The Big 85!
Congratulations to my Dad, who hit the Big 85 today. No, that's not a golf score. It is a birthday. We celebrated with very nice dinner in Manhattan. Dad, Mom, Guest Blogger and me.
Happy Birthday, Dad!
Three Blind Mice ñ One Blind Umpire
In the news today comes a report [1] of the death of Wilbur Snapp. This may not be a name that means anything to you, but to many of us, Wilber was a true baseball legend [2].
For many years he was the stadium organist for the minor league Clearwater Phillies baseball club. Three Blind Mice got him in trouble, as can only happen in baseball.
After an ump made what Wilbur perceived as a bad call, he played the song on his organ during a game in 1985 at Jack Russell Stadium. Not amused, the ump pointed up at the organist, and then made a heave-ho motion with his thumb. Translation: ìYou're out of the game.î Is this what one would refer to as some sort of sportsmanship? Surely not on the part of this umpire!
Yep, thrown out of the game by the ump, for playing a song that ìshowed upî the ump. What a classless move! During a Spring Training game, no less. Umpire Keith OíConner merits a spot in the Baseball Hall of Shame. One wants the umps to be unbiased. But nowhere does it say they should lack a sense of humor. OíConner, better termed a CHUMP than an ump, will go down in the annals of baseball history as the insecure ump who ejected the organist. What an epitath! But if it was going to happen, no one better for it to happen to than Wilbur Snapp, who took it in style, and spoke about it almost every day, for the rest of his years.
Wilbur Snapp [3] was known for other things, as well. He took broken bats and carved kids toys out of them. Those cute little bats, batmobiles, bat-frame coat or hat hangers, and other woodwork carvings of Wilburís have just gone from neat little items to keepsakes and valuables. They increase in value as baseball loses one of the special people associated with the game.
A good read about Wilbur Snapp can be found here [2], in a March ,2000 column about him from the TruNorth Connection, at the Bell Centre for Creative Communications, Centennial College, in Toronto.
No More Lamentation re Ruminations
A few days ago I was lamenting the fact that Lisa Englishís blog, Ruminate This [4], seemed to be on hiatus. Good news: That Which We Might Ruminate is back. Make a point to read it.
Bushnocchio
Got a spare $87 billion lying around? Go ahead and fork it over to Dubya, so he can keep wasting taxpayer dollars, time, effort and energy on Iraq. Thatíll keep the Dubya project going for another year, or so he said during his Sunday night speech to the nation.
Dubya tells us that Iraq has become the hotbed of terrorists. Gee, if all it took to relocate them was an American invasion based on lies and a lack of support from the World Community, maybe Dubya couldíve invaded a smaller country, making easier to round up these enemies of his. Burkina Faso, maybe, or Liberia. Yeah, Liberia, and he could have killed two birds with one stone, getting rid of that brutal dictator Charles Taylor while rounding up the bad guys! Then again, thereís no oil to speak of in those two countries, and Cheneyís pals at Halliburton probably wouldnít have wanted to be granted any rebuilding contracts in those out-of-the-way places.
It seems an American a day must die in the pursuit of Bushís attack on the Iraqi infrastucture. Werenít the Iraqis going to welcome Americans with open arms? And wasnít the location and dismantling of those Weapons of Mass Destruction a key objective of Dubyaís invasion? Wasnít this all planned out by Dubyaís military and intelligence experts?
In his speech on Sunday, Dubya had this to say:
We have learned that terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength. They are invited by the perception of weakness. And the surest way to avoid attacks on our own people is to engage the enemy where he lives and plans. We are fighting that enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan today so that we do not meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities.
He refers to Iraq as what some might call ìthe home office of Terror:î
For a generation leading up to September the 11th, 2001, terrorists and their radical allies attacked innocent people in the Middle East and beyond, without facing a sustained and serious response. The terrorists became convinced that free nations were decadent and weak. And they grew bolder, believing that history was on their side. Since America put out the fires of September the 11th and mourned our dead and went to war, history has taken a different turn. We have carried the fight to the enemy. We are rolling back the terrorist threat to civilization, not on the fringes of its influence, but at the heart of its power.
Yeah, sure we are. How? By invading a country on false pretenses, killing and wounding our soldiers and theirs, and their civilians as well? No, this is not how to defeat terrorism, this is how to inspire hatred, and how to further the impression (belief) that the US is a monstrous Imperial Nation, hell bent on destroying what others hold dear.
So does that quote from Dubyanocchio mean that he perceives Iraq as the heart of the terrorist threat to civilization? Can he back that up in any way, shape or form? Is that how Dubya characterizes this incursion? No WMD were found, so blame it on housing the terrorists. Will this make the Iraqis love King Dubya? Will this restore the electricity? Will this endear the Imperialist Oppressor to the Iraqis? Does Dubya think the Iraqis will beg to become the next Puerto Rico? Yeah, that's the ticket, a territory with citizenship, that could provide Dubya and his pals access to lots of oil fields.
He'll obviously need some friends and support in the region.
How does Dubya win their hearts? By taking over a country by force. Yeah, thatíll make them love us. Sure it will.