I've been watching episodes of "Thriller", the early 1960s anthology series hosted by Boris Karloff.

When the show originally aired, it came on at 9PM on Tuesday nights, which was past my bedtime for a school night in those days. That's probably why I don't remember it too well. In fact the episode that I remember best is the one entitled "The Cheaters", a truly chilling (at least I thought so then) story about a pair of spectacles that let the wearer see through the lies that most people tell. Since that show was first broadcast on December 27, 1960, I was probably able to see its first airing.

Anyway, last night I watched "The Fatal Impulse", in which a thwarted assassin drops his miniature bomb into the bag of one of the "girls" in a crowded elevator.

This is one of the better episodes of those that I've seen, although its leisurely pace seems strangely at odds with the ticking bomb nature of its story. But that pace is just a reflection of its time.

Also a reflection of its time is its use of "girls" for women and the casual depiction of cigarette smoking.

Anyway, what really struck me about the show was its cast, which featured many actors who would go on to star in some notable series in the 1960s and beyond, as well as one of those ubiquitous character actors whose face everyone recognized but whose name no one knew in the days before imdb.com, Elisha Cooke Jr.

Whitney Blake, of course, achieved fame as Don Defore's wife in "Hazel", and Ed Nelson went on to star in television's first prime time soap opera, "Peyton Place".

Robert Lansing made many television and movie appearances, but I don't think any one stands out.

And then there's that "girl" in the glasses. What did she ever do?

Shortly after moving to the city in 1980, I attended a Philadelphia Orchestra concert at the Academy of Music with Eugene Ormandy conducting Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra. Throughout the rest of the 80's and most of the 90's I was a frequent attender and often a subscriber, usually seeing between six and twelve concerts every season.

But once I moved to the Wissahickon neighborhood in 2001, my concert-going came to a halt.

Which is a long way of saying that yesterday was the first concert I attended in the orchestra's new concert hall. It won't be my last.

I never had a problem with the acoustics in the Academy of Music, everything sounded very clear, if a bit dry, and I now know a bit lacking in base. Well, everything is still clear in their hall in the Kimmel Center, but now there is a significant improvement in the base sounds. The sound is now more visceral.

The best way I can describe it is that I never went to the Academy of Music for the sound, because my stereo system always sounded better to me. No more. The fortissimos finally sound like fortissimos.

As a bonus, the audience sounds aren't nearly as distracting as they used to be. I'm not sure why but in the Academy the rustles and coughs seemed to blend in with the music, but in the Kimmel Center the audience sounds are clearly in a different acoustic, and thus easier to filter out.

But the big story is the conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin. This was the first of two appearances this season of the orchestra's future music director. As he entered the stage, microphone in hand, to address the audience, he was greeted by thunderous applause. By my count there were six rounds of applause before the music started.

Nézet-Séguin used a slightly larger complement of strings to play the Haydn Symphony #100, and he elicited a warm, thrilling rendition from the Philadelphians. He had alerted the audience to a surprise in the "military" movement, and although I knew what it was, it was still something of a thrill to hear the very trumpet call in the Haydn work that would later form the starting point of Mahler's Fifth Symphony, the work that concluded the concert. (Note to self; fix the syntax in that last sentence.)

It was in the Mahler that Nézet-Séguin and the orchestra really triumphed. His performance was exhilarating. I was especially curious to hear how he approached the Adagietto. Would he play it as a funereal dirge as has become the custom, or would he treat it as the love song that Mahler so clearly meant it to be? Happily, he opted for the love music.

And I felt real goose bumps as the climax of the piece rang out on the full orchestra. Those Philly brass players have never sounded so great.

Both conductor and orchestra received an extended and well-earned ovation.

My next concert isn't until February. Can't wait.

Richard Haefner was called many things during his 58 years.

[...]

But one thing Haefner, who died in 2002, was never called was a murderer.

Until now.

It would be great for everyone involved if this case could finally be closed.

I've been reading the writings of Andrew Tobias (his books and his online columns; I highly recommend  The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need) for years. A Democrat, he tries to find common ground with his critics in order to engage them in conversation.

That's all well and good, but one consequence is that he doesn't always challenge the false premises of his commenters.

Case in point, in yesterday's column he quoted the following:

Skip Sherrod: “You write, ‘He [Munger] is one Republican who favors keeping Social Security just as it is.’ How anyone could favor keeping Social Security ‘just as it is’ is beyond me. The idea was actuarially unsound from the get go and in its present form will be financially unsustainable for future generations. Those I.O.U.s in the Social Security Trust Fund may be counted as assets, but we can’t pay benefits with them. Lord knows there have been enough impending Social Security crisis warnings issued to choke a goat.”

And Tobias responded:

Well, when a super-no-nonsense self-made Republican billionaire takes this view, I’d suggest you not dismiss it out of hand.

The Clinton budget “surpluses” George W. Bush told us were “our money” that we should demand back as tax cuts (mainly for the best off among us) were in large measure not surpluses at all, but cash to be set aside for the Trust Fund.  Not as in securities as Merrill Lynch, but as a strong national balance sheet, with low National Debt, that would allow the debt to rise as needed, somewhat, to meet these obligations.  Hence President Clinton’s parting theme, as he handed the surplus to his successor:  “Save Social Security First.”  Meaning: before you spend the surplus on other things, like wars of choice, or squander it on tax cuts for folks who are getting by just fine already.  Instead, the Republicans did squander it.  Hugely imprudent, huge problem, and I hate that enough Democrats went along to allow it – but tax cuts, once proposed by the chief executive, are very hard to vote against.

All that said, my guess is that Charlie Munger’s off-the-cuff “just as is” wouldn’t preclude a little tinkering around the edges other type I’ve written about in the past.  That’s all it would take to get the benefits in line with the demographics.  (1) I’d keep 62 as the age for early retirement.  But, where currently the full-benefits retirement age rises one month per year to 67 in 2027, I would let it keep rising to 69 in 2051.  (Hey: “Seventy is the new fifty-five.”) (2) Where the 6.2% tax rate you and your employer each pay drops to zero on wages above a certain cap, I’d have it drop to 1% instead.  Annoying, but not a killer. (And worth paying so that grandma – much as we love her – doesn’t have to move in.)  (3) I’d keep raising benefits with inflation.  But for higher-income recipients, I’d calculate those benefits based on price inflation, not wage inflation, in years when prices rose slower than wages.  Bang: you’re done.  A bit of pain around the edges, with plenty of time to prepare for it, and the Social Security problem is solved.

Over the years I've often sent short email comments to Tobias, and he usually responds with a quick thank you note. However, this time I sent him the following:

Andy,

I was very disappointed to read in your latest column that you are jumping on the bandwagon to cut Social Security benefits by raising the full-benefits age. You glibly say that "Seventy is the new fifty-five", and it may well be -- for those who've spent their lives doing cushy office work (like me - I'm 61, retired, and I don't feel a day over 40). It doesn't take a lot of brawn to keep pushing a mouse around or type on a computer's keyboard.

But what about all the people who are employed in manual labor-type jobs? The nytimes recently published an article on just this issue.

There's also the problem with all the people in their late 50's, say, who lost their jobs due to the current economic crisis. Many of these folks may never again be able to find a job.

Especially because of our current economic woes, I think we should be lowering the retirement age, not raising it.

Rather than trying to reason with people who, like your correspondent Skip today, claim that Social Security "was actuarially unsound from the get go and in its present form will be financially unsustainable for future generations", I wish you would point out that Social Security is, in fact, very sound. Without making any changes, it will be able to pay out full benefits until at least 2037, and after that it only requires minor tweaks to keep it going (such as the suggestion that you've adopted of dropping the rate to 1% rather than zero above a certain wage level).

--JT

Somewhat to my surprise he replied a few hours later with a thoughtful note:

Thanks.

As the proposed changes on age wouldn't begin to kick in until 2028, no one currently currently 49 or older would be affected by them.

But to ask a 48-y-o to save enough to allow for one more month before his or her full Social Sec benefit kicks in (and someone currenty 24 to plan to have to wait to 69 instead of 67) seems to me the kind of sacrifice we may have to endure in the present circumstance.

With luck, our economic fortunes will so improve we'll someday be able to reverse this.

Best,

Andy

To which I replied with:

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

Just a couple points. You didn't address the problem of laborers who really can't keep working until they reach the current full retirement age, let alone a higher one in the future. And I'd be a lot more willing to ask the 98% to make a reasonable-sounding sacrifice if once - just once - we saw the 2% at the top do a little sacrificing.

Thanks again.

And he came back with:

It's an important point, and one reason I would not raise the early retirement age. In the past, I've called for a lower age for physical laborers . . . it's just that it's hard to see how that gets administered fairly and without causing great rancor -- gradations of physical labor, and gradations of what other work they could do, and how long they did it -- and all that.

Ps -- I am so with you on the 2%. But having that extra 1% is not entirely trivial -- you may already be paying close to 50 cents on the dollar in some states, so this is actually 2% of what you had left. 

I sent him one more note to ask his permission to publish our exchange, which he graciously granted, only asking that I include his original post.

So here it is. And no, I've never actually had dinner with Andrew Tobias. It just sounded like a better title than "My Email Exchange with Andrew".

I was reading the book The First Word by Christine Keneally about the origins and evolution of human speech when I came upon this passage. Primate researcher Janette Wallis...

 

used hidden cameras to capture evidence of a baboon gesture she calls the muzzle wipe—a quick pass across the bridge of the nose with the hand. The muzzle wipe typically occurs in situations in which a baboon may be nervous or conflicted for some reason.

…Humans do put the hand to their face when nervous, and indeed, as she pointed out, psychiatrists and law enforcement officials often interpret a hand-to-face gesture as evidence of uncertainty or even deception.

Once Wallis convinced the audience that the muzzle wipe existed, she showed a video of George H.W. Bush. The ex-president was speaking at a press conference about his son the president of the United States. He discussed what was at the time headline news—George W. Bush’s having been arrested in his youth on a drunk-driving charge. “Unlike some,” said the older Bush in a tone of complete confidence, “he accepts responsibility.” He then raised his hand to the bridge of his nose and scratched it.

 

How the world can change in forty short years.

Back then, the word "homosexual" was never uttered on television, "gay" was still a synonym for "happy", and a guy could enjoy show tunes without having his guy-ness called into question.

Heck, back then most people could truthfully (if not strictly accurately) say that they didn't even know anyone who was gay.

(Just for some additional context, recall that Loving v. Virginia, which finally declared race-based restrictions on marriage were unconstitutional, was decided on June 12, 1967.)

I think the first time I encountered the word "gay" applied to homosexuals was in a controversial article in Life magazine from sometime in the mid-60's. The only thing I remember now from that article is its claim that gays liked to wear sneakers and sweaters, and the only reason I remember that is because it became a running gag among some of my crowd. Whenever we saw someone in sneakers we'd make a comment.

But then in the late 60's and early 70's a gay activist movement began to gain some traction. Before long, gay characters began appearing occasionally in television shows, most notably on a famous episode of "All in the Family", where Archie Bunker learned that one of his drinking buddies was gay.

Somewhere around then, psychiatrists decided that homosexuality was not a disease after all, but a normal aspect of humanity's sexual behavior.

Oh, there were some kinks in the road as gays became more visible in society, such as when a third rate singer tried to revive her career by starting a campaign to "Save the Children" from the gay down in Florida.

But by the very early 80's it seemed that gay people were well on their way to achieving great gains in civil rights.

That's when AIDS entered our national consciousness. Since it was initially considered a gay disease ("gay plague" was one of its earliest nicknames), AIDS probably set back the gay rights movement by at least ten years.

But a funny thing happened. As more and more gay people "came out", many folks discovered that not only did they in fact know someone who was gay, but gays weren't as threatening as they had once thought.

Probably the single largest factor determining whether someone is for or against gay rights is whether they know someone who is gay or if there is a gay person in their family. (For example, take the Cheney family. Please.)

The second largest factor is age; the younger one is, the more likely one is to support gay rights.

Anyway, some time in the mid-90's the idea of same sex marriage began to make its way slowly into the public discourse.

And now the idea doesn't seem very strange to large segments of the population. Overall, the country seems to be about equally divided on the issue, and there are even a handful of states where it has a slim majority in favor of it.

In 1966 Kander and Ebb's musical "Cabaret" opened on Broadway. Set in Germany during the period that the Nazis were coming into power, one of its songs was performed by a German woman and her Jewish fiancé:

How the world can change
It can change like that
Due to one little word
"Married".

How the world can change. Indeed.

So the FBI sez that Wikipedia can't display the FBI seal.

Do they mean this seal?

Working long distance, I in Philadelphia and she in Dover, PA, we made arrangements for a hall in Wernersville, PA. Well, actually Jane and Allen (our aunt and uncle) found the hall and were helpful in so many ways.

Although we planned for months and had a guest list of over 40, somehow our parents never caught on. They were really surprised, as you can see in the video.

In fact, for years afterward they kept marveling at how we kept it from them.

Reed and Lou recorded a lot of the event on their camcorders, and in 2003 I took their raw videos and edited them into a 15 minute presentation. Which is embedded here.

The video is in two parts, to meet Youtube's 10 minute limit.

In 2003 our parents insisted they didn't want another party, so we took them to New York, New York to see The Producers and the Bernadette Peters version of Gypsy. By then I had my own digital camcorder, but I wasn't very adept at using it. Consequently, although I shot more than Reed and Lou did, I had much less usable footage.

So the resulting video is much shorter.

BTW, one of the fun things about watching these videos together is seeing how much their grandson (and my nephew) Kevin grew in the intervening years.

So why not embed an entire Sondheim musical while I'm at it?

Here's a student production from ASU.

I usually get these wrong, but here goes.

I used to think that the Flash Sideways were the destination point for the series. That in the original timeline Desmond would do something that would shift the space/time continuum to create the timeline where the crash didn't happen, i.e. the Flash Sideways timeline.

But that would destroy all the character development of the past six years, making it meaningless.

Now what I think is that the Flash Sideways are the original timeline and that Sideways Desmond is going to work his magic mojo to rearrange the space/time continuum to bring about the timeline that we all know and love--the one where the crash happened.

So in other words in the crash timeline, what happened happened. Those who have died, really did die.

Great news!

The quacks, aka chiropractors, have dropped their lawsuit against Simon Singh!

The British Chiropractic Association has dropped its libel action against the science writer Simon Singh.

[...]

Dr Singh recently won an appeal that would have allowed him to use the fair comment defence in the case.

On Thursday, the website of William McCormick QC, one of the barristers acting for Simon Singh, said the British Chiropractic Association has served a "Notice of Discontinuance". This means the case is now over.

NBC is inviting viewers to submit questions for Matt Lauer to ask President Obama.

The interview will be airing on the Today show next Tuesday, I believe.

Here is the question that I submitted:

When discussing Indonesian human rights abuses, President Obama said, "We have to acknowledge that those past human rights abuses existed. We can't go forward without looking backwards..."

But last year when asked about investigating abuses by the United States, Obama said, "I'm a strong believer that it's important to look forward and not backwards, and to remind ourselves that we do have very real security threats out there."

Why is it important for Indonesia to acknowledge past abuses but not the United States?

At least, that's what I've heard.