Message Forum

One of the things I always loved writing was profiles, and the model for the heights of that brand of journalism was the New Yorker, which is sometimes credited with inventing the form. I was re-reading a book I used as a text when I was teaching a class about long-form nonfiction and I ran across this profile of Johnny Carson.

It's long and involved but funny and charming and if you have the time and the patience and you remember what a unique success he was you might enjoy this.It's behind a paywall but I think they allow folks a sample or two before they cut you off. There have been a lot of talk show hosts since Johnny but none cut from his particular, classy cloth. He was in the military, and from good midwestern stock, and it showed.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1978/02/20/fifteen-years-salto-mortale

02/27/22 01:17 PM

#10677

John Maxwell

Mike, Not to worry. I don't hold my breath except to dive in the deep end. Gotta breathe dude...or die.

02/27/22 01:51 PM

#10678

Jack: So you're saying you quit smoking?

02/27/22 02:15 PM

#10679

I just go an interesting private email from a classmate who is one o our "lurkers". He reads, but does not "speak". He popped onto my radar maybe a year ago and I get some really cool messages from him. I will not give him away, but he lives a bit to the west of the I-270 outerbelt (actually a few thousand miles to the west of 270).

He was adding some interesting info regarding the retirement of some of those A-10 "Warthog" fighter planes, and agreeeing that JoBi could have sent a few (squadrons) of them to Ukraine months ago. He knows quite a bit more of the details about the A-10 than I do.

Kind of neat to hear from of few of these 'lurkers" - I have several of them now - not often - but most welcome.

02/27/22 02:39 PM

#10680

A brief history of "Enablers".

Note: Someone who knows the facts better than I could check my facts, but just going from memory here;

Enabler #1) George Bush Jr. - - "I have met with him and looked him in the eye, and I find him to be Trustworthy". (why not present him with a "participation trophy" and call him the new "Messiah"?)

Enabler #2) Mr "do nothing Obama - - "He is nothing more than a regional threat" and "No, we wont give Ukriane any weapons". Shocker, huh?

Enabler #3) Donaldski Ivanovich Trumpski - - During the 2016 convention, the Republican Party clause (written in by none otherr than Ted Cruz - I think?) to give Ukraine weapons, was somehow quietly removed by one of our favorite loyal patriots - Paul Manafort - to save his many profitable deals with Putin's Mafia. Comrade Trumpski agreed to have it ommitted and his love affair with Putin took on a new level of infatuation.

Enabler #4) - Mr. Nice Guy Joe - - Tweedlee dee, twiddlee dumm. Yadda, Yadda, Yadda. Talk about "slow Joe".

02/27/22 02:44 PM

#10681

P.s.

Anybody blaming this whole mess on Joe (alone) is either kidding themselves, or has a bad case of amnesia.

02/27/22 04:25 PM

#10682

One of my daughters was up at Watterson yesterday and took this picture of the BWHS service members' plaque that showed both my brother's name and Crick's name. God bless you all!

02/27/22 05:30 PM

#10683

Joseph D. McCarthy

For those who can remember the song "Are You Lonesome Tonight" here is the updated song that I received several years ago.

02/27/22 05:46 PM

#10684

Seeing Steve Graham's (sorry - Gramm) name on that plaque reminds me to ask - does anybody know of his whereabouts these days? And though not on that board, anybody know anything of Tom Dodsworth? A couple of St. Agatha JV basketball guys who seem to have fallen off our radar.

02/27/22 06:24 PM

#10685

Hey they misspelled my name.

No biggie.

In case it isn't obvious I've had a bad case of nostalgia lately. In part it is because I am compiling old stories into one place. Some I forgot I even wrote, others I kinda remember. Like this one. Please note - I say in the story that he got kicked out because he was shy but later historians - actually the beatles themselves, or at least one of them, I can't remember who - said that ringo was just better.

PETE BEST

By Michael McLeod of The Sentinel Staff

Orlando Sentinel

•

Feb 12, 1995 at 12:00 am

All morning long, I keep waiting to hear a primal scream out of Pete Best. If I were a doctor, I’d prescribe it for him.

But the man is patient to the marrow. Even with the pop-up Beatles book. Even with the bonehead lady. Even when a fan asks him a question that he’s surely heard a zillion times: “So . . . why did they get rid of you?”

A long, inward, world-weary sigh issues from Pete Best -- It’s no primal scream, but it’s got the ambiance -- before he answers: “I wish I knew.”

Then he caps the felt-tip pen, lines it up neatly alongside several others, and slides the black and white glossy of himself back across the table, having signed “Pete Best” just above the caption: former Beatles drummer.

The fan looks at the photo and then up at Best with a sympathetic smile. “I think it should say, ‘the original Beatles drummer,’” she says.

Another fan chimes in: “I always thought you got a raw deal.”

“Yeah, but you can’t keep thinkin about it,” says Best, his Liverpool accent erasing the “g.” “There’s today and tomorrow.”

Ah, but this being Beatles Expo, what there is, most of all, is Yesterday.

In the ballroom of the Twin Towers hotel, Beatle maniacs of various generations are drifting past card tables filled with Beatles books, Beatles buttons, Beatles audios, Beatles videos. In the far corner, a vocalist who got married at Strawberry Fields and named his son McCartney is singing Love Me, Do. But the main attraction is Best, who has a professorial look to him at 53, with gray twining now through his curly brown hair and a philosophical cast to his pale blue eyes.

He was the drummer for the Beatles for exactly two years, from 1962 to 1964. Then he was kicked out of the band and replaced with Ringo Starr. The Fab Four became a phenomenon. Pete Best became a footnote.

By most accounts, he missed the magical mystery tour mainly because he was shy. He rarely clowned around and refused to abandon his ducks arse pompadour for a mop top. Though his fans were angry (George Harrison got a black eye in a fight over Bests dismissal) and his mum was acrimonious (she’d allowed the boys, ungrateful wretches, to perform in her basement), Best has never lashed out at the Beatles. I decide to give him a couple of chances, just the same.

What if Paul McCartney walked through that door right now? Wouldn’t there be an undercurrent of bitterness between you?

“No,” he says mildly. “It’d be a matter of, Hows the wife? Hows the kids?”

OK, then: Whos the better drummer you, or Ringo?

“That,” he says diplomatically, “is for the fans to decide.”

We’re talking in between autographs, as the line in front of Bests table shuffles along, filled with people who want Best’s signature ($8 a pop) and a few moments of conversation.

Maybe autograph signings are tacky and fan clubs are for people with no life, but there’s a homey, easy-going atmosphere to this session, much of it thanks to Best’s place in the scheme of things.

There’s a natural empathy for a guy who caught a glimpse of the burning bush and didn’t get anything out of it except singed eyebrows. I notice people saying things to him that they probably wouldn’t say to a real Beatle. One fan shows him the Beatles charm bracelet she’s had since she was 12. Others want him to hold their children on his lap. They ask him: What were they really like? Did you like Backbeat? (They were good lads. He liked the soundtrack, but little else).

A man walks up with a pop-up book about the Beatles, opened to a two-page spread of the group playing in the Cavern their home-base Liverpool nightclub. A flip-down tab makes Best disappear and replaces him with Ringo.

Then a woman nudges through the line. “Excuse me, but who are you? My sons in a band called The Boneheads. Do you think he’d want your autograph?”

With the Boneheads, as with the pop-up book, he just smiles and sighs and signs.

A man with a hangdog look says he just had to come to see Best. “I got kicked out of a group two years ago,” he says. “I still can’t swallow when I think of it.” Best gives him advice: let it go, don’t dwell on it. Mostly he offers a sympathetic ear. I realize he’s got a quality Id never think to associate with a Beatle, former or otherwise: He’s a good listener.

There are a lot of teens in the crowd now, and seeing them brings something back to me. I find myself telling Best that in a time when people and things become obsolete overnight, it’s nice to know we created something that won’t ever go out of date.

“We,” right? Like I was the Walrus. Like I was there on bass guitar in the Cavern.

A moment later, the woman with the Beatles charm bracelet motions wistfully to the photo Best is about to sign.

“Sign it as though it’s still 1962,” she asks him.

Maybe it sounds silly to you. But I knew exactly what she meant.

02/27/22 11:56 PM

#10686

Love this - a Ukrainian farmer hauls off a Rusian tank.

Does anybody know if this is real footage - or could it be fake?

02/28/22 02:30 AM

#10687

Shocking, but not suprising to learn that Russian TV is now playing clips of "Tuckeryo Rose" Carlson and Comrade Mikhial Pompeo-ski in support of Putin.

And even more disturbing, hearing the crowd last night at the CPAC convention in Florida chanting "Putin, Putin, Putin !"

Fellow Republicans - WAKE UP !

----------

And recalling one more quote about Putin that contrasts with my prior listing of "Four Enablers".

Quoting John McCain - "I have looked into his (Putin's) soul and I see K.G.B."

(now das' what I'm talkin" 'bout !)

-------------

Just watched a dreadful series of interviews about a dozen (very) young Russian prisones of the Ukrainian military. All but one were about 18 to 22 - some wounded. Asked over and over again, they all responded how sorry they were to be there and they were either lied to, or threatened, to force them to go into Ukraine for military "exercises".

A couple were even on cell phones caling their mothers, who were furious to know they were there. Very depressing film clip - but for the correct reasons - to show that Putin has made a huge mistake.

Would that this kind of message would reach more and more of the (deceived) Russian public.

02/28/22 10:22 AM

#10688

/obama-the-bidens-the-clintons-the-imf-and-others-pillaged-ukraine-then-forced-its-citizens-to-pay-excessive-natural-gas-prices-at-50-above-market/

Dave.....a reminder that perhaps the Ukranian corruption by our U.S. politicians which goes back to the Clinton and Obama years is playing into this current crisis. America needs to clean house with its own subversive corruption. We need to acknowledge that there is a deep state directing U.S. financial, educational, healthcare and foreign policy and root it out. Only then can the Constitutional Republic promote true individual liberty.

02/28/22 12:26 PM

#10689

John Maxwell

Mike,
Not exactly. Curious, did you quit smoking. I think you mentioned you did. If so, good for you and your loved ones. Congradulations. I couldn't imagine you had, given the stresses of the Journalist's life.

02/28/22 01:11 PM

#10690

Jack: Yep I quit ten years ago. Hardest thing I ever did.

Meanwhile:

Feb. 28, 2022

Updated 10:15 a.m. ET

The dangers of climate change are mounting so rapidly that they could soon overwhelm the ability of both nature and humanity to adapt unless greenhouse gas emissions are quickly reduced, according to a major new scientific report released on Monday.

The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body of experts convened by the United Nations, is the most detailed look yet at the threats posed by global warming. It concludes that nations aren’t doing nearly enough to protect cities, farms and coastlines from the hazards that climate change has unleashed so far, such as record droughts and rising seas, let alone from the even greater disasters in store as the planet continues to warm.

Written by 270 researchers from 67 countries, the report is “an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership,” said António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general. “With fact upon fact, this report reveals how people and the planet are getting clobbered by climate change.”

The perils are already visible across the globe, the report said. In 2019, storms, floods and other extreme weather events displaced more than 13 million people across Asia and Africa. Rising heat and drought are killing crops and trees, putting millions worldwide at increased risk of hunger and malnutrition, while mosquitoes carrying diseases like malaria and dengue are spreading into new areas. Roughly half the world’s population currently faces severe water scarcity at least part of the year.

Few nations are escaping unscathed. Blistering heat waves made worse by global warming have killed hundreds of people in the United States and Canada, ferocious floods have devastated Germany and China, and wildfires have raged out of control in Australia and Siberia.

“One of the most striking conclusions in our report is that we’re seeing adverse impacts that are much more widespread and much more negative than expected,” said Camille Parmesan, an ecologist at the University of Texas, Austin, and one of the researchers who prepared the report.

To date, many nations have been able to partly limit the damage by spending billions of dollars each year on adaptation measures like flood barriers, air-conditioning or early-warning systems for tropical cyclones.

But those efforts are too often “incremental,” the report said. Preparing for future threats, like dwindling freshwater supplies or irreversible ecosystem damage, will require “transformational” changes that involve rethinking how people build homes, grow food, produce energy and protect nature.

The report also carries a stark warning: If temperatures keep rising, many parts of the world could soon face limits in how much they can adapt to a changing environment. If nations don’t act quickly to slash fossil fuel emissions and halt global warming, more and more people will suffer unavoidable loss or be forced to flee their homes, creating dislocation on a global scale.

“There has been the assumption that, ‘Well, if we cannot control climate change, we’ll just let it go and adapt to it,’” said Hans-Otto Pörtner, a marine biologist in Germany who helped coordinate the report. But given the expected risks as the planet keeps warming, he said, “this is certainly a very illusionary approach.”

Wildfire Tracker The latest updates on fires and danger zones in the West, delivered twice a week. Get it sent to your inbox.

Global temperatures have already increased by an average of 1.1 degrees Celsius, or 2 degrees Fahrenheit, since the 19th century, as humans have pumped heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere by burning coal, oil and gas for energy, and cutting down forests.

Many leaders, including President Biden, have vowed to limit total global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius compared with preindustrial levels. That’s the threshold beyond which scientists say the likelihood of catastrophic climate impacts increases significantly.

But achieving that goal would require nations to all but eliminate their fossil-fuel emissions by 2050, and most are far off-track. The world is currently on pace to warm somewhere between 2 degrees and 3 degrees Celsius this century, experts have estimated.

“Unchecked carbon pollution is forcing the world’s most vulnerable on a frog march to destruction — now,” Mr. Guterres said. “This abdication of leadership is criminal.”

02/28/22 02:40 PM

#10691

https://www.theblaze.com/contributions/matt-walsh-climate-alarmists-i-cant-take-you-seriously-until-you-start-living-like-the-amish?fbclid=IwAR1Z975o94FhlprFra87Vxon0WCRIa9jR24WHltD5IHl1VxuBCqQ0CZ2z9Q

Interesting how as the Covid panic dies down, the climate alarmists issue new catastrophic reports...have to keep the American public in a constant state of fear. If there was a sincere interest in improving our world, we would be focusing on what has been the real existential threat for the past 50 years.....the willful elimination of defenseless, innocents in the womb and the purposeful destruction of the traditional nuclear family.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/02/media_want_you_to_be_very_afraid_the_ice_melting_has_caused_a_oneinch_rise_in_oceans_over_the_last_hundred_years.html

02/28/22 04:28 PM

#10692

Omg, MM1. Really. It's a report from scientists around the world based on hard data that has been building up for decades. And still you cling to your imaginary blame-game lalalala let's pretend it's not happening and blame the godless liberals rhetoric. Unbelievable.

02/28/22 04:50 PM

#10693

James Hamilton, M. D.

MM,

Thank you for those two links that discussed the hype and hypocrisy of human caused climate change.

As I have said before, all of life on earth has effects on our world, both positive and negative. But the universe itself, and mainly our own solar system, most likely are the major factors. Also, our own planet what with volcanoes, earthquakes and other natural phenomena.

I think that many of us may recall 22 April 1970, the first Earth Day. I do. It was a beautiful, sunny day as I walked around the OSU campus, between classes, watching the activities and the hippies along the banks of the Olentangy River. Although that was not the beginning of the environmental movement it was probably one of the most noticable events.

Having lived in the West for most of my life I know how droughts, floods, fires and extreme cold come and go. Weather changes here constantly. The old saying here is "If you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes and it will change". Once I drove from Colorado Springs to Buena Vista, about 100 miles, and really did experience four seasons.

As I write this I suspect some others will post here on the Forum how wrong they think I am, how unscientific I am (for someone who is trained in life sciences) and how I am just duped by the Conservative Right.

Do I care about our planet? Of course I do!! But human life on earth advances and I doubt that any of us wants to return to the hunter-gatherer days of the distant past. And I will not be told how to live, what to eat, what to drive or where to and how to travel by those who think differently from myself.

Jim

02/28/22 06:43 PM

#10694

John Jackson

Jim, I don’t know where to begin with your post. Just because you’re “trained in the life sciences” does that make you an expert in all areas of science?

As someone trained in the life sciences you know a lot about medicine but you know squat about climate science – why do your personal opinions matter? When you're talking about areas in which you have no expertise and you want to be taken seriously, you really need to opine less and use facts or references to buttress your arguments.

And as someone who has spent his life working in engineering/physics, I have every bit as much background in the sciences as you do, but I‘ll freely admit I also know squat about climate science. That’s why I listen to people who are trained in this field and they are overwhelmingly convinced that climate change is real. So that's the fact I cite to buttress my argument. What's yours?

And if this is all some gigantic worldwide conspiracy don’t you think it’s odd that every major car company in the world is abandoning R&D on gas/diesel powered cars and putting all their efforts into electric cars? Have they all been duped by tree-huggers and the "global elites" that MM loves to vilify?

The scientific debate about this was over twenty years ago and nothing you say changes that. And, thank God, if we can believe the opinion polls a rapidly dwindling number of Americans agree with you.

02/28/22 09:44 PM

#10695

My prayer is for the people of Russia to come out in muuuch greater numbers and overpower the police on the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg - like a second "storming of the Winter Palace" (104 years later) .

I can dream can't I ?

Apple Pay and Google Pay no longer work on Moscow's metro system, leading to long queues as people fumble about for cash.

Oh drat! Don't ya jist hate when that happens?

02/28/22 09:58 PM

#10696

Mark Schweickart

MM – at the risk of sounding completely out of touch with all things Watterson, I have to ask, what is the "BWHS service members' plaque," and what did the fine folks named on it do to be so honored? Sorry, but I just had to ask.

And Mike – Why did you begin your introduction to your 1995 Orlando Sentinal article by saying they spelled your name wrong? It looks correct to me. What am I missing?

And is this the actual transcript of that article? If so, how did you, or your editor, manage to miss all of the apostrophes called for in the text? I think I counted nine. Now you could take this comment the wrong way and curse me for being a nerdy, self-appointed member of the grammar police, or you could compliment me for being someone who took the time to read carefully what you had written. Or I suppose both could be in order. But before you get too riled up, let me say that I certainly agree with you about feeling the strong pull of nostalgia as we get older.

02/28/22 10:12 PM

#10697

I just read where Ukraine is offering 5 million Rubles (about $50,000) and Full Amnesty to any Russian soldiers who surrender. As I mentioend above, there are many young dissilusioned Russian troops who were either threateed or deceived into going on this "Exercise". I suspect that number is really quite large.

Why don't we join in that effort by adding bunches of cash to this effort ?

Watching the news these last few days has almost brought me to tears several times - both the tragic and the heroic parts of the story. I have dreams of getting two hours transitional training into one of our Apache Helicopter Gunhsips (a form of flying tank) - and flying from their base in Poland into the fight. A dozen of these Apache gunships could come from behind and take out most of the huge column of Russian trucks and tanks on the road to Kiev. Those Russian vehicles seem oddly, quite vulnerable from behind.

Oh, the temptation is driving me crazy !

03/01/22 12:34 AM

#10698