Tag: Blithely

Lighter fare, emphasis on books and movies, but also meaty stuff

These two French guys

Plucky Pierre, after Sox lost in 11th, won in 10th, same night:

A split is not what we wanted, but we battled back, [left-fielder Juan] Pierre said. You dont have time for doubts after Kansas City tied it. Youve just got to play. Thats the kind of mentality we have.

The two teams played 21 innings, lasting 6 hours, 31 minutes, plus a five-minute delay in the second game when a bank of lights went out.

Some guy named Betancourt was bad news for Sox. Pierre, Betancourt — I didn’t know they played baseball in France.

Golden years

Melissa Bean, Congresswoman
Image via Wikipedia

The lady of Tom Roeser’s house calls this sort of thing a digression, he tells us. It happens in the middle of explicating Melissa Bean as a wimp:

Ms. Bean has come up with another formula to protect herself from the public and you can see it on YouTube or Breitbart and elsewhere around the Internet. I would put it here but I don’t know how to do it but, hell, there are enough reproductions of that event to satisfy anyone curious enough to look-see. I’m all thumbs at this technological stuff anyhow.

(Here’s the video with thug, btw).

It’s about being 82:

At eighty-two you’re thrilled when you wake up in the morning, ecstatic when you pull yourself up smoothly from a chair, declining help from those who rush over, stunned when you remember the punch-line of a funny story, saddened beyond words when you read the “Deceased” list of names in your university alumni magazine and find buddies there, edified when you make it up the 18 cement steps leading to the great wooden doors of Saint John Cantius, depressed when you have to pony up a stiff fee for new higher powered hearing aids, humiliated when you tell your family you can hear better now, leading them to  ask “what kind?” and you look at your watch and say “a quarter to four.”

No, Dad, I didn’t ask the  time! I asked:  what kind?

There’s more:

You’re terrified when that sharp pain hits in your chest, electrified with joy when it turns out to be only gas, fervent with sweet resignation (maybe some fear) when you whisper to your God the Act of Contrition before you go to sleep hoping for the best.

Not yet famous last words — he has more where those came from. But an apt contribution to our geriatric treasure chest.

My variation on seeing death notices is this: Look for the ones born before you and figure out how long that gives you before shuffling off, and not to Buffalo either.

Related Articles

Eighty and out, says Big O.

Get outta here, Charlie!

President Barack Obama has kept mum on the fate of Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) for days — but he tells CBS News that it’s time for the embattled 80-year-old former Ways and Means Chairman to end his career “with dignity.”

Why, besides “troubling” allegations?

 [H]e’s somebody who’s at the end of his career. Eighty years old. I’m sure that– what he wants is to be able to– end his career with dignity. And my hope is that– it happens. “

What the hell, what is he a one-man death panel?

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The king of trite

We pick on Obama for his statist policies, but do we pick on him for his regular use of bromides and nostrums?  We should.  Just today on The View, where a gaggle of admirers were joined by their usual conservative Hasselbeck, he came up with these that flash across his TelePrompter mind:

So why did Obama decide to go on the daytime chatfest? “I was trying to find a show that [First Lady] Michelle [Obama] actually watched,” the President said on the show.

Here’s a case of playing to the expected, or expecting.  It’s what the old boy says deprecatingly of the lady of the house, you know, accompanied by boyish grin.  He has the moves, yes.

. . . he talks about the economy, the oil spill and a “whole host of other issues.” He says the economy has started to stabilize and grow again.

Passing over what he says the economy is doing, how about that “whole host” business? 

“Politics is a contact sport,” says Obama. But he says “We shouldn’t be campaigning all the time.”

Passing over the second part, at which coming from him many would gag, “contact sport” is sure telling.

Told (by Hasselbeck) we’re “very divided,” he said,

“My hope is that I try to set a tone” that we can disagree without being disaggreable. He says the media loves conflict, and doesn’t report on agreements.

Can’t say enough for this trifecta of “my hope is” (vs. “I hope”), “disagree without” etc., and media as loving conflict.  At least he didn’t blame it on Bush.

That’s all for now.  more more more to come . . .

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LeBron betrays home town

So the big guy goes south

The decision, made at exactly 8:27 p.m. Chicago time, creates a new Big Three in the NBA and validates Heat President Pat Riley’s bold, grandiose plan to alter the balance of the Eastern Conference. It also rips the guts out of the Cavaliers franchise and its home city.

I disapprove.

Home town is best. He wants to be famous, but what of his personal life? Does he not relish the joy of domesticity, seeing familiar faces of people he grew up with, that and giving to his city? No, and I think he will regret it when he’s old and gray.