Nobody 701

Sunday, June 24, 2007
Nobody # 701

Nobody Asked Me But:

Question: Not counting people, name something that makes you smile?

My answer - Times when I have nothing that I have to do but many things I want to do.

What’s yours?<<<<<<

From a recent Time Magazine article about eating:

“Somewhere in your brain, there's a cupcake circuit. How it works is not entirely clear, and you couldn't see it even if you knew where to look. But it's there all the same—and it's a powerful thing. You didn't pop out of the womb prewired for cupcakes, but long ago, early in your babyhood, you got your first taste of one, and instantly a series of sensory, metabolic and neurochemical fireworks went off.”

Reaction - That is not the way it worked for me. It was tacos, not cupcakes, and the circuit connected at 14 rather than babyhood. But then perhaps I was maturity impaired.

Time goes on:

They're studying the neural wiring of the stomach and intestines, as well as the operation of the genes that drive our appetite, to track how satiety signals are sent and determine why they sometimes get lost.

Reaction - That’s easy – satiety signals get mugged by taste signals before they reach the brain.<<<

Now that I am through with Time, I am going to rip off Newsweek a bit and do something like their weekly Conventional Wisdom report with the up and down arrows – only no arrows because I can’t make them on my computer. Instead, I will use the words up and down (and sideways for ambivalents.). The other change is that it will be Jim’s Wisdom rather than conventional. Most weeks, as long as the fun lasts, I will do about a half-dozen, but there may be more if I get carried away.

Note – Things may shift from week to week because just as conventional wisdom changes, so may Jim’s.

JIM’S WISDOM

UP: Libby and Jack, for their recently celebrated 40 years of marriage.

DOWN: Hillary. “We” need a winner next year, and the Gallup Poll has her trailing Giuliani by an average of 5 percentage points in three surveys.

UP: Barack. He is this week’s “sure thing” Democrat, because he is ahead in all the match-ups - by 5 percentage points over Giuliani, 12 over McCain and 16 over Romney.

WAY DOWN: Kevin Kidd, 45, a Democrat who owns a bar in Farwell, Michigan and who said a female president would make the United States "look a little wimpier."

WAY UP: Father’s Day, for the way I was treated by my kids and my wife. I felt like a king.

DOWN: Me having to sleep in the living room for a week to 10 days.

UP: Barb will be joining me, as our bedroom is being remodeled.

SIDEWAYS: Your writer, for having two grandchildren with birthdays this week - Emily will be 11 and Benjamin 6. It is wonderful to watch them grow up, and it is sad to watch them grow up.

UP: Stanford University, for offering gifted high school students an online education. They log on to classes from all over the world. While I think that going to regular classes every day is still the best way to learn, it is nice to see an innovative alternative.

Down: Dick Cheney. It’s not that he says, as he did again last week, that he talks only to God. He believes it.

WAY UP: Sitting in our backyard with a BBT gimlet, enjoying good conversation and/or a good book and feeling the day’s heat ease into the evening’s cool.

DOWN - The “Surge.” Iraq violence is up since our troop increase, which means that the surge is working – the surge of violence that is.

Up: Rachel Resnick, a member of Sacramento's Congregation B'Nai Israel, for warning those protesting against gay rights last week that in demanding a literal interpretation of scripture they should be careful lest their wishes come true. "

Are the protesters eating shellfish and pork?" "Scripture says you should be stoned for this. Are they wearing clothing made from two different fibers? That too is a sin."

WAY DOWN: Fouad Ajami, the Lebanese-American academic and war proponent who fantasized that a liberated Iraq would have a (positive) "contagion effect" on the region and that Americans would be greeted "in Baghdad and Basra with kites and boom boxes." As Frank Rich wrote, “I guess it all depends on your definition of ‘boom boxes.’"

Up - Maine, Alaska, and Hawaii, for being the only states that do not have at least one poisonous snake species in the wild.

Down – Sand, for causing of 16 deaths in U.S. 1990-2006, four more than fatal shark attacks.

DOWN: – Congressional Democrats, who will have this spot reserved for them in every Nobody until they get some guts.

Way down - Henry, The Ego, Kissinger, for his two-paragraph letter last week recommending a suspended sentence for Gordon Libby in which his accolades for himself seem to outnumber those for “Scooter” by about 10-1.

Down - Insurance claims by civilian contractors, who return from Iraq and claim to be afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder. Let the companies pay for care out of their excessive profits.

Way up – Yours Truly, who, when asked last week by his wife to guess how many dimples there are in a golf ball, answered 342. (The correct answer is 336)<<<

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“In Washington, however, hypocrisy is a perennial crime in both parties; if all the city's hypocrites were put in jail, there would be no one left to run the government.” Frank Rich, NY Times<<<

News item: Palestinian group holding BBC correspondent threatens to kill him

Reaction: Make me Prime Minister and I would warn Hamas that if they kill our journalist, the UK will hold them responsible to the point of declaring war. Some things are worth going to war over. This is one of them.<<<

I’m no Albert E., but here is my formula for both inter and intra-societal tragedy. Take impoverished hopeless young men, mix in exploitive leaders and you produce an explosive reaction.<<<

Remember my vow to have ongoing comments on virtue and justice in America? Last week’s example of injustice centered on the Supreme Court. So does this week’s. It will not always be so, (especially since they will soon be on their summer break) but they do provide some vivid examples.

1. Keith Bowles, is serving a sentence of 15 years to life for murder.
2. He challenged his conviction in federal district court and lost.
3. A federal judge told Mr. Bowles that he had until Feb. 27 to appeal.
4. He filed the appeal on Feb. 26.
5. It turned out the judge made a mistake. The appeal should have been filed by Feb. 24.
6. Justice says that Bowles should not be penalized for a judge’s mistake.
7. Injustice ruled 5-4 that he should and denied his appeal.

If we don’t guarantee justice from the Supremes, who are at the top of the system, where in system or society can we expect it to prevail?<<<

From the Arizona Daily Star (6/15/07): “A former U.S. customs agent convicted of sexually exploiting a young girl over a two-year period was sentenced to 6,242 years in prison Thursday.”

Here’s hoping he lives out his entire sentence.<<<

And finally, a great Coach Wooden story:

One morning while eating at his favorite breakfast hangout, VIPs in the valley, a woman came up and asked him to autograph something for her. As Coach was signing his autograph, she sat down at his table, picked up a fork and started eating his pancakes. After she left, his dining companions quickly asked, “Who was that?” His reply – “I don’t know. I have never seen her before.”<<<