If you're a woman about my age, you know what I'm referring to. The most chic woman in America would wear that dress for a cheerful greeting in Fort Worth, a breakfast in Dallas, a parade in weather really too warm for the wool jacket. Her pink hat would be noticed by all the women who studied her attire. Thousands of women would envy her as she waved at the enormous crowds. Then in a few terrible moments, a poised and polished woman would be photographed scrambling over the back of a convertible. (to escape? to reach for a fragment of a head she'd caressed ? She refused to change clothes and wore it, shell-shocked, at the side of a sad-looking man with his right hand raised.
The most dramatic footage of the bloody dress was taken when she arrived back in Washington and followed Pres.Kennedy's coffin, holding Robert Kennedy's hand. The dark blotches are on the right lower side of the dress, and even extend to her legs. She had defiantly refused to remove the suit, saying, "let them see what they've done to Jack." She was only sorry that she'd washed the blood from her face before Lyndon's Johnson's inauguration on Air Force 1.
I was a child then and knew very little about the Kennedys except that my parents had not voted for him. And they harrumphed at Jackie's reputation for style which they thought was too expensive-appearing more like a princess than the dowdy Mamie Eisenhower she replaced.
The pink suit looked like a rose in a sea of dark blue and black. It became a sign of innocence and beauty on a day which would destroy both.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
EVERYTHING YOU THINK YOU KNOW IS WRONG (nsfw)
THE BOOK OF GENERAL IGNORANCE is different from the previously reported "Useless Information," being presented in Q&A style. In the words of Thomas Edison, the man who didn't invent the lightbulb, "We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything." The intro ends:
"biologists say that our primal drives are food, sex, and shelter, no different from the animals. We say there is a fourth drive which makes us uniquely human--curiosity. Porcupines do not worry abut the meaning of existence. Moths and aardvarks do not look up at the night sky and wonder what the twinkly bits are.People do...We think we know the answer: Ask more questions."
Diving right in:
Q. What's the largest living thing?
A.It's a mushroom. And it's not even a particularly rare one. You've probably got in in the garden, growing on a dead tree stump. For your sake, let's hope it doesn't reach the size of the largest recorded specimen, in Malheur National Forest in Oregon. It covers 2,200 acres, (mostly underground) and is between two thousand and eight thousand years old..."
Q. What's the most dangerous animal that has ever lived?
A. Half the human being who have ever died, perhaps as many as 45 billion people, have been killed by female mosquitoes. (the male only bite plants--another fact I did not know.)
Mosquitoes carry more than a hundred potentially fatal diseases, including malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever, encephalitis, filariasis, and elephantiasis. Even today, they kill one person every twelve seconds...female mosquitoes are attracted to their hosts by moisture, milk, carbon dioxide, body heat, and movement. Sweaty people and pregnant women have a higher chance of being bitten.
and more delightfully:
Q.Which animals are the best-endowed of all?
A. Barnacles. These unassumingly modest beasts have the longest penis relative to the size of any creature. It can be seven times longer than the body.
Somehow, though, I don't think a human male would like to hear his partner say, "you're a real barnacle!"
The nine-banded armadillo has a penis two-thirds as long as its body (an arresting image). The blue whale's penis, relatively modest compared to its size, is six-ten feet long and 18 inches wide. Hotcha!
"biologists say that our primal drives are food, sex, and shelter, no different from the animals. We say there is a fourth drive which makes us uniquely human--curiosity. Porcupines do not worry abut the meaning of existence. Moths and aardvarks do not look up at the night sky and wonder what the twinkly bits are.People do...We think we know the answer: Ask more questions."
Diving right in:
Q. What's the largest living thing?
A.It's a mushroom. And it's not even a particularly rare one. You've probably got in in the garden, growing on a dead tree stump. For your sake, let's hope it doesn't reach the size of the largest recorded specimen, in Malheur National Forest in Oregon. It covers 2,200 acres, (mostly underground) and is between two thousand and eight thousand years old..."
Q. What's the most dangerous animal that has ever lived?
A. Half the human being who have ever died, perhaps as many as 45 billion people, have been killed by female mosquitoes. (the male only bite plants--another fact I did not know.)
Mosquitoes carry more than a hundred potentially fatal diseases, including malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever, encephalitis, filariasis, and elephantiasis. Even today, they kill one person every twelve seconds...female mosquitoes are attracted to their hosts by moisture, milk, carbon dioxide, body heat, and movement. Sweaty people and pregnant women have a higher chance of being bitten.
and more delightfully:
Q.Which animals are the best-endowed of all?
A. Barnacles. These unassumingly modest beasts have the longest penis relative to the size of any creature. It can be seven times longer than the body.
Somehow, though, I don't think a human male would like to hear his partner say, "you're a real barnacle!"
The nine-banded armadillo has a penis two-thirds as long as its body (an arresting image). The blue whale's penis, relatively modest compared to its size, is six-ten feet long and 18 inches wide. Hotcha!
USELESS INFORMATION, by Noel Botham & The Useless Information Society
I'm going to post some entries from two of my favorite books, "The Book of Useless Information," and "The Book of General Ignorance." I love this type of book as it appeals to my pack rat mind. The "Book of Useless Info" doesn't contain boring trivia like the length of the Mississippi. "All our information has to pass the "Not a Lot of People Know That' test," precede by gasps of surprise, and, in extreme cases, followed by wild applause."
Caveat: I'm quoting all answers directly from the book. If you find an error, it's theirs, but you can let me know. The Useless Info mascot is the squirrel, and about the squirrel it reports: It is estimated that millions of trees are planted by forgetful squirrels. (I once had a house with a 30 foot pecan planted two feet away from the foundation--a real dilemma because it was so tall.)
Squirrels can climb trees faster than they can run on the ground.
A squirrel cannot contract or carry the rabies virus. (But in the Rocky Mountain area they are carriers of bubonic plague--they don't die from it but they can spread it.)
My favorite squirrel story:The Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report of the CDC related a tale about a New York man hospitalized with severe fever, chills, swollen lymph nodes, muscle cramps, bruises all over the body, and pneumonia. The doctors could not determine the cause of the infection until it was related that the man had been camping in New Mexico the week before and had "playfully tossed a dead squirrel toward his wife." So the moral of the story is to not get playful with your wife. <g>
Caveat: I'm quoting all answers directly from the book. If you find an error, it's theirs, but you can let me know. The Useless Info mascot is the squirrel, and about the squirrel it reports: It is estimated that millions of trees are planted by forgetful squirrels. (I once had a house with a 30 foot pecan planted two feet away from the foundation--a real dilemma because it was so tall.)
Squirrels can climb trees faster than they can run on the ground.
A squirrel cannot contract or carry the rabies virus. (But in the Rocky Mountain area they are carriers of bubonic plague--they don't die from it but they can spread it.)
My favorite squirrel story:The Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report of the CDC related a tale about a New York man hospitalized with severe fever, chills, swollen lymph nodes, muscle cramps, bruises all over the body, and pneumonia. The doctors could not determine the cause of the infection until it was related that the man had been camping in New Mexico the week before and had "playfully tossed a dead squirrel toward his wife." So the moral of the story is to not get playful with your wife. <g>
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
OBSESSIONS YAHOO POSTS
My life recently seems to be made up of obsessions. Several weeks ago I could not get enough of Lady Gaga and found my favorite songs with her. And in those few weeks I also listened to many parodies as well. My favorites were as noted before--*BAD ROMANCE -WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE* and *BAD PROJECT.* I'm not really sure why I had to listen to *BAD PROJECT* so many times, but I did. Now my obsession seems to be with YAHOO Posts and Boards. I really can't make myself stop reading and commenting on them. I'm not sure what I think this will accomplish, but for awhile I have been reading and posting for hours a days. I don't have cable anymore, and so this may be a substitute, and my volunteer work came to an end with the election. This is evidence that I should start volunteering again soon. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to check some more thumb up/thumbs down posts.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
GANGNAM STYLE
I'm not as far behind discovering GANGNAM STYLE as I was with LADY GAGA, since GANGNAM STYLE only came out this summer. It's by the Korean singer Psy, and has nothing to do with gangsters as I had feared. The title refers to the Gangnam district of Seoul, very upscale with new wealth. According to an AP piece on the area, an average apartment goes for $716,000. Psy's song mocks it in an very catchy way. The video at first looks odd and amateurish but it grows on you with repetition. Not quite an earworm, but I do enjoy listening to it again and again.
An explanation of the choreography helps. In an early scene Psy in in a stable where horses look out from their stalls on each side. His core dance move is the "horse dance," where the dancers assume a wide legged stance and move up and down as though posting on a trotting horse. The dancers alternate between holding the reins and twirling a lasso. There are also children doing really bad dance moves. I'm not sure whether it helps to know that Psy deliberately searched for cheesy animal dance moves, considering a kangaroo or a panda. Imagining a panda doing the dance is insanely funny.
In the repeated line "Oppa Gangnam Style," Oppa is a term used by Korean women to refer to an older male friend or big brother. The song refers to a perfect girlfriend who knows when to be refined and when to be wild.
He sweetly sings about wanting "A girl who covers herself but is more sexy than a girl who bares it all."
and being " A guy who has bulging ideas rather than muscle."
GANGNAM STYLE has multiple parodies--these may be the best :
http://theweek.com/article/index/233651/gangnam-style-the-8-best-parodies-of-the-viral-video
BABY GANGNAM STYLE including mothers at a park who alternate between the sweet and less appealing aspects of parenting like picking up dirty diapers and scrubbing floors.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iheCrwQQlI
Also the US Merchant Marine Academy.
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/towns/usmma-midshipmen-film-gangnam-style-parody-1.4130279
An explanation of the choreography helps. In an early scene Psy in in a stable where horses look out from their stalls on each side. His core dance move is the "horse dance," where the dancers assume a wide legged stance and move up and down as though posting on a trotting horse. The dancers alternate between holding the reins and twirling a lasso. There are also children doing really bad dance moves. I'm not sure whether it helps to know that Psy deliberately searched for cheesy animal dance moves, considering a kangaroo or a panda. Imagining a panda doing the dance is insanely funny.
In the repeated line "Oppa Gangnam Style," Oppa is a term used by Korean women to refer to an older male friend or big brother. The song refers to a perfect girlfriend who knows when to be refined and when to be wild.
He sweetly sings about wanting "A girl who covers herself but is more sexy than a girl who bares it all."
and being " A guy who has bulging ideas rather than muscle."
GANGNAM STYLE has multiple parodies--these may be the best :
http://theweek.com/article/index/233651/gangnam-style-the-8-best-parodies-of-the-viral-video
BABY GANGNAM STYLE including mothers at a park who alternate between the sweet and less appealing aspects of parenting like picking up dirty diapers and scrubbing floors.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iheCrwQQlI
Also the US Merchant Marine Academy.
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/towns/usmma-midshipmen-film-gangnam-style-parody-1.4130279
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
NEWT GINGRICH--STORY EXAGGERATED
I have hated Newt Gingrich for years, partially because he's a far right Republican who's against everything I stand for, but mostly because of the story about his first wife. The story goes that he served his first wife divorce papers while she was on her deathbed dying of cancer. Not true. Jackie Battely was his former geometry teacher--he was 19 and she was 26 when they married.That's legal but ooky.
But she's still alive, and the couple was already in divorce proceedings at the time of the hospital visit. She did not want the divorce and was fighting it. She had previously had uterine cancer, which he exploited politically, and she was in the hospital for the third time. Much has been made of the fact that this tumor turned out to be benign. That totally disregards her pain and suffering with the recovery. Gingrich did visit her in the hospital while she was recovering from surgery and admits that he got into an argument with her. He blows this off as something that couples in a divorce proceeding just do sometimes. He had been married to her for 19 years.
He's deliciously, if apocryphally, quoted by L. H. Carter, Gingrich's campaign treasurer, "She's not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of the President. And besides, she has cancer". This might not be true but it's a great line. Gingrich has denied saying it. His supporters dismiss Carter as a disgruntled former aide who was miffed at not being asked to accompany Gingrich to Washington...
That's so much less satisfying than the myth. What happened next, however, does show the character of the man. Six months after he ended his twenty year relationship with Battely, (wife no.1) he married Marianne Ginther.(wife no.2) Twenty-odd years later he started an affair with a staffer.Callista Bisek who was 23 years younger than him. He continued that affair for six years, then divorced Ginther to marry Bisek.(wife no.3) He married Bisek four months after his divorce from Ginther was final.
This still is very crappy behavior for a "family values" person. All I have to say is that Callista Bisek, now 46, better watch her step.
But she's still alive, and the couple was already in divorce proceedings at the time of the hospital visit. She did not want the divorce and was fighting it. She had previously had uterine cancer, which he exploited politically, and she was in the hospital for the third time. Much has been made of the fact that this tumor turned out to be benign. That totally disregards her pain and suffering with the recovery. Gingrich did visit her in the hospital while she was recovering from surgery and admits that he got into an argument with her. He blows this off as something that couples in a divorce proceeding just do sometimes. He had been married to her for 19 years.
He's deliciously, if apocryphally, quoted by L. H. Carter, Gingrich's campaign treasurer, "She's not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of the President. And besides, she has cancer". This might not be true but it's a great line. Gingrich has denied saying it. His supporters dismiss Carter as a disgruntled former aide who was miffed at not being asked to accompany Gingrich to Washington...
That's so much less satisfying than the myth. What happened next, however, does show the character of the man. Six months after he ended his twenty year relationship with Battely, (wife no.1) he married Marianne Ginther.(wife no.2) Twenty-odd years later he started an affair with a staffer.Callista Bisek who was 23 years younger than him. He continued that affair for six years, then divorced Ginther to marry Bisek.(wife no.3) He married Bisek four months after his divorce from Ginther was final.
This still is very crappy behavior for a "family values" person. All I have to say is that Callista Bisek, now 46, better watch her step.
ELECTION DAY 2012
Okay, it may not have been as hard to get the Democratic vote in
Miami-Dade and Broward counties as I thought it would be--both are about
67% for Obama. But I'm really glad I worked for the campaign, because
if Romney won I would have hated to think I did nothing.
As I discuss the races below, please remember that I consider myself liberal socially and conservative fiscally. As a physician I am now more interested in evaluating the Affordable Care Act. One of the consequences which might have been anticipated is that the Act requires companies with over 50 full-time employees to provide health insurance. Some are coping by cutting the number of hours of their workers to less than 30 hours a week, thereby counting them as part-time rather than full--time.
That's not new. At the very beginning of my practice my bookkeeper classified our employees as independent 1099 contractors. That meant that we didn't have to pay payroll taxes, Social Security and Medicare for them. I didn't know this was going on until the IRS started sending us letters. As I recall this was resolved without a whole lot of fuss.
I am amazed at the diversity of candidate wins in Bexar county, Texas, and the US.
We have a conservative Republican sheriff with military experience--a woman who experienced family violence.
We have Democratic State legislator Lloyd Doggett, 66, winning a new seat after Republicans messed with his district in gerrymandering--but now he's representing both liberal Austin and conservative San Antonio.
I
know I'm all over the map here between local and US races in both House
and Senate--but so are the legislators. It's going to be an interesting
ride. And again I am amused in a way by the conservative Republican
women. As I've been noting, the original suffragettes more or less
assumed that when women got the vote they would fall along liberal
lines. As more and more women get into the legislatures we see that was
not accurate. I always thought that we would reach true equality when
we had women in politics who were just as incompetent, ignorant, and
venal as the men. ( Not at all saying that these women are. I was thinking more on the lines of Sarah Palin.)
As I discuss the races below, please remember that I consider myself liberal socially and conservative fiscally. As a physician I am now more interested in evaluating the Affordable Care Act. One of the consequences which might have been anticipated is that the Act requires companies with over 50 full-time employees to provide health insurance. Some are coping by cutting the number of hours of their workers to less than 30 hours a week, thereby counting them as part-time rather than full--time.
That's not new. At the very beginning of my practice my bookkeeper classified our employees as independent 1099 contractors. That meant that we didn't have to pay payroll taxes, Social Security and Medicare for them. I didn't know this was going on until the IRS started sending us letters. As I recall this was resolved without a whole lot of fuss.
I am amazed at the diversity of candidate wins in Bexar county, Texas, and the US.
We have a conservative Republican sheriff with military experience--a woman who experienced family violence.
We have Democratic State legislator Lloyd Doggett, 66, winning a new seat after Republicans messed with his district in gerrymandering--but now he's representing both liberal Austin and conservative San Antonio.
We
have the first Hispanic US Senator--Ted Cruz, a very conservative
Republican--replacing a woman with similar views, the retiring Kay
Bailey Hutchison.(House majority is Democrat)
and a liberal Democratic Hispanic US Representative, Joaquin Castro, twin brother of Julian Castro, SA's mayor. (House as a whole is conservative)
Democratic State Representative Pete Gallegos, winning his seat again.
Republican State Senator--an ER doctor--Donna Campbell.
In
the US we have a Democratic majority Senate and Republican House of
Representatives--a split that's not going to help Obama pass his
bills--note that our own region has the opposite party splits.
Lesbian Senator Tammy Baldwin, first openly gay Senator
I
like what she said in her speech--"If you're not in the room the
conversation is about you. If you're in the room the conversation is
with you." an interesting observation.
Dem.Claire
McCaskill defeating the louse Rep.Todd Akin ("legitimate rape") for US
Senate race. Republicans all over the board tried to get Akin to drop
out. But McCaskill was glad he stayed in the race because he was easier
to beat that any other Republican who could have replaced him.
Democratic Joe Donnelly beats Richard Mourdock ("Pregnancy after rape is something God intended") for US Senate
--But
that's not really such a benefit because Donnelly is just a whisker
less conservative than Mourdock. Donnelly is damn lucky he kept his
mouth shut because he has beliefs very similar to Mourdock's.
Monday, November 5, 2012
ONE MORE DAY UNTIL THE ELECTION
Polls will open in 8 1/2 hours on the East Coast, and by the end of the day we may have an end to this madness. Or we might not know for several weeks. One thing is sure, the election campaigns are ending. I personally have given more money than I should have. But I've also volunteered in this election like in none other. In the last two days I have called 400 voters in Florida. Some of them cursed me; one of them told me he that if he got one more call he was voting for Romney. But many of them did need the information I was trying to convey--where the polling place was, who to call for problems, when the election day was (!) and other concerns. We are already seeing dirty tricks in Florida, which really stinks.
NOTE--Florida vote totals are not yet in as I write, 19 hours after the polls close.
LATER NOTE: in another type of voter fraud, an 85 year old woman stood in line for several hours, to be told that she could only vote for Romney
Some of the volunteers at Organizing For America have watched Florida for voting infractions, and found a good many, which they reported. One example is that once a voter entered the polling place they were shunted from desk to desk, greatly extending the voting time. Here, of course, we have one desk to check registration, one to sign in, and then we progress to the voting booths. LATER NOTE: in another type of voter fraud, an 85 year old woman stood in line for several hours, to be told that she could only vote for Romney that day--she'd have to come back tomorrow to vote for Obama. She wasn't sure when she could get back to the polls because her daughter had to get off work to take her. A sign posted at HQ--"If you have to cheat to win, your ideas aren't very good."
If Obama does not win in Florida it will not be my fault. I have made as many phone calls as I possibly could, probably several thousand by now. The interesting thing is that our Organizing For American group has a Australian as its captain. Patrick Batchelor has done a great job; he's even decided to stay in Texas after this madness, believe it or not. NOTE: he is not being paid for his work. He's a volunteer, too.
I will get up in the morning and go down to HQ to work and watch again, and come back in the evening to hopefully hear the returns come in.
And then next, whether Obama or Romney wins, I will turn my attention to whichever leader doesn't represent all my interests. Someone on the Yahoo boards said that he was liberal socially and conservative fiscally, so that he basically had no representation. Right with him. So I will have to force my own voice to be heard, something I've never really done. Since I'm not working anymore, I feel freer--I don't have an employer to answer to.
NOTE--Florida vote totals are not yet in as I write, 19 hours after the polls close.
LATER NOTE: in another type of voter fraud, an 85 year old woman stood in line for several hours, to be told that she could only vote for Romney
Some of the volunteers at Organizing For America have watched Florida for voting infractions, and found a good many, which they reported. One example is that once a voter entered the polling place they were shunted from desk to desk, greatly extending the voting time. Here, of course, we have one desk to check registration, one to sign in, and then we progress to the voting booths. LATER NOTE: in another type of voter fraud, an 85 year old woman stood in line for several hours, to be told that she could only vote for Romney that day--she'd have to come back tomorrow to vote for Obama. She wasn't sure when she could get back to the polls because her daughter had to get off work to take her. A sign posted at HQ--"If you have to cheat to win, your ideas aren't very good."
If Obama does not win in Florida it will not be my fault. I have made as many phone calls as I possibly could, probably several thousand by now. The interesting thing is that our Organizing For American group has a Australian as its captain. Patrick Batchelor has done a great job; he's even decided to stay in Texas after this madness, believe it or not. NOTE: he is not being paid for his work. He's a volunteer, too.
I will get up in the morning and go down to HQ to work and watch again, and come back in the evening to hopefully hear the returns come in.
And then next, whether Obama or Romney wins, I will turn my attention to whichever leader doesn't represent all my interests. Someone on the Yahoo boards said that he was liberal socially and conservative fiscally, so that he basically had no representation. Right with him. So I will have to force my own voice to be heard, something I've never really done. Since I'm not working anymore, I feel freer--I don't have an employer to answer to.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
L'ESPRIT D' ESCALIER, ESCALATOR WIT
This concept translates to "staircase wit."
WIKIPEDIA:
L'esprit de l'escalier or l'esprit d'escalier (literally, staircase wit) is a French term used in English that describes the predicament of thinking of the perfect comeback too late.
Origin
This name for the phenomenon comes from French encyclopedist and philosopher Denis Diderot's description of such a situation in his Paradoxe sur le comédien.[1] During a dinner at the home of statesman Jacques Necker, a remark was made to Diderot which left him speechless at the time, because, he explains, "l’homme sensible, comme moi, tout entier à ce qu’on lui objecte, perd la tête et ne se retrouve qu’au bas de l’escalier" ("a sensitive man, such as myself, overwhelmed by the argument leveled against him, becomes confused and can only think clearly again [when he reaches] the bottom of the stairs"
This happened to me the other day when I was collecting my mail. The postal carrier was there, putting the mail in boxes. I asked him if he had gotten to mine and he said no. After a couple of minutes I saw that he had put some in my box and asked him if he'd give them to me. When he did I looked at them and groaned, "junk mail." He said, "You're welcome,"" which embarrassed me. I was back to my apartment before I realized the comeback. "Hey, I'm using a cane now (knee sprain which is improving), and it's hard for me to get around. I didn't want to have to come back here."
So when's the last time this happened to you ?
WIKIPEDIA:
L'esprit de l'escalier or l'esprit d'escalier (literally, staircase wit) is a French term used in English that describes the predicament of thinking of the perfect comeback too late.
Origin
This name for the phenomenon comes from French encyclopedist and philosopher Denis Diderot's description of such a situation in his Paradoxe sur le comédien.[1] During a dinner at the home of statesman Jacques Necker, a remark was made to Diderot which left him speechless at the time, because, he explains, "l’homme sensible, comme moi, tout entier à ce qu’on lui objecte, perd la tête et ne se retrouve qu’au bas de l’escalier" ("a sensitive man, such as myself, overwhelmed by the argument leveled against him, becomes confused and can only think clearly again [when he reaches] the bottom of the stairs"
This happened to me the other day when I was collecting my mail. The postal carrier was there, putting the mail in boxes. I asked him if he had gotten to mine and he said no. After a couple of minutes I saw that he had put some in my box and asked him if he'd give them to me. When he did I looked at them and groaned, "junk mail." He said, "You're welcome,"" which embarrassed me. I was back to my apartment before I realized the comeback. "Hey, I'm using a cane now (knee sprain which is improving), and it's hard for me to get around. I didn't want to have to come back here."
So when's the last time this happened to you ?
200 NUMBERS OF CALLS ON THE WALL
Two hundred numbers of calls on the wall, 200 numbers of call, take one down, pass it around, 199 numbers of calls. I never thought that my life would include a stint as a telephone solicitor, but it has. I've been making phone calls for the Obama campaign for several weeks, and I've really gotten pretty good, if I do say so myself. I did make over 200 calls tonight, in about five hours. It's really pretty interesting. We've been calling Florida, first trying to get people registered to vote by Oct. 9th, then to go early vote, then these last four days to Get Out The Vote. Much has been learned, and data has been collated and purged, so at this point we should not have any GOP voters, and should be calling only people who'd been identified as Democrats. There have been some chilling calls. One person told me he would go vote tomorrow--he can't, because early voting closed yesterday. Two people told me they would go vote sometime next week, and one person said he'd vote on Wednesday. Elections must be very difficult for some people to understand.
One person wants to vote, but she's bedridden and has lost her absentee ballot. She doesn't have anyone to drive her. There will be people in Florida who can take care of her.
I never understood why these last minute calls were supposed to do any good, but now I do.
Full disclosure: I have not paid any attention to politics since I moved to San Antonio. I'm not sure I could give a reason why; perhaps I keep thinking I'm here only temporarily. I got caught earlier this week, when someone remarked on the Castro brothers and pointed to a poster. I said, "I don't know them." She stared at me incredulously and said, "Julian Castro? The mayor of San Antonio? And his twin brother Joaquin who's running for Congress?" Hmm, really, I should have paid more attention. No good excuse. Plan to keep up with the Dems. so I shouldn't embarrass myself again.
One person wants to vote, but she's bedridden and has lost her absentee ballot. She doesn't have anyone to drive her. There will be people in Florida who can take care of her.
I never understood why these last minute calls were supposed to do any good, but now I do.
Full disclosure: I have not paid any attention to politics since I moved to San Antonio. I'm not sure I could give a reason why; perhaps I keep thinking I'm here only temporarily. I got caught earlier this week, when someone remarked on the Castro brothers and pointed to a poster. I said, "I don't know them." She stared at me incredulously and said, "Julian Castro? The mayor of San Antonio? And his twin brother Joaquin who's running for Congress?" Hmm, really, I should have paid more attention. No good excuse. Plan to keep up with the Dems. so I shouldn't embarrass myself again.
WILLIARD MITTY? (re: JAMES THURBER)
Why have no MITT/MITTY parodies been written before now? We only have two days to go before the election--wasted opportunity. "The name Walter Mitty and the derivative word "Mittyesque"[5] have entered the English language, denoting an ineffectual person who spends more time in heroic daydreams than paying attention to the real world, or more seriously, one who intentionally attempts to mislead or convince others that he is something that he is not." You'd think Thurber had prescient vision.
Ah, well, the joy of reading the original:
In the short story Mitty is a Navy hydroplane pilot, a surgeon, a WWI bomber pilot, an accused murderer, and finally a defiant spy facing the firing squad.
"WE'RE going through!" The Commander's voice was like thin ice breaking. The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa.
------------
A huge, complicated machine, connected to the operating table, with many tubes and wires, began at this moment to go pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. "The new anesthetizer is giving away!" shouted an intern. "There is no one in the East who knows how to fix it!" . (Mitty) sprang to the machine, which was now going pocketa-pocketa-queep-pocketa-queep . "Give me a fountain pen!" he snapped. Someone handed him a fountain pen. He pulled a faulty piston out of the machine and inserted the pen in its place. "That will hold for ten minutes,"
---------
Captain Mitty stood up and strapped on his huge Webley-Vickers automatic. "It's forty kilometers through hell, sir," said the sergeant. Mitty finished one last brandy. "After all," he said softly, "what isn't?" The pounding of the cannon increased; there was the rat-tat-tatting of machine guns, and from somewhere came the menacing pocketa-pocketa-pocketa of the new flame-throwers.
------------ an accused murderer, "With any known make of gun," he said evenly, "I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand."
He stood up against the wall of the drugstore, smoking
----------- He put his shoulders back and his heels together. "To hell with the handkerchief," said Waker Mitty scornfully. He took one last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then, with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last.
My favorite has always been the fountain pen replacement--fabulous, and it even sounds like it might work.
Just the expression "pocketa pocketa pocketa queep brings a smile to my face.
WEIRD AL PARODIES
I love Weird Al. Some of these I've known for a long time and some are new.
LIKE A SURGEON
Parody of LIKE A VIRGIN
I feel like I'm a surgeon
Cuttin' for the very first time..
A lion walks through a hospital while Weird Al writhes on the floor of a surgical suite. Just as meaningless as the lion in LIKE A VIRGIN.
AMERICAN PIE MUSIC WITH EPISODE 1 OF STAR WARS
"Long long time ago Naboo was under attack...
We all wound up on Tatooine,
That's where we found this boy...
My my this here Anakin guy may be Vader later but now he's just a small fry"
I THINK I'M A CLONE NOW--
Wonderful parody of I THINK WE'RE ALONE NOW, by Tiffany
I think I'm a clone now,
There's always two of me just a-hangin' around
I think I'm a clone now
Cause every chromosome is a hand-me-down
YODA
Parody of LOLA
I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah,
Where it bubbles all the time like a carbonated soda,
S O D A soda..
At times I can't appreciate the parody because I don't know the original. "SMELLS LIKE NIRVANA" is a take-off on SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT, a song whose title I have always wondered about. Now that I'm informed there was a deodorant called Teen Spirit, more is revealed.
MY BOLOGANA
MY SHARONA
First Weird Al music video in 1979
(stage performance)
AMISH PARADISE
GANGSTER PARADISE
One of many Weird Al's where I had to listen to the original, then chortled to the parody.
EAT IT
BEAT IT
Honestly, I could never see what the big deal was with Michael Jackson, but I was completely of the wrong generation for him. Looking at the music video and watching his youthful dancing, I am very sad that he could not stay this golden boy. How did he get so wrong and strange?
One of my very favorite Weird Al songs is an original, "ALBUQUERQUE."
Weird Al flees from his sauerkraut cooking mother to a magical, faraway place where the sun is always shining and the air smells like root beer by winning a one way plane ticket to ALBUQUERQUE. The plane crashes and everybody dies but Al because
"I had my tray table up and
My seat back up in the full upright position..."
12 Weasels on his face and two children named Nathaniel and Superfly are only part of Al's saga.
Al is the very best remedy I know for the stress of daily living--in two days we'll have the Presidential election. But there's always Al riffing in AMISH PARADISE:
I'm a man of the land, I'm into discipline
Got a bible in my hand and a beard on my chin
But if I finish all of my chores, and you finish thine
Then tonight we're going to party like it's 1699
Let's party.
LIKE A SURGEON
Parody of LIKE A VIRGIN
I feel like I'm a surgeon
Cuttin' for the very first time..
A lion walks through a hospital while Weird Al writhes on the floor of a surgical suite. Just as meaningless as the lion in LIKE A VIRGIN.
AMERICAN PIE MUSIC WITH EPISODE 1 OF STAR WARS
"Long long time ago Naboo was under attack...
We all wound up on Tatooine,
That's where we found this boy...
My my this here Anakin guy may be Vader later but now he's just a small fry"
I THINK I'M A CLONE NOW--
Wonderful parody of I THINK WE'RE ALONE NOW, by Tiffany
I think I'm a clone now,
There's always two of me just a-hangin' around
I think I'm a clone now
Cause every chromosome is a hand-me-down
YODA
Parody of LOLA
I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah,
Where it bubbles all the time like a carbonated soda,
S O D A soda..
At times I can't appreciate the parody because I don't know the original. "SMELLS LIKE NIRVANA" is a take-off on SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT, a song whose title I have always wondered about. Now that I'm informed there was a deodorant called Teen Spirit, more is revealed.
MY BOLOGANA
MY SHARONA
First Weird Al music video in 1979
(stage performance)
AMISH PARADISE
GANGSTER PARADISE
One of many Weird Al's where I had to listen to the original, then chortled to the parody.
EAT IT
BEAT IT
Honestly, I could never see what the big deal was with Michael Jackson, but I was completely of the wrong generation for him. Looking at the music video and watching his youthful dancing, I am very sad that he could not stay this golden boy. How did he get so wrong and strange?
One of my very favorite Weird Al songs is an original, "ALBUQUERQUE."
Weird Al flees from his sauerkraut cooking mother to a magical, faraway place where the sun is always shining and the air smells like root beer by winning a one way plane ticket to ALBUQUERQUE. The plane crashes and everybody dies but Al because
"I had my tray table up and
My seat back up in the full upright position..."
12 Weasels on his face and two children named Nathaniel and Superfly are only part of Al's saga.
Al is the very best remedy I know for the stress of daily living--in two days we'll have the Presidential election. But there's always Al riffing in AMISH PARADISE:
I'm a man of the land, I'm into discipline
Got a bible in my hand and a beard on my chin
But if I finish all of my chores, and you finish thine
Then tonight we're going to party like it's 1699
Let's party.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
LADY MADONNA
And just for completeness sake:
"Lady Madonna" John Lennon and Paul MCartney
"Lady Madonna" John Lennon and Paul MCartney
Lady Madonna, children at your feet
Wonder how you manage to make ends meet
Who finds the money? When you pay the rent?
Did you think that money was Heaven sent?
Friday night arrives without a suitcase
Sunday morning creep in like a nun
Monday's child has learned to tie his bootlace
See how they run
Lady Madonna, baby at your breast
Wonder how you manage to feed the rest
See how they run
Lady Madonna, lying on the bed
Listen to the music playing in your head
Tuesday afternoon is never ending
Wednesday morning papers didn't come
Thursday night you stockings needed mending
See how they run
Lady Madonna, children at your feet
Wonder how you manage to make ends meet
Wonder how you manage to make ends meet
Who finds the money? When you pay the rent?
Did you think that money was Heaven sent?
Friday night arrives without a suitcase
Sunday morning creep in like a nun
Monday's child has learned to tie his bootlace
See how they run
Lady Madonna, baby at your breast
Wonder how you manage to feed the rest
See how they run
Lady Madonna, lying on the bed
Listen to the music playing in your head
Tuesday afternoon is never ending
Wednesday morning papers didn't come
Thursday night you stockings needed mending
See how they run
Lady Madonna, children at your feet
Wonder how you manage to make ends meet
Friday, November 2, 2012
11 THINGS AMERICANS WRONGLY (AND FRIGHTENINGLY) BELIEVE BY SAM GREENSPAN
I can't remember how I came across this blog, but it's a new favorite. The latest entry, Nov. 1 2012, is titled as above. Sam Greenspan is the author and sole editor of the blog. He has one published book, the "11 Points Guide To Hooking Up." Greenspan strives to pick categories as different as possible.
The next most favorite is "11 High School Pictures Musicians Wish We'd Never Seen." Great fun.
On the current blog entry, however, I would like to tell you I got everything right and wasn't an idiot. Full Disclosure, although it's embarrassing ....
1.Joe Paterno molested children. In a poll conducted by Wilson Perkins Allen Opinion Research in August of this year, 28 percent of people said Joe Paterno is accused of molesting children. (I went with "is" instead of "was" because I assume they also think he's alive.) Another 15 percent weren't sure whether or not he'd been accused of molesting children. [Source]
I thought Joe Paterno was an equal abuser with Jerry Sandusky. I did sorta think that he was covering up for Sandusky. Part of my ignorance was that Paterno died in prison and Sandusky just got sentenced. First in was worst, right? Really no excuse for not knowing this.
2.Romney's first name is short for "Mittens." We don't have many presidents who go by nicknames. Mitt Romney (if elected) would. And a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll in January found that 94 percent of the country has no idea what his real name is. It's like Muggsy Bogues all over again."
Boggues was a 5' 3" (yes) NBA basketball player whose given name was Tyrone Curtis, and actually this is not like Muggsy Bogues, as noted below.
"Of the people surveyed, 20 percent thought his name actually is Mitt, 18 percent went with Mitchell, eight percent picked Milton and two percent chose Mittens. Yes, one out of 50 people believed his name is Mittens. (Just six percent accurately went with Willard.) [Source]"
____________
I did not think Mitt Romney's first name was Mittens, but I did think it was Mitchell. Probably because it was the only name I could think of beginning with "Mit."I sort of thought his real name might be Willard because I'd seen it in some Yahoo comments postings, although I thought maybe it referred to the Crispin Glover film. So were they calling Romney a rat? His full legal name is Willard Mitt Romney. Note that Mitt is named after his father's cousin Milton. The cousin's nickname was "Mitt," so that's the actual middle name for Romney, not his nickname.
But Romney's real name is Mitt Romney--he just goes by his middle name rather than his first name. My parents burdened me the same way, (not with Willard), as I go by my middle name as well. There have been hundreds of occasions where I've had to grit my teeth and explain. I feel sorry for any child so labelled.
This is the one and only break I'll give to Mittens, though.
The next most favorite is "11 High School Pictures Musicians Wish We'd Never Seen." Great fun.
On the current blog entry, however, I would like to tell you I got everything right and wasn't an idiot. Full Disclosure, although it's embarrassing ....
1.Joe Paterno molested children. In a poll conducted by Wilson Perkins Allen Opinion Research in August of this year, 28 percent of people said Joe Paterno is accused of molesting children. (I went with "is" instead of "was" because I assume they also think he's alive.) Another 15 percent weren't sure whether or not he'd been accused of molesting children. [Source]
I thought Joe Paterno was an equal abuser with Jerry Sandusky. I did sorta think that he was covering up for Sandusky. Part of my ignorance was that Paterno died in prison and Sandusky just got sentenced. First in was worst, right? Really no excuse for not knowing this.
2.Romney's first name is short for "Mittens." We don't have many presidents who go by nicknames. Mitt Romney (if elected) would. And a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll in January found that 94 percent of the country has no idea what his real name is. It's like Muggsy Bogues all over again."
Boggues was a 5' 3" (yes) NBA basketball player whose given name was Tyrone Curtis, and actually this is not like Muggsy Bogues, as noted below.
"Of the people surveyed, 20 percent thought his name actually is Mitt, 18 percent went with Mitchell, eight percent picked Milton and two percent chose Mittens. Yes, one out of 50 people believed his name is Mittens. (Just six percent accurately went with Willard.) [Source]"
____________
I did not think Mitt Romney's first name was Mittens, but I did think it was Mitchell. Probably because it was the only name I could think of beginning with "Mit."I sort of thought his real name might be Willard because I'd seen it in some Yahoo comments postings, although I thought maybe it referred to the Crispin Glover film. So were they calling Romney a rat? His full legal name is Willard Mitt Romney. Note that Mitt is named after his father's cousin Milton. The cousin's nickname was "Mitt," so that's the actual middle name for Romney, not his nickname.
But Romney's real name is Mitt Romney--he just goes by his middle name rather than his first name. My parents burdened me the same way, (not with Willard), as I go by my middle name as well. There have been hundreds of occasions where I've had to grit my teeth and explain. I feel sorry for any child so labelled.
This is the one and only break I'll give to Mittens, though.
LADY GAGA--MADONNA-BORN THIS WAY not safe for work
Leaving "Bad Romance" aside, consider "Born This Way," another great song. It is widely perceived as a celebration of human rights. It's also seen as derivative from Madonna's "Express Yourself," written in 1989. Although the music is similar, Madonna sings about women not settling for second best in love and standing up for themselves. However, she has no explicit lyrics at all about alternate lifestyles. Her costumes vary from nudity and underwear to a sleeveless ball gown, to a gasp, pinstriped pantsuit. The analysts at the time thought that she was gender-bending to wear a pantsuit, why I don't know. Note that Hilary Clinton became First Lady in Jan. 1993 but her pantsuits did not become national news until then. The Ellen DeGeneres Show did not air until 2003, so until then there had not been a suited female TV host. I'm not sure why "Express Yourself 'was considered so special. However I wasn't paying attention to music in 1989, being busy with two children and a career.
Gaga's lyrics, on the other hand, are complete clear--she sings about accepting yourself, accepting you're LGBT, standing up for yourself if you're bullied or disabled. She bobbled a bit with the lyrics,"chola," Latina gangbanger, offensive to that community, and "orient," which Asians bristled at. I really like the song a lot, even though Gaga sings a lot of it in a small leather bra and panties. Note that Madonna first set the skank bar in the late 80's. She's one reason Lady Gaga can get away with the teensy underwear costumes she likes. I also want to give a shout-out to Weird Al Yankovic. He hesitated on doing a parody song because he considered "Born This Way" a great song about acceptance, but finally decided to do it as a parody of Gaga's style, not her music. "Perform This Way is wonderful, and Al sure has a great body for a 52 year old man. ;>0.
One sad and honest thing which came to light recently--despite all her singing about acceptance, she struggles with her self-image because of her weight. She's had weight issues since she was young, at one point purging so much that she was afraid her voice would change. She recently gained twenty-five pounds or more, and boasts that her boyfriend likes her curvier. That's great, but she should consider larger sized costumes that would showcase her new form, not detract from it. Responding to criticism over her weight gain, she recently published pictures of herself in underwear and bra, facing the mirror and showing her fans exactly how she looks now.
Her music style is meant to be ambiguous, and androgynous, but it's highly female sexually. She has multiple male dancers, mostly half dressed and presumably gay. She has lyrics which shock, such as in "Poker Face"--"I'm not bluffing with my muffin," as she points to her groin in the video. In an interview she helpfully explains further, "Obviously it's my pussy's poker face." Awk! And also in during the Fame Tour in 2009 she suggested that it referred to her bisexuality, to be with a man but fantasize about being with a woman.
So is she a feminist? Depends. Hardly anyone uses the word anymore, paradoxically because of the women's rights movement successes. In 1982 the Equal Rights Amendment failed to be ratified and died as a federal bill. It did, however, pass in thirty-five states, who now have initiated at least partial equal rights laws. Contrary to what you might think, red state Texas was one of the 35.
Millions of women now take it for granted that they can get a job in any profession, go into law enforcement, the military, and politics. But they seem not to realize that they're still getting paid only 75-80% what a man does. There are few women CEOs, few governors or senators. Still as has been written before, "women are slowing moving up, getting that corner office, quietly contributing to Emily's List."
N. Williams, in her March 11, 2010 article in MS magazine, writes, "Nobody could describe my relationship with Lady Gaga better--We're in a bad romance.She’ll say something feminist one minute and equate feminism with man-hating the next."
She concludes with:
"Lady Gaga is a young artist who seems to renegotiate her image and identity with each bit of education she receives. Maybe she has made some feminist faux pas, but to her credit, she educates herself and comes back with a stronger statement than the last. She thinks about who she is and how she presents herself, and that is refreshing. And “a little bit feminist.” I can’t help but fantasize about just what Lady Gaga could do by identifying as“feminist.” Her immense popularity and youthful, outspoken image could be the perfect set-up for a revolution of the word.
One last note--a very good parody of "Bad Romance" is "Bad Romance-Womens' Suffrage." It's about the struggle for women's right to get the vote. The lead singer represents Alice Paul, who wrote the first equal rights amendment--in 1923.
I AM NOT A FEMINIST-LADY GAGA (not safe for work)
Lady Gaga during an interview--"I'm not a feminist-I hail men, I love men. I celebrate American male culture, and beer, and bars, and muscle cars." The contradictions and stereotypes in that sentence make pinning down her beliefs difficult. She appears to be a strong woman who writes her own songs and commands her own career. She's landed five number one hits and sings about equality, gay rights, being bullied, and loving yourself.
These admirable sentiments are cloaked (or uncloaked, really) in highly sexual costumes, and videos which contradict both the costumes and lyrics.
In Bad Romance, the lyrics suggest that she wants a bad romance with some masochistic tendencies,
"I want your horror, I want your design, Cause you're a criminal as long as you're re mine." "I want your love and I want your revenge, I want your love and I don't wanna be friends."There is another line about "want your vertical stick, want you in my rear window, baby you're sick" where the meaning is obvious. Urrk. The choruses are addictive variations on "Rah, rah, ooh,ah, ah, Ro ma, ro ma ma, want your bad romance."
Okay, this suggests that Gaga wants a bad boy love, not an unusual song topic. The video is something entirely else. After a baffling beginning, Gaga is abducted from her bathtub, then dressed seductively and forced to dance before men who are bidding on her. She slowly comes to the man who bought her, wearing a white (wedding?) dress with a polar bear skin as its train. (Why?)She goes to the bed, and the scene changes--The bed is totally charred and she is lying next to his skeleton. Gaga says that the song is a commentary on human trafficking. So what does she want, a bad romance, or the opportunity to kill her abductor? Feminist or anti-feminist?I think little girls singing this are going to remember the music and words.
These admirable sentiments are cloaked (or uncloaked, really) in highly sexual costumes, and videos which contradict both the costumes and lyrics.
In Bad Romance, the lyrics suggest that she wants a bad romance with some masochistic tendencies,
"I want your horror, I want your design, Cause you're a criminal as long as you're re mine." "I want your love and I want your revenge, I want your love and I don't wanna be friends."There is another line about "want your vertical stick, want you in my rear window, baby you're sick" where the meaning is obvious. Urrk. The choruses are addictive variations on "Rah, rah, ooh,ah, ah, Ro ma, ro ma ma, want your bad romance."
Okay, this suggests that Gaga wants a bad boy love, not an unusual song topic. The video is something entirely else. After a baffling beginning, Gaga is abducted from her bathtub, then dressed seductively and forced to dance before men who are bidding on her. She slowly comes to the man who bought her, wearing a white (wedding?) dress with a polar bear skin as its train. (Why?)She goes to the bed, and the scene changes--The bed is totally charred and she is lying next to his skeleton. Gaga says that the song is a commentary on human trafficking. So what does she want, a bad romance, or the opportunity to kill her abductor? Feminist or anti-feminist?I think little girls singing this are going to remember the music and words.
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