Ontario Empoblog

It's a wonder that no one has attached the suffix "gate" to this little issue. Careful readers of the Washington Post obituary for Gerald Ford will notice that said obituary was written by J. Y. Smith and Lou Cannon. However, I kinda sorta suspect that it was Cannon, not Smith, who made the final revisions to the obituary copy. Why do I suspect this? Because J. Y. Smith himself died almost a year ago. Wonkette provides details: As Drudge so cruelly notes, Washington Post obituary writer J.Y. Smith died nearly a year before he reported on Gerald Ford’s tragic death in today’s paper. How did Joe Smith do it? Did he return from Beyond the Grave, possibly to help the ghost of James Brown in killing the 93-year-old ex-prez? Probably, but this is also another reminder that obits are waiting on pretty much every public figure — especially anyone older than 50. So why does Smith still get credit for something that he drafted some time ago? Because it turns out that Smith was M...

Until I returned home from my trip to Las Vegas, the only part of the Bob Woodward interview of Gerald Ford that was receiving coverage was Ford's criticism of the Bush administration stance on Iraq. From the article : Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously.... "Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction," Ford said. "And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do."... "Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people," Ford said, referring to Bush's assertion that the United States has a "duty to free people." But the former president said he was skeptical...

Perhaps this belongs in the Technoblog, but I'm not sure. I was looking at Wikitree's genealogical entry for Leslie Lynch King, Sr. and noticed the following (emphasis mine): Gender (at birth) : male And no, I was unable to find a Walter Carlos entry in Wikitree. From the Ontario Empoblog (Information on the greatest 20th century U.S. president here )

Let's look at this , which was written after the November 2000 elections: And our greatest president? One who never even received a popular mandate either as veep or president: Gerald Ford. Here's fresh evidence of his sterling merits, just in from a new report by the House Budget Committee's Democratic minority staff tabulating growth of non-defense appropriations by presidency. Average annual percent change in real outlays, adjusted for timing shifts. Ford (1973-1977) -- 7.2 percent; Nixon (1969-1973) -- 4.3 percent; Bush (1989-1993) -- 3.8 percent; Johnson (1965-1969) -- 2.7 percent; Carter (1977-1981) -- 2.2 percent; Clinton (1993-2001) -- 2.0 percent; Reagan (1981-1989) -- -1.3 percent. A true heir to FDR in public disbursements and the only White House denizen indisputably elevated to that position without vote fraud. From the Ontario Empoblog (Latest OVVA news here ) [12/28/2006 - my del.icio.us tags for Gerald R. Ford Jr. are here .]

From a live chat that Scholastic held in 1995 with Gerald Ford: Question: Really, what DID you think of Chevy Chase's impersonations of you? Did you ever meet him? -- Mrs. Arlene Gaudioso's Fifth Grade, Rohrerstown Elementary School, Lancaster, PA. President Ford: I enjoyed, up to a point, Chevy Chase's impersonations. Yes, my wife and I have met and had an opportunity to get acquainted with Chevy Chase. He is a very skillful entertainer who had a sharp and penetrating sense of humor. I have learned over the years in the political arena that you cannot be thin-skinned. You have to take the good with the bad. From Reuters/Yahoo : Comedian Chevy Chase...praised the former president on Wednesday and said they later became friendly in spite of the biting comedy routines.... "He had never been elected period, so I never felt that he deserved to be there to begin with," the actor said about Ford, who died on Tuesday at age 93. "That was just the way I felt then as...

When you're traveling, you're cut off from your usual information sources. As a result, I learned of Gerald Ford's death from a news break on ESPN Radio 920 in Las Vegas. For those who don't know, there was a reason that ESPN Radio covered the Ford story: Ford was one of the nation's fittest and most athletic presidents. Ford, who has died at age 93, played center on the University of Michigan football team, where he was a three-year letter winner. His teams enjoyed consecutive undefeated, national championship seasons in 1932 and 1933. He was the Wolverines' most valuable player in 1934 and, on Jan. 1, 1935, he played in a college all-star game known today as the East West Shrine Game.... After graduating from Michigan, Ford turned down offers from the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers to play in the National Football League, said Don Holloway, curator of Ford's presidential museum in Grand Rapids. Instead, Ford went to Yale University to become an a...

Here comes another one, courtesy the New York Times obituary : Mr. Ford’s decision to back the 1975 Helsinki Accords was furiously criticized in 1976 by both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. They complained that it had legitimized the post-World War II borders in Europe. But in his book “The Cold War: A New History” (Penguin, 2005), John Lewis Gaddis of Yale wrote that the pact’s commitment to “human rights and fundamental freedoms” became a trap for the Soviet Union, which was facing ever-bolder condemnations by dissidents. “Thousands of people who lacked the prominence of Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov began to stand with them in holding the U.S.S.R. and its satellites accountable for human rights,” Mr. Gaddis wrote. The Helsinki process, he added, became “the basis for legitimizing opposition to Soviet rule.” From the Ontario Empoblog (Latest OVVA news here ) [12/28/2006 - my del.icio.us tags for Gerald R. Ford Jr. are here .]

Any discussion of the White Album will have to wait. From the New York Times : The pardon, intensely unpopular at the time, came to be generally viewed as correct. In May 2001, Mr. Ford was honored with a “Profile in Courage” Award at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston. Senator Edward M. Kennedy spoke and said he had originally opposed the pardon. “But time has a way of clarifying past events,” he said, “and now we see that President Ford was right.” From the Ontario Empoblog (Latest OVVA news here ) [12/28/2006 - my del.icio.us tags for Gerald R. Ford Jr. are here .]

Christmas brought me, among other things (one very pertinent to this blog) the CD with the enhanced version of "The Name of This Band is Talking Heads," something that I owned (in its unenhanced version) on cassette years and years ago. More about this CD later, but for now suffice it to say that the concerts on the CD predate the "Stop Making Sense" concert, which included one non-Talking Heads, song, "Gratuitous Name-Dropping." No, that was not the official name of the Tom Tom Club song, but it might as well have been, with the references to Sly and Robbie Shakespeare, etc., etc. ad nauseum, concluding with Chris Frantz repeatedly saying "James Brown...James Brown...." Credit Michael Hanscom for bringing this piece of relevant news to my attention this Christmas day: James Brown, the dynamic, pompadoured "Godfather of Soul," whose rasping vocals and revolutionary rhythms made him a founder of rap, funk and disco as well, died early M...

Remember how I said that there could be more to this story than meets the eye? Well, the mayor of Snohomish and the superintendent of schools have responded to the negative picture of the citizens of Snohomish. DRAFT 12/21/06 Op-Ed Submission to the Post-Intelligencer By Randy Hamlin, Mayor of Snohomish and Dr. William Mester, Superintendent of Schools for the Snohomish School District We read with great interest the article in the Seattle P-I about the threats made against Brett Karch, a student and JROTC member whose leg was severely injured when a ceremonial cannon exploded near him during a Snohomish High School football game. As a result of an ongoing investigation, criminal charges have been forwarded to their prosecutor by the City of Everett against one of the two individuals who apparently placed threats against Brett while he was hospitalized in Everett. Like many of the P-I’s readers, we are both saddened and angry about this incident. It appears that Brett Karch has been ...

I forget who said that if it's in print, it must be true, but that person would certainly take note of the snowballing ramifications of a single news article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. (Thanks to Michael Hanscom for tagging this particular item.) The cannon shot that ripped into Brett Karch's leg, causing a gaping combat-style wound, has also torn a hole in his hometown community of Snohomish. Karch, whose leg was nearly amputated and who faces more than a year of physical rehabilitation with an uncertain outcome, has been the target of physical threats because of fears his injury will jeopardize the community's tradition of firing the ceremonial cannon before each high school football game and after touchdowns.... But the shot that nearly took off Brett Karch's leg now leaves the fate of that tradition in the air, and that has upset some in the community. According to Karch's medical records, security guards notified police after Karch received disturbing ...

I just wanted to say that this "Bean Runt" thing probably won't go anywhere. After all, my Rita Moreno of Arte thing never took off . Postscript - now I know why Clint Holmes is famous . From the Ontario Empoblog (Latest OVVA news here )

If this were a hospital, I would present the material below in an orderly fashion. I am capable of doing this, as my previous post about Joyce "Troutgirl" Park indicates. Actually, I am presenting this in an orderly fashion, but perhaps the order isn't apparent to the casual reader. (Think of the order of the White Album and you'll be in sync.) Let's start with this blog post written on November 14, 2006: If you want further proof that this language of ours is utter chaos, then here is something that was written by Dr. Gerald Nolst Trenite (1870-1946), a Dutch observer of English. Try reading this aloud and try and imagine how hard it would be for a NON native english person. Apparantly a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months at hard labor to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.... Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does d...

I'm glad I'm not dating today. I'd have to worry about ecosexuality . San Francisco designer Rachel Pearson, 33, owns a successful line of children’s clothing made of organic cotton that also meets international fair-trade rules. For herself she favors clothing from thrift stores—“Not buying new,” she says, “eases the toll on the earth.” A vegetarian, she recycles religiously and loves to pamper herself with yoga and meditation. There’s another arena in which Pearson upholds green values, and it can create a bit of an etiquette problem. “I won’t date a guy who doesn’t recycle,” she says. “He doesn’t have to wear nonleather shoes, but he has to get it.” And woe betide the guy who doesn’t. For a while she was happily dating a film producer from Los Angeles who, she thought, was definitely on her eco-wavelength. But one morning they went out for breakfast, and Mr. Right ordered an all-meat meal and doused his coffee with several packets of Equal. “I was dumbstruck,” says Pears...

Got a danged song stuck in my head again. Wikipedia : A Forest is a song by British rock band The Cure. It was released as a single on April 8, 1980, and was the only single from their second album Seventeen Seconds.... The song is fairly upbeat compared to the other material on the album, and Lol Tolhurst's machine-like steady beat together with Simon Gallup's minimalistic bassline gives this nervous chase more depth and keeps the song on the edge of a frantic groove until the end. Though not their biggest hit, it is regarded by many fans and critics as the best example of The Cure's sound.... [T]he most notorious performance of this song is the so-called "Robert Palmer"-version, performed at the Werchter Festival in Belgium, July 5, 1981. Everything was late at the festival, and the crowd was mostly there to see artists that were at the time bigger than The Cure, like Dire Straits and Robert Palmer, of whom the latter happened to be the next on stage after The ...

According to Blogpatrol, I have crossed the 100,000 visitor mark. So this is as good a time as any to see what is on the minds of the Americans, Sumois, and Ivory Coasters that are coming here: christopher nance Don't know if there's a new court date or not, because his website doesn't appear to have been updated. Incidentally, I happened to see one of his books, something along the lines of "I'm going to see the weatherman today, and he is my hero and is completely wonderful." Kinda sad when you write a fiction book to promote hero worship about yourself. Willard Scott, for all his faults, looks better and better every day. Angi Taylor Haven't heard if she's working full time or not. Helen Marnie She is DEFINITELY working. Since Ladytron is one of my close personal MySpace friends, I'm informed of their touring schedule. And no, I didn't see Ladytron in Hollywood on Halloween. It requires a major effort to even see my cousin when she's...

Heard part of Adam Carolla's Free FM show this morning. The bit that I heard involved the banning of songs from the radio that either never were good to begin with, or sounded good the first twenty-five times that radio played them, but became tiring with repetition. During the course of the discussion, the following songs were mentioned: Led Zeppelin, "Stairway to Heaven" Depeche Mode, "People Are People" Bob Seger, "Old Time Rock N Roll" Eagles, "Heartache Tonight" Bruce Springsteen, "Born in the USA" Billy Idol, "Mony Mony" There were several others, but I guess Carolla's citation of "People Are People" got under my craw. Carolla stated that he knew of no one who would play that song at home. Carolla must have selective memory, since he did work at KROQ around the time that Richard Blade was there, and I personally suspect that Blade has "People Are People" permanently loaded in every CD change...

Yea, we laugh at the nonsense in a parent telling a kid to clean his plate and eat his green onions because children are starving in [enter name of Fourth World country here.] As if the kid's failure to eat the food will lead to widespread death and starvation in the non-American areas. Well, allposters.com has taken the concept and run with it: From the Ontario Empoblog (Latest OVVA news here )

Followup . A few days ago, I noted that McLane had issued no press release concerning the Taco Bell E. coli situation. Well, now they have . Excerpts: McLane Foodservice, Inc., the distributor to the Taco Bell restaurants reportedly linked to the recent E. coli outbreak in several northeastern states, announced today that a site investigation by the New Jersey Department of Health and Environmental Services (NJDHES) has found no evidence of improper storage or handling practices by McLane.... "We are extremely pleased the State of New Jersey's investigation appears to have confirmed what we at McLane already believed, namely, that any contamination in all likelihood occurred at a source other than McLane," said Tom Zatina, President of McLane Foodservice. "Because all green onion products arrive to us in sealed cellophane bags inside sealed corrugated boxes, we have felt from the beginning it was highly improbable that McLane caused or contributed to any E. coli c...

Followup on pain . I Dished (not Tivo'ed) a good Reno's Bluegrass Festival this week. Let's start with a song popularized by the A*Teens - wait, I think someone did it before them. For the record, "The Letter was originally done by the Box Tops, with a famous cover by Joe Cocker. Well, the less famous cover version was performed at the beginning of Reno's Bluegrass Festival, as Ronnie Reno and his band took an acoustic take on it. The lyrics work well in a bluegrass format, and musically the genre allows some nice solos. The special guests on this week's Reno's Bluesgrass Festival were referred to as "Cordele and Duncan" in the program listing. Shame on you, Ronnie. Larry's last name is Cordle, not Cordele. Yet Ronnie was very appreciative of the vocal and songwriting talents of Larry Cordle, and the instrumental talents of Glen Duncan. They, along with their band, performed two songs off of their 1992 album "Lonesome Standard Time...

Superior acoustic traditional music incorporates and administers intense, searing pain. ( More later. ) Why is black iced tea caramel in color? From the Ontario Empoblog (Latest OVVA news here )

Let's see if I need to create a del.icio.us tag for hypocrisy. (I could apply it to that KFI post I wrote about a year ago, I guess.) Before I launch into this, let me state my views. In my view, the U.S. government does not have the right to ban the use of the word "nigger" (although there are exceptions, not always enforced , for media outlets controlled by the FCC). In my view, private organizations (such as the Laugh Factory) have the perfect right to ban the use of that word, or any other word such as "dessert" or "Madonna." In my view, private individuals have the right to ridicule private organizations who impose such a ban. And, of course, private individuals may oppose the whole thing on moral grounds : When I first read the news reports about the incident, I assumed Richards had a bad slip of the tongue. A horrible slip, but nothing more. Then I watched the actual video on You Tube, and was revolted. I was stunned speechless. I've never ...

This is a test of remote blog posting, which could theoretically let me blog from anywhere that my Motorola Q gets a signal. So, if I'm in the middle of the desert and see an alien spaceship, I can broadcast this news immediately.

Hot off the press - Taco Bell removes green onions from its restaurants: A number of restaurant chains, including Taco Bell, are now joining Chi-Chi's in removing green onions from menu items as a precaution. Health officials in Pennsylvania said the number of Hepatitis A infections is likely to continue rising through this week, peaking about November 22, 2003. While the Chi-Chi's restaurant has been closed since November 2, the virus can take nearly a month to exhibit its early flu-like symptoms. OK, so maybe it isn't so hot off the press. Here's the 2006 version: Taco Bell ordered the removal of green onions from its 5,800 restaurants nationwide Wednesday after tests suggested they might be responsible for the E. coli outbreak that sickened at least three dozen people in three states. But read on: Meanwhile, the company that distributes food to the region's Taco Bells said federal investigators planned to test five produce items _ green onions, regular onions, ...

Although I spend 2+ hours commuting from Ontario to Orange County every day, I actually like it. I can relax (to a point), listen to the radio or to a CD, yell my fool head off, or whatever. One of my usual commute routes takes me through Carbon Canyon. I've found that State Route 57 is often jammed, and State Route 91 is often jammed, so I frequently cut through the middle and take Carbon Canyon to work. It's only a two lane road, and frankly it's often crowded itself, but at least the drive is fairly scenic. So this morning I'm driving through Chino Hills, getting ready to cut through Carbon Canyon, when I ran across huge signs saying that SR-142 is closed. Unfortunately, by the time you reach the signs, you've pretty much committed yourself to the Carbon Canyon route, and you have one of three choices to recover: Turn around and head back to southbound State Route 71 and take it to State Route 91. Keep on going and hop on State Route 60 and take it to State Route...

Courtesy Coqueto and the Garrison dude : Mr. and Mrs. Fenton are retired. Mrs. Fenton insists that Mr. Fenton go with her to Walmart. He gets bored with all the shopping. He prefers to get in and get out, but Mrs. Fenton loves to browse. Here's a letter sent o her from the store. Dear Mrs. Fenton, Over the past six months, your husband has been causing quite a commotion in our store. We cannot tolerate this behavior and may ban both of you from our stores. We have documented all incidents on our video surveillance equipment. All complaints against Mr. Fenton are listed below. Things Mr. Bill Fenton has done while his spouse wasshopping in Walmart: 1. June 15: Took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in people's carts when they weren't looking. 2. July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals. 3. July 7: Made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the restrooms. 4. July 19: Walked up to an employee and told her in an official ...

So I watch Pop Up Video and end up getting all excited about "Torture" . The only songs I've heard off the Victory album are "Torture" and "State of Shock." The consensus is that most of the album blows, and I can attest that "State of Shock" is pretty worthless, but "Torture" bowls me over every time I hear it. Reviews vary: Victory was merely solo tracks by various brothers with Michael & Jermaine as reluctant participants.Though the other brothers lack distictive vocal chops,they perform admirably.Jackie wrote Torture for Michael & Jermaine to sing,while Randy contributed One More Chance(later covered by Janet for a B-side),and Marlon,known as the vocally weak Jackson,shines on Body,though repetitive,recall those glory days.The weakest cuts surprisingly all came from Michael.Be Not Always is his worst piece of writing(with Little Susie from HiStory),and State of Shock sounds like Michael and Mick Jagger having fun on a...

From the Ontario Empoblog (Latest OVVA news here )