Web Log Archive, May 4th through May 17th, 2008

Saturday, May 17th, 2008

This morning's news featured saturation coverage of the hospitalization of Senator Edward Kennedy who, it was first reported, had likely suffered a stroke. Later, the reports changed to suggest that he'd 'merely' suffered a 'seizure'. Like most of us, I don't know what is meant by the term 'seizure' and perhaps Ted's doctors don't know yet either. In any event, as the morning dragged on without an update from the hospital, 'filler pieces' began to appear about stroke and its five warning signs...which are:  

1. numbness or weakness of the face, arm, or leg (especially on one side of the body)
2. confusion, trouble speaking or understanding speech
3. trouble seeing in one or both eyes
4. trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination
5. severe headache with no known cause

Now...the principle thing to watch out for is if one (or more) of these symptoms comes on 'suddenly' and, if that happens, you are advised to call 911 immediately as prompt treatment can mitigate the damage wrought by a stroke. The problem most of us have with that advice (about calling 911) is that we simply won't take it!
I, myself, have had three or four 'episodes' (all within the past eight years or so) of what probably qualify as Transient Ischemic Attacks (or TIA's: 'mini-strokes'). But I have never called 911 and did not even admit to anyone around me that anything was wrong!  I just waited for the symptoms (partial loss of peripheral vision...item 3., above) to abate...which took about fifteen minutes. Speaking for myself (but I know I am not unusual in this respect), I would be embarrassed to call 911 and be taken away in an ambulance (or a hearse)! Yes, I know it's silly but it is the way most of us feel. Most of us will likely wait until we (are sure we) are in deep kibble before we call for emergency assistance. Most of us dread dying in public 'cuz it makes it hard to face everyone in the mourning!
TIA's range in severity from momentary indisposition (the kind I've had...so far) to a 'shot across the bow' indicating a severe stroke is 'waiting in the wings'. And, of course, it's never possible to foresee in which part of that 'range' a particular TIA will be found to have fallen. TIA's are like earthquakes in that regard. We Californians know that the scariest aspect of even a 'mild' earthquake is that you can't be sure it's 'mild' until it's over! 

Lost in the news: last week, veteran actor James Garner ('Maverick'), now eighty years old, was hospitalized in Los Angeles with a stroke. 

Friday, May 16th, 2008                                                Happy Birthday Maggie!

"I only ask that you move to the other side so that you may not, by intercepting the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give."
Diogenes 'The Cynic', (412-323 ? BC)

There is a story (likely Apocryphal) that, when asked how he wished to be buried, Diogenes replied that he wished to be thrown outside the city walls so that wild animals might feast on his remains. When asked if he minded this, he said, "Not at all...as long as you provide me with a stick to chase the creatures away!"

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as -- to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal. I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad [August of 2003] as a result of these murderers taking this good man's life. I was playing golf — I think I was in central Texas — and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, ‘It's just not worth it anymore to do.’ "
George W. Bush, in a May 13th interview.  

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

Gokhan Mutlu, of New York City is suing Jetblue because, for three hours on a flight from San Diego to New York, he had a toilet all to himself. In an effort to settle out of court, the airline has offered Mr. Mutlu a one-way ticket to scenic Dharavi, India, where there is one toilet for every fifteen hundred people. Get out your slide rule: that gives each person about one minute per day to have the personal use of that toilet! I say Mr. Mutlu doesn't know when the sun is shining! Mira Kamdar writes that Dharavi is "surely one of the worst-smelling places in the world." OK.

Now listen up! Dr. Jean Cadet of our National Institute on Drug Abuse says that 'heavy marijuana use' can raise a person's risk of a heart attack or stroke! OMG! Well...but...see, Dr. Cadet didn't actually investigate whether or not 'heavy marijuana users' suffered more heart attacks or strokes. He simply found that, among his test subjects, there was typically a 30% elevation of a certain blood protein associated with higher fat levels in the blood and, as everyone knows,  higher fat levels in the blood are associated with heart disease. Got that? If so, your next question should be: "what constitutes 'heavy marijuana use'?". 'The marijuana users in the study averaged smoking 78 to 350 marijuana cigarettes per week." What? Put away your slide rule and get out your four-banger. 
Seventy-eight Joints Per Week (JPW)  is about eleven per day! Three hundred-fifty JPW works out to fifty per day! Assuming you sleep eight hours (but probably more if you're this much of a doper), that's more than three joints per waking hour! Now...that doesn't leave you much time to do anything else (and you stink). So don't worry about heart disease! 

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

Then I commenced to dictate the terms of my Living  Will:

"I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle to keep me alive. That would be no quality of life at all and so, if it ever comes to that, I want you to pull the plug!" 

Sunday, May 11th, 2008

1943 Guide To Hiring Women, by L. H. Sanders
Eleven Tips on Getting More Efficiency Out of Women Employees:

There is no longer any question whether transit companies should hire women for jobs formerly held by men. The draft and manpower shortage has settled that point. The important things now are to select the most efficient women available and how to use them to the best advantage. Here are eleven helpful tips on the subject:

1. Pick young married women. They usually have more of a sense of responsibility than their unmarried sisters. They are less likely to be flirtatious. They need the work, or they would not be doing it. The still have the pep and interest to work hard and to deal with the public efficiently.

2. When you have to use older women, try to get ones who have worked outside the home at some time in their lives. Older women who have never contacted the public have a hard time adapting themselves and are inclined to be cantankerous and fussy. It is always well to impress upon older women, the importance of friendliness and courtesy.

3. General experience indicates that "husky" girls - those who are just a little on the heavy side - are more even tempered and efficient than their underweight sisters.

4. Retain a physician to give each woman you hire a special physical examination - one covering female conditions. This step not only protects the company against the possibilities of lawsuit, but reveals whether the employee-to-be has any female weaknesses which would make her mentally or physically unfit for the job. Transit companies that follow this practice report a surprising number of women turned down for nervous disorders.

5. Stress at the outset, the importance of time; the fact that a minute or two lost here and there makes serious inroads on schedules. Until this point is gotten across, service is likely to be slowed up.
6. Give the female employee a definite day-long schedule of duties so that they will keep busy without bothering the management for instructions every few minutes. Numerous companies say that women make excellent workers when they have their jobs cut out for them, but that they lack initiative in finding work themselves.
7. Whenever possible, let the inside employee change from one job to another at some time during the day. Women are inclined to be less nervous and happier with change.
8. Give every girl an adequate number of rest periods during the day. You have to make some allowances for feminine psychology. A girl has more confidence and is more efficient if she can keep her hair tidied, apply fresh lipstick and wash her hands several times a day.
9. Be tactful when issuing instructions or in making criticisms. Women are often sensitive; they cannot shrug off harsh words the way men do. Never ridicule a woman - it breaks her spirit and cuts off her efficiency.
10. Be reasonably considerate about using strong language around women. Even though a girl's husband or father may swear vociferously, she will grow to dislike a place of business where she hears too much of this.
11. Get enough size variety in operator's uniforms so that each girl can have a proper fit. This point cannot be stressed too much in keeping women happy.

Yes, that was from 1943...sixty-five years ago. But here's a fascinating factoid which should underline how recently (and how quickly) things have changed as regards women in the American workforce: in 1963, at the local research headquarters of what is now the world's second largest oil company, a six-story, three-wing office/laboratory building was constructed. At the time, although it was the largest building on the premises, it had no Women's restrooms! That's right! There were six Men's rooms...one on each floor! Hard to believe, perhaps, but quite true! There were no women in the petrochemical workforce and no architect foresaw that there ever would be! Within ten years of this building's completion, the company did convert three of the Men's rooms to Women's rooms so now there's a Women's room on every other floor of this edifice. All the Women's rooms (intended for  employees) were also fitted with a 'lounge area'...once considered a standard 'accessory', but now the subject of discussions about 'reverse discrimination' as in: 'how come the Men's rooms don't get a 'lounge'?

Saturday, May 10th, 2008

Time for some quickie movie reviews...

No Country For Old Men: this is a flick that you are required to see if for no other reason than that it's received so much attention and because it won Best Picture in the latest Academy Award presentations. It's very violent but skillfully produced, directed and acted. The pacing is superb! However, in the end, I found it to be unsatisfying or, to once again lean on Orson Welles: 'Whether or not you have a happy ending depends upon where you stop your story.'

There Will Be Blood: a strong, original (type of) movie but a bit of a tooth grinder with a rich helping of violence. From the title, one is not expecting things to end happily...and they don't. But the lead actor, Daniel Day Lewis, is in command from start to finish. He richly deserves his Academy Award for Best Lead Actor. 

Atonement: for me, this one falls into the category of "how come it was so well-received?" Blessed by the presence of two good-looking leads (Keira Knightley and James McAvoy), the film starts off strong. But about thirty-five minutes along, the director decided it was no longer necessary to keep his audience apprised of any plot developments. Perhaps that's because there is no plot! Well...maybe that's unfair. There is the beginning of a plot: upper class, nubile young lady falls in love and has frenzied sex with a lad from the servant class. Said lad (through a convolution of random circumstances) is wrongly accused, arrested, convicted and imprisoned for the rape of a minor. That's it! Not only does the film thereafter lose its chronological threads (and not to any creative effect as in, say, Memento), but at times the dialogue is so poorly recorded (and in such clipped British accents) as to be nearly unintelligible. Mercifully, by about ninety minutes in, the viewer will have ceased to care about whatever is being discussed. This dreary, sappy creation languishes for two hours and ten minutes and, in the end, cops out with the help of Vanessa Redgrave, who tells us that most of it never happened! Oh God!

American Gangster: like Atonement, this movie was well-received...but not by me. I'm a big Russell Crowe fan and this is the only film I can recall that was not wonderful simply because he was in it. And it's not that he does a bad job in the character of Richie Roberts, a 'rare honest cop'. It's just that the based-on-actual-events story is so violent and so depressing that one wonders how even its creators lived through making it. Denzel Washington plays Frank Lucas, a real-life African American mob boss who is, by turns, ruthless and generous. From the start, the viewer senses that, whatever hope might briefly emerge for these individuals (living with urban blight, rural squalor, physical pain or cultural deprivation), it will never be realized. Doom pervades the landscape. I was hoping that the film might explore the hypocrisy and harm of our drug laws, but there is nary a hint of such reflection. The director was too busy slaughtering his cast to look up and around. No one (not even Richie Roberts) emerges a hero. I don't watch movies to be brought down. I wanna be inspired, informed, amused or titillated and this movie doesn't do any of those things. It's three hours of misery that should never have been released. 

Dan In Real Life: the nicest thing I can say about this lightweight venture is that it's not depressing. It's also not compelling. There's a lot of 'filler'. But Steve Carell has sweet comic timing and it's hard not to warm to him. There are some laughs, which mostly involve Steve's deadpan interactions (as a widowed single dad) with his three daughters. This is a 'safe' (PG-13) movie. You won't be embarrassed to watch it with your ten year-old son or with your hard-of-hearing ninety-year-old mom. Now, it would have been nice if someone had bothered to write a story to go along with all the action but...what the hey! The only item that elevates this movie over other general-fare forgettables is the presence of Juliette Binoche. She is delightful! 

51 Birch Street: OK...this movie is unusual. It's a ninety-minute documentary that fifty year-old Doug Block made about his family in a New York suburb. Specifically, it's about his mom and his dad and their long marriage. Turns out his mom (who died before the film was conceived) had kept a diary for the last thirty years of her life. The way the film begins, the viewer is led to expect that murder, kidnapping or incest (or some dastardly deed) will be revealed. Nah. Doug had a good idea for a project but his subjects are simply not very interesting people! In fact, they're grotesquely ordinary people and, although it's quite mean for me to say, they're also not very good-looking people (a circumstance that doesn't enrich any movie). Perhaps it's the lack of makeup...or the unflattering close-ups? (See, I'm trying to be kind.) Doug himself, though especially unfortunate looking, is downright gorgeous next to his oldest sister. The movie runs out of gas long before the credits roll. There's lots of  'ya know' followed by pregnant pauses and 'are you happy?' The film does sport an agreeable sound track and there are some tasteful cinematic 'tricks'. What's lacking is anything of interest.  

Friday, May 9th, 2008

Thursday, May 8th, 2008    

Helen Thomas will be eighty-eight years old in August.                        Dana Perino will be thirty-six years old tomorrow.

Helen Thomas: Yesterday, according to The New York Times, we dropped a bomb on a home in Sadr City and burned alive a pregnant woman and her children. How long is the siege of Sadr -- how long are we going to keep bombing Iraqis?
Dana Perino: Well, I'm not aware of that particular report. I have not -- I've not seen it.
Helen Thomas: Well, it was pretty buried in the story.
Dana Perino: Okay. Well, the operation against the militias in Sadr City will continue until they root them out. And that is expressly in order to protect people like you just mentioned.

Helen Thomas: Root who out, Iraqis, in their own country?
Dana Perino: It is Prime Minister Maliki's government which is going after the militia, which is appropriate.
Helen Thomas: Why are we bombing these people?
Dana Perino: Any time anyone that is an innocent civilian is hurt in a conflict, we obviously regret it, and we go out of our way to make sure it doesn't happen.
Helen Thomas: Thank you.

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

It is always more difficult to fight against faith than against knowledge.
Adolf Hitler

It is seldom possible to reason someone out of a point of view that he did not reason himself in to.
 JKS

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008                             Success has a thousand fathers but failure is an orphan.

"And a year from now, I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush. There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been liberated and they understand that they've been liberated. And it is getting easier every day for Iraqis to express that sense of liberation." 9/22/2003

"He (President Bush) came ill-equipped for the job and has failed to master it."  5/14/2007

Richard Perle, Chairman of The Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee during Bush's first term.
Rat from a sinking ship.

Monday, May 5th, 2008

"I tell people that, first of all, it's been a huge honor to serve the country, and I'm really glad I did. What's probably counterintuitive to you is that this has been a great experience for our family. I've lived in the White House now for seven and a half years, and the furniture is interesting -- but it's like a museum. You know, obviously, there's some good days and some bad days. I feel so strongly about my principles and my values and I'm an optimistic guy; that what may appear to be really difficult to deal with -- like my buddies from Midland, Texas -- that for me it's just part of the job. Interestingly enough, it is a lot harder to have been the son of the President than to be the President. And so it's been a joyous experience. You know, one of the great, really fun things we do is we welcome our pals from West Texas to the White House, and they come to the Oval Office, they're walking around; they say, 'man, I can't believe I'm here!' And then they take a look at me. So the first thing is I'm heading home. I came from Texas with a set of values, and I'm going to go home with the same set of values. In order to be making consistent decisions in this complex world, you can't be shifting your principles in order to be the popular guy. I guess I'll go home and mow the lawn." 
Excerpted from a borderline-coherent address delivered last Friday to the employees of World Wide Technology Inc., of Maryland Heights, Missouri.

 "Watching Bush speak, you realize he's a really dumb person who thinks everyone in the room is even dumber than he is!"
Duncan Black

Sunday, May 4th, 2008

"What goes up must come down." 

Asceticism is the philosophy (or the practice) of self-denial. It derives from the Greek word 'askesis' which refers to 'exercise' or 'bodily training'...particularly 'athletic training'. 
In our modern-day, asceticism has acquired a pejorative connotation. It is associated with self-flagellation, fasting and the denial of bodily pleasures. Saint Augustine (354-430) said that it was only after a great deal of 'work' on himself that he was 'finally able to eat without pleasure'. But Augustine was a complicated man who also asked the Lord to 'give him chastity...but not yet! '
Strands of asceticism are a part of every religious doctrine. The rationale is simple: man is drawn to physical pleasure...but all such pleasures are fleeting. All are distractions from the 'pure' life of the spirit and many are dangerous. One can never find lasting happiness in the pursuit of physical pleasure. There will always be 'a price to pay'. For some pleasures, that price is obvious. A drug taken to 'deal' with one problem (even if that 'problem' is mere boredom) can often becomes a new problem all its own! There's always a letdown and usually even a reversal, where what once was a source of pleasure becomes a source of pain. The alternative to the pursuit of physical pleasure is, of course, a life of 'sameness'. For many, that sameness is intolerable and, therefore, the ups and downs of a life in pursuit of pleasure are preferable!  
Self-denial as a tool for spiritual growth and enlightenment has long been taken past the 'simple' avoidance of sex, food, drink, drugs and rock 'n roll. In the Catholic Church, for example, Priests, Nuns and Brothers are forbidden to marry. That is,  family life is denied to them. The most extreme abstentions are practiced by cloistered orders of monks and nuns in monasteries and convents where even peer-to-peer bonding (AKA friendship) is denied! For many people, this simply seems perverse as, for many people, the very concept of spiritual growth and development is chimerical. 

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