State Of The Union, Authors, Etc.

     

Tucson Weather Today

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George Will has a quite interesting column in The Washington Post concerning the State of the Union message and a few related items.

At one point he writes:
"Obama probably also will urge measures to increase college enrollments. The Center for College Affordability and Productivity reports that about 48 percent of those college graduates who are employed are occupying jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests require less than a four-year college education. Thirty-seven percent are in jobs that require no more than a high-school diploma, and about 5 million are in jobs that require less than a high-school education. About 14 percent of waiters and waitresses, 16.5 percent of bartenders, 18 percent of telemarketers and 24.6 percent of retail salespeople-- not including the 14.5 percent of counter and sales clerks -- have college degrees."

The political exhibitionism of the State of the Union


Another Post article:

Five myths about the State of the Union address

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J.D. Salinger,

Author of Catcher In The Rye

Jerome David Salinger

died on this day

Jan. 27, 2010

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I recently read a book review by  William H. Pritchard in The Weekly Standard regarding Jack London.

From this review I learned that during his brief life of 40 years, Jack London, produced 50 books, 200 short stories, and 400 nonfiction pieces on varied subjects. A critic says of The Call of the Wild (1903) that London "had found in the canine species the selfless unconditional love celebrated in the Christian concept of agape."

Now, to me, that is an interesting fact followed by a thought-provoking conjecture.

The Ice Palace - Jack London’s thousand words a day.

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Did You Know . . .?

In ancient Greek mythology, Zeus decided to wipe out mankind by flooding the Earth. The world was repopulated by a man and a woman who survived the flood by building an ark.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day, January 27 in1967 a launch pad fire during Apollo program tests at Cape Canaveral, Florida, killed astronauts Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Roger B. Chafee. An investigation indicated that a faulty electrical wire inside the Apollo 1 command module was the probable cause of the fire. The astronauts, the first Americans to die in a spacecraft, had been participating in a simulation of the Apollo 1 launch scheduled for the next month.

The Apollo program was initiated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) following President John F. Kennedy's 1961 declaration of the goal of landing men on the moon and bringing them safely back to Earth by the end of the decade. The so-called "moon shot" was the largest scientific and technological undertaking in history. In December 1968, Apollo 8 was the first manned spacecraft to travel to the moon, and on July 20, 1969, astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. walked on the lunar surface. In all, there were 17 Apollo missions and six lunar landings.

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WORD FOR TODAY

agape  [ah-GAH-pay]
noun
1.  Love that is spiritual, not sexual, in its nature.
2.  Christianity Love as revealed in Jesus, seen as spiritual and selfless and a model for humanity.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Patton Oswalt

(born January 27, 1969)

Patton Oswalt is an American stand-up comedian, writer, actor and voice actor known for roles such as Spencer Olchin in the sitcom The King of Queens and for voicing Remy in the film Ratatouille. Oswalt is an atheist, and has referenced his atheism in his comedy specials, No Reason to Complain, Feelin' Kind of Patton, My Weakness is Strong, and Finest Hour.

Bridget Jane Fonda

(born January 27, 1964)

Bridget Fonda is a former American actress. She is known for her roles in such films as The Godfather Part III, Single White Female, Point of No Return, It Could Happen to You, and Jackie Brown. She also provides the voice for Jenna in the 1995 animated feature film Balto. She took on cameo roles in projects until 2002, and has not appeared in films since then. She is the daughter of Peter Fonda, niece of Jane Fonda and granddaughter of Henry Fonda.

Donna Reed

(Jan 27, 1921 - Jan 14, 1986)

Donna Reed was an American film and television actress. With appearances in over 40 films, Reed received the 1953 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Lorene Burke in the war drama From Here to Eternity. She is also well known for her role as Mary Hatch in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946). She worked extensively in television, notably as Donna Stone, an American middle class mother in the sitcom The Donna Reed Show (1958–1966).

Miriam "Mimi" Rogers

(born January 27, 1956)

Mimi Rogers is an American film and television actress. Her notable film roles include Gung Ho (1986), Someone to Watch Over Me (1987), and Desperate Hours (1990). She garnered the greatest acclaim of her career for her role in the religious drama, The Rapture (1991). Rogers has since appeared in Reflections on a Crime (1994), The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), Lost in Space (1998), Ginger Snaps (2000), The Door in the Floor (2004), and For a Good Time, Call... (2012). Her extensive work in television includes Paper Dolls (1984), Weapons of Mass Distraction (1997), The Loop (2006–2007), and recurring roles on The X-Files (1998–1999) and Two and a Half Men (2011–present).

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 "Read what you like because you like it, never to pretend to admire what you did not."
--Leslie Stephen

NASA TV

This Is Who I Am

   

More Great Stuff From PBS

     

Tucson Weather Today

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I often watch a PBS show called Nature; the last episode I viewed was about the White Tail Deer. Again, it's surprising how fascinating such shows can be. And how much one can learn from them.

As most dedicated hunters know, the whitetail deer's best defense is it's ability to smell. Their noses are equipped with 297 million olfactory receptors, which allow them to smell everything in the woods. To put their ability into perspective, humans have only 5 million olfactory receptors. So to sum it up, the whitetail deer can smell 60 times better than a human.

I also learned that a White Tail buck grows a completely new set of antlers every year, and that the new antlers grow an inch every 2 days.

White Tail Deer

Last night I watched the show I mentioned in yesterday's blog entry which was titled simply "Salinger" which started at 9 P.M. and ended about 11:15. Much too late for me to still be up. But when I was watching it there was no question of stopping. No question about it.

Now I will have to look up my old copy of Catcher In the Rye and reread it... again.

Tonight that same PBS channel will be presenting on Nature an episode about a new animal called a Coywolf. Neither a coyote nor a wolf. But a strange mixture of the two, I am guessing.

Thankfully it begins at 8 o'clock and lasts only an hour.

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Did You Know . . .?

Recently collected data has shown that political conservatives on average report being more easily disgusted than liberals.
source:
The New York Times

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1973 the Supreme Court decriminalized abortion by handing down their decision in the case of Roe v. Wade. Despite opponents' characterization of the decision, it was not the first time that abortion became a legal procedure in the United States. In fact, for most of the country's first 100 years, abortion as we know it today was not only not a criminal offense, it was also not considered immoral.

The fight over whether to criminalize abortion has grown increasingly fierce in recent years, but opinion polls suggest that most Americans prefer that women be able to have abortions in the early stages of pregnancy, free of any government interference.

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WORD FOR TODAY

crepuscular
adjective
1.  Of or like twilight; dim.
2.  Zoology Becoming active at twilight or before sunrise, as do bats and certain insects and birds.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Joseph Aloysius Wambaugh, Jr.

(born January 22, 1937)

Joseph Wambaugh is a bestselling American writer known for his fictional and non-fictional accounts of police work in the United States. Several of his first novels were set in Los Angeles, California, and its surroundings, and featured Los Angeles police officers as protagonists.

Piper Laurie

(born January 22, 1932)

Piper Laurie is an American actress of stage and screen known for her roles in the television series Twin Peaks and the films The Hustler, Carrie, and Children of a Lesser God, all of which brought her Academy Award nominations.

Wilfred Bailey Everett "Bill" Bixby III

(Jan 22, 1934 - Nov 21, 1993)

Bill Bixby was an American film and television actor, director, and frequent game show panelist. His career spanned more than three decades, appearing on stage, in films and on television series. He is known for his roles as Tim O'Hara on the CBS sitcom My Favorite Martian, Tom Corbett on the ABC comedy-drama series The Courtship of Eddie's Father, stage illusionist Anthony Blake in the NBC crime drama series The Magician, but is perhaps best known for his role as scientist Dr. David Banner on the CBS sci-fi drama series The Incredible Hulk.

Linda Denise Blair

(born January 22, 1959)

Linda Blair is an American actress. Blair is best known for her role as the possessed child, Regan, in the film The Exorcist (1973), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award and two Golden Globes, winning one. She reprised her role in Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977).

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I hate to say this, but I'll repeat it: After death, all we know that you do is stink.
--Jack Kevorkian

NASA TV

This Is Who I Am

   

Things Brought To My Attention

     

Tucson Weather Today

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In an engrossing half hour video Bill Moyers talked with Neil deGrasse Tyson the astrophysicist about the nature of our mysterious universe and whether faith and science can be reconciled.

This is the second of three part interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson. It is titled: Science, Religion and the Universe

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E.L. Doctorow has written a new book titled Andrew's Brain which one reviewer  says is more like a therapy notebook than a novel.

I am not recommending this book, as I have not read it yet; I'm just calling it to your attention.

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Later this week there is to be broadcast an expanded American Masters edition, a documentary concerning J.D. Salinger... his disappearance from the public eye after the great success of his novel Catcher In The Rye.

It should be interesting.

The PBS edition of "Salinger" runs 135 minutes, 15 minutes longer than the film released in theaters in September, and serves as the 200th installment of the "American Masters" series.

More about that

Too bad it's coming on so late... 9 P.M. is rather late for me to be up these days.

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Did You Know . . .?

In Mexico, the act of escaping from prison is considered legal because the law recognizes that all people have a fundamental desire to be free.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1959, Carl Dean Switzer, the actor who as a child played "Alfalfa" in the Our Gang comedy film series, died at age 31 in a fight, allegedly about money, in a Mission Hills, California, home. Alfalfa, the freckle-faced boy with a warbling singing voice and a cowlick protruding from the top of his head, was Switzer's best-known role.

Our Gang revolved around a group of ragtag children and their adventures. Along with Alfalfa, other popular characters included Spanky, Buckwheat and Darla. Our Gang was considered groundbreaking in that it featured white and black child actors interacting equally.

At the Mission Hills home of Moses "Bud" Stiltz, a fight broke out, during which Stiltz shot and killed Switzer. A jury later ruled the incident justifiable homicide.

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WORD FOR TODAY

jeremiad  [jeh-ruh-MY-ahd]
noun
a long mournful lamentation or complaint

Wikipedia states that a Jeremiad is a long literary work, usually in prose, but sometimes in verse, in which the author bitterly laments the state of society and its morals in a serious tone of sustained invective, and always contains a prophecy of society's imminent downfall.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Aristotelis "Telly" Savalas

(Jan 21, 1922 - Jan 22, 1994)

Telly Savalas was an American film and television actor and singer, whose career spanned four decades. Best known for playing the title role in the 1970s crime drama Kojak, Savalas was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Birdman of Alcatraz (1962).

His other movie credits include The Young Savages (1961), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), Battle of the Bulge (1965), The Dirty Dozen (1967), The Scalphunters (1968), supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971), Inside Out (1975), and Escape to Athena (1979).

Virginia Elizabeth "Geena" Davis

(born January 21, 1956)

Geena Davis is an American actress. She is known for her roles in Stuart Little, The Fly, Beetlejuice, Thelma & Louise, A League of Their Own, The Long Kiss Goodnight and The Accidental Tourist. In 2005, she received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a  Television Series Drama for her role in Commander in Chief.

Alfred Hawthorne "Benny" Hill

(Jan 2, 1924 - Apr 20, 1992)

Benny Hill was an English comedian and actor, notable for his long-running television programme The Benny Hill Show.

Short youtube Benny Hill clip

Jill Eikenberry

(born January 21, 1947)

Jill Eikenberry is an American film, stage, and television actress. She is best known for her role as lawyer Ann Kelsey in L.A. Law (1986–1994). She has won an Obie Award, been nominated five times for an Emmy Award and four Golden Globes, winning one, and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award in 2011.

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The curse of man and the cause of nearly all his woes, is his stupendous capacity for believing the incredible.
--H.L. Mencken

NASA TV

This Is Who I Am

   

Hey! Is It Winter Yet?

Tucson Weather Today
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Do you know what this is?

It's an orchidometer

An orchidometer is a medical instrument used to measure the volume of the testicles.

No matter how old one gets, it seems that there is always something of great value to be learned.

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A thought just came to me . . .

positions of the planets change
from all geometric perspectives
...even a millennium or two after
the human race has faded away

Weird thought, huh?

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Whenever I am reading a published short story or novel and I encounter words such as 'learnt' or 'dreamt' I pause to contemplate my reaction to them. If I were writing I would shun such words and use the form 'learned' or 'dreamed' even though I realize that the form the author used was grammatically correct. 'Learnt' is the past participle, past tense of learn. And 'dreamt' is the past participle, past tense of dream.

A few other words on the same order are:

burned, burnt
kneeled, knelt
leaned, learnt
leaped, leapt
spelled, spelt
spilled, spilt
spoiled, spoilt

It seems that the 'ed' ending is most often used in American English and the 't' ending in British English.

Source: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/page/askoxfordredirect

The site http://oxforddictionaries.com/ is a valuable tool for the serious writer.

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How many words for snow exist in the language of the Eskimo? Not as many as you might have been led to believe. If you'd like to read an article regarding language myths and other interesting language related things, here is the link.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/page/eskimo_us

The article is by Dave Wilton who is a graduate student in the Department of English at the University of Toronto, the editor of the website http://wordorigins.org/ and the author of Word Myths: Debunking Urban Legends by Oxford University Press.

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At The Writer's Almanac I read a poem written by Charles Wright that grabbed me. A poem will do that, occasionally. Here is the first verse:

15

You still love the ones you loved
back when you loved them--books.
Records, and people.
Nothing much changes in the glittering rooms of the heart,
Only the dark spaces half-reclaimed.
And then not much,
An image, a line. sometimes a song.

And in another section, below that poem, was written:

J.D. Salinger was born in New York City in 1919. He wanted to be a writer, and his dream was to publish his fiction in The New Yorker, which rejected his work over and over. In November of 1941, he finally got an acceptance letter from The New Yorker for a short story called "Slight Rebellion Off Madison," about a teenager named Holden Caulfield. It was set to come out in the Christmas issue, but then the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and the story was put on hold. Salinger was drafted into the Army, deployed in the ground force invasion of Normandy, and he was part of the Battle of the Bulge and some of the worst fighting of WWII. When the war ended, Salinger checked into an Army general hospital in Nuremberg, suffering from shell shock. In 1946, The New Yorker finally published "Slight Rebellion Off Madison." Salinger took the character of Holden Caulfield, and he wrote an entire novel about him. And even though it got mixed reviews and Salinger refused to help with publicity at all, it was a best seller: The Catcher in the Rye (1951). And Salinger became a celebrity, which he hated, so he became a recluse. He died just this past January (2010), at the age of 91.

And yet there are hopeful beginning writers who submit one manuscript, one time, to one or two of the major markets, and when rejected, they then become hurt and all discouraged and they quit trying.

Oh well . . .

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What's the difference between an 'estate tax' and a 'death tax?' According to several online dictionaries, there is no difference. Both terms are defined as "a tax levied on the net value of the estate of a deceased person before distribution to the heirs." But the citizens making up the general public are more amenable to voting for the establishment of an 'estate tax' than for a 'death tax.'

I wonder why that is?


Of course, I know why that is. There is this little thing called 'nuance.'

nuance: subtle difference in meaning or opinion or attitude

But is there not a 'deeper' meaning of the word, 'nuance?' I think so. And I think that I understand it.

Here is an example:

He was the son of a prosperous Jewish importer of Kosher cheese.
He was the spawn of a rich Jew who profited from buying and selling foreign Kosher cheese.

Both sentences say the same thing, on the surface, but each has its own 'nuance.'

See what I mean?

Of course you do.

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The term 'snowclone' was coined in 2004 by blogger Glen Whitman at the prompting of linguist Geoffrey Pullum.

The Snowclone Database will tickle your funny bone.

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For those who might might have accidentally missed it, the public link to my Mountains photo album on Facebook is:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2079125&id=1024458708&l=052cd53c53

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Here is a blog I really like . . .

link to Blue Collar Atheist blog --
http://blue-collar-atheist.com/
Hank Fox is one helluva writer
Link to 'Buy The Book' --
http://hankfoxbooks.com/

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J.D. Salinger Dead At 91

J.D. Salinger

I read J.D. Salinger's Catcher In The Rye a few times many years ago. And then I read it again last year.

As a youthful reader I liked the story and completely agreed with heroic young Holden Caulfield's every thought and action.

As a more judicious and experienced older man I found the story to be an excellent (but at the same time a mildly ho-hum) description of how the undeveloped mind of an American man-child can be (and usually is) so overwhelmingly wrong... and yet be so absolutely positive that he (and he alone) is intuitively right about so many things.

According to an EW news brief J.D. Salinger once said:

"There's a marvelous peace in not publishing, Publishing is a terrible invasion of privacy...I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure."

Like Salinger, I too love to write and am fearful about the fame and fortune that successful authorship might bring along with it. But unlike Salinger I write not just for myself...I feel the need to know that others are reading what I write.

Here's what Stephen King had to say about J.D. Salinger, just after Salinger's death.

That's really about all I want to say about this subject at this time.

"What a wonderful life I've had!

I only wish I'd realized it sooner.:

--Colette