By Bob Gaydos

Artemis II heads to the moon.

   It’s fascinating how quickly things that once seemed so remarkable become commonplace, occurring virtually unnoticed in our daily lives. Part of the furniture. Like the fact that I’m writing this on my phone, which I also use to tell time, take photos, buy shoes and watch movies. Just part of the daily routine.

    Or like waking up to an Easter morning profanity-laden diatribe by the American president, probably sent on his phone, threatening the annihilation of a foreign nation because he doesn’t want people to see the proof that he raped young girls. Routine. Headline-grabbing. Yes, insane, but remarkably commonplace.

     Yet while that president was threatening war crimes, four astronauts (three Americans, one Canadian) were doing something that hasn’t been done in 58 years — flying around the moon. Remarkable. Still. But not quite headline-grabbing today.

     It’s that way with a lot of inspirational or heart-warming events these days. Sometimes it’s hard to find the good news buried under all the depressingly bad news emanating daily from the White House, shouting to be heard and too often dutifully reported without question by a news media co-opted by owners more interested in wealth than the First Amendment.

     I started to write a column a few weeks ago about what I considered to be two uplifting, yes, heartwarming events that made life just a little softer, more livable for a while.

    I wrote: “Thank God for Queer Eye and the Buddhists.

    “No, that’s not a new spinoff show on Netflix, although the thought is intriguing. What it is is a huge thank you to two recent events that reminded me, in the midst of the daily dose of anger, lies and cruelty emanating from the White House, that there is still love, caring and humanity in the world. That decency still exists. That people can also shed tears of joy.    

    “Remember?”

     That’s as far as I got before the Trumpian insanity overwhelmed the news again. I’ll finish it now.

    Queer Eye, which began on TV as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, morphed into straight Queer Eye on Netflix, where its tenth and too-short final season dropped recently. Sad to see it go.

    It’s hard to find shows on TV these days which offer real people expressing genuine feelings of gratitude and love and hope and shedding real tears of joy. Queer Eye does all that unfailingly, whether the recipient of the Fab Five’s attention is queer, straight or Jonathan. And it’s often funny in the process.

    At about the same time, 25 Buddhist monks were on their 109-day, 2,300 mile walk from Fort Worth, Texas to the Peace Monument and then the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.. A spiritual walk for peace that gained momentum and support and, eventually, even media attention, as it was followed by more than 5 million people on social media. Heart-warming, encouraging, connecting and simply amazing all at once.

     Which brings me back to the moon. As I write this, the four astronauts are preparing to swing around to the dark side of the moon where they will see and record previously unseen features, with a solar eclipse thrown in as a bonus.

    I witnessed the moon landing – Neil Armstrong’s “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.“ – with a large crowd on a TV at the Little Venice Restaurant in Binghamton, N.Y. 600 million watched worldwide. It was July 20, 1969. I was city editor of The Sun-Bulletin at the time, a daily paper whose offices were conveniently located just down the block from  the restaurant. Yes, the moon landing was the front page story the following morning. And yes, everyone seemed to be happy that President Kennedy‘s goal of putting a man on the moon before the end of the decade was realized.

    This morning, as the astronauts aboard Artemis II traveled farther from Earth than any other humans ever have, the American president was threatening to bomb another country back to the Stone Age. And no one was surprised.

    Might be time to watch reruns of “Queer Eye.”

By Bob Gaydos

Deepak Chopra, friend of Jeffrey Epstein?

When the world starts to run away from me and there’s too much to comment on but I know more is coming fast, I turn to the late, great Jimmy Cannon’s approach. So,

• Maybe it’s just me, but: A president who has said, “We are not looking for regime change. We’ve learned that lesson a long time ago.“ And, “We must abandon the failed policy of nation building and regime change.“ And, just in June of last year when asked about regime change said it “leads to chaos,” but has now said in a space of a few months, “We are in charge“ with regard to Venezuela and “regime change in Iran seems like the best possible outcome“ and, noting that he’s still a little busy with Iran, did say that the fall of the Cuban regime was just “a question of time,” is basically dangerous, power-hungry and not to be believed any time he opens his mouth.
• Maybe it’s just me, but: I get a little worried when one mega corporation starts buying up all kinds of media outlets, threatening the diversity of opinion and trustworthy newsgathering. So, I’m not happy that Paramount, which is in the process of turning CBS into a clone of Fox News, is reportedly ready to do the same with CNN and also owns Paramount Pictures, Skydance Media, HBO, MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, HGTV, TLC, Discovery, Paramount+, Pluto TV, Oracle (which owns 15% of TikTok) CBS Sports and the Cartoon Network, outbid (with a big nudge from the White House) Netflix to buy Warner Brothers Discovery. This has monopoly written all over it and the FCC should carefully review this deal. But this is Trump’s FCC and it’s Trump’s buddy who owns Paramount, which means Congress should really look at this closely. Which is why it’s really nice to have a true two-party system. Remember?
• Maybe it’s just me, but: I’ve become somewhat numbed to the steady release of names of prominent, influential or just plain rich people in the Epstein files. I mean, the man formally known as Prince Andrew was not a surprise, nor was Woody Allen, Bill Clinton or even Bill Gates. Their names had been out there a while. But I have to admit Deepak Chopra stopped me in my tracks. Is this a construct? Or did the wellness guru have something else in mind when he e-mailed Jeffrey to “bring your girls” and commented on the sounds young girls make? Something to meditate on.
• Maybe it’s just me, but: I’m only mildly surprised that the inevitable Trump purge of disposable sycophants has begun with the kiss off of Kristi Noem from Homeland Security to some other phony organization with a fancy name Trump has cooked up. You can only embarrass the Donald … well, actually you cannot embarrass the Donald and run a scam funding operation that doesn’t include him and get caught doing it. Eventually, Noem needs to be held accountable for her criminal behavior running Homeland Security. And lose those hair extensions.

James Garfield, lower left. Chester A. Arthur, upper right.
From a print by the Temple Publishing Company hanging on my wall.

By Bob Gaydos

“I’m not fit to be president!”

The declaration thundered off the TV screen.

“The beauty of America,” came the reply. Quietly, presciently, yet setting off all sorts of alarm bells in my head.

In that one brief exchange, the creators of the Netflix series “Death by Lightning” rocketed across a century and a half. Of course. The beauty of America. Anyone can be president. Well, unless of course, she is a woman.

In fact, the four-part series offers an enlightening and entertaining account of two men, each of whom had no plan, intention or desire to be president yet both wound up in the office within months of each other.

It took one man’s death for the other to get there, that man being James A. Garfield, one of America’s least-known presidents and, from what the creators of the series tell us, one who could have been one of the best. If not for Charles J. Guiteau, the disgruntled, office-seeking lunatic running around with a gun, and an incompetent White House physician who, in removing the bullet, created the infection which actually killed Garfield.

The other man is the one who cried out about being unfit to be president, Chester A. Arthur. He was right, but it didn’t matter that he was a drunk and a laughable symbol of the spoils system of politics in America. He was the vice president, the next in line.

“The beauty of America,” was summed up succinctly by Senator Roscoe Conkling, of New York, in the Netflix series. I don’t know if Conkling, kingmaker, powerbroker and bitter rival of Garfield, ever uttered those words, but the writer sure grasped the moment.

Arthur was on the ticket in 1880 because New York, Arthur’s home state, had all the people, power and money, while Garfield, a farmer, had the message people wanted to hear. He went to the nominating convention to put someone else’s name up for president and gave such a stirring speech — he was an abolitionist when Republicans were proud to be abolitionists — that he was nominated because nobody else could get enough votes. The political art of the deal in practice.

Arthur, who oversaw the port of New York, including how the money flowed through it, wound up on the ticket as vice president in exchange for New York support of Garfield. Politics impure and simple.

But Arthur’s saving grace, to my mind, was that, when the reality of the moment hit him, he was well aware he had no business being anywhere close to the Oval Office, much less being president. While politics might be fine in that he could get rich, have fun and have power over people through control of who got the jobs and money, when it came to the presidency, he was, he declared, “unfit,” a word that carries a ton of weight considering the prestige and power of the office.

Would that were the case today. Money still controls politics, even more so since the Supreme Court decided to allow corporations to donate as much as they want to candidates who will do their bidding. Citizens United. A terrible ruling

The “beauty” of America today is that anyone can still become president, provided he has enough money behind him. Fitness, as Donald Trump and the hollow shell of what is now the Republican Party have shown, is irrelevant.

Arthur overcame his debauchery enough so that he signed into law the Civil Service system to protect government employees from the spoils system of politics which brought him to the presidency. While not regarded as a great president, neither was he a disaster. In fact, he confounded his critics in his brief term with a remarkably adequate job. A man aware, at least, to be humbled by what fate had bestowed upon him.

And no, while glaringly unfit, Trump, supported by the super rich, is also not humbled by his position, but rather clearly, even proudly, unaware of how unfit he is, not merely for the presidency, but for any office of public trust. He has, accordingly, assembled a cabinet of unfit misfits, liars and cheats incapable of doing even a merely acceptable job: Hegseth, Bondi, Patel, Kennedy, Noem, Zeldin (New York’s sorry contribution to the group), Lutnick, Gabbard, McMahon, Bessent, et al. Even Marco Rubio, who once wanted to be president, has shown himself to be unfit in so many ways.

Chester A. Arthur, for all his faults, knew instinctively what many Americans have forgotten or chosen to ignore. It is an honor and a privilege to be the president of the United States of America. But, so long as money is the route to all power, the beauty of America will also be the curse of America. Yes, absolutely anybody can become president.     Unless she’s a woman.

***

Editors note: For the history buffs out there, to the left of Arthur in the print is Andrew Johnson, who also came to the presidency via assassination. That of Abraham Lincoln. To the right of Garfield in the print are Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland. This picture was published in the Baltimore News-American a long time ago.

By Bob Gaydos    

The amazing watermelon.

   I’ve noticed that my creative juices tend to evaporate a bit in the heat of August, especially since there has been essentially just one major story to write about for some seven years.

    When that happens, I look for inspiration for stories in everyday life, which can often produce amazing results.

    For example, you know what’s amazing? Watermelon. Watermelon’s amazing.

       Think about it. It is sweet, juicy, virtually free of calories and is loaded with nutrients, including Vitamin C and lycopene, a combination which, the science suggests, may fight off cancer, heart problems, macular degeneration, inflammation and cell damage, while protecting your skin and hair. Also, being mostly water with a little fiber, it’s good for digestive health. You can eat it or drink it, it grows anywhere that it’s not too frigid and if you binge on it, it’s a terrific diuretic. Yum today, gone tomorrow.

        Amazing. Who thought of this?

        Well, we don’t really know. It was just kind of here, like a lot of other stuff, just waiting to be discovered, apparently in West Africa, from which it spread to Egypt, India and by the 10th Century, China, which is today’s largest producer of watermelon. Europeans brought it to the New World in the 16th Century and the Japanese, to the dismay of seed-spitters, developed a seedless variety in 1939. Today, there’s a watermelon variety for every palate or picnic.

        One more bit of watermelon trivia: In 2007, the Oklahoma State Senate declared watermelon the official state vegetable, although the rest of the world considers it to be a fruit. Oh, Oklahoma.

         But the point here is that this fruit grows abundantly, is both delicious and healthful and has virtually no significant risks associated with it. It’s like someone left us a gift and hoped we would find and appreciate it: You’re going to need and enjoy this, earthlings. Until recently, I hardly gave it a thought. But no more. Go ahead, the season’s about over, go find one and take a bite.

       Amazing, right?

       You know what else is amazing? Benford’s Law. In fact, it is mind-numbingly amazing, in my humble opinion. It’s also called the Newcomb–Benford law, the law of anomalous numbers, or the first-digit law. By any name, it’s, well, you know.

        As simply as I can explain for the non-mathematicians or non-accountants (like me) out there, the law states that in naturally occurring sizable groups of numbers, be it dollars in a budget, acres, heights of mountains, populations, street addresses or stock prices, the first number of each entry is likely to be 1 about 30 percent of the time, while 9 is the leading number only about 5 percent of the time. And, the frequency moves downward from 1 to 9 in a predictable curve. This happens all the time, unless the sample is too small or there are restrictions in the collection, such as the height of basketball players (5 to 7 being the range).

         In practical terms, this means it’s possible to determine if someone is cooking the books, since the natural tendency of humans is to distribute numbers randomly, with each number having an equal chance of lead status. The law has been admitted in criminal fraud cases at local, state and federal levels. The IRS must use it because it won’t even comment on it. A  study of reported Covid-19 cases indicated that results from Italy, Portugal, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Denmark, Belgium and Chile were suspicious because the numbers didn’t match the Benford Curve.

    I learned about this amazing law from the Netflix series, “Connected,” which I recommend for those who like their science approachable and with a little humor. It turns out the law had a leading role in another Netflix series, “Ozark,” in which it was used to detect fraud in a cartel financial statement. And in the 2016 movie, “The Accountant,” Ben Affleck uses It to expose the theft of funds from a robotics company.

    So I’m really late to the game on this one. But that doesn’t make it any less amazing that, in the seemingly randomness of our numbers-crazy society, someone/thing/power has provided order, if we only know where to look for it. Physicist Frank Benford knew where to look in 1938 when he did an extensive test of the phenomenon first noted by astronomer/mathematician Simon Newcomb in 1838. Newcomb noted that the early pages in a book of algorithms were used much more often than the later pages. Benford took Newcomb’s observation and gave it meaning.

       Here’s one more amazing thing I recently learned after years of taking it for granted — horses can jump fences even though they don’t really see them the way humans do. It’s not as simple as see the fence, jump the fence.

See the fence; jump the fence.

    For starters, horses’ eyes (the largest of any land mammal) are not in the front of their heads like ours are. Horses have one eye on each side of their face. Just take a look. Never gave it much thought because, well, it looks right and normal, which it is. But it also means horses have to turn and raise their heads a lot more than we do to see the full picture of things in front of them, including fences they have to jump.

         Briefly, according to British Eventing Life, horses have two kinds of vision. One, monocular vision, means they see each side separately with either eye. This gives them a remarkably wide field of vision, except for what’s right in front of them. So they can see both sides of the fence as they approach it, but they can’t tell how close they are until they’re within about six feet. That’s when their binocular vision kicks in. They raise their heads to see directly in front of them to judge distance and height. Not much time when you’re cantering.

        This feat also requires considerable teamwork from the rider, whose job is to give the horse every chance to succeed. That means providing a good approach and verbal, hand, leg and seat prompts, if necessary. Well-trained horses make it look easy, but here’s another amazing thing: Horses’ brains have a left side and a right side, which act as two separate brains, meaning horses have to be trained from both sides. Their amazing double brain quickly computes the data received from both visions as the horse approaches the jump. Up and over. I don’t know who thought of this. By the way, if I messed up any of this explanation, I hope horse people will forgive me. I just find this animal to be amazing.

        Finally, I guess my point here is that, at a time when amazingly evil and stupid things are happening in the world, it is still possible to find some amazingly positive things in everyday life. As a friend told me some 40 years ago, I just need to be present in my own life and keep looking for them.

     Thanks, Victor.

                                   ***

(Full disclosure: Loyal readers will recognize this as a slightly edited version of a column I wrote two years ago. But the amazing facts are still the same. Horses still jump fences the same way, numbers still show up predictably, one through nine, and watermelon is still delicious, although I have managed to prove that they don’t necessarily grow “anywhere.” But the kale came through.)

rjgaydos@gmail.com

(more…)

 By Bob Gaydos

People’s prediction.

   I was a little preoccupied getting new eyes for Christmas (cataract surgery) so a few items of interest slipped by without comment. When that happens, I like to steal an old Jimmy Cannon trick to give my two cents worth and move on quickly. So …

Maybe it’s just me, but: Putting the smiling face of Betty White on the cover of People magazine in December with the headline “Betty White Turns 100!“ deserves an “F“ in journalism 101. As the world knows, the beloved TV star died in her sleep at age 99, a couple of weeks shy of 100. You’re supposed to report news, not predict future birthdays, People. Especially for 99-year-olds! Putting White on the January cover, too, only helped point out the blunder. It may have something to do with the magazine being sold twice in three years, most recently to a company whose wealth was built by online dating sites. Hey, who needs facts? Someone’s job should be on the line, but in the new “journalism” of the day, I doubt it.

Maybe it’s just me, but: Over at People’s former sister magazine Time (sold, too), Elon Musk “graced” the cover as Person of the Year. Really? “Visionary. Showman. Iconoclast. Troll. Elon Musk is reshaping our world.” That’s how Time described him. OK. Richest man in the world to boot. I guess I’m partial to people who aren’t a pain in the ass and proud of it. I like the Capitol police officer who saved democracy. Eugene Goodman is his name. He got a gold medal for steering Jan. 6 rioters away from the Senate Chambers. There was no more important person in 2021.

Maybe its just me, but: Completing the sweep of fails by former sister magazines, Sports Illustrated chose Tom Brady as Sportsperson of the Year. I get it, he’s supposedly too old to be a pro quarterback, but he’s still winning Super Bowls and sticking it to the Patriots to boot. A living legend. But he’s no Shohei Ohtani. The Japanese superstar channeled Babe Ruth by starring as both pitcher and hitter for the California Angels. The American League MVP led the league in home runs, was an ace starting pitcher with a blazing fast ball. He was the designated hitter when not pitching. He was starting pitcher in the All Star Game and batted lead off. When he was removed from a game as pitcher, he was moved to right field to keep his bat in the game. He was, in effect, the best player on your Little League team now wearing a big league uniform. Baseball hadn’t seen anything like it since, well, the Babe. Last year was Shohei’s. SI, like its former sister mags, got it wrong.

Maybe it’s just me, but: Meryl Streep does an excellent job portraying what a Sarah Palin presidency would be like in the Netflix movie, “Don’t Look Up!” Ditsy, dumb, devoid of common sense and decency. Also deadly. (Watch the movie to find out.) Having escaped her try for the vice presidency, I didn’t think Palin was someone to be concerned about since the Alaskan beauty-queen-turned-governor-turned-reality TV star was supplanted by Trumpsters in the Republican Party. Then I recently overheard a conversation between two past-middle-age, white females, a mother and daughter: Daughter: “Sarah Palin is trying to get back into politics.” Mom: Really?” Daughter: “Yeah, we could use her.” Mom: “Yeah, we could.”  Chills ran up — and down — my spine at this quiet demonstration of generational brain-washing. Don’t look now, America …

  All caught up for now.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com.

By Bob Gaydos 

The marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Too funny for her own good?

    I have a love/hate affair with bingeing.

     … Let me start over. Who ever came up with the concept of bingeing? I mean, putting your feet up and watching hours of your favorite show in one sitting? No commercials and no waiting a week for the next episode? What a concept! What a great idea. I love it.

     Until the episodes end and the seasons end and the pandemic doesn’t end and no one can film new episodes because the actors don’t want to die. And I’m left wondering what, if anything, will ever happen to the marvelous Midge Maisel.

     So I hate bingeing because, well, I always want there to be another episode. So I resist bingeing. Just two episodes a night is enough. Sometimes.

     Living in a locked-down world requires having something to look forward to tomorrow. At least it does for me. Netflix has provided thousands of options to take my mind, and millions of other minds, off the infection curve. Right place, right time. Sign in, Robert; take your pick. Who knew from streaming shows after growing up and getting old on weekly TV series? I don’t watch regular TV and you can only read so much and you can’t go out to the movies. 

    So, “What’s on Netflix?”

    “How about ‘Grace and Frankie?’”

    How about Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin!? And Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston! What a show! Who knew? Well, apparently lots of people who caught on to streaming before me because there were six seasons. Anyway, we loved it. Four veteran actors defying aging and other stereotypes. Funny. Binge!

    And then, uhh, is it over? Apparently, for now. They’re talking about filming the final season. Before the stars really fade, I suspect.

      So now what? Well, Michael Douglas has a show that looks kind of interesting. “The Kaminsky Method.“ He’s an acting coach. And Alan Arkin is in it. More talented veterans. God, I remember when Michael was too young to have his character dealing with prostate problems. “Greed is good!” No matter. Excellent. Funny. Binged. That’s all? Still waiting for a promised new season.

     Then we discovered “The Good Girls.“ Bingo! It’s dark and funny and it’s impossible to watch just one at a time. Usually, it was three, although I tried hard to argue for two. Always wanted to have something left for tomorrow. It ended with a cliffhanger, but came back. Then it went away again. But it’s coming back again. Soon I hope. 

      While exploring and waiting on the “Girls” to return, we looked in on “The Good Place.“ After being mildly interesting, it turned out to be pretty much the same place every episode. Sam Malone seemed a little out of place running Heaven. We didn’t stick around to see how it turned out since the whole concept is really about how it all turned out.

     Umm … Pass the chips, please. Speaking of bingeing, you can’t watch all this great stuff on an empty stomach, right? Apparently, a lot of people put on a lot of weight sitting around for a year bingeing on snacks. Not me. I may have even dropped a couple of pounds

      They call the shows comfort bingeing and I can see why. It certainly helped my mental health. But the new way of watching shows also led to a venture into new comfort foods. To be more specific, more healthful snack foods that satisfy the need to munch, but won’t make me regret all the bingeing later on.

      The basic concept is that the potato isn’t the only vegetable that can be made into a chip, to dip or just munch straight out. As long as we were trying a new way of watching shows, why not new munchies? Let me say straight out, they are all a bit light and airy, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be tasty and also satisfying. Veggie Crisps are mainly rice, peas and black beans and I can polish off a whole bag without feeling guilty. Not bad. Organic lentils (with turmeric) and organic sweet beet crisps didn’t really do much for me, taste wise, but again, they filled the void. Sweet potato crackers held their own. Skinny Pop popcorn, though, is a major favorite. Also pita chips, especially when scooping hummus.

       But the surprise thus far is cauliflower. Cauliflower puffs or sticks, doesn’t matter how you shape them, they just taste good. It’s like eating air with flavor. No heavy aftertaste and no extra pounds after many hours on the couch. It probably should go without saying, but I’ll say it: It’s important to try to stay healthy when bingeing during a pandemic, people.

       It also pays to be adventurous. When Netflix came up dry, Amazon Prime rewarded us with “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” I love it. My era. Greenwich Village in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Lenny Bruce. And all the music. The best. A wonderfu ensemble cast and a meshugganah script. Funny stuff.

      And yeah, we’re waiting for the new season. Midge’s personal brand of humor got her into trouble one more time in the last episode. We left her standing at the airport, alone. Maybe she’ll spend more time with her kids in the next season. Or maybe the pandemic will end before we run out of shows and cauliflower puffs. Or maybe Grace and Frankie will return. The Good Girls are already on regular TV, so it won’t be long before they’re on Netflix, right? Right?

       Pass the Skinny Pop, please. I have a feeling this will not be the end of bingeing.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com.

By Bob Gaydos

George Clooney and Brad Pitt, streaming in one of the “Ocean’s” movies.

    Apropos of nothing, the list below represents a significant portion of my at-home viewing entertainment in 2020, the year of the pandemic. If it’s representative of anything, it’s what I did when I wasn’t writing about you know who.

      I don’t see any pattern in the list, except maybe that George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Paul Newman, Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington all appear more than once. What the offerings all have in common is that they were not on television. All were streamed, thanks to Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube and Disney Plus. If the stock market is reflective of anything, it appears a lot of other folks were passing the time streaming 2020 as well.

      Everything on the list is a movie, not a series. (I’m counting “Mangrove” as a stand-alone.) There were a few of those, too, as well as varied educational offerings, which I have been told will help to keep my mind razor sharp.

      But these are all one-shot features, some old, some new. I’m not critiquing any, but I do welcome any comments or questions you may have on the list as well as recommendations for 2021. I’m serious. I found this to be one of the few things that people could talk about last year without arguing and that I could write about without using the word, “Dotard.” …

     Darn. Habit. Happy New Year and happy streaming.

The List:

The Laundromat

The Pianist

The Commuter

Book Club

Julie/Julia

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Philadelphia 

The Danish Girl

The Peacemaker

The Coldest Game

Ladies in Lavender

A Serious Man

An Inspector Calls

The Rainmaker

Where the Money Is

Hail, Caesar!

The Double

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Battered Bastards of Baseball

Nobody’s Fool

Quartet

Minority Report

Rocket Man 

To Catch a Thief

The Gardener

Ocean’s Twelve

Ocean’s Thirteen

The Social Dilemma

Secret in Their Eyes

Cafe Society

The Departed

Halston 

My Octopus Teacher 

Hank

Man of the Year

Mangrove

The Dressmaker

Cookie’s Fortune

Greyhound

Margot Fonteyn

Uncle Frank

Bombshell

Deja Vu

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Bikram

Diana: The Royal Truth

Pippin

Amazon Empire

rjgaydos@gmail.com

Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com.

The amazing watermelon.

By Bob Gaydos

  I have recently taken a brief break from writing, well, just because. It helped. For one thing, I learned that if you can turn your gaze away from the chaos of the day, even briefly, sometimes life can be amazing. For example, you know what’s amazing? Watermelon. Watermelon’s amazing.

       Think about it. It is sweet, juicy, virtually free of calories and is loaded with nutrients, including Vitamin C and lycopene, a combination which, the science suggests, may fight off cancer, heart problems, macular degeneration, inflammation and cell damage, while protecting your skin and hair. Also, being mostly water with a little fiber, it’s good for digestive health. You can eat it or drink it, it grows anywhere that it’s not too frigid and if you binge on it, it’s a terrific diuretic. Yum today, gone tomorrow.

        Amazing. Who thought of this?

        Well, we don’t really know. It was just kind of here, like a lot of other stuff, just waiting to be discovered, apparently in West Africa, from which it spread to Egypt, India and by the 10th Century, China, which is today’s largest producer of watermelon. Europeans brought it to the New World in the 16th Century and the Japanese, to the dismay of seed-spitters, developed a seedless variety in 1939. Today, there’s a watermelon variety for every palate or picnic.

        One more bit of watermelon trivia: In 2007, the Oklahoma State Senate declared watermelon the official state vegetable, although the rest of the world considers it to be a fruit. Oh, Oklahoma.

         But the point here is that this fruit grows abundantly, is both delicious and healthful and has virtually no significant risks associated with it. It’s like someone left us a gift and hoped we would find and appreciate it: You’re going to need and enjoy this, earthlings. Until recently — well, just now — I hardly gave it a thought. But no more. Go ahead, I know the season’s about over, but find one and take a bite.

       Amazing, right?

       You know what else is amazing? Benford’s Law. In fact, it is mind-numbingly amazing, in my humble opinion. It’s also called the Newcomb–Benford law, the law of anomalous numbers, or the first-digit law. By any name, it’s well, you know.

        As simply as I can explain for the non-mathematicians or non-accountants (like me) out there, the law states that in naturally occurring sizable groups of numbers, be it dollars in a budget, acres, heights of mountains, populations, street addresses or stock prices, the first number of each entry is likely to be 1 about 30 per cent of the time, while 9 is the leading number only about 5 percent of the time. And, the frequency moves downward from 1 to 9 in a predictable curve. This happens all the time, unless the sample is too small or there are restrictions in the collection, such as the height of basketball players (5 to 7 being the range).

The Benford’s Law curve of probability .

         In practical terms, this means it’s possible to determine if someone is cooking the books, the natural tendency of humans being to distribute numbers randomly, with each number having an equal chance of lead status. The law has been admitted in criminal fraud cases at local, state and federal levels. The IRS must use because it won’t even comment on it. A recent study of reported Covid-19 cases indicated that results from Italy, Portugal, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Denmark, Belgium and Chile are suspicious, because the numbers don’t match the Benford Curve.

    I learned about this amazing law from the Netflix series, “Connected,” which I recommend for those who like their science approachable and with a little humor. It turns out the law had a leading role in another Netflix series, “Ozark,” in which it was used to detect fraud in a cartel financial statement. And in the 2016 movie, “The Accountant,” Ben Affleck uses It to expose the theft of funds from a robotics company.

    So I’m really late to the game on this one. But that doesn’t make it any less amazing that, in the seemingly randomness of our numbers-crazy society, someone/thing/power has provided order, if we only know where to look for it. Physicist Frank Benford knew where to look in 1938 when he did an extensive test of the phenomenon first noted by astronomer/mathematician Simon Newcomb in 1838. Newcomb noted that the early pages in a book of algorithms were used much more often than the later pages. Benford took Newcomb’s observation and gave it meaning.

       Here’s one more amazing thing I just learned after years of taking it for granted — horses can jump fences even though they don’t really see them the way humans do. It’s not as simple as see the fence, jump the fence.

        For starters, horses’ eyes (the largest of any land mammal) are not in the front of their heads like ours are. Horses have one eye on each side of their face. Just take a look. Never gave it much thought because, well, it looks right and normal, which it is. But it also means horses have to turn and raise their heads a lot more than we do to see the full picture of things in front of them, including fences they have to jump.

         Briefly, according to British Eventing Life, horses have two kinds of vision. One, monocular vision, means they see each side separately with either eye. This gives them a remarkably wide field of vision, except for what’s right in front of them. So they can see both sides of the fence as they approach it, but they can’t tell how close they are until they’re within about six feet. That’s when their binocular vision kicks in. They raise their heads to see directly in front of them to judge distance and height. Not much time when you’re cantering.

See the fence; jump the fence.

    This feat also requires considerable teamwork from the rider, whose job is to give the horse every chance to succeed. That means providing a good approach and verbal, hand, leg and seat prompts, if necessary. Well-trained horses make it look easy, but here’s another amazing thing: Horses’ brains have a left side and a right side, that act as two separate brains, meaning horses have to be trained from both sides. Their amazing double brain quickly computes the data received from both visions as the horse approaches the jump. Up and over. I don’t know who thought of this. By the way, if I messed up any of this explanation, I hope horse people will forgive me. I just find this animal to be amazing.

        Finally, I guess my point here is that, at a time when amazingly evil and stupid things are happening, it is still possible to find some amazingly positive things in everyday life. I just need to keep looking for them. Peace.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com.

THE REPORT … mowers, mail, movies and moving Michael Cohen

April 20, 2020

Bob Gaydos

    So the lawn guy showed up unannounced and unsummoned today to a great deal of running about, barking and general enthusiasm. The dogs were excited, too. Went out to greet him at appropriate social distance. “You mowing?” I asked. “We’re essential!” He answered. “Heard last week. That Cuomo’s a tough cookie.” Yes, he is. Thankful for that. By the way, the grass is now neat and manageable for walking about and tending to business. The dogs are excited about that as well. Grateful to have a lawn guy.

  —  By the way … Michael Cohen, we hardly knew ya and now you’re about to leave us? The onetime lawyer/fixer for Hewhosenameshallnotbespokenhere has been residing at a minimum security federal prison camp in Otisville, about a 10-minute drive down the road from us. But if Cohen comes through a two-week quarantine in a medium security penitentiary next door, he’ll be going home to finish out his three-year sentence. He can thank COVID-19. Since social distancing is a major challenge in prison, some federal inmates are being switched to home confinement. Also, Orange County, where Otisville is located, had 211 confirmed virus-related deaths at this posting. My first reaction to the Cohen news was that somebody cut him a break. But then I remembered he cut a deal with the feds to get a lighter sentence on campaign fraud and lying to the FBI about hush money paid for Hewho… so Hewho wouldn’t likely make a call for Cohen. Looks like the system just did its job. Go figure.

   — By the way … We’re doing our part to burnish the reputation of Netflix and Amazon Prime during this period of isolation. Recent viewing includes “The Danish Girl, “The Coldest Game” and “The Ladies in Lavender.” Each is a little quirky, but time-passable with some good performances. Any suggestions, please feel free in the comment section.

    — By the way … If the post office is worried about losing $2 billion a

Forget the rain, snow, etc., the Post Office needs cash.

month because of the pandemic and Republicans in Congress won’t bail it out, why doesn’t Jeff Bezos just sign a month-to-month contract with the USPS to make up the difference? He could do it out of his pocket change and not even touch his Amazon stock. It would actually be a patriotic thing to do.

  —  By the way … a report just issued by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed that the 2017 assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia covertly meddled in the 2016 presidential election, with the ultimate goal of helping Hewhoshallnotbenamed win, was accurate. Big surprise only in that Republicans admitted it.

   —  And finally, by the way … if there was any doubt left of the utter lack of basic decency in today’s GOP, I give you Dan Patrick, lieutenant governor of the great state of Texas, which is starting to reopen its economy despite warnings from medical experts that it’s too soon and spreading the virus could result in deaths. Says Patrick: “There are more important things than living and that’s saving this country.” No plan. No leadership. No concern or compassion. Nothing. Texas is no country for old men or women.

Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com.

rjgaydos@gmail.com