Author Archives: The Night Writer

Multiple babies – or multiple “choice”?

Posted on by
Reply

Be sure to tune in to the National Geographic Channel (276 on DirecTV) on Sunday night, January 14 at 8 p.m. EST for “In the Womb – Multiples”, a show that uses inside-the-body cameras, 4D ultrasound images and CGI to take us through the stages of development of twins, triplets and quads from fertilization to birth. I’ve watched the previous “In the Womb” shows featuring animals and individual babies and both shows were mesmerizing. This is “must-see” TV, especially if you have twins (or more) in the family, are pregnant or know someone who is.





Accent-uate the positive

Posted on by
11



Here’s a silly little quiz, so it must be Friday. Both Bogus Gold and Hammerswing have already completed this to determine what American accent they have. Given that all of us have been in Minnesota for some time it’s not too surprising that we all fell under the “Midland” category. This Midland, however, must be about the size of my mid-section, since there’s room for one of them to be “Midland-Philadelphia” and the other to be “Midland-The West”, while I am “Midland-The South”. My score must have been influenced by the years I spent in Missouri, which I pronounce “Missour-uh”. I would no more say “Missour-ee” than I would pronounce Arkansas (“Arkan-saw”)as “Ar-kansas”.



Anyway, in the spirit of the day, crack open a cold soda, pop or Coke or whatever it is you call a soft drink where you come from and enjoy the quiz.


What American accent do you have?

Your Result: The Midland
 

“You have a Midland accent” is just another way of saying “you don’t have an accent.” You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The South
 
The Inland North
 
Philadelphia
 
The West
 
The Northeast
 
Boston
 
North Central
 
What American accent do you have?
Quiz Created on GoToQuiz


She Speaks

Posted on by
8

Awwww! I feel so special! You miss me!!

Right at this moment writing is a little difficult, as Felix is jealous of “the other” laptop and is trying to compete for his place.

I really haven’t been up to much except the normal stuff, like:
working, sleeping, eating, singing, shopping, etc, etc.

Let’s see, I had the oil in my car changed last Sunday… um, my mom’s been making me cook lately… I cleaned my room…Oh! I did a haircut for “Locks of Love” a couple weeks ago! Guess how many inches I chopped off? Twenty-three. Yep.

I’m going to be a bridesmaid in June. My co-worker is getting married. She and her fiance went to middle school together and were each other’s first crush. Then in ninth grade he moved away. They did meet up once more a few years later, but after that she didn’t see him again until last September at a wedding. They started a long-distance relationship (he lives in Texas) and he proposed on December 4th. We (the peeps at the salon) are pretty sure she’ll be moving. I know this story practically inside-out. That’s what happens when you work in a beauty shop.

And now for something completely different!

There is something that I hear about almost every day that amuses me.
Global warming. It’s true, Minnesota (or at least the Twin Cities and surrounding area) has not gotten a really good snow in quite a while; though I’m sure “global warming” was the first thing that popped into the heads of Oklahomians when they got ten inches.
It’s all perspective.

Save the polar bears!!!

Check out these pants in the family!

Posted on by
Reply

OK, fair warning to all would-be lay-about boyfriends; jerks who let their dogs crap in my yard and don’t clean it up; yahoos who play their car stereos so loud the vibrations can rearrange my internal organs; and pouty, sunken-chested boys who don’t wash the car when you tell them to: I finally bought myself a pair of Haggar slacks as advertised by Pete and Red on their how-to show, “Making Things Right.”

Alright, that’s not really a tv show, it’s just a series of tv commercials made to look like a show, as I described before. Nevertheless, I’ve been impressed by Pete and Red’s demonstrations of the flexibility of the “Do-it To-it” waistband, the unbustable seams and the un-rippable pockets as they threw slackers through picture windows or trowelled dog-doo onto clueless jerks so I went out and bought myself a pair in a color I like and made in some mystery fabric described as “micro-gabardine”. They look great and feel terrific, as I’ve already practiced “bending at the knees and swinging from the hips, which comes in handy when you have to grab a squirmy one.”

The only problem is that all the Haggar slacks I had to choose from happened to be pleated. The day after I bought them my wife pointed out that the gay guys who write the Withering Glance column in the Strib had declared pleated pants to be totally out-of-it. Actually, I think this would strike Pete and Red as another product benefit: “Great slacks and you won’t have gay guys checking you out.”

The pants were also a little long, but the Reverend Mother is great at hemming slacks for me. Therefore Sunday right after church I changed out of my suit and pulled on the new pants, then called downstairs to my wife that I was ready for her to come and mark my new slacks for sewing. She called back upstairs, “are they the Haggars?” I responded affirmatively, whereupon I then heard both my daughters yell, “Run!” to the unsuspecting fella who had innocently followed us home from church for lunch. Heh, heh, they work great already and she hasn’t even hemmed them yet.

Anyway, you can check out “Making Things Right” for yourself here. All four commercials are shown in their long form, including some details that I’m certain will never make it to network tv.

Mall Diva, slacker

Posted on by
11

The Mall Diva unexpectedly got the entire day off from work yesterday. I’m not sure how she spent all the extra time, but it probably involved using her new laptop to browse on-line shoe stores or check out the iTunes capabilities of our just upgraded high-speed broadband wi-fi connection.

What I know she didn’t do is blog. It’s been over a month since her last post and, frankly, the comments on this site have dropped to an alarmingly low level. Therefore, a single course of action suggests itself:

Please leave a comment for the Mall Diva, either urging her to return or — maybe better yet — offering your own speculation as to what she’s been doing the last few weeks that has made it impossible for her to contribute here.

Going Dutch

Posted on by
Reply



A friend of mine moved her whole family to Amsterdam at the end of December for a three-year assignment. Her husband started a blog about the experience a few weeks prior to the move and I’ve been enjoying the reports from the whole family.



I’m happy to add Half a World Away to my “Night Lights” blogroll. Check it out and enjoy the vicarious thrill of picturing yourself starting a new life in a new country.

Pubs suffering in “Scotland the Smoke-free”

Posted on by
2

The countdown is on for state-wide smoking ban in Minnesota with competing prophecies of gloom and doom vs. fresh air and sunshine on what will happen. It is worth noting what actually has happened elsewhere.

A nationwide smoking ban in pubs and restaurants went into effect in Scotland in late March of 2006, with many of the same arguments on both sides that we’ve become familiar with here in Minnesota. Shortly after the ban went into affect the Cancer Research UK poll released results confidently predicting that Scottish pubs would benefit from the ban, citing poll results showing that 25% of those surveyed said they’d be more likely to visit a pub because of the ban. The poll also found that 10% said they’d be less likely to go to a pub.

That 10% figure is especially interesting when you read this article:

The smoking ban in Scotland has seen a 10% decrease in sales and a 14% fall in customers in pubs, according to a new study.

The study carried out by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association compared sales before and after the ban at 2724 pubs – 1590 in Scotland and 1134 in northern England – where smoking is still permitted.

The study’s authors say this is the first major look at the smoking ban outside of the US – where trade has remained fairly constant.

The report says: “These studies have mostly found no negative economic effects of such legislation on the hospitality sector in the long run.

“However, differences in the social use of public houses in Great Britain in comparison with the US may lead to different findings.”

“Our study suggests that the Scottish smoking ban had a negative economic impact on public houses … due in part to a drop in the number of customers.

“The short-term impact of the ban did not lead to more customers coming into pubs due to the smoke-free atmosphere, and presumably did not lead smokers to spend more money on drink or food instead of smoking.”

The study backs anecdotal evidence from licensees north of the border.

While the study makes a reference to similar bans in the U.S. having little affect on the bar and restaurant trade — an assertion that bears further scrutiny — it appears that the International Epidemiological Association must also acknowledge the statistics showing that harm has been done. In fact, if anyone is clearly benefitting from the ban it is the people hired — at tax-payer expense — to enforce the ban, as reported here:

A survey has found that some of Scotland’s smoke ban enforcers are seriously under-employed with some councils’ officers NEVER having issued a ticket.

An investigation by Scotland on Sunday found seven councils, between them employing at least 11 full-time enforcers, have failed to issue a single penalty ticket or warning since they began work in March.

It is estimated that the salary bill for these officers is around £220,000.

Councils say there is more to the job than handing out fines, however Stewart Maxwell, the MSP who brought the original bill before the Scottish parliament said: “I always thought it would be self-policing. From the start I didn’t think that it would be necessary to employ so many enforcement officers.

“A lot of them were certainly doing a lot of work when the ban was brought in, including distributing posters, but I don’t know whether this is still the case.”

Paul Waterson, chief executive of the Scottish Licensed Trade Association, said the money could be better spent compensating badly hit rural pubs.

It appears that an addiction to bureaucracy is even harder to stamp out than a craving for nicotine. Actually, I know of many people who have been able to quit smoking, but I haven’t heard of any government jobs being reduced. Has anyone ever tried to develop a “Bureaucracy Patch”?

Of course, why worry about livelihoods when lives are at stake? Scottish Health Minister Andy Kerr responded angrily to the survey results, saying “There’s a brutal answer to that. This is about public health, it’s about saving lives – it’s not about businesses.” I’ll bet newly unemployed Scottish pub and restaurant workers are already lining up to apply for jobs as government fat inspectors (fat in food, not government, of course) in anticipation of the next ban.

It’s, like, a real bummer, dude

Posted on by
3

Katherin Kersten’s column in the StarTribune today laments the fallen state of youthful language skills, citing overheard examples of overused words (“awesome”), trite expressions and ubiquitous cursing. Her take, with which I generally agree, is that we are losing our appreciation for language due to a diminishing common experience of seeing it used well.

Today, teens aren’t the only ones who have lost the ability to speak and write with vigor and eloquence. Folks of all ages are reading less — especially the classics, whose authors wielded our language most powerfully. As a result, our ability to express ourselves is diminishing, because we can’t draw on their example for inspiration.

Indeed, there has been quite some cultural devolution from “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known,” to “Don’t have a cow, man.” That doesn’t necessarily mean that people, especially young people, are less intelligent or less stimulated; they have shown an amazing ability to adapt to the high-speed inundation of the digital, text-messaging world with it’s word and number contractions and abbreviations, and some hip-hop rapping is remarkably facile and creative. What is missing is a certain cultural currency of universal themes and ideas. Kersten cites one example of an attempt to bring this back:

Last month, Diane Ravitch, an eminent historian of education, provided the perfect antidote: “The English Reader: What Every Literate Person Needs to Know.” In this anthology, she and her son Michael Ravitch have gathered what they regard as the most memorable speeches, poems, essays and songs in the English language.

“Today, our common cultural reference points come from the visual culture: Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez,” Ravitch told me last week. Our schools could help remedy the problem, but often don’t, she says. That’s because “‘relevance” is now the watchword in education.

In textbooks, teens tend to find countless stories about young people much like themselves, according to Ravitch.

“How much richer it is to be able to use your imagination — to communicate with people who lived 200 years ago and come away with something that remains in your head and your heart,” she adds.

Norman Fruman, an emeritus English professor at the University of Minnesota, agrees. “Good literature deals with ideas, as well as emotions and the psychology of human behavior,” he says. “It records our greatest tragedies and our highest aspirations.” During 40 years as a teacher, he saw a steep decline in students’ knowledge of their literary heritage.

Having a collection of inspiring prose and oratory in one volume is a timely start. According to a Wall Street Journal article from January 3rd (HT: Port McClellan), the classics are being removed from what many might consider their last public refuge: libraries.

Checked Out
A Washington-area library tosses out the classics.

BY JOHN J. MILLER

“For Whom the Bell Tolls” may be one of Ernest Hemingway’s best-known books, but it isn’t exactly flying off the shelves in northern Virginia these days. Precisely nobody has checked out a copy from the Fairfax County Public Library system in the past two years, according to a front-page story in yesterday’s Washington Post.

And now the bell may toll for Hemingway. A software program developed by SirsiDynix, an Alabama-based library-technology company, informs librarians of which books are circulating and which ones aren’t. If titles remain untouched for two years, they may be discarded–permanently. “We’re being very ruthless,” boasts library director Sam Clay.

According to the article, books by Charlotte Brontë, William Faulkner, Thomas Hardy, Marcel Proust and Alexander Solzhenitsyn have already been pulled to make more room for more books from the recent best-seller lists. As in the schools, “relevancy” is puddle-deep evaluation that goes into giving the “customer” what they want, rather than what they ought to have. Granted, the argument, “It’s good for you” has never been especially persuasive to me whether the subject was books or vegetables, and there is quality in many of the newer works. My contention is, however, that we may focus too much on the pretty, colorful fish in the shallows and never venture into deeper waters where there are some truly awesome (in it’s literal sense of the world, not the teen version) creatures.

While there are times I would like to take others by the hand long enough to place a good book there, I look realistically to where I have the most influence: in my family. Reading has always been a favorite pastime for our children, starting with my wife and reading to them when they were still infants. Both my daughters read from an early age, and Tiger Lilly was especially motivated to learn her letters well before she started school. The television has never been a big focus for the two of them (in fact, I probably watch more tv than they do) and I think this shows in their writing and vocabulary. There are still opportunities to go deeper, though.

Tiger Lilly is our sole student in our little home-educating academy and she checks out staggering numbers of books from the local library. I am casting about right now, though, for a suitable classic and I’ve about settled on “The Count of Monte Cristo”, one of my favorite books when I was her age. I think she has the taste for adventure and righteous outlook to become absorbed in the story while absorbing and appreciating the themes of liberty and justice — and the well-turned sentence.

Hoarse is hoarse, of course, of course

Posted on by
2

It’s been quiet around Chez Night the last few days. That’s mainly because last week my voice wandered off at a rest stop somewhere between Missouri and here and has had to hitchhike its way back home. (I know I should have been paying more attention, but the cold medicine made me groggy). About half of it has made it back as of today, and I’m leaving the light on for the rest of it.

For the past few days my voice has fluctuated somewhere between a whisper and a scrape, which has led to some interesting challenges. For example, I haven’t been able to replace my out-of-office voicemail message at work because if I had tried to record anything my callers would end up thinking they’d mistakenly called Dial-A-Perv.

On Wednesday our Executive of the Year came down from Olympus to inspect the troops (“Executive-of-the-Year” is not an award but an acknowledgement that my Division of the Company has reported up to four different super-senior executives in the last five years). I was among a group of managers invited to a get-to-know-you luncheon. You know what happened: “let’s go around the room and say something about what you do.” Naturally, the EOTY decided to sit at the opposite end of the long conference table from me. After five other people had done their thing all eyes rolled to me. I stood up (everyone else had remained seated), grabbed my lunch plate, and walked all the way around the table to an empty chair across from our guest. I then gave my name and croaked “I’m responsible for Communications, and the first rule of Communications is to put yourself in a position to be heard.” Actually, I think that worked out rather well as I quickly hit the “5 things you need to know in 15 seconds” then sat back and let the rotation go on; if the EOTY remembers anyone from that meeting I’m sure it will be me. The rest of the meeting I relied on thoughtful, profound eyebrow movements to make up for what I was missing in vocalization.

The worst part was Tuesday night. I had been saving some tasty morsel for myself, but when I went to the refrigerator it was gone! “Hey! Where’s my ….” I said, except that it came out sounding more like, “Heh! Wissss shhhh meh, meh!” I was like Mufasa without his roar. I had to go into the living room where the rest of the family was and pantomime a tantrum. I pounded my fist into my open, up-turned palm and twisted it. I slashed my finger across my throat. I swung my arms up and out to diagram a large mushroom cloud. The effect was less than satisfying as the response was more amused than repentent. Arrrgghhh! (Boy, my throat hurts just typing that!)

Oh well, it was probably for the best. Some things really are better left unsaid.

Give him a medal!

Posted on by
55

“We live in a heroic age. Not seldom are we thrilled by deeds of heroism where men or women are injured or lose their lives in attempting to preserve or rescue their fellows; such are the heroes of civilization. The heroes of barbarism maimed or killed theirs.”

– Andrew Carnegie
A 50-year-old New York man literally leapt to the rescue of a stranger on Tuesday in a way that would have made Andrew Carnegie proud:

NEW YORK — Wesley Autrey faced a harrowing choice as he tried to rescue a teenager who fell off a platform onto a subway track in front of an approaching train: Struggle to hoist him back up to the platform in time, or take a chance on finding safety under the train.

At first, he tried to pull the young man up, but he was afraid he wouldn’t make it in time and they would both be killed.

“So I just chose to dive on top of him and pin him down,” he said.

Autrey and the teen landed in the drainage trough between the rails Tuesday as a southbound No. 1 train entered the 137th Street/City College station.

The train’s operator saw them on the tracks and applied the emergency brakes.

Two cars passed over the men _ with about 2 inches to spare, Autrey said. The troughs are typically about 12 inches deep but can be as shallow as 8 or as deep as 24, New York City Transit officials said.

…

Autrey had been waiting for a train with his two young daughters. After the train stopped, he heard bystanders scream and yelled out: “We’re O.K. down here but I’ve got two daughters up there. Let them know their father’s O.K.,” The New York Times reported.

While spectators cheered Autrey, hugged him and hailed him as a hero, he didn’t see it that way.

“I don’t feel like I did something spectacular; I just saw someone who needed help,” he told the Times. “I did what I felt was right.”

Mr. Autry’s story has appropriately been featured on tv and in many news stories, and it reminded me of something I learned about several years ago: the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, created by the well-known industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie created the fund, initially endowed with $5 million, in 1904 after being inspired by reading of the selfless rescue efforts of people responding to a coal-mine disaster.

The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission has given out more than 9,000 medals since its inception to individuals who risk their lives to save others, including 92 people in 2006. Each received a medal and grant ($5,000 in 2006). In addition, widows and orphans of rescuers receive Carnegie pensions and some children of deceased medal earners receive college scholarships. To date the fund has distributed more than $29 million in one-time grants, scholarship aid, death benefits, and continuing assistance.

The fund has some interesting requirements. People who save others in the line of duty – police, firemen, soldiers – don’t qualify, though several off-duty individuals have won. People who save family members qualify only if they are killed or severely injured in the rescue. Essentially, you can’t be a hero for doing what’s expected of you. Most of the awards go to people who risked their lives to save strangers. For the record, 7 recipients last year died in their attempts to save others; two medal winners were in their 70s and one was 81; three were 15 to 16 years old; five were women. Medal winners were recognized for rescuing others from burning (46), drowning (17), assault (15), animal attack (5), accidents (5) and falls (2). You can get the details concerning these and other heroes here.

I celebrate Mr. Autry and wish that the 92 heroes recognized with Carnegie medals last year could have received the same attention and celebration — not just because they deserve it, but because we need to hear about it. Just think, 92 people; that’s nearly two heroes a week we could be splashing on our video screens, tabloids, web pages and talking about over lunch. I’d much rather hear about these actions than some celebimbo who’s gone out without her underpants. And, much like Carnegie’s quote that opened this post, I’d much rather see the media focus its attention on those who preserve or rescue their fellows as opposed to those who take a bomb into a public place to maim or kill theirs.