P.S. A Column On Things

Voting has never been easier

Until after the election, this item will be at the top of my column.

Here are the relevant focus-grouped mottoes: Democracy is stronger when we all vote! Your Neighbors Are Waiting For You To Vote!

These links apply to the entire country:

It is now trivial to Get Your Absentee Ballot

In case you live in a place where some people are trying to throw you off the voter rolls, check on your status and register if need be:

Am I registered to vote?

Feel free to share to share this item with others:

Short version (suitable for posters and written letters): tinyurl.com/1psacot1

Long version: Voting has never been easier

 

Start of September 9 Column. More or Less Continuous News Service since 1998

Getting Out The Vote Wasn't This Easy Back In The Day

Back in 1972, when I worked on George McGovern’s quixotic run against the criminal Nixon, we used landline phones to call registered voters, reminding them to vote and offering rides to the polls.

The technology of the 21^st century has changed that. If you’re registered, you can vote in the privacy of your own home. And you don’t have to guess if you’re registered.

Of course there’s still room for the human touch; I just addressed 25 postcards to female no-party-registered voters, asking them to vote. Not to vote for someone, just to vote.

I have mentioned before  my streak of bad luck; I helped Wayne Morse lose his Senate seat, Art Pearl to lose his run for Oregon governor, Bobby Kennedy to lose the Oregon Primary, and, of course McGovern.  I think I’m a jinx, so if TFG had a ground operation in California, I’d sign up.

One other quick note. The Bill Of Rights contains only one responsibility: jury duty. Clearly, voting is another responsibility. But the founding fathers didn’t bother to mention it because they couldn’t imagine anyone who had the right to vote not voting. After all, that was the whole point of the American Revolution. This simply demonstrates their lack of imagination.

Grandkids: Grandson: Unicookie

My daughter bought a container of cookie dough, and my grandson and I rolled it into balls and placed it on a sheet of parchment paper in a baking pan. His previous effort had resulted in a unicookie. We tried spreading the balls apart and rolling smaller balls. Mihir would consistently grab my balls, peel off about a third of the dough and have me reroll them,

Instead of one unicookie, we ended up with several smaller ones that were easier to break apart once cooled. My MIT friends suggested doing cookies in a muffin tin, being careful to insure that the center is cooked. They also suggested smaller balls and wider spacing. I think my grandson is ready for MIT.

Things That Float Into My Mind

I am nothing if not a creature of habit. I found myself reminiscing about the start of my announcing career at Benson Polytechnic. To listen to me, you’d think our founder had three first names: Millionaire Lumberman Philanthropist. He was Simon to his friends.

And then there was the award-winning Benson band. Conductor Harold Rowe glowered at the fact that I used that adjective a dozen times after the band won an award, but it had the added charm of being true.

Meme O’ The Week: Unflattering Yet True

Humor: Jesus at Dinner

[Thank you Clark Smith]

One evening, Jesus walks into a restaurant with his 12 disciples following him in. The Maitre D greets him and says. “Good evening sir, how can we help you today?”

Jesus responds, “Yes, we’d like a table for 26 please”

The Maître d' looks confused for a second, before gathering his composure. “But sir, there are only 13 of you?”

Jesus responds, “Ahh, yes…. but we’re all going to sit on one side of the table”.

Unpaired Words

You can be disgruntled or unkempt, but can you be gruntled or kempt? Not in this century you can’t. But if you go back 500 years, these words were not unpaired. It does appear there are suffix examples too. You can be reckless but not reckful, rueful not rueless, ruthless (I wonder where Ruth is?), not ruthful.

This and That

The Canon of American Literature
I was shot out of the canon of American literature years ago. It turns out my 2nd novel, The Great American Novel (1970) was just a journal of my 1^st year at MIT. My firstVernon Jones, Super-Scientific Detective (1964) served as a 180-page doorstop.
…
Attention Tom Lehrer Fans
I have engaged in the Find Tom Lehrer game, in order to tell him about my love song set to the tune of Vatican Rag. A great entry in the genre explores his time in Santa Cruz: Sleuthing The Trail Of One Of America’s Premier Satarists. It shows his appearance on BBC’s Desert Island Discs.
…
About AI
Spoken in the 80s, true today.
“More money has been wasted in artificial intelligence than in any other area of computer technology. We're still not close to having any real idea or model of how the human brain works.”

―George Morrow in Sayings of Chairman George

End of September 9 Column (No. 946)

Start of September 2 Column. More or Less Continuous News Service since 1998

Not Really Labor

This is my repeating Labor Day item. One-third of the public (according to surveys) doesn’t know what day it is.

I am a life-long supporter of, believer in, student of and beneficiary of the American Labor Movement. I know writing is not really labor.

I am a beneficiary because my father, who became a Teamster after selling the family dairy and remained one for the rest of his life, was able, with just a high school degree, to provide an upper-middle class life to our family of four which included regular vacations, a terrific pension and great medical and dental coverage. Take that, gig economy. For that matter, take that, non-union American journalism.

Alas, with the exception of three years in the Wire Service Guild at AP and UPI, and 11 years in the American Federation of Teachers as a teacher, I spent most of my working life without the protection and support of a union. The Oregon Journal, a Newhouse newspaper, was the stepchild of a bitter strike, so I worked with a staff full of scabs. Wonderful people, great journalists, but most with start dates during the strike that destroyed the paper’s independent existence.

CMP, where I spent 21 years, used to say it didn’t need a union because the company treated its employees fairly, and for the most part that was true as long as the founders were in charge—less so later.

I have been attributing this “never done any” quote to AFL-CIO leader George Meany for decades. I still contend he said it, even though the Internet disagrees. Turns out it is from G.B. Shaw’s Man and Superman.

Poet Octavius Robinson: “I believe in the dignity of labor.”

Chauffeur Enery Straker: “That's because you've never done any, Mr. Robinson.”

Some of my thoughts on labor and class.

On Sept. 16 (the day before my birthday) I will offer 72 Life Lessons for my 72^nd Birthday. Here are two sneak previews:

• If offered a choice, always patronize union facilities over non-union facilities.
• Never cross a picket line

Humor: Biden Plans

I made theTop 5 List!

Other Things Joe Biden Is Going To Do Instead Of Running For President

My winner: Show up on time for the Early Bird Dinner for once.

My Losers: “Lambada and Macarena” and “Drink a case of Diet Mountain Dew.”

Culture Doom Loop

In the very early days of the Internet, my friend, mentor and soothsayer, Richard Dalton used to say that algorithms that showed you only news you were interested in would eliminate serendipity. He wanted a “random” factor that would show you something new every day, unlike your usual fare.

Now Ted Gioia has made what amounts to a similar suggestion in his essay How to Know If You're Living in a [cultural] Doom Loop.  Search for the word “algorithm” to be taken to the relevant part of the essay.

No Chance To Say Goodbye―Radio and Elsewhere

Years ago, when I was radio industry adjacent, it bothered me that most stations escorted their disc jockeys off the premises without warning after what would turn out to have been their last broadcast. It seemed unfair. Most jocks would have appreciated a chance to say goodbye to their audiences. Management always figured they’d go crazy and cause the FCC to revoke the station’s license.

Maybe some shock jocks would have done that, but the typical friendly music spinner of my acquaintance would just gently have faded out, providing a sense of closure to both performer and audience.

In most other professions, you do get to say goodbye. Maybe it’s your retirement. Maybe you’ve been laid off. Normal managers, as opposed to the thimblewits that run radio stations, do not frog-march you out under the supervision of security.

I might have enjoyed saying goodbye at my last concert after 23 years of announcing for the Danville Band. But my instincts on such occasions are not great. When I offered a eulogy for my mentor Dr. Patricia Swenson, I made it about me, and was deeply embarrassed to listen the other eulogies which were, appropriately, about her.

So, no goodbye at Danville was probably just as well. This way, I had a classy exit, rather than going out with “boo-hoo, look at me, being asked to move on after 24 years.” The audience will remember me as I was, a jolly narrator, not as a sad loser.

Meme O’ The Week: Unorthodox Cat