THE PUBLIC READER

Time Out

2012-01-24T14:34:00.000-08:00

I have decided that it is time to step aside for an indefinite period. I may be back, and then again, maybe not. As one of my daughters-in-law would say, ALOHA.

Queensboro Bridge New York

2012-01-07T20:00:00.000-08:00

Blendon Reed Campbell

good photo, bad caption

2012-01-05T08:26:00.000-08:00

I guarantee you after I finish cleaning your hairy clock and win back my pants, there will be no more strip chess played by me you gray wizard.

Fracking is such a cute little word

2012-01-03T07:39:00.000-08:00

From the Wall Street Journal January 3, 2012BY DANIEL GILBERTOhio became the latest state to take action on the possible link between seismic activity and wells used to dispose of waste water from oil and gas production when state officials ordered a halt to the practice near Youngstown this weekend after several minor earthquakes.The wells, known as injection wells, have been proliferating in Ohio to accommodate growing volumes of waste water left over from hydraulic fracturing, which involves blasting water, sand and chemicals underground to break apart dense layers of rock to free up oil and gas.The state's move could stoke the political debate about hydraulic fracturing, ...

The Reader sez... So now the consequences begin from fracturing mother earth and jamming chemicals and other waste products under layers of rock. But it's completely safe we're told. So states who are economically needy like Ohio grab at anything. Now we have 177 sites where they have jammed this completely safe waste product cocktail down into our backyards. That it is causing earthquakes, that could be telling us something. Fracking is such a cute little word. Only when you know its short for fracturing, as in fracturing the earth we live on, do we take it a little more seriously.

The Boston Pops

2012-01-02T16:19:00.000-08:00

One of the things I miss since our economic downturn is the Boston Pop presentation each week. They are still in business for the people around Boston, but that does not do much for the rest of us.Here is a guest conductor Shaq O'neal doing a good job like he usually does in all his ventures. The crowd liked him. It's a song of the winter season which is just getting started so enjoy. I will.

the ooze is flowing

2011-12-28T08:31:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again when the election ooze starts to flow. Break out the hazmat suits.

A Dog Named Bo

2011-12-26T12:24:00.000-08:00

A Dog Named Bo

The talent between these two guys is immense. Now add a sure fire tear jerking poem, well enjoy. After a short interruption for a commercial.

Merry Christmas one and all, HO HO HO.

2011-12-24T20:03:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite comic strips harking back to my young boyhood. I was a believer. I was an only child which I think was why I could indulge myself. I was absolutely sure I saw the old fat man in his sleigh one moonlit Christmas eve. I only saw him once. I must have been at the age limit and had to give up my believing and get on with playing soldier. I grew up during the WWII years.

Slightly Exaggerated

2011-12-24T10:38:00.000-08:00

This is one of Hazel and my favorite blogs for humorous writings usually about THE husband and/or THE boy, or whatever else that is just a little exaggerated.

Tomato Cage Christmas Tree

2011-12-24T10:08:00.000-08:00

Hazel's creative juices are in overdrive. The holiday is fast coming to a conclusion, but her imagination is not. When I awoke this morning I found the remains of another project finished in the middle of the night. She furnishes this narrative of what she has done:

Whenever I passed the tomato cages stored in the garage, all my imagination saw was a Christmas tree. So I located a wadded up mess of lights, got them untangled and wrapped around and fastened them to the cage...voila, I had a little Christmas tree. Now I have to take it outside and figure out if there are any spare outlets.?? MERRY CHRISTMAS

Darlene's Hodgepodge

2011-12-24T08:04:00.000-08:00

Darlene's Hodgepodge

Christmas is the greatest day on the calendar for children. It is a day of love and hope. From Darlene's Hodgepodge are thoughts on love from children, articulate and unspoiled.

2011-12-21T15:14:00.000-08:00

A picture's impact is weighed many ways. Although I didn't take it, nor do I know who took the picture, it seems so familiar to me. My wife and I were born in the 1930's. I have pictures that look so familiar as the subject in her dress and the hairdo. I wish I could say I've learned the secret to staying together so long, luck I think, and since retirement a dozen years or so ago, we have opened up a conversation that still goes on and on. We have discovered that we like each other quite a lot. She is definitely my best friend

A glimpse of the beginnings

2011-12-17T16:14:00.000-08:00

From INTELLIGENT LIFE magazine, November/December 2011

I’d choose to live in very early childhood, just at the beginning of discernment. There’s no time there, beyond the eternal rhythm set by meals at the breast and the oblivion of sleep, which comes as gently and immediately as the closing of an eye; there’s no place there, beyond one patch of sunlit grass, one fold of blanket, and the whole enormous world laid out for exploring.

In this time and place, poets tell us, dreams and waking are the same; we move easily from one to the other. We may still keep, as Wordsworth supposed, intimations of some ante-natal life, and know why we home like bees towards the song of a bird or the sparkle of sunbeams on water. With our small hands, we believe that everything can be grasped; with our small, soft mouths we try to eat it all, assuming everything we find will be sweet and rich as milk.

No one makes demands on us, and the world revolves effortlessly round no one but ourselves. Our griefs are soothed and forgotten almost before the tears fall. We are carried if we want to be, in hugging arms, but we can pull ourselves up, reach things, and creep away from where we’re put: every day more confident, stronger, keener-eyed. Slowly, like a shell, the world opens and light floods in. Any day now, we’ll stand to meet it.

Everything is new, unnamed, important, and belongs to us. A stone is new, and a blade of grass. We see their potential as unlimited, like our own. We make time for it. A puddle astonishes us. A piece of paper, blown by the wind, becomes a playmate, and the night-time tree a ragged monster. Coleridge once took his crying baby son out of the house to show him the moon; the moon silenced him, shining on his tears. It is good to be silenced by beauty. Too briefly we stay there. But infancy makes of everywhere the best time and the best place.

Ann Wroe is the obituaries editor of The Economist and author of "Orpheus: The Song of Life" and "Being Shelley: The Poet's Search for Himself".

Knight to the rescue. Some people are so clever.

2011-12-13T09:09:00.000-08:00

Election for President is not that far off.

2011-12-12T16:28:00.000-08:00

It's almost election year and I'm unhappy with the way it's going. The republicans are whipping through their possible nominees like corn at harvest time. Mr. Cain was the latest to bite the dust which puts Mr. Gingrich in the lead.

Are they serious.

My God this guy is must be made of the toughest Teflon made. He is vulnerable from being in bed with the biggest and richest PAC's in Washington; casting off two wives in very public fashion; shutting down the government while speaker, and it goes on.

Romney seems to be nobodies favorite and it goes down from there.

On the other side of the coin we have poor tired, seemingly incompetent incumbent Barack Obama. Have you seen recent pictures of the man? He looks beat after three years. He has forgotten the promises he made three years ago or just can't get it done. Whatever. We have to vote for one of the candidates next year, and unless you are a party robot who only votes for whomever the party leaders tell you to vote for, then a decision is coming up, and I for one am already uncomfortable with that fact.

Could the democrats unseat a sitting president by running an open convention?

Could the republicans convince other qualified people to take the plunge, or is it too late?

It seems that the mood of the country is antagonism toward our current crop of politicians and would welcome a chance to replace those we can.

I, for one, know that I am ready. The republican and democratic names that seem destined to be on the ballot next year is not an inspiring bunch. The job facing the new administration will be daunting. There must be a man or woman out there up to the task.

slow reader

2011-12-10T05:39:00.000-08:00

Sean Connery

2011-12-05T07:00:00.000-08:00

From delanceyplace.com comes this excerpt of an unknown actor Sean Connery trying out for the lead role in Dr. No, and convincing them that he is James Bond. Something all of we movie fans could have told them hands down.

In today's excerpt - Sean Connery, a marginally successful, hard-working young actor from a poor background, auditioned in 1962 for the role of James Bond in Dr. No. Bond, the sophisticated, impeccably-styled fictional hero of Ian Fleming's spy novels, had taken the British public by storm as the antidote to their enfeebled post-World War II status. A number of established actors were considered for the part - including Cary Grant, Michael Redgrave, and Richard Burton - though none were likely to handcuff themselves to a movie series, especially considering the low pay being offered. Connery was not an obvious candidate since he was not given to wearing suits, much less to Bond's sophistication. So he took a gamble in the audition to convey the power of Bond and thus startle the producers into giving him the part:

"At least initially, [director Terence] Young himself had other ideas for who should play the part, too, petitioning for a television actor named Richard Johnson to be given the part of Bond. When, however, it became clear to Young that Connery was seriously in the running for Dr No, he thought enough of the young pup he remembered from the Action of the Tiger shoot to offer him some advice for the meeting [co-producers Harry] Saltzman and [Cubby] Broccoli had invited him to. 'I knew how he dressed,' Young remembered in the eighties, '[so] I said, "Sean, come wearing a suit." He came without a tie on and wearing a sort of lumber jacket.'

"In fact, Connery seems to have approached the interview almost like a Method actor approaching a role. Those scruffy, unpressed clothes, the unadulterated Scots burr, they might have been put on in order to goad the producers into telling him he wasn't quite what they were looking for. That way, Connery could slam their desk with the palm of his hand and tell them that they either took him as he was or they didn't take him at all. Was he acting up, or was he just acting? Certainly, he had planned the whole thing out. 'I shall establish myself on Overpowering,' he told [acting teacher] Yat Malmgren a few days before the meeting, 'and take the interview like that. That would be a good thing, don't you think, sir?' Indeed Malmgren did, adding that Connery ought to be 'thinking about cat animals' during the proceedings because 'they are very loose'. 'I think he walked into that audition very self-assured, very large, very secure,' Malmgren would say years later. Or, as Connery himself would put it: 'I put on a bit of an act, and it paid off.'

"In putting on that act, Connery was giving Saltzman and Broccoli all they needed to know about how he'd play Bond - with macho, devil-may-care menace backed up by a Brando-style sense of relaxed rebellion. Indeed, the casting interview sounds like nothing so much as that Bond movie staple - the meeting 'twixt our surly, mocking, ironic hero and Bernard Lee's irascible M. As Harry Saltzman would recall: 'We spoke to him and saw that he had the masculinity the part needed. Whenever he wanted to make a point, he'd bang his fist on the table, the desk, or his thigh, and we knew this guy had something.'

"And so, after he left their West End offices, Connery's prospective producers went to the window and looked down as he crossed the road to where he had parked [his new wife] Diane Cilento's sexless little Fiat. 'He's got balls,' Saltzman said. 'In 30 minutes he sold us both,' Broccoli would remember. 'It was the sheer self-confidence he exuded. I've never seen a surer guy ... It wasn't just an act, either. When he left we watched him through the window as he walked down the street. He walked like the most arrogant son-of-a-gun you've ever seen - as if he owned every bit of Jermyn Street from Regent Street to St James's. 'That's our Bond,' I said.' "

Author: Christopher Bray
Title: Sean Connery
Publisher: Pegasus
Date: Copyright 2011 by Christopher Bray
Pages: 72-74

Sean Connery: A Biography
by Christopher Bray by Pegasus
Hardcover

Proudly it was shoved back in their faces.

2011-12-01T14:42:00.000-08:00

I'm sure friends that you recognize the following as one of those chain letters. Well it is. Instead of apologizing for some of the schmuck traps the USA falls in too often, these are great comebacks that you wish you'd been there, if they actually happened.

You Could Have Heard a Pin Drop

At a time when our president and other politicians tend to apologize for our
country's prior actions, here's a refresher on how some of our former patriots
handled negative comments about our country.

JFK'S
Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60's when
DeGaulle decided to pull out of NATO. DeGaulle said he wanted all US
Military out of France as soon as possible.

Rusk responded,
"Does that include those who are buried here?"

DeGaulle
Did not respond.

You Could have heard a pin drop.

When in England ,
At a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the
Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of
'empire building' by George Bush.

He answered by saying,
"Over the years, the United States has sent many of
Its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom
Beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for
In return is enough to bury those that did not
Return."

You Could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There was a conference in France
Where a number of international engineers
Were taking part, including French and American. During a break,
One of the French engineers came back into the room saying, "Have you
Heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft
Carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he
Intend to do, bomb them?"

A Boeing engineer
Stood up and replied quietly: "Our carriers have three
Hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are
Nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to
Shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to
Feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand
Gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a
Dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and
From their flight deck. We have eleven such ships;
How many does France have?"

You Could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A U.S. Navy Admiral
Was attending a naval conference that included
Admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French
Navies At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large
Group of officers that included personnel from most of those countries.
Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a
French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many
Languages, Americans learn only English. He then asked, "Why is it that
We always have to speak English in these conferences rather than
Speaking French?"

Without hesitating,
The American Admiral replied, "Maybe it's because the
Brit's, Canadians, Aussie's and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't
Have to speak German."

You Could have heard a pin drop.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AND
THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE ABOVE...

Robert Whiting,
An elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane.
At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport
In his carry on.

"You
Have been to France before, monsieur?" the customs officer asked
Sarcastically.

Mr. Whiting
Admitted that he had been to France
Previously.

"Then
You should know enough to have your passport ready."

The American said,
"The last time I was here, I didn't have to show it."

"Impossible..
Americans always have to show their passports on arrival in France !"

The American senior
Gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he
Quietly explained, ''Well, when I came ashore at OmahaBeach on D-Day in
1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn't find a single Frenchmen
To show a passport to."

You Could have heard a pin drop.

It probably will never happen, but I like the effort.

2011-12-01T12:17:00.001-08:00

Sen. Claire McCaskill U.S. Senator from Missouri.

Today, I introduced a measure in the Senate to shift funds for large-scale construction projects in Afghanistan toward the construction of roads and bridges right here at home.

Click here to become a citizen cosponsor of this important measure.

The spending on infrastructure in Afghanistan simply isn't working.

The majority of the money we spend in Afghanistan is used to support our troops on the ground, to train the Afghan army, and to integrate and train the Afghan police so that there can be rule of law and stability in that country -- and my measure wouldn't affect any of those resources.

But the amount of money originally set aside to fund small-scale humanitarian and repair projects to build goodwill in local populations has ballooned.

Vast sums of money are now being used to build entire electrical grids in Kandahar, networks of roads and highways in Helmand Province, and other projects that the country of Afghanistan cannot possibly secure or sustain.

Furthermore, a study carried out for the commander of our military forces in Afghanistan found no persuasive evidence that the infrastructure projects are enhancing the military's counterinsurgency mission.

If America is going to build roads and bridges, I believe they ought to be built here, not in an unstable war zone.

Let's use that money instead to build roads in the United States, where we don't have to hire security to keep workers from getting shot or run the risk of funds being funneled to our enemies.

By passing my measure, we could immediately infuse up to $800 million into the U.S. Highway Trust Fund to start making headway in our country's backlog of infrastructure needs, and -- even more importantly -- put folks back to work here at home.

I still support the mission in Afghanistan. But with so many needs at home, and so much instability there, we should be using American money to invest in the infrastructure projects we need here.

This measure is an important step in that direction.

He makes me so proud to be an Ohioan.

2011-11-30T04:55:00.000-08:00

What..me read a newspaper? Oh I am so proud of my guv.

The Bulldog

2011-11-24T09:08:00.000-08:00

As a kid I had lots of dogs, serially, as pets. I don't as an adult because I never learned to raise dogs or any four legged animal as an animal with all its shortcomings. I want them to act like a human (although I'm not sure we've shown ourselves as anything too great through the ages). But I ran across this story in the NYTimes about the bulldog, a big brutish looking pussy cat of an animal. I had an history with what we called in my kid days an English Bull. My neighbor guy was a former marine who I remember fondly. This was after the big war WWII. He was the first man on the block to have a television. He would allow me to spend as much time as I wanted, along with his daughters, watching Super Circus, Howdy Doody and other kid shows. But I remember the dog. He was a big strong looking animal who drooled. But he would allow me to pretend to ride him like a horse. He never made a protest. But it looks like the breed is in trouble. I'm sorry to hear it.

From Architectural Digest-A Home Library

2011-11-20T06:36:00.000-08:00

From Architectural Digest comes this home library. There's a saying we poorer folks use as consolation for being poor. It's that money won't bring you happiness. Well when I need some new space for my books, I search around for a build it yourself with maybe 3 to 6 shelves, and slap a coat of varnish on it, and repeat that mantra about money won't bring me happiness. Sure.

2011-11-19T06:20:00.000-08:00

Shorpy, the exhibitor of all those old, old photos has now come up with shorpy tv. This one about driving around in NYC in 1928 will get your heart pumping. Babe Ruth shows up as a passenger in the taxi.

tip: click on full screen, you'll enjoy it more. ESC to return it to original size.

To all who have served, I salute you.

2011-11-11T09:46:00.000-08:00

Reflections of my early career in the service of my country.

What's on my desktop

2011-11-09T12:16:00.000-08:00

Painter George Ault

George Copeland Ault (October 11, 1891 – December 30, 1948) was an American painter. He was loosely grouped with the Precisionist movement and, though influenced by Cubism and Surrealism, his most lasting work is of a realist nature.
Ault was born in Cleveland, Ohio into a wealthy family and spent his youth in London, where he studied at the Slade School of Art and St. John's Wood School of Art. Returning to the United States in 1911, he spent the rest of his life in New York and New Jersey. His personal life henceforth was very troubled. He became alcoholic during the 1920s, after the death of his mother in a mental institution (Schwartz, 301). Each of his three brothers committed suicide, two after the loss of the family fortune in the 1929 stock market crash (Lubowsky, 7).
Although he had exhibited his works with some success, by the early 1930s his neurotic behavior and reclusiveness had alienated him from the gallery world (Lubowsky, 24–26). In 1937, Ault moved to Woodstock, New York with Louise Jonas, who would become his second wife, and tried to put his difficulties in the past. In Woodstock the couple lived a penurious existence in a small rented cottage that had no electricity or indoor plumbing (Lubowsky, 28). Depending on Louise for income, Ault created some of his finest paintings during this time, but had difficulty selling them (Schwartz, 302). In 1948, he apparently committed suicide by drowning. In his lifetime, his works were displayed at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Addison Gallery of American Art (in Andover, Massachusetts), among others.
Ault worked in oil, watercolor and pencil. He is often grouped with Precisionist painters such as Charles Sheeler and Ralston Crawford because of his unadorned representations of architecture and urban landscapes. However, the ideological aspects of Precisionism and the unabashed modernism of his influences are not so apparent in his work—for instance, he once referred to skyscrapers as the "tombstones of capitalism" and considered the industrialized American city "the Inferno without the fire" (Fryd, 57). Ault painted what he saw around him, simplifying detail slightly into flat shapes and planes, and portraying the underlying geometric patterns of structures. An analytical painter and ultimately a realist, he was especially noted for his realistic portrayal of light—especially the light of darkness—for he commonly painted nighttime scenes (Schwartz, 300). Of his later paintings, such as January, Full Moon; Black Night; August Night; and Bright Light at Russell's Corners (pictured), The New York Times wrote:
“ The setting is the same in each case—a solitary streetlight, the same bend in the road, the same collection of barns and sheds—but seen from different vantage points. In them, Ault has summoned up the poetry of darkness in an unforgettable way—the implacable solitude and strangeness that night bestows upon once-familiar forms and places.

Canon in D by Pachelbel

2011-11-09T08:34:00.000-08:00

Stress

2011-11-09T07:02:00.000-08:00

There seems to be a week set aside for everything. This week is put stress aside week. The picture caught my attention, but the subject stress is indeed a worthy one to address. Personally since I retired most of my personal anxieties have disappeared. Of course job angst is a big one, but when you get older, health issues take center stage. I wish there was a magic pill to relieve us from all types of stress but of course we know there isn't. Some people handle it well some of us don't. Hope you're one of the former.

Watson and Cancer

2011-11-02T05:30:00.000-07:00

Once your family is touched by cancer you can't pass articles like this without reading it and saying to yourself..Yes this makes sense, which it does. Accumulating all the diagnoses and treatments and applying those facts combined with the doctors good hands will give everyone more faith in a good outcome battling this terrible disease.

IBM's Watson supercomputer to diagnose patients

Watson will initially be used to help treat cancer patients

Lucas Mearian

September 12, 2011 (Computerworld)

Watson, IBM's game-show-playing supercomputer, will soon be used to help physicians diagnose and treat cancer patients.

IBM announced earlier this year that healthcare would be the first commercial application for the computer, which defeated two human champions on the popular television game show Jeopardy!in February.

IBM and the WellPoint health benefits company today announced a plan to jointly create applications that can be used by WellPoint's teams of physicians and other medical personnel.

IBM and WellPoint, which is Blue Cross, Blue Shield's largest health plan, have agreed to develop Watson-based applications that can improve patient care through the use of evidence-based medicine, which is designed to standardize patient treatments by identifying proven best practices. A simple example of evidence-based medicine in action would be when a provider automatically places someone who has suffered a heart attack on an aspirin regimen upon leaving the hospital.

The Watson supercomputer is made up of 90 IBM Power 750 Express servers powered by eight-core processors -- four in each machine for a total of 32 processors per machine. The servers are virtualized using a kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) implementation, creating a server cluster with a total processing capacity of 80 teraflops. A teraflop is one trillion operations per second.

Working with speech and imaging recognition software provider Nuance Communications, IBM said the supercomputer can assist healthcare professionals in culling through gigabytes or terabytes of patient healthcare information to determine how to best treat specific illnesses.

For example, Watson's analytics technology, used with Nuance's voice and clinical language understanding software, could help a physician consider all related texts, reference materials, prior cases, and latest knowledge in journals and medical literature when treating an illness. The analysis could quickly help physicians determine the best options for diagnosis and treatment.

"There are breathtaking advances in medical science and clinical knowledge [but] this clinical information is not always used in the care of patients," said Dr. Sam Nussbaum, WellPoint's Chief Medical Officer, in a statement.

"Imagine having the ability to take in all the information around a patient's medical care -- symptoms, findings, patient interviews and diagnostic studies. Then, imagine using Watson analytic capabilities to consider all of the prior cases, the state-of-the-art clinical knowledge in the medical literature and clinical best practices to help a physician advance a diagnosis and guide a course of treatment. We believe this will be an invaluable resource for our partnering physicians and will dramatically enhance the quality and effectiveness of medical care they deliver to our members," Nussbaum added.

Watson, named after IBM founder Thomas Watson, can rifle through 200 million pages of data and provide precise responses in just seconds.

WellPoint said it expects to begin employing Watson technology in early 2012 in clinical pilots with selected physician groups.

"The implications for healthcare are extraordinary," said Lori Beer, WellPoint's executive vice president of Enterprise Business Services. "We believe new solutions built on the IBM Watson technology will be valuable for our provider partners, and more importantly, give us new tools to help ensure our members are receiving the best possible care."

Manoj Saxena, Global Solutions Leader for IBM Global Business Services, said Watson will initially be piloted by Wellpoint's community of oncologists, who will access its capabilities through a Web-based platform.

The computer used for the pilot will be somewhat smaller than the model used in Jeopardy!, but because of optimization since that time, it will have the same processing power, Saxena said.

Saxena said that much like travel sites Expedia and Travelocity, physicians will be able to input certain criteria to get back the best options for diagnoses and treatment. The results will come after Watson sifts through online clinical research and best practices, patient information in electronic health records (EHR), as well as historical insurance claim information related to specific patients, Saxena added.

The computer will reside in Wellpoint's core data center in Richmond, Va., but as the system develops, IBM said it will also be offering its capabilities to caregivers through a Web-based cloud service.

Lori Beer, executive vice president of Enterprise Business Services at WellPoint, said that while the healthcare provider has its own homegrown EHR system, many of its caregivers use platforms from a variety of vendors, so Watson's interface will need to adapt to different workflows.

Beer said that the program is starting in the oncology unit because cancer care and treatment research costs are growing faster than other areas.

"If you think about the power of [combining] all our information along with all that comparative research and medical knowledge ... that's what really creates this game changing capability for healthcare," Beer said. "Watson can present the physician with the most likely diagnosis ... and the probability that it's accurate, as well as presenting all the evidence that supports that diagnosis."

"Even more important is the course of treatment that follows that diagnosis. Through that whole continuity of care, from diagnosis through the whole course of treatment - that's really how we envision Watson being a game changers in terms of driving better quality healthcare," she added.

Kindle Fire-two weeks until release

2011-10-31T09:04:00.000-07:00

The Amazon Kindle Fire tablet will be at the stores in about two weeks. It will cost us $199. I thought it was interesting to see what it actually cost to manufacture the product. Obviously Amazon is gambling that we will try to fill it up with content that they sell. It seems a sure thing to be a hit with books, music, apps, movies to stream, buy or rent, and a browser with unlimited capacity. The company loses $10 per unit, but everything we put on it comes from them, through the company store it seems. O.K. by me, it looks like a winner unless something goes wrong with the hardware. I'll take a chance.

To: A.V. blogger

2011-10-30T17:13:00.000-07:00

A.V. blogger,

Thanks for the comment. Here is a snap of that particular small garden 'before the wilt'. Hazel finds it a little difficult to dig and weed on her knee's these days, so it will be all mine next year. I'm in the process of deciding what I might incorporate in with flowers. Maybe some herbs or maybe one of a kind type of flower. We have a great garden spot in our town called KINGWOOD Horticultural Center that is a great place to see new stuff . Of course out there all the conditions are the best so our stuff is a laugh next to theirs. Of course we have fun comparing theirs to ours. We sometimes think we should wear a bag over our heads when we mention Kingwood and our stuff in the same breath. But I think we have more fun than they do.

KISS

2011-10-30T10:05:00.001-07:00

I have been told by a reliable source that my eldest son drops in here from time to time to see what his old man is up to, and see if I have become certifiable as yet. As a reward for doing that, here is a group of gentlemen he liked a lot in his youth.

Yeah yeah, it's been great

2011-10-28T10:21:00.000-07:00

wilted garden

Yeah the changing seasons are great, but
as I get older I appreciate the season ing
on the food about as well.

It scares the bejesus out of me to count
birthdays and realize I'm counting down
instead of up.

I am saddened by the fact that I used to
enjoy playing tennis at high noon with
perspiration dripping off of me like the
Niagara river and now I have to separate
mowing my lawn into a morning and
afternoon event.

I do crossword puzzles not for the pure
enjoyment, but like a race. It's now a race
to fill in the blanks this minute because
I may not remember the answer tomorrow.

But even though each step requires some
payment from an angry joint, or muscles
that don't really work without a protest or two,
it has been fun and if it were possible to
re-enlist, if I could take Grandma with me
as a signing bonus, I'd love to have a go
at it.

small accomplishments

2011-10-27T09:19:00.000-07:00

I think this is an achievement. I know I cannot do it. I can't even memorize the states.

Garrison Keillor recites all the counties in his state of Minnesota.

Only $6200. Step up, they're going fast

2011-10-17T13:26:00.000-07:00

The toilet of tomorrow

An icon of my youth bites the dust

2011-10-16T14:28:00.000-07:00

Nothing new or unique about this. Another list of ten restaurants failing, except this one is, or used to be one of my favorites. Used to be because there hasn't been one close to me in many a year. But I sure loved their hamburgers, called Big Boys. When I was close to one it was known as Manner's Big Boy, then I saw one again years later and it was Fischers? Big Boy. Whatever I remember it was delicious.

7. Big Boy
> Change in sales (2001-2010): -68.6%
> Sales 2001: $580 million
> Sales 2010: $182.25 million
> Change in units (2001-2010): -65.2%

Big Boy is the restaurant with the most locations on this list. It is also, perhaps, the most well known. In 2000, the company’s owner, the Elias Brothers Corporation, declared bankruptcy following cash-flow problems and difficulties with expansions. The month before it filed for bankruptcy, the company closed 43 restaurants. The restaurant, which specializes in double-decker hamburgers, has not done very well since. In 2001 Big Boy had 405 locations. By 2010, that number had decreased to 141.

I bet 2000 will look like this.

2011-10-16T14:00:00.000-07:00

Illustrations by French artist Villemard in 1910 of how he imagined the future to be in the year 2000.

I guess this might be close to SKYPE?

Our Working Life

2011-10-14T09:44:00.000-07:00

How many of us go through our working life thinking just what this guy is thinking. Sadly, even in this country of free choice many of us work our forty some working years in jobs that we just fell into and for lack of inertia, lack of skills, lack of imagination, we remain.

I thought about it many many times in those forty some years about what would I like to be doing instead of what I was doing. You know what, I never knew, still couldn't tell you now to tell you the truth. Bad on me as they say. I admire those who loved their work and thought how great it would be to not care how much money you were making but just loved what you were doing. Oh well I've always been happy, maybe I should say stupid and happy.

Tomato's, Carbonara, Ham and more.

2011-10-12T20:47:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year that is bittersweet. On one hand soon I will be able to quit mowing the lawn for this year. Thank God for that. It is the reality that I am getting older and my hip most times does not react well to mowing both the front yard and the back yard at the same time. I know it will happen, but either it's a man thing..I can do it, whatta you think I'm too old to do both at the same time? Of course I am unless I want to feel the pain to prove I'm still alive enough to do what I have been doing for the last almost forty years.

The temperatures are moderating and the evenings and nights are getting cooler, which is nice at bedtime. Just a little reading upon hitting the sack and kerplunk I'm asleep.

Looking back on Hazel's garden I think it could be proclaimed a success. This is the first in many years that the tomato's have been like the tomato's of old. She planted several varieties, but the big one was the Brandyboys. They were not so much on looks, big and shaped irregularly but big enough that you could slice the entire top off and have enough slices for many sandwiches, tasty as we've had in many years. Hurrah Hazel, Hurrah Brandyboys.

Speaking of Hazel, as I enjoy doing from time to time, she purchased a ham this week and she is going through her cook book and pleasuring my pallet with her many ways to serve ham. Today we had ham chunks, cooked in with green beans, and potatoes. Oh so good. After a breakfast with eggs and ham, and a supper of carbonara she has promised me a nice pot of bean soup, including of course the remainder of the ham.

Many of Hazel's recipes are in the cookbook in the sidebar. I am shamelessly behind adding recipes. I promise to be more diligent in that regard.

Seen above is the tomato. This one is/was one pound. Some others were bigger yet. They are not the prettiest tomato's but certainly the best tasting I've eaten in many years

More about Luther.

2011-10-01T09:29:00.000-07:00

Three days ago I posted a paragraph or two about the BBC show Luther. I mentioned it was too grim for my taste and that was about it. Today in the New York Times there is a more in depth review of the show. If you are a regular viewer of the show it will fill in some parts you may have missed or wondered about. Here is the hyperlink to get there.

Three Sisters

2011-09-30T07:22:00.000-07:00

The three sisters I have known most of their and my life is brought to mind with this funny story. They are starting to slow down a little but the will of the three combined make up for any problems brought on by the advancing years.

Three sisters, ages 92, 94, and 96, lived together in a large, rambling house in Asheville, North Carolina. One night, the 96-year-old was drawing a bath. She put her foot in and paused. She shouted to her two sisters, "Was I getting in or out of the bath?"

The 94-year-old yelled back, "I don't know. I'll come up and see."

She started up the stairs and paused. "Was I going up the stairs or down?"

The 92-year-old was sitting at the kitchen table, having tea and listening to her sisters. She shook her head and said, "I sure hope I never get that forgetful, knock on wood..." She then shouted, "I'll come up and help both of you as soon as I see who's at the door."

Luther, grim fare.

2011-09-29T10:31:00.000-07:00

Watched LUTHER on the BBCA network last night. The review warned that it was a dark episode. Indeed it was. We watched Luther last season and liked it a lot. It arrives in our area at ten o'clock just before we are thinking of giving it up for the evening and heading to bed. Bad decision on our part. Luther was especially dark last night as we were pre-warned and it is not advisable for pre-bed fare. We did and I am afraid we decided to swear off of Luther. For those of you who like dark, grim, realism tune in. For me I must bid fond adieu to Luther and his band of chilling psycho's. At my age I prefer a little happier TV that would perhaps send me smiling and in a better frame of mind as I fall asleep.

Crossword

2011-09-25T07:52:00.000-07:00

Oh yes I agree that crosswords are one definition of a moveable feast. We often have a large puzzle attached to a clipboard for a week at a time. It is a mechanism that exercises the brain. It is strange how I can look at a word in that puzzle and not have a clue after long staring and manipulation of letters what the word is. Then after abandoning it as a lost cause return the next day and like magic the answer is clear and you wonder and say to yourself, of course how did I not get it before. Sometimes of course the answer is just beyond solving and you refer to the answer page. Sometimes even after getting the answer it looks like the russian alphabet. All in all it keeps the brain exercised and that's what I'm looking for.

A fall sunday morning

2011-09-18T11:42:00.000-07:00

All bloggers, required reading.

2011-09-18T09:41:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen today's Garfield, you must. At least all bloggers should. Bloggers who pontificate at length on subjects we know next to nothing about or my God about our blankety blank politicians who are determined to run the country into places we don't want to go..See there I go running my mouth about something I would have no more idea than Garfield would how to fix. Take the strip for what it is..funny; and bloggers for what they are, whatever that is.

Music from our pasts

2011-09-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

Each Sunday on the Time goes by blog there is a column from Peter Tibbles featuring music from his past and ours. Music such as rock, folk, classical, popular, in other words, music we grew up with. Here is his archive thus far, take a look, or more correctly, a listen. It's just enough each week to tweek your memories into high gear.

The damage reports just keep coming in

2011-09-12T05:35:00.000-07:00

A Budding Writer

2011-09-02T05:24:00.000-07:00

My son sent this to me as the proud father that he is. This little vignette written while on vacation with his family, and intended for a class taught by Mrs. Tidwell at his school, shows extraordinary promise. That he will produce much more in the future I can only hope. I want to be able to brag I knew him when..

Evan Kittelberger

Mrs. Tidwell

Period 5

As I sat in the old building, I was tired and bored. As my parents tasted different wines, my younger brother and I sat on an ancient bench. We spoke the whole time, but I'm sure it was nothing of value since I don't remember a single word of the conversation. I was tired of just sitting around, doing nothing, so I stepped outside.

The air and temperatures were at a perfect quality. A scent of fresh grapes ready to be picked and created into an expensive wine wafted through the air. A soft breeze flew through my hair. Beyond me were stretches of grapes for as far as the eye could see, and being surrounded by my loving family just added to the equation of a perfect vacation. As I look at the photo it reminds me of the insatiable feeling of having not an ounce of stress or pressure in me. I could be myself and not care what anyone thinks about me. Not half an hour later I was walking through an antiques shop awestruck.

What hidden marvels there were, forgotten by others long ago. I could feel myself slip back into time as my eyes pondered these classics of Americana. Who used this record player that I am now admiring? The possibilities are endless thinking about what this piece of art has been through. Were there kids lying around it listening their favorite record, or was it an old woman that used it to forget her painful past? I'll never know, as much as I may want to. I could spend hours in the stuffy shop and love every moment. Not until now can I fully appreciate what I had the pleasure to find. Will people of future times look back and admire technology that we consider modern, and get the feeling that I did?

It's a good thought that someone could love something of mine, long after I'm gone, just like I did at that moment.

Looking back on that day, I now wish I could relive that feeling of love and respect for the technology of our ancestors. It was really the first time I have ever had this feeling, being my first time in an antique shop.

Ravel's Bolero

2011-09-02T05:03:00.001-07:00

Today on television there is a 'mob flash' commercial where one of the dancers is too early. I know you have seen it. This one in Copenhagan Denmark features Ravel's Bolero.

Pete Rose

2011-08-26T06:56:00.000-07:00

Who says life is fair, even for jerks like Pete Rose? But fair is fair. Election to the hall in Cooperstown is not the same as election to the throne in Rome. The quote below is probably a measure that he is not a mental genius but a clue to his thought processes.

I'd walk through hell in a gasoline suit to play baseball.
Pete Rose

Malcolm Stephens Parcell (1896 – 1987)

2011-08-24T07:03:00.000-07:00

EVENTIDE (THE CHURCHYARD)

Glen Campbell

2011-08-24T06:34:00.000-07:00

Glen Campbell has Alzheimer's. I picked this off of YouTube to show what a great guitar player he is. Appeared on the Smothers Brothers show followed by his own show The Goodtime Hour.

Subject: Reading

2011-08-22T06:34:00.000-07:00

THE SUBJECT IS READING.

I enjoy reading and get my books from several sources. I get most from my fabulous local library; they also provide me with video and music. I always have a book going on my Kindle E book which I think is fantastic. I can take it to bed with me and it is the ideal night time companion. When my eyes droop and all energy has given up I don't have to worry about falling asleep dropping my book and losing my place. It will shut itself off and when I turn it on in the morning it will have bookmarked itself. Great bedtime reader. My other source which I enjoy is buying used books from vendors through Amazon. Other than having to pay postage which is three dollars and some cents you can buy many of the books for one penny. My library accepts used books and if they're in pretty good shape will sell them for a pittance of their value, which goes back into the libraries coffers. Well whatever method you enjoy, reading is one of life's pleasures. Fellow blogist and good writer Bill Crider I apologize for not buying your books at Barnes and Nobel off the shelf each time. If economics were not involved I certainly would.

A Psalm of Life

2011-08-21T19:02:00.000-07:00

Out of a clear blue my wife Hazel decided to recite this poem. She says it is the only one she knows by heart. She learned it in the eighth grade which would calculate out to make her age at about fourteen years, about fifty nine years ago. Pretty good.

A Psalm of Life
Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sand of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solenm main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Water Damage

2011-08-21T07:34:00.000-07:00

The picture is a bit of an exaggeration, but the feeling of desolation is probably close to the same. Water can be a destroyer.

Water outside of rivers, lakes oceans, and reservoirs can be a most destructive element. Does this sound like an introduction to a true life adventure? Well yes it is.

Hazel who has a hearing ability matched by few was awakened yesterday by an out of place sound. It was the sound of water being expelled full force from a broken feeder hose that when it is whole is connected to a toilet. In the time it took her to acclimate herself to what was going on, waking me and turning off the water valve the damage was done. All of the former might have taken five minutes but the damage was unbelievable. Water maybe half an inch deep had left the bathroom and had moved into two other rooms. It had found its way through the floor it was situated on and was cascading its way through the main floor at places where only water finds and was well on its way to accumulating there also.

It was five o'clock in the morning and I thought it was only proper that we should invite the plumber to the party and I did.

It is now the next day and after a full day of trying to correct the damage done that we could correct, but not the damage that will need to be corrected with replacement and check writing we are happy it ended up no worse than it did. Water within its natural barriers such as riverbanks or man made circuits, pipes and such is a needed resource, but water running amok is something that is best avoided if possible.

Chesapeake Bay and Skipjacks

2011-08-20T04:29:00.001-07:00

Chesapeake Bay is certainly one of the most picturesque locations in America. I am quickly coming to the end of James Michener's Chesapeake novel. He labels his chapters voyages. The voyage I am ending now depicts the early, (late 1800's) to the early 1900's commercialism of the bounty of the bay. The craft of choice of the watermen were the skipjacks. When Hazel and I lived in Alexandria we ate occasionally at a restaurant on the Mount Vernon parkway and one of the favorites on their menu for us was Seafood platter Norfolk style, Oh yummy.

Watch the full episode. See more MPT Specials.

Birds

2011-08-18T05:58:00.000-07:00

We have a small pond in our backyard in which we have species of many sizes and colors visiting daily. It is one of the best free shows around. Watching the posturing between the big birds and the smaller ones is a hoot. As I drink my coffee on my screened in back porch where I am seemingly unseen by the birds as they cavort is a true pleasure. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Flight

2011-08-13T08:46:00.000-07:00

Sunset Departure :- By Mark Greaves

I find this a very evocative shot that seems to be begging a story or a poem to accompany it.

epilogue: The young pilot who wrote this poem was killed three months later.

Internet browsing

2011-08-12T07:04:00.000-07:00

Browsing the internet is guaranteed to uncover some nugget of information that you did not know, such as this.....the koala bear, which has been known to travel a mere few hundred yards in the course of its life, working its way through the leaves of a eucalyptus grove.

If you see a person with a bag over their head, it's a politician.

2011-08-11T07:24:00.000-07:00

That we hold our congress in such a negative view is not really news, is it?

Polls conducted after the debt ceiling deal have showed that Americans hold an increasingly negative view of Congress. A New York Times/CBS News polllast week showed Congress' approval rating falling to 14 percent, with a record 82 percent of Americans disapproving of the way Congress is handling its job -- the most since the Times first began asking the question in 1977.

A CNN poll this week showed, for the first time in its history, that most Americans think their own representatives do not deserve reelection.

Two from the turn of the twentieth century by Arthur Watson Sparks (1871 – 1919)

2011-08-10T09:29:00.000-07:00

The Tea Party
Steel Mill

Tom Hamilton can get mighty excited

2011-08-07T12:13:00.000-07:00

The Cleveland Indians made a baseball trade involving a Japanese outfielder named Kosuke Fukudome coming to the Indians from the Chicago Cubs. Here is an email from a fan to baseball writer Paul Hoynes concerning the trade.

Hey, Hoynsie: I think the Indians trading for Cubs outfielder Kosuke Fukudome was a good deal. The way I look at it, it's a clear win since the Tribe gets a capable outfielder for two mid-level prospects. But the question is, how long do you think it will take for Tom Hamilton to get really excited, mispronounce Mr. Fukudome's name and get banned for life by the FCC? -- Ralph Steele Jr., Norfolk, Va.

Hey, Ralph: Now that's funny. A dangerous name to be sure if you're a baseball announcer.

-- Hoynsie

At the Races, Franz Dvorak

2011-08-06T15:18:00.000-07:00

always someone doesn't get the message

2011-08-04T11:46:00.000-07:00

World's Tallest

2011-08-03T15:28:00.000-07:00

Soon to be the world's tallest building. Designed by an American, but not built in America.

a peep for peace?

2011-08-03T06:13:00.000-07:00

Our congress is becoming our national shame

2011-08-02T09:01:00.000-07:00

Well it looks like our best and brightest whom we shall call a congress, have finished their latest game of king of the hill and our novice president will sign the bill so our country can continue on until the next crisis. The very same problem they grappled with so long and so hard will again appear and allow these self important armies of republicans and democrats to don their armor and go at it again. Will they talk about it until then? Of course not, except perhaps some political schmucks will conjure up a plan to make the other side look like the schmo's they are. I can't decide which word best describes a congress as inept as this one, unless it was the last one, or God forbid the next. Oh hell, both fit.

Indians trade for a stud pitcher

2011-07-31T09:26:00.000-07:00

So maybe only a guy in Florida and myself really care, but here is a fanmag article about the Indians from Cleveland. Bear with me, we don't get many of these from ESPN no less.

Meowmorphosis

2011-07-31T06:40:00.000-07:00

Quirk Classics Releases The Meowmorphosis Book Trailer

The Debt Dilemma

2011-07-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

What happens if the government does not increase the debt limit? Take a look.

Two Poems

2011-07-26T14:40:00.000-07:00

Titanic, by David R. Slavitt

Titanic

Who does not love the Titanic?
If they sold passage tomorrow for that same crossing,
who would not buy?

To go down...We all go down, mostly
alone. But with crowds of people, friends, servants,
well fed, with music, with lights!Ah!

And the world, shocked, mourns, as it ought to do
and almost never does. There will be the books and movies
to remind our grandchildren who we were
and how we died, and give them a good cry.

Not so bad, after all. The cold
water is anesthetic and very quick.
The cries on all sides must be a comfort.

We all go: only a few, first class.

I Go Back to May 1937 by Sharon Olds : The Poetry Foundation

Despoiling the Chesapeake Bay.

2011-07-25T10:02:00.000-07:00

I happen to be re-reading James Michener's novel CHESAPEAKE, and then seeing this on the news site NEWSER is I must say disheartening. To read Michener's description of the bay in it's unspoiled beauty when his novel begins in the 1600's and see what man has done to it in 400 years is sad indeed. The despoilers would not have started in earnest until the twentieth century so they have done their dirty practices in under 200 years.

This July 31, 2010 photo provided by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation shows Algae blooms (dark colors) flourishing along the shore of the York river in Yorktown, Va.
(AP Photo/Morgan Heim, Chesapeake Bay Foundation)

Chesapeake 'Dead Zone' Could Be Largest Ever
MARINE LIFE THREATENED IN OXYGEN-STARVED PORTION OF BAY

By Evann Gastaldo, Newser Staff
Posted Jul 25, 2011 8:08 AM CDT
STORY COMMENTS (7)

(NEWSER) – High nutrient pollution levels have caused the Chesapeake Bay's underwater "dead zone" to expand unusually quickly this year: It covers a third of the bay and will likely become the bay's largest-ever area of oxygen-starved water. The dead zone, which sucks oxygen from deep waters and kills any marine life that can't escape it, stretched from the Baltimore Harbor to the bay's mid-channel region in June, a distance of about 83 miles. It has only grown since then, the Washington Post reports.

Nutrient pollution comes from chemicals, like fertilizer, and causes an increase of bay algae. In turn, the algae decomposes into a black, oxygen-sucking glop that kills oysters, shellfish, and any fish or crabs that can't get to surface waters. Dead zones occur annually, but this year saw an especially heavy flow of polluted water due to heavy rains and melted snow mixed with chemicals and sediment. The EPA has finalized an aggressive "pollution diet" to reduce the levels of chemicals and sediment allowed into the bay, but the plan will cost billions and is being challenged by lobbies and other groups.

Child in a Straw Hat by Mary Cassatt

2011-07-25T06:29:00.000-07:00

Child in a Straw Hat by Mary Cassatt

We are in trouble

2011-07-24T07:27:00.000-07:00

Now they're thinking of starting a star chamber.

Lord help us now because it seems that Obama can't.

Weasel Coffee: You’re Going to Drink What?

2011-07-23T07:02:00.000-07:00

Weasel Coffee: You’re Going to Drink What?

I am almost hung up on iced coffee. To illustrate my exotic tastes, I prefer McDonald's iced coffee, although I'm not above reading about other iced coffees. This one from the Smithsonian magazine is a path I would not walk down but it is interesting reading.

House plans for Ayn Rand house

2011-07-21T06:30:00.000-07:00

The LA Times reports on an interesting footnote in architectural and literary history:

In 1937 a little-known author named Ayn Rand wrote to revered modernist Frank Lloyd Wright.

“Dear Mr. Wright,” her letter of Dec. 12 began, “I am writing a novel about the career of an architect. . . . I should like to have the privilege of meeting you and discussing it with you.”

The book, “The Fountainhead,” was published six years later. Although Wright did not make himself available in 1937 or for years to come, Rand’s pitch was the start of a two-decade correspondence that evolved into a robust exchange of ideas as well as this: a preliminary rendering of a “cottage studio,” in colored pencil on paper, that the legendary architect crafted for Rand. It is featured in “Drawings and Objects by Architects,” on exhibit through Oct. 10 at the Edward Cella Art + Architecture gallery in the mid-Wilshire area of L.A.

From the HardBall Times

2011-07-19T15:21:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Stop laughing, they’re both in first place
Posted by Mat Kovach
Today is, by my calender, July 19. Baseball is 90-plus` games into the season. There were certain phrases that, if said aloud at the start of the season, would have required the speaker to have his mental capacity to be questioned. Only after, of course, the listeners had a chance to compose themselves from a fit of laughter after hearing the phrases.

Phrases such as:

Not only have both the Indians and Pirates won at least 50 games, they are both in first place.

Wait. What?

Not only have both the Indians and Pirates won at least 50 games, they are both in first place.

Now, being somebody that offered up the Indians winning the World Series after making the playoffs by winning the AL Central, I am completely surprised.

Who knew the Pirates had this in them?

Yet at the same time, it makes complete sense.

Both Central divisions offer up teams with certain flaws. The main flaw in teams that are spending money to win "now’’ is a lack of talent depth. This weakness manifests itself the most when high-dollar players do not match their expectations.

Teams like the Tigers, Twins, White Sox, Brewers, and Cardinals are now on the higher end of the payroll spectrum. In acquiring their talent and expensive rosters they have left the farm systems' cupboards a bit bare or too far away from contributing now, which is completely silly, since they want to win now. If you want to win now, you should have as much talent as possible available now.

They have rolled the dice to win now and can only do it if they perform well. They all have a few too many bits that are performing well with limited ability to improve.

The Pirates and Indians have spent a few years filling up their cupboards with a large collection of various types of talent. Perhaps both systems do not have a large accumulation of superstars, but they do have a good number of above-average players. They have enough talent to keep throwing things together and seeing what sticks.

Just look, and only with a quick glance since it is quite terrifying, at the Indians outfield. Both Grady Sizemore and Shin-Soo Choo are presently out and only sporadically contributed when they did play. Yet somehow, they keep finding somebody to contribute. Surprisingly, the Pirates seem to be on a very similar run.

Now comes the big questions. Does the front office of each team work to barter a few of the bits they have in the cupboard for the exact type of players that have let their divisional opponents down this year? Do they stand pat with an approach* that turned the phrase, “Indians and Pirates in first place” from a punch line to a July 19 reality?

*Irony alert: Neal Huntington, the Pirates GM, came to the Pirates from the Indians. So, it makes sense the teams might act in the same way. But really, I'm flabbergasted that things are working out so swimmingly right now.

Indians fan, member of the Duane Kuiper Fan Club, Spitball Researcher, Contact me on twitter, @siddfinch, via email or avian carrier

Sinatra. I miss the music from those days.

2011-07-17T09:43:00.000-07:00

Frank Sinatra's lesson in loyalty

(CNN) -- Some people are so big during their lives, even death doesn't seem to entirely take them away.

So it is with Frank Sinatra. He left this earth in May of 1998, yet there is seldom a day when you don't hear his voice drifting out of a radio, seldom a week when you don't catch a flash of his face on a television screen, or read a reference to him in a newspaper or a magazine. Sinatra: The word itself signals something. Those three quick syllables: sharp, snappy, staccato. The images the name brings to mind: the Rat Pack, ring-a-ding-ding, very good years, strangers in the night. Many adored him, some despised him; few were indifferent.

In New York, especially, his voice remains omnipresent. His "New York, New York" might as well be the city's official anthem. Many times when I've visited Manhattan I have walked past what was said to be Sinatra's favorite restaurant: an unprepossessing-enough-looking Italian place on West 56th Street called Patsy's. This, Sinatra legend has it, is the spot where he could relax, where he felt most at home.

I'd never gone inside. I had imagined it as a peak-of-the-mountain place, a restaurant where only the most savvy would congregate, men and women who were at the pinnacle of their games, who had long ago learned and mastered all the angles. After all, this was where Sinatra had his regular table, wasn't it? How could mere mortals have a shot at fitting in?

This trip, I came in for dinner. And learned a lesson.

Sinatra, in his chairman-of-the-board years, in his sell-out-every-seat-in-the-concert-hall decades, did, in fact, gravitate to this place. But it wasn't because he was the biggest name in entertainment. It was because at one point in his life, he feared that he might be finished.

"My grandfather was the first member of our family to know him," said Salvatore J. Scognamillo, the current chef and co-owner of Patsy's.

The grandfather -- Pasquale "Patsy" Scognamillo -- had co-owned a restaurant nearby called the Sorrento during the first years of the 1940s. The young Sinatra was brought in one day by his boss, bandleader Tommy Dorsey. "I've got this skinny kid from Hoboken," Dorsey reportedly told Patsy Scognamillo. "Fatten him up."

Sinatra swiftly became an international singing idol whose voice and face made women and girls scream and faint; riots broke out at his concerts. Patsy, meanwhile, left the Sorrento and opened Patsy's. Both men -- the crooner and the cook -- were doing well for themselves.

But in the early 1950s, Sinatra's career crashed. He was no longer a kid. His records stopped selling. His romance with Ava Gardner was on the rocks. His record company dropped him. The winner suddenly was being widely seen as a loser, washed up.

People who follow the Sinatra story know about the eventual comeback: how he landed a role in the movie "From Here to Eternity" and won an Academy Award, how his career zoomed again, how he became the living symbol of success and swagger.

Yet in those down years, no one could have anticipated the rebirth. Sinatra was a has-been, yesterday's news.

"He would come in to the restaurant alone for lunch," Sal Scognamillo said to me. I could tell that this was a thrice-told family tale -- or a thrice-times-thrice-told tale. That didn't make it any less compelling.

"My grandfather would sit with him," Sal said. "There would be people eating lunch who would avoid making eye contact with Sinatra -- people who used to know him when he was on top. Sinatra would nod toward them and say to my grandfather: 'My fair-weather friends.'"

One November, on the day before Thanksgiving, Sinatra asked Patsy if he would make him a solo reservation for the next day. "He said he would be coming in for Thanksgiving dinner by himself," Sal said. "He said, 'Give me anything but turkey.' He didn't want to think about the holiday, but he didn't want to be alone."

The restaurant was scheduled to be closed on Thanksgiving. But Patsy didn't tell Sinatra that; he told him that he'd make the reservation for 3 p.m. He didn't want Sinatra to know that he was opening especially for him, so he invited the families of the restaurant's staff to come in for dinner, too. He cooked for Sinatra, on that solitary holiday, and it wasn't until years later that Sinatra found out.

That's where the loyalty came from. That's why Sinatra never stopped coming to the restaurant. In later years, when Patsy's would be jammed with diners hoping to get a glimpse of him, few understood why the most famous singer in the world would single out one place as his constant favorite.

It was no big secret to the Scognamillo family. They all knew. A person recalls how he is treated not when he is on top of the world, undefeated, but when he is at his lowest, thinking he will never again see the sun.

"Up those stairs, that's where Sinatra used to have his table," I heard a man say to his date as they entered the restaurant. He's still packing them in, 13 years after his death.

Who remembers a kindness that comes when kindnesses are in short supply? Who most treasures being made to feel welcome when every door seems to be slamming shut?

In the wee small hours of the morning, only the lonely.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bob Greene.

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The LeftyBosco Picture Show by Keith DuQuette

2011-07-14T11:01:00.000-07:00

Metropolis shift change

2011-07-10T07:28:00.000-07:00

There are some movie scenes I will never forget. This is one of them. From Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS, this scene of the shift change. They don't seem much happier returning as going.

In the shade by Walter Cox 1866-1936

2011-07-09T11:28:00.000-07:00

Kasich's Wild West Show Begins

2011-07-09T08:32:00.000-07:00

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

On 30 June, Ohio Governor John Kasich signed legislation allowing gun owners to carry concealed weapons into, among other public places, bars.

“The law also prohibits gun owners from consuming alcohol or being under the influence of alcohol or drugs when they carry their weapons into bars.”
Let's see if I've got this right: The sole purpose of a bar is to sell alcoholic beverages. The gun anyone carries into a bar is concealed. So the gun owner is on his or her honor not to drink in an establishment that has no other purpose.

Oh yeah. That will work out just fine.

From TIME GOES BY.

That's my guv. He worked for the banks between political gigs, he knows how to get the money to those he thinks should have it.

Albert Lynch The Jolly Boat

2011-07-06T14:32:00.000-07:00

Albert Lynch THE JOLLY BOAT. The title of the painting is not exactly what you may think it is. A Jolly Boat is a utility boat used to ferry things to and from the ship. In this particular case it may just be what you think it is.

American Impressionist's Blog

2011-07-04T09:17:00.000-07:00

Read AmericanImpressionist's Blog on this fourth of July about mowing our lawns. Walt Mills is the wordsmith of the blog. I liked the subject and added a comment at the end.

With Mr. Mills consent I would like to include his weekly comments on the American scene here on the Reader. I'm sure if you haven't read his column yet, you will agree with me he is good.

Mowing and Moaning

2011-07-01T19:32:00.000-07:00

Look at this woman, circa 1910 or 20. I remember pushing one of these when I was a kid, except my dad's mower had rubber wheels. My God how old am I? I now have a self-propelled mower and on some days I feel like I'm hitched to a plow. Oh to be young again.

The Boxing Game

2011-07-01T15:04:00.000-07:00

Whatever happened to the sport of boxing? I remember growing up listening to Joe Louis on the radio regularly disposing of opponents. The only enemy he couldn't whip was age. The names of the great boxers in the heavyweight division were many and glorious. Rocky Marchiano, Muhammad Ali, all champs and the near champs, Ezzard Charles, Joe Frazier, and many others. Sugar Ray Robinson in the middle weights, Willy Pep in the featherweights, but maybe the greatest of all Joe Palooka of the comic strip weight.

Joe Palooka. Created by Ham Fisher, Joe Palooka debuted on 19 April 1930 and ran through 1984, one of the most successful comic strips of all time. Palooka, a genuinely nice man, was a poor man whose skill was boxing, and who used that skill to become the "undefeated heavyweight champion of the world." Actually, that's not quite correct. Palooka's greatest skill was in being human. Very much a working class hero (it's something to be), he was humble without being craven, shy without being withdrawn, laid-back without being a slacker, easily embarrassed without being a stiff, and genuinely likable. To quote one critic, "Joe personified the ideals of the American majority of old--the simple life, the virtues of the Boy Scout code, and goodness for its own sake. He also exemplified toughness and power and could be moved to intense anger when his or someone else's toes were stepped on." He really was a good guy. Palooka fought his way to the top of the fight game, and then, when war was declared, entered the Army as a private and fought through the war at that rank. Joe was assisted by Knobby, the small, nervous, twitchy and argumentative fight manager, and by Smoky, whose vocabulary and appearance was that of a racist stereotype but who was always treated by Joe as an equal and friend. (Joe, like I said, was a good human being)

July and American Freedoms

2011-06-29T06:51:00.000-07:00

Recently Hazel and I were in Alexandria Virginia after an absence of many years. It is certainly not the same place. It is now a bustling, busy place of commerce with wall to wall people and I say that literally. I am starting to age and my first impression is physical. It is difficult to get around fighting traffic and the amounts of people milling about. My second and more deeply thought about impression is that the American dream is still alive. I have an immediate flashback of a painting/illustration by the famous American artists Norman Rockwell titled freedom of speech. Our founders defined it as one of our freedoms and we still cherish it as one of our cornerstones. We may have turned up our volume when we converse with others or about others but the freedom of speech is still firmly in place. Franklin Roosevelt in 1941 declared in a speech to congress these four freedoms should apply to all Americans:

Freedom of speech and expression
Freedom of worship
Freedom from want
Freedom from fear

Enjoy your fourth of July this year, and remember how fortunate we are in this country that we still strive to ensure those four freedoms. Some of us are more quiet and less vocal, or less able to speak of our love of freedom, but none the less we are no less grateful than the newest immigrant to our shores for the freedoms we have. Listening to the largo from the THE NEW WORLD SYMPHONY, you can imagine how it would touch a new citizen from the old world now and all their lives.

Comment

Thanks Jim, that symphony speaks to me on so many levels.

Have a happy 4th.

Argus

B.O. Plenty

2011-06-22T11:04:00.000-07:00

If you are of a certain age and in your youth read the DICK TRACY comic strip, you would certainly know about some of it's characters. One of whom was a favorite of most of us was B.O. Plenty and his eventual wife Gravel Gertie. Read this. Did you know B.O.'s name was Bob Oscar and that Gertie worked in a greenhouse?

In Your Face Warning Video about Smoking

2011-06-21T10:33:00.000-07:00

THIS IS REALLY UGLY, AND I CONSIDERED AND RECONSIDERED WHETHER IT'S MY BUSINESS WHAT PEOPLE DO, BUT THEN IF ONE PERSON SEES THIS AND QUITS AND DOES NOT DIE FROM USING THE PRODUCT IT WILL HAVE BEEN WORTH LOOKING AT SOMETHING REALLY UGLY.

By James Flagg circa 21

2011-06-21T08:05:00.000-07:00

I suspect it will always be so. Most of us will feel the same way and do the same. We're human and certainly not perfect. We sometimes (ha ha) talk out of both sides of our mouths. You think?

Exotic Destinations

2011-06-21T07:30:00.000-07:00

HGTV ought to be able to sell one of those little orange ones for about a million. Of course a rowboat for your use while in residence is thrown in on the deal.

Bright Light at Russell's Corners

2011-06-20T13:48:00.000-07:00

Bright Light at Russell's Corners
1946
George Ault
Born: Cleveland, Ohio 1891
Died: Woodstock, New York 1948
oil on canvas
19 5/8 x 25 in. (49.9 x 63.4 cm)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Lawrence
1976.121
Smithsonian American Art Museum
1st Floor, West Wing

BOO AARP

2011-06-20T07:55:00.000-07:00

BOO AARP. I like your magazine but not enough to swallow your disregard for the welfare of that element of the population who very much needs the help of its government to survive. Read this article and also the article in the Wall Street Journal if you are so inclined.

ah coffee, the morning jumpstart.

2011-06-18T06:22:00.000-07:00

..just one more cup and I'll be ready to face the day. Great imagination at work.

What is your favorite movie?

2011-06-16T16:07:00.000-07:00

Today I made a comment on another web page about my favorite movie. The answer to that is only as good as your memory is at that particular moment. I said mine was MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE. It is a comedy filmed in black and white in 1948. If they would ask me again I might say it is THE DEAD, a James Joyce story from the Dubliner's directed by John Huston and starring among others his daughter Angelica. I loved both of these movies. If I would be asked what criteria went into judging a favorite movie, I would probably fall back on the question, 'would you watch it again?' I would, and have watched both of these movies numerous times and they are always fresh to me and even though I know what's coming I always watch it eagerly and enjoy it thoroughly.

Mr. Blandings has star power with Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, and Melvin Douglas and of course I think one funny moment after another. They are all intelligent characters with intelligent lines to speak. I know the funny lines and yet miraculously it does not spoil it for me. I laugh every time where I think I am supposed to.

The Dead is a wonderful story written by James Joyce. It is set in Dublin in the early nineteenth century. It is a dinner party given by three young to elderly sisters for their friends and acquaintances. The span of action is dancing in an upstairs ballroom, a dinner, and performances by some of the invited guests. It is civilized and touching as they become aware of the passing time and their lives also. It is a snowy night and a guests wearing of the new fangled footwear called galoshes cause a hired servant to comment, what will they think of next.

It's not an action thriller but if you are willing it has a lot of thought provoking drama. Enough for me to admire it over and over.

A dogs tale.

2011-06-16T15:05:00.000-07:00

It's the dogs great nose that would have led him to the guys vehicle. I think he made a lifelong friend freeing him or her from his dilemma. I liked the title a dogs tale, but did you see that dogs tail never stopped wagging.

If cats could talk...

2011-06-15T07:06:00.000-07:00

Ronnie Balliard retires.

2011-06-15T06:33:00.000-07:00

Ronnie Balliard retires. Balliard played for a while with the Indians and my memory of him besides being an adequate second baseman was similar to 'pigpen' of snoopy fame. He would no sooner take the field when his shirt tail would work its way out of his pants. This picture illustrates the point. Enjoy retirement Ronnie Balliard.

Jeff Bridges makes watching a drunk bearable.

2011-06-14T14:10:00.000-07:00

First chance I've had to view CRAZY HEART. It is, in case you've forgotten, the role that won Jeff Bridges the Oscar. Bridges plays the part of a country singer who drinks. I am not a fan of watching drunks fall down and purge the contents of their stomachs at regular intervals. Bridges does the latter, but other than that he plays a drunk without the pratfalls and stupid talk that seems to bedevil over drinkers. Jeff Bridges deserved the award for not overacting and make watching a drunk strut his stuff bearable.

Don't overthink the movie plot.

2011-06-14T07:51:00.000-07:00

How many times have you grumbled to yourself when this happens.

George Sanders

2011-06-14T06:44:00.000-07:00

I watched the old movie, LLOYDS OF LONDON, last night. Again I am convinced there was not another actor who could play a more smug, smarmy role like George Sanders could. In one scene he wears a silk suit and talks with that pompous way that only he could do. You hated him because he was always up to no good.

He committed suicide at age 65 and left an ill-considered note that said he was bored and was only anticipating his death by a few years.