45 and a shovel, I doubt anybody would miss you." I prefer the way I remember it: "I've got a .45 and a shovel. I know how to use both."

And while stumbling through the quotes for Clueless I tripped over this exchange:
 
Cher: If it's a concussion, you have to keep her conscious, okay? Ask her questions.
Elton: What's seven times seven?
Cher: Stuff she knows.



When I sent a friend in western Virginia the "paddle faster" image he responded that it was a common bumper stickers around there.  It made him nervous.

One-of-a-kind Excursions

A link from ThrillList lead me to Excursionist™which promises "Travel tailored to your passions".

There's a lure for some, but not for me.  While others dream of schussing down remote peaks, horseback safaris, going on archeological disks, I still fantasize that someday I'll have enough time to read the NY Times every day and make headway against my to-read list.

Camel adventures in the Sahara, Holi in Jaipur, dog sledding in Norway, and on.  It's got to be my sour outlook that squashed the appeal of travel.  The fill-in parts of traveling - making reservations, arrangements, waiting here and waiting there, the parts that are not in the snapshots - seem so off putting.

I love to hear about my brother's experiences, climbing rickety stairs to the best noodle shop in Dam Ca Na or consulting on new restaurants in Japan, or my former kennel boy explaining the difficulty of bus travel in Java and the wilting heat on the Arabian peninsula - all great stories, to hear, but not something I want to do.

For those who still have money and need something to talk about it should be great.  I'm content to read about it in the times.

Oh, just remembered: the only time I felt a strong need to travel was way back when I was a freshman in college.  It was a speech class, a guy in Air Force ROTC was giving a talk about the wonders of Bermuda, with pink sandy beaches, warm tropical breezes, and crystal clear water.  He had a travel posted taped to the wall.  Outside the wind was howling, lashing snow against the windows.  Yeah, I wanted to be in Bermuda. 
The feeling has past.

Do Not Wash or Play

I picked up a hat on the street today which has unique care instructions.  (The white line is an artifact of the office scanner.)

What happens if the hat is washed?  Can parents be charged with endangering the welfare of child if the child starts waving the hat around?  Should I destroy the hat lest it fall into the wrong hands?

Life used to be so simple.

I emailed this along to a friend who surprised me with a reply which was more thoughtful than the message:

Perhaps we humans, or at least some of us, should have similar tags.  Those instructions would presumably be treated with the same respect as the one on the cap  (to be honored in the breach thereof)

Do not abuse this person in any way
Do not hurt this person.
Not a toy
Wash gently in warm water

Harry  (whose tag apparently got ripped off early in life, perhaps as collateral damage during a ritual cutting performed on most males in our culture)

Swapping Sylvester Stallone's Mother for David Beckham

In the course of his interview with On the Media Paul McMullan, a News of the World reporter, mentioned swapping Sylvester Stallone's mother phone number for David Beckham's. His point very simply was that he was giving the public what they wanted.

If the public didn't buy what the papers pandered the paper wouldn't shovel it. Drug dealers use the same rationale.

Paul McMullan gained notoriety as the journalist, who, after being tipped off by a cop, about Jennifer Elliot (Denholm Elliot's daughter) desperate search for drugs, persuaded her to pose topless. With the unerring logic of humiliation Jennifer Elliot eventually committed suicide.  The interview is worth a listen.

Higher Gossip

"Higher Gossip" is a newly published collection of pieces by the late John Updike.  Updike was almost universally acknowledged as one of the finest writers America produced.  The excerpts in the NY Times review by Michiko Kakutani (Last Notes From a Man of Letters, November 29, 2011) provides ample support for his stature as a wordsmith.

He describes Kurt Vonnegut’s view of the universe as “basically atrocious, a vast sea of cruelty and indifference”

He describes Raymond Carver as managing to carve from a “near wreck of a life” — penury, heavy drinking, illness — “stories of exquisite directness, polish and calm that sit in the mind like perfect porcelain teacups,” though they often depict lives “beneath the threshold of any aspiration higher than day-to-day survival.”  

He writes about the resentment younger writers may feel toward “the gray-haired scribes” who “continue to take up space and consume the oxygen in the increasingly small room of the print world.” 

Definitely on the list to read.

U.S. District Judge Rakoff Smells a Rat

The SEC charged Citigroup with betting against investment "opportunities" it had created. As investors were taking losses the bank made $160 million. The SEC allowed a consent judgment against Citigroup settling the case to be filed the same day it filed its lawsuit against Citigroup.

Did someone smell a rat?

WNYC's blog, citing today's AP story, "City Judge Rejects $285M SEC-Citigroup Agreement" quoted U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff as writing "in any case like this that touches on the transparency of financial markets whose gyrations have so depressed our economy and debilitated our lives, there is an overriding public interest in knowing the truth.

"In much of the world, propaganda reigns, and truth is confined to secretive, fearful whispers  Even in our nation, apologists for suppressing or obscuring the truth may always be found. But the SEC, of all agencies, has a duty, inherent in its statutory mission, to see that the truth emerges; and if it fails to do so, this court must not, in the name of deference or convenience, grant judicial enforcement to the agency's contrivances."

In much the same way the public needs to know what dealings went on behind closed doors to bail out the banks.  It's the public's money.  We may not now be sophisticated enough to understand what went on, but hey, give us the numbers and some talking heads and we'll see if we should pick up our pitch forks and burning brands or nod our heads at the wisdom of our representatives.

Five Language of Love/Love After Death Row/Modern Love

The NY Times from November 20 had an article about Gary Chapman, pastor of the Brentwood Hills Church of Christ, author of "5 Love Languages".  In  his taxonomy love is expressed by:

• words of affirmation,
• gifts,
• acts of service,
• quality time, and
• physical touch. 

He claimed that he knew in high school that of the two options of working in a Christian framework, he would be a pastor because missionary clashed with his dislike of snakes.

The same issue described the marriage of Sunny Jacobs and Peter Pringle.  Jacobs along with her husband and children were passengers in a car which was involved in an incident which left two Florida law enforcement officers dead.   Both Jacobs and her husband were sentenced to death.  Her husband was electrocuted by Florida.  Later, the third adult in the car who turned state's evidence admitted to being the shooter.  She was released after 17 years in prison.

Pringle was sentenced to death in Ireland for the death of two police officers following a bank robbery.  He was saved by several events: 1) Commutation to 40 years without parole, 2) the transcript of his confession was written before he was interrogated, and 3) Ireland abolished the death penalty.  It is not clear that he was innocent.

Their nuptials were attended by three notable actresses,Brooke Shields, Marlo Thomas, and Amy Irving, who had portrayed Sunny Jacobs in the play "The Exonerated".

The "Modern Love" column by Charlotte Alter, a senior at Harvard, contained this gem: "They say that each generation thinks it invented love. But from what I can see, my generation seems to fear we’ve forgotten it."  

Porn in Progress

By now people where I'm teaching know that when I say, "I'm checking my porn." I'm checking the stock market.  After the recent stomach churning drop in response to the Greek debt crisis compounded with the Italian debt crisis (from "Too big to fail" to 'Too big to save") Dow Jones is up over 2% today with the index over 12,000.

I can stick some standard boiler plate here about market expectation, consumer confidence, phases of the moon, and technical factors, but I'll simply say that I am astounded. Of course there's still an hour for people to come to their senses and send everything into the dumper.

The right wing has done a phenomenal job over the last 40 years in getting the hoi poli to have a vested interest in the stock markets.  With pensions from most worker's disappearing as a factor in their future, money has gone to mutual funds and stocks and with it their expectations.

I try to imagine what others go through when they reach for the brass ring and the merry go round disappears.  (I've long abandoned the belief in a "golden retirement".  My attitude and expectations are similar to my father: all he wanted was a comfortable place to read.)  Can social unrest be far behind if even modest aspirations may soon be out of reach?

Something will happen, but I can't see what it will be.

Tom Keith RIP

I got the news on tonight's Prairie Home Companion.  Tom was the sound effects guy on PHC.  I don't think it strange that I miss someone I never met, but who's work I heard every weekend.  I'll never hear a chicken cluck, a wapiti's mournful cry, or pterodactyl screech again without thinking of Tom.

Tom's passing will probably be the end of the annual Radio Sound Effects Championship which always ended with Tom's challenger being disqualified for hiding a whistle in his nostril.  One part of the contest featured 10 sound effects in 30 seconds.  From 2008 this included a helicopter, a swarm of bees, a flying goose, a knife thrown into a door, a firecracker, a tennis match, a cantaloupe falling from a great height, a giant sneeze (SNEEZE, BELL), an incoming rocket, and arrows shot from a quiver and landing in a bowl-full of lime jello.

Socratic Backfire

The article "Socratic Backfire?" by Kaustuv Basu in the October 31, 2011 issue of Inside Higher Ed discussed the case of Steven Maranville whose denial of  tenure seemed to be based on his use of the Socratic method.  Specifically his students objectioned to being asked questions even though they hadn't raised their hands and being required to work in groups.

I would have thought that being business students this would be regarded as training for corporate life.  Silly me.

In a comment, Larry Gillis proposed a warning label:

WARNING: this course may make you think. Occasional discomfort or, in rare cases, actual embarrassment, may occur. If thoughtfulness lasts more than four hours, please consult your physician.

 Of course there is more to it.  The professor is blind.  He gave up a tenured position to at the University of Houston to move to Utah Valley University.  It seems that department chair and an associate dean approved his teaching style.

We'll see how the plot thickens.

It reminds me of text that faculty have found important to include in their syllabus from the use of electronic devices and deportment to their grading rubrics.  More than one instructor felt it necessary to include in the syllabus an advisory that the syllabus was work in progress subject to change or that the syllabus contained material which needed to be mastered, but would not necessarily be covered in class.  

On this last point the instructors usually justify not covering material in class by saying that if the student knows the material the student's time will be wasted by having the instructor go through it one more time.  A more constructive approach is to assign material with exercises.  If the student has difficulty or questions about the exercises it became the student's responsibility to ask the instructor to cover the material or elucidate a problem. 

With some of the technology available to us a short video that helps the one student this semester may help half the class two semesters from now. 

If any of you cry at my funeral...

"If any of you cry at my funeral, I'll never speak to you again."  Stan Laurel as cited in The Funeral Of Stan Laurel also on http://www.lettersfromstan.com/.

From Wikipedia I got these quotes: "You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be led." (Laurel, Brats) and "I was dreaming I was awake, but I woke up and found meself asleep." (Laurel, Oliver the Eighth)

What was impressive about the life of Stan Laurel was that when he realized that he and Oliver Hardy would not be able to make the films they wanted to make he stopped working.  There were some appearances here and there, but he seemed content in retirement.  Nice if you can do it.

In medias res

In medias res or medias in res (into the middle of things) is a Latin phrase denoting the literary and artistic technique wherein a story begins either at the mid-point or at the conclusion, rather than at the beginning (ab ovo, ab initio).  (I thought I saw the term in A.O. Scott's review of the film "Anonymous", but apparently not.)

The presumed advantage of in medias res is to open the story with a bang, and then fill in the rest after the reader/listener/viewer is hooked.

It made me think of some disturbed souls of my acquaintance who assumed that everyone was familiar with the dramatis personae of their lives.  Stars of their own life and that of everyone else.  At the time I thought it made them special, not realizing how double edged that descripton can be.

On meeting they'd start a conversation assuming you were already familiar with their live, referring to people by nicknames and places by short hand reference.  "We were all down at The Corner" presumed that you knew that "we" referred to the usual crowd of friends minus Larry who used to be a friend, but was now, because of the tiff with Sooz, no longer, and "The Corner" was the south west corner of the student center.

Affinage/You Only Go Through Life Once

The October 5th edition of the New York Times contained an article, "Cheese: A Coming-of-Age Story" about affinage,

"the careful practice of ripening cheese... a series of tedious, ritualized procedures (washing, flipping, brushing, patting, spritzing) that are meant to inch each wheel and wedge toward an apex of delectability."

Uh-oh.  As someone who only draws the line at eating cheese from a spray can, "ritualized procedures" fired its sh*t detectors.  Biodynamics, phases of the moon, unnatural acts with common objects.  Still I buy into it.  Paying attention to what's happening is more likely than not to produce a better cheese.  (Of course to my uncle Hal, "good cheese" was an oxymoron.)

The Times taste sampling of 3 cheeses supported the idea that attention to the cheese resulted in a better cheese.

Living close to the bone it's unlikely that I'll ever taste an artisanal cheese.  Chalk it up to parochial tastes, inherent cheapness, pedestrian aspirations, something.

Oh, wait.  It's could be like the time my brother brought a special meatloaf over for us to sample.  I could tell it was special because there were two different textures of meat separated by pistachio nuts and the slice had a crust around it.   Nice meatloaf I said.  When my brother was able to stop laughing he identified it as a hideously expensive pâté.  (I can't recall the exact figure, but as I remember it, a pound of that pâté costs as much as a ticket to a first-run Broadway show.) Tasted OK though.

Going through life once?  Oh that.  I had a recent conversation with an aunt, the wife of the uncle who wouldn't eat cheese, who said we only have one shot at life.  Why not enjoy it?  Why suffer?  In the specific, she was referring to fixing up her house and eating good food.  My mind translated this to dying as my money runs out: having a fatal attack with the last morsel of that hideously expensive pâté. 

That would be OK in my own home, but not in a restaurant.  Keeling over in a restaurant would stick my estate with the bill and inconvenience the establishment. Not a socially responsible way to go.

BMW: Not Born From Planes

I have a hard time throwing away old papers when I find myself stumbling across articles like "Nope, Not Born From Planes" by Stephen Williams in the January 10, 2011 NY Times. 

The BMW (Bayerische Motoren Werke) roundel widely assumed to represent a propeller is actually derived from the flag of the Bavarian Free State.  The article was also cited by a blog which had this image:

In true insouciant fashion one response to that blog was: Yeah. Uh huh. And "Puff the Magic Dragon" had nothing to do with drugs, and neither did "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

I suspect the real value of the article will be in the money which will be won in bar bets.

(As a side note, the headline of the online version is "BMW Roundel: Not Born From Planes".)

John Haggerty Guilty!! But of What?

John Haggerty, a former aide to Mayor Michael Bloomberg was accused of stealing $1.1 million during the last election by promising to use the money to organize "ballot security" through the Independence Party.  On the face of it things looked simple:  Bloomberg provided Haggerty with funds for arranging for poll watchers based on a budget submitted by Haggerty.   Haggerty used $600K to buy a house.

On the second day of deliberation, the jury asked for clarification: who was the victim?  Huh?

The defense argued that once Haggerty got the money Bloomberg had no say over how the money could be used.  I don't know nearly enough about the law to understand how charges are assigned, but promising to do something for money and then not doing it violates something otherwise there are some great career options to those of us who can lie with a straight face.

The devil, of course, was lurking in the details:  the victim might have been the Independence Party which should have receive the money for watching the polls or the trust fund from which the money came.  The defense was arguing that the prosecution's charges were wrong.  Unsaid was that their client was guilty; the prosecutors had erred by selecting the wrong victim.  It would only be a matter of time, then,  until the prosecution, recognizing the error of its ways, came up with the correct indictment and Haggerty would find himself a guest of the state.

The defense tried to make the source of the funds an issue.  Because Bloomberg used personal funds, not campaign funds the defense kept implying that Bloomberg was trying to avoid scrutiny because what was being done was a violation of campaign laws.  The prosecution kept responding that there were no campaign violations.  I'd have to see a transcript to see whether one of the prosecutors replied that if there were a campaign violation, Haggerty would have been charged for that also.

The real fascination of the trial was a glimpse into how casually a billionaire can spend money.  Trusted associates got over $400K to help manage the election.  No formal contracts.  If more of us were aware of how much money could be siphoned off during elections economists might consider working election expenditures into an economic stimulous package.

In the end Haggerty was found not guilty of first degree grand larceny and guilty of second-degree grand larceny and second-degree money laundering this morning.  Maximum sentence 15 years.

Grand larceny it seems requires the amount involved to be over $1 million.  The amount in question seemed to be the amount Haggerty used to buy the house.

I'll Believe a Corporation is a Person ...

"I'll Believe a Corporation is a Person When Texas Executes One"  I first saw the slogan in a cardboard sign carried by an Occupy Wall Street poster.  When looking for it on the web I chanced across this decal:

The odd thing is that when I saw the sticker I thought it read:

SOFTWARE ENGINEER BY DAY WORLD'S WORST DAD BY NIGHT

Isn't that odd?

I Love Gail Collins

I'd give a kidney and part of my liver (you bring the fava beans and the fine Chianti) to be able to write like Gail Collins. In her "The Gift of Glib" op-ed piece for Wednesday's NY Times (October 12, 2011) she had a field day with the Republican candidate's 999 debate in New Hampshire. 

It slights the original to pick a few quotes, but here are some to whet your appetite:

It turns out that Governor Perry has a big energy plan, known as “The Plan I’m Going to Be Laying Out.” When he does, it’s going to be the answer to almost everything

Michele Bachmann gave the fact-checkers another great night of error-correcting. 

Among the elite cadre of Americans who have been thinking about 9-9-9, a good number have determined that it won’t raise enough revenue. “The problem with that analysis is that it is incorrect,” announced Cain firmly. I do admire the way he does this. If I could convey that tone, I would win every argument in my family just by saying “The problem with that analysis is that it is incorrect.”

First They Came for the Anthropologists ...

A clever headline I thought, appropriating its structure from Martin Niemöller's statement (1892–1984) about the lack of opposition from German intellectuals to the Nazis.

The headline which I cribbed from an article in The Atlantic magazine was prompted by statements from Florida's Governor Rick Scott on Monday of this week that he hoped to shift more higher education funding to STEM programs (science, technology, engineering and math).  Specifically, he said:

"If I’m going to take money from a citizen to put into education then I’m going to take that money to create jobs. So I want that money to go to degrees where people can get jobs in this state. Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists? I don’t think so." ~ Inside Higher Ed

It isn't an unusual political statement and I suspect it isn't much different from the feeling of the population at large.  Successful businessman appointed to boards of trustees have made similar comments.  They're often surprised then to find that their school gets the most bang for the buck from liberal arts courses which require little in resources than a room, chairs, and someone with credentials to blither on compared with a hard science course with labs, equipment, supplies, special reporting regulations in addition to the credentialed blitherer.

In writing this I learned from Wikipedia that there was no definitive version of Niemöller statement, but Niemöller's preference would be something like this:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

I'm sure that there are parodies in every liberal arts departments across the world ("First they came for the Structuralist, then the Deconstructionists, then the Formalists, and when finally they came for the Hermeneuticists..")

Beguine/Dijkstra

Back in June I stumbled across a reference to a short film "Beguine" by Douwe Dijkstra. I searched library databases and IMDB to no avail. I should have just done a web search because there it was on the first page.

In addition, there was a link to some great black and white images for someone with the same name: Dijkstra's photos 

The windmill image really impressed me: just lengthening the exposure made the sails look like a propeller. A friend titled it "Windmill by Boeing".

 The video is a hallucinogenic exercise as a dance floor tips sending a man sliding down a long hill into a red ocean at the bottom he finds himself in an office.  He walks over to the copier which sucks him in (see image below).

Trapped in the copier he's ignored as his image appeared in the copies.  Eventually he's shaving as he plummets down the side of building coming to a gentle landing.  What?


You've got to see it to believe it:   Dijkstra's Beguine video

Remembering Steve Jobs

Among the tributes and recollections of Steve Jobs I was most affected by David Gewirtz's DIY-IT blog on ZDnet:

"Steve Jobs didn’t just bring Apple computers, music players, and phones to the world. What Steve Jobs brought was elegance, discipline, crisp design, and a forceful sense of right and wrong.

"Steve knew. He just knew what he wanted. He knew what would be right and what would have been right for any other technology executive, but wouldn’t meet his standards."

There were many businesses which were frustrated by his company's secrecy.  By not revealing its hand Apple made it extremely difficult for businesses to plan.  In my only encounter with Apple bureaucracy my university couldn't get an iOS developer license because Apple's licensing procedure required talking to the school's chief legal officer.  It was a Kafkaesque experience.

Bert Jansch RIP

Listening to NPR I caught the name "Jansch" and expected an interview as part of a new tour of America.  Not to be.  The the man who wrote "Needle of Death", a founder of Pentangle, the guitarist who inspired so many is gone.  Here's a link to the story, "Guitarist Bert Jansch Is Dead At 67".  If you've got a moment, search for him on youtube or follow the link in the NPR story.

Later in the evening the death of a different cultural icon, Steve Jobs, was announced.  The news of Job's death will probably obscure Jansch's.  There will be those who will treat Jansch's music as a gift that becomes more valuable when shared.  

Arthur Conan Doyle Quote

The September 27, 2011 of the NY Times reported that Arthur Conan Doyle's first novel, "The Narrative of John Smith" will be publish on October 3rd by the British Library. The original got lost in the mail, was reconstructed from memory, but was never published during his lifetime.

Regarding the loss of the original manuscript, Doyle sad, "My shock at its disappearance would be as nothing to my horror if it were suddenly to appear again — in print ".

Food Porn!

Honest.  Newsday has 190 web pages titled "Food Porn!".  (The exclamation point is theirs.)  If you're expecting phallus or pudenda shaped "food products" you'd be wrong. I include several images: 

#30 Watermelon, cucumber and blue cheese salad, photo credit: Marge Perry

#68 Potato chips at Deli King in New Hyde Park, photo credit: Erica Marcusof

Personally, I find it difficult to generate a prurient interest in salads or potato chips.  Am I alone in this?

Under a picture of grits there is a link to a story about Carolyn Brown of Boutte, Louisiana scalding her sleeping boyfriend with a pot of boiling grits.  Does that qualify as porn?

The closest I could find (and I'm stretching it) is image 122, the suggestive curves of triped bass and yellow tail sushi at Sushi Ya (Photo credit: Newsday Photo/Michael E. Ach):

Your experience might vary.

mot juste & crepuscular

I've found myself searching for words lately.  Could be a cold which has now arrived in no uncertain terms or it could be a harbinger of something darker.  Be that as it may, I stumbled across the term mot juste just in time:

Now, if I can remember the pronunciation (those wacky French) I may be able to sound competent.  ("Those wacky French" was a phase one of our French profs used to make light of the difficulty students had with French pronunciation.)

And another word which used to be applicable:

crepuscular

1. of, relating to, or resembling twilight : dim  
2. occurring or active during twilight 

In another time I would leave work in the wee hours.  I heard birds which only sang at night and discovered the scents of night blooming flowers.  I was the only one around except for campus safety and the night crews.  I did my grocery shopping without waiting on lines although I'd often have to find the night manager to get behind the checkout register.

My manager at work enjoyed saying that, considering the evidence: avoiding sunlight and being active at night, I was probably a reformed vampire.

But that was then, before other responsibilities intruded.

Machina ex Machina

In the "Identity Crisis" episode of Suits on the USA Network a number of problems/challenges in the episode  are neatly resolved through the marvelous use of computers: banking systems are broken into, a university registration system is penetrated, and, as if that were not enough, the über cute über sophisticated female hacker is able to get an official graduation certificate printed and mailed.

I remember the late John Chardi saying that he drew a line in the text of a novel at the point in the story where the writer violated the contract with the reader.  A digitally equivalent gesture is needed for the broadcast when a hacker breaks into all the banks in Luxembourg and gets a printout of all the account records in each bank.  That all the printouts create a stack of folders barely a foot high would indicate incredibly thin paper, exceptionally tiny fonts, or technology sufficiently advanced so as to be mistaken for magic.  Or screen writers who expect the momentum of their story to overwhelm the viewers' common sense.

Beware Pastors Bearing Gifts

There was a story in the April 23rd edition of the NY Times about an evangelical pastor, Isidro Bolaños, who offered jobs to many people after claiming to have received a grant which would pay their salaries.  The jobs never showed up, the claims were false, and the real question seems to be what was the purpose of the scheme?

It does not appear that he requested money from his victims, but only that he got personal information under the guise of processing their hiring.  Was this an amateurish attempt at identity theft?  A search on G\google didn't provide any answers about the outcome.  All the stories turned up in the first seven pages of results seem to hash over the same facts.

The pastor left for Latin America when his actions made the news.  He did return and eventually returned documents to those duped with a promise not to use the information. And there it stands.  Curiosity thwarted.

David Gonzalez's account of how he discovered the story is available online.

Sorrow and Longing /Tomorrow is a Long Time

Hearing Bob Dylan sing "Tomorrow is a Long Time" on pandora.com this afternoon transported me to ill-defined black and white images of rooms I couldn't place.  Wistful student longing, love which couldn't find a voice or a mate overwhelmed me.  What was I remembering?   There was a hollow, lost feeling in my chest.

Songs will do that to you - send you reeling back through the decades.

Pandor cited Bob Dylan's Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume II as the source. Surely, that had to be wrong. The song was such a part of my growing up that I was sure it had to be on one of his albums prior to the compendium. But, no. Other than bootleg recordings, the first time his own version was released was on the compendium. The song on the sound tract of my life was sung at different times by Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Ian & Sylvia, Sandy Denny, and Rod Stewart.

How very strange and faulty is memory.  "Music is the best form of time travel." (inexcelsis17 in a comment posted for George Winston's - Colors/Dance on his Autumn album.)

Vicky Tiel

Vicky Tiel's life story, as summarized in the NY Times article (August 19, 2011) reads like a novel loaded with sex, adventure, fame, and quotable lines: "I have a man.  I dress like this to show other women how to get one."

The NY Times article rightly says, "In between liaisons and her unlikely friendship with Ms. Taylor and Richard Burton, Ms. Tiel became the greatest designer you never heard of."  Certainly I don't think she ever crossed my radar.  (Not hard really.  When Us breathlessly reports that Sean is breaking up with Melissa or that Tiffany, Sam, and Fluffy are now a three-some I have no idea who they are.  If Tiel's name appeared in New York magazine I didn't note it.)

The article was occasioned by the publication of her book, “It’s All About the Dress: What I Learned in 40 Years About Men, Women, Sex, and Fashion”.

Jackson C. Frank Hard to Find?

An online biography states:

One of the most interesting and enigmatic cult figures of 1960s folk, Jackson Frank's reputation rests almost solely upon one hard-to-find album from the mid-'60s.

"Hard-to-find" is a peculiar term. A quick search found 16 offers for the CD on eBay and 33 videos on youtube. Not the record mind you, but in another era the tunes would be hard to find.  Now they're just a few clicks away.

Another manifestation of the glory of capitalism: if there is a market there will be a supplier.

I'm sure the postings to youtube violate all sorts of copyrights.   Never the less, his own version of "You Never Wanted Me" is reminiscent  of Bob Dylan's lyrics and Tim Buckley vocal mannerisms (with a more limited range). 

It's odd that Sandy Dennis's version of his song is more famous and until I looked for him on the web I'd heard either version.

"Dualing" Law Suits Over Sexuality Identity Question

In response to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education concerning Elmhurst College's including a question about sexual orientation and gender identity on its undergraduate admissions application poster 1272784 wrote:

So now, we wait for the conservative lawsuit that says they are discriminating, and the liberal lawsuit that says they're invading privacy, right? "Dualing" lawsuit time.

Clever, I thought.

Jason Edmiston Art

I stumbled over Jason Edmiston's drawings. Their style is reminiscent of the hot rod cartoons of the late 50's early 60's which showed gape mouthed grotesques in hot rods. Invariably, their right hands were held high on a Hirst shifter. Those were black and white drawings. These are in color.

Two appealed to me: the Creature in the Black Lagoon in a bubble bath with his rubber duckie and King Kong blogging on top of the Empire State building. Everyone will appreciate the banana substituting for the Apple logo.

About That Body ...

Here's the followup to the July 9th post about the unclaimed body, "Take My Body Please".

The headline for Jennifer Hewlett 's July 14th story in the Lexington Herald Leader read:

Unclaimed body to be buried; son says he was 'not a very nice man'

Robert George whose body had lain unclaimed in the Univeristy Kentucky Chandler Hospital morgue had been a guest of the state of Indiana for "criminal deviant conduct" and had been alienated from his family.   Married "six or seven times" his relations either wanted nothing to do with him or lacked the resources to bury him.
 
Quotes from his son, Robbie George sum up a sad life:
 
"I hate to sound mean and crass ... but he created this life for himself."
"It's an unfortunate set of circumstances. He was not a very nice man."
"This man here, he caused a lot of people a lot of grief."
"He took a plea bargain so it wouldn't reflect his actual, true crime."
"He only did one prison sentence out of many that he could have been charged for."

The story mentioned that the body didn't meet the criteria for bequeathal programs.

Exclusively New Zealand

Through the usual round about means I received a link to Minaret Station ("Tented Luxury in the Remote New Zealand Wilderness"*), an exclusive resort, accessible only by helicopter in New Zealand.  A web search led me to a video on Exclusively New Zealand.  The video opens with a didgeridoo and a drum over an image of the sun setting over the mountains.

The effect may be different south of the equator, but with live people appearing only half way through I felt I was being prepped for a terror-in-paradise/vacationing-with-psychopathic-killers/dormant-nameless-horror-awakes video.  Am I reading too much into this?

The shot below is typical of scenes preceding the attack on unsuspecting outsiders.  The heads of the attackers would com in from the lower  right of the screen.

The photos on the Minaret Station web site were taken by Fredrik Larsson.  He described of how he took the photos.  (Behind the scenes from the Minaret shoot in February of this year.)  There is a great shot of the Minaret Station in the snow - something not found on the resort's web site.

What struck me in looking at the photos was how unsuitable I am for a place like that.  (Yes, it's all about me.)  It's the nature of advertising to show off the subject.  Rooms should appear as large as possible.  Everything should sparkle or, if not sparkling (sparkling linen?) be as comfortable and luxurious as possible.  (I see your 350 thread count and raise you 50.)  

Maybe the target market doesn't want to see other people in room they themselves expect to occupy.  This is far different than clothing.   (Wow!   I'd look really great in that bathing suit.  I expect that there is some woman out there - there's got to be one - who'll believe that some dress will slim their thighs enough to make the man of their dreams fall in love with them.  Delusion does not require drugs.)   (Note to self: consider investigating correlations between thrift store shoppers and those who shop at budget stores. )

The images shown below prompted this post.  No books on the wall?  Why would I want to be there.  But look at the luxury!  Why two sinks?  Do people like to wash up side by side?  Is it a competition thing? I realize that commercial photography needs to make the subject appealing.  it's clear I'm not in the target audience.

A bathroom the size of a squash court certainly indicates luxury, but how many steps do you want to take from the toilet to the sink?  Why two sinks?  Do couples like to wash together?  Is sharing the same sink icky?  Is it a keeping up with the Jones thing? 

(Is this another manifestation of Thorstein Veblen's conspicuous consumption - a term I haven't heard in a good long while.  In talking to a friend about building a house, she said she'd definitely want her own bathroom so she wouldn't have to share it with her boys.  I was taken aback: bathrooms in my universe serve only a few limited purposes: 1) a sacred place to read the NY Times and 2) washing and brushing, 3) storing medicine, and 4) relieving oneself.  Maybe she was thinking about resale value while I was thinking of living in a place until I died.  Wasn't the problem with girls hogging a bathroom and getting boys into them to get washed?)

Must be my advancing age. My ideal vacation is becoming a nap in some comfortable spot where birds won't poop on my head and sap won't ruin my clothes or my book. Jeez  I'm no fun.

*That's the way I remember it.  What is actually on the site is a night time photograph captioned  "Luxury Tented Lodge in the Remote New Zealand Wilderness".

Hanlon's Razor and How Law School Students Lose the Grants Game

Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

On the other hand, an article by David Segal in the Sunday Business section of the NY Times from May 1 of this year, "Behind the Curve, How Law Student Lose the Grant Game and How Their Schools Win" indicated that law schools could be using grants to:

1. Boosting the school's ratings based of the quality of their entering classes 
2. Recovering revenue when the grant students' grades fall below a specified GPA.

The first reason is common among all schools of higher education, offering scholarships to students to increase their ranking and making the school more appealing to future students.  However, with law schools grading on a curve it becomes statistically more difficult for a student to achieve the specified GPA.  The difficult in calculating the odds of maintaining the grant is dependent on the median GPA of the school.

Note to presumptive law school grant recipients: learn to calculate standard deviations and learn the practical applications thereof.  The Golden Gate Law School for example requires a 3.0 GPA to maintain the grant.  50% of the class got a grant, but only a third of the students get a grade of 3.0 or better.  Do the math: a sizable portion of the students with grants are expected to lose them.

Once the student loses a grant the student is faced with deciding whether to continue at full fare (a win for the school as the student's undergraduate GPA has already served its purpose) or go to Plan B.

I passed a reference to the story to two profs who teach statistics for a toss off in class.

It is a companion piece to Segal's article about employment after law school, "Is Law School a Losing Game?" That earlier article pointed out quite clearly that the employment statistics published by law schools doesn't provide the details necessary for presumptive students to know how many of those jobs are behind the counter at Starbucks.

 

Pictogram Movie Posters by Viktor Hertz

Viktor Hertz has made a series of movie posters as pictograms. Rosemary's Baby was the one which appealed to me.

You can see the rest of the pictograms movie posters by clicking on the image below:

Death Cross

The financial news is trumpeting the "Death Cross" the day a short time moving average, typically 50 days falls below a long term moving average, typically a 100- or 200-day moving average.

The smart money (if such a thing exists) will head for the most stable stocks to preserve capital.  I'm guessing that companies that governments need will do well.  The only group I could identify which should do well in stringent financial times are those doing infrastructure testing and specialized maintenance.

The simplistic reasoning is this: governments trying to minimize expenses will hire these firms to verify where they can scrimp without jeopardizing public safety.  All it will take to give these firms a real boost is another incident like the Minneapolis bridge collapse in August of 2007.   (The thought sprung to mind because the Death Cross chart reminded me of images of the Interstate 35W bridge catastrophe.   On seeing the image again I admit that the lines don't cross.  Credit the association to the power of imagination.)

Shoplifing Plea Dooms Woman

The link will only take you to the first part of the story, but this is a good one.

A woman given only 6 months to live because of end-stage heart failure was released from jail this past January so she could be put on a heart transplant waiting list. Because she violated court orders by smoking and more importantly stealing stealing teeth-whitening strips, diet pills and Oil of Olay last month she's back in the slammer and is now ineligible for a transplant.

In reinstating her sentence the judge pointed out that the this was her 69th arrest, her 27th on felony charges.

There's not much to add, only to note that given 6 months to live in January, she beat the prediction by living into August.

13,000 MPH Test Plane Vanishes

Govenment Technology put it succinctly:

The Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2) was launched aboard a rocket at 7:45 am Thursday, August 11 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Designed to reach any point on the planet in under an hour, the launch was the second test of the HTV-2 system. Following separation from a Minotaur IV rocket, the HTV-2 began flying at Mach 20. Shortly thereafter, contact was lost.

Air Force Maj. Chris Schulz, DARPA HTV-2 program manager said, “We know how to boost the aircraft to near space. We know how to insert the aircraft into atmospheric hypersonic flight. We do not yet know how to achieve the desired control during the aerodynamic phase of flight."

I imagine it is hard to track something moving about 17 times the speed of sound (by my calculations), but I would have expected that one of the first things they might have done was figure out how they were going to track it.

Ooooh! Second thought: wasn't there a James Bond film like this - Blofeld masterminding a scheme to kidnap satellites? Also, I wouldn't put it past Lex Luthor.

Spam from the "Internal Revenue Source"

I got a piece of e-mail today from the "Internal Revenue Source" informing me that it couldn't process my return as "field" (filed) because the "person identifiedas (identified as) the primary taxpayer" did not provide the necessary documentation.

I will not be keeping this for my records.

Years ago a columnist for one of the computer trade rags complained that the spam he was receiving showed that the spammers weren't even trying. If I remember correctly, the salutation contained the field name instead of his name, something like Dear {firstname} {Lastname}.

Satan Sandwich Diagram

Representative Rep. Emanuel Cleaver's (D-MO) description of the recent agreement to raise the debt ceiling as a "Satan Sandwich" got significant media play.  I think this cartoon makes things clear (http://www.npr.org/2011/08/07/139033731/double-take-toons-the-devils-details):

 

God stays in heaven because... / Torquemada

About a month ago I was going through some old newspapers when I spotted a column by Liz Smith from October 27, 2002.  The rest of the paper has long been recycled, but I've carried around the first part of the column ever since. She asked for the source of a note she wrote to herself:

God stays in heaven because He fears what he has created here on Earth.

I figured a web search would yield the result.  A couple of pages of links later I can say that many variants exist on the web.  One link lead to "Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams" on IMDB: "Do you think God lives in Heaven because He too lives in fear of what He created?" 

Maybe "God stays in heaven because ..." can be as popular as "Why did the chicken cross the road?"

Of the chicken crossing the road jokes, my favorite variants have various personalities offering explanations.  Of these my favorite still remains:

"I don't know, but give me 30 minutes with the chicken and I'll find out. - Torquemada

(If you follow the link to the chicken crossing the road jokes you'll see that in that version Torquemada estimated only 10 minutes to get to the truth. It was 30 minutes when I first heard the joke so I tell it that way.)

I once told the joke to some college students who found it funny even though they didn't know who Torquemada was.  They were stymied because they couldn't spell his name. I suggested that they look up the Spanish Inquisition.

Meditation on Words I had to Look Up

In a story bout Emma Watson (Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films) the writer use the word febrile to describe the situation in a museum when fans recognized Ms Watson.  OK, I wrote it down and looked it up:

febrile -

1. Having or showing the symptoms of a fever.

2. Having or showing a great deal of nervous excitement or energy.

I doubt I'll need the word - Do I even know anyone with a great deal of nervous excitement or energy?   Maybe years ago, but we're all older now, subdued rather than mellow.

Then, in Michael Gorra's review of "When We Were Orphans" by Kazuo Ishiguro (NY Times Sunday Book Review, September 24, 2000) I came across a word with relevance to life as I think I know it.

Englishness -- in fact, human interaction of all kinds -- will remain for him a form of learned behavior, in which he compounds the simulacrum of a character from both the gestures of the people around him and his reading in ''The Wind in the Willows'' or Sherlock Holmes.

simulacrum -

1. an image or likeness.
2. a mere image or one that does not represent the reality of the original.

Is online education as practiced by some of the instructors anything like a real education?  I think of the Comp Sci students rolling their eyes describing one of their courses as watching PowerPoint on the web.  Definitely not the challenging exchange of ideas promised by the school's bulletin.  Paraphrasing a quote from "Good Will Hunting" might be applicable here: an education you could have gotten for a $1.50 in late charges at the public library

And, pardon my riff, the ability to take a Computer Architecture course on youtube with Anshul Kumar, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, IIT Delhi might suggest that the quote should be updated to reference internet charges.  While the majority of youtube viewers prefer watching dogs and cats doing tricks to lectures in English with an Indian accent, I find this stuff mesmerizing.

(Of special fascination was a reversal of labels in a slide about Big and Small Endian memory organization.  I thought that a flub like that would be fixed in post production unless they wanted to convey an authentic experience of a professorial stumble.  A classic academic joke has a prof in one of the hard sciences saying that the proof or derivation of an equation is obvious.  When a student has the temerity to ask to see the proof the instructor starts, then stops, stares at the board for a while before rushing from the room, returning many minutes later with notes, continuing, "Like I said, it's obvious."  Then, reading from his notes, the prof completes the problem.)

I saw the next two words in Kathleen McElroy's article, "A Little Rusty?" about adults preparing for standardized grad school tests.

esurient
1. Hungry; greedy.

I don't believe I ever saw this word before. She, as well as other journalists scored surprisingly low on essays because she "hadn’t incorporated G.R.E. vocabulary favorites like “esurient” and “vitiate.  Esurient was dictionary.com's Word of the Day on October 05, 2009 which must give it some sort of cache, but why would anyone use the word except to score points.  (Duh, this is an exam chucklehead.)  

It's not much different than years ago when I was advised that worming agape, amity, and ennui into an essay would increase the grade on and essay half a grade point.  Tough to do in most chemistry and physics reports, although it might work in biochemistry.  (There is the well-known "greedy algorithm" in Huffman compression, but the formal name the greedy algorithm.  The profs I know would probably be miffed to look up esurient to find that it means greed . 

vitiate
1. to impair the quality of; make faulty; spoil.
2. to impair or weaken the effectiveness of.
3. to debase; corrupt; pervert.
4. to make legally defective or invalid; invalidate: to vitiate a claim.

Now here's a word to conjure with!  I'd guess that most people outside the legal profession would assume some relationship with vital or vivacious giving the cognoscenti the ability to insult people to their face.   (This assumes, of course, that people are too lazy or embarrassed to look up or ask about a word they don't understand.)

When Genius Failed

As I was going through some things my father filed away, I came across some pages taken from the New York Times Book Review from September 24, 2000.  My guess is that he was attracted to Floyd Norris's review of"When Genius Failed" by Roger Lowenstein.  Although Floyd Norris, the NY Times' chief financial correspondent, was writing about "The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management" (the subtitle), his comments jump out as prescient:

It is far too early to know what the long-term lessons of the Long-Term saga will be. But it is clear that Wall Street has not learned much. Banks and hedge funds still use complicated derivatives to gain tremendous leverage, just as Long-Term did in placing its ill-fated bets in the stock market. ...

''Greenspan's more serious and longer-running error has been to consistently shrug off the need for regulation and better disclosure with regard to derivative products. Deluded as to the banks' ability to police themselves before the crisis, Greenspan called for a less burdensome regulatory regime barely six months after it.'' He complains that Greenspan has supported the banks in efforts to avoid making meaningful disclosures about their investments in derivatives.

It takes time, but seven years later we had Lehman Brothers, AIG, and the whole sub-prime mess making the scary Long-Term Capital Management fiasco pale by comparison.  As Norris said, there are limits to what academics can do for investors.

I was reminded of an academic discussing his analysis of eastern European's rocky transition from Communism to a market-driven economy.  His results indicated that a quick, painful dislocation produced the best results.  When asked if that is what he would recommend to national leaders, the professor, said that was what the data indicated, but, he was quick to add, he was not an official who would face the wrath of the populace whose life's savings and retirement benefits evaporated.

WNYC's Summer In the City Photos Document a Crime

WNYC, New York City's public radio station has a photos of summer in the city. One of the images (shown below) shows water bottles for sale. See the little red band on the water bottles? That's characteristic of bottles brought in from New Jersey which have no refundable deposit which, if I'm not mistaken means it is illegal to sell them in New York which requires a deposit for plastic water bottles.

I fantasize that there will be a first Amendment issue here when somebody tries to locate the seller by issuing a subpoena for Stephen Nessen, the photographer.

Leisure Dive

With the same fascination as cats in sink there is Leisure Dive, a web site showing pictures of people (mostly guys) in relaxed postures diving into pools.

The Sun or Where Else Would I Learn About Pastafaians?

Rupert Murdock's News of the World has ceased publication ostensible in response to the phone hacking scandal in Britain.  (Reporters hacked into phones of relatives of soldiers killed in Afghanistan, impeded a murder investigation by deleting phone messages on a missing girl's phone leading police to believe the girl was still alive, and bribed security officials guarding Britain's royal family.) 

Fortunately the Sun is still publishing.  How else would I learn that Austria's Niko Alm successfully campaigned to be photographed for his Austrian driver's license with a pasta strainer on his head? Although an atheist, Alm claimed to be a Pastafarian, a devotee of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, their "only dogma is the rejection of dogma".

If Othodox Jews could wear a yarmulke despite Austria's proscription about head gear in the driver's license photo, why couldn't he wear a pasta strainer if it was part of his religious observance?

Makes sense to me.  (It's also a welcome relief from daily reports of bombing, assassinations, and squabbling politicians.)

61.5 Full-Time-Equivalent Positions

I thought I'd found another instance of public idiocy in the second paragraph of the story, "Washington State Shrinks IT Department’s Head Count" in Government Technology.  Was the Washington State Department of Information Services reducing their head count by 61.5 employees?  The image of the average family with 2.5 children flashed across my mind, with the attendant explanation by statistics profs that, no, the average family was not the result of an error in imitating Solomon's decision, but just the result of a mathematical calculation.

The department is cutting 61.5 full-time-equivalent positions from its 460-person work force, an opening salvo in further changes that will fundamentally alter the department’s future.

OK it's equivalents, not actual people.  The wait continues for a genuine example of a goof of this sort.

More Than A Quote From Edge of Darkness - A. O. Scott NY Times review

I just got around to reading the Weekend Arts section of the NY Times from a year and a half ago, January 20, 2010 to be precise.  The Mel Gibson vehicle, "Edge of Darkness" in which he plays a Boston detective investigating the murder of his daughter which

"involves showing up at various people’s houses and places of work, accosting them with brusque questions and, when all else fails, punching them in the face.

"All else fails quite a bit, which is of course why people buy tickets to a movie like this one."

Ah, that's why I keep old papers: discovering a turn of phrase or revelation which makes it worthwhile reading.  Worthwhile to whom?  To me to satisfy my narcissistic need for knowledge and to see all the stuff I missed while it was happening and things to add to my list.

The same issue had a number of article (Sundance Film Festival, a dance film festival, a performance at Joe's Pub) which left me with this to deal with:

• "The Last Train Home", a  documentary about the great New Years' migration  of 130 million Chinese trying to make it home for the Chinese New Year (and is available at my local library),
• a laudatory review of a performance by one time American Idol contestant, Jason Castro. (I got to check on his performance of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" on youtube,   Not watching TV with any regularity makes me a cultural fish out of water.  At the supermarket checkout I see that Laura is breaking up with Brad, Jennifer and Jason are back together, and see a teaser about revealing what start has cellulite. Who are these people?  Should I know this or can I skip to an alternate section of the test without penalty?)
• an enthusiastic review of a "surreal short 'Beguine'" (2009) by Douwe Dijkstra for which there was no reference in IMDB.com or any of the library catalogs to which I have access. 
  

  A man who has been having a good time is suddenly tipped, as if by an earthquake, into a vast red lake, on whose floor he quickly arrives. He keeps on falling. We see him go to work at an office, take his place at a desk, but then, when he goes to the copy machine, he tumbles right into it and lies there, as if in some pit, unseen by the next worker to use the machine.

  (This will now become something else to add to my list of obsessions.  I've discovered that a local library has a video tape of "Carnival in Flanders" so that quest may be put to rest.)  [Note added 10/8/2011 Beguine is online: http://vimeo.com/3435762.  I was looking for "Douwe Dijkstra" when I stumbled across photographs by someone with the same name.]
• "Night Catches Us" found in many local libraries, about Philadelphia  Black Panthers years after their glory days.  (I remember two things about attending an Angela Davis lecture about a year ago: 1) her cell phone went off in the middle of her talk, and 2) I couldn't understand what she was saying because of her casual use of coded words, meaningful to many in the audience, but not to me.   My background leads me to expect a speaker to define their terms at the beginning of a presentation because the speaker is not addressing cognoscenti.  Perhaps she expected she was.  In my case she wasn't.)

Take My Body Please

It's an Associated Press story about Robert George's unclaimed body in University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital.  The coroners in Fayette county where the hospital is located say the body should be handled by the coroner in Pulaski county where Mr. George lived.  The Pulaski county coroner says that possession is nine-tenth of the law, the body is the responsibility of Fayette county.  Relatives were contacted, but nothing has happened for 3 months.  The hospital asked a judge to decide.

There's plenty of humor to be mined here from the childish "He's yours"  "No, he's yours.  You had him last." to plays on the "Whose going to take uncle Robert now?" question which has become more common as medicine has extended our lifetimes.

Still, what does it mean that relatives won't claim a body.  Was he so disliked?  Is it just economic?  I got an insight into poverty in an NPR piece just before Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans:  the reporter said that some people didn't have the money to get out of town.  How could that be?  Who could be so poor?  I can't remember whether it was bus fare, gasoline money, or transportation in general (packing up household goods and renting a truck), but to not have get-out-of-town money stunned me.

The dateline on the story is yesterday, so the questions about family will remain unknown unless it becomes fodder for a book, investigative journalism, or maybe it will show up in the court records after a judge chooses the lucky coroner.

With medical schools short of cadavers I would have thought that an enterprising school would contact the relatives to offer to take the body.  (Note to self: business idea: contract with medical schools as a cadaver finder.)

 Of course, the question of the body, the mortal remains, is one which has enthralled theologians and perplexed the rest of us.  There's the whole business of religious obligations/expectations.  I believe Orthodox Jews and Muslims want the body interred immediately.  Others put the body on display.  In some cases the display was to show that the deceased had not died as the result of foul play.

Cremation, which horrifies Muslims, is the preferred way for a lot of us.  (In a documentary about the famous folk group,The Weavers, Will Hayes joked that he used to sing about share croppers and now, referring to the neighbors who helped him with his garden, he said, "I have some myself."  Hayes ashes were interred in his compost pile.)

Years ago, the brother of an uncle buried his mother almost immediately.  The family felt that he was so quick about it because of a life-long animosity between the brother and his mother.  By all accounts the mother was a difficult personality.  When she died, he literally wanted to be rid of her.

I didn't understand it.  I liked my parents.  The drama of other family's was not ours: no screaming or yelling, chasing one another with knifes, smashing things, drunken rages, squealing tires, or mysterious disappearances.  Nope.  None of that.  We sulked and gave other hard or annoyed looks. You'll have to look else where for domestic drama inspiration.

It was only on experiencing how draining it is caring for people in long term decline that I got it.  Intellectually I understood it, but to get it I needed a closer association.  After many years, caring adult children, wishing no ill to their parents, are relieved when the parent finally die.  The trips to the hospital, the time coaxing parents to take medicine, act normal ("Please get dressed."  "Please take a bath."  "Tell me what hurts."), administering to physical needs, puts the rest of their life, the part that fills the pages of novels, in second place.

The grandchildren, the presumed center of the world, find the spotlight less constant, the parent/child in the middle faces a difficult balancing act for which there is no right solution.

Relief at the parent's death is compounded with guilt: should they have done things differently?  Could something have been done earlier?  In my family, putting off an elective surgical procedure contributed to an uncle's long decline.  After a time his general health precluded an operation and other related problems developed.

Blue or White? Believe the Text or the Image?

For no good reason I went to cars.com to look for a used Honda Civic. 

I tend to read which is why I noticed the mismatch between the description of the exterior color and the photograph.  (Of course, it could be something Orwellian: black is white, truth is fiction, or (your turn) _____ is _____ ).

I tried use the live chat feature to tell the used car dealer, but after a few minutes of "we'll be right with you" a message finally appeared telling me that they couldn't respond.  I have no doubt they were all home grilling and enjoying a tall frosty one, but I believe that years ago car dealers were open on the Fourth of July to "Deal.  Deal!  DEAL!!"

It is a commentary on our times left to the reader to interpret.

Some Quotes and Rock is Dead

From Nancy deWolf Smith's article, "Somebody Out There Hates Us" in the March 11th 2011 Wall Street Journal:

"In Housewivesland, dogs are small; kids are rude and on heroin or some other path to perdition; and men tend come [sic] in only a few basic models: control freak, leech, loser—or payer of alimony."

"Rock is dead.  Long live Paper and Scissors!" I wrote this on the back of an envelope.  A web search showed that it is a popular slogan on T-shirts (the first I found on a web search was on Zazzle), infant onesies, and a live journal blog by"sarasaloser".

 

"Obama has now fired more cruise missiles than all other Nobel Peace Prize winners combined."

A good witticism makes the rounds of the web.  

And here are some political quotes from the February 21, 2010 New York Times (yes, still behind in my reading):

"You can lead a man to Congress, but you cannot make him think." Milton Berle as quoted by Evan Bayh.

"Republicans lead in the wrong direction and Democrats are unable to lead in any direction at all." - Lincoln Chafee, a former Republican, but an independent at the time of the comment.

Krista Tippett paraphrasing part of a poem by Rilke, "the ephemeral nature of things is they're [sic] very fragrance." in an interview with Joanna Macy. (Transcript at http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2010/wild-love-for-world/transcript.shtml) 

subpoena duces tecum –noun Law a writ directing a person court to bring some document described in the writ.

Garage sale copy: "Boy meets girl...girl moves in....boy and girl have way too much stuff."

"I've seen better film on my teeth." - Berzerkirsrage (a comment on IMDB to the film Devil's Double before the film was officially released).

"I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger....then it hit me." -JohnT Fitzgerald (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?127117-Biesemeyer-fence-versus-SS-T-Glide)

"You know, if talk was criminal, you'd lead a life of crime,
Because your mind is on vacation and your mouth is working overtime.
~Your Mind Is On Vacation",  Mose Allison

Woody Guthrie once said, “Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple.”

Voltaire on medicine: "The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease." Maureen Dowd, NY Times 9/28/2011.

"Watched code never compiles." Maximilien on http://www.codeproject.com/Lounge.aspx?msg=4172152#xx4172152xx.