A good part of my job is to look at scientific studies and figure out if they represent good science. You’d think they’d hire an actual scientist to do that, but, really it’s not necessary. There are a handful of rules good science follows, and then there is a lot of common sense involved. I can follow rules, and I am bogged down with common sense, so I am fairly good at analyzing a fair percentage of them. If the studies look at science that is over my head, or if it involves statistics, I give it to somebody else.
It turns out, I’m not the only non-scientist who looks at scientific studies! I’m not even the only funny non-scientist who does.
On Sunday, John Oliver took a look on Last Week Tonight.
For the entire version, which Word Press won’t let me post because it’s too long, click on this link.
Do you ever feel that the stars are lined up against you? That you can’t win in your own life? That God has it in for you?
I have to say, that I have felt that way on more than one occasion. On more than one occasion a day on bad days.
I often feel like I’m between a rock and an electric place
Photo Credit: comandoxtreme.xtgem.com
Some days I know that God is out to get me. But I never really thought there was anything I could do about it. I mean, I’m me, and God, well, God is God. He rules.
Right?
Well maybe not. Because you see, an Israeli man has filed a restraining order against God. True story! Because sometimes, God is abusive. And if God can’t be nice, He needs to keep His distance. At least 300 feet away — that’s the usual distance abusive men must respect.
I’ve been explaining to Duncan for weeks, that starting today, April 27, 2016, he is a grownup dog. That means no more stealing shoes (always mine), no more stealing socks (usually Jacobs and always dirty), and no more poop eating.
Because today is Duncan’s 2nd Birthday.
Oh GROW UPPPPPPPP, Duncan!
Duncan in Jacob’s Man Cave
So far today, he stole my boot, lunged for a pile of horse poop — Mom was too fast for you today! — and stole a clean sock from the basket as I took a load of laundry out of the dryer. Dogs are gross.
You may have seen this before, but I tried to write something new about my sister Judy. And, well, this piece really just sums up who she was better than anything I’ve come up with since.
She’s been gone now for 16 years. Not a day has gone by since that I haven’t wanted to talk with her, laugh with her, or, alternatively because she was my sister, smack her. There really isn’t a relationship like you have with a sister. Even long after they are gone.
*****
Today, April 22, is Earth Day! It’s the Anniversary of the very first Earth Day. Here is Walter Cronkite’s report on the first Earth Day, 1970:
It would also be my late sister Judy’s 64th birthday.
Whoever made the decision to turn Judy’s birthday into Earth Day chose wisely. Judy was a born environmentalist and recycler.
On the first Earth Day, Judy was a new, very young mother who believed in saving the planet. She was the first “environmentalist” I ever knew personally, and well, I thought she was nuts. There was a recycling bin in her kitchen for as long as I can remember. And this was back when recycling took effort. She believed in gardens, not garbage, and she made life bloom wherever she was.
“I’ve got kids,” she’d say. “It’s their planet too!”
But years later, Judy took recycling to a whole different level when she helped people recycle themselves. In the 1990s, Jude, who was then living in Florida, began working with the Homeless, assisting at shelters. Then she actively began trying to help homeless vets food, shelter and work — to enable them to jumpstart their lives.
When she died in early 2000, the American Legion awarded her honorary membership for her services to homeless vets. A homeless shelter was named in her honor. So she’s still doing good works, my sister is. That would make her wildly happy.
Jude also gave me the Beatles. So it is very appropriate that they wrote a song for her.
You see, the night the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan, it was MY turn to choose what we were going to watch. And we were going to watch the second part of The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh starring Patrick McGoohan on the Wonderful Wide World of Disney. My four (all older and MUCH cooler) siblings were furious with me. But I was quite insistent. You might even say that I threw a Class I temper tantrum over it, but I wouldn’t admit to that. But hey, I was seven. And it was my turn to choose. Fair is fair, especially in a big family with only one TV.
Somehow, Judy talked me out of my turn. She was always very persuasive. Thanks Jude.
You may have noticed that I’ve been unusually quiet about politics lately.
Ever since Donald Trump stopped being funny, well, my heart hasn’t been in it.
I will tell you that I miss candidate Barack Obama. He inspired me, beginning before he was a candidate — when he made his 2004 speech to the 2004 Democratic Convention, I turned to John and said “Can we have him?” In 2006, John and I spent our 20th wedding anniversary listening to the future president speak. And in 2008 and 2012, we both worked for Obama’s election and re-election.
Hillary? Bernie? Eh.
In February I wrote that I’d decided to vote for Hillary:
Philosophically, I’m really in Bernie’s camp. I’d love government-sponsored healthcare. I’d love to make college free. I would love to erase income inequality.
But I’m a pragmatist.
Even if Bernie could get elected (and I don’t agree with pundits that claim he can’t), well, I spent 10 years watching the sausage mill that is our government. And I simply don’t think Bernie can do it.
Hillary Clinton has my vote because I think she will be a good president. Because she’s smart and capable. Because she knows the system inside, outside and upside and downside.
I didn’t know at the time that I would ever be quoting myself.
But this morning, courtesy of the Daily Kos, I found someone much funnier than I agreed with me.
You probably remember Hodgman from the Daily Show — the straight man. Monday, in advance of the New York Primary, he came out for Hillary for precisely the reasons I decided to support her. He is much funnier, though.
I think her ambition is, and has long been, to be the President of the United States, like everyone else in the race, and also to make policy.
I think it’s reasonable to say based on her career that she likes making policy.
Moreover, I think she wants to make the best policy possible in an antagonistic-by-design political process that she has known and wrestled with for decades, and keep that policy in place.
Moreover, I think she wants to make policy that I largely agree with.
And I think she can do it.
Moreover, I think she can beat Trump.
At least I hope so. New Zealand is so far away.
Besides. She has the aliens on her side. Photo spotted at Daily Kos. But my feet were on the ground. Or actually on the coffee table, if you must know.
FiftyFourandAHalf 