DimSkip's Universe

Of Media Bias, Liberal vs. Conservative (Or "Who's Kidding Who?")

2016-10-15T22:39:00.001-04:00

Please bear with and/or forgive the rambling nature. No, I am not returning to regular blogging. This is a very uniquely specialized post made specifically to act as a very long comment which I would have otherwise had to post in multiple pieces over at...

"Steve Salerno's SHAMblog: Trumpnost. Or, confessions of a semi-repentant Trump-aholic".

Not sure this is completely coherent. Perhaps I'm out of practice.... Sorry, I wish I was able to concisely make my points, but the more frustrated and aggravated I am about something, the more I ramble and repeat myself. Obviously I'm ***extremely*** aggravated in general about this sort of issue and its relation to the ongoing fiasco of a campaign....

<Sigh>

Where to start?

I don't regularly watch CNN or Fox News. Never have, but I have been exposed to them on occasion. I follow political news on the internet (believe it or not, typically by following selected political fact-checking sites, including Snopes), but I also try to actually pay most attention to **credible** major news sources... NBC, ABC, CBS, New York Times, Time, Newsweek, to name but a six-fingered handful sampling... Media which have built their prized reputations for good and accurate journalism by actually caring about facts and evidence. Are they perfect? No, of course not. Have there been occasional unethical or biased scandal incidents over many, many, many years? I wouldn't doubt it. But I'll still take such organizations and sites and their occasional issues¹ over the hardcore conservative media sites that have been around for all of about 5 years and, if you check their "About Us" pages or just take a momentary glimpse at the their various headlined pieces, you'll see that not only are **they** biased, but they openly tell you so and are actually PROUD OF IT! And they have the nerve to endlessly harp on the liberal bias of the media?!?!?! Simply not reporting things with a conservative bias does not automatically equate to liberal bias. I'm sorry, but it doesn't.

[ ¹ Just as, analogously, if I'm ever in trouble or danger, I'll be calling 911 for the police, despite the occasional trigger-happy "bad apple" on the force. But then again, I'm not African-American.... ]

Plus it's not like I only ever go to ***one*** of those sources I cited as examples of those I generally trust. I also google (oh wait, I guess Google is inherently liberally biased too) to see who else, if anyone, is reporting on something and try to get a sense of what they're saying. I check to see if they're reporting the same facts or providing different info which might allow for other interpretations of particular stories.

One should ***NEVER*** rely on just **one** source or just one **class** of sources, i.e. liberal or conservative. If all you ever do is rely on obviously heavily conservative or liberal media, then of course you're going to get the impression that **other** media and sites outside of your normal travels are **obviously** biased. (Why, they don't automatically see things as **I** do! The nerve!)

Me, I will gladly accept reporting from any source at either end of the political/philosophical spectrum so long as they actually report **facts** and refer to **evidence** from sources that can be verified (or at least transparently identified and presented) and corroborated by other news sources (beyond simply saying that "XYZ is reporting that...."). If they can't back up what they're saying by citing credible sources and if it's not being widely corroborated in other places, then I have almost no interest because why should I believe any of it...? I mean... Yeah, thousands of media people and hundreds of media organizations are reporting the same general agreed upon details about something, but this one rinky-dink site which has been around for all of about 5 years has been reporting some horrible miscarriage of justice or some widespread government cover-up conspiracy for much of that time and yet no one else has ever come along and explored it, corroborated it, found there to be **something** there? Maybe because there's nothing there. It's not **that** complicated or hard to see the logic or illogic of some of these wild claims of bias and organizations being sinisterly coerced or bought off.
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Now a representative personal anecdote...

One friend on fb posted this link:

SNOPES Caught Lying for Hillary...AGAIN. Loses All Credibility -- Silence Is Consent.

Here are my thoughts...

Sorry, but am I expected to take seriously a site which lists on Google blurbs as "Silence is Consent | Conservative, Hard Hitting News, Politics & Humor"? Gee, is there **any** indication whatsoever that ***THEY*** are perhaps biased the **opposite** way? (Spoiler alert! There is actually much evidence that they are indeed the ones who are most biased.)

Is there any reason for me to believe that they are in any way (even despite their obvious conservative affiliations) playing fair and balanced, objectively looking at actual facts which can be proven or corroborated in any way elsewhere? Am I supposed to just magically be inspired to trust their word and the "truth" of their commentary re Snopes because **they** say so? Well, if I were hardcore conservative, I might, but I'm a lifetime independent voter (who at one time even leaned **heavily** conservative/Republican) and I try to make up my mind about news stories based on credible and factual news reporting (not mere rumors and innuendo, no matter how much I may **want** to believe something). Now I'll grant you, it can sometimes be difficult to discern "credible" news sources, especially when they are previously unheard of websites... but it's also usually ridiculously **easy** to spot NON-credible and **obviously** biased sources if one just does even a tiny bit of poking around. As mentioned above, many of them just openly **TELL** you they're biased.

Take a look at their "About us" page: "If you are fed up with the way this country is being run into the ground, ‘bookmark’ this website and ‘LIKE’ our Facebook page. You now have a place to voice your opinions and share relevant news. Our country is under attack from far left, radical Liberals, Progressives/Communists, Marxists and Socialists. Please share this page with 'like minded' friends so we all can work together towards taking this country back and preserving the Constitution of the United States of America...." (Etc. You get the idea.)

And they have a page listing "Friends of SIC", a huge list of ridiculously, shamefully, blatantly obvious (and one might even say **notorious**) conservative people/sites such as:

All the Right Snark, Ann Coulter, Atlas Shrugs, Breitbart[dot]com, Chicks on the Right, Conservapedia, Dennis Miller, Drudge Report, Fox News, Left of the Mark, Legal Insurrection, Liberal Logic 101, The Lonely Conservative, Michelle Obama’s Mirror, NewsBusters, Reagan Coalition, Reaganite Republican, Right Side News, The Other McCain, Washington Times, et al...

I actually dare anyone to try to find even one of those "friends" sites which **doesn't** indicate in some explicit way on their "About us" pages or by the overwhelming nature of their own pieces that they are unashamedly hardcore conservative. It can't be done. (I looked. Fox News is the closest you'll get.)

And a page which that particular SIC anti-Snopes piece links to as "proof" of something (I'm not really sure what since it doesn't even mention Snopes) is...

Clinton Campaign Admit They Pay An Army Of Online Trolls

...where that site has as a general category topic on its main subject bar: "Conspiracies." Well, I'm sorry, but that right there tells me they're likely a bunch of loony tin-foil hat wearers! One can't link to a site like that and think it counts as proof of anything! I'm sorry, it just isn't. (They don't seem to have an "About us" page.)

The SIC piece goes on to quote Ethics Alarms (which I never heard of) as further evidence against Snopes. Of course, SIC conveniently omits linking to any particular EA piece which has anything to do with Snopes, so I had to search the EA site myself to find this: Unethical Website Of The Month: Bye-Bye Snopes...You’re Dead To Me Now [UPDATED 10/12/2016]. That item then refers to a FactCheck.org item, Clinton’s 1975 Rape Case, and compares it to Snopes' finding.

The only thing that FactCheck.org piece verifies is that Hillary "...laughed when recalling unusual aspects of the case." Which, if she was laughing about having gotten a known child rapist freed, would obviously be pretty scuzzy... Yes, Donald Trump or Pope/Catholic priest scuzzy, even. But that's not what they found...
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LENGTHY QUOTE OF FACTCHECK.ORG:

In 2014, the Washington Free Beacon published the audio of an interview that Arkansas reporter Roy Reed conducted with Clinton in the 1980s. In the interview, Clinton recalls some unusual details of the rape case, and she can be heard laughing in three instances, beginning with a joke she makes about the accuracy of polygraphs.

Clinton: Of course he claimed he didn’t. All this stuff. He took a lie detector test. I had him take a polygraph, which he passed, which forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs. [laughs]

At another point, Clinton said the prosecutor balked at turning over evidence, forcing her to go to the judge to obtain it.

Clinton: So I got an order to see the evidence and the prosecutor didn’t want me to see the evidence. I had to go to Maupin Cummings and convince Maupin that yes indeed I had a right to see the evidence [laughs] before it was presented.

Clinton then said that the evidence she obtained was a pair of the accused’s underwear with a hole in it. Clinton told Reed that investigators had cut out a piece of the underwear and sent the sample to a crime lab to be tested, and the only evidence that remained was the underwear with a hole in it.

Clinton took the remaining evidence to a forensic expert in Brooklyn, New York, and the expert told her that the material on the underwear wasn’t enough to test. “He said, you know, ‘You can’t prove anything,'” Clinton recalled the expert telling her.

Clinton: I wrote all that stuff and I handed it to Mahlon Gibson, and I said, “Well this guy’s ready to come up from New York to prevent this miscarriage of justice.” [laughs]

The emails we have received about this case contain some misinformation. Some have claimed, for example, that Clinton volunteered for the case and the accused rapist was found not guilty. That’s not accurate, as we just explained. But Clinton did laugh in the retelling of some unusual aspects of the rape case, and we leave it to others to decide whether her laughter was appropriate or not.
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So as for the instances of laughter, as FactCheck.org says, that can be left "...to others to decide whether her laughter was appropriate or not." I, for one, can easily see her laughing about the efficacy (or lack thereof) of polygraph tests. I can also see her laughing as she makes the statement about viewing the evidence as she seems to be speaking sarcastically, making the point that, well, of course she has a right to see the evidence. She also seems to be probably speaking sarcastically in the third instance too, though I confess I'm not sure I quite get the inference fully. The point is, though, that in none of those instances was she in any way laughing (joyously, maniacally, or evilly cackling?) at how she managed to get a scuzzball child rapist freed, which always seems to be the strong implication of all the "fair and balanced" reports from the conservative media re Hillary's long-ago work on the case. In fact, the FactCheck.org item pretty much agrees with what Snopes found as far as I can see with perhaps some tiny wiggle room on the issue of the laughter.

The whole EA piece seems to me to be a long meandering exercise in innuendo, trickster wording, and technical semantic parsing of lesser details. Jack Marshall is the only name I can find affiliated with the EA blog. The particular piece does not list an "author" so I have to assume the author is probably Mr. Marshall himself (especially since he seems to be the only responder to commenters). Speaking of which, if one looks through the comments, one will see responses of a more off-the-cuff nature by Mr. Marshall responding to commenters where he refers to one commenter, Bob, as "Tool Bob" for daring to disagree with his anti-Snopes analysis and later says to him: "Be quiet, Bob, you corrupted fool, and let me talk to the honest readers..." Another commenter named Steve also dares to disagree and gets quickly banned with an explicit declaration of such from Mr. Marshall. To someone else he generally lumps such commenters together with: "Do you knee-jerk idiots read anything before you write this crap?"

Oh, but of course one commenter who relates an unverifiable email exchange they supposedly had with Snopes as "evidence" of their bias gets a quick "Thanks for this. It’s pretty damning..." No skepticism, just quick acceptance of the new "evidence." Mr. Marshall is laughably transparent (and pretty darned unethical, I would say) in **his** bias.

In the main text portion of the piece, Mr. Marshall says: "In July, we learned that the trend was no aberration. Snopes apparently felt that the inspiring Facebook post by officer Jay Stalien needed to be discredited, ***so it had LaCapria write this***, which suggested by the inherent innuendo of presenting such a post on a hoax-exposure site that readers should be skeptical. The Stalien post expressed anti-Black Lives Matter sentiments. And Kim couldn’t prove that Stalien exists...."

"So it had LaCapria write this"? Apparently he just **knows** that Ms. LaCapria was **ordered** to reach a certain preordained conclusion by the higher-ups at Snopes. It couldn't possibly be that she examined the evidence and found it wanting in any way, could it? Where is his proof of this "inherent innuendo" which **he** employs right there in the same sentence where he claims that is what Snopes does?

Does any of that sound like the product of the mind of an "ethics expert?" Or of an unbiased person? Or even of a decent human being?

Oh, and the apparent "proof" that Snopes is liberally biased according to SIC?...

Correct The Record’s “Barrier Breakers” project admitted in a press release that it pays people to pretend to be Clinton supporters, and claims that thousands of unsuspecting social media users have already been “addressed” by the PAC’s mercenary social media warriors – with the promise that many more will be “corrected” in the near future. Given that Snopes entered the political fact checking game around the same time, and began publishing more political articles than ever before; most of which display a clear Clinton bias – it is legitimate to ask if Snopes is also on the Correct The Record payroll (this totally discredit them...forever in my book)

OK, let's dig into that... First of all, if Correct the Record really did admit something like that, why doesn't the SIC piece link directly to **that** press release (or to some archived version of it)? And why would anything like that even **be** admitted in a "press release"? Press releases are for bragging about positive things, not admitting negative or shady stuff. I strongly suspect that if any such press release ever existed it said nothing of the sort as far as "admitting" anything.

Second, the writer seems to be questioning the timing of when Snopes started doing political fact checks vs the alleged press release "admission." Um, OK. And...? The writer even says "...it is legitimate to ask if Snopes is also on the Correct The Record payroll (this totally discredit them... forever in my book)." OK. Maybe it **might** be legitimate to question that... But so what? Saying it is legitimate to question something is not proof of squat. It's not even mere circumstantial evidence. It is just raw rumor and innuendo. If they have facts proving it, then show us! Otherwise, they have no business making baseless accusations.

<Sigh>
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OK, moving slightly away from the specific microcosmic issue of Snopes bias and back to the larger issue of general liberal media bias...

As is easily shown by that "Friends of SIC" page there is a huge network of conservative sites and media out there openly spinning things in a heavily conservative light. You can hear any number of conservative radio talk show hosts and stations all across the country at any hour of any day and they blatantly and proudly **tell** you they are politically conservative (aka biased) with almost every sentence, every breath! But yet somehow their followers just automatically believe that **those** sources are naturally to be trusted simply **because** of that. (Just as Trump supposedly just "tells it like it is"? I'm sorry, but being painfully and politically incorrectly blunt does not necessarily equate to speaking truth. Sometimes it's just indicative of being an obnoxious, lying a-hole.) In essence, the belief, or closed mindset going in beforehand (so it seems to me), is that "only my conservative views are correct and anything that doesn't match up with those views, with my conservative narrative of things, is, by tautological definition, untrue or even deliberate lies. Therefore... Liberal bias!" The mind is made up first, then the facts which best fit that mindset are deliberately and consciously chosen. (As Snopes is falsely, or unprovenly, accused of doing.) Facts which don't fit are discarded, ignored, denied, trashed, as a product of the "liberal media." Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but beliefs and opinions need to follow from the evidence, not vice versa. (Trump can deny saying and doing things all he wants, but when there's video/audio/photographic proof of him saying/doing the very things—even on his own twitter feed!—that he's denying, what are we to think? [And I'm not even talking about the sex stuff!] He regularly does this and **has** done this for the past year! It's beyond **beginning** to form a pattern, it's become a pathology of lies.)

There's a big difference between believing something is true simply because it agrees with your own implicit bias to begin with vs believing something is true because there's actual verifiable evidence that anyone can reference for themselves. Evidence deals in specific dates, documents, video, audio, public events, etc. Saying that it is "legitimate to question something" does not in any way constitute real evidence. It was legitimate at one time to question if the Earth was flat or round. Evidence proved it once and for all (except to a few random looney-toons people). Evidence is what matters. I see none whatsoever in the SIC anti-Snopes piece and related links. (Though I freely admit, there's only so far I can go down the rabbit hole.)

Such pieces may be good enough for the conservative faithful (who already believe and eagerly lap them up, sharing them around as if they **prove** something), but I need more. Point me to something with actual evidence and I will then consider that evidence. But in addition to considering the evidence, one must also, as the old saying goes, consider the source.
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And please don't get me wrong... There's a 180° vice versa side to this whole scenario whereby some liberals only check with and believe outright **really** liberally biased (and proud of it!) sources and immediately discount anything which comes from a neutral or conservative source. It does indeed cut both ways. But my perception of late (perhaps due only to my **particular** friends and relatives) is that the conservative side of such things is waaaaaay more widespread, malignant, and dangerous. (I actually can conceive of a day when civil war could break out in this country and that's such a repugnant thought! I don't make such a statement lightly. I'm just not sure if it will be over primarily political, ethnic, or religious reasons.)

I've said it before and I'll say it again and I'll say it until I'm blue and purple and about to pass out from lack of oxygen... One cannot spend all their time consulting news sources and websites which they already **know** going in are going to share their own chosen political biases, telling them pretty much only what they want to hear in the first place, and expect to see anything approaching reality, let alone anything that might convince someone of an opposing or skeptical/critical mindset of anything. The hardcore media and sites on both sides simply preach to their respective choirs and amplify their followers' steadfastness, entrenching them even further (if that's possible) in their views. I don't understand how that serves anyone right or provides any useful benefit to anyone (other than those in power on their respective sides).

Imo, people who typically whine about the so-called liberal bias in the mainstream media are deeply confusing other valid viewpoints that don't happen to agree with their own worldview (or their own unrecognized bias) for liberal bias. Just because someone doesn't automatically and 100% agree with your opinion, that doesn't mean there's bias.

And if the "mainstream media" **is** liberally biased, well, did the conservative media ever stop to think that maybe the fact that they all split off from the mainstream media to form their own huge in-bred cannibalistic conservative media conglomerates might have something to do with that? I've travelled up and down the east coast from NJ to the deep deep south and to Western Ohio and there has never been a place where I could escape from the "Obama's evil!" crowd of Rush, Hannity, and whoever. They're accessible just about 24/7 anywhere. And don't seriously try to tell me that **they** don't (just as much and more) cozy up to **their** own pet candidates and do everything they can to help present them in a good light while excoriating the evil ones on the other side of the political aisle!

Imo, the conservative media, especially the sites online, act as an echo chamber amplifying their views (right or wrong doesn't seem to matter) endlessly round and round the conservative networks. They cite ***each other's*** blogs and articles as if they "prove" something. "See! See! We told you Hillary is evil!, it says so here on this **other** conservative blog!, And this one!" Etc., Etc... At a certain point, I can't tell who started the disinformation ball rolling, but it just keeps playing loop-de-loop endlessly as the faithful share it back and forth to each other on social media. No facts or evidence necessary. Actually, even counter facts and evidence seem only to strengthen their collective resolve. (Don't let the facts get in the way of a good rant.)

I have gotten so damned sick and tired of this endless whining by Republicans about the horrible liberally biased "mainstream media." I see and hear this all the time from conservative friends and family on facebook. And it drives me crazy because (for some reason) I expect so much better of and from them and feel that they should too. If people abandon all logic and reason for the sake of an emotional stake in some cause, how can you hope to possibly make them see that maybe that cause is not all it's cracked up to be? You can't point them to fact checkers because they've already decided the fact checkers are biased. Mainstream media? Nope. Biased too. Who's **not** biased? "Why, the ones I regularly consult, of course." How do you know **they're** not biased? "Well, they agree with me." Round and round and dizzyingly round.

From very early on, Trump has railed against the "liberal" media being against him and taking him out of context or some such nonsense. It doesn't matter that there's ample evidence that he's simply denying the undeniable truth, truth which can be verified by examining his very own words and actions on video or his twtter feed. Deny, deny, deny, accuse the media of liberal bias. It's terrible how everyone's so unfairly against Trump, even to the point of using his very own words to prove he's lying or just doesn't know what the bleep he's saying. (I'm still not clear on how they manage to get footage of him saying/doing things he never said/did.)

Trump and his supporters make lame excuse after lame excuse for his own failure, shortcomings, and general jerkiness (and I don't only mean like when he made fun of that disabled reporter). Possibly the lamest excuse I heard was in defense of "locker room talk." "Oh, they were only words, he didn't mean any of that." Trump himself said essentially this (though I forget the exact phrasing). Hmmm, so up until then your excuse for things was that the media is liberally biased and **they** lie just to unfairly attack you. But now, all of a sudden, **your** defense is, "Oh, it was only empty bragging,"... so essentially... You were lying!.

And it's also liberal bias, I guess, when about a quarter of incumbent congressional Republicans come out and say they can no longer support Trump, some very few even indicating they'll vote for Hillary. (Though now some of the spineless weasels are backtracking and claiming, "Well, I never said I wouldn't actually vote for him, only that his words and conduct were reprehensible and unacceptable." Uh huh. Sure. Whatever you say.)

This next bit is obviously just my own personal opinion as I get near to wrapping this up... I am so fed up that I have personally vowed (not that it should mean anything to anyone) to never vote for another Republican again until they start showing evidence of sanity and having functioning brains. I hate that they have so long been in bed with the NRA and the Christian right, supporting the certifiably looney Wayne LaPierres and Kim Davises of the world. It makes sense though. Those groups are also massively persecuted. Obama and Hillary want to take away all their precious guns and Christians aren't allowed to discriminate against blacks and gays in their public places of business. It's terrible! The NRA confuses enacting tougher gun laws and requirements (especially for the really big guns) for "They're coming to take all my guns away!" And the Christians confuse not getting their way all the time and being able to force **others** to bow to **their** religion with being persecuted. Some in the conservative crowd would eagerly repeal the constitutional bit about separation of church and state, whereas I would prefer to repeal the alleged right of private individuals to own guns. Yes, that's right... Obama and Hillary don't want to take away all your guns... ***I*** do! Hey, just telling it like it is... <hrug> The answer to all our problems is not God & guns, God & guns, God & guns, even more God & guns! "Thou shalt not kill, but ah needs mah guns!"

And another thing... Why do you think it is that these right-wing nutjobs who go around proclaiming that God has "chosen" this candidate or "anointed" that candidate never ever once see God as being on the side of a Democrat? Hmmmm... Could it be that maybe God isn't choosing these Republicans, but that **they** are and then ascribing that choice to God since they're best buds and all that? It's only natural that God would agree with what **they** think. And they've gotten very used to running around proclaiming what God likes and wants or whom God is against and will smite.

Sorry, I may have gone a bit looney from all the election nonsense too. I've had it with conservative Republicans who can't think for themselves. They're just mindless parrots. (Again, more so than any similar parrots I see on the liberal Democratic side of the spectrum, but that could just be sampling bias as a result of the particular friends and family ***I*** know. <shrug>
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Please note: Nowhere in here do I ever once say anything hinting that Hillary is a great choice or even a good choice solely according to her own merits. I am not trying to convince anyone of that. (But for me, compared to Trump, she's a no-shred-of-doubt-about-it choice. I have never been so literally scared and appalled by a presidential candidate's erratic behavior as I am by Trump's. And people actually ***want*** him to have his finger on the war buttons?!

I am related to an elderly married couple... **He** simply comes right out and says he'd never vote for a woman. Not that he'd never vote for Hillary, but that he'd never vote for a woman! **She** has said she can't vote for Hillary because "she lies." I, of course, told her that Trump has been quantifiably found to be significantly lying around 71% of the time that Politifact checks his statements compared to Hillary's 27%—which by istelf is certainly not a good percentage! She dismisses that and says that, well, Trump is good at business. I pointed out that he's had 6 bankruptcies on his business record [and this was **before** the bit about him allegedly claiming a near-billion-dollar loss one year, allowing him to, again allegedly, pay zero federal income tax for about two decades]. She responds, "Well, he knows when to get out." I said, "But this is ***our country*** we're talking about! He can't just 'get out' without leaving us in shambles" should it come to that. They're both still voting for Trump, they have the signs and everything. (Trump was apparently dead on when he joked that he could literally kill someone and people would still vote for him.)

My point is that just the same as many people simply choose not to believe Snopes or other more pointedly political fact checkers (if anything they just reflexively go the other way from the fact checkers), I don't believe any of these conservative pieces about liberal media bias, at least not anywhere close to the extent that is implied anyway. And yet, as I say, the types of hardcore conservative sites which complain of liberal media bias **clearly** indicate their own (Proud!) bias right up front and all over. Snopes and other such sites don't do anything like that because their livelihoods depend largely on their reputations for fairness, transparency, accuracy, and even willingness to completely change as more facts may come out about something (which I've seen them do). Snopes and other fact checkers have even run occasional pieces which verify and back up conservative claims, even—GASP!—Trump's claims (or clear him of some negative claim against him). Again, I've seen them for myself. But the people who **need** to see that, don't... because they refuse to look, just assuming bias. Oh well, I guess those are just the exceptions that "prove" the rule anyway, right? Except that old saw simply is not true... Exceptions **don't** prove a rule! By their very nature of being exceptions, they **dis**prove a rule. "I before E except after C?" That's just WEIRD!

My pet project

2012-03-13T01:44:00.000-04:00

Meet Jake. Jake is my next door neighbor/cousin's dog. He's a springer spaniel not quite a year old.

For the past month or so, I've been walking/exercising him daily, weather permitting. In the process I've been trying to train him to walk properly and some simple commands like "sit," "lay down," "stay," and "come" or "come on," as well as how to fetch.

Results have been mixed, but he's definitely improving and a whole lot more manageable than when I started. I'm actually quite amazed at that because I've never had a pet in my life nor have I ever had any experience training a dog or even just being around when one was being trained. I merely googled some appropriate keywords and found a lot of good info on various sites, but the main site I've utilized is dogbreedinfo.com. (Starting page for tons of useful links HERE.)

Now some minor background re the pics...

The indoor shots are at my house. I was trying to keep him with me inside for a while before our walks, but it turned out he would just keep pestering me, presumably wanting to get going outside. So I stopped even trying that. Now I just leash him at my cousin's house, walk him (5 miles, give or take), then return him back home.

The outdoor shots are at a local ball field and kids' play park. Technically dogs aren't allowed, but others walk their dogs around there and no one seems to complain, plus it hasn't been so busy or crowded yet (which is apparently changing as of this week) that I was reluctant. Since Jake still hasn't mastered coming when called (though he doesn't really wander too far off usually), I let him off-leash only inside one of the ball fields (a double field actually) after making sure the four gates are all securely latched. Then we have fun playing fetch, which he seems to have picked up very well so long as I have a tasty treat handy to entice him to give up the ball (or stick). Eventually I hope he'll be able to play shortstop like Snoopy!

Lastly, when they got Jake I asked if their choice of the name had anything to do with the '90s Pirates of the Mississippi hit, "Feed Jake," but they said it didn't as they'd forgotten the song until I reminded them of it...

Houseguests of late July + Statue of Liberty pic

2011-09-11T12:00:00.103-04:00

I meant to do this post so much sooner, but at least I'm finally getting around to it now (and also note... two posts in one day!)...

For a week at the end of July there was a mini family reunion thing going on here. It was all tentatively planned a year prior at my cousin Dan's funeral and set to coincide with my Aunt's 83rd birthday. I could go into exactly who all was there and how they're related to whom, but it wouldn't really mean anything to anyone else, so I won't bore with those details. Suffice to say that people traveled from Alabama, Ohio, California, Virginia, and Maryland.

Everyone stayed at various homes clustered right here (and there was massive cleaning and organizing to be done in the weeks leading up to it in preparation... well, at my home at least). I had the pleasure of having Dan's daughter and (blended) family stay with me. Here they are...

It's one of those "yours, mine, and ours" situations. That's Dan's daughter Deena standing next to her husband (naturally) and holding their daughter who was born a little more than a year ago just a few days before Dan passed away. Behind them is Deena's son and to the far right her youngest daughter, both from her previous marriage. In the "boobies rule" shirt is Deena's husband's daughter from his previous marriage. (Unable to make the trip and also from the previous marriages were Deena's other daughter and her husband's son.)

While here, they and various others planned a few day trips, including one to Philadelphia (for some historical sightseeing), one to New York City (more for the general urban spectacle and fun), and one to the Jersey shore (Long Beach Island, but not the Barnegat lighthouse, just the beach). I did not go along on the city trips, I just went to the beach with them.

Unfortunately toward the end of the NY trip a sickness began to emerge (quite literally, if you get my drift... enough said). At first they suspected food poisoning from a chain restaurant they ate dinner at, but soon it was evident that others who didn't even make the trip were also coming down with the same illness. Pretty much everyone got it, though it varied in degree of severity as it spread. I ended up with the mild version (which was quite bad enough, thank you). It ended up causing a one day delay to my Aunt's birthday party and the celebration was more subdued, but still... fun was had.

The following pic was taken by Deena's husband and I want to share it here because when I saw it I was simply amazed at the image. I have no idea if he planned it in any way on the spur of the moment or if it just magically happened, but the placement of the lone wispy cloud makes it appear as if Lady Liberty's torch is actually lit and burning...

As a very minor footnote to the whole story, I have the added bonus of now being able to tell people how great it was having two pretty teenage girls share my bed for a week.

...What??? I didn't say they were sharing it with me, did I? That would be so very wrong! I can't help it if folks get certain inappropriate ideas, can I??? (Of course it probably doesn't help when I happen to be playing "Cousin Dupree" as I tell that story... Heh Heh.)

8^o

Seriously, though, they're a fun bunch and I really enjoyed their company for the week (also learning to play a card game known as "Phase 10").

Sunrise Cloudscape

2011-09-11T09:20:00.002-04:00

I woke up early a few mornings ago (Sep. 8th) and found I needed to attend to some bodily functions. As I headed to the bathroom I noticed out of one of the back windows what I thought was an unusual looking and beautiful sunrise cloudscape. I quickly grabbed my camera and this is the result...

(Click it to view at full 1024x768 size)

What caught my eye immediately was mostly the V-shaped shadow on the upper clouds to the left, but I also admired the multilayered, multitype clouds and the contrast of light and shadow among them.

Just goes to show... You never know what you'll find when ya gotta pee. (Though on the list of things one could find, this is one of the better possibilities imo!)

:^)

Barnegat Light revisited

2011-08-08T12:00:00.038-04:00

I know it's been a long time since I blogged, but it's also been quite a while since I visited Barnegat Light... Which I did this past friday, so in honor of the occasion here's a photoblog post (which, if nothing else, at least proves I'm still alive).

I won't go into a lot of detailed explanations, just...

I got some of the standard typically touristy shots, of course, but also tried to get a different POV or two, most notably the one of the outside of the lantern room which I got by backing up into the "corner" of the observation deck restraining cage bars as much as I could and then stretching as tall as I could to raise my camera up high. (Wish I was taller or had a stool, but I still like the way the image turned out.)

The two spiral staircase images are from the ground floor looking up and then above looking down (after having climbed almost all the way up, only a short flight left). I like the shot looking down better, but I consider them appropriate "bookends" framing the walk up. In between those two shots imagine an ellipsis (...) with a little over 200 dots!

Apparently there's a blimp which patrols the shore this summer strictly for the purpose of advertising. ("Hey look, it's a blimp! Think I'll buy some insurance..." Yeah, right.) At first it stayed well clear of the lighthouse, but finally did venture close enough for me to get a good zoomed shot of it.

Last on the "worthy of at least some explanation" scale are two shots of a rusted mast sticking out of a sand dune. It's an old buried shipwreck at the 10th Street beach, which is kind of just around the (longish) block from the lighthouse. I have no idea of anything about the ship, when it wrecked (the year, day or night), or if the lighthouse was in operation at the time (probably not?). In the shot looking back at the mast from the beach you can see the lighthouse in the distance to the far right, though in reality I think it's much closer than it appears.

Other than that, just hover your mouse pointer over the thumbnails for a brief popup comment of explanation before clicking. Ok, so here are the pics (simply in the order I took them):

It's not easy being green

2011-03-17T12:00:00.003-04:00

I agree with Kermit, but at least it's a little easier one day out of the year and today's the day.

Voyagers

2011-03-10T15:00:00.028-05:00

This still truly astounds me no end whenever I come across an article about their continued progress¹...

At Solar System's Edge, Old Voyager 1 Probe Performs New 'Acrobatics'

"Even though Voyager 1 has been traveling through the solar system for 33 years, it is still a limber enough gymnast to do acrobatics we haven't asked it to do in 21 years," Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement. "It executed the maneuver without a hitch, and we look forward to doing it a few more times to allow the scientists to gather the data they need."

. . . .

Voyager 2 was launched on Aug. 20, 1977. Voyager 1 was launched on Sept. 5, 1977. Both spacecraft were originally tasked primarily with studying Jupiter, Saturn and their moons.

On March 7, Voyager 1 was 10.8 billion miles (17.4 billion km) away from the sun. Voyager 2 was 8.8 billion miles (14.2 billion km) from the sun, on a different trajectory, NASA officials said.

Related: "NASA’s 10 Greatest Science Missions"

I don't know about the precise rankings, but I guess I'm willing to accept their order as given (in the link further below) since I'm sure Clara Moskowitz (or the space.com editorial staff) is (are) much more familiar than I am with the scientific ramifications of each...

[ But before checking out the link, it's perhaps an interesting little exercise to give some brief thought to what may be on the list and then go see how many you pegged vs. those you missed. I would guess that up to a handful (at least) ought to be quite obvious. But then there are certain "glamourous" and "sexy" projects that have maybe (I'm sure it's arguable) gotten more than their fair share of glory. Bear in mind, of course, that it's a NASA-b(i)ased list, so non-U.S. and officially designated international efforts won't be acknowledged. ]

NASA’s 10 Greatest Science Missions

Regardless of scientific vs. general popular perception I think it's still very hard to quibble with #1, especially if you factor in historical and inspirational contexts beyond the "mere" science.

¹ Of course, I'm assuming everything NASA says about them is true... I mean, it's not like anyone can just pop out and check for himself! Some things you just gotta take on faith.

When avoidance is wrong

2011-03-07T12:00:00.003-05:00

I'm usually very reluctant to play Grammar Cop¹, but I thought I'd try the badge on just this once...

I was reading The Healthy Home: 31 Ways to Protect Yourselves from Toxins, by Therese J. Borchard at World of Psychology (March 6, 2011), and one particular listed item caught my eye as being very oddly phrased...

11. Avoid aerosol products that have non-spray alternatives. If you must use aerosols, open a window and run your bathroom fan. Wash products off your face as soon as you get home instead of waiting until bedtime. A few additional chemical-free hours each day could add up to more than six years over a lifetime.²

Does anyone else see it, or is it just me?

To be fair, I believe it's quite obvious exactly what the author(s)³ meant, but what was written in that first line seems to me to be almost the exact opposite of the intent. "Avoid aerosol products that have non-spray alternatives" tells me that if an aerosol product is also available in a same-branded non-aerosol version, then I should AVOID BOTH of those products of that brand in favor of a differently branded, but similar product offered ONLY as an aerosol. Then I'd be, in effect, punishing the makers of a product for offering it in two different forms while rewarding the maker of the aerosol-only version.

As a further minor quibble, I could also take issue with the phrase "non-spray alternatives." It is obviously being used as a synonym for "non-aerosol", but that is simply not valid. All aerosol products may be sprayable, but not all sprayable products are aerosols.

It seems to me that a much better wording would have been something like: "Use aerosol products only if there are no readily available, similarly effective, non-aerosol alternatives." The key is to concentrate more on telling folks what to actually use instead of just what to avoid using which, to my way of reading it, introduces a certain amount of ambiguity.

¹ ...Because if you do it even once, you then expose yourself to all sorts of potential future "Aha!" moments of retribution and I've never been one to expose myself in public.

^2a Note that I considered emphasizing the specific questionable part of the quote in boldface, but decided against it so as not to call too much obvious attention to it... just to better test if anyone else would notice the same oddity as I did on first-read. I included the full quote of the numbered item for complete context.

^2b Also, and of least importance, I'm assuming the line "Wash products off your face as soon as you get home instead of waiting until bedtime" is most likely (or at least most generally) addressing women in the conventional workplace, specifically with regard to the use of facial cosmetics.

³ I cannot be sure if the quoted bit is a paraphrase by Ms. Borchard or if it is being cited verbatim from the book under discussion, which is authored by Dr. Myron Wentz (father) and Dave Wentz (son), also with Donna K. Wallace.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night...

2010-12-23T01:12:00.005-05:00

...Or a good eclipse anyway.

I actually managed to stay up for the historic winter solstice lunar eclipse early tuesday morning even though it didn't start until 1 a.m.(-ish) here on the east coast of the U.S. and didn't reach totality until 3 a.m.(-ish). Too often these sorts of things seem to coincide with cloudy weather in my area, but for once the night was crystal clear, though a bit nippy being in the 20s and with more breeze than I would have liked.

I've tried taking pictures of the moon before and never been able to find any sort of proper settings to get decent pics. Even so, I tried my best to see what I could capture of this rare event. The resulting shots are not great, but not as bad as I'd feared either, so I thought I would share them for laughs and/or snickers. Some things to bear in mind, however, in my defense in this particular case:

My general lack of experience with nighttime celestial photography... There's always trial-and-error random experimenting with various camera settings when shooting in non-typical conditions and I always have a hard time remembering any particular ones which seem to come close to being even halfway satisfactory.
My camera is over a decade old now, so hardly state of the art, with a max optical zoom of 3x which just isn't quite good enough for this sort of thing.
The aforementioned cold, making it difficult to navigate camera menu settings via tiny buttons when trying to experiment with different combinations.

On the plus side, though, I do have a good tripod mount and that's definitely a must in my opinion for nighttime photography to have any chance of turning out decent.

There was a lot of trying this, that, and other settings, then going inside to warm up and transfer the pics to my PC to examine in better detail just to see if I was getting anything at all indicating continued efforts might be justified. At least an eclipse is not a whiz bang affair and the leisurely pace affords some time to walk away and back without really missing anything of consequence.

Even late tuesday night (the eclipse having been early tuesday morning) it was still a clear sky and still essentially a full moon, so I broke out my camera's manual, read a bit, and then tried some more experiments with settings which I hadn't ever delved into before. I tried adjusting contrast and using a "shutter speed priority" mode. I had hoped that either one might significantly tone down the brightness of the full moon in the dark night. But no such luck. Every shot always came out looking more like it was the sun hanging up there in the black sky, not the moon. Oh well. I think I've convinced myself that my camera just isn't good enough for such shots. And that's OK.

On the plus side, though, taking pics of an eclipse actually helped the shots come out better because then the moon isn't so overwhelmingly bright in an otherwise black sky. Still not good, mind you, but better.

As the eclipse progressed, I discovered that if I changed the camera setting from my usual SQ 1024x768 size to HQ 2048x1536 it helped. That way, the moon essentially shows up twice as big by default since I can always crop the picture dimensions down without shrinking the moon image itself. Shots below where the moon looks larger are the result of the HQ setting rather than SQ. I seem to have gone back and forth a little between SQ & HQ, not fully realizing the advantage of the HQ setting until everything was done. Oh well.

Anway, without further technical prattling here are my 9 best shots (believe it or not) of the eclipse...

Now that you've had a few laughs looking at those pathetic images, here's a link to the accomplished results of some real photographers using proper equipment...

Lunar Eclipse Images From Around the World, Dec. 21, 2010
Presented by Nancy Atkinson at Universe Today

The ones showing the fully eclipsed reddish moon (from Queens, NY; Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Aberdeen, UK; Fair Lawn, NJ; and Lancaster County, PA) are most like what I actually saw in my little corner of the world. The view was spectacular to the naked and binoculared eye!

All in all the eclipse was a fine, even truly awesome, early Christmas present in my opinion, a wondrous sight to behold. Merry Christmas to you, dear reader (assuming the phrase is applicable for you, but I assure you absolutely no offense is intended if it is not). May the holiday season find you at some point joyful and content, among those you love, feeling loved yourself, and most especially of all, fully aware and mindful of sensing/experiencing it.

U.S. Veterans Day

2010-11-11T14:43:00.000-05:00

Note: This post is mainly of relevance for U.S. citizens on this day, but potentially of use or interest to others too, I think, at least in regard to certain aspects, the ramifications of which are applicable each and every day...

The linked item below is not long and well worth reading imo. Please click it and read if you have a minute or two. It's not your standard by-the-numbers "inspirational puff piece" about honoring veterans. Instead it brings to light just a few actual issues that some vets (and those currently still serving) inevitably deal with and such issues should be recognized...

Honoring Soldiers When They Come Home
By John M Grohol, PsyD, at PsychCentral.com

I just think it helps provide some real perspective so that thanking a vet doesn't become mere rote lip service, something we just automatically do without really, REALLY recognizing the sacrifices—both actual and potential, seen and unseen—that soldiers are asked/required to make.

So ***THANK YOU*** to all who have served/are serving—especially willingly and honorably—in our U.S. military armed forces (in combat or not... and I will always much prefer 'not').
__________

¹ I hesitate to add this next section and yet I feel compelled to do so...

I don't feel it's at all contradictory to or disrespectful of the sentiment expressed above to say that I personally greatly long for the day when nations, ethnicities, and religions (not to mention individuals) finally figure out ways to resolve differences without armed conflict and hostility... Or at the very least learn to tolerate and maybe understand/respect valid differences, stopping well short of pure unreasoned or even willfully blind hatred and bigotry (based in fear) which serve no man and no purpose well.

In short, I hope that someday in the history of humanity there is no longer any "us vs. them," just an all-inclusive "us" (as humans) with mostly common goals and desires aimed toward the general betterment of all. (So much as that can even be determined or decided upon—I realize that this is one of those concepts very easy to express, yet in all probability almost impossible to implement with any agreed upon practicality. And plus such views are sometimes—often?—looked down upon as mamby-pamby goody-goody pie-in-the-sky peacenik tripe, or other and worse derogatory terms, but I don't care.)

Bringing myself back to my initial military theme... In a perfect world no one should ever be asked to give his/her life or take another. Sadly, I don't honestly see that day coming anytime soon within my lifetime, a few lifetimes, or a thousand or more lifetimes. And yet despite my pessimistic view of the chances of that world ever coming to pass (in this earthly realm anyway), I will never stop wishing for it.

"You may say I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one..."
__________

¹ Obviously this section consists of personal views of mine as best I can determine such at this particular point in time. Whether I expressed any of it clearly or well, I don't know. It doesn't really matter and I don't really care on that particular point. What really matters much more is the initial section and especially the linked article, so please, if nothing else I hope you at least read those. I just want to explicitly add here in re to my editorializing, though, that your opinions may vary either by degree or even in part or in full, but regardless no offense is intended on my part. I make no pronouncements of being "right" in any definitive sense, the views expressed are only what "feel right to me." So on a personal note, just thank you for reading and respecting them (assuming, of course, that you did and do).

Dimension skipping... literally?

2010-09-23T15:48:00.000-04:00

Even though it's mere theoretical speculation at this point it was absolutely mandatory for me to post a link to this item...

Dimensions vanish in quantum gravity
by Rachel Courtland at New Scientist (22 September 2010)

On tiny scales, 3D space may give way to mere lines.

So say researchers working on theories of quantum gravity, which aim to unite quantum mechanics with general relativity. They have recently noticed that several different quantum gravity theories all predict the same strange behaviour at small scales: fields and particles start to behave as if space is one-dimensional.

The observation could help unite these disparate ideas. "There are some strange coincidences here that might be pointing toward something important," says Steven Carlip at the University of California, Davis.

He has noted that the theories yield similar results and has come up with an explanation for how dimensions might vanish. "The hope is that we could use that to figure out what quantum gravity really is," he says.

Disappearing dimensions first came to light in 2005 in computer simulations by Renate Loll of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and colleagues. They have been pursuing a quantum gravity idea known as causal dynamical triangulation.

. . . .

Dead tree

2010-09-09T13:23:00.004-04:00

Just a couple shots of a local dead tree I find fascinating. Quite often dead trees have massive vines growing up them, overwhelming the trunk and almost masking the deadness. Or there may be obvious spots where branches have rotted and jaggedly broken off. This one shows not a bit of life anywhere on it and yet looks to be intact. Plus the many branches have a sort of otherworldly twistiness to them, almost giving an appearance of still being alive in some sense. In the second shot it looks as if the top-most branch is a "claw" reaching for the jet trail wafting in the sky. I didn't plan that, but only noticed it after I took the pic off my camera.

By the way, I have no idea what kind of tree it is/was. I usually don't have much clue when there are leaves available for inspection, so I certainly can't tell just by bark and branch configurations. I guess I can usually figure out Maple, Oak, or Pine, but any specificity or range beyond those general types eludes me.

Patriot Guard Riders

2010-09-09T12:26:00.003-04:00

I found out about the Patriot Guard Riders this morning via science fiction writer John Scalzi's well known "Whatever" blog ("Taunting the Tauntable since 1998"). As of July 1 Scalzi began his term as newly elected President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) and he recently decided to take a virtual vacation from "whatever" for a couple months, enlisting the services of several guest bloggers*, one of which is Mykal Burns, about whom I know absolutely nothing except...

I found this post by Mr. Burns this morning to be of interest and thought I'd share it here.

My most recent PGR mission was on Tuesday, for a 20-year-old soldier who was killed last week in Afghanistan. The boy’s father thanked us for coming to honor his son, and said, “If you had known [my son]…well, this would’ve been his favorite part. He’d have been right here riding with you.” I cannot imagine the pain he felt in burying his son. 20 years old.

If you think the group may be of interest to you or anyone you know check out the Patriot Guard Riders website for further info.
_____________

* To be perfectly honest I've found "Whatever" to be rather underwhelming in the hands of the various guest bloggers, but I definitely thought this one post was worth pointing out.

Someone left his cake out in the Fresh Air

2010-07-23T19:38:00.003-04:00

Today's Fresh Air program on NPR featured a rebroadcast of a 2004 interview with Jimmy Webb. I'd never heard it before so it was interesting to me. (Plus I just really wanted to use that post title.)

Unfortunately, in the accompanying write-up on that page the first time he's mentioned by name they dub him Jimmy WEST! I mean, come on, the guy is fairly famous AND the featured guest—they could at least get his name right. That bugged me enough to register so I could leave a comment pointing out the error.

UPDATED 7/26: Now that the weekend is over, I see they've corrected the typo from West back to Webb. Good to see that they pay attention to the comments over at NPR/Fresh Air.

Dan's Funeral

2010-06-28T18:00:00.173-04:00

These are some pics from Dan's funeral and related gatherings. They are in simple chronological order, not a lot of commentary to add to most of them so I'll just let them speak for themselves...

I do have some commentary at this point...

Resa and Render are a lovely couple who live about five miles from Donna & Dan. From what I hear, Resa became something of an adoptive Mother figure to them when they moved there. Dan told me how Resa would make a lot of homemade soup for them and provide lots of food from their garden for them too.

Readers may recall that Jack and Shirley are the neighbors for whom Dan did his last construction project, expanding their porch deck and enclosing it (as much as possible before the work got to be too much for him). While I was in Alabama in April Dan and I spent a lot of time there chatting with Jack and Shirley during rest breaks and they always made me feel comfortable and welcome.

So when it came time to head back down to Alabama for the funeral, I broached the idea that perhaps (if it was OK with them, but no expectation or obligation whatsoever) I might be able to spend a few nights at their place. I didn't care if they had a spare bedroom, a couch, whatever. It would simply be a place to lay my head at night and then during the days I would easily walk to Donna and Dan's house right down the road. (With their daughter and her large-ish family in town, I knew there'd be no extra room there for me to stay.) I also knew that the church and neighbors would see that there was plenty of food on hand at Donna's house, so I figured I'd just grab small meals there as needed.

Jack and Shirley didn't hesitate in the least and graciously said they'd be glad to have me stay there, anything to help out. To me, this seemed like a very appropriate way to handle things because I know Dan always believed in "Why stay in a hotel when you can stay with family or friends?" Plus the convenient location certainly couldn't be beat.

There is one last little bit of irony or synchronicity or whatever that is just somehow appropriate. As it turns out Jack and Shirley do not have a spare bed or bedroom, just a living room couch. As I said, that was perfectly fine by me. It became very appropriate, though, when they told me that Dan himself had recently spent time on that couch too. Apparently after I left Alabama in early May, he was feeling so bad most every day that he went down to Jack and Shirley's and spent time there on the couch, close to the bathroom in case he would feel nauseous. With Donna continuing to work, Dan didn't want to be alone at his own house.. not only out of fear that something might happen to him, but also because if something did he didn't want Donna to have to come home in the evening and find him dead. (Of course, he didn't actually tell Donna that!)

On a personal note, I cannot thank Jack and Shirley enough for their kindness in allowing me to share their home for a few nights, even loaning me a key so I could get in if they weren't around. I enjoyed chatting with them some more each morning and most evenings. I was only sorry I couldn't actually spend more time with THEM, but under the circumstances I know they understood that my priorities were elsewhere, especially given limited time.

One last aside... Jack tells the funny story of when he first met Donna and Dan. They had bought the land where their house is now and Dan had been running equipment during the day to clear trees and whatever in preparation for buiding the house. Then he and Donna were spending the night in... a tent, I think, but I could be wrong, it could have been a vehicle of some sort. I'm sure I'm missing a lot of details, but the gist is that Jack introduced himself and insisted that Dan and Donna should spend the nights at their place where they could bathe rather than in a cold tent (it was winter and it DOES get cold at night in Alabama). As Jack tells the story, the first thing Dan did at their place was to ask if he could use the phone to call his daughter in Florida (at the time). Jack said yes and Dan called, saying right off: "I must really STINK because there's a man here could smell me a half a mile away and said I should come to his place to get a shower!"

And on that note, back to the pics. I left some these at the larger 1024x768 size (the setting I always use on my old camera) to preserve details. These are from the actual funeral at the graveside (after the memorial service inside the church) and then from the luncheon afterwards in the church community room. (There was TONS of food, all of it delicious!)...

Post-funeral luncheon and more family shots...

Something to be aware of...

2010-06-25T01:13:00.000-04:00

I've read about such things before, but I thought this new article was a very good presentation of the general issue(s):

Dark Side of Medical Research: Widespread Bias and Omissions
By Jeremy Hsu, LiveScience Senior Writer (posted on June 24)

Many patients may not know the full story about their drugs or medical treatments because of a widespread problem involving unpublished or biased clinical trials, according to mounting evidence.

Oftentimes, medical journals or pharmaceutical companies that sponsor research will report only "positive" results, leaving out the non-findings or negative findings where a new drug or procedure may have proved more harmful than helpful.

A new review of research about this problem points to hidden or misleading studies for all sorts of conditions, including depression, Alzheimer's disease, type 2 diabetes, menopausal symptoms and cancer, said researchers at the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) in Germany.

"You can't say this is an isolated problem," said Beate Wieseler, deputy head of IQWiG's Drug Assessment Department. "It's widespread, and it affects drug companies, universities and regulatory authorities."

. . . .

[ Click the headline link above to read the full article. ]

I would hope that I'm not the only one who is troubled by the issues such articles raise. I'm not saying there's anything that we the general public can do about such things, but I do think it's important to just be aware that the system may have potentially serious flaws. As an unfortunate result it appears you can't just simply trust that your doctor always has the best or all information or even for that matter accurate information regarding treatment options (typically medicines) for various conditions.

Anyway, I simply recommend you read it for yourself and then tuck the ideas away in your brain somewhere for future reference if—God forbid!—you may find yourself in a situation where you have to decide a course of action to deal with some serious medical problem for either yourself or a family member.

Official WHAT provider...?

2010-06-24T18:00:00.000-04:00

I was channel surfing earlier in the week and in pausing momentarily at my local FOX affiliate they were playing a promo featuring their primary meteorologist touting their weather forecasting service.

First of all, that in and of itself has always struck me as kind of pointless. Each local channel has their own—I mean... Exclusive!—on-air weather folk—sorry... "meteorologists"—but mostly they just give the local forecast as provided by the more general weather services, don't they? I really don't know that, but I always just assumed. (And I could easily be wrong.)

Even if they somehow study the measured numbers and crunch'em themselves using their very own computers, the eventual forecast that gets spit out in the end always seems to me to be pretty much identical from channel to channel. If they ever revise a short-term forecast they all still seem to revise in the same way within the same general time frame. And I'd be willing to bet that if there is any perceived difference in eventual accuracy (however one would determine that), it would be extremely negligible to the point of falling well within any objective definition of standard deviation or margin of error, whatever you call such things. Again, though, I don't know... I admit I'm just speculating.

Anyway, here's the thing that really stood out to me about the promo... The tag line was touting their weather service as "...Philadelphia's official weather provider."

Really? They provide the weather? Not the weather FORECAST, but the actual weather itself?! WOW! How do they do that?

As "official weather provider" I would think that would open them up to all sorts of potential liabilities and lawsuits, but hey if they want to make such claims, who am I to argue?

Grandparents' Day at school & roses at home

2010-06-23T22:58:00.000-04:00

Last post on my trip with Dan...

By late in my stay, Dan was really not feeling well. He had started getting abdominal swelling due to fluid retention buildup called ascites (which is typically found with liver disease, but is also fairly common with serious illlnesses such as pancreatic cancer in late stages apparently). Of course, at the time he really didn't know what it was, only that he had the swelling/pressure and it made it hard for him to work or even breathe right in the increasing daily heat of late spring.

He managed to make it to Grandparents' Day at his granddaughters' school though. Of course, Dan's wife Donna (my cousin) went as well. I went along too as sort of an honorary grandparent—or technically a "grandpal," I guess, since the program lists that alternative designation for the day, but I'm sure that's mainly for any kids whose grandparents are deceased or otherwise unavailable. I was also able to serve as unofficial family photographer for the event so that Donna and Dan could just enjoy the program.

Their granddaughters are Courtney (7) and Kaitlynne (5 at the time, 6 now as of the day before Dan died and I was sooo glad that he didn't die on her birthday). The program was entitled "Luigi's Baton and the Orchestra Family Reunion" and consisted mostly of a pre-recorded narration by "Luigi's baton" discussing various musical instruments, what family they belong to, what they look like (and differences), how they sound (and differences), and what they generally contribute to music's emotion.

After the program everyone adjourned to visit their rspective grandkids' classrooms for a few moments. Following are some pictures...

Dan's roses were starting to bloom well so I took a few pics of those too...

Dan's projects back home in Alabama

2010-06-19T18:48:00.000-04:00

Next up on "Travels with Dan" is the return to his home in Alabama. I decided to stay on and help Dan with some projects. He was always building or fixing something, usually for others, and at this time he seemed to be desperate for things to get into. He even came right out and said that he needed to be doing something, that despite the constant pain he was in—alleviated only by regular strong pain meds—he couldn't just sit around and wonder how long he had left.

The biggest project under way was an extension and further enclosure of the porch at Jack and Shirley's, the neighbors just half a mile down the road. Previously they had a small screened-in porch and the roof of the house extended out beyond that to the "carport" (where they used to park the car under cover). Now though, Dan was extending the deck out through the carport area and eventually installing windows and enclosing it. Four of the window sets actually came from a building somewhere that was being torn down (or renovated or something) and someone (not sure if it was Jack or Dan or someone else) salvaged them for use. Another window, the middle set on the end of the house, was purchased new. The previously used ones weren't in perfect condition, but the price was right and Dan always could figure a way to make things fit and work.

First here is a pic of Jack and Shirley. When Dan would need a break, we'd just sit there on their old porch and chat. Shirley would do her word search puzzles there all the time as well. They're really nice people, very good to Donna and Dan and I know they'll be there for Donna now. After Jack & Shirley, of course, are some progressive pics of the work Dan did. Unfortunately the final shot is pretty much all Dan was able to do, he was not able to completely finish the job. On the other hand most people in Dan's condition would have probably been in bed 24/7 for weeks, not out building decks...

Another project Dan's cousin John's boat trailer. Dan was installing new axles and brake system (also a new tilt motor on the boat itself). The axles ended up being too long, so Dan being Dan he just cut a chunk (maybe 8" or so) out of the middle and welded the pieces back together. There were other issues as well when it came to mounting the new axles, things that didn't quite work out ideally, but Dan could always find ways around such issues. I don't think he got things quite perfect this time, but when you consider the circumstances he did a remarkable job. Again, not all the intended work got done, but the worst was over with. Below is a pic of the boat in Dan's shop (Dan's leaning on it) and one of cousin John assisting...

We also did some general reorganizing of Dan's shop: moving things about, installing a new set of shelves (for assorted tools, nails, bolts, nuts, screws, whatever), throwing out some old stuff that wasn't needed anymore, cleaning up the overhead loft area, etc. Some of the shifting of things was strictly to allow the boat to be fully backed into the shop for the work to be done. Dan's son Daryl installed some extra electrical outlets and lighting on "the other side" of the shop where previously there was none. Dan could do that sort of work in his sleep, but I'm sure it's the kind of thing he'd just never get around to because he was always doing things for others. At this time, I believe Dan was still hopeful of having more time than he in fact turned out to have after all.

St. Louis Gateway Arch & Flammable Jesus

2010-06-15T15:09:00.007-04:00

So let's get back (finally) to my trip with Dan... As luck would have it, the next leg of our journey now has a very topical news tie-in as of last night, but I'll get back to that shortly...

After our couple of days at the Tulsa CTCA, we headed for Cincinnati, Ohio, where my cousin, also Dan's brother-in-law, is a Methodist preacher. Dan wanted to go there to see some of the congregation and personally thank them for praying on his behalf.

Our route took us northeastward across Missouri on I-44. (Unfortunately for me I-44 passes just a few miles—if that, even—below the southeast corner of Kansas or I would have been able to add another state to my personally-been-in list. Oh well.) Eventually we got to eastern Missouri and St. Louis where I got to see the famous Gateway Arch. I took a few pics on the way by and in the first one you'll see Dan's dreamcatcher which he had hanging from the rear-view mirror of his truck...

On to Ohio... Dave and his wife live in Cincinnati in the church parsonage in Cincinnati, but they also have a "farm house" (though they don't actually farm except for a small garden) two hours north in a very rural area. We went up and stayed overnight to do a few chores the next day. Most notably Dave bought a new hitch jack for his heavy duty Trailer which Dan had built for him years ago. The old jack apparently was not quite as heavy duty as the trailer and had suffered some damage over the years. Dan cut a square through a half-inch steel plate, placed the new jack through the hole and welded them together, then welded the plate to the trailer...

While Dan took care of the first step of cutting the steel plate and inserting/welding the hitch jack into it, Dave and I had the pleasure of offloading a pile of horse manure into the garden. It had largely dried in the sun and as such things go it wasn't too bad, but it was ripe enough at times. Sorry, no pics of the manure work.

I-75 is the main route between the farm and Cincinnati. The most notable attraction along the way is a 62' tall statue of Jesus at the Solid Rock Church. He's known by various nicknames, but "Touchdown Jesus" is the one I've always heard Dave use. The name comes, of course, from the pose with the upraised arms (just like a football official signalling a touchdown) and the even more famous image of TD Jesus at Notre Dame (which easily pre-dates Ohio's by 40 years, 1964 vs. 2004).

The few times I've been by there now, I always wanted to try to get a picture of TD Jesus. I didn't think of it in time on the trip north, but coming back I opened the rear window of Dave's truck and held my camera out to try to get a couple shots as we passed by on the opposite side of the highway. They're not great (you can easily find much better shots on the web), but here's what I got...

And now suddenly TD Jesus is in the news as of just last night... Who knew he was flammable? Follow the link and there's also a video available, but I didn't try to view it for myself. (Here's a really good comedic line I just read... "The Almighty has challenged the ruling on the field of a touchdown..." I'm sure there will be others, but I like that one and think it will be hard to top.)

Home!

2010-06-13T21:29:00.000-04:00

Returned home around 5 PM. Am half unpacked, now playing catch-up on a week's worth of internet stuff since I really didn't have any access beyond 15 minutes or so a day this time, barely time to hit the minimum essential sites.

Service for Dan was beautiful. I took pictures and saw lots of familiar and friendly faces, even met many family members for the first time ever! Despite the reason for the gathering, it was great to see everyone and in between necessary seriousness, some fun was had.

I hope to get back to pictorially recapping my Tulsa trip with Dan and maybe post some key pics from the funeral and related events too, but I have no idea when, though at this time I would think probably not for two or three days at least.

On the second leg of the return trip we saw a major accident had recently occurred on the other side of I-95 (somewhere above Baltimore), a minivan or SUV type of vehicle flipped over the guardrail and came to rest on the side grass slope. I hope no one was killed, but don't see how anyone inside could have escaped injury. No idea how it happened. It DID make the occasional piddly traffic jam and minor rain seem piddly by comparison and easier to take.

Back to 'Bama

2010-06-06T16:18:00.000-04:00

Unless something changes abruptly for unforeseeable reasons I will be hitching a ride with other local clan members to head back to Alabama as of tomorrow morning. Since one person involved is my aunt—Donna's 81-year-old mother—who had major neck surgery earlier this year, we will be making the drive in two days each way with a midpoint stopover going and coming.

Dan's service's are scheduled for thursday and friday. We should arrive in Alabama tuesday evening, leave saturday morning, and arrive back in NJ by sunday evening if all goes well.

Busy figuring out what I need to pack, what I have in the way of "funeral clothes" that will reasonably fit me and all that sort of logistical stuff. I'll try to get back to posting pics from the previous trip when I can. Don't know if I'll take many new pics as it should be a few days chocked full with all sorts of hubbub, stuff like helping to coordinate comings and goings, airport runs, food runs, who knows what...

CTCA, Tulsa

2010-06-04T02:03:00.001-04:00

First stop on my trip with Dan was Tulsa, Oklahoma, home of one branch of the Cancer Treatment Centers of America (see also Wikipedia ).

First shot is of the triumvirate of flags out front: U.S.A., Oklahoma, and CTCA. Then there are two shots of the front of the building. On the closer one you may be able to make out (though not clearly, unfortunately) a statue of a boy and his dog just under and to the right of the tree. That imagery is also the logo of the CTCA and you will find it on their building, flag, stationery, business cards, whatever.

Next, we come to the lobby. You will also note the entrance to the cafeteria just beyond the lobby. Food there was good, especially considering that the max price you paid was only $4!

Following check-in we had to take the elevator to the second floor where our room was located. I didn't take any pictures of the room, but it was essentially a very nice $40/night hotel room, NOT a hospital room. Along the way, beginning as we exit the elevators on the second floor, we pass by the library (really just a room with some bookcases and books freely available to anyone who wanted to read) which also had several PCs set up for anyone to use to access the web. Then bearing left down a corridor we pass by a general open area with more PCs for general web use, a large screen TV (ironically, not pictured), and some tables for jigsaw puzzles (you will note a couple working on one). Right next to that area is a pantry that also featured a pool table which Dan and I used for a while one afternoon (sometimes you didn't have quite enough room to get to a particular shot at a proper angle, but we weren't too fussy).

Some views of the ground floor common areas as seen from the second floor. I thought it was cool how in two of these shots they look like roads with dashed lines down the middle. That was merely a coincidental effect (completely unplanned by me) of sunlight shining through some high windows at just the proper time of day to create the dashed line pattern.

If you walked in through the front lobby and just kept walking to the rear you'd find yourself looking out at a garden with 6-foot penguin statue. I kind of wondered what that was all about, but didn't give it much thought. Later, when we made it out to explore the surrounding Tulsa streets I soon noticed a bunch of other similar penguin statues and knew something was up. When I got back to the hospital, I googled and found out that they were part of a project called "Penguins on Parade" and they were originally done a few years prior to raise funds (I'm not sure how) for the penguin habitat at the Tulsa zoo.

Also on the ground floor was a piano and occasionally someone would play. One evening I heard music and found one of the young valets playing. He was very good, though he seemed a little shy about someone taking his picture, but I assured him I was just taking some shots to show folks back home, nothing more.

There was also a gym. I took a shot of Dan walking on a treadmill. He was feeling pretty good then and was able to do a mile in 20 minutes. I suspect that most of the folks who ever use the gym are family members who came along as caregivers/companions.

In the waiting room of the "infusion area" was a map of the U.S. Patients could stick pins in to indicate where they had travelled from for their treatment at the center. Most pins clustered around the Tulsa area and got more dispersed the further away you got, but there were some pins even in Canada, despite the fact that there were other closer branches of the CTCA.

When we got the chance to venture out one evening, mainly to fill up the truck with gas for the next leg of the trip, we happened to go right by a place I'd seen advertised on a Tulsa map that had been provided in the room... Gardner's Used Books & Music. We went in and browsed for about a half hour till closing time. Just inside was a huge statue/figure of the Incredible Hulk. Dan posed as if he was challenging the Hulk. If you have $3000 laying around you don't know what to do with, you could buy the Hulk for your living room.

[UPDATED] Probably heading back to 'Bama again soon

2010-06-03T23:33:00.006-04:00

UPDATE... June 4: Dan's struggle with pancreatic cancer officially ended this afternoon. There are, of course, still a lot of details to be ironed out before we, the NJ branch of the family, will know of a timetable for services and be able to specifically plan when to depart NJ, who's going to stay where in AL and for how long, etc.
________________

I've been holding off on posting pics of my previous AL to OK to OH and back to AL excursion for a couple reasons... 1) I just haven't been in blogging mode or mood, and 2) I was kind of waiting to see how things might go for Dan.

Well, I still can't say I'm much in the mood for donning my blogging cap, but as for Dan the news is worsening (though not necessarily surprising)...

When I left Alabama, I knew he was not good, but I had to get back home for my own reasons after having spent a month away. Dan wanted me to stay longer and I know he appreciated me being there, but I hope he understood. The following day after I left he had to go in the hospital in Alabama because he'd developed some abdominal bloating which was really affecting him. It was a condition called "ascites" if I remember correctly. It's fluid retention, especially abdominal, that is associated with major diseases, including cancer (obviously), COPD, and a few others. Once he had the fluid drained he felt better, but it also quickly returned, so the relief did not last. Obviously that wasn't a good sign.

He was scheduled to return to Tulsa on May 23rd, but he ended up cancelling that as he just didn't feel like flying again (since I wasn't around to help him do the drive again, but I don't think he could handle driving or riding that far any more than he could handle flying). Besides, he'd been able to get his pain meds (advanced pancreatic cancer is very painful) through one of his local Alabama doctors after all, so he didn't feel like the trip to Tulsa would really benefit him much, I guess.

(And btw, I think I've mentioned it before, but if anyone ever gets diagnosed with pancreatitis, I highly recommend that they urgently encourage followup tests [as frequently as possible for a good while], anything which may have a chance of spotting onrushing pancreatic cancer. The sooner you catch it, the better the chances of beating it, but it all too often goes completely undetected until it has already reached the inoperable stage. Treatment then is an even greater ordeal, it may or may not work, and even if it works it may be only a temporary remission as pancreatic cancer may be the most aggressive form of cancer one could have. I'm not any sort of expert and don't claim to be—that's just my layman's opinion.)

Though now having cancelled the Tulsa trip, immediately after his return from there Dan and Donna were scheduled to fly together to California on the 27th because their daughter had been pregnant with another grandchild who was due any day. Knowing that he would not be able to handle flying too well, I'm sure that he really wanted to save his remaining stamina for THIS second scheduled trip. Their daughter and her husband both have kids from prior marriages, but this baby was their first child together even though she's 40 (it wasn't planned apparently, but oh well... life happens).

After some problems with pre-eclampsia, little Keira Tippani was born just a day or two prior to Donna and Dan's arrival in California (below Sacramento and east of San Francisco). However, the flight did indeed take its toll on Dan and he had to be admitted to the hospital early the next day (I think). I have no idea if it was the same hospital where the baby was born or not. Turned out he had an infection, plus the fluid, plus the usual (or more) pain. While he was obviously not well, it was hoped that would be able to get better enough to be released to his daughter's home under hospice care.

As of today, though, the news has only gotten worse. First came word that Dan had suffered a pulmonary embolism and was on oxygen, but not responsive. Later reports indicated a possible stroke and/or pooling of fluid in the lower extremities indicative of his body just gradually beginning to shut down. I may not have all the details perfectly accurate at this point, but the gist is that he's essentially gone now (not awake or aware) and it's just a matter of how long his body will proceed on auto-pilot before finally yielding to the inevitable.

The worst part of all this (imo) is that due to the infection(s) he was never able to see (let alone hold) his newest granddaughter. He had told me when I was in Alabama that in his family there's always been a sort of pattern (tradition?) that when a baby is born there would be a death right before, someone who would never get to see the new life. I tried to tell him that he didn't KNOW that would happen in his case, but for all intents and purposes, I guess it did after all. He really didn't have to go to such lengths just to prove himself right. (Sorry, a touch of gallows humor there.) I guess it will have to be enough that at least he lived long enough to know that Keira had arrived safe and sound and I'm sure he must have seen a picture or two.

So at this point it could be a matter of days or a week (or it could be in the next five minutes or even have already happened), but Dan's end is near and I will simply leave it at that. I admired many of Dan's traits and will greatly miss him.

Donna will have the unenviable task now of figuring out exactly what's involved in transporting a body from California back to Alabama. Luckily she has her daughter (and family) there to help and her son has also flown out there to be with them as well and accompany his Mother back home. I have no idea who of their daughter's family will fly back to Alabama for funeral services as the new baby is also important in the whole mix. Who knows, maybe they'll even do some sort of service first out there, then another one back in Alabama.

There is a LOT to figure out on their end. Once everything is arranged and we have a schedule of some sort in hand, it is very likely that I and other members of the local clan will head back down to Alabama for the funeral. Obviusly, I have no idea when that will be nor how long we (or I) might stay.

In the meantime, as I feel like it, I hope to be able to finally post some pictures of my trip with Dan to Oklahoma, Ohio, and back to Alabama. Maybe I'll get them mostly posted before I have to leave, but I might not—depends on timing and uncontrollable circumstances. At this point, I guess I'm just hoping for Dan and Donna's sake that he will not be suffering nor linger too long when the end is obviously so near.

Safe journey to whatever lies beyond, my friend. May your soul be gently welcomed and cradled in your Lord and Savior's loving arms.

Now I'll close this entry with one of Dan's favorite Bible passages:

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
—Isaiah 40:28-31

Muppet Country

2010-05-28T10:37:00.000-04:00

I haven't checked out the vids, but I figure they gotta be fun just because, well... Muppets!

The country music site The 9513 does a weekly "Friday Five" list feature, always with a different theme. This week's theme?...

Country Music on The Muppet Show