March Meditations

Apologia:

Some folks called "Anonymous" have asked if they could refer to this blog in their writings. Since they are "Anonymous", I can't contact them directly, so if they are reading this, I would say: "Be my guest." However, please be careful, because some of what I write comes from my own ideas which may not be the same as those of people in the mainstream of U.S. society. Also, some of what I write may be based on news items I have read about or heard about in "off-beat" sources. I attempt to mention my sources, when I can remember them.. just be careful because sometimes I write about things that happened some time ago.

While I am at it, I may as well also mention that most of the cartoons that accompany these blogs were drawn by me, and while some are original, most were probably copied many years ago from books, magazines and newspapers. Usually, I can't remember the source -- let's face it.. I'm an old dude. However, when I do remember the source cartoonists, I will mention them.

01. Common decency... and LOVE:

As I can see from lots and lots of Facebook entries, the Supreme Court decision in the Westboro Baptist Church case is extremely unpopular. On a recent CSPAN radio call-in show, almost all of the people who called in praised the decision because it reinforces our free-speech rights. However, almost all of those same people thought that the Westboro picketers had moved far beyond the limits of decency.

While I agree that we need to preserve our free-speech rights, I feel that we should have some established limits to "hate-speech", as they do in several European countries who went through the Hitler years and know how such speech can be used to inflame the masses.

I find it hard to understand the members of the Westboro Baptist Church.. I was a member of a Baptist Church for several years and I found the teachings of the church to be of a loving nature. In fact, when I was in my early teens and was getting into trouble, members of the Baptist Church helped me understand that what I was doing was hurting other people, especially people that I loved and who loved me.

Several years ago, I had the experience of attending a Baptist church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania a couple of times. After the services, the preacher would stand in the front of the church and offer hugs to anyone who wanted one. The line to get those loving hugs was very very long. I believe that everybody in the Congregation went up to get one. A few years later, I met the preacher in another setting and he immediately recognised me and gave me one of his famous hugs. This, of course, is what life is really all about... loving one another.. not hating one another.

The most famous people-lover/people-hugger of all time is of course, Leo Buscaglia (search my earlier blog entries if you don't know about Leo.)

02. Moebius Strip:

When I was a kid, my grandfather showed me the great attributes of the Moebius strip. This is, of course, the twisted figure that has no beginning and end, and which can be manipulated in miraculous ways. Cyril Kornbluth was intrigued by the Moebius strip and coined the following wonderful poem:

The Unfortunate Topologist

A burleycue dancer, a pip

Named Virginia, could peel in a zip;

But she read science fiction

And died of constriction

Attempting a Moebius strip.

http://mathssquad.questacon.edu.au/mobius_strip.html

03. Words to Live By

In 1983, I published the fourth Friday the 13th edition of Words To Live By.. being vital quotations collected over the years by some computer geeks that worked with me at the Social Security Administration. I came upon them again the other day and thought that some of the observations made then, are valid still today.

"On flextime, you're not late if you come in early." - Joe Johnson
"If you can't handle the job, get out of the fire." - Henry Drumheller
"Learn to be sincere, even if you have to fake it." - Bernie Rubin
"No program should ever Abend in production." - Morrison Clark
"If your computer run is going fine, you've obviously left out something important." - Lloyd Hess

Also contained in the document are some recipes, one of which was by Calvin W. Schwabe:

Grilled Rat, Bordeaux Style

Catch some alcoholic rats that inhabit wine cellars. Skin and eviscerate them, brush them with a thick sauce of olive oil and crushed shallots. Grill over a fire of broken wine barrels.







04. Frank W. Lewis

In my February 6, 2011 blog entry, I mentioned Frank W. Lewis, who created the cryptic puzzle for the NATION magazine for years. I mentioned a little of his accomplishments and why I admired him. What I didn't know at the time (and should have) was that he was a fellow member of the American Cryptogram Association (ACA). We have NOM's in this group (kind of like aliases).. mine is AHAB. Frank's was R. MASTERTON, an anagram of Montserrat, where he lived until the island's volcanic eruptions got the better of him.

HONEYBEE (another ACA member) says in The Cryptogram for March-April 2011: "...(he) would look at a Monome-Dinome ciphertext and see the 'ump-ti-ump-ti-ump-ti' that the dinomes make. Every time I solve a Monome-Dinome that memory still makes me smile."

A family member also mentions something that I did not know about Frank: "... his work in cracking the Japanese shipping code enabled the navy to pinpoint the exact location of any Maru sailing in the vastness of the Pacific, which contributed to the Allied victory and materially shortened the war..."

Vale, R. MASTERTON!

05. Kidspy

The Week magazine reports that school administrators in a Philadelphia suburb used webcams to spy on students at home. The webcams were on school-issued laptops. One of the students was shown a picture taken by one of the cameras that a school official says proved that he was taking drugs. The student says he was eating candy in his room. Was the use of these webcams a violation of the Fourth Amendment and privacy laws? A class action suit filed by angry parents may decide this.

06. Brain power?

Somebody named Reymann says that people should deviate from their normal routines from time to time, to challenge their brains. Two ways:

1. Brush your teeth with the opposite hand.
2. Get dressed in the morning with your eyes closed.

07. Mencken:

The German Society of Baltimore, Maryland can count Henry L. Mencken as their most famous member. (I am also a member, but not quite so famous...) I quote: "... Mencken is America's most quoted literary figure. Mark Twain comes in second... the Mencken Room at the Pratt Library (in Baltimore) accumulates 1,000 pages annually in the (Mencken) scrapbook...in his lifetime Mencken wrote 40 books, produced 15,000,000 words."

08. Stupid Criminal Award Winner:

From the Intertel newsletter: As a female shopper exited a convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the police car and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied: "Yes, officer, that's her. That's the lady I stole the purse from."

09. Langston Hughes

I mis-quoted a poem by Mr. Hughes in an earlier blog entry. I believe this is the correct version.

Impasse

I could tell you,
If I wanted to,
What makes me what I am.

But I don't really want to -
And you don't give a damn.

10. Study result:

A three year study at Oxford University discovered that ducks like water.

11. Longest word still?

In 1983, the longest word in the Oxford English dictionary was:

FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION

Which means: The act of estimating something to be worthless.

(Check me out on that, Brother Joe)

12. The Stone Reader

I'm told a documentary with this title is now a cult favorite. It's about the search for the author of The Stones of Summer, a book published to great reviews in 1972, sold just a few copies, and then disappeared, along with the author, Dow Mossman. Mossman was found in Iowa.. an ex welder and unemployed newspaper bundler. Now Dow is back writing again and his book has supposedly been republished. I'll have to get a copy of the documentary from Netflix and try to track down the book... maybe.

http://www.lostbooksclub.org/sos_main.php

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February Musings

Before I get into my usual trivial matters, I want to talk about a giant in the world of Puzzledom:

Frank W. Lewis ..puzzler, cryptographer, musician, historian, etc., "a true Renaissance man" as the Nation magazine says. Frank died November 18, 2010, at the age of 98.. after providing that magazine with his special puzzles for 62 years!

http://seclists.org/isn/2010/Dec/14

Almost every morning of my life since the 1970's when I found his puzzles in the Nation, I have spent at least some of my waking up time on one or another of his puzzles.

Frank discovered British cryptic crosswords in England during World War II, and began to construct his own version, mainly with American idioms and literary references enclosed in various puzzle wordplay, like the pun, the rebus, the anagram, charades, etc.

Crossword dictionaries do not help solve his puzzles.. one must rely on one's knowledge of culture, literature, grammar, and sometimes other languages, such as Latin, French and German. (However, an advanced college degree is not needed to do these puzzles. A knowledge of the types of wordplay does help.)

Once you get over the shock of encountering what look like the uncomprehensible melding of seemingly unrelated words, and relax, ... you find the puzzles fun and mind bending.

The Nation is conducting a search for a replacement for Frank. Meanwhile, they are republishing some of his puzzles from the 1970's.

Until a few years ago, I found British cryptic crossword puzzles unsolvable. That still remains so usually for those published by the Times of London. However, I am able to do the ones published by the Manchester Guardian. (I'm sure this is a reflection of the class distinction still in existance in the U.K. and tells you where I fit into this scheme.) Unbelievably to me, the New York Post carries the Times cryptic each issue. I personally find it strange that such a paper would have readers who would enjoy taxing their "minds" .. as I said, that is only my personal opinion.

Now.. to the mundane.

Lots of stuff going on in Egypt.. you can see it and read about it... Also.. the Super Bowl is on tonight.. and you can see it and read about it too.. so.. let me write about other stuff that you may or may not have seen or read about.

01. States' stuff

Maine accepted the Whoopie Pie as it's State dessert. There even is a song about Whoopie Pies.. but I will spare you that.

http://www.wickedwhoopies.com/

Wisconsin accepted the lactococcus lactis as the official State microbe. It's the only State to have one. (The bacterium is used in the making of cheddar and Monterrey Jack cheese.)

02. Pot throw:

Apparently, inventive Mexicans have begun to catapult bags of marijuana over the border and into the U.S. I'm surprised that nobody had thought of that before.

03. Euphemism:

Gina Bryant says that a famous story could be updated for the current epoch to:

Crime and Time Out.

04. Humor:

Dave Barry defines a sense of humor as "a measurement of the extent to which we realize that we are trapped in a world almost totally devoid of reason."

I'm looking for persons to speak on humor at our next meeting of the Carroll County Chapter of the Maryland Senior Citizen Hall of Fame. One of the Hall of Fame functions is to get senior citizens to get more involved in humorous things. Studies have shown that seniors who laugh a lot, live longer.

05. The devil you say..

A not too reputable report says that a people in China are sprouting horns on their heads. One grandmother 101 years old, named Zhang Ruifang and a man named Huang Yuanfan, 84 years old.. each have 4 inch long horns. So perhaps everybody gets horns later in life, but do not know it because they die off before it occurs. (Hey, maybe that statue of Moses is right after all.)

06. February 1st:

Some of you have noted that my birthday is February 1st.. one day before Groundhog Day.. lots of famous people besides me were born on that day.. DeAnn Johnson (Computer Analyst: SSA), Dan Hinsche (Computer Programmer: SSA), Harry Ballantyne (Chief SSA Actuary), Dr. Shaw's nurse, Clark Gable and Langston Hughes.

Let's see if I can get Langston Hughes' marvelous poem right:

"I could tell you, if I wanted to,
What makes me like I am,
But I don't really want to,
And you don't give a damn!"

http://www.redhotjazz.com/hughes.html

07. Odorific:

Malawi has banned farting.

http://afrik-news.com/article18831.html

08. Search engines:

BING has been caught using GOOGLE.

09. New food guidelines:

"Don't eat so much!"

10. Bugs!

Bed bugs and stink bugs have made big inroads in Carroll County Maryland, according to the papers. It's the big news in our County. Stink bugs are resistant to poison sprays and are about to destroy all of our farmers' crops.

I have solutions: For stink bugs.. hire 10-year old boys to catch the bugs and pay them a penny a piece.. if the kids are any thing like my cohorts, they will get them all caught in no time flat.

I read that "officials" met in D.C. last week for the Second National Bed Bug Summit! One specialist at the local University of Maryland Extension service reported that he has had 8 calls about bed bugs in the last week, compared to his usual 2 per month in the past. Oh Oh! They have finally made their way to our County, bringing along their cousins, Stink Bugs.

Many years ago, I treated my family to a stay at a famous hotel/motel chain. It cost a bundle of money and yet I wrote down a dozen problems that we had.. one of which was, when I woke up in the morning, my legs were covered with bites and welts. Bed bugs? I didn't think about that possibility at the time.. I considered fleas instead. Anyway, I complained about that and the eleven other problems, but nobody seemed to care. That chain is still big today, especially in the Caribean.

11. Male and Female:

I read where a British security official had his wife placed on the "No Entry" list while she was in her Pakistan homeland.

12. More Winter?

I heard on NPR that on February 2nd, Punxatawny Phil saw his shadow and predicted more weeks of Wintery weather. How can that be? I read in a newspaper that Phil died last year and was being stuffed. Who can you believe?

http://sunniebunniezz.com/holiday/groundhogdaypunx.htm

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