June 2007 - Page 4 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Immigration Questions

Back in the old days, i.e., even as recently as the 1980s, legislators from both sides of the political aisle would come together for the country’s greater good and agree on some bipartisan legislation. I felt that was true with the recent immigration bill, with GWB, McCain, Kennedy and others on the left and right aboard. It’s all but dead now, though the President continues his irrational optimism about it.

I’m not at all sure what immigration legislation can pass now, but I’m no fan of Peggy Noonan, who writes:
We should close our borders. We should do whatever it takes to close them tight and solid. Will that take the Army? Then send the Army. Does it mean building a wall? Then build a wall, but the wall must have doors, which can be opened a little or a lot down the road once we know where we are. Should all legal immigration stop? No. We should make a list of what our nation needs, such as engineers and nurses, and then admit a lot of engineers and nurses. We should take in what we need to survive and flourish.

I oppose this because it just isn’t the identifiable groups, such as engineers and nurses, this country needs, it’s the wide diversity of skills and dreams that comes from peoples from all over the world, the entrepreneurs and innovators that we risk leaving outside our doors.

So, the questions:
1) What kind of immigration policy should the country have?
2) How best should we deal with the undocumented immigrants already here?
3) Can this Congress ever pass any substantive legislation to address the issue?
***
Hasn’t happened yet as of this writing, but expect Fred Hembeck, sometime today, to wax poetic about the Mets beating the Yankees last night, 2-0.

ROG

Summer of Love

It’s not even summer yet and I’ve already begun to tire of mention of the term “Summer of Love”. The early adopters of the counterculture movement seemed to have decided that the folks that invaded Haight-Asbury, in the words of the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir on CBS News, “just didn’t get it.”

But I’ll admit that there’s one thing that largely endured: the music. Here’s a list of all the bands that played at the Monterey Pop Festival, which opened four decades ago tomorrow, withe the approximate number of LPs of theirs I own, suggesting their impact on me then; and the number of CDs I own of theirs I own, suggesting their impact on me more recently.

Friday, June 16
* The Association – 1 greatest hits LP. Hey, they tried to be “relevant” on the smothers Brothers Show when the sang Requiem for the Masses.
* The Paupers – nope
* Lou Rawls – 1 CD
* Beverly – who?
* Johnny Rivers – 1 greatest hits CD
* The Animals – at least one LP that includes the song “Monterey”, 1 greatest hits CD
* Simon and Garfunkel – at least six LPs, plus at least four solo Simon LPs, and one Garfunkel LP. S&G box set, Paul Simon box set, plus other CDs of each
Saturday, June 17
* Canned Heat – maybe one LP
* Big Brother & The Holding Company -one LP, plus three other Janis Joplin LPs and three Janis CDs
* Country Joe and The Fish – one LP, plus their appearance on the Woodstock LP
* Al Kooper – the Super Sessions with Mike Bloomfield and Steve Stills LP; the first Blood, Sweat and Tears LP
* The Butterfield Blues Band – one LP, one CD
* Quicksilver Messenger Service – one LP
* Steve Miller Band – two CDs
* The Electric Flag – one LP
* Moby Grape – one LP
* Hugh Masekela – alas, none
* The Byrds – one LP, two CDs
* Laura Nyro -two LPs
* Jefferson Airplane – at least six LPs, a two-disc greatest hits CD
* Booker T and The MG’s – no, though well-represented in the two Stax-Volt CD box sets I have
* Otis Redding – ditto
Sunday, June 18
* Ravi Shankar – one LP; I also have CDs of two of his daughters
* The Blues Project -one LP
* Big Brother & The Holding Company – see above
* The Group With No Name – don’t know
* Buffalo Springfield – 1 LP, 1 greatest hits CDs, plus four CSN(Y) LPs, two CSNY CDs, two solo Stills CDs (once owned on LP but lost or stolen), eight Neil Young LPs, at least seven Neil Young CDs
* The Who – seven LPs, three CDs, four Pete Townshend LPs, three Townshend CDs
* Grateful Dead – four LPs, one greatest hits CD
* The Jimi Hendrix Experience – four LPs, three CDs
* Scott McKenzie – nope
* The Mamas & The Papas – five LPs, a three-disc greatest hits CD

Meanwhile, Brian Wilson is playing Monterey this month, 40 years after the Beach Boys declined for a variety of reasons. I have a LOT of Brian Wilson (at least 4 CD), and Beach Boys albums (a boatload of LPs and CDs, some duplicative).
ROG

TV shorts

Boston Legal has dropped four cast members: Julie Bowen, Mark Valley, Constance Zimmer, and the woefully underused Rene Auberjonois have all been let go from the show, even as it adds John Larroquette. I don’t remember so many people leaving a show at once since the last season of Boston Legal’s predecessor, The Practice, when Dylan McDermott, Kelli Williams, Lisa Gay Hamilton and Lara Flynn Boyle got the boot, and James Spader was added.
***
For those who are already thinking about it, the Fall 2007 schedule.
***
Gordon’s right. Mr. Wizard IS a show both he and I watched as kids.
***
We are assured that Lost won’t end like The Sopranos did. I’ve never seen an episode of The Sopranos, but I’m convinced that Tony is dead; the screen going to black was Tony’s demise.
***
How Kellogg’s Limits on Kids Advertising Could Shake Up Industry
***
The The AfterEllen.com Hot 100 List
ROG

21 days

Sometimes, I just need to guess, even when I can look it up. I was trying to surmise why June 14, specifically, is Flag Day. Is it that there are 21 days from June 14 to July 4, inclusive, which seems to have morphed National Flag Week into a nearly month long tricolor display? Is this somehow tied to the 21-gun salute or the 21 steps used at Arlington National Cemetery?

Evidently not: the Continental Congress approved the design of a national flag on June 14, 1777, 230 years ago today. BTW, there have been 27 versions of the flag over the years.

In the Business Review (May 25, 2007), the local business weekly, it was reported that a pizza shop owner in Latham has lowered the American flag to half staff in front of his shop on May 18 to honor the more than 3,400 soldiers killed in Iraq. From the headline, it was also a way to protest the war. The story has angered an Iraq war vet, who wrote in the June 1 issue that he was disappointed in the paper for running such a story on Memorial Day weekend. He also noted Title 4 of the United States Code, Section 7(m) gives the allowable reasons for flying a flag; the protest was not one of the acceptable reasons.

This reminded me of some flag etiquette issues that took place during the VietNam War. There were some who flew the flag upside down. From Title 4, Section 8 (a) of the U.S. Code: “The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.” Of course, I believe those engaged in the behavior believed that the war WAS an “extreme danger to life or property.”

I understand both the pizza man’s protest AND the soldier’s frustration. I recognize that the flag lowering could be perceived as provocative. Yet, the soldier’s point is a bit legalistic, I think, given other sections of the code violated freely:
8 (i) The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever. It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard. Like this never happens.

Oh, and I still stand by what I wrote about flag burning a couple years back.
***
Bombs away! Or, as the person sending me this link wrote: Want to see something really stupid? I thought this was just an urban legend, but apparently not.
ROG

World of work

Some weeks ago, I read an article about how some (younger) people who go on an interview wearing what few experts would recommend. I might have taken it as a bit of a joke, except a friend of mine told me that a guy showed up to an interview he was conducting wearing shorts. My friend was inclined to dismiss him, except that he was quite intelligent and qualified. During the Q&A, the applicant asked, “Can I wear shorts to work?” The answer was no, but he was hired and he has worked out well.
***
I came across this list of unusual questions to ask in an interview from a usually reliable source, but at least a couple would never get past most Human Resources departments. One was “How about those Yankees?” (or other sports team), which may be perceived as sexist; an alternative, asking about the hot/cold/wet weather, seemed like a better idea.

Then there was a question about asking a really oddball question, just to see the reaction, and if the answer’s not too long or too short (whatever that means), that’s good. One suggestion: asking how many phone books there are in New York City. Of course, if I were answering it, I’d know there are about 8 million New Yorkers, meaning roughly 3 million households, and about 98% of all households have a phone. There are people with only cellphones that may not have phone books, but then there are offices with multiple phone books. Having no real idea, I’ll surmise that there at least as many business phone books as residential, so I’d say 6 million. I would be one of the people that would go on too long.

An alternate question: how do they get the cream filling in a Twinkie? (If you’re ever asked this, BTW, it’s described in the Wikipedia post for Twinkies.)
***
When the Job Isn’t What You Expected. As the About.com guide noted: “The thing is, you never really know what a job’s going to be like until you start. I’ve had friends take jobs that wound up having absolutely nothing to do with the job description they’d gotten in the interview. It’s like they wandered into the wrong building and sat down at someone else’s desk, and no one noticed the mistake.”
***
For those of you who don’t read Mark Evanier, the lyrics to The New Battle of New Orleans by Ray Stevens, who has performed a wide range of serious and silly songs. Disappointing, to say the least. BTW, he is number 160 in my Billboard Top Pop Singles artists 1955-2002, right between Def Leppard and Gene Pitney, though he doesn’t rank in the Billboard albums book.
ROG