Friday, June 11, 2004
Best line of the day, so far
At first I didn’t mind the prospect of investing an entire afternoon in a sporting event, but that was before I knew that Bob Costas would be involved.
Archive for June 11, 2004
The Day the Binky Died
From dooce
For the past four days Jon and I have been running a division of the Betty Ford Clinic as we try to break Leta of her crippling addiction to the pacifier. We’ve taken away her cigarettes, her heroin, her daily 64 oz Diet Coke, and from the resulting hours of weeping and gnashing of the toothless gums you’d think we’d taken away her will to live.
1 CommentThe Week Quiz
NewMexiKen scored six correct out of 10. See if you can do better. Take The Week Quiz.
Sounds right to me
From The Week Newsletter:
Christian diet books that promote menus based on Bible verses are flooding bookstores. The Hallelujah Diet and What Would Jesus Eat say God meant people to eat only foods available in the Garden of Eden, which means a largely vegetarian, vegan, or raw food diet. But the Rev. George Malkmus admitted that his Hallelujah Diet needed to be adjusted because it was low in B-12. “This shocked me, that God’s perfect eating plan could have a flaw,” he said. “But we realized that fruits and vegetables back then were more nutritious because of the topsoil.”
Amen
Jeanne at Body and Soul gets Ray Charles just right.
Deadwood’s devil
“My dad was a professional soccer play[er] for Manchester United, and when they toured America back in ‘51, he brought me a little Roy Rogers suit. I’ve still got the pair of guns from it.
You know, I actually preferred the Indians, but they weren’t selling Indian outfits then.”
Ian McShane of Deadwood
Read the whole f***ing interview with McShane.
She brought tears to my eyes
Go read Wonkette’s June 11 entries (two at this writing).
But come back.
Name the member of ZZ Top who doesn’t have a long beard
Frank Beard. He’s 55 today. That’s him on the right with Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Jeanette Rankin…
was born on this date in 1880 on a ranch near Missoula, Montana.
In 1916, Rankin was elected the first woman member of the U.S. House of Representatives. She was not re-elected in 1918, after voting against entry in the First World War, but was returned to Congress for one term in 1940. In 1941, she cast the sole vote in Congress against the U.S. declaration of war on Japan.
Jeanette Rankin was a social worker and a lobbyist for peace and women’s rights. She died just before her 93rd birthday in 1973. She is one of the two Montanans honored in The National Statuary Hall Collection of the U.S. Capitol.
Read Rankin’s obituary from The New York Times.
Vince Lombardi…
was born on this date in 1913. Lombardi is the legendary football coach; you know, the one the Super Bowl trophy is named for.
Some Lombardisms:
- “If winning isn’t everything, why do they keep score?”
- “If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.”
- “Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser.”
- “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”
He’s got a point
From a report on the Lakers:
Luke Walton brought it down to one word: “Execute.”
Yeah, but who?
That ain’t workin’ that’s the way you do it
Money for nothin’ and tix for free
Michael Rosenberg in the Detroit Free Press on the 1,500 media credentials issued for the NBA Finals:
With a ratio of 62.5 reporters for every player, you might wonder what the hell we’re all doing here. Well, first of all, we’ll ask the damn questions, OK? And second of all, I have no clue.
How many times in one day can you ask Karl Malone about his knee? My rough estimate: 147. And I guarantee you that when Malone walks away after a thorough grilling about his knee, a reporter will turn to the guy next to him and ask, “Which knee is it again?” …
To accommodate the masses, the Pistons cleared off 16 rows behind one baseline for reporters and their portable solitaire machines, also known as laptops.
Turn out the light…
From Mitch Albom in the Detroit Free Press:
Their one guard was supposed to outshine the entire Pistons backcourt. Heck, after Kobe Bryant’s miracle shot in Game 2, he threatened to outshine the entire Pistons roster. It was Kobe this and Kobe that. Kobe’s destiny. Kobe’s greatness. That kind of stuff can give you an upset stomach — especially if you’re the other guards. You know, the ones who play against him?
Little wonder then that there were a few extra fist shakes and head nods from Chauncey Billups and Richard Hamilton as they banged down one three-pointer after another Thursday night, as they laid up a fast break here, a banker off the glass there. Oh, it might not have been a last-second desperation heave with the whole world anticipating it. But you know what? It counts the same. Points are points. Two guards are better than one. And on this night, Billups and Hamilton were twin klieg lights at a shopping mall opening, and Kobe was a 25-watt bulb.
Triple crown
From Dwight Perry, Sideline Chatter:
Bill Davidson, whose Tampa Bay Lightning won the Stanley Cup and whose Detroit Shock is the reigning WNBA champion, will make it three if his Detroit Pistons win the NBA title.
Davidson, not taking any chances, is refusing all collect calls from Smarty Jones.
William Styron…
was born on this date in 1925. The Writer’s Almanac tells his story:
It’s the birthday of William Styron, born in Newport News, Virginia (1925). He enlisted in the Marines as a teenager, to fight in World War II, but by the time he’d finished training and set sail for Japan, the war had ended. He moved to Brooklyn, New York, and got a job as an office boy at the McGraw-Hill publishing house. He was supposed to write book jacket copy, but he was so disgusted with most of the books that he filled all his summaries with insults and foul language. After throwing several paper airplanes and water balloons out the window of his office, he got fired. So he decided to try to make it as a writer.
Styron had always wanted to be a writer, but, he said, “At twenty-two … I found that the creative heat which at eighteen had nearly consumed me with its gorgeous, relentless flame had flickered out to a dim pilot light registering little more than a token glow in my breast.” His first idea was to write a novel about slavery. It amazed him that his grandmother could remember when her family owned slaves, and he was always fascinated by the story of the slave uprising led by Nat Turner. But when he told a creative writing teacher about his idea, the teacher said he should wait until he had written a few novels before he tackled something so ambitious.
Then, he learned that a girl he’d once dated had committed suicide. He took a train to her funeral, and on the journey back to his hometown a novel took shape in his head about a girl’s suicide and its effect on her family and community. That novel was Lie Down in Darkness (1951), and it got great reviews. He wrote two more novels before he went back to his first idea, and in 1967 he published The Confessions of Nat Turner, which became a bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His most recent book is A Tidewater Morning: Three Tales from Youth (1993).
Styron’s compelling Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness (1990) describes his crippling, nearly suicidal depression at age 60.
