Sex, Sex, and More Sex

Monday, December 5, 2011 by Dick.

Twenty-nine percent of ordinary Americans have had sex on a first date, and about as many have had an “unexpected sexual encounter with someone new.” Among people who are married or living in a committed relationship (or formerly married), sixteen percent have cheated on their partner (nearly twice as many men as women) — while more, thirty percent, have fantasized about it.

Twenty-seven percent of Americans who reported being happy in marriage admitted to having an affair.

Ordinary Americans are pikers.

Voice of America reports that “When U.S. businessman Herman Cain suspended his campaign [Saturday] for the Republican presidential nomination following allegations of sexual harassment and a lengthy extramarital affair, he joined a long list of U.S. presidents and presidential contenders whose personal lives have attracted scrutiny.”

The long list is pretty much all of them.

Bill Clinton, John Edwards, Dwight Eisenhower, Newt Gingrich, James Garfield, Warren Harding, Gary Hart, John F. Kennedy, Thomas Jefferson, Lyndon Johnson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Then there are the Mark Sanfords, Arnold Schwarzeneggers, Eliot Spitzers, Anthony Weiners. Apparently about 97.7 percent of American presidents and 110 percent of American presidential candidates.

What did we expect? From the Victorians through Viet Nam, public morality did inhibit any open acknowledgment of sexuality but things have (sort of) changed. Most American homes today probably have copies of Playboy and Fanny Hill and the Joy of Sex but the owners still keep them out of sight. On the other hand, a couple generations of soap operas have been hotbeds of in-your-face adultery. They reflected American life or at least American political life.

Now we tell ourselves stories — stories about how prim we are and how licentious our neighbors are — and those stories hurt us.

Countries with an ultraconservative attitude towards sex and sex education like the U.S. have a higher incidence of sexually transmitted diseases and teenage pregnancy.

I have some simple advice for these people in public life:

Grow a pair!
You guys (and I mean all of you political philanderers from any affiliation) think you’re winning the dicksizing contest.

You ain’t.

You’d like We the People to believe you are King of the Bedroom or at least the oval rug but you can’t even stand up for your bigger self when your littler self gets caught standing up.

Here’s the answer. When the admittedly brain dead reporter asks, “Did you really have sex with three women, and a goat?” tell the truth.

“Yep. What’s it to you?”

About the only follow up to that is, “Was it good for the goat?”

Actually, a decent reporter should ask the spouse to comment. It would be a good teaching moment for relationship building. Maybe for polyamory. Or at least for truth in advertising.

Posted in Sociology, Society, Politics & News, Big Thoughts, Random Access | 7 Comments »

Lie to Me

Monday, October 31, 2011 by Dick.

Choosy mothers may not choose Jif any more ¹ .

The price Jif is going up by more than FORTY percent today, according to published reports.

Social Security checks are going up by less than FOUR percent, according to published reports.

Decades before she collected Social Security, my (very choosy) mom branded us a Skippy Peanut Butter household. After all Jif is just creamed peanuts in a jar but Skippy is peanutbutter.com.

Monthly Social Security for more than 60 million Americans will increase by 3.6 percent starting with checks issued January 1, 2012 (the Supplemental Security Income increase starts with checks issued December 31 of this year).

The San Antonio Express News reported that “the Cost of Living Adjustment ensures that the purchasing power of Social Security and SSI benefits is not eroded by inflation. It is based on the percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) from the third quarter of the last year a COLA was determined to the third quarter of the current year. If there is no increase, there can be no COLA. There was no COLA in 2010 and 2011 because the CPI-W, as determined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Department of Labor, for those years did not increase above the level of the third quarter of 2008, the last year a COLA was determined.”

Some recipients, may see their Social Security partially or completely eaten by the rising Medicare premiums.

Is Lie to Me Real?

Lie to Me was a Fox television series that spanned three seasons from 2009 into 2011. The show centered on human lie detection based on applied psychology including interpreting microexpressions, a Facial Action Coding System, and body language. Lie to Me was cancelled by Fox in May but probably not because people can’t detect liars.

Nearly 80% of Americans said they do not trust the government to do what is right, according to a Pew Research Center public opinion survey released in 2010. It was the highest level of distrust of Washington in half a century.

That was 2010.

A New York Times and CBS poll released last week shows now, just 18 months later, 89% of Americans do not trust government to do the right thing and 74% of us say that we believe the nation is on the wrong track. That’s higher than the highest level of distrust of Washington in more than 60 years.

There are plenty of partisan political reasons for discontent but I figure it is simpler than ideology.

Uncle Sam lies.

From Vietnam body counts to “I am not a crook” to “I did not have sex with that woman,” we have become lost in a misery of misstatements, mistruths, misdirections. Lies.

I don’t believe the statistics that show my cost of living has risen only 3.6% since 2008. Somebody monkeyed with the numbers. Somebody lied.

I don’t believe Harry Reid who said “It’s very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine. It’s the public-sector jobs where we’ve lost huge numbers,” last week while pimping a $35 billion bailout for public employee unions. Somebody monkeyed with the numbers poorly. Somebody lied.

I don’t believe in Anthropogenic Global Warming. Lots of somebodies monkeyed with the numbers to make that case. Somebody lied.

Of course it may be entirely because that well-known inventor of the Internet, Al Gore, lied to us in order to feather his own very noble but lightbulb-intense mansion.

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Unfortunately, the result of the lies is that choosy mothers can’t afford Jif and really really choosy mothers will have to give up on Skippy for the peanut butter cookies in my Halloween basket.

Posted in Throw Da Bums Out, Society, Politics & News, Big Thoughts, Random Access | 5 Comments »

Art Bras

Saturday, October 1, 2011 by Dick.

Today would have been my mother’s 92nd birthday. Mary Harper was an award winning artist, a tolerant housewife, and superlative mother. She died in 2002 after almost winning her fight with breast cancer.

Lexington, Kentucky-area quilters have been decorating bras in advance of Breast Cancer Awareness month which began on Saturday and continues through the month of October.

Breast cancer accounts for 16 percent of all cancer deaths among women nationwide; a woman’s risk for developing breast cancer in her lifetime is one in seven. A man’s risk is smaller but not tiny.

The Plum Creek Quilters Guild and the Lexington Regional Health Center will sponsor the Think Pink Cele-bra-tion next Thursday.

PCQG member Kathy Beck made themed art bras called “Cheer for the Cure” and “Snow Boobies.” Cancer survivor and member Linda Maloley made two art bras, “Flat Busted” and “Support Bra.” The quilters’ art bras will be modeled and auctioned to raise money for the Eppley Cancer Center.

90% of all diagnosed cases of breast cancer have no family history.

In other fund raisers, Art beCAUSE held its 9th annual Breast Cancer Foundation Gala at Westin Copley Place in Boston yesterday. Art beCAUSE is a foundation founded by an art gallery owner and breast cancer owner. Together, they decided together to use some of the profit from the art gallery to fund research.

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among Vermont women.

My mom studied fashion design at Spring Garden Institute after she earned a B.A.-English at Swarthmore. Once, when I was about 10, she covered one of her own brassieres with colorful fabric to form the top half of designer bikini. She would have made a bra for the Think Pink Cele-bra-tion. She did donate paintings to events like Art beCAUSE.

Art brings joy and can bring funding. And art projects like these help more than cancer survivors. You can do that in your own town.

Posted in Boobs, Big Thoughts, Random Access | 1 Comment »

Pigeon Scratches

Monday, August 15, 2011 by Dick.

Not many people in North Puffin know that my college buddy Jabe Roy snuck me onto a flag station at Bridgehampton Race Circuit when I was a bit shy of my 20th birthday. That wasn’t the weekend I set the land speed record from Hoboken, through New York City, out the L.I.E. to NY27 and on to the track. That came in Jabe Roy’s ‘65 Vette a year or two later.

“The Bridge” was a 2.85 mile, 13 turn, road course sitting on some prime real estate out near the tip of Long Island, New York. OK, when I was there it was only a decade past being a potato farm but the area was growing by leaps and bounds. Today you can drive a golf cart on the same pavement that Mark Donohue, Dan Gurney, Bruce McLaren, Paul Newman, Jackie Stewart, and Rufus drove. And, of course, me.

My good friend and crew chief Rufus says he never drove my cars at Bridgehampton; he drove only to the flag stations. The earlier named star, racing legend Rufus Parnelli Jones, started on the pole with a 1:44.04 lap time in the 1969 Trans Am race.

Stirling Moss called it the “most challenging course in America.”

I was a year too young to set foot on a race track when I earned my National license in Flagging & Communications. I jumped the fence and earned my National competition license shortly after I did become “legal.” And it all started at the Bridge.

“All who have raced there know that the earth is flat and ends in the sand at turn two,” Bruce MacInnes said once. He was just another amateur racer when I knew him but he grew up to be Chief Instructor at Skip Barber’s Racing School. I have kept the hammer down through that turn; the temptation to feather the gas there is great.

Over in the political department last week, I remarked that (most) people apparently want to live in pigeonholes. Maybe it’s because they don’t have to think there.

That resonated for me in a way that transcended politics.

People reading this know I’m a news and political junky but how many readers know that I’m a mechanical engineer? Or a landscape photographer? How about that I chopped down some of Vermont’s vast fiberglass forest to build the 30′ production catamaran that I also designed? That I have skied the Alps and the Chesapeake, managed a movie theater in Times Square, or taught in Vermont Colleges? Perhaps you do know I anchor a local teevee show but not that I taught lifesaving. Or that I raced cars.

We get pigeonholed.

Pretty much everyone appreciates that Paul Newman won an Academy Award for The Color of Money. I knew him as one the drivers who pushed my Camaro along the pit lane when we were sitting waiting for a red-flagged race to restart. Bob Sharp once said PLN could have been world champion had he started racing before he was forty years old. He was that good. Who knew?

We get pigeonholed.

Neuroscientist Dave Sulzer, a professor at Columbia, studies how the different parts of the brain communicate and pursues treatments for certain diseases. In his other life, he co-founded the Thai Elephant Orchestra, a 16-elephant ensemble that performs in Lampang, Northern Thailand. Their second album includes the music of Beethoven and Hank Williams. Who knew?

We get pigeonholed.

Here in North Puffin my public persona is arts council chair and newspaper columnist. And occasional geek. Discovering that I can drive anything with wheels or build a dovetail joint for a cabinet drawer surprises most everyone.

“The emotional rewards of driving this turn ‘flat out’ are just as intense as the physical consequences of blowing it,” Mr. MacInnes said about Turn Two at the Bridge.

The rewards of living outside of the pigeons’ roost smell pretty good, too.

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Rufus suggested I list the race cars I’ve owned and driven.

• ‘60 TVR. This car was allegedly Mark Donohue’s but we never confirmed that. It spent an interesting afternoon with a tow rope through the windshield opening.
• Triumph TR4. My “school” car. Came with a Mercury wagon tow car painted to match. I learned that front engine/RWD drive cars handle differently than rear engine/RWD drive cars when Porsche driver Alan Howes gave me the hot line at the New Thompson Speedway. Rufus eventually bought it from me and made it into a much better race car than when I owned it.
• ‘69 Camaro. The blue car which started out life painted yellow and which we raced in red-and-white.
• ‘71 Camaro. The gold car, built at Three Pines Farm. This was my primary ride from the time it was new until I smacked the wall at Charlotte and put an end to it.
• Lotus Formula C. I drove this at Pocono to get some “logbook time” and learned that being able to see the tires going round and round is very distracting.

The 1969 Trans-Am at the Bridge.

Posted in History, Big Thoughts, Random Access | 2 Comments »

Memorial Day

Monday, May 30, 2011 by Dick.

Today is Memorial Day in the United States. The holiday once known as Decoration Day commemorates the men and women who perished under the flag of this country, fighting for what sets our America apart: the freedom to live as we please.

“Holiday” is a contraction of holy and day; the word originally referred only to special religious days. Here in the U.S. of A. holiday means any special day off work or school instead of a normal day off work or school.

The Uniform Holidays Bill which gave us Monday shopaholidays moved Memorial Day from its traditional May 30 date to the last Monday in May. Today is May 30 so perhaps we can shut up and salute.

Lest we forget, the Americans we honor did not “give their lives.” They did not merely perish. They did not just cease living, check out, croak, depart, drop, expire, kick off. kick the bucket, pass away or pass on, pop off, or bite the dust. Their lives were taken from them by force on battlefields around the world. They were killed. Whether you believe they died with honor, whether you believe our cause just, died they did.

Today is not a “free” day off work or school. Today is not the big sale day at the Dollar Store. Today is a day of Honor.

“All persons present in uniform should render the military salute. Members of the Armed Forces and veterans who are present but not in uniform may render the military salute. All other persons present should face the flag and stand at attention with their right hand over the heart, or if applicable, remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Citizens of other countries present should stand at attention. All such conduct toward the flag in a moving column should be rendered at the moment the flag passes.”

The American flag today should first be raised to the top of the flagpole for a moment, then lowered to the half-staff position where it will remain until Noon. The flag should be raised to the peak at Noon for the remainder of Memorial Day.

There are those in this country who would use today to legislate the man out of the fight. They can do that but the men and women we honor today knew you cannot legislate the fight out of the man. They have fought and they have died to protect us from those who would kill us. And perhaps to protect us from those who would sell out our birthright.

There is no end to the mutts who would kill our men and women and would kill their own. If I had but one wish granted on this day, I wish not another soldier dies. Ever. But die they did around the world again this year and die they will. For us. For me.

Because those men and women died, I get to write these words again this year. And you get to read them. Please pause and reflect as you go to a concert, stop at an artist’s studio, or simply read a book in the sunshine the price we pay to keep our right to do those things.

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Editor’s Note: This column is slightly updated from one that appeared first in 2008.

Posted in Society, Holidays, Death, Big Thoughts, Random Access | 7 Comments »

Counting Toes

Monday, February 28, 2011 by Dick.

Suppose you have seven shoes lined up in front of your rock. Anne gives you four of my shoes because she is tired of tripping over them. How far south is your rock?

World Math Day is tomorrow. Cool.

The Guinness record holding online international mathematics competition had 1,204,766 participants in 56,082 schools in 235 countries last year. The original World Math Day was held on the March 14 (Pi Day) but has moved to the first Wednesday in March except it is on Tuesday this year. No wonder math is so confusing.

Students from across the world have 48 hours to compete in 20 games in each of five levels. (Quick! How many games is that?) Students have only 60 seconds to complete each game. (Quick! How many minutes do half the games take?)

Those 1.2 million students correctly answered 479,732,613 questions in the 2010 challenge. That broke the record of 452,682,682 correct answers that 1.9 million students had posted in 2009.

I’m thinking you need to know math just to keep track of the answers. And the contestants. In fact, I’m thinking you need a computer. After all, World Math Day would not be possible without computers and the Internet to pair off more than a million competitors and track their results in real time.

The abacus, built by Egyptian mathematicians in 2000 BC, was in widespread use centuries before we even started writing numbers down, let alone before we started formally counting by tens. Merchants, traders and clerks in Africa, Asia, and around the world still use it.

Most people think the Abacus was the first arithmetic calculator. That would be wrong. The first arithmetic calculator was a pile of rocks.

Og have 11 rocks. Og give four rocks to Nug. Og have seven rocks left.

And so we learned very early to make change.

Time passed. Math needs multiplied. Edmund Gunter invented the slide rule around 1620 so engineers could figure out how much a church roof rafter would bend. The slide rule can be faster at multiplication and division, and often is faster for roots, logarithms and trigonometry than a calculator, but it doesn’t add or subtract very easily which makes it not nearly as useful as an abacus as tax time draws near. I was in the last class at Stevens Institute required to buy a slide rule.

Blaise Pascal invented the first mechanical calculator about 20 years after Gunter made his slipstick but IBM waited until 1954 to demonstrate the first all-transistor model. Their first commercial unit, the IBM 608, cost about $80,000.

Scott Flansburg serves as the Ambassador for World Maths Day and is known as “the human calculator” because he can run the numbers faster than an electronic calculator can. Mr. Flansburg visited All Angels Academy students in Miami Springs a couple of weeks ago. He was there to energize students as they prepare for the contest. This is the second year students from the school will participate in this event.

That’s encouraging.

Kids need to be better at math than I am. After all, there are more numbers now.

I have an undergrad degree in math and science as well as one in mechanical engineering but in real life I combine pursuits like this — writing and photography — with consulting to other small businesses. I don’t engineer stuff every day but I do use math. Every day. I use it to calculate my change at Wally World faster than the cash register. I use it to determine how many network cables I need to set up a client’s new computer system. And the programmers I hire used it to make sure these words I type appear on my screen and, shortly, on yours. Every kid today will use more math in his or her lifetime than you or I have.

For the record, I still have my slide rule. I also have a solar powered Casio full scientific calculator, a lot smaller than their first all-electric “compact” calculator of 1957. My handheld cost $10.

Both my slide rule and my solar calculator require light to work. Mr. Flansburg can work in the dark.

Tomorrow is also Town Meeting Day in most of Vermont. Anne who is a Justice of the Peace (and election official) will be counting shoes (and noses) again. I hope she won’t be counting in the dark.

Posted in Society, Science (real), Big Thoughts, Random Access | 11 Comments »