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Splash!
by John Webster, posted Aug 31 2011 3:35PM


It's been some time since she's been in a movie that anyone's paid attention to, but who said Daryl Hannah can't even get arrested? She and about a hundred other people were rounded up in front of the White House earlier in the week. They were sitting on the sidewalk and refused to move when ordered by police. The group was protesting the Keystone XL pipeline, a proposed 1600-plus mile oil pipe that would run from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

She was fined $100 and released.

Margot Kidder has also voiced her opposition to the project. You remember Margot Kidder. She played Lois Lane in a 'Superman' movie. As far as I know, and I don't follow the goings-on in Hollywood all that closely, she can't even get arrested.

I'll be honest. Most of what I know about the Keystone XL pipeline project I've learned in stories about this recent protest so suffice it to say I'm not even remotely qualified to judge whether or not the project is the best thing since short-sleeved shirts or whether it's a huge enviornmental catastrophe just waiting to happen.

Thing is, as little as I know about the project, I'm always fascinated when I see famous people...actors, musicians, athletes...voicing their opinion on social, environmental, or political issues. Take Alec Baldwin. He wants to run for an office. Not sure which one yet.

Of course we're all entitled to our opinion. I'm just curious about what it is that makes famous people think theirs carries any more weight than any one else's. I get that they're famous so they have ready access to cameras and microphones and the attention of those who wield them. What I don't get is what makes them think that because people will buy their songs or pay to watch them hit a ball pretty far or buy a movie ticket to see them pretend they're someone else, what about any of that offers such imagined validation?

As I mentioned, I didn't know all that much about this pipeline project before all this. But now that I know how Daryl Hannah feels about it...

 (6) Comments
Tags :  
Topics: Entertainment_Culture
Locations: Gulf Coast
People: Alec Baldwin, Daryl Hannah, Lois Lane, Margot Kidder

Where Were You?
by John Webster, posted Aug 24 2011 5:32PM
Okay, we don't get a lot of earthquakes in good ol' "nort deest Pee Yay", that is true. So when the earth moves under our feet (or select your cheesy earthquake-related lyric and insert here) it's natural that it gets our attention.

But gimme a break. An hour after it was over it was kind of obvious that it was all over and aside from those ten "What's going on here?" seconds I don't get the big deal.

Then it occurred to me.

Like the clockwork/snowstorm/there goes the bread, milk, toilet paper footage we see on TV news EVERY time it snows, the draw is the communal nature of it. We all (not all actually, I am one of those with "tremor envy", didn't even notice) made it through an earthquake. So what if it was less of an earthquake experience than the Earthquake ride at Universal Studios?

But that so many people did experience it, that it got so many people talking, that was the real story.

I take to my armchair psychology degree at the drop of a hat and I think what we had here was something akin to what we see in sports fans when we realize the word "fan" is the diminutive of it's root word, fanatic. I think it's human nature for us all to want to belong to something bigger than ourselves. That's why people call their favorite team "my team."

And that's why people, if only subtly, revel in knowing they "lived" through the Great Quake of 2011 and why the buzz was still buzzing more than 24 hours after the fact.

I hope we never get a serious, life-threatening, property-damaging earthquake. The one we had was less like an earthquake and more like going to a horror movie. It was scary but in the end we all knew there was no real danger. That's the kind of earthquake I like.
 (4) Comments
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Topics: Disaster_Accident
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Let's Make It Official
by John Webster, posted Apr 25 2011 2:51PM
"Quit while you're behind" is not much of an attitude to take no matter the circumstance but sometimes it just fits.
Say for instance you're the head of a police union who lays awake nights trying to figure out how to let the mayor know that you have a problem with him separating the position of chief from membership in your union.
Night after night you lay there, "How can we…? What could we…?" Then suddenly, a brainstorm!
The chief is a very enthusiastic chief who has taken to performing police duties even when he's not on duty, right? I mean he's arrested people and he wasn't even on the clock!
How about you try this? "Why, he's a non-union cop performing work that union cops should be doing!"
If you could just highlight that angle and ask the public to believe that the mayor might go so far as to lay off some union cops because he has a non-union cop who's working even when he's not being paid!
"Perfect!"
That's the brainstorm.
Whoever came up with that must have been lying awake looking for an idea for an awful lot of nights in a row because I think sleep deprivation got the better of judgment here.
In a nutshell, the idea is, "The chief of police shouldn't be doing police work because he's not in the union." And worse, he shouldn't be doing it for free!
There's an old joke that's probably not proper to tell in it's entirety in this politically correct time in which we live but the punchline is, "Hey, I might be crazy but I'm not stupid!"
And the icing on this debacle cake is that the union has not withdrawn it's formal complaint. They've decided to let the state Labor Relations Board make it official.

"Quit while you're behind."
 (9) Comments

April is Autism Awareness Month
by John Webster, posted Apr 16 2011 1:04PM
 (2) Comments

First Orbit
by John Webster, posted Apr 12 2011 11:06AM
April 12th, 2011 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's orbit of the earth.

'First Orbit' is a real-time recreation of that flight featuring footage shot from the International Space Station and Gagarin's flight plus original mission audio and a score by Phillip Sheppard.


 (0) Comments
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Topics: Environment
Social:
People: Phillip Sheppard, Yuri Gagarin

America Needs More Changing
by John Webster, posted Apr 5 2011 5:40PM
As of this posting the video has received 3x the views of the actual Obama campaign ad on YouTube.

President Obama supporters might be prompted to leave the standard "At least he doesn't say nucular" in response so view at your own risk. Nice touch at the end!

 
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Topics: Technology_Internet
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Coming and Going
by John Webster, posted Apr 5 2011 3:06PM
Republican state representative Rick Geist of Altoona who is also chairman of the House Transportation Committee has an idea.
Since we're starting to see more and more people buy increasingly fuel efficient vehicles, he's worried that the tax realized by the state from the sale of gasoline is going to dwindle.
So he's thinking about taxing you by the mile.
Mr. Geist says he knows the tax at the pump is the fairest way to go, that according to a story in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. But if we start seeing more Chevrolet Volt's (I haven't seen any), Nissan Leaf's (Leaves?) and other hybrid or fuel efficient vehicles, those drivers won't have to use as much gas as they did when they were driving the cars they preferred used to drive.

So he plans to include funding in the transportation budget for a study to figure out whether taxing us by the miles we drive would plug the gap.
And sure, collecting the mileage tax would be more costly and complicated than collecting the fuel tax. And yes installing a meter on every car (something wrong with the odometer?) would also be expensive and time-consuming. And no one has explained, as far as I know, how buying a hybrid which can come with a sizable government subsidy jibes with then having to also pay to drive it, usual costs notwithstanding. But sometimes in Harrisburg ideas of any sort are so few and far between that any idea that comes along gets serious consideration.
If everything pointed in the right direction, the mileage tax would replace the state's portion of the tax on a gallon of gas. But even with the elimination of the gas tax I still don't think the idea will be too popular.
For starters you'll have tourism bureaus and retail associations wailing about people's reluctance to pile up their tax liability by the simple act of getting to the amusement park or the mall.
Then there's the issue of driving out of state. Can the commonwealth tax those miles? How will they determine which miles were driven in PA and which were not?

And what about interstate truck traffic that comes in one end of PA and out the other a few hours later? How do you collect their mileage tax?
Then there will be the inevitable issue of exemptions. Who will get them? Gas drillers? State vehicles? The state taxing itself is just dumb but that doesn't mean state vehicles don't chew up pavement just like your car and mine.
What about commuting? Would the state want to make you pay to drive back and forth to work?
The whole idea reminds me of the tax on cigarettes. Some of that money goes to promote anti-smoking efforts. So the more people who smoke, the more money is generated to talk them into quitting. Sounds like both ends working against the middle.
Maybe we ought to ask our elected officials in Harrisburg to reconsider another change. Maybe it's time to ditch "The Keystone State" and replace it with "Pennsylvania: State of Confusion."
 
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Locations: Pennsylvania
People: Rick Geist

Are You There Caller?
by John Webster, posted Mar 28 2011 3:24PM
Larry King has retired from CNN after twenty-five years but does he still write a column or is that long gone? It used to be in USA Today but since my parakeet escaped I don't need the newspaper anymore.
Regardless, what I liked about Larry King's "column" was that it wasn't really a column so much as it was an amalgamation of disjointed thoughts. Just free association randomness.
"For my two cents Patty Lupone is a heckuva singer! Is there anything better than taking your shoes off every chance you get? Technology is getting carried away, how about those VCR's!"
It is in that spirit I submit for your approval (and I submit also before I'm reminded "Hey, time to update your blog!"), this:
I don't know if we'll do another cruise next time we travel with AAA/North Penn or if we'll fly somewhere, but we had an outstanding time on our recent Caribbean jaunt.
The first stop on our cruise was in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. The scenery was beautiful and the city has a rich history. We saw Fort San Felipe del Morro and the church where Ponce de Leon's remains are interred.
Curiously, cats are protected by the city government. There are a lot of cats wandering around Old San Juan. Didn't see any mice. Don't remember any birds either.
While we were there we spent a few hours in the downtown shopping district. It reminded me of the Dollar Store. Not the prices, the smell.
The next day we visited St. Thomas. Karen and I were the last two passengers in a FULL minivan/taxi. I was invited to ride in the front passenger seat. In St. Thomas they drive on the left side of the road. I spent the entire twenty minute ride to the beach leaning and hitting a non-existent brake.
We stopped next at Samana in the Dominician Republic. No pier. It was tender transport to the beach so Karen and I decided to stay onboard that day and take advantage of an empty ship and the correspondingly less crowded pool and hot tub. But evidently so did 3/4ths of everyone else onboard.
Day four of island hopping was spent ashore at Labadee, Haiti. Labadee is an island leased by Royal Caribbean. The only ones there are the employees and the passengers from the ship. It was really nice and I learned as we strolled through the local artisans village that the English words for "No thank you" sound exactly like "Ask me again if I want to buy trinkets" in Haitian.

Onboard the ship one night at dinner I inadvertently ordered a $21.75 glass of scotch. When I found out it was $21.75 I made sure I finished it, including the ice. Beers mostly after that except for one drink that I ordered by the pool strictly because it came not in a glass but in a piece of bamboo. The only time I felt dorkier drinking a drink was the time I ordered something at a hibachi restaurant and it came in an eight inch tall Buddha statue with a straw sticking out of his belly.
The light in our clothes dryer has burned out. It's a small 25 watt bulb. You'd think most 25 watt appliance bulbs would be more or less interchangeable. Nope. A similar bulb at Home Depot was three bucks but it doesn't fit in the socket. The one I need has to be special ordered and costs seventeen dollars. But that's the kind of luck I have. The one time I ever went to a Hooter's I got a waiter.
Reading what I've written so far I notice that it's less Larry King's all over the map style and nearly something resembling unity and coherence, focusing mostly on our cruise. Sorry. Meant to wander more.
But I did throw in the dryer bulb thing.
And for my two cents, Patty Lupone is a heckuva singer!
 (1) Comments

Hello, Nationwide?
by John Webster, posted Feb 22 2011 9:57AM

I noticed the end-of-a-baseball-bat-sized ding in the side of the family truckster the other day.

Nice.

I asked my wife if she knew anything about it. She didn't and I believe her. I did however give her some static about the scrape on the rear bumper that she picked up when she cheese-gratered along a cinderblock wall backing out of a friends driveway a month ago. I know it was an accident and of course accidents happen but it's aggravating to see the car starting to show its age. And who are you supposed to scream at if not your spouse, right?

Truth is though that I'm not really qualified to give her too much static over what doesn't even amount to a fender bender.

I have a head-on collision with a telephone pole AND a parking lot light stanchion to my credit over the course of my motoring career. Police reports…tow trucks…treated and released.

I've hit two cars that I can think of just off the top of my head. No injuries there luckily. Ruined a transmission IN MY DRIVEWAY. Shattered a windshield when I decided that instead of getting out of the car to scrape the ice off the glass, I could just give it a little punch from the inside and that would jar the ice loose.

Ruined an engine. Don't know how I did it either so theoretically it could happen again. And I ended up in the hospital the only time I ever tried to change my oil.

I kissed a guardrail. The damage wasn't too bad on that one and in fact that whole episode was actually lucky for me. Hitting the guardrail stopped the car from spinning. Little icy that night. And a rapid series of 360° twirls has a tendency to disorient you behind the wheel. Plus there's nothing worse than when "waiting for it to stop" is all you have left.

As you might imagine, every car I've ever owned has acquired a certain "broken in" quality to it.

Speaking of broken in, I had a car broken inTO, in my driveway. Well it wasn't really broken into so much as it was just entered. They didn't have to break into the car because the door wasn't locked. I damaged the lock on the door when I tried to force the door handle open while the mechanism was frozen. So the door would still shut, but it was always unlocked and someone entered the car and took a Leatherman tool I had in the console. And in case you're reading this pal…not likely, I realize…but don't bother coming back for Round Two. I have a different car. It locks. I have motion detector lights in the driveway too. And I don't have a Leatherman in the car anymore. The only thing worth stealing is a half bottle of WalMart antacids. And if heartburn is what's driven you to a life of crime, just leave a note on the windshield and I'll pick up a bottle for you.

A frozen door was also a problem in another vehicle I used to drive but it wasn't my fault that time. The car was a Honda Civic. It was a '76 I think. Back when the door on a Honda wasn't quite as substantial as the Honda door of today. I didn't break the mechanism in that door. It just used to freeze on its own. And when the door was frozen, I had to hold it closed as I drove. Usually after a few miles, the heater would kick in and eventually, if I could hold the door closed tight enough for long enough, the heater would begin thawing the latch. It would be fair to describe the process as a gradual one, as the heater temperature rose throughout the miles.

"35 degree air coming out now. 38 degrees…now 40…a few more miles… heater blower temperature nearing 45 degrees…oh yeah! Feel that thaw baby!!! C'mon door latch!!! Any minute now and this door is gonna stay closed on its own and…yes, we're there."

And uhh…oh yeah. There was the time I drove the car through the garage door.

So honey? Don't worry about the ding. It probably happened in a parking lot and I know it's not your fault. I mean, after all, not only were you not driving the car at the time, you weren't even in it. And neither was I.

You didn't park it near the shopping cart thing, did you? Don't park it there.


 (1) Comments
Tags :  
Topics: Human Interest

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