Advice From My Brother Gerald: What To Do When You Retire

As we get older we sometimes begin to doubt our ability to "make a difference" in the world. It is at these times that our hopes are boosted by the remarkable achievements of other "seniors" who have found the courage to take on challenges that would make many of us wither. Harold Jenkins is such a person:

"I've often been asked, 'What do you do now that you're retired?' Well, I'm fortunate to have a chemical engineering background and one of the things I enjoy most is converting beer, wine, and whiskey into urine. It's rewarding, uplifting, satisfying, and fulfilling. I do it every day and I really enjoy it."

Gleanings From Arizona Republic While Waiting For Sweet Sixteen Round of March Madness To Start

And because I need to fill in the hour I usually spend doing the Sudoku puzzle—yes, you guessed right, section E is missing once again: no Christmas tip for you, Mr Paper Deliverer—I spent the last hour perusing the parts of the paper I did receive. I came across some interesting articles.

Erin Kelly, from the Republic Washington DC Bureau, tells us about a bill being sponsored by the junior senator from Massachusetts, a Mr Brown, who surprisingly is a Republican in spite of the fact that MA is a small old northeastern state dominated by one party and a large urban center. I sometimes wonder why the one party states are always Democratic.

It seems that the Irish were short-changed on immigration in 1965 in favor of our Asian and Latino friends. Sen. Brown's bill is trying to rectify that in order to allow more Irish immigrants, especially those with work visas. Ms Kelly also points out that it can't hurt Brown's re-election campaign in Massachusetts where a lot of old Irish immigrants have settled in at the trough. There is some other learned blather in the article so it might be worth it to read the whole thing. I'm not sure whether the Irish have gone back to their poor days or not, when their principal exports were priests, nuns and alcoholics.
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In the same issue of the Arizona Republic, the Valley and State section, we read that Arizona State University plans to partner with the University of Mary for the purpose of allowing their many students starved for theology and Catholic studies to study in these areas. I haven't been here very long but it seems that ASU is often in the papers or on the TV because of their sports programs, and they seem to be led by a very aggressive president intent on expanding the business. I know we have seen bigger schools metastasizing to smaller towns within the same state, but I am pretty sure I have seen it mentioned that ASU plans on expanding into nearby California, apparently judging that CA is becoming too weak to perform up to its former high standards. I think they call this increasing market share. There is a lot more stuff in the article, mainly trying to reassure the common reader that the Roman Catholic Church is not about to take over the state of Arizona.
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And finally, there was an article by Diana Martinez about an elderly Seattle couple who had been attending Mariner spring-training games for around 20 years and said, perhaps ironically and somewhat Yogi-esque, "You can't say that it hasn't helped," when asked if the Arizona version of Mariner baseball might have contributed to their longevity. The couple have been married for 15 years and both are 101 years young.

The Gathering Storm

Benjamin Netanyahu sounds Churchillian in this speech, hence the title of the blog.

Happy Pi Day

From a useful blog, Planck's Constant, stuff about Pi Day and other things. The above is a Pi Pie, of course. Check him out.

Desert Botanical Garden of Phoenix

Some Chihuly glass greets you at the entrance.

Cacti of all sorts.

Baseball Along Bell Ave

Here we are at Surprise Stadium just west of the junction of Grand and Bell, spring training home of the Texas Rangers and the Kansas City Royals. The KC Royals are just warming up. I would have taken more shots to show but my camera battery went dead.

 

So I had to pump it up on the way to Peoria Sports Complex. First game at the latter for us was on Monday, 5th of March, only about 1/2 full so traffic was fairly light. Not so the following Monday, 12 March. Must have taken 45 minutes on Bell alone. They charge $5 to park at Peoria. At Surprise it is free. And they have wheel chairs and people to push them if you need the extra attention at Surprise. Very nice. The shade on the upper deck is nice at both places. Outfield grass was a popular place for this game.

A big crowd at Peoria to watch the Mariners beat the Texas Rangers on an Olivo 3 run homer and a 2 run double by Montero the next inning. I have a hunch that Phoenix's Cactus League is going to become very popular for spring training fans as they have a choice of 15 teams within an hour of each other. You can go to different parks or just stay at one of the parks that your home team and their partners play in, a game every day. Who can beat that? Prices for seats are going up too. The concessions are already at major league levels. The volunteers at both parks are super attentive and pleasant.

Aida Dies in Rhadames' Arms Again

Arizona Opera's magnificent production of Aida featured a camel and several greyhounds in the Triumphal March. Some season ticket holders sitting next to us disappeared in the first interval only to show up on stage with a bunch of their friends in the crowd scenes. This was, of course, a full-voiced production, but it was a visual treat as well.

The camel and his or her understudy greeted the opera-goers at Symphony Hall downtown Phoenix.

Professor Chides Student For Incivility

Prof Boudreaux of George Mason University reminds all of us in a letter to the Washington Post (which I suspect will go unpublished because it simply reeks of truth) what the main topic that the law student from Georgetown University was talking about, and defends Rush Limbaugh in the same letter. Those truth seekers seem to take different routes but wind up at the same place. Hmm.

"It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes . . . ."

A bridge-playing friend of mine recommended this book, Trust Not. I had thought that the mine of memoirs of the Vietnam era had almost been played out. It has been some forty+ years now. Not so says Captain William G Haneke of the class of 1966 United States Military Academy and improbable survivor of massive and multiple wounds sustained while serving as an American military advisor to the late government of South Vietnam.

His story is divided in two: the first part is negotiating the political and military minefields of a rural part of South Vietnam that the Viet Cong and their masters from the North had thought were fairly safely in the hands of the VC. This odyssey then takes a lurch from the field to the hospital where there is still a great deal of danger to be dealt with.

The story has the ring of truth, especially about the failings of medical professionals, and joins a couple of other Vietnam-era books on my bookshelf: General Moore's We Were Soldiers Once . . . And Young; and the more medically inclined 12, 20 and 5: A Doctor's Year in Vietnam by John Parrish.

No There There

I'm glad someone else notices the President's peculiar diction. I wonder if he talks to his friends the same way? And what about the heads of state around the world? Ben Stein fearlessly calls the president out on his minstrel show.  My father and his friends used to do this sort of thing in the 40s into the 50s. They didn't know that only certain protected minorities could act or speak in this way.