Surprising Isaac

I’ve been fortunate, as a DirecTV customer, to be able to follow live wall-to-wall coverage from TV stations in New Orleans on the approach, arrival, and aftermath of Hurricane Isaac. “Only a Cat 1,” some said, many of them taking officials’ calls for evacuation of low-lying areas as suggestions rather than orders.

Even with “mandatory” evacuation orders, though, the authorities cannot force you to leave your home. I’ve often said that people who live in a mandatory evacuation area should be sent a bill if they don’t leave and public safety folks have to rescue them.

OK, that’s a little harsh. The fact is, while it’s assumed that people stay behind just because it’s inconvenient to move and they think they can ride out the emergency, there’s usually a much better reason for staying: they don’t want to leave their pets – which perhaps means authorities should give pets a higher priority in these situations.

Isaac, of course, was not Katrina. What it lacked in strength, it made up for in tenacity, hanging around Louisiana for days, dumping incredible amounts of rain on populated areas.

So you might wonder why people insist on living in these areas? If they lose their homes to a hurricane, well, that comes with the territory, or so the argument goes. Fact is, there really is no perfect place to live in the United States. The East and the Midwest get the winter’s cold and crippling blizzards. The South has humidity, bugs and in some cases, alligators. The West Coast has relatively little “real weather,” but like the rest of California, it’s prone to earthquakes. Desert residents trade the rain and snow for incredible summer heat. I’m trying to come up with what’s wrong with Hawaii, but I’m sure there’s something.

In any case, you learn a lot about how local media cover disaster situations, and through them, how people react, how public officials behave and the things they didn’t think of, who the heroes and villains are, and just how long it takes to return to something called “normal.”

Again, thanks to DirecTV for providing their hurricane information channel (and hey, if I convert you to become a customer and get credit for the referral, I think I’m supposed to get $100. I believe in full disclosure).

Shootin' From the Hip

Congressman Todd Akin’s thesis that women who are raped are less likely to get pregnant is the latest entry in the political gaffe festival. But is “gaffe” the right word for this?

We usually reserve that word for insensitive slips of the tongue. Some come out as unsuccessful jokes. But others betray deeply held beliefs. You can apologize for the wound such a remark can inflict, due to a lack of sensitivity, but you can’t erase the existence of the belief.

Don’t worry, ladies (and others) – this guy can’t get elected dogcatcher now. There’s only one thing that can save him: data. He’s apologizing, largely because he doesn’t have it. And if you listen to the experts, he won’t. You can read more about it on Politico.

But I did notice when I typed “rape resulting in pregnancy” into Google that I pulled up a site that actually offered data to support Akin’s argument. Of course, their data isn’t as strong as what the other side has.

As to his comment that raped women have some kind of “shutoff” mechanism to prevent pregnancy, well, I don’t where that came from. But do you want to bet there are others beside Akin who believe it?

I’m not apologizing for Akin, but I would venture a guess (no data) that most of us, even the reasonable among us, have some kind of wacky belief that is supported by the flimsiest of anecdotal evidence. Hopefully, as new data becomes available, we learn to surrender that belief to the power of the facts. Or if we can’t, at least shut up about it.

In the words of the old cowboy, “When you’re shootin’ from the hip, pardner, take the gun out of the holster first.”

Contact From Beyond

I had to attend a memorial service yesterday – when you get older, of course, the ratio of these to weddings is much higher. Following the event, there was an interesting discussion.

A son of the deceased mentioned that an unusual number of “coincidences” had occurred as the family was planning the service. One of them seemed innocuous enough. He mentioned the time when he was trying to write the obituary for his father, using pen and paper. At various places in the writing process, when the words didn’t flow well in his mind, well, neither did the ink in the pen; but when they came, the pen worked fine. He wondered: Was his father trying to help him write the piece, acting as editor from beyond the grave?

A cousin of the son who overheard this discussion allowed as how her late mother used to “visit” her on various occasions. At one point, the departed lady visited her daughter at the time when the daughter had just broken up with a fiancé. According to the daughter, her mother told her that whether or not she ever married, “everything was going to be OK,” which calmed the daughter down considerably (at this writing, she is still single). The mother then told the girl that it was the last time she would be appearing, suggesting that her work was done.

The daughter is a professional woman of some stature in her field. One day, she reluctantly told her aunt – a sister of the deceased woman – about these visits, perhaps expecting to see eyes roll and hear laughter. But the aunt said, “No big deal, she used to appear to me all the time.”

Now, these are not people who, to the best of my knowledge, use controlled substances, and at this reception, I didn’t see them with alcoholic drinks in their hands. All I can tell you is, this kind of thing has NEVER happened to me. I do not have a spiritual or transcendental bone in my body, as much as I’d like to.

Even so, I’m not ready to say the above folks are given to hallucinating, so I’m not going to pass judgment. If anyone wants to talk to me from the great beyond, I’m all ears.

Back in the USSR

Today, one of my Facebook friends, who has not pulled the plug on me – yet – reminded me that I should count my blessings and not the number of FB friends. Another, hearing the news about the sentencing of three members of the Russian female band Pussy Riot for “hooliganism,” reminded me that with all the fussing that’s going on in this country righr now, at least it isn’t Russia. There’s one for the blessings list!

This band staged an anti-Putin protest in a Russian Orthodox cathedral. Inappropriate, perhaps – but getting locked up for two years? By those standards, we’d have to build a huge new prison here for the folks at Fox News and another for those at MSNBC. Poor CNN, their problem is these days that they can’t get arrested – but that’s another story.

This Pussy Riot thing will be one to watch. The Putin regime has a repressive track record, most recently supporting the regime in Syria and blocking action there by the rest of the world -- but this time, in a social media age, entertainment celebs – young women – are being messed with, band members who have the support of Paul McCartney and Madonna. Keep an eye on this one, folks – this story will definitely have legs. Those who have lived for decades under repression of various types tend to be a little passive, but will this incident wake up the Russian people?

The only saving grace here is that Mr. Putin tends to care what people think of him. He has expressed support recently for leniency toward these young women. What do you want to bet that he steps in and commutes their sentence (I assume he can do that), so the rest of the world will think he’s a nice guy after all?

Friends, Followers and Figures

After running out of useful ways of spending time one day this week, I happened to open my Facebook Timeline and noticed that the number of Friends had dropped by one.

I still have a little self-respect, so I’m not going to tell you how many FB friends I have, other than it’s a lot more than Twitter followers (still have found relatively little use for that). In any case, though there’s no good reason for it, I’m consumed with curiosity as to why the number of Friends went down.

There are a few possibilities. It could be some kind of Facebook glitch, though that is, of course, highly unlikely. Or, it may be that somebody pulled the plug on Facebook, especially if they live in a dicey foreign country. But it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that someone pulled the plug on ME – I’ve been “unfriended.”

So now, questions arise: Was it something I said? Did I zig politically when I should have zagged, or pan the wrong movie, or hit the “Like” button for some tragic story? Was it my spelling or English usage? Did someone take me literally when I was trying to be cleverly sarcastic?

I may, of course, be able to figure out the answer if I determine who left, but the plug-puller doesn’t have to disclose that. I don’t have a lot of FB friends – I don’t collect them – but there are enough so that it would be a fairly difficult task to go through and dope out who was there once, and isn’t now.

But I have to draw the line somewhere. There are enough figures to keep track of in life – cholesterol count, blood pressure, BMI, fat percentage in meat – and even my age. And that’s a number that’s going up soon – meaning I should be a little more careful about what I spend an ever-diminishing amount of time worrying about.

And the Hits Just Keep On Comin'

A little break from the usual routine today.

This is a band that performs occasionally in the region where I live, and they do some interesting work -- just thought you might like to hear them. Feel free to leave a review if you like.

http://soundcloud.com/opalaxis/pave-my-way-opal-axis-1

(Just so you know, the earlier broken link here has been FIXED)

Returning to Earth

The choice of Pail Ryan as Mitt Romney’s running mate will have an immediate positive impact, whatever your political persuasion: It should bring an end to the silly season.

Personally, I am very tired of hearing about Romney’s taxes. If he has legally avoided paying some or all taxes, he has only been taking advantage of the rules of the game (and the tax system is a great big game, as I have observed in previous posts). And if he declines to release his tax returns, that’s his legal right – I wish he had the cojones to just tell his critics to go fish and be done with it. Romney’s personal wealth is not an issue. Real tax reform, however, certainly is, and that’s part of the Ryan agenda.

Again, many of us may not care for the reforms Ryan has suggested as part of his Republican budget plan. But he’s the first since Herman Cain (remember him?) to actually have a plan. He picked up the ball when nobody – including President Obama – would touch it. Both major parties are now compelled, at least for the short term, to deal with issues instead of personalities. And Romney’s choice makes the voters’ choice even clearer in November.

Ryan is conservative on social issues, too, especially abortion, but I don’t recall his beating us over the head with his morality like Santorum. Again, we’re talking about a clear choice here, and that’s good news for the electorate.

When all is said and done, the vice president, if nothing else, is a spare president – the one who takes over if something happens to the boss, and the bottom-line consideration for voters is whether the candidate has the qualifications to do that. In the case of Ryan, the short answer is yes. We’ll see what the media dig up on him as time goes on.

But at least he’s not a Palin. One of those is quite enough.

Sound Tracks of the Times

So the shooter at the Wisconsin Sikh temple, it’s been reported, was an accomplished hate rock musician. It sounds like a new musical genre – hate rock – and it may come as a shock that it’s out there, but why should it be a surprise to anyone?

Music is about the most effective motivator we humans use. Just think about what a love song or a march can do to your mood. Message music certainly isn’t new. We’ve had Guthrie, Dylan, and Baez stirring our social justice juices. And then, for us flower children, there was Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction," a really cheerful sing-a-long. Did these lead us to vioelnce? Maybe not, but perhaps a demonstration or two.

What about rap? This genre has offered more than its share of misogyny and hatred of police -- and unlike the white supremacist music, this stuff has had much wider mainstream acceptance. We may tolerate some of this material because it’s a way that portions of our culture blow off steam. But it also gives us valuable clues into a mindset.

Persuasive as song lyrics may be, though, it’s relatively rare that they actually constitute the trigger for violence. They could certainly push an individual in that direction, but most of the time, there’s a great gulf fixed between the lyrics and action.

It may indeed have happened in the case of Wade Page. But a more significant issue in these cases, to my mind, is the perpetrators’ weapon of choice. This is America, and it’s a gun, almost every single time.

We may be shocked at hate literature, hate speech and hate music, and may ask why it can’t be regulated or banned. Shouldn’t we be equally as shocked at how easy it is for the unhinged to obtain guns and ammunition?

Total gun control will never be politically palatable in this country, and there’s no need for it. But any little thing we can do to at least slow down the wackos among us in their effort to put their hands on guns and bullets would seem to be something to consider, in light of the events of the past few weeks.

Olympic Spoils

Another NBC network news anchor gave us some Olympic results, but preceded it with a “spoiler alert,” meaning, if you wanted to wait for NBC’s delayed Olympic broadcast to see who won what, you would have to step away from the TV.

When I was in radio news in Southern California, I had to deliver the Wimbledon tennis results every summer, and because of the U.K.’s day starting eight hours ahead of ours, some finals would be in before the end of “morning drive.” I had to preface the report with a warning that those who didn’t want to know who won the matches before the nightly TV broadcast should turn down their volume.

But that was then. In those days, of course, there were relatively few information outlets, so those disseminating it could allow themselves the illusion of actually controlling its release.

I hate to be a spoiler, but the 21st century did in fact arrive, despite the efforts of some media to hold it back. They don’t begin to control the information, and in this interconnected world, people will talk.

It is not a media responsibility to warn consumers that they might actually hear some news if they continue to watch or listen. The Olympics are a lot more than a simple vehicle for entertainment. The mission of the athletes is to win – there’s nothing that requires them to preserve a dramatic impact for the folks at home, side benefit though that may be.

I’ve had enough of media that want it both ways – they want consumers to think them “considerate” by warning you to leave your TV or radio for just a minute. They’re desperately afraid that if you face being deprived of your nightly drama, you won’t come back. Sorry, but if you’re one of those people, Jack Nicholson was right – you can’t handle the truth.