The Death of Newsweek

My father read Newsweek.  He liked the Stewart Alsop column that ran in the back of the magazine each week. It would be a topic of discussion at the dinner table.  As a consequence, I started reading Newsweek regularly. When I left home to go to college, I had my own subscription which has ran to this day.  I just got a renewal letter and this time, for the first time, I am not going to renew.  The Newsweek that I read and enjoyed for over 40 years is dead. It had been published by The Washington Post until recently.

Newsweek always had great columnists, for example George Will or Stewart Alsop. Until recently, excellent political writers such as Howard Fineman and Fareed Zakaria.  They are all gone.  Writing for someone else except for Stewart Alsop who passed away years ago.  Each week I would read Newsweek from cover to cover and I felt like I got a fair idea what was going on in the nation and world, in politics and culture. This weeks edition (November 28, 2011) has a piece called NEWS BITES What will you do for the holidays? They have replies by Jessica Alba, Adam Lambert and Camilla Belle.  I don't care what these folks are going to do for the holidays.  If I did, I would read People Magazine which already covers this subject of celebrities very well.

I don't know what I am going to do about replacing Newsweek.  I can either get TIME or the weekly Christian Science Monitor. For now, I am leaning toward the Monitor. But for Newsweek? It's over.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has been to me one of those holidays associated with family.  I remember when I was a kid, we would go to my grandmother's house in Redlands, California.  The house seemed so big to me.  It was a two story house with an outdoor toilet on the porch with a box way above the toilet with a chain.  There was some indoor plumbing added after the home was built. It had a cellar in which, according to the family lore, my grandfather had buried money. I don't know if that money was ever found.

Driving to Redlands from San Diego was no easy task in those days.  There was no freeway I-15.  We would have to drive on US 395, a two lane road.  Many places the traffic would back up.  When we passed the Poway turnoff we would see cattled grazing.  That area is now Rancho Bernardo, totally developed.  No place left for cattle to graze.  When we got to Moreno Valley would would cut across the Timoteo mountains.  I liked them because they were named after me, in my mind and I knew we were near Redlands.

When we would get to my grandmother's house, my brothers and I would play as the women prepared the dinner.  My parents and grandmother were vegetarians so there was no turkey to cook.  They would make a fake turkey out of gluten protein. It would be served with breading, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, broccoli and my mother's special whole wheat dinner rolls which we called hardtack.  After eating ourselves silly the pies would come out which usually included a pumpkin pie and a pecan pie.  Sometimes we would get a rhubarb pie. My dad loved rhubarb pie but it left a hairy film on my teeth. After the dinner the old folks would go loosen their belts and talk.  All the kids and me would go outside and play.  I was particularly fascinated by my grandmother's Studebaker which was set on cement blocks.

Over the years, the family Thanksgiving dinner would change locations.  Now, all my brothers and sister have left San Diego and my parents have died so Thanksgiving isn't what it was. I shared dinner today with friends and remembered all the great dinners past.

News From the Police State: Re: Sudafed

The last time I had a cold, I went to the pharmacy to buy some Sudafed.  I have found that nothing else works like Sudafed to clear up sinus congestion.  I had heard about the stupid law requiring a person to register as a known Sudafed user to get the drug, but I saw Sudafed PE on the shelf next to the other cold medicines.  I bought the package and took it home.  I took a pill.  Nothing, and I mean NOTHING happened.  I looked at the label.  It had on it in small print "New Formula Does not contain Pseudoephedrine".  Let me explain something here.  Sudafed is a marketing term that sounds like PSEUDoEPHEDrine.  Get it? This is like taking a product that is a butter spread containing butter and removing the butter but not changing the name of the product.  It is false and misleading to say the least.

I do not understand why I should have to go through all this hassle of registering as a Sudafed user just because the drug could be abused by someone.  Everything has the potential of abuse.  You don't see the Congressmen registering as money abusers. 

On Why This Website is Called Musing Without a Muse

In the past, writers would invoke the help of a muse to inspire the writer to produce a great work.  For example, here is the opening of the Odyssey:

"Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, O daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them."

Homer was just a medium for the muse to tell the story of the great Ulysses. Consider this written years later by Milton:

Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Begtinning how the Heav'ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos: Or if Sion Hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's Brook that flow'd
Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence
Invoke they aid to my adventrous Song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th' Aonian Mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime.




At the beginning of Paradise Lost, Milton, like the classical writers, invokes the muse.
These are two examples of where appealing to the muse for inspiration was successful.  I would expect there are far more cases of writing where the muse failed to do her thing and the writing is dreck.

The muse of epic poets is Calliope. I could invoke Calliope's assistance in my writing but if I did, it would no longer be musing without a muse.  So there is no invocation here.  Just thoughts that flow forth from my fountain of wisdom, such as it is.  Incidentally, the early English poets used alliteration as their primary poetic technique and I have a weakness for a good alliterative phrase.  For example, William Safire wrote about the "nattering nabobs of negativism." Before you get your panties in a twist and want to scream at me that those were the words of Spiro Agnew, I must tell you they are beyond Agnew's skill and were written by Safire. Now, I never agreed with Safire's politics until late in his life, I did admire his ability to turn a phrase.  He was a master.  Perhaps he used the muse. So far, I have resisted. Not as a matter of pride, but I have enough gods to pray to as it is and I am not sure the calls are answered anyway.

In Praise of Cookie

When I was a very little kid, my brother had a dog named Cookie.  My brother would call Cookie, "Precious".  My mom got mad at him for using such language for a dog. My brother soon left for boarding academy and I assumed the role as Cookie's owner.  Cookie was a mutt.  She was the best of what muttness is.  She was a medium size dog, black with a white stripe down her nose. She was as smart as a dog can get. If she were any smarter she would become a human and cease being a dog. When I was about two years old I noticed that when Cookie had to go she would just squat and let it loose.  That seemed to be a better method than holding the mess in a diaper.  I copied her style but it didn't go over with my mother.

When I was older I would take her with me when I was given an errand to go to the corner store and pick up some food item.  The corner store's real name was Meese's Market but we never called it that.  Anyway, Cookie would walk with me down Palm Avenue always staying by my side.  We didn't use a leash in those days.  When I would get to the store, Cookie would sit at the entrance and wait.  She never would come in the store because I told her not to.  Often the butcher would give me a knuckle bone for her and when we would get back home, Cookie would spend hours gnawing on the bone until it was clean. The other dog we had was Candy.  Candy was a purebred cocker spaniel.  Candy liked to sleep in the road which wasn't healthy.  Candy was stupid and didn't care.  Palm Avenue didn't have sidewalks in those days and the side of our home was lined with olive trees.  Candy loved the dirt under the trees. I think she liked the mess the olives made as they rotted in the dirt.  Cookie would never allow Candy to have her knuckle bone.  Even if all the meat were cleaned off and the bone had no value, Candy was not allowed to touch it.  If she dared, she paid for it.  Cookie didn't put up with any guff. Occasionally the butcher would give me two knuckle bones and Candy would get her own. That didn't happen too often as I didn't want to appear greedy.  Knuckle bones didn't costs anything in those days.  Sometimes if I were lucky, I would have a dime to buy a pack of Hostess Twinkies.  They tasted better back then.  I can't say for sure if they were better, but the Twinkies I have eaten today don't seem to taste like what I remember.

Sometimes one of my father's patients would come to our home to get some medicine.  I remember this one patient who had a sore toe and was in need of some opiate to take the pain away.  He opened the gate and limped up to our porch.  He had a real exaggerated limp as to emphasis the dire pain he had in his toe. As he neared the porch, Cookie came out of nowhere and suddenly the sore toe was cured and the man galloped out of the yard. He had no limp at all. We all had a great laugh of how Cookie cured the toe.  Cookie loved to chase cats. That was one of her great joys.  Once she took after a cat but the cat didn't run.  The cat was a lean tom that didn't see the need to flee the oncoming dog. Cookie walked away from that encounter with a scratch down her nose.

My father always wanted a Saint Bernard so he bought one.  Cookie had a hard time playing second fiddle to the big dog and soon started wasting away.  When Cookie died, I dug a hole in the back yard and buried her with full honors. I wonder if the current owners know they have a pet cemetery on the property. When my brother got married he called his wife "Precious". My mom got upset because she remembered he called his dog that.

On Turning 60

I am sixty years old today. I guess that is old.  I didn't get the memo. I don't feel any different than when I was in my fifties.  Oh well. Not everyone gets to be sixty.  My friends who died young never got here. Those military people who died in all the various wars never got here.  Mozart didn't make it either.  Unfortunately, the priests that I depended on for counsel have died.  One was close to 80. The other was in his late fifties. I should replace them but the whole idea of replacing a confident doesn't seem possible.

I don't remember being born.  Some people say they do.  Well, I don't.  In fact, I have no memories of living in Glendale where I was born.  My earliest memories were from the time I was about a year and a half.  We had a tiny home in National City with five kids packed in the house. I remember all the fighting and squabbling that occurred.  My memory gets better by the time I was four.  My oldest brother was also born on the 20th of November.  We would celebrate together until he left home.  He was thirteen years older than me. He didn't get to be 50 much less 60 as he was killed by a drunk driver. I remember turning 10.  I thought that was a big deal.  Those round years seem to be cause for extra celebration.

So I got another round year.  My father told me he used to think 60 was old until he was sixty.  He said the same about 80.  When he was 90, he finally felt old.

Birthdays are a family thing.  My mother would baked a cake and serve it with ice cream. Every year she would call. I would get reminded of her labor and the fight to give me a name.  My father wanted to name me after his favorite uncle, Guy Bryson.  The rest of the family didn't agree, so my sister erased Guy from the intake sheet and gave me Timothy.  Clarence, my middle name is from my uncle who died when the USS Juneau was sunk on November 13, 1942.  There is one survivor from that ship left.  I spoke with him last year and thanked him for his service. My mother told my Uncle Clarence that he should join the navy as it would be a safer service than the Army or Marines.  She felt guilty about that the rest of her life.  It was ok as my mother like to feel guilty. My Uncle Guy had the Purple Heart from Clarence. When his widow died, my father took possession of it. My father said he would give it to me but it must have got lost after my parents died. Nonetheless, I remember Clarence by my name. I bought a car at the salvage yards in Otay Mesa, San Diego. The lady who ran the DMV service was Mexican.  She put my name on the registration as Timothy Clarence.  She presumed my true last name was my matrilineal name so my car is owned by Mr. Clarence.

So at this point, I haven't figured it out yet.  I don't know what it is all about. Physics keeps changing and it boggles my mind to study string theory. Some people appear to have a certainty about things. Perhaps that is a good thing.  I don't share it.

Dyslexia

Dyslexia runs in my family.  My mother had it. I have it in a limited way.  I have problems with numbers.  Now, this would not be too great a problem except that I am a CPA.  I learned to catch my mistakes and correct them.  I started CPA practice in the pre-computer age so that everything was done on worksheets by hand.  The figures on the worksheets were added with the aid of a calculator.  At my first job in 1983, the partners all used Addo-Xes, an electro-mechanical calculator.  These would often physically jam and have to be repaired.  I was and still am, blistering fast on a 10 key. I found that I was faster than most 10 keys and would jam the processor many times.  The main problem I have is orally processing numbers.  If you say your telephone number to me real fast, I cannot understand.  I have to hear a number very slowly and write it down as I hear it.  A few years back I was negotiating a tax liability with the IRS and the agent gave me the IRS offer real fast.  I said "Stop, I cannot process numbers, please write it down." I got the strangest look.

Addo-X

One of my brothers had dyslexia for letters really bad.  He had great difficulty reading. Fifty-six years ago, my father hired a tutor to come to our home to teach him to read.  I remember a small card table would be set up on our front porch which was semi-enclosed and folding chairs opened. I would sit in on the lessons and at three years old, I learned to read.  The teacher's name was Miss Church.  I got far more out of the tutoring than my brother. 

At four years old, I could read from the King James Bible.  My father took a movie of me reading the 23rd Psalms at that time. When I started first grade I couldn't figure out the stupid Dick and Jane books.  It made me so mad that the cat Puff would say "mew" instead of "meow" like all the cats I have had said. The words were so simple and the progression so slow it was the most boring experience I had ever encountered to that point in my life.  Elementary school continued this slow process of education throughout.  I soon discovered that the first six months of the start of each new school year was spent teaching what we had learned the past school year.  It wasn't until we were half way through we would be taught new stuff. Apparently, summer vacation would result in a complete brain scrubbing so each fall we students were coming in with a tabula rasa and had to be re-taught the basics.