Thur Eve Thoughts

Ah, my grandson has a sense of humor.  Sometimes it is grating, sometimes pretty funny.  This afternoon, he asked if a friend could spend the night.  Grandma said, "I don't know, honey. Grandpa and I are going out."  Without missing a beat, Bopper said, "It's always about you and Grandpa, isn't it?"  Just as Grandma was getting ready to....Bopp smiled and said, "Just joking."  He and his buddy are in the basement, watching the Three Stooges I hope, and will soon be up here asking for a pizza.  Of course, Grandpa will get it for them.

So, some of the Islamist detainees at Gitmo are staging hunger strikes.  That's mindful of the IRA hunger strikes in Brit prisons during the '70s.  I guess my answer to such strikes is this:  bring food to the cells and let the prisoners decide if they want to eat or starve.  It's their choice.  The doo-gooders (and I mean "doo") will complain about that, but the doo-gooders (and I mean "doo") will complain no matter what happens--force feed, give in to demands, withhold food....

Let's see, Washington politicians get all worked up when some states announce they aren't going to enforce laws passed in Washington that those states don't like--that is, the states won't enforce laws with which they disagree.  This is the theory of nullification, still quite controversial in US History.  Ultimately, nullification leads to secession--that is, the Civil War!  Anyway, these same DC politicians don't seem to have any problem not enforcing laws that they don't like.

President Obama is one of these, epitomized.  I know historians, in general, don't rate President Eisenhower very high, sort of middle of the pack.  I rate him much better, in the top ten.  (Of course, maybe I'm not a historian!)  One, among many, reason is that although Eisenhower didn't at all like the Supremes' decision in Brown v Board of  Ed, he used federal troops in Little Rock in '57 to enforce it.  He noted that he took an oath to enforce the law, which is what Brown did--tell us what the law was.  It was his responsibility, one he took seriously.  On the other hand, President Jackson is usually rated among the top Presidents, in the top 7 or 8 at least.  Yet, in 1830, when the Marshall Court ruled unfavorably (in Jackson's eyes) in a case involving Indians, Jackson purportedly said, "John Marshall has made his decision.  Now let's see him enforce it."  Jackson ignored, willfully, his Constitutional responsibilities.  Did I say anything about Jackson's treatment of Indians or that he owned slaves?????  OK, candor forces me to say there are some anomalies in both of these Jackson demerits.

Senator Debbie Stabenow wants to score political points with those getting college loans with a bill to restore the previous interest rate on student loans--to 3.4% I think.  Is it the cynic in me that sees this as one more attempt to create a group dependent on the federal government?  After all, she never once has mention the role of the federal government in driving up college tuition in the first place.

I was talking with some people tonight and asked them, rhetorically, why colleges can't require their professors to actually teach, that is, teach four or five classes instead of one or two.  It's utter ridiculous.  Let's see--four or five classes is 12 or 15, maybe 20 at most, hours a week of classroom time.  Assume two hours a week for each class to grade papers and toss in a few hours of office time.  That's about 30 hours of work--give or take--each week.  That leaves 10 hours for research--for classes, which often ends up in journal articles, guest lectures, or even books.  Oh, that's just 40 hours.  There's nothing that says professors can't work more hours beyond 40, esp if they are going to get paid for journal articles, guest lectures, or even books.  I'll bet many of these same professors speak often of the greed of Big Oil, bankers, etc.  Oh, for once I am speaking from experience.

So, instead of one professor making, say, $100,000 for teaching four or five classes, the situation now often calls for three professors, teaching one or two classes, for $100,000 each.  How many professors on each campus??????

I hope the umpires and coaches from our little league were watching the Tigers the other night.  One of the opponents, Nick Swisher Michael tells me, tapped a foul squib shots, just inching down the third base line in foul territory.  Swisher gave up on the ball and didn't run.  The Tiger catcher, though, followed the ball and it began to roll back into fair territory.  As soon as it did roll back as a fair ball, the Tigers' catcher picked it up and tagged the batter--OUT!  So, a ball in foul territory isn't necessarily a foul ball, not if it rolls fair without touching anyone or anything.  Hmmm......  I wonder if any of the league coaches and umpires saw that and said, "Hey, he was right."  Sometimes I actually do show I know some things about baseball.  But most don't listen.

OK, out to read about Willie Mays.....  I know he replaced Bobby Thompson in CF when he first came up to the Giants.  I didn't know Thompson was perceived by most people as the best CF in the National League!  And the Giants didn't hesitate to put Mays in CF and move Thompson (who wasn't happy about it) to LF.  Oh, and Willie learned early on the advantages of playing a shallow CF.  Gee, I preach that all the time--to our players and to our coaches.  There's a logic behind it, playing the odds.  But again, most don't listen to me.