March 14th
MARCH 14th
On this day in 1879 Albert Einstein was born. A nice Jewish fellow who was good in Math, yet who was not particularly endearing to those who were his teachers when he was a little one. I can relate. I, too, was born on March 14th, some 73 years later.
A year ago I turned 50. Just the other day an e-mail came from a woman I know who is exactly a month younger than I. She wrote, 'I am in total denial about being 50. Almost 51, yeesh.'
50 was tough enough to deal with, and wow, here comes 51. But 51 is somehow not so eventful a number. A buddy who is 15 years my senior told me if I thought 50 was a whopper, wait till I hit 60! Well, nine more years to ready myself for that one.
51 doesnít feel like a big one to celebrate. I did get a nice note from a boyhood chum, who manages to remember my birthday each year. And my parents will be busy Friday day and night, so they gave a birthday call on the 13th. That was nice.
Iím writing this in the wee small hours. Maybe when I wake up in the morning it will feel more like a birthday. Or maybe at 51 these events are just less of a big deal. Frankly, I am still stunned that I have an 18 year old daughter. And thatís just been for the past two weeks.
Wís CONUNDRUM (a word he surely would not recognize)
Heard a great line the other day. Shrubby finally has justified his zeal to wage war with Iraq. It all boils down to this one question he feels a need to answer:
Hey! Just whatís our oil doing underneath their sand?
Although this staged aggression appalls me, an example of Shruby wagging the dog, there are some emergent events, the sort of ancillary things that are very irksome. The French, those suppliers of illicit materials to Iraq (see Bill Safire in yesterdayís NY Times), get all up on their high horse that they will veto anything that calls for war. These are a people who are lucky they havenít been speaking German for the past 60 years.
Note: if you read this at any time after the NY Times decides they should charge you a fishwrapper fee for reading old Op-Ed pieces, just check out the comments area, where is posted a text copy of the Safire Op-Ed piece from March 13th.
Well, speaking of Google, and of the French . . .
Go to www.google.com type "french military victories" into the text box and then press the ìIím feeling luckyî button.
As is often said about France: I love France. It is just the French I donít like.
