Ramblin' with Roger

“There are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so. It’s important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.”

– George W. Bush, April 2004
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As dumb as this story is in print, especially knowing Fred as I do, what’s more irritating is the TV lead, something along the line of “Is local man a terrorist?” Truly idiotic.
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Dan sent this from The Rude Pundit.
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The I Word is out there. Yes, it is.
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OF LOCAL NOTE:
Friday, 12/23/05, 5:30 PM, 3rd Annual Crossgates Mall T-Shirt Walk, Enter through any entrance at 5:30 PM and converge at the food court at 6:15 PM. Please car pool where possible. Wear black. Bring a message of peace written on a shopping bag or attached to your clothing. From Wendy Dwyer’s email proposing this action: “Three years ago on December 21 , nearly thirty of us walked through Crossgates Mall in Albany, N.Y. wearing Peace tee shirts ie: Peace on Earth, Drop Toys Not Bombs and Don’t Attack Iraq. Most recall the arrest of Steve Downs in February when he and his son Roger bought a Peace Shirt FROM a vendor at the mall and wore it in the mall. 48 hours later more than a hundred of us and most local media converged on the mall to question free speech and the mall as the public gathering space. That weekend more than 300 people descended upon the mall and many were thrown out of the mall by Guilderland police, under threat of arrest. These events were reported in the media…all around the world…” Wendy also suggests, ” When we reach the food court area.. ….sing all we are saying is give peace a chance…if people like this idea. THIS MUST BE PEACEFUL. IT IS CRITICAL THIS BE NON-VIOLENT. NO SHOUTING, NO ARGUING” … “ IMAGINE ALL THE PEOPLE…………YOU MAY SAY I’M A DREAMER, BUT I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE, I HOPE SOMEDAY YOU’ILL JOIN US, AND THE WORLD WILL LIVE AS ONE”…John Lennon Wendy’s phone: 518-781-0071 or 518-542-4194

Rod Serling was president of the student government of Binghamton Central High School in 1940. I was the president of the student government of BCHS in 1970. When Serling came to give an address to the student body in 1970, it was incumbent upon me to introduce him.

His public speaking teacher back in 1937 was a woman named Helen Foley, a charming, ferocious woman who taught public speaking to me three decades later, and who died only a couple years ago. She also taught the late Richard Deacon, “Mel Cooley” on the Dick van Dyke Show.

Miss Foley helped write (or mostly wrote) this introduction I was to give to Rod Serling’s address, how he was a paratrooper during World War II, and other such detail that none of the students cared about; he was the creator of “The Twilight Zone”(!), which often cribbed Binghamton-area street names and character names (including “Helen Foley”) in his stories. I was in the middle of dutifully repeating my too-long monologue when Rod Serling just walked out on stage! I was mortified, of course, but in retrospect, he was right; the assembly was only for an hour, after all.

Later, he was in Miss Foley’s last period public speaking class. I must have had a study hall and gotten a pass, because I got to be in the class, listening as the writer wove one wonderful tale after another, how being the on-air personality of The Twilight Zone wasn’t his favorite thing, etc. What struck me, though, was that he was smoking his constant cigarette in the classroom!

Rod Serling would have been 81 on Christmas Day. Unfortunately, those constant cigarettes killed him in 1975.

Nevertheless (and despite the fact he was actually born near Syracuse), he was my hometown hero, who scared the bejesus out of me as a child, and continued to surprise a few years later.

Once again, it’s time for Ask Roger Anything. If you only knew the things you could ask.

There will be no pleading the Fifth, or “I don’t remember”. Unless I really don’t remember, in which I’ll fess up to that.

Sample question: Have you ever worn a black bra on your head like

this man?

Sample answer: Not to my recollection. Of course, those college years ARE a bit hazy…

Ask now, and I’ll answer on December 27 or 28.

Jackie Robinson’s importance to sport and society is enormous. But when this site Eyewitness to History states that Jackie Robinson was the “first Black player in major league baseball”, it is incorrect. As this site from the Library of Congress notes, there were Black players in the 19th century. Jackie Robinson broke “baseball’s color barrier”, as the Baseball Hall of Fame put it, but it was a wall that was once down, then rebuilt.

Wikipedia writes that Robinson “became the first African American Major League Baseball player of the modern era in 1947”, and that would be correct, the “modern era” usually referring to the advent of the American League in 1901. However, Wikipedia’s list of first black Major League Baseball players by team and date would be more accurate if it indicated “since 1900” or another qualifying term.

This in no way meant to dimishish the contribution made by and courage shown by Jackie Robinson.

(CREDIT: “Jackie Robinson comic book.” Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publications, July 1951. Vol. 1, no. 5. By Popular Demand: Jackie Robinson and Other Baseball Highlights, 1860s-1960s, Library of Congress. )

…want to share, but have no overreaching theme:

And speaking of overreaching (I stupidly watched the press conference yesterday- grrr!), will W finally be impeached, or at least reined in?

The Constitution in Crisis, a 273-page PDF.
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Most of us take those summons for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty that a new and ominous kind of scam has surfaced. Fall for it and your identity could be stolen, reports CBS News.

In this con, someone calls pretending to be a court official who threateningly says a warrant has been issued for your arrest because you didn’t show up for jury duty. The caller claims to be a jury coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Sometimes the crooks even ask for credit card numbers. Give out any of this information and bingo! Your identity just got stolen.

The scam has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma, Illinois and Colorado.

Martha Rhynes, a real jury coordinator in Grayson County, Okla., told KXII-TV, “We never call and ask anyone for their Social Security number, date of birth, or other personal information.” Instead, the courts communicate with potential jurors only by mail and never by phone, including people who don’t show up. Most states don’t even have jurors’ phone numbers until they have actually been chosen to sit on a jury. And even then, such information is sealed with the court records. Rhynes’s advice? Never give out personal information over the phone to anyone.

“This (scam) is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try and bully people into giving information by pretending they’re with the court system,” Scott Holste, spokesman for the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, told the Missourian News.

The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their Web sites, warning consumers about the fraud.

Being a cynic sort, I would not pass it on to you without verification: Snopes calls this one TRUE.
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How Secure Are Shopping Data? Not very, I’m afraid.
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For New Yorkers:
Gov. Pataki calls back legislature to revive broken death penalty! Assembly and State Senate are scheduled to meet Wednesday, December 21. Please act right now. Governor Pataki has a given us a lump of coal for Christmas. Please call your Assembly member and State Senator NOW.
Message- we don’t need a death penalty to protect our police. The facts are
clear: the death penalty is not a deterrent and there are far better ways to honor and support our police than bringing it back.

Time is obviously extremely short. Telephone calls and faxes are needed NOW. Once again, in NYC, to locate your state legislators, please visit http://www.lwvnyc.org/TRY_find.html. (Outside NYC, http://www.lwvny.org/, Citizen Action Toolkit, My Elected Officials)

Please tell your legislators that we know that the capital punishment system is intrinsically flawed and unnecessary. Legislation which is thrown together, in ignorance and in disregard of the facts, dishonors us, our police and our government.

Please contact info@nyadp.org for more info.
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And now, for something completely different (and disturbing):

One take on this odd phenomenon.

And another.