October 2012 - Page 4 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

N is for National Elections: November 6

As a New Yorker, I don’t see many of the ads that run in states such as Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia.

If you’re not from the United States, you may not be aware of the fact that the US is having its national election on Tuesday, November 6.

CONGRESS

Approximately 1/3 of the US Senate is up for election. Senators are elected on a statewide basis for six-year terms.

All 435 members of the House of Representatives are up for election. The number of districts in each state is dependent on its population. The breakdown changes every 10 years, after the decennial Census. The results of the 2010 Census will alter the makeup of the House for the 2012 election.

From the Census Bureau:
“Among the eight states gaining seats, Texas will gain four seats and Florida will gain two seats. The other six states (Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah, and Washington) will each gain one seat. Of the ten states losing seats, two states, New York and Ohio will each lose two seats. The other eight states (Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) will each lose one seat.”

Even the states that have the same number of seats will have to change its Congressional boundaries (except for the states with only one House member, of course), to reflect population shifts within the state, based on the doctrine of One person, one vote.

THE PRESIDENCY

The Democratic Party is fielding the incumbent, President Barack Obama of Illinois, with his running mate, Vice-President Joe Biden of Delaware. The Republican Party candidate is putting up former Massachusetts governor Willard Mitt Romney, with his running mate, Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Since about the year 1800, the President and VP have run as a ticket. There are a number of “third party” candidates who have approximately a zero percent chance of winning the election.

The nomination process is rather peculiar for both major parties. Some states have what are called caucuses, while other states have primaries. But even the rules of primaries vary from state to state, with some having “closed” primaries (only members of that party can vote) while others have more “open” primaries, (voters who are not enrolled in either party may vote, and in a few states, voters from the OPPOSING party may participate!)

The Presidential election is not decided by the popular vote nationally, but rather by the vote in each state, which gets representatives to something called the Electoral College. Each state gets electors equal to its number of members of Congress (House plus Senate); the District of Columbia also gets three electors.

In 49 of 51 geographies, except for Maine and Nebraska, there are winner-take-all contests. Thus, some states are not generally contested by the candidates. New York, it is surmised, will go to Obama; Texas is safe for Romney. Therefore, the race is generally run in the so-called battleground states.

As a New Yorker, I don’t see many of the Presidential campaign ads that run in states such as Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia. A good political map can be seen at Real Clear Politics.
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Re: “the dozens of political tell-alls…that appear each election cycle.” The Center of Gravitas Best and Worst Seller List helps “you navigate which books would be likely to fly off the shelves and which would be reduced to the bargain bin.”

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

FOCUS Churches: Blog Action Day 2012 – “The Power of We”

“FOCUS is intentional in balancing labors of charity with acts of justice by participating in the work of seeking long term solutions to end hunger and poverty.”

Back in 1968, a cooperative ministry was developed among Emmanuel Baptist, Westminster Presbyterian, First Presbyterian, and Trinity Methodist Churches, all mere blocks from each other in Albany, NY, to work together on some common goals. Israel AME Church joined in 1989, and Delmar Reformed Church earlier this century.

The mission statement of the FOCUS Churches: “Six covenant churches, four faith affiliates, and two faith partners, doing together what we cannot do alone.

United in a common calling to respond to our neighbor’s needs in the city of Albany and beyond, as God’s servant people in a broken and hurting world.” Furthermore, in its statement seeking interns from Siena College, the mission “centers on providing presence, support, and advocacy for the victims of society’s injustice and neglect, speaking the truth in places of power on the behalf of the powerless, and offering new possibilities of wholeness to the lonely and alienated.”

One of the early FOCUS programs was the FOCUS Food Pantry. From what I have been told, this was set up to deal with people in need because of the economic downturn of the time; it’s been going on for over 30 years because the need has never gone away. You can read about the breakfast projects, community gardens, school supply projects, and other activities here. “FOCUS is intentional in balancing labors of charity with acts of justice by participating in the work of seeking long term solutions to end hunger and poverty.”

At least four times a year, thrice in the summer and once in the winter, there are joint services, allowing for the possibility that the unity from people of faith is greater than any pedestrian denominational differences.

I’ve been proud to be a member of a FOCUS church since 1984.

#PowerOfWe, #BAD12, #Blogactionday

Symptoms of Adult ADHD/ADD

If I have a big project, I’ll often attack it with great enthusiasm, but lose passion for it; it even says that is true of me in an extensive horoscope I got in the late 1970s.

I get these e-mails from this “natural health” doctor, and he had this chart of what to look for to see if one has ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) or its cousin, ADD (attention deficit disorder without hyperactivity, “which is more common in grown-ups”).

Time to self-diagnose:

*Trouble concentrating, especially when reading
That can happen, especially when I’m thinking of something else I want/need to do.

*Being easily distracted
Definitely true. Sometimes, I’m working on one thing, and the next thing is more interesting. Then I have to peel back to get back to task #1. Although sometimes, at work, task #2 pops up and it’s more important than task #1. Then task #3 might become the priority.

*Disorganization and procrastination
Disorganization has ALWAYS been true. My mother, in particular, dubbed me the “Absent-Minded Professor”, a description my sisters gleefully seized upon.
Now, I have systems. My bike lock key, when I’ve locked my bike, is always in the same slot in my backpack; ditto the bus pass. My glasses go on the same part of the dresser so I can find them in the dark.
When the routine is altered, I forget. I don’t ride my bike one day because the weather is miserable. I will; take my bike lock out of my backpack because it’s terribly heavy to carry for no purpose. I ride my bike to work the next day, and only halfway there, when it’s too late, I realize I have no bike lock. (I end up sneaking it up to my office via the freight elevator because the security folks get REALLY nasty if I take it up the passenger elevator.)

I used to procrastinate over things I hate. But I’m better, after having taken a jc’s recovery treatment; I tend to do them first, just to get them over with, on the theory that fretting about them took up too much psychic energy.

*Addictive behavior (e.g., drugs, drinking, gambling, overeating, excessive shopping)
Drugs, no. I remember my father giving me a sleeping pill – I was 25 at the time, and I felt SO good that I KNEW I should avoid THAT. Also, being associated with Legacy Healing Coral Springs has allowed me to see that it can be dangerous to your health. Drinking, maybe for a brief period in my 20s. Gambling, no. I’m bored by gambling and particularly hate casinos. I might buy a lottery ticket when the pot is high enough that an office pool is formed.
Overeating, for sure, especially when I’m feeling melancholy.
Shopping, when I first got credit cards, I spent too much. Largely curbed, and now I hate it when I can’t pay off my bills in the current month. (The root canal, not covered by my insurance, is going to take two or three months.)

*Restlessness
Definitely true. I should do yoga.

*Anxiety, depression, mood swings
Anxiety and mood swings, not so much.
Depression can be inexplicably subject to that.

*Impulsive and risky behavior, including reckless driving
Actually, I’m usually quite risk-averse. It’s not that I can’t be impulsive; I’ve had whole romantic relationships based on that in the past.

*Low self-esteem
Actually, no. I’m rather wonderful.

*Inability to finish projects, lacking motivation
This has long been true. Do you know how complicated projects need intermediate goals? DEFINITELY true, because if I have a big project, I’ll often attack it with great enthusiasm, but lose passion for it; it even says that is true of me in an extensive horoscope I got in the late 1970s. Blogging is great because it’s 365 discrete (but not always discreet) pieces. But writing a book? Can’t imagine.

*Forgetfulness, chronic lateness
I used to forget a lot. That’s why I need the systems. And I’ve long tended to be late, though so does my wife; the difference is that she fails to recognize it. But I HATE being late to an airport or train station, and desire to be early if I’m in control of the situation.

Here’s a classic morning at home recently. My daughter is upstairs, wants a particular outfit. It’s in the dryer in the basement, so I go downstairs to the first floor but realize I need to go to the bathroom, and I do, reading something; I use up the last of the toilet paper. Then I start going back upstairs before I remember that I need to go down to the basement. Now I need to take a shower quickly at the point the daughter needs to go to the bathroom. “Go downstairs,” I say. So she does, but, of course, there’s no toilet paper in the downstairs bathroom, because I used the last of it, so I have to go bring some downstairs before I shower.
Now is that ADHD, or is that just morning?

*Being short-tempered, inability to tolerate frustration
I used to be quite short-tempered, especially in my 20s. I figure it was a reaction to not being able to fully express my anger in my childhood. I get frustrated much less than I used to.

At some point soon, I’ll write about preventing adult ADHD.

Who starred with whom, and where?

The IMDB has an advanced search function.

There is this list of the five best television series of all time, compiled by ABC News and People Magazine, and conveniently broadcast on ABC in the past couple of weeks. Interestingly, all were comedies, none of them were broadcast on ABC, and the latter four would probably be canceled quickly these days because the early ratings were not particularly good. The list included:
I LOVE LUCY (CBS)
SEINFELD (NBC)
MASH (CBS)
ALL IN THE FAMILY (CBS)
CHEERS (NBC)

I read about it on Ken Levine’s blog. He (pictured) mentioned this because he was a writer for two of the shows, MASH and Cheers, which I suppose I’d consider for my list as well. I’d also pick Lucy, if only because it was seminal in the development of the TV rerun. All in the Family, which I did enjoy at the time, did not age well, though. And Seinfeld I liked for a few seasons, but grew tired of it, about the time the character Susan died from licking an envelope. There are plenty of dramatic shows (Twilight Zone, Hill Street Blues, among others) I’d put on the list, but if I were limiting it just to comedies, certainly the Dick Van Dyke Show would be on the roster.

What was most interesting to me, though, is that someone asked Levine: “Other than you and David [Isaacs, Levine’s writing partner], is there anyone else associated with 2 or more of the top 5? Probably not. You are in a very special group.” Levine named some writers. He also noted that “George Wendt and Shelley Long [of Cheers] both did guest stints on MASH.” In the comments section, a guy noted that the IMDB has an advanced search function – go to Collaborations and Overlaps – so that one can discover, e.g., that there are 16 people with credits on both The Dick Van Dyke Show and MASH, starting with Jamie Farr and Bernard Fox. Or that five people were affiliated with both the Van Dyke program and Cheers, including Ann Morgan Guilbert and Sheldon Leonard.

One can also put in Dick Van Dyke and Ted Danson to discover that Van Dyke appeared on Danson’s show Becker, as Becker’s father, and Danson was a guest on Van Dyke’s Diagnosis: Murder, as himself, both in 1999. I will definitely make more use of this feature.
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Ken Levine’s thoughts on the GQ CHEERS article.

Living on Anbesol and Advil

The music group called Big Daddy (loved by many, including me) is staging a Kickstarter campaign to raise $35,000 to produce their new album.

As mentioned, I had a root canal a couple of weeks ago, and the pain was far less than the last one I had some 15 years ago. But then I had to have some work done on another tooth, and the mouth discomfort after that one was mighty steady; not a sharp pain, but a constant ache, for which I was surviving on certain medicines.

And it was not great timing. Last weekend, the daughter didn’t have soccer, but the Wife and I did have a wedding to go to, a co-worker of hers who I didn’t know to a guy I knew just as well. The service was at 2 pm in Niskayuna, in neighboring Schenectady County, and it was lovely. The reception wasn’t until 5 pm, in Altamont, in Albany County, a 30-minute drive, so we did what we needed to do; we went grocery shopping. Talk about being overdressed for an activity.

The reception was at a place called the Appel Inn; our friends Marc and Janna had their reception there in November of 1999. We sat with one of the bride’s and my wife’s teaching colleagues, and her husband, neither of which I knew, but they were a delightful couple. But somewhere during this, the throbbing returned and having no over-the-counter solutions, I tried Southern Comfort and 7-Up; singularly unhelpful.

After church on Sunday, we drove to Schenectady to meet my sister Leslie’s bus. She had flown from San Diego, CA to Charlotte, NC back in late September to go to a conference, and visit our sister and niece; then flew to New York City, and visited relatives and a friend; then took a bus to Binghamton, NY to do genealogical research and to attend her high school reunion; and finally to Schenectady.

We are at some downtown restaurant called Bombers, and I saw that the New York Giants football team (my team) was already down 14-0, after only five minutes in the game; sigh. They ended up winning 41-27. But I didn’t see it.

We went to see the 2 pm stage performance of Mary Poppins at the Proctors Theatre, and it was quite good. Perhaps a little long, with too much of the exposition done to the tune of “Chim Chim Cher-ee,” but there were so many WOW moments – the transformation of the park, Bert walking on the ceiling – that we were all impressed. By the time we got back to Albany, though, I was exhausted from pain and went to bed before anyone.

The Sister returned to San Diego on Tuesday, the pain has subsided somewhat, and we’re back to a busy schedule, mostly driven by the Daughter’s activities. Especially on the weekend.
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Jaquandor saw Mary Poppins in Buffalo two years ago.

Says Mark Evanier (and I fully agree): The music group called Big Daddy (loved by many, including me) is staging a Kickstarter campaign to raise $35,000 to produce their new album. I would like to see them do this and have already backed…but it doesn’t look good. With only two days to go, they are a little over halfway there.