Monday, March 03, 2014

Early Sunday morning ramblings before work

Noted film writer/director Spike Lee says he doesn't understand why city services weren't good in his old neighborhood before it began gentrifying.  Maybe Spike was trying to "Bamboozle" his audience when he made that statement; because I'm sure he does understand there is a simple, one-word answer to his question.  That word is money.

Nearly 27% of the city's annual budget comes from property taxes.  Another 12% comes from income taxes.  The tax revenues on property go up when the value goes up.  When the people who live in a neighborhood earn more, they pay higher income tax bills.

Money buys access.  The politicians who run New York pay more attention to donors than they do to their constituents who aren't donors.  Just like politicians at every level of government throughout this nation. 

As to his argument that since his father lives in a home that he'd purchased in 1968 and therefore he should be allowed to play his acoustic bass as loudly as he pleases; that's ridiculous.  Just because you have "seniority" in a neighborhood doesn't mean you can ignore your neighbors and do as you please.  If the music is too loud, and your neighbor complains, you don't tell the neighbor to ignore it because you were there first.  A good neighbor will work out a compromise, like I'll lower the volume a little, and more when it gets later in the evening.

Chill out, Spike.  You lost a lot of your "hood cred" in that neighborhood when you moved out. 

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More than 6,500 men and women who took the civil service exam to compete for 70 positions with the Los Angeles City Fire Department were told they could begin submitting their certificate of physical agility beginning at 8:00 a.m. on April 22nd of last year.

What they weren't told was that if their certificate wasn't received within the first 60 seconds after the filing period opened, they would be removed from consideration.  The people who administer this process claim that this was a necessary thing; because they don't have the time or resources to interview more than the 965 applicants who met what became the arbitrary deadline of 8:01:00 a.m. on 4/22/2013.  More than three times that number submitted certificates that prove they are physically qualified for the position of firefighter.

The absurdity of this cannot be overstated.  I used to be amazed at how the deadline for filing applications for admission to the incoming kindergarten classes at the elite private schools would be the end of the first day applications were accepted.  One day I understand.  One minute I do not.

If the city were to rank all of the nearly 3,000 applicants into a pool of most qualified, logic follows that at least some of the top 70 would come from the group whose applications were summarily dismissed without further review.  Instead what happens is that 16 of the 70 turn out to be related to current or former employees of the fire department.  Let's say it, altogether now..."nepotism" and it's just plain wrong in the public sector.

So should hiring processes and decisions be made on what is most expedient, or what helps to ensure that the best qualified candidates get the jobs?  I think that's a no-brainer.  The city should go back and interview every qualified candidate, even if it means some lazy bureaucrats have to do a little real work for a change.

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On January 17, 2011, the show now known as "Piers Morgan Live" debuted on CNN.  At the time I figured it would last a year, two tops.  It actually made it into its fourth year before getting the ax.  The date of the last broadcast is not yet known, but don't expect the news network to drag this out a whole lot longer.  Ratings have fallen through the floor and the controversies that Mr. Morgan seems to enjoy courting aren't helping.

When considering the question of why he was doomed to fail, the simple answer is that almost no one had much of a chance of long-term success when following Larry King in that chair.  King never became the story.  He was and is a terrific interviewer.  Piers Morgan is not a bad interviewer but he doesn't know how to be just a reporter of and commentator on news; without seeking to be a more important piece of the puzzle.

I have more bad news for CNN.  I have no interest in being the replacement for Piers.  I certainly couldn't do worse and the only two people in the entire world I'd even consider banning from the show would be my ex-wives. 

But there's someone better suited than me out there to replace Piers Morgan.  Jay Leno.  No monologue, no band, just Jay in one chair and his guest or guests in the other chairs.  He's a great interviewer.  He could snap off the occasional one-liner and still interview the guests.  Only some contractual obligation to NBC would stop this brilliant idea from coming together.

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Random Ponderings:

Barkhad Abdi is broke, wearing loaner clothes to Oscar week activities and hasn't been cast in a follow-up film yet.  Guess being an Oscar nominee isn't quite the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Former governor Mike Huckabee doesn't "give a rat's rear" about something.  Does the religious right have a problem with their Fox news hucksters using the word "ass"?

There's very little that is patriotic about the Patriot Act.  Maybe the Truth in Advertising Act should be applied to the Patriot Act so people know what it really is.  Then again, Congress borrows money on our behalf without complying with the Truth in Lending Act, so maybe there just isn't any truth in Washington, D. C.

Had Ellen recently viewed "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" when she decided to order pizza at the Oscars (yeah, I started this Sunday morning but I'm finishing Monday morning)?  BTW, that was actually the owner of the pizza place making a delivery.

I refuse to retweet Ellen's selfie.

Some woman in her mid 50s wrote to Dear Abby asking if it was too late to finish her education.  It's never too late.

Can we worry about whether or not Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl did or didn't desert his unit until AFTER he comes home?

How cool is it that the U. S. Supreme Court is going to take up a case that was handwritten by a prisoner serving life, over his right to grow a beard?  While I don't condone the criminal act, I admire the audacity to petition SCOTUS in a 15 page handwritten document.

Does Angelina Jolie's left leg make her right leg jealous?

Governor Moonbeam endorsed someone in the Long Beach mayoral race?  He really is going for a fourth term as governor.

Thanks to his daughter's bragging on FB, a man lost an $80,000 settlement he'd reached with a former employer in an age discrimination case.  I'm guess she didn't get a like from him on the message she posted.

Warren Buffett wants to raise the minimum wage to $15 in an ideal situation, but he admits that it isn't a good idea.  So when other rich folk argue against raising the minimum wage and cite Buffett, can we point out he's in favor of the wealthy paying more taxes? 

How many more people have to die or get seriously hurt before people realize those who need oxygen need to not use it at those times when they feel the need to smoke?

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March 2nd in History:

537 – Siege of Rome: The Ostrogoth army under king Vitiges began the siege of the capital. Belisarius conducts a delaying action outside the Flaminian Gate; he and a detachment of his bucellarii are almost cut off.
986 – Louis V becomes King of the Franks.
1121 – Dirk VI becomes the Count of Holland.
1127 – Assassination of Charles the Good, Count of Flanders.
1444 – Skanderbeg organizes a group of Albanian nobles to form the League of Lezhë.
1458 – George of Poděbrady is chosen as the King of Bohemia.
1476 – Burgundian Wars: The Old Swiss Confederacy hands Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, a major defeat in the Battle of Grandson in Canton of Neuchâtel.
1484 – The College of Arms is formally incorporated by Royal Charter signed by King Richard III of England.
1498 – Vasco da Gama's fleet visits the Island of Mozambique.
1561 – Mendoza, Argentina is founded by Spanish conquistador Pedro del Castillo.
1657 – Great Fire of Meireki: A fire in Edo (now Tokyo), Japan, caused more than 100,000 deaths; it lasted three days
1717 – The Loves of Mars and Venus is the first ballet performed in England.
1776 – American Revolutionary War: Patriot militia units arrest the Royal Governor of Georgia James Wright and attempt to prevent capture of supply ships in the Battle of the Rice Boats.
1791 – Long-distance communication speeds up with the unveiling of a semaphore machine in Paris.
1797 – The Bank of England issues the first one-pound and two-pound banknotes.
1807 – The U.S. Congress passes the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, disallowing the importation of new slaves into the country.
1808 – The inaugural meeting of the Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, is held in Edinburgh.
1811 – Argentine War of Independence: A royalist fleet defeats a small flotilla of revolutionary ships in the Battle of San Nicolás on the River Plate.
1815 – Signing of the Kandyan Convention treaty by British invaders and the King of Sri Lanka.
1825 – Roberto Cofresí, one of the last successful Caribbean pirates, is defeated in combat and captured by authorities.
1836 – Texas Revolution: Declaration of independence of the Republic of Texas from Mexico.
1855 – Alexander II becomes Tsar of Russia.
1865 – East Cape War: The Volkner Incident in New Zealand.
1867 – The U.S. Congress passes the first Reconstruction Act.
1877 – U.S. presidential election, 1876: Just two days before inauguration, the U.S. Congress declares Rutherford B. Hayes the winner of the election even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote on November 7, 1876.
1882 – Queen Victoria narrowly escapes an assassination attempt by Roderick McLean in Windsor.
1885 – Sino-French War: French victory in the Battle of Hoa Moc near Tuyen Quang, northern Vietnam.
1901 – The U.S. Congress passes the Platt Amendment limiting the autonomy of Cuba, as a condition of the withdrawal of American troops.
1903 – In New York City the Martha Washington Hotel opens, becoming the first hotel exclusively for women.
1917 – The enactment of the Jones-Shafroth Act grants Puerto Ricans United States citizenship.
1919 – The first Communist International meets in Moscow.
1933 – The film King Kong opens at New York's Radio City Music Hall.
1937 – The Steel Workers Organizing Committee signs a collective bargaining agreement with U.S. Steel, leading to unionization of the United States steel industry.
1939 – Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli is elected Pope and takes the name Pius XII.
1941 – World War II: First German military units enter Bulgaria after it joins the Axis Pact.
1943 – World War II: Battle of the Bismarck Sea – United States and Australian forces sink Japanese convoy ships.
1946 – Ho Chi Minh is elected the President of North Vietnam.
1949 – Captain James Gallagher lands his B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II in Fort Worth, Texas after completing the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight in 94 hours and one minute.
1949 – The first automatic street light is installed in New Milford, Connecticut.
1955 – King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia abdicates the throne in favor of his father, King Norodom Suramarit.
1956 – Morocco gains its independence from France.
1962 – In Burma, the army led by General Ne Win seizes power in a coup d'état.
1962 – Wilt Chamberlain sets the single-game scoring record in the National Basketball Association by scoring 100 points.
1965 – The US and South Vietnamese Air Force begin Operation Rolling Thunder, a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam.
1969 – In Toulouse, France, the first test flight of the Anglo-French Concorde is conducted.
1969 – Soviet and Chinese forces clash at a border outpost on the Ussuri River.
1970 – Rhodesia declares itself a republic, breaking its last links with the British crown.
1972 – The Pioneer 10 space probe is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida with a mission to explore the outer planets.
1978 – Czech Vladimír Remek becomes the first non-Russian or non-American to go into space, when he is launched aboard Soyuz 28.
1983 – Compact Discs and players are released for the first time in the United States and other markets. They had previously been available only in Japan.
1989 – Twelve European Community nations agree to ban the production of all chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by the end of the century.
1990 – Nelson Mandela is elected deputy President of the African National Congress.
1991 – Battle at Rumaila Oil Field brings an end to the 1991 Gulf War.
1992 – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, San Marino, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan join the United Nations.
1995 – Researchers at Fermilab announce the discovery of the top quark.
1998 – Data sent from the Galileo spacecraft indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice.
2002 – U.S. invasion of Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda begins, (ending on March 19 after killing 500 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, with 11 Western troop fatalities).
2004 – War in Iraq: Al-Qaeda carries out the Ashoura Massacre in Iraq, killing 170 and wounding over 500.
2012 – A tornado outbreak occurred over a large section of the Southern United States and into the Ohio Valley region, resulting in 40 tornado-related fatalities.

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Famous Folk born on March 2nd:

DeWitt Clinton
Sam Houston
Pope Leo XIII
Sholem Aleichem
Pope Pius XII
Moe Berg
Dr. Seuss
Mel Ott
Desi Arnaz (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nMrIjBBov8)
Cal Abrams
Mikhail Gorbachev
Tom Wolfe
Lawrence Payton (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYY1PPIC5xE he was a member of the Four Tops)
John Irving
Lou Reed (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KaWSOlASWc)
Gates McFadden (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSXjZT4wQOo)
Karen Carpenter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__VQX2Xn7tI)
Laraine Newman (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DSjoecr5fg)
Jay Osmond (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J-VdWlbAXE I picked a short version)
John Cowsill (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WTdTwcmxyo he's not in the video, but he played drums and sang back-up vocals on this one)
Mark Evans (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHW3Ek9VTpg)
Jon Bon Jovi (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_gx9LNLlw)
Laird Hamilton (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0Pw7vKtqpo)
Mike Von Erich (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VePc4rgJ5vg)
Ron Gant
Daniel Craig (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_0D8F_X7us)
Chris Martin
Bryce Dallas Howard (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r03JYknSAes)
Ben Roethlisberger
Reggie Bush

No movie quotes today.