NBC analyst Bill Walton attended UCLA. FOX Sports analysts Marques Johnson and Jack Haley also went to UCLA.
Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss attended USC.
Coherence
The Vatican’s Fides news service weighs in on the fashion of wearing crosses decorated with diamonds and other precious stones:
Is it consistent with the Gospel to spend millions on a copy of the sacred symbol of the Christian faith and perhaps forget that there are people all over the world who suffer and die of hunger?
In other Church news, Time magazine’s report on church finances indicates that Boston’s Cardinal Law lives in a $130 million residence, the Detroit diocese owns an $18 million golf and conference center, and the Providence diocese owns a $22 million dollar mansion that it rents out for parties.
Meanwhile, the cardinal of the Chicago diocese has to make do with a $10 million residence, which may need to be sold off to cover sex-abuse claims.
Embracing Couple Killed By Train
A young couple in New Jersey held hands and stepped in front of an Amtrak train, electing to be simultaneously obliterated in one final embrace.
Relatives told The Associated Press that the couple were drug addicts who had been evicted from their apartment and saw suicide as their only way out, which takes a lot of the romance out of the story as far as I’m concerned . . .
Warhol’s Prophecy
I wish Andy Warhol was around to see that his most famous prophecy — that everyone will eventually enjoy 15 minutes of fame — came true with a vengeance. Talk shows opened the stage door to trailer park America, and now game shows are celebrating anyone who knows the capital of Spain or who marries a potential wife-beater on camera . . .
The Modern Critic
‘This book [Judith Levine’s Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex] encourages children to have sex, and that is very, very dangerous,’ Bill O’Reilly said on his show. He also provided a sampling of the complaints against the book, calling it ‘vile,’ ‘disgusting,’ ‘insane,’ ‘perverted,’ ‘sick stuff,’ ‘outrageous,’ and ‘evil.’ (He also admitted on air that he hasn’t read it.) [Emph. added]
Dogfood
The netscape.com domain, which is owned by AOL, has replaced its Netscape-Enterprise servers with AOLServer.
Repeat: netscape.com no longer runs on Netscape servers.
Also: netscape.co.uk now runs Apache, while in France, netscape.fr runs Microsoft-IIS.
Senegal 1, France 0
In a historic upset, Senegal, making its first appearance in World Cup competition, defeats France, the defending champs.
Senegal was a French colony until 1960.
Ironically, France has previously scored a number of impressive victories against the African colonies, although it must be noted that they were competing with guns against spears in those matchups.
USC Alumni Notes
Are You Being Served?
The Guardian sends writers to bookstores to test the staffs’ literary knowledge:
I point to the word ‘jawbo’ on page 330 [of Joyce’s Ulysses]. ‘That’s not a word,’ I say. ‘Mmmm,’ he says. ‘It’s rare that publishers make a mistake like that.’
Word of the Day
sang-froid, also sangfroid \sang-FRWAH\, noun: Freedom from agitation or excitement of mind; coolness in trying circumstances; calmness.
Sang-froid is from the French; it literally means “cold blood” (sang, “blood” + froid, “cold”).
Ask a 3rd Grader
If Amelia Earhart were alive today, what do you think she would be doing?
If Amelia Earhart was alive today, she would be doing things that are not dangerous because she would be 105 years old.
Welcome to Irvine!
Education is important in our community . . .
Word came home last week that this year’s Stanford 9 testing starts the first week of May. Immediately, my wife got a call from another mom announcing that she’s cancelling all play dates through the end of the testing period so her kid can spend every waking moment on test prep.
The gauntlet has been thrown!
Meanwhile, in business news, thanks to the tech meltdown, office space vacancy rates in southern Orange County continue to hover around 30 percent. The screaming rent deals this creates were enough to induce the company I work with to pack everything up and move one off-ramp further south on the 405 . . .
Kidding Around
Parents who joke in a light-hearted fashion during tense or stressful situations may make their children feel more comfortable and accepted, less anxious, and more willing to communicate in a positive manner.
This is according to a study done at Arizona State University.
My kid’s reaction: “Go, Arizona State! If USC [where I went to school] is so great, why didn’t they figure that out?”
Road to Destruction
Road Accident in India Kills 21
The victims were Hindu pilgrims on their way to a temple to worship Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction.
Disqualification
Alessio Cioni, one of the finalists at the Rachmaninoff International Competition and Festival, not only did not win, he was actually disqualified for playing too poorly.
Are You Proud of Me Now?
Barbra Streisand’s mother died last week at age 93. The two had a strained relationship, as people sometimes do with their mothers.
When Mom attended one of her shows in 1994 — she would have been 85 years old at the time — Barbra addressed her from the stage, saying, “Are you proud of me now, Mama?”
I’m not a big fan of anything Barbra Streisand has ever done, but for articulating a lifetime of pain in seven words, you can’t do much better than that . . .
We Were Programmers
In We Were Soldiers, commanding officer Mel Gibson is the first man off the helicopter and the last man back on. He leaves no one behind, dead or alive.
Contrast that with my manager, who has far less enthusiasm for his work than for his car, his dog, leering at women, painfully coarse humor, or getting drunk on a golf course somewhere.
Not the kind of inspirational leadership you make movies about, unless it’s kind of an ultra-dark comedy in which the leading character is eventually humiliated and/or killed, to thunderous applause . . .
Thus spoke The Programmer.
Hiring the Best
The following email went out at the office:
Please stop by and say hello to our newest Project Manager Skip Intro [names changed to protect the guilty]. He is a great person, lives in [a nearby city], tons of experience, and has two black labradors. What more could you ask?
Leicester Dedlock
Director of Project Management
What more could I ask?!
We’re hiring project managers and can’t think of anything more to ask them than what kind of pets they have?
This explains a lot . . .
Thus spoke The Programmer.
Related Links
- Hiring the Best Explained
Guest columnist: Céline
Fluffy Had Babies
Last week, we bought a hamster. This afternoon, I got a call at work from my son, who was yelling something into the phone. On the third try, I understood it: “Fluffy had babies!”
I Fought the Law . . .
Doreen Waddell, a former vocalist with the chart-topping 1980s British band Soul II Soul, died after being hit by several cars as she ran across a busy road.
Police said it appeared she had been running from a supermarket after being confronted about shoplifting.