The Writer's Life: The Writer's Life 3/4

Sunday, March 4, 2018

The Writer's Life 3/4 - Words & Pictures

I stopped watching news broadcasts long ago. They focus largely on the negative, drag out stories way longer than necessary, are dumbed down, and almost all have an extreme liberal bias. In an article in today's NY Post, Susannah Cahalan cites a new book that refutes the doom and gloom the media presents with such gusto. In Enlightenment Now, Steven Pinker argues that the world keeps getting better. He uses statistics to prove that there is less prejudice, that literacy has skyrocketed, that people have more disposal income and higher life expectancy than ever, that we're safer from accidents and mishaps, that 56% of the planet lives under Democracy, that world GDP keeps increasing, that birth rates are falling, and that the environment is rebounding. I agree with these conclusions, but I'm concerned social decay and, of course, terrorism negate much of the good. American society is far different, far messier than when I was a youth. Are we headed the way of the Roman Empire, or are we simply in a period of steep transition? I doubt that will be resolved by the time I shuffle off this mortal coil. Meanwhile, we in the western world are fortunate to have the choice to be happy or miserable. It's largely in our own hands. Many seem to have opted for the latter. I've been and don't want to go back.

RIP actor David Ogden Stiers, 75, who was at home on the big or small screen. His most famous role, 131 episodes as Major Winchester on MASH, made it a better show. The character was a conservative often allowed to get the better of Hawkeye, not the easy target Major Burns was. Stiers did much more than that revered series. He has 167 titles under his name at IMDb. He appeared in five Woody Allen films. A student of music, he conducted 70 orchestras. Here's a quote attributed to him: "What's next is what I really really like to regard. I don't care if it's voice over work, or commercial, or directing a play, or doing a guest appearance with an orchestra, or going into some sort of ear training for a movie, or what is next. That I keep working just astonishes me. I never take it for granted." Well done, sir. Thank you.

Shaquem Griffin played LB at the University of Central Florida. He's six-two and weighs 223, a bit light for the position by NFL standards. Nevertheless, he has been wowing the evaluators at this week's combine, doing 20 reps of 225 pounds of the bench press, and running the fastest 40-yard dash ever by linebacker at the event — 4.38 seconds. Here's a picture. Notice anything unusual?

According to an article in the Post, NYC buses average 23 accidents and mishaps per day. An MTA spokesman countered the appearance of chaos by stating there were 55 collisions per one million miles in 2017, down from 92 in 1988.

My thanks to the middle age woman who said she has MS, who bought The CarbLovers Diet: Eat What You Love, Get Slim for Life! by Frances Largeman-Roth and Ellen Kunes, and to the younger one who was sharing either a joint or a rolled cigarette with a girlfriend, who purchased Help, It's Broken!: A Fix-It Bible for the Repair Impaired by Arianne Cohen. Special thanks to the young man who selected Frank Stella: Schriften / Writings by Frank Stella and Franz-Joachim Verspohl - which is in German! Here's an example of Stella's work, The Earthquake in Chile: