Category Life

Not Seeing Is Believing

Michael 6 Comments
I’ve never actually seen a hurricane. I was on Puerto Rico twice within a week of a hurricane having gone through and saw its aftermath. I’ve been in South Florida just before a hurricane was predicted to hit and helped secure the property.  I’ve seen flooding in Pennsylvania from hurricanes so severe when they hit the Gulf Coast the Ohio River spilled its banks 1,000 miles away. But I’ve never actually seen a hurricane. Doesn’t matter. I know what hurricanes can do to people and I’m not stupid enough to think just because I haven’t seen something first hand it won’t hurt me. I think I’ll be careful and listen to the experts about how to stay safe when a hurricane is coming.
 
I’ve never actually seen a person have a stroke. I’ve worked in health care my entire adult life and I’ve seen heart attacks, seizures, asthma attacks, people in hypoglycemia, bleeding, bruising, and shaking with fever. But I’ve never actually seen a person have a stroke. Doesn’t matter. I know what a stroke can do to a person and I’m not stupid enough to think just because I haven’t seen something first hand it won’t hurt me. I think I’ll be careful and listen to the experts about how to avoid a stroke.
 
I’ve never actually seen a car try to beat a train through a railroad crossing and lose. I’ve seen a car that lost. Fortunately I didn’t see the former occupants of the car. [Shudder] But I never actually saw a car lose its race with a train.  Doesn’t matter. I know what trains can do to people and I’m not stupid enough to think just because I haven’t seen something first it won’t hurt me. I think I’ll be careful and listen to the experts and stop, look, and listen before proceeding through a railroad crossing.
 
I’ve never actually seen a plane crash. A plane once came down 15 miles from my home. I wasn’t there at the time. I didn’t see it, I didn’t hear it. I read about it in the papers. For days after I read about it in the papers. People I know worked the scene. For days after they worked the scene. But I’ve never actually saw the plane crash. Doesn’t matter. I know what falling from the sky can do to a person and I’m not stupid enough to think just because I can’t see something first hand it won’t affect me. I’ll be careful and take what precautions I can when I have to fly. 
 
I’ve never actually seen the SARS-CoV-2 virus…
 
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Count Me In

Michael 7 Comments
I’ll start out politely. If you still have a campaign sign up for any candidate for any office in your front yard stop being a tool and go that that thing down. Yes, Virginia, the election is over. And be responsible, those signs are recyclable you know.
 
Okay, now let’s all sit down and have our physicis, err, civics lessons. The election is over. The counting may not be and guess what, it almost never ever is by now in any year. That’s because there are always recanvases and audits, sometimes recounts, and election boards have to review all of this before any count can be certified. The chances of mis-counts happening are pretty slim. Occasionally they do and sometimes between projection, final count, and certified count 1, or 2 votes might swing. Pretty important stuff for the dogcatcher at Dog Patch, voter population 4. Not so important when we are talking about 150 million voters. Close votes sometimes trigger automatic recounts, or often induce apparent losers to petition for a recount. The information clearinghouse Ballotpedia reviewed 4,687 statewide general elections and noted than recounts were ordered 27 times. Of those 3 resulted in a change in the apparent winner and in those three cases the initial margin of apparent victory was 161 votes or less.
 
Here’s a fact of life. Incumbents don’t always win. Even Presidential incumbents. In the United States thirteen times before this year the incumbent President failed to win reelection beginning with America’s very second President. In 1912 William Howard Taft finished third in a 3 way race in his reelection! This is not an American phenomenon. Across the globe incumbent Presidents have lost in reelection attempts outside the U. S. over 60 times since Taft’s third place finish.
 
imagesIf the votes of the 2020 election stand as they are currentry counted, with Joe Biden pulling in more than 51% of the popular vote cast, this is not a particularly close race. That’s not particularly uncommon. Before this year popular vote winner failed to receive more 50% of the votes cast eighteen times although not all if then were close. The most recent close race was the 2000 Bush vs Gore election with George W. Bush defeating Al Gore in the electoral college by 1 vote but losing the popular vote to Gore by 500,000 out of approximately 102 million votes cast (48.4% to 47.9%). In 1960 with Kennedy vs Nixon although John Kennedy had a comfortable majority of 84 electoral votes, Richard Nixon won electors in 26 states to 22 for Kennedy (Harry F. Byrds won 2 states) and the popular vote difference between Kennedy and Nixon was 113,000 out of about 69 million votes cast (49.72% 49.55%). In 1876 Hayes ve Tilden the popular vote went to Samuel Tilden  although Rutherford B. Hayes won in the electoral college by one vote. In 1824 in a 4 way race John Quincy Adams lost the popular vote to Andrew Jackson by less than 45,000 votes, neither candidate receive a majority of electoral votes and the President was determine by a vote in the House of Representatives which was won by Adams by a single vote. (The popular vote results were 41.4% Jackson, 30.9% Adams, 25.2% combined Crawford and Clay although not all states held general elections for President.) 
 
Not all close popular vote victories resulted in electoral college nail biters and some large electoral college wins were determined by quite small popular vote margins. Some electoral college votes cannot even by compared to popular vote because until 1828 not all states held elections for president. Article II, Section 1 of the U.S.Constitution specified the states would elect the president but bow the states determined for whom each would cast their vote was left to the states themselves. Five times electoral college victories were scored by popular vote losers, most recently in 2016 when Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by 77 electors yet receiving 2.75 million less popular votes. Others include George W. Bush and John Quincy Adams already mentioned. In 1888 Benjamin Harrison defeated incumbent Grover Cleveland by 2 electors while losing the popular vote by 9,500 votes. Twelve years earlier Rutherford B. Hayes took the electoral college by a margin of 65 votes while losing the popular vote to Samuel Tilden by 110,000 votes cast. Did anybody ever win all available electoral votes? Actually yes, twice. George Washington and George Washington. 
 
What does all this tell us? A couple things. We can sit around all day, all week, all year crunching numbers looking for who won what when and by how much and the answer still comes out the same. The election is over. Let’s move on. And there hasn’t been a George Washington since George Washington. 
 
Oh, and go clean up those yard signs.
 
 
 
 

The Name Game

Michael Leave a comment
It’s been said a mind is a terrible thing to waste. I think mine is a lost cause. Yesterday while on the Internet searching for new phone providers (ugh) and a reasonable way to make sweet potato fries crispy (1400 degree oil and then only if it’s the third full moon of the month), I wandered into requirements for establishing a non-profit foundation (there are a lot!), a discussion if malpractice insurance should be considered if you’re retired but still doing volunteer work (yes, because lawyers), whatever became of blonde furniture (it’s still out there but is really expensive), and the top selections for baby names in the 1950s.
 
HMNIMaybe it is because I am a child of the 50s but those names were sort of boring. I mean they weren’t. ad names, still aren’t, but except for Robyn with a “y” on the girls side and Ian for the boys, there are no names that make you scratch your head and go hmmm. If you were in elementary school in the 60s these were your classmates. I had at least one of each at my 6th grade graduation. Except for poor Ian. No Ian.
 
What I found interesting is that although these were and still are good, strong names, they have all disappeared. The number one girls name in the 50s didn’t make the top ten in any of the remaining 20th century decades. It took until 80s for the boys mid-century leader to fall off the board and by then only 2 of the top ten 1950s names remained on the list at all. By the 90s only one boys name from the 50s top ten lost remained. The girls names faired even more poorly. Just one decade later there were onIy two repeaters in the top ten and they both were gone by the 70s.
 
By the time the I had poured over those lists of names curiosity got the better of me. In addition to wondering whatever because of Jennifer I also wondered what are today’s parents calling their children. I pulled up the Social Security website and searched for the latest complete year of given names. If you’ve not been to ssa.gov you should spend some time there. They do more than issue the nine digit ID numbers so sought after on the dark web. There I found the top ten lists of baby names for last year. No surprises. They are different but the same. Good strong names but no shockers. I am sure in sixty years or so those children will wonder what became of classmates they will be meeting for the first time a few years from now. 
 
There is one surprise. William, the number 8 most popular boys name in the 1950s who never showed up on another list from the 19-anythings is back. I wonder if he will blaze a trail for the other 19 to follow. Even Ian.
 
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Come on ev’rybody, I say now let’s play a game

I betcha I can make a rhyme out of anybody’s name

The first letter of the name

I treat it like it wasn’t there

But a “B” or an “F” or an “M” will appear

And then I say “Bo” add a “B” then I say the name

Then “Bo-na-na fanna” and “fo”

And then I say the name again with an “”f” very plain

Then “fee fi” and a “mo”

And then I say the name again with an “M” this time

And there isn’t any name that I can’t rhyme

Ian! Ian, Ian bo-be-nan

Bo-na-na, fanna fo-fe-nan

Fee fi mo-me-man. Ian!

Shirley Ellis

A Gift of Time

Michael 2 Comments
 

I intended to post this last Monday but I instead did a mini tribute for Sean Connery. So, it may be a few days late but still timely. (Timely! Get it, timely. Hahahaa, oh I crack myself up!

—–

They say time marches on. They also say we should adjust our time twice a year. Did you remember to change your clocks before you turned in Saturday night or did you arrive everywhere an hour late on Sunday? Or would that have been an hour early? “They” tell us to do these things and we do, not often thinking of the consequence if we don’t because we never don’t.

In the grand scheme of things our time here is not terribly important. The world has been around for 4.5 billion years. Man has inhabited it for 200,000 of those. That’s about 0.0044%. Not statistically significant. But humans don’t think in terms of the grand scheme. We consider every hour precious and when we’re told to give one back, like we were last April, we spend days complaining about the hour we lost. It becomes the excuse for all time related failures. “I was late for work because I had to set the clock ahead last Saturday.” But this “Last Saturday” we were given a gift of an hour. For one hour on Sunday morning we got a redo. We had the chance to relive an hour of our lives. What did you do with your gift? If you just slept it away you’re probably in good company as I’m sure that was how many spent their time.

NewYearsClock

I’ve never made a true study of it but I would not doubt that “If I had to do it all over again … ” is one of the most oft uttered phrases in the English language and no doubt its equivalent in all the others. (Except maybe Esperanto. Well, it sounded like a good idea to somebody.) (Esperanto that is, not uttering “If I had to do it over again.” That doesn’t just sound like a good idea, it is a good idea.) (The phrase, not Esperanto.) (Sheesh!) I also don’t doubt that most people end that with “… I’d do the same thing.” It sounds like such a good idea. It is such a good idea! It’s such a good idea the golf people gave it a name – a Mulligan. It’s such a good idea don’t hold it against the golf people for coming up with such a stupid name. It’s such a good idea kids in the playground gave it a name too, a good name. A do over. It’s such a good idea, the world gifted us with twenty-four additional extra hours this year. Imagine all the things you might have redone with an extra day. (And that day came before most of the real Covid Craziness!) Imagine an extra day trip, an extra day to vacation, or an extra day on the slopes or on the beach depending on your personal preference. 

Or would you use an extra day as an opportunity to spend a day volunteering instead of selfishing. I’ll go closer to the end of the limb and say that thought probably doesn’t come up often. Maybe that’s why if presented an opportunity to do it all over again we profess to rather not changing anything. Maybe it has been so hard to get where we are we don’t want to take a chance on doing it differently. Or maybe we’re just plain old selfish.

The next time you wonder if you had to it all over again, if that opportunity to relive an hour of your life were to come again, would you do anything different? You’ll get your chance again about a year from now. Think about that that the next time you wish you had a do over.

 
 

Gone, Sean Gone

Michael 4 Comments
The world lost an icon over the weekend, if an actor can be an icon. But this was no ordinary icon. This was a legend, one whose picture should be in  dictionary next to the word. The one who defined suave and debonair in three words. Bond, James Bond.  
 
The obituaries for Sean Connery all started similarly: “the First Bond,” “the best Bond,” “the man who was James Bond.” Only one opened with “the Oscar winning actor.” Yes, James  Bond, err, Sean Connery won an Oscar, the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for 1988, as Jimmy Malone in “The Untouchables,” his only Oscar nomination. 
 
Sean Connery the man who epitomizes James Bond made more than Bond movies. He made over 90 movies and television dramatic appearances amd countless interviews and personal appearances in talk shows and such. He turned to acting because he thought it would give him a longer career than his other serious consideration, soccer. He thought right. His last on screen credited role was as Allan Quatermain in “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” in 2003 at age 73.
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Before taking the role of Ian Fleming’s suave spy Sir Sean Connery had performed in 26 movies including as Lord Hamlet in Paul Almond’s “Hamlet” (Canada, 1961). Word is the Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman hired him for “Dr. No” on appearance alone. He was James Bond. And he was James Bond seven times, performing in more of Fleming’s 14 Bond novels turned films than anybody else had or likely will.
 
Connery, Sean Connery. Rest peacefully, not stirred.

Continue reading “Gone, Sean Gone” →

No Exceptions – Still!

Michael 6 Comments
 
I don’t know if you noticed I’ve missed quite a few Thursday posts. I’ve had lots to say, I never run out of words much to the chagrin of so many, and have gotten many posts written. It seems though that at least half of everything I’ve put down lately has gotten there through anger. Hence although they got writ only half as many got published.
 
I’ll not say anger is bad. A lot of who were are and want we’ve accomplished is because somebody was angry. Early settlers were angry at what they perceived as unfair treatment in their native lands and set out to establish new homes elsewhere resulting in most of the modern world. Pioneers in diagnostic procedures were angry that they couldn’t get a look at what was happening inside the body so they could effectively develop treatment plans and went about creating all manner of gadgetry to see what was lurking under the skin, thus the field of medical imaging was borne.
 
Those were instances of anger turned to beneficence through inspiration, imagination, and doing the hard work needed to make things better. There is anger out in the world again only much of that anger is over pettiness. In a world where almost 1.7 million people have lost their lives to the no longer novel virus SARS-CoV2 and its spiffy street name CoVid-19 we get angry that we cannot fill a football stadium with tens of thousands of screaming fans to watch 22 college “graduates” concuss each other. Or we get angry enough to file suit against a neighbor seeking damages for pain and suffering when he (or whatever freaking pronoun is politically correct this week) put up a campaign sign in his front yard blocking the view of the campaign sign Neighbor One put up on his yard for the opposing candidate of course. To anybody who thinks these are important expressions of personal liberties, you’re stupid!
 
LTN
This week marked the second anniversary of the mass killing of eleven people attending services at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. At the time I changed the banner on this blog to the sign “Love Thy Neighbor – No Exceptions.” Rallies were held, the obligatory pop-up memorial overflowed with flowers, and people bought up t-shirts, hats, and flags declaring the city is “Stronger Than Hate.” Two years later people are wearing those shirts to riots, and inventing new derogatory names to call people with political views different from theirs.
 
Life in America has become a series of memes, the 21st century version of sound bites, where it’s easier to wear a red hat or a string of pearls than to engage in meaningful dialogue. Where its easier to say hate won’t win than to act like I love you.  
 
TOLSTH

Priorities, U.S. of A. … and others too

Michael 4 Comments

 

In a world or at least a country that has really misplaced its priorities I spent a week rediscovering mine. Let me offer a word of advice and one also of encouragement. They are out there…and they are out there.
 
It took the company of a friend who literally, literally traveled across the country to come find them with me and we didn’t stop until we convinced ourselves that if we never stopped we would still never see all that we could and find all the reasons to stick around on this world for as long as we can.
 
It’s beyond words so I’ll stop here and let the sights speak for themselves.
 
 
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There, I think that explains it pretty well.

Happy Federal Employees Day Off Day!

Michael Leave a comment
Happy Thanksgiving all you Canadians, and happy whatever holiday it is that we Americans (U.S. type) are supposed to be ashamed of but we’re glad to get the day off anyway so let’s just change the name for when we are talking on social media or while standing in line at the coffee shop. Woe to he or she or they or it or whatever is the right way to refer to him or her or them who dare utter the name Columbus. Don’t you know what he did to the true and rightful Americans (native type except not native as in one who was born here)?  From whence did all this vitriol come? Not the faux vitriol or he, she, them, it, and/or who or whatever. The frank vitriol being spewed by me! Well, I’ll tell you. Come sit and listen.
 
It was Sunday afternoon and I was out for a ride with my dear friend who had just travelled 3,000+ miles to visit and be able take such a ride. We were speaking of mountains, anticipating a trip to the nearest mountains, the Alleghenies, an mid-range of the Appalachians, to do some fall leaf watching. “Who named the mountains?” she wonder aloud. Without thinking I said, “I’m not sure. Around here almost everything was named by the original tribes.” Yes, that’s exactly how I said it. Not Native Americans, not Indigenous People, not [shudder] Indians. The original tribes. 
 
See, here there were several nations and tribes around here and many are still recognized as the names of towns or schools or rivers though not necessarily as nationals. Iroquois, Shawnee, Seneca, Chippewa, and others. Their cultures and language, their religions and even their forms of government differed much like France differs from Poland. Yet “we” the “woke privileged white americans” lump them together as Indigenous American or Native American much like we the same do the same with anybody “we” feel are or have been slighted by “us.” Asian Americans, African Americans, Latino Americans (which I suppose is now Latinx) yet never considering if we really wanted to recognize and celebrate their heritage we would take the time to recognize and celebrate their ancestry. Just as their is a huge difference between decedents of French and those of Polish ancestors so there is a difference between Cuban and Columbian, or Namibian and Nigerian, or Thai and Taiwanese, or even Chippewa and Cherokee. 
 
I don’t really care what you think of Columbus. What he did, didn’t do, thought about doing or wish he had done was done, not done, thought about, or wished for long before I was a gleam in my parents’ eyes. What resulted from those deeds and non-deeds can’t be undone. But what you decide to do or not do or think or dream today and tomrrow and the days after that do matter. So if you want it to matter more than just for as long as it takes for somebody to create an even more politically correct term for anybody who “isn’t like us” how about taking the time to talk to and learn about somebody who “isn’t like you.” You might find out their histories and culture are much more interesting than you read about in 40 characters or less on line.
 
Happy Day!
 
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Oh Lord, Please Send Me a Sign!

Michael 3 Comments
It’s that time of year again. Leaves fall and campaign signs blossom. Can you say “blossom” in reference to weeds?
 
Any election brings out the signs like that’s going to push the undecided voter over somebody’s edge, but in a presidential election year the ever growing number of signs is beyond full bloom! Or full weed as the case may be. 
 
One would think one sign per candidate per yard should be sufficient. Several municipalities around here thought the same thing as ordinances had been considered limiting the number of signs that could be placed in a yard. Yep, that failed miserably. The local officials were willing, even passed some of those local laws. Candidates, committees, political parties, and “activist” groups petitioned courts, filed suits, and challenged rulings until the regulations were all either overturned, or withdrawn. All so we can drive past neighborhoods where trim colors on houses and flower beds are regulated but where 25, 30, even 40(!) identical signs can legally, if not esthetically, block our view of those houses and border plantings. 
 
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So it was nice to see something different while I was out on the road last week. A hug. A sign with a hug. Now there’s something that deserves a yes vote!
 
 

Shades of Black and White

Michael 5 Comments
I’m usually as upbeat as possible for a person who legitimately should have died 3 or 4 times over the last twenty years. I think my posts reflect that I can be at the same time serious about life, enjoying life, and making fun of life and life’s attempts to abandon me. But the past week has taken a toll on me. I haven’t found a lot to keep my spirits up without working really really hard at it myself.
 
Every day brings new opportunities for honesty, understanding, and collaboration. These are the things that make the world a reasonable place for such a diverse group of people to share. It used to be that only the nuts with an antisocial media account would be telling you that their way is the only way, they are right and everybody else is wrong. But now normally rational people have hopped onto the “I am right, you are wrong and never the twain shall meet” bandwagon. Every day brings new opportunities for mankind to demonstrates how little tolerance we actually have for, well, for just about everything.
 
Here are some certainties that aren’t. In truth not all cops are killers, not all protesters are anarchists. At the same time it is also true that not all cops are blameless and not all protesters are righteous. Wait. What? How can this be?! Yes, it is true, not everybody in a group as a profession, or party, or country, or race, or those with exactly the same length of their left thumbs share 100% all the attributes of every single other person of the same grouping. Our pea sized brains surely will not explode if we do not lump all of a type into a single category.
 
PSX_20200928_101907There are no absolutes in the world. Even the adage nothing is certain except death and taxes isn’t so. Taxes are easily avoided if you’re willing to do some work. If you don’t think you should have to pay income tax on your new fall outfit you can buy it in a state that doesn’t tax clothes. If you feel you are paying too much income tax, move to a country where taxes are not levied against your earnings. Don’t want to pay the transfer tax on a the purchase new house? Remodel the old instead. Death is a little trickier. Eventually all of us will succumb to something but it’s pretty certain that with proper care and again a little work on our parts, we can extend our time here. Cancer, organ failure, and rare diseases are no longer the harbinger of inevitable demise they were. I present me as Exhibit A. If we can avoid or at least mitigate the dynamic duo of death and taxes, we can certainly learn to recognize gray areas in other aspects of life and live with them comfortably.
 
Consider this. Not all mushrooms are poisonous, some are tasty, some of the tasty ones are poisonous. You don’t have freakishly superhuman intelligence to accept these somewhat contradictory thoughts can be simultaneously true. You may “like mushrooms to death” but you also know that certain mushrooms can lead to actual death. Those you learn not to eat. You can determine which are good to eat and which are not either by completing an intense focused education including identification of natural toxins and become a mushroom expert or you trust experts to do this for you and buy what has been proven safe for human consumption. The key is the work behind the expertise and trust in the process.
 
There is no single facet of life that is an absolute this or that, right or wrong. Except for the fact of life that there is no facet of life that is an absolute this or that, right or wrong. Go ahead, I dare you to prove me wrong. Or right. That should keep some people busy!
 
Ah, now I feel better.