Nobody 687

Sunday, February 25, 2007
Nobody # 687

Nobody Asked Me But:

"Most of us become parents long before we have stopped being children." Mignon McLaughlin – Journalist.

(But some of us get lucky)

Happy Birthday on Wednesday, Elizabeth! (actually my Leap Year girl has no official birthday this year)<<<

I’ll start today with a provocative statement: Any act, which has at its base genuine empathy, is moral. Agree or prove me wrong.<<<

In the same provocative vein, here’s a bit of dialogue from the latest Jesse Stone novel, “High Profile,” by Robert B. Parker:

Stone – “We are all responsible for what we do. If you don’t believe that, what the hell else is there?”
Jenn – “It’s not always true. We both know that.”

Stone – “But we have to act as if it was true.”

I think Parker is right in both cases. Responsibility is the gravitational core that makes a free society possible. If I cannot help myself because I am a prisoner of my nature and nurture, then anything goes. But because we know that there are degrees of responsibility we temper justice with understanding. However, that lady’s scales must always lean towards the weight of responsibility.<<<

Tim Rutten, in the LA Times last week, told the story about the group of university professors gathered for drinks in the rooms of a distinguished Viennese colleague. In the course of the evening, their talk turns to what each might want, if they could have anything in the world. Their wishes take a variety of forms, until finally the choice comes round to the host, who takes a long pull on his pipe and says, "Well, if I really could have anything I wanted, anything at all, I think I would choose … permanent delusions of grandeur."

“Permanent delusions of grandeur." - That is as good an explanation for Nobody as I can come up with, so I will accept it and write on.<<<

Barb and I are in the process of cleaning out, cleaning up and throwing away some of the excess, both material and creative, which clutters up our home and our lives. Our motto is, if it is hugely valuable scan it or save it. Anything that does not make the “hugely” cut goes. This poem, found scribbled and forgotten, made the cut:

As I think back upon my life
And remember all the fun,
Tempered only slightly by
Some things that I have done.

My real regrets about my life
When I have thought things through, I
s less about the things I’ve done
Than those I didn’t do.<<<

And this small verse as well:

When I encounter things perverse
I take their notice in a verse.
And none so quick to catch my eye
As human dumbness passing by.<<<

In-and-Out, In-and-Out, That’s what a hamburger is all about.<<<

Pop Quiz time, nursery rhyme division:

What did Peter Piper pick?
What did little Jack Horner eat in his corner?
In Hickory, Dickory, Dock, what time was it when the mouse ran up the clock?
How many blackbirds were baked into a pie?
What is Tuesday’s child full of?<<<

WHO AM I? – BASEBALL EDITION:

I played in 14 world Series games (seven in 1960 and seven in 1971)and hit safely in every one of them. And, in my career I had exactly 3,000 hits.

I was the cover boy for the very first edition of Sports Illustrated in 1954. Answers to all next week.<<<

DID YOU KNOW? – TELEVISION DEPARTMENT. I am sure you remember that when Lucille Ball became pregnant on “I Love Lucy” they incorporated her pregnancy into the show. But did you know that network censors refused to allow the word pregnant to be used on the show. Lucy was “expecting.”

On the first “Happy Days” shows in 1974, ABC feared that allowing the Fonz to wear his leather jacket made him look too much like a motorcycle hood, so they banned it except when he was on his cycle. The producer evaded this stupidity by always showing the Fonz on, leaning on or very near to his two-wheeler.<<<

The subject of television also brings us our quote of the week: "When television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland." Newton Minow, Federal Communications Commission chairman, May 9, 1961

I am shocked! I didn’t even know they had reality shows back then.<<<

"Don't cheer, boys. The poor devils are dying." — Capt. John Philip of the USS Texas, to his crew as they watched the Spanish ship Vizcaya burn off Santiago Bay, Cuba, in 1898.

This quote is the best summary of why Clint Eastwood’s “Letters From Iwo Jima” should (but won’t) win him a Best Picture & Best Director award at tonight’s AA. Eastwood brilliantly reminds us that war must be humanized lest it make us inhumane.<<<

Headline last week – actually it could be any day of any week:

Insurgents strike U.S. outpost in Iraq; two troops are killed and 17 wounded in an assault north of Baghdad.

Is there ANY positive news coming out of the tragedy that is Iraq? If so, and I doubt it, it is getting lost in the continual tales of slaughter.<<<

And Why isn’t there more popular outrage over the fact that we have held people prisoners at Guantanamo Bay for almost 6 years now without charging or trying them? The Military Commissions Act, with its denial of habeas corpus is more than unconstitutional. It is an affront to our claim of being a just society. George Bush is a walking insult to the American way.<<<

And Bush piles insult upon insult by comparing his goals to those of George Washington as he did on our first President’s birthday. Actually you can add stupidity to his sins. Washington never “guided the nation's quest to extend freedom beyond its borders.”<<<

It was good last week that a judge blocked the Terminator’s desire to transfer prisoners to a private pen. As I wrote in 686, prisons should not be “for profit” operations.<<<

Arizona cheats!!!!<<< (left)

The quote below is taken from a menu from the Matson Liner on which my wife sailed to Hawaii in 1960:

A man who was fond of wine was offered some grapes at dessert after dinner. “Much obliged,” he said, pushing the plate aside. “ I am not accustomed to taking my wine in pills.” – Anthelme Brillant-Savarin (French magistrate and writer of gastronomy. 1755-1826)