Nobody 762

Sunday, March 29, 2009
Nobody # 762

Nobody Asked Me But:

SORRY! WRONG PICTURE! When I said $SC went bust in the tournament, I meant the basketball team.<<<

As some of you know, through a third party I recently made contact with a close friend from my teen/young adult years. Jim Bauersachs was an usher at my first wedding, but we fell out of contact for 50 years. Now we are exchanging long e-mails and catching up. There were two stories in his most recent communiqué that I would like to share. The first is a “whatever happened to” stories and the second a great sports story about Jim’s boyhood in St. Louis.

One of my great pleasures as a teen and young man was playing softball at Tucson’s Oury Park. The lights were so dim that pop-ups and high fly balls were adventures, and one of the umpire’s jobs was to burn old tires beneath the stands to keep the mosquitoes away. We were in a church league, but once a season we played a semi-pro woman’s team from Phoenix. The first baseman was both a good hitter and a good politician. Her name was Rose Mofford and when “Crazy” Ev Mecham was impeached in 1988, she became governor of Arizona.<<<

This second story is all about Jim, and is so cool that I want to tell it in his words:

“When I was a kid in St. Louis, Stan Musial was a neighbor. Ball players were pretty regular guys in those days, winter jobs, rode the bus home from the ballpark, etc. He would bring home scuffed balls, cracked bats, etc. ("Tire tape" would fix those, remember?) His son, Dicky, about my age, hated baseball, and would be at my house reading my comic books while I, along with other kids, would shag flies and grounders in the street from Stan. In those days, Wheaties gave a case of cereal for a home run, so all the moms in the neighborhood would send their kids to Mrs. Musial’s house to get cereal. ("And remember to say "thank you, Mrs. Musial"). It was stacked high on their back porch. Every time I'm in St. Louis, I drive by, thinking if anyone is outside I'll tell them that "The Man” used to live there.”<<<

Talk about both wanting and eating your cake, Republican representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin wants to privatize Social Security but socialize the risks. Sorry Paul, that’s not free enterprise, that’s risk-free enterprise.<<<

CNN Daily Poll - Should Treasury Secretary Geithner be given new powers to fix failing corporate giants?

Yes – 44%
No – 56%

I’m one of the yeses. I don’t trust Congress to do it right – dueling parties, dueling egos, dueling ambitions. The power and the responsibility should be centralized. Give it to the executive department.<<<

You all know that I am not big on the Second Amendment, so is it any wonder that I feel betrayed that Michelle Obama is a champion of the right to bare arms?<<<

The big lie as told by the big liar, Thomas Sowell.

He wrote in his column yesterday that, “politicians and bureaucrats micro-managing the mortgage sector of the economy is precisely how today's economic disaster began.”

Anyone with a brain and the ability to read knows that the opposite is true. It was the refusal of politicians to regulate the mortgage sector that led to our current disaster.

It is clear that Sowell and his ilk think that a lie told over and over becomes the truth. How can a great university like Stanford employ this man?<<<

Meghan McCain, on Larry King – the good and the tattoo.

McCain: “I was raised open-minded Christian -- one to accept people, love people, not pass judgment. ...

I believe in gay marriage, I personally am pro-life, but I'm not going to judge someone that's pro-choice. It is not my place to judge other people and what they do with their body.”

I love it! Too bad that she is a marked woman.

King: “Are you a tattooer?”
McCain: “I have one. My brothers have a lot of tattoos. I love tattoos. I do. I know, you never would have thought me, right? But I do.”

I know – Jim the judgmental. But I am glad that at least it is only a star on her foot.<<<

Color me uninformed. Years ago we ate at the Chart House on the waterfront in Boston. I had no idea that the building was once the office of John Hancock.<<<

Color me uninformed times two. I did not know that when the Secret Service, for security reasons, denied Nikita Khrushchev’s request to go to Disneyland during his 1959 visit to the U.S., he was taken on a motor tour of a housing project in GRANADA HILLS. NO LIE!<<<

Color me xenophobe - 50% of world’s aspirin comes from China. Personally, I would rather have my pain killed by an American.<<<

According to Maureen Dowd in today’s NY Times, surveys show that people with blue eyes are considered more intelligent, attractive and sociable. Modesty prevents me from telling you my eye color; so let’s just say that Frankie stole his nickname from moi.<<<

The nerve of those guys: Did you read that Countrywide is suing AIG unit over its failure to cover loan losses for the bad loans made by Countrywide. Clearly the buck doesn’t stop there.

On second thought, I suppose it depends on how you define buck.<<<

Among the things I must learn before our New York City trip this summer – especially when we go for pizza:

1. I stand on line, not in line.
2. I do not order “for here” or “to go” but, rather, “to stay” or “take away.”<<<

“Why should teachers be a protected class?” asks former teacher Larry Sands in an op-ed column in the LA Times. He goes on to say that during this financial crunch, they should be axed like everybody else.

Larry, it’s the students that need to be protected – from the overflowing classes that will be the result of teachers being laid off.<<<

The auto review line of the week comes from the LA Times where the reviewer said this: “As for the powertrain, it's so much a product of evolution they probably won't teach the Prius in Kansas.”<<<

“This game doesn't mean anything" - Arizona point guard Nic Wise on their 39-point loss to Louisville in the Sweet Sixteen. I wouldn’t have been shocked to hear a UCLA Bruin say the same thing. Both teams need players that take their losses hard.<<<

TWO MESSAGES

1. Happy Birthday to my brother Pat.
2. Dorothy – may your recovery be speedy and complete.