Millard Fillmore and the Kardashians

Millard Fillmore, 13th President of the United States, served from 1850-1853. What was he famous for and what does it have to do with the Kardashians? If you tried to list the well-known accomplishments by Fillmore, aside from being elected to the Presidency, your list would be blank. Fillmore is famous for having done nothing famous while in office.
Fast forward to the Kardashians. While they have a "reality" television show, none of them is likely to win an Academy Award or the Nobel Peace Prize. My youngest daughter watches the show sometimes, and I have glanced at it for a few minutes; I have to say I was not entertained.
Kim Kardashian's husband recently nominated her for a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the Hollywood Chamber of commerce rejected the nomination. Apparently, she had not done anything worthy of deserving a star. Considering some of the people who have stars on the Walk of Fame, the bar appears to be pretty low sometimes. Apparently, though, if your name is Kardashian, not low enough. It looks like Bugs Bunny and Big Bird, can have their stars, but not poor Kim.
Being famous without actually doing anything? It worked for Millard Fillmore, and, apparently, it works for the Kardashians. I guess they are the Millard Fillmores of the 21st century.

Congress: Pay Them What They Earn

The current salary for a member of Congress is $174,000. After taking office as Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan announced that Congress would work a total of 111 days in 2016. For the 888 hours our members of Congress will be working (based on an 8-hour day), that works out to $195.95 per hour.
Call me a heretic, but I find that to be a bit excessive. I'm sure the members of Congress would tell you that they spend a great deal of time in their home districts addressing concerns of their constituents, taking trips at taxpayer expense for a variety of noble reasons or participating in fundraising activities so they can fund reelection campaigns.
Those, and other excuses, just don't impress me. If I have a problem and call my Senator's office, Bernie Sanders does not answer the phone and deal with my issue; his staff does. There's nothing wrong with this, but let's at least be honest about it.
When members of Congress take trips overseas, what is the measurable outcome of the trip and how does it benefit our country? In a word: nothing In today's world, we are encouraged to embrace technology and use such things as "Go to Meeting" to conduct business rather than travel. Why can't Congress have the same requirement? The answer is that they would have to impose it upon themselves, so it ain't going to happen.
In my opinion, based upon what they actually accomplish, Congress appears to be one of the most dysfunctional groups on the face of the planet. If I gave you a pencil and a blank sheet of paper and asked you to list their accomplishments in the past year, would you be able to identify any? I don't think I could. What stands out more is what they can't or don't do (such as confirm a new Supreme Court Justice) as opposed to what they do.
I recently saw a proposal to pay members of Congress minimum wage. If you support the position that they should be paid according to what they do, even this might at times be excessive. An alternate proposal would be this: A normal full-time job is considered to be 2080 hours per year.  By working 888 hours, members of Congress work 43% of what is considered to be full time. If $174,000 is considered the annual salary for working full-time, their pay could be adjusted downward to $74,820. I don't know about you but, if I was working less than half time, I would consider that pretty generous. Many people who work full time would love to earn that much.
Unfortunately, it really doesn't matter what you or I think about this, because we can't change it. Congress is not a bargain, and never will be.

"Penis Envy" Enters the Presidential Campaign

Back in the mid- to late-70's, when I was studying to be a nurse, "penis envy" was one of those obscure terms (originated by Freud) that I learned but never figured I would ever have an occasion to use.
After the last Republican Presidential Debate, I have to confess that I was mistaken. Although I did not watch the televised debate (they have evolved into a version of 6-year olds arguing in the schoolyard), the accounts in the news were entertaining and informative enough. With Rubio and Trump going back and forth on this topic, my reaction was: "Really?" While part of the goal of the debate is to point out why not to vote for the other guy, another goal is to point out why someone should vote for you. I may be going out on a limb, but I don't think the size of someone's naughty bits is a reason to decide either way.
Donald Trump has proven to be pretty thin skinned, and an example of this has been his attempt to "prove" that his hair is real (I still believe it may actually be a helmet). Imagine in the next debate (or in a campaign stop somewhere) he decides to "prove" Rubio is wrong. Is that what really comes to mind when you hear the term "presidential"?
When I was in school, I worked as an orderly on weekends and school vacations in a small hospital. There was an elderly nurse (Mrs. Chickilly) who worked in the ICU and who taught me (among other things) how to say "shit in your pants" in Italian. Over the years, there have been many things (like algebra) which I have totally forgotten, but this phrase is one of the things I have always remembered, and it appears I always will. That being said, I have never found the occasion to use it in my professional career. The way the Presidential Debates are evolving, though, who knows?

A Beer and an Airline

Recently, I saw a video clip of Donald Trump spouting off his usual meaningless "stuff that people want to hear" in which he said we "aren't a country unless we have a border". I am not sure what he is thinking. Most borders between adjoining countries are relatively invisible. There may be border crossing stations, but much of the borders are invisible to the naked eye.
The idea of building a wall has been tried before and, historically, has been overall unsuccessful. Examples include the Great Wall of China, Hadrian's Wall and the Maginot line. The problem with building walls is they eventually come to an end,  and you can simply go around the end. If you are more motivated, you can also try to go over or under. The bottom line is that no country in the world has an impenetrable border, and probably never will. What is would take (money, manpower, and the willingness to inflict violence upon anyone trying to cross), is a price no one really wants to pay.
So, when the Donald says we aren't a country because we don't have a border, he is just making noise without substance.
There is more to being a country than having borders. Laws, culture, language, literature, education and industry are just a few examples. A less formal, but more realistic perspective on the topic (than Trump's) came from the late Frank Zappa:
"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer."
Even if you don't take him the least bit seriously, it's obvious that Frank Zappa put more thought into what he said than The Donald ever will.
Vote for Frank Zappa, and have a beer.

Fourty Years and I Still Haven't Used Algebra

Thinking back, I have spent a lot of years being educated. Thirteen years for K-12 in public schools, four years of undergraduate and four part-time years of graduate school.
While I realize the intent in K-12 was to provide a "well rounded" education, there was a fair amount of time spent on stuff that has not been retained and never used. The title of this piece is one example. Algebra was a required course, but I have no recollection of how it works and have never had a need for it in my profession. I took two years of French. As a result I cannot speak, write, or follow a conversation in French. According to my brother, the only value to studying foreign languages in school was that he can now ask someone to go to bed with him in three different languages (he obviously got more out of it than I did). I took music for three years, but can't read music. In English classes, I learned to appreciate Lord of the Rings, to dislike Shakespeare, to not have any interest in poetry and to find that diagramming sentences was a total waste of time . Physics was a mystery. Shop class taught me how to use basic tools so I can hang a picture or change a washer in a faucet, but I would never try to actually build something. Others are handy; I am not.
Looking back at my teachers, I view tenure as a double-edged sword. I had a lot of teachers who cared and wanted to do a good job, and I had many who were not very motivated and could best be described as jerks. Still others such as the one math teacher I had, was very nice but his communication style was on a level that many (including me) did not comprehend what he was trying to teach. I liked him; I just didn't get what he was trying to teach.
In undergraduate school, while I majored in Nursing, I took a variety of non-Nursing courses. Among them were Sociology, Philosophy, Phys Ed (golf, tennis and bowling, none of which I have done again in over 30 years), three different chemistry courses,  and other classes whose subjects I can't even remember. While there may be pieces of these courses that I actually remember and use, the vast majority must be in part of my brain that I just don't use and, for the most part, can't access.
In graduate school, I had to take Statistics. What I took away from the class was that, if I ever needed to use statistics, I would pay someone else to do the work for me. Accounting and Managerial Finance have actually been useful because I have had to manage multi-million dollar budgets. Christian Social Principles (it was a Catholic college) taught me about ethics. Nursing Research taught me how to read a research article and differentiate between good and sloppy research. Nursing Theories taught me various theories. I found that professionally, I am eclectic in this regard; I do not embrace one single theory, but rather parts of several. Nursing concepts taught me how to examine an issue in depth. Since part of my personality is that I am very analytical, it was helpful in structuring my thinking.
Overall, there has been a lot of "stuff" poured into my brain over the years. Some of it has been helpful to what I do today, some has been "nice to know" and some has been a colossal waste of time. Over the years, my brain has learned to retain and use what I need, to know where to look for things I might need, and to forget a lot of the useless stuff. I also separate work from pleasure. I enjoy history and trivia. I can discuss the Battle of Rourke's Drift (the British won) or tell you what famous entertainer died while sitting on the toilet (Elvis). It all boils down to knowing what you need to know for work and what you want to know for the rest (and Algebra is not one of them).

Hold my beer

This past week, on our vacation to Acadia, my wife and daughter and I were enjoying a picnic lunch on the granite ledges above the shore between Sand Beach and the Otter Cliffs. I spotted two men (in the photo above) near the shore, and their behavior gave a hint of some excitement to come.

Let me start by saying that the rangers had posted signs saying "Dangerous Surf" and "Use Extreme Caution". A few years back, a 12-year old girl had been washed off the rocks nearby and was killed, so the warnings were not to be taken lightly.

The man on the right in the photo was in a typical photographer's pose with the camera held in front of him, but was also motioning to his companion to move closer to the water, where the waves were breaking over the rocks along the shore.

I was imagining the account in the newspaper about the man being washed off the rocks, with the usual descriptor "and alcohol was involved". As you can imagine, the wet rocks were quite slippery, and, while we watched, he slipped on the wet rock and landed face down. Miraculously, he did not end up getting washed off the rock, but whatever he was holding in his right hand (cell phone? beer?) was apparently broken or spilled.

He was able to regain his feet and did not appear to be injured. After this apparent near-death experience, one would think that the two of them would move away from the surf to a safer location. You would be wrong. The photographer was again motioning to his companion to move closer to the surf, and his buddy was doing so. I don't know if they were disinhibited or stupid or both, but it did not look like it was going to end well.

How did it end? We didn't stay to see how it worked out. We had finished lunch and decided to continue our sightseeing, entertaining though this was. I am assuming that, since I didn't see anything on the local television news about someone being drowned in the high surf, that nothing bad happened, but it's possible the photographer did not want to try to explain an incident that started with "Hold my beer."

 

I don't understand electricity, but I know it calms me

The title is a quote from comedian Emo Phillips, and is used to illustrate that there are a lot of things in life we may not understand, and it's OK. Brains function differently. Some people are voracious learners, some remember seemingly everything, some can explain any conundrum, and some are just clueless (to varying degrees).
There are a lot of things I need to know in life, but probably an even greater number of things that it's either nice to know or I don't need to know at all. For work, it's important to know the physical environment and how it operates (policies and procedures), who works there, and the people we serve. Less important is knowing all of the details of everyone's personal life, where the spare toothbrushes are stored or how much everyone gets paid. You tend to remember the important stuff, and know where to look or who to ask for the other stuff.
Outside of work, I also prioritize what I choose to understand and remember. Examples of things I choose not to understand/remember:
- Algebra (it has been 40 years since I learned it and I still haven't used it)
- Suggested Retail Price (it's just something made up with no link to reality)
- Why does anyone care about what anyone named Kardashian says or does?
- What possessed Lincoln Chaffee (and several other equally notables) to run for President?
- Street names (I can get where I want to go in Burlington but usually have no idea of the name of the street)
- Fairs (they are often little more then open-air psychiatric units)
- Who is my State Representative? (I have no idea and not knowing hasn't done any harm)
- What are the names of the prescription medications I take? (I know some, but I can just look at the bottles)
- When did I get divorced? (I would need to find the divorce papers; but it really doesn't matter)
- When are various relative's birthdays? (Fortunately, my wife remembers these things)
- Why are any of the Real Housewives shows on television?
- How did we ever do our taxes correctly ourselves before Turbo Tax?
These are just a few examples; there are probably hundreds more. I am also sometimes amazed at some of the stuff that I remember that seems pretty useless (history, quotes, etc.). As long as I can remember or research the important stuff, though, it's OK.
Like Emo, there are things in life that just work, I am not sure why, and I don't really need to know.