Month: October 2017

So when DO we talk about this?

“Your thoughts and prayers aren’t going to stop the next shooting. Only action and leadership will do that.”


When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston and most of southeast Texas, it was NOT the time to talk about global warming because of people’s lives and homes and businesses in danger? OK, how about now? No, the recovery is still going on.

So when do we talk about Houston’s rampant growth and urbanization, which merely aggravates the problem of the city’s flat terrain? If they’re going to “rebuild,” then how and where? What are they going to do differently going forward?

I remember some towns in the Midwest that were flooded in 1993 by the Mississippi River moved entirely.

Yet talking about Puerto Rico’s aging infrastructure seemed to be fair game for at least one person, right after Hurricane Maria, a broken system that has made communication so difficult that the aid was not reaching many of the people.

“I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico but you’ve thrown our budget a little out of whack because we’ve spent a lot of money on Puerto Rico.” You would never have heard this in Houston or Miami.

So what’s the difference? Mark Evanier tweeted: “Puerto Rico doesn’t have water, power or humanitarian aid because of two other things they lack: Electoral votes and enough white people.” I have (jokingly? I’m not sure) suggested that some of the three million residents of the island move to some red states on the mainland before 2020.

(And I will rant that I wish some news commentators would refer to Puerto Rico as a commonwealth rather than a territory, even though commonwealth status is just plain weird.)

Over 58 people were killed and over 500 were injured in Las Vegas. “Thoughts and prayers.” But Mark Kelly, the retired astronaut and husband of former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who was shot in 2011 at a constituent event in Tucson, AZ, disagrees.

Messages to the families of victims in the Las Vegas shooting, while important, are “not enough.” Kelly told reporters outside of the Capitol building with his wife at his side: “Your thoughts and prayers aren’t going to stop the next shooting. Only action and leadership will do that.”

The Onion ran YET AGAIN, ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.

So when do we talk about a ban on assault weapons that can kill people from a distance of four football fields away? Apparently, it’s just not the right time. It wasn’t the right time after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, FL, which was the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. And it’s not time now, less than 16 months later, when we have the NEW deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.

Maybe it’ll be money: After Hurricanes and Las Vegas Shooting, Countries Warn Citizens About Travel to U.S. I’m not sure what awful things will be required in order for us to have the conversations, but I better start praying NOW, because they’re going to be horrific.

30 years ago: the 1987 snowstorm

Sunny weather, this foreign white stuff on the leafy trees.

Knick News.Oct 1987
SOME FLAKY TALES ABOUT A REALLY FLAKY TIME
Times Union, The (Albany, NY)
October 4, 1997
Author: MARK McGUIRE Staff writer

It was more than a storm; it was a touchstone. The Capital Region has endured its share of severe weather, from blizzards to severe windstorms to even the occasional tornado and hurricane. This one wasn’t even the worst.

Certainly more snow has fallen at one time than the 6 inches that came down on Albany on Oct. 4, 1987. But the damage it caused, and its totally unexpected fall arrival, left a mark on the region and its psyche.

Everyone had their stories about this freaky weather event. Here’s mine –

I was living in the West Hill section of Albany, on Second Street, between Ontario and Quail Streets. Since I was home on that Sunday morning, watching CBS Sunday Morning, I must have been having one of my periodic spats with the pastor [who is NO LONGER THERE]. Suddenly, the power went out, and immediately after I got outside, I could tell why. A branch on a tree landed on the power wire leading to my house was pulled out, fortunately along the side of the house so I wouldn’t accidentally get electrocuted.

Later that day, I walked to work at FantaCo, the comic book store where I worked, which, a dozen blocks away, never lost power. The weird thing about that storm is that lots of people never lost electricity at all, or only for a few minutes, while some people were without it for days, or even a couple weeks.

Sunday night, I stayed at a friend’s house.

Monday, walking to the store, there was this beautiful disconnect. Sunny weather, this foreign white stuff on the leafy trees. And steam – lots of steam. I remember thinking at the time that it had what I imagined was rather post-apocalyptic. I wish I had taken pictures, for I found it eerily beautiful.

I bought the local newspaper, which looked…different. The Times Union building on Wolf Road lost power because of the wet heavy snow, so the TU and sister paper The Knickerbocker News put out a joint newspaper out of the Troy offices of their rival, the Times Record (now the Record). It was in the Times Record fonts. I still have that newspaper, somewhere in the attic.

Monday night, I stayed at home. By then, I had put my perishable food in the snow outside, and fortunately, the gas stove was working, so I ate some of the food I had purchased only the day before the storm. I listened to TV via my battery-powered radio by candlelight. One revelation: the TV show Cagney and Lacey depends on visuals, as well as dialogue.

Tuesday, after work, I stayed with another friend, and Wednesday, after work, with the first friend.

Thursday after work, I was increasingly excited to see that the light at Central and Quail was finally working, and Clinton and Quail, and Second and Quail. YES! Power was restored to my house! My perishable food was ruined, since it had reached 70 degrees outside, but at least I could safely buy more.

The strange thing about this storm was that it was highly localized. Some of the surrounding area had more than a foot of snow and a federal disaster declaration was issued. Ask people in Syracuse or New York City about this storm and they have no idea.

EDIT: Oh, I got interviewed about this

{Reprinted from the October 4, 2007 post, lightly edited]

M is for Senator Lisa Murkowski

“Good news: her name will appear on a list of potential write-in candidates. Bad news: there are about 100 people on the list.”

There were three Republican Senators who voted against the so-called ““skinny repeal” of the Affordable Care Act, a/k/a Obamacare in July 2017. One was John McCain of Arizona, who made a dramatic return to DC that week after a diagnosis of brain cancer. The other two were women who had been bucking their party all that week, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. All, it could be argued, put principle before party.

The female senators were on receiving end of insults from male officials. “They were told that they… deserve a physical reprimand for their decisions not to support Republican health-care proposals.”

Senator Murkowski is particularly interesting to me because she has won three full terms to the Senate, yet has never won a majority of the vote. “Murkowski was appointed to the U.S. Senate by her father, Frank Murkowski, who resigned his seat in December 2002 to become the Governor of Alaska. She completed her father’s unexpired term, which ended in January 2005. She ran for and won a full term in 2004,” with 48.5% of the vote.

“She ran for a second term in 2010. She lost the Republican Party nomination to Tea Party candidate Joe Miller. She then ran as a write-in candidate and defeated both Miller and Democrat Scott McAdams in the General Election,” with 39.5% of the vote, “making her the first U.S. Senator to be elected by write-in vote since Strom Thurmond [of South Carolina] in 1954.”

In fact, I predicted that victory in this very blog on 2 November 2010:
“But I will go out on a limb to say that I think Lisa Murkowski will barely retain her Senate seat in Alaska. Three-way polling is much less reliable than that done for a two person race.

“Good news: her name will appear on a list of potential write-in candidates. Bad news: there are about 100 people on the list. Good news: she has great name recognition in the state. Bad news: she’s been around a long time, and her father before her. Good news: it is established that a vote for a write-in candidate must be counted, if the intent is clear.”

So someone drawing the three pictures on this page could be seen as voting for Murkowski, like so:

“The French word for sea is MER + COW + SKI = Murkowski.”

In 2016, she won again, with 44% of the vote. The political threats have not fazed her, maybe because she doesn’t have to run for office again until 2022.

For ABC Wednesday

Antonin Scalia and the “dead Constitution”

“If the issue of the franchise for women came up today, we would not have to have a constitutional amendment.”

A good friend of mine asked me to try to find an interview with Antonin Scalia. The late Supreme Court justice talked about a “dead Constitution,” arguing that people ONLY have rights that are spelled out in the document or by the formal amendment process.

My friend recalls him saying that women, or blacks, had no inherent rights until they could convince sufficient White Men to give them rights thru the amendment process.

I discovered that he laid out his “originalist” views many times. In 2005, he delivered one of his two most essential speeches, Constitutional Interpretation the Old Fashioned Way:

Consider the 19th Amendment, which is the amendment that gave women the vote. It was adopted by the American people in 1920. Why did we adopt a constitutional amendment for that purpose? The Equal Protection Clause existed in 1920; it was adopted right after the Civil War. And you know that if the issue of the franchise for women came up today, we would not have to have a constitutional amendment.

Someone would come to the Supreme Court and say, “Your Honors, in a democracy, what could be a greater denial of equal protection than denial of the franchise?” And the Court would say, “Yes! Even though it never meant it before, the Equal Protection Clause means that women have to have the vote.” But that’s not how the American people thought in 1920.

In 2008, Scalia vigorously defended a ‘Dead’ Constitution. As his 2016 New York Times obit noted:

“By choosing the appeals court judge and former law professor, Reagan believed that his nominee would become a… man who would unite a coalition of like-minded justices… But from the beginning, Justice Scalia defied all expectations. He eagerly participated in questioning from the bench during oral arguments when new justices traditionally held back. He became an outspoken, witty and acerbic writer and speaker, who was deified or vilified by people on opposite sides of the political divide.”

This is the first Monday of October, the traditional opening of the Supreme Court’s term. Scalia has been replaced by Obama nominee Merrick Garland Trump appointee Neil M. Gorsuch.

I DID read Playboy for the articles

I’m positive I got the January 1981 issue of Playboy.

When Hugh Hefner died recently, I didn’t think I’d have much to say about his passing. But the appreciation articles, followed by the excoriation of same, I’m finding really fascinating.

On one side, The New York Times:

Hefner advocated for “‘The Playboy Philosophy,’ in which he addressed topics like the First Amendment and sexual mores. He advocated gay rights.” Arthur tells a fascinating story about how The Playboy Foundation provided help AND, tellingly, how that assistance was received.

“He pushed for women’s access to birth control and abortion. He discussed censorship as well as what constituted ‘obscene’ in the United States, and he promoted the free exchange of thoughts and ideas.

“He integrated his staff and membership; he hired men and women of all races, and often provided black comedians and musicians their first chances to perform in front of white audiences.” This included the late Dick Gregory.

“Mr. Hefner also set up the Playboy Foundation, which supported First Amendment rights, often contributing to defendants in free-speech cases. The foundation went on to support other works, including research on post-traumatic stress disorder, commissions on Agent Orange and programs and organizations for veterans.”

On the other hand, there are pieces such as this one which says that those “media outlets across the country released touching memoirs, obituaries, and photographs of the mogul who made a fortune parading nude women in public like pieces of meat dangled in front of wild animals.” Or this one, which referred to Hefner as an “abusive creep.”

From here: “Hefner feels that his media empire has been a liberating force for women, that what some feminists might consider sexual exploitation, he considers a chance to strut their stuff and fly in the face of Puritanical bondage.”

I admit that, in the latter ’70s and early ’80s, I picked up an issue or two, not for the centerfold, but generally for who was being interviewed. I think I got the one with Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter from 1976, in which he admitted having had “lust in his heart.” I’m positive I got the January 1981 issue – it’s probably still in the attic somewhere – for it contained the interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono that hit the newsstands around the time that John was killed.

Yet I always felt mildly guilty purchasing it. Even though I wasn’t going to church at the time, maybe I was part of the supposedly chaste America that Hefner was trying to break down.

Back in 2012, many of those Playboy interviews were online for free. And about four dozen are still available on Amazon Prime gratis, or for 99 cents on regular Amazon, including Marlon Brando, Bob Dylan, Stephen King, Ayn Rand, Miles Davis, Martin Luther King Jr, Bette Davis, Hunter S. Thompson, Stanley Kubrick and Fidel Castro.

Playboy published science fiction by Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Harlan Ellison, and Ursula K. LeGuin, and many other provocative pieces. The magazine paid better than average for articles and cartoons.

I thought even early on that the “Mansion-bunnies-RatPack mentality” of Playboy was weird and contrived and more than a little uncomfortable. Here are some clips from the music show Playboy After Dark. Hef was not as cool as he thought he was, as he introduces The Three Dog Night and The Grand Funk Railroad.

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