Celebrity summer jobs just to prove how far one can travel in this crazy world of ours

Memorial Day 2010 > my small town at its best & why I love it so

Robin Hood > a very short review

A notable cast starring Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, William Hurt & Max von Sydow in a mediocre film by Ridley Scott. Wait for free cable, I say. For more goto IMDb

Loyalty > a forum dialog "sadly all true"

Person 1. Loyalty went out the window in the '80s when companies stopped seeing employees as people and started seeing them as "human resources". At that point, staff became another expense to manage and minimize. Manufacturing was the first major victim as companies would move production to cheaper labor markets (ultimately giving rise to China's current power).

Person 2. Nowadays, staff and even those in the executive suite don't see stability & loyalty from their management so there's no reason to offer any on their end.

Person 3. In short, loyalty no longer puts food on the table.

Person 4. Outstanding explanation. I just had a similar discussion at work last night, more specifically on the death of the manufacturing process in America.

Person 5. The only loyalty [anyone] needs to show is to himself and those he cares about.

Person 6. Sadly, all true.

Video > Does your best work go unpaid? Isn't it more fun?

Dennis Hopper dead age 74 > a good multimedia tribute on Huffington Post

1 billion condoms > Courtesy of the Huffington Post

"It may have sounded like a lot when the Vancouver Olympics were stocked with 100,000 condoms, and it may have been shocking when that huge total did not suffice. The 2010 World Cup in South Africa, however, promises to blow Olympic condom records out of the water.

South Africa has said that it needs one billion condoms in 2010, due in large part to the upcoming soccer tournament. A batch of 42 million is already headed to the host nation by way of Britain.

According to the Guardian, one billion condoms would represent a substantial increase from the country's typical supply:

Some 450m male condoms are distributed in South Africa every year but, with 16 million sexually active men and one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world, there are never enough.

In addition to the surge of condoms, 40,000 prostitues are expected to enter South Africa during the World Cup."

Ancillary stories here

18 hacked digital road signs > funny but potentially dangerous

The Yin & Yang of a weekend trip to Washington, DC

Carol and I traveled to Washington, DC ostensibly to attend a wedding. We had some free time & there were a few sites we both wanted to visit between our social obligations.

On Friday afternoon, in the blazing sun, we walked to the Vietnam Memorial wall. On the way there we ran into a friendly squirrel.

Calling it a wall is sort of a misconception, at least to us. While it is a wall, it is set into the side of a berm, i.e. it was not a free standing wall which we had always imagined it to be. This did not take away from its simple beauty or tragic symbolism. 

As we walked along it in respect of those who were sacrificed, I told Carol that what saddened me most was knowing that 35,000 of those 'names' became eligible for their etching only after the start of peace talks between the United States & the Republic of North Vietnam. 

The two sides first had to first decide on the location for the negotiation, then the shape of the table the negotiators were to sit at & other such important items before getting into the protracted peace talks which where punctuated by extra U.S. bombing runs to make a negotiation point, the suspension of the talks & the return to talks, a dance that went on  for years so everyone could save 'face'.

Saturday morning started with a cholesterol filled breakfast (eggs benedict) & a cooler walk to the National Holocaust Museum. It was crowded, many of the vistors where young. I guess that's a good thing but I couldn't imagine how these kids were going to absorb what they were to read & what they would see.

In the museum lobby, you take an ID card which contains the photo and the story of a person who died in the holocaust. My person was a Polish Jew named Chaim Engel. When the Germans invaded Poland, they sent him to Germany as a slave laborer. In 1940 he was shipped back to Poland but immediately deported to the Sobibor death camp. There a small prisoner revolt took place; Chaim stabbed his overseer (to death) while screaming the name of his father & his mother & others murdered with each thrust of the knife. Chaim escaped into the dense forest where he hid out until the war ended. After living in Europe & Israel, he emigrated to the U.S. in 1957.

At the start, the museum is dark and foreboding. No natural light filters through the steel covered windows.

The tour beings on the forth floor and wends its way down an irregular ramp which takes you through different spaces of exhibits, photos, videos, news reels, clothes, hair, films, objects (large & small) in a time line from the rise of the Nazi Party to the present.

But to give you an inkling of the intensity is to describe traveling to the fourth floor in a crowded industrial-like stainless steel elevator; to me a reflection of the gas chambers that were used to poison groups of un-suspecting prisoners. At some level I felt some relief when the doors opened on the fourth floor.

The story of the Jew's descent into hell begins with Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass) and continues as the race laws were enacted, destroying Jewish life & dignity bit by bit before destroying bodies and minds. Then came the camp experience told by survivors via film & audio recordings. Next the liberation as seen by the troops and here I have to pause for a moment to describe one video that impacted me deeply but I didn't know it until later when it hit me like what I imagine PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) episode must be like. 

When the allies reached Auschwitz & Bergen-Belsen & other camps, the Nazis had not had enough time to destroy all the 'evidence' of their atrocities so the allied soldiers found piles of dead bodes which had not yet been burned along with mountains of shoes & hair, and brushes & spoons. Oh yes, there were the odd skeletal survivors & one can only marvel at the strength of the body to survive such horrors. 

To avoid disease, the allied army was tasked with buring the piled dead bodies in mass graves. This was accomplished using bulldozers so there I stood watching a video of these bulldozers pushing piles of emaciated corpses into a mass grave & covering them with dirt. 

Then came the story of how no one would accept the refugees from these camps who had nothing, some left without their dignity nor a shred of clothing to hide their bodies. Not the United States, no country really, so Jewish organizations set up camps for these people to heal & to get organized before moving on.

We walked through narrow hallways with photos from ceiling to floor on both sides of people who had lived in the shtetls (villages) before the war, the names of these shtetls engraved in glass to be glanced at as we moved along. Then the names of the inhabitants of the shtetls also etched in glass. Some light could now be seen as we approached the end of this tragic journey. 

But just before we reached the first floor, there was a vast bright and almost empty room save some simple stone benches & an eternal flame. There were only a very few people in there. 

It was the remembrance room where people could sit and meditate, to think about what they had just seen & heard, to think about relatives or friends, or friends of friends, or relatives of friends, or period stories read & to consider some of the more recent ethnic cleansing in Europe and Africa. 

It reminded me of the a room in the Jersalem Halacoust Museum -- a room of eternal flames -- a number of them placed on the floor below a low, wooden, viewing balcony, each flame representing a remembrance of the thousands of Jews lost in each country conquered by the Nazi war machine. 

I started to enter the Washington Holocaust remembrance room & felt a sudden need to stop as though a strong hand was in front of me, preventing me from entering. Mind you, this was all in nano seconds. But I turned away overwhelmed by an enormous emotion, a sorrow, so huge that it left me with the greatest urge to burst into tears but I managed to keep myself together. Carol must have seen something on my face & asked if I was all right. I couldn't talk. I could only shake my head. 

Outside we sat on a stone bench, watched children lined up waiting for their tour to begin, and talked about other things: the weather, what we would do next, the back timing necessary to get to the chuch on time. After a few minutes we walked back to the hotel. 

Four thirty in the afternoon found us at the little yellow church near the White House for a lovely wedding ceremony followed by cocktails, dinner, speeches & dancing. 

The date was May 22rd & it wasn't until many hours later that I flashed on my 97 year old father being buried about six weeks before, his coffin in the hole in the ground; everyone throwing shovels full of earth into the hole to cover the coffin which contained his body, emaciated by old age. He would have been 98 on May 23rd.

Huffington Post > FINALLY. Someone, somewhere is being held accountable for something. Maybe this will start a trend.

WASHINGTON — Democratic sources say the Obama administration has fired the head of the U.S. Minerals Management Service in response to blistering criticism over lax oversight of offshore drilling.

The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity before the official announcement, tell The Associated Press that President Barack Obama will announce the decision Thursday.

Elizabeth "Liz" Birnbaum had run the service in the Interior Department since July 2009.

Slow down & prepare yourself to enjoy a real slow motion video > The world's only sloth orphanage run by legendary sloth whisperer Judy Arroyo

From The Smoking Gun > Dumb Toilet Paper Bandit Captured

MAY 10 > Nebraska's Toilet Paper Bandit is under wraps. Joshua Nelson, 29, was arrested Saturday night and charged with the armed robbery ... a heist during which Nelson obscured his face in a ribbon of toilet paper. [snip] Cops began zeroing in on Nelson a week after the April 24 robbery, when a man who lives near the convenience store reported finding a discarded knife, "several rolls of coins similar to those taken in the robbery," and a prescription bottle bearing Nelson's name[/snip] For the video of the robbery and the rest of this crappy story click here.

Tacky but funny ad campaign > Viagra for women

The Venus Grand Slam

Frank Serpico arrested for carrying a concealed carrot. > What?

Honest cop Frank Serpico was scratching his head yesterday after police at the Capitol in DC stopped him for carrying a concealed carrot -- just hours after nobody noticed that he'd accidentally left an "ominous"-looking lunch bag unattended at New York's Penn Station. "These are indeed troubling times," said Serpico, who in the 1970s battled New York City police corruption and ended up shot in the face. The Post'sS.A. Miller reports that in a speech at a whistleblower symposium, Serpico said he expected police dogs would be surrounding his "big black plastic" lunch bag when he retrieved it -- but nobody cared. That didn't jibe with vigilant enforcement of the ban on bringing food into the Capitol, including the carrot left over from his lunch. "I said, 'Look, I'm licensed to carry firearms. I'm a retired New York City detective,' " he said. "Thank God, some people still use discretion. [They] didn't take my carrot away." Read more

You've got to watch > Gorilla reunion.

It really makes me wonder about all kinds of things.

YouTube > How to Brush a Bouvier

Photos > Puerto Rico

Photo > Lights and Shadows

Basket of Gold (I only wish)

YouTube > Teaching 'Leave It" command (excellent for Bouviers)

YouTube > clipping your dog's nails

YouTube > Nobel, an accomplished Bouvier des Flandres

News fair & balanced > you decide

From the Huffington Post: Jessica [Simpson] reportedly farted during a business meeting in January. "While one of the executives was speaking in a room full of five people, Jessica let out a very loud fart," a source told Us Weekly. "The tension was extreme. No one knew what to say."

Video > How to configure Facebook privacy settings

I love democracy > Going to vote now in the Ridgefield, CT budget referendums

Notice > Automated Email List

For those of you who receive 'my universe' updates via the automated e-mail list, plse note that beginning tomorrow you will need to go to my blog @ http://janrifkinson.blogspot.com/ scroll down & click "follow" in the right column if you are interested/curious in what transpires in my little universe. Thanks.

Daily Flower Show has ended for now

For my mother on mother's day

You wonder about my mother. Well, my mother is my hero in life. She was smart, funny, independent (except at the end), creative & terribly honest. She could strike up a conversation with anyone -- and did -- while guarding her privacy -- and she did. She was extremely proper but open minded to new ideas & customs which she never followed. She was a great date & while I was in prep school in PA she used to take me to New York to the theatre, museums, and the like.

Many years later, when I first came to New York to work after college, my mother came to my little apartment to find an empty refrigerator & a dusty floor & insisted that I had to buy food & have a maid. I explained that I never went into grocery stores & that I didn't want anyone cleaning up after me. However I agreed that I would accompany her to the grocery store only to wait outside while she shopped. I did this barefoot. I also agreed to a maid as long as I never met her, never paid her, never had to tell her what to do. This was accomplished, starting one day the very next week while I was at work. This lady bought food, cleaned the apartment, left me notes & I never laid eyes on her. A couple of years went by.

Then Carol & I started dating. One night she stayed over & slept in as I went to work. The next morning as Carol lay drowsily in bed, she heard the door open & a person enter the apartment. Frightened, she wrapped her naked body in a sheet & jumped into the closet where she was discovered by the maid. The next week, I found a note from the maid saying she felt I was now in good hands & didn't need her help any more and she never returned.

As my mother grew old, she became afraid of this and that & my father, ever the doctor & loving husband, took care of her. Slowly but surely over the years my mother fell into decline. Finally she entered the hospital as an emergency patient several times with fluid in her lungs & a weakened heart. The last time she entered the hospital, she suffered an attack of some kind which landed her in ICU where she was strapped down, intubated, fed intravenously, diapered, bathed, handled, rolled over, & examined every few hours.

Nightly we met with her doctor -- my father, my sister & I. My father & sister discussed her medical condition since they are both doctors while I sat across from my mother's physician merely listening. Finally I explained to my mother's doctor that I had a different agenda. I believed he was practicing the best & worst of medicine -- the best because of all the technology & medical advancements, the worst because my mother had no quality of life nor could we ever hope for one. I asked that he make her more comfortable with more drugs so she could rest peacefully. He explained her dosage & I explained that I didn't care -- I wanted it doubled. It was.

Finally my mother died strapped down, intubated, fed intravenously, diapered, bathed, handled, rolled over & examined every few hours. She was sleeping.

The Jewish religion includes a ritual bathing by women from the synagogue who then wrap the body in a shroud to be buried in the simplest of pine boxes. But before that happened my father insisted on seeing her one last time -- something that is not done. And he wanted us all to see her, too.

I entered the storage room where the wooden coffin rested on a table. My father, sister & brother-in-law went left, towards the head of the coffin. I turned right towards the foot of the coffin & as I walked around the pine box, I gently removed the toe tag from her right toe -- just like the movies.

There was my mother, world traveler, great date, funny, smart, independent, creative & terribly honest, lying there in a simple dress, cold & colorless with a toe tag. Thanks to my father, that's the last memory I have of her.

I talked to my mother every day during the several years of her decline. I shared her fright of falling, her frustrations of not being able to write because her hands shook, losing her appetite and her strength, not being able to read (her favorite pastime) & her fear of death. Her own mother had died at age 83. She did, too. I still try to talk to her every day. Some days are harder than others.

Mother's Day Flowers

A short essay on innocence

As we all know by now, a car bomb was found & disarmed near Times Square. The area was quickly evacuated, a major undertaking causing great disruption. Two days later a mysterious backpack appeared un-attended on 44th street causing the same reaction. It turned out to contain bottles of water & some other non-leathal materials. (A test, maybe?) 

Sometimes NYC subway riders are subjected to random backpack searches. Backpacks are not allowed in Yankee Stadium nor into Times Square when about a million people congregate to watch the crystal ball drop to signal a New Year. 

With that as a backdrop, Carol (my better half) commented somewhat ironically that, as she strolled through New Canaan, CT on her way to visit a girlfriend, she passed McKenzies News Stand, a very old establishment in the town & there -- next to the doorway -- she noticed a number of un-attended backpacks leaning against the building as they are not allowed inside the cramped store. She thought nothing of it nor should she have. Neither did the dozens of other people who walked on by that beautiful spring day.

I guess the madness that started the World Trade disaster hasn't affected every part of our lives. There are still innocent niches to be found & celebrated if we look for them. 

NYT review > Joe & Mika, the odd couple of MSNBC mornings

As a viewer I agree whole heartedly with the review. But more than that, the review, itself, was as intelligent & eclectic as the show which entertains & informs with guests like Hendrick Hertzberg, Rudolf Giuliani, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jonathan Capehart, Lawrence O'Donnell, Chuck Todd or Savannah Guthrie, Ariana Huffington, Christy Hefner, Jon Meacham, Al Sharpton, Pat Buchanan, Mike Barnicle, Jerry Weintraub, Tina Brown, Zbigniew Brzezinski, various Politico reporters, members of the house & senate & many, many others. It's sort of a Cirque du Soleil of intellectual acrobatics. You just never know who is going to show up on any given morning so you gotta watch to find out.

Saturday's flower

Kanellos, The Riot Dog

Essay > Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?

It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties but soon I was more than just a social thinker.

I began to think alone -- to relax, I told myself. Inevitably though, one thought led to another. Thinking became more and more important to me and finally I was thinking all the time.

I began to think on the job. I knew thinking and employment didn't  mix well but I couldn't stop myself. I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could peruse Thoreau and Kafka.

I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, "Exactly, what is it that we are doing here?"

Things weren't great at home either. One evening, after turning off the TV, I asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her mother's.

Soon I had a reputation as a heavy thinker. One day the boss called me in. He said, "Skippy, I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don't stop thinking on the job, you'll have to find another job." This gave me a lot to think about.

I came home early after that conversation. "Honey," I confessed, "I've been thinking..." "I know you've been thinking," she said, "and I want a divorce!" "But Honey, surely it's not that serious."

"It IS that serious," she said, lower lip aquiver. "You think as much as a college professor, and college professors don't make any money, so if you keep on thinking we won't have any money!"

"That's a faulty syllogism," I said impatiently, and she began to cry. I'd had enough. "I'm going to the library," I snarled and stomped out the door.

I was really in the mood for some Nietzsche, with NPR radio playing in the background. I roared into the parking lot and ran up to the big glass doors but... they didn't open. The library was closed.

To this day, I believe a Higher Power was looking out for me that night.

As I sank to the ground clawing at the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster caught my eye.

FRIEND, IS HEAVY THINKING RUINING YOUR LIFE? it asked. You may recognize it. It comes from the standard Thinker's Anonymous poster.

Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker. I never miss a TA meeting. At each meeting, we watch a non-educational video. Last week it was "Porky's." Then we share our experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting.

I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home. Somehow, life just seems a lot easier since I stopped thinking.

* * * * *

This is not an original piece. I cannot take credit for it. I wish I could. And I can't give credit because I don't know who wrote it. I wish I did.

Friday's flower

When the difference between "B" & "M" is a huge "F"

Slate > "...a massive sell-off sent the Dow plummeting 1,000 points before rebounding a bit. What caused the sudden dip? It might have been one trader's tiny, but huge, typo.

CNBC is reporting that, according to several sources, a trader at Citigroup may have entered a "b" for billion on his computer instead of an "m" for million while selling shares of Procter & Gamble. Thus the massive selling frenzy was kicked off..."

Thursday's flower(s)

Times Square Bomber's resume

Including: To prepare monthly commission forecasting for high profile Affinion clients such as:

1. Citibank
2. Bank of America
3. Royal Bank of Scotland
4. Peoples Bank
5. U.S. Bank
6. Wells Fargo

Hmmmm, someone else who could have blown up the financial sector......

Department of Redundancy Department

I have heard all these phrases used at one time or another -- many by young television reporters -- particularly those working at smaller television stations. I may even have used one or two myself once upon a time but, if so, I have since broken myself of the habit. I promise.

Add your own to this ridiculous list. Then remember not to use them in conversation.

• free gift
• old heirloom
• general consensus
• 6am in the morning
• hilariously funny
• old antique
• recorded earlier
• in close proximity
• hollow tube
• regress back
• reintroduce again
• demented madman
• co-partner
• reiterate again
• impeccably clean
• unique individual
• refer back
• once & only
• deja vu all over again

Wednesday's flower

Tuesday's flower

Sign of the Times > space alien tries to fly Skywest flight

Breaking News: A Skywest Airlines flight headed from Helena, Montana to Salt Lake City had to be diverted to Idaho Falls Sunday night. Idaho Falls Police say an unruly passenger was banging on the cockpit door forcing pilots to make the unscheduled landing just before 6:00 p.m. Sgt. Phil Grimes says other passengers on the flight helped restrain Matthew Kleindorfer, 32, who told flight attendants he was a space alien and wanted to fly the plane.

Slate > SCOTUS closes main entrance to public, a shame IMO

Beginning tomorrow, the Supreme Court announced today, the public will no longer be able to enter the Court’s building by the main entrance at the top of the steps on the front.  Citing security concerns, the Court said two new entrances beside the steps will now be the public’s main point of entry into the courthouse.  The decision provoked what amounted to dissents from two Justices — Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (although they did not call their remarks a formal dissent).  The two Justices, while acknowledging the security issues, noted that no other supreme court in the world has shut down its front entrance.

The Court’s statement on the issue is here, and the Breyer-Ginsburg statement “concerning” the decision is here.  That statement was entered on the Court’s Journal for today’s proceedings.  The entry reflects who was on the bench today, not the list of Justices taking part in the decision about the entrance; that presumably was decided by the full Court.

Monday's flower

Sunday's flower

Saturday's Flower