ARNOLD PALMER DIES AT 87

Just saw the news. I treasure knowing Arnold Palmer, even if for a short time that had to be non-memorable to him, but has always been a special memory for me.

The observation I always made when visiting about Mr. Palmer was that "the color went clear through." He appeared on TV to be a genuine nice man, and in private he was even more of a decent, common man.

 

HUSKERS

Daughter-in-law, Amy, called a bit ago to let me know the Huskers were on TV playing Wyoming. She is an Alabama fan. She "gets it."

We didn't have time to discuss it then, but she needs to know the long-term connection between us and Wyoming since it was in 1961 that Nebraska hired Bob Devaney from Wyoming and thus began the tradition of sold out stadiums (since the 1962 season, his first) and national championships. 

Personally, I remember several things from those early years including Devaney (pronounced de van ee and not de vain ee just like it is Tom Osborne as in oz burn, not oz borne) speaking at our sports banquet in Genoa in the spring of 1962. He was great, a natural Irish story teller, and it played well in the gym in central Nebraska and in the homes where he recruited in Ohio, West Virginia and elsewhere.

I have often retold the story he told about the guy being fitted for a new suit, just not as effectively. I remember that team from the fall of 1962 going to the Gotham Bowl in New York City but idling at the end of the runway in Lincoln until the money had been wired. It was that close.

Nebraskans were fans of the Huskers before that, but they didn't enjoy success. In the fall of 1961, the autumn before Devaney, my friend Larry Pearson and I walked up to the little white and red-trimmed building outside the East Stadium, purchased tickets, sauntered in and had great seats. It was my first major college game and I soon realized that those guys were fast and they hit hard! Not like high school. One of the "cheers" was dedicated to the coach who preceded Devaney:

     Give 'em hell, Bill Jennings, Give 'em hell.
     Give 'em hell, Bill Jennings, Give 'em hell.
     Give 'em hell, Bill Jennings,
     Give 'em hell, Bill Jennings,
     Aw, hell, Give 'em Bill Jennings.

Thanks, Jerry DeFrance for reminding me of that one a few months ago.

There are other connections, of course given the proximity to Wyoming. A childhood friend, Myrla Peterson married Jan Grossnicklaus from Shelby, Nebraska who was a Wyoming quarterback. When I was a sophomore, I played against (and tried to block) an athlete who played at Wyoming...I'll remember his name one of these days. He was definitely a man among boys the night we played.

Ah, the memories, and football autumn in Husker Nation. Thanks, Amy. It's now 38-17 Huskers with half the 4th quarter to go.

This is an afterthought--this will be the only football I watch or follow this year. No more NFL for me. For obvious reasons.

 

TELEVISION

We don't have TV any more. Just the internet, and we get shows with Netflix that way. Very spoiled as we don't have to watch those inane commercials.

The shows we like are the ones that don't take too much thought--yes, we liked "Breaking Bad" but it was heavy. Really enjoyed the "White Collar" series, the characters were likeable and the endings were routinely good. Life isn't like that, so the entertainment should be.

Watching one now that is going to challenge us a bit--"Foyle's War." It is a British series (we like those quite a bit, in general) where Christopher Foyle is a police detective during World War II. There are a lot of "jolly goods" and "nasty bit of" sayings, very stiff upper lip stuff, which is amusing, but the real message is pretty profound. The moral dilemmas and the routine sacrifices made by people during the war should make modern Americans think a bit about the things we tend to bitch about.

Our kids call our griping "first world problems." Your car doesn't have air conditioned seats...first world problem. You can think of your own.

These people did things like returning to Germany to make contact with the resistance knowing that the likelihood of being killed was nearly certain. The 22-year old pilots were the "old men," because anyone who was a bit older had already been lost.

Recommend it. Wondering if the British may have a better view of how the world works than Americans right now, and that the themes of the show may illustrate how political correctness should not outweigh historical facts.  For instance, the show gives voice to the great amount of anti-Semitism in England at the time. The amount of German sympathy. The number of Communists who would later be saboteurs endangering Americans.

Not a heavy, vulgar show at all, but thoughtful and thought provoking.

DIVERSITY

Next time someone at a college or university insists that there needs to be more diversity (wherever), ask how many Republicans are in their sociology department.

A New England administrator explains it this way: “Typically, we hire people because we’re planning on working with them and it’s a lot more attractive to have people you agree with.”

In 1989, liberal academics outnumbered conservatives 2:1, nationally. That number is now 6:1 and in New England the ratio is a startling 28:1.

No wonder you can't get a good discussion going. When you disagree with these people, they riot, burn things and hurt you.   

BLACK SWANS

BLACK SWANS

The term Black Swans was introduced by Nassim Nicholas Taleb whose credentials as a market trader and writer are impressive. A Black Swan event is "an event or occurrence that deviates beyond what is normally expected of a situation and is extremely difficult to predict" and that has an outlier effect on the financial markets. 

The author is a contributor to Seeking Alpha and this was published June 21, before the Brexit vote. He presents these three Black Swans:

Black Swan One:

Approval by UK voters to Brexit. This was unexpected and already came to pass this morning although the article was written and published June 21, three days ago. Results are grand-scale declines in markets and the loss in value measuring billions of dollars.

Black Swan Two:

Evidence of mosquito-transmitted Zika virus in the US. This is almost a certainty, but largely ignored by most of us because, unless we are pregnant or expecting to become so, the virus has no impact on us. The human, economic and public health impact of this event will be much larger than anyone thinks today.

Black Swan Three:

No candidate will win the necessary Electoral College majority to become President. All Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate needs to do is win one state, New Mexico, that has elected him governor twice. That might put the majority out of reach for Clinton and Trump.

Then things get muddy. What if...the rules are in place for this to happen:

Should nobody win the Electoral College, the Senate will choose the Vice-President; a Vice-President who will become President until the House chooses a President by a majority vote (with each state casting a single vote). Imagine if Trump's or Clinton's Vice-Presidential candidate ended up President of the United States (depends on how the Senate swings this fall) because a faction in the House decides to vote for Gary Johnson (and continues to do so in subsequent votes), ensuring that neither Clinton nor Trump becomes President.

Keep worrying!

THE WATER TRICK

THE WATER TRICK

A man goes to the doctor, worried about his wife’s temper.

The doctor asks, “What’s the problem?”

The man says, “Doctor, I don’t know what to do. Every day my wife seems to lose her temper for no reason. It scares me.”

The doctor says, “I have a cure for that. When it seems that your wife is getting angry, just take a glass of water and start swishing it in your mouth. Just swish and swish but don’t swallow it until she either leaves the room or calms down.”

Two weeks later, the man comes back to the doctor looking fresh and reborn.

The man says, “Doctor, that was a brilliant idea! Every time my wife started losing it, I swished with water. I swished and swished, and she calmed right down! How does a glass of water do that?”

The doctor says, “The water itself does nothing. It’s keeping your mouth shut that does the trick.”

Father's Day

Hope all had a great day. Mine was perfect.