Part I

Inspired by Myk, I found the start of Clarence's acting career.

Part II

Quote of the Day

They ride the line of balance
and hold on by just a thread
But it's too hot in these tunnels
you can get hit up by the heat
You get up to get out at your next stop
but they push you back down in your seat
Your heart starts beatin' faster
as you struggle to your feet

Clarence Clemons

Clarence Clemons, Jr. (1942 – 2011)

Jungleland with Clemons' epic sax solo.

The Game of Food

Even though this link was posted on Kottke, the site is so original it deserves a mention. The site specializes in the food of George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series. They have everything from Apricot Tarts to Heraldic Banner Cake Toppers to Lager and Tankards and Beers.

Innovation is deep in the heart of any culinary exercise, not to mention perfectly in keeping with the culture of both the Middle Ages and of Westeros. Ingredients could not be guaranteed, and so substitutes were often made. If you like the sound of stewed goat but all you have is lamb, go for it!

Quote of the Day

I like Peter's introduction of this. Here is one I found recently. This was written by Ring Lardner, famous short story writer and sports columnist. He wrote this in 1911.

"They are using a new ball this year. It's livelier and that means more hitting, and more hitting means longer games, and that's the devil. It appears to be impossible to finish a game in less than two hours."

No Split Ends and Other Stories

I knew Alma Steinman since the fifth grade. She married Charlie Young, John's roommate. The Young's had a great aunt, Aunt Sophie who lived with them. In those days everyone had a grandmother, an aunt or someone who lived with them. You never sent anyone to a nursing home. The Young's had a full-time nurse who took care of Aunt Sophie. She was a little crazy. I never saw her. She thought men were climbing up trying to get in through her window.

We had a group of girls and we called ourselves the "Eight Belles". We would go to Gruning's* after school and have a tuna fish sandwich and a hot fudge sundae. We would go 'halfsies' so our half of tuna fish sandwich and hot fudge sundae would cost us each 15¢. It's a wonder we weren't all as big as a house.

On Friday nights we would go to the movies. Then we would go back to someone's house to eat. I remember going to Alice Mamaux' house. Her dad, Al Mamaux**, was a professional baseball player. I don't know who he played for—maybe the Yankees. Her grandmother made the best food. At the movies, no one wanted to sit on the end. We would all fight to get in the middle. Oh, we were so silly.

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*Mother is not the only one who has fond memories of Gruning's. See here and here. I should get her to post some memories.

**I always assumed Al Mamaux was a minor league player. Now I am flabbergasted at both the record and the coincidences.

The Big Scarlet Fever Box and Other Stories

Judy lived across the street from us on Montague Place. Our house was 184 Montague Place. That was the house I was born in. All of us were born in the house. My mother hated hospitals. My grandparents, John F. McDonough, were right around the corner on Prospect St. He owned all the property to Tichenor Ave.

The Stanley's were from Seneca Falls in upstate New York where they lived on a farm. Their Aunt Mamie still lived there and used to send down cookies and the funny papers. I don't know why she sent the funny papers. Maybe she thought we didn't get them in So. Orange. Mrs. Stanley made the best bread I have ever tasted. It was wonderful. I don't know how she made it. I think she put potatoes in it.

When I was about six, I caught Scarlet Fever. My parents thought it was from going swimming at the YMCA. Judy's mother, Mrs. Stanley, sent me a big box with a lot of little presents in it. Each present was marked for when it should be opened. I would open a new present everyday. It gave me something to look forward to.

Rejects

Here are some interesting pictures you may enjoy, but they didn't quite have what it takes for the Pictures at an Exposition contest.

I love this one since they seemingly built the bridge in the wrong place. This is Interstate 680 connecting Omaha, Neb with flooded Iowa at the Mormon Bridge.

A giant floating stage on Lake Constance in Bregenz, Austria is the site for the opera Andre Chenier by Italian musician Umberto Giordano. The opera, directed by British director Keith Warner, will have its premiere on July 20 at the annual Bregenz festival.

Contractors prepare to move the second sphere inside the main Rise sculpture in Belfast. The new landmark for Belfast (due to be completed by the end of June) is being built at Broadway Roundabout, one of the main gateways to the city. It will be the biggest public art sculpture in Belfast.

A performance artist Alice Newstead hangs by shark fishing hooks to protest the slaughtering of sharks, in Hong Kong

This is my favorite—a truly inspiring work of art by Tim Hawkinson entitled Möbius Ship.

Watch Where You're Going and Other Stories

For quite a few years we rented a house in Sea Bright. It was right on the beach on Ocean Ave. It had a circular driveway and there were two other cottages. The owner, Mr. Cleftman, lived in one of the cottages and the same people always rented the other one. Sea Bright is really the closest New Jersey beach to New York City. It probably only took an hour to get there from Newark.

We would stay there all summer, but my father would come down Thursday or Friday from work in time to go out on the boat to catch fish for Friday dinner. He always went fishing on Friday.

I remember going up the Shrewsbury river to Red Bank to watch the boat races. Mother would dress up in stockings and a hat. It all seems very silly.

Mr. Cleftman, I think, was in politics in Jersey City. They had an older daughter 18 or 19 and a younger one about six. One day the elder daughter was backing out of the driveway and ran over her sister who was riding her bike. I think she broke her leg, because I remember going to visit her in the hospital with her leg in traction with a lot of pulleys.

Pictures at an Exposition - 2

Here's the picture. You need to supply the exposition.

Klein on Education

I recognize that this might be throwing some gasoline on the smoldering Waiting for Superman debate, but I invite you to read "The Failure of American Schools" from the June Atlantic Magazine. It's written by Joel Klein, who stepped down last year as chancellor of the New York City School District after an eight year tenure. He's also the lawyer who took on Microsoft.

I still haven't seen Waiting for Superman but I suspect that Klein and the people behind the documentary would agree on a lot. For one, Klein believes that quality of teaching makes a huge difference. He points out how states and cities with essentially the same demographics have strikingly different outcomes. He says the same is true of schools who draw kids from the same neighborhood. He also cites the studies of Stanford economist Eric Hanushek, who has shown that, while some teachers get a year and a half’s worth of learning into a year, others get in only half a year’s worth of learning with essentially the same students. And so, Klein unequivocally rejects the old canard: “We’ll never fix education until we fix poverty.”

He spreads the blame around somewhat. He doesn't just blame unions; he also blames politicians, who see school districts too often as a place to fulfill their patronage obligations. Of course, this doesn't stop him from quoting Albert Shanker, the late, legendary head of the United Federation of Teachers: “When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of schoolchildren.” Mostly, he finds that union contracts put administrators in too much of a straightjacket. Klein would like to pay math teachers more than phys ed teachers because he knows that math whizzes have more job opportunities. He'd like to take seniority pay increases from teachers who are just putting in time until their retirement and use it to attract new good teachers. He'd like to clean out the dead wood and hire better teachers. According to the article, Klein couldn't even even fire a teacher who was a convicted sex offender.

Anyway, these are just some of the highlights.

Buckle Up Your Boots and Other Stories

Preface
George Santayana,* (Hispanic) American Philosopher and Lampoon staff member, said "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." I've discovered a corollary, "Even repeated (and repeated and repeated) histories are not learned." It is hoped that this series will provide a remedy.
I will attempt to relate these tales in the author's own words as best I can.

Bill and Marion Schulte were my parents' next door neighbors. They had two sons who were younger than me. Their boys went to Newark Academy. Bill Schulte was the merchandising manager for Kresge's Department Store in Newark and a great friend of my father. He often would come into the house and go straight to the refrigerator and grab a beer. I don't think he ever drank anything else. One day he went to a baseball game and it poured down rain. Sitting in the rain he got sopping wet. He caught pneumonia and died only a few days latter.

After her husband died Marion Schulte went to work in the hat department at Kresge's. I remember before my wedding she helped me pick out a hat for my 'Going Away' outfit.


*Note that Santayana was not only on the Harvard Lampoon (largely as a cartoonist), but also was a member of ten other organizations including a founding member of the Harvard Monthly, president of the Philosophical Club, and the Hasty Pudding.

Quote of the Day

"A rubber woman." A blow-up doll. Ground control, he says nixed the idea. "They said, 'If you would do that, then we would need to put it in your schedule for the day" ~Soviet cosmonaut Aleksandr Laveykin on relieving tension during his stay aboard Mir

From Mary Roach's Packing for Mars

Pictures at an Exposition

The object of this whimsy is for you to provide 'exposition' for a picture. It can be a caption, a description, or any words which 'exhibits' your knowledge or imagination about the picture. Here is today's picture: (Have fun.)

The complete lack of tell-tale blood stains…

In a surprise news story, no band of gypsies were found either alive or dead at a north Texas home. Enjoy the beautiful sylvan footage.

I can only speculate that the banner should read "25-30 Bodies Found not at Home." (I'm not sure what "in at Home" means.)

Palin vs. Paul Revere

This from the Atlantic Wire. Nobody could make this stuff up:

Sarah Palin's Muddled Defense of Her Paul Revere Gaffe (check link for videos)

BY UJALA SEHGAL JUN 05, 2011

Last week, as her "one Nation" tour went through Boston, Sarah Palin stopped by the Freedom Trail, which winds past historic landmarks including Paul Revere's house. Palin breathlessly described on her blog that "there's so much history here. It's amazing..." Unfortunately for Palin, much of it was lost on her. She offered, let's say, an alternative version of the famous midnight ride of Paul Revere. Her rambling take soon went viral on the internet:

He who warned, uh, the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms uh by ringing those bells and making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free and we were going to be armed.

Let's summarize what's incorrect about this: everything. Paul Revere did not send any messages or warnings to British soldiers, about our guns or otherwise. He sent a message to the Minutemen warning them the British were coming, so they would be ready. He did not send warning shots or ring bells. It was a stealth operation, and he instructed someone to put either one or two lights in the tower, as a code for how the British were arriving -- "one if by land, two if by sea" -- which is the most famous line in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem on the legend.

Today on Fox News Sunday, Palin told Chris Wallace that she was standing by her statement. "I didn't mess up," she said. "I know my American history." This is her explanation:

"He warned the Americans that the British were coming, the British were coming, that we 've got to make sure we were protecting ourselves and shoring up all of our ammunitions and firearms so that they couldn't take it. But remember that the British had already been there, many soldiers for seven years in that area. Part of Paul Revere's ride, and it wasn't just one ride, he was a courier, he was a messenger, part of his ride was to warn the British.that were already there, 'Hey you're not going to succeed, you're not going to take American arms, you are not going to beat our own, well-armed persons, individual, private militia.' He did warn the British."

The only thing that could make this description more convoluted would be if Palin then blamed the press for her mistake. Then Palin blames the press for her mistake, calling it "a shot-out, gotcha-type of question that was asked of me."

_______________________

But, here's the best. Palin supporters have been trying to edit Paul Revere's Wikipedia page so that history will conform top her version.

Palin Fans Trying to Edit Wikipedia Paul Revere Page

Trying to Grok Groupon

Groupon is threatening to break the I(nitial)P(ublic)O(ffering) record held by Google of $24.6 billion in 2006. The company offers "Group coupons' each day for special deals in agreement with various retailers. For example, you can buy (6/4/2011) Three Spray Tans at Copper Zone Tanning - Beaver Falls ($50 Value) for $15. That's a whopping 70% savings for getting your body sprayed with tan 3 times. The 'catch' is that these deals last only a short period of time, often 24 hours, and are only "on" when a specified number of people buy into the deal. Don't worry, the tanning spray needed 10 people to buy in; thus far it has 80.

Let's use a little group activity ourselves for Groupon. I'm going to list a couple of my thoughts about Groupon, but I'm also interested in learning what others have to say about it. Have you used it? Would you use it? What do you think of the idea? What do you think of the IPO?

Here are a couple of my thoughts:

On the one hand I think it is an amazing idea of combining consumerism, democracy and marketing with modern web technology. It gives new meaning to "voting with your dollars." I'd love Groupon to make a deal with the U.S. Government whereby if 100 million people buy in at a special discount price, they would supply universal health care.

On the other hand I think it may be our last step off the cliff of consumerism. Like the secondary market of subprime mortgage securities this adds nothing of value to the marketplace other than new packaging.

By the way, Groupon may become the fastest company to reach a billion dollars in sales. However, last year it lost a staggering $413 million on revenue of $713 million. That prompted Groupon to establish their own accounting standards for persuading potential IP0 investors. Some of you may also be interested to learn that the idea for Groupon was created by now-CEO and Pittsburgh native Andrew Mason.

Some good may come out of Harvard after all

Peter of Mt. Lebanon alerted me to this commencement address (Cowboys and Pit Crews) to Harvard Medical by Atul Gawande. Since Myk is already in love with the New Yorker, I'm probably posting this for no one left to read it. Nevertheless I found it interesting and in tune with our recent hospital experience with mom. In fact, my impression was that hospitals seem to recognize that they need to be more like pit crews, but that they fail miserably at it.

A different approach was told to me by another Peter, my brother, who contrasted the current hospital style with David Hall's clinic where one doctor is responsible for all the patient's care, wellness, support, and (fortunately or unfortunately) spiritual assistance. I know little about the clinic so I don't know how specialists are incorporated, but the singular personal care approach sounds interesting. It's not that mom was not getting very personal, dedicated care, it was that it resembled a tag team match or a relay race more than a pit crew, which provided ample opportunity for missed tags and dropped batons.

The Plate is more palatable than the Pyramid

Government officials are finally recognizing the failure of the U.S. public educational system. In order to combat poor educational scores in the U.S. compared with other countries, and criticism from movies such as Waiting for Superman, officials are springing into action with a new dietary icon.

"The simplicity is the key," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said about the new symbol. "The food pyramid is very complicated."

"We are people," said Marion Nestle, a professor in the department of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University. "We don't eat pyramids. We eat off of plates."

Most long time eaters and products of the U.S. educational system agree. "We eat off plates. The pyramid was way too complicated. Do we even know how these pyramids were built?" asked one confused citizen.

However, not everyone was falling in line. While the plate symbol is much simpler, said Marisa Moore, spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, portion control is also crucial, even while eating healthy foods. Seemingly ignoring the state of education in the U.S., she said, "You have to think about the size of the plate. Instead of a dinner plate, start with a salad plate, so you start with fewer calories."

Some even felt the most recent food pyramid, called MyPyramid, introduced in 2005, didn't offer enough information. It showed a stick figure walking up a staircase on the side of the pyramid.

Its predecessor, the first food pyramid, released in 1992, recommended five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables. But these were secondary to the recommendation of six to 11 servings of bread, cereal, rice and pasta. It didn't differentiate between refined and whole grains.

Dr. David Kessler, author of The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, agreed that the older food pyramid "didn't reflect best of the dietary guidelines." Unmindful of the government's attempt to appeal to its poorly educated citizenry, he went on to say, "Refined carbohydrates should've never been the major part of the diet," he said. "It was never about eating refined carbohydrates. It's why it didn't work."
With the new changes, Kessler added, "Maybe now, we have a chance."

Most just shook their heads, not understanding what he was talking about.