Truman?!

The Final clue: He came to power 34 days before FDR and left it 19 days after him.

They guessed: Stalin. Churchill. Truman. (Truman????)

Stalin ruled until 1953, and started, depending on how exactly you reckon his "ruling" the USSR, sometime in the 1920s. Churchill was PM twice - 1940-1945, and then again 1951-1955. As for Truman (!!!), he didn't come to power until FDR died.

The correct answer? Hitler.

I'm sorry

I'm sorry, Larry Hogan's daughter. The fact that your father married a woman and has three daughters and is (let's give it to you) the greatest dad ever ... has nothing to do with the policies of the party he belongs to or what kind of governor he would be.

And that's the truth.

Things could always be worse

Haha. Last time Hannah Dingdon's ne'er-do-well daughter left her son (Hannah's grandson, that is) "for a few hours" it was an overnight stay. This time the kid looks to have been there ten years!

The Week in Entertainment

Live: Macbeth, the Verdi opera, at the Met. Netrebko absolutely blew the place away as Lady Macbeth - this is the kind of role her powerful voice was made for. Also at the Met, a brilliant recital by René Pape, with Moussorgsky and Dvořák, among others. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - definitely worth seeing, if not quite as good as the London cast. Of course, they're still shaking it down, so it can only get better. Wonderful show.

TV: The new season of The Middle and Modern Family. I have to admit Alex as joy-killer was funny. And my gosh Luke is growing like a weed.

Read:The Glass Magician, enjoyed it. A couple of old Doctor Thorndykes.

Nearly in half

When you cut something "nearly in half", how much do you have? Is it slightly more than half? That's what it is for me. I could possibly be persuaded that cutting to 47% was still "nearly in half", but really, I'm going to be thinking you meant, oh, to 55%. Maybe even 60%.

Which is why I'm still puzzled by this:

In May 2013, Uber charged customers a fare of $2.75 per mile (with an additional 60¢ per minute under eleven mph).... Uber has cut UberX fares nearly in half: to $1.10 per mile, plus 21¢ a minute.

That's a cut of 60% for the basic fare and 65% for the slow rate -  down to 40% of the fare and 35% of the slow rate. To me, that's not "cut UberX fares nearly in half". That's "cut fares by more than half."

Outrageous

So, I kind of hate to do it, but I think I must agree with Dick Cheney.

There is no moral equivalence between ISIS and Ferguson.

Sure, one is a violent, narrowly theocratic group who kills civilian hostages in a particularly provocative and cruel way. But we would be remiss in not remembering that those hostages are at least from a country who invaded the group's homeland, bombed and destroyed it, causing the death of hundreds of thousands, and then placed into power an equally narrowly theocratic bunch on the other side of the divide. This is a war.

In Ferguson, the killing was done by the local police - the ones with the mandate to protect the one who was killed.

You're right, Dick. They aren't morally equivalent at all.

(Of course, Obama didn't really say there was a moral equivalence; he merely pointed out what other nations such as Russia love to point out on their own: "at times we too have failed to live up to our ideals; that America has plenty of problems within our own borders... yes, we have our own racial and ethnic tensions." "This is true," he said. And it is.)

Under

This was interesting. Watching the end of Family Feud as I wait for Jeopardy! The last round's pompt was: "Name something that people are sometimes said to be under."

The number one answer, which she gave, was "the weather."

Her family then struck out with "paid - the covers - age", so the other team got the chance to steal. And said "educated".

They should have take a hint from the only right answer. It's a thing. The others are phrases that describe people, but, for instance, "paid" is not a thing that you are under, it's a description of how you're paid. (Granted, "the covers" is a thing, it's just not something you say about people.)

Here's the ones they missed: the gun - the influence - a spell.

OMG Chai

So, the president returned a salute today with a cup of chai in his hand. (It is, of course, proof positive that Obama hates the troops.) And let's not get sucked into whether the president should even be saluting - it's a modern custom started by the theatrical Reagan, so OF COURSE HE SHOULD!!!!!!11!

Ahem.

Instead, let's dwell on the outrage provoked in Republicans and Foxicans by this:



Oh, there wasn't any? Moving on...

Why I still take cabs

I'm not crazy about the wait time for cabs, that's for sure. Fortunately, the company I use to go to the airport is bookable for that. But something's always nagged at me about things like Uber.

From the very beginning, Uber attracted drivers with a bait-and-switch. Take the company’s launch in LA: In May 2013, Uber charged customers a fare of $2.75 per mile (with an additional 60¢ per minute under eleven mph). Drivers got to keep 80 percent of the fare. Working full time, drivers could make a living wage: between 15 and $20 an hour.

Drivers rushed to sign up, and thousands leased and bought cars just to work for Uber — especially immigrants and low-income people desperate for a well-paying job in a terrible economy. But over the last year, the company has faced stiff competition from its arch-rival, Lyft. To raise demand and push Lyft out of the LA market, Uber has cut UberX fares nearly in half: to $1.10 per mile, plus 21¢ a minute. ...

Uber is part of a new wave of corporations that make up what’s called the “sharing economy.” The premise is seductive in its simplicity: people have skills, and costumers want services. Silicon Valley plays matchmaker, churning out apps that pair workers with work. Now, anyone can rent out an apartment with AirBnB, become a cabbie through Uber, or clean houses using Homejoy.

But under the guise of innovation and progress, companies are stripping away worker protections, pushing down wages, and flouting government regulations. At its core, the sharing economy is a scheme to shift risk from companies to workers, discourage labor organizing, and ensure that capitalists can reap huge profits with low fixed costs.

There’s nothing innovative or new about this business model. Uber is just capitalism, in its most naked form.

(source via AZspot)

The Week in Entertainment

Film:To Be Takei - very funny, and also very thought-provoking.

DVD: The second season of Murder in Suburbia. I went back and looked at what I wrote about the first one, and it holds true: they still have only two topics of conversation - their cases and their love lives. It's odd; I know they're not meant to be best friends, but surely they could talk about food or traffic or something. It's a minor thing, though; the show is entertaining and well made.

TV: Doctor Who's "Time Heist" was great. Nice callouts to all heist films - the crew striding in in slo-mo, for instance. Given that Clara is leaving at Christmas, I'm hoping the Doctor's 'call me' gesture when Cy left means he'll be back. And a lot of Leverage on Sunday. I do miss that show. (new things start soon! yay!)

Read: Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History. It's an excellent book, though Quanah only shows up about halfway through - it is the story of the Comanches and their wars with the Spanish and the Texans as well as the US, not just a biography. Very good, violent story, though marred just a bit by the author's unconscious failure at even-handedness. He describes the Comanche (all the Plains tribes - he's very scrupulous in distinguishing the Civilized Nations and other eastern tribes as different from the horse Indians) as "backward" and "primitive" and "Stone Age"in explaining their behavior, although what was going on in Texas and the US South during most of the book was just as barbaric (to use yet another loaded term). But he does try to place their violence in context, while avoiding the simplistic dichotomy of Noble Savage/evil barbarian or ruthless invader/innocent pioneer: that is, he looks at Manifest Destiny and its impact on the Plains peoples with a clear eye, for the most part. Worth its Pulitzer nomination.  Then I relaxed with Newt's Emerald, a Regency+magic romp.

9,000,000 still waiting

Hmmm. Christain Mingle dot Com has "over 13,000,000 members" and "4,000,000 joined this year". That means some 9,000,000 people have been there at least a year and haven't "met [their] beautiful wife" yet.

God may be saying "it's your turn" but it doesn't look like this way is any more likely to set you up than any other.

I wish...

Over on Facebook, a friend commented on a story about that young GOP candidate who withdrew from a Wisconsin state assembly race over his old racist and homophobic tweets. Two of the comments there:

I wish Mormonism didn't marginalize homosexuals giving this kid license to gay bash

I wish Homophobic people didnt use their religion to excuse the marginalization of homosexuals they cause, and instead accepted their own personal responsibility for perpetuating this so that my religion and many others didnt seem like it marginalized homosexuals

I didn't want to mix it up on someone else's (not even my friend's) FB wall, so I didn't say what I immediately thought:

Maybe if your religion/church didn't get involved in political campaigns to marginalize homosexuals, other people wouldn't get that impression.

Or ... you know ... maybe not

Hmmmm. In today's Dear Abby, the writer says

Mom ... and [husband] Evan engaged in tense conversations concerning politics and religion. I asked them to please not talk about such things with each other, but they didn't listen. ... they had a huge argument and Mom walked out. She has never returned to our home.

Since then, I have never had a holiday with my parents, although I do travel once or twice a year with the kids to see them. Mom and Evan did come to an understanding when our third child was born, but that, too, ended in separation six months later.

Abby says:

If they were more mature, they would, in the name of family harmony, agree to disagree.

I don't know. That's a very sweeping generalization. Much depends on exactly what their argument was about.It's very difficult and quite probably not a good idea to "agree to disagree" "in the name of family harmony" with someone who has said others of your friends and family should be stripped of their civil rights. Or, you know, damned them - or you - to hell. Just for instance.

This this this

This. This. This. Oh, so much this, though I wish it weren't so.

Here's what the president said:

We carry on, because, as Americans, we do not give in to fear.

That's ridiculous. What contemptible nonsense. Who the hell told him to say that? And what country does he think he's talking about?

Americans almost always give in to fear. Giving in to fear is what we do first, before we've tried anything else. Even things that might actually work.

ps: this

Fingers crossed and knocking on wood

I certainly hope we choose better this time than we have in the past, that the Syrian rebels we decide to arm against ISIL/S don't end up turning into our new enemies, requiring us to arm someone else against them,  the way the rebels we have armed in the past did.

"You inspire positive morale"

"Anything is possible it just depends on how you dream" she says. "Is morale so bad [here] that we do not assume that people are working towards greatness already?"

Someone else says "I appreciate the positive words you always have to convey - you inspire positive morale".

For some, maybe. For others - no. No she does not. She inspires seething frustration at her constant bubbly "gee whillikers, we can do anything if we just want to bad enough" brand of optimism. You know, the kind that implies that if you aren't happy and achieving all your goals, it's your fault because you're just not dreaming the right way.

Guess which camp I'm in?

Squuueeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

The mustache is back!

(check it out)

The Week in Entertainment

Live: Once, which is quirkily staged but interestingly so.

DVD: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which I missed in theaters. Damn good.

TV: Doctor Who - I found "Listen" to be truly affecting. Like a lot of Moffat-penned stories, it was best at its quietest, but I think it would have been better without the thing (what/who ever) under the bedspread. Also, why have we decided that Danny is the one with his foot in his mouth? Clara's the one who started the date by calling him a killer, wasn't she? Also, I know he's going for awkward, but unfortunately I'm not buying the existence of enough chemistry between the two of them to make them keep trying again. Sad but true.

Read: Dead Water, the first of the next Shetland Quartet by Ann Cleeves. I knew they'd have to have changed a lot for the TV series, since (among other things) they've completely redone Jimmy's relationship with Fran and made Cassie about ten years older, but I was startled at just how much they redid it! The Truth by Michael Palin, which I really enjoyed - much more than his first novel, The Hemingway Chair, though I did like that one, though looking back at it now (1995! I was startled at how long ago it was published) it's "laugh so you don't cry" in its attack on 'modernization' and privatization, isn't it? I decided to give The Monogram Murders a try after reading several reviews of it. A number of them mentioned the Jill Attenbury continuations of Lord Peter, but although I found the couple of them I tried well enough written, they're too ... fannish (and I say that as a fan and writer of fan fiction myself); the whole point of Lord Peter is that he's Lord Peter, not Lord St George and then the Duke of Denver, plus I'm sorry about Jerry just for himself! Anyway, Monogram is quite entertaining. And then I found Ann Hillerman's Spider Woman's Daughter, in which she continues the Leaphorn/Chee story. And in a worthy fashion.

Some inconvenient facts

There have been more incidents of police officers killing unarmed black men since July 17 of this year than there have been incidents of police officers being killed by unarmed assailants in the past three years.

...

Police homicides made up less than 1 percent of all occupational fatalities in 2012 (the most recent year for which the Bureau of Labor Statistics has published occupational fatality data), and police homicides by personal weapons [i.e, hands and feet] made up .02 percent of all occupational fatalities. 2013 saw as many dog bite-related fatalities as police officer firearm-related fatalities. The facts remain that occupational fatalities for police officers are rare, occupational fatalities due to homicide even rarer, and occupational fatalities due to homicide via personal assault so rare that no serious argument can be made that its statistical incidence requires constant vigilance.

...

A study funded by the Center of Disease Control tracked the number of fatalities caused by cattle in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska between 2003 and 2008. There were 21 such fatalities. That means that there were two more fatalities caused by cattle in just four states over a six year period than there were law enforcement officer deaths caused by homicide using personal weapons over an 11 year period nationwide.

 [source]

The Party Label Matters

In the recent attempt by the Senate to pass an amendment that would have overturned Citzens United, every Republican voted against it. Even Susan Collins (of course).

So, as I have said before, do not "vote for the person". The "person" may have to hold their nose when voting, but they will do it. When it counts, there is no meaningful difference between someone who votes for something repellent because they like it, and someone who doesn't like it but votes for it anyway. The latter may get to pose soulfully, but - to quote from a different venue - it all looks like line drives in the box scores in the morning.