Thanks, Mahmoud!

Gone away to church camp for a week, which left me feeling warm and fuzzy and good-hearted towards all of humanity. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad helped prove we're all more alike than we are different with these remarks slamming Paul the Soccer-Predicting Octopus and the interest given him during the recent World Cup games. Politicians the world over never seem to know when to shut up.

Some might suggest that the attack came because Paul's garden -- if it resembles those created by his fellow octopi as seen by Ringo Starr --offers a place of "joy for every girl and boy," since they "[know] that "they're happy and they're safe." President Ahmadinejad's government frowns on joy that involves mixing girls and boys. And should they be accused of having so mixed, they will be anything but safe. Their lawyers may be walking a little bit of a tightrope themselves, it seems. While that explanation does indeed offer the same contact with reality regularly demonstrated by Iran's president and the international groups that humor him, it would require him to be a Ringo fan, and I believe that he seethes with jealousy over the Beatle drummer's beard.

President Ahmadinejad suggests that playing along with the idea that a sea creature that keeps two-thirds of its brain in its arms forecasts soccer match outcomes demonstrates an inability to lead. He was silent on what leadership skills are demonstrated by a national head of state who weighs in against a cephalopod mollusk. Paul had no comment, which is probably best for President Ahmadinejad. Whether one is comparing them based on number of limbs or on probable IQ, the president should be grateful for Paul's unwillingness to do battle with an opponent clearly not his equal.

ETA: Although the octopus method of reproduction, which involves the male detaching the relevant portion of his body to go about its business independent of the rest of him, does go a long way towards explaining President Ahmadinejad's presence in the world.

Changing Times

The University of Louisiana at Monroe is hunting for a new president and has had a couple of community forums for the public to give their input in the process. At a recent one, a woman named Donna Cathey suggested that the next ULM president must make athletic spending a priority. "We (the university) spend a disproportionate amount of money on academics," she said in this story from the Monroe News-Star. I added the parenthetical phrase there so we could be sure that we all knew just who was being so prodigal with all these dollars in the classroom.

Ms. Cathey is an alum of ULM, so it seems this excessive instructional spending may be a recent development.

(H/T University Diaries)

ETA: I'll be fair to Ms. Cathey and acknowledge she may have been making a larger point that was obscured by selective quotation in the news story. But it's not a smart way to phrase things.

I Write, Like...

Sportswriter and voluminous blogger Joe Posnanski put some famous sports quotes through one of the latest memes-of-the-moment, the I Write Like site that will compare a sample of writing against a number of better-known authors and identify which of them the sample is most like. He was dubious as to its reliability. Although some of the quotes matched up with writers that were a lot like the person who originally said them, many did not.

The Ted Williams quote --  "All I want out of life is that when I walk down the street folks will say, 'There goes the greatest hitter that ever lived.'" -- suggested Ernest Hemingway according to the IWL algorithm, and Williams' he-man persona matches Hemingway's pretty well. There's the problem that Williams also said, "Know what you get when you pour hot water on a sportswriter? Instant (expletive referring to dung)," so he might not have appreciated comparison to any writing folks at all.

But on the other hand, a sample of quotes from pitcher Satchel Paige, one of the best sources of American wry in the 20th century, matches him to Twilight series author Stephenie Meyer, and that's enough to angry up the blood, fried foods or no. Muhammed Ali's famous "Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee. Your hands can't hit what your eyes can't see." is apparently the kind of thing that The Handmaid's Tale author Margaret Atwood would write, meaning that the IWL algorithm misunderstands the concept of the "Boxing Day" holiday celebrated in Atwood's native Canada.

Some samples of this blog, submitted to the IWL site, suggested different authors. Several read most like the late David Foster Wallace. I've never been able to get through more than a few pages of a Wallace novel, which may say something deeply profound about my relationship to own writing that I'm neither smart nor introspective enough to figure out. Another couple of samples suggest that I write like H.P. Lovecraft, and I don't follow that one at all. But then there was one submission that prompted IWL to suggest I write like The DaVinci Code author Dan Brown, and I am without comment, for "there is no language for such abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order."

A Great Lawman

That's not what you'd say about Mayberry Deputy Barney Fife, portrayed by the late Don Knotts, born this day in 1924. Charlie Brown never got to kick the football, and Barney never got to fire his one bullet in the line of duty. He did fire it accidentally 11 times, according to this Andy Griffith Show FAQ entry, bringing terror to innocent holsters and floorboards throughout North Carolina.

Steps

Forty-one years ago today, we did something we can't do anymore. But it's fun to remember.

OK, So He Minded a Little...

James Gammon, who may have had the best voice ever among character actors, passed away this weekend at 70. He was probably best known as the manager of the fictional version of the Cleveland Indians in two Major League movies, but a scan of his IMDB page shows he had plenty of other roles. One of my favorite entries from that list is the un-named "Old Ranch Hand" from the 2005 Wim Wenders/Sam Shephard movie Don't Come Knocking. Another is biker "Ironbutt Garrett" from the 1993 action film Running Cool. I don't remember if I ever saw either one of those movies, but those particular character names sum up Gammon pretty well.

My favorite Gammon role is "Dawson," the outlaw leader from Silverado who gets tricked by Scott Glenn and Kevin Kline and loses the money his men stole from a wagon train. When Glenn's character pretends to be an outlaw himself, he fast-talks Gammon by saying he and the playing-at-being-dead Kline are fleeing from a posse and that he'd heard about the hideout -- from a bunch of names he's just made up -- so he headed there, and he hopes Gammon won't mind. Gammon responds, in his shifting-gears-while-low-on-transmission-fluid voice, "Mind? You bring a posse to my best hideout and you ask me if I mind? Mister, I don't know any of those names. You're about to die."

He was also, as the obituary notes, a big booster of live theater and collected some awards for acting and directing in Los Angeles. And in a nice twist on the way things are often done among the performing set, he stayed married to the mother of his children for 38 years, until his death.

Well, Maybe a Little Unusual

Really? Tom Jones? Who'd a thunk it?