Nobody 808

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Nobody # 808

Nobody Asked Me But:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TODAY ELIZABETH! (ACTUALLY HER BIRTHDAY IS FEBRUARY 29, BUT, OF COURSE, THIS IS NOT LEAP YEAR.)

JUST SUPPOSE

“It is not irrelevant that the American people, if you average out all of the polls, are opposed to this bill by 55% to 37%.” Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell

Just suppose - that if you averaged out all the polls, Americans supported the bill by 55% to 37%. What then would be the chance that Mitch and his fellow Republicans would feel compelled to vote in favor of it?

The answer please: Slim or none – and you can forget about the slim. Phony bastards.<<<

And here is my impression of the health care summit – too many speeches, too little communication.<<<

Turner’s rules for living: Never apologize unless you have done something wrong – unless of course you are apologizing to your wife to save a hassle.<<<

A body in motion will remain in motion, and a body at rest wants to stay at rest. Sir Isaac Newton.

Who would have known that my aging process would provide absolute proof of Newton’s first and second laws of motion? When my body is at rest, sitting for a while or driving some distance, it wants so much to stay at rest that it screams with pain when I put it in motion. But once I break the pain/stiffness threshold, it will stay comfortably in motion for a long time – or until my legs get tired.<<<

A corollary to Newton’s Law is one called Turner’s Ordinance. It goes like this: A body that kneels down to retrieve something - will have a hell of a time getting back up.<<<

UNUSUAL BUT VERY NICE

On Monday we went in to our local Kaiser for yearly his and hers blood tests, which, of course meant a 14-hour fast - and, what is worse for me, a 3-day wine fast. Anyway, afterwards my wife actually sat down with me for a scone at Starbucks.

She only stayed 10 minutes before heading across the street to Vons, but it was cool.<<<

Note: We gave blood at 9:10am. Out first set of results were posted on our computer at 11:21 and 11:26. Amazing!<<<

Last week I mentioned discovering author Robert Ellis. This week I am pleased to report that “City On Fire,” which actually was written before “The Lost Witness,” is at least as good.<<<

And while on the subject of books, as I bought and read the new Robert B. Parker, “Split Image,” last week, I was reminded of how sad I am that he is gone. As always, Parker’s new book brought me joy. Granted, his novels are not mental hurdles. They are more like peaceful morning walks on a temperate beach. I swear that some day soon, I am going to reread them all.<<<

I saw a “The Daily Show” recently on which Jon Stewart’s guest was my all-time favorite baseball player, the “Say-Hey Kid,” Willie Mays. Willie was funnier then heck – aw heck, he was funnier than hell. Stewart asked him about the racial insults he received from the crowd when he was in the minors. Mays said they only made him hit the ball farther. In one series he hit two home runs in the first game and two and a triple the second. Then, when he was taking the field for the third game, the public address announcer told the crowd, “Folks, leave that guy alone. He’s killing us!”<<<

More on baseball- only in the minors: The Detroit Tiger’s Class A Midwest League team, the Western Michigan White Caps, offers the following at their concession stands – a Twinkie Cheese Dog (a deep fried, cheese covered hot dog on a stick stuck into a sponge cake with creamy filling). UGH!<<<

And what about ex-Bruin point guard Darren Collison? I admit that I was one of those who thought he would be no more than a good back-up point in the NBA. But I am thrilled that he is proving me wrong. Since becoming the starter when Hornet guard Chris Paul was injured, Darren has averaged 20.7 points per game and 8.8 rebounds. Included was a stretch when he scored 24 or more points for five straight games.<<<

Add on Collison: When Darren scored 22 pts and had 9 assists last Wednesday, it gave him at least 18pts and 9 assists in 7 straight games. Only one other rookie has EVER done that - Oscar Robertson, a half- century ago.<<<

What he said: "This new Democrats-only backroom deal doubles down on the same failed approach that will drive up premiums, destroy jobs, raise taxes and slash Medicare benefits." House Minority leader, John Boehner

What he really meant: I will be so glad when we Republicans can stop pretending that we are defending Medicare and privatize the whole damn thing. Phony bastard!<<<

My mother didn’t mean anything bad, but I, like so many children, grew up saying this prayer at bedtime:

Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

If I should die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Parents: Do you really want your children to go to sleep afraid that they may die before morning?<<<

TAKE THIS

Anthem Blue Cross plans to go ahead with 39% rate hikes in California.

MIX IN THIS

“My best guess is that they want me dead as soon as possible," Bob Iritano told LA Times business columnist David Lazarus as they spoke at the dining room table of Iritano Westlake Village home.

Bob has terminal cancer and his insurer, Health Net, left him standing in a hospital gown when they refused to pay for a procedure this month that they had willingly covered only six months earlier.

And to add insult to injury, Bob was notified last week that since he was about to turn 50, his premium would go up almost $1,800 a month to more than $2,500 -- a roughly 40% increase.

AND THEN TELL ME

THAT CONGRESS SHOULD NOT PASS A COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH VOTE THIS YEAR, EVEN IF IT TAKES A RECONCILLIATION IN THE SENATE.<<<

Famous days in history - September 9, 1963.

What happened? President Kennedy sat for an interview with Walter Cronkite.

What special significance? It marked the expansion of CBS Evening News from 15 minutes to one-half hour.<<<

"Only the little people pay taxes." What Jamie McCourt reportedly told a maid.

To prove her point, the Mc Courts (owners of the LA Dodgers) earned $108M between 2004 and 2009 and paid ZERO in federal and state taxes.<<<

I am closing today with a quote about how to tell directions from an unknown but wise Canadian:

"If you're seeing mountains, you're facing north. If your feet are wet, you're in the ocean -- that's west. If you've just had your car stolen, you're in Surrey to the east.

"But if you see people without healthcare and waving handguns ...

"You're in the States."

Nobody 807a

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Nobody # 807

Nobody Asked Me But:

There are places I remember: While in the process of scanning all mementos from past trips, I ran across this card showing one of my top five hotel rooms. The Inn at Sunrise Point is just a couple of miles north of Camden, Maine. Our room was the one at the lower right, within a few feet of the water.<<<

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17

EMERGENCIES

Supposedly most people, as they get older, are less able to handle emergency situations without excessive stress and sometimes, even panic. Once again today, I proved that I am not most people. Here’s what happened. I pulled up to my “home” Coldstone at 11am, only to find a sign announcing that they would not open until 2pm. No stress. I just exited the parking lot and headed several miles east to another Coldstone, one that I had never been to, with a Starbucks next door.

No panic. No problem. And the girl makes a terrific malt.<<<

Which is why I sit here, chocolate malt and cup of black in front of me. It is 36 hours until the NBA trading deadline, time for me to play fantasy Lakers general manager. Jim Turner is my name. Trading Andrew Bynum is my game.

Why?

1. I can make the Lakers stronger and give them a better chance to win their second consecutive championship.

2. I can improve the team’s chances of staying at the top over the long run.

3. While Bynum is very good, I am not sure he has the drive to be great.

4. The team is better defensively and on the boards with Lamar Odom on the floor instead of Andrew.

For whom? I have two possibilities:

1. Send Bynum to the Memphis Grizzlies for Marc Gasol and two first round picks.

2. Send him to the Timberwolves for Kevin Love and two first round picks.

Justification: Even off the bench, Love is an automatic double-double and Gasol is right there too. Both would bring high energy on to the floor every game.

Which is my preference?

It’s a toss-up. Marc Gasol would make for an intriguing brother combination with Pau. For Love, who played at UCLA, it would be a homecoming of sort and would pretty much guarantee us at least one lottery choice and probably two.

What happens now?

I finish my malt and wait for the phone to ring.<<<

(It never rang.)<<<

I see that Tiger Woods is going to make a public statement Friday. From what I hear, he will announce that his goal is to cut his scoring by 20% this year. If true, this will knock approximately 20 women off his total by the end of the tour.

Just kidding Tiger. I remain a huge fan.<<<

It was indeed, as one reviewer put it, “a softer attack than I expected.” But, then, why would I expect my first glass of Opus One to attack me. After all, I have waited a long time to try this wine. I had about given up when Barbara surprised me at Christmas three years ago with a bottle of 2004. I opened it last Sunday (Valentine’s Day) and it was even better than I anticipated, although I am not sure that I would choose the same pretentious terms as this wine connoisseur used to describe it - “lovely nose, dark fruit, velvet mouth feel, black cherry, chocolate, earth, spice and cocoa.”

Instead I’ll just say my thank you to Robert Mondavi and Baron Philippe Rothchild, both now deceased, for creating this great winery and to my wife for her most wonderful gift.<<<

The undead are back! Zombies walk among us! One of the scariest creatures from the Republican monster machine has risen from the muck. That's right. Privatizing Social Security, or just Privatizing as he has come to be known, has slipped out of the Republican caucus and is once more prowling the halls of the Capital. Rumor has it that he wants to mate with Tea Party to produce a new brood of Liberty Boys, who will fight to the last man for the American dream - excess profits.<<<

The undead are back! Zombies walk among us! Oh, excuse me. That was just the Bruins on the court against Washington last night.<<<

I just finished reading my first Robert Ellis novel, “The Lost Witness.” I liked it enough to make a special trip to Borders, Sunday, to buy the previous book in his series about LA Robbery/Homicide detective Lena Gamble, “City Of Fire.” For a few days I was even reading the two simultaneously.<<<

Here is a great Vancouver Olympics quote from LA Times columnist Chris Erskine – “They have strange weather patterns here. It only rains when I go outside.”<<<

As teams prepare to report to camp in Florida and Arizona, I keep humming that song from State Fair, “It might as well be Spring….. Training.”<<<

And while on the subject of baseball, last season’s Mr. Consistency was Ben Zobrist of the Devil Rays. His stats include 91 runs scored, 91 RBIs and 91 walks. And will the Rays be the third best team in both the majors and their division?<<<

ACTION/REACTION

Action: Responding to an article in the Arizona Daily Star, a lady wrongly compared the Republican dominated legislature to Ringling Brothers circus.

Reaction: Wrong! Ringling Brothers is a class act. This gun toting, bible-waving bunch is more “Carney” than class.

Action: "Congress has never crossed the line between regulating what people choose to do and ordering them to do it," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). "The difference between regulating and requiring is liberty."

Reaction: Never ordering? Never requiring? Ah, Orrin, does that mean my paying income tax is voluntary?

Action: Here is Justice Kennedy in his majority opinion for the outrageous Supreme Court decision that gave corporations and unions “free speech” rights to make campaign contributions without limits to the party of their choice: “No evidence shows that unrestricted campaign money ever bought a lawmaker’s vote.”

Reaction: They just give all that money because they are good citizens and expect nothing in return. Right!

Reaction #: To make a statement like that, Justice Kennedy must be dumb, deluded or dishonest.

Action: Another recent CNN question was, “Do you carry a gun?” 39% answered yes.

Reaction: SHAME ON YOU AMERICA.

Action: Austin radio host Alex Jones declared Thursday that Joe Stack’s suicide crash into that Austin building that housed an IRS office was staged by the government to “demonize the tea party movement.”

Reaction: We used to give crazy people help. Now we give them a radio or television show.

Nobody 806

Sunday, February 14, (Valentine’s Day) 2010

Nobody # 806

Nobody Asked Me But:

Along with a life of happiness, my marriage brings me certain kitchen fringe benefits. When Barbara makes guacamole, I get to taste-test it. With mashed potatoes, I get to eat what's left in the large bowl. And when she makes Thousand Island dressing, it's deviled-egg salad time. This latter was the bliss I experienced last Monday. I was sitting in the yard on one of the few mild days in an excessively cold winter, a book in my hand, a can of iced coffee nearby and a small dish of deviled-egg salad with four cheese sticks ready for dipping. Life is good.<<<

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change," he began, "the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference." Reinhold Niebuhr

Niebuhr, who is our president’s favorite philosopher, was one of the three great Protestant theologians of the 20^th Century. (The others were Paul Tillich and Karl Barth.) I have been re-reading some of Niebuhr’s writings lately, and they gave me a sort of epiphany.

Too often I hide behind my idealism. That way I can turn off a disappointing world with a "what's the use" or a "why bother." It is much easier to do that than to commit to the imperfect or to the gradual.

Example: It is morally right to provide affordable health care for everyone. The alternate is to increase the unfair advantage of the haves over the have nots or those who have less. However, except in very unusual times and circumstances, Americans are afraid of “excessive” change, especially when it involves "too much" government. The answer then, even though I don’t like it, is to seek a moral health care system by increments. Pass a bill this year outlawing discrimination for pre-existing conditions and all policy cancelations for the sick and very sick. Include a warning clause to the companies and to hospitals that anything more than cost of living rate increases will result in legislation establishing either price controls or a government option.

Although this law will not solve the problem of most of the uninsured, it will add vital protection to the currently insured and the newly insured, and will, “with all deliberate speed,” win their support for the larger changes that will follow.<<<

And for those who still believe in the tooth fairy and that private health insurance companies have good hearts and, in any way, operate in the public interest, chew on the following:

The five largest health insurance companies racked up combined profits of $12.2 billion -- up 56% over 2008.

The five largest health insurance companies covered 2.7 million fewer people than they did last year.

Some of the five insurers cut the proportion of premiums they spent on their customers' medical care, committing relatively more to salaries, administrative expenses and profit.<<<

QUESTIONS FOR GRANDFATHER

Emily: “Grandfather, for my homework I need to list 100 reasons for saving our planet. I can only think of 99. Can you help me?”

Grandfather: “Earth is the only planet with tacos.”

Emily: “Grandfather, what were rabbit ears?”

Grandfather: “Just think of them as a free cable box.”

Emily: “Grandfather, why do Republicans in congress wear that button with Nancy Reagan’s picture on it?”

Grandfather: “Because she is the mother of their anti-Obama philosophy - ‘Just Say No.’”<<<

ACTION/REACTION

Action: “The tea-party movement has no leader, but neither did the American Revolution," talk-radio host Phil Valentine, at the convention.

Reaction: WOW! George Washington just turned over in his grave.

Action: Sarah Palin says, "it would be absurd not to ponder a presidential bid."

Reaction: Those darn newspapers got it wrong again. They obviously added the word “not” to Palin’s statement.

Action: New study shows heavy male politicians are considered more reliable and honest than thinner counterparts.

Reaction: So Shakespeare was right when he had Caesar warn Mark Anthony:

“Let me have men about me that are fat/Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights/Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look,/He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.”

Reaction # 2: Call me reliable. Call me honest. At least, call me.

Action: President Bill goes to the hospital and SOS Hilary “does not seem too concerned.”

Reaction: WOW! If true, that’s cold.

WHEN HISTORY HURTS – OR THE (NOT) GOOD OLD DAYS.

Tucson’s famed El Dorado Lodge, AT Wilmot and Speedway, opened in 1949 specifically to serve Jews who were banned from Tucson's other dude ranches.<<<

More on Arizona – the Republican-controlled legislature is considering a bill that would FORCE couples seeking a divorce to wait four more months before it can be finalized. And I always thought the GOP believed in less government not more. Isn’t one of their favorite sayings is that the government should “get off the people’s backs?”<<<

Sad to say, but “24” has finally jumped the shark. It has become a show that only Dick Cheney can love.<<<

Payton Manning is a great quarterback but Joe (4-0 in the Super Bowl) Montana is still the all-time best.<<<

I don’t like it, but I agree with UCLA’s Michael Roll about why they lost a recent game to California: "We're not as good as these guys."<<<

FROM “TRUE COMPASS, A MEMOIR” BY TED KENNEDY

During a debate over the Democratic nomination for Senator from Massachusetts, Ted's opponent ridiculed him for never having worked a day in his life. The next day Kennedy was shaking hands outside a factory when a worker yelled over to him, “Hey Kennedy. I hear you haven't worked a day in your life.” Then the guy walked over to Ted, slapped him on the back and said, “Let me tell you something, you haven't missed a thing.”<<<

And did you know that: After graduating from Harvard and receiving his varsity letter, Ted received a letter from the Packers asking him if he wanted to try out?<<<

And how can anyone who saw our president at the White House Lincoln/civil rights tribute last Thursday smiling, moving to the music’s rhythm and singing along, not have a huge warm spot in their heart for the man?<<<

VALENTINE’S DAY SPECIALS

My top three love movies for Valentine’s Day:

“The Quiet Man:

“The African Queen”

“Casablanca.”

My top three greatest movie kisses:

“The Quiet Man” (John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara)

“Gone With The Wind: (Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh)

“From Here To Eternity” (Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr)

Runners-up – “Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs” and “Lady And The Tramp.”)

My classic Valentine’s Day dinner:

Barbara’s macaroni and cheese, (well-browned on top) a salad with home made thousand island dressing and a superb bottle of red, – all of which I will be having in about 10 hours.

So Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you!