A quiet Saturday
I was very tired when I woke up this morning so I decided to spend the day at home. As a result I wound up watching reruns of various programs I like. One of them was an episode of "Law & Order: SVU" and like the other L&O universe programs that series has attracted a number of stars at various points in their careers. Some in one off performances and others in multiple episode story arcs. A short list includes the late John Ritter, Henry Winkler, Bob Saget, Elizabeth Banks, Amanda Seyfried, Bradley Cooper, Emily Deschanel, Mary Steenburgen, Michael Gross and in the episode that is on my mind at the moment, Robin Williams.
The episode that he guest-starred in was called "Authority" and it involves that hoax where people would call fast food restaurants and instruct the manager to act as an agent of the police in order to detain and search an employee who is supposedly suspected of a crime. There's a famous social psychology experiment that comes into play later in the episode. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment is a link to where you can learn all about this experiment.
I'm pondering the same thing at the moment that I wondered about back when those hoax calls were being made. Are the people who "climb" to positions of management in the fast food industry really that gullible? That naïve? A voice on the phone tells them to detain, strip search and tie up employees and they do it because this voice claims to be a police officer?
One of the things they explained to us in detail when I was at Air Force basic military training was that our oath of enlistment bound us only to obey the lawful orders of our superiors. If an order was not lawful, we learned we would be held just as liable for following it as the person or persons who issued it.
"I was just following orders" was the defense offered by Lt. William Calley when he was court-martialed and convicted of the My Lai Massacre. It didn't work. Why the man who gave that order wasn't also convicted is a question that will be debated for decades. It's the defense that Hermann Goring used at Nuremberg.
We owe no one blind obedience. In battle, commanders will give orders that need to be carried out instantly. But if they are clearly unlawful, should a soldier be held responsible for choosing not to obey them? Should he or she be held responsible for following them? Interesting quandary to find oneself in. I've always believed it would be better to be judged by twelve than carried by six; thankfully I never had to make that kind of decision.
However, in a situation like the fast food hoax, there was enough time to consider the situation and make the right choice. Question the order.
* * *
Paul Crouch has died at the age of 79. Don't recognize the name? Not surprising. Now if I'd put "Co-founder of the Trinity Broadcasting Network and host of their flagship program 'Praise The Lord'" in front of that sentence, he might be more familiar.
Normally I won't speak ill of the dead so I'll talk about his organization rather than him personally. I don't know if TBN chose to pay the man accusing him of having had homosexual relations with him an out-of-court settlement of over $400,000 means the allegation was or wasn't true. But that's not my real problem with TBN, it's just indicative of their way of keeping things as secret as possible while they fleece their flock.
They raked in over $95 million in donations in 2011, the last year for which records are available to the public. While they ran a deficit that year of more than $6 million, they still have over $820,000,000 in assets on their balance sheet. Prior to his death, Crouch and his wife, co-founder Janice Crouch lived in separate multi-million dollar mansions one block apart in Newport Beach.
Except that Mrs. Crouch actually spends most of her time in Orlando in one of another pair of closely located mansions, as she runs a side business there. The Holy Land Experience is a "biblical museum and experience."
They tell people to donate their money and it will come back to them in prosperity. But the only ones prospering from televangelism are the people working in this industry. Hey, people are free to donate whatever they like, to whoever they like.
I just think that if we need to clean up the morass of a mess that is the Super PACs and their 501(c)(4) designations, might as well go back one paragraph to the 501(c)(3) organizations and ensure that the rules about excessive compensation in nonprofits are being enforced.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Jennifer Lawrence is sad that she can't go to a coffee shop and hang out these days because of her fame. Fans won't leave her alone. While I don't feel sorry for her, I do think people should leave celebrities alone in settings like a coffee shop. You wouldn't walk up to a stranger who isn't famous and tell them how beautiful or handsome they are, why is it okay with a celebrity?
I just read that actor Paul Walker has died in a car crash at age 40. Tragic. He was a passenger in a friend's Porsche that crashed into a light pole and trees and then burst into flame. I'm sure much will be made of one of the stars of the "Fast and Furious" franchise dying in a car crash.
BCS still means bullshit computer system in my mind.
I root for UCLA in every game in every sport they compete in, every year, with one exception. I root for USC football. So while I'll always be a Bruin, tonight's victory is a mixed blessing in my eyes. Even if I did pick the Bruins in SFTC.
Another Craigslist ad leads to a robbery. The three robbers are under arrest, but any thoughts I had of listing that bottle of champagne for sale on Craigslist are gone. Too risky. Do you want to buy a bottle of Dom Perignon?
If the North Koreans are going to insist on holding an 85 year old man for things he allegedly did during the Korean War, then maybe the U.S. should be a little more forceful in pressing for his release.
I'm sick and tired of the cable's audio going off, even if I am normally a fan of "The Sounds of Silence". Then again, considering they claim they can't fix it without rewiring the building, I shouldn't let it bother me. I'm not paying to rewire.
Was Suge Knight arrested last night for assault, or was it a long overdue warrant for naming a boy Posh?
Can Kim Kommando sue Kim Kardashian for making an issue out of going commando to her fiancé's concert?
I wonder if organizing a protest movement against televangelists where we all band together and send them checks for one dollar would piss them off. They'd spend way more processing the donation, entering the donation into their database and soliciting more money from us in the future.
This is still painful to watch, 23 years later. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLTQjZxcy8U
* * *
December 1st in History:
800 – Charlemagne judges the accusations against Pope Leo III in the Vatican.
1420 – Henry V of England enters Paris.
1577 – Francis Walsingham is knighted.
1640 – End of the Iberian Union: Portugal acclaims as King João IV of Portugal, ending 60 years of personal union of the crowns of Portugal and Spain and the end of the rule of the Philippine Dynasty.
1768 – The slave ship Fredensborg sinks off Tromøy in Norway.
1822 – Peter I is crowned Emperor of Brazil.
1824 – United States presidential election, 1824: Since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
1826 – French philhellene Charles Nicolas Fabvier forces his way through the Turkish cordon and ascends the Acropolis of Athens, which had been under siege.
1828 – Argentine general Juan Lavalle makes a coup against governor Manuel Dorrego, beginning the Decembrist revolution.
1834 – Slavery is abolished in the Cape Colony in accordance with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.
1862 – In his State of the Union Address President Abraham Lincoln reaffirms the necessity of ending slavery as ordered ten weeks earlier in the Emancipation Proclamation.
1865 – Shaw University, the first historically black university in the southern United States, is founded in Raleigh, North Carolina.
1885 – First serving of the soft drink Dr Pepper at a drug store in Waco, Texas.
1913 – The Buenos Aires Metro, the first underground railway system in the southern hemisphere and in Latin America, begins operation.
1913 – The Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line.
1913 – Crete, having obtained self rule from Turkey after the First Balkan War, is annexed by Greece.
1918 – Transylvania unites with the Kingdom of Romania, following the incorporation of Bessarabia (March 27) and Bukovina (November 28), thus concluding the Great Union.
1918 – The Kingdom of Iceland becomes a sovereign state, yet remains a part of the Danish kingdom.
1918 – The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) is proclaimed.
1919 – Lady Astor becomes the first female Member of Parliament to take her seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. (She had been elected to that position on November 28.)
1934 – In the Soviet Union, Politburo member Sergei Kirov is shot dead by Leonid Nikolaev at the Communist Party headquarters in Leningrad.
1941 – World War II: Emperor Hirohito of Japan gives the final approval to initiate war against the United States.
1941 – World War II: Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York City and Director of the Office of Civilian Defense, signs Administrative Order 9, creating the Civil Air Patrol.
1948 – Taman Shud Case: The body of an unidentified man is found in Adelaide, Australia, involving an undetectable poison and a secret code in a very rare book; the case remains unsolved and is "one of Australia's most profound mysteries."
1952 – The New York Daily News reports the news of Christine Jorgensen, the first notable case of sexual reassignment surgery.
1955 – American Civil Rights Movement: In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
1958 – The Central African Republic attains self-rule within the French Union.
1958 – The Our Lady of the Angels School fire in Chicago kills 92 children and three nuns.
1959 – Cold War: Opening date for signature of the Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent.
1960 – Paul McCartney and Pete Best are arrested (and later deported) from Hamburg, Germany, after accusations of attempted arson.
1963 – Nagaland becomes the 16th state of India.
1964 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his top-ranking advisers meet to discuss plans to bomb North Vietnam.
1964 – Malawi, Malta and Zambia join the United Nations.
1965 – India's Border Security Force is established.
1966 – The first Gävle goat, an annual Swedish Yule Goat tradition, is erected in Gävle.
1969 – Vietnam War: The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II.
1971 – Cambodian Civil War: Khmer Rouge rebels intensify assaults on Cambodian government positions, forcing their retreat from Kompong Thmar and nearby Ba Ray.
1973 – Papua New Guinea gains self-governance from Australia.
1974 – TWA Flight 514, a Boeing 727, crashes northwest of Dulles International Airport, killing all 92 people on board.
1974 – Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231, another Boeing 727, crashes northwest of John F. Kennedy International Airport.
1976 – Angola joins the United Nations.
1981 – Inex-Adria Aviopromet Flight 1308, a McDonnell Douglas MD-80, crashes in Corsica, killing all 180 people on board.
1984 – NASA conducts the Controlled Impact Demonstration, wherein an airliner is deliberately crashed in order to test technologies and gather data to help improve survivability of crashes.
1988 – Benazir Bhutto is appointed Prime Minister of Pakistan.
1989 – 1989 Philippine coup attempt: The right-wing military rebel Reform the Armed Forces Movement attempts to oust Philippine President Corazon Aquino in a failed bloody coup d'état.
1989 – Cold War: East Germany's parliament abolishes the constitutional provision granting the Communist Party the leading role in the state.
1990 – Channel Tunnel sections started from the United Kingdom and France meet 40 metres beneath the seabed.
1991 – Cold War: Ukrainian voters overwhelmingly approve a referendum for independence from the Soviet Union.
1997 – In the Indian state of Bihar, Ranvir Sena attacked the CPI(ML) Party Unity stronghold Lakshmanpur-Bathe, killing 63 lower caste people.
2001 – Captain Bill Compton brings Trans World Airlines Flight 220, an MD-83, into St. Louis International Airport bringing to an end 76 years of TWA operations following TWA's purchase by American Airlines.
Famous Folk Born on December 1st:
Louis VI of France
Marie Tussaud
Rex Stout
Walter Alston
Calvin Griffith
Mary Martin
Martin Marion
Vernon McGarity (real American hero)
Malachi Throne
David Doyle
Lou Rawls (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCW1i5HQ0o0)
Billy Paul (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWOTdt9Bovk )
Woody Allen
Richard Pryor
Chuck Low
John Densmore
Bette Midler (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGpwgSo3THE)
Gilbert O'Sullivan (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_P-v1BVQn8)
Pablo Escobar
Treat Williams
Annette Haven
Mark Thompson (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95pZs0k3N9k)
Candace Bushnell
Charlene Tilton
Carol Alt
Jeremy Northam
Sarah Silverman
Stephanie Finochio (Trinity)
Laura Ling
Zoe Kravitz
No movie quotes today.
The episode that he guest-starred in was called "Authority" and it involves that hoax where people would call fast food restaurants and instruct the manager to act as an agent of the police in order to detain and search an employee who is supposedly suspected of a crime. There's a famous social psychology experiment that comes into play later in the episode. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment is a link to where you can learn all about this experiment.
I'm pondering the same thing at the moment that I wondered about back when those hoax calls were being made. Are the people who "climb" to positions of management in the fast food industry really that gullible? That naïve? A voice on the phone tells them to detain, strip search and tie up employees and they do it because this voice claims to be a police officer?
One of the things they explained to us in detail when I was at Air Force basic military training was that our oath of enlistment bound us only to obey the lawful orders of our superiors. If an order was not lawful, we learned we would be held just as liable for following it as the person or persons who issued it.
"I was just following orders" was the defense offered by Lt. William Calley when he was court-martialed and convicted of the My Lai Massacre. It didn't work. Why the man who gave that order wasn't also convicted is a question that will be debated for decades. It's the defense that Hermann Goring used at Nuremberg.
We owe no one blind obedience. In battle, commanders will give orders that need to be carried out instantly. But if they are clearly unlawful, should a soldier be held responsible for choosing not to obey them? Should he or she be held responsible for following them? Interesting quandary to find oneself in. I've always believed it would be better to be judged by twelve than carried by six; thankfully I never had to make that kind of decision.
However, in a situation like the fast food hoax, there was enough time to consider the situation and make the right choice. Question the order.
* * *
Paul Crouch has died at the age of 79. Don't recognize the name? Not surprising. Now if I'd put "Co-founder of the Trinity Broadcasting Network and host of their flagship program 'Praise The Lord'" in front of that sentence, he might be more familiar.
Normally I won't speak ill of the dead so I'll talk about his organization rather than him personally. I don't know if TBN chose to pay the man accusing him of having had homosexual relations with him an out-of-court settlement of over $400,000 means the allegation was or wasn't true. But that's not my real problem with TBN, it's just indicative of their way of keeping things as secret as possible while they fleece their flock.
They raked in over $95 million in donations in 2011, the last year for which records are available to the public. While they ran a deficit that year of more than $6 million, they still have over $820,000,000 in assets on their balance sheet. Prior to his death, Crouch and his wife, co-founder Janice Crouch lived in separate multi-million dollar mansions one block apart in Newport Beach.
Except that Mrs. Crouch actually spends most of her time in Orlando in one of another pair of closely located mansions, as she runs a side business there. The Holy Land Experience is a "biblical museum and experience."
They tell people to donate their money and it will come back to them in prosperity. But the only ones prospering from televangelism are the people working in this industry. Hey, people are free to donate whatever they like, to whoever they like.
I just think that if we need to clean up the morass of a mess that is the Super PACs and their 501(c)(4) designations, might as well go back one paragraph to the 501(c)(3) organizations and ensure that the rules about excessive compensation in nonprofits are being enforced.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Jennifer Lawrence is sad that she can't go to a coffee shop and hang out these days because of her fame. Fans won't leave her alone. While I don't feel sorry for her, I do think people should leave celebrities alone in settings like a coffee shop. You wouldn't walk up to a stranger who isn't famous and tell them how beautiful or handsome they are, why is it okay with a celebrity?
I just read that actor Paul Walker has died in a car crash at age 40. Tragic. He was a passenger in a friend's Porsche that crashed into a light pole and trees and then burst into flame. I'm sure much will be made of one of the stars of the "Fast and Furious" franchise dying in a car crash.
BCS still means bullshit computer system in my mind.
I root for UCLA in every game in every sport they compete in, every year, with one exception. I root for USC football. So while I'll always be a Bruin, tonight's victory is a mixed blessing in my eyes. Even if I did pick the Bruins in SFTC.
Another Craigslist ad leads to a robbery. The three robbers are under arrest, but any thoughts I had of listing that bottle of champagne for sale on Craigslist are gone. Too risky. Do you want to buy a bottle of Dom Perignon?
If the North Koreans are going to insist on holding an 85 year old man for things he allegedly did during the Korean War, then maybe the U.S. should be a little more forceful in pressing for his release.
I'm sick and tired of the cable's audio going off, even if I am normally a fan of "The Sounds of Silence". Then again, considering they claim they can't fix it without rewiring the building, I shouldn't let it bother me. I'm not paying to rewire.
Was Suge Knight arrested last night for assault, or was it a long overdue warrant for naming a boy Posh?
Can Kim Kommando sue Kim Kardashian for making an issue out of going commando to her fiancé's concert?
I wonder if organizing a protest movement against televangelists where we all band together and send them checks for one dollar would piss them off. They'd spend way more processing the donation, entering the donation into their database and soliciting more money from us in the future.
This is still painful to watch, 23 years later. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLTQjZxcy8U
* * *
December 1st in History:
800 – Charlemagne judges the accusations against Pope Leo III in the Vatican.
1420 – Henry V of England enters Paris.
1577 – Francis Walsingham is knighted.
1640 – End of the Iberian Union: Portugal acclaims as King João IV of Portugal, ending 60 years of personal union of the crowns of Portugal and Spain and the end of the rule of the Philippine Dynasty.
1768 – The slave ship Fredensborg sinks off Tromøy in Norway.
1822 – Peter I is crowned Emperor of Brazil.
1824 – United States presidential election, 1824: Since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
1826 – French philhellene Charles Nicolas Fabvier forces his way through the Turkish cordon and ascends the Acropolis of Athens, which had been under siege.
1828 – Argentine general Juan Lavalle makes a coup against governor Manuel Dorrego, beginning the Decembrist revolution.
1834 – Slavery is abolished in the Cape Colony in accordance with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.
1862 – In his State of the Union Address President Abraham Lincoln reaffirms the necessity of ending slavery as ordered ten weeks earlier in the Emancipation Proclamation.
1865 – Shaw University, the first historically black university in the southern United States, is founded in Raleigh, North Carolina.
1885 – First serving of the soft drink Dr Pepper at a drug store in Waco, Texas.
1913 – The Buenos Aires Metro, the first underground railway system in the southern hemisphere and in Latin America, begins operation.
1913 – The Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line.
1913 – Crete, having obtained self rule from Turkey after the First Balkan War, is annexed by Greece.
1918 – Transylvania unites with the Kingdom of Romania, following the incorporation of Bessarabia (March 27) and Bukovina (November 28), thus concluding the Great Union.
1918 – The Kingdom of Iceland becomes a sovereign state, yet remains a part of the Danish kingdom.
1918 – The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) is proclaimed.
1919 – Lady Astor becomes the first female Member of Parliament to take her seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. (She had been elected to that position on November 28.)
1934 – In the Soviet Union, Politburo member Sergei Kirov is shot dead by Leonid Nikolaev at the Communist Party headquarters in Leningrad.
1941 – World War II: Emperor Hirohito of Japan gives the final approval to initiate war against the United States.
1941 – World War II: Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York City and Director of the Office of Civilian Defense, signs Administrative Order 9, creating the Civil Air Patrol.
1948 – Taman Shud Case: The body of an unidentified man is found in Adelaide, Australia, involving an undetectable poison and a secret code in a very rare book; the case remains unsolved and is "one of Australia's most profound mysteries."
1952 – The New York Daily News reports the news of Christine Jorgensen, the first notable case of sexual reassignment surgery.
1955 – American Civil Rights Movement: In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
1958 – The Central African Republic attains self-rule within the French Union.
1958 – The Our Lady of the Angels School fire in Chicago kills 92 children and three nuns.
1959 – Cold War: Opening date for signature of the Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent.
1960 – Paul McCartney and Pete Best are arrested (and later deported) from Hamburg, Germany, after accusations of attempted arson.
1963 – Nagaland becomes the 16th state of India.
1964 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his top-ranking advisers meet to discuss plans to bomb North Vietnam.
1964 – Malawi, Malta and Zambia join the United Nations.
1965 – India's Border Security Force is established.
1966 – The first Gävle goat, an annual Swedish Yule Goat tradition, is erected in Gävle.
1969 – Vietnam War: The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II.
1971 – Cambodian Civil War: Khmer Rouge rebels intensify assaults on Cambodian government positions, forcing their retreat from Kompong Thmar and nearby Ba Ray.
1973 – Papua New Guinea gains self-governance from Australia.
1974 – TWA Flight 514, a Boeing 727, crashes northwest of Dulles International Airport, killing all 92 people on board.
1974 – Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231, another Boeing 727, crashes northwest of John F. Kennedy International Airport.
1976 – Angola joins the United Nations.
1981 – Inex-Adria Aviopromet Flight 1308, a McDonnell Douglas MD-80, crashes in Corsica, killing all 180 people on board.
1984 – NASA conducts the Controlled Impact Demonstration, wherein an airliner is deliberately crashed in order to test technologies and gather data to help improve survivability of crashes.
1988 – Benazir Bhutto is appointed Prime Minister of Pakistan.
1989 – 1989 Philippine coup attempt: The right-wing military rebel Reform the Armed Forces Movement attempts to oust Philippine President Corazon Aquino in a failed bloody coup d'état.
1989 – Cold War: East Germany's parliament abolishes the constitutional provision granting the Communist Party the leading role in the state.
1990 – Channel Tunnel sections started from the United Kingdom and France meet 40 metres beneath the seabed.
1991 – Cold War: Ukrainian voters overwhelmingly approve a referendum for independence from the Soviet Union.
1997 – In the Indian state of Bihar, Ranvir Sena attacked the CPI(ML) Party Unity stronghold Lakshmanpur-Bathe, killing 63 lower caste people.
2001 – Captain Bill Compton brings Trans World Airlines Flight 220, an MD-83, into St. Louis International Airport bringing to an end 76 years of TWA operations following TWA's purchase by American Airlines.
Famous Folk Born on December 1st:
Louis VI of France
Marie Tussaud
Rex Stout
Walter Alston
Calvin Griffith
Mary Martin
Martin Marion
Vernon McGarity (real American hero)
Malachi Throne
David Doyle
Lou Rawls (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCW1i5HQ0o0)
Billy Paul (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWOTdt9Bovk )
Woody Allen
Richard Pryor
Chuck Low
John Densmore
Bette Midler (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGpwgSo3THE)
Gilbert O'Sullivan (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_P-v1BVQn8)
Pablo Escobar
Treat Williams
Annette Haven
Mark Thompson (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95pZs0k3N9k)
Candace Bushnell
Charlene Tilton
Carol Alt
Jeremy Northam
Sarah Silverman
Stephanie Finochio (Trinity)
Laura Ling
Zoe Kravitz
No movie quotes today.
posted by me at 1:13 PM
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