Nobody 689

Sunday, March 11, 2007
Nobody # 689

Nobody Asked Me But:

I find most people hate to be informed. People need to be amused, shocked or angered. Jim Murray

So to all of you who do not read Nobody religiously, may you burn in Blythe.<<<

Here’s Hugh’s answer to my vacation question last week:

Hawaii is not at the top of the list but it is ON the list. I would want to go to the British Isles and go on the Open Championship tour. Very expensive. However you get to play a number of the "links" that are in the Championship Series. When I am not "hacking" around the links I would be taking in the beautiful history that is all around me.

It sounds like your perfect vacation. May you do it someday and beat your handicap at St. Andrews.<<<.<<<

From this week’s Newsweek – Conventional Wisdom department.

Thomas Jefferson gets an up arrow because: “Genealogists say 3rd prez may have had Jewish ancestors. Which would explain pastrami stain on Dec. of Ind.”

Answer of the week (again from the Book Of Answers): PRESS FOR CLOSURE. Do any of you have an appropriate question to go with this? Here’s mine:

I am 72 and my door remains always open to another malt, another taco, a great new pizza. What should I do?<<<

One of my biggest life mistakes was to ask several Christmases ago for a book on Shakespeare by Yale professor Harold Bloom. I found him to be a pompous ass and didn’t finish the book. What is that saying: Old pompous asses never change, they just crawl in their hole? (I made that up, but it fits) Bloom proved it with his comment, also in this week’s Newsweek.

Asked about the two books he cared most about sharing with his kids he went beyond his answer to take a hack at Harry:

“The two Alice books by Lewis Carroll are the finest literary fantasies ever written. They will last forever, and the Harry Potter books are going to wind up in the rubbish bin. The first six volumes have sold, I am told, 350 million copies. I know of no larger indictment of the world's descent into subliteracy.”

The July arrival of “Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows” is eagerly awaited by grandchildren and by Grandpa Jim as well. I have preordered my copy, and it is easily the book that I am most anxious to read in 2007. So take that Harold Bloom and a pox on your pomposity!<<<

A Bloom add-on that proves my point:

Newsweek also asked him to name an important book that he admits he has never read.

Answer: :I cannot think of a major work I have not ingested.”

Jt - You read them, pompous fool, you don’t ingest them.<<<

A pro-modernization Arab writes in the NY Times:

“When religion has control over science — you can be sure that you are in an Arab country.”

(or in Kansas) jt<<<

Cartoon of the week: (left)

Here are the answers to last week’s SAT quiz questions:

What did Tom, Tom the piper’s son steal? A pig – and he got a beating for it while the pig was converted to pork chops.

How old was pease-porridge in the pot? Nine days.

What was the cat playing when the cow jumped over the moon? A fiddle – which he kept right on playing while the dish ran away with the spoon.

What was Wee Willie Winkle wearing when he ran through the town? His nightgown – which was all right coming down butt provided quite a view when he ran up stairs.

Whom did Simple Simon meet while going to the fair? A pie man, of course. Poor Simon. What a time to be broke.<<<

A question for me (and you): What did your parents, grandparents and great grandparents do for a living?

My mother was a bookkeeper. My father worked in a General Motors factory. My stepfather worked in the missile program in New Mexico. My grandparents were farmers in Michigan. My step-grandfather was a small-town doctor. I don’t know about my great grandparents but I assume that they were farmers.<<<

Question # 2: As a baby, what were your first words?

There is a debate in my family. Some claim I said Bruins, others say Fosselman’s.

So how would you answer either or both of these questions?<<<

A thought on the large number of evangelists who fall prey to “demon sex:” Maybe the attraction is less about being born again and more about the birds and the bees that start the process.<<<

We often evaluate new Supreme Court Justices relative to the potential impact of their votes. But sometimes this impact has more to do with how they influence their fellow Justices. For example, perhaps the most important way that the appointment of Justice Clarence Thomas effected the court was not in his lock-step vote for the conservative wing but in the way that his extreme positions and his accompanying opinions moved Justice O’Conner from right-center to center. (From the book, “Supreme Conflict” by Jan Greenburg)<<<

In the book I am listening to, a character refers to a bad dream which he states to be fairly common – one in which the dreamer is forced to take an exam in a class for which he is registered but stopped attending. That one invades my sleep on a fairly regular basis - and I thought I was the only one.<<<

From CNN on line: “Should parents lose custody of their children for overfeeding them?”

Yes x
No

Obviously my vote does not suggest child abuse for an extra malt here and there but for parents who feed their kids into gross caricatures of what youth should be. In such a case I would recommend remedial intervention first and custody loss if intervention fails. Parenthood is not a license to destroy.<<<

In anticipation of a close contest for Inane Quote Of 2007, I have selected this as the Quote Of the Quarter.

When Jim Lehrer asked President Bush why, if the war on terrorism was so overwhelmingly important, he had never asked more Americans “to sacrifice something,” Mr. Bush answered:

“Well, you know, I think a lot of people are in this fight. I mean, they sacrifice peace of mind when they see the terrible images of violence on TV every night.”

He may be inane, lame and clueless but he’s all ours.<<<

To those of you who read Nobody and love politics - “forgive me for I have sinned.” I didn’t vote in the school board election Tuesday. I had applied for automatic absentee ballots for Barb and myself about 6-8 weeks ago, but they never came. I still could have gone to the polls but I didn’t. The election was to decide between a board controlled by the mayor or by the teacher’s union. Since I want neither, I don’t feel terrible about the whole thing.<<<

Coach John Wooden, a man of marvelous talents, has another that may be known less well. He can see the future. He wrote the poem below to a friend as he and the team traveled home from a trip to the Pacific Northwest in 1963:

However…. There’s optimism
Beneath my valid criticism.
I want to say – yes, I’ll foretell,
Eventually this team will jell.
And when they do they will be great,
A championship could be their fate.
With every starter coming back,
Yes Walt and Gail and Keith and Jack
And Fred and Freddie and some more
We will be champs in sixty-four.

The sixty-four team went undefeated and won Wooden’s first National Championship.<<<

Since I have nothing good to write about the Bruins today, let me tell you a story about the better times of two weeks ago. Coach Wooden, along with Kareem was signing books in the student union before the Stanford game. Barb endured the long line and, as always, gave Coach several of the See’s suckers he loves so much. After the game, we stopped at the Valley Inn for fried chicken. Coach was there with his family and, as he left, gave one of the suckers to his waitress. I guess Barb over-supplied him.<<<

Scandal of the week: Billy Packer, CBS’s number one college basketball announcer is having an affair…………………..with his mirror.

Or as Bones McKinney, Packer’s long ago coach at Wake Forest, once said:

"I never wanted Billy to inbound the ball because he only wanted to throw it to himself."<<<

On to Atlanta!!!!!!!!!!!!!!