The Coming Big Bang

The universe began with the Big Bang billions of years ago, and now astronomers say we’ll be dealing with another big bang — in about four billion years or so.

The coming big bang will occur when our galaxy, the Milky Way, collides with and merges into Andromeda, a neighboring galaxy.  The two galaxies are being pulled together by their mutual gravities, and in fact are rushing toward each other at the breathtaking speed of 250,000 miles per hour.  At such astronomical (pun intended) speeds, it’s hard to believe that all Earth-dwellers aren’t experiencing a touch of cosmic motion sickness.

Of course, galaxies are mostly empty space, so whoever is left on Earth when the galactic convergence occurs isn’t likely to see suns and planets smashing into each other.  But the night sky will look different.  Orion and Taurus and Ursa Major will have lots of company.

Drip, Drip, Drip

Any public relations professional worth her salt will tell you: when you are dealing with an unfavorable news story — one that you know is going to have a negative impact — the best approach is to get ahead of the story, get all of the information out, and at least avoid the possibility that the story becomes a running, multi-day issue.  Lance the boil, drain the pus, and move on.

Elizabeth Warren’s campaign must not employ a public relations person.  If it does, she isn’t very good at her job — because the story of Warren’s alleged Cherokee ancestry has become a never-ending story in Warren’s campaign for election to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts.  Every day, seemingly, there is some new revelation that puts Warren on the defensive, interferes with her intended “message,” and distracts from the issues she thinks are important.

On Wednesday, for example, Warren acknowledged for the first time that two law schools that identified her as Native American did so because she identified herself as such, based on her understanding of “family lore.”  Her admission is just the latest in a series of statements about the issue — some of which arguably are inconsistent — that have just encouraged the press to dig ever deeper into the history of Warren’s employment, whether she identified herself as Native American, and whether there is any proof of actual Cherokee ancestry in her family tree.

I don’t think a candidate’s race, or self-reported minority status, has anything to do with fitness to serve as a U.S. Senator.  On the other hand, I think a candidate’s truthfulness, credibility, and ability to deal with a crisis are relevant — and Warren seems to be falling short in all of those categories.  The Native American story has  dominated the headlines for a month now, and for that Warren has only herself to blame.  Her statements and partial disclosures have a whiff of embarrassed shiftiness about them that have made a minor issue into a major one and, at the same time, made her look evasive and inept.  Although her race shouldn’t affect a voter’s decision about her, her apparent inability to give a satisfactory explanation of her actions reasonably could.

What’s In A Name?

Robert is, candidly, a somewhat clumsy name.  It doesn’t exactly flow trippingly off the tongue.  Starting with the rolling “r,” then flipping to the explosive “b,” then ending with that hard “t” — it’s just filled with too many discordant sounds.

“Robert” didn’t even sound good when actors on last season’s Game of Thrones talked to or about King Robert Baratheon.  You know your name isn’t a thing of beauty if, even when it is spoken by actors with British accents, it still sounds like a word for a failed engine part.

Fortunately, no one but the IRS and my bank refer to me as “Robert.”  But what nickname to choose?  For the first 12 years of my life, everyone called me Bobby.  I liked Bobby, but as I hit the teenage years I realized almost no one used the diminutive form of nickname anymore.  Now the only adult males I know who go by “Bobby” hail from south of the Mason-Dixon line, boast about SEC football dominance, comfortably wear white loafers without socks, and drink bourbon in the evenings.  The name fits them, but not me.

“Rob” never really worked, and “Robby” even less so.  It’s not just because “Rob” is a word for an act of theft, either.  Mostly, “Rob” seems prissy and highfalutin, a sort of halfway attempt to hang on to the old English roots of Robert.

That leaves Bob.  I settled on Bob more than 40 years ago, and I still like it.  It’s rarely mispronounced and almost never misspelled.  It’s short and solid and simple.  I think it suits me.  After all, as we swim through the sea of life, everybody needs to bob now and then.

Time For Our Memorial Tournament Rain

It’s been hot and dry in Columbus recently — but all that is about to change.

Tomorrow the Memorial Tournament begins at the Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, a Columbus suburb.  It’s a terrific tournament hosted by Jack Nicklaus on a fabulous golf course.  As any Columbus resident also knows, however, it also means we are guaranteed to have rain.

It’s pretty amazing, really.  It’s rained so frequently for the Memorial that the New York Times has written about the weird coincidence — not once, but twice.  They’ve moved the date of the tournament, and the rain followed the Memorial to its new place on the calendar.  It’s rained so often that some people contend that the rain is the curse of Chief Leatherlips (from his name, apparently not a ladies’ man) because the course purportedly was built on a sacred Wyandot burial ground.

Whatever the reason, it’s time to spread the grass seed, plant the flowers, batten down the hatches, and prepare for the inevitable downpour.  The Memorial Tournament is here!

Enslaved By Fear Of Jinxes — Revisited

Last week, flush with success and heedless of the risk, I wrote an insufficiently veiled post about a certain team’s success and my fear of jinxes.

The Fates don’t appreciate such temerity.  They become infuriated when puny mortals rise up and stick a thumb in their eye.  They know when the time has come for a beat down and aren’t shy about relentlessly punishing those who don’t quite know their place.  The only surprise is that, having been a sports fan for many decades now, I would need to relearn that lesson, painfully, yet again.

Since I’ve written my little piece, the team in question has lost five out of six, been pulverized by divisional foes, and fallen out of first place.

Don’t believe in jinxes?  I’m just askin’.

The Worst Previews In The World

Last night Kish and I were watching TV and saw the preview for the next Adam Sandler movie, That’s My Boy.  The preview made the movie look like the worst movie in the world — which is about par for the course for Adam Sandler movie previews.  They’re uniformly awful, and when the latest Adam Sandler movie is released each year, we Americans are just expected to stolidly endure them.

For years Americans cackled at the French for inexplicably admiring, and indeed finding deeper significance in, the “genius” of Jerry Lewis movies.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the French chuckle at the fact that Americans have a seemingly endless appetite for low-brow Adam Sandler drivel.  The movies keep getting made, so somebody must go watch them.  The question is:  who?  You wouldn’t think there would be a sufficient audience of pathetic, friendless, unmarried 40-year-old guys who appreciate the subtle humor of a pie in the face, but apparently there are.

Watching the That’s My Boy preview, I found myself imagining how Adam Sandler movies come to be.  Picture a man running away from you, down a long hallway.  He bursts through the door of an office, and a Hollywood type wearing a Hawaiian shirt and about a pound of gold neck chains looks up.

Running man:  “Boss, we’re ready to move forward on the next Adam Sandler project!  The writers and I have come up with an entirely novel way for a man to unexpectedly get hit in the crotch!”

Producer:  “That’s great, Jenkins — but that only puts us halfway there.  Now you need to think of an excuse for Sandler to wear a stupid wig.”

In fairness to Sandler, I haven’t been to see one of his movies since the Happy Gilmore era.  For all I know, the movies are richly rewarding, profoundly moving viewing experiences.  However, I take the previews at face value, and consider them to be fair warning.  If I went to see That’s My Boy and it was even close to as dreadful as the preview suggests, I’d have no one to blame but myself.

The Cannibalistic Horror Of “Bath Salts”

Usually horrific stories are about an atrocity in a faraway land and circumstances that don’t have much resonance with our daily lives.  Occasionally, however, such a story strikes closer to home — and thereby becomes even more chilling.

The recent gruesome cannibalistic attack in Miami is one such story.  What could possibly cause two men to be naked on a bridge, with one man literally eating the other’s face (including nose and eyeballs), growling animal-like to police, and finally having to be shot multiple times because he was unresponsive to commands to stop?

The apparent answer is:  drugs.  Specifically, a new kind of LSD called “bath salts” that acts as a stimulant and leaves users in a state of complete delirium.  Police and ER doctors in Miami have seen the effects of the drug, which can dramatically increase body temperature and leave its victims extremely aggressive, with a kind of temporary super-human strength and an urge to use their jaws as weapons.

Some libertarians argue that we shouldn’t regulate drug use, because it is a victimless crime.  The awful nature of “bath salts” and their effect on people belie that argument — at least, as it relates to this particular drug.  It is beyond me why anyone would develop a drug that has such terrible effects, of obvious danger to both the user and to the people around him, and it is even more unimaginable that anyone would sell such a drug on the street.  I suppose it’s too much to expect drug producers and pushers to act with any kind of responsibility, but anyone involved in the “bath salts” drug trade should be punished, harshly, for injecting such an awful, hazardous substance into our society.

Recalls, Rematches, And Redos

Next Tuesday, June 5, Wisconsin voters will go to the polls to vote in the “recall” election of Republican Governor Scott Walker.  Political junkies, in Wisconsin and nationally, will be watching the results carefully.

The recall election is the result of a petition drive that began after Walker pushed through reforms to address Wisconsin’s fiscal problems — reforms that public employee unions didn’t like, but that appear to be working and allowing the state and local governments to get their budgets under control.

The recall election is a rematch of the 2010 gubernatorial election between Walker and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.  Huge amounts of money — much of it from out of state — is being spent on the election.  Interestingly, Barrett’s chief objection to Walker doesn’t seem to be the merits of the reforms that produced the recall election.  Instead, he has raised other, minor issues and seems most troubled because he thinks Walker has been “divisive.”  If a politician has been successful in dealing with seemingly intractable problems, however, he’s likely to have upset some people. Why should that disqualify him from finishing his term and standing for reelection at that point?

The Wisconsin election just shows why recall elections are a bad idea and should be reserved for rare circumstances — like criminal activity by the incumbent.  Recalls should not be had just because a segment of the population disagrees with the incumbent’s approach to issues.  Elections should have consequences, and when they do the losing side shouldn’t be able to force costly redos that just distract from the public business.

The polls are indicating that Walker will survive, and national Democrats are downplaying the notion that the Wisconsin election reflects the national mood come November.  I don’t think they need to worry about that.  Wisconsin has been mired in a bitter brew of its own making over the past few years, and I’m sure that many voters just want to bring an end to the constant fighting and let Walker finish his term.  I’d be cautious about drawing too many national inferences from the Wisconsin results.

Kinda Cool

Back in 1982 when I was twenty five working as a teller for Banc Ohio a customer passed me a five dollar silver certificate so I exchanged it for five dollars and kept it hoping it would be worth something.

A few weeks later I decided to give it to mom’s dad, Grandpa Neal, in a birthday card on his eighty fourth birthday. You see he had been a banker all of his life and he loved that kind of stuff.

I never thought any more of it until the time of his death fifteen years later when my Uncle Gilbert pulled me aside at his funeral and told me they had opened his safety deposit box and one of the items in the box was the envelope below.

Of course, inside the envelope was the five dollar silver certificate. After doing some research come to find out that holders of a silver certificate at one time could exchange the certificate for silver coin or silver bullion, but that is no longer the case and the certificate is worth ten dollars today.

I have kept the envelope and come across it from time to time always thinking how special he made my gift to him by taking the time to write a few words asking that the silver certificate be returned to me with his best wishes. What a class guy he was !

Picnic by the Pool

In Columbus today the temperature hovered in the mid to low nineties so it quite frankly didn’t make any sense to be anywhere other than close to a pool with good friends. Our picnic lunch consisted of ham and swiss sandwiches with spicy mustard, pretzels and apple wedges with carmel dipping sauce along with pickles and cheddar cheese chunks. A large pitcher of crystal light with a hint of vodka and my friend Mary in her hot pink bikini with matching nail polish made for a fun and memorable day ! I hope everyone enjoyed their day as much as we did.

Sunburn Season

It’s been brutally hot in Columbus the past few days, with the mercury reaching the high side of 90.  As a result, I’ve gotten my first sunburn of the season.

There are people who can “lay down a base” without getting burned and gradually get darker and darker, without telltale peeling, as the summer progresses.  It’s as if they have special tanning knowledge, passed down from generation to generation like the Rites of Ephesus.

I’m not one of those people.  I go directly from winter white to a blazing brick red that quickly peels off in great, sweeping curtains of skin the size of dish towels that you can roll up and toss in the waste basket.  After that distasteful condition passes, I’m set for the summer with a permanent ruddy red face.

This happens no matter what I try.  Today, for example, I smeared heaping handfuls of Coppertone on head, ears, face and neck in hopes of avoiding the burn.  After a few moments in the sun playing golf, however, my sweat glands kicked into high gear and the resulting cascade of sunscreen runoff left me partially blinded and milky eyed.  After swabbing the perspiration off with a towel, I may as well have not applied any suntan lotion in the first place.

And now I sit, with that fine, bright burning feeling on my skin, waiting for the peeling to begin.  Summer has arrived.

Feeling Good About The Frog

This morning, as I was walking through our downstairs hallway, I noticed an intruder in the house.  At first I thought it was a moth, but instead it was a small green frog, clinging to the wall at about baseboard level.

How it got into our house is anybody’s guess.  I’d guess it was a green tree frog — about the size of a half dollar, with long webbed toes and excellent adhesive abilities.  Kasey noticed him, too, and was starting to pay the little guy an uncomfortable amount of attention.  I got a dish towel, draped it over him, gently picked him up, and took him outside and dropped him onto the grass.  He quickly hopped under some nearby bushes and was gone, probably on his way back to the tree at the corner of our house.

This is the first frog in our house that I can remember, but it’s not uncommon for us to find that moths, bees, spiders, and even birds have gotten into the house somehow.  Whenever that happens I always try to do whatever I can to get them back outside, safely and without injury, and when I do so I feel a bit better about myself.  After I set Mr. Frog on the path to freedom this morning, I walked around the Yantis Loop with an extra hop in my step.

Chairman Mao’s Little Red Bore

I’m old enough to remember when some members of the younger generation thought Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party were pretty cool.  You’d see people wearing t-shirts with Warholesque portraits of Chairman Mao (and of Che Guevara, too, but that’s another story), talking about the radical reforms that the brave Chinese Communists were attempting, and quoting from the sayings of Chairman Mao like he was a modern-day Confucius.

Both Richard and Russell have been to the Far East (Richard to China and Russell to Japan and Viet Nam) and one of them came back with Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung — Mao’s famous “little red book.”  I ran across it the other day and thought I would look to see what all of the fuss was about.

Having read the book — until I could take no more — I can safely say that Chairman Mao was one of the most boring writers ever.  Not only are his pronouncements often nonsensical drivel, it’s hard to imagine more leaden prose being written by any sentient being.  Consider this chestnut from the chapter Socialism and Communism:

“The people’s democratic dictatorship uses two methods.  Towards the enemy, it uses the method of dictatorship, that is, for as long a period of time as is necessary it does not let them take part in political activities and compels them to obey the law of the People’s Government and to engage in labour and, through labour, transform themselves into new men.  Towards the people, on the contrary, it uses the method not of compulsion but of democracy, that is, it must necessarily let them take part in political activities and does not compel them to do this or that, but uses the method of democracy in educating and persuading them.”

Huh?  Not only does this passage bear no relation to the reality of China under Mao — except for the dictatorship part, I guess — but I fell asleep about halfway through.  And the Little Red Book is chock full of such blather.

It just goes to show — you can’t just a book by its little red cover.

 

Keep The U.N. Away From The Internet

Some countries are pushing a proposal to give the U.N.International Telecommunication Union (“ITU”) more control over the internet.  The proposal will receive a hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives next week.

Currently the internt is “governed” (if you can call it that) by a a collection of non-profit entities.  The result has been a lot of freedom and not much regulation.  Governments, however, are concerned that they don’t have sufficient control over this massive, still developing communications medium.  The U.N. proposal, backed by governments in China, Russia, Brazil, India, and other countries, would give the ITU more authority over cybersecurity, data privacy, technical standards and the Web’s address system.

This is such an awful idea that there appears to be bipartisan opposition to it in Washington, D.C., with both the Obama Administration and both Republican and Democratic lawmakers expressing opposition.  Imagine — a proposal that is so obviously terrible that our splintered representatives can agree that it sucks!

And, it does suck.  The last I checked, the internet wasn’t broken.  We can write what we want, and read what we want, without concern that some ponderous and corrupt U.N. regulatory body will try to stop or direct us.  Indeed, the internet is one of the few international activities where cooperation has managed to produce tremendous growth — economic growth, growth in access to information, growth in communications, and growth in freedom.  That’s why repressive governments hate the internet.  Why would we want to hand repressive regimes a tool they can use to silence critics and punish dissidents?  Let’s all hope Congress does the right thing and tells the U.N. to keep their hands off the internet.

Casting A Long Shadow

Penny, Kasey, and I were up at the crack of dawn this morning.  When the sun is so low on the horizon you see interesting shadows rolling across the landscape, like this long one cast by the divot repair box on the tee of number 5 north.