Worth Noting Pages 81-85

WORTH NOTING PAGE 81

·         On artistic motivation from Jeanne Claude – Christo partner

Artists create for themselves.  If somebody else likes it, that’s a bonus.

·         On Wealth from The American Dream by Dan Rather

There are only two things money can’t buy: true love and home grown tomatoes.

·         From Fighter, a documentary on Russian Communist oppression

Two men meet after a long separation and the first asks the other where he’s been for the past 15 years.  The second tells him he’s been in a concentration camp.  The first asks: “They put you in prison for 15 years?  What did you do?”  Second replies:  “I did nothing.  First guy says to him:  “You didn’t get 15 years for doing nothing.  For doing nothing they gave you 25.”

·         On Ever-Romantic Italians also from Fighter

“I love the Italians.  I was in a camp of 5,000 – Buchenwald Camp.  With us were 2,000 Italian deserters.  I really loved these guys.  They were warned under penalty of death not to flirt with any German women but they did it anyway, and every day they were hanged for it.  Nobody could stop those Italians from flirting.”

·         On Citizenry from Consumer’s Republic

Citizens:  individuals in a political relationship with the government – assumed to embrace a larger public interest, as they must fulfill duties and obligations in the larger society to earn basic rights and privileges.

·         On Consumers also from Consumer’s Republic

Consumers, concerned with satisfying private material desires, are often denigrated for their personal indulgence -- perhaps stemming from the word’s original meaning “ to devour, waste and spend.

·         On Righteousness, Roger from Ernst Hemingway’s Islands in the Stream

Being against evil doesn’t make you good.

·         On the phrase: “It’ll be all right.” also from Islands in the Stream

“Sure,” Thomas Hudson said. All right and all wrong are identical twins in this business.”
 

WORTH NOTING PAGE 82

How to spot bad chalk  from Fountaine’s Aqueduct Tips,  Ed Fountaine NY Post 1/17/2001

The first question you should ask when handicapping any race is, can I beat the favorite? 

Over the years, at all racetracks, favorites win about a third of all races.  Which means, of course, they lose two out of three times.  The key to success, then, is searching for value plays by identifying those 67 percent of races where the favorite is vulnerable.  Here is a point system for doing just that.

We evaluate the favorite using ten important handicapping factors.  For each factor that is a strength – that is, it gives him an edge over the rest of the field, the horse gets two points.  If the factor is neutral, he gets one point.  The horse gets no points for factors that are negatives – that is, they put him at a disadvantage.

1)     Trainer:  If the trainer is one of the leaders at the meet, if the barn is hot, if he excels under today’s conditions, etc., that’s a strength.  If the trainer can’t find the winner’s circle without a search party, that’s a negative.

2)     Jockey: Same criteria as trainer.

3)     Class:  Has the horse run well at this class before, or is he dropping into a spot where he fits?  That’s a strength.  Negative:  He’s running over his head.

4)     Distance: Track program and Racing Form past performances list each horse’s record at today’s distance, that’s a plus.  If he’s oh-fer that’s a minus.

5)     Running style:  If the horse is lone speed, or a closer in a race that promises a speed duel, that’s a positive.  But a speed horse facing other speed horses isn’t.

6)     Last race:  Was it a strong effort?  More important, does the horse figure to improve off it?

7)     Speed rating.  Sometimes a favorite’s speed ratings in the past performances stand out over the field.  Usually they’re in the same ballpark with two or three other contenders.

8)     Track:  Is he a horse-for-the-course?  Or has he never run a good race over the track?

9)     Track condition:  How does the horse perform over an off track?

10)  Post position:  Either an inside or a far outside post can put the horse at a big advantage, or disadvantage.

Favorites who total 20-17 points are virtually unbeatable.  Don’t bet against them.  Those in the 16-13 point range are solid.  Try to beat them at your own risk.  Favorites in the 12-9 point range, however, are vulnerable.  Look for someone to beat them.  And those registering 9 points or less are mandatory bet-againsts.

·         On Stocks

§  The holy spirit of gold and money – Mark Twain

§  evaporated money – unknown

·         From Salvador Dali

No one has to understand whether I’m serious or joking.  Not even me.  That’s true artistic expression.

WORTH NOTING PAGE 83

·         On directing special talent from Expanded Universe by Robert Heinlein

It’s like this:  It takes a smart dog to hunt birds, but it takes a hunter behind him to keep him from wasting time chasing rabbits.  And the hunter needs to know nearly as much as the dog.

He [Manning] told me once that every time a man is court-martialed, it is a sure sign that some senior officer hasn’t measured up to his job.

·         On nuclear weapons also from Expanded Universe

It’s like this:  Once the secret is out – and it will be out if we ever use the stuff! – the whole world will be comparable to a room full of men each armed with a loaded .45.  They can’t get out of the room and each one is dependent on the good will of every other one to stay alive.  All offense and no defense.  See what I mean?

·         On the hope of a world democracy

I think a world democracy would be a very fine thing and I ask that you believe me when I say I would willingly lay down my life to accomplish it.  I also think it would be a very fine thing for the lion to lie down with the lamb, but I am reasonably certain that only the lion would get up.

·         On nuclear might

If two men are locked in a basement, one armed with a 50-caliber machine gun, the other with an 18^th century ball-and-powder pistol, victory goes to the man who shoots first, not to the one with the better weapon.  That is the logic of atomics and now is the time to learn it by heart.

·         From the passing of Pope John Paul II – based on comments from Christopher West (sp) on Fox News Channel Sunday 4//3/05 9:30-10 AM

·         On Marriage in the priesthood.  Marriage is not the solution to the sexual problems that are facing men in the priesthood.  It is a problem of sin.  Allowing marriage only serves to sexually objectify women rather than provide what the sacrament intends: Love and the building of a life in Christ.

·         On Truth.  In response to those who claim, “There is no truth.”  I say, Is that true?”.  When they say, “It can’t be proven.”  I ask, “Can you prove that?”  When they say, “nothing is certain.”  I ask, “How can you be so certain?”  Those who deny there is truth are trapped in their own arguments.

·         On difference between NBA and college basketball from UConn coach Jim Calhoun

College is more about the name on the front of the jersey; the NBA is more about the name on the back of the jersey.

WORTH NOTING PAGE 84

·         From Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success

Base:  Industriousness, Enthusiasm, Friendship, Loyalty, Cooperation

Level 2:  Self Control, Alertness, Initiative, Intentness

Level 3:  Condition, Skill, Team Spirit

Level 4:  Poise, Confidence

Level 5:  Faith, Competitive Greatness, Patience

Peak:    SUCCESS

On Success      Peace of mind attained only from the self-satisfaction of knowing you made the effort to become the best at which you are capable.

§  It’s the things we learn after we know it all that really matter.

§  Wooden’s Father’s credo of three:  Don’t lie.  Don’t cheat.  Don’t steal.

§  Also:  Don’t whine.  Don’t complain.  Don’t make excuses.

§  Passion is temporary; love is enduring.

§  I’ve never met a person from whom I didn’t learn something.  Most often something I shouldn’t do, but something nonetheless. – Abraham Lincoln

§  Little things make big things happen.

§  Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.

§  Competitive Greatness:  Being able to function best when it’s needed the most.

§  Team spirit:  Consideration of others or an eagerness to lose yourself in the interest of the group.

§  Poise:  Just being yourself

• On matters of imitation and plagiarism from Ernest Hemingway

In any art, you’re allowed to steal anything if you can make it better.

• On Country Music from The Thing Called Love

That’s the thing about country music.  There’s no sarcasm in it. 

It’s real straightforward; it makes you laugh or it makes you cry.

• On Fairness from TV movie Attila

            Attila:  Trickery and deceit is the way of the Romans.  Not of the Hun

            Antony: Which way rules the world?

·             On Horseback Riding

            You and your horse are one.  Any mistake your horse makes you make as well.

·             You’re the Ghost In Me – The Psychedelic Furs

·             On Power of Photography from photographer Klaus Thyman EW 10/14/05   Photography can capture reality in ways that the eyes can’t see it. … explaining a photo in which Green Day front man is suspended in mid-leap.  “To freeze him in midair … you want to keep looking at it.”  

WORTH NOTING PAGE 85

• The 2004 6^th Grade Champion Orangemen.  Individual awards from me and Jack

Atlas Award                  presented to Tom “The Rock” Geneste whose dominant center play, strong rebounding and broad shoulders have ably carried his entire team to a successful season.

Iron Man Award             presented to Doug “The Caveman” Cavers whose energetic rebounding, intense effort and consistent game performance have made him a model competitor and indispensable teammate on both ends of the court.

Scrapper Award            presented to Stevenson “Mr. Funny” Bone whose fierce defensive play, clutch scoring and ever-present good humor give his opponents nightmares and his coaches and teammates something to smile about.

Courage Award             presented to “Gentleman” Joe Maccarone whose unselfish attitude, mature sense of team and eagerness to step up to any challenge has shown us a quiet courage that’s made us all proud to be his teammates.

Hustle Award                 presented to Matt “The Man” Macksamie whose reliable “help defense”, smart under basket play and tireless ability to run the floor have ended many defensive possessions and started just as many fast breaks for his team.

Firecracker Award          presented to “Dynamite” Dennis Conetta whose skillful play on both ends of the court amazes, excites and blows away everyone who watches – proving it’s not necessarily a big man’s game if you’ve got the bigger heart.

Sweet Shot Award         presented to Ryan “Sweet Shot” Saffa whose smooth shooting stroke, deadly eye, and strong sense of position make him a dangerous scoring threat from anywhere on the floor and the foul line.

Spirit Award                  presented to Jake “The General” McCauley whose floor leadership, team spirit, and personal commitment to a winning performance every week represent the best ideals of competition and good sportsmanship.

*  Worth Noting entry 4/3/05

Worth Noting Pages 76-80

WORTH NOTING PAGE 76

·         On the honesty of emotion -- quote from movie, Almost Famous

The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.

·         Unlazy days of summer by Timothy Peltason:  One Week p. 7; USN&WR, July 14 1997

The long, languid summers of my childhood in central Illinois in the late 1950’s and early ‘60’s really were longer and more languid than any I’ve known since.  School was out for 12 weeks then rather than the miserly 10 doled out to public-schooled children of New England where I live now.  The New England summer has been squeezed to pay for snow days and for an extra week off in February when two-career families like mine – professor husband, psychologist wife, and two heavily scheduled children – can fit in a trip to the ski slopes or Disney World. 

Fine trips they are, but they feel like projects, and so do these compressed summers, with their cobbled-together day-care arrangements, effortfully coordinated camp and work schedules, summer reading lists and over-organized athletics.  And shoe-horned in there, starting this week for many Americans, comes the determined hustle of a big vacation.  Wonderful times all, but no time off.

My childhood summers truly were vacations, with all the vacancy, the spaciousness of time that the word promises.  Some kids went away to camp, but not many, not me.  When I left the house in the morning, I could count on finding a pick-up baseball game, or girls to flirt with awkwardly, or a friend headed off to go swimming, all within an easy bike ride and an unhurried day that stretched until late summer darkness.  I must have been bored sometimes.  I know that I pestered my mother to take me here and there, to the movies or a different swimming pool on the other side of town.  But each long day held pleasures and surprises, and it was boredom and unhurriedness that made them possible.  When it was time to travel, my family went most often to see more family and find the same easy summer happening someplace else.

A free space.  The emptiness of my childhood summers was protected by special circumstances.  Those summers were possible only at a particular American place and time, in a safe, small city and at a moment for the country’s economy when many middle-class women could afford to stay at home – and few were welcomed into the white-collar world.

Older teachers at my elementary school, especially the ones from small farming towns, told stories about another kind of summer, split between late spring and early fall, when children were needed to help with the planting or the harvest.  What was vacation for those turn-of-the century farm children, or their parents?  What was it for an earlier generation still, when childhood was the brief time before real work could begin?

Summer was a time for labor for those rural generations, a reality of nature with far greater significance for them than for us.  But summer vacation is a relatively recent construct, an invention of privilege, like the weekend, which came into being only a century ago, when Saturday workers and Sabbath observances yielded to a new hunger and a new space for leisure.  Summer is the school year’s end and in our child-oriented society, that makes it the end of the working year and the beginning of a free space we’ve carved out until Labor Day.

Americans abhor a vacuum, however, and we seem to be filling that free space fuller every year, working so hard at summer that it has lost some of the restorative power it had a generation back.  Maybe our children experience it differently.  Maybe summer camp is as good a place as the neighborhood to feel the day stretching out.  But maybe it’s time for real time off, just in case those parental anxieties are infectious – which camp to choose, which places to visit, how to cram it all in.

WORTH NOTING PAGE 77

·         On Excess from Stephen Tyler of Aerosmith, 25 Years of Rock ‘n Roll

Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

·         On Free Will

If one has morals, they can’t be taken away by me or anybody else.

                                          -- burlesque queen Lili St. Cyr

·         An Amazing Conclusion as printed in Street News July ‘03

The sport of choice for the urban poor is BASKETBALL

The sport of choice for maintenance level employees is BOWLING

The sport of choice for front-line workers is FOOTBALL

The sport of choice for supervisors is BASEBALL

The sport of choice for middle management is TENNIS

The sport of choice for corporate officers is GOLF

AMAZING CONCLUSION:  The higher you are in the corporate structure, the smaller your balls become.

·         From Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

Matters of great importance should be treated lightly.  Matters of small concern should be treated seriously.

·         From State of Fear by Michael Crichton

Every scientist has some idea of how his experiment is going to turn out.  Otherwise he wouldn’t do the experiment in the first place.  He has an expectation.  But expectation works in mysterious ways – and totally unconsciously.  Do you know any of the studies of scientific bias?  All that matters is that hundreds of studies prove again and again that expectations determine outcome.  People find what they think they’ll find.

Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence?  We call it prejudice

Do you know how many species there are on the planet?  “No.”  Neither does anybody else.  Estimates range from three million to one hundred million.  Quite a range, wouldn’t you say?   Nobody really has any idea.  “Your point being?”  It’s hard to know how many species are becoming extinct if you don’t know how many there are in the first place.  How could you tell if you were robbed if you didn’t know how much money you had in your wallet to begin with?”

Computer models can’t prove anything, Ted.  A prediction can’t be proof – it hasn’t happened yet.

WORTH NOTING PAGE 78

From State of Fear cont’d

In the old days … the citizens of the West believed their nation-states were dominated by something called the military-industrial complex.  Eisenhower warned Americans against it in the 1960’s, and after two world wars Europeans knew very well what it meant in their own countries.  But the military-industrial complex is no longer the primary driver of society.  In reality, for the last fifteen years we have been under the control of an entirely new complex, far more powerful and far more pervasive.  I call it the politico-legal-media complex.  The PLM.  And it is dedicated to promoting fear in the population – under the guise of promoting safety.  “Safety is important.”  Please.  Western nations are fabulously safe.  Yet people do not feel they are, because of the PLM.  And the PLM is powerful and stable, precisely because it unites so many institutions of society.  Politicians need fears to control the population.  Lawyers need dangers to litigate, and make money.  The media need scare stories to capture an audience.  Together, these three estates are so compelling that they can go about their business even if the scare is totally groundless. For instance, consider silicon breast implants.  You will recall that breast implants were claimed to cause cancer and autoimmune diseases.  Despite statistical evidence that this was not true, we saw high-profile news stories, high-profile lawsuits, high-profile political hearings.  The manufacturer, Dow-Corning was hounded out of business after paying $3.2 billion, and juries awarded huge cash payments to plaintiffs and their lawyers.  Four years later, definitive epidemiological studies showed beyond a doubt that breast implants did not cause disease.  But by then the crisis had already served its purpose, and the PLM had moved on, a ravenous machine seeking new fears, new terrors.  I’m telling you, this is the way modern society works – by the constant creation of fear of fear.  And there is no countervailing force.  There is no system of checks and balance, no restraint on the perpetual promotion of fear after fear after fear.  “Because we have freedom of speech, freedom of the press.”  That is the classic PLM answer.  That’s how they stay in business … but think.  If it is not all right to falsely shout ‘Fire!” in a crowded theater, why is it all right to shout “Cancer!” in the pages of the New Yorker?  When that statement is not true?  We’ve spent more than twenty-five billion dollars to clear up the phony power-line cancer claim.  “So what you:? … we’re rich, we can afford it.  But the fact is that twenty-five billion dollars is more than the total GDP of the poorest fifty nations of the world combined.  Half the world’s population lives on two dollars a day.  So that twenty-five billion would be enough to support thirty-four million people for a year.  Or we could have helped all the people dying of AIDS in Africa.  Instead, we piss it away on a fantasy published by a magazine whose readers take it very seriously.  Trust it.  It is a stupendous waste of money.  In another world, it would be a criminal waste.

Similarly, in environmental thought, it was widely accepted in 1960 that there is something called ‘the balance of nature.’  If you just left nature alone it would come into a self-maintaining state of balance.  Lovely idea with a long pedigree.  The Greeks believed it three thousand years ago, on the basis of nothing.  Just seemed nice.  However, by 1990, no scientist believes in the balance of nature anymore.  The ecologists have all given it up as simply wrong.  Untrue.  A fantasy.  They speak now of dynamic equilibrium, of multiple equilibrium states.  But they now understand that nature is never in balance.  Never has been, never will be.  On the contrary, nature is always out of balance …

WORTH NOTING PAGE 79

From State of Fear cont’d

I should have known.  Everybody is a lawyer these days.  Extrapolating the statistical growth of the legal profession, by the year 2035 every single person in the United States will be a lawyer, including newborn infants.  They will be born lawyers. What do you suppose it will be like to live in such a society?”

Alston Chase: When the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power.

Author’s Message … I have had an opportunity to look at a lot of data, and to consider many points of view.  I conclude:

·         We know astonishing little about every aspect of the environment, from its past history, to its present state, to how to conserve and protect it.  In every debate, all sides overstate the extent of existing knowledge and its degree of certainty.

·         Before making expensive policy decisions on the basis of climate models, I think it reasonable to require those models to predict future temperatures accurately for a period of ten years.  Twenty would be better.

·         I believe for anyone to believe in impending resource scarcity, after two hundred years of such false alarms, is kind of weird.  I don’t know whether such a belief today is best ascribed to ignorance of history, sclerotic dogmatism, unhealthy love of Malthus, or simple pigheadedness, but it is evidently a hardy perennial in human calculation.

·         There are many reasons to shift away from fossil fuels, and we will do so in the next century without legislation, financial incentives, carbon-conservation programs, or interminable yammering of fear mongers.  So far as I know, nobody had to ban horse transport in the early twentieth century.

·         I suspect the people in 2100 will be much richer than we are, consume more enery, have smaller global population, and enjoy more wilderness than we have today.  I don’t think we have to worry about them.

·         The current near-hysterical preoccupation with safety is at best a waste of resources and a crimp on the human spirit, and at worst an invitation to totalitarianism.  Public education is desperately needed.

·         I believe people are well intentioned.  But I have great respect for the corrosive influence of bias, systematic distortions of thought, the power of rationalization, the guises of self-interest, and the inevitability of unintended consequences.

·         I have more respect for people who change their views after acquiring new information than for those who cling to views they held thirty years ago.  The world changes.  Ideologues and zealots don’t.

WORTH NOTING PAGE 80

From State of Fear cont’d

·         We need a new environmental movement, with new goals and new organizations.  We need more people working in the field, in the actual environment, and fewer people behind computer screens.  We need more scientists and many fewer lawyers.

·         We cannot hope to manage a complex system such as the environment through litigation.  We can only change its state temporarily – usually by preventing something – with eventual results that we cannot predict and ultimately cannot control.

·         I am certain there is too much certainty in the world.

·         I personally experience a profound pleasure being in nature.  My happiest days each year are those I spend in the wilderness.  I wish natural environments to be preserved for future generations.  I am not satisfied they will be preserved in sufficient quantities, or with sufficient skill.  I conclude that the “exploiters of the environment” include environmental organizations, government organizations, and big business.  All have equally dismal track records.

·         Everybody has an agenda.  Except me.

·         On solitude from William H. Macy movie

I like people.  I like them best when they’re not around.

·         On Life from Laurie Anderson

Life itself is just bad art.

·         On newspapers, George Bernard Shaw once wrote that the problem with newspapers is that they often seem “unable to distinguish between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization.”

·         On Press Freedoms by Collin Levey in NY Post 2/17/05 [related to “outing” of CIA agent Valerie Plame involving reporters from NY Times and Time]

Lets all just take a deep breath.  The press doesn’t have a “right” to know anything it wants, or have access to whomever it wants.  The power and freedom of the press is that it has the right to publish whatever it wants. 

·         Training Motto – Danielle Carruthers, Hurdler

The body remembers effort.

Worth Noting Pages 71-75

WORTH NOTING PAGE 71

·         On fight for Ted William’s DNA (from ESPN Magazine Big Ten 7/22/02)

Ted William’s son is accused of wanting his dad’s DNA.  Apparently, he didn’t get any the first time around.

·         On The Constant Need To Defend Pro-Choice Rights

[In 2002] Representative Julie Carson (D - Indiana) speaks on floor of House and tells of having to vote 108 times since 1997 to oppose anti-abortion legislation. (also speaking eloquently in defense of abortion rights is Representative Nancy Johnson R – CT)

·         On the Computer from Joseph Campbell

I could mythologize that thing.  It has a personality.  It talks back.  And it behaves in a whimsical manner.

·         On Living Each Day from Father O’Malley in The Bell’s Of St. Mary’s

If there’s any good I can do for someone else, let me do it now and not put it off – for I will not pass this way again.

·         On Being Happy For What You Have from my friend Washington Borges

I don’t have everything I love … but I love everything I have.

·         On Work from Primo Levi’s The Monkey’s Wrench (in Were You Always An Italian?)

I tell you, doing things you can touch with your hands has an advantage: you can make comparisons and understand how much you’re worth.  You make a mistake, you correct it, and next time you don’t make it.

How many office jobs, filled with endless meetings and memos, deliver something permanent at the end of the day? [We’re You Always An Italian?]

·         On Telcoms and their Bankers (“Solly’s Pig Out” from NY Post 10/1/02)

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s suit to recover $1.5 billion in IPO profits from former CEOs revealed damning e-mails from Citi’s Salomon Smith Barney unit that labeled some investment banking clients “pigs” and questioned the quality of research the firm’s analysts produced.  In one e-mail to U.S. research chief Kevin McCaffrey, star telcom analyst Jack Grubman admitted:  “Most of our banking clients are going to zero and you know I wanted to downgrade them months ago but got a huge pushback from banking.  I wonder what use bankers are if all they can depend on to get business is analysts who recommend their banking clients.” 

WORTH NOTING PAGE 72

Telcoms and Bankers cont’d

The complaint details Grubman’s pitiful record at the firm.  Of the 20 to 36 stocks Grubman recommended from 1998 almost through June 2002, 16 or almost 50 percent went bankrupt.  Yet Grubman never issued a “sell” rating on any of them, the complaint noted.  In fact, an e-mail shows that Grubman admitted he wasn’t giving his true rating to some firms.  “If I so much as hear one more ****ing peep out of them [Focal Communications – a telcom that Solomon took public] we will put the proper rating  (i.e., 4) [underperform] not even 3 [neutral] on this stock, which every single smart buy-sider feels is going to zero.  We lost credibility on MCLD [McLeod USA] and XO [Communications] because we support pigs like Focal, the complaint said Grubman wrote on Feb. 21, 2001.

·         On Sportsmen as a Market (2/202 NY Post)

·         Spending over $70 billion dollars a year in pursuit of their pastime, America’s hunters and anglers would rank no. 11 on the Fortune 500 if they formed a corporation, according to Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation and the National Shooting Sports Foundation

·         Over 38 million Americans enjoy the outdoors – twice the number of labor union members – and sportsman support 1.6 million jobs, well more than Wal-Mart, the country’s largest employer.  American sportsmen as a demographic are worth a closer look.

·         Because sportsmen enjoy hunting and fishing alone or in small groups, they are often overlooked as a constituency and as a substantial economic force.

·         Figures underestimate the impact of sportsmen since they don’t count millions of hunters and anglers under 16 and people who were not able to get out and hunt or fish in 2001

·         When sportsmen’s spending is compared to other sectors of the economy, it’s remarkable how much state and federal tax revenues are generated, how many people are employed and how many sectors of the economy are impacted by hunting and fishing.

·         In Florida, recreational anglers spend three times more each year than the cash receipts for the state’s orange crop.

·         In Oregon, sportsmen support more jobs than are provided by Intel, Nike, Oregon State University and University of Oregon combined

·         Hunters and anglers mean jobs in states and local communities that have made the effort to maintain their hunting and fishing opportunities.

·         Bruce Lee’s Motto: philosophy of martial arts and life

      Using no way as way.  Having no limitation as limitation.

·         Three Criteria for a Criminal Suspect: Means, Opportunity and Motive

·         Secret to On-Air Success in Newscasting (from The Beach House):

 The whole thing in this business is sincerity.  Once you learn to fake that, the rest is easy.

WORTH NOTING PAGE 73

·         On Johnny Unitas:  U is for Unique (from ESPN article Do the Math, Steve Hirdt)

Unitas exemplified the can-do attitude of his era: Give me a task, I’ll get it done.  That was exactly how it happened on what was (and may still be) the most famous drive in football history, in the 1958 NFL championship game at Yankee Stadium.  With the country ripe for the kind of action that pro-football delivers, Unitas coined the “two-minute drill” (if not the name, then certainly the practice), completing four of seven passes for 73 yards as he drove the Colts from their own 14 with 1:56 left in fourth quarter to the Giants’ 13.  That set up a game-tying field goal with seven seconds left that forced the NFL’s first (and still only) sudden-death title game.  The next time he got his hands on the ball, he took the Colts 80 yards in 13 plays, completing four of five passes for 47 yards and finally handing off to Alan Ameche for the title-winning touchdown in overtime.

If statistics don’t always help in explaining the mystique that certain players develop, then Unitas is the captain of that club.  Stated simply, today’s NFL pass rating system is not at its best when interpreting the performances of the quarterbacks of earlier generations.  Some of the elements that the system rewards – notably, a high completion percentage and a low rate of interceptions – were just not essential parts of the game plans of Unitas, Otto Graham, Norm Van Brocklin and Bobby Layne, great quarterbacks who came into the NFL in the 1940’s and 50’s.  The “aerial attacks” that they directed – as opposed to today’s “passing games” – weren’t designed for short, safe completions for modest gains; their intention was to throw long, daring passes, moving the ball downfield quickly.  In those days, the quarterback’s response to getting a long pass intercepted was, “Hey, it’s as good as a punt.”

Last season, the league-wide average pass completion rate was 59%; Unitas never had a completion rate that high in any of his 18 seasons in the NFL.  Last season, one of every 29.7 passes was intercepted.  Unitas had a lower interception rate only three times in 18 years.  But measure him by the standards not of our day, but or his own: During Unitas’ career, the average NFL completion rate was 50.4% and the average interception rate was one of every 17.5 passes.  Johnny U’s career figures were 54.6% and 1 INT for every 20.5 passes – far better than average.  But those were not his signature categories; touchdowns and yardage were. 

His most enduring record is his streak of 47 consecutive games throwing at least one touchdown pass, set between 1956 and 1960.  Some like to oversimplify and assert that Unitas’ record is the “equivalent” of Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak.  I think such a comparison might be unfair – to Unitas, that is.  Think about it: Bill Dahlen, Willie Keeler, Ty Cobb, George Sisler and Pete Rose have all had hitting streaks of 40 or more games.  But the second-longest streak of TD passes in NFL history is 30 games, by Dan Marino.  So while five hitters had streaks that came within 16 games of DiMaggio’s 56, not a single quarterback has come within 16 games of no. 19’s 47, despite the fact that QB’s throw nearly 20% more passes per game today than they did in Unitas’ era. 

Unitas threw 290 touchdown passes in the NFL, a record when he retired, now the sixth-highest total in league history.  The typical Unitas scoring pass had some distance to it: an average of 26 yards, the highest average TD toss of any of the all-time top-10 touchdown passers.  Remarkably, while Dan Marino threw 130 more touchdown passes than Unitas did, it is Unitas who still holds the NFL career records for most touchdown passes of 30 or more yards, 40 or more yards and 50 or more yards.

WORTH NOTING PAGE 74

·         On the Importance of Solidarity by Ben Franklin

We must all hang together or, most assuredly, we will hang separately.

·         From Empire Falls by Richard Russo

·         He knew, as soon as he spoke the words, that they were a mistake.  For Miles, one of the great mysteries of marriage was that you had to actually say things before you realized they were wrong.  Because he’d been saying the wrong thing to Janine for so many years, he’d grown wary, testing most of his observations in the arena of his imagination before saying them out loud, but even then he was often wrong.  Of course, the other possibility was that there was no right thing to say, that the choice wasn’t between right and wrong but between wrong, more wrong, and as wrong as you can get.  Wrong, all of it, to one degree or another, by definition, or by virtue of the fact that Miles himself was the one saying it.

·         Whatever the virus, it became several degrees more deadly in his pulmonary system until he finally reintroduced it into the atmosphere by means of his explosive sneezes.  Max regarded covering his mouth as irrational behavior.  The way he looked at it, you might as well cover your ass with your hand when you farted.  See how much good that did.

·         They didn’t know it, but they even liked the little black-and-white TV, though they were right, it did have a shitty picture.  But there wasn’t anything wrong with imbalance.  What was life but good barstools and bad ones, good fortune and bad, shifting from Sunday to Sunday, year to year, like the fortunes of the New England Patriots.  There was no such thing as continual good fortune – or misfortune, except for the Red Sox, whose curse seemed eternal.

·         Besides, a new wide-screen TV wouldn’t get rid of the imbalance.  There’d still be a good television and one shitty one.  The only difference was that what people had thought of as the good big one now would become the shitty little one.  Worse, the quickest way to beget a new desire, Bea knew, was to satisfy an old one, and each new desire had a way of becoming more expensive than the last.  If she was foolish enough to gratify her customers’ current demands, who knew what they’d dream up next?

·         The Five P’s for Success [in football and other things]

Proper preparation prevents poor performance.

·         From A Beautiful Mind, Russell Crowe as John Nash

I assure you I’m quite well balanced.  I have chips on both shoulders.

·         On Samuel Clemens’ failure as a speculator and businessman:

Writers have an excess of imagination.  They can foresee the thing being a tremendous success, whereas a serious businessman would see it had fatal flaws.

WORTH NOTING PAGE 75

·         Italian Apperativo: Ingredients: White peaches (fresh or frozen), Per Secco Sparkling Wine   Recipe:  Blanch, peel, pit and puree peaches; mix 2 parts peaches to 3 parts Per Secco; shake over ice and strain

·         Album to buy: The Coral, by band The Coral, The Waifs

·         What I’ve Learned by Robert Evans for Esquire Magazine Feb ‘03

·         Someone once told me that the three most dangerous things in life are your mouth, someone else’s mouth, and a car.  Adding a cell phone to the mix can only lead to disaster.

·         Fuck ‘em.  Fuck ‘em all.

·         The only way you can make a deal is if you’re ready to blow it.

·         Rejection breeds obsession.

·         Never say yes when you mean no.

·         Instant gratification takes too long.

·         If you go by the rules, you end up being an accountant

·         I don’t kiss and tell.  I learned early in life that continued silence is the greatest insurance policy to continued breathing.

·         On the U.S. threat to Totalitarian Regimes, quote from Winston Churchill.  Applies to Middle Eastern dictatorships after removal of Saddam Hussein.

The Kremlin doesn’t fear the U.S. as an enemy.  They fear the U.S. as a friend.

·         Quote On Death: Favorite of writer Ayn Rand from a Greek philosopher 

I will not die.  It’s the world that will end.

·         On life from Sonny in A Bronx Tale

The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.  And the choices we make shape our lives forever.

·         On Light and Sound

Music is the arithmetic of sound.  Optics is the geometry of light.

·         On national loyalty and journalists from William Randolph Hearst

The foreign correspondent must be a loyal and honorable citizen of his own land appreciating

fully the influence of his labors and his views upon the opinions of his readers and the possible effect upon the attitude and acts of his fellow citizens in times of crisis.

·         On Drinking

Drinking is bad for you; but not drinking is even worse.