Nobody 682

Sunday, January 21, 2007
Nobody # 682

Nobody Asked Me But:

My heart leaps up when I behold
A Rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!

The Child is father of the man;
And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety. – “The Rainbow,” by William Wordsworth

May each of us always love rainbows and the rising and setting sun and may we always allow our child to remain, at least partly, father to our man.<<<

Have the Iraqis lost their head? Actually just one of them in another botched up execution, complete with pictures of corpse here and head way over there. Of course, we have messed up a few electrical and chemical jobs ourselves, so I shouldn’t be too critical – glass houses and that sort of thing.<<<

As documented by historian Jeffrey Kimball:

As Nixon put it in March 1971: “We can't have [the South Vietnamese] knocked over brutally … " Kissinger finished the thought " … before the election." So Nixon and Kissinger pushed the South Vietnamese to "stand on their own," promising we'd support them if necessary. But at the same time, Kissinger assured the North Vietnamese — through China — that the U.S. wouldn't intervene to prevent a North Vietnamese victory — as long as that victory didn't come with embarrassing speed.

Can it be any clearer than this? Nixon, with Kissinger’s help, killed Americans in order to win an election. If you have any ambivalence about these two bastards, it is time to rid your self of it. Those people who hold up signs calling Kissinger a war criminal are absolutely right.<<<

I see where Senator Carl Levin, the new chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on CNN last Sunday that he did not believe Congress should “use the power of the purse” to halt the president’s plan and should go no further than approving non-binding resolutions opposing it. “Non-binding resolution?”

Tough as nails, those Democrats! I am sure that the Bush boys (and girl) are quaking in their Texas boots or Manolos.<<<

It certainly didn’t bother our president who was telling jokes later that day on 60 Minutes. He said that Saddam Hussein "was a significant source of instability" that needed to be removed, and then added: "Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude," implying that Iraq is now stabilized.

That was a joke wasn’t it?<<<

Do all of you remember Lowell Thomas? Of course you do. He was a radio news commentator from the 1930s and 40s. We were looking to get rid of some of our old books in storage, and I came across a book by Thomas, “History As You Heard It,” which contains excerpts from his broadcasts.

Here’s one: April 27, 1938 – “The Nazi government issued a new edict today, a regulation for Jews that bids fair to crush them. Hermann Goering, as economic dictator, issued a degree empowering Hermann Goering, as administrator of the four-year plan, to use all assets owned by Jewish people. Thereupon he issued another degree ordering Jews in Germany to register and list everything they owned.”

Reading this and dreaming back into history, I wish I could say that at least one among the many good reasons we fought against Hitler was to save the Jews. Instead I know that in our country, as in much of the world, Jewish sympathizers were a minority compared to the anti-Semitic and the apathetic.

Would that I could persuade all of you to read Phillip Roth’s great novel from last year, “The Plot Against America.” Perhaps his fantasy could never have happened here, but it might have been close.<<<

STUDENT WATCH - BETTER KNOWN AS THE DEPARTMENT OF I TAUGHT THEM ALL THEY KNOW:

America Ferrera, who won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in A Television Comedy Or Musical last Monday, could never stop laughing at my history teaching.<<<

Gilbert Arenas scored 51 points, also last Monday, becoming only the second active player to do that three times in the same season. (Kobe is the other) Ask him and he will tell you that he owes it all to watching me make paper-ball jump shots into the wastebasket.<<<

Back to the Golden Globes. In a strange twist, Clint Eastwood’s “Letters From Iwo Jima” won the best foreign language film prize. The somewhat bemused director commented that he “might make a Hungarian or Lithuanian movie next.”<<<

Still on the GG – I saw their choice for Best Picture, “Babel” last Tuesday. Here is my brief review:

I don’t care if it did win a Golden Globe, “Babel” is not the best movie of 2006. The three I wrote about earlier were all better. But make no mistake. “Babel” is very good, especially if you are skilled at connecting the dots and following mazes.

Like its biblical namesake, the Tower of Babel, the film mixes languages, locations and stories. The latter travel full circle and finally come together with endings both happy and sad. The touchstone incident is the accidental shooting of a woman who is traveling with her husband in Morocco as they try to put their marriage back together. Why they need to, and why Morocco, is never made clear – at least to this viewer. The shot is fired by a boy who herds goats for his father. The rifle he used was a gift from a Japanese businessman to his hunting trip guide, who later sold it to the father. The Japanese man has a teen daughter who is deft and mute and traumatized by the memory of her mother’s suicide. Meanwhile the couple’s children are being cared for a Mexican illegal who is almost like a family member.

So let’s count the stories. We have the couple stuck in Morocco waiting for medical help and evacuation while the State Department drags its feet. Then we have the Moroccan police trying to find the shooter. Next there is the Japanese girl, a teen in Tokyo, looking for love in all the wrong places. And, finally, we have the Mexican nanny who, not wanting to miss her son’s wedding, takes the children with her to Mexico.

Time and story weave their way from present, to future and back and forth again. It is a credit to the director and the excellent cast that the result is a whole and not pieces scattered in the viewer’s mind.

In a **** system, I give this a ***1/2.<<<

Last year the Dodgers acquired left-handed pitcher Mark Hendrickson in a trade. They paid him $1.95M. This past week they re-signed him for $2.925M, a million dollar raise for a below average year, and with a 6-15 record and a .421 ERA, the “below average” is being kind. Not a bad reward for failure, especially when you consider that even an excellent teacher doesn’t get quite that much.<<<

And on the same subject – more dollars than sense:

It was Justice Potter Stewart who said of the difficulty of defining obscenity, “I know it when I see it.” About 10 days ago, after prolonged denials, Miami Dolphin coach Nick Saben accepted the coaching position at the University of Alabama. For walking in The Bear’s footprints, Saben will be paid just under $4M a year, making him the highest paid state employee in the history of Alabama.

Now that’s obscene.<<<

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (AP) -- Sen. Joseph Biden, a Democratic presidential hopeful said Monday he thinks the Confederate flag should be kept off South Carolina's Statehouse grounds.

Of course it should. Southerners are whistling Dixie when they claim the Stars and Bars represents not a defense of slavery but a remembrance of a way of life. That is like saying that the Nazi Swastika has little to do with genocide.<<<

Try to follow this logic – I dare you.

Joe Cline lived in Alabama and worked for a company that made benzene. From his exposure to that chemical he developed leukemia. But when he tried to sue, the state Supreme Court threw out the case ruling that there was never a valid time for him to sue. Now here it comes: Alabama says a person cannot sue for exposure until “manifest injury develops. But they also have a statute of limitations requiring that such a suit must be filed within two years of exposure. So, if you live, work and are damaged by your job, you had better hope that you get cancer fast.<<<

Tucson headline: Cops track sex for sale on craigslist Makes sense. Since one goes to the list for day labor, why not noon and night as well?<<<

On tectonic evolution:

Ten million years from now, says Dr. Robert S. Dietz, “Los Angeles will be abreast of San Francisco.” And in another 50 million years,” he added, “Los Angeles will have moved up the west coast into Alaskan waters.”

Question: Could our recent cold spell mean that nature has speeded up the process? We may not yet have reached Alaska but it feels like we are close.<<<

Stephen Colbert said it best at the correspondent’s dinner:

"Bush will believe the same thing on Wednesday that he thought on Monday, irregardless of what happened on Tuesday."<<<

Our President also told Jim Lehrer a few nights ago that in 20 years, radical Shiites could be warring with radical Sunnis and Middle Eastern oil could fall into the hands of radicals, who might also get weapons of mass destruction.

Ah, help me out here. Isn’t that close to the same argument he used to justify the war in the first place?

My how times have changed – not!<<<

UCLA 73, University of Arizona 69. (As you can see by the picture, to give the Cats a chance, some Bruins played blind) .Now we are 17-1 and I am ecstatic but exhausted. It is hard work willing them to victory!<<<

No 683 next week as we will be returning that day from Barb’s birthday trip to Laguna and LaJolla. HAPPY BIRTHDAY (TUESDAY) TO MY WIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!