Hey, we got our new cribbage 29 board today! We’d been playing cribbage for a good part of the day (both 8-card and 10-card) on the big board although the 29 board will have to get its workout tomorrow.
It’s just like the one we had before it got lost last year in the move. If you’re interested in getting one, it comes with a full set of rules, pegs and even a little history of cribbage.
I will say I’ve never heard of the word “take” used for the stage of the game in which you count your hand and crib total points. We’re used to calling this the “show.”
29 board as shipped29 board unboxedcribbage rules p1cribbage rules p2
I’ve been comparing the Iowa legislature bills on allowing ivermectin to be available over-the-counter in pharmacies. There were two of them and then there was one.
In the first bill, HF 2056, the language in it seemed to strongly direct pharmacists to make ivermectin available by using the word “shall”:
” The medical director of the department shall establish a standing order authorizing the dispensing of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin by a pharmacist.
Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, a pharmacist shall dispense hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin to a patient who is at least eighteen years of age, upon the request of a patient, pursuant to a standing order established by the medical director of the department in accordance with this section.”
The bill goes to say that “A pharmacist shall be immune from criminal and civil liability arising from any damages caused by the dispensing or use of…” these agents.
In Governor Reynolds version of the bill (included in HF 2676, successor to HSB 964), at least today, uses the word “may”:
“Sec. 17. NEW SECTION. 126.24 Ivermectin—prescription drug order not required.
A pharmacist or pharmacy may distribute ivermectin for human consumption as an over-the-counter medicine.
A pharmacist or pharmacy shall not be subject to professional discipline or civil or criminal penalties for the distribution of ivermectin pursuant to this section.”
I think the word “may” in Governor Reynolds’s bill implies a pharmacist can distribute ivermectin, but is not necessarily required to do so. In the HF 2056 bill (which died in the first funnel) the word “shall” implies the pharmacist must do so. Hydroxychloroquine is not mentioned in the governor’s version of the bill.
Although neither of these bills mentioned why the ivermectin bill is being introduced, I think it’s clear that some people think it could be an alternative to vaccines for Covid-19. Because research shows ivermectin is ineffective for treating Covid-19 and because they’re not FDA approved for that, I doubt any pharmacist would choose to do what the bill says.
This seems to be turning into a weird game of “Captain, May I?” I think the majority of pharmacists would rather not play.
Well, remember that Cribbage 29 board we lost in the move that I blogged about in December? They were out of stock until a few days ago. Sena ordered one and we should be getting it pretty soon. It’s a 10-inch board. The cut card printed on it is 5 spades.
So, we’ll have to have a rematch. Lately, we’ve been picking cribbage variations (but not like late last year!). We’ve been playing mostly 6-card, 7-card, and 10-card variants.
It’s funny, but the YouTube video of us playing a game on the 29 board in 2020 got a few more views (for a while) after I reposted it a couple of months ago with the post about the history of the 29 board. We had a rematch about 3 years ago and Sena won.
Neither one of us has ever been lucky enough to get a 29 hand because the odds of getting it are 1 in 216, 580. Now, the odds of getting a 28 hand are 1 in 15, 028. The only time I ever got that was in a Cribbage Pro computer game playing against Brutal last September.
We’ll have to make another video of the rematch after we get the new 29 board. Who do you got your money on?
Last night the Sven Squad presented the movie, “The Mist” on the Svengoolie show. This one is hard to simply poke fun at. It’s also hard to compare to Stephen King’s novella of the same name published in 1980 because I’ve never read it.
The graphic violence throughout the film and the ending left me cold. I think even the Sven Squad had a difficult time making jokes in between scenes.
That said, the story and characters reminded me of certain kinds of people and certain themes. One kind of person is the cult leader. In the film this would be Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden). She was this hyper religious person who acted crazy, yet managed to convince a large number of people that she was the savior who could deliver everyone in the grocery store from the horrible fate lurking in the mist. This turns out to be human sacrifice, which is what some ancient cultures did to appease the gods and also gave them a sense of control over nature.
For some strange reason, she was not eaten by one of the monsters, despite the fact it landed on her chest, climbed up on her neck and sprinkled salt, pepper, and oregano on her face.
It also reminds me of cult leaders who managed to persuade many people to commit suicide, e.g., Jim Jones (Peoples Temple) in the 1970s, Marshall Applewhite (Heaven’s Gate) and David Koresh (Branch Davidians) in the 1990s.
I wasn’t sad about Mrs. Carmody’s fate.
One theme I think of from this movie is hubris. Sure, it’s something that will trigger bad memories for some people of their undergraduate college days, but I think it explains why the military decided they could safely open a portal between dimensions. Hubris is overweening pride and means you’re tempting the gods to destroy you when you think you can get away with sticking your chewing gum under your seat at the movies. People think they can control whatever monsters they find in the universe and can stuff trouble back in Pandora’s box.
Another common idea nowadays is that some otherwise unexplainable creatures you almost never see in real life and never find fossils for (like Bigfoot) might be because they are interdimensional beings. Hey, that works for some people.
So, you can go ahead and keep looking for wormholes and portals that open up the gates of hell and there you go. You just let a mosquito the size of an SUV in the house. Are there doorknobs on portals? Did you listen to your mother when she told you to shut the screen door behind you?
No, and you know who you are.
I got a kick out of Ollie Weeks (Toby Jones) who could shoot a monster by turning his back on it and using a mirror and firing backwards over his shoulder, blasting it into next week. How many bullets did that gun have? I thought it was ten but it seemed like there were more, even though it misfired once. Ollie was a hero without hubris.
I didn’t get the ending and I’m not going to put in a spoiler on it. But it’s another place where the number of bullets in the gun gets to be the focus of some reviewers who have horrible suggestions.
This movie is tough to rate because it takes itself too seriously. The acting was riveting in some scenes and just overdone in others, in my opinion. It’s not for kids, yet there was a little kid who played a big role in it. The ending seems to lend itself mainly to instructions on how to commit homicide and suicide. The cavalry arrives too late. It’s packed with action but it lacks heroes to admire, except for self-effacing, deadeye Ollie.
I’m giving this movie a Shrilling Chicken Rating of 3/5.
I heard a song entitled “Cheese and Crackers” on the Big Mo Blues Show last night. I’ve heard a few times over the years, but I never looked up what it meant until today.
The song was originally written by a rockabilly singer named Hayden Thompson, although I’ve only heard it sung by blues artist Roscoe Gordon. According to a Reddit social media thread, “Cheese and Crackers” was the B side of a record by Thompson and the A side was “Shoobie Oobie.” Thompson couldn’t find anyone to arrange the “Cheese and Crackers” lyrics at a recording studio and left in a huff, leaving the lyrics on the piano.
Roscoe found it and put it in an R&B arrangement. Billboard magazine called it the strangest new release of the week. The song is about a guy repeatedly being offered cheese and crackers although he doesn’t like or want them. According to a Wikipedia article, the term “cheese and crackers” is a kind of mild swear word chilled down from “Jesus Christ.”
That’s funny, because that’s how I feel about all the anti-vaccine bills coming out of the Iowa Legislature this year. One of them is SF 2095, which seeks to penalize private postsecondary colleges and universities if they don’t accommodate students who want to be exempt from all vaccines for any reason and to find clinical training programs who will accept them. An excerpt from the bill:
“A postsecondary school offering a degree requiring a clinical rotation shall, upon request of a student enrolled in the degree program, identify a clinical rotation placement where the student will be permitted an exemption from any vaccination requirements imposed by the placement location during the duration of the student’s clinical rotation.
A postsecondary school not in compliance shall not qualify as an eligible institution for the purposes of Iowa tuition grant.”
The other punishment could be a fine. Unless I’m looking on the web in the wrong place, I don’t find any such facility anywhere in Iowa. That would mean the postsecondary private school would be punished for something it can’t control. I’m pretty sure that would be called unjust—or maybe tricky if the goal is to coerce clinical training program leaders to loosen up their vaccine exemption policies. Right now, the only exemptions are religion or medical.
This sounds like the Iowa legislature is offering us cheese and crackers. No thank you.
This is just a quick update to the Iowa legislature anti-vaccine bills as far as which ones have passed what is called the first funnel. Here’s a link to the definition of a funnel.
SF 2095: This bill is about private colleges or universities that would be punished if they don’t make accommodations for students in health care education program who want to avoid getting vaccines.
HF 2171: This bill would remove the requirement for children in primary and secondary schools to get vaccinations. I think this bill is dangerous and unnecessarily puts children at risk for infectious diseases including diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, poliomyelitis, rubeola, rubella, and varicella.
HF 2287: This was the bill that sought to make vaccine manufacturers who want to sell their products in Iowa give up their immunity from lawsuits under the Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.
I couldn’t find out where the ivermectin over-the-counter bills (HF 2056 and HSB 694) were in the funnel as of today.
That make 5 bills in the Iowa legislature that are anti-vaccine-5 bills too many.
I should stop reading the news. I’ve just found a couple of other Iowa Legislature bills that are anti-vaccine.
One of them is the HF 2287 I mentioned yesterday that would make vaccine manufacturers steer clear of Iowa altogether.
Another two I just discovered today:
HF 2171: This one which seeks to make vaccines for school age children voluntary. No child in elementary or secondary school in Iowa would have to be vaccinated against diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, poliomyelitis, rubeola, rubella, and varicella. This is not safe for anyone.
SF 2095: This one seeks to exempt students from vaccines in medical, nursing, or other health care-related degree programs.
There’s a news article about SF 2095 which makes it clear what it is about. I don’t understand why a person studying medicine or any other health care-related degree program would not need to get vaccinated against communicable diseases. This bill would require private schools to provide some other alternative training program instead of those that require vaccinations. If they don’t, they’d be penalized, either by losing access to the Iowa Tuition Grant Program—or getting fined. None of that makes sense to me. If you’re in training to be a doctor, you should get vaccinated. If you don’t understand why vaccinations are vital to practicing medicine, you shouldn’t be in medicine.
If I sound like a curmudgeon about all this, so be it. I’m a retired doctor and I graduated from the University of Iowa College of Medicine in 1992. I spent my career practicing consultation-liaison psychiatry, so I was always at the interface between medicine and psychiatry. It was always a challenge for me to balance the art and science of medicine. And I didn’t always do it very well.
But I’m puzzled by what looks like an awkward imbalance in the view of medicine today. I’m a little cranky about it, and I like to think my age entitles me to react that way sometimes. I could add a quote from William Osler here, but I’m more prone to jokes as a I get older, probably because I know I’m no wiser than anyone else.
Did you hear Chuck Norris got the Covid vaccine? The vaccine is now immune to everything.
I see we have yet another bill introduced in the Iowa legislature seeking to make vaccine manufacturers liable for “design defects” resulting in injuries related to vaccines. This feels like déjà vu. Last year HF 712 targeted the Covid 19 vaccine. The bill died in the funnel. This year, the same sponsors introduced HF 2287—which is a similar bill that would target all vaccines.
One news story indicated that the sponsors were open to adding an amendment that would allow vaccine manufacturers to distribute vaccines in Iowa as long as patients sign a form that waives their right to sue the manufacturer as long as they are informed of the risks. I’m not sure how the forms would be made available to the public.
I thought patients, under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, already have access to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP). Even if they don’t get compensated through that program, they can still sue the manufacturers. I thought the “design defect” issue had been dealt with.
This new bill broadens the products in that it looks like it includes all vaccines, even those children typically get. There are already many parties have gone on record opposing HF 2287, including but not limited to:
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America
Iowa Medical Society
Iowa Pharmacy Association
Iowa Association of Rural Health Clinics
Iowa Public Health Association
Iowa Chapter-American Academy of Pediatrics
I think vaccine manufacturers will avoid Iowa if this bill becomes law. It could lead to an uptick in the communicable diseases burden, as though we need any more of that.
We watched the movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still” today. It was made in 1951 and I’d never seen it. Sena thinks she did a long time ago. You can watch it on the Internet Archive. Similar movies didn’t make much of a splash, some of which you might remember:
“The Sacking of Punxsutawney Phil”: An expose of how the groundhog gets fired because it can’t reliably predict when spring begins.
“The Loser Always Pays the Bill”: A delightful comedy about two guys who play Rock, Paper. Scissors 30,000 times to decide who pays for lunch.
“Let’s Get Stewed to the Gills”: An experimental film in which 3 college freshmen find ways to cope with higher education by pouring beer in everything they consume.
Anyway, the movie is about an extraterrestrial named Klaatu and his robot Gort who land in Washington, D.C. to warn everybody that it’s best not to blow up Earth and other nearby planets with nuclear weapons unless you want the robot cops like Gort from Venus to spank everybody in sight.
I can’t poke fun at this movie like I do with all the Svengoolie films. The story is fascinating, the acting is superb, and it’s been called one of the 12 greatest science fiction films of all time by none other than Arthur C. Clarke (according to Wikipedia). The cast includes Michael Rennie as Klaatu, Patricia Neal as Helen Benson, and Sam Jaffe as Professor Jacob Barnhardt.
It was based on a short story “Farewell to the Master” by Harry Bates, which you can read in its entirety on the web because the person who posted it says there’s no record of copyright currently on file.
I read “Farewell to the Master” and I can say I’m glad the movie used the name Gort instead of Gnut for the giant robot.
Now that I’ve seen the movie, I’m still inclined to speculate that maybe Frank E. Stranges got the idea for his book “Stranger at the Pentagon” from it, but there’s no way to prove it. If you google the name of the character Valiant Thor in Stranges book, you’ll get photographs back of a man who happens to be an Australian actor named Cody Fern who was on a TV show I’ve never seen, “American Horror Story.” He played Valiant Thor and this contributes to the lore surrounding a fictional character and tends to give it a sort of semblance of reality. Stranges contributed to the mystique by presenting the events in the story as historical fact.
But the importance of the movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still” is the warning to the leaders of the nations of the world in the early days of the Cold War (and even today) that playing with nuclear matches is a bad idea.
The weather was superb yesterday and we visited our favorite walking trail out at Terry Trueblood Recreation Area—along with a lot of people who had the same idea. It was around 60 degrees and not a cloud in the azure blue sky.
The highlight was the big flocks of white birds with black markings under the wings sailing over Sand Lake. Observers we encountered had different opinions about what species they were.
At first, I thought they were pelicans, which are frequent visitors at the park. On the other hand, a few thought they were storks and for a while I took their side. The further we walked and the more video I got, and the more people we talked with, the less sure we were about these very large white birds. Many people were very sure they were pelicans.
After we got home, I looked on the internet for education about how to tell the difference between storks and pelicans—and was convinced that the birds we saw were pelicans. I was able to enlarge a picture I pulled from one of my video clips which showed clearly the large bill.
I guess this is a good place for Dixon Lanier Merritt’s 1910 limerick about the pelican:
“A wonderful bird is the Pelican.
His beak can hold more than his belly can.
He can hold in his beak
Enough food for a week!
But I’m darned if I know how the hellican!”
Despite the tall tales about storks bearing babies, the fact is their beaks are narrow.
So, this actually takes me back to the one person on our walk who was convinced that the large, wheeling birds were storks. She joked around about the idea a little and asked Sena if she knew the story about how Dumbo was born. It just so happened was lost on us because we’d never seen the 1941 Disney film Dumbo and it turns out that a stork brought Dumbo to the train dragging a car full of elephants, one of which was Mrs. Dumbo.
And there’s a very complicated explanation of the stork myth about them delivering babies to mothers—although not in their beaks but in a bundle.
Aside from the pelicans, we saw many signs of spring, including buds on the trees, the ice melting on Sand Lake, and people gazing at the sky-waiting for spring.
Go Retire Psychiatrist 