Nobody 688

Sunday, March 4, 2007
Nobody # 688

Nobody Asked Me But:

Question of the week:

If you had only one more vacation (never mind the reason – no health crisis, impending death or anything like that) and you couldn’t go to Hawaii, where would you go?

That is a tough one for me in that I love so many places that we have visited. Large cities come to mind – San Francisco and Seattle. Smaller ones too – Saratoga Springs and Carmel. States also – Maine and Vermont. And let’s not forget England and Scotland.

But after careful consideration and with no little pain for those places that didn’t make the final cut, my choice would be Cape Cod –in a summer warm, but not hot, the ice cream shops open late and the usual crowds having decided to vacation elsewhere that year.

Where would you go?<<<

“We don’t solve our problems, we just get tired of them.” – anonymous

This quote is pertinent to many things. At or near the top is education.

From Hugh – February 24: “Only three days this week at the salt mine as I have a two day workshop on Wednesday and Thursday that I am sure will make me a much better teacher!”

My reply – sarcasm intended: “Workshops usually do. You come out a changed person with new “solutions” to old problems. New “solutions” are like streetcars, miss one and another will be along soon. But they all take you to the same place.”

To get to a different place we must first skip the “To School” trolley and catch the one that says “To Home.” In his NY Times column last Thursday, David Brooks gave some real meaning to this “say often, do seldom, if ever” message by defining the problem and pointing out solutions that are at least small beginnings toward solution.

Brooks: “All the presidential candidates this year will talk about education. The conventional ones will talk about improving the schools. The creative ones will talk about improving the lives of students.”

He goes on to point out that despite the good and the rotten in our schools, student success is mostly about what happens at home. A dysfunctional home environment, one in which the parent is too busy, or too unknowing to nurture learning, is going to send a very high percentage of low achievers or failures to school.

Brooks continues: “The question, of course, is, what can government do about any of this? The answer is that there are programs that do work to help young and stressed mothers establish healthier attachments. These programs usually involve having nurses or mature women make a series of home visits to give young mothers the sort of cajoling and practical wisdom that in other times would have been delivered by grandmothers or elders.”

“The Circle of Security program has measurably improved attachments and enhanced social skills. The Nurse-Family Partnerships program, founded by David Olds, has produced rigorously examined, impressive results. Children who have been in this program had 59 percent fewer arrests by age 15. (Presidential candidates are commanded to read Katherine Boo’s Feb. 6, 2006, New Yorker article to get a feel for how these programs work.)”

This is only a beginning, but it was good to be reminded that government can play an important part in helping to solve one of America’s greatest problems.<<<

The problem is potentially serious. Too many missing bees, up to 70% in some places, could drastically mess up the agricultural food chain. But I still have to laugh at the human compulsion to label every deviation from the norm as some kind of syndrome. This one they are calling, “colony collapse disorder.”<<<

I know I have brought this up before but its frequency is driving me crazy and nobody will give me an answer. When did somebody up there, down there or over there change the grammatical law of fewer and less?

Take this sentence from the bee article: “There are less (fewer) beekeepers, less (fewer) bees, yet more crops to pollinate.”

The law, as I learned it, says fewer for numbers, less for amounts. Either someone should prove to me that the law has been repealed or it is time to Mirandize all these grammatical criminals.

Or maybe it is I. Perhaps I suffer from the dreaded FvsL syndrome. Quick somebody, get me a pill.<<<

I was getting rid of some old e-mail the other day. One had an interesting link. I clicked on it and got this even more interesting reply:

“The specified CGI application misbehaved by not returning a complete set of HTTP headers.” A misbehaving CGI – what is the world coming to?<<<

So what’s a knob?

Friday, Barb was fixing a dinner centered around a turkey breast that she bought at Honey Baked Ham. That triggered a memory, and she went to the pantry and brought out a package of stuffing mix for that she brought back from England. But the directions temporarily stumped her, because they called for a knob of butter.

What in the heck was a knob of butter? Who better to ask than Google? But even they were the epitome of imprecision. However it was not their fault – blame the British.

Here’s what I found:

"How much is a "knob of butter?" How much do you want it to be?"

"Certainly more than a dash, and well more than a pinch — neither of which seems the best way to measure butter, in any event. A knob of butter is a British term denoting some butter, and its use is sadly declining as zealous editors force more precision and science into our recipes and cookbooks. Even the loosest British cooks (and we mean that in the nice way) might get away with telling you to add a knob of butter on a television program. But if their cookbooks are published in the States, you can bet someone will have translated all those knobs into precise measurements."

"In our experience, a knob of butter is a couple tablespoons, more or less."

The stuffing was delicious.<<<

And before we leave food, check out this price comparison: (left)

Pop Quiz time, nursery rhyme division – Answers from last week:

What did Peter Piper pick? – A peck of pickled peppers

What did little Jack Horner eat in his corner? - His Christmas Pie

In Hickory, Dickory, Dock, what time was it when the mouse ran up the clock? - The clock struck one.

How many blackbirds were baked into a pie? - Four and twenty

What is Tuesday’s child full of? – Grace

No, I didn’t cheat. I knew every one. After all, I have a Master’s Degree.<<<

Here’s this week’s quiz:

What did Tom, Tom the piper’s son steal?
How old was pease-porridge in the pot?
What was the cat playing when the cow jumped over the moon?
What was Wee Willie Winkle wearing when he ran through the town?
Whom did Simple Simon meet while going to the fair?

WHO AM I? – BASEBALL EDITION - ANSWERS:

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. – Roberto Clemente

I was the cover boy for the very first edition of Sports Illustrated in 1954. – Eddie Mathews<<<

There I was, sitting at my favorite table in Starbucks – the isolated one by the window – with my Coldstone, my cup of black and the sports section – and, in what I can only believe was a tribute to me, the background was straight from the program of my youth – “Your Hit Parade.”

I mean hearing, “Give me land/lots of land/under starry skies above/DON’T FENCE ME IN” was special. But when Doris Day and Buddy Clark started their duet of “I Love Somebody,” I teared up. I love that song, man.

“Don’t know why/she acts so shy/I really wouldn’t think of hurting a fly/Hope she doesn’t pass me by/’Cause if she did I’d die/I know I’d die.”

Chorus – come on now, all join in. If you have forgotten the lyrics, here they are: I love somebody, yes I do/Love somebody, yes I do/ Love somebody, yes I do/I love somebody – but I can’t say who.

Should you have a desire to know more, you will find the entire lyrics as well as vital information on the All-PAC 10 basketball team in a Nobody footnotes that will be sent separately.<<<

Farewell to one of the great American historians Arthur Schlesinger Jr., 1917-2007. (picture left)

ON MY BASKETBALL SOAP BOX

“Sports do not build character. They reveal it.”- John R. Wooden

Among the millions of NCAA rules, one of the most archaic is the one that makes the post-season conference tournament champions the automatic qualifiers for the “Big Dance.” The automatic should be to the team that wins the regular season championship. It is that marathon, not a tournament sprint from which the best team emerges. Post-season tournaments are fun and the winners, should they differ from the conference champions, could be given a berth BUT NOT THE AUTOMATIC ONE!<<<

MORE BASKETBALL

UCLA lost on a recruit this past week. Highly touted power forward Luke Babbitt, from Reno, chose Ohio State. The pain was somewhat lessened however when I read about his poor performance in the Nevada state championship game. According to this report from the Reno Appeal, he scored “36 points in a 677-58 win over Canyon Springs."

Roughly 5% of his team’s points? That’s not very good.<<<

Here’s an interesting sidelight from the Arizona/California game in Berkeley last Thursday. It seems that both teams almost got screwed. In the middle of the game the gym was mildly rocked by a 4.2 earthquake causing some screws to fall from the ceiling almost hitting a couple of Wildcats. (screwing # 1) Then Cal coach Ben Braun said one official, not understanding the quake-shake approached him, threatening to call a technical on the fans for throwing things. (screwing # 2)<<<

Today I am ambivalence personified, thrilled that my Bruins ended the regular season with 26 wins and only 4 losses and won the PAC-10 championship with a 15-3 record, appalled that they lost yesterday’s game to Washington 61-51. It is so easy to take the last game, won or lost, as the harbinger of things to come.

I am fighting the pessimistic devil perched on my shoulder, but I know he won’t go away until we win again. Still I have been thrilled 26 times and disappointed only 4. So here’s to the champions of the Pacific Ten. GO BRUINS!