Posts
The world is now down two great thinkers and, let's face it folks, there weren't that many to start with.
Tim Russert and George Carlin present an interesting study in contrasts. Russert got us thinking by learning his subject's points of view and then taking the opposite position with a flow that was totally natural. He could move seamlessly from right to left and visit everywhere in between, all with an unassuming enthusiasm that often belied his questions' underlying toughness.
George Carlin never varied his position for the situation. Liberal anger and combative nonconformity were the swords he handled deftly. Mercilessly, too. No attitude or institution was safe. I didn't always agree with what he had to say - part of me wants to say I rarely did - and he frequently made me very uncomfortable and wanting to speak back to the television or radio. And I am grateful for that. I can't think of a single case in which he changed my mind about something, but he had a genius for making you push your emotions through the filter of your intellect, the way an espresso machine forces water through the coffee under pressure and you end up with something richer and stronger. When George Carlin got on a roll you had no choice but to gel and verbalize ideas you were satisfied with only feeling instinctively before that. It was no longer enough to figure out what you thought; out of self-defense you were driven to figuring out why you thought it. He recognized the irony of instant information becoming a superficial cover-up for an epidemic of unexamined lives, and he would have none of it.
A few years back, when Richard Pryor, another seminal comedian, passed away, some pious friends expressed mild outrage that such a fuss was being made over this comedian known for using crude language. I tried explaining that, well, there was content in between the salty expressions, but was rebuffed with some out-of-context biblical quote about "the word." Regular readers know matters of faith are important to me. That said, I am firm in my belief that you should run, and fast, from people who use expressions like "the word" with a self-satisfied, hands-folded piety that oozes the very divisiveness and hatred they say they're railing against from high atop their sanctimonious pedestals. (Not that I'm bitter about it.) I'd love to hear what they have to say about George Carlin.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Musings at the End of a Father's Day
From the great songwriter Harry Ruby came this:
"Today, father, is Father's Day, and we're giving you a tie.
It's not much, you know. It's just our way of showing you we think you're a regular guy.
You'll say that it was nice of us to bother, but it really was a pleasure to fuss.
For, according to our mother, you're our father. And that's good enough for us."
As one might reasonably expect, I'm thinking of fathers today. My own, of course, missing him much. Thinking good thoughts too for Mary, whose fine journal is one of my favorites, and of this being her first Father's Day without hers. And of other fathers I've observed, and the nature of fatherhood itself. Odd as it may seem, I was reminded of some of this by recent news coverage of a convicted hedge-fund swindler who, on his way to report to prison, parked his car on a bridge with a suicide reference written on the hood . No body has been found yet, and I'm fairly certain that when authorities do find it the heart will be beating and the body temperature will be something like 98.6 F.
Why does this remind me of fatherhood? It starts with my having the peculiar distinction of having known, or at least having been acquainted with, a man who spent nearly two years in the mid-1980's as No. 1 on the Federal Marshall's Most Wanted list. No joke. Multiple journal entries could be devoted in their entireties to his adventures/misadventures. For now it will do that while he was awaiting sentencing for taking about $2.2 million from a Teamsters pension fund (remember, back then that was a lot of money), the news reported he had disappeared in a scuba-diving "accident" and was presumably killed. Now, the reaction you'd have if you heard most people you know were killed in a diving accident would be something like, "Wow. That, really terrible. How sad." In this case, my reaction - and that of most people to whom I spoke who also knew him - was "Yeah. Right." He was eventually found - tan, smiling, and running a chain of successful scuba-gear stores on the appropriately named Maldive Islands. (I suppose if a guy is dumb enough to steal from the Teamsters, he's dumb enough to live a conspicuous life while on thelam.) After his capture, I was struck by a newspaper article's mention of the love and loyalty his daughter, a lovely kid I knew while in high school, continued to demonstrate. I know she had to feel great hurt and shame, and yet - he was her dad. This was more than 20 years ago, and I still think about that. Not so much in terms of him, but in terms of her.
More fatherhood stuff, oddly timed too. In my office there's a bookshelf where people bring books they've finished reading so other people can borrow them. This past Friday, I saw someone had brought in Tim Russert's "Big Russ and Me," a book I'd been wanting to read about his relationship with and admiration for his father. When it was time to leave I picked up the book to put it in my bag, and stopped to read the forward. Thinking about my own father, I teared up a little at Russert's account of accepting an award at the American Legion in Buffalo, and calling his father up to give it to him instead in thanks for the values and courage he and this room full of old soldiers have lived and given us. Suitably moved, I left the office, and on the ride down in the elevator saw the item on the video screen about Russert's sudden passing at 58.
At Last I Understand
This started with song lyrics. Here are some more to finish. (I'm providing a link since the lyrics are under copyright.) They're from Bobby Russell, whose better known lyrics include "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia," "Little Green Apples," and the inexplicably successful "Honey." These are from "Saturday Morning Confusion," one of those songs - "Is That All There Is" and "It Was a Very Good Year" being two others that come to mind - that you really don't understand till you get a whole bunch of years under your belt. Fatherhood in a nutshell...
http://www.themadmusicarchive.com/song_details.aspx?SongID=153
And this to close...
A few weeks ago we were pulling out of the church parking lot after the service and were trying to decide where to go for lunch. My sons wanted Taco Bell.
Me: Did you bring your driver's licenses with you?
Them: No.
Me: Then we can't go to Taco Bell.
Them: Why not?
Me: Because if I eat at Taco Bell I'll keel over and die, and without your licenses you'd have no way to get home.
Them: You mean if we'd brought our licenses we could have gone to Taco Bell?
Happy Father's Day, everyone.
"Today, father, is Father's Day, and we're giving you a tie.
It's not much, you know. It's just our way of showing you we think you're a regular guy.
You'll say that it was nice of us to bother, but it really was a pleasure to fuss.
For, according to our mother, you're our father. And that's good enough for us."
As one might reasonably expect, I'm thinking of fathers today. My own, of course, missing him much. Thinking good thoughts too for Mary, whose fine journal is one of my favorites, and of this being her first Father's Day without hers. And of other fathers I've observed, and the nature of fatherhood itself. Odd as it may seem, I was reminded of some of this by recent news coverage of a convicted hedge-fund swindler who, on his way to report to prison, parked his car on a bridge with a suicide reference written on the hood . No body has been found yet, and I'm fairly certain that when authorities do find it the heart will be beating and the body temperature will be something like 98.6 F.
Why does this remind me of fatherhood? It starts with my having the peculiar distinction of having known, or at least having been acquainted with, a man who spent nearly two years in the mid-1980's as No. 1 on the Federal Marshall's Most Wanted list. No joke. Multiple journal entries could be devoted in their entireties to his adventures/misadventures. For now it will do that while he was awaiting sentencing for taking about $2.2 million from a Teamsters pension fund (remember, back then that was a lot of money), the news reported he had disappeared in a scuba-diving "accident" and was presumably killed. Now, the reaction you'd have if you heard most people you know were killed in a diving accident would be something like, "Wow. That, really terrible. How sad." In this case, my reaction - and that of most people to whom I spoke who also knew him - was "Yeah. Right." He was eventually found - tan, smiling, and running a chain of successful scuba-gear stores on the appropriately named Maldive Islands. (I suppose if a guy is dumb enough to steal from the Teamsters, he's dumb enough to live a conspicuous life while on thelam.) After his capture, I was struck by a newspaper article's mention of the love and loyalty his daughter, a lovely kid I knew while in high school, continued to demonstrate. I know she had to feel great hurt and shame, and yet - he was her dad. This was more than 20 years ago, and I still think about that. Not so much in terms of him, but in terms of her.
More fatherhood stuff, oddly timed too. In my office there's a bookshelf where people bring books they've finished reading so other people can borrow them. This past Friday, I saw someone had brought in Tim Russert's "Big Russ and Me," a book I'd been wanting to read about his relationship with and admiration for his father. When it was time to leave I picked up the book to put it in my bag, and stopped to read the forward. Thinking about my own father, I teared up a little at Russert's account of accepting an award at the American Legion in Buffalo, and calling his father up to give it to him instead in thanks for the values and courage he and this room full of old soldiers have lived and given us. Suitably moved, I left the office, and on the ride down in the elevator saw the item on the video screen about Russert's sudden passing at 58.
At Last I Understand
This started with song lyrics. Here are some more to finish. (I'm providing a link since the lyrics are under copyright.) They're from Bobby Russell, whose better known lyrics include "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia," "Little Green Apples," and the inexplicably successful "Honey." These are from "Saturday Morning Confusion," one of those songs - "Is That All There Is" and "It Was a Very Good Year" being two others that come to mind - that you really don't understand till you get a whole bunch of years under your belt. Fatherhood in a nutshell...
http://www.themadmusicarchive.com/song_details.aspx?SongID=153
And this to close...
A few weeks ago we were pulling out of the church parking lot after the service and were trying to decide where to go for lunch. My sons wanted Taco Bell.
Me: Did you bring your driver's licenses with you?
Them: No.
Me: Then we can't go to Taco Bell.
Them: Why not?
Me: Because if I eat at Taco Bell I'll keel over and die, and without your licenses you'd have no way to get home.
Them: You mean if we'd brought our licenses we could have gone to Taco Bell?
Happy Father's Day, everyone.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Learning By Trowel and Error
Finally, and with about three weeks advance planning, this past three-day Memorial Day weekend provided a great opportunity for relaxation and recreation. Or it would have, if I hadn't had a backyard makeover project that's been in a state of partial completion for about three years. The yard had not been touched since the end of the last growing season, so that alone tells you something about what kind of shape it was in as we entered the weekend.
Some background to clarify. About three years ago my all-concrete back yard had deteriorated to the point at which anyone going back there risked serious bodily injury. More importantly, they might sue me. Even in those cheap-oil days, the cost of concrete had skyrocketed to where the cost of repaving the entire yard was far beyond the budget, assuming (incorrectly) that there was a budget. Since I'd been gardening for years in planters, we decided to save on concrete - and, for that matter, planters - by repaving only about half the yard and keeping the rest exposed so I could remake it into an in-ground garden in all that spare time I have. In the ensuing three years, I learned some valuable lessons:
Lesson 1. Hand-digging the heavy clay soil found in this part of New Jersey is a bear.
Lesson 2. Lesson 1 is not helped by the presence of large, heavy rocks and construction debris left behind by the guys who built the house about 60 years ago. (They've probably gone on to that great construction project in the sky by now. My heartfelt wish is that they spend eternity laying in heavy clay soil with large rocks and construction debris.)
Lesson 3. Placing, one-by-one, a pallet and a half of stone pavers so they form a level network of walking paths throughout the garden is a really big bear.
Lesson 4. After said pavers have been placed, sweep sand into the cracks immediately. If you wait, oh, say, 3 years, weeds and grass grow between them with roots that extend down to around the earth's molten center. Pulling them out is an absolutely enormous bear.
Lesson 5. Hauling half a pallet of 80 pound bags of soil (or, as we call it in Jersey, "dirt") is no big deal for a tall strong guy who over the years has made sure he kept himself in shape.
Lesson 6: Hauling half a pallet of 80 pounds bags of soil is quite a big deal for a short, skinny middle-aged technocrat whose main form of exercise is pushing a pencil.
After far too long of tellingmyself I was sure going to finish this project "someday," my biological clock had had enough. (Yes, men have those too. Ours have us feeling we have to earn large sums of money or complete manly projects by a certain age.) I entered the three-day weekend with but one goal: finish the yard. A doctor friend I shared my three-day plan with advised me to get the Advil ready. I consider it a sign of prophetic cosmic approval that as I left to go home for the weekend after work on Friday, the Advil folks decided to hold a promotion and hand out free samples on the street. I got four or five packets, and was ready.
Having been neglected for more than half a year, a good bit of the yard was so overgrown with weeds you might have thought it an abandoned lot. The lawn, or rather the 10' x 18' patch of grass that passes for one, symbolized how the yard looked like an unkempt vagrant badly in need of a haircut. Introducing my two teenagers to the idea that manual labor is not a guy in their Spanish class, we got off to a good start that had the yard looking like a semi-kempt vagrant with a bad haircut in no time.
My boys took immediately to the task of weeding the areas that hadn't been planted last year and that had the most weed growth. Mostly they were enormously entertained by the variety of insect life forms one encounters while digging up old soil. By the time we got to developing the last planting sector I was unable to bear the thought of hauling one more bag of soil or laying one more stone paver. Solution: put up a steel arch-type trellis from a kit, put a hanging basket of something-or-other (petunias I think, but who was paying attention by that point), and mulch the living daylights out of that heavy clay soil.
By the time we ran out of daylight, the only remaining work was the weeding of a portion of the pavers, and some normal-maintenance weeding that actually has nothing to do with the makeover. And oh yeah, I have to find some way of getting rid of all those old planters. With only enough energy left at the end to run a hot bath and open a cold beer, I couldn't help feeling that life was a pretty good place.
Should you be interested, dear readers, here's the progress. The photo on the left is the old planter garden, arranged with great artistry in a 4 x 4 grid that may not seem like much to normal people but that engineers think is beautiful. On the right is the 2008 version. (The grass area is where the planters were in the photo on the left.) Please disregard my neighbor's Mesozoic-era fence that we hope to cover with one of our own some time soon.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Graffiti
Back in high school, a good friend (who went on to write professionally) wrote a column called "Graffiti" in the school newspaper. It was a collection of short, odds-and-ends items, and I was reminded of that title while gathering the mini-rants below.
Britney's mom must be feeling kind of slighted right now
A mothers organization in Long Island, NY has given Lindsay Lohan's mother a "Top Mom" award. No, really, I'm serious, and so, apparently, are the members of the mothers organization. I'm cheering Lindsay on in her recovery efforts, but let's face it, folks: giving Dina Lohan a mothering award would be as ridiculous as, say, George Bush offering his administration's expertise on responding to a natural disaster. And how dumb would THAT be?
Heck of a job, George
The hearts of any civilized human being have to go out to the people of Myanmar, and everything humanly possible that can be done to help them should be done. That said, am I the only one who finds a cruel irony in our current president offering his administration's expertise for responding to a natural disaster?
Do they still have to attack if he calls it "nucular?"
This past Tuesday morning, the Today Show had a piece where Al Roker got to go into one of the top-secret underground silos from which nuclear attacks would be launched. Roker asked some interesting questions of the dedicated soldiers who - quite literally - have their fingers on the buttons, exploring how they'd feel if a strike were ordered, but forgot to ask this one: are they concerned that the person who could order a nuclear attack is a self-absorbed, morally bankrupt, short-sighted, self-righteous, self-deluding fool who can't handle the complexities of putting a subject and a predicate together to form a sentence?
While on the subject of the president, please join me, dear readers, in offering heartfelt congratulations to his daughter Jenna for her wedding day. And in praying, really hard, that they don't procreate.
Here's looking at you, kid...
Want to know what's wrong with the world? I'll tell you what's wrong with the world. The current issue of Vanity Fair has a cover story about how Robert Kennedy's evolving thoughts on the Viet Nam war influenced his decision to run for president. It's hugely powerful stuff that has enormous relevance today. And does anyone even know the article is there? No, because the same issue has two photos of entertainer Miley Cyrus that are much more important for us to talk and write about.We do it to ourselves, folks.
Iron Chef Freedonia
A couple of weeks ago I had the great experience of seeing Duck Soup, my favorite Marx Brothers movie, on a 50 foot screen at the beautiful old Loews theater here I've written about previously. I couldn't have been the only person there who thought Zeppo had an eerie resemblance to Bobby Flay.
(A semi-unrelated item I couldn't resist sharing: Around the time Duck Soup (which takes place in "Freedonia") first came out, the upstate NY city of Fredonia complained about the use of so similar a name. From Groucho came this response: "Change the name of your town. It's hurting our picture.")
Gratuitous American Idol Item
So now we learn that a good bit of the the "live" comments given by the judges for each performance are prepared before the show based on rehearsals. Who could have guessed the judging process on that show wasn't completely proper? I certainly don't see anything wrong with people being judged on their ability to stand at a microphone and sing by a panel of people, not one of whom - and I'm including Paula in this - could themselves stand a microphone and sing. Nor is there anything wrong with contests being decided by an uninformed general public voting multiple times in the same election. It's done all the time here in New Jersey.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
New York, New York, a Hell of a Town
Sorry for the time between posts. It's been a whirlwind here, though I can't actually think of anything that's getting done in all the activity. To quote Lewis Carroll, it's taking all the running I can do to stay in the same place.
New York City has been a study in all sorts of human things these past weeks. Michael R. (for "Rich beyond your imagination") Bloomberg, billionaire and NYC mayor, had proposed "congestion pricing," a plan by which drivers would be charged several dollars to enter Manhattan during peak hours. Though it's a city plan, it would require state approval to implement. Despite Bloomberg's extended full court press on the state legislature - or maybe because of it - the state dismissed the plan without so much as putting it up for a vote.
Bloomberg is, overall, a reasonably popular mayor, and we're hearing calls here and there for the two-term limit to be done away with so that he can be elected again. Still, like generals, billionaires enter public office with a disadvantage. They're accustomed to saying, "This is what you are to do," and having people snap to attention and do it. It's a shock when they find out what happens when you say that to people in a more general society.
The big story here, though, has been the Pope's visit. He's making other US stops, but most of his activity centers on New York City. He's visiting abuse victims; speaking to world leaders at the U.N. (if, by "world leader," we mean people whose function is to park illegally with diplomatic immunity and debate whether they will "condemn" or simply "deplore" the latest terrorist attack); speaking with Jewish leaders at a synagogue; conducting masses at St. Patrick's Cathedral and Yankee Stadium (where, at 81, he will be only the third oldest person ever to take the field, after Randy Johnson and Mike Mussina); seeing the World Trade Center site; and just generally being seen by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of faithful, semi-faithful, and never-heard-of-faithful. It is a time of deep spiritual renewal and enlightenment, after which time we will all go back to being exactly the same as we were before his arrival.
I actually got to see the Pope once, not Benedict but John Paul II, on his first trip to the U.S. in 1979. I was a college student in those days, or at least was attending college, the "student" part being debatable, and his motorcade passed along 8th Street in the village, just a couple of blocks from my school. This was before the assassination attempt, so he was still riding in an open-topped car, with Cardinal Cooke holding an umbrella to fend off the rain. Between the rain and the fact that I was still learning to use the first 35 mm SLR camera I ever owned, the picture below isn't great. Still, it reminds me of how I had at the time no understanding at all that to be that close to the Pope - 30 or 40 feet at most - is nearly unheard of, and is a privilege millions around the world would give much for. Not bad for a Jewish kid.
Unrelated Topic: Nice Buns
I recently finished reading a wonderful book, "How I Learned to Cook," by Kimberly Witherspoon and Peter Meehan. It's a compilation of early experiences related by a collection of well-known chefs. One of the chapters was from Nancy Silverton, co-founder (and bread expert) of a number of high-level restaurants in California. What she said included this:
"I realized I couldn't think about bread the way I thought about pastry or pasta or any other typical culinary undertaking. Bread is alive. Minor inconsistencies are a fact of life, not a mark of failure. The tiny variation in the loaves from day to day made them unique, not imperfect. And the relationship of a baker to her bread is like any other kind of serious relationship you have with anybody in life. It's never perfect. It takes so much work. And every time you think that you've mastered it, the next day you're brought back to reality and it needs some more work."
I love that.
Monday, March 31, 2008
The Conspiracy Conspiracy
A while back my aunt passed away and, while looking up the cemetery on the Internet (location, directions, things like that), I found it has two claims to fame. First, it is the burial place of poet Alan Ginsburg. Second, no less than 141 web sites say it is the place where a man - a "former member of the Israeli Defense Force" who, of course, asked that his name not be used - was taking clippings of English ivy in October, 2000 and says he overheard three men talking, in Hebrew no less. He heard one of the men say, "The Americans will learn what it is to live with terrorists after the planes hit the twins in September."
Wait...this gets better...
When one of the men later asks if the upcoming (November 2000) presidential election will affect the plan, another of them replied, "Don't worry, we have people in high places and no matter who gets elected, they will take care of everything." Oy.
If you saw this on a tv show, you'd probably say "Who writes this garbage?" and change the channel.
I was reminded of this recently by new reports about the RFK assassination claiming new evidence of a multiple-gunman conspiracy. RFK being kind of a hero of mine, if you'll forgive someone my age still using expressions like that, the story caught my eye. Seems some new electronic enhancements of recordings made at the time show more shots fired than at first thought and that proves there was a second gunman and that shows there was a larger conspiracy that was covered up by the official investigation blah-blah zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
RFK assassination conspiracy theories are certainly not new. Reports of a mysterious woman in a polka-dot dress shouting, "We shot him!" came out almost immediately after it happened nearly 40 years ago. Other theories that made it all the way into publication include that Sirhan was hypnotized, that he had amnesia, and that the killing was arranged by Aristotle Onassis so that Kennedy wouldn't interfere with Ari's plan to marry Jacqueline. (Credible reports do suggest RFK would smack you if you referred to his sister-in-law as "Jackie.") Back in pre-Internet days, someone told me that it doesn't matter how ridiculous an idea is; if you can show it was published somewhere it will have instant credibility.
In the RFK case, it's easy to see how these theories started. There were surface inconsistencies: ballistic markings from test-firings of Sirhan's gun differ from those on the bullets that hit RFK; the coroner's report that RFK was hit in the back of the head, whereas Sirhan was standing to his right; two additional bullet holes found a in a door frame pre-maturely destroyed by investigators would have brought the total bullets found to 10. (Sirhan's gun held eight.) And then, of course, there's the woman in the polka dot dress. The manner in which the LAPD and District Attorney's office responded with secrecy and bureaucracy only added fuel.
Valid questions to ask, but they've been answered, and years ago at that, by people who didn't jump to conclusions. Ballistics differed because of barrel fouling caused by repeated test firings by investigators. (Ballistics of the first few test shots, before the fouling occurred, reportedly were a match for the three victim bullets.) The two unaccounted-for holes in the door frame were found to be too small to have been made by bullets. Analysis shows that shows RFK turned to his left just as the shots were fired, so that a bullet from the right would have entered the back of his head. Eyewitnesses do confirm there were at least two women in polka dots that night, but the campaign staffer who made the claim one of them was involved later failed a polygraph test and recanted. One of the "polka dot" women did say she ran from the room shouting, "he's been shot!"
For the human race to regularly put out hasty, nonsensical theories seems inconsistent with its mind-boggling history of technical, artistic, social and intellectual accomplishments. We've put men on the moon. (Wait...maybe that's not a good example.) In any event, something doesn't add up. Somebody - my guess is the government - is covering something up, and I'm going to find out what. I'll check some published materials and the Internet and get back to you.
Unrelated Item 1: Have It Your Way (Assuming by "you" is meant "Stephen King")
Is it just me, or is that rubber-masked Burger King character on the tv commercials really scary looking in a serious way?
Wait...this gets better...
When one of the men later asks if the upcoming (November 2000) presidential election will affect the plan, another of them replied, "Don't worry, we have people in high places and no matter who gets elected, they will take care of everything." Oy.
If you saw this on a tv show, you'd probably say "Who writes this garbage?" and change the channel.
I was reminded of this recently by new reports about the RFK assassination claiming new evidence of a multiple-gunman conspiracy. RFK being kind of a hero of mine, if you'll forgive someone my age still using expressions like that, the story caught my eye. Seems some new electronic enhancements of recordings made at the time show more shots fired than at first thought and that proves there was a second gunman and that shows there was a larger conspiracy that was covered up by the official investigation blah-blah zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
RFK assassination conspiracy theories are certainly not new. Reports of a mysterious woman in a polka-dot dress shouting, "We shot him!" came out almost immediately after it happened nearly 40 years ago. Other theories that made it all the way into publication include that Sirhan was hypnotized, that he had amnesia, and that the killing was arranged by Aristotle Onassis so that Kennedy wouldn't interfere with Ari's plan to marry Jacqueline. (Credible reports do suggest RFK would smack you if you referred to his sister-in-law as "Jackie.") Back in pre-Internet days, someone told me that it doesn't matter how ridiculous an idea is; if you can show it was published somewhere it will have instant credibility.
In the RFK case, it's easy to see how these theories started. There were surface inconsistencies: ballistic markings from test-firings of Sirhan's gun differ from those on the bullets that hit RFK; the coroner's report that RFK was hit in the back of the head, whereas Sirhan was standing to his right; two additional bullet holes found a in a door frame pre-maturely destroyed by investigators would have brought the total bullets found to 10. (Sirhan's gun held eight.) And then, of course, there's the woman in the polka dot dress. The manner in which the LAPD and District Attorney's office responded with secrecy and bureaucracy only added fuel.
Valid questions to ask, but they've been answered, and years ago at that, by people who didn't jump to conclusions. Ballistics differed because of barrel fouling caused by repeated test firings by investigators. (Ballistics of the first few test shots, before the fouling occurred, reportedly were a match for the three victim bullets.) The two unaccounted-for holes in the door frame were found to be too small to have been made by bullets. Analysis shows that shows RFK turned to his left just as the shots were fired, so that a bullet from the right would have entered the back of his head. Eyewitnesses do confirm there were at least two women in polka dots that night, but the campaign staffer who made the claim one of them was involved later failed a polygraph test and recanted. One of the "polka dot" women did say she ran from the room shouting, "he's been shot!"
For the human race to regularly put out hasty, nonsensical theories seems inconsistent with its mind-boggling history of technical, artistic, social and intellectual accomplishments. We've put men on the moon. (Wait...maybe that's not a good example.) In any event, something doesn't add up. Somebody - my guess is the government - is covering something up, and I'm going to find out what. I'll check some published materials and the Internet and get back to you.
Unrelated Item 1: Have It Your Way (Assuming by "you" is meant "Stephen King")
Is it just me, or is that rubber-masked Burger King character on the tv commercials really scary looking in a serious way?
Monday, March 17, 2008
"May You Live In Interesting Times"
It's St. Patrick's Day, when the world takes a moment from a hectic schedule to acknowledge the rich history and culture of Ireland and its proud people, and reduce them to green bagels, green paper hats, green beer and cardboard leprechauns. But I digress.
The last few days at work have been interesting, to say the least.
I suppose that sounds like the entries in countless other journals. Ho hum, why should anyone really care? Ok, so let me start this over again.
The last few days at my job working for the New York State government - yes, that New York State government - have been interesting, to say the least. The somewhat tumultuous times we were experiencing anyway took a you-can't-make-this-stuff-up turn last week when governor no. 54 became client no. 9.
It's not that this will affect my job directly - I'm way too low on the food chain for that. But with a new governor often comes new management for state agencies. And while they have no idea I exist, they do appoint people who promote people who designate people who, in some cases, have seen my name on an e-mail somewhere. A change in top leadership can create turmoil under the most stable conditions. In recent months our agency has been seeing rapid organizational changes anyway, with more promised to come, and so a top-management change now would be turmoil squared. I've decided to take a wait-and-see approach, primarily because I'll be damned if I can think of any other idea.
Fortunately, events have wasted no time taking absurdity to heights Bill-and-Monica never got close to achieving. I don't want the state's economy being presided over by someone who thinks $4000 for two hours of his, um, special friend working under him (literally, in this case) is a good deal. (Some newspaper accounts of the recorded telephone conversations have reported this amount was agreed to after some haggling by the then-governor.) There's more absurdity in that the man who, as a hard line prosecutor, used wiretaps and monitored bank transactions to indict other people got caught by means of...you guessed it...wiretaps and monitored bank transactions. Moral and legal issues not withstanding, the - sorry, I have to use the word - stupidity of that is stunning.
I think my favorite absurdity came earlier this week. It seems Ashley Dupre, the mistress in question, had some R-rated photos on her Facebook page and got upset when newspapers covering the story published them. Do you remember that old definition of chutzpah: killing your parents and then throwing yourself on the mercy of the court because you're an orphan? With the new century seems to have come a new definition: posting pictures of yourself on the Internet and then taking legal action against someone because you consider the pictures private. I love this stuff.
One of the saddest spectacles has been the now-former governor parading his wife out to stand next to him while he makes his various public confessions. This has been widely - and, I believe, appropriately - criticized. Her efforts not to look completely mortified are gallant but unsuccessful. It's hard to know what he's thinking having her do that, except perhaps that as long as they're in a public place she can't disembowel him. If that's the case, it might be the most common sense he's shown in this whole episode.
I suppose that sounds like the entries in countless other journals. Ho hum, why should anyone really care? Ok, so let me start this over again.
The last few days at my job working for the New York State government - yes, that New York State government - have been interesting, to say the least. The somewhat tumultuous times we were experiencing anyway took a you-can't-make-this-stuff-up turn last week when governor no. 54 became client no. 9.
It's not that this will affect my job directly - I'm way too low on the food chain for that. But with a new governor often comes new management for state agencies. And while they have no idea I exist, they do appoint people who promote people who designate people who, in some cases, have seen my name on an e-mail somewhere. A change in top leadership can create turmoil under the most stable conditions. In recent months our agency has been seeing rapid organizational changes anyway, with more promised to come, and so a top-management change now would be turmoil squared. I've decided to take a wait-and-see approach, primarily because I'll be damned if I can think of any other idea.
Fortunately, events have wasted no time taking absurdity to heights Bill-and-Monica never got close to achieving. I don't want the state's economy being presided over by someone who thinks $4000 for two hours of his, um, special friend working under him (literally, in this case) is a good deal. (Some newspaper accounts of the recorded telephone conversations have reported this amount was agreed to after some haggling by the then-governor.) There's more absurdity in that the man who, as a hard line prosecutor, used wiretaps and monitored bank transactions to indict other people got caught by means of...you guessed it...wiretaps and monitored bank transactions. Moral and legal issues not withstanding, the - sorry, I have to use the word - stupidity of that is stunning.
I think my favorite absurdity came earlier this week. It seems Ashley Dupre, the mistress in question, had some R-rated photos on her Facebook page and got upset when newspapers covering the story published them. Do you remember that old definition of chutzpah: killing your parents and then throwing yourself on the mercy of the court because you're an orphan? With the new century seems to have come a new definition: posting pictures of yourself on the Internet and then taking legal action against someone because you consider the pictures private. I love this stuff.
One of the saddest spectacles has been the now-former governor parading his wife out to stand next to him while he makes his various public confessions. This has been widely - and, I believe, appropriately - criticized. Her efforts not to look completely mortified are gallant but unsuccessful. It's hard to know what he's thinking having her do that, except perhaps that as long as they're in a public place she can't disembowel him. If that's the case, it might be the most common sense he's shown in this whole episode.
Unrelated Item 1: Heather in the Sky with Diamonds. Large, Expensive Diamonds.
With the American economy currently in an extended downturn (in economist terminology, it "sucks") I'm seriously considering flying to England and seeing if I can get Paul McCartney to marry me for a few months. I'll keep you all posted on my progress.
Unrelated Item 2: With Special Guest Appearance By...
It's looking like the latest fashion in Washington is making "unannounced" visits to Iraq. Every week it seems the "Survivor: Baghdad" show features a different surprise guest doing essential fact finding, as if facts ever had anything to do with our engagement there. And, ok, while we're here, I suppose there's no harm in having our picture sent back home looking iconic and statesmanlike while meeting with the troops or with local officials.
Unrelated Item 3: Memories are Made of This
I don't think Dean Martin will ever get the full credit he deserved as one of the most superbly well-rounded entertainers of our lifetimes. Just thought I'd mention that.
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