DECEMBER 17 UPDATE
COMMITMENT
Zara Louy- C/OF- So Cal Shilos, to Emory
NEBRASKA WINS NCAA VOLLEYBALL
Very exciting match between #1 Nebraska and #2 Stanford – either of which would be a worthy national champion. The Huskers were favored – but they were favored in 2005 and were upset by Washington – and this was a closer contest than the AP story suggested. Stanford took the first game 30-27. Nebraska had to come from behind to win Game Two, 30-26, and the lead also changed in Game Three, the Huskers winning 30-28. Nebraska lost a 5-point lead twice in the final game, and were leading 28-23 when the Cardinal rallied, 29-27. Stanford staved off two match points before Jordan Lawson’s kill gave Nebraska its third title. A pleasure to watch the stars on both sides.
Why watch volleyball? I started the volleyball program at my daughter’s highschool as a winter sport for the softball team. Fairfax County would not approve so I had to raise the money and the team played in the Washington independent league. The County took over the program the next year and funded all HS teams. No, the other sponsors and I did not get our money back. Several softball players have excelled at volleyball.
STILL STUMPED FOR GIFT IDEAS?
A Washington firm advertises a Marie Antoinette doll which your darling can behead by pushing a button. An Illinois firm will custom print toilet paper with an image of your choice; Paris Hilton appeared on the paper in the ad. (Actually, this supreme insult has historical roots; Benjamin Franklin was so despised by the French during his tenure as the American Ambassador that they painted his face on the inside of their chamber pots).
The most banal: a Connecticut firm is marketing a toilet seat attachment; when a guest lifts the lid, a rubber monster pops up. Better a rubber monster than a 7 foot python – which an Australian woman found sticking up in her toilet; snake was too fat and caught in the pipes and was removed through the septic tank by a serpent handler. Reminds of the time Fuzzy Zoeller dropped a cherry bomb through the exhaust pipe of a porta-potty at the PGA here. As the late Glenn Brenner said, “You gotta admit; it would loosen you up.” A python would surely scare the crap out of you.
CHRISTMAS CARDS
In previous years, I have made quite liberal (no pun intended) use of cards which say “Happy Holiday” or “Season’s Greetings.” No more. This year I sent Christmas cards.
Whether you are focused on the contradictions between the Synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, or between those New Testament gospels and that of John; or, you support the contentions in the Coptic gospels, the so-called Mary and Judas gospels – or you are of the Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Shintu or other faiths which acknowledge Jesus as a great prophet – or you question the divinity of Christ or lean toward the human male depicted in recent works -- there is one unassailable historical fact – the world was changed by the baby Jesus whose birth is the fundamental reason we celebrate Christmas.
A very wise man, Rabbi Israel Chodos of Los Angeles, who was in Oklahoma City during my teen years, once told me that the world’s greatest thinkers were Jesus Christ, Abraham Lincoln, and Leonardo da Vinci. I posed this belief to the late Don Herzberg, a political science mentor who was dean of the graduate school at Georgetown. He would add Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison.
Readers would no doubt add others who have had a profound impact on society, eg., Bill Gates literally opened the Windows sparking the communications revolution.
All would be classified as intellectuals – but Jesus alone among them lacked an education in the formal sense – yet his philosophy has had a greater impact upon mankind than the inventions and preachments of the others.
The ACLU and others want a secular holiday, and cite the Constitutional clauses vis separation of church and state as the rationale for all their challenges. They should read The Federalist Papers. This collection of papers by John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton, writing under the collective Publius most assuredly strove to separate church and state. But, more, their most ardent concern was a “tyranny of the minority.” Sadly, a very litigious minority has sought to reshape Christmas in a predominantly Christian nation – and other matters as well. RFH
SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE
Despite her pledges to reform lobbying rules during the first 100 hours of the next Congress – which some of her own supporters oppose – Speaker to be Nancy Pelosi will be the star at a dinner to which all of this town’s political action committees have been invited – at $15,000 for two tickets. PACs can’t refuse if they hope to influence legislation in the next Congress.
That August body is in recess – and a great many Members are off on foreign junkets – boondoggles at taxpayers expense. Presumptive Senate Majority Leader Reid is heading a bipartisan group to Peru and Ecuador, highlighted by a visit to the Inca ruins at Macchu Picchu – which is billed as a fact finding trip. MATS provides a plane for about 25 Members, wives and staff. Embassies foot much of the bill, using expartite funds which all embassies accrue through trade and other mechanisms. Congress knows how much money is in these accounts, and dip liberally for travel meals per diem etc., all the while escorted by embassy staff who arrange local government briefings and shopping tours. I am not sure what “facts” Congress does not possess about Peru, Ecuador, Chile and Bolivia, which remains a linchpin in the cocaine trade. When he was in the Senate, Jack Kennedy made a fact-finding trip to India – by himself.
Reid of course has to keep an open line to George Washington Hospital to check on Senator Tim Johnson. If Johnson cannot serve, the parties could be split 50-50 by a projected Republican replacement and Vice President Cheney would break the ties, putting the GOP back in majority control of the Senate.
Owney Madden, the Irish ganglord in New York, once said politics, like sex and crime, is best conducted at night in the dark. Madden knew something about all three. When the current Congress was leaving town, Members were still scrambling to attach earmarks to bills in final passage. One of the more celebrated deals was an alleged trade by Reid with a powerful Republican House member; they agreed to support each other’s earmarks – which are really private bills benefiting particular constituents. Twenty years ago, there was outrage when some 2,000 earmarks were added to spending bills. Republican and Democrat members set a record this year – 13,000 earmarks.
WHAT MAKES A GANDER MEANDER IN SEARCH OF A GOOSE?
That refrain from a Glenn Miller number, Elmer’s Tune, went through my head today – actually, it was the preceding line: “what makes a lady of eighty go out on the loose.” Leaving the Safeway parking lot, I had to stomp on the brakes, cut off by a speeding Corvette – driven by an old lady with silver hair who could barely see over the dash.
BEAUTIFUL
Contributed by CJ Rittman
Beautiful.
As we grow up,
we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let you down
probably will. You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it's
harder every time. You'll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours
was broken. You'll fight with your best friend. You'll blame a new love for
things an old one did. You'll cry because time is passing too fast, and you'll
eventually lose someone you love. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and
love like you've never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is
a minute of happiness you'll never get back.
Don't be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin.
LAMAR HUNT
The National Football League rightfully mourns the man who gave us the term “Super Bowl” and was one of the most innovative and respected owners of all time. His Chiefs won one of the two Super Bowls they played. Some of us remember Hunt for a venture far removed from football. Lamar joined his brothers, notably Bunker, in an effort to corner the world market in silver. They came close but when their effort peaked, investors lost billions and the Hunt empire had to be bailed out ($1 billion) by the nation’s major banks. Not a game for the faint of heart. If you can control a segment of the market in a given commodity, you can set the downstream price. Purchasing a sufficient quantity of a commodity to manipulate its price is illegal, ergo, such attempts are done through front companies and agents. It is also possible to make even more money by buying futures contracts on the commodity, and selling them at a profit after inflating the price.
The following except from business pages is instructive:
“One of the most infamous attempts from the early 1960s later became known as the Great Salad Oil Swindle, in which Tino De Angelis not only attempted to corner the market on soybean oil, but sold contracts in the oil and used the money to buy futures as well. In fact it turned out he had no oil, just tanks filled with water, and when the scheme was eventually discovered $175 million evaporated overnight.
A particularly blatant example occurred in 1980 when brothers Nelson Bunker Hunt and Herbert Hunt attempted to corner the silver markets. Bunker and Herbert started investing in silver as a hedge against inflation, and by 1980 it was estimated that they held one-third of the world's supply of the metal. However when this became clear the price of silver actually fell, and the Hunt brothers failed to meet huge margin calls on their futures contracts. This sparked a panic on commodity and futures exchanges, culminating in a 50% one-day decline, known as Silver Thursday, on March 27, 1980. A consortium of US banks provided a $1.1 billion line of credit to enable the brothers to pay their debts, which were backed by H. L. Hunt's petroleum empire. When the oil market collapsed in the mid-'80s, the entire Hunt oil company was nearly wiped out, although the brothers still have personal trust funds with hundreds of millions each.
The collapse of Barings Bank, then the oldest merchant bank in the UK was largely due to Nick Leeson's illegal attempt to prop up the Nikkei Index, building up a huge long position. Another recent example was that of Yasuo Hamanaka, who in 1996 attempted to corner the copper market, resulting in a loss of 1.8 billion dollars for the Sumitomo Corporation and an eight year prison sentence for Hamanaka.”