Nobody 757
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Nobody # 757
Nobody Asked Me But:
The world dies a little when good people do nothing.
In a modest way I have tried to live by this code, but my country makes it difficult by giving guns to every Tom, Dick and Harriet.<<<
QUICK! SEND FOR A CLOWN!
On Friday, former candidate for the Republican presidential nomination Alan Keyes called President Obama a communist and usurper and said he refuses to acknowledge the validity of Obama's inauguration because, like other conspiracists, he has lingering questions about the 44th president's birth place.
DON’T BOTHER HE’S HERE!<<<
I’ve got to know! I’ve just got to know! Why do we pronounce the (priv) in privacy as it rhymes with drive and the British say it as if it rhymes with give?<<<
I have rarely if ever seen the Republican Party, nationally and in California, so unified. It is obvious that they love their minority status and are working overtime to insure its future.
And here is some advice to help them stay down:
Since you are so opposed to the Economic Recovery Act, and to federal spending, why not persuade your states to turn down all rescue money?<<<
CNN asked this question last week: Will the opinions of historians' regarding President George W. Bush improve over time?
Here are the responses:
Yes 39% 39960
No 61% 61899
I voted a shaky no, because history tends to be kinder than deserved to “take charge” Presidents. But my vote will be upheld if historians remember that:
He sent Americans to die in an unjust war.
He subverted the Bill of Rights and the Geneva Accords.
He presided over a collapsing economy.
He elevated governmental secrecy to an art form.
He completely mishandled the greatest natural disaster of his Presidency.
He conducted a foreign policy based on the pretense that “we are the world.”
He chose and supported the worst Vice President in American history.
Sadly, this last entry alone is the root of many of his mistakes. He certainly seemed a better man during his final year when he paid little attention to The Evil One.<<<
Could there be a more ridiculous, more inane, more idiotic commentary on the stimulus package than that of the new G.O.P. chairman Michael Steele who said - “In the history of mankind” no federal, state or local government has ever created one job?”<<<
News Item: North Korea greets Hillary Clinton with threat.
Reaction: Obama’s response should be a carrot AND A STICK.<<<
Stupid politician of the week – the California controller who has a $1M contract for new office furniture in this year’s budget.<<<
Headline: “GOP senators say Obama off to bad start going completely away from the GREATSUCCESSES of the past 8 years.”
Reaction – LMAO!<<<
Fair and balanced – I think that President Obama is off to an excellent but not a perfect start. Here are two thumbs UP and two DOWN:
Opposing "Buy American" provisions in the stimulus bill – UP.
Going on the road to sell his vision - WAY UP.
Waiting for Congressional action on stem cell research – DOWN.
Retaining Bush’s faith-based initiative plan – DOWN.
Did you know????????????????????
That a vehicle going 200 miles per hour as it crosses the starting line will lose in the quarter mile to a top fuel dragster starting from a dead stop at the same time?<<<
Muslim fanatic – “Soon I will be in Paradise with many virgins.”
JT – “What if the virgins don’t want to do IT?”
Muslim fanatic – “They are merely women and have no say.”<<<
According to a recent Pew Institute study 46% of Americans would like to move. Like their ancestors, most still want to go west. Here, in order, are their top ten cities (seven of which are in the West – eight if you count San Antonio):
Denver, San Diego, Seattle, Orlando, Tampa, San Francisco, Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento, and San Antonio.
LA is 22 – just behind Riverside – Riverside??
As for me, if I’m moving, I’ll take San Diego in a microsecond. San Francisco, Seattle and Portland are not far behind.
The rest? Denver? I don’t it know well enough to speculate. Phoenix? Only if I can live in one of the great suburbs and never go downtown except for pizza. San Antonio? Sorry, I remember the Alamo. Orlando, Tampa, Sacramento? In your dreams!<<<
ANOTHER Pew question - Would you rather live in a community with a McDonald’s or a Starbucks? I will let you guess my answer. (In the poll, McDonalds won – but only by 43% to 36%.)<<<
I didn’t know that - In the Depression era, “gunsel” meant either a hired gun and/or a young, submissive homosexual.<<<
News Item: In the middle of darkest night, Senate Republicans oust their leader, who had joined with Democrats to forge a budget package containing higher taxes.
Reaction: We need music that is worthy of California’s Republican legislators. How about the theme from the Keystone Cops?<<<
And did you know that the new GOP leader in the state Senate, Dennis Hollingsworth, used to sell frozen bull semen? His philosophy that all taxes are evil is closer to another excrement from cows of the male persuasion.<<<
News item: Tonight is the Academy Awards.
Reaction: Yawn. Wake me when it is over.<<<
Just in case you missed them, Saturday evening The Raspberry Foundation presented its Razzies for the worst 2008 films.
Worst picture – “The Love Guru.”
Worst prequel, remake, rip-off or sequel award - "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."<<<
If you think golf is humbling, try being a Bruin basketball fan this year.<<<
Nobody 756
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Nobody # 756
Nobody Asked Me But:
The miracle of Tucson – I found this perfect bunny image in a loaf we bought in Tucson. It was truly Beyond Bread.<<<
I entered a Twelve-step program this week. My first words – I am an addict. Or didn’t you know that the latest research shows that being in love is an addiction – at home in the same brain spot as other addictions.
And why no teardrop-shaped boxes of candy? After all, that is the shape of the VTA, the brain cells that light up when people are shown pictures of their beloved.<<<
You can go home again. I hadn’t been to the Tommy’s on Roscoe for at least a dozen years. They’ve changed the place a bit. There is no longer a counter along the wall to stand by as you eat. They have tables now. But the Chiliburger, with pickles and tomatoes, is as gooey and messy as ever, and as delicious.
Next time I’ll have a triple.<<<
When I was teaching, I told my students that confusion is the door to knowledge, as I challenged them to fight through the morass of conflicting information and opinion towards something approaching truth. At the time, I did not realize that a faculty committee at Harvard was espousing the same philosophy. Their statement about the purpose of education went like this:
“The aim of a liberal education is to unsettle presumptions, to defamiliarize the familiar, to reveal what is going on beneath and behind appearances, to disorient young people and to help them to find ways to reorient themselves.”
David Brooks sees it differently. Praising a recent book on the subject, “On Thinking Institutionally” by the political scientist Hugh Heclo, Brooks thinks that we are institutional creatures and schools are at their best when they educate to strengthen our traditions and traditional institutions - first family and school, then society, country and the institutions of a profession or a craft.
I don’t see why there has to be the dichotomy. Do we want anarchists or automatons? Nether I hope. I think the first goal is to produce individuals. The second, to encourage those individuals to see and support the best in traditions and institutions and reject the parts that don’t work, or don’t work as well as they should.<<<
“It’s a little hard for me to take criticism from folks about this recovery package after they presided over a doubling of the national debt, I’m not sure they have a lot of credibility when it comes to fiscal responsibility.” President Obama
VAUGELY DISCONTENTED - (see lyrics below)
With the following in the stimulus bill:
I THINK IT WAS TOO LITTLE, TOO SOON. To have the desired effect, it needed to be at least one and one-half trillion. And it should have been more carefully constructed to focus on the areas of greatest need and fastest turn-around.
I THINK THERE WAS TOO MUCH EMPHASIS ON BIPARTISANSHIP. It was evident early on that the Republicans were going to play the obstructionist role, so Obama should have used the bully pulpit earlier to damn the obstruction and pushed for HIS plan.
THE BILL IS NOT BOLD ENOUGH. The Great Depression demanded new ideas and new directions and gave birth to the New Deal. The current crisis demands the same, but the stimulus bill pretty much recycles the old. Surely a “change president” could have tapped a bolder brain trust. After all, he is the one who said – “I would rather do the right thing and have one term than be mediocre and have two.”<<<
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “Americans are wondering how we’re going to pay for all this.” Since when does a Senator from a party that just lost big speak for “Americans?”
He is probably just whinging. No that’s not a spelling or editing error. (My editor doesn’t make errors.) Whinge - to complain or protest in an annoying persistent manner.
I know that Nancy Pelosi is an old school Democrat, but shouldn’t school be out for the recession?<<<
This just in: The House approved the stimulus package with all 183 Republicans voting against it. First it was the dinosaurs, then the California Republicans and now the national Republicans. Or as John Boehnar says, “We owe it to the people to get this bill Right.”
And some people still don’t believe in natural selection?<<<
But am I being too tough on Boehnar? After all, the President claims that the package will create 3.6 million jobs while the Ohio Congressman says it will only create 3.46M.<<<
I thought Obama’s press conference was a joy, but I have one tip for him. Start with a short, direct answer to each question and then expand on it. Monday night you did just the opposite.<<<
VAGUELY DISCONTENTED
With Bud Selig. Don’t misunderstand me! I think A-Rod was wrong and stupid to use steroids. But for Selig to say he disgraced baseball is hypocritical. After all, Bud spent some double-dipping, conflict of interest time in his dual role of Baseball commissioner AND President of the Milwaukee Braves.
To Be or Not To Be – a Catholic:
To Be – I could sin six days a week and have it all washed away by confessing on the seventh.
Not To Be – I would have to put up with Pope Benedict XVI, who makes room in the fold for far-right, Jew-hating, Holocaust-denying priests.<<<
"We are going to amass the largest debt in the history of this country, and we are going to ask our kids and grandkids to pay for it," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). “And that is not the Republican way –-- unless we are in power.”<<<
Here is Charles de Gaulle (from the grave) on a couple of Obama’s appointments - “The cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men.”<<<
Very interesting: At one point the other night, in the Laker/Thunder game, 4 of the 10 players on the court were ex-Bruins.
And while on the subject of the Bruins,
Too bad the four weren’t playing for UCLA yesterday. Perhaps they could have rewritten Chapter Two of "Disaster in the Desert" – a novel of pain with no redemption in sight.<<<
I’m as restless as a willow in a windstorm,
I’m as jumpy as a puppet on a string,
I’d say that I had spring fever,
But I know it isn’t spring.
I am as starry eyed and gravely discontented,
Like a nightingale without a song to sing.
Oh, why should I have spring fever,
When it isn’t even spring?
I keep wishing I were somewhere else,
Walking down a strange new street,--
The music is Richard Rogers, the lyrics Oscar Hammerstein II, the movie is State Fair, the sentiment, mine. I need a get-away, even a three-day vacation will do. Hell, I’ll even settle for MaDonald’s – as long as it’s a new one.<<<
Nobody 755
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Nobody # 755
Nobody Asked Me But:
This just in from The Rush Bunch:
“Why do we know best how to fix the recession?
Because we created it, stupid.”<<<
Followed by:
“Why are we harping so much about the deficit?
Because we hate deficits----except when Republicans are President.”<<<
THE DICK IS BACK: Cheney that is, warning the nation that Obama’s policies are wrong and that we can’t be both civilized and safe. And, most certainly, the former VP is an expert in uncivilized.
Or as a NY Times put it: “Sometimes you just have to cringe.”<<<
Class: Bush, who continues to keep his promise to keep quiet.
No Class: Cheney – see above.<<<
And isn’t it good to have a president who can admit to screwing up, promise not to repeat it and then return his attention to the priority issue.
Every President learns on the job. But some learn more slowly then others. I am thankful that Obama is a quick study.<<<
But I can criticize too. I think the President was totally wrong to continue the Bush policy of funding faith-based groups who discriminate in hiring.<<<
Final word of advice today for the President: You earned the bully pulpit on election day; don’t hesitate to use it and use it and use it again!<<<
Once every decade or so, a movie comes along that absolutely delights me. Not necessarily a great film, not an award winner but a complete JT’s heart warmer – a “Sleepless In Seattle.”
Barbara and I saw such a movie Thursday, “Last Chance Harvey.” Hey, I confess, I am a sucker for romance – the sentimental kind. Throw in a sense of humor and people I can “love,” and I am hooked.<<<
Even though the Senate seems to have reached a reasonable compromise on the vital stimulus bill, I hope the President will listen to me next time and follow Jim’S RULE, which is ---
“You don’t give Republicans ammunition with which to make a list.”<<<
And what is wrong with the Buy America provision in the stimulus bill? A lot. Buying American made goods exclusively provides no incentive for producing quality. Buying the best should pressure American workers to once again produce the best. For years, too many workers have chosen good enough over best. It is time to remember that good enough is not.<<<
"You want to know my philosophy? One day a peacock, the next day a feather duster. " PAT QUINN, Illinois's new governor.
Sen. John McCain says he will vote against the stimulus bill. Perhaps he should suspend his Senate responsibilities, like he did his presidential campaign, until he can solve our economic mess.<<<
"American public opinion is seeing this for what it is: a spending bill, not a stimulus bill, and I think it's swinging in our direction," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told Fox News.
Sure it is John. Just like the voters swung towards you at campaign’s end.<<<
So Mr. Republican, Rush Limbaugh, proposes that because the Democrats, in the election, got roughly 54 percent of the votes to the Republicans' 46 percent, the stimulus package should be allocated along his definition of ideological lines, i.e. 54 percent towards infrastructure improvement and 46 percent toward tax breaks for Limbaugh and his friends.
I’m with Democratic strategist James Carville in wondering if the Rush daddy said the same thing after the 2000 vote, i.e. give the Republicans 49.5% of the say-so on everything and the Democrats 50.5%?<<<
And did you read that people in Tucson had their Super Bowl broadcast interrupted with about 3 minutes to go with a 30-second insert of full male nudity? It turns out that a clip from a porno movie somehow slipped into the broadcast.
The Tucsonians? They thought it was just another Super Bowl commercial.<<<
Where is Hugo Black when you need him? The Supreme Court recently, in Herring v. United States, took a major step towards doing away with the exclusionary rule, which is the precedent, established in 1961, for excluding evidence in criminal cases that was obtained by shoddy, illegal or unconstitutional police work.
Considered by most scholars as one of the all-time great Justices, Black, who believed that the Bill of Rights were to be followed literally, was a major force in establishing this precedent.
And I am sure you remember that Black was a former member of the KKK turned New Deal liberal, but did you know – that he never graduated from high school or college?
And did you know that while Black was on the SC that great villain, J. Edger Hoover, ordered that his phone be wiretapped?<<<
From Iran: "If you say change in policies, then halt your support to the uncultivated and rootless, forged, phony, killers of women and children Zionists.” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “And I say this despite the fact that some of my best friends are Jews.”
I saw “Taken” last week and thought it was quite entertaining – sort of like Jack Bauer goes to Paris. However, the NY Times either didn’t like it much, or was skeptical of the purity of LA teens, or both - as you can tell from this line in their review:
“Taken” stars a dour Liam Neeson as a big bad papa bear on the rampaging hunt for his baby cub, a virginal Los Angeles teenager — the first of many dubious plot points.<<<
What’s in a name? Apparently, in the UK, a lot. Check out a map for these towns and roads:
TOWNS
Pennistone
Crapstone
Horrabridge.
ROADS
Butt Hole Road, Conisbrough, South Yorkshire.
Tumbledown Dick Road, Paddington
Crotch Crescent, Oxford
Titty Ho, Northamptonshire
Wetwang, East Yorkshire
Slutshole Lane, Norfolk
Thong, Kent
Pratts Bottom, Kent
And then there is always the Anvilessex's Pub.
An American list anyone?<<<
Recent shots of The Mall in DC remind me that some of the public parts need refurbishing. Time for the vision thing – spend a little of that stimulus capital on our nation’s capital. Now that would really be a Capital gain.<<<
Wasn’t that a great SB game? And I’m not even an NFL fan. In the days before the game, the LA Times came up with a ten-best list of great football movies. They did not have to be exclusively about football but had to feature a game as part of their content.
And they left M*A*S*H* off – didn’t even name it as a runner-up.
In the words of the late, great Jim Healy, “Bad list, man, bad, *&^* list.”<<<
Nobody 754
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Nobody 754
Nobody Asked Me But:
“After three days of cold and crowds, they were still unbelievably cheerful and celebratory. I can’t recall ever seeing throngs of people with quite this level of sustained joyousness.” David Brooks on Inauguration Week.
How Steven Spielberg went from getting rich to filthy rich.
One day while Spielberg was filming “Close Encounters of The Third Kind” close friend George Lucas visited him on the set. Lucas who was making “Star Wars” at the time loved “Encounters,” while feeling a bit insecure about his movie. “Yours will be a much bigger hit,” he told Spielberg. “I will trade you 2% of mine right now for 2% of yours.” Spielberg accepted and, as I used to say in class, the rest is history.<<<
Words that make no sense - why do we call lint lint? The word sounds like Brooklyn for lent – as in I lint him $5 or Lint, as I what are you giving up for Lint. So how did it become a word for the shedding off my socks?<<<
“Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn!”
You all know by now that Gene Kelly doing “Singing In The Rain” is my favorite musical number, so I am sure you are anxious to know my second.
There are many candidates, but I choose the moment when Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison of course) slides from his four damns into “I’ve grown Accustomed To her face.”
Damn! It gives me shivers of delight just to think about it.<<<
Staying with music for a moment. Garth Brooks, of all people, sang parts of my second favorite song (different from musical number) at the pre-inaugural celebration at the Lincoln Memorial. He was singing “Bye, Bye Miss American Pie.”
What a great time it was, it was. I would slow dance to “A long, long time ago” and move to a higher speed when Don McLean asked if I “wrote the book of love,” and if I had faith “in God above?” Of course my time would have been even better if I had had a partner.<<<
I saw “Frost/Nixon” last Monday. It was a film that grew on me. Throughout the first 2/3 I felt more like a spectator watching some interesting history. But for the last 1/3 I was completely drawn in – almost a participant instead of a spectator. I had a similar reaction to Frank Langella’s AA nominated performance as Nixon. I was watching a very good actor for the first part, but by the end I was seeing Nixon. By the climatic scenes he even looked like the disgraced president. I haven’t seen the other nominees, but they would need to be really good to be better than Langella. I give “Frost/Nixon” 3 ½ out of a possible 4 stars.
As for Nixon, he remains, in my view, a figure from a Greek tragedy – a man to be both pitied and censored.<<<
Action – Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich goes on NBC, compares himself to Mandela, and King.
Reaction: It turns out he meant Charlie Mandela, his bookie and crooked fight promoter Don King.<<<
And by the way: Good-bye Rod. And good riddance.<<<
Remember Ronald Reagan’s famous line, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall?” I’m for President Obama borrowing and paraphrasing it – something like “Mr. (whomever is elected Prime Minister of Israel) tear down those West Bank settlements.”<<<
And what about the pro-Israel neos in the U.S griping about George Mitchell, Obama’s envoy to the Near Middle East? They are saying that in the matters related to the Israeli/Palestinian crisis, he will be TOO BALANCED. My goodness, we wouldn’t want that.<<<
Here’s the word from Blue Cross in reaction to their fine for denying claims and canceling policies for 700 claimants who had serious and costly illnesses: “We did nothing illegal or wrong, and we promise never to do it again.”<<<
Headline we will never see: Lawmakers promise to slice their salaries and give up all perks until budget cuts for schools are reversed.<<<
Huge tax cuts are not the answer to our economic woes. Neither are millions for condoms. (since dropped) The President needs to resist both the Republican conservatives, with their failed ideas, and the Democratic left who want to load the stimulus package with every extraneous program they failed to pass over the last three decades.
Am I asking that the President be made an economic crisis dictator? No! But after watching Congress in action, it is tempting. <<<
Does our government need a guiding principle as it makes hugely important decisions relative to economic recovery? Well I just happen to have three:
1. Spend fast and spend well.
2. Make sure that every dollar has a direct effect on the problem. Indirect can come later, after the immediate and gravest part of the emergency is past.
3. Have an exit strategy.
Keep it simple - jobs and confidence.<<<
FYI: Did you know that RFK never thought the Warren report was well executed?<<<.
I think that the President is setting a near perfect tone on our relations with Pakistan as we step up the war on al Queda and the Taliban – we want to work with you, but will work around you if necessary.<<<
Rush Limbaugh - "I want him (Obama) to fail." The “Rusher” has got to be a huge embarrassment to thinking conservatives.
Here is how the PAC-10 makes out in the latest ESPN ranking of the top rookies in the NBA. Was the PAC loaded last year? And the Bruins were in pretty good shape too.
#1 – Russell Westbrook, UCLA
#2 – Kevin Love, UCLA
#3 - Brook Lopez, Stanford
#4 – OJ Mayo, USC
#14 – Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, UCLA
#22 – Ryan Anderson, Cal
#23 – Jared Bayless, Arizona
#29 – Kyle Weaver, WSU
#30 - Robin Lopez, Stanford<<<
S. Irene Virbila in her review Wednesday of the re-imagined Luau restaurant in Beverly Hills noted that despite the pupu platters and exotic tropical drinks that much of the delight is gone. She wonders what is missing from the old days.
That’s easy – innocence.<<<
And, finally, here is John Updike on Ted William’s last home run:
"The ball climbed on a diagonal line into the vast volume of air over center field. From my angle, behind third base, the ball seemed less an object in flight than the tip of a towering motionless construct, like the Eiffel Tower or the Tappan Zee Bridge. It was in the books while it was still in the sky. . . .
"Like a feather caught in a vortex, Williams ran around the square of bases at the center of our beseeching screaming. He ran as he always ran out home runs -- hurriedly, unsmiling, head down, as if our praise were a storm of rain to get out of. He didn't tip his cap. Though we thumped, wept, and chanted, 'We want Ted' for minutes after he hid in the dugout, he did not come back."
Good-bye Mr. Updike.<<<
