Nobody 833

Sunday September 11, 2010
Nobody # 833

Nobody Asked Me But:

“Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.” John W. Whitehead<<<

Question of the week: If you/I had your/my entire summer free, how and where would you spend it? Answer: This week is down-home America. We would rent a cottage in Southern Maine and divide our time between relaxing and exploring. For the latter we would eat apple pie with a slice of Vermont cheddar, (in Vermont) drink coffee milk in Rhode Island, (the state’s official drink) beat Barbara in miniature golf on Cape Cod and go to a Major League game at Fenway and a minor league contest in Portland. We would attend a concert at Tanglewood, go to Sundae School in Harwich, watch the sun rise in Camden, visit every small bookstore and take pictures of every covered bridge in New England and eat cider doughnuts at the Hollow Cider Mill in Waterbury, Vermont.<<<

(The first two pictures are of Sunrise Point in Camden, ME. The third is of the Bush compound in Kennebunkport, ME)

Words of wisdom from British historian Tony Judt who died last month:

"I think intellectuals have a primary duty to dissent not from the conventional wisdom of the age (though that too) but, and above all, from the consensus of their own community. So liberals should look especially hard at the uninterrogated assumptions of liberalism. Otherwise we are just hacks for a party line. If I have an Archimedean ethical standpoint, it really just consists of telling the truth as I see it even if I don't much care for the implications, or if it offends my friends and my political allies."

Reaction: I am not an intellectual, and I try not to be a liberal “hack.” I fail too often, so my vow is to fail less.<<<

Call me dumb. Call me anything. Just call me. I didn’t know that the phrase jump the shark (the moment when a television series starts on its downhill path) actually referred to Fonzie, on water skies, jumping a shark on Happy Days. (September 20, 1977).

I am starting my own Shark List of future possibilities: For Mad Men, I was going to put Don and Peggy “get together.” Then, although they didn’t “get together” in last Sunday’s episode, there was more personal contact than normal. So scratch that impossibility.

So instead I’ll choose this: Don, having bedded every secretary in the firm except his current one, a woman well past a certain age, feels lonely and decides, “What the hell.”<<<

With the bad but expected news that health insurance companies are again raising their rates by double percentage figures, I look back in anger that Congress and the President did not do follow the advice that Santa lays on the government every Christmas Eve:

And I heard him exclaim
Ere he left with great stealth
Medicare for all
And for all a good health

Santa’s right. The people would have understood it. It would have covered everyone. The cost would be uniform. And, because Medicare is one of the most beloved of all government programs, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN POPULAR! (With everyone but Republicans, that is.) The Democrats, who are now suffering for the economic sins of others, would, at least, not be leaking health care votes had they done this.<<<

I don’t believe we are at war with Islam, but somebody should tell Ibrahim Mogra, an imam and committee chairman at the Muslim Council of Britain, to choose his words more carefully. Nicknaming Allah the “Almighty Conqueror" does not exactly inspire confidence.<<<

Why do gun owners proselyte? Why isn’t having their own guns enough?<<<

Action: Torture Is A Crime, Not A Secret - NY Times

Reaction: For shame, Mr. President! You once knew that too, or claimed you did.

Reaction # 2: I am so appalled that I will say it twice. Shame on you, Mr. President.<<<

Action: Republicans have a slight edge over Democrats on the economy, according to a new CNN national poll.

Reaction: This boggles my mind. How can a thinking person believe that the party who not only created this mess but continues to believe in its philosophical underpinning (deregulation) be trusted to solve it? Granted, the Democrats have not provided the cure, but they have improved on that which they inherited.

Reaction # 2: Wake-up people. Deregulation is the enemy and if you put Republicans back in office, the enemy will be once more at your gate.<<<

Action: “Fair and balanced means you have to put some idiocy on the air." Rush Limbaugh

Reaction: So that’s how he got the job.<<<

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Is Jonathan Franzen’s new novel, Freedom, a “masterpiece of American fiction” as a LA Times reviewer recently called it? Probably not. That term should be treasured, to be bestowed only a few times in a millennium. But it is an excellent novel, deep without being difficult and funny in a serious way. This story of an American family ranks right up there with Richard Russo’s Pulitzer winning Empire Falls. I give it an A+.<<<

Is it just me, or was this the worst set of summer movies in the last 400 years? No wonder the season was a box-office bomb.<<<

I take more pleasure from the picture I took of Barb standing outside Tiffany’s, NYC, than I do in Audrey Hepburn’s breakfast there. Perhaps it is a movie I need to see again. (If for nothing else than to hear “Moon River.”) But can I bear listening to Mickey Rooney’s display of Hollywood’s worst ever Japanese accent - "Miss Horry Gorightry?"<<<

Brief NFL pre-season comment: The worm turns: I have never liked the Green Bay Packers. Never! But this year they are my favorite team not named Lions or 49ers. What do they offer me? Two things. I like their quarterback – Aaron Rogers. And they had the guts to shed themselves of Bret Favre before he retired on them seven or eight times.<<<

“I have friends who hardly even check their e-mail any more.” This is a line from Freedom. Change friends to grandchildren and you have the story of my life. It makes me think that I should add text messaging to my iPhone.<<<

FYI: On the road meal money – per day:

MLB - $89.50
NBA - $114
NHL - $85
NFL - $90

In a NY Daily News poll last week, 77% of those responding said that there is no reason not to build the Islamic Center at the proposed site close to Ground Zero.<<<

The good guy: U.S. District Virginia Phillips ruled the military’s gay policy, don’t ask, don’t tell unconstitutional.

The bad guys: The Justice Department (and its boss, President Obama) for supporting the policy and appealing the judge’s decision.<<<

Changing times: The NBA announced Thursday that they are opening a branch office in Moscow. Reaction: I don’t think Stalin, In his day, would have allowed this unless he was granted the right to purchase a team, purge its wealthy players and appoint an NKVD man as coach.<<<

From Hugh: Question - How is Jonathon Broxton like Eric Gagne?

Answer - When he is called in from the bullpen, the crowd chants “Game over.”<<<

This Starbuck's is in Portland, Maine and is one of my favorites.

Nobody 832

Sunday September 5, 2010

Nobody # 832

Nobody Asked Me But:

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist." -- Physicist Stephen Hawking, in his just published book “The Grand Design,” co-authored with Cal Tech physicist Leonard Mlodinow.

With this, Hawking says his total good-bye to divine creation. And did you know that the Cambridge seat from which he is retiring, Lucasion Professor of Mathematics, was once held by Sir Isaac Newton?<<<

Question of the week: If you/I had my entire summer free, how and where would you spend it?

Answer: Since balance is everything, I want two summers – one foreign and one domestic. I’ll start with the foreign. I (actually, we, always we) would take a flat in London and use it as a base to explore the city and the countryside. We would rent chairs in St. James Park and ride the Eye, spend days in the British Museum and the British Library, shop Old and New Bond and Barb would learn to like Indian food. We would buy summer rail/bus passes and explore from Plymouth to Inverness (with a couple of trips to Paris thrown in). Oh, and eat at places like this one pictured, where we ate in 2006.

Next week - domestic.<<<

WHAT DO THEY WANT?

President Obama is responsible for a monumental health care bill, a stimulus bill that helped avoid a depression, a history-making financial reform bill, a bailout that enabled General Motors and Chrysler to survive. He nominated two excellent women to the Supreme Court. He restored America's image in the world. And most Americans are giving him a grade of C or lower. What do they want?

The health care bill follows the tradition of Social Security and Medicare, both of which most Americans wholeheartedly support as untouchables. And yet many of those same people view it like a plague. What do they want?

Many people are calling for deregulation, which caused our present financial mess. That is like saying “It hurt so much when you hit me before, please do it again.” What do they want?<<<

As I have written previously, each issue of The Sporting News Daily has a response to a set list of questions by an athlete or coach. I worry about those who proclaim themselves non-readers or list Dumb And Dumber as their favorite movie, but occasionally someone will have answers that partly restore my faith that intelligence and sports are not enemies. This past Wednesday there was one of the latter, Derek Dooley, the son of legendary Georgia football coach and athletic director Vince, and the new coach at Tennessee. Dooley reads, (Pat Conroy, Stephen Ambrose) loves hamburgers (“They are like football players, they come in all shapes and sizes and you can find some good in all of them”) and believes it was a travesty when Shakespeare In Love beat Saving Private Ryan for the BP Academy Award in 1998.<<<

Why I get discouraged, Part 2010

U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that inmates should not be allowed to file late petitions for release even if they can prove they are innocent.

To deliberately leave innocent people incarcerated is not only a monumental miscarriage of justice. It shows the very face of evil.<<<

GOURMET IS IN THE TASTE OF THE EATER

We had grilled cheese sandwiches last night. The crusty bread was from a bakery in Montrose, the Tillamook cheese was sharp cheddar and the Cab was a 2005 from Châteaux Michelle. Now that was a gourmet meal.<<<

Signs of the Hypocralipse:

Glen Beck – How do you hold an “honor rally” when you have no honor?

LA Times – The paper keep saying that test scores are only a part of their teacher-evaluation scheme but then promote them as if they were the whole thing.

Most Republicans – for claiming that Democrats who criticized President Bush during wartime encouraged our enemies and endangered our troops but now vehemently criticize President Obama thereby, one supposes, encouraging our enemies and endangering our troops.

Most Republicans again – (1) They say that a majority of Americans are against locating the Islamic center close to Ground Zero (several polls) and they must be listened to. (2) They say that even though 71% of the people (CNN poll) think the war in Iraq was unsuccessful, they must be ignored.<<<

Have you ever noticed that when someone says “it’s not really about the money,” it usually is?<<<

Separated at birth – Joe McCarthy and Glen Beck – both climb the fame and power ladder by lying and making unsubstantiated accusations.<<<

Charlie Chan had this piece of advice for the tea party – although with a foreign name and having been born in Hawaii, they might demand to see his birth certificate before listening: "Mind, like parachute, only function when open."<<<

Did you know:

That Foyle’s War takes place in and around Hastings, as in the Battle of, (1066) and that the name of the actress who plays his driver Sam is Honeysuckle Weeks?

That U$C has produced more NFL players (468) than any other school? Of course, most of them had four years of playing for pay before they were even drafted.

That according to About.com, Lawrence of Arabia is one of the top 10 action films of all time. They are kidding, aren’t they? Most of the action in “Borance” centers around watching the sand grow.<<<

Question for Michelle Obama critics – since her trip to Spain, many of you are referring to her as Marie Antoinette. Does this make her a socialist Marie Antoinette?<<<

I love Nora Ephron’s titles:

Her play – Love, Loss and What I Wore;

For her new collection of essays, I Remember Nothing.<<<

I’m a George Clooney fan but “The American” is not one of his best – or near best – or very good efforts. There were a few compelling moments, but most of the film was strangely without energy, which, I suppose, is a polite way of saying it was boring. It was also dialogue light to the point that I expected to see Buster Keaton show up any moment. And I hope that those tattoos on Clooney were fakes. If not, his Cary Grant image is gone forever.<<<

Crowd estimates for Beck’s big day are growing like Pinocchio’s nose.

CBS news – 87,000

Sarah Palin – more than 100,000

Beck – 350,000 – 600,000

Michele Bachmann – no fewer than 1,000,000.<<<

And finally, here is last week’s stock market summary: Helium was up; feathers were down. Paper was stationary. Elevators rose, while escalators continued their slow decline. Mining equipment hit rock bottom. The market for raisins dried up. Coca-Cola fizzled. Balloon prices were inflated. And Scott tissue reached a new bottom.<<<