Days that remind me of my limits
I begin this blog on a Thursday evening just before nine p.m. It may take me a bit to finish as one of my favorite summer replacement programs is about to begin, so bear with me. It has been a very long day. A day that has worn me out and reminded me of the physical and mental limitations I must learn to live with.
After breakfast I went out to run a few errands. One of which was getting my car's oil changed. The only extra was a bulb to replace one that had burnt out and yet I'm out a total of $80.00. Didn't oil changes used to go for around $29.99? Anyway, after running errands and spending an hour laughing my posterior off at the phony characters on "Jerry Springer", I attempted to finish watching a film that opens tomorrow. There are actually two films opening tomorrow that I had previously agreed to view and review but I'd seen one of them weeks ago. That review was already written although I hadn't finished formatting the final version.
I'd have been done earlier but my mom called and needed a ride. The van driver who was supposed to take her screwed up. That cost me 90 minutes, which I don't mind one iota. I'd do anything for my mother, but it was Murphy's Law at work...her need arising at just the wrong moment. No worries, I got her where she needed to go and was back at the computer watching the film.
Now that I've written and scheduled two film reviews for posting in the morning I can focus on a though that's been gnawing at my brain for two days. I was thinking about years that end in 14. In 1914, the U.S. was producing pennies that look much like those we see now, although out of different materials and Honus Wagner became the first 20th Century Major League Baseball player to have 3,000 hits. That was what got me started on this line of thinking, Wagner's achievement.
Today our technology has advanced so much that we track every possible statistic in baseball. Honus Wagner wouldn't know a WHIP from a OPS, although he'd understand an at-bat and a strike-out. At least they tracked some stats back then.
Go back another hundred years. In 1814 they didn't keep good track of all of the American sailors who were impressed into service in the Royal Navy, and professional sports statistics weren't a thought in anyone's mind.
We know something about the major figures of 1714, 1614 and so on going backward. But there is little, if anything known about specific individuals who weren't major world figures going back that far. Why? The lack of easy information gathering and storage.
Now we have the Internet and unlimited ability to communicate and store information. Two or three hundred years from now I will be gone, but there's a pretty good chance my blog entries will be retrievable. The records of my birth, death, military service and so much more will be easy for any curious individual to retrieve.
Think about this for a moment. Two hundred years from now, every single thing you ever Tweet, post on Facebook, or write in a blog may well exist. I wonder how many of us are probably more relieved than bothered by the relative inability to access some of the earlier webpages we created on old hosting sites like Geocities, Tripod and Angelfire.
We probably don't think enough about the fact that what we do at our keyboards will be preserved for posterity long after we're gone. Maybe we should give that more thought from time to time.
* * *
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down some key rulings this week. One of particular interest relates to the Fourth Amendment's protections involving being searched. The court ruled that even if an individual has been arrested, police must first obtain a search warrant before examining the contents of that person's cellphone.
This makes perfect sense. With the ever-growing capabilities of such devices, the need for the protection of their contents cannot be overstated. Just as the police can't break into a locked filing cabinet in your home without a warrant, they shouldn't be able to scan the files on a phone.
Another important ruling dealt with the issue of presidential appointments during a Senate recess. While the majority of appointments can no longer be held up by filibusters, this is still a contentious issue. The president has a legitimate need to make appointments to fill vacancies at any time and if the Senate is in recess, that appointment shouldn't wait.
But indefinite appointments should not be permitted. In an ideal world, any recess appointment should be subject to confirmation hearings and a vote within 30 days of the Senate returning from its recess.
* * *
The issue of Hillary Clinton and her positions on financial/tax issues will become a more important topic once she declares she actually is a candidate for her party's nomination for 2016's presidential race.
We already know she claimed to be "dead broke" when that was not quite the case. Now it appears that what the Clintons say on an issue is far different from what they do on that issue. The issue is the estate tax.
President Clinton was a proponent of the tax during his entire tenure in the White House. Hillary talked up the estate tax and the dangers of inherited wealth on the campaign trail during 2008. Yet the couple has taken advantage of a number of loopholes in the law to avoid their estates being subjected to the estate tax. They used real estate trusts to own their homes, avoiding this tax on any increase in the value of the properties.
Now this is perfectly legal. But in an era where some billionaires are giving away the overwhelming majority of their own wealth, when someone like Sting is basically disinheriting his children; it seems to be the height of hypocrisy to champion the wealth tax and then do everything possible to avoid it.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Ann Coulter's bleating blatherings about soccer are just more of her need to see her name on the web and anywhere/everywhere else. She may be an intelligent woman but she's way off-base on this topic.
There's something wrong with the legal system when a nanny who stopped doing her job refuses to leave the home of the couple who fired her and they have to formally evict her.
From now on (or until I forget), Friday blogs will contain a video in honor of Parody Song Friday -
I often wonder if tabloid reporters who can't find a story and are on deadline just make one up.
I always thought "The View" was a show that was hosted by women. I am a major fan of Ross Matthews and he's a brilliant comedian/talk show host, but the fact he is gay doesn't change the fact that adding him to the lineup on The View would be a change in the equation.
The homeowner's association in Florida who is trying to force a veteran to stop flying a small flag outside his home should relocate to another country.
It should be a crime to adopt a pet from government agencies or a non-profit and then turn around and sell the pet at a profit.
After reading about the burgeoning trade in illegal kidneys in Nepal, I'm crossing off the list of places I want to visit.
A man who was twice elected mayor of Providence, RI and both times forced out of office because he was convicted of crimes, is running for a third shot at the job. The problem isn't the man the problem is the idiotic electorate who keeps voting for him.
The fact that a gay couple who was living in Arizona is being forced to move out of the state because laws there won't allow a "second-parent" adoption of their twin girls is proof that we heterosexuals have a lot of work left to do before equality will truly exist between gays and straights.
Are spaces in a church pew really worth fighting? Going to jail? I don't think so.
In Huntsville, AL, city council meetings begin with a prayer. I didn't think there was a problem with that, until they uninvited a Wiccan who had been invited to give the invocation. The reason their policy on prayer had seemed alright was it was supposed to include all faiths. Apparently that was a lie.
Reading a story about how a man's intent to leave his kids nearly $500,000 in an IRA was thwarted by his having filled out the beneficiary form incorrectly is a reminder, check such things regularly.
* * *
June 27th in History:
1358 – Republic of Dubrovnik is founded
1497 – Cornish rebels Michael An Gof and Thomas Flamank are executed at Tyburn, London, England.
1556 – The thirteen Stratford Martyrs are burned at the stake near London for their Protestant beliefs.
1743 – War of the Austrian Succession: Battle of Dettingen: On the battlefield in Bavaria, George II personally leads troops into battle. The last time that a British monarch would command troops in the field.
1759 – General James Wolfe begins the siege of Quebec.
1760 – Cherokee warriors defeat British forces at the Battle of Echoee near present-day Otto, North Carolina during the Anglo-Cherokee War.
1806 – British forces take Buenos Aires during the first British invasions of the Río de la Plata.
1844 – Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, and his brother Hyrum Smith, are murdered by a mob at the Carthage, Illinois jail.
1895 – The inaugural run of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Royal Blue from Washington, D.C., to New York, New York, the first U.S. passenger train to use electric locomotives.
1898 – The first solo circumnavigation of the globe is completed by Joshua Slocum from Briar Island, Nova Scotia.
1899 – A. E. J. Collins scores 628 runs not out, the highest-ever recorded score in cricket.
1905 – Battleship Potemkin uprising: sailors start a mutiny aboard the battleship Potemkin, denouncing the crimes of autocracy, demanding liberty and an end to war.
1927 – Prime Minister of Japan Tanaka Giichi leads a conference to discuss Japan's plans for China; later, a document detailing these plans, the "Tanaka Memorial" is leaked, although it is now considered a forgery.
1941 – Romanian governmental forces, allies of Nazi Germany, launch one of the most violent pogroms in Jewish history in the city of Iaşi, (Romania), resulting in the murder of at least 13,266 Jews.
1941 – German troops capture the city of Białystok during Operation Barbarossa.
1946 – In the Canadian Citizenship Act, the Parliament of Canada establishes the definition of Canadian citizenship.
1950 – The United States decides to send troops to fight in the Korean War.
1952 – Guatemala passes Decree 900, ordering the redistribution of uncultivated land.
1954 – The Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant, the Soviet Union's first nuclear power station, opens in Obninsk, near Moscow.
1954 – The 1954 FIFA World Cup quarterfinal match between Hungary and Brazil, highly anticipated to be exciting, instead turns violent, with three players ejected and further fighting continuing after the game.
1957 – Hurricane Audrey makes landfall near the Texas-Louisiana border, killing over 400 people, mainly in and around Cameron, Louisiana.
1971 – After only three years in business, rock promoter Bill Graham closes the Fillmore East in New York, New York, the "Church of Rock and Roll".
1973 – The President of Uruguay Juan María Bordaberry dissolves Parliament and establishes a dictatorship.
1974 – U.S. president Richard Nixon visits the Soviet Union.
1976 – Air France Flight 139 (Tel Aviv-Athens-Paris) is hijacked en route to Paris by the PLO and redirected to Entebbe, Uganda.
1977 – France grants independence to Djibouti.
1980 – Italian Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870 mysteriously explodes in mid air while in route from Bologna to Palermo, killing all 81 on board. Also known in Italy as the Ustica disaster
1981 – The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issues its "Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China", laying the blame for the Cultural Revolution on Mao Zedong.
1982 – Space Shuttle Columbia launched from the Kennedy Space Center on the final research and development flight mission, STS-4.
1985 – U.S. Route 66 is officially removed from the United States Highway System.
1988 – Gare de Lyon rail accident In Paris a train collides with a stationary train killing 56 people.
1991 – Slovenia, after declaring independence two days before is invaded by Yugoslav troops, tanks, and aircraft starting the Ten-Day War.
2007 – Tony Blair resigns as British Prime Minister, a position he had held since 1997.
2007 – The Brazilian Military Police invades the favelas of Complexo do Alemão in an episode which is remembered as the Complexo do Alemão massacre.
2008 – In a highly scrutizined election President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe is re-elected in a landslide after his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai had withdrawn a week earlier, citing violence against his party's supporters.
2013 – NASA launches the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, a space probe to observe the Sun.
Famous folk born on June 27th:
Louis XII of France
Charles IX of France
Paul Mauser
Helen Keller
Antoinette Perry
Juan Trippe
Billy Curtis
Willie Mosconi
Bob Keeshan
Peter Maas
H. Ross Perot
Charles Bronfman
Bruce Babbitt
Bruce Johnston
Rico Petrocelli
Norma Kamali
Vera Wang
Julia Duffy
Tobey Maguire
Khloe Kardashian
Madylin Sweeten
After breakfast I went out to run a few errands. One of which was getting my car's oil changed. The only extra was a bulb to replace one that had burnt out and yet I'm out a total of $80.00. Didn't oil changes used to go for around $29.99? Anyway, after running errands and spending an hour laughing my posterior off at the phony characters on "Jerry Springer", I attempted to finish watching a film that opens tomorrow. There are actually two films opening tomorrow that I had previously agreed to view and review but I'd seen one of them weeks ago. That review was already written although I hadn't finished formatting the final version.
I'd have been done earlier but my mom called and needed a ride. The van driver who was supposed to take her screwed up. That cost me 90 minutes, which I don't mind one iota. I'd do anything for my mother, but it was Murphy's Law at work...her need arising at just the wrong moment. No worries, I got her where she needed to go and was back at the computer watching the film.
Now that I've written and scheduled two film reviews for posting in the morning I can focus on a though that's been gnawing at my brain for two days. I was thinking about years that end in 14. In 1914, the U.S. was producing pennies that look much like those we see now, although out of different materials and Honus Wagner became the first 20th Century Major League Baseball player to have 3,000 hits. That was what got me started on this line of thinking, Wagner's achievement.
Today our technology has advanced so much that we track every possible statistic in baseball. Honus Wagner wouldn't know a WHIP from a OPS, although he'd understand an at-bat and a strike-out. At least they tracked some stats back then.
Go back another hundred years. In 1814 they didn't keep good track of all of the American sailors who were impressed into service in the Royal Navy, and professional sports statistics weren't a thought in anyone's mind.
We know something about the major figures of 1714, 1614 and so on going backward. But there is little, if anything known about specific individuals who weren't major world figures going back that far. Why? The lack of easy information gathering and storage.
Now we have the Internet and unlimited ability to communicate and store information. Two or three hundred years from now I will be gone, but there's a pretty good chance my blog entries will be retrievable. The records of my birth, death, military service and so much more will be easy for any curious individual to retrieve.
Think about this for a moment. Two hundred years from now, every single thing you ever Tweet, post on Facebook, or write in a blog may well exist. I wonder how many of us are probably more relieved than bothered by the relative inability to access some of the earlier webpages we created on old hosting sites like Geocities, Tripod and Angelfire.
We probably don't think enough about the fact that what we do at our keyboards will be preserved for posterity long after we're gone. Maybe we should give that more thought from time to time.
* * *
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down some key rulings this week. One of particular interest relates to the Fourth Amendment's protections involving being searched. The court ruled that even if an individual has been arrested, police must first obtain a search warrant before examining the contents of that person's cellphone.
This makes perfect sense. With the ever-growing capabilities of such devices, the need for the protection of their contents cannot be overstated. Just as the police can't break into a locked filing cabinet in your home without a warrant, they shouldn't be able to scan the files on a phone.
Another important ruling dealt with the issue of presidential appointments during a Senate recess. While the majority of appointments can no longer be held up by filibusters, this is still a contentious issue. The president has a legitimate need to make appointments to fill vacancies at any time and if the Senate is in recess, that appointment shouldn't wait.
But indefinite appointments should not be permitted. In an ideal world, any recess appointment should be subject to confirmation hearings and a vote within 30 days of the Senate returning from its recess.
* * *
The issue of Hillary Clinton and her positions on financial/tax issues will become a more important topic once she declares she actually is a candidate for her party's nomination for 2016's presidential race.
We already know she claimed to be "dead broke" when that was not quite the case. Now it appears that what the Clintons say on an issue is far different from what they do on that issue. The issue is the estate tax.
President Clinton was a proponent of the tax during his entire tenure in the White House. Hillary talked up the estate tax and the dangers of inherited wealth on the campaign trail during 2008. Yet the couple has taken advantage of a number of loopholes in the law to avoid their estates being subjected to the estate tax. They used real estate trusts to own their homes, avoiding this tax on any increase in the value of the properties.
Now this is perfectly legal. But in an era where some billionaires are giving away the overwhelming majority of their own wealth, when someone like Sting is basically disinheriting his children; it seems to be the height of hypocrisy to champion the wealth tax and then do everything possible to avoid it.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Ann Coulter's bleating blatherings about soccer are just more of her need to see her name on the web and anywhere/everywhere else. She may be an intelligent woman but she's way off-base on this topic.
There's something wrong with the legal system when a nanny who stopped doing her job refuses to leave the home of the couple who fired her and they have to formally evict her.
From now on (or until I forget), Friday blogs will contain a video in honor of Parody Song Friday -
I often wonder if tabloid reporters who can't find a story and are on deadline just make one up.
I always thought "The View" was a show that was hosted by women. I am a major fan of Ross Matthews and he's a brilliant comedian/talk show host, but the fact he is gay doesn't change the fact that adding him to the lineup on The View would be a change in the equation.
The homeowner's association in Florida who is trying to force a veteran to stop flying a small flag outside his home should relocate to another country.
It should be a crime to adopt a pet from government agencies or a non-profit and then turn around and sell the pet at a profit.
After reading about the burgeoning trade in illegal kidneys in Nepal, I'm crossing off the list of places I want to visit.
A man who was twice elected mayor of Providence, RI and both times forced out of office because he was convicted of crimes, is running for a third shot at the job. The problem isn't the man the problem is the idiotic electorate who keeps voting for him.
The fact that a gay couple who was living in Arizona is being forced to move out of the state because laws there won't allow a "second-parent" adoption of their twin girls is proof that we heterosexuals have a lot of work left to do before equality will truly exist between gays and straights.
Are spaces in a church pew really worth fighting? Going to jail? I don't think so.
In Huntsville, AL, city council meetings begin with a prayer. I didn't think there was a problem with that, until they uninvited a Wiccan who had been invited to give the invocation. The reason their policy on prayer had seemed alright was it was supposed to include all faiths. Apparently that was a lie.
Reading a story about how a man's intent to leave his kids nearly $500,000 in an IRA was thwarted by his having filled out the beneficiary form incorrectly is a reminder, check such things regularly.
* * *
June 27th in History:
1358 – Republic of Dubrovnik is founded
1497 – Cornish rebels Michael An Gof and Thomas Flamank are executed at Tyburn, London, England.
1556 – The thirteen Stratford Martyrs are burned at the stake near London for their Protestant beliefs.
1743 – War of the Austrian Succession: Battle of Dettingen: On the battlefield in Bavaria, George II personally leads troops into battle. The last time that a British monarch would command troops in the field.
1759 – General James Wolfe begins the siege of Quebec.
1760 – Cherokee warriors defeat British forces at the Battle of Echoee near present-day Otto, North Carolina during the Anglo-Cherokee War.
1806 – British forces take Buenos Aires during the first British invasions of the Río de la Plata.
1844 – Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, and his brother Hyrum Smith, are murdered by a mob at the Carthage, Illinois jail.
1895 – The inaugural run of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Royal Blue from Washington, D.C., to New York, New York, the first U.S. passenger train to use electric locomotives.
1898 – The first solo circumnavigation of the globe is completed by Joshua Slocum from Briar Island, Nova Scotia.
1899 – A. E. J. Collins scores 628 runs not out, the highest-ever recorded score in cricket.
1905 – Battleship Potemkin uprising: sailors start a mutiny aboard the battleship Potemkin, denouncing the crimes of autocracy, demanding liberty and an end to war.
1927 – Prime Minister of Japan Tanaka Giichi leads a conference to discuss Japan's plans for China; later, a document detailing these plans, the "Tanaka Memorial" is leaked, although it is now considered a forgery.
1941 – Romanian governmental forces, allies of Nazi Germany, launch one of the most violent pogroms in Jewish history in the city of Iaşi, (Romania), resulting in the murder of at least 13,266 Jews.
1941 – German troops capture the city of Białystok during Operation Barbarossa.
1946 – In the Canadian Citizenship Act, the Parliament of Canada establishes the definition of Canadian citizenship.
1950 – The United States decides to send troops to fight in the Korean War.
1952 – Guatemala passes Decree 900, ordering the redistribution of uncultivated land.
1954 – The Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant, the Soviet Union's first nuclear power station, opens in Obninsk, near Moscow.
1954 – The 1954 FIFA World Cup quarterfinal match between Hungary and Brazil, highly anticipated to be exciting, instead turns violent, with three players ejected and further fighting continuing after the game.
1957 – Hurricane Audrey makes landfall near the Texas-Louisiana border, killing over 400 people, mainly in and around Cameron, Louisiana.
1971 – After only three years in business, rock promoter Bill Graham closes the Fillmore East in New York, New York, the "Church of Rock and Roll".
1973 – The President of Uruguay Juan María Bordaberry dissolves Parliament and establishes a dictatorship.
1974 – U.S. president Richard Nixon visits the Soviet Union.
1976 – Air France Flight 139 (Tel Aviv-Athens-Paris) is hijacked en route to Paris by the PLO and redirected to Entebbe, Uganda.
1977 – France grants independence to Djibouti.
1980 – Italian Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870 mysteriously explodes in mid air while in route from Bologna to Palermo, killing all 81 on board. Also known in Italy as the Ustica disaster
1981 – The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issues its "Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China", laying the blame for the Cultural Revolution on Mao Zedong.
1982 – Space Shuttle Columbia launched from the Kennedy Space Center on the final research and development flight mission, STS-4.
1985 – U.S. Route 66 is officially removed from the United States Highway System.
1988 – Gare de Lyon rail accident In Paris a train collides with a stationary train killing 56 people.
1991 – Slovenia, after declaring independence two days before is invaded by Yugoslav troops, tanks, and aircraft starting the Ten-Day War.
2007 – Tony Blair resigns as British Prime Minister, a position he had held since 1997.
2007 – The Brazilian Military Police invades the favelas of Complexo do Alemão in an episode which is remembered as the Complexo do Alemão massacre.
2008 – In a highly scrutizined election President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe is re-elected in a landslide after his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai had withdrawn a week earlier, citing violence against his party's supporters.
2013 – NASA launches the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, a space probe to observe the Sun.
Famous folk born on June 27th:
Louis XII of France
Charles IX of France
Paul Mauser
Helen Keller
Antoinette Perry
Juan Trippe
Billy Curtis
Willie Mosconi
Bob Keeshan
Peter Maas
H. Ross Perot
Charles Bronfman
Bruce Babbitt
Bruce Johnston
Rico Petrocelli
Norma Kamali
Vera Wang
Julia Duffy
Tobey Maguire
Khloe Kardashian
Madylin Sweeten
posted by me at 12:42 PM
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