Strongly Worded Letter

Colder Than Siberia

The front page of the Seattle Times reported on our chilly spring in an interesting way Wednesday. I know we have nothing to really complain about when I see the Iowa floods on my television set but still, with the start of Summer only a few days away, can this really be our Spring?

The best word I heard this week to describe the weather is Junuary!

Seattle weather: Colder than Siberia!

It  doesn't seem fair, but it's the cold, hard truth — accent on cold: While Seattle hasn't seen a 70-degree day in more than two weeks, Fairbanks, Alaska, has had six of them in the past 10 days.

Just about everyone, it seems, is toastier than we are. You've heard of International Falls, Minn., the self-proclaimed "Icebox of the Nation?"? It's had four days this month in the 70s, topped off with a pleasant 75 on Sunday.

Across the Atlantic, the northern destination of Oslo, Norway, has been passing the 70-degree mark nearly every day recently, while even the Siberian city of Tomsk, Russia, hit the 70s last weekend.

Meanwhile, shivering Seattle residents, hearing about snowplows back at work on Snoqualmie Pass this week, probably have only dim memories of the 77-degree high of May 24, the last time the mercury crept into the 70s here.

On Tuesday, state highway workers clearing away the last of 7 inches of snow on Interstate 90 could remember only two other times in the past 30 years that snowplows have been called out this late in the year.

Maybe we shouldn't complain too loudly, though.

The East Coast has been sweating and sweltering in mid- to upper-90-degree heat, setting records in several areas.

In New York City, the temperature was pushing toward the 100-degree mark. Combined with high humidity, the heat had people scurrying for shade or air-conditioned relief.

Weather experts say June made its chilliest debut ever in Seattle last week, but at least a mild respite is on the way. The National Weather Service forecasts highs 68 on Saturday and Sunday, with the promise of a "partly sunny" weekend.

Not a scorcher by any means, but much nicer than we've been getting.

(End of Article)

P.S. Update!!! The weather forecasters were right!!  Yesterday was beautiful, sunny and warm (65 degrees) for most of the day. Here's Tater's view from the front porch, where she sat with me yesterday afternoon and took in the day. 

P.P.S. Happy Father's Day to all the dads today, especially to mine and to Donna's dad,  Howard!! See you both soon.

Equal Parts Sad And Angry

Wow, wasn't yesterday a black letter day for the world?

Thing One: By every account, one of the most decent men in television died unexpectedly of coronary thrombosis in his office at age 58 (!). Tim Russert was, to me, the face of NBC News as a political analyst who appeared frequently across their whole day's news programming. He was also the longest running host (since 1991) of the longest running show in worldwide television history (Meet The Press, on the air since 1947, and on radio before that!).

I try hard not to write posts for StronglyWordedLetter.com about subjects that are going to be covered so much better elsewhere and there are no shortage of tributes to Tim all over the internet, on TV, and in print this morning. I urge you to seek them out to read about this giant of American journalism.

On last night's Dateline NBC special remembrance, they showed interviews with Russert's colleagues and friends in the news business who all spoke of his decency, his loyalty, his passion for his work and family, his deep Catholicism, his love of baseball, his patriotism and so much more.

I didn't know some of the stories I heard but do know that as a viewer I was always impressed by how smart, articulate, fair and prepared he was every time I saw him on television. In a medium that is increasingly filled with Bill O'Reilly, Keith Olbermann, John Gibson and other blowhards like them, Tim Russert was a rare broadcaster, one that made you proud of how he used his platform to educate and enlighten the audience.

Thing Two: Are you kidding me that R. Kelly was acquitted of all 14 counts of child pornography yesterday? Even though I have been predicting it for years, I secretly hoped I was just being pessimistic about the American judicial system.

For those who didn't follow the case, Kelly is a popular R&B singer who managed to delay this trial for nearly six years before it got to court last month. He was accused of having sex with an underage girl. The principal evidence in the prosecution's case was A VIDEO OF R. KELLY HAVING SEX WITH THE UNDERAGE GIRL!!!          

The defense attorney lied argued that it was not his client in the video even though the whole courtroom could see that the man on the tape was the man in the suit sitting next to the defense attorney. At one point it was argued that a couple must have broken into R. Kelly's house and filmed the sex tape there, then digitally altered the video to make it look like the singer and his underage goddaughter. (!)

That the defendant is an internationally known celebrity didn't hurt him; he has even had numerous Top Ten albums and singles on the pop charts even since the charges were filed. You won't convince me that having eight  African-Americans on the jury wasn't as good as a Get Out Of Jail Free card either. Go ahead and argue that the racial makeup was appropriate for the trial's location, Chicago, and I'll even agree with you. It would be hard to find eight blacks in America who want to see R. Kelly in jail, much less eight in one jury pool. 

All in all, a truly sucky Friday the Thirteenth this year.

Like Sleeping On A Cloud

It's Tater Tot Friday! I'm not sure why the Tot gets to sleep on a big, luxurious, faux fur blanket and we don't but she certainly convinced her people that she deserves it.  Sweet dreams, Tater.

Tater Tot Friday Celebrity Bonus Bulldog: I am really feeling bad and also starting to worry/wonder about actor Adam Sandler. No, not just because I've seen the trailer for the Zohan movie but because in the nine years that we have had Tater, he is already on his third English bulldog.

Here is a photo of Meatball (lying down), Adam's first bully, who sadly passed away during surgery at only four years old. The came Matzo Ball (standing), who I recently found out is also dead. I did not hear why but she would have been too young to die of normal, natural causes. 

According to the Sandman's website, the new family dog is named Babu and I wish her a very long and healthy life.

The circle of life......Enjoy your weekend.

Animal Stories

I know what some readers must be thinking today "Come on, Bean. Sheep yesterday, a cow story today, and tomorrow is Tater Tot Friday? When did your stupid blog turn into The Petting Zoo Daily?"

Stay with me. Thing One: There is a good reason to bring up Betsy, one of our cows today. I wrote earlier in the year that she had been briefly ill with a respiratory infection. We treated it with regular injections of a strong broad spectrum antibiotic and she recovered nicely. We thought her well on the road to recovery as she seemed engaged again, more active and her appetite returned.

Sunday morning she did not want to come down to the barn for breakfast. She was lethargic, wasn't interested in eating, and was obviously not feeling well.

We've made some progress with her since then, finding out that she's always in the mood for apples and pears, plus we switched her straight alfalfa with a mix of alfalfa and Timothy grass. So far so good. But we are still looking into maybe getting her down to Oregon State University next week for a more thorough physical some x-rays.

But why the sudden change in her health?

Now Thing Two:

We live on a small island and it is not unusual to see the names of people we know in the local newspaper. Unfortunately, they sometimes appear on the obituary page. That was the case in yesterday's weekly  edition of The Beachcomber. Some highlights:

"Edith Williams, 90, died June 8 at her home after a long life of political, educational and community leadership. The last surviving granddaughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, Mrs. Williams was long active in the Republican Party at state and national levels. She seconded the nomination of Richard Nixon in 1960 and supported Sen. John McCain's presidential bid in 2000. For almost all of her adult life she promoted the educational and commemorative programs of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, headquartered in New York...."

The obituary notice goes on to tell more of the story of this fascinating woman but one part of her life that did not make the paper was her long, close relationship with a beloved pet that was born on her property. A pet she kept for twenty years until Mrs. Williams' failing health made it necessary for her to find a new home and a new caretaker for the animal.

That day came about four years ago, the day that Donna and I drove over to Edith's house and met Betsy for the first time. We have cherished her ever since and consider her fully a part of our family but I can't help but wonder if somehow, some way, Betsy and Edith might have still been connected on some level. Is it possible that a cow could feel some disturbance in The Force on the day the person she lived with for two decades passed on?

I have heard of stories like this before. I know a dog that cried for a week when the dog he used to live with died, over a thousand miles away. I am not going to try to explain that simpatico and I wouldn't blame you for laughing out loud and then mocking me for the absurdity of the whole idea.

I'm just sayin.'

   

 

Counting Sheep

Counting sheep is pretty quick work at my house, whether you are sleepy or not.  We only have the three: Philip and Elizabeth, named after the Queen of England and her husband, plus Milagro, so named when we adopted her. It's Spanish for Miracle, don't you know.

Yesterday was their annual sheep shearing day and my friend Marcia arrived right on time to get the job done. May I speak from experience? Yes, sheep shearing is something you can do yourself but it is one of those tasks, like dentistry, best left to a professional. They do it faster and more safely, and that makes it less traumatic for your flock.

Elizabeth was up first. We get their hooves trimmed and have them wormed at the same time.

Next came Philip.

 

And finally, Milagro. She is often difficult to photograph because she never stops squirming.

Ta-da!! Presenting happy sheep!!! Nice haircuts for another year!

America's Worst Roadside Attraction?

There were a couple of years, very early on in our marriage, when Donna would still go on road trips with me. Then came the trip to the Chief Crazy Horse Memorial.

We were in South Dakota for a long weekend and naturally took in Mount Rushmore, the state's best and best known attraction.  I say that being fully aware of the Outhouse Museum in Gregory, the National Presidential Wax Museum in Keystone, and the Corn Palace in Mitchell.

I conned convinced my wife to make the short seventeen mile drive through the beautiful winding roads of the Black Hills to stand in awe of the Chief Crazy Horse Memorial, which had been under construction since 1948 but surely must be nearly done.

My recollection is that the roads were poorly marked and our directions were somewhat sketchy and we got a little lost, maybe a lot lost. So we ended up driving for about two hours on roads that all looked the same and then we saw it.

A chalk outline on a hill.

Thinking this couldn't be all there was to the "world's largest mountain carving" we drove on and eventually came to a park entrance where we learned that for only fifteen dollars we could drive another half hour and get close enough to the mountain to see the fine detail of the historic artwork. So we did.

And we saw a chalk outline on a hill, only closer.

The Chief Crazy Horse Memorial was in the news last week as June 3rd marked the 60th anniversary of the start of its construction. Apparently the face of the Chief is now done and a welcome center and one Indian museum building is open "but the carving of the Lakota warrior's body, his horse, and a planned university and medical training center for American Indian students are still years away," says this Associated Press article on the occasion.

Here is the official website of the Memorial, with the history of Crazy Horse, and the construction webcam that I have never actually gotten to work.  Weak. 

Good Hands, Bad Math?

Tremendously exciting basketball being played in this year's NBA Finals so far and I have really enjoyed the games. I know I am not the only guy who insists on seeing sporting events live instead of on TIVO like nearly everything else I watch. Maybe it's because I'm afraid I'll see the score somewhere online or on another channel if I record the game and watch something else.

So that brings me to the commercials I now find myself sitting through. I've made a few notes.

1) Hey, movie company, don't waste your time buying commercials to advertise that Jumper is coming out on DVD.  No one, repeat, no one plans to buy that movie to own, not even Hayden Christensen. In fact, based on reviews of his performance in that film, maybe especially not Hayden Christensen.

2) Speaking of movies I saw advertised last night, Hell Boy 2 = no, Love Guru = maybe, The Happening = maybe, Incredible Hulk = no, Don't Mess With the Zohan = hell, no. That one looks so bad I am surprised Hayden Christensen isn't in it.

3) I am a rabid fan of Apple computers but  am sick to death of the Mac guy making fun of the PC guy. Dude, you are already dating Drew Barrymore in real life, You don't have to be a dick too.

4) So 24's President Palmer is alive and pitching All State auto insurance. He looks like a nice man (hey, I thought he died, no?) but I still find it hard to believe that "most accidents happen on Friday between 3 and 6 p.m." as he told me last night.

Is that possible? There are more car crashes in those three hours than in the other 165 per week combined? I find it possible that "more accidents happen on Friday between 3 and 6 p.m. than during any other three hour period" but that is as far as I'll go.

5) I love the NBA's playoff campaign this year, the There Can Be Only One commercials with a player from each team's face taking up half the screen while both are talking at the same time about competing, winning, or fear. They were directed by the husband/wife team that made the movie Little Miss Sunshine by-the-way. Saturday Night Live did a hilarious parody a couple of weeks ago using their Clinton and Obama impersonators.

6) Finally, to ABC, we don't care who The Mole is.

 

It's A Wonderful Life

My very favorite movie of all time was in the news again yesterday, a few months out of season.

Bob Anderson, the teenage actor who portrayed the young George Bailey in the film It's A Wonderful Life passed away at age 75. Jimmy Stewart acted his way into immortality as the adult Bailey but it was Anderson who had one of the film's most memorable scenes, described here by the Associated Press report:

"In one scene, the story called for him to spot a potentially fatal error made by a drunken druggist, played by H.B. Warner.

Warner took the role seriously and on the day of shooting had been drinking and was 'pretty ripe,' Victoria Anderson (Bob's wife) said. The scene called for Warner's character to slap the boy.

Anderson told the Los Angeles Times in 1996 that the scene and its rehearsals were painful.

'He actually bloodied my ear,' Anderson told the paper. 'My ear was beat up and my face was red, and I was in tears.'

'At the end when it was all over, he (Warner) was very lovable. He grabbed me and hugged me, and he meant it,' Anderson said."

The film was made in 1946 so it's no surprise that nearly all of the major actors in it are no longer with us, or, as I prefer to think of it, are "drinking with Clarence." I did a little research last night and came up with this partial list. If you love the movie as I do, you will recognize most of the characters mentioned here.

James Stewart      George Bailey          died 2 July 1997.
Donna Reed          Mary Bailey             died 14 January 1986
Lionel Barrymore   Mr. Henry Potter      died 15 November 1954
Thomas Mitchell    Uncle Billy Bailey     died  17 December 1962
Henry Travers       Clarence                 died 18 October 1965
Beulah Bondi        Ma Bailey                died 1 January  1981
Frank Faylen         Ernie Bishop            died 2 August 1985
Ward Bond           Officer Bert             died 5 November 1960
Gloria Grahame    Violet  Bick              died 5 October 1981
H.B. Warner         Mr. Emil Gower        died 21 December 1958
Frank Albertson    Sam Wainwright       died 29 February 1964
Todd Karns          Harry Bailey             died 5 February 2000
William Edmunds  Giuseppe Martini      died 7 December 1981
Sheldon Leonard   Nick                        died 10 January 1997

The Kids Are Alright: Karolyn Grimes, Larry Simms, and Jimmy Hawkins, who played the Bailey's three young children (Zuzu, Pete, and Tommy) in It's A Wonderful Life, are all still alive.

 

Raining At The Drive-In

Yesterday marked the 75th anniversary of the first drive-in movie theater. I took the picture above in 2002 at one of the few remaining in Washington at that time. I don't remember where in the state it was but it is almost certainly gone by now.

The Valley 6 in Auburn is one of the few remaining in this area and gets high marks by its visitors on CitySearch so it might be fun to check out this summer while we still can. Are there any drive-ins near where you are? Do you ever go? Have they figured out a way to screw up the experience or is it still pretty cool?

I would have incorporated some of the facts in this New York Times article in my post today but the whole darned thing is so interesting that I have just included it all. Please drive through.    

June 6, 2008,  4:48 pm

The Drive-In Movie Turns 75

By Richard S. Chang

On this day 75 years ago, the first drive-in theater opened in Camden, N.J., showing a British comedy titled, “Wives Beware,” for 25 cents a car and 25 cents per person.

As the story goes, its inventor, Richard Hollingshead Jr., conducted experiments at his home in Riverton, N.J., by placing a Kodak film projector on the roof of his car and directing it at a white bedsheet hung between two trees in his yard. Some people have suggested that he invented the drive-in for his mother, who was a large woman and did not fit comfortably in regular indoor theater seats.

On May 16, 1933, Mr. Hollingshead patented a special parking arrangement, where every car would have an unobstructed view of the screen. He opened the Camden theater a month later. His partner was his first cousin, Willis W. Smith. Before 1933, neither had any experience in the theater business.

Drive-ins have always been known for showing older movies or just plain bad ones. Because of the high cost and heavy competition in purchasing top-tier movies, drive-ins have always resorted to second-runs and B-movies (and even X-rated movies). “Wives Beware” was chosen by the drive-in founders because it was not sought after by the established theater owners and still relatively recent.

“Like most innovations, that first drive-in theatre got off to a good start, financially, if not artistically,” wrote Thomas M. Pryor in The Times on August 14, 1938. “Competition in the picture-buying market was keen, though. Too keen, in fact, for the sponsors of the drive-in theatre, and after a series of poor pictures even the novelty of the scheme seemed to lose its box office appeal.”

In 1934, Mr. Hollingshead and Mr. Smith headed west to Hollywood, where they struck a deal with “a substantial independent exhibitor,” wrote Mr. Pryor. They also converted a parking lot on Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles into a drive-in, which became an immediate success. And the rest is history.

By 1938, there were 12 theaters across the country. The first one in New York State opened in Valley Stream, Long Island, on Wednesday, August 10, 1938. There was a downpour. But according to Mr. Pryor’s story, the rain didn’t hamper the viewing for the 1,500 people who attended the premiere (in 600 cars). Admission was 35 cents a person.

“Drive-ins started to really take off in the ‘50s,” Jim Kopp of the United Drive-in Theatre Owners Association told Smithonian magazine. “They offered family entertainment. People could sit in their cars, they could bring their babies, they could smoke. Drive-ins offered more flexibility than indoor theaters.”

But since the 1960s, the number of drive-in theaters across the country have steadily declined. Today there are none in the New York metropolitan area. The last one, Westbury Drive-In, closed in 1998.

June 6: T-Day

It's Tater Tot Friday! Sorry, words fail me today. There is nothing I can add here to improve your enjoyment of this photo. That is all.

Oh, but prepare to be offended, Tater Tot fans. Here is the link to the recent CBS This Morning story on ten smartest and stupidest (their words) dog breeds. A certain breed was maligned as the "third stupidest." Right.  

Yay to the weekend!

Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam

Not too many years ago nearly ninety percent of the content on the World Wide Web was in English. No more. Increasingly, I come across blogs and websites in Spanish, German, Farsi, and Chinese, to name just a few.

This week I received this spam email whose sender's name was in Japanese. The links in the email go to a site in Japanese. But what is going on with the rest of the text in the body of the email? This is not even a real language, right?

Re: 携帯で簡単おこづかい
 

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http://74-75.info/mobafpc/?rf=bkc

Perhaps this is the Asian equivalent to the word salad that appears in so many English language bulk emails.

"semaphore nuclei bazaar paraphernalia glow beg ambition embassy optometry thump feedback fill scrotum mutter alcove inadequacy vise chalkboard bestseller angle concertina what'd stablemen drier erosion garner monkish sandblast tenneco vignette embryo detente filler grover cute e'er ligget polkadot toad buzz pallid confectionery scowl doorbell blumenthal somerville harrisburg it glisten methylene upsetting botanist sedimentation depict garrison filled bema"

The tactic here is to include words that normally do not appear in spam messages in order to get a message classified as not being spam.

 

Weezer? I Don't Even Know Her

One of my favorite bands of the past fifteen years is Weezer. They are  modern and retro at the same time and are one of the very few musical acts whose videos I go out of my way to see too. Here's their latest masterpiece, for the hit single Pork 'N' Beans.  See how many YouTube "stars"  you recognize in it.

The new Weezer album just came out yesterday and for the third time now the band didn't bother to come up with a title so this one will be forever known as "the red album." One of the new songs that got my attention is called Heart Songs. It's a decade-by-decade playlist of singer/songwriter Rivers Cuomo's influences.

As a long time enthusiast of a certain 1975 Great Lakes shipwreck you can imagine my delight by the opening words of Heart Songs,

"Gordon Lightfoot
Sang a song
About a boat
That sank in the lake
At the break
Of the morning..."

The lyrics go on to name check a wide array of musicians, from Devo to Eddie Rabbitt, from Quiet Riot to Grover Washington, Jr., from Joan Baez to Michael Jackson. Everything changed for Rivers when Nirvana happened. If you remember their Nevermind album cover, you'll get the reference.

"Back in 1991
I wasn't havin' any fun
'Till my roommate said
'Come on and put
a brand new record on'
Had a baby on it
He was naked on it
Then I heard the chords
That broke the chains
I had upon me..."

Press play below to hear Heart Songs for yourself and maybe answer this question that has been puzzling me for nearly 24 hours now. Why do the lyrics suggest Debbie Gibson sang I Think We're Alone Now?

"I gotta admit though
Sometimes
I would listen
To the radio
Debbie Gibson
Tell me that you think
We're all alone..."
   

There's no way a pop music junkie like Cuomo doesn't know that remake was a #1 for the other 80s teen princess Tiffany . Is he being clever in some way that I am too dumb to get?

Sex And The City? I Say Neigh

Hollywood is still abuzz over the box office bonanza that was the Sex And The City movie this past weekend - more than 55 million dollars in North America alone! That the movie appealed almost exclusively to women was one surprising factor, that the comedy was rated R another, but most remarkable about its per screen bounty is that the film's narrator and central character is a horse.

Not since Tobey McGuire rode her in Seabiscuit has Sarah Jessica Parker enjoyed such cinema success. Think I'm being unfair to a lovely actress who by all accounts is a genuinely nice person? Let's go to the tape. Welcome to SarahJessicaParker LooksLikeAHorse.com!











Plenty more terrific photos here and be sure to check out the fun links section including When You Have Hands Like A Man, How To Get Rid Of Crabs, and Five Signs Your Husband Is Gay.

Please enjoy, and thank you blog reader Ana for the tip. Oh, and good luck to Sarah in the Belmont.

 

A Beautiful Monday In The Neighborhood

Over the weekend I received that always forwarded stupid email about the late, great Mr. Rogers' secret past. You know the one; that he was a sniper during the Vietnam war with many confirmed kills and that he always wore long sleeve shirts and sweaters to hide all the tattoos on his arms and neck. A ten second internet search easily debunks the rumors but the type of person who just hits forward and subjects his address book to that kind of spam is not exactly a critical thinker.

I remember reading a piece about Fred Rogers on MentalFloss.com last year that is actually worth sharing. It was called 15 Reasons Why Mr. Rogers Was The Best Neighbor Ever. I'll repost three of those reasons here.


He Made Thieves Think Twice
According to a TV Guide piece on him, Fred Rogers drove a plain old Impala for years. One day, however, the car was stolen from the street near the TV station. When Rogers filed a police report, the story was picked up by every newspaper, radio and media outlet around town. Amazingly, within 48 hours the car was left in the exact spot where it was taken from, with an apology on the dashboard. It read, “If we’d known it was yours, we never would have taken it.”


He Watched His Figure to the Pound!
In covering Rogers’ daily routine (waking up at 5; praying for a few hours for all of his friends and family; studying; writing, making calls and reaching out to every fan who took the time to write him; going for a morning swim; getting on a scale; then really starting his day), writer Tom Junod explained that Mr. Rogers weighed in at exactly 143 pounds every day for the last 30 years of his life. He didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, didn’t eat the flesh of any animals, and was extremely disciplined in his daily routine. And while I’m not sure if any of that was because he’d mostly grown up a chubby, single child, Junod points out that Rogers found beauty in the number 143. According to the piece, Rogers came “to see that number as a gift… because, as he says, “the number 143 means ‘I love you.’ It takes one letter to say ‘I’ and four letters to say ‘love’ and three letters to say ‘you.’ One hundred and forty-three.”


He Was Genuinely Curious about Others
Mister Rogers was known as one of the toughest interviews because he’d often befriend reporters, asking them tons of questions, taking pictures of them, compiling an album for them at the end of their time together, and calling them after to check in on them and hear about their families. He wasn’t concerned with himself, and genuinely loved hearing the life stories of others. Amazingly, it wasn’t just with reporters. Once, on a fancy trip up to a PBS exec’s house, he heard the limo driver was going to wait outside for 2 hours, so he insisted the driver come in and join them (which flustered the host). On the way back, Rogers sat up front, and when he learned that they were passing the driver’s home on the way, he asked if they could stop in to meet his family. According to the driver, it was one of the best nights of his life—the house supposedly lit up when Rogers arrived, and he played jazz piano and bantered with them late into the night. Further, like with the reporters, Rogers sent him notes and kept in touch with the driver for the rest of his life.


I wonder how many people are out there walking Fred's narrow path these days. The world still seems a little less cool without him. You can read the whole article here.

Let's Make Today Thanksgiving

Sometimes I get all sad if the show I am watching on TIVO catches up to real time and then I have to watch the rest of it live and with the commercials. After seeing this article I am considering redefining my definition of sad.


Woman in iron lung dies during power outage

"For the first time in more than half a century, the Odell residence is quiet. There are no squeaks and pops from the electric motor that powered an "iron lung" pumping air in and out of Dianne Odell's body.

 

A thunderstorm knocked out the power to her home Wednesday, shutting off the massive metal machine that had helped her breathe for nearly 60 years.  It was about 3 a.m. when the electricity went out at Odell's home in Jackson, a small Tennessee town about 90 miles northeast of Memphis. An emergency generator did not start, and Odell died as her father and brother-in-law took turns pumping the iron lung manually.

Dianne Odell, 61, was believed to be the nation's oldest survivor of polio to have spent almost all of her life inside an iron lung. She had been confined within the 7-foot-long, 750-pound machine ever since she was paralyzed at the age of 3 by bulbospinal polio. That was in 1950, just a few years before a polio vaccine was discovered..."

Read the whole L.A. Times article here.

 

Other iron lung stuff I just learned:

They are technically known as "negative pressure ventilators."

They work by producing pressure on the lungs that causes them to expand and contract.

Its first use was on October 12, 1928 at Children's Hospital, Boston on a child unconscious from respiratory failure. 

Only about 30 people still use them in the United States.

Ironically, Iron Man doesn't use one.


P.S. Sorry for the death in yesterday's post followed by more death in today's post. I'll look for something peppy or funny or something for tomorrow.

P.P.S. Thanks to whoever linked one of my posts to Stumble Upon last week. I got a lot of new traffic out of that and you gave me the idea to add a button on the bottom of my posts to make it easier to submit anything you like to Stumble Upon or Digg or wherever you like. 


 

The Dead Zone

There were two show business obituaries this week of men whose names were not well-known but whose contributions were enjoyed by hundreds of millions of people the world over.

Earle Hagen was 88 and composed music for more than 3000 hours of television including the theme songs for The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Mod Squad, That Girl, and, most famously, the Andy Griffith Show. If you are whistling in your head right now then you are thinking of the right song but did you know there are words to that one too?

They start like this:

"Well, now, take down your fishin' pole and meet me at the Fishin' Hole.
We may not get a bite all day, but don't you rush away.

What a great place to rest your bones and mighty fine for skippin' stones,
You'll feel fresh as a lemonade, a-settin' in the shade.

Whether it's hot, or whether it's cool, oh, what a spot for whistling like a fool..."

Click here to hear Andy Griffith himself singing the theme.






Fellow composer Alexander Courage was also 88 when he passed this week. He wrote music for Lost In Space, The Waltons, Falcon Crest, Eight Is Enough and many more. But his most famous composition was the theme from Star Trek, over which William Shatner intoned those famous words, "Space. The Final Frontier...."

That it is another iconic instrumental television theme that also has lyrics doesn't begin to tell the rest of the story. Snopes.com has the sad tale of how Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, who wrote the words below, was able to use them to rook Mr. Courage out of half of the royalties he should have received for composing the music. Click here for the full story.

"Beyond the rim of the starlight
My love is wand'ring in star flight

I know he'll find in star-clustered reach
Love, strange love a star woman teaches.

I know his journey ends never
His star trek will go on forever.

But tell him while he wanders his starry sea
Remember me, remember me."

Springtime For Tater

Sometimes even at Tater Tot Friday World Headquarters the pictures come out blurry. It's always operator error though - never the model's fault!

Today's Bonus Bulldogs come courtesy of Britain's Daily Mail. Believe it or not, the headline accompanying this photo was Looking like Winston Churchill is no setback for these wrinkly bulldog pups. Thanks to faithful reader Christine for the heads up!




More pictures and the rest of the article here. Have a wrinkly weekend!!!

Monkeys? Check. Robots? Check. This Post Has Everything

From this morning's New York Times, the headline reads Monkeys Control A Robot Arm With Their Thoughts. Uh, hello? Can anyone else see that this is the fast track to defeat in our never-ending battle for supremacy against the apes? And why exactly are we arming the enemy anyway? Here are some highlights from the article including the scientists "cover story"  that some good might come out of this.

"Two monkeys with tiny sensors in their brains have learned to control a mechanical arm with just their thoughts, using it to reach for and grab food and even to adjust for the size and stickiness of morsels when necessary, scientists reported on Wednesday.

The report, released online by the journal Nature, is the most striking demonstration to date of brain-machine interface technology. Scientists expect that technology will eventually allow people with spinal cord injuries and other paralyzing conditions to gain more control over their lives.

The findings suggest that brain-controlled prosthetics, while not practical, are at least technically within reach.

In previous studies, researchers showed that humans who had been paralyzed for years could learn to control a cursor on a computer screen with their brain waves and that nonhuman primates could use their thoughts to move a mechanical arm, a robotic hand or a robot on a treadmill.

The new experiment goes a step further. In it, the monkeys’ brains seem to have adopted the mechanical appendage as their own, refining its movement as it interacted with real objects in real time. The monkeys had their own arms gently restrained while they learned to use the added one.

Experts not involved with the study said the findings were likely to accelerate interest in human testing, especially given the need to treat head and spinal injuries in veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan."

Me now: Look, I've seen other stories recently about monkeys designing and building weapons and now this? We are barely containing the eventual ape uprising and now some stupid doctor is giving them robots they can operate with their brains? Why not just wave the white flag and give them the keys to our stuff? Clearly we're not even trying to fight back anymore.

Read the rest of the piece here and see some video of the probably Al Qaeda monkey. Here's another video describing the work too.

Kiss On My List

Were you a card carrying member of the mighty KISS Army back in the 1970s or was that just me? Hell to the yeah, I was. I think it was the only music fan club I was ever a member of until ... uh ... Barry Manilow's in the 1990s. Oh, and the Cowsills this decade but I haven't even received a newsletter in a while so I am not sure what is happening with that.

Today's is an audience participation post. Here are my five favorite songs from those three musical artists. In the comments section today leave your 5 favorite songs of any artist you like, any era, any genre.

Oh, and don't judge! Love!




My Five Favorite Kiss Songs Ever:

5. Strutter
4. Love Gun
3. Hard Luck Woman
2. Beth
1. Detroit Rock City



My Five Favorite Barry Manilow Songs Ever:

5. Looks Like We Made It
4. Weekend In New England
3. When October Goes
2. This One's For You
1. Tryin' To Get The Feelin' Again



My Five Favorite Cowsills Songs Ever:

5. We Can Fly
4. Hair
3. Indian Lake
2. Love, American Style
1. The Rain, The Park And Other Things

Phoenix Rising

Mars, this weekend.

Like millions of other space enthusiasts around the globe, I was holding my breath Sunday in the tense moments between when NASA's Phoenix spacecraft landed on the Martian surface and when the data it was transmitting started to arrive back to Earth.

Fewer than half of our missions to Mars have included a successful landing but the Phoenix made the 422 million mile trip (!) and perfectly touched down on the planet's northern polar cap. Once landed, it unfolded its solar arrays, camera, weather station and more for three months of scientific testing. As you can imagine, looking for remnants of water and the possibility of past, present, or future life are the craft's top duties.  

I bring this up to make this observation. You don't have to look to another planet to be impressed with man's ingenuity. Look around you right now and you'll likely see a television, or a skyscraper, or a refrigerator, or any of the millions of other things that make our life more livable. All things that were conceived, designed, and assembled by human beings just like you or me, only smarter.

That I can sit here in my living room on a tiny island in Washington and make words appear on a screen with my fingers blows my mind. That I can hit a button and then you can see it in Indiana, or India for that matter, is more than I can comprehend.

I wonder sometimes if there were a catastrophic disaster that eliminated most of the world's cities and their population, how many people would we need for the manpower and know-how to be able to rebuild many of the things we'd lost? I hope I am never in a situation where I am asked how to make a watch, or a phone, or even a spoon.

This Little Piggy

It is not uncommon around my house to talk about piggies. After all, Sophie and Godzilla are both eleven this summer and for years before they were born we had Daisy and Hamsammich, so pigs have been a part of our family for a long time.

This weekend, somehow I got to thinking about the nursery rhyme This Little Piggy and it sort of confused me a little bit.

When the first little piggy "went to market" I get the feeling it is not the supermarket and he is not shopping. But if he is going to market, in a bad way...uh....as the consumee, then is that really what you wanna put in a song targeted for one to five year-olds?  

The second little piggy stayed home and I am fine with that. My pigs rarely leave the property. And since there is no mention in the song of any kind of human supervision, an outing would likely be ill-advised anyway.

Okay, the third little piggy had roast beef. Unless we were wrong about the first piggy and he really did go to the grocery store and maybe bought roast beef, where did the third little piggy get it? Did he just attack and take down a cow in the barnyard? This damn song is getting violent.

The heartbreaker in the story is the fourth little piggy. He had none. No roast beef. Or maybe he is a vegetarian? It would be unusual for a porcine to be so discerning.

The fifth little piggy went "wee wee wee" all the way home. Someone knows how to party!

Here's cellphone photo of Sophie Marie from a few days ago and we'll leave you with two surprising This Little Piggy thoughts. The first publication date for the words to this nursery rhyme was back in 1728! That is two hundred and seventy years ago. Did you imagine it was that old?  Secondly, and most ironically, you can't really sing This Little Piggy to a pig since they have no fingers or toes to count.

Uh, No, That Sounds Completely Reasonable

I had something else planned to write about this morning but then I saw this, from the Albuquerque, New Mexico KOB-TV website:

Group wants Wi-Fi banned from public buildings

A group in Santa Fe says the city is discriminating against them (Italics mine) because they say that they're allergic to the wireless Internet signal (Italics mine again. Can you believe the words you are reading here?). And now they want Wi-Fi banned from public buildings (Okay, I hear you. I'll stop now). Arthur Firstenberg says he is highly sensitive to certain types of electric fields, including wireless Internet and cell phones." I get chest pain and it doesn't go away right away," he said. Firstenberg and dozens of other electro-sensitive people in Santa Fe claim that putting up Wi-Fi in public places is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The city attorney is now checking to see if putting up Wi-Fi could be considered discrimination. But City Councilor Ron Trujillo says the areas are already saturated with wireless Internet. "It's not 1692, it's 2008. Santa Fe needs to embrace this technology, it's not going away," Trujillo said. The city attorney hopes to have a legal recommendation by the end of the month. Personal to Mr. Firstenberg: Get a dog. Or a hobby. Or something to do. Just leave the rest of us alone. Thank you.

1000 Ways To Die

No, the title of today's post does not refer to my sad Mariners baseball team although watching their last three series against the Padres, Tigers and now the Yankees you might think so. 

It is actually the name of my new favorite TV discovery, on the Spike network. Here's what the voiceover guy says at the beginning of each episode: "The human body is remarkably resilient. Every day we fight a new war against germs, toxins, injury, illness, catastrophe and calamity. The fact that we survive at all is a miracle. Because, everyday we live, we face 1000 Ways To Die!"

Thom Beers, the brains behind the sensational Seattle based Deadliest Catch came up with this one too and the title says it all. Each episode is packed with true stories of actual bizarre deaths, including real footage sometimes (like the guy who got hit by a crashing race car that hit him at over 100 miles per hour and then stopped on top of him), along with re-enactments, animation, and interviews with medical experts to describe the details of the death.

Two of my favorites so far include the Philadelphia meatpacker who froze to death in just a few minutes after being "accidentally" locked in the meat locker, always kept at a less than comfortable -10F. The show suggested it was perhaps an intentional "mistake" by the company's owner, who was also the father of a knocked up 17 year-old daughter. What I also learned:  When people freeze to death they are often found with many of their clothes removed. Constricted blood vessels dilate, producing a sensation of extreme heat, prompting them to strip down. It is a phenomenon called "paradoxical undressing." Freezing to death is Way To Die #293.

 
  

I also very much enjoyed learning about the opposite way to go, six minutes at more than +200F. We saw a re-enactment of a young man at a Los Angeles hospital who, in the course of repairing an industrial dryer, found himself locked inside it as he shaked and baked to death. Ouch. What I also learned: Each year as many as twenty others meet death by dryer, or as the show so proudly put it, "in a machine set on tumble die!" Tumble Die is Way To Die #640.

Some of the tragic tales cover the same material as the well-known Darwin Awards, which i guess I could enjoy if I hadn't been fighting a years long battle to get people to stop sending me that stupid email about them over and over again. 

More on 1000 Ways To Die, including lots of clips here. Please enjoy!  

 

 

 

Unofficial Start Of Summer Tater Tot Friday

Tater Tot Friday Bonus Bulldog:

Awesome: Not since the glory days of the Captain & Tennille do I remember seeing a bulldog on the cover of People magazine. But here's the front of this week's issue.

Not Awesome: It's bad enough that poor Hemingway had to wear some sort of Elizabethan costume at the wedding but unless he escapes, and believe me, he wants to, then he will be forced to live with Pete and Ashlee Freakin' Simpson Wentz for the rest of his sad, sad life.

Hope your weekend is phenomenal and includes no weddings and no Fallout Boy!




P.S. Smackdown Update: Today's report finds me bloodied but not beaten. I went to the address I had mailed the package to yesterday and had a nice chat with the security guard in the lobby. Here's are the new pieces of the puzzle I learned. That building has no management office. There was no suite number on the envelope I sent and no similarly named company in that building.

Sooooooooooo, what did the mail carrier do with the undeliverable package as he stood there in the lobby and realized there was no place to take it? If he took it back to the post office then why didn't he stamp it Return To Sender? The mystery deepens. I am going there next.

Smackdown Straight Ahead

Listen up when I tell you that hell hath no fury like a postal customer spurned. You guys know how much I love the USPS. I use it almost every day and I depend on it to get my business done. I promote the Post Office like Tom pimps L-Ron so I'm more than a little bummed when my mail does not get from Point A to Point B.

This one is almost certainly not Postmaster John "Sweet Jack" Potter's fault but I am launching a full investigation tomorrow and will let the chips fall where they may.

Here's the deal. About three weeks ago I had lunch with a colleague of mine, a guy who works in the same business as I do, but whom I had never met. We had been email pals but one day decided to meet up at the newly renovated downtown 13 Coins restaurant, which, getting completely off-topic now, looks exactly the same to me as before it closed for the upgrade.

Lunch was terrific, stories were told, french fries were eaten, and hands were shook. About a week later, I thought of a book that related nicely to a conversation we'd had at the lunch, on a subject relevant to our work, and decided to send a copy to my friend as a thank you for meeting with me.    

Here's where I struggle. My quick Google search for his company's mailing address apparently delivered an outdated result and I fell for it. So I ended up sending the package to the address his company had moved out of two years ago. Again, it was my error and I acknowledge that.

About a a week after when the gift should have arrived I figured out what had happened. But then started wondering about the people on the other side of this transaction, the ones who now work in the building I sent the thing to?

Several outcomes were possible once the misaddressed package arrived downtown. The best possible result would have been if they had seen who I was trying to mail to (It's a recognizable, well-known brand in Seattle) and took the time to pay it forward. The minimum I think I might reasonably expect in the business world is that they would simply scrawl Return To Sender on the envelope and it would be sent back to my home address on the return label so I could try again.           

What I can't abide by is that the dirty commie bastards just kept it! Besides being a federal offense to intentionally open misdelivered mail it would just be a scummy thing to do.

Here's where the smackdown I telegraphed at the top of this post comes in. I am driving down to the wrong address today and bringing a little Colombo* action. I've got just a few questions and don't mind asking them. Once I've established that another tenant is in that office, which i absolutely expect to be the case since it is a high rent office building in the heart of the city, I will start piecing together the chain of command of the package. I will let you know what happens tomorrow. 

"Don't mess with the bull. You'll get the horns,"  said a once-famous now-dead guy. Not Peter Falk though. He's still alive.

*Don't ask. You've missed too much.

Uh....Can I Say No?

The Mystery Daughter and I were in an airport preparing to fly back from an out-of-town trip this past weekend when a curious thing happened. It's likely it's happened to you too if you fly with any regularity.

We were approached by a middle-aged woman (if she lives to be 120) who asked us if we would "watch her things" while she "ran to the restroom." The way she phrased it made it a rhetorical question in her mind. She barely waited for an answer before she trotted away.

Melissa and I both noticed her demeanor and wondered if there is some sort of official airport etiquette that applies to this situation. Were we allowed to say no? And by saying yes what were our responsibilities until the baggage's owner returned?

If someone else swooped in during those few minutes and started to pick up the bags, what were we required to say?  Just "Dude!" or Stop it?"  Or is an "Oh, no you didn't!" called for? Would we be expected to notify airport police? Homeland Security? Or tackle the potential thieves ourselves?

And if the luggage was stolen, would we be liable financially? Legally? Might we have to miss our flight to give a statement?

Should we have even thought of any of this or just rolled with the flow, assuming there would be no drama and it would play out uneventfully just as it did? Would it have been acceptable to decline the request? What do you think? 



New Business: Typepad  made writing this post quite difficult by springing a bunch of new "improved" Rich Text features on me last night. They were slow to load and awkward to use. I hope it posts okay.

Also, I spoke with my Blogfather Frank Murphy this weekend and he advised me to decrease the number of entries that load on the front page of StronglyWorded Letter.com. I had set it up that way as a convenience to occasional visitors so they didn't have to scroll back through the archives to catch up but he pointed out that too many posts sometimes makes the site slow to load and no one likes that. So I decreased the number of posts that appear up front to just fourteen. Of course, all content is still available in the archives. Let's see how everybody likes that. 

"And What It Is Ain't Exactly Clear....."

This post isn't exactly about politics although it does start with Senator Barack Obama, the likely nominee for the Democratic Party in 2008.

This past weekend the candidate gave a stump speech, this time in Portland, Oregon and it is totally a coincidence that this is the second day in a row I've written about the Beaver State.

What was noteworthy about this appearance was the astonishing size of the crowd. The Portland Fire Bureau estimated that 75,000 people turned up to see a politician speak.

Oregon is, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than ninety percent white. Interestingly, that is 40% more white than Mr. Obama is.

Like I said, this is not about politics. Forget who you are thinking of voting for or why. Let's talk about audience appeal, magnetism, charisma, or whatever word you want to describe that could make 75,000 people spend a Sunday listening to a speech. Even for free. Even on a nice day on the banks of the beautiful Willamette River.   

How many others can you think of? No way President Bush draws that. Or even Miley Cyrus. I'll suggest Pope Benedict might hit that number. But who else? Can you think of anyone else with that kind of pull to add to my two-person list?

   

What's Next In That Crazy Country?

One of the great mysteries of the United States, at least to me,  is why you can't pump your own gasoline in Oregon. That's right, when you drive south from my house and cross the bridge from Vancouver, Washington into Portland, Oregon then all of a sudden you are in 1958 when you pull into a service station. I half expect to see girls on roller skates serving milkshakes while I watch the guy fill my tank. Come to think of it, that is not the worse idea ever.

I don't know when the great state of Oregon will put all those attendants out of work and repeal that law but I do know it is the end of an era on Prince Edward Island in eastern Canada this month.

Yes, for the first time since 1973 you can now buy a can of beer in that province. And soft drinks in a can for the first time since 1984.

Prince Edward Island was way ahead of the coming environmental awareness movement when they banned aluminum cans all those decades ago in favor of only refillable glass bottles. Here's why, so says former premier Pat Binns, "A pop bottle is refilled on average 17 times. You can imagine the energy that saves compared to filling a can in Montreal, driving it all the way to P.E.I., putting it through recycling and back into the mainstream again. Environmentally, glass is much better product than a can that has been used once."

The Niagra Falls Review in Ontario, Canada, where I read the story, also points out that "silica, the raw ingredient in glass, is one of the most plentiful and readily available substances on Earth. Aluminum, on the other hand, is a very expensive metal extracted from bauxite at enormous environmental cost."


I know it seems unlikely but I found the news interesting.

It's Hard Out There For A Pimp

(Click to enlarge) I don't know this guy and can certainly not recommend him for dating but one of my readers, Dana, does. And I do give him credit for being pro-active in this sometimes difficult dating world. Here is more about his plan from this unnamed dude's MySpace page:

"About me:
Why I am doing this? I've tried the 'tried-and-true-ways' to meet someone and figured I'd network and offer a financial incentive for people to refer their female friends to me.

How does this work? Well, just mail me a note about your friend/relative with a link to their picture (or their myspace page) and I'll do the rest. Or you can invite me to have coffee (preferably in L.A., although I will be in SF May 10-12) with the two of you. If I date your friend for at least 6 months, the $600 is yours.

Wanna contact me directly and date me yourself? After 6 months, the $600 GOES TO A CHARITY OF YOUR CHOICE.

Why $600? The IRS is giving out $600 Economic Stimulus Payments -- I'm rolling mine into a Romantic Stimulus Payment.

Almost 38 y.o. (looks 27), 5’7, Jewish (non-practicing), has a Tom Cruise+Jason Schwartzman-ish look, trim, business owner, very creative, very funny, college grad, East Coast-y, well-dressed, well-read, reasonably neat, into film, comedy, cooking and baking, good stories, obscure rock bands, photography, books, L.A. resident looking for a LTR.

Who I'd like to meet:
Female (20’s- 40’s), any height, any religion, non-smoker, LA or SF area resident (or willing to visit often/consider relocating), indoorsy (i.e. museums as opposed to mountains), warm, affectionate, an Abby to my Ira (hey, I just rented it). Someone who likes guys like me."

What do you think, ladies? Interested? Is this ballsy or desperate? Will it work?

This Is Not A Post About Gay Marriage

As you know, The California Supreme Court dropped a gay atomic bomb on Thursday when they overturned the ban on same-sex marriages in that state. But that is not what this post is about, no matter how much I enjoy  seeing Portia Di Rossi kiss a girl even if it is just Ellen DeGeneres.

I've caught some of the coverage on the cable news channels and particularly on talk radio and have had just about an assful  over two things I keep hearing said over and over again.

Thing 1. "We've got to stop these activist judges."

Okay, someone help me here. President Bush was the first person I ever heard use this term and it has caught on like Free Hot Wings ever since. If a judge or court makes a ruling one disagrees with, then they are characterized as "activist judges."  But if one agrees with the ruling then the judge or court was "accurately interpreting the law." Because.....everyone who makes those statements is also a constitutional scholar so they would know?

That doesn't give the judicial branch, generally the most learned of any part of our government, much credit, does it?  In this particular ruling, for instance, the California Supreme Court, where six of the seven were justices were Republican appointees, voted 4-3 to overturn the earlier Appeals court ruling. 

You can read the opinions of all seven and they all justify their individual conclusions based on their interpretations of the Constitution, not based on their personal views on this one issue. They used the same criteria earlier courts used to make discrimination against citizens based on gender and race illegal in this country. I am not saying there aren't any bad judges or judges who sometimes make legal mistakes but that is why we have a higher court in place to have a way to settle any questions. This system worked exactly the way it was designed, regardless of the outcome.

Thing 2: "This ruling lets four wackos hijack the will of the people."

First of all, we've done pretty well in this country with a "majority rules" form of government for a very long time.  51-49 still makes a law in the Senate, and 500,000 to 499,999 still gets you elected as Mayor of any number of good-sized cities in this country. 4-3 means 4 wins.

Secondly, and this one irks me the mostest. It is not the job of the California Supreme Court or any other judge to rule according to the will of the people. No, their job is to rule according to the law. The people can legislate their will as much as they want as long as their wishes do not violate the Constitution. There are lots of laws that I disagree with and many rulings that make me furious. But that doesn't mean judges should care what I think. That is not their job.

Thing 3 (Bonus Thing): This really isn't a post about gay marriage. It is a post about fifth grade civics. Executive Branch, Legislative Branch, Judicial Branch. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

Friday On My Mind

Well, it's been a long week for the Tot and she has earned a nap to get ready for the weekend. It is supposed to hit ninety degrees here tomorrow which is very uncomfortable for bulldogs and piggies so there is going to be some playing in the hose happening at my house (not a euphemism).

Tater Tot Friday Bonus Bulldog:




Congratulations to Paul and Shelly on the new member of their family. Say hello to little Guinness and make it a great weekend...