Web Log Archive, April 16th through
April 29th, 2006
Saturday, April 29th, 2006
Guess
who...from the Look Who's Talking Department:
"I
think people who want to be a citizen
(sic) of this
country ought to learn English."
.
I, personally, do not know anyone whose life is so blessed that he or she
has the leisure to give a rat's glute, one way or the
other, about in
what language our National Anthem is sung (or even about if
it is sung)!
Friday, April 28th,
2006 Happy Birthday,
Gail!
CNN has run a couple of columns (and taken
a poll or two) as to what are the 'worst
songs of all time'. Interesting.
At first, Bobby Goldsboro's 'Honey'
(a worthy contender from 1968) was the chart-topper. But as more votes rolled
in, a clear winner has emerged: it is Paul Anka's 'Having
My Baby', from 1974. Ah...but I don't agree!
I actually like that tune!
My votes would go to any of three or four tunes from Paul McCartney (like
'Wonderful Christmas Time')
and to any of thirty or forty tunes from The Carpenters (like 'Only
Yesterday' and 'Top of
The World'). [And 'Horse
With No Name', by America, is certainly deserving
of the many votes that it garnered.]
But anyone who thinks that the much-dissed-in-this-poll 'Billy,
Don't Be a Hero' (with its ending line, "I
heard she threw that letter away...") is not a magnum pop
opus is gonna have to explain to me why! ;-)
Thursday, April 27th, 2006
After
more than twenty years of being a computer fiend---seventeen of which have
involved hundreds (maybe thousands) of mouse clicks daily, I have pulled up with
the dreaded so-called Carpal
Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) in my right paw. This is a
condition characterized by interference with the so-called
Median Nerve as it
passes through the so-called
Carpal Tunnel in the
wrist. This 'tunnel' has two walls: one made of bone and the other of
ligament. If this passageway narrows or if the nerve itself becomes inflamed,
then symptoms of tingling and numbness ensue. Mine is in an early stage and so
I'm hopeful that the symptoms can be mitigated by some so-called
ergonomic adjustments (like
a different type of mouse...or a trackball). My Evoluent
Mouse is now on order. While I wait for it, I am mouse-ing with my left
hand. It's slower...but it works...until CTS develops on that side.
If CTS is allowed to worsen, then hand strength may be lost and pain may
radiate up the arm and even all the way to where the nerve enters the spine at the
neck. This is a reminder that our nervous system bears a superficial resemblance
to the wiring harness of an automobile. All our nerves connect, sooner or
later, to our brain. All of our sensations of this world are between our
ears.
Wednesday, April 26th, 2006
Brother, Can You Spare
A Dime is a veritable masterpiece...rich in lyric, harmonic and rhythmic
detail. Written in 1932 (and later called the "anthem
of
the Great Depression"), it surely holds a (call it) 'special' (yeah...unique,
even) place in American pop music. It is said that members of the Herbert Hoover
Administration regarded the song as pro-Communist propaganda and tried to have
it banned from its stage play ('Americana')
and dropped from radio play-lists.
The music was written by Jay Gorney, who was born in 1896 in Russia and came to
the US with his family in 1902. He lived to be ninety-three and had a
flourishing career in both live theater productions and motion pictures until he
was blacklisted in 1955 by the House Committee on Un-American
Activities. "Friends
remember Gorney
as a gentle man who was kind and respectful to everyone, but especially to
children."
Gorney's lyricist, E.Y Harburg, also lived a long and colorful life (cut short
in 1981 by an automobile accident). A high school classmate of Ira Gershwin, Harburg
wrote the words to such classics as 'April In Paris',
'It's Only A Paper Moon'
and 'Over The Rainbow'!
Old Friends Department: just heard from Paul Zaro. He's
even older than I am...though not by much. Listen to his great
singing on When You Belong!
Tuesday, April 25th, 2006
From the Direction-You-Least-Expect-It Department or
just when you thought you were worrying about everything or
ya can't be too careful
Here's
something to spoil a quiet evening at home! And...in deep
dog food!
Monday, April 24th, 2006
"It all began at about 2:30 a.m. Saturday, when he arrived
at the house [and] couldn't
find his way inside through traditional means."
Sunday, April 23rd, 2006
For unabashed Bush-bashing, one must go to the land
down under: "It
is possible, at this late stage, that even Bush himself has begun to realise (sic,
that's how they spell it down there) something
is wrong. That oddly simian face is ashen, the eyes leaden. Karl Rove...pink
and pudgy...looks like one of Disney's three little pigs. Compared to this lot,
Bill Clinton was John the Baptist."
Aussie
Mike Carlton
I got an email this morning from a guy named Steve Barnes, who
hosts a Blog entitled Empires Fall.
Lotsa funny stuff there (I particularly like his "IQ
Curve" entry from last Friday). Steve (doubtless younger than I)
wonders out loud whether there is some similarity of these days-and-times
to those of the Watergate scandal. My answer is that there is only some
(similarity). What is happening today is far more dramatic and sensational...driven
by 1) all that's (now) at stake (in our world) and 2) by the
'achievements' wrought of our communications technologies (compared to the then-novel and
much-heralded 'mini-cams' of the early '70's).
[When Nixon resigned, nobody had a VCR at home. Answering machines were
expensive novelties. There were no cell phones and there certainly were no Blogs
on the Internet...because there weren't no Internet...and pokey computers took
up whole floors of office buildings.]
And...in '73 and '74, although Vietnam was still a war, the public had
largely come to assume that it was, in fact, over [of
course, it was not...yet]. Also, for all his ghastly deficiencies
as a human being, Richard Nixon (even as a thick-tongued drunk)
could find North America on any map of the world and was
capable of forming (and even finishing) sentences in English and, yes, he could
say 'nuclear'. To be sure, there were disrespectful
(and even obscene) parodies (like 'Trisha's Wedding')
and dirty jokes (like 'Why did Nixon need to see 'Deep
Throat' six times to get it down Pat?) but no one doubted that 'Tricky Dick' was,
actually, qualified to be President!
Saturday, April 22nd,
2006 Earth
Day!
A few days ago, I decided that what's
going on with the Bush Administration is no longer funny...if it ever was. The
prospect of our attacking Iran is enough to choke off anyone's laughter. It's
scary to think that our world is in the hands of people who are not only deeply
dishonest, but also are conspicuously weak-minded and incompetent...or
who might 'simply' be deranged and delusional...or
who might be so old
(Rumsfeld is seventy-four) or sickly
(Cheney is followed everywhere he goes by two doctors and an ambulance) that
they don't care if they're 'making things horrible for the kids'
(as Rodney King said).
However, some very talented people DO still find the (gallows) humor in all of
this. Here's a most
creative piece (to the tune of 'I Am The Walrus'), inspired by Bush's
'I am the decider' rant the other day, which was likened by some calumnist
(sic) to a little kid banging a spoon on his highchair.
Friday, April 21st, 2006
"Physician, heal thyself!"
Who'd wanna go and name a guy 'Lynn'? Dr.
Lynn Smaha (pronounced SMAH-hah...how
else?), former president of the American Heart Association, died last week of a
heart attack. Doctor Smaha believed that behavioral modification could
lower one's risk of heart disease. And he warned, for example, that marijuana
smoking (particularly for those over the age of, say, 30) raises one's risk of a
heart attack five-fold. The late doctor was a runner and that's what he was
doing when he collapsed. He was sixty-three years old.
Thursday, April 20th, 2006
"This is the smallest child you can ever imagine. I don't
think this kid is 4 feet tall. He's tiny; he's the tiniest
kid in the class."
"It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of
extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone
to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and
who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored,
is hostile." John
Hinderaker
Wednesday, April 19th, 2006
OMG!
It's painful to watch! Check out the
clip of Scott McClellan's "resignation" [yeah,
right]! Anyone with a beating heart must feel the shame of this poor
bastard, who is seen licking Alfred's boots on the
White House lawn before a gaggle
of reporters. At one point, choking on shoe polish, he says, "You
have accomplished a lot over the last several years with this team, and I have
been honored and grateful to be a small part of a terrific and talented team of
really good people."
It's happened! 'No problem' is now more commonly
heard than 'you're welcome'.
Tuesday, April 18th,
2006 The Centennial
of the 'Great Quake'!
"My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to
this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province
of those who have never had to execute these missions--or bury the results."
Marine
Lieut. General Greg Newbold
Inquiring minds want to know Department: At last! A
Canadian researcher offers an overdue explanation!
"The context was so important," said Mary
Valentich, professor
emeritus of social work at the University of Calgary.
"You just wouldn't
necessarily do this elsewhere. It had to be the right kind of setting."
Monday, April 17th, 2006
Ya know...some stories ya hear are just
plain hard to believe:
"The
couple apologized this week, saying they were sorry for everything they did.
They said they did it 'out
of financial reasons'. "
That even one
single, solitary individual would think it a shrewd plan to pretend
to have just had sextuplets...
in order to better beg for money. And where do they live?
"...frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from
Missouri. You have got to show me!"
Willard
Duncan Vandiver
Sunday, April 16th, 2006
"We...served under a secretary of defense who didn't
understand leadership, who was abusive, who was arrogant, who didn't build a
strong team." And those were just the nice things that General
Batiste had to say about his former boss!
