July 2014 - Page 6 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Soccer, a.k.a. football; and lies on the Internet

I’ve seen any number of people who refused to believe that an event happened because they read it on Facebook, and “Facebook can’t be trusted.”

The first time I ever even had a passing interest in soccer was watching some eight-year-olds play in the early 1980s. Now my daughter has participated the last three years, so I’ve become vaguely informed about the nuances. The Daughter wants one of those new soccer balls, called a brazuca, but I hear it costs $160; not happening.

Not that I would dis anyone who didn’t like the sport because they thought it was boring; I used to think so myself. But I figuratively rolled my eyes at certain Americans with their observations. Ann Coulter and her “Any growing interest in soccer a sign of moral decay” is self-evidently idiotic, but I note the source.

I was more annoyed, actually, with sportscaster Keith Olbermann, who suggested that the US shouldn’t have advanced to the knockout round because Portugal was the better team, based on “momentum.” If we were seeding the March Madness men’s basketball playoffs, one can factor in “momentum.” But it seemed to me to be the height of arrogance to suggest such a change at FIFA, who’s been doing this World Cup thing, in a sport most Americans still do not understand, since 1930. Keith should butt out.

Now satirical analysis, such as the piece Ken Levine provided, is welcome.

A female friend of mine noted, not just that the players collectively are quite buff, but that even her most macho-sounding male friends were making the same observations. And I noticed that the refs in these games have to move nearly as much as the players.

I saw bits and pieces of the earlier matches. But I managed to see the last 77 minutes of the epic 120-minute match between the US and Belgium, which the Americans lost 2-1, despite epic goal play by Tim Howard, the most saves in at least 50 years. After the US scored its goal at 107 minutes, I was on my feet the rest of the match, a clear sign I was really into that game.

Moreover, I started figuring out the notations online for the yellow card (penalty), substitution, and how much extra time would be allowed per period. I enjoyed it more because I understood it more than I ever have before. Still think the stoppage time is weird to me and seemingly arbitrary, but maybe it’ll make sense, eventually.

Amy Biancolli writes about the thrill of a good loss. And mostly unrelated, here’s a comic about the Existential World Cup.

Early on, I picked Argentina to win the World Cup. I figured it was a strong team that didn’t have so far to travel, and that the host Brazilians would wilt under the pressure. If the US HAD won its Belgium game, it would have been up against Argentina, and I would have had a quandary. OK, I wouldn’t really; it’d just be a classic head/heart bifurcation.

Oh, here’s something I don’t get: about a week into the World Cup, I saw an article that indicated that the Argentina team had been banned from play because of some infraction. When I click on the article, it was one of those GOTCHA phony stories, and I was 123,456th person (or whatever) to fall for it. As someone who values real information, the site made me irritable. (But not the temporary change in the Wikipedia entry for U.S. Secretary of Defense to ‘Tim Howard’, which was an obvious prank.)

It was the second time in less than a month I saw the more annoying version of this; some guy from Walking Dead, a show I never had watched, supposedly died. But it was another “GOTCHA to click through to this lie, dummy” thing.

I understand that one has to verify things, say, that one sees on Facebook. Designing Women actor Meshach Taylor died late on June 28 – at age 67, sad (yes, I watched the show) – and his family had announced that he had begun his “grand transition” on June 27. So some people began posting news of his death soon afterward. I waited until I had seen sources I trusted (both the LA Times and the Hollywood Reporter, which is generally good with deaths of celebrities) before I would post it.

But I’ve seen any number of people who refused to believe that an event happened because they read it on Facebook, and “Facebook can’t be trusted.” I’m not talking about anything mildly controversial, such as climate change; I’m talking PAST weather reports from NOAA.

OK, one more pet peeve often posted on Facebook: it’s this calendar showing, e.g., August 2014, which has five Fridays, five Saturdays, and five Sundays. And the graphic says, “This won’t happen again for another 823 years.” But the calendar for 2014 is EXACTLY the same as the calendar for 2003, 1997, 1986, and will be repeated in 2025, 2031, and 2042. Moreover, any month with 31 days in which the 1st falls on Friday, is in this category. Examples from recent past and near future: January 1988*, 2010, 2016* and 2021; March 1996*, 2013, 2019 and 2024*; May 1992*, 2009, 2015 and 2020*; July 1988*, 2011, 2016* and 2022; August 2008* and 2036*; October 2004*, 2010, 2021 and 2032*; December 2000*, 2006, 2017 and 2028*. *leap years.

This meme is so OBVIOUSLY wrong (to me), that the fact that SO many people have sent it shows a certain math phobia or unawareness. Ah, an interesting observation that I can add to a book review I’m doing…

Macca

Paul McCartney is now “feeling great, rocking and rolling.”

There are plenty of musicians I’ve never seen play live, who I’ll never see play live. Probably should have seen The Who in the mid-1990s when they were in Albany, NY.

And when the announcement came that Paul McCartney was going to play Albany, NY, I figured he’d be one more. I know someone who was working with his people, but there were no comps to be had, the tickets were pricey and were expected to sell out quickly, and I resigned myself to not going.

Heck, Ringo Starr was in town LAST month, and I missed him, too.

But my friend said, “You MUST go.” She’d seen him play, and she knew how much I loved his music.

Then Paul got sick with some viral infection, where he canceled dates in Japan and South Korea in May, and the June 14-26 shows from Lubbock to Louisville would be postponed until October.

Now that Paul McCartney is now “feeling great, rocking and rolling,” The ‘Out There’ world tour will now resume July 5 in Albany, NY. Somehow, that made it much more of an imperative.

Through some sort of circuitous route, I managed to get a couple of tickets on Tuesday, which is to say four days ago. Who to take? Well, I had to take the second biggest Beatles fan in the house, the one I gave Beatles #1s to four or five years ago, The Daughter. And The Wife is actually quite all right with this.

The Daughter’s first concert was some American Idol runners-up, back when she was four. Neither of us much remember it; this, I suspect, we will.
***
Paul McCartney – ‘Save Us’ (Fan Video) 2014

Luis Suárez interviews Paul McCartney – Uruguay, April 2014

Paul McCartney & Wings – Got To Get You Into My Life [1979]

Beatles’ Relay Race
***
“Weird Al” Yankovic would like to set the record straight

A declaration of gun independence

It’s really hard to be a good guy with a gun.

In my annual (at least) reading of the Declaration of Independence, I have been thinking a lot about this section:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

There’s a movement of people in the United States that seem to think the law, the government is SO oppressive that it does not apply to them. Notably of late, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy has been grazing his cattle on federal lands for the last twenty years while refusing to pay grazing fees, because he doesn’t recognize the federal government. “The feds ordered Bundy to pay the fees he owed, ordered him to get his cattle off the publicly-owned property and let him know when they would be coming to enforce these orders in person… Between the end of March and April 10th, Bundy supporters whipped each other into a frenzy on social media, grabbed their AR-15s and AK-47s, and swooped down on the Bundy ranch to defend their newest freeloading patriot hero from the federal usurpers of the Bureau of Land Management.”

It appeared that at least some of the Bundy supporters were looking for the federal government to shoot, so they could shoot back and claim it was another Ruby Ridge or Waco. Instead, the feds walked away. FOX News embraced Bundy’s criminal activity, Because Freedom, until Bundy’s racist rants, and I’m STILL at a loss to understand their justification. Then again, I may be looking for the rational when it is not to be found.

I would not be surprised if some of the Bundy supporters were part of the Sovereign Citizens Movement, people who “believe that they — not judges, juries, law enforcement or elected officials — get to decide which laws to obey and which to ignore.”

Also, you have your folks who believe that the Second Amendment of the Constitution means that one has the right to terrorize others by carrying their large weapons around with them. In a climate of regular school shootings – though some of them apparently don’t count – this seems ill-advised. Even the National Rifle Association said this behavior was “downright weird” until the backlash forced them to retreat from that position.

The cartoon How to Tell the Difference Between an Open-Carry Patriot and a Deranged Killer was so good I reposted it on Facebook, to great response. If you were someone with mayhem on your mind, wouldn’t you shoot the Open Carry people first?

The spokesman for NRA, Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, (in)famously said, “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.” This was in response to the Newtown, CT tragedy when 20 children and six adults died in December 2012.

But a recent article in Gawker put factors about the use of even a concealed gun succinctly: It’s Really Hard to Be a Good Guy With a Gun. The guy who tried to stop Jerad Miller, one of the murderers of two Las Vegas police officers was instead killed by that murderer’s wife, Amanda. The Millers’ actions were fueled by anti-government rage.

One of the Gawker commenters added:

What are the chances of [a] situation being one in which you can safely draw your weapon (as defined by a decreased likelihood of hitting an uninvolved civilian, or drawing attention to the uninvolved civilians around you while drawing your gun, or mistaking another “good guy with a gun” for the perpetrator, or being mistaken by the cops as perpetrator)?

The Las Vegas murderers, not incidentally, were supporters of rancher Bundy.

I certainly have my issues with the government overreach – and that is probably its own post – but the behaviors described here, couched in patriotic language, make me feel most unsettled, and not particularly free.

Here’s a great response, though: Texas musicians are planning to answer… Open Carry Texas… These music lovers plan to exercise their right to openly carry guitars on July 4th.

Post-Hobby Lobby, expect these cases in the courts

The Hobby Lobby decision actually hurts most people of faith.

The Supreme Court agreed that some companies can refuse to cover contraception. Bestowing more personhood on entities devised to mitigate personal liability than on actual women baffles me, but there it is.

The next challenges to Obamacare coverage on religious grounds are listed right in the dissent by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

“Would the exemption…extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah’s Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations[?]…Not much help there for the lower courts bound by today’s decision.”

“Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be ‘perceived as favoring one religion over another,’ the very ‘risk the [Constitution’s] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.”

The floodgate of cases is already opening.

I tend to agree with the notion that the Hobby Lobby decision actually hurts most people of faith.

Moreover, I find it disingenuous when I discover Hobby Lobby invested in numerous abortion and contraception products while claiming religious objection.

The root of this mess, of course, is health insurance, therefore health care, tied to employment. As Charles Turecek correctly noted:

Health care should be managed by the government, as it is in almost every advanced country in the world except the U.S. People shouldn’t be forced to take or keep lousy, low paid jobs because they are afraid of losing health benefits. Get corporations out of the health insurance business and force them to pay a fair share of taxes. That’s fair, isn’t it?

There are people, notably George Takei, who have suggested a boycott of the 500 stores of Hobby Lobby, which I would support. Though in fact, I’ve never been to a Hobby Lobby and didn’t realize until the day the decision was announced on June 30 that there one in Albany County. The argument against boycotting, that the employees of HL would be economically harmed, while theoretically true, is unconvincing. I imagine there will be some people who will actually seek out the stores because of the stance of the owners, the Greens, who I am fairly sure are unrelated to me.

Now as a result of the ruling, I DON’T really expect to see this, which is an obvious parody: SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS LITTLE CAESAR’S RIGHT TO FEED CHRISTIAN EMPLOYEES TO LIONS. Sometimes, the absurdist makes the point in the best way.

NSFW video: Earl Butz and “Loose Shoes”

About an hour into the film Loose Shoes was a short musical sketch based on Earl Butz’s joke that also gave the movie its title.

Earl Butz, who was born 105 years ago today, was one of the worst US government officials ever. He was Secretary of Agriculture in the Cabinets of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. “His policies favored large-scale corporate farming” which has damaged the family farm to this day, and arguably “led directly to overproduction of corn and a subsequent rise of obesity in the United States.” But “he is best remembered for a series of verbal gaffes that eventually cost him his job.”

Butz resigned his cabinet post on October 4, 1976… News outlets revealed a racist remark he made in front of entertainer Pat Boone and former White House counsel John Dean while aboard a commercial flight to California following the 1976 Republican National Convention. The October 18, 1976 issue of Time reported the comment while obscuring its vulgarity [which I will only mildly do so here]:

…When the conversation turned to politics, Boone, a right-wing Republican, asked Butz why the party of Lincoln was not able to attract more blacks. The Secretary responded… “I’ll tell you what the coloreds want. It’s three things: first, a tight p****; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to s***.”
After some indecision, Dean used the line in Rolling Stone, attributing it to an unnamed Cabinet officer. But New Times magazine enterprisingly sleuthed out Butz’s identity by checking the itineraries of all Cabinet members.

Butz was later convicted of tax evasion. He died in 2008 at the age of 98. As Arlo Guthrie said: “But that’s not what I came to tell you about.”

There was a 1980 movie called Loose Shoes, a/k/a Coming Attractions, which was probably filmed two or three years earlier. The premise was rather intriguing, to make a series of trailers for films that actually did not exist. The movie did not fare particularly well critically. It featured author Kinky Friedman, Buddy Hackett, Howard Hesseman (WKRP), Jaye P. Morgan, songwriter Van Dyke Parks, Avery Schreiber, Betty Thomas (Hill Street Blues), and Mark Volman of the singing group The Turtles, with voiceovers by, among others, Gary Owens and Harry Shearer. The reason it probably got released at all was the ascendant star power of Bill Murray, who had starred in Meatballs and Caddyshack, plus his tenure on Saturday Night Live.

But there was one segment of the comedy that was almost universally praised. From HERE: “A sketch movie along the lines of Kentucky Fried Movie, it was racially and sexually offensive and mostly unfunny, except…about an hour into the film was a short musical sketch based on Earl Butz’s joke that also gave the movie its title. This sketch is pure offensive genius. I can’t/won’t describe it, but its effect is on the order of the ‘Springtime for Hitler’ scene in The Producers.”

The reason I found it at all humorous, in its vulgar sort of way, was, in skewering the bigot Butz, that it is an almost letter-perfect take on jazz great Cab Calloway’s band. It was SO good, in fact, that Internet references ask whether the song was some lost Calloway ditty; it was not.

OK, if you like it, fine. If you’re offended, don’t say you weren’t warned. Watch Darktown After Dark HERE or HERE.