When I went to Boston, I knew they won championships but didn’t really know the history. But the players always came around, you’d ask questions, they’d talk basketball. You didn’t want to let the guys down. They set the bar high. It’s not like that here [in Indiana], or around the league. We stay at the nicest hotels. In Minnesota we’re right across the street from the arena, maybe a 45-second walk. They’ve got a bus for them. You’ve got to be kidding me. Charter planes. That’s not flying. I always say guys deserve the money, but it changes some people.
Redundancies
When the government says ‘Islamic militants,’ it sends a message to the public that Islam and militancy are synonymous.
No, that’s not correct. What law school did you go to?
If Islam and militancy were synonymous, then you could just say “Islamic” or “militants” and “Islamic militants” would be redundant, like “past history” or “unexpected surprise.”
So actually, when the government says “Islamic militants,” it sends a message that Islam and militancy are not synonymous, although you can’t help noticing that most terrorists are in fact Islamic . . .
The Perfect Boss
In addition to the timely pay for acceptable services he offers, there are a few additional conditions that he imposes on you, if you are one of his subordinates. These are:
- What actions you take, you believe in.
- What commitments you make, you keep,
- What resources you have, you use.
- What words you say, you believe to be true.
- What you create, you intend to be great.
He knows that if you buy something from an expert, you are wise to let them to deliver it on their own. . . .
He requires that the team credibly believe itself to be doing something great, and also insists that all involved relentlessly pursue – and always adopt – what they think is the best available idea. . . .
He never allows people to say, “People say…” If unidentified “people” have something to say, they can come say it. He listens. He just doesn’t believe in the self-appointed representation of selves not one’s own.
Responses to Tragedy
Dinesh DiSouza, a noted conservative pundit, was moved in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings to say this:
Only the language of religion seems appropriate to the magnitude of tragedy. Only God seems to have the power to heal hearts in such circumstances. . . . Atheism seems to have nothing to say to people when there is serious bereavement or tragedy.
That’s not true. For example, one famous atheist response to tragedy is this: So it goes.
DiSouza also forgot to add that if you leave out platitudes, pleasant myths and happily-ever-after fairy tales, religion has nothing to say to people either . . .
EppsNet Restaurant Review: Norm’s
I hadn’t been to a Norm’s restaurant in years. There isn’t one in my neighborhood. We discovered this one because it’s close to the new place where my son’s taking percussion lessons.
Not only was the boy able to get two eggs, two sausages, two pieces of bacon, half a dinner plate full of hash browns, and two gigantic slabs of French toast with butter and syrup for only $5.99, he managed to polish off the whole thing before I even finished my salad.
Excellent value!
Rating: Five stars.
How Many Senators Does It Take …
Even when asked something noncontroversial, what he [Barack Obama] personally did to improve the environment, he said 3,000 campaign volunteers planted trees on Earth Day. With a prod from moderator Brian Williams, the NBC anchor, Obama added he’s “been working” to install energy efficient light bulbs at home. He sounded out of touch.
Is this the new version of the old joke? How many senators does it take to “work on” changing a light bulb? One to propose a bipartisan commission. One to threaten to de-fund the light bulbs. One to demand the impeachment of Bush and Cheney for keeping us all in the dark. One to vote to pull out the first of the light bulbs by fall of this year with a view to getting them all pulled out by the end of 2008.
Lit Quizzes
New additions to the First Lines and Last Lines quizzes:
First Lines
Call me Ishmael.
It was a bright, cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen.
Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tidewater dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego.
Last summer I happened to be crossing the plains of Iowa in a season of intense heat, and it was my good fortune to have for a traveling companion James Quayle Burden–Jim Burden, as we still call him in the West.
The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.
Last Lines
He loved Big Brother.
At that, as if it had been the signal he waited for, Newland Archer got up slowly and walked back alone to his hotel.
Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past.
It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.
Vox Clamantis in Deserto
As we’re driving home from a hockey tournament, my son and I see a car with a license plate frame that reads
DARTMOUTH
VOX CLAMANTIS IN DESERTO
“Is that the kind of thing they teach you at Dartmouth?” he asks.
“Apparently,” I say.
“Doesn’t seem very useful.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I have to admit.
Not as Unstoppable as Advertised
For a guy who’s supposed to be the most dominant, unstoppable player of his generation, Shaq has certainly been on the wrong side of some lopsided playoff losses:
- 1994: Indiana def. Orlando, 3-0
- 1995: Houston def. Orlando, 4-0
- 1996: Chicago def. Orlando, 4-0
- 1997: Utah def. Los Angeles, 4-1
- 1998: Utah def. Los Angeles, 4-0
- 1999: San Antonio def. Los Angeles, 4-0
- 2004: Detroit def. Los Angeles, 4-1
- 2007: Chicago def. Miami, 4-0
To be fair about it, he did win NBA championships in 2000, 2001 and 2002 with the Lakers, and in 2006 with Miami.
On the Gulls’ Road
Even if you’re not a fan of the “young woman with a weak heart” plot — and who is? — “On the Gulls’ Road” by Willa Cather is a splendid short story.
Mrs. Bryant Throws the Gyroball
My son’s having some trouble with 8th grade Algebra. When I work with him on it, I can see that he knows the material and he can do the calculations . . . his biggest problem is a fatalistic, let’s-get-it-over-with, I’m-no-good-at-math attitude, which leads to careless errors, and frustration if his first approach to a problem doesn’t work.
I encourage him to take a more positive attitude, to go into the next test saying positive things to himself, like “I know this material” and “I can handle these questions.”
“But I don’t know it,” he says. “Mrs. Bryant [his math teacher] throws the gyroball every pitch! And sometimes she hits me with it!”
What we have here is a classic self-fulfilling prophecy . . .
What to Do If You’re Confronted With a Gun-Wielding Madman
Blast from the Past
After winning 11 state primaries in a field of 16 contenders, I won the Democratic presidential nomination. I then lost the general election to President Nixon. Indeed, the entrenched incumbent president, with a campaign budget 10 times the size of mine, the power of the White House behind him and a highly negative and unethical campaign, defeated me overwhelmingly. But lest [Dick] Cheney has forgotten, a few months after the election, investigations by the Senate and an impeachment proceeding in the House forced Nixon to become the only president in American history to resign the presidency in disgrace.
Who was the real loser of ’72?
Wow, that is a provocative question. It really made us wonder if we’ve been wrong all these years. Accordingly, we went back and checked. Turns out the real loser was McGovern, just as we had thought!
Casey Goes to Washington
Separated at Birth
This photo somehow escaped my attention over the year or so since The M Zone first published it.
One of the subjects in the photo is a large, flightless bird with shaggy plumage.
The other is an emu.
(Actually, the chap on the right is incoming Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen.)
OK, So They Were Violent and Crazy
More details are emerging on the crazy naked woman with a gun case . . .
Not surprisingly, despite a neighbor’s assertion that Kevin and Joni Park “were not violent or crazy,” it turns out that they were in fact violent and crazy.
They Were Not Violent or Crazy
Here’s an offbeat local item as reported in the Orange County Register:
Kevin and Joni Park were shot and killed in an oceanfront bungalow at the Montage [a Laguna Beach hotel where bungalows start at $2,200 a night] on Sunday where they had checked in with a semiautomatic handgun and a bag of extra ammunition.
The Parks were killed in a confrontation with police after officers were summoned to the hotel at 7:40 a.m. by several 911 callers, who reported a naked, “crazy woman” with a gun who was threatening them in Treasure Island Park, at the southern end of the five-star resort.
Mrs. Park appears to be naked in the accompanying photo as well. Was she a nudist? The Register is silent on this point.
One of the Parks’ neighbors says that “they were not violent or crazy.”
No, they were not violent or crazy. I ask you: who doesn’t enjoy an occasional weekend getaway at a five-star resort, running naked through the lush green lawns, and threatening the patrons with a loaded handgun?
He Doesn’t Know Either
The neighbors next door have twin toddlers and these kids look exactly alike.
Yesterday, they were in the front yard with Grandpa when I drove up so I asked him, “How do you tell these boys apart? Help me out with that.”
He pointed to one boy and said, “This one has a red shirt, and this one” — pointing to the other boy — “has a green shirt.”
Strahan’s Wife Has Garage Sale With His Stuff
Oh, this is rich . . .
Michael Strahan‘s ex-wife held a garage sale on Saturday. How often do you see a garage sale outside a $3.6 million mansion?
Among the items on sale was a set of cassette tapes on how to make relationships succeed.
One diehard Giants fan walked away with two television sets for the bargain price of $100.
“I get to cheer for Mike on his TV,” he said.
Not the Way Ward Cleaver Would Have Handled It
Ireland Baldwin is very lucky to have a dad like Alec Baldwin who can “straighten her ass out on issues” on a regular basis. He can even fly to wherever she is to straighten her out in person!
It’s what he does!
The rest of us only have Alec Baldwin to straighten us out on issues on an irregular, ad hoc basis.
[UPDATE: A family law judge was so alarmed after hearing Baldwin’s phone message that she has barred him from having any contact with his child pending a May 4 hearing, so he will be limited to long-distance ass-straightening, er, parenting, at least temporarily.]
Parents get what they deserve from their kids. It’s not easy to snuff out the natural affection that a child has for a parent, but if you perservere, you can do it!