Random Thinking

Compare Charles de Gaulle to Arthur Miller:

Anne de Gaulle was born January 1, 1928, the third child of Charles de Gaulle. She was immediately diagnosed with Down syndrome. Although doctors recommended institutionalizing her, she was never separated from her family. De Gaulle, who rarely showed affection, was open and extroverted with Anne. After the family fled France for England during the Nazi invasion, de Gaulle refused to have family pictures taken by the British press unless Anne was included. Anne died of pneumonia in 1948 and as described in the movie, LE GRAND CHARLES, her death was the first time anyone can recall him showing sorrow.

In 1962, an attempt to assasinate de Gaulle was foiled when, according to de Gaulle, the bullet was deflected by a picture of Anne that he kept on the back shelf of his car. When he died in 1970, he was buried next to Anne.

The following excerpt is from the blog of Patricia E. Bauer, Senior Editor of the Los Angeles Times Magazine and mother of a child with Down syndrome. Read the entire entry. It deals with eugenics and Nazism and reveals perhaps a new reason for de Gaulle’s fight for a Free France.

Photographs of the young Anne reveal a pretty child with an earnest gaze and a strong resemblance to her mother. The de Gaulles rejected public stereotypes and came to view Anne as a gift, their nephew says, an attitude that may have been rooted in large part in their deep Catholic faith. Though Anne’s speech did not progress beyond the realms of childhood, her unconditional love became the emotional center of the de Gaulle family. Her father described her as “my joy,” adding, “She helped me overcome the failures in all men, and to look beyond them.” … The general sang songs for her and read her stories, displaying an affection and tenderness that he did not readily share with the other members of the household. The family had one rule above all: Anne was never to be made to feel different or less than anyone else.

Tags: Anne de Gaulle, Charles de Gaulle, Down syndrome

There have been many theories about why suicide rates among teens peeked in the 70’s and have steadily declined since. My own theory is the break-up of the group Bread had at least something to do with it. I know even today, their music makes life less worth living. I have shared snippets of a few songs with Beth but now I offer to all the complete If by Bread. The shortest titled Top 10 hit but oddly enough there was another song that was also titled If that made it into the Top 10 back in the 50’s. And amazingly, Perry Como had a hit with both of them. Anyway, here it is thanks to YouTube (please direct all lawsuits for damages to YouTube).

Michel found the original vinyl version of Best of Bread in the basement (in fact, searches of basements will find millions of these albums as they can only breed in dark moldy places). Our plan is to frame the album and put it on Beth’s wall. Imagine if we didn’t love her!!!

My recommendation is Tristan da Cunha. The Google Map picture is above. A volcanic island (but mostly quiet) with a ready source of fresh water, it has been supporting a population since the early 1800’s. I wrote a blog entry about it three years ago but since then we have this cool satellite image. There are still about 270 people on the island. I get their weekly email newsletter but quite a few weeks the newsletter contains only, “Sorry… There were no articles published during the last 7 days.”

So could you live on an island in the middle of nowhere with 300 other people? No airport. No harbor. Where it can take months to get a letter or package. I think I would go crazy in a few days.

As long as we are on the topic of music, in case you missed it somehow, this is “Here It Goes Again” by OK Go. This is by far the greatest music video ever made… well, at least the greatest music video ever made on treadmills. This is one of the few music videos that I can watch over and over again. The video led to the song becoming a Top 40 hit. In the video, the song is lip-synced by the group’s bassist, Tim Nordwind. The actual lead singer is Damian Kulash. The other band members are Dan Konopka and Andy Ross. The choreography for the video was done by Damian’s sister, Trish Sie, who is a choreographer, director, and professional ballroom dancer. She actually came up with the idea for the treadmills and won a Grammy Award for the video.

Last night Beth and I watched the 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders on VH-1 Classic. In order to qualify for the list, a song had to be a big hit (in the Top 10) and the artist had to never had any hit song ever again. Since this is a video network, not surprisingly the list weighs heavily to the 80’s and after since there weren’t too many music videos before that. The songs are of the type where you say, “Ugh, I hated that song” or “Great song! I wonder why they never did another one.” What I find interesting is how many of the songs sound like a one-hit. “I Melt With You” by Modern English for example is a great song but it sounds like a song that the group could never duplicate, and indeed, they couldn’t. “Come On Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners is another song. It is just so unique that it would be very difficult for the group to be that unique again.

Here is the top 10:

10. “99 Luftballoons” by Nena (1984)
9. “Rico Suave” by Gerardo (1991)
8. “Take On Me” by A-Ha (1985)
7. “Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice (1991)
6. “Who Let The Dogs Out” by Baha Men (2000)
5. “Mickey” by Toni Basil (1982)
4. “I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred (1992)
3. “Come On Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners (1983)
2. “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell (1982)
1. “The Macarena” by Los Del Rio (1996)

Nena, of course, doesn’t really deserve to be on the list since she is German and continues to enjoy success in her native land. My list would have been different, but not very different. My number one song would have been “Take On Me” just because the video is so cool. It truly captures the feel of 1982. If you notice, the young lady is wearing white sneakers with her dress. The video was actually done by filming the entire video and then drawing the scenes. Watch it for yourself, it’s tres cool:

Because the series is a few years old and VH-1 redesigned their site, you can’t navigate through the episodes so here are the links for each episode:

100 Greatest One Hit Wonders (100-81)
100 Greatest One Hit Wonders (80-61)
100 Greatest One Hit Wonders (60-41)
100 Greatest One Hit Wonders (40-21)
100 Greatest One Hit Wonders (20-1)

Last week, before Mikey went off to camp, we had a little incident while I was at work. Mikey ran away! The gardener had left the gate open while he moved the mower from the front to the back yard and Mikey took the opportunity to go exploring the neighborhood. It took Michel a little while before she realized that Mikey had taken off so by the time she got outside to look for him he was gone. She was running, screaming up and down the block and our neighbors came out to help look for him. Michel called 911 and the police were dispatched and an Amber alert was in the process of being declared since their was no way of knowing if Mikey had been kidnapped or not. It was at this moment, as Michel was on the phone with 911 that a car drove up in front of our house. Sitting in the back seat with a big smile on his face was the little monster himself. A person who lives a couple of blocks away from us, a complete stranger to us, spotted Mikey walking down the street. Although we didn’t know him, he has seen Mikey outside of our house so he drove him home. Needless to say, Michel was in near hysterics by then. I’m just glad that it was a good stranger who found Mikey and not a bad stranger.

Anyway, now we need to look into alarming the house and finding some type of ID, possibly with GPS, for Mikey to wear. He is a little trouble maker!

Two things have happened since the last time I posted a picture of Mikey. First, Mikey got his hair cut. Yes, those long, beautiful, curly locks were chopped off. He had his hair cut at school and they said he was a perfect angel. They sat him in front of the computer and the only time he looked up was when hair fell on the keyboard.

Second, he is off to Camp Loyaltown for the week. We dropped him off at the bus yesterday at AHRC. Camp Loyaltown is a respite camp located near Hunter Mountain in the Catskills. This will be his third summer up there. He always has a fantastic time but he will be gone until Sunday and we are going to miss him. At the same time, it is a chance for us to reload, in a sense, and be even better parents to Mikey. When we arrived at the school he was really excited when he saw the buses. He ran right over and jumped on his bus. Last year I had to walk him onto the bus but this year he barely gave us a wave goodbye. Mommy cried all the way home. The house is way too quiet without him.

This was written in response to a series of posts over on the Downsyn forums. The first was from one of our members, Michelle, about how her dog became sick after eating a certain dog treat. The second was from Shea and listed a few good brands of poet food. This post is to expand on that.

All the brands that Shea mentioned are excellent choices and I have included that list, expanded with a few additional brands, below. We feed our cats and dog Pet Promise because of their commitment to insuring the high quality of their foods but there are many excellent brands.

However, just because a brand advertises itself as a gourmet brand does not make it a good choice. Iams is a BAD choice. It is no better quality than Purina but at a much higher price. In fact, some of the Iams products (and Eukanuba - both distribuited by P&G) were recalled. Check your ingredient labels. Meat by-products are always in the ingredient list for Iams. Science Diet also uses meat by-products in at least some of their flavors.

Are meat by-products really that bad?

Meat By-Products are parts of slaughtered animals, not including meat. Included are lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, liver, blood, bone, partially defatted low-temperature fatty tissue, and stomach and intestines freed of their contents. Meat by-products may also legally contain: 4D animals (dead, dying, diseased, down), road kill, euthanized cats and dogs, including their collars. These source products are rendered, the fat is siphoned off to be used as “animal fat,” and the remaining material is extruded to form “meat by-product meal.” Do you really want to feed that to your pet?

So which brands make high quality foods?

The following is a list of brands that do not use meat by-products or fillers in their pet foods:
Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover’s Soul
Newman’s Own
Blue Buff
Pet Promise
Wellness
Merrick
Innova
Royal Canin
Nutro

This is far from a complete list but at least a few of these brands can be found in any good pet food store. As you can see, there are many excellent foods for our pets but you have to carefully read the labels. If you find a brand not on this list, check to make sure that the ingredients are all high quality and that it is manufactured in the USA or Canada.

Things to keep in mind:

• No meat by-products or chicken by-products.
• No corn meal (corn gluten meal is OK)
• Avoid beef - causes allergies especially in cats
• Chicken is the best source of protein for pets
• Dogs usually don’t care if they eat the same thing every day but cats like variety - vary the food for cats by switching between chicken and fish
• Canned food is better for pets than dry food especially for cats. Cats do not like to drink much water and so they need to get it from their food.
• Dogs can eat cat food without any ill effects (Lily gets whatever food we try that the cats don’t like). But cats can not be given a diet of dog food. Cat food contains taurine, an amino acid that cats absolutely require. Cats will go blind without taurine.

When you hear the name of Arthur Miller, you think of a brilliant American playwright and briefly the husband of Marilyn Monroe. After reading this article, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to think of Arthur Miller in any way except as an evil, selfish, son-of-a-bitch. I could forgive the foolishness of abandoning his son to an institution in 1966, but to have turned his back on him for the remainder of his life is unforgivable.

The important part of the story, [Jean Bowen, disability-rights advocate] says, is that Danny transcended his father’s failures: “He’s made a life for himself; he is deeply valued and very, very loved. What a loss for Arthur Miller that he couldn’t see how extraordinary his son is.”

Arthur Miller’s Missing Act

Tags: Arthur Miller, Down syndrome, people who suck

As if everything else that has happened wasn’t enough, Wednesday night I get a call on the phone from some stranger telling me that Michel has had a car accident. It’s just a few blocks away so I drop everything and run over there. Some old woman had run a stop sign and slammed into our car. Of course, she is claiming that it is Michel’s fault. Apparently Michel beamed down from the USS Enterprise and suddenly appeared in front of this woman who had no choice but to ram the front of her car into the side of our poor Volvo. No one was seriously injured but Michel had twisted her back and had to go the ER to get a few X-rays to make sure nothing was seriously wrong. She was on the verge of being able to go back to work again and then this happens.

We ended up getting out of the ER around 12:30 AM. Fortunately my sister came in the next morning to help with the kids and take Beth to her concert otherwise I would have had to take a day off from work. Since I just started my new job that wouldn’t have been a good way to make an impression.

Anyway, I’m thinking of having Michel’s name changed to Job. God definitely seems to have it in for her.