VP Candidate Paul Ryan?---Are You Kidding Me?

Dear Madame L,

I know you'll have a lot to say about presidential candidate Mitt Romney choosing Rep. Ryan (R-Wisc.) as his vice-presidential running mate.

To me, it seems like an obvious sop to the new GOTP, the Grand Old Tea Party. Why do you think Romney chose Ryan?

Sincerely,

With That Budget Plan? Are You Kidding Me?

Dear Kidding,

Madame L has also wondered about the logic behind Mitt Romney's choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate. She thinks it comes down to desperation born (as you suggested) of the need to get the backing of the right wing of the increasingly right-leaning Republican Party.

When in doubt about such matters, Madame L often relies on the wisdom of Nate Silver at Five Thirty Eight, his blog which is now carried by the New York Times.

About the VP choice, Mr. Silver writes  that Mitt Romney is taking a huge and surprising risk. Paul Ryan is "more conservative than any Democratic nominee was liberal, meaning that he is the furthest from the center." Ryan doesn't poll well in his home state, and his budget proposal has received criticism not only from progressives but even from staunch Republican conservatives. Also, with a Mormon presidential candidate and a Catholic vice-presidential candidate, Mitt Romney has broken the tradition of having at least one Protestant in the pair.

Madame L hopes you'll read the entire article, which is, as always, thoughtful and full of facts and statistics (recognizing that statistics are not necessarily facts).

However, Nate Silver doesn't pretend to know why Mitt Romney chose Paul Romney and admits he can't predict all the consequences of this choice.

And, if Nate Silver doesn't know, Madame L feels better about not knowing.

Sincerely,

Madame L 

Weird Word of the Week: Fartlek

Please stop sniggering while Madame L explains that the word "fartlek" comes from the Swedish and means "speed training."  It's a specific training method for runners that combines regular continuous training with interval training. 

Madame L reads on the Wikipedia page  that while it mostly refers to training for runners (as Madame L always thought of it), it can also be used for training in other sports. 

The idea, generally, is for the athlete to have fun, to spend 45 minutes, for example, just running or walking or jogging or doing whatever seems to fit the individual athlete's needs. Madame L tried this when she did more running than she does now, and she loved it. And, almost as important, her running times improved as a result of the fartlek training.

Romney Hood

Dear Madame L,

I heard that Obama said Romney's tax plan is to rob from the middle class to give to the rich. Isn't this a gross misstatement of Romney's plan? I mean, I see him on Fox TV interviews, and giving speeches, with signs all around about jobs.

Sincerely,

Give Romney a Chance!

Dear Romney Supporter,

Madame L would love to give Candidate Romney  a chance, but Romney himself seems to be reluctant to speak up with some solid information that would make him look like a presidential candidate who would actually do something to help the American people, for instance, the great sweating masses of real, hard-working people who contribute to the economy by working at real jobs instead of running companies that make millions of dollars off of those real people --- the people he and his wife don't think need to know about his past taxes.

If you look at the tax/economic plan Romney has proposed so far (think Paul Ryan...), you'll see that he does indeed plan to give tax breaks to the wealthy ($250,000 in lowered taxes for people making more than $3 million per year, for instance), while raising taxes on the middle class...and on the poor.

So it does sound to Madame L like Mr. Romney has a severe case of Robin-Hood-Reversal, just as Obama said. 

What might Romney do about this to change Madame L's mind about him --- other than coming up with the lamest supposed comeback-zingers any politician in the history of U.S. politics has ever come up with?  --- or other than putting up signs all around about jobs, which he has a history of destroying, not creating?

Well, for starts, he could CHANGE his tax/economic plan...

More to come, 

Madame L

The Sunday Book Review, August 5, 2012: Winners Never Cheat

Like all advice books, "Winners Never Cheat: Everyday Values We Learned as Children (But May Have Forgotten), written by Jon M. Huntsman (not the once-and-future-Republican-presidential-candidate, but his father), has some interesting stories and a lot of good advice---the kind of advice that made Madame L wish someone would have given a copy to other Republican presidential candidates, and of course Madame L is thinking of one such candidate in particular.

Madame L got this book for free at the University of Utah's Huntsman Cancer Institute, and although she hasn't read it all the way through, she has enjoyed reading bits and pieces of it. She will be happy to share her copy with anyone who's interested.

Madame L sees that the 2005 edition of the book, the edition she has, is also available at Amazon.com, used, for a penny. She sees that there's a newer edition of the book, listing Glenn Beck as co-author, which fact almost made Madame L decide not to review the book at all. She hasn't seen that edition and wouldn't recommend it. Ever. Because what could Glenn Beck possibly add to a book about winners or being honest?

But Madame L digresses. Here's a great quote, quoted by Mr. Huntsman, from the 2005 edition: "When young men or women are beginning life, the most important period, it is often said, is that in which their habits are formed. That is a very important period. But the period in which the ideals of the young are formed and adopted is more important still. For the ideal with which you go forward to measure things determines the nature, so far as you are concerned, of everything you meet." ---Henry Ward Beecher

And here's a quote from Mr. Huntsman's own writing: "Human beings are innately honest, but if you pack legal heat, the other side will do likewise....Lock the lawyers in the attic until you truly need them...It's not that lawyers are inherently unethical or evil, no more so than members of any other profession...Politicians weasel and fib, promise much and deliver little, all in the name of remaining in office..."

Those Were the Days, My Friend! (Gore Vidal, We Miss You Already) (You Too, Maeve Binchy)

Dear Madame L,

I'm appalled at the negative campaigning I'm hearing from both the Romney and the Obama campaigns. 

What happened to the days when politicians treated each other with courtesy?

Sincerely,

Old-Fashioned

Dear Old-Fashioned,

Apparently you're not only old-fashioned, but your memory is deceiving you. Check out this debate between Gore Vidal and William Buckley during the 1968 presidential campaign (warning: some of the language is shocking, though not on the level of your average high-school student) and tell Madame L you really want this kind of political discourse to return to TV:

By the way, Madame L found this video easily because it has been played frequently on news shows today, as the death of Gore Vidal, at the age of 86, is announced. 

In addition to waging battles of words with people like Buckley, Vidal was a prolific writer. One of his plays, "The Best Man," is being revived on Broadway.

If Madame L had the time and money, she'd want to see this play. (Tickets start at $67 --- Ouch! --- and that's after you fly out to New York and stay in a flea-bag hotel for way more than that.)

Failing that, Madame L is determined to read the script. It's available, free, from the Library of Congress, but this version doesn't seem very readable. You can also get it as a down-loadable Word document by searching at simplyscripts.com. It's available at Amazon but for an outrageous price for every copy except a very used and barely acceptable one. Madame L believes she'll check it out from her local library.

Why will Madame L miss Gore Vidal? She didn't even know him. Nor did she know the Irish writer Maeve Binchy, whose death was also announced this week. But she read some of the works of both of them, and she admires their writing. Who will take the place of the staunch liberal and the journalist-turned-novelist?

Sincerely,

Madame L, Who Asks More Questions Than She Answers

The Sunday Book Review, July 29, 2012: "Bigfoot Sasquatch Evidence" and "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science"

"Ah," Dear Readers, you may be saying as you read the title of this post, "Madame L is at it again. Who cares whether the creature called Bigfoot or Sasquatch really exists? It's impossible for such a creature to exist, and all those bogus programs on TV where they're supposedly hunting it are a waste of time!"

And so on...And Madame L would not disagree with your assessment of the Bigfoot-hunting programs on TV and most of the books written about the creature.

But Madame L definitely would disagree with your assessment of the value of knowing whether the creature actually exists and of knowing more about it, if it does.

And Madame L thinks this book, written by a scientist, Dr. Grover S. Krantz, is the authoritative book on the subject.

Madame L enjoys Dr. Krantz's peculiarly academic way of dismissing much of the so-called evidence of the existence of Bigfoot. Here's an example, dealing with the people who think Sasquatches have mystical or magical qualities and/or have some special information they want to impart to the human race:

"I have been contacted by several rational-sounding people who say they are or have been in telepathic contact with sasquatches. Each of them presents a very different version of what the creatures really are. If one of them is right, the others are totally wrong. Since all but one version must be wrong, there obviously has to be some explanation of how a false impression of telepathy has been experienced by the rest of them. It then becomes a simple step to appy that explanation to the single remaining version. What most likely occurs here is that a person is having a conversation with him/herself, and is silently verbalizing both sides of the discussion. It is a known psychological phenomenon that many such people, at one time or another, fail to note that both sides of the discussion are their own creation, and ascribe one of them to an outside source. In most instances of this phenomenon, that outside source is attributed to an entity very different from the sasquatch, but the principle is still the same. This is classed as a minor mental disorder, but it is fairly common and generally has no serious repercussions."

If any of Madame L's Dear Readers are interested in Sasquatch, this is the book to read. Another, more recent one, which Madame L recommends is "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science," by Jeff Meldrum.

Both of these books are worth reading because they put the cultists and lunatic fringe in their proper place and examine the actual physical evidence, from skin ridges and furrows to anatomy and physiology; they dismiss the "paranormal" explanations with appropriate humor (see above quote); and they perform authoritative analyses of recordings, photos and movies.

By the way, because Madame L likes to illustrate her posts and book reviews with photos, she performed a quick Google search for a photo to accompany this one, but (strangely enough) she found nothing. She did find a website, "Paranormal Plus," with a hilarious article titled "My Elusive Friend, Bigfoot." Madame L recommends this article as an object lesson in the improper use of the exclamation point. Here's a quote from the article:

"On one occasion, Bigfoot came up during the day when no one was at home and went into the barn where he normally ate his sweet feed. This time he left three rocks on the barrel top! Pearl told me that this was his way of expressing thanks for the feed and that many scientists including her had witnessed this action many times. Evidently one was for the papa, one for the mama and one for the baby who we learned they had started bringing with them.

"...Weather permitting, I still go over there each day and my time is never wasted! I feel that Bigfoot continues to be looking for new and amazing ways to mystify me and I think he loves doing this.

"...Most who have studied him are convinced that he does indeed have psychic capabilities unlike anything a World-Class Psychic could imagine. To prove this point there have been many times when I have managed to communicate with him on a somewhat successfully degree via thought-emanations but I may never know the true degree of my success!"

Talk about having a conversation with oneself, unaware that both contributors to the conversation are oneself... One can agree at least with the last part of the last sentence quoted here.

Weird Word of the Week: Weird

Did you know that the word "weird," which we usually use as an adjective to describe something strange or out of the ordinary, can also be a noun?

According to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary, the noun "weird" means "fate" or "destiny" or "fortune" (but usually "ill fortune"), or "soothsayer."

Our "weird" comes from the Middle English "werd" or "wird," which comes from the Old English "wyrd," which is related to the Old Norse "urthr" ("fate") and Old English "weorthan" ("to become").

Does knowing this change the way you'll use the word "weird"? It doesn't for Madame L, who will continue to use the word as she always have, with no concern about weird occult meanings or the idea that someone might "become" anything, especially a soothsayer, because of the use of the word "weird."

(Side note: This is one of the few English words that doesn't follow that old rule we used to have to memorize: "I before E, except after C." Madame L will write about the reasons for the exceptions to that rule in the future.)