May 16, 2021
The weather is getting warm, so my weekends are increasingly being taken up with outdoor chores and activities. So the recaps are probably going to get shorter and less punctual. At least until I can cross some things off my personal to do list. I'd still like to post at least once a week though.
First some frivolity.
AUSTRALIAN ANIMAL POWER RANKINGS
1) Platypus
If I have to explain it, you don't get it.
2) Wombat
The noble wombat has cube shaped poop. In a pinch, they also make a striking figure for a tennis trophy.
3) Wallaby
In a surprising upset, wallabies are like kangaroos, but smaller. And smaller things are cuter. Wallaby is also more fun to say than kangaroo. Wallabies can pause pregnancy, but I think all (most?) marsupials can do this. (Maybe? I am no expert.)
4) Pygmy possum
This is the second time pygmy possums have been mentioned in this space. The smallest possums in the world testing the limits of the small = cute formula. It was thought the brush fires of 2019/20 may have wiped them out. Where does one find a pygmy possum? Kangaroo Island of course!
5) Koala
Every year tennis players go to Australia and at least one has to participate in a koala photo op. Also, the John Oliver Koala Chlamydia Ward.
6) Tasmanian Devil
Boy did cartoons really led us astray on this one. Australia's badger.
7) Kangaroo
The kangaroos have lodged a formal complaint against the wallabies for stealing their thunder. Someday a kangaroo will whomp me with a giant muscular tail and then try to strangle me with their little T-Rex arms while I'm unconscious.
8) Little penguin
Yes, the little penguin is a type of penguin and not just an adjective describing a penguin. Penguins are cute, so the smallest penguin in the world must be the cutest.
9) Macaroni penguin
Do two different species of penguins need to be on the list? My nephew loves penguins, so yes.
10) Kiwi
Three flightless birds round out the top 10. And this one's a cheat because Kiwi's are famously from New Zealand, not Australia. But is New Zealand really a different place? It is Australia's Canada, so no. The person who can name the country most offended by that statement wins a prize.
The CBS SUNDAY MORNING POWER RANKINGS
Pogue, Smith, Rocca, Axelrod, Koppel, Hartman. It was a Sunday Morning of program stalwarts. Really the only regular missing was Doane. I enjoy the familiar faces. But I sort of have the impression that program is ready for a summer break where some segments start to get reaired and this is their one last hurrah before entering Sunday Morning's summer "not quite" hiatus. Bat next week is supposed to be a special episode themed "At Home."
1) David Pogue
In 1974, the Arecibo Radio Telescope pulses representing 1,697 pulses representing 1's and 0's. I know this because in 2004, I took an introductory communications class to fulfill a college prerequisite for graduation. At the end of the semester, we had to give a speech. The only requirement for the speech was that it had to be about communication. Mine was about communication with extra terrestrials.
The number 1,697 was chosen because it's prime factors are 73 and 23. If an alien were to receive the transmission, and be good at math (a prerequisite for receiving an electromagnetic transmission), and puzzles, they can figure out that pulse train of 1's and 0's represent pixels in a 2D grid. The pixels formed this image:
At the top is a representation of our our base 10 digits. (Why did base 10 prevail? If we had know about computers 1500 years ago, I think the Arabic/Indian mathematicians who invented it would have gone with base 8.) There's a picture of a man and those round things are supposed to be representation of DNA. You want to know what the rest means? Wikipedia, my friend.
In the UFO piece, they talk about the numbers a bit. There's a reason they refer to big numbers as astronomical. Let's say that the conditions for a planet capable of sustaining life are 1 in a million and of those, lets say only 1 in a million of those contain species that evolve to what we think of as intelligent life. (Probably that's being to conservative...) Well there's a few hundred billion stars in our galaxy - not every one has a solar system, but let's estimate a few hundred billion planets to go along with them. Well, that is just our solar system. There are billions of other galaxies out there. So there should be a few hundred million planets out there with intelligent life (give or take some orders magnitude). The problem isn't that intelligent life is improbable. The problem is the density of the universe and Einstein.
The nearest star system to us is Alpha Centauri, 4 light years away. There's only a few dozen star systems within 16 light years and most don't have planets. So far we've found 11 exoplanets within 50 light years that might sustain life as we know it on our planet. That's not a lot. The system we sent the Arecibo Message to is 50,000 light years away. So we'll all be very dead by the time it gets there if anyone is listening. And thanks to ever expanding universe (and the expansion is always accelerating by the way) those far away places aren't getting any closer. We've only been putting signals out that indicate we are (might be?) advanced life forms, about 100 years ago. Thanks to relativity and the distances involved, it's going to be awhile until we hear back.
If an alien species did get the messsage and could travel here in our lifetime, they've managed to overcome the limits imposed by relativity (likely through wormholes...) and they would be so technologically advanced, they would appear as gods to us and us as ants to them, so let's hope they are nice or we might've made a huge mistake stirring up that beehive. Flying below the radar has its upside.
David's segment is nice and all, but the truth is the aliens have been here for years and are kept under wraps by Jesse Ventura and Alex Trebek (RIP):
2) Jane Pauley
I'm not exactly sure what Pauley slides into the 2 spot. It might be that I liked her outfit this week:
Or maybe by moving her closer to the top spot, I'm hoping to manifest Jane doing a segment. I know she's the host but she also does a good segment, e.g. interviewing her husband. Jane knows what she has to do to move a spot: segment or almanac.
Nothing feels more Sunday Morning than a combined obit for Norman Lloyd, Hollywood's oldest working actor who made it to a phenomenal 106, architect Helmut Jahn, and Spencer Silver, inventor of the Post-it Note. Golden age era Hollywood, architecture and Post-it Notes make for a delightful Sunday bouillabaisse. It's not a real Sunday Morning Almanac entry, but the Post-it Note part felt pretty Almanac adjacent. The original name for Post-it Notes was "Press and Peel Memo Pad". Making fun of marketing is a long standing pastime, but on occasion the folks down in marketing and sales save the day.
3) Mo Rocca
Growing up in Kentucky, the Triple Crown, and the Kentucky Derby especially, always piqued my interest. Horses were supposed to be the pride of the Bluegrass State and all. Never mind that I have yet to find any grass that is blue in color to this day within Kentucky or without. I remember the couple of close calls to Triple Crown winners in the late 90s, one of whom is Silver Charm, a horse featured in Mo's story
- As young horse, Silver Charm was a dark gray. (I love a gray horse.) No he is a beautiful white horse. I didn't really think about the fact that horses could go gray or white as they aged. Silver Charm is a silver fox. Watch out John Slattery.
- The oldest horse at Old Friends is 30. I also didn't realize horses lived that long. I already it was sort of crazy to race thoroughbreds at 2 and 3 years old when they are still maturing, but that just reinforces it.
- I lived in Louisville for 4 years and never went to a Derby. I've been to Churchill Downs. But any Louisvillian (is that the right demonym?) will tell you the race for Louisvillian's is really on Friday - the Kentucky Oaks. I've also never been to an oaks.
- I've been Derby adjacent. I don't have Hunter S. Thompson level stories to tell, but if you ask, I do have some.
- There's a big Lexington v. Louisville rivalry. Louisville is the bigger, more metropolitan city. It has the Derby and Chruchill Downs. Lexington is besieged by an inferiority complex and likes and can only claim big brother status in terms of college basketball. All that said, Churchill Downs was (maybe still is?) sort of a dump and the part of Louisville in which it resides is maybe a little sketch. The nicest racetrack in Kentucky (maybe country) is Keeneland. So Lexington has got that too. Keeneland is too small to host a truly big race, but they like it that way. Keeneland is also about 20-30 mintues away from downtown Lexington, where Churchill Downs is right there in the middle of the city. Keeneland is where the bourgeoisie go for a weekend at the races. Churchill is where the unwashed masses cram into the infield.
- I daresay this isn't the only story I've seen about a sanctuary for retired thoroughbreds. Or maybe I've just seen multiple stories on Old Friends. Either way, while providing a good retirement home for race horses is not one of the top 20 issues facing this world, I do hope they are all treated well.
- Horse racing has its problems. I'm not sure if the whole sport needs to be torn down a la dog racing. But I need to see some evidence it can be reformed and not harm the horses.
Anyway, Mo's piece also reminded me of this wonderful 30 for 30 short. If you have an ESPN+ subscription, give it a watch.
4) Chip Reid
Call me crazy, but I kind of like cicadas. I find them fascinating. I remember the last time they came out and covered my parents house. I guess that was 2004. I mean it has to be, right? I remember having some cicada picture from last time, and I just spent 20 minutes looking for them only to come up empty. I suppose they are forever lost to the digital ether. Disappointing.
Originally, I thought it had to have been earlier than 2004 because I've been told a million times, "It's been 17 years..." You see, I spent the summer of 2004 in Texas, which is 17 years ago if my math is correct, so I just assumed it had to have been before then, because my I assumed I wasn't around for it that year. But 17 years before that I would have been 3 and I guess I didn't leave until late May or early June for that, so I suppose that would have been ample time to have experienced the swarm and din before leaving for Texas. I'll cover the time I almost died of non-cancer related causes in upcoming short story, "Three Days In Austin".
The cicadas are starting to pop out in my neck of the woods. Good on Chip for trying a little cicada snack. I don't think I'd be up for that. Anything for TV, right?
I have a friend who always wistfully sighs when she thinks about vacations she's been on the and feeling she gets when driving or flying away from scenic mountains back to not-so-scenic Ohio. I tell her that she is hurting Ohio's delicate feelings, but then something like this comes on TV:
Nothing in Ohio can hold a candle to Redwoods. Even (especially?) those scarred by fire/climate change. I've ridden a bike across large swaths of southwest Ohio and there are some scenic spots. I'm just saying that I don't think Sunday Morning has mentioned Ohio as a location for one of their nature segments before, so maybe she has a point.
6) Tracy Smith
Tracy Smith interviews celebrities. Ewen McGregor is a celebrity. I think I was seduced into thinking he had some sort of acting pedigree when he showed up in Star Wars with Liam Neeson back in the end of the last millennium. In reality I think it was just Trainspotting, and then he was famous. There's never been an "Ewen McGregor deserves an Oscar" moment during his career, which seems like it should have happened only because it's happened for every other British actor.
I enjoyed season 3 of Fargo. The non-negotiable power ranking of Fargo seasons is 2, 1, 3, 4. I tried to come up with a reason to put 4 on equal footing as 3, but nothing in season 4 is on par with the performances of Carrie Coon and David Thewlis from season 3. Ewan McGregor was good as the twins, but those two stole the show. Also, I may have a crush on Mary Elizabeth Winstead, so I may not have been paying that close attention to Ewen's performance. According to Wikipedia (never wrong), Ewen and Mary have been a couple since Fargo season 3. McGregor for the win.
There were also some clips of Moulin Rouge! sprinkled in the segment. I remember not really liking it 20 years ago - it felt like a "chick movie". Maybe I should reappraise from a more mature vantage point. Nominally, it has a lot of things I should like. Absinthe, Kylie Minogue, John Leguizamo, Nicole Kidman. I distinctly remember not liking what they did with the songs though. However, years later, I really loved Across the Universe, cut from similar cloth, but a touch less hyperkinetic energy. I'm not sure why I've gone on so long a movie I watched once 20 years ago and don't remember liking. The whole point of bringing it up was to mention that it was directed by the eccentric Australian Baz Luhrmann. Which, in turn, is just an excuse to revisit this:
Huh? Man, the late 90's...
Two words: sign war.
"That escalated quickly."
8) Ted Koppel
Benjamin Crump is a good name. It's name that I feel like Mike Schur would come up with for a sitcom.
Anyway, Mr. Crump is loud and unapologetic. He probably rubs a lot of people the wrong way, but sometimes that's a lawyer's job. Sometimes you need to make people uncomfortable or nothing changes. If you think he is in it for the money, to extort cities where police killings have happened, well, how much money is enough to compensate the surviving family in a wrongful death lawsuit? Amazingly, our society has to try and put a number on that and like it or not, it's his job to make that number as big as possible for the families involved. Not because the families "need" millions of dollars (but they should be taken care of), but because things only change when it starts to hurt financially. Welcome to capitalism. (Side point: would I have a job if I cost my business a few million dollars?)
Also, shout out to Johnny Cochran. The OJ Simpson trial turned him into something of a meme, but there are Cochran firms across the country including Cincinnati. He was ostentatious and took on famous clients. You gotta pay the bills. It's not my cup of tea, but he was also worked on police brutality and civil rights cases. Like Crump, his hero and inspiration was Thurgood Marshall. If you find lawyers like Crump and Cochran annoying and a pain, well one solution is to fix the systems that make their services attractive and necessary for underprivileged folk. Also note, they take 30% of what they win in a case. If you find they idea of them making a few million off of someone's death distasteful, is the better solution for them not to represent the client the best way they know how or to work towards prevent the deaths in the first place?
9) Jim Axelrod
Axelrod pulled the "real news" straw of the week. The troubles within the secret service are related to a book being released. I am not surprised that some members of secret service openly and not-so-openly cheered on the events of Jan. 6, 2021. Not because I think they're corrupt or have been infiltrated by right wing nationalists, but because it's a big organization and even though Joe Biden got 81 million votes, Trump still got 74 million.
As they started to run down agency scandals from the last decade or so, I was trying to remember in what country some agents got caught with hookers. Colombia. It was Colombia. If that's one of the first five things that comes to mind, the agency may have a PR problem.
10) Martha Teichner
There were only 8 segments and a Sunday Passage this week, so no one got bumped for the Teichner spot. I'm keeping the space warm, hoping she'll grace us with an appearance in next weeks, "At Home" episode, although it seems unlikely. The Martha featured in the preview of next week's episode spent some time in prison. Although, I can't say with certainty that Teichner hasn't also spent time in jail. We all have our surprises.
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