Category Archives: Random Access

Random Access, the op-ed.

I Made a Little Listicle

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We need a Language Cop.

I may not mean what you think.

English may be the greatest language ever invented. It’s certainly the greatest language ever Darwinned.

OxfordDictionaries.com revels in the language trends behind its latest update to the English lexicon.

• acquihire n: buying out a company primarily for the skills and expertise of its staff
OED page• binge-watch v: watch multiple episodes of a TV show, one right after the other
• clickbait n: content whose main purpose is to draw visitors to this web page
• cord cutting n: practice of cancelling a cable or satellite subscription or landline phone
• geocache n: Since my kids have been geocaching for so long, it surprises me this didn’t make the list years ago
• humblebrag n & v: (make) an ostensibly modest or self-deprecating statement whose actual purpose is to draw attention to something of which one is proud
• listicle n: an Internet article presented in the form of a numbered or bullet-pointed list
• octocopter n: I want one
• side boob n: I like them
• time-poor adj.: spending much of one’s time working or occupied; I’ve always liked the term “land-poor” for families with more grass than cash
• vape v: drag on an e-cig.

I’ll post and tweet some clickbait to this listicle. Two other words in this sentence made earlier Oxford lists.

English may be the greatest language ever.

• Linguist Max Müller said, “English spelling is a national misfortune to England and an international misfortune to the rest of the world.”

Nobody ever said it was easy to be great.

• Where else would we find homonyms, homophones, homographs, and heteronyms?

It was a fair day when I went to the country fair to pay the fare for a pair of pears. Fortunately I did not tear the bag which might have caused me to tear up.

• Our resourceful language borrows most every word you or I speak from some other language and prodigiously lends many of them back.

The band played guitars, a mandolin, fiddle, banjo, and bass at the Summer Sounds concert yesterday. Guitar comes to us from the Arabic qi-ta-ra or qai-thara which originally descended from the ancient Greek kithara. A bass is not a fish when it has strings. There were no hazards at the concert other than the threat of rain. Unlike the linguists in France, we can borrow hazard from the medieval French hasart.

We need a Language Cop. We need to keep the languages of our settlers old and new alive but we also need to assure we can talk to each other. Ket, the language spoken in Central Siberia, is vital. Abenaki is a small but significant member the Algonquian languages of northeastern North America. Zazaki is an indispensable Indo-European language spoken primarily in eastern Turkey by the Zaza people.

I love that some of our words come from Ket, and Abenaki, and Zazaki.

I see red every time I hear “Press 1 for Ket” from a telephone system.

I’m glad we do include Siberians and earlier Americans and Iranians in our culture but if we really want to include Siberians and earlier Americans, and Iranians in our culture, then the phony Liberals have to get out of the way and let the Siberians and earlier Americans and Iranians learn to speak to the English and Spanish and Tag-A-Log speakers who live next door. In the common language their adopted country has adopted.

The best way to do that is for us all to learn English, too.

That’s the key. English is the greatest language ever simply because it remains so common, so accessible, so complete.

The phony Liberals are those who insisted the Voting Rights Act include help for “language minority voters.” Hello? Only citizens can vote. Citizens take the oath in what language? The phony Liberals are those who insisted that school textbooks be printed for “language minority students.” Hello?

We do need a Language Cop. We need a Language Cop who will arrest the phony Liberals who insist on shackling the Siberians and earlier Americans and Iranians and Spanish and Tag-A-Log speakers so they can’t speak with each other.

Carpe dentum … seize the teeth.
–Mrs. Doubtfire

 

Paying for It

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When I got the bill for my July Obamacare premium, I shrugged it off.

See, I had changed from a Blue Cross Standard Gold Obamacare plan to a Blue Cross Medicare plan as of July 1 and I figured that was just a bill that got mailed the day they got the cancellation.

When I got the bill for my August Obamacare premium on July 5, I shouldn’t have shrugged it off.

When I got the bill for my September Obamacare premium dated August 5 in today’s mail, I couldn’t shrug it off.

Note from your doctor explaining why you were tardyTwo months bill from Vermont Health ExchangeAnd it turns out I wasn’t alone. The Burlington Free Press reported yesterday that billing problems plague Vermont Health Connect, the state-managed Health Exchange that issues and bills for Obamacare policies.

“Terry Libby has received incorrect bills from Vermont Health Connect since last winter when she first signed up for a Blue Cross insurance plan using the state’s new online website.

“Each month she has paid what she owed, called the state’s helpline to report she was being charged double, and received assurance the problem would be corrected.

“A month later, another incorrect bill would arrive.

“A week ago, however, she received a shock — a bill for $4,662.32.”

Four thousand, six hundred sixty-two dollars.

Jeezum. They’ve billed me only $497.06 no $994.12 no $1,491.18. So far. For.A.Policy.I.Do.Not.Have. I feel like such a piker. I’m sure I’ll catch up.

I’m more than a little nervous about screwing with my Medicare policy. Blue Cross carried over my same policy number when I changed from Obamacare to Medicare.

I called VHicks (the correct pronunciation of VHX, the Vermont Health Exchange, according to my Blue Cross rep) to question the bill they sent me. See, I had gone over this very issue in depth when I bought the Medicare policy. Blue Cross said they would cancel me out of the Obamacare plan when they opened the Medicare plan. All part of the service.

The VHicks rep said it wasn’t up to Blue Cross to cancel the policy. He said he’d try to process the cancellation retroactively but no guarantees.

Retroactively?

I called Blue Cross.

“No worries,” that rep told me. “Your Obamacare plan ended June 30 and your MediGap started July 1.” She also said no way VHX had any way whatsoever to cancel my Medigap policy.

I hate this.

“The government is so not trustable about things like this,” Liz Arden said.

“Not so trustable? Can you spell C-H-A-R-L-I-E   F-O-X-T-R-O-T?” Rufus asked only somewhat rhetorically.

“There is no way on God’s green Earth we should be putting up with this level of …. well, it ain’t mediocrity, because that would be far superior to what we are getting.

“You can quote Rufus on that.”

There ya go.

“You don’t want people to get health care!” Annabelle Proctor screeched the last time I wrote. Ms. Proctor holds an undergraduate degree in dance from Bennington College and a graduate degree in Social Justice from Planet Marlboro, Vermont’s two most liberal and free-thinking schools.

My other Liberal friends all seem to echo that.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

I want my doc and yours to do better doctoring than they do today.

I want every citizen to have access to whatever doctor or other healer they want.

I want every visitor to be able to pay Fee for Service to whatever doctor or other healer they want.

I want the cost (not just my bill) to be less than a Moon shot.

Just like it was in 1976 when five days in Cabarrus County Memorial Hospital cost me $254 after a racing accident. That’s less than a hammer, a toilet seat, or a week’s worth of Starbuck$.

And I certainly don’t want the folks who brought us $436 hammers, $640 toilet seats, and $7,600 coffee makers to flush my policy when it gives me a heart attack.

Yep, we’re paying for it now.

 

Do You Want Fries with That?

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Yes or No.

Pierre Krahenbuhl, the commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, appeared on CBS Face the Nation yesterday for a quick question-and-answer.

OK, maybe not so quick.

Mr. Krahenbuhl used 450 words — about the length of a typical newspaper editorial — to avoid answering two simple, yes or no, questions: Are your facilities protecting Hamas members? and Is Hamas using children as human shields?

Norah O’Donnell sat in for long time CBS host Bob Schieffer.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Are your facilities protecting members of Hamas?

Pretty simple yes or no question, wouldn’t you think?

PIERRE KRAHENBUHL: Look, I think what you have to get a sense of is we have two hundred fifty thousand people now sheltered in our schools as a result of the intensity of the conflict that is going on in Gaza. Some of these people have received instructions from the Israeli Defense Forces to leave areas that they were living in. Others fled the fighting. And because we have numerous school buildings throughout the Gaza Strip, we have been able to accommodate them in about ninety school buildings. And so this is very clear under international law that these are premises that are protected. The sanctity of which have to be respected by all parties and so, of course, when they are shelled it is something that is unacceptable in any sense. Now, we have also had incidents — and there were three — in the course of inspections we carried out we have identified weapons caches that were in the premises, something that we made known to the world in a very proactive and transparent way because those ways of endangering our premises by placing weapons in them are unacceptable and we condemn them unreservedly.

192 words.

It was a “yes” or “no” question.

“Can I rinse your plate?” SWMBO asked as we finished breakfast right after hearing that.

“Well in the grand scheme of the surface chemistry, as we study the chemical reactions at the interfaces, we’re really looking at heterogeneous catalysis. The adhesion of the food molecules to the plate is known as adsorption. This can be due to either chemisorption or by physisorption. … ” I began, just getting wound up.

“It was a yes or no question.”

NORAH O’DONNELL: Mm-Hm.

“There are 1,500 dead Palestinians, you know,” my friend Nola Guay said. “That far outnumbers the 64 Israelis killed. How is it fair that so few Israelis are getting killed?”

What, are you nuts? I’m thinking when you poke a bear with more than 2,500 rockets, you gotta prepare to pay the price.

Ms. O’Donnell asked the most important questions.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Israel says that Hamas is using civilians, children as human shield. Is that what you found?

Ms. O’Donnell asks yes or no questions, doesn’t she?

PIERRE KRAHENBUHL: What we’ve found and what we know is that when armed forces be it in this case, the Israeli Defense Force or non-state arm groups as the groups present inside Gaza, all of them are bound by rules of international law and humanitarian law which regulate the way in which military operations and combat is taking place in any conflict around the world. And in the case of Gaza, because of its very densely populated environment, all of these military operations have a great risk of endangering the civilians. And that is the case for all of the actors involved. Yes, there are certainly behaviors that expose the population on the ground by militant groups that operate close to civilian premises. But, certainly, if you look at the extent of the damage, the extent of the physical destruction but also the extent of the loss of human life and I witnessed that myself visiting this week the pediatric ward in the main hospital in Gaza seeing the broken bodies of the children there, there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that insufficient measures of precaution and control and protection are being taken, including by the Israeli Defense Force when engaging in Gaza. And the message I’ve heard repeatedly this week by civilians in Gaza is that they don’t feel safe anywhere. And what they’ve been saying to me is if we are not safe in an UNRWA school building, where are we going to be safe.

Mm-Hm.

247 words this time and not a single “yes” or “no” to be found.

Ms. O’Donnell asked the two most important questions. And she didn’t get an answer.

Worth noting is this commentary that Mr. Schieffer offered on Face the Nation last week:
In the Middle East, the Palestinian people find themselves in the grip of a terrorist group that has embarked on a strategy to get its own children killed in order to build sympathy for its cause, a strategy that might actually be working, at least in some quarters. Last week, I found a quote of many years ago by Golda Meir, one of Israel’s early leaders, which might have been said yesterday. “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children, she said, “but we can never forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.”

That was just 96 words.

Mr. Krahenbuhl and the agency charged to maintain international peace and security could take a lesson. So could the Hamas apologists who conveniently forget those inconvenient 2,500 rockets.

 

The Perfect Game

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I attended an Inclusive League baseball game on Saturday.

Because all North Puffin children are equally good players, tall and strong, the kids from 6-17 all play hardball together in Inclusive League games. Baseball is a great game, especially here where our League team started up just a couple of years ago. The kids have uniforms, thanks to a Town grant, and a new regulation field next to the hockey rink.

I don’t usually go to games or even watch baseball on TV but I like the game. My dad and I listened to Birds games when we were on the boat. I even attended a Diamondbacks game a couple of years ago. I loved the Ken Burns series but I had mostly stopped watching games back when my friend Jon Matlack was pitching for the Mets. He won a lot of games, but he never won any when I watched. Since pro ball is steeped in superstition, I quit watching and he started winning again. You’re welcome, Jon. Still, Google delivered 1,080,000 results about “baseball musings” in .34 seconds.

North Puffin Red Sox Home UniformWe were there because Bobby, my friend Lido “Lee” Bruhl’s grandson, was starting in his first game as shortstop for the North Puffin Red Sox which is named for the Boston team. There are no Yankees fans in North Puffin.

Bobby is a great kid but he’s not a very good athlete. He is a little overweight and a little under-coordinated and is often not quite sure how his feet fit. Pretty much the same as 90% of the kids I know.

His mom is an elementary school educator and knows that Bobby’s self-esteem is his armor against the challenges of the world and she knows, absolutely knows that the way to improve his self-esteem is to praise his every activity.

“I teach compassion. Feeling good about yourself is crucial to every other facet of life,” she said.

Bobby had four at bats. He whiffed all three times his first time at the plate.

“Good job, Bobby,” his mom called from the fence line.

Second at bat. He got just little piece of the ball almost by accident and sent a little dribbler back toward the mound. Bobby isn’t a very fast runner and was maybe half way down the base line when the pitcher drilled the ball over to first.

“Great job, Bobby,” his mom called from the fence line.

Third at bat. Bobby asked me not to write about that one.

“You’re doing great, Bobby,” his mom called from the fence line.

Fourth at bat.

The first pitch kind of meandered toward the plate. Swing and a miss. Strike one.

The second throw got away from the pitcher and was high and outside. Ball one.

The third pitch really got away and was high and way outside. The opponents had a terrific catcher. Ball two.

Fourth pitch. Fastball right down the middle. Strike two.

Bobby has trouble with fast balls. Inclusive League pitchers aren’t supposed to throw curves; parents of young pitchers have decried curveballs because contorting elbows that way strains the young joint more than arms can handle. It turns out that a major study showed curveballs pose no greater risk to young arms and elbows than any other pitches. In fact, several other studies say the real problem is throwing too many pitches of any kind, not just curveballs.

Doesn’t matter. Bobby can’t hit a curve anyway.

The pitcher felt confident. He had been practicing his curve and knew he could get Bobby to chase it. Except the ball didn’t get anywhere near the plate and Bobby wasn’t ready anyway. Ball three.

This was the eighth inning. The Red Sox were down one with runners on first and third.

Bobby stood there, waiting. He was calm, his bat on his shoulder.

Final pitch. Fastball right down the middle. It was a perfect pitch. Bobby reared up and swung for the stars. And missed the ball by about a foot. Strike three.

“You did terrific, Bobby,” his mom called from the fence line.

Kids understand a lot more than adults give them credit for. A kid knows, for example, when he or she excels in a sport. And when he or she sucks at it.

When I was a kid, if I struck out or just dribbled the ball down to the pitcher, some coach would have taken me aside and show me how to hit a little better. Then he’d make me drop and give him 20 and spend an extra half hour in the batter’s cage. I could never have hit one of Matlack’s fastballs, but I did learn to do a lot of pushups. And once I grew into my feet, I diverted my desire to be a jock into swimming and racing cars, instead of sports where I might be adequate but never good.

Telling Bobby “good job” will activate his BS meter.

Telling Bobby “terrific job” will peg the meter.

I don’t understand why Liberals like Bobby’s mom insist on making cynics of Bobby and all the rest of our children.

 

Milestones

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I got to thinking about them as people told me about geezerhood and codgerness this past week.

“Age is just a number.”

There’s some truth to that, although I’ve never heard anyone under 20 say it. In a much earlier op-ed, I wrote about the different important but arbitrary ages. These limit the minimum age at which we humans can take part in some exciting activity:

• 16 gets a driver’s license in most states. Most boys wish it were 14; most parents, 35.
• 18 is the minimum age to be eligible to vote in a public election. Except it used to be 21. Or 16 in Takoma Park, Maryland.
• 21 is the youngest one can be to drink because the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 withholds revenue from states if they let anyone under that age buy booze. Despite the Internoodle rumor, it is not true that the minimum legal drinking age will be raised to 25 as of August 2.
• 35 is the minimum of gray hair allowed to be President although in practice Teddy Roosevelt was the youngest person to assume office at age 42. JFK was 43-5/8. Mr. Clinton was 46-1/2.
• 65 is retirement age. Except when it isn’t. It turns out you can collect partial Social Security at 62 but full retirement is older than 65 for anyone born after 1937. Medicare, however, kicks in at 65.

By now you may have guessed that I have attained each of those arbitrary numbers and now I have a problem: I don’t know how to be a codger.

Codger /n/ käj-r — an elderly man, especially one who is old-fashioned or eccentric.

OK, I’m sometimes old-fashioned and usually eccentric but I was that way 30-40 years ago.

The Torch Bearers, a sculpture by Anna Huntington on the Stevens Institute campus

“Horsemanship through the history of all nations has been considered one of the highest accomplishments. You can’t pass a park without seeing a statue of some old codger on a horse.”
–Will Rogers

That’s another good one, but the closest I’ll get to being that behorsed statue was painting the one at Stevens.

Now, a geezer wants to drive as slow as possible. A true geezer will pick a speed ahead of time, say, seventeen miles an hour, and drive that speed under all conceivable conditions, no matter where, no matter what. With the turn signal on. A geezer will put the turn signal on when he buys the car and then just leave it on until he trades it in. The geezer car is actually three to four normal-size cars welded together. It should be much bigger than anything else on the road, or even the road itself. The hood should be so big that it’s impossible for the driver to tell what lane he’s in, sometimes even what zip code he’s in, by merely looking out the window. Planes could take off and land on the hood of the geezer car.
–Dave Barry

OK, I admit I don’t drive as fast as I did when racing, but that happened when I discovered how much I hate paying $3.799/gallon for all that gas. I still managed to beat the Coco Plum land speed record in a Lotus a couple of years ago.

The problem is that there is no Federal educational program for geezerhood. This leads to an inevitable conclusion. I have discovered, to my great pleasure, that geezerhood arrives a minimum of 10 years after one’s current age.

Liz Arden says that’s OK. I’m just a codger-in-training.

The real milestones are our losses in my birthday week:
Actor James Garner died of natural causes at home on Saturday night. He was 86. From Maverick and Rockford to Grand Prix, he was one of my favorites. And I have long used his answering machine message.
Astronaut and test pilot Henry Hartsfield died at 80. He commanded Discovery and Challenger missions.
John Melvin was an engineer, academic and racing safety expert in NASCAR.
Actress Elaine Stritch.
And Heinz Zemanek who developed the first complete transistorized computer in Europe and defined the programming language PL/1.