Nobody 726

Sunday, January 6, 2008
Nobody # 726

Nobody Asked Me But:

"Timid men ... prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty." Thomas Jefferson

Timid men say I will trade freedom for safety and my right to know for the ease of following “the leader.”

Timid men say tell me what God wants of me, so that I won’t have to think for myself.

Timid men say I am afraid of government – not I am afraid of bad government or corrupt government.

Timid men hide behind their wall of skin color or ethnic background or socio-economic status or philosophical absolutism.<<<

Here are my answers to this week’s questions.

Babe Ruth, James Dean, Elvis Presley…. If you could bring back one superstar for one final performance in their respective field, whom would you choose?

Brando on stage would be tempting, as would a Sinatra concert. But my choice is one of the greatest artists ever – Ted Williams. Williams perfected the most difficult challenge in sports, hitting a round ball traveling over 90 miles per hour with a round bat and doing it with both consistency and power. He is, in my opinion, the greatest hitter of all time.

What is a fun New Year’s resolution that you wish you had kept?

I once vowed that because I live so close to the ocean, I would walk IN it at least one time every month. I was successful for 3 or four months but then drifted away.

For this year, I resolve to take the time to enjoy all the things we have in the house. We have added so many things that make our place neat, and it is very easy to take them for granted. Not this year. So I resolve to slow down and enjoy the small touches.

Who is the most important PERSON of the last 1000 years?

If the most important change of the last millennium was the growth of freedom at the expense of authority, and I think it was, then we should choose our PERSON from those who led the way.

Hugh’s choice of Martin Luther is a tempting pick. But so is Henry VIII who wanted freedom to screw – up the Catholic domination of England.

Do you go with the politics of freedom – Locke, Rousseau, Lincoln, et al. or with scientists like Galileo, Newton and Einstein who made intellect the king? Or what about a great literary figure like Shakespeare who showed us who we were and who we could be?

Any of the above would qualify, but my choice is Charles Darwin who proved that man evolved by luck and by pluck and not by the divine right granted by an eminent God.<<<

Salvatore "Bill" Bonanno, died this past week. He was the eldest son of the late Mafia boss Joseph Bonanno. Salvatore was 2 years ahead of me at Tucson High, and we went to the University of Arizona at the same time. Of course, we didn't run in the same circles. Heck, I didn't even carry a gun back then.<<<

JIM’S WISDOM (A name not a claim) Looking back at 2007

DOWN: Iraq. Things may have improved there, but Americans are still dying for nothing.

UP: The Democratic candidates for the presidential nomination – I count at least 5 who would make a good President.

DOWN: Guns at Virginia Tech and everywhere else that innocents died from their bullets. And while we are at it – DOWN with the Second Amendment. Will we never learn?

JIM’S WISDOM (A name not a claim) 2008

UP Barb’s dress for New Year’s Eve. (Picture is of it being modeled)

UP: The Rose Parade.

UP: Fox Sports News for this prediction - By leading his Bruins to the 2008 national championship, coach Ben Howland greatly reduces the pressure to win attached to every UCLA coach who follows Jim Harrick.

DOWN: Blue Cross, for being dishonored by winning permanent possession of my Inhumanity Award for arbitrarily denying health care and medicine to some of the most needy. This trophy is inscribed with the title to the great Hank Williams song, “Cold, Cold Heart.”

UP: Cabernet and conversation – one of life’s great pleasures.

UP: The PAC-10 season, which started Thursday. Here are my predictions – made Wednesday.
1. UCLA
2. Washington State
(3 through 6 are "pick-ums")
3. Stanford – question marks in back court.
4. Arizona – question marks in front court and depth - Chase is overrated, Bayless is not.
5. Oregon - senior experience.
6. USC - have depth problems maybe chemistry ones too.
7. Cal. - question marks in back court.
8. ASU - coming fast - may be top 4 by next season.
9. Washington - Romar recruits much better than he coaches.
10. OSU - will be lucky to win a PAC game.

UP: UCLA power forward Alfred Aboya (Number 12) for this quote:

“That's the UCLA way. I think the coaches here do a good job of recruiting good players. But not only good players but good people with good character."

AND for making only his second 3-point shot of the season Thursday.
AND for always playing as hard as he can.

UP: San Francisco Chronicle sports columnist Ray Ratto for writing after the Bruin/Stanford game Friday: to be replaced on the list of UCLA players you will remember from this game by scandalously overlooked sophomore Russell Westbrook (15 points, six assists in 35 minutes). (see picture)

WAY UP: The Bruins for sweeping on the road. Not easy in the PAC.

DOWN Mirrors and pictures, especially pictures. I look much younger from inside than I do in photos.

DOWN: Mitt - The 2007 Lost In Translation award goes to Mitt Romney, who reinvented himself so many times in 07 that not even his hairdresser knows.

DOWN: Hypocrisy. “This is not a time to be mocking our president, and it was, I think, in bad taste" - Romney about Huckabee’s’s criticism of Bush and Iraq. Then Mitt goes on to severely criticize Bush’s immigration policy.

UP: Dennis Kucinich, for steering his supporters to Obama in Iowa.

UP: Obama’s huge win in Iowa. “The huge difference was that we had the greatest organization ever built in this state,” “And it was built on the backs of idealistic kids who came in here not just because they believed in Obama, but they wanted to change the course of history and the world.” David Axelrod, the chief strategist for Obama’s campaign.

This sounds like 60s idealism, only within the political process and without the violence.

UP: David Brooks for identifying a capitalism worth supporting – “A conservatism that loves capitalism but distrusts capitalists.”

UP: Skin cells. The RR, which started the embryonic stem cell war never made their case, (except to our kiss-up President) but it is good to remove any impediment to the research that promises so much to those who need it.

UP: 2007 vacations – Laguna, LaJolla, Atlanta, Eastern Canada, Los Altos, Hawaii, Pleasanton and Mill Valley, Reno (for me) and Tucson. In all our years together, Barb and I have never had a bad one. (The picture is of sunset over the St. Lawrence)

UP: Never being too old to enjoy the wonderful children’s poetry by Robert Louis Stevenson – like this one.

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

Here are the questions for next week. Care to share?

If you had been a youth growing up in the 1800s, who do you think your hero would have been?

If you could investigate any famous archive, which one would you choose?