Ramblin' with Roger

Many have commented, and I tend to agree, that he has been one of our best ex-Presidents. Recently, I read his book, Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis (Simon & Schuster, 2005).

In his chapter, “The Rise of Religious Fundamentalism,” he quotes his letter to the magazine Christianity Today: “Increasingly, true believers inclined to…decide ‘Since I am aligned with God, I am superior and my beliefs should prevail, and anyone who disagrees with me is inherently wrong.'” Then later, “Those Christians who resist the inclination toward fundamentalism and who truly follow the nature, actions, and words of Jesus Christ should encompass people who are different from us with our care, generosity, forgiveness, compassion, and unselfish love.”

The self-described evangelical Christian believes there is no conflict between science and religion. He notes that the entwining of church and state is a rejection of “Jesus’ admonition to ‘render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s…'”
He also has some good thoughts about abortion, the death penalty, women’s role in the church, foreign policy, just war, and the environment.

The former President notes that the average income per person “in the 20 richest nation was $27,591, and in the poorest nations only $211, a ratio of 131:1!” He believes the divide between rich and poor, throughout the word, and even within this country, is the single biggest issue we must face.

I recommend this book, especially the first half, to those with a Christian point-of view, and especially to those who have an antipathy towards Christianity as it is often practiced in this country.
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THREE QUESTIONS for you, if you please:

1. I’m curious who you think are the best ex-Presidents. I’m no history scholar, but JQ Adams’ return to the House of Representatives and Taft’s ascension to the Supreme Court as Chief Justice ought to rank. I’d be inclined to give kudos to Clinton and poppa Bush, but there hasn’t been enough time to judge fully. Oh, yeah, a Nobel Peace Prize ought to count for SOMETHING.
Of course, there have only been 33 ex-Presidents. W is Prez #43, so 42 -1 for Cleveland (he may have been President twice, but I’m counting him as an ex only once) -8 (the four assassinated and the four who died of natural causes- I’m putting Zachary Taylor in the latter category, FWIW.)

2. I find myself agreeing with the current “leader of the free world” – these things happen – when he apologized for his cowboy rhetoric after 9/11 – he specifically mentioned the “wanted dead or alive” stuff. It wasn’t a “mistakes were made” non-apology, but (seemingly) a true act of contrition. I’ve chosen to believe it’s a sincere apology. Do you? Do you recall any other REAL Presidential apologies? I recall Clinton said something post-Monica, but details are sketchy in my mind.

Oh, and re: last month’s pictures, more than one person asked if she was carrying a GUN in the last picture, where she’s looking out the door! No, it was the part of the screen door that keeps it from closing too fast just beyond her hand. (What IS that piece of the door called, anyway?)
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My friend and my boss Darrin is getting married tomorrow. Since he’s not there today, it gives me an opportunity to post a little something about him and his financee Suzy on the work blog.

My friend Sarah has been accused of being a grumpy young woman. I wouldn’t call her grumpy, I’d consider her concerned for the state of the country.

Whereas I AM grumpy. This takes on two forms, the political and the personal. Re: the former, I’m grumpy that the Senate’s going to vote on ANWR–again. That Federal Marriage Amendment is bugging me; a friend has suggested joining a postcard campaign against it, which couldn’t hurt, I suppose, though I think personalized individual postcards and e-mails may be more effective; since the anthrax scare of 2001, letters are less effective. Oh, and there’s other stuff, too.

On the personal side, I discovered this week, to my horror, that a private conversation I was having at work could be heard perfectly four cubicles away. Conversely, I seem to be able to hear three groups of people talking, including every visitor, but only in a cacophonous mush.
I’m grumpy because I seemed to have missed the memos about how we’re tracking our questions, a small matter I suppose, but how did I miss it? I read an e-mail that my work e-mail had changed, so I sent out a bunch of e-mails to others to that effect, then I was told it hadn’t changed…yet. It will be, BTW, roger.green@nyssbdc.org..soon. Apparently, I received one or more phone calls last Friday and/or Monday, based on the light on my phone, but I can’t access them.

I’m uncharacteristically grumpy in a “bite-my-bottom-lip” sort of way, and I don’t think it’s my general state of being.

At least one of my colleagues is a bit grumpy, too. Writing to a third party: “Not to overstate things, but this has been the single most frustrating two-week stretch of work in my time here.” Internet has been intermittent. The power in the whole building went off for about 15 seconds on Tuesday, etc., etc., etc. At least we’ve gotten our CD-ROMs for the library on the eighth working day there.

I think it’s a function of the fact we like doing our work, and we like doing it well, and it’s been hard to do our jobs, WHEN we can do our jobs; a couple librarians STILL don’t have a working printer. A couple of us went to our work conference earlier this month to explain that we would be attacking the backlog of reference questions, when what’s been happening has been the opposite; I finished two questions yesterday that came in on the 20th…of April, totally unacceptable to us.
Also, in part, I think it’s also because it’s been uncommonly gloomy, weatherwise. Rain at least 10 of the last 12 days at some point, though it was sunny yesterday.

In fact, it’s gotten so bad that I’ve been forced to sing Broadway musicals to cheer myself up.

So, this what I’m asking for: Funny stuff. Laugh out loud stuff. Stupid stuff. Tasteless stuff. As long as it’s funny. Or in the words of another musical Be a Clown. Laughter is the best medicine, or so Reader’s Digest would tell me. Post to the site or send it to my CURRENT e-mail address. Or else I’ll be forced to sing “Tomorrow” from Annie.

Examples I’ve already gotten:

This

and this

A woman on the bus I see often told me these yesterday:

Why did the bicyclist crash into the wall?
Because he was two-tired.

There was this poster in the library in my school, some op art thing with the word Dylan on it. I didn’t know how to say the word; I thought it was Die-Lan, rather than Dill-an. I soon learned.

The first Dylan song I owned: I Want You on my now-stolen “Best of 66” Columbia Records compilation.

Well, that was my first Dylan-as-artist song, for I had a number of Dylan songs by Peter, Paul and Mary, the Byrds and Pete Seeger.

The first Dylan album I bought was Nashville Skyline. Or maybe John Wesley Harding.

Someone bought me Dylan’s book Tarantula. I’m sure I still have it somewhere, but I doubt I’ve ever read it all the way through.

I worked in a dreadful summer camp when I was 17, where they constantly ripped off their workers. One of my colleagues wrote this song, written to the tune of “Maggie’s Farm” (name changed to protect the guilty). There were several verses, which he typed and mimeographed. Wish I could find my copy. One verse:
I ain’t gonna work at J.L.’s camp no more (X2)
J.L.’s always comin’ ’round and say “Go mow the grass”
He can take that lawn mower and stick it up his ***
There’s room for that and plenty more.
No, I ain’t gonna work at J.L.’s camp no more.

One of the first albums I bought as a gift was Self Portrait, which my girlfriend at the time really wanted. After she played it, I was not sure that she was happy that she had asked for it. It has, among other things, a nasty version of The Boxer, which I’m sure was in retaliation for the 1966 Simon and Garfunkel song A Simple Desultory Philippic, especially the “I’ve lost my harmonica, Albert” bit. The lyrics of this tune is here.

I didn’t understand My Back Pages, even when I was 18. I thought it was just some poetic mishmash. I thought I knew everything I needed to know in life. But by the time I was 23, I understood it all too well: “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”

Most of my Dylan albums are from the 1970s.

I’ve never seen him play live. I’ve had the opportunity, but was concerned at the time about his then uneven performance track record. My loss.

I was weirded out by the Victoria’s Secret ad, too.

After getting no sense of satisfaction, and fearing threat they would wreck her good credit, my wife also wrote to the collection agency on February 6, with a copy to the PSC, fully documenting the debacle of their billing process. A day later, we got a letter from the PSC saying, essentially that they were going to aggressively look into this matter. In a letter dated February 10, Verizon wrote:

“Thank you for the opportunity to address your concern regarding the above account. This letter is to confirm that the above mentioned telephone number is satisfied in full.” It also noted the collection agency was notified, that we’d have no derogatory notice on our credit report and that we could call them if we had questions.

Finally.

Subsequently, we’ve gotten letters from Verizon asking us to come back, even offering us $25 to return. $25? A few years back, phone companies were offering us twice that, THRICE that to switch. No thanks.

Meanwhile, we need to get a couple cell phones. (Wait a minute: did I write “cell phones” and “need to get” in the same sentence? What’s happened to me?) OK, we OUGHT to get a couple cell phones; the troubles I’ve had getting home from the new work place have convinced me of the efficacy of doing so. The last time we had cell phones, we had Verizon, we didn’t use them all that much, probably 3 or 4 times a week max, and it was costing us WAY too much, maybe $70-$80/month.

And I’ve been peeved about how Verizon capitulated so easily in this NSA thing, though I’ve read that they said they did resist.

When I went down to my first conference this month down in Catskill, I was going to use someone’s cell phone, with service provided by Cingular. Unfortunately, the phone didn’t work. The only phones that were functional there were those that had services provided by…Verizon.

So, what does one do? Get one of those “per call” phones? And Allah knows I don’t want to spend a fortune on the phones themselves. What does someone who wants to have two phones but for emergency use only want to get?

Know that if we DO get cell phones, I won’t be giving out the number except to my spouse, and maybe my child’s daycare. My need to be available 24/7 is virtually nil. I don’t want to become one of those cell phone users who utter the words, “Oh, I have to take this call.”

At some level, I have some contempt for cell phones, or is it the users? Three out the last four times I almost got hit by a car at a street corner, it was with the driver’s ear in the cell phone. New York State’s anti-cell ban is ineffectual, as it is unenforceable. So, I feel as though I’m going over to the dark side.