|
|
MAY
30, 2022
NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET
I
wrote about 19th-century railroad
smashups last year at this time, including an intentional
head-on collision in central Ohio which was followed by another such
exhibition in Texas. For the second crash, a location in west
Texas was specified on the Omnibus podcast.
|
A
listener had to correct the podcasters: it wasn't in the
western part of the state at all but actually in the town of West
(pronounced West Comma Texas), located in east
Texas between Dallas and Austin.
|
That
reminds me: When I leave the Pittsburgh area and shuffle off
towards Buffalo, I encounter road signs referring to the borough of
North East, Pennsylvania. |
|
The
name makes no sense, because I know I'm in the wine region of northwest Pennsylvania.
Further
research reveals that the town's name refers to its location not in
the upper left corner of the state but in the upper right
corner
of the county, namely Erie County (red outline).
West
is east. North East is northwest. Is there no end to
this madness? |
|
|
MAY
27, 2022
KRULWICH SPEAKS
Three
years ago today, at Oberlin College's annual Commencement exercises,
one of my 50-year Class of 1969 classmates was awarded an Honorary
Doctor of Fine Arts degree. He did not make a speech.
However,
on the evening before the Commencement exercises 25 years before, he
did address our class.
I've
included audio segments from that entertaining talk in a new article
which is titled Robert
Krulwich 1994: Why Am I Here? |
MAY
24, 2022
FILM vs VIDEO
Last
month I wrote that when I was young, I could easily distinguish
between a TV show that was shot with film cameras and one that was
televised more-or-less live using electronic cameras.
This
month I was reminded of another difference, the significance of
which I didn't realize at the time:: frame rate. I
explain in an article called 30
FPS is Smooth, Man!
MAY
22, 2012
SUGGESTED FORM LETTER
Dear
Pennsylvania Turnpike Motorist:
Thank
you for participating in our E-ZPass program. The transponder
mounted on your vehicles windshield allows it to pass through
our toll gates without stopping, and your account is billed for a
discounted amount compared to what you would have paid in cash.
When
you became an E-ZPass customer, you agreed to obey all traffic rules
and regulations. Recently, however, our information indicates
that broke your promise by disobeying the speed limit. Here are
the details.
On
Wednesday, May 16, your transponder was recorded entering the
Turnpike at Irwin exit 67 at 1:03:15 pm. Then it was recorded
exiting at Breezewood exit 161 at 2:22:13 pm.
A
vehicle traveling at the posted maximum speeds would require more
than 92 minutes to drive between those two points, broken down as follows:
|
Miles |
Speed
Limit |
Minimum
Time |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
00.8 |
35
mph (ramps) |
01:22 |
|
|
29.2 |
55
mph |
31:51 |
|
|
64.1 |
65
mph |
59:10 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
94.1
total |
61.1
mph avg |
92:23
total |
|
Therefore,
you could not legally exit at Breezewood until 2:35:38 pm.
However, you did exit at 2:22:13 pm, or 13 minutes 25 seconds too
early. You averaged 71.5 miles per hour over the distance and
exceeded the speed limit by more than 17%.
Your
toll was $7.63. If you lose your E-ZPass privileges, the same
trip will cost you $9.05.
This
is your first warning. Your next violation will bring another
warning. A third violation will result in the cancellation of
your E-ZPass account; your transponder will no longer be recognized,
and you will be required to pay cash at the toll booths.
Please
forward this information to anyone else who may be operating your
vehicle on the Pennsylvania Turnpike system. Thank you.
MAY
19, 2022
REVISITING WATERGATE FROM THE INSIDE
I
was working in Marion, Ohio, in the early seventies when the
Watergate scandal broke. Many of the revelations implicating
President Richard Nixon in the coverup came from the televised
testimony by former White House Counsel John Dean (right).
We
learned that Dean had grown up in Marion! He attended high
school there during his freshman year before being sent off to a
military academy in Virginia. One of my co-workers remembered
him from school, where he did not leave a good impression. She
seemed to consider him kind of a jerk. |
|
|
And
that's how Dean is played by Dan Stevens in the current Starz
limited series Gaslight. I've been watching episodes on
pay cable.
Besides
Dean, the other key figures are described by reviewers as
forgotten characters, but I haven't forgotten. Jeb
Magruder, James McCord, Howard Hunt, and especially G. Gordon Liddy
are portrayed just as I've always pictured them, and it's fun to
watch these bumbling criminals although it's a little jarring
to see Patton Oswalt's familiar face in the role of Chuck Colson. |
Shown
on the right, Attorney General John Mitchell and his wife Martha are
played by Sean Penn (unrecognizable) and Julia Roberts.
Watergate
still fascinates me; when I was about 26, I watched the story unfold
every night on the news. I thought Martha was crazy, judging
from the wild public accusations she made, but this series shows that
she had reason to be wild. I recommend that if you haven't seen Gaslit,
you can stream it on Starz or other services. |
|
MAY
16, 2012
25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DIAMOND
It
was 25 years ago today that I started a trend.
Baseball
graphics back then often included a line such as RUNNERS
ON 1ST AND 2ND.
I felt that was too wordy, so on KDKA-TVs Pittsburgh Pirates
telecast on May 16, 1987, I introduced a compact diamond symbol, with
squares in the corners representing the bases. Changing the
colors of the squares indicated which bases were occupied.
Realizing that the viewers might not understand this, for a while I
labeled the diamond ON
BASE.
In
1994, Fox introduced an even more important innovation: a
Fox Box that remained constantly on the screen, giving
the score and other data. At first it was used only for NFL
football, but two years later, Fox began broadcasting Major League
Baseball games.
Before
that 1996 season started, executive producer Ed Goren told the
Associated Press that its almost certain Fox will have
some type of situational graphic for baseball, similar to the
omnipresent Fox Box score clock in football. It will show the
score, the inning, how many outs, balls and strikes, and probably
whether there are men on base. The most efficient way to
accomplish the latter turned out to be a smaller version of my diamond
symbol. However, on each telecast for the first year or
two, Fox announcers had to verbally explain the significance of the
lighted bases.
Flash
forward to the 21st century. With the advent of HD telecasts,
the score bug has become smaller and more compact, which renders it
hard to read if youre any distance from the screen (as in a
sports-themed bar or restaurant).
Also,
theres no longer room for explanations. The modern
baseball viewer is expected to know that 6TH
means sixth inning, the yellow caret to the left of it
means top of the, my diamond locates the runners, the
three little dots represent the number of outs, and 0-2
means zero balls and two strikes. (I once considered the three
little dots, but I thought they would be too cryptic unless they were labeled.)
In
basketball, the viewer is expected to know that the tiny numbers to
the left of the team names represent ranks or seeds, the little bars
underneath represent time outs remaining, and that the two numbers on
the right represent the time remaining in the period and on the shot
clock, respectively.
Symbols
abound, and their explanatory text has disappeared. Weve
practically reverted to the way things were done thousands of years
ago, when a merchant would record three bags of grain by simply
making three marks on a clay tablet.
2022 UPDATE:
Nowadays most of these "scorebugs have footnotes with
even more information.
|
For baseball, they
include the hitter with his position in the batting order and his
hits and at-bats, plus the pitcher and his pitch count, sometimes
replaced by pitch speed. |
|
For basketball,
they track the free-throw situation (team fouls and the bonus
condition) and the held-ball situation (the possession arrow).
|
|
What
hath I wrought?
MAY
13, 2022
DESTROY AFTER READING
How
much are you asking for your old car? I could part
with it for five thousand dollars. Hmm. I
might be able to offer you four thousand.
That's
a normal-sounding bit of dialogue, but as a long-time viewer of
situation comedies, I've learned that characters on TV usually
negotiate this way:
|
|
How
much are you asking for your old car?
Well
(scribbling on a piece of paper), I'm going to write down a number.
The
paper is slid across the table, but we can't see what's written on it.
The
prospective buyer unfolds the note. I don't know.
Maybe (writing a counteroffer) I could come up with this much. |
Why
are these characters so reluctant to speak actual dollar amounts
aloud? Is the room bugged? And why do the characters keep
the numbers concealed from view? Are there cameras in the ceiling?
No,
I suspect that when the show is repeated in syndication ten years
from now, inflation will have made the amounts seem ridiculously low.
UPDATE:
I happened to see a scene from a TV movie in which a guy and a gal,
two young professionals who recently met, are taking a walk
outdoors. He wants to figure out her horoscope. He asks
for her birth date and the time of day when she was born, entering
those into an app on his phone.
He
also asks for the year she was born. She smirks, like I'm
not going to tell you that.
However, she does tell him, just not in a way that we can hear
it. She takes his phone, enters the year, and hands it back to
him. We don't see what she's entered, but because she's ten
years out of college, the birthdate is probably something like 1990.
I
can't imagine this happening in real life. She willingly
reveals her age using a keypad but refuses to speak the digits out
loud? Even though no one else is around? I have to think
it's to future-proof the movie, so that if it's shown in the year
2040 the audience won't hear 1990 and think This chick is
fifty? She's far too old for him. |
MAY
11, 2022
RIP THOSE POLITICIANS!
This
month's 100 Moons article lists 40 possible names for a macho
character in the movie Space Mutiny. One of them is
Rip Steakface. |
|
The
given name Rip is rather uncommon these days. In
the United States in 2020, only one of every 33,915 newborns was
called Rip.
But
what about the late actor Rip Torn? Was that his real
name? Surely not.
|
|
|
Another
actor, Roy Scherer, used the moniker Rock Hudson (after
the Rock of Gibraltar and the mighty Hudson River). |
A
wrestler, Terry Bollea, performed as Hulk Hogan (after
the superhero whose muscles violently outgrow his clothes). |
Therefore
I thought that Rip Torn had to be a pseudonym as well, a
name chosen to doubly imply sudden shredding. |
|
|
|
However,
I recently read about a man of Dutch descent, born in Albany in
1660, who represented New York City in the colonial Provincial
Assembly: Rip Van Dam. |
And
that reminded me of another New Yorker of Dutch descent named Rip
Van Winkle. In this case, Mr. Van Winkle was fictional. |
And
that reminded me of Richard Van Winkle, who was three years
ahead of me in grade school and, as far as I know, managed to stay awake. |
But
back to Rip. Evidently that name was not always so
uncommon. It was a family nickname bestowed upon future actor Elmore
Torn, Jr.
And
centuries before, in 1731 Rip Van Dam became acting governor of New
York. It wasn't until the next year that the official royal
governor arrived from England.
William Cosby |
|
Bill
Cosby and Rip Van Dam immediately got into a dispute over
gubernatorial salaries and other matters.
In
1734, Van Dam published Heads of Articles of Complaint against
Governor Cosby. He also anonymously contributed his
criticisms to a liberal newspaper, the New York Weekly Journal, published
by John Peter Zenger. |
|
John Peter Zenger |
Jeff
Darcy, cleveland.com ^^^ |
|
Conservatives
were outraged, as is their wont.
Governor
Cosby charged that at the hands of the press, he had been
greatly and unjustly scandalized as a person who has no regard
to law or justice. He ordered publisher Zenger arrested
for libel.
He
also had copies of four editions of the Weekly Journal
publicly burned. |
|
Zenger
refused to identify the authors of the offending articles, even when
placed in solitary confinement. When his case finally came to trial,
he was acquitted. Although the verdict did not establish
legal precedent regarding seditious libel or freedom of the
press, writes Steven Neill in December 2021's American History
magazine, it did sway public opinion. ...Colonists now
had a shield against the arbitrary exercise of government power and
freedom to criticize public officials.
Seventy
years later, now a state, New York modified its libel law.
Since then, it's not libel if it's true.
|
MAY
9, 2022
MISCONCEPTION: DO JABS "WORK"?
Canadian
Mark Friesen, a patriot and proud nationalist, tweeted
this past weekend against COVID-19 vaccination requirements. A
stubborn anti-vaxxer, he refers to people with health care knowledge
as the pro-jab.
It's
fun to see all the pro-jab admit that the jab doesn't work, so every
kid has to get jabbed to go to Tim [Horton]'s camp. Do they not
understand how insane that is? If the jabs worked, why are they
afraid of the jab-free? #BoycottTimHortons |
(Friesen
isn't afraid of the jab-free, of course. He's one of
them. He's afraid of the jab itself, which he thinks
doesn't work and can kill you.)
Allow
me to illustrate with some hypothetical percentages: 80% and
20% and 0%. Some people assume that if a vaccination
works, it reduces your kid's chance of infection from 80%
all the way down to 0%, thereby guaranteeing that it's totally
impossible for him to get COVID. It doesn't. Vaccines are
good, but not perfect. They may reduce the chance from 80% to
20%; however, that's not zero. |
|
The
likelihood of infection may be only a fraction of what it was
before, but jabbed people can and do get infected.
No preventative measure comes with an iron-clad warranty.
Therefore it behooves us to take advantage of all the available tools
to reduce the probabilities as much as we can.
MAY
7, 2012
FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE RIDICULOUS
|
Although
theres no religious test for public office in the United
States, candidates are required to believe in something.
Americans never vote for an atheist.
But
theres nothing new under the sun. Even before there was
Christianity, ancient politicians were pious no matter how
preposterous the principles they were pretending to profess.
All
religions are equally sublime to the ignorant, useful to the
politician, and ridiculous to the philosopher, wrote Lucretius
in On the Nature of Things.
Seneca
agreed: Religion is regarded by the common people as
true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. |
And
in his Politics, Aristotle explained, A tyrant must put
on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects
are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they
consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they [fear
to] move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.
MAY
3, 2022
WHY HERE?
I
observed six months ago
that in every scripted TV show I watch, the question What
are you doing here? is asked at least
once. Why are you present at this location where I did
not expect to see you? Give me some plot exposition!
For
example, click the picture for a sound bite from season 5, episode
3, of Young Sheldon. Georgie and George encounter each
other at the home of the latter's mother-in-law. |
|
Was
it always thus? For example, did Shakespeare include this line
in his plays? Essentially yes, although not the identical five
words. Consider Act I, Scene 2, of Hamlet.
The
title character welcomes Horatio to Elsinore. Hamlet, who
thought his friend Horatio was studying at Wittenberg University,
questions him. |
|
|
The
folks at No Fear Shakespeare have rendered these lines into modern
English. But what are you doing away from Wittenberg,
Horatio? ...I know you'd never skip school. What are
you doing here in Elsinore?
UPDATE:
On May 14 on the Ovation channel, I watched season 15 episode 12 of Murdock
Mysteries, a Canadian series. Four times during the hour,
I heard What are you doing here? One of those questions
was addressed to a character who had a perfect right to be anywhere:
a cop on the beat. The fourth question actually was What in
God's name are you doing here?! |
|