"It's not going to do any good to land on Mars if we're stupid. "- Ray Bradbury
When I was a kid, I was a voracious reader of science fiction. So much so I read nearly every sci-fi book on the shelves of the local library.
While I was fascinated by these flights of fantasy, it wasn't until a neighbor invited me over one night to view the rings of Saturn through his telescope that I developed an appetite for all things astronomic. I was beyond enthralled.
Nowadays, of course, an adult who invited a young boy over at night to stargaze would be run out of town as a suspected pedophile. But, thankfully, it was a simpler time.
I quickly joined some interplanetary travel society where I eagerly signed up for a future trip. Venus was my destination of choice because it seemed shrouded in mystery.
Of course, as I learned a little bit more about our solar system, I discovered that the planet named after the Goddess of Love was anything but enticing. Surface temperatures average about 842 degrees, higher than the melting point of lead. The atmosphere is primarily carbon dioxide and the clouds that cloak the planet are composed of sulfuric acid and sulfur dioxide vapor.
Think Bakersfield in August.
It all seems a bit silly now, this notion that someone could sign up for a journey into the solar system simply because they fantasized about space travel.
Or so I thought.
Then came the recent news that 78,000 people have signed up to form a human colony on Mars, responding to a Dutch nonprofit organization called Mars One, which wants to have boots on the desolate ground by 2022.
I wonder how many of these volunteers read the fine print: Due to the physiological changes in the human body due to low gravity, there will be no coming back. It's the ultimate one-way ticket.
Yet the company is expecting 500,000 applicants by the time applications close on Aug. 31. "This is turning out to be the most desired job in history," says Bas Lansdorp, co-founder of Mars One.
It also may turn out to be the worst job in history. And maybe the worst idea.
For one thing, the Mars One gang will need billions of dollars and as-yet undeveloped technology just to land on the planet.
They've got the money part all figured out. The project will be financed through a global reality-TV media event that would begin with the astronaut selection process (with some public participation) and continue on through the first years of living on the Red Planet. Call it "Martian Idol. "
They figure the cost at about $6 billion. By comparison, a NASA mission to Mars formulated in 2009 had a projected cost of $100 billion and 18 years of planning. Of course, those warm-hearted NASA folks planned to return the astronauts alive to Earth. Not very cost effective.
Mars One officials say they will supplement their budget with donations. So far, a generous public has coughed up $84,121.
According to their schedule, the first crew of four astronauts would arrive on Mars in 2023, after a seven-month journey from Earth. Further teams would join their settlement every two years, with the intention that by 2033 there would be over 20 people living and working on Mars.
What would life on Mars be like?
In a word, brutal. The atmosphere is essentially equivalent to a vacuum on Earth. Temperatures on Mars roughly approximate those of Antarctica.
Mars has dust storms that can cover much of the planet and quite commonly last for months. Additionally, Mars has no global magnetic field. Combined with a thin atmosphere, this permits a significant amount of ionizing radiation to reach the Martian surface.
Are we having fun yet?
Then, of course, there is the whole deal about second thoughts. There are none. You'll live the rest of you life on a patch of ground that makes the Mojave Desert look like Yosemite.
At best, you'll be on the cutting edge of space exploration. At worst, you'll be a tragic footnote to a half-baked experiment.
The Mars One plan, as Ray Bradbury feared, is stupid. It is an ill-conceived, underfunded fantasy cooked up by a bunch of would-be Captain Kirks. It is even more astounding that there are tens of thousands of people on this planet who would follow these Pied Pipers into the vacuum of space.
But Mr. Bradbury can rest in peace because this is one launch that will never get off the ground.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Sunday, May 12, 2013
The Rocky Road to Equality
When professional basketball player Jason Collins announced recently that he is gay, it seemed the whole world took notice.
And with some justification. He is, after all, the first active athlete from one of the four major North American professional sports to publicly and proudly do so.
Collins' decision drew praise from President and Mrs. Obama, former President Bill Clinton, NBA Commissioner David Stern, Lakers star Kobe Bryant and numerous other athletes from basketball, football, hockey and baseball.
It was more celebratory than confessional, seen by some as a game changer in professional sports which has long been considered a bastion of testosterone-fueled homophobia.
We may not be living in the Age of Aquarius but are we entering the Age of Acceptance? Will professional sports lead us on the path to greater understanding?
Maybe. But right now, significant roadblocks remain on that path.
Consider: While everyone was focused on Collins, there were a couple of other notable sports stories taking place.
Punter Chris Kluwe of the Minnesota Vikings and linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo of the Baltimore Ravens were released from their professional football teams.
Both had enjoyed long and successful careers, And both were outspoken advocates for gay rights, specifically marriage equality.
Both filed amicus briefs when the Supreme Court took up the case of Hollingsworth v. Perry, which challenges the California law against gay marriage as defined in Proposition 8.
"When we advance the idea that some people should be treated differently because of who they are," they wrote, "demeaned in public as lesser beings, not worthy of the same rights and benefits as others despite their actions as good citizens and neighbors, then we deny them equal protection under the laws. America has walked this path before, and courageous people and the Court brought us to the right result. We urge the Court to repeat those actions here. "
Strong words spoken by strong men which carried additional weight because neither are gay. And notable, too, because it's not the kind of talk you generally hear coming from a football locker room.
But as refreshing and insightful as it may be, you can bet it didn't represent the current thinking in the NFL.
Let's face it, the league is hardly a bastion of forward thinking. Most of the billionaire owners don't tolerate anyone to the left of Rush Limbaugh and make generous contributions to conservative causes. Marriage equality ain't one of them.
After all, this is a league that asked a college player at a scouting combine this year if he liked girls.
This is a league that heard one of its players say prior to this year's Super Bowl, " " Ain't got no gay people on the team. They gotta get up outta here if they do. Can't be with that sweet stuff. "
This is a league that embraces equality but has yet to condemn intolerance.
But most of all, this is a league that hates controversy. And the best way to deal with boat rockers is to sink the boat.
So goodbye to Brendon. Ciao, Chris. And while were at it, so long to Tim Tebow, an evangelical Christian quarterback who won't be marching in any gay pride parades any time soon but whose religious beliefs have become an issue. Or a "distraction" as coaches like to say.
We'll never know for sure if the dumping of a couple of outspoken jocks was a result of their views or if they had simply outlived their usefulness as football players.
But it is a more than suspicious turn of events. And it sent a clear message: get arrested, fail a drug test but keep your beliefs, whatever they may be, to yourself.
What an irony it is that the NFL whose rosters are nearly 60 percent minority, an organization that historically has advanced the cause of racial equality, should now lose its voice.
Maybe the NFL, the NBA and Major League Baseball would be wise to follow the lead of the National Hockey League, which announced its support of gay rights and its intent to fight homophobia.
That stance led to this scene, as reported in the Canadian media: At a hockey game between a pair of bitter rivals, the Ottawa Senators and the Toronto Maple Leafs, two gay women stood on the ice before the game. Christina, a Senators fan, asked Alicia, a Maple Leafs fan, to marry her in front of a packed arena in Ottawa. The Ottawa Senators mascot then held up a sign that said, "She said yes. "
The place erupted in cheers.
And with some justification. He is, after all, the first active athlete from one of the four major North American professional sports to publicly and proudly do so.
Collins' decision drew praise from President and Mrs. Obama, former President Bill Clinton, NBA Commissioner David Stern, Lakers star Kobe Bryant and numerous other athletes from basketball, football, hockey and baseball.
It was more celebratory than confessional, seen by some as a game changer in professional sports which has long been considered a bastion of testosterone-fueled homophobia.
We may not be living in the Age of Aquarius but are we entering the Age of Acceptance? Will professional sports lead us on the path to greater understanding?
Maybe. But right now, significant roadblocks remain on that path.
Consider: While everyone was focused on Collins, there were a couple of other notable sports stories taking place.
Punter Chris Kluwe of the Minnesota Vikings and linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo of the Baltimore Ravens were released from their professional football teams.
Both had enjoyed long and successful careers, And both were outspoken advocates for gay rights, specifically marriage equality.
Both filed amicus briefs when the Supreme Court took up the case of Hollingsworth v. Perry, which challenges the California law against gay marriage as defined in Proposition 8.
"When we advance the idea that some people should be treated differently because of who they are," they wrote, "demeaned in public as lesser beings, not worthy of the same rights and benefits as others despite their actions as good citizens and neighbors, then we deny them equal protection under the laws. America has walked this path before, and courageous people and the Court brought us to the right result. We urge the Court to repeat those actions here. "
Strong words spoken by strong men which carried additional weight because neither are gay. And notable, too, because it's not the kind of talk you generally hear coming from a football locker room.
But as refreshing and insightful as it may be, you can bet it didn't represent the current thinking in the NFL.
Let's face it, the league is hardly a bastion of forward thinking. Most of the billionaire owners don't tolerate anyone to the left of Rush Limbaugh and make generous contributions to conservative causes. Marriage equality ain't one of them.
After all, this is a league that asked a college player at a scouting combine this year if he liked girls.
This is a league that heard one of its players say prior to this year's Super Bowl, " " Ain't got no gay people on the team. They gotta get up outta here if they do. Can't be with that sweet stuff. "
This is a league that embraces equality but has yet to condemn intolerance.
But most of all, this is a league that hates controversy. And the best way to deal with boat rockers is to sink the boat.
So goodbye to Brendon. Ciao, Chris. And while were at it, so long to Tim Tebow, an evangelical Christian quarterback who won't be marching in any gay pride parades any time soon but whose religious beliefs have become an issue. Or a "distraction" as coaches like to say.
We'll never know for sure if the dumping of a couple of outspoken jocks was a result of their views or if they had simply outlived their usefulness as football players.
But it is a more than suspicious turn of events. And it sent a clear message: get arrested, fail a drug test but keep your beliefs, whatever they may be, to yourself.
What an irony it is that the NFL whose rosters are nearly 60 percent minority, an organization that historically has advanced the cause of racial equality, should now lose its voice.
Maybe the NFL, the NBA and Major League Baseball would be wise to follow the lead of the National Hockey League, which announced its support of gay rights and its intent to fight homophobia.
That stance led to this scene, as reported in the Canadian media: At a hockey game between a pair of bitter rivals, the Ottawa Senators and the Toronto Maple Leafs, two gay women stood on the ice before the game. Christina, a Senators fan, asked Alicia, a Maple Leafs fan, to marry her in front of a packed arena in Ottawa. The Ottawa Senators mascot then held up a sign that said, "She said yes. "
The place erupted in cheers.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
On the Bottom LookingUp
Three guys get killed in a boat accident and they go before St. Peter. The first man says he was a surgeon. "How much did you make a year?" Peter asks. The man replies, "I made $375,000." "Enter," says Peter, who now turns to the second man with the same question. "I made $153,000 - I was an architect." "Interesting," says Peter, "enter." Now he turns to the last man. "How much did you make per year?" The man responds, "I made $16,500." Peter turns to him and says, "$16,500, eh? What paper did you work for?" - A fable based on fact
My first job in journalism paid $45 a week. I was a wire room attendant at a San Francisco newspaper and it was my job to keep a dozen clattering teletype machines running smoothly.
That entailed changing the paper rolls on the fly, clipping myriad stories and distributing them to the correct desk and listening to the tell-tale bells that would indicate a news bulletin. And, oh yeah, the hours were to 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.
I lived in a dump with a couple of other guys and we scrimped and saved to make sure we had enough beer money, even if it meant living on Corn Flakes.
When I moved up a notch to be a real life news hound, I got to spend my time at mind-numbing city council meetings or, as I did at one paper, interview the loved ones of soldiers killed in Vietnam.
Things slowly got better as my career progressed. I finally earned enough to buy a house, send the kids to college and keep my wife reasonably well dressed. But if wealth is what I sought, I was in the wrong profession.
We ink-stained wretches justify this by claiming we are motivated by compassion and concern, not cash, although each and every one of us would prefer our paycheck to match our passion. After all, even a seeker after truth has got to eat.
Then there is the fact that nobody likes us very much. While there are two sides to every story, most newsmakers want us to print only their views or at the very least disparage the other side. As a result, we are roundly criticized by liberals and conservatives, Arabs and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Bruins and Trojans, you name it.
To sum it up: If you're seeking love or money, apply elsewhere.
Sound like a lousy job? I never thought so but apparently I was mistaken.
According to the website CareerCast.com, a newspaper reporter is considered the worst job of 2013. The website ranked the top 200 best and worst jobs in the United States, taking into consideration factors including physical demands, work environment, income, stress and hiring outlook.
Reporters were on the bottom of the heap looking up at lumberjacks, soldiers, actors, oil rig workers, dairy farmers, meter readers, roofers and flight attendants, all of which were found to be in preferable professions.
Based on this, I would have been better off chopping down trees or compiling someone's gas bill. But with all due respect to these fine professions, I never had the urge to live in the woods with a bunch of guys in Pendleton shirts while sleeping with my axe. Meter reading may require math, so that's out.
I did the soldier bit. It required complete allegiance to authority and a willingness to die. Cows? I prefer the final product, two scoops of vanilla topped with hot fudge sauce.
But let's get serious. What is missing in this equation is fulfillment. How else can you explain that in the CareerCast survey a podiatrist is listed ahead of a psychiatrist, a skin care specialist is ranked ahead of a surgeon, a bricklayer beats out a judge, a sewage plant operator tops a principal.
Milking a cow or patching a roof may hold untold intellectual pleasures. But I'm not sure it matches the satisfaction of exposing corruption in government, advocating for the downtrodden or exposing rip-offs, cons and frauds.
I suspect the reporting profession was thrown under the bus because the newspaper business is considered a buggy whip industry.
To some extent that's true. Total employment in newspaper publishing has dropped by more than 40 percent in the last decade . In 2001, the industry employed 414,000 people, but that number fell to 246,020 people by 2011.
But last year, revenues declined just 2 percent, according to the Newspaper Association of America. That may not be a reason to pop the champagne corks, but it suggests that the hemorrhaging has slowed and there's life in the old girl yet.
Which is good news for reporters who were thinking of making a career move to an oil rig.
My first job in journalism paid $45 a week. I was a wire room attendant at a San Francisco newspaper and it was my job to keep a dozen clattering teletype machines running smoothly.
That entailed changing the paper rolls on the fly, clipping myriad stories and distributing them to the correct desk and listening to the tell-tale bells that would indicate a news bulletin. And, oh yeah, the hours were to 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.
I lived in a dump with a couple of other guys and we scrimped and saved to make sure we had enough beer money, even if it meant living on Corn Flakes.
When I moved up a notch to be a real life news hound, I got to spend my time at mind-numbing city council meetings or, as I did at one paper, interview the loved ones of soldiers killed in Vietnam.
Things slowly got better as my career progressed. I finally earned enough to buy a house, send the kids to college and keep my wife reasonably well dressed. But if wealth is what I sought, I was in the wrong profession.
We ink-stained wretches justify this by claiming we are motivated by compassion and concern, not cash, although each and every one of us would prefer our paycheck to match our passion. After all, even a seeker after truth has got to eat.
Then there is the fact that nobody likes us very much. While there are two sides to every story, most newsmakers want us to print only their views or at the very least disparage the other side. As a result, we are roundly criticized by liberals and conservatives, Arabs and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Bruins and Trojans, you name it.
To sum it up: If you're seeking love or money, apply elsewhere.
Sound like a lousy job? I never thought so but apparently I was mistaken.
According to the website CareerCast.com, a newspaper reporter is considered the worst job of 2013. The website ranked the top 200 best and worst jobs in the United States, taking into consideration factors including physical demands, work environment, income, stress and hiring outlook.
Reporters were on the bottom of the heap looking up at lumberjacks, soldiers, actors, oil rig workers, dairy farmers, meter readers, roofers and flight attendants, all of which were found to be in preferable professions.
Based on this, I would have been better off chopping down trees or compiling someone's gas bill. But with all due respect to these fine professions, I never had the urge to live in the woods with a bunch of guys in Pendleton shirts while sleeping with my axe. Meter reading may require math, so that's out.
I did the soldier bit. It required complete allegiance to authority and a willingness to die. Cows? I prefer the final product, two scoops of vanilla topped with hot fudge sauce.
But let's get serious. What is missing in this equation is fulfillment. How else can you explain that in the CareerCast survey a podiatrist is listed ahead of a psychiatrist, a skin care specialist is ranked ahead of a surgeon, a bricklayer beats out a judge, a sewage plant operator tops a principal.
Milking a cow or patching a roof may hold untold intellectual pleasures. But I'm not sure it matches the satisfaction of exposing corruption in government, advocating for the downtrodden or exposing rip-offs, cons and frauds.
I suspect the reporting profession was thrown under the bus because the newspaper business is considered a buggy whip industry.
To some extent that's true. Total employment in newspaper publishing has dropped by more than 40 percent in the last decade . In 2001, the industry employed 414,000 people, but that number fell to 246,020 people by 2011.
But last year, revenues declined just 2 percent, according to the Newspaper Association of America. That may not be a reason to pop the champagne corks, but it suggests that the hemorrhaging has slowed and there's life in the old girl yet.
Which is good news for reporters who were thinking of making a career move to an oil rig.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Isolation Is Not the Answer
When I was a kid growing up in a Los Angeles suburb, I rode my bike everywhere. To school. Downtown to go to the movies. To music lessons. To parks. To the homes of friends who lived to the north, south, east and west of me.
It wasn't an act of daring. Most of my friends did the same thing.
It was a time when we could explore and learn about our little corner of the world without restrictions, without fear. If my parents told me to be careful, they meant crossing the street.
There was a cool little hobby shop about a mile away where I spent my allowance on model airplane and car kits. The local community college nearby had a couple of World War II fighters out back, part of an aviation repair curriculum. If you had the fortitude to scale a 12-foot fence, you could climb into the cockpits and shoot down imaginary bad guys.
You could make your way to the local drug story that had a newsstand full of comic books and a soda fountain that served cherry Cokes.
All in a day's travels by bike.
Muggers, pedophiles, felons, scam artists, domestic abusers, terrorists were never part of the conversation. They undoubtedly lurked in the shadows somewhere but they remained out of sight and out of mind.
My greatest fears were bloodthirsty space aliens in flying saucers and ballroom dance classes with the opposite sex.
I thought about all this when the news of the bombings at the Boston Marathon filled our TV screens on Monday.
There is no out of sight, out of mind anymore. Each time there is an act of cowardice, of madness, it blankets us like a bank of fog so thick that we can't see anything else for days.
Worse, it's the children who are hurt the most, sometimes without suffering so much as a scratch.
It is unlikely that any child living now or as yet unborn will experience the sheer exhilaration of exploring the world on his or her own terms as we did many generations ago. Few kids ride their bikes or even walk to school anymore. Drive by any school these days and the streets are choked with the vehicles of moms and dads who ferry their kids everywhere.
Paranoia about crime and terrorism has created a world in which we are restricted and regimented.
We keep our children close by lest they be exposed too soon to a world of mistrust, cynicism and violence.
Perhaps there is some justification for that. As Cormac McCarthy once wrote, "it was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all."
So now our kids interact with their fellow human beings and travel the world via a chair in front of a computer screen. They go places we could have never visited on a bike but they never breath the air, smell the roses. And what is lost? Human contact. Face-to-face interaction. An appreciation of cultures other than our own. All pieces of a puzzle that, when assembled, lead to greater understanding.
As a result, we run the danger of confusing isolation with safety.
We need to make sure that our children learn that the world is mostly a warm and wonderful place and that terrorism or mass killings or war may occupy the TV news cycle but don't exist around every corner. After all, the chances of being killed by a terrorist is about 1 in 10 million.
They need to know that the people of Boston, confronted by a disaster, reaffirmed our faith in humanity by reacting with heroism and compassion.
They need to know, as Patton Oswalt observed, "We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago. "
They need to know that those responsible for the attacks in Boston are not winning converts to whatever twisted cause they may embrace by killing an 8-year-old boy and maiming his family members.
Most importantly, our kids need to get out from behind their computer screens and out into the sunshine, to embark on voyages of discovery led by parents who remember the way.
The world is too small a place and the stakes are too high for us to raise a generation of isolationists.
It wasn't an act of daring. Most of my friends did the same thing.
It was a time when we could explore and learn about our little corner of the world without restrictions, without fear. If my parents told me to be careful, they meant crossing the street.
There was a cool little hobby shop about a mile away where I spent my allowance on model airplane and car kits. The local community college nearby had a couple of World War II fighters out back, part of an aviation repair curriculum. If you had the fortitude to scale a 12-foot fence, you could climb into the cockpits and shoot down imaginary bad guys.
You could make your way to the local drug story that had a newsstand full of comic books and a soda fountain that served cherry Cokes.
All in a day's travels by bike.
Muggers, pedophiles, felons, scam artists, domestic abusers, terrorists were never part of the conversation. They undoubtedly lurked in the shadows somewhere but they remained out of sight and out of mind.
My greatest fears were bloodthirsty space aliens in flying saucers and ballroom dance classes with the opposite sex.
I thought about all this when the news of the bombings at the Boston Marathon filled our TV screens on Monday.
There is no out of sight, out of mind anymore. Each time there is an act of cowardice, of madness, it blankets us like a bank of fog so thick that we can't see anything else for days.
Worse, it's the children who are hurt the most, sometimes without suffering so much as a scratch.
It is unlikely that any child living now or as yet unborn will experience the sheer exhilaration of exploring the world on his or her own terms as we did many generations ago. Few kids ride their bikes or even walk to school anymore. Drive by any school these days and the streets are choked with the vehicles of moms and dads who ferry their kids everywhere.
Paranoia about crime and terrorism has created a world in which we are restricted and regimented.
We keep our children close by lest they be exposed too soon to a world of mistrust, cynicism and violence.
Perhaps there is some justification for that. As Cormac McCarthy once wrote, "it was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all."
So now our kids interact with their fellow human beings and travel the world via a chair in front of a computer screen. They go places we could have never visited on a bike but they never breath the air, smell the roses. And what is lost? Human contact. Face-to-face interaction. An appreciation of cultures other than our own. All pieces of a puzzle that, when assembled, lead to greater understanding.
As a result, we run the danger of confusing isolation with safety.
We need to make sure that our children learn that the world is mostly a warm and wonderful place and that terrorism or mass killings or war may occupy the TV news cycle but don't exist around every corner. After all, the chances of being killed by a terrorist is about 1 in 10 million.
They need to know that the people of Boston, confronted by a disaster, reaffirmed our faith in humanity by reacting with heroism and compassion.
They need to know, as Patton Oswalt observed, "We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago. "
They need to know that those responsible for the attacks in Boston are not winning converts to whatever twisted cause they may embrace by killing an 8-year-old boy and maiming his family members.
Most importantly, our kids need to get out from behind their computer screens and out into the sunshine, to embark on voyages of discovery led by parents who remember the way.
The world is too small a place and the stakes are too high for us to raise a generation of isolationists.
Sunday, April 07, 2013
Taking a Stab at Airport Security
As part of its ongoing efforts "to enhance security screening measures and improve the passenger experience," the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will now give expedited security checkpoint privileges to passengers willing to sing, dance, juggle or tell jokes to others waiting in line.
OK, so that's a bit of humor, courtesy of a satirical website. But for a moment, you probably thought it was legitimate. Because when it comes to the TSA, nothing seems too bizarre to be true.
These are the same folks who brought us a security pat-down which resembles an awkward romantic encounter in the back seat of a Chevy. Without the heavy breathing.
These are the same folks who produced a list of prohibited items that included such common household items as ice axes, cattle prods and blasting caps.
These are the same folks who decided military personnel are exempt from removing their footwear despite the fact that there have been terrorist acts involving members of the military.
These are the same folks who have decided that it is now OK for passengers to board carrying small knives (2.36 inches or less) or a pool cue, hockey or lacrosse stick, two golf clubs, or a souvenir baseball bat weighing up to a pound and a half.
It's a rollback of regulations that has not played well with politicians, airline employees or the traveling public.
Holding up a bottle of shampoo at a recent hearing, New York Sen.Chuck Schumer said, "I hear outcries from passengers about this ... but almost no one has called my office and said, 'Why can't I bring a sharp knife on an airplane?'"
"While we agree that a passenger wielding a small knife or swinging a golf club... poses less of a threat to the pilot locked in the cockpit, these are real threats to passengers and flight attendants in the passenger cabin," Stacy K. Martin, president of Southwest Airlines' flight attendants union, told the Los Angeles Times.
A spokesman for the Allied Pilots Assn., the union that represents pilots from American Airlines, said the announcement caught him by surprise. "It represents a significant step backward in security," said Gregg Overm.
That goes without saying. Someone has failed to remember that the most shocking thing abut 9/11 is how a handful of terrorists armed with simple box cutters - not automatic weapons, not grenades, not swords- killed nearly 3,000 people and changed the geo-political climate throughout the world forever more.
Now, the TSA is changing policy because it would allow airport screeners to focus on "catastrophic" threats to an entire aircraft, including explosives or detonators.
Does that mean agents aren't focusing on such threats now? Or is the act of confiscating knives somehow diminishing the effectiveness of that task?
What will happen when agents are forced to use their time measuring the lengths of knives or the weights of baseball bats?
And if you want to consider a catastrophic scenario, what if a group of terrorists armed with knives started slicing the throats of passengers one by one until the pilots agreed to their demands? Far fetched? So was 9/11.
Locked cockpits might save the pilots but there is little to protect the passenger. If you think there are air marshals on your flight, guess again. According to some estimates, they fly on only about five percent of aircraft although the exact number is secret for obvious reasons.
On a more mundane level, if people start showing up with hockey and lacrosse sticks and golf clubs, where are they going to get stowed? Many won't fit in overhead compartments which are already stuffed to overflowing. And they aren't going to slide easily under a seat.
I can hear the announcement now: "Ladies and gentlemen, is there anyone willing to give up their seat and take a later flight so we can accommodate some lacrosse gear?"
(As an aside, if you don't think golf clubs are dangerous consider the former Mrs. Tiger Woods. She took one swing with a 9-iron and inflicted millions dollars in damage.)
Nobody expected the TSA to be a public relations triumph. Post 9/11, it was put in charge of a security program which made a normally tedious airport experience downright dreadful. The trade-off: you got to your destination in one piece.
Eventually, travelers faced with the frustration and humiliation of a TSA security screening decided that the aforementioned trade-off was worth it.
It still is. I will happily take off my shoes and belt and submit to a frisking to assure the safety of my family and fellow travelers. And I'll be happier still to leave my knife at home.
OK, so that's a bit of humor, courtesy of a satirical website. But for a moment, you probably thought it was legitimate. Because when it comes to the TSA, nothing seems too bizarre to be true.
These are the same folks who brought us a security pat-down which resembles an awkward romantic encounter in the back seat of a Chevy. Without the heavy breathing.
These are the same folks who produced a list of prohibited items that included such common household items as ice axes, cattle prods and blasting caps.
These are the same folks who decided military personnel are exempt from removing their footwear despite the fact that there have been terrorist acts involving members of the military.
These are the same folks who have decided that it is now OK for passengers to board carrying small knives (2.36 inches or less) or a pool cue, hockey or lacrosse stick, two golf clubs, or a souvenir baseball bat weighing up to a pound and a half.
It's a rollback of regulations that has not played well with politicians, airline employees or the traveling public.
Holding up a bottle of shampoo at a recent hearing, New York Sen.Chuck Schumer said, "I hear outcries from passengers about this ... but almost no one has called my office and said, 'Why can't I bring a sharp knife on an airplane?'"
"While we agree that a passenger wielding a small knife or swinging a golf club... poses less of a threat to the pilot locked in the cockpit, these are real threats to passengers and flight attendants in the passenger cabin," Stacy K. Martin, president of Southwest Airlines' flight attendants union, told the Los Angeles Times.
A spokesman for the Allied Pilots Assn., the union that represents pilots from American Airlines, said the announcement caught him by surprise. "It represents a significant step backward in security," said Gregg Overm.
That goes without saying. Someone has failed to remember that the most shocking thing abut 9/11 is how a handful of terrorists armed with simple box cutters - not automatic weapons, not grenades, not swords- killed nearly 3,000 people and changed the geo-political climate throughout the world forever more.
Now, the TSA is changing policy because it would allow airport screeners to focus on "catastrophic" threats to an entire aircraft, including explosives or detonators.
Does that mean agents aren't focusing on such threats now? Or is the act of confiscating knives somehow diminishing the effectiveness of that task?
What will happen when agents are forced to use their time measuring the lengths of knives or the weights of baseball bats?
And if you want to consider a catastrophic scenario, what if a group of terrorists armed with knives started slicing the throats of passengers one by one until the pilots agreed to their demands? Far fetched? So was 9/11.
Locked cockpits might save the pilots but there is little to protect the passenger. If you think there are air marshals on your flight, guess again. According to some estimates, they fly on only about five percent of aircraft although the exact number is secret for obvious reasons.
On a more mundane level, if people start showing up with hockey and lacrosse sticks and golf clubs, where are they going to get stowed? Many won't fit in overhead compartments which are already stuffed to overflowing. And they aren't going to slide easily under a seat.
I can hear the announcement now: "Ladies and gentlemen, is there anyone willing to give up their seat and take a later flight so we can accommodate some lacrosse gear?"
(As an aside, if you don't think golf clubs are dangerous consider the former Mrs. Tiger Woods. She took one swing with a 9-iron and inflicted millions dollars in damage.)
Nobody expected the TSA to be a public relations triumph. Post 9/11, it was put in charge of a security program which made a normally tedious airport experience downright dreadful. The trade-off: you got to your destination in one piece.
Eventually, travelers faced with the frustration and humiliation of a TSA security screening decided that the aforementioned trade-off was worth it.
It still is. I will happily take off my shoes and belt and submit to a frisking to assure the safety of my family and fellow travelers. And I'll be happier still to leave my knife at home.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Brushing Up an Image
"Divine or profane, his is painting on faith: direct, observational subject matter" imbued with an otherworldly ambiguity through the botched certainty of its execution."
"The way he uses lines, shapes, and color speaks to his putting a lot of value on the object or subject of the painting... "
"He seems to have really nailed purple grapes."
Rembrandt? Renoir? Thomas Hart Benton? Andy Warhol?
Nope. This particular outpouring of artspeak was triggered by the works of a reclusive artist whose paintings burst into public view for the first time recently.
His name? George W. Bush.
Yes, that George Bush, the 43rd President of the United States who left office with somewhat of a tarnished image, as they say in the art world.
Just to refresh our memories, a poll of 238 Presidential scholars found that Bush was ranked 39th out of 43, with poor ratings in handling of the economy, communication, ability to compromise, foreign policy accomplishments and intelligence.
The American public, a forgiving lot, has given him higher approval ratings since he left office, which can be interpreted in a number of ways.
Maybe the publicity surrounding his new-found skills as an artist will enhance his stature even more, although a public display of his work was not his intent.
It seems a hacker wormed his way into a computer owned by the President's sister and revealed his portfolio for all to see. And what we see are everyday objects: cats, dogs, a golf course, a church, a watermelon, a horse, a still life. All done in a style that suggests more Grandma Moses than Claude Monet. (Google George W. Bush Paintings to see the collection.)
There are two works that stand out. One is the President, seen from the rear, naked from the waist up, in a shower with his face reflected in a shaving mirror. The other is a view of his legs and toes in a bathtub.
I guess if we had to see a President bathing we would rather see a fit George Bush than the Jabba-like William Howard Taft.
But because the bathroom series is so out of context with the rest of his work and with the man as we know him, it has sent some in the media into spasms of analysis.
New York writer Dan Amira opines that Bush's self-portraits reveal a former president doing some serious soul-searching in the (almost) twilight of his life. Amira sees Bush "staring off into the corner of the shower, as if contemplating past sins that can never be washed away, no matter how much soap you use and how hard you scrub."
"The bathroom paintings, for example, ooze guilt," writes Travis Diehl in Salon. "They're all about cleansing, la Lady Macbeth; or they're full of remorse for everything from Katrina to waterboarding. "
"Bush's recently revealed attempts at art have had the incredible effect of forcing me to see him as a human being," says Josh Indar at PopMatters. "It's not that the two self-portraits... are technically any good. In fact, they're not even in the realm of good.... But unlike anything by Thomas Kinkade, Bush's amateurish portraits show something I had no idea he was even capable of: Honesty. Introspection. Vulnerability. Doubt... "
I understand that the President of the United States, past or present, is the most visible person on the planet. And that everything he says or does undergoes microscopic scrutiny.
But give Mr. Bush a break. He is not trying to elbow his way into the National Gallery. Like many retired persons, he has a lot of time on his hands and decided to take up painting. And what he produces is intended for friends and family.
While his talent places him somewhere in between the refrigerator door and the Louvre, he's getting in touch with his inner artist. And that's not a bad thing.
Besides, with a little effort, he might be a better painter than president.
"The way he uses lines, shapes, and color speaks to his putting a lot of value on the object or subject of the painting... "
"He seems to have really nailed purple grapes."
Rembrandt? Renoir? Thomas Hart Benton? Andy Warhol?
Nope. This particular outpouring of artspeak was triggered by the works of a reclusive artist whose paintings burst into public view for the first time recently.
His name? George W. Bush.
Yes, that George Bush, the 43rd President of the United States who left office with somewhat of a tarnished image, as they say in the art world.
Just to refresh our memories, a poll of 238 Presidential scholars found that Bush was ranked 39th out of 43, with poor ratings in handling of the economy, communication, ability to compromise, foreign policy accomplishments and intelligence.
The American public, a forgiving lot, has given him higher approval ratings since he left office, which can be interpreted in a number of ways.
Maybe the publicity surrounding his new-found skills as an artist will enhance his stature even more, although a public display of his work was not his intent.
It seems a hacker wormed his way into a computer owned by the President's sister and revealed his portfolio for all to see. And what we see are everyday objects: cats, dogs, a golf course, a church, a watermelon, a horse, a still life. All done in a style that suggests more Grandma Moses than Claude Monet. (Google George W. Bush Paintings to see the collection.)
There are two works that stand out. One is the President, seen from the rear, naked from the waist up, in a shower with his face reflected in a shaving mirror. The other is a view of his legs and toes in a bathtub.
I guess if we had to see a President bathing we would rather see a fit George Bush than the Jabba-like William Howard Taft.
But because the bathroom series is so out of context with the rest of his work and with the man as we know him, it has sent some in the media into spasms of analysis.
New York writer Dan Amira opines that Bush's self-portraits reveal a former president doing some serious soul-searching in the (almost) twilight of his life. Amira sees Bush "staring off into the corner of the shower, as if contemplating past sins that can never be washed away, no matter how much soap you use and how hard you scrub."
"The bathroom paintings, for example, ooze guilt," writes Travis Diehl in Salon. "They're all about cleansing, la Lady Macbeth; or they're full of remorse for everything from Katrina to waterboarding. "
"Bush's recently revealed attempts at art have had the incredible effect of forcing me to see him as a human being," says Josh Indar at PopMatters. "It's not that the two self-portraits... are technically any good. In fact, they're not even in the realm of good.... But unlike anything by Thomas Kinkade, Bush's amateurish portraits show something I had no idea he was even capable of: Honesty. Introspection. Vulnerability. Doubt... "
I understand that the President of the United States, past or present, is the most visible person on the planet. And that everything he says or does undergoes microscopic scrutiny.
But give Mr. Bush a break. He is not trying to elbow his way into the National Gallery. Like many retired persons, he has a lot of time on his hands and decided to take up painting. And what he produces is intended for friends and family.
While his talent places him somewhere in between the refrigerator door and the Louvre, he's getting in touch with his inner artist. And that's not a bad thing.
Besides, with a little effort, he might be a better painter than president.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Of Popes, Points and Pols
Stories that are making me weary:
The Pope. The resignation of one pope and the selection of another was unquestionably big news. When Pope Benedict gave God three week’s notice, he was the first pontiff to step down in some 600 years. When Pope Francis ascended to the papacy, he was the first non-European to lead the Catholic church in 1300 years.
In between these two events, we were subjected to the silly season. A hundred thousand people gathered in St.Peter’s Square to watch the spectacle and I’m thinking 90,000 of them must have been reporters.
In a desperate search for news, they came up with such gems as “Pope Benedict XVI Will Have to Give Up Red Shoes, Shoulder Cape” and “Anxiety Befalls Vatican as Cardinals Gather.” ABC’s Diane Sawyer quizzed Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of South Africa on what he would pack before moving to the electoral dormitory.
When the smoke cleared, not much had changed. A gentleman of some considerable years was chosen, a man who like his predecessors is devoted to keeping the church squarely entrenched in the 16th century, give or take a millennium or two.
For one week, it was a great show, full of solemnity and ritual. Now it’s business as usual in the Vatican. Nothing to see here, move on.
The Lakers. To put it delicately, the team stinks. That hasn’t stopped the local press corps from churning out stories by the basketful each and every day. The Los Angeles Times sometimes will have three Laker stories on days the team doesn’t even play.
Every utterance from Kobe Bryant is treated as scripture. Every move by Dwight Howard is dissected, analyzed, then studied some more. Injuries are reported in detail that would make the Mayo Clinic proud.
One of their players is named World Peace. Which, like the team's chances, is a long shot.
Worse, reading about the Lakers is like being back in junior high school: who likes who, who doesn’t like who, the spats, the gossip.
This team isn’t going anywhere this year. And when they fail, there will be months of navel gazing. Enough already. Vin Scully and the Dodgers can’t get here soon enough.
The Republican Party. The GOP has been indulged in self-flagellation since Nov.7, 2012, the day they woke up and discovered they had been blitzed in an election they thought they had in the bag.
Since then, one Republican leader after another has decried the fact that their party tried to appeal to an electorate that no longer exists in any significant numbers, and in the process had managed to alienate blacks, Latinos, gays, women, young voters not to mention dogs and cats, birds and bees.
Now, the party has released a report, or an autopsy if you will, that essentially says the same thing. One of the authors of the study said that focus groups described the party as “narrow-minded,” “out of touch” and “stuffy old men.”
We get the point.
If the GOP doesn’t want to go the way of the Whig party, it had better stop continually talking about its failures and start addressing its future. Congressional elections are a little more than a year away.
The NFL in L.A. Welcome to another chapter of “As the Football Turns.”
Tim Leiweke has put his heart and sole into bringing NFL football to Los Angeles on behalf of his boss, Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz. His reward? Anschutz throws him under the bus and says he’ll personally take charge of getting a deal done.
The NFL’s reaction? Commissioner Roger Goodell in a statement that fairly oozes with tepid interest, says of Anschutz, “ He seems that he would like to get a stadium built in Los Angeles that would be suitable for an NFL team. We look forward to working on that.”
After 18 years of hollow promises and dead deals, the next thing I want to hear on this subject it that an agreement has been reached. If I live that long.
Lindsey Lohan: Enough said.
The Pope. The resignation of one pope and the selection of another was unquestionably big news. When Pope Benedict gave God three week’s notice, he was the first pontiff to step down in some 600 years. When Pope Francis ascended to the papacy, he was the first non-European to lead the Catholic church in 1300 years.
In between these two events, we were subjected to the silly season. A hundred thousand people gathered in St.Peter’s Square to watch the spectacle and I’m thinking 90,000 of them must have been reporters.
In a desperate search for news, they came up with such gems as “Pope Benedict XVI Will Have to Give Up Red Shoes, Shoulder Cape” and “Anxiety Befalls Vatican as Cardinals Gather.” ABC’s Diane Sawyer quizzed Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of South Africa on what he would pack before moving to the electoral dormitory.
When the smoke cleared, not much had changed. A gentleman of some considerable years was chosen, a man who like his predecessors is devoted to keeping the church squarely entrenched in the 16th century, give or take a millennium or two.
For one week, it was a great show, full of solemnity and ritual. Now it’s business as usual in the Vatican. Nothing to see here, move on.
The Lakers. To put it delicately, the team stinks. That hasn’t stopped the local press corps from churning out stories by the basketful each and every day. The Los Angeles Times sometimes will have three Laker stories on days the team doesn’t even play.
Every utterance from Kobe Bryant is treated as scripture. Every move by Dwight Howard is dissected, analyzed, then studied some more. Injuries are reported in detail that would make the Mayo Clinic proud.
One of their players is named World Peace. Which, like the team's chances, is a long shot.
Worse, reading about the Lakers is like being back in junior high school: who likes who, who doesn’t like who, the spats, the gossip.
This team isn’t going anywhere this year. And when they fail, there will be months of navel gazing. Enough already. Vin Scully and the Dodgers can’t get here soon enough.
The Republican Party. The GOP has been indulged in self-flagellation since Nov.7, 2012, the day they woke up and discovered they had been blitzed in an election they thought they had in the bag.
Since then, one Republican leader after another has decried the fact that their party tried to appeal to an electorate that no longer exists in any significant numbers, and in the process had managed to alienate blacks, Latinos, gays, women, young voters not to mention dogs and cats, birds and bees.
Now, the party has released a report, or an autopsy if you will, that essentially says the same thing. One of the authors of the study said that focus groups described the party as “narrow-minded,” “out of touch” and “stuffy old men.”
We get the point.
If the GOP doesn’t want to go the way of the Whig party, it had better stop continually talking about its failures and start addressing its future. Congressional elections are a little more than a year away.
The NFL in L.A. Welcome to another chapter of “As the Football Turns.”
Tim Leiweke has put his heart and sole into bringing NFL football to Los Angeles on behalf of his boss, Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz. His reward? Anschutz throws him under the bus and says he’ll personally take charge of getting a deal done.
The NFL’s reaction? Commissioner Roger Goodell in a statement that fairly oozes with tepid interest, says of Anschutz, “ He seems that he would like to get a stadium built in Los Angeles that would be suitable for an NFL team. We look forward to working on that.”
After 18 years of hollow promises and dead deals, the next thing I want to hear on this subject it that an agreement has been reached. If I live that long.
Lindsey Lohan: Enough said.
Saturday, March 09, 2013
Audacious Behavior
Attention, students. Today we will explore the words "audacity" and its cousin "audacious."
The first thing you need to know about these words is that they are loaded with nuances.
Audacity is heroic and inspiring. The SEAL mission that terminated Osama bin Laden was audacious. So was George Washington crossing the Delaware on a dark winter night in 1776 to attack the British in Trenton. The Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk were audacious. So was Neil Armstrong when he set foot on the moon.
Audacity can also be evil. 9/11 was audacious. So was Pearl Harbor. So was the systematic roundup and annihilation of Jews by the Nazis.
Audacity can be artistic. Picasso was audacious. So was Beethoven. And Elvis Presley. Stanley Kubrick defined the word as a film director. Marlin Brando and Katherine Hepburn did it as actors.
Audacity can also be absurd. In the words of author Jim Butcher, "There's a fine line between audacity and idiocy."
One person who crossed that line is Mark Sanford. You remember Mark. He was the former South Carolina governor who threw away his political career and his family to chase after some Argentinian hottie he called "his soul mate."
It was 2009 when Sanford disappeared from the Governor's Mansion for six days, his whereabouts unknown to his staff and family. It turns out he was in Argentina with a lady love to whom he was not wed.
He told an aide that he was "hiking the Appalachian Trail," which instantly became a sarcastic euphemism for extra-marital hanky-panky.
His wife and four sons moved out of the mansion and she shortly thereafter filed for divorce. In the midst of this, he refused to resign his gubernatorial position despite being threatened with impeachment.
Fast forward to now: Sanford, apparently feeling the tug of political life, has decided to run for Congress. He certainly has name recognition. But what he really needs is a top-rate campaign manager to smooth his return to the national stage.
So who does he turn to? His ex-wife, according to a story in New York magazine. They haven't exactly been exchanging Valentine's Day cards but she has a reputation as a shrewd political strategist who helped run his gubernatorial campaign. So Sanford, mustering all his charm, tells her, "I could pay you this time." What a silver-tongued devil.
She declined. And you can bet the word "audacious" crossed her mind.
Audacity gone wrong isn't always fatal. Consider the case of Roy Brown, who died recently at 96.
Brown was a veteran automotive designer in the 1950s who was charged with overseeing a new car the Ford people wanted to produce. His marching orders were to produce a car that could be recognized from a block away.
He did just that. In spades. Brown brought forth the Edsel, a car that was long on audacity and short on appeal. Indeed, it became one of the greatest flops in automotive history.
His chrome encrusted behemoth was, in the words of automotive industry analyst Maryann Keller "almost grotesque." She cited among the vehicle's flaws its "hundreds of pounds of unnecessary weight in bumpers."
Undeterred, Brown went on to help design the Thunderbird and a show car that inspired the Batmobile.
He expressed pride in his doomed creation and drove an Edsel until he died. When people would ask to buy it, he would reply, "Where the hell were you in 1958?"
Last but not least, audacity can be expensive.
The principality of Monaco perched on the French Riviera has become the most expensive city in the world when it comes to real estate, according to Knight Frank, a London-based real-estate firm. It reported that the average price of real-estate in Monaco was between $5,350 and $5,920 per square foot.
To put that in perspective, that means spending $1 million will get you a 200 square-foot closet - presumably without a water view.
By comparison, New York, which is nobody's bargain, prices in at $2,161 a square foot.
The question is: which is more audacious, the asking price or the people willing to pay it?
The first thing you need to know about these words is that they are loaded with nuances.
Audacity is heroic and inspiring. The SEAL mission that terminated Osama bin Laden was audacious. So was George Washington crossing the Delaware on a dark winter night in 1776 to attack the British in Trenton. The Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk were audacious. So was Neil Armstrong when he set foot on the moon.
Audacity can also be evil. 9/11 was audacious. So was Pearl Harbor. So was the systematic roundup and annihilation of Jews by the Nazis.
Audacity can be artistic. Picasso was audacious. So was Beethoven. And Elvis Presley. Stanley Kubrick defined the word as a film director. Marlin Brando and Katherine Hepburn did it as actors.
Audacity can also be absurd. In the words of author Jim Butcher, "There's a fine line between audacity and idiocy."
One person who crossed that line is Mark Sanford. You remember Mark. He was the former South Carolina governor who threw away his political career and his family to chase after some Argentinian hottie he called "his soul mate."
It was 2009 when Sanford disappeared from the Governor's Mansion for six days, his whereabouts unknown to his staff and family. It turns out he was in Argentina with a lady love to whom he was not wed.
He told an aide that he was "hiking the Appalachian Trail," which instantly became a sarcastic euphemism for extra-marital hanky-panky.
His wife and four sons moved out of the mansion and she shortly thereafter filed for divorce. In the midst of this, he refused to resign his gubernatorial position despite being threatened with impeachment.
Fast forward to now: Sanford, apparently feeling the tug of political life, has decided to run for Congress. He certainly has name recognition. But what he really needs is a top-rate campaign manager to smooth his return to the national stage.
So who does he turn to? His ex-wife, according to a story in New York magazine. They haven't exactly been exchanging Valentine's Day cards but she has a reputation as a shrewd political strategist who helped run his gubernatorial campaign. So Sanford, mustering all his charm, tells her, "I could pay you this time." What a silver-tongued devil.
She declined. And you can bet the word "audacious" crossed her mind.
Audacity gone wrong isn't always fatal. Consider the case of Roy Brown, who died recently at 96.
Brown was a veteran automotive designer in the 1950s who was charged with overseeing a new car the Ford people wanted to produce. His marching orders were to produce a car that could be recognized from a block away.
He did just that. In spades. Brown brought forth the Edsel, a car that was long on audacity and short on appeal. Indeed, it became one of the greatest flops in automotive history.
His chrome encrusted behemoth was, in the words of automotive industry analyst Maryann Keller "almost grotesque." She cited among the vehicle's flaws its "hundreds of pounds of unnecessary weight in bumpers."
Undeterred, Brown went on to help design the Thunderbird and a show car that inspired the Batmobile.
He expressed pride in his doomed creation and drove an Edsel until he died. When people would ask to buy it, he would reply, "Where the hell were you in 1958?"
Last but not least, audacity can be expensive.
The principality of Monaco perched on the French Riviera has become the most expensive city in the world when it comes to real estate, according to Knight Frank, a London-based real-estate firm. It reported that the average price of real-estate in Monaco was between $5,350 and $5,920 per square foot.
To put that in perspective, that means spending $1 million will get you a 200 square-foot closet - presumably without a water view.
By comparison, New York, which is nobody's bargain, prices in at $2,161 a square foot.
The question is: which is more audacious, the asking price or the people willing to pay it?
Sunday, March 03, 2013
Kicking the Can Off the Fiscal Cliff
Let's play a game of word association. I'll say a word and you quickly give me a one-word answer.
Me: Congress.
You: Gridlock. Partisanship. Brinkmanship. Bickering. Incompetence. Frustration. Anger. Cockroach.
Cockroach? Ah, now I remember. A poll by the firm Public Policy Polling taken at the beginning of the year found that Congress was more unpopular than cockroaches.
So good answers, all.
But if it's not bad enough that Congress has revealed itself to be nothing more than a bunch of political hooligans, its members are now cluttering up our language with a bunch of cliches that are as tiresome as those who utter them.
To underscore that point, consider the good folks at Lake Superior State University in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan who since 1976 have been compiling an annual list of words that should be banished. Their picks are almost always spot on.
Not surprisingly, this year's edition borrows heavily from the Beltway.
Leading the list is "fiscal cliff" a term that described the financial havoc that threatened to plunge us into the abyss because Congressional combatants couldn't make peace. After months of angst and finger-pointing, it was resolved when a couple of old hands, Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, decided to speak to one another. And how did they reach an accord? Well, they decided to:
"Kick the can down the road." This candidate for banishment simply means to procrastinate, a favorite pastime in Washington. Wait, that's too simple. It's more like procrastinating in the hopes someone else will deal with the problem long after you've gone. It's an old favorite practiced, as one wag posted, "by Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, Tories, Whigs, Socialists, Communists, Fashionistas " Maybe we can just kick the can off the fiscal cliff.
"Job creators": Uttered several thousand times by both candidates during the 2012 presidential election, it implied that both men had supernatural powers or a secret plan to end joblessness in this country now and forever. It was mostly misused by Mitt Romney who actually made a great deal of money by laying people off.
Double Down: A blackjack term that seems to have found a place in everyday language, especially in politics where is often used in place of "redoubling our efforts." But it carries with it the implication of risky behavior, since in cards it means doubling your bet against long odds. If that's not bad enough, KFC offers something called a Double Down sandwich, a pile of bacon and Monterey Jack cheese that uses two slabs of deep-fried chicken breasts in place of a bun. Any way you slice it, this expression is dangerous.
Not on the Lake Superior State list but a personal gripe: When did we start to speak in acronyms when referring to persons and institutions? Now we have POTUS (president of the United States), FLOTUS (first lady of the United States), SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) and even SOTUA (State of the Union Address). It sounds like a group of Greek islands.
I suspect it's a carry over from the military which will always use an acronym in place of a word if possible. Example: LPC for Leather Personnel Carrier. That's "shoes" to you.
In the non-political category, the Lake Superior list contains such favorites as "spoiler alert," "an obnoxious way to show one has trivial information and is about to use it, no matter what."
And "boneless wings," "Can we just call them chicken (pieces)?"
And "YOLO," Twitter speak for You Only Live Once which is a passport for young people to act like idiots.
I would add to that list "baby bump," a term describing recently impregnated ladies that apparently originated in England. Some thought it was so cutesy it could result in an uptick of teenage pregnancies.
Those Brits, always trying to mess with our language.
Me: Congress.
You: Gridlock. Partisanship. Brinkmanship. Bickering. Incompetence. Frustration. Anger. Cockroach.
Cockroach? Ah, now I remember. A poll by the firm Public Policy Polling taken at the beginning of the year found that Congress was more unpopular than cockroaches.
So good answers, all.
But if it's not bad enough that Congress has revealed itself to be nothing more than a bunch of political hooligans, its members are now cluttering up our language with a bunch of cliches that are as tiresome as those who utter them.
To underscore that point, consider the good folks at Lake Superior State University in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan who since 1976 have been compiling an annual list of words that should be banished. Their picks are almost always spot on.
Not surprisingly, this year's edition borrows heavily from the Beltway.
Leading the list is "fiscal cliff" a term that described the financial havoc that threatened to plunge us into the abyss because Congressional combatants couldn't make peace. After months of angst and finger-pointing, it was resolved when a couple of old hands, Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, decided to speak to one another. And how did they reach an accord? Well, they decided to:
"Kick the can down the road." This candidate for banishment simply means to procrastinate, a favorite pastime in Washington. Wait, that's too simple. It's more like procrastinating in the hopes someone else will deal with the problem long after you've gone. It's an old favorite practiced, as one wag posted, "by Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, Tories, Whigs, Socialists, Communists, Fashionistas " Maybe we can just kick the can off the fiscal cliff.
"Job creators": Uttered several thousand times by both candidates during the 2012 presidential election, it implied that both men had supernatural powers or a secret plan to end joblessness in this country now and forever. It was mostly misused by Mitt Romney who actually made a great deal of money by laying people off.
Double Down: A blackjack term that seems to have found a place in everyday language, especially in politics where is often used in place of "redoubling our efforts." But it carries with it the implication of risky behavior, since in cards it means doubling your bet against long odds. If that's not bad enough, KFC offers something called a Double Down sandwich, a pile of bacon and Monterey Jack cheese that uses two slabs of deep-fried chicken breasts in place of a bun. Any way you slice it, this expression is dangerous.
Not on the Lake Superior State list but a personal gripe: When did we start to speak in acronyms when referring to persons and institutions? Now we have POTUS (president of the United States), FLOTUS (first lady of the United States), SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) and even SOTUA (State of the Union Address). It sounds like a group of Greek islands.
I suspect it's a carry over from the military which will always use an acronym in place of a word if possible. Example: LPC for Leather Personnel Carrier. That's "shoes" to you.
In the non-political category, the Lake Superior list contains such favorites as "spoiler alert," "an obnoxious way to show one has trivial information and is about to use it, no matter what."
And "boneless wings," "Can we just call them chicken (pieces)?"
And "YOLO," Twitter speak for You Only Live Once which is a passport for young people to act like idiots.
I would add to that list "baby bump," a term describing recently impregnated ladies that apparently originated in England. Some thought it was so cutesy it could result in an uptick of teenage pregnancies.
Those Brits, always trying to mess with our language.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Oscar the Grouch
Break out the tuxedo. Slither into that designer dress. Rent a limo.
Shut down the streets. Put up the bleachers. Roll out the red carpet. Alert the media.
It’s Academy Awards time, that magical season when the move industry salutes itself for producing a handful of notable films out of the hundreds of clunkers that befoul the screen each year.
It’s when the entertainment profession, which has had a few thousand years to practice putting on a really good show, rolls out a spectacle that falls somewhat short of a high school production of “Our Town.”
It’s a time when films like “The Sound of Music” beat out “Doctor Zhivago” for best picture. Or “Forest Gump” wins over “The Shawshank Redemption.” Or movies like “The Artist” prove that cute dogs can elevate mediocrity to Oscar status.
We’re supposed to take this seriously?
So when they pass out the Oscars tonight, I’ll be curled up with a good book. Or maybe watching a basketball game.
Either option will allow me to miss the rambling, incomprehensible acceptance speeches made by winners who do their best acting by appearing surprised and humbled.
I’ll also miss an evening of air kisses and disingenuous platitudes in a ceremony that conveys all the warmth and emotion of a Walmart colonoscopy.
None of which is new, of course. Writing about the Oscars a decade ago, David Foster Wallace said, "The truth is that there's no more real joy about it all anymore. Worse, there seems to be this enormous unspoken conspiracy where we all pretend that there's still joy."
I understand this may be heresy. No matter where you live in Southern California, you are resident of the vast fantasy land that is Hollywood and duty bound to love, honor and obey “the industry.”
God knows I’ve tried. Heck, I was born in Hollywood. And I have been watching the Academy Awards since Bob Hope was the host. Come to think of it, the ratings have declined since Hope mastered the ceremonies.
I’ll cut the academy some slack. There aren’t a lot of options when you’re staging an awards show. It’s like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich: there’s pretty much only one way to make it.
On Oscar night, however, there’s more creativity gathered in one room since, to paraphrase a famous statement, Walt Disney dined alone. Why not harness that genius?
The producers let their imaginations run wild on a few occasions in the past. In 1989, they had no host at all, an experiment that led to what is perceived by many as the worst Oscar telecast of all time. If that’s not bad enough, the opening number featured a duet between non-singer Rob Lowe and an actress playing Snow White .
Donald Duck co-hosted the show in 1958. Fortunately, Hope, David Niven and Jimmy Stewart were on hand to help save the day.
Two years ago, someone got the bright idea to turn the hosting duties over to James Franco and Ann Hathaway. It wasn’t an experiment so much as it was a desperate attempt by the academy to attract younger viewers. It didn’t work. The evening had all the charm of a bouncer at a beer joint.
I’m no impresario, no producer, no creative force. But this isn’t rockets science, either.
So try this: First, cut the show to two hours. Period. Start by limiting the acceptance speeches to the top categories: actor, actress, director and best movie. Nobody wants to hear the third assistant production designer thank his accountant.
Forget the documentary short, the short film or any other category with the word “short” in it. Dump the sound editing award. Nobody understands what it is anyway.
Get rid of makeup and hairstyling. As one wag once wrote when “Driving Miss Daisy” won in this category, it was only noteworthy if “Jessica Tandy was in fact 20 years old and Morgan Freeman was actually white.”
Next, get a host who is witty but won’t spend an inordinate amount of time trying to extract laughs from an audience that didn’t come to see him or her.
Dump the dance numbers. If I want to see dance, I’ll go to the ballet.
Cut the number of best picture nominees back to five. Ten dilutes the value of a nomination. And adds to the insufferable length of the broadcast.
Do this and I might just tune in.
Shut down the streets. Put up the bleachers. Roll out the red carpet. Alert the media.
It’s Academy Awards time, that magical season when the move industry salutes itself for producing a handful of notable films out of the hundreds of clunkers that befoul the screen each year.
It’s when the entertainment profession, which has had a few thousand years to practice putting on a really good show, rolls out a spectacle that falls somewhat short of a high school production of “Our Town.”
It’s a time when films like “The Sound of Music” beat out “Doctor Zhivago” for best picture. Or “Forest Gump” wins over “The Shawshank Redemption.” Or movies like “The Artist” prove that cute dogs can elevate mediocrity to Oscar status.
We’re supposed to take this seriously?
So when they pass out the Oscars tonight, I’ll be curled up with a good book. Or maybe watching a basketball game.
Either option will allow me to miss the rambling, incomprehensible acceptance speeches made by winners who do their best acting by appearing surprised and humbled.
I’ll also miss an evening of air kisses and disingenuous platitudes in a ceremony that conveys all the warmth and emotion of a Walmart colonoscopy.
None of which is new, of course. Writing about the Oscars a decade ago, David Foster Wallace said, "The truth is that there's no more real joy about it all anymore. Worse, there seems to be this enormous unspoken conspiracy where we all pretend that there's still joy."
I understand this may be heresy. No matter where you live in Southern California, you are resident of the vast fantasy land that is Hollywood and duty bound to love, honor and obey “the industry.”
God knows I’ve tried. Heck, I was born in Hollywood. And I have been watching the Academy Awards since Bob Hope was the host. Come to think of it, the ratings have declined since Hope mastered the ceremonies.
I’ll cut the academy some slack. There aren’t a lot of options when you’re staging an awards show. It’s like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich: there’s pretty much only one way to make it.
On Oscar night, however, there’s more creativity gathered in one room since, to paraphrase a famous statement, Walt Disney dined alone. Why not harness that genius?
The producers let their imaginations run wild on a few occasions in the past. In 1989, they had no host at all, an experiment that led to what is perceived by many as the worst Oscar telecast of all time. If that’s not bad enough, the opening number featured a duet between non-singer Rob Lowe and an actress playing Snow White .
Donald Duck co-hosted the show in 1958. Fortunately, Hope, David Niven and Jimmy Stewart were on hand to help save the day.
Two years ago, someone got the bright idea to turn the hosting duties over to James Franco and Ann Hathaway. It wasn’t an experiment so much as it was a desperate attempt by the academy to attract younger viewers. It didn’t work. The evening had all the charm of a bouncer at a beer joint.
I’m no impresario, no producer, no creative force. But this isn’t rockets science, either.
So try this: First, cut the show to two hours. Period. Start by limiting the acceptance speeches to the top categories: actor, actress, director and best movie. Nobody wants to hear the third assistant production designer thank his accountant.
Forget the documentary short, the short film or any other category with the word “short” in it. Dump the sound editing award. Nobody understands what it is anyway.
Get rid of makeup and hairstyling. As one wag once wrote when “Driving Miss Daisy” won in this category, it was only noteworthy if “Jessica Tandy was in fact 20 years old and Morgan Freeman was actually white.”
Next, get a host who is witty but won’t spend an inordinate amount of time trying to extract laughs from an audience that didn’t come to see him or her.
Dump the dance numbers. If I want to see dance, I’ll go to the ballet.
Cut the number of best picture nominees back to five. Ten dilutes the value of a nomination. And adds to the insufferable length of the broadcast.
Do this and I might just tune in.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Believe It or Not
A TV reporter in Montgomery, Alabama, sprung into action recently after reading that Alabama was widely perceived as misguided, intolerant and poorly educated, according to a global public relations firm that cited focus groups and surveys.
The firm, the story said, strongly encouraged U.S. officials to downplay its connections with the state and to avoid being seen in any of its cities.
Sensing something was amiss, the TV reporter called the firm and was informed that the article was fictitious, a fact that she promptly and breathlessly reported to her viewers.
The problem is the article appeared in the Onion, a satirical newspaper of some renown. All of the stories that appear in the Onion are fictitious and have been since it was founded some 25 years ago by a bunch of college kids in Wisconsin.
Whoops.
Fast forward a week. A blogger whose work appears in the Washington Post, citing an Internet report, disclosed that Sarah Palin had signed on as a contributor to the Arab-owned Al Jazeera American News network.
"As you all know, I'm not a big fan of newspapers, journalists, news anchors and the liberal media in general," Palin allegedly told the Daily Currant. "But I met with the folks at Al-Jazeera and they told me they reach millions of devoutly religious people who don't watch CBS or CNN. That tells me they don't have a liberal bias."
Alas, the Daily Currant piece cited by the blogger was satirical. As is everything they publish.
Hello, Washington Post? Get me rewrite.
Unfortunately, these are not isolated incidents. It seems satire being presented as actual news has become a full-blown phenomenon, thanks in no small part to the advent of bloggers, tweeters and the like.
Many apparently lack the critical thinking skills to assess what they are reading. Others simply don't understand an art form that was practiced by Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain.
Even more disturbing is that the higher the story ranks on the outrage scale, the more people are willing to believe it. That may be because so many spend their lives in a state of perpetual angst about what they see as the decline and fall of civilization that nothing seems too far fetched for them to believe.
Why else would people believe stuff like this:
The Daily Currant posted an interview that former Congressman Todd Akin reportedly in which he said that "female breast milk - when fed directly to an adult homosexual male daily for at least four weeks - has a 94% chance of permanently curing homosexual perversions."
Since Akin had once actually said that female victims of "legitimate rape" rarely get pregnant, the breast milk story was presumed to be true and spread across the Internet like wildfire.
An Onion article on Harry Potter inciting children to practice witchcraft was the subject of a widely forwarded email to the moms of the world. In November 2010, the Fox Nation website, a part of the Fox News network, presented as fact an Onion article about President Barack Obama writing a rambling 75,000 word e-mail complaining about America.
In February 2012, Congressman John Fleming, R-Louisiana, posted a link to an Onion article on his Facebook page about an $8 billion "Abortionplex" opened by Planned Parenthood.
China's People's Daily quoted as true a satirical article calling Kim Jong-un of North Korea the "sexiest man alive."
The Daily Currant in November published a satirical article claiming that former president George W. Bush had accidentally voted for Barack Obama because he couldn't figure out how to properly use his voting machine. It was reported as fact by news outlets in Texas.
And several overseas papers reported as fact a satirical piece that claimed Congress was threatening to leave Washington, D.C., unless the government built a new Capitol with a retractable dome.
Funny stuff. But it raises a serious issue: Are the lines between satire and legitimate journalism becoming increasingly blurred? Are people making decisions based on whoopie cushion reportage? Do we believe anything that pops us on our computers or TV screens?
The answer appears to be "yes."
When Time magazine recently asked readers to identify "the most trusted newsperson in America," John Stewart of Comedy Central's satirical "Daily Show" was the runaway winner.
That matched an earlier survey by the Pew Center in which Stewart tied Brian Williams, Tom Browkaw, Dan Rather and Anderson Cooper as the journalist respondents most admire.
Stewart is a remarkable wit. And, yes, his comedic commentary is often spot on.
But if his shtick is becoming the preferred source of information to a new generation of Americans, the joke is on us.
The firm, the story said, strongly encouraged U.S. officials to downplay its connections with the state and to avoid being seen in any of its cities.
Sensing something was amiss, the TV reporter called the firm and was informed that the article was fictitious, a fact that she promptly and breathlessly reported to her viewers.
The problem is the article appeared in the Onion, a satirical newspaper of some renown. All of the stories that appear in the Onion are fictitious and have been since it was founded some 25 years ago by a bunch of college kids in Wisconsin.
Whoops.
Fast forward a week. A blogger whose work appears in the Washington Post, citing an Internet report, disclosed that Sarah Palin had signed on as a contributor to the Arab-owned Al Jazeera American News network.
"As you all know, I'm not a big fan of newspapers, journalists, news anchors and the liberal media in general," Palin allegedly told the Daily Currant. "But I met with the folks at Al-Jazeera and they told me they reach millions of devoutly religious people who don't watch CBS or CNN. That tells me they don't have a liberal bias."
Alas, the Daily Currant piece cited by the blogger was satirical. As is everything they publish.
Hello, Washington Post? Get me rewrite.
Unfortunately, these are not isolated incidents. It seems satire being presented as actual news has become a full-blown phenomenon, thanks in no small part to the advent of bloggers, tweeters and the like.
Many apparently lack the critical thinking skills to assess what they are reading. Others simply don't understand an art form that was practiced by Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain.
Even more disturbing is that the higher the story ranks on the outrage scale, the more people are willing to believe it. That may be because so many spend their lives in a state of perpetual angst about what they see as the decline and fall of civilization that nothing seems too far fetched for them to believe.
Why else would people believe stuff like this:
The Daily Currant posted an interview that former Congressman Todd Akin reportedly in which he said that "female breast milk - when fed directly to an adult homosexual male daily for at least four weeks - has a 94% chance of permanently curing homosexual perversions."
Since Akin had once actually said that female victims of "legitimate rape" rarely get pregnant, the breast milk story was presumed to be true and spread across the Internet like wildfire.
An Onion article on Harry Potter inciting children to practice witchcraft was the subject of a widely forwarded email to the moms of the world. In November 2010, the Fox Nation website, a part of the Fox News network, presented as fact an Onion article about President Barack Obama writing a rambling 75,000 word e-mail complaining about America.
In February 2012, Congressman John Fleming, R-Louisiana, posted a link to an Onion article on his Facebook page about an $8 billion "Abortionplex" opened by Planned Parenthood.
China's People's Daily quoted as true a satirical article calling Kim Jong-un of North Korea the "sexiest man alive."
The Daily Currant in November published a satirical article claiming that former president George W. Bush had accidentally voted for Barack Obama because he couldn't figure out how to properly use his voting machine. It was reported as fact by news outlets in Texas.
And several overseas papers reported as fact a satirical piece that claimed Congress was threatening to leave Washington, D.C., unless the government built a new Capitol with a retractable dome.
Funny stuff. But it raises a serious issue: Are the lines between satire and legitimate journalism becoming increasingly blurred? Are people making decisions based on whoopie cushion reportage? Do we believe anything that pops us on our computers or TV screens?
The answer appears to be "yes."
When Time magazine recently asked readers to identify "the most trusted newsperson in America," John Stewart of Comedy Central's satirical "Daily Show" was the runaway winner.
That matched an earlier survey by the Pew Center in which Stewart tied Brian Williams, Tom Browkaw, Dan Rather and Anderson Cooper as the journalist respondents most admire.
Stewart is a remarkable wit. And, yes, his comedic commentary is often spot on.
But if his shtick is becoming the preferred source of information to a new generation of Americans, the joke is on us.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
The Occult Hand and Other Oddities
For years, the prevailing image of a reporter has been that of a fast-talking guy nicknamed “Scoop” who has a press credential stuck in his Fedora, a cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth and a pint of Old Inspiration stuck in his back pocket.
The reality is something less colorful. Journalists for the most part are dedicated hard-working men and women who take their role as public watchdogs very seriously.
That does not, however, prevent them from having a whimsical, sometimes wicked sense of humor.
I offer in evidence a group called the Order of the Occult Hand, purveyors of an inside joke that at one time spread like wildfire through the pages of America’s newspapers.
According to a report on the Poynter website, the phrase was introduced by Joseph Flanders, a police reporter of the Charlotte News, who in the fall of 1965 reported on a millworker who was shot by his own family when he came back home late at night. He wrote: “It was as if an occult hand had reached down from above and moved the players like pawns upon some giant chessboard.”
Several of his colleagues, amused by this pungent prose, vowed to get the phrase into the paper as much as possible. Before they knew it, the Occult Hand had gripped the imagination of dozens of reporters:
The Los Angeles Times: "Then it was as if an occult hand had made a mystical sign..." and "It was as if an occult hand had passed over Nick Mancuso's face, momentarily transforming him into Tennessee Williams" and “It was as if an occult hand had substituted an alternate universe..."
The Boston Globe: “…it is as if Sabrina were saved by an occult hand, as she turned up safe and sound” and and "If a president of Harvard ever intervenes in something like a promotion or a course outline, it is well disguised, the work of an occult hand."
The Associated Press: “When he plays the blues, it is as if some occult hand is guiding his hand over the guitar, channeling the essence of the blues through Clapton" and “It is as if an occult hand placed Calvino in our country so we could appreciate our own eccentricities."
The Minneapolis Star Tribune: "It was as if an occult hand had reached down and given the nation's television critics a pinch on the tush."
The Bangkok Post: "Finally, as if by an occult hand, there it was out on the table.”
Clearly, this was no coincidence.
But at some point, many of those involved grew weary of the game. And so it was announced that the Order had chosen a new secret phrase at an annual editorial writers' convention and resumed a stealth operation.
I was witness to a similar sort of mischief when I first went to work at the Los Angeles Times. I was on the features copy desk which, among other duties, handled a lot of stories about the comings and goings of high society.
According to local lore, a reporter was reading a government job publication one day which included an opening for a “flange welder.” In a classic example of mass psychosis, her colleagues agreed that it sounded like an offbeat name. Someone seized the moment, and it started appearing in the Times society stories amid the endless lists of party guests.
But not as Flange Welder. That was too déclassé. He was now Phlange Welder IV.
Call it sophomoric humor or boredom or a protest against pandering to the privileged. Whatever the case, Mr. Welder soon was attending all the finest events and his international travels were reported in detail.
The man who didn’t exist was seen everywhere.
But that wasn’t the half of it. He was reported to be a guest conductor for a major symphony orchestra, named as principal baritone in an opera, listed as a founding patron of the Music Center and as a passenger on the final voyage of the Queen Mary. He even had a bylined story that appeared in the Times.
A Phlange Welder Foundation was founded which contributed money to the Times annual camp fund for underprivileged children.
According to one report, this went on for some 20 years. It ended when the Times publisher, Otis Chandler, threatened anyone perpetuating the myth of Phlange Welder with dismissal.
But not before Ted Sell, a distinguished reporter in the Times Washington bureau, filed an analytical and thoughtful story about the Vietnam war. The first letter of the first seven paragraphs spelled out “Phlange.”
Shortly afterwards, Mr. Welder disappeared. As though swept away by a sinister hand.
The reality is something less colorful. Journalists for the most part are dedicated hard-working men and women who take their role as public watchdogs very seriously.
That does not, however, prevent them from having a whimsical, sometimes wicked sense of humor.
I offer in evidence a group called the Order of the Occult Hand, purveyors of an inside joke that at one time spread like wildfire through the pages of America’s newspapers.
According to a report on the Poynter website, the phrase was introduced by Joseph Flanders, a police reporter of the Charlotte News, who in the fall of 1965 reported on a millworker who was shot by his own family when he came back home late at night. He wrote: “It was as if an occult hand had reached down from above and moved the players like pawns upon some giant chessboard.”
Several of his colleagues, amused by this pungent prose, vowed to get the phrase into the paper as much as possible. Before they knew it, the Occult Hand had gripped the imagination of dozens of reporters:
The Los Angeles Times: "Then it was as if an occult hand had made a mystical sign..." and "It was as if an occult hand had passed over Nick Mancuso's face, momentarily transforming him into Tennessee Williams" and “It was as if an occult hand had substituted an alternate universe..."
The Boston Globe: “…it is as if Sabrina were saved by an occult hand, as she turned up safe and sound” and and "If a president of Harvard ever intervenes in something like a promotion or a course outline, it is well disguised, the work of an occult hand."
The Associated Press: “When he plays the blues, it is as if some occult hand is guiding his hand over the guitar, channeling the essence of the blues through Clapton" and “It is as if an occult hand placed Calvino in our country so we could appreciate our own eccentricities."
The Minneapolis Star Tribune: "It was as if an occult hand had reached down and given the nation's television critics a pinch on the tush."
The Bangkok Post: "Finally, as if by an occult hand, there it was out on the table.”
Clearly, this was no coincidence.
But at some point, many of those involved grew weary of the game. And so it was announced that the Order had chosen a new secret phrase at an annual editorial writers' convention and resumed a stealth operation.
I was witness to a similar sort of mischief when I first went to work at the Los Angeles Times. I was on the features copy desk which, among other duties, handled a lot of stories about the comings and goings of high society.
According to local lore, a reporter was reading a government job publication one day which included an opening for a “flange welder.” In a classic example of mass psychosis, her colleagues agreed that it sounded like an offbeat name. Someone seized the moment, and it started appearing in the Times society stories amid the endless lists of party guests.
But not as Flange Welder. That was too déclassé. He was now Phlange Welder IV.
Call it sophomoric humor or boredom or a protest against pandering to the privileged. Whatever the case, Mr. Welder soon was attending all the finest events and his international travels were reported in detail.
The man who didn’t exist was seen everywhere.
But that wasn’t the half of it. He was reported to be a guest conductor for a major symphony orchestra, named as principal baritone in an opera, listed as a founding patron of the Music Center and as a passenger on the final voyage of the Queen Mary. He even had a bylined story that appeared in the Times.
A Phlange Welder Foundation was founded which contributed money to the Times annual camp fund for underprivileged children.
According to one report, this went on for some 20 years. It ended when the Times publisher, Otis Chandler, threatened anyone perpetuating the myth of Phlange Welder with dismissal.
But not before Ted Sell, a distinguished reporter in the Times Washington bureau, filed an analytical and thoughtful story about the Vietnam war. The first letter of the first seven paragraphs spelled out “Phlange.”
Shortly afterwards, Mr. Welder disappeared. As though swept away by a sinister hand.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Hail to the Chef
Lost in all the hoopla surrounding the inauguration this past week was a beef about the ceremonial lunch, a spread that would have made William Howard Taft happy.
Taft, if you'll recall, was the original presidential foodie, a man so rotund that he once got stuck in the White House bathtub.
This particular menu - lobster tails in New England clam chowder sauce, bison with a red potato horseradish cake and apple pie with sour cream ice cream - clocked in at 3,000 calories.
It's no wonder that following lunch, the President and First Lady walked several blocks during their trip from the Capitol to the White House reviewing stands.
Alas, the Obamas would have had to leg it for 13 hours to burn off 3,000 calories, which would have put them somewhere in Virginia the following day.
Instead of actually eating perhaps they should have lip-synched it. There was a lot of that going on during Inauguration Day.
Not surprisingly, the menu caused the wing-nut nation to go off half-baked, the juice of a thousand cheeseburgers dripping on their keyboards as they accused Michele Obama of hypocrisy because of her campaign against childhood obesity.
That argument held as much air as a flat souffle because the First Lady had little to do with the menu. It was the handiwork of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, a group that apparently has no problem embracing bipartisanship when it comes to ordering lunch.
Meanwhile, while the Inaugural food fight was taking place, a group called the Center for Science in the Public Interest was revealing that, special occasions notwithstanding, we, too, can sit down to a 3,000-calorie meal anytime we want.
The organization annually passes out its Extreme Eating Awards, which is in fact more of a warning than an honor.
This year apparently raised the bar. "We think this year that this is the worst of some of the worst," said Jayne Hurley, CUSP senior nutritionist.
Singled out for recognition was the Cheesecake Factory, offering something called Bistro Shrimp Pasta which involves battered shrimp, fresh mushrooms and arugula tossed with spaghettis in a basil-garlic-lemon cream sauce. Calorie count: 3,120 with 89 grams of saturated fat.
That same restaurant chain also clocks in with Crispy Chicken Costalgia. According to CUSP, most people wouldn't sit down to eat a 12-piece bucket of Original Recipe Kentucky Fried Chicken all by themselves. Yet the Cheesecake Factory somehow crams about that many calories into a single serving of this dish, although the bucket of KFC has less than half the saturated fat, "only" two days' worth as opposed to the 4.5 days' worth in the costalgia. In fact, this dish has more calories (2,610) than any steak, chop, or Burger meal on the Cheesecake Factory'as giant menu.
Then there's Johnny Rockets bacon cheddar double burger, sweet potato fries and Big Apple shake, 3,500 calories and 88 grams of saturated fat. The shake actually contains a slice of apple pie and has 1,140 calories all on its own.
Breakfast anyone? IHOP serves a deep-fried steak with gravy, two fried eggs, deep-fried potatoes, and two buttermilk pancakes. It's 1,760 calories, 23 grams of saturated fat, 3,720 mg of sodium, and 11 teaspoons of added sugar. CUSP says that's like having five McDonald's Egg McMuffins sprinkled with 10 packets of sugar.
How about something healthier? You may want to avoid Smoothy King's peanut power plus grape smoothy which has 1,460 calories and 22 teaspoons of sugar.
Chili's full rack of baby back ribs with Shiner Bock BBQ sauce comes with homestyle fries and cinnamon apples at 2330 calories, 45 grams of saturated fat and 6,490 milligrams of salt.
And finally, there's Deep Dish Macaroni & 3-Cheese at Uno Chicago Grill which has four cups of pasta; Cheddar, Paramnesia, and Romano cheeses; an Alfredo sauce made from heavy cream, cheese, rendered chicken fat, and butter; and a crushed Ortiz Cracker topping. That pencils out at a day's worth of calories, three-and-a-half days' worth of saturated fat (71 grams), and two days' worth of sodium.
We surely must be one nation, with burgers and fries for all.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
The Hoax Folks
Heard the latest on the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre?
It didn't happen. The whole thing was a hoax.
Truth be told, it was orchestrated by the Obama Administration in an effort to promote gun control and achieve other nefarious objectives.
"You know in your heart that no one could walk into a school and start shooting defenseless little kids," writes Jay Johnson on his website, SandyHookHoax.com. "They are trying to alter mass perception of the human condition, so that people feel insecure and trust only the government to make things safe."
If you think the above belongs in the Crackpot Hall of Fame, know this: It and other wacko theories are accepted as gospel by many "theorists" whose paranoia and venom knows no bounds, especially when it comes to President Obama.
Their rants are all over the Internet. Warning: Contents may be offensive to sensible people.
One of the leading advocates of this particular bit of nonsense is a tenured professor at Florida Atlantic University named James Tracy who in the past has also expressed skepticism about the Kennedy assassination and 9/11.
At least he conceded bad things may have happened in Newtown, Conn. But he sees something more sinister than just the wholesale slaughter of innocent children.
"As documents relating to the Sandy Hook shooting continue to be assessed and interpreted by independent researchers there is a growing awareness that the media coverage of the massacre of 26 children and adults was intended primarily for public consumption to further larger political ends," he wrote on his blog.
Not to be outdone, James H. Fetzer, an emeritus professor at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, pulls out an age-old conspiracy card: He blames the Jews. "This is what Israel always does, they go after the children," he wrote while suggesting the massacre was a terror ops strike conducted by agents of the Israeli government to strike fear in the hearts of Americans.
Talk about the nutty professors.
I thought I had seen it all last fall when a group of "experts" presumably attired in tin foil hats declared that President Obama had engineered Hurricane Sandy, the massive storm that devastated parts of the East Coast, as way to ensure his re-election.
He did this by using a sophisticated military research program to somehow create a destructive weather system. Thus, the "experts" concluded, the accompanying disaster "will undoubtedly produce widespread chaos and present an ideal opportunity for Obama to come off as a strong and decisive leader."
But wait. Wouldn't a man who had the power to manipulate the weather just as easily control an election? Just asking.
Then there was this act of shear goofiness as reported by a number of media outlets: Republican state senators at the Georgia Capitol were told during a four-hour briefing just before the election that President Obama is using a Cold War-era mind-control technique known as "Delphi" to coerce Americans into accepting his plan for a United Nations-run communist dictatorship in which suburbanites will be forcibly relocated to cities.
This bit of news you can use was delivered by birther activist Field Searcy, who also compared Obama's rural agenda with genocide programs by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Chinese leader Mao Zedong that killed millions.
And so it goes. President Kennedy was assassinated by the CIA. Or Fidel Castro. Pick your poison. 9/11 was an inside job or officials knew of the attacks and did nothing to prevent them. The massacre at the Aurora, Colorado movie theater was the work of government agents. UFOs crashed and were recovered in New Mexico. The world is ruled by the Illuminati.
We understand that conspiracy theories have been around since the dawn of civilization. When man first emerged, so did paranoia.
The difference now is that while these half-baked theories used to be confined to letters or whispered telephone conversations, they now get full-blown exposure over the same Internet that has enlightened our lives.
Nobody ever said free speech was easy.
The other difference is that much of this vitriol is directed at President Obama, who survived four years of being characterized as a Kenyan-born Muslim socialist who hates America and wages class warfare.
Unfortunately, his re-election hasn't stopped the purveyors of paranoia from dreaming up even more absurd theories that unfold before us in real time.
As a journalist, I brought a healthy sense of skepticism to the office every day. But there's a line between inquiry and insanity.
Clearly, many of these people have crossed that line.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
The Fat of the Land
We are a nation of losers.
At least we hope so.
It's January. Americans from every walk of life are on a diet, embracing steamed vegetables with a side of rice cakes. And that's because we have indulged in gastronomic excesses during the holidays that would make Henry VIII look away in disgust.
Included in that group is this columnist, who emerged from a fall full of parties and assorted other celebrations looking like an inverted pear. Pass me the broccoli flowerets, hold the cheese sauce.
You can always tell when it's weight-loss season. All those jewelry ads on TV that appeared during the holidays and suggested that men can purchase eternal love and devotion for the price of a bracelet have been replaced with something worse.
Now we are deluged with diet commercials that promise to quickly make us movie-star svelte or exercise plans that will convert us from walking burritos to Navy SEALs in 20 minutes a day.
These ads are easily identifiable by their use of the words "miraculous" or "medical breakthrough" or "secret formula." Many also contain the phrase "results not typical" in small print.
But since Americans spend somewhat north of $30 billion a year on weight-loss products, the odds that diet hyperbole will vanish are, well, slim.
Let's face it. For the most part, losing weight is just a matter of using more calories than you consume. Diet and exercise will do the trick. Simple enough, right?
Sure, except for a couple of things: Counting calories might require the use of math, which will discourage a large portion of the population. And while you're trying to shed some pounds, the fast food industry in an act of unfettered self-preservation is blanketing the airwaves with commercials that ooze burgers, bacon and cheese.
Just try watching an In-n-Out commercial while sipping clear bouillon with a watercress garnish.
So we continue to search for some magic bullet to quickly and painlessly shed our excess weight. To underscore that point, here are some of the most commonly searched diets, according to the folks at Google.
» The Melissa Miller diet. Want to look like this Victoria's Secret model? Drink lots of kale juice. Better yet, be genetically disposed to be a Victoria's Secret model.
» The Feeding Tube diet. This is not a joke. The New York Times profiled several brides-to-be who used a nasogastric feeding tube, usually for the gravely ill or injured, because they wanted to lose weight fast. One New York doctor called it "appalling because it opens up a whole new world of shockingly bad ideas."
» The NV Diet Pill, popularized by Carmen Electra, promises to burn fat, tone the body and improve the appearance of skin, nails and hair. It won't. And besides, would you follow the advice of someone who was once married to Dennis Rodman?
» The P.I.N.K. Method was designed specifically for women, and stands for "power, intensity, nutrition, and kardio." While it has its supporters, one nutritionist said that "even in the best circumstances, many of the claims are overstated and not based on research. Foods are not fat burners and not everyone is going to rejuvenate skin, hair, and nails, and heighten their energy and libido on this plan."
» Raspberry Ketone Diet. None other than the wildly popular Dr. Oz of TV fame proclaimed raspberry ketones the "No. 1 miracle in a bottle for burning your fat." The problem is that the evidence for the fat-burning features comes from animal studies by researchers in Japan and Korea. Besides, a 100 mg. daily dose is the equivalent of 90 pounds of fresh raspberries. You might turn red and bumpy on this program.
» Michael Phelps Diet. Phelps won a suitcase full of gold medals as an Olympic swimmer while sucking up 12,000 calories a day. This is just the plan for you if you plan on starting a five-day-a-week, six-hour-a-day training regime. If you're not an elite athlete but want to eat like one, you may find fame in a different venue: "America's Biggest Loser."
If all else fails, try the Junk Food Diet. According to CNN, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate Twinkies, Nutty Bars and powdered doughnuts every three hours, instead of meals for 10 weeks. To add variety, Haub munched on Doritos chips, sugary cereals and Oreos.
His premise: That in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most, not the nutritional value of the food.
The premise held up: On his "convenience store diet," he shed 27 pounds in two months.
Chew on that.
R
At least we hope so.
It's January. Americans from every walk of life are on a diet, embracing steamed vegetables with a side of rice cakes. And that's because we have indulged in gastronomic excesses during the holidays that would make Henry VIII look away in disgust.
Included in that group is this columnist, who emerged from a fall full of parties and assorted other celebrations looking like an inverted pear. Pass me the broccoli flowerets, hold the cheese sauce.
You can always tell when it's weight-loss season. All those jewelry ads on TV that appeared during the holidays and suggested that men can purchase eternal love and devotion for the price of a bracelet have been replaced with something worse.
Now we are deluged with diet commercials that promise to quickly make us movie-star svelte or exercise plans that will convert us from walking burritos to Navy SEALs in 20 minutes a day.
These ads are easily identifiable by their use of the words "miraculous" or "medical breakthrough" or "secret formula." Many also contain the phrase "results not typical" in small print.
But since Americans spend somewhat north of $30 billion a year on weight-loss products, the odds that diet hyperbole will vanish are, well, slim.
Let's face it. For the most part, losing weight is just a matter of using more calories than you consume. Diet and exercise will do the trick. Simple enough, right?
Sure, except for a couple of things: Counting calories might require the use of math, which will discourage a large portion of the population. And while you're trying to shed some pounds, the fast food industry in an act of unfettered self-preservation is blanketing the airwaves with commercials that ooze burgers, bacon and cheese.
Just try watching an In-n-Out commercial while sipping clear bouillon with a watercress garnish.
So we continue to search for some magic bullet to quickly and painlessly shed our excess weight. To underscore that point, here are some of the most commonly searched diets, according to the folks at Google.
» The Melissa Miller diet. Want to look like this Victoria's Secret model? Drink lots of kale juice. Better yet, be genetically disposed to be a Victoria's Secret model.
» The Feeding Tube diet. This is not a joke. The New York Times profiled several brides-to-be who used a nasogastric feeding tube, usually for the gravely ill or injured, because they wanted to lose weight fast. One New York doctor called it "appalling because it opens up a whole new world of shockingly bad ideas."
» The NV Diet Pill, popularized by Carmen Electra, promises to burn fat, tone the body and improve the appearance of skin, nails and hair. It won't. And besides, would you follow the advice of someone who was once married to Dennis Rodman?
» The P.I.N.K. Method was designed specifically for women, and stands for "power, intensity, nutrition, and kardio." While it has its supporters, one nutritionist said that "even in the best circumstances, many of the claims are overstated and not based on research. Foods are not fat burners and not everyone is going to rejuvenate skin, hair, and nails, and heighten their energy and libido on this plan."
» Raspberry Ketone Diet. None other than the wildly popular Dr. Oz of TV fame proclaimed raspberry ketones the "No. 1 miracle in a bottle for burning your fat." The problem is that the evidence for the fat-burning features comes from animal studies by researchers in Japan and Korea. Besides, a 100 mg. daily dose is the equivalent of 90 pounds of fresh raspberries. You might turn red and bumpy on this program.
» Michael Phelps Diet. Phelps won a suitcase full of gold medals as an Olympic swimmer while sucking up 12,000 calories a day. This is just the plan for you if you plan on starting a five-day-a-week, six-hour-a-day training regime. If you're not an elite athlete but want to eat like one, you may find fame in a different venue: "America's Biggest Loser."
If all else fails, try the Junk Food Diet. According to CNN, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate Twinkies, Nutty Bars and powdered doughnuts every three hours, instead of meals for 10 weeks. To add variety, Haub munched on Doritos chips, sugary cereals and Oreos.
His premise: That in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most, not the nutritional value of the food.
The premise held up: On his "convenience store diet," he shed 27 pounds in two months.
Chew on that.
R
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Pardon My Correction
As is this column’s custom at year’s end, we look back at the best,
or worse, or most convoluted, or contrived, or outrageous, or
downright silly newspaper corrections.
This is not an exercise in professional self-loathing. We have been
proud to be a member of the honorable company of journalists for
nearly 50 years.
Rather, it is acknowledgment that in a business that operates at a
chaotic pace and is referred to by its practitioners as “the daily
miracle,” mistakes are made. And some are funny.
These corrections, amassed from various web sites and personal
research, represents the winners of our coveted 2012 Mea Culpa awards
which we bestow annually on nobody in particular.
In the past, we have confined our winners to those in print
journalism. But we had to salute our brethren in television for
botching one of the most anticipated news events of the year.
We refer, of course, to CNN and Fox News for breathlessly breaking
the news that Obamacare had been declared unconstitutional by the
Supreme Court. Which of course was not the case.
Both networks eventually recovered but not before being forever
remembered for dribbling the ball off their foot while the entire
world watched. Ah, the pitfalls of “breaking news.”
Other winners:
“An earlier version of this article claimed that journalists at
Bloomberg Businessweek could be disciplined for sipping a spritzer at
work. This is not true. Sorry. We must have been drunk on the job.”
The Economist.
“An article on Monday about Jack Robison and Kirsten Lindsmith, two
college students with Asperger syndrome who are navigating the perils
of an intimate relationship, misidentified the character from the
animated children’s TV show “My Little Pony” that Ms. Lindsmith said
she visualized to cheer herself up. It is Twilight Sparkle, the nerdy
intellectual, not Fluttershy, the kind animal lover.” The New York
Times.
“In the September profile of Chelsea Clinton, “Waiting in the Wings”
by Jonathan Van Meter, Dan Baer was mistakenly identified as an
interior designer. He is deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of
Democracy, Human Rights and Labor at the U.S. Department of State.”
Vogue magazine.
“I misspoke this evening on the Special Report panel. I suggested
that Godzilla was less destructive than King Kong. And everyone knows
that it’s the other way around. I apologize for any offense to the
Kong family or to Godzilla’s fans — or victims.” Jonah Goldberg,
National Review.
“Talking about performing in the musical ‘The Who’s Tommy,’ the actor
and singer Michael Cerveris said, ‘I couldn’t sing it all when I got
the job.’ An article on Mr. Cerveris in the latest Friday Journal
incorrectly quoted him as saying, ‘I couldn’t sing at all when I got
the job.’” Wall Street Journal
“François Mitterrand, the former French president, is reported to
have said that Margaret Thatcher had the mouth of Marilyn Monroe and
the eyes of Caligula — not Stalin, as reported in an earlier version
of this article.” The Globe and Mail.
“In a March 2 ‘Future Tense’ blog post, Torie Bosch misspelled the
science fiction award won by writer Bruce Sterling. It is of course
the Hugo Award, not the Huge Award.” Slate
“A column by Glenn Garvin on Dec. 20 stated that the National Science
Foundation ‘funded a study on Jell-O wrestling at the South Pole.’
That is incorrect. The event took place during off-duty hours without
NSF permission and did not involve taxpayer funds.” Miami Herald.
“Correction: An earlier version of this article misidentified the
number of years E.B. White wrote for The New Yorker. It was five
decades, not centuries.” The New York Times.
“In our story on London Hosts, it was stated that the 'Pub 80'
concept probably appealed more to the younger drinker or those
looking for bad food. This should, of course, be 'bar food'. We
apologize for any embarrassment caused." -Morning Advertiser
"Just to keep the record straight, it was the famous Whistler's
Mother, not Hitler's, that was exhibited at the recent meeting of the
Pleasantville Methodists. There is nothing to be gained in trying to
explain how the error occurred." -Titusville (Pa.) Herald.
“An article on Tuesday about the birthrate of stars in the universe
misstated the sound made by pressure waves coming out of a black hole
in the galaxy NGC 1275. The sound is that of a B flat 57 octaves
below middle C, not 27 octaves.” The New York Times.
Due to a typing error, Saturday’s story on local artist Jon Henninger
mistakenly reported that Henninger’s band mate, Eric Lyday, was on
drugs. The story should have read that Lyday was on drums.” The
Sentinel.
or worse, or most convoluted, or contrived, or outrageous, or
downright silly newspaper corrections.
This is not an exercise in professional self-loathing. We have been
proud to be a member of the honorable company of journalists for
nearly 50 years.
Rather, it is acknowledgment that in a business that operates at a
chaotic pace and is referred to by its practitioners as “the daily
miracle,” mistakes are made. And some are funny.
These corrections, amassed from various web sites and personal
research, represents the winners of our coveted 2012 Mea Culpa awards
which we bestow annually on nobody in particular.
In the past, we have confined our winners to those in print
journalism. But we had to salute our brethren in television for
botching one of the most anticipated news events of the year.
We refer, of course, to CNN and Fox News for breathlessly breaking
the news that Obamacare had been declared unconstitutional by the
Supreme Court. Which of course was not the case.
Both networks eventually recovered but not before being forever
remembered for dribbling the ball off their foot while the entire
world watched. Ah, the pitfalls of “breaking news.”
Other winners:
“An earlier version of this article claimed that journalists at
Bloomberg Businessweek could be disciplined for sipping a spritzer at
work. This is not true. Sorry. We must have been drunk on the job.”
The Economist.
“An article on Monday about Jack Robison and Kirsten Lindsmith, two
college students with Asperger syndrome who are navigating the perils
of an intimate relationship, misidentified the character from the
animated children’s TV show “My Little Pony” that Ms. Lindsmith said
she visualized to cheer herself up. It is Twilight Sparkle, the nerdy
intellectual, not Fluttershy, the kind animal lover.” The New York
Times.
“In the September profile of Chelsea Clinton, “Waiting in the Wings”
by Jonathan Van Meter, Dan Baer was mistakenly identified as an
interior designer. He is deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of
Democracy, Human Rights and Labor at the U.S. Department of State.”
Vogue magazine.
“I misspoke this evening on the Special Report panel. I suggested
that Godzilla was less destructive than King Kong. And everyone knows
that it’s the other way around. I apologize for any offense to the
Kong family or to Godzilla’s fans — or victims.” Jonah Goldberg,
National Review.
“Talking about performing in the musical ‘The Who’s Tommy,’ the actor
and singer Michael Cerveris said, ‘I couldn’t sing it all when I got
the job.’ An article on Mr. Cerveris in the latest Friday Journal
incorrectly quoted him as saying, ‘I couldn’t sing at all when I got
the job.’” Wall Street Journal
“François Mitterrand, the former French president, is reported to
have said that Margaret Thatcher had the mouth of Marilyn Monroe and
the eyes of Caligula — not Stalin, as reported in an earlier version
of this article.” The Globe and Mail.
“In a March 2 ‘Future Tense’ blog post, Torie Bosch misspelled the
science fiction award won by writer Bruce Sterling. It is of course
the Hugo Award, not the Huge Award.” Slate
“A column by Glenn Garvin on Dec. 20 stated that the National Science
Foundation ‘funded a study on Jell-O wrestling at the South Pole.’
That is incorrect. The event took place during off-duty hours without
NSF permission and did not involve taxpayer funds.” Miami Herald.
“Correction: An earlier version of this article misidentified the
number of years E.B. White wrote for The New Yorker. It was five
decades, not centuries.” The New York Times.
“In our story on London Hosts, it was stated that the 'Pub 80'
concept probably appealed more to the younger drinker or those
looking for bad food. This should, of course, be 'bar food'. We
apologize for any embarrassment caused." -Morning Advertiser
"Just to keep the record straight, it was the famous Whistler's
Mother, not Hitler's, that was exhibited at the recent meeting of the
Pleasantville Methodists. There is nothing to be gained in trying to
explain how the error occurred." -Titusville (Pa.) Herald.
“An article on Tuesday about the birthrate of stars in the universe
misstated the sound made by pressure waves coming out of a black hole
in the galaxy NGC 1275. The sound is that of a B flat 57 octaves
below middle C, not 27 octaves.” The New York Times.
Due to a typing error, Saturday’s story on local artist Jon Henninger
mistakenly reported that Henninger’s band mate, Eric Lyday, was on
drugs. The story should have read that Lyday was on drums.” The
Sentinel.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Oh, Those Zany Mayans
Happy Dec. 23, 2012.
If you’re reading this today, it proves that we were hoodwinked by the
Mayans, those merry pranksters from long ago who predicted the world
as we know it would end this past Friday.
Not that I built a bunker or anything. I'ts tough to prepare for
total annihilation.
At the most, I was prepared to open a good Zinfandel and sip a glass
as we all sang, “We’ll meet again some sunny day” while awaiting our
fate.
Turns out it was all a big misunderstanding.
It seems that while the Mayans were perfecting the art of ritual human
sacrifice, a couple of their sloppy citizens left some artifacts
scattered about including a calendar that reportedly stopped after
5,000 years on Dec. 21, 2012.
This was immediately seized upon by doomsday aficionados as a sign
that we were toast. Of course, these are the same folks who see
omens and icons on a tortilla chip. Yet people worldwide were buying
it.
We were to be swallowed by a Black Hole or toasted by a solar flare
or expire after we collided with a mysterious planet called Nibiru
which is near enough to eradicate us but has never been seen.
It almost sounds like Scientology. But, hey, if you’re going to buy
into cataclysmic scenarios, it helps to believe in the far fetched.
The problem is that anthropologists aren't even sure whether the end
of the Mayan calendar falls on Dec. 21, or whether it's already
happened or is still to come, according to an AP dispatch.
The date is mentioned in only two known cases, including an etching
that says nine gods will descend from heaven to Earth. The verb
describing what the gods will do is illegible in the etching. Maybe
they just wanted to hang out.
Personally, I think this whole Mayan calendar thing was dreamed up by
the Mexican Tourist Agency which saw more cash than catastrophe in
the end of days. And they succeeded by attracting hordes of folks
who traveled to the land of the Mayans to kiss this old world
goodbye, a pitcher of Margaritas in hand.
But Mayan doom isn’t the only danger we faced this weekend.
It seems that a tale making the rounds on the Internet predicted that
there would be a total blackout of the planet from Dec. 23 to Dec.
25, as the result of an “extraordinary phenomenon” involving the
realignment of the universe that happens every 11 million years.
This, the story goes, has all been confirmed by NASA, a factoid the
space agency denied in no uncertain terms.
“For any claims of disaster or dramatic changes in 2012, where is the
science? Where is the evidence? There is none, and for all the
fictional assertions, whether they are made in books, movies,
documentaries or over the Internet, we cannot change that simple
fact,” said a statement on a NASA website. “There is no credible
evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events
taking place in December 2012.”
So if you’re reading this in the comfort of you well-lit home, score
it NASA 1, Universe Realignment Goofs, 0. If you’re reading it by
candlelight against the backdrop of a cold, dark and windswept
planet, well, NASA erred.
But not to worry. It will all be over in time for the post-Christmas
sales.
Those weren’t the only apocalyptic predictions this year.
Ronald Weinland, a minister in the Church of God for 25 years, first
called for the end of the world on Sept. 30, 2008, then on May 27,
2012, and then revised it all to say that the beginning of the end
was in May of this year and the final day will be May 19, 2013.
Stay tuned.
Harold Camping predicted the end would come in 1994, 1995, May 2011
and Oct. 2011, the result of the rapture and earthquakes. The
California preacher, however, has been honest about his failure to
such a degree that the Huffington Post reported in March of this year
that Camping was getting out of the prediction business.
It’s enough to give Nostradamus a bad name.
For 2013, some psychics are saying that a meteor strike will plunge
us into poverty and distress, especially in coastal areas. The meteor
impact will cause tidal waves and volcanic eruptions, they say.
Which brings me to my prediction for next year: There will continue
to be a chorus of whackos who claim they can predict the future.
They can’t.
Besides, if there’s an apocalypse, it will be one of our own making.
If you’re reading this today, it proves that we were hoodwinked by the
Mayans, those merry pranksters from long ago who predicted the world
as we know it would end this past Friday.
Not that I built a bunker or anything. I'ts tough to prepare for
total annihilation.
At the most, I was prepared to open a good Zinfandel and sip a glass
as we all sang, “We’ll meet again some sunny day” while awaiting our
fate.
Turns out it was all a big misunderstanding.
It seems that while the Mayans were perfecting the art of ritual human
sacrifice, a couple of their sloppy citizens left some artifacts
scattered about including a calendar that reportedly stopped after
5,000 years on Dec. 21, 2012.
This was immediately seized upon by doomsday aficionados as a sign
that we were toast. Of course, these are the same folks who see
omens and icons on a tortilla chip. Yet people worldwide were buying
it.
We were to be swallowed by a Black Hole or toasted by a solar flare
or expire after we collided with a mysterious planet called Nibiru
which is near enough to eradicate us but has never been seen.
It almost sounds like Scientology. But, hey, if you’re going to buy
into cataclysmic scenarios, it helps to believe in the far fetched.
The problem is that anthropologists aren't even sure whether the end
of the Mayan calendar falls on Dec. 21, or whether it's already
happened or is still to come, according to an AP dispatch.
The date is mentioned in only two known cases, including an etching
that says nine gods will descend from heaven to Earth. The verb
describing what the gods will do is illegible in the etching. Maybe
they just wanted to hang out.
Personally, I think this whole Mayan calendar thing was dreamed up by
the Mexican Tourist Agency which saw more cash than catastrophe in
the end of days. And they succeeded by attracting hordes of folks
who traveled to the land of the Mayans to kiss this old world
goodbye, a pitcher of Margaritas in hand.
But Mayan doom isn’t the only danger we faced this weekend.
It seems that a tale making the rounds on the Internet predicted that
there would be a total blackout of the planet from Dec. 23 to Dec.
25, as the result of an “extraordinary phenomenon” involving the
realignment of the universe that happens every 11 million years.
This, the story goes, has all been confirmed by NASA, a factoid the
space agency denied in no uncertain terms.
“For any claims of disaster or dramatic changes in 2012, where is the
science? Where is the evidence? There is none, and for all the
fictional assertions, whether they are made in books, movies,
documentaries or over the Internet, we cannot change that simple
fact,” said a statement on a NASA website. “There is no credible
evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events
taking place in December 2012.”
So if you’re reading this in the comfort of you well-lit home, score
it NASA 1, Universe Realignment Goofs, 0. If you’re reading it by
candlelight against the backdrop of a cold, dark and windswept
planet, well, NASA erred.
But not to worry. It will all be over in time for the post-Christmas
sales.
Those weren’t the only apocalyptic predictions this year.
Ronald Weinland, a minister in the Church of God for 25 years, first
called for the end of the world on Sept. 30, 2008, then on May 27,
2012, and then revised it all to say that the beginning of the end
was in May of this year and the final day will be May 19, 2013.
Stay tuned.
Harold Camping predicted the end would come in 1994, 1995, May 2011
and Oct. 2011, the result of the rapture and earthquakes. The
California preacher, however, has been honest about his failure to
such a degree that the Huffington Post reported in March of this year
that Camping was getting out of the prediction business.
It’s enough to give Nostradamus a bad name.
For 2013, some psychics are saying that a meteor strike will plunge
us into poverty and distress, especially in coastal areas. The meteor
impact will cause tidal waves and volcanic eruptions, they say.
Which brings me to my prediction for next year: There will continue
to be a chorus of whackos who claim they can predict the future.
They can’t.
Besides, if there’s an apocalypse, it will be one of our own making.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Conversations With My Car
We bought a new car a couple of weeks ago. Check that. We bought a
wiz bang, interactive, computer-operated, Bluetoothed,
voice-activated, high-tech rocket sled with more options than a fully
armed F-16.
This car isn’t a product of Detroit. It’s straight out of the Silicon
Valley. You don’t take it to a mechanic anymore. You call the Geek
Squad.
According to the salesman, you don’t sit in the driver’s seat. You
sit in the cockpit. When you step on the gas (excuse me, operate the
throttle) a seven-speed automatic transmission kicks in “while
adaptive logic paces the shifting to your driving style.”
The fact that the car “recognizes” my driving style is disturbing. I
wonder what else it knows? My credit score, annual income, wine
preferences, nickname, political affiliation?
It probably does. When I drive, I feel like I’m in a wiretap on
wheels. If this car had a name rather than just a number, it would be
called the Interloper.
But I digress. This thing is a technological marvel. The steering
wheel alone features at least a dozen button-controlled options which
in turn lead to numerous other operations for control of the
radio/CD/satellite/navigation/telephone/temperature/ engine data
read-out systems while simultaneously tracking the orbit of Jupiter
and investing in orange juice futures.
I’m pretty sure there’s a cappuccino machine and a Margarita bar in
there somewhere but I haven’t finished reading the owner’s manual yet.
And, by the way, the audio system will read my text messages to me in
a friendly, slightly smoky female voice, even if it’s about a past
due bill.
Yes, this car will talk to you. So if you see me alone driving down the street babbling away, I’m not drunk or crazy. I’m establishing a meaningful
one-on-one verbal relationship with my car. Honest. Don’t call 911.
Check this out: The screen displays 3D maps with building profiles
and includes built-in Zagat ratings for hotels, restaurants and golf
courses.
This is a good feature if you mistake a crack house for a Hilton or
attempt to dine at a sushi joint with an “F” letter grade in the
window.
Of course, all of this technology requires your undivided attention.
But not to worry. A warning system alerts you when other cars are
nearby or when the car drifts out of its lane. If the warnings are
ignored, the car can guide itself back into its own lane.
All of this leads to me to several conclusions.
--- This is one hell of a lot of sophisticated gear to essentially
take me from one location to another.
--- If any of it goes haywire --- say taking me off the Redondo Beach
Pier into the Pacific instead of directing me to Palm Springs --- it
would cause massive personal, technological and financial havoc.
---If I keep this car five years, it would be a stretch to say that I
would use 25 per cent of the gadgetry therein.
--- On the other hand, in five years most of this stuff will be
obsolete and will be replaced with even more brain cramping
technological gizmos.
Personally, I’m impatiently awaiting the day they start manufacturing
autonomous, or driverless cars. Just climb in, tell the car where you
want to go and off it drives, guided by GPS systems and computers.
During the journey, you can relax by reading, or nap, or play Angry
Birds on your smartphone or flirt with the passenger in the car next
to you.
According to various studies, this mode of transportation could
result in fewer traffic collisions by eliminating the always
problematic human element, increase road capacity and alleviate the
tedium of looking for parking spaces since these cars could go
anywhere to park and return when called.
An unexpected benefit: fewer traffic cops, drunk drivers or road
signs.
Of course, human nature being what it is, some guy will want a
bigger, faster, louder and flashier autonomous car than his neighbor.
And the auto industry being what it is, we will pay dearly for this
technology.
In the meantime, I’ll be out and about in my new car. If you see me,
I’ll be the guy and the stop light frantically reading the owner’s
manual in an attempt to put the car in drive.
wiz bang, interactive, computer-operated, Bluetoothed,
voice-activated, high-tech rocket sled with more options than a fully
armed F-16.
This car isn’t a product of Detroit. It’s straight out of the Silicon
Valley. You don’t take it to a mechanic anymore. You call the Geek
Squad.
According to the salesman, you don’t sit in the driver’s seat. You
sit in the cockpit. When you step on the gas (excuse me, operate the
throttle) a seven-speed automatic transmission kicks in “while
adaptive logic paces the shifting to your driving style.”
The fact that the car “recognizes” my driving style is disturbing. I
wonder what else it knows? My credit score, annual income, wine
preferences, nickname, political affiliation?
It probably does. When I drive, I feel like I’m in a wiretap on
wheels. If this car had a name rather than just a number, it would be
called the Interloper.
But I digress. This thing is a technological marvel. The steering
wheel alone features at least a dozen button-controlled options which
in turn lead to numerous other operations for control of the
radio/CD/satellite/navigation/telephone/temperature/ engine data
read-out systems while simultaneously tracking the orbit of Jupiter
and investing in orange juice futures.
I’m pretty sure there’s a cappuccino machine and a Margarita bar in
there somewhere but I haven’t finished reading the owner’s manual yet.
And, by the way, the audio system will read my text messages to me in
a friendly, slightly smoky female voice, even if it’s about a past
due bill.
Yes, this car will talk to you. So if you see me alone driving down the street babbling away, I’m not drunk or crazy. I’m establishing a meaningful
one-on-one verbal relationship with my car. Honest. Don’t call 911.
Check this out: The screen displays 3D maps with building profiles
and includes built-in Zagat ratings for hotels, restaurants and golf
courses.
This is a good feature if you mistake a crack house for a Hilton or
attempt to dine at a sushi joint with an “F” letter grade in the
window.
Of course, all of this technology requires your undivided attention.
But not to worry. A warning system alerts you when other cars are
nearby or when the car drifts out of its lane. If the warnings are
ignored, the car can guide itself back into its own lane.
All of this leads to me to several conclusions.
--- This is one hell of a lot of sophisticated gear to essentially
take me from one location to another.
--- If any of it goes haywire --- say taking me off the Redondo Beach
Pier into the Pacific instead of directing me to Palm Springs --- it
would cause massive personal, technological and financial havoc.
---If I keep this car five years, it would be a stretch to say that I
would use 25 per cent of the gadgetry therein.
--- On the other hand, in five years most of this stuff will be
obsolete and will be replaced with even more brain cramping
technological gizmos.
Personally, I’m impatiently awaiting the day they start manufacturing
autonomous, or driverless cars. Just climb in, tell the car where you
want to go and off it drives, guided by GPS systems and computers.
During the journey, you can relax by reading, or nap, or play Angry
Birds on your smartphone or flirt with the passenger in the car next
to you.
According to various studies, this mode of transportation could
result in fewer traffic collisions by eliminating the always
problematic human element, increase road capacity and alleviate the
tedium of looking for parking spaces since these cars could go
anywhere to park and return when called.
An unexpected benefit: fewer traffic cops, drunk drivers or road
signs.
Of course, human nature being what it is, some guy will want a
bigger, faster, louder and flashier autonomous car than his neighbor.
And the auto industry being what it is, we will pay dearly for this
technology.
In the meantime, I’ll be out and about in my new car. If you see me,
I’ll be the guy and the stop light frantically reading the owner’s
manual in an attempt to put the car in drive.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Of Bloodlines and Bathrooms
Once around the news cycle:
I leaned a couple of new words this week.
Hyperemesis Gravidarum.
No, it’s not the name of a wide receiver for the Oakland Raiders.
Rather, it’s a fancy name for morning sickness, that peculiar malady
that represents the first (but by no means the last) discomfort we
inflict on our parents.
This condition became news this week when it was announced that Kate
Middleton, or the Duchess of Cambridge to you, was pregnant with
royal child. It seems she has been having a particularly rough time
of it, the result of a particularly acute form of morning sickness,
and had to be hospitalized for a short period of time. She reportedly
is feeling better.
Her illness notwithstanding, the impending blessed event unleashed an
avalanche of news coverage and gossip unseen since the last Lindsay
Lohan arrest.
After all, Kate and her husband Prince William, second in line to the
throne of Great Britain, are a handsome and likable couple, a
refreshing breeze in the perpetual storm that is the Royal Family.
In Britain, this is all very important dealing as it does with the
preservation of the Royal Bloodline. This despite the fact that the
Brits, who seem to be constantly crippled by austerity measures,
spent an estimated $57.8 million on the royal family last year.
No matter. When this child arrives, thousand will fill the streets
waving the Union Jack as their belief in the cult of Britishness is
reaffirmed. God Save the Queen and all that.
In the meantime, the gambling industry is offering up bets on the sex
of the child and even its hair color. Social media sites are
speculating on whether or not Kate is carrying twins and if so which
child gets royal succession priority and what name or names will be
chosen.
The hysteria is not confined to England. Here in the good old U.S.A.,
viewers of Good Morning America were treated to lifestyle anchor Lara
Spencer who was whisked off to London to cover the story, an
assignment, according to the Los Angeles Times, that consisted of her
standing in front of Buckingham Palace while holding up British
newspapers and fighting for space with gawking tourists.
According to one published report, ABC also sent an 11-person
production crew to London to cover the royal pregnancy. Talk about
blanket coverage.
In a totally unrelated but no less important story, a number of
recent surveys have confirmed my belief that because smartphones have
become such an intricate part of our lives, we will soon have them
implanted in our foreheads.
For instance, one survey found that 75 percent of Americans admit to
using their smartphones while on the toilet.
Toilet texting is particularly popular among those 28 to
35-years-old, with a reported 91 percent of that age group admitting
to the habit.
Men and women are pretty much equal when it comes to general usage.
Approximately the same number of men (74%) and women (76%) have used
the phone in the bathroom.
Which means the next time a friend of business associate says,
“Excuse me, I have to go tweet” it could be interpreted in a number
of ways.
There is a downside to this, of course: Another survey found that 19
percent of people drop their smartphones down the toilet.
Finally, according to a survey commissioned by Lookout, a mobile
security company based in San Francisco, one in five Americans said
the first thing they did after sex was reach for their cellphones.
We used to reach for a cigarette. They were a lot easier to light.
And speaking of the good old days, when I was a lad we would take the
streetcar to downtown L.A. to visit my Dad who had an office in the
Pacific Electric Building at Sixth and Main. We’d lunch at Cole’s and
then once a year I’d be taken to Silverwoods for a new suit of
clothes.
It was the golden age of public transportation in Los Angeles. Then
suddenly it was gone. The car was king and the freeway was its crown
jewel.
Now, the streetcar is making a return to downtown L.A. Voters there
have approved a streetcar funding measure aimed at helping the city
get people out of their cars. In a special election, voters supported
creation of a tax-assessment district to raise as much as $85 million
of the $125 million needed to build a 4-mile trolley loop.
It would run mainly along Broadway, Hill and Figueroa streets.
Proponents believe it could see 10,000 riders a day.
Now, if they would just rebuild Gilmore Field and bring back the
Hollywood Stars baseball team, my life would have come full circle.
I leaned a couple of new words this week.
Hyperemesis Gravidarum.
No, it’s not the name of a wide receiver for the Oakland Raiders.
Rather, it’s a fancy name for morning sickness, that peculiar malady
that represents the first (but by no means the last) discomfort we
inflict on our parents.
This condition became news this week when it was announced that Kate
Middleton, or the Duchess of Cambridge to you, was pregnant with
royal child. It seems she has been having a particularly rough time
of it, the result of a particularly acute form of morning sickness,
and had to be hospitalized for a short period of time. She reportedly
is feeling better.
Her illness notwithstanding, the impending blessed event unleashed an
avalanche of news coverage and gossip unseen since the last Lindsay
Lohan arrest.
After all, Kate and her husband Prince William, second in line to the
throne of Great Britain, are a handsome and likable couple, a
refreshing breeze in the perpetual storm that is the Royal Family.
In Britain, this is all very important dealing as it does with the
preservation of the Royal Bloodline. This despite the fact that the
Brits, who seem to be constantly crippled by austerity measures,
spent an estimated $57.8 million on the royal family last year.
No matter. When this child arrives, thousand will fill the streets
waving the Union Jack as their belief in the cult of Britishness is
reaffirmed. God Save the Queen and all that.
In the meantime, the gambling industry is offering up bets on the sex
of the child and even its hair color. Social media sites are
speculating on whether or not Kate is carrying twins and if so which
child gets royal succession priority and what name or names will be
chosen.
The hysteria is not confined to England. Here in the good old U.S.A.,
viewers of Good Morning America were treated to lifestyle anchor Lara
Spencer who was whisked off to London to cover the story, an
assignment, according to the Los Angeles Times, that consisted of her
standing in front of Buckingham Palace while holding up British
newspapers and fighting for space with gawking tourists.
According to one published report, ABC also sent an 11-person
production crew to London to cover the royal pregnancy. Talk about
blanket coverage.
In a totally unrelated but no less important story, a number of
recent surveys have confirmed my belief that because smartphones have
become such an intricate part of our lives, we will soon have them
implanted in our foreheads.
For instance, one survey found that 75 percent of Americans admit to
using their smartphones while on the toilet.
Toilet texting is particularly popular among those 28 to
35-years-old, with a reported 91 percent of that age group admitting
to the habit.
Men and women are pretty much equal when it comes to general usage.
Approximately the same number of men (74%) and women (76%) have used
the phone in the bathroom.
Which means the next time a friend of business associate says,
“Excuse me, I have to go tweet” it could be interpreted in a number
of ways.
There is a downside to this, of course: Another survey found that 19
percent of people drop their smartphones down the toilet.
Finally, according to a survey commissioned by Lookout, a mobile
security company based in San Francisco, one in five Americans said
the first thing they did after sex was reach for their cellphones.
We used to reach for a cigarette. They were a lot easier to light.
And speaking of the good old days, when I was a lad we would take the
streetcar to downtown L.A. to visit my Dad who had an office in the
Pacific Electric Building at Sixth and Main. We’d lunch at Cole’s and
then once a year I’d be taken to Silverwoods for a new suit of
clothes.
It was the golden age of public transportation in Los Angeles. Then
suddenly it was gone. The car was king and the freeway was its crown
jewel.
Now, the streetcar is making a return to downtown L.A. Voters there
have approved a streetcar funding measure aimed at helping the city
get people out of their cars. In a special election, voters supported
creation of a tax-assessment district to raise as much as $85 million
of the $125 million needed to build a 4-mile trolley loop.
It would run mainly along Broadway, Hill and Figueroa streets.
Proponents believe it could see 10,000 riders a day.
Now, if they would just rebuild Gilmore Field and bring back the
Hollywood Stars baseball team, my life would have come full circle.
Sunday, December 02, 2012
Win One for the Gifter
It is about this time each year that we come face to face with the stunning reality that there are a scant few weeks until Christmas. And there is massive shopping to be done.
I say this secure in the knowledge that none of my readers would stoop so low as to participate in Black Friday, a combination grueling endurance/full body contact event that collectively lowers this country’s IQ each year in late November.
To help in this time of crisis, I’ve come up with my own unique gifts for that so-hard-to-buy-for person on your holiday list. Consider:
Fiscal cliff action figures. Watch as facsimiles of actual politicians tumble into a sea of red ink. Hours of educational fun for the kids and paranoia for their parents.
Sell Like a Seal board game. Players role the dice to see who can survive rigorous training and be selected for dangerous missions. The winning player kills a hated enemy of the state, then cashes in on a book deal worth millions. Code of silence not included.
Mitt Romney desk calendar. Each day contains another excuse for why he lost the election.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Magic Set: Amaze your friends and family by throwing all your money into Facebook stock, then watch it disappear.
Don’t tickle me Elmo. Self explanatory.
Lance Armstrong bracelets: We’ve slightly altered the inscriptions from “Live Strong” to “Live Wrong” to more accurately reflect his accomplishments. Buy one get 50 free.
I jest, of course. But truth is stranger than fiction when you begin to peruse what’s for sale this season.
One Internet site offers an inflatable fruit cake, Freudian slippers, Blitzed'n , the Singing Drunken Reindeer and a Santa Claus oven mitt. Another offers vampire repelling garlic mints and a Titanic ice maker.
Bacon is big this year. For your giving or receiving pleasure, there are bacon candy canes and lollipops, bacon flavored dental floss, Mr. Bacon vs. Monsieur Tofu action figures, bacon lip balm and bacon Band-Aids.
Stepping up in class but just a bit, another site offers tipsy wine glasses that lean to the side, seven cocktail glasses each adorned with one of the Seven Deadly Sins, Flavors of America salt collection (not appropriate for your cardiologist) and bracelets made of guitar strings (perfect for the person who is wound too tight).
These are novelties to be sure. But it got me to thinking: what are the best selling Christmas gifts of all time?
The answer is easy: toys. A conservative estimate is that 2 million are sold each Christmas season. I say conservative because I think I remember assembling at least that many on never-ending Christmas eves when my kids were young.
The hottest offerings this year, according to Toys R Us, include the Doc McStuffins "Time for Your Checkup Doll,” featuring a child who emulates her doctor mother by doing physicals on her stuffed animals. She is female and African American meaning the manufacturers have won the political correctness trophy for this season. Next is the Furbie, billed as an interactive doll that develops a mind of its own which prepares your child for marriage; the Nickelodeon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Secret Sewer Lair Playset which sounds like a joke but isn’t; and various electronic gizmos that assure your child will be completely computer literate before he or she is walking.
Over in Europe the push is for gender neutral toys. One of the largest toy chains in Sweden published a gender-neutral Christmas catalogue, which pictured boys playing with dolls and girls holding toy machine guns.
This stroke of genius will produces a generation of nurturing men and violent women who will confuse role reversal with equality.
Those cutting edge Swedes are even considering a new single gender-neutral pronoun – 'hen' – to replace 'he' and 'she' in order to minimize gender stereotyping. In this country, however, a hen is either a female fowl or a gossipy and foolish woman. Either way, I wouldn’t throw the term around at a National Organization for Women board meeting.
But back to Christmas gifts. Don’t fret if you can’t find the perfect gift for everyone on your list. You could do a lot worse. Feast on this survey taken by the New York Times several years ago on the worst Christmas gifts their readers had ever received.
“My grandmother gave me a large, brown stuffed toad that she bought in Guatemala. I was about 14 years old.”
“A Harrah’s Casino coffee mug full of quarters given to me by my grandparents. The mug read, ‘Life begins at 21!’ I was 9.”
“One year my elderly great-aunt game me a box of straws and my sister received a tube of mustard. This remains a longstanding family joke nearly 60 years later.”
“My worst: a rifle-toting, battery-powered toy soldier that crawled along the floor on his elbows. I was at least 32 and it was my ex-wife who gave it to me.”
“My father came home from New York City with a big gift when I was 8. It turned out to be a sturdy blue suitcase with my initials in gold by the handle. I was worried from then on when I was going to be sent away.”
“…My brothers sometime in the 1950s received an air gun and shot the ornaments off the revolving aluminum Christmas tree.”
“When my sister was newly divorced for the second time and completely miserable, our mother gave her a cookbook called “Cooking for One” and some sort of individual crockpot to go with it.”
Come to think of it, friends and family are the greatest gifts of all. Enjoy them.
I say this secure in the knowledge that none of my readers would stoop so low as to participate in Black Friday, a combination grueling endurance/full body contact event that collectively lowers this country’s IQ each year in late November.
To help in this time of crisis, I’ve come up with my own unique gifts for that so-hard-to-buy-for person on your holiday list. Consider:
Fiscal cliff action figures. Watch as facsimiles of actual politicians tumble into a sea of red ink. Hours of educational fun for the kids and paranoia for their parents.
Sell Like a Seal board game. Players role the dice to see who can survive rigorous training and be selected for dangerous missions. The winning player kills a hated enemy of the state, then cashes in on a book deal worth millions. Code of silence not included.
Mitt Romney desk calendar. Each day contains another excuse for why he lost the election.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Magic Set: Amaze your friends and family by throwing all your money into Facebook stock, then watch it disappear.
Don’t tickle me Elmo. Self explanatory.
Lance Armstrong bracelets: We’ve slightly altered the inscriptions from “Live Strong” to “Live Wrong” to more accurately reflect his accomplishments. Buy one get 50 free.
I jest, of course. But truth is stranger than fiction when you begin to peruse what’s for sale this season.
One Internet site offers an inflatable fruit cake, Freudian slippers, Blitzed'n , the Singing Drunken Reindeer and a Santa Claus oven mitt. Another offers vampire repelling garlic mints and a Titanic ice maker.
Bacon is big this year. For your giving or receiving pleasure, there are bacon candy canes and lollipops, bacon flavored dental floss, Mr. Bacon vs. Monsieur Tofu action figures, bacon lip balm and bacon Band-Aids.
Stepping up in class but just a bit, another site offers tipsy wine glasses that lean to the side, seven cocktail glasses each adorned with one of the Seven Deadly Sins, Flavors of America salt collection (not appropriate for your cardiologist) and bracelets made of guitar strings (perfect for the person who is wound too tight).
These are novelties to be sure. But it got me to thinking: what are the best selling Christmas gifts of all time?
The answer is easy: toys. A conservative estimate is that 2 million are sold each Christmas season. I say conservative because I think I remember assembling at least that many on never-ending Christmas eves when my kids were young.
The hottest offerings this year, according to Toys R Us, include the Doc McStuffins "Time for Your Checkup Doll,” featuring a child who emulates her doctor mother by doing physicals on her stuffed animals. She is female and African American meaning the manufacturers have won the political correctness trophy for this season. Next is the Furbie, billed as an interactive doll that develops a mind of its own which prepares your child for marriage; the Nickelodeon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Secret Sewer Lair Playset which sounds like a joke but isn’t; and various electronic gizmos that assure your child will be completely computer literate before he or she is walking.
Over in Europe the push is for gender neutral toys. One of the largest toy chains in Sweden published a gender-neutral Christmas catalogue, which pictured boys playing with dolls and girls holding toy machine guns.
This stroke of genius will produces a generation of nurturing men and violent women who will confuse role reversal with equality.
Those cutting edge Swedes are even considering a new single gender-neutral pronoun – 'hen' – to replace 'he' and 'she' in order to minimize gender stereotyping. In this country, however, a hen is either a female fowl or a gossipy and foolish woman. Either way, I wouldn’t throw the term around at a National Organization for Women board meeting.
But back to Christmas gifts. Don’t fret if you can’t find the perfect gift for everyone on your list. You could do a lot worse. Feast on this survey taken by the New York Times several years ago on the worst Christmas gifts their readers had ever received.
“My grandmother gave me a large, brown stuffed toad that she bought in Guatemala. I was about 14 years old.”
“A Harrah’s Casino coffee mug full of quarters given to me by my grandparents. The mug read, ‘Life begins at 21!’ I was 9.”
“One year my elderly great-aunt game me a box of straws and my sister received a tube of mustard. This remains a longstanding family joke nearly 60 years later.”
“My worst: a rifle-toting, battery-powered toy soldier that crawled along the floor on his elbows. I was at least 32 and it was my ex-wife who gave it to me.”
“My father came home from New York City with a big gift when I was 8. It turned out to be a sturdy blue suitcase with my initials in gold by the handle. I was worried from then on when I was going to be sent away.”
“…My brothers sometime in the 1950s received an air gun and shot the ornaments off the revolving aluminum Christmas tree.”
“When my sister was newly divorced for the second time and completely miserable, our mother gave her a cookbook called “Cooking for One” and some sort of individual crockpot to go with it.”
Come to think of it, friends and family are the greatest gifts of all. Enjoy them.
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