“Give a Little Bit” in 2010

I resolve the following in 2010:

To blog a little bit more, just a little bit.  I once had a cat named Little Bit, a bit psychotic was Little Bit – frightened of everyone, of anything that moved, especially of Oliver, our other cat.  I averaged 7.3 posts a month in 2009.  I’ll shoot for 8 a month in 2010.

By the way, speaking of resolutions, Resolved is an excellent documentary on high school debate, particularly for anyone who has ever been involved with organized debate at some level.

To reduce my carbon footprint.  Unfortunately, I’ve gained a little bit of weight.  I once had a cat named Little Bit…wait, I already said that.  “Give A Little Bit” is one of those great catchy Supertramp tunes of the late 70’s…”going home, don’t you need to feel at home…” I definitely need to exercise more – so more walks in the Arboretum, less junk food…good bye ice-cream until the summer.  No more cheese doodles, cheese dip, blue cheese. Oh the madness of the proposal.  …”don’t you need to feel at home, oh yeah, we gotta sing”.

I’ll try to conduct a paperless life, that is a life with less paper,  but not totally free of paper.  Paper or plastic.  Paper…actually, neither, but that’d put the bag boys and girls out of work.  I once tried to unionize a group of baggers…tried.  We have some reusable bags that I’ll try to reuse more.  We (meaning me and the family) need to stop buying bottled water.  I have a BPA free bottle and a filtered tap at home, but we buy Poland Spring water and cases of  Crystal Geyser…Natural Alpine Spring Water from New Hampshire.  The label says don’t refill.  I wonder if this is a subtle hint to the dangers of  plastic.  Speaking of dangers, I don’t drive much.  I take a hybrid bus near my house and walk to work from the bus station everyday and I will continue to do this.

Recycle.  We do extensively at home.  I need to figure out a way to recycle more at work.  My colleagues are committed to it, so it’s just a matter of putting a collective plan into action.   One thing I can do is stop printing so much.  I print e-mails too often out of laziness, like when I need an address, or meeting time or phone number.   I should just write these things down instead.

I buy a lot of books, but could easily find those books in the library.  The thought of community book sharing via the public library system is appealing.  Rather than buy books, I could look for a book swap situation. “There’s so much that we need to share, so send a smile and show you care”.  And while I have found it difficult to read for long stretches of time on-line, I do get all my news electronically; I no longer have a paper newspaper subscription.  And I will try to read more novels and poems electronically on Project Gutenberg.  But I’m not ready for a Kindle yet…not just yet.  “I’ll give a little bit”, but am not ready to completely give up on paper books, just as I have not been able to give up my albums and CDs just yet.   Digital or plastic?  That is the question for 2010.

The Colts Surrendered

The Jets beat the undefeated Colts.  Can you believe it?  While the victory keeps the Jets in the playoff hunt, it was not an impressive win – certainly nothing at all like their 1969 Superbowl III thrashing of the Colts.  In my view, it was an embarrassing win.  True, the Jets had a lot on the line and played with a purpose.  However, the Colts had very little to lose, except Peyton Manning.  Yes, the players wanted to stay undefeated and accomplish what few teams have ever done before, but the coaching staff apparently did not share the same goal.  Did you see Peyton Manning’s face?  He looked incredulous at being pulled out of the game and looked on in utter disgust as his offense sputtered without him.  In fact, I will go on record, for whatever it is worth, and I suspect not much, that the coaching staff wanted the Colts to lose the game.  I think they feared that the team would become overconfident and lose in the playoffs or as happened with the Patriots, lose in the Superbowl.   They wanted to humble the players.  And I guess they worried that Peyton might get hurt.   And watching the backup quarterback play, I can understand their concerns.

If the Jets beat the Bengals next week, they’ll make the playoffs, but it must come as a big disappointment to them to know that Indianapolis surrendered the game in the third quarter by pulling some of their starters including one of the best quarterbacks in the history of the game.   The NFL ought to fine the Colts and give a refund to all the fans who attended the game.

What’s in a Name? – A look at the US Senate

I thought I’d have a look at the names of U.S. Senators to see if I could find some hidden talents, perhaps even some presidential hopefuls for 2012.  Some names are simply interesting and deserving of comment.

Evan Bayh.  I have some nicknames for the Democrat from Indiana, whom I respect by the way.   I wonder if the Senator ever coached a basketball team that got a first round Bayh.  If he were ever defeated, I can hear the Republican chants…”na na na na hey, hey, good Bayh”.  And if Senator Bayh were to run for president, it might be a disaster if the Republicans latched onto to this:  Evan “walk on” Bayh.

Max Baucus.  I can’t resist this one, and I know it’s a little silly, but hey… Montana Senator Max Baucus, with whom do you caucus?

Christopher (Kit) Bond.  Great name.  Fittingly, the Republican from Missouri is on the subcommittee for Financial Services.   President Obama values bipartisan governance, so why not give Mr. Bond a shot at Treasury Secretary?  If his name were James, he’d no doubt have a bright future with the CIA.

Chuck Grassley the Republican from the state of Iowa has an organic name, which reminds me of feed and being from a farming state, he should be considered for a post at the Agriculture Department.  One of his crowning achievements is support for legislation that objected to the classification of manure as a hazardous substance.

Judd Gregg. Republican from New Hampshire.  I just like the name.  It’s one of those names that could go either way.  Gregg Judd, Judd Gregg.  You could even subtract a g, and a d, and it’d still work out – Greg Jud, Jud Greg.

Herb Kohl.  Say, hasn’t he written a lot of progressive books on education?  I have two of them:  36 Children and Open Classroom.  He also published a review of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of Hope, another book I own.  I didn’t know Herbert Kohl was the Democratic Senator from the good state of Wisconsin.  President Obama, make this man Education Secretary.

Arlen Specter.  The Republican turned Democrat from PA is an Attorney by trade, right?  With a name like Specter, I’d think he could serve quite admirably in the Office of Inspector General.  He could have been an understudy for Eddie Marson who plays Inspector Lastrade (and for all I know he was) in the upcoming Sherlock Holmes film in theatres near you on Christmas Day, 2009.  And if the acting gig doesn’t work out, he just might become the next NFL Commissioner, much to the chagrin of Coach Bill Belichick.

And I submit that Obama will have stiff competition in 2012 from Democrat Jon “test the waters” Tester, from Montana and the dark horse from Rhode Island, Sheldon Whitehouse. 

Pondering Technology

Around 1985, technology really took off.  If you took a walk around any college campus, you’d have seen practically everyone with a Walkman and over the ear headphones.  Instead of enjoying music together, people were turning inward and grooving by themselves.  The days of the communal jambox and record parties are over.  Though turntables are making a comeback, portable technology has reigned supreme since the mid 80’s. Today, I own a SanDisk mp3 player with 512MB of storage, enough for maybe 100 songs.   My cell phone stores more with its 2GB SD card.  The new iPod classic at 160GB has more storage space than my desktop PC and can  hold somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000 songs.

In the 80’s, Polaroid and Kodak cameras were popular point and shoot options.  In 1984, I bought a Kodak disc camera.  Remember those?  I think I bought it in Germany and took a couple of “rolls” of film while on vacation in Europe.  It took pretty good photos.   I bought a Fuji FinePix digital camera in 2002 and it was a top of the line 2 megapixel camera and all the camera I could afford.  It came with a 16MB XD picture card as I recall, enough for about 50 photos or so.   I still have it and have resisted the urge to upgrade.  By the way, my 2 mp cellphone camera takes photos of comparable quality and considerably better quality video.  Most digital cameras on the market today are 10 mp or better.  The 12. 2 mp Fuji FinePix A220 sells for half what I paid for the 1st generation 2 mp version of the popular Fuji model.

Around 1983, personal computers hit the market.  By 1986, PCs began to replace the typewriter.  When I was a graduate student in 1986, I bought my first computer, a Leading Edge with a monochrome monitor and no internal hard drive.  The thing had two floppy disk drives.   I bought a dot matrix printer to go along with it.   In 1999, I bought a little Diamond Mako hand-held computer – smaller than a laptop, and a little bigger than a smart phone.    The keyboard was nice.  It had an agenda, a to do list, e-mail and internet capability, a word processor and spreadsheet, calculator and address book with 16MB of storage space.  The problem with it was that it could not keep a charge and each time my battery drained, my data drained with it.

I love new technology, but feel the need to resist the frequent upgrade temptations.  The thing is, I know most electronic products are planned with obsolescence in mind.  The only way I can fight back is to hold on to what I buy until it stops working or until it becomes so dated that it is no longer practical to own.  Except for our stereo and TVs (we still have a mono 19″ color Panasonic) we upgrade our stuff every 6 years or so.  We must have been the last family to buy a CD player and maybe the second to last to buy a DVD player.  And after our central idiot box caught fire, we bought a flat screen HD TV replacement and joined the new millennium.

One day, a Blue-Ray.

BAMA Should Win SEC Title

Here’s why Alabama will win the SEC Football Championship:

1. Better Mascot.  Alligators are slow and primitive.  Gators become even more sluggish during bouts of Crimson (Red) Tide.  One severe outbreak could wipe the species off the planet.
2. Home Field Advantage.  Tuscaloosa is closer to Atalanta than Gainesville.
3. Coaches.  “Pope” Urban Meyer vs. Nick Saban.   Nick Saban is just a better football name in my opinion.  Sounds rugged and warlike.
4. Famous Alabamans:  Jessie Owens, Lionel Hampton, Sun Ra, Bart Star, Jimmy Buffet, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, and Jim (Gomer) Neighbors.  Famous Floridians:  Jed Bush.
5. Tradition:  Edge to ‘Bama.  Steve Spurrier put Florida football on the map both as a player and coach, but his persona reminds me a little of Yosemite Sam.  Hall of Famer Paul Bear Bryant former Alabama coach won 6 national championships with the Crimson Tide and is one of the winningest coaches of all time.

Prediction for the SEC Championship in Atlanta today:  ALA 31 – FLA 24.

Yes Song Stars In Chase Credit Card Ad

Have you seen it?  Chase has a new business credit card commercial out for entrepeneurs.  It’s a typical pitch, nothing terribly earth shattering in the presentation except for one disturbing detail – the band Yes apparently authorized Chase to use its classic song I’ve Seen All Good People to plug its new plastic.  I say apparently, because I would guess the band, or at least Chris Squire and Jon Anderson the band members who wrote the song would have had to grant Chase the rights to it for use in an ad campaign.  Permitting Chase to use the song is disturbing enough; Chase using the song to reap financial gain is deplorable and perhaps not the wisest of strategies.

The song is not about profit, rather it has a strong anti-war message which is just as relevant today as it was in early 1971 when the The Yes Album was released.  The lyrics suggest chess as a metaphor for the war then raging in Vietnam.  “I’ve seen all good people turn their heads each day so satisfied I’m on my way”.  This line suggests the frustration that despite massive protests, LBJ and Nixon along with other power brokers seemed unwilling to end the war.  The song continues with advice on a new course:  “Don’t surround yourself with yourself, move on back two squares”.   Reach out to give diplomacy a chance to bring the war to an end.  “Send out instant karma to me, initial it with loving care.”  A clear call for peace – a truce.  The alternative as John Lennon warned in his 1970 anti-war classic Instant Karma! is that continued involvement in war will guarantee negative future returns.

Chase is taking extreme liberties with the message of the song, which could lead to bad karma for the company, a company that already got a second chance 25 billion government bailout initialed with loving care.

Kneeling Bus

And on request, the driver will lower the bus…to the kneeling position I presume.  I’ve never seen a bus on its knees or put another way, a kneeling bus, as if in prayer.  I guess the driver would have to deflate the front tires, making it a low riding bus.  Another interpretation could be that the driver, like Atlas, has hoisted the bus onto his shoulders prompting terrified passengers to issue a panicked plea for the driver to gently lower the bus.   Gently is key as weightlifters generally throw the weights down in relief or disgust.

My College Interview

These days there’s a lot of pressure on kids to get into the best schools and the process is complex and stressful:  the SAT, SAT II’s, AP exams, grades, portfolios, recommendations, the essay, college tours and weekend sleepovers in the dorms.  And then there’s the interview.  When I was in high school, I took the ACT and that was it – no interview, no essay, no pressure whatsoever…I don’t even remember applying. I went to the one and only school on my radar screen, a fine state school  with a pretty high acceptance rate.   I should add that I have no regrets about attending, but I often wonder what I would have said about myself in 1981 as a high school senior if an interview had been required.

Interviewer:  So, tell me about yourself.

Me:  What do you want to know?

Interviewer:  Something about you.

Me:  Well, I like cheeze doodles, playing records, hanging out with friends, debating, Saturday Night Live, and the Andy Griffith Show.

Interviewer:  That’s nice, but what about you?  What makes you stand out?

Me:  Oh, I see.  Well, I can bend my thumb all the way to my wrist.  Wanna see?  I can snap really loud with my index finger and thumb.  Not many people can do that.   And I can speak with a British accent.  Cockney, to be exact.  I can chirp like a cricket and make a whistle sound without whistling.  I can whistle with an acorn shell too. I can do a 1 and half off the high dive and can……..

Interviewer:  That’s good.  What has been the most significant life experience for you?

Me:  Well, I guess learning how to tie my shoe, how to tie a tie, how to whistle (that was big), my first fish, my first kiss, first beer (but it was warm and not too good), blowing smoke rings and enhaling without coughing, (can I say that?) MTV…

Interviewer:  I get the picture.  Is there anything else I should know about you?

Me:  Nope.

Interviewer:  Do you have any questions you’d like to ask me?

Me:  Is there parking?

A Day in the Life of Ribbie

Here’s a list of stuff I need to do today:

• grade papers.
• cook – it’s my turn.
• watch football.
• grade more papers.
• watch more football.
• read The Master and Margarita if I can wrest it away from my cat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

• help my daughter study for the SAT II U.S. History exam.
• grade more papers.
• prepare lesson for tomorrow night’s class.
• rake leaves or leave them to blow in the wind – which reminds me of a novel I read in the late 80’s by Richard Brautigan, So The Wind Won’t Blow It All Away a novel I loned out to a friend, who must have thought it was a gift because she never returned it.
• supervise the assembly of a chest with 5 drawers called a Kullen made in Denmark -  designed and sold by the Swedish company Ikea.   Kullen – does that mean chest of drawers in Danish or Swedish?  Actually, according to an entry on Wikipedia, Kullen is the name of a lighthouse equipped with one 1,000 watt light bulb on the coast of Sweden.  So watt’s the connection?  I should add that yesterday my wife, who is a fine carpenter, assembled an Ikea designed Polish made chest of drawers called a Rast.  An internet search of the word rast revealed no connection whatever to furniture. In fact,  the rast is a blood test for allergens, a musical mode in Arabic and a reference to an outsider in the fantasy game Dungeons and Dragons.  Perhaps rast is an inside reference for Swedes that no outsider could ever hope to understand.
• Watch the show Chopped.
• Watch more football.
• Watch 60 Minutes and The Amazing Race right after.
• Watch Iron Chef and more football – flipping between the two.

6 Annoyances

1. Flipping around with the remote only to find commercials and extreme volume variance.  Thank god for the mute.  I mute all commercials after I’ve heard them once.
2. The Democrats calling 1 Republican vote evidence of bipartisan support for health care reform.  The Dems don’t even have partisan support.  And the Blue Dogs – tell me, how can they even call themselves Democrats?  They seem to have more in common with the Republicans.
3. A dumb smart phone.  Mine has virtually no signal strength on the subway lines.  Not only can I not make a call, I can’t read the news, check e-mail or FB – nothing.  So I’m back to lugging a book with me on my morning commute, and frankly I don’t miss the news one bit.
4. Mike happy T conductors trying to sound like flight attendants or DJs.   Come on, the stops are all prerecorded, just open and close the doors already and let’s get going.   Makes me think of REM’s “Driver 8“:  And the train conductor says “driver 8, take a break, driver 8 take a break, we can reach our destination, but we’re still aways away.”
5. A hot toasted bagel served with tubs of cold butter on the side.  Dunkin Donuts is guilty of this crime.  I guess that’s why they’re called Dunkin Donuts and not Dunkin Bagels.  What’s worse, they waste so much plastic, serving a knife and a handful of tiny plastic tubs of butter per customer.   It would actually take the worker less time to slap on some butter than it does for them to pack the butter and plastic knife.  Notwithstanding the waste, it’s next to impossible to peel the covers off those tiny tubs.
6. Artists sampling the classics.  I think it’s a bit of a Royal Scam if the sample is not credited or authorized.  Speaking of the LP by the same name, Kayne West sampled a riff from Steely Dan’s “Kid Charlemagne” in his song “Champion“.  Is it a rip-off or a tribute?  I can’t say I’m annoyed at the reference in this contemporary song, but I wonder how Walter Becker and Donald Fagen feel about it?