After 10 years experimenting, we finally cracked germinating these. Black Bat lilies from seed are now blooming! Approaching 500 transplanted!
Reports from San Francisco, the show I missed last week, were mixed if not bad.
I steeled myself and was frankly prepared for the worst.
Let the chips fall and take your lumps like a man.
Lo and behold, the show was scary good, maybe the best ever for me at this locale.
A couple great clients came through in a big way.
Ten paintings sold in the first hour, all substantial.
While it slowed down a little, buying continued throughout the weekend, culminating in the largest monetary sale of my show in the last ten minutes.
I restocked every morning and am now faced with a new problem.
All of my best merchandise is gone and how will I find great paintings again to replace them? Sold all my best stuff.
It actually is not easy finding good material right now and I don't want to press. Will see what the universe delivers. I did manage to find some wonderful things at the show to purchase.
But bye bye Braun, Fries, Bischoff, Orrin White, Sayre, Milholme, Hudson, Geerts and Koller. It was nice having you around and you will be missed. Thanks to all of my clients, my promoter and my fellow dealers. Hang in there, all, it can always get better.
I have been really busy, Del Mar show starts this morning. So I only had time to snap this cell phone shot and the intensity only lasted for a few minutes. For how many thousands of years do you think hominids have marveled at sunrises?
Perhaps that first instance is the moment we became fully human.
According to a press release from OSU, Van Breemen and collaborators, including scientists at Oregon Health & Science University, found that a pair of cannabinoid acids bind to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, blocking a critical step in the process the virus uses to infect people.
The compounds are cannabigerolic acid, or CBGA, and cannabidiolic acid, CBDA, and the spike protein is the same drug target used in COVID-19 vaccines and antibody therapy. A drug target is any molecule critical to the process a disease follows, meaning its disruption can thwart infection or disease progression.
“These cannabinoid acids are abundant in hemp and in many hemp extracts,” van Breemen said. “They are not controlled substances like THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, and have a good safety profile in humans. And our research showed the hemp compounds were equally effective against variants of SARS-CoV-2, including variant B.1.1.7, which was first detected in the United Kingdom, and variant B.1.351, first detected in South Africa.” Those two variants are also known the alpha and beta variant, respectively.
Well, shit, I will get right on that. Ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure, I always said. Nip covid in the bud. Or with the bud. Stay safe and happy!
I went outside and the halo was really incredible, just magnificent and farther away from the moon than I can ever recall seeing. Took up about a third of the night sky.
I wish I had brought a good camera home. Maybe I will take one home tonight and try to get a proper shot.The cell phone does not cut it.
Hopefully we will get a reoccurrence tonight. I think it has to with the amount of moisture in the atmosphere. Whatever the cause, it was really something.
I am not a religious person. Probably not a very spiritual person either come to think of it. What am I? Who the hell knows? Let me know if you figure it out. I can't. I like the golden rule part and then everything else seems to get a little blurry.
I knew a bio-ethics professor at Stanford once who said that if hell does not exist it would have to be created or people in our society would start eating each other. I think he was on to something. Without an occasional smiting or two the whole place goes to crap.
Anyway, not being a belief system sort of guy, I have to be careful because many of the people I love are people of intense faith and I don't want to make any of them uncomfortable through my skepticism that sometimes might seem as bordering on outright hostility.
Please. Some of you might genuflect to the Trix Rabbit in the morning, or worship Wink Martindale, that is your right and prerogative. Except for a very brief period in my life where I was probably trying to sleep off some exotic foreign substance, I never was able to fully surrender to the faith thing. You people are very lucky, seriously. Wish I could go there but I have this rational shadow that keeps whispering bullshit in my ear whenever I seem to get close.
In any case, if religion is your thing, I support you and am happy for you. I defend your right to have any relationship with the almighty you can muster.
But I do have a few reservations on the subject I would like to share with you. Because, after all, we all share the same planet and we all need to have a little give and take in order to respect each other's pov. And we should have one set of rules.
The suit contends that Lindell's promotion of the false fraud claims were "are motivated, in part, by his strongly held religious beliefs," noting that Lindell has said there is an unspecified "scriptural basis for" the claims.
"Mr. Lindell's activities are widely known," the suit states. "His speeches and publications regularly articulate his religious belief and the scriptural basis for it. He regularly associates with others holding similar religious beliefs to organize 2020 election integrity activities."
Mike, just because you think the bible gives you carte blanche in such matters does not mean that you can defame other people and get away with it. God told me I could do it is not your get out of jail free card, or shouldn't be anyway. An "unspecified scriptural basis" for your prevarications just ain't going to cut it, at least not in my church.
While you are entitled to whatever belief system you may have, it does not trump other people's rights and due process and I don't think we really want our judges evaluating your understanding of what scripture says in order to determine your relative innocence or guilt. Don't use god, or Jesus, or Moses or Buddha as a cover so that you can be an asshole and slander people.
Of course, this Supreme Court goes out of its way to grant religious folks special privileges in the guise of "religious freedom." The upcoming rulings on religious exemptions for covid mandates should be quite edifying as will the rulings on hanging christian flags at government buildings.
Some people are even talking about establishing official state religions. Michael Flynn, former President Trump’s National Security Advisor, is calling for us to have “one religion” in the U.S., Christianity. And there is a case before the court which is threatening to make the public pay for private religious school education in Maine. We are becoming more and more like Pakistan or Afghanistan, this road that we are embarking on.
How many people have been infected with Covid 19 because the courts ruled that it was unfair to let people shop at Costco but not allow them to congregate maskless in church? How many people have died?
Is it fair to equate shopping for basic foodstuffs with congregating in a religious setting? I am not going to answer the question, I have an opinion about the comparable necessity of the two activities but it doesn't really matter what I think, does it? You can pray at home but it is a little harder to shop at home.
We need to have mutual respect, both the godless and the god fearing, but you have no right to get others sick, or destroy the environment, or lie about somebody's voting machines, because you think god told you it was okay. I respect your rights to your beliefs and opinions but don't force me to buy in.
How Trump screwed over a public school. Daily Beast.
For seven years, the Trump National Golf Club Westchester just north of New York City battled with the local government to lower its property tax bill—while simultaneously inflating its value elsewhere by millions. Then in August, emboldened by another golf club’s victory in court, the Trump club pressured locals to strike a deal and cut its assessed value by a third.
That means the Trump club can claim it overpaid taxes, so local governments are forking over cash. But of all the local entities stuck paying fat refund checks worth about $850,000, the worst hit was the tiny suburban Briarcliff Manor Union Free School District. The public education system—which consists of a single elementary, middle, and high school—has picked up the biggest tab, worth $588,155.12.
I sent this letter out to a few local friends this morning. It says it all in a nutshell.
I had an inconsiderate person coughing and sneezing next to me Friday morning at the coffee shop. I asked him if it was covid and he said no, but I believe he is antivax, anti mask and untested.
I called him later that afternoon and asked him if he was sure he didn't have covid and he said that he was. He looked pretty head cold sick.
Yesterday I got the wet eye, runny nose, sneeze, slight sore throat thing. I feel much better today, pretty much back to normal, I am double vacced and boosted. I know omicron transmits really quickly but can symptoms come on this fast, in one day?
My problem is that I have an antique show that starts Wednesday. I loaned my last home test to a friend that needed it a week ago. They are sold out in the stores. Even though it is only the third day tomorrow I want to take the test as soon as possible in case I have to cancel the show. I want to do the right, responsible, prudent thing and that means not transmitting the disease to loved ones or the general public in the oft chance that I am indeed infected.
Does any kind soul out there have a home test I can borrow with the promise to replace as soon as I can find another one? I am sending this letter to a bunch of my friends in Fallbrook in hopes of finding a test.
Thanks and stay safe,
Robert Sommers
(by the way, blog is still broken, hope it can be fixed)
My friend and blog reader Jill C. thankfully came through with a kit. There were several offers from various people. Thanks, all! I will test tomorrow. I feel really good now and am keeping my fingers crossed that I am okay. Please stay safe and be considerate to your fellow humans. Don't hang around other people if you feel sick or are coughing and sneezing.
I think the issue has now been satisfactorily resolved after an interminable period of countless calls to various tech centers in which both Enom and Google pointed fingers at each other and said, the "other guy should fix it."
Thank you for everybody at tech support that helped, no thanks to the one or two people that could not figure it out and preferred to be obstructive. Thanks to my readers for hanging in. We don't ever actually die in this life, we just get the dreaded 404 message.
For while white men have seen the same phenomenon going back to the late 19th century at least, the local natives believe that it is the manifestation of their balancing spirit, Tacuic, who can appear either as a man or a ball of fire.
And I once, in the company of my ex wife and a friend, actually saw it myself. Honestly the most powerful and incredible thing I have ever seen in my life.
Next Door took the man's comment down, for some unknown reason. Can't ruffle feathers, I guess.
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For more on local lore and rituals, read my old blog Devil's snare.
"Why have we assumed that the body's natural immune system isn't the marvel that it actually is.... Why do we think that we can create something better than God in terms of combating disease? There are certain things we have to do, but we have just made so many assumptions, and it's all pointed toward everybody getting a vaccine."
If we would have had troglodytes like this running the show a hundred years ago there is no way we would have stopped tuberculosis, smallpox or polio.
Of course this is the same guy who suggested recently that covid could be stopped by gargling mouthwash so one must consider the source.
With this kind of attitude we would have no medicine whatsoever, we would still be sending people to barbers to get bled and reciting mystic incantations. Our tetanus ridden jaws would be permanently clenched with lockjaw.
The idiocy of both our elected officials and a major swath of the electorate makes me shudder. The first rule of the colony is we protect the hive. Vaccines keep us from dying. It is very simple. You may get infected but the probability is that you won't die. God wants you to take the shot.
Shawn sent me this video link from Thailand, alerting me to the new technology. I think I am going to get one as soon as they are available ordered one. The company is now taking pre-orders. I believe that initial delivery is set for June of this year. Comes in two color options.
This feeder was crowd funded on kickstarter by over 48k backers who have contributed over eleven million dollars.
It is not yet in final production, they are fine tuning the software, but I understand that it is getting really close.
It notifies you on the bird's arrival, organizes your species and keeps a history.
At a little less than two hundred dollars I think the Bird Buddy is expensive but should be worth the money, at least to me.
I got a call at lunch, was in a meeting, couldn't talk. A friend but not a super close friend, I told him I would call him back. I did so, a few minutes ago. Apparently, he found out that he has liver cancer about six weeks ago. Inoperable. The disease that took out Buzz.
They are giving him two or three weeks. He wanted to know my thoughts. Even though I have dealt with it myself, I really didn't know what to say. Call the people you love and let them know you love them? Stay pain free. What else can you say? Life, such a temporary and finite proposition. Enjoy the moments you have and make the most of them. Tomorrow can be such a long time.
The world is a powder keg. There are many potential flash points and it would be difficult for a betting man to make an accurate prediction as to exactly where the match gets lit, if it unfortunately happens. China is the loudest and one of the most craven and expansionist actors on the stage but the locus of Russia and the Ukraine is also an imminent threat. India and Pakistan are always a possibility. North Korea behaves so irrationally that one can never count it out in a desperate suicide strike against its perceived enemies.
Having said all that, I recommend that you read Robin Wright's excellent article in the latest issue of the New Yorker, The looming threat of a nuclear crisis with Iran. The Persians expansion of their military capabilities is terrifying and startling. Neither Israel or the United States will be able to withstand this behemoth in a full scale conflagration without a protracted battle and a near or total annihilation in the middle east.
The so-called “breakout” time for Iran to produce enough fuel for a bomb has plummeted, from more than a year to as little as three weeks.
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The lesson of Al Asad, McKenzie told me, is that Iran’s missiles have become a more immediate threat than its nuclear program. For decades, Iran’s rockets and missiles were wildly inaccurate. At Al Asad, “they hit pretty much where they wanted to hit,” McKenzie said. Now they “can strike effectively across the breadth and depth of the Middle East. They could strike with accuracy, and they could strike with volume.”
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Iran can fire more missiles than its adversaries—including the United States and Israel—can shoot down or destroy. Tehran has achieved what McKenzie calls “overmatch”—a level of capability in which a country has weaponry that makes it extremely difficult to check or defeat. “Iran’s strategic capacity is now enormous,” McKenzie said. “They’ve got overmatch in the theatre—the ability to overwhelm.”
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Amir Ali Hajizadeh, a brigadier general and a former sniper who heads Iran’s Aerospace Force, is known for incendiary bravado. In 2019, he boasted, “Everybody should know that all American bases and their vessels in a distance of up to two thousand kilometres are within the range of our missiles. We have constantly prepared ourselves for a full-fledged war.”
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The Islamic Republic has thousands of ballistic missiles, according to U.S. intelligence assessments. They can reach as far as thirteen hundred miles in any direction—deep into India and China to the east; high into Russia to the north; to Greece and other parts of Europe to the west; and as far south as Ethiopia, in the Horn of Africa. About a hundred missiles could reach Israel.
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McKenzie has analyzed how a conflict with Iran might play out. “If they attack out of the blue, it would be a bloody war,” he told me. “We would be hurt very badly. We would win in the long run. But it would take a year.” Or potentially more, as the United States has learned in Afghanistan and Iraq. And a full-scale military campaign by Israel or the U.S. would almost certainly trigger a regional war on multiple fronts. Iran is better armed and its military and political powerbrokers more hard-line than at any time in its modern history. The nuclear deal could be just the beginning—and the easier part of the Iran challenge for an eighth American President.
As much as I worry about Taiwan, I think Iran is the place where the shit finally hits the fan.
I write this email knowing that many of you will think I’m crazy after reading it. I believe there is a sadistic effort underway to euthanize the American people. It’s obvious now. It’s undeniable, yet no one is doing anything. Everyone is discounting their own judgment and dismissing their intuition.
I believe the Jews are behind this.
For 300 years the Jews have been trying to infiltrate the Catholic Church and place a Jew covertly at the top. It happened in 2013 with Pope Francis. I believe the pandemic and systematic extermination of billions of people will lead to an effort to consolidate all the countries in the world under a single flag with totalitarian rule.
I know, it sounds bonkers. No one is reporting on it, but the Hasidic Jews in the US instituted a law for their people that they are not to be vaccinated for any reason.
I pray that I'm wrong on this. Utah has got to stop the vaccination drive. Warn your employees. Warn your friends. Prepare. Stay safe.
After this email and other statements blaming Soros and shabbos goy Bill Gates for the closet covid extirpation campaign, the sheit seriously hit the fan and Bateman, after being asked to step down from his board, released a second email. With the obligatory "some of my best friends are jews" reference.
"Yes. I sent it. I have nothing but love for the Jewish people. Some of my closest friends are Jews. My heart breaks for their 2500 years they’ve been mistreated by nearly every country on earth. But I do believe Scottish Rite Freemasons are behind the pandemic (overwhelmingly Jewish)," he wrote. "And I fear billions of people around the globe right now are being exterminated."
Please wear a mask and get vaccinated.
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It can be found right next to Frazer Farms east off of Highway 5.
The mall just opened a few days ago and I am very impressed with the high quality antiques in the store. Check it out.
I am officially old. I still say thank you and even you're welcome. I am prone to talk about my many ailments and bodily functions. I honestly like Andy Williams. I remember watching the William Bendix television show, in its earliest reruns. I know the names of every original panelist on To tell the Truth. I still like J.K. Rowling. I have more tags on my neck than you could find at a garage sale. I wouldn't buy jeans that had holes artificially cut into them. Or shoes with shoelace eyelets and no laces for that matter. It is now a serious stretch to cut my toenails. I love Motown and pretty much hate rap and hip hop. I don't pass on the right shoulder and try not to run red lights. I don't think it is fair for girls who were originally born boys to compete in athletic events against girls who were originally born girls.
And I am totally indifferent if not disgusted at the face tattoo thing. I saw a guy who took the Maori face tattoo plunge at lunch today and honestly felt sad. Because it seems like a real one way ticket. You paint your face, there is no going back. It is almost like you are holding up a sign that says, beware, I am mortally wounded. Stay back. But who am I to judge? My day has obviously come and gone. Have at it kids, it's your world now.
The checker had a hat on like she was just another one of Santa's little helpers but when you got up close her whole face was completely inked, floor to ceiling.
It was like driving past a car wreck. I was definitely rubbernecking and had to pull over. I quietly took my cell phone out and tried to be as casual and nonchalant as possible, shooting from my navel and not bothering to focus and trying not to be noticed. Spray and pray we call it.
The visual was just so incongruent and jarring. She seemed nice enough and once again, who am I to judge? Might be Mother Theresa under that felt hat. But my prejudice as an old guy who is not very politically correct nor really with it was one of sorrow, honestly. As in, how the fuck could you do that to yourself? What impels you to color over everything you got, just because you can?
We all make our own choices and I am sure that we will soon arrive at a place that those that remain uninked are marked as some sort of pariahs and destined for the next coal car for Soylent Green. I will be the odd man out. I'm just not down with the paint your face thing, not going there, at least not yet.
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There is a row amongst the p.c. against Rowling, I don't think she said anything that wasn't truthful personally. She is officially out, as are Hamilton, Jefferson, Churchill, Twain, Lincoln and a whole host of other unlucky historical figures who were doomed to live in a less than fully enlightened age such as we live in today.
I tried to watch Fantasia last night and they have now stuck a proviso in the introduction that offers that it contains demeaning and outdated cultural references of some kind and to be careful watching the animation classic. And I'm thinking, Fantasia, who the hell are offended now, dancing hippos with hats? The aggrieved rodent class?
Nauseating to me to judge figures of the past by current woke standards, not to mention unfair as hell, but that is where we are, even cartoon figures. Hekyll and Jeckyll wouldn't stand a snowball's chance today. First they came for Doctor Seuss and I did nothing...
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| Audubon - Matthew Brady, 1850 |
Guess what, according to a lot of evidence, his mother was either black or half black and he was in fact, a mulatto. Should that count for anything? From wiki:
Audubon was born in Les Cayes in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) on his father's sugarcane plantation. He was the son of Lieutenant Jean Audubon, a French naval officer (and privateer) from the south of Brittany,and his mistress, Jeanne Rabine,a 27-year-old chambermaid from Les Touches, Brittany (now in the modern region Pays de la Loire).They named him Jean Rabin.Another 1887 biographer has stated that his mother was a lady from a Louisiana plantation. His mother died when he was a few months old, as she had suffered from tropical disease since arriving on the island. His father already had an unknown number of mixed-race children (among them a daughter named Marie-Madeleine), some by his mixed-race housekeeper, Catherine "Sanitte" Bouffard (described as a quadroon, meaning she was three-quarters European in ancestry). Following Jeanne Rabin's death, Audubon renewed his relationship with Sanitte Bouffard and had a daughter by her, named Muguet. Bouffard also took care of the infant boy Jean.
Why would you cut and run from a historical figure like Audubon when he was in fact a mixed race man who lived in a slave owning culture? He was a product of his time, like Jefferson. Many artists are and were bastards, but does that mean that their entire body of work should be so casually annulled and discarded? I did the Audubon bird count yesterday, what do you want to bet it has a new name next year?
Where does this nonsense stop? Should we look at the bible? Moses encouraged the taking of female slaves in Numbers 31. Is he too going on the scrap heap? Deuteronomy 21:10-14 encourages the rape of war captives. The Holiness code of Leviticus explicitly allowed participation in the slave trade and said furthermore that slaves could be inherited. Didn't Noah curse his son Ham and his descendants to be slaves too? Of course, this attitude about slavery was not exclusive to the old testament. The Saints seemed to be down with the whole thing too.
Saint Peter writes “Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse.”
Now slave owning was not unique to the judeo christian tribes, in fact much of African slavery was black on black or berber on black. It occurred in Athens in 550 b.c. and in ancient England when Saxons enslaved Britons. It actually seems to be the norm through out human history or should I say, prevalent in many cultures.
Guess what, humans are no damn good and they never were so good. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we should erase the whole damn historical record.
I wonder what possesses today's youth to be so shallow in their thinking by denuding those figures of the past who fail to meet their own angelic current standards? I keep thinking back to a certain high school teacher I had when I was young and idealistic and arrogant and thought I knew how the whole thing worked. He taught a course in Labor and Government at Walden in New York City, an upper west side school I briefly attended.
I was prattling on and he looked at me in the eye one day and said, "You know, I hate perfect people." I got the message and shut up. And now I know what he felt like.
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My wife Leslie just told me that Stephan Stills is seventy seven today. And he thought he was so old when he was only four and twenty...
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I’m a friend of ________ and I live in _________. I work with kids who are early college age. You ever feel like no matter how many examples you point to, there’s a disconnect you can’t reach with these kids? The examples point to…what? A religion of face tattoos? A confederacy of dunces?
Their forum is on line. By the time you talk to them, it’s in the rear view mirror. They are not willing to engage in debate because whatever they think, it’s settled. When you see them commenting on line, unfortunately, there’s no debate there either. On line is a forum for them to air their feelings.
If you have a second, try to find a New Yorker piece called Cat Person. I’ve seen that used pretty effectively, more so than the Coates book. It’s a quick read, a failed love story. Or not. What that story means still eludes me. What happens in it is obvious, but what it means to the kids is wrapped in a gestalt of emotions.
The debate I’ve seen with Cat Person is eye-opening. Those who claimed to understand it refused to defend their position and scoffed at those who didn’t. That created instant dogma. The instructors also scoff. The group-think that reaction creates drives questioning students out of the class and sometimes out of school entirely. Once they drop out, everyone is happy.
At some point growing up I must have been told or taught to ignore emotion while trying to reason. That’s on its head now. Feel first and think second, or not at all. Age isn’t what’s separating us as a people. It’s not age responsible for substituting emotion for reason.
I too have seen students cover their heads with ink. I say nothing. I know my input is limited to up or down, yes or no, like or dislike. That’s all they’ll take. Anything less than total affirmation ends the transaction. It’s a litmus test on the viewer, not the poor tattooed idiot.
Affirmation ends the transaction too. The kids have nothing more to say after they get the thumbs up, because it’s a viewer test, still. You are a data point, not any more highly valued than a mouse click, or maybe a little less.
I think it’s self harm. All of it. The gauges, the ink, the drug-driven gender manipulation. They seem like cutters to me, these kids, ripping themselves apart in what they feel is self-expression. They aren’t interested in converting people. They’re willing to self-sacrifice to show their emotional commitment to the cause, though they don’t know what the cause is. And to ask about the point shows you don’t get it. Obviously, or you wouldn’t ask.
I’ve never seen anything like this. I keep coming back to Lincoln’s line in the Gettysburg Address: “Now we are engaged in a great civil war.” Why say that? Wasn’t that the most obvious thing? But I’m starting to think war is its own justification, that when people act without reason and thousands die, the reason may be we are engaged in a war and there is no reason beyond that observation.
Sorry for the long response. You don’t know me and it’s pretty self-involved for me to think you’d want to read everything strangers write. I don’t post on line, don’t use my name and don’t ever post pictures. No social media. Your post on age is a conclusion I’ve seen others reach. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s not the generation gap.
Does it say anything that when I’m faced with a kid with a tattooed head, a boy with breasts and fingernail polish and army boots, I feel bad for what’s in store for him later in life, and he feels bad for me for being me? I mean, we’re supposed to be less compassionate with age, right? More “get off my lawn”? Yet I’m the one with concern, not judgment, for my fellow man. And I’m the one being judged. This kid’s got a green head but the referendum is on me. That’s not age.
“Almost cut my hair” is the generation gap. “I cut off my dick” is something else.
The best of luck navigating the upcoming few months, truly. It makes very little sense to me. And good luck with the blog. You’re braver than I am, to wade into the cultural morass.
The honor is long overdue. The Met skipper and longtime Dodger and Met player had a sterling career, one that was interrupted by military service in World War II.
He had MVP consideration for nine of his eventual eighteen seasons and that ain't shabby. The somewhat rare right handed first baseman was also a great fielder.
He had outstanding numbers and was simply a great first baseman. From Wiki:
Hodges was widely regarded as the major leagues' outstanding first baseman in the 1950s, with teammate Duke Snider being the only player to have more home runs or runs batted in during the decade. He held the National League (NL) record for career home runs by a right-handed hitter from 1960 to 1963, with his final total of 370 briefly ranking tenth in major league history; he held the NL record for career grand slams from 1957 to 1974. An eight-time All-Star, he anchored the infield on six pennant winners, and remains one of the most beloved and admired players in team history. A sterling defensive player, he won the first three Gold Glove Awards and led the NL in double plays four times and in putouts, assists and fielding percentage three times each. He ranked second in NL history with 1,281 assists and 1,614 double plays when his career ended, and was among the league's career leaders in games (6th, 1,908) and total chances (10th, 16,751) at first base. He managed the New York Mets to the 1969 World Series title, one of the greatest upsets in sports history before his death from a sudden heart attack at age 47. He was inducted into the New York Mets Hall of Fame in 1982, and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in December 2021 for induction in 2022.
If I may be so bold, for Kranepool and Shamsky, Weiss and Clendenon, Gentry and Seaver, Jones and Agee, Koosman and Grote, Boswell and Charles, Swoboda and Ryan and all the other members of the Amazin' Mets of 69, I salute you Gil and am so glad that you finally made it to Cooperstown.
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We had season tickets when I was a kid and I was privileged to be there with my father and brother the day Duncan had a 100 yard interception return in 1967. Can't get much better than that.
Speedy was the best Charger defender they had when I was a kid.
From Bleacher Report:
Duncan leading the league in punt return average three times is tied for an NFL record. He has the most punt returns in AFL history and is the one of three players to lead the league twice in returns.
Duncan has the most punt return yards in AFL history, as well as having the longest punt return ever. His four touchdowns is tied as the most in AFL history, as is his two in one year.
His 25.9 yards on 115 kickoff returns as a Charger is the second best in AFL history for a career. His 248 combined returns is the most ever by an AFL player, and his 4,617 total combined is the second most.
The four touchdowns off punt returns is a Chargers record and he ranks second in career returns and return yards on punts
He also ranks fourth in kickoff returns and yards and his 25.3 return average is the best in Chargers history by anyone with more than 50 returns.
Besides being probably the best return specialist in Chargers history, he was a great cornerback. His 21 interceptions with San Diego still ranks seventh best in team history. His two touchdowns off interceptions is tied with 11 others as the fifth most.
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An offensive innovator with his multiple threat Air Coryell passing attack, he was the first coach to win 100 games as both a college and pro coach.
John Madden, Al Davis, Joe Gibbs, Bill Walsh, Mike Martz and Tony Dungy all acknowledge his innovative genius.
If he had been coaching in Los Angeles or New York they would have handed him hall membership immediately. Hope he makes it one day.
I didn't take a lot of good shots, couldn't lug around the heavy lens but I managed to get a couple and learn a lot, since my fellow birders were very experienced pros. There were four of us on this count.
Also saw two lovely ferruginous hawks but was not able to get a decent shot.
Such a gorgeous hue of blue.
Once again The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly neologism contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternative meanings for common words.
The winners are:
1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted(adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavoured mouthwash.
9. Flatulence (n.), emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists (doctors of the colon and anus)
13. Pokemon (n.), a Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die, your soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.
The Washington Post's Style Invitational also asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.
The winners are:
Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating.
The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
Osteopornosis (n): A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
Karmageddon (n): It's like, when everybody is sending off all these Really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
Glibido (v): All talk and no action.
Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.
And the pick of the literature:
Ignoranus (n): A person who's both stupid and an asshole.
