How did I manage to plan my week so everything happens on Monday or Tuesday? Bottom line is, I have work on top of work to do today, and in jettisoning chores, the blog draws the short straw today. Regular readers know I consider this my daily warmup and batting practice, and you watch: I’m gonna pull a writing muscle today, I just know it.
Anyhoo, I’m not going to have time to write anything fun until late afternoon, so let’s just bag it today, eh? Open thread to take wherever you want. I’m participating in a fun thread with one of my Facebook friends over the Sight & Sound best-films lists; did you know there are people in the world who consider “Raging Bull” to be overrated? Bah.
But you can talk about Afghanistan, too. You’ll just have to do it without me.
brian stouder said on October 6, 2009 at 10:10 am
Here’s a little cultural note, probably related to H1N1, and in any case on the subject of public health: at work we occasionally cover for folks who are out of the office for one reason or another; mowing down their junk email and so on, so that we’re in contact with their keyboards and so on.
I asked Pam to get me a bottle of hand sanitizer – the sort of stuff that’s 60% ethyl alcohol for work, which she did, and I placed it in a common area…..and people from all over now beat a track to our area to use that stuff. The fresh smell and cool feel (not to mention the seductive thought that one is combating the germs!) that the stuff offers actually does seem to be habit forming. Maybe ol’ Howard Hughes was just ahead of his time, eh?
edit: by the way – “Something’s Gotta Give” IS (or was!) a truly over-rated movie
edit II: I checked that movie list, and the Hitchcock movie that would be on MY list is North by Northwest, rather than Vertigo. (and of course, The Wizard of Oz would have to be on there, somewhere, too)
1040 chars
moe99 said on October 6, 2009 at 10:30 am
I was told it would be a good idea to have a bottle of the stuff next to my front door, when people come visiting while I am in chemotherapy.
For now, Truffle the 5 month old dachshund puppy does the job, licking my hands almost obsessively. It’s toughest when I’m typing on the computer, so I’m blaming all typos on that!
326 chars
Dorothy said on October 6, 2009 at 10:32 am
Welcome to Nancy land, Truffle! I wrote a missive about my dislike of hand sanitizers but it didn’t get published. I had a link to a webpage about the use of regular soap and water as opposed to antibiotic soaps, but it didn’t publish. Maybe it’s at the on deck circle at Nancy’s computer.
292 chars
Crabby said on October 6, 2009 at 10:34 am
Here’s something to take your mind of yesterday’s bad hamburgers
The Gimli Glider Incident
If a Boeing 767 runs out of fuel at 41,000 feet what do you have? Answer: A 132 ton glider with a sink rate of over 2000 feet-per-minute and marginally enough hydraulic pressure to control the ailerons, elevator, and rudder….
395 chars
MarkH said on October 6, 2009 at 10:43 am
This is a great story, Crabby. There was even a not-so-great TV movie made about the Gimli Glider Incident. If you didn’t know it was true, it would be hard to believe. EDIT: the incident, not the movie. OK, maybe both…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113018/
Pilot Joe, your thoughts?
290 chars
Peter said on October 6, 2009 at 11:10 am
Brian, much as I like North by Northwest (and also The Man Who Knew Too Much), I still don’t think they’re as good as Vertgo.
True Story: Many years ago a friend of mine went on a high school band trip to San Francisco. They were at an Art Museum where he saw a familiar painting, and my friend mentioned it was strange because he remembered the room and the painting, but he was never in San Francisco. Later on, they were passing a restaurant and my friend had the same feeling.
The next day, the group is visiting a mission, and my friend is checking out the tower when he realizes that the mission, the restaurant, and the museum were all in Vertigo, and he started to scream.
688 chars
Julie Robinson said on October 6, 2009 at 11:36 am
Moe mentions on her blog that she is having a PET scan today, so please send prayers and other assorted good thoughts her way.
126 chars
brian stouder said on October 6, 2009 at 11:37 am
Vertigo bugged me because Jimmy Stewart was too much of a wierdo. If he can’t be the earnest good guy, then I like him as a crusty crab – as in The Flight of the Phoenix (or whatever that movie was called)
But I suppose, to be honest, North by Northwest mainly appeals because it is (to me) the quintessential Cary Grant movie; he’s witty, urbane, pretty much unflappable, and the utlimate 1950’s-version metrosexual guy.
And indeed – the best best best ‘crusty crabby’ Cary Grant movie is Father Goose, which, if you haven’t seen it, you MUST!
550 chars
Sue said on October 6, 2009 at 11:55 am
By the way, Brian Stouder, I keep forgetting to tell you how much I liked your daughter’s school pic. If that isn’t a kid who knows how to wrap certain males around her little finger, I don’t know what is.
I’m not a huge Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant fan, but I loved them both in ‘Philadelphia Story’, especially the scene where CK and McCauley have that drunken late night conversation. They both seemed to be enjoying themselves and each other, playing off each other with those fantastic lines.
499 chars
brian stouder said on October 6, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Thanks, Sue. Luckily for Shelby, she gets her looks and brains from her mom!
Pam posted it on her Facebook page, and I felt compelled to link it, when I was bragging about Shelby’s eagerness to go to a Lincoln lecture with me. Pammy also set me up a Facebook page, which enabled me to click into friend-of-nn.c Laura Lippman’s Facebook page – although I’ve never added much of anything to it
394 chars
paddyo' said on October 6, 2009 at 12:50 pm
North by Northwest gets my vote . . . but another Cary Grant (though not Hitchcock) fun one is “Charade.” A wonderful bunch of misfits surrounds Grant and Audrey Hepburn — a one-armed George Kennedy, knife-loving James Coburn and Walter Matthau leading the way … Ned Glass, too.
281 chars
Joe Kobiela said on October 6, 2009 at 1:01 pm
The Gilmi Glider was miss fueled. The crew did not use the correct tabulation on liter conversion. However they did a great job landing that bugger. In a side note, that plane was recently retired to the bone yard.
Pilot Joe
225 chars
paddyo' said on October 6, 2009 at 1:20 pm
LOVE the Gilmi Glider story epilogue about the Air Canada repair crew driving in a van over to fix the miracle glider airliner and running out of gas en route . . .
164 chars
deb said on October 6, 2009 at 1:29 pm
brian, moe and anyone else worried about H1N1: the university of wisconsin — where H1N1 is rampant — is warning its students that regular alcohol-based hand sanitizer does NOT kill the virus. the school has set up dispensing stations every-freaking-where with a different form of sanitizer that’s supposed to do the trick, but i don’t know what it’s called or whether it’s available to civilians.
my son got swine flu anyway. when his test result turned up negative, his doctor insisted he stop taking the tamiflu. one week, no progress and two more doctors later, we were assured that, guess what? it was swine flu after all. yagh.
oh, one other fun fact: tamiflu causes neurological changes, and one potential side effect is self-mutilation, which is why the first doctor insisted my child stop taking it when the test result was negative. aren’t pharmaceuticals fun?
879 chars
brian stouder said on October 6, 2009 at 1:38 pm
one potential side effect is self-mutilation
Hmmmmm. Maybe those shit-whoppers are OK afterall…
109 chars
Julie Robinson said on October 6, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Whew, I guess I should be glad that our son didn’t have that experience with Tamiflu two seasons back. Of course, it didn’t help his flu either, and it’s pricey.
His college has those sanitizers all over too, but he says they aren’t being used. It’s just CYA, the same reason flu info papers come home from work.
Does anyone else remember lining up to get flu shots back in 1976? At IU they used vaccination guns, which were pre-loaded with hundreds of doses for the thousands in line at the health center. Very sci-fi in appearance, but many thought they were more painful than a regular needle. Hubby and I are out of the pertinent age group this time around.
671 chars
Sue said on October 6, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Danny, MMJeff and Co.: any thoughts on the rewritten bible coming out courtesy of Phyllis Schlafly’s son? Maybe all that inclusiveness and gender-neutral wording of some of today’s versions is annoying, but they’re talking about the King James version. A conservative version that changes ‘pharisees’ into ‘intellectuals’ – isn’t that an even more loaded term to certain conservatives? And ‘explaining economic parables with their full free market meaning’?
WTF (MMJeff’s version)?
486 chars
Dorothy said on October 6, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Thanks for the tip Julie, about Moe. Moe is always on my mind when I click on my nancynall.com link in my favorites.
117 chars
Dexter said on October 6, 2009 at 3:15 pm
My daughter’s SO , the NetJets pilot, is stuck in Antigua, waiting for the client to finish his vacation. Saturday to Friday, stuck in a nice hotel in that godforsaken part of the world…such a pitiful situation, at the company’s expense or not! Wotta life!
260 chars
Jolene said on October 6, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Just saw on MSNBC that public health officials–somewhere in Texas, I believe–had organized a drive-thru vacination site. Seemed like a great idea.
On another topic, saw a great documentary called “The Chandlers and Their Times” on PBS last night. Fascinating look at the development of LA beginning in the late 1800s, much of which was driven by the founder of the LA Times, William Otis*, and his son-in-law, Harry Chandler, and at the evolution of both that particular newspaper and, to a lesser extent, newspapers more generally. Catnip for current and former newspaper people, I’d think. My PBS station is showing it several times this week, so yours probably is too.
Tonight, btw, there’s a film about Darwin that looks interesting. Do I watch too much TV? Yes, I do.
*May have misremembered his first name.
831 chars
Julie Robinson said on October 6, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Sue, I hadn’t heard about the Conservative Bible Project but I just read their page @ conservapedia.com. AIEEEEE!!
They insist that their version will not be dumbed down, yet will prefer conciseness over liberal wordiness. It’s also going to provide a framework against liberal bias while utilizing powerful conservative terms, and on and on.
All this using the KJV, which incorporates the latest biblical scholarship from 1611. I weep.
445 chars
Rana said on October 6, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Regarding flu shots – the regular ones are on offer all over town, but I haven’t seen anything about the H1N1 vaccines. I’ll definitely be getting one of the regular ones, since I teach and colleges and universities (especially if they include parents among the student body) are big ol’ viral incubators. I wash my hands a lot, and use the handicap buttons to open doors that I can’t open by leaning on them.
One thing that’s interesting is the way that the advice that people with fevers should stay home is affecting attendance. I can’t tell whether more people are sick this fall than in previous semesters, or whether people before were coming to class even when feverish. (Or if people are using the flu as an excuse to play hooky.) In any case, I am seeing a lot more absences than before, and the online component of my courses has become vital to keeping the classes going.
890 chars
Jeff Borden said on October 6, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Stephen Colbert has famously stated that truth has a liberal bias. I guess the Schlafly clan figures Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were proto-liberals, too.
Rewriting the Bible to make it more conservative is to the rightwing whack jobs as renaming manhole covers to personhole covers is to the leftwing nutters. It’s beyond parody. Where do they go from here?
BTW, I came across the following at another website and thought it was one of the greatest things I’ve seen today.
START:
Germany’s most popular women’s magazine is banning professional models from its pages and replacing them with images of “real life” women instead.
In what is seen as the latest attempt to stamp out the “size zero” model, the editors of Brigitte said it would in future only use women with “normal figures”.
“From 2010 we will not work with professional models any more,” said Andreas Lebert, editor-in-chief, adding that he was “fed up” with having to retouch pictures of underweight models who bore no resemblance to ordinary women.”
STOP
I love this idea. My wife was charmed to the core a few years ago when Jamie Lee Curtis agreed to pose in her undies without makeup, hairstylist and photo touchups. To me, she looked as lovely as ever, though I admit to really digging her through her long career. But there were definitely wrinkles, gray hair and the kinds of sags and bags that go with getting older.
What do you folks think?
1438 chars
Sue said on October 6, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Jeff Borden: I dunno….., this could go horribly wrong.
http://showbiz.sky.com/Actress-Cybills-Mad-Bad-Hair-Day
113 chars
brian stouder said on October 6, 2009 at 4:55 pm
What do you folks think?
I think women with poise and vigor have an irrepressible beauty all their own; very much more than they realize.
147 chars
Jeff Borden said on October 6, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Sue, Aiiieeeeeeeee!
Brian, agreed 100%.
42 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 6, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Well, gee, thanks Sue. Thanks for making my day — what a bright spot in a grim, gloomy day (apologies to Moe & Dorothy, who have fairly exclusive rights to complain this week).
I did not need to know about this today. In the middle of trying to help nudge a congregation off of mindless narrow-focus endless kulturkampfen, and then get an interjection into the situation from a judicatory official, for endlos culture war from the left. Arggghh.
Anyhow, sincere thanks for the heads-up, since i will almost certainly hear about this, in a setting where it will be a blessing to be able to be a quick-responding, non-anxious presence, on my feet, in front of curious witnesses. My quick take — this goober, i mean, this όσπρια, doesn’t know enough Greek to blow his ρήμ, and he should be embarrassed to know less Greek than me. But i don’t pretend to translate the Bible (just old fake artifacts of 1860 vintage from Hebrew).
The NRSV is mildly embarrassing in its attempt to “fix” Scripture to the left, IMNSHO, changing big swaths of verbiage rather than tell it like it is and then do the preaching and teaching work of explanation — plus it makes lots of changes for no other reason than they can, jolting familiar rhythms for no real shading of meaning. I still use RSV 90% of the time. The NLT 2nd edition is an excellent reading version (and i still like the TEV/Good News Bible, the one with the line drawings), and the new ESV i am now regretting even purchasing for reference.
So i guess my point is that this silly project is just a counterblast to the agenda driven translations like NRSV and the TNIV, but that’s no excuse. It shouldn’t be done, and certainly shouldn’t pretend to be more “fair and balanced” [rimshot].
My apologies to anyone who could care less — just find an RSV with a solid binding and good notes (i value the old Oxford Annotated), and read Luke, then forget about the translation wars and go to sleep.
2098 chars
Julie Robinson said on October 6, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Jefftmmo, I still have my Oxford Annotated RSV which I used for my college classes, as well as the OA NRSV, which has paper that is too thin. (Our new hymnal has the same problem.) For devotional reading I like The Message by Eugene Peterson.
And speaking of mindless narrow-focus endless kulturkampfen, our church will be having yet another “discernment” evening about ordaining non-celibate gays, despite the fact that the average pew-sitter just wants a caring parson who preaches good sermons. I can’t wait.
526 chars
nancy said on October 6, 2009 at 7:40 pm
I remember the first time I picked up a “Living Bible.” I learned the coin of the realm for the Philistines was dollars. Hmm.
125 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 6, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Ah, Julie, let’s swap prayers for each other. Discernment is not a word i love as much as i once did. Truly, people want caring parsons who can preach non-awfully, but they also want someone they can trust. We’re wasting time debating ordination of gays and lesbians (short answer, ordain those who are called, but . . . keep reading), while we’re ordaining predators who sleep their way through the alto section or embezzle the petty cash from the CROP Walk because they have five maxed out credit cards. We’re going at clergy discernment all wrong, if you ask me. We need good people, gay, straight, or bent however.
623 chars
beb said on October 6, 2009 at 9:38 pm
I quite enjoyed reading “Misquoting Jesus” which discussed the limits of biblical inerrency, by discussing the known versions of different books of the new testament. Really interesting stuff, even for someone who gave up on church years ago.
For that matter, will I wouldn’t change the name “Pharisis” to anything else, least of all to “Intellectuals” I would footnote that they were conspicuously religious people – like televangelists
441 chars
basset said on October 6, 2009 at 9:44 pm
When I graduated from high school in southwestern Indiana in 1973, the non-denominational church in the little town where I was raised gave all of the graduates – I think there were three of us, school was at the other end of the county – individual Bibles. I have never been a churchgoer, and put it away without reading. A few years later, I wanted to look something up and finally opened it. The sections had been bound out of order. I figured that was a sign.
467 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 6, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Basset, if you have one of these, it’s worth plenty — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adulterous_Bible
100 chars
basset said on October 6, 2009 at 10:33 pm
well, having worked as a “corrector,” I can surely relate to that.
66 chars
Dexter said on October 7, 2009 at 12:31 am
sorry–double post correction—
32 chars
Dexter said on October 7, 2009 at 12:33 am
I hope this fucking wind doesn’t blow the last tree onto my roof.
I took the dog for a little drive and a walk around the well-lighted court square here just now. I was just too wound-up after watching what I am sure many sports pundits will call the greatest game of the decade. The Minnesota Twins beat the Detroit Tigers in the championship game for the Central Division of baseball. I have not been so tense and into every pitch of a game since a couple Yankees-Red Sox games years ago.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A friend called and was shaken…he’s old, and he just got released from ten days in jail for drunk driving. He lives in Illinois and got busted in Indiana. Indiana yanked his license and he served his 90 days suspension-of-license. When he applied for his license back in Illinois, he was told Illinois never suspended his license, the Indiana judge had no right to yank his license, and now Illinois is revoking his license for a year, during which time he must be evaluated for alcohol abuse and must complete a course in alcohol education.
Over here, I have known plenty of folks who have had to attend these state-sponsored schools for alcohol education.
They also take hours per day for months to complete, and you have to participate and please your instructors or they simply won’t release you and you have to keep taking the courses until you can show them you care.
I never had to take these courses but it is not a joke to have to take them, and it is expensive as hell.
Why do long-time alcoholics resume drinking and driving when they are way past 60 and know better? It’s because they think they do actually know better, and are smarter than common AA people, and they can handle it. And they go off to jail with the younger criminals . Well, if John Barleycorn kick your ass once and you don’t totally surrender to him, and try to beat him again…he’ll kick your ass even harder, and he’ll kill you the next time.
But some people don’t believe in metaphors and stories and they go back to the bar and take another swing at fate….
2104 chars
ROgirl said on October 7, 2009 at 6:47 am
Whenever I hear about people who can’t control their drinking I realize that my problems could be a lot worse, and that I’m lucky that alcohol isn’t one of them. A friend married a man who was a recovering alcoholic, but he started drinking again and ended up spending several months in jail, continued to drink on and off (mostly on), and died this summer at the age of 62 after a binge.
388 chars
alex said on October 7, 2009 at 7:49 am
I didn’t comment on Letterman on the Letterman thread a few days ago because I’m actually more disappointed that his reputation is being scandalized than in his behavior. In addition to what Nance said about cold-eyed opportunism on the part of certain “harassment victims,” this morning’s MoDo probably sums up my feelings about it better than anything else I’ve read:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/opinion/07dowd.html?_r=1&hp
439 chars
Connie said on October 7, 2009 at 10:50 am
When I graduated from Zeeland HS in 1973 each graduate was handed a diploma and a bible with name enbossed on front.
I am not much of a bible reader anymore, though I own a dozen or so. On the rare time I need read it I turn to the KJV, King James version, for the sheer poetry. And the childhood familiarity. I do occasionally attend church with friends at Christmas, and the Christmas story sounds so wrong to me read from a version other than King James.
As to H1N1, I had a long chat yesterday with the communicable diseases expert at the County Health Dept. Here is what I learned:
If you were born in 1957 or earlier you probably have developed immunity due to other exposures over the years.
Bosses do not need to be concerned about employees with family members who have been so diagnosed. (My current employee with a diagnosed kid says his wife has been sent home for the duration, she does work for one of the big med equip companies in Warsaw).
Employees with flu symptoms should be sent home from work whether or not they have been diagnosed.
Customer with obvious flu systems who are spraying all over the building: security should have a chat, and the person may be asked to leave.
We are considering a policy that would provide short term additional leave time if needed in order to convince employees to stay home. We are putting hand sanitizer every where for both employee and customer use, putting stickers on all the bathroom mirrors that say wash your hands for 20 seconds, and stocking up on masks for the optional use of employees.
I remember lining up at Michigan State for that flu shot in 1976.
1652 chars
basset said on October 7, 2009 at 2:50 pm
I was at IU when the flu shots were happening in 1976, don’t remember getting one. although I do recall lining up for four hours to give blood in the fall of ’73, the donors filled Alumni Hall and the surrounding passageways. something about a contest with Purdue, I think.
275 chars