Good Luck, Mr Obama

The time is now 5:26 AM, and there are six hours and 34 minutes until President-elect Obama becomes President Obama. I wish him well in a job I don't know why anyone would want to have.

Not since Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933 has the country faced such daunting problems. Mr Obama inherits two wars, an economy in ruins, a foreign policy in shreds, and domestic problems that would have driven Solomon to tears. He has a loving and supportive family that will watch him age before their eyes as he tackles the smoking wreckage left after eight years of failed policies and arrogant hubris.

Expectations are high, but Mr Obama enjoys a significant advantage: a vast reservoir of goodwill on the part of an American people anxious for inspirational leadership. His challenge will be to channel this goodwill into support for policies that will be painful but necessary. In this, he can draw on two other advantages: his status as the nation's first black president and his gift for inspiring oratory.

Much has been made of Mr Obama's role as the first black president. Black citizens are justly proud of this moment. But it's useful to remember that Mr Obama is not the black president...as he himself has said, there is not a black America and a white America - there is the United States of America. It's useful to remember that although Mr Obama had virtually unanimous support of black voters last November, that support alone did not make him president. He was elected because he also attracted the votes of millions of white Americans who voted not for a black man or a white man, but for the man they thought was the better candidate. Race is still, and will remain, an issue in 21st century America...but the historic election of a black man to the nation's highest office is a slap in the face of those who have made an industry of fanning the flames of racial division.

Mr Obama's gift for oratory is well-known. The man gives a great speech. Unfortunately, we live in a time when we've been conditioned to listen for sound bites rather than well-constructed speeches, and to have legions of talking heads talk down to us to explain what we've heard, as if we're too stupid to understand it on our own. It's been a long time since we've had a really good public speaker in office. Mr Obama will need all of his legendary communication skills to rally the support he needs to move the nation forward. It's been a long time since there's been a President I really wanted to listen to. I'm ready.

Time will tell whether I made the right decision when I cast my vote for Mr Obama last November, whether he can rise to meet the fearsome challenges he inherits, and whether he can unite Americans of all races, economic levels, and political philosophies to do what's necessary to fix the country.

I'm cautiously optimistic, and I wish Mr Obama well as he takes on a job I would never want to have. He will need all the goodwill, all the support, all the love of his family, and a lot of luck to succeed. The nation needs an inspiring and dynamic leader. I think we've found one. I hope he is able to capitalize on the optimism of this historic day to move us forward.

Good luck, Mr Obama.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

In the News

A few brief odds and ends ... mostly odds ... from the blog fodder file:

The planning board in the town of Vassalboro, Maine recently considered a request for a business permit for a topless coffee shop. I couldn't find any reports on how the vote turned out. Topless in Maine? Well, I guess it gives new meaning to the term "cup of coffee."

A recent story asked whether sex can cause a heart attack. Happily, research shows that while the cardiovascular stress of vigorous sex can indeed trigger heart attacks in some people, especially men, the odds of literally dying of nookie are pretty low. This is not good news for soap operas and movies, in which a character dying during sex is a fairly common plot device (I remember the scene in the movie Private Benjamin in which Goldie Hawn's character told her late husband's mother that his last words were "I'm coming..."). Of course, after a certain age, just the prospect of having sex is enough to cause one to have a heart attack. Not that I would know, of course.

A young woman has decided to auction off her virginity as a creative way to finance her college education, and as of January 15th, the bidding was up to $3.7 million. In today's current economic climate, that's not bad. Maybe this could be part of the economic bailout program for the financial industry ... force them to make use of all their assets, as it were.

And finally,

The Bush administration will finally come to an end in one day, three hours, and 52 minutes from the time I write this. I can't think of anything funny to say about it...which is a pretty bad sign. Mr Obama has his work cut out for him.

That's all.

Have a good day. Stay warm. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Tom Swifties

I inherited my love of reading, writing, and wordplay in general from my Mother, who probably inherited it from some other, more distant, relative who would prefer to remain anonymous. Mom could make puns and carry on other word games like no one else I've ever known, and I've tried to keep up her tradition...although in order to do it I've had to get used to everyone starting to groan just on principle whenever I say something.

One of the word games of which Mom was fond was the Tom Swifty - defined as "a phrase in which a quoted sentence is linked by a pun to the manner in which it is attributed." A classic (if I can use the word in this context) example would be, "Yes, we have no bananas," Tom said fruitlessly.

I can hear you groaning already.

Last Friday in the office, one of my coworkers passed me a link to the mother lode of Tom Swiftys. Fortunately, it was just a few minutes before quitting time...otherwise I'd have spent all day reading through the list and laughing myself into tears.

So...

Because the news in general is so bad that even a Cartoon Saturday once a week can hardly hold its own against the gloomy tide, here are a few of the ... um ... best Tom Swiftys from the list. You may want to sit down...

"I dropped the toothpaste!" said Tom, crestfallen.

"AARRGGHH! I've just been stabbed in the chest," cried Tom, half-heartedly.

"I like ragged margins," said Tom, without justification.

"That's not a laser!" cried Tom incoherently.

"Wait, I said 'I give up!'" Tom recapitulated.

"You're letting the fire go out," said Tom ungratefully.

"Get into the back of the boat!" yelled Tom sternly.

"Take the prisoner downstairs," Tom said condescendingly.

"I used to command a battalion of German insects," said Tom, exuberantly.

"Behold the power of the Dark Side," Tom said forcefully.

and, saving the best (or the worst, depending on how you look at it) for last...

"I'm into homosexual necrophilia," said Tom in dead earnest.

You can find lots of Tom Swiftys on the Internet, and they're fun to make up yourself. I'm looking forward to the comments this generates. Or maybe not.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

It's 3 degrees outside my study window - a heat wave, compared to the Great Plains; Washington DC is bracing for he presidential inauguration by screwing up traffic even more than usual; according to Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, Saudi Arabia's grand mufti, it's OK for girls as young as 10 to marry; Israel and Hamas are still fighting over what's left of Gaza and the surrounding areas; and the Government Accountability Office is reporting that some large corporations which have received billions of bailout dollars from the taxpayers have set up offshore havens to help avoid paying taxes on their profits.

Once again, Cartoon Saturday rides to your rescue!

I love the Blondie cartoon strip, I understand Dagwood, and this one really had me laughing both as a worker and a linguist ...

Hagar the Horrible used another version of the same metaphor ...

There are some cartoons that just make more sense after you reach a certain age. Or exceed it. Right, Mike?

And where would we be if I couldn't come up with yet another cartoon to keep up Mike and Fiona's Parade-o-Boobs?

I don't think I need that alarm clock any more ...

And finally, I loved this one because it was just plain silly ...

Have a good day. Stay warm (not applicable in Palembang). More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

It Came From the Blog Fodder File, Bwa-ha-ha!!

Yogi Berra once supposedly said, "You can observe a lot just by watching." And for someone who likes to observe the world as it passes by, there is never any lack of stuff about which to blog. Here are a few more items from my ever-expanding "Blog Fodder" file...

Two famous actors passed away this past week: Ricardo Montalban and Patrick McGoohan. Mr Montalban was famous, of course, as Mr Rourke of the TV show Fantasy Island, a character that gradually morphed from the original vaguely sinister ringmaster to a more grandfatherly foil to Herve Villechaise's silly character of Tattoo. Suave Patrick McGoohan starred as television's Danger Man (a great series, in my opinion, and the forerunner of many other secret agent shows), and as the title character of the weird series The Prisoner. I'll miss them both.

I wrote the other day about the dangers of using the "Reply All" button when responding to an e-mail. Over at Indexed today, Jessica posted this clever diagram:

In California (where else?) this past week, a man was arrested for selling his 14 year-old daughter to an 18-year old man for marriage in exchange for $16,000, 160 cases of beer, 100 cases of soda, 50 cases of Gatorade, two cases of wine, and six cases of meat...and then complaining to police when the prospective bridegroom didn't pay up as promised. Evidently, such deals are common in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, where such deals are considered "normal and honorable;" however, they are frowned upon in the United States (even in California). And you thought all the crazy people were in the Middle East.

Back in my parochial grade school, when I was young and impressionable and frequently swatted by the nuns for various transgressions, I learned to fear the terrible place called hell. I've since learned that we don't need nuns and priestly sermons to tell us about hell...we are perfectly capable of creating it ourselves in places like Rwanda, Iraq, Congo, and other garden spots. I stumbled upon the website Entrances to Hell some time ago...it features a series of photos of strange doors, cave entrances, and other portals that could remind one of the path Dante might have followed on his visit. Some are truly spooky.

And finally, if you like Jazz (which I do), you may be interested in this interactive diagram of the various Jazz styles. There's a similar diagram (not interactive) of rock and roll history in one of the marvelous books by Edward Tufte, but I can't remember which one right now...I'll let you know when I find it again.

Time to get ready to go to work. It's 13 degrees outside, with a wind chill of minus 2 degrees, and I'm not looking forward to waiting for the bus. No need to make any smart comments about the joys of retirement, Mike.

Have a good day. Tomorrow is Cartoon Saturday...more thoughts then.

Bilbo

Freedom of Speech vs Freedom of Smart

One of the things that sets the US apart from many other nations is what we call The Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is the general term given to the first ten amendments to the Constitution, and it lays out the fundamental rights of US citizens: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to bear arms, freedom from unreasonable search, and so on. It was written early in our history when the framers of the Constitution realized that while they'd crafted a good guide for representative government, they had somehow forgotten to enshrine the rights for which they'd just fought a terrible revolutionary war.

Americans love their rights, and we tend to trumpet them at every opportunity. Unfortunately, what we talk about less frequently is responsibilities. If you have absolute freedom, you can easily have unlimited chaos, and so we have a vast code of laws which - essentially - restrict those freedoms granted by the Bill of Rights. We can own a gun, but we can't use it to murder our neighbor. We enjoy free speech, but are enjoined from yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theater. We have the right to be secure from unreasonable searches, but the police can obtain a search warrant to go through our things if they've convinced a judge that there's reasonable cause to believe we've committed a crime. We've learned to live with the balance between rights and responsibilities.

Well, most of us have.

I thought about this most recently when I read this article - Report: US Rejected Israeli Plea to Attack Iran.

This CNN article was based on a story by a New York Times reporter which detailed how the government of Israel had asked the US for various types of advanced weapons and passive assistance in conducting an attack on Iran's nuclear complex at Natanz. According to the author, the US government turned down the request because it could jeopardize operations in Iraq and have wider repercussions. But the part of the article that really made my hair stand up was this:

"Bush, instead, persuaded Israeli officials to not proceed with the attack by sharing with them some details of covert U.S. operations aimed at sabotaging Iran's nuclear ambitions..."

What?

As I read this, a reporter for a major US newspaper has decided that his press freedom has granted him the right to expose what is certainly - if it exists - a program of extreme secrecy. I'm quite sure that the Iranian internal security organizations were very happy to learn about this, and are busy trying to stop it.

The purpose of Iran's nuclear program is, of course, open to interpretation. There are those who fervently believe that the program is entirely peaceful and dedicated to providing electricity for hospitals and orphanages. And there are those who believe that this may be true, but is at its heart a blind to provide cover for an attempt to develop a nuclear weapon. I happen to belong to the second camp.

I don't know about you, but one of the things that scares me more than the Internal Revenue Service is the thought of a nuclear weapon in the hands of a religious zealot who believes God speaks directly to him and has given him the authority to kill those who do not share his form of religious belief. This is, of course, the same person who has announced his desire to "wipe Israel off the map." I'm no particular friend of Israel, but I can understand the Israelis might be a little concerned about this.

Which brings us back to the New York Times story. What has been gained by exposing the possible existence of a "covert" program? I think the only winner in this was Iran.

We have many freedoms, and we cherish all of them. If you don't believe that, just try to convince a gun owner that there should be any restrictions on his ability to own a 155mm howitzer. But with freedom comes responsibility. I believe it was unnecessary and irresponsible for the Times reporter to publish this story. I don't know if there really is a covert program to fiddle with (that's a technical term) the Iranian nuclear program...the government doesn't usually check with me before doing such things. What I do know is that the thought of a nuclear weapon in the hands of a rigidly theocratic government is a very, very scary thing.

And I depend upon my government to protect me from it.

Freedom of speech is good. Sadly, though, it isn't always accompanied by Freedom of Smart.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

From the "Blog Fodder" File

It's time once again to clean out the "Blog Fodder" file. Aren't you lucky?

My good friend and dance partner Leslie sent me this link yesterday: Men Stoned to Death for Adultery, Murder In Iran. Her comment was, "Finally, equal opportunity stoning for adultery." My comment is that I don't think this is what the man who wrote the spiritual "Gimme That Old-Time Religion" had in mind. Welcome to the Middle East. Set your watch back 1400 years.

Last Thursday, we got a good example of the passions for public service that motivate our elected reprehensives. In this article, we learned that Florida congressman Cliff Stearns, a Republican from Ocala, asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to move votes scheduled for last Thursday evening and Friday so House members from Florida and Oklahoma could watch the Bowl Championship Series national title game between the University of Florida and the University of Oklahoma. Speaker Pelosi did not agree to the request, in part because the measures to be considered Thursday afternoon included the certification of the Electoral College vote that gave Barack Obama the presidency. Your tax dollars at work.

Have you ever been caught in one of those spectacular e-mail storms that begins when some moron accidentally hits the "Reply All" button on a message with an addressee list the size of the Manhattan phone book? You know, where one person hits "Reply All," and then seven hundred other morons each hit "Reply All" to tell the original moron not to use "Reply All"? The State Department had one of those last week. Read about it here. I'll bet Hillary Clinton won't put up with that stuff when she gets there. Bill Clinton, of course, had a special e-mail function button on his White House account labeled "Reply All Cute Interns."

And finally, for those of you who can't quite understand how the government decides how to spend money (other than to just shovel it in the general direction of major campaign contributors), here is a handy summary one of my co-workers passed around to help us get a grip on the process. It's been around for a while, but it's still accurate:

Faced with a 20-year threat,
The Government responds with a 15-year plan;
Programmed in a 6-year POM (Program Objective Memorandum);
Managed by 3-year personnel;
Who develop a 2-year budget;
Funded by a 1-year appropriation;
Formulated over a 3-day weekend; and,
Approved in a 1-hour decision brief presented by an action officer who can lose his or her job in 2 minutes.

Got that?

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Reading More, Reading Less

The National Endowment for the Arts has been surveying the reading habits of Americans since 1982, and the news has been consistently dismal. According to the NEA's surveys, the percentage of American adults who report that they do "literary" reading (novels, short stories, poems, or plays) has declined every year. Five years ago, the survey results were so yucky the NEA went so far as to title its annual survey "Reading at Risk."

Happily though, this year's results show an increase in respondents who claim to have done some "literary" reading during the survey period: from 46.7% of responding adults in 2002 to 50.2% in 2008. But paradoxically, the same survey shows that the percentage of American adults who read any book not required for work or school during the survey period continued to decline, falling from 56.6% in 2002 to 54.3% in 2008.

Eh?

You can read the full story here.

Nobody seems to be able to explain these contradictory results, although the NEA claims partial credit for calling attention to the decline of reading, prompting teachers and librarians to put additional emphasis on recreational reading.

The actual rise in reading rates came entirely from prose fiction (thrillers, mysteries, science fiction, romance, etc), as opposed to the other forms of so-called "literary" reading (nonfiction, poetry, plays, etc). This implies, of course, that the reading is primarily recreational, rather than directed toward self-improvement or education. Is this a bad thing, or is it better that people are reading at all?

If you read my post on what I read in 2008, you know that my interests are pretty wide-ranging. I can't imagine anyone not wanting to read whatever they can get their hands on.

Perhaps the issue is, as the article suggests, that more people are doing their reading online. That's possible, but somehow I can't imagine curling up in front of the fire with a good laptop. I need a real book with pages that rustle as you turn them. They're such an improvement on the old cunieform tablets Mike and Gilahi and I grew up with, dontcha know. And Andrea, bless her heart, has invited me to join her reading circle on GoodReads.com, so there's hope out there for us readers.

Go out and read something. If you want recommendations, check my earlier blog post or just ask. Reading expands your mind and informs you about the world around you.

And God knows we need all the information we can get nowadays.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Words That Sound Offensive, But Aren't

Mike is the king of using links as the basis of posts, so I thought I'd try it myself to save a little time this morning. I'm running late yet again, having spent too much time before my shower reading the wonderful novel Lima Nights, by Marie Arana, so I'll grasp at any straw to speed things along this morning.

I don't remember how I first stumbled upon the article 11 Words That Sound Offensive, But Aren't, but I haven't stopped laughing yet. It's interesting, but not to be read if you're prudish or easily offended. The words themselves are innocent enough, but the examples of their correct and incorrect usage in conversation are not...and are truly hysterical.

This is the list of words:

1. Shittah (nothing to do with outhouses, oddly enough.);

2. Prickmadam (the parenthetical definition is worse than anything else you might think.);

3. Titular (Agnes rolls her eyes when I spout one of my favorite phrases: "As the titular head of the house, I...");

4. Dickey Grind/Nasty Grind (no, it doesn't involve use of a pole and loud music.);

5. Cockchafer (one of the reasons I used to enjoy doing my radio show as opposed to being on television was that if I had an itch in an unfortunate place, I could scratch it any time. I didn't really write that. Just move on, folks, nothing to see here...);

6. Horehound (my grandmother's favorite candy was horehound drops...we always used to snicker about it.);

7. Cooter (not to be confused with singer Ry Cooder.);

8. Hand Organ (good if you're feeling cranky. So to speak.);

9. Uvula (having studied the physiology of sounds, I knew about this one, described in a classic Far Side cartoon as "the hangy-down thingy in your throat.");

10. Assagai (the joke that comes to mind would prevent me from ever being confirmed for a cabinet job, so I'll just pass, thank you very much.); and,

11. Niggard (excuse me while I look for an eleven-foot pole, because I wouldn't touch this with a ten-foot one. In years past, this innocent word usually appeared in its adverbial form niggardly, but its unfortunate similarity to the dreaded "n-word" has caused it to fall out of favor. Today it is used only by those with a death wish.).

Don't feel obligated to run out and use these in casual conversation. I can't be responsible for the reactions you might get.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

"Return to Sender" - Elvis Presley

I have a lot of "favorite" songs, but high on the list is Elvis's classic "Return to Sender," from the movie Girls, Girls, Girls. It's got an irresistible swing rhythm, clever lyrics, and you can tell how old you are by whether or not you understand the line, "no such person, no such zone" (for those of you much younger than Mike, Gilahi, and I, "zones" were what we had before Zip Codes...I grew up in "Pittsburgh 37, PA," which is now just "15237," and doesn't have quite the same ring to it).

Okay, I told you all that to introduce this news story from a few days back: "Lighter Volume Leading to Changes in Postal Routes." It seems that the US Postal Service, as a result of the drop in mail volume during the recession, is reviewing all its city routes nationwide and changing some of them to cut costs. A USPS spokesman said the economic downtown has caused businesses to reduce mailing to cut expenses, and that at the national level, mail volume fell by 9.5 billion pieces, or 4.5 percent, during the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2008.

This is sad, but not unexpected. After all, the Postal Service is a business, too, and needs to make money to stay in operation. Most of its income derives from the bulk mail sent out by businesses (bills, statements, credit card come-ons, mortgage refinance offers, sale ads from local stores, etc), particularly since first-class mail - the letters that we used to send each other regularly - have fallen off drastically in comparison to earlier years. I think that the letters Amanda, Andrea, John, Fiona, and I have exchanged (and the one I sent to Mike) in the past year were probably a large percentage of last year's "real" first-class mail.

We don't have any connection to the people who deliver the mail any more, either. Mr Moseley, our mailman (oh, excuse me - letter carrier in these more gender-neutral times) when I was growing up back in Pittsburgh, used to stop and chat occasionally, and even sent us postcards when he went on vacation; and each Christmas Mom made sure to leave him a loaf of freshly-baked banana nut bread in the mailbox. Mailmen (sorry - letter carriers) don't walk through the neighborhood distributing mail from their big leather bags any more...they pull up to the mailbox in a truck, deposit your mail, and drive away instead of stopping to talk for a moment about the weather, your family, or whatever. If they do stop, it's to leave a pissy note in your mailbox complaining that something was blocking it so that they actually had to get out of the truck to deliver the mail.

Of course, Benjamin Franklin (who created the mail system around 1775) would no longer recognize his creation, which is represented not just by the speedy little red-white-and-blue trucks, but by such shining examples of friendly and cheerful service as the post office in the Pentagon, which is staffed in large part by winners of the "slow and surly" competitions at other post offices.

Okay, I'm wandering here. I'm feeling nostalgic again for real mail, not just endless junk mail and bills. I guess it's time to clean off a space on my desk large enough for the pad of paper and the inkwell (yes, I have three - count 'em - three inkwells and a whole slew of dip pens, which I don't use too often because they're not as convenient as ballpoints, if more fun). I still owe a letter to my daughter, I still need to work on keeping my granddaughter Marcy writing (to help with her spelling), and I just enjoy finding real, chatty letters in the cobwebby old mailbox every once in a while. I guess I need to get started. And who knows? - maybe this will be the year Mike actually writes back! Although I suspect he'd probably subcontract it to Claudia.

But we can always hope.

Want a personal, chatty, hand-written letter of your very own? Send your snail-mail address to bilbo_the_blogger(at symbol)yahoo(dot)com and I'll oblige. Same deal as before - you have to promise to write back...no e-mail replies accepted. Let's save the Postal Service, one letter at a time.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo