My shoulder has gotten really bad (down into my elbow now), so I can’t really type much (which should make work really pleasant today). Too bad, too, ‘cuz I could talk about the Jets training camp (and who wouldn’t want to hear about that) and how Joe Namath (who is responsible for the mostly miserable 45 or so years I’ve spent as a Jets fan, and who is still a hero to me – OK, not hero, really, but I thought it was pretty goddamn funny – for getting hammered and hitting on Suzy Kolber on national teevee) was here (well, not here, here, but in Cortland, which is close enough to here to call here) talking about bringing a Super Bowl Championship back to NYC (well, to NJ really, but close enough) after last year’s AFC Championship game appearance (never mind they kinda backed into the playoffs – thanks to losing 6 out of 7 games in one stretch – courtesy of the Colts, which is rather ironic given that whole Super Bowl III thing).
Speaking of NYC, I could also have talked about how Ed Koch will be in town today to promote his Albany reform group “New York Uprising,” which I find kinda odd, ‘cuz I didn’t think Ed Koch even knew there was anything north of Hoboken and west of the Hudson, let alone lower himself to actually come up here (except for during his ill-fated, Rupert Murdoch-backed – or at least encouraged – run for Governor back in the 80’s, when he talked about Upstate residents “wasting time in a pickup truck when you have to drive 20 miles to buy a gingham dress or a Sears, Roebuck suit”).
Sorry, Ed, but I’ve got a Hyundai, it’s less than a mile to the closest Sears (I can even walk there, but I gotta be careful crossin’ the Boulevard, what with all them dang old pickup trucks whizzin’ by ever’ whichaway), and anyhow, I buy my suits from JC Penney and Granny buys her gingham dresses off that Interwhatsit thing all the kids are talking about. But good luck with that whole reform thing, ‘cuz I really respect your f*cking opinion, old man.
If it wasn’t such misery to type, I might even have mentioned Elana Kagan being confirmed as the next Supreme Court Justice (and how she kinda looks like she could be Rachel Maddow’s “Aunt Laney” or something; can’t you just picture the two of them together smoking cigars and playing poker or out in a boat fishing?).
Or I might tell you that Granny dropped something or other on her foot, so between her foot and my shoulder (talk about a precarious position), last night the two of us were gruntin’ & groanin’ (in agony, not ecstasy – get your minds outta the gutter), cursing (lots-o-cursing) and hobbling around like a couple of ancient cripples, putting ice packs on our various afflicted parts (a little bit of ecstasy there) and lamenting about how it sucks to get old (if I ever start talking about how my BM was this morning, somebody just shoot me).
I would probably also mention that today is the 65th anniversary of the first time nuclear weapons were used in war, as Pilot Paul Tibbetts (played by Sidney Poitier in “In the Heat of the Night” and its sequel, “They Call Me Mister Tibbetts!”) and the Enola Gay (named after his mommy; what a good son) dropped “Little Boy” over Hiroshima, ruining what by all accounts was a very pleasant morning.
But my shoulder’s killing me, so this is about as much as I can manage. And, speaking of ruining a perfectly pleasant morning (other than the shoulder agony, of course), I reckon it’s about time to head off to work.
On the bright side, at least it’s finally Friday.
Not sure if I could take a pj firing on all cylinders. Sitting here waiting to see if the wild parrots hit my hawthorn tree one more time or if they got all of the berries already.
http://i976.photobucket.com/albums/ae244/Travis2010_album/f3536218.jpg
A letter to the NY Times re: the overturning of Prop 8:
I’m disappointed, but not surprised, that a federal district court judge, Vaughn R. Walker, has overturned California’s Proposition 8.
It’s sad that certain judges, including Judge Walker, apparently disregard divine and natural law when making a decision on important moral matters that affect the common good. Same-sex “marriage†is contrary to divine and natural law and thus should be prohibited by human law as well.
Matt C. Abbott
Chicago, Aug. 5, 2010
The writer is a Catholic columnist at RenewAmerica.com.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/opinion/l06gay.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
I think Mr. Abbott did a great job of proving there is no rational basis for prohibiting gay marriage.
A federal judge ruled Thursday that gray wolves in Montana and Idaho must be given the same protections under the federal Endangered Species Act as their cousins in Wyoming.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/science/earth/06wolf.html?ref=todayspaper
In the spring of 2008, the Denver public school system needed to plug a $400 million hole in its pension fund. Bankers at JPMorgan Chase offered what seemed to be a perfect solution.
DEFENDER OF THE DEAL Senator Michael F. Bennet of Colorado, above, who as superintendent of schools in 2008 recommended the financing, said no one could have predicted the financial crisis that caused it to go sour.
The bankers said that the school system could raise $750 million in an exotic transaction that would eliminate the pension gap and save tens of millions of dollars annually in debt costs — money that could be plowed back into Denver’s classrooms, starved in recent years for funds.
To members of the Denver Board of Education, it sounded ideal. It was complex, involving several different financial institutions and transactions. But Michael F. Bennet, now a United States senator from Colorado who was superintendent of the school system at the time, and Thomas Boasberg, then the system’s chief operating officer, persuaded the seven-person board of the deal’s advantages, according to interviews with its members.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/business/06denver.html?ref=todayspaper
As for Sen. Bennet:
Michael Bennet was sworn in on Jan. 29, 2009 to fill the Colorado senate seat vacated by the departure of Ken Salazar to be President Obama’s interior secretary.
Mr. Bennet, a Democrat, had never run for elective office. For that matter, he had no experience in the education field before taking on his previous job, as Denver schools superintendent; or in finance before taking an earlier job, in the employ of the conservative Colorado mogul Philip Anschutz, restoring distressed businesses to profitability.
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/michael_bennet/index.html?inline=nyt-per
Republican Tea Party crazy at its best:
About 30 Jewish leaders and activists from as far as Philadelphia gathered Thursday in front of a proposed Islamic community center and mosque near Ground Zero to voice support for the project and denounce the Anti-Defamation League for attacking it.
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/jewish-leaders-show-support-for-mosque-near-ground-zero-1.2180007
The news that Muslims wanted to practice their religion at a so-called “Ground Zero Mosque,” a stone’s throw from the site of the horrific Sept. 11 attacks, shocked the nation. Politicians, activists and passersby marched, wrote petitions and denounced the leaders who allowed this to happen.
Sarah Palin Tweeted, “Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing.” These sentiments were shared by many others, mostly conservatives.
But meanwhile, at the Pentagon — another site of one of the 9/11 attacks — Muslims have been practicing their religion inside the complex since that horrific day. They prayed quietly, unnoticed and unremarked upon by pundits and anti-Muslim ranters everywhere.
http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/does-the-pentagon-mosque-make-us-hypocrites/question-1136043/