Good, well-played and coached  football game yesterday. Congrats to the Saints.

The other night Sarah Palin was bad-mouthing Obama for using a teleprompter.  And now she’s been caught writing on her hand with a ballpoint pen, so she could remember talking points.  Wasn’t bad enough she wrote on her hand, but the video caught her trying to sneak a look at the notes! The big difference here is professionalism versus crass amateurism.  And people take her seriously as a candidate to lead the United States? Ooh boy.

Leswashussumadddddverrrrtissssssin! Yep, this is the day of the latest and greatest game of the century, the Super Bowl, that thing of super crassmercialistic overdrive — where a four-hour broadcast gets wrapped around a sixty-minute footbaw game like 24- carat gold leaf. And this year I have some vague interest in the game with two foyne Cue-Bees performing. This latest game of the  century…(uh, who played last year?) borders on national and international joke, an annual example of typical American overdo and overdone, this country where a player who gets involved in gambling will be tarred and feathered, but our national media will openly talk about point-spreads during same broadcasts where they talk about the impending or actual prosecution of the offending player. Givusaabrake.

This morning on the rahdio there’s a college professor talking about Haitian religion, something derived from Dahomeyan (West African voodoo), a religion with one god, bon-dew and a heap of spirits called dwa. I can imagine Americans fuming, you know, Catholics and Latter Day Saints and Adventists and Calvinists and Jews, all of whom have perfect religious concepts and beliefs and believe all who don’t hold with their way are headed to hell.  Yeah, right.

Last night it was comic relief time, Sarah Palin sort of keynoting the so-called National Tea Party’s thinly disguised scampaign event. You know Palin…[Please Annotate Lines I Need]. Will she run again for national office and, if so, on which ticket for which party? Frankly, few people care, and in a not so short time it very likely will be irrelevant for she smacks of what Hollywooders calls the McGuffin, that thing that seems to drive a movie’s action or purpose but in the end turns out to have no meaning whatsoever. The McGuffin was invented by Alfred Hitchcock. So there spake Sarah in the midst of slavering walla walla, while the real weenie lay undiscussed in the day’s twistsing wordjitsu. It was mahk mahk trop de zile: much-much too much, too many, excess, worthless, superfluous. With all due respect to the former governor, one suspects, has journeyed down to the “mainland” to make some moula and accumulate some loooong green. Can’t blame her for that.  With the Tee Pee (yes the party abbreviates same  as toilet paper) she is very unlikely to get elected to national office, and probably not even re-elected Alaskan guv (given that she chose to abandon ship short of completing her first term up there). All the Tee Pee is likely to do is to cut into one of the other two parties and affect the fate of someone who might actually be able to make things happen for the better in this country. Sarah is not that person. My Swedeling pals say, “Seldom are the cows jumping backwards into the apple trees to snatch pears.” Cute and so Swedish:  Translation: Impossible. Palin and the Tee Pee are enflugskitiuniversum, “flyshit in the universe.” Just like the rest of us, though they are trying to play big dog roles and do not yet recognize their insignificance. Remember Ole Ross Perot’s charts:  Where they went to , eh?  I remember in the last go-around Ron Paul signs all over the rural parts of this state. Then it was Palin. Who is next for the trashbin of gafooneydom?

Two feet of snow plopped on the District of Confusion yesterday, prompting major angst in the district coastal states, and among  big city guvs out-east.[Father, Sun, and Holy Coast] A friend told us Cincinnati shut down everything yesterday in anticipation of inundation –  and got only two inches. Washington was in near-apoplexy over the approaching weather event, a simple, though pretty substantial , snowstorm. President Obama, tongue firmly in cheek, jokingly called  it Snowmageddon, and got me to laugh out loud. As a recent Chicagoan, he understands the innate Midwestern skepticism (closer to loathing) of East-Coasters who piss and moan over things we rustbeltlings consider to be normal and seasonal. Few things annoy Yoopers more than weather events in other places where locals cry and moan and declare state or even national emergencies in order to summon forth the federal  fiscal teat to — as was said in Shakespearean times–  give suck. Yoopers just grab their snow-scoops, clear the snow away, brush off their vehicles, and get on with living. You have a problem on the road, a Yooper will stop and help you, no questions asked, no rewards expected. It is done because it is the right and neighborly thing to do. This value is not the same below the bridge.  I had never even heard of a snow day until I moved to southern Michigan and Tim, my eldest, came running to me one night when I got home from work to declare that the next day would be a snow day! Say what?

Remember Custer’s words, probably not verbatim, but in this approximate vein: “There are not enough Indians in the world to defeat the Seventh Cavalry.” This may have been true, universe-wise, but back then in southeast Montana? Not so much. Palin to be elected nationally? We shall see, but forgive us if we hold not our collective breath.

Let the foo-baw-gay begih, dawgs, and Leswashussumadddddverrrrtissssssin! Go Colts, go Saints!

Damn, what happened to the Pack and the Lions?

Over.

Temple Grandin is an autistic woman of remarkable accomplishments and sensibilities.  She has spent her life trying to empathize with animals and has invented several devices to help humanely slaughter cattle. She says she would not trade her autism for “normacy,” because this might entail losing her ability to see visually — in pictures. She said this ability makes science quite easy for her because it enables her brain to formulate various scientific principles visually, which makes them easier to understand, and presumably easier to test as well. I’ve read how Einstein had similar inner visual capacities, as have other scientists of note. And naturally  I am wondering if we need to think more in terms of joining art and science as two fingers on the same hand, rather than as a mitten or a glove to be worn as weather conditions dictate. In any event, Ms. Grandin’s description of cattle in a chute for slaughter gave me a picture for a poem which I include here in a moment.

Coffee this morning with “Stumpy” Bob Lemieux, the old coach having had a deteriorated hip replaced in December and now getting out and about. Jack, his killer dwarfdog  was on his royal perch in the shotgun seat. Bob is considering claiming his old hip as a charitable donation with the IRS, which is an interesting concept. If the remains of the hip are used in research, surely cost accountants must be able to assign some theoretical real value. We’ll keep an eye on this one, and its implications. For example, if you die and donate all your organs for transplant, what are they worth in terms of a tax deduction for your survivors?  We also saw the etherial Peter Slater, Bob’s old assistant coach, player,  and friend.  Bob recruited Peter to the K-Wings with a promise to pay for his master’s degree, and Peter finished wtih a 12-credit year while playing pro hockey. There ain’t many folk who can claim that sort of focus or accomplishment. Peter came up with the concept of the KWings Fishbowl, which I hope Lemieux will some day write about. A lot of what went on in the K-Wings locker room 30 years ago would look a whole lot like what goes on in modern NHL locker rooms nowadays. Bob and Peter were way ahead of their times.

Within last couple of days I had emails from MSU lacrosse teammates, Mike Jolly and Dick Aubrey. Something in the nether pulling the past forward? Old copilot Mike Vairo coming to town later this month. 46th Air Refueling Squadron reunion slated for Marquette this coming September. Interesting, Aubrey, Dr. Wry hisself, commented, “You seem to be having more fun than the legal limit and you  should watch yourself.  He’s probobably right on both counts. This is probably the real genesis of the poem that follows. I’ll put it into the site later.

With a Nod to Temple Grandin

Cattle are lined up in chutes

Nose-to-butt, all facing forward,

Moving slowly, step-by-step,

One after the other, dealing

With here and what little they can see,

Not with all the immense unknowns

Ahead of them they cannot see,

This facilitated by chutes,

Curved by design to reduce

You see, seeing too far ahead

And thus enhancing movement,

Cows marching inexorably

Until reaching the head of the line

BANG it’s dead!

Sounds suspiciously like life

Of other species alleged

To possess almost free will,

Puffle-ruffling with falsie pride

Over controlling the outcomes

Of their fates, and etcetera.

Every time corporations fade from memory, something bizarre and/or ugly pops up to remind us what artificial, money-only, greed-fulfilling operations they can be. Within the last couple of days, a Toyota big shot gave a statement to the media along these lines about it’s — and I quote here– ” sticking pedal situation,” by which he no doubt meant a sticking accelerator that has been causing various accidents and allegedly a number of deaths over a period of months. What he said was, “We have an obligation to be as honest as we can with our customers.” Sticking pedal situation would appear to be the kind of language corporate lawyers insist on. In this case it also may reflect some sort of cultural influence and preference from the home offices on the other side of the Pacific.

As honest as they can? Are you kidding me? Does honesty come  in gradations? Pregnancy? Death? Good god!

There was a time when corporations described their employees as their most important assets. Then came massive outsourcing as the formerly important assets suddenly became profit impediments and liabilities. Then customers ascended the corporate altar in corporate importance (except in banking, credit cards, etc). But you can’t outsource customers the way you outsource customers. Oh wait, I guess you can: You can issue bad mortgages and paper which can’t be collected and sell that as a bundle to somebody else to let them worry about it. But car companies can’t outsource customers and maintain market share or profits. So Toyota is left with solving this problem. They already tried to let it fade away and that didn’t work. It never does in this country. Never has, never will.

But I digress: the sticking pedal situation. When you hear a corporation begin to parse language this way, be wary and careful. It usually presages rough waters and lies of omission.  What we are left with in this situation is Toyota just wanting  the sticking pedal situation to go away and not to have to incur the cost of $ billions in recalls, fixes and lost sales; and Toyota owners just wanting their vehicle’s accelerator (or brakes) to not stick and therefore, theoretically, to not be a threat to their very lives every time they drive. There’s a word from the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego for this sort of thing, which sort of fits:  mamihlapinatapei, which means two parties hoping the other will start something they both want, but neither is unwilling to initiate. Seems to me that this strange condition, were it to take hold across the world, would end population growth. I mean, have you not experienced mamihlapinatapei in a bar late at night? On second thought the word probably doesn’t apply. Toyota will be required by governments to make this fix happen. Hey, I drive the regal and well worn  Green Streamer,  now in it’s 10th full season of backwoods off-road and two-track gadabouting. It’s a Ford, the company which makes the best winter engines in the world, and that includes all those  squeaky little imports.

Heard a new word from Jambe Longue’s brother yesterday. It refers to people who hold those awful mortagages where the amount of the mortgage far exceeds current market value of their house. The condition is now referred to by some as “house arrest.”

Ah, the week’s almost done. Over.

Okay, Big Duh, so yesterday was NOT Groundhog Day. Feb first or second, what’s the diff? The little woodchuckchuck saw his shadow today, which means six more weeks of winter, but hey, this is Michigan, so this is actually good news. Six weeks takes us into mid-March and usually we’re still having snowstorms in April and sometimes into May. I remember one of my top soccer players blowing out her knee years ago during a game at Three Rivers in an intense snowstorm in mid-May.  So hey, good job Philly boy. My grandfather Harry Heywood was addicted to the earworm (or would koan be more accurate?): “How Much Wood Could a Woodchuck Chuck?” As kids we were made to recite this repeatedly and he would cackle like a plumber (which he was) who had too many pipewrenches bounced off his head. I find the damn woodchuckiedealie popping into my empty head at some very weird moments. It’s snowing today but just a bit. NBD. Over.

Happy Monday.  You see the Wolf Moon the other night? Spooktacular! I always wonder who might be gazing up at the moon same time as me . No doubt, some day some computer whiz-bang will figure a way to harness brain waves and enable moon-watching communications.

Tiz Groundhog Day and overcast here. Bring the Pa. woodchuck here! Last Friday was the memorial and wake for our friend Art Missias. The memorial at the Igloo at the high school was packed and the first thing I faced was a line of the sweaters of some teams Art had coached over the years. I had to take a real slow, deep breath.  Son Matt did a great job organizing and talking about his dad and daughter-in-law April offered the best, most meaningful prayer I’ve ever heard at one of these things. The whole intent was to celebrate Art’s life and this was accomplished. Lots of his current and former players showed up.

This morning a note from my good friends Marie and Roel Renard, who dwell now in France (Belgians by birth). They are happy and prospering  in their retirement. Marie is a fine painter.  Roel and I spent many a night arguing all sorts of booze-dredged philosophy and literature. It is wonderful to re-establish contact with people who have played an important role in your life.

Any of you in Facebook? Geez, you get all these request for friends that seem to be generated by the service’s computer and not from actual people, which makes it a pain in the dew-pa. But the service came in handy notifying people about Art’s events last week.

Coming back from the memorial Jambe Longue and I stopped in her classroom and we snapped up a couple of artsy hands her students made.  Below also, a painting in progress. It grows every day.

Things tough and scary now? In 1951, under the shadow of a potential nuclear war, New York City issued dog tags to all schoolchildren so their remains could be identified in the wake of a nuke exchange. Apparently said officials were largely clueless about how almost everything would be vaporized — as happened at Hiroshima. I heard a US Navy vet yesterday talking on C-Span about flying over the city in 1945  at 2,000 feet (a little macabre sightseeing); he said all that remained  were marks where streets had once been, and twisted pipes protruding from the ground. Lot of good dog tags would do, but hey, I’m sure the pols made hay from it. The pols always make pay (er hay). Let me rephrase that: They make hay, whilst the rest of us pay.

Over.

Memory Lane of Hockey Sweaters

Marie Renard, Painter Extraordinaire

Roel Renard, reading reading reading — in several languages.

Hey, how do you KNOW I was hunting mice?

Funny how you can create the nub of a story merely by placing objects in proximity.

Work in progress, entitled. "Rusty's Tree." 3 by 4 feet.

I watched the speech last night, and the lame joke that followed, and this morning

this little pome popped out.

Republicans sat last night

En grisaille, suited

Crusty Easter Island moai

Stone-still, sneaking

Under-breath barbs to pals

Like middle school burnouts

Way in the far-back row

Trying to defy order

(Without being caught)

An earmark of smugness,

Total lack of respect.

While Democrats danced in the aisles

like it was a damn tent revival

And Veep Joe Bidenhead sat

Nodding metronomically

beside grinning

Speakerhouse Fullmousy

As our Preachident

Catalogued four-letter concerns:

Play-debt-bill-vets-core-gays-mess-

Safe-wall-fine-jobs-vote-nuke-wars-coal-

Side-easy-idea-hole-belt-veto-rule-

Poor-rich-good-evil-poll-pill-

Bank-bite-fear-home-loan-loss-

Gain-plan-forn-jobs-iran-iraq-NOKO-

Grid-deal- draw- debt-down-300M-

Left-lost-lose-loss-last-wins-back-

Won’t-quit-can’t-quit.

Y    a     w    n.

As I heard it: We got untracked off-track

of our closed-track

Which then became a lost-track,

And now allegedly we’re on the right track

To make a fresh track, am I warm yet?

Can you keep track? Not I,

but let us not back-track.

Instead: Down in Texas

Earlier this month

An old codger

Told me: “Some’s tightenin’ belts,

some’s wearin’ ropes fer belts,

and others is polishin’ gold buckles.”

We are less and less a country; We seem two

Angry, frightened Nations, divisible under mean-eyed

Naked ambition for power.

Elected officials do not serve the public.

They serve themselves to fatten

Their bank account prospects.

At least we have a leader

Speaking English, as opposed

To a “Decider” who don’t-

didn’t-won’t-wouldn’t-can’t.

All this talkatus (not talkwithus)

All this faux drama,

brietard posturing by pharisees,

amounts to bipolar beer-glassery,

blends to educacaphanous verbal drool,

fainéant quiddity; some jerk ganked

our national compass, dudes, ISYN.

High today to be below twenty, snow, high wind. Perfect next day

to bookend last night’s speech.

Youse  ‘ave a noyce die, over.

Here is typical Facebook wall posting: “My dog has four legs; so do my chairs. Today I need to wash my dog.” I’m also  on Facebook, but I’m thinking it ought to be renamed “Get-A-Lifebook.” Or www.Drivel.com? Nah, those names probably are already taken. Our snow is back, not a lot but enough to lightly repaint the landscape. Yesterday the Shan and I spooked one of our local redtails off the ground where she (I assume it was mom) had been dive-bombing something. Later in the day, a cooper’s hawk soared close over our heads, probably headed for bird feeders, their fave hunting territories. There’s a bozo down our walking route who has a salt block out for deer. They’ve nibbled the square down to a 45 degree angle, and must hit the thing at night. I’ve seen them bedding about 100 yards from the salt block — among fallen trees, but have never seen them on the salt itself.  The sometime-bedding area is within eyesight of the annual redtail hawk nest. Yes, no feeding or baiting is allowed or legal in the lower peninsula, but a lot of people in this area simply ignore the ban and do whatever the hell they want. The fine here is something like $150, I think. In some counties the fine starts at $400. All of our fish and game fines are way out of date, but our legislators lack the political cajones to jack them up where they should be. Same same for hunting and fishing license fees.  When I think about it, this is not a surprise: our legislators are rarely known for politifal cajones in any undertaking, unless it is to dirtmouth an opponent during an election. Michigan, once one of the bright beacons of states now pretty much leads the nation as losers in almost all categories. And while our auto industry may have suffered the cosmis snickersnack we still have one of the greatest natural outdoor beauty bounties in the United States. But few pols willing to nurture it, much less defend it. Hey we have some of the oldest history in the Americas  right in this state. What does the state do to promote it? Virtually nothing.  This isn’t a rant; it’s simply a statement of our realities.

In looking at the Michigan Secretary of State booklet, What Every Driver Must Know,  I note that the pamphlet uses the word freeway throughout the tome until it gets to the practice test at the end, at which point it switches to the word expressway. Why would they do that?

Want an interesting UP web site? This is not a direct link, but type in   www.Alumnac.com/newsletter and take a look. If you like it,   sign up.  It’s free. www. Pasty.com is another good one. If you know of other interesting yooper websites drop me an e-mail through the site. It’s free.Truth. I’m currently a site sponsor. The site reaches 17,000 – 18,000 people, which ironically is about equal to the state’s black bear population.

Starting to plan my spring DNR research outings, which is trickier than fall because spring activities are heavily weather dependent.

Over.

This story is from John Bat-Carp Chapman (Maj, USAF, Ret).  We attended undergraduate navigation training together at Mather AFB, Sacramento, CA. Before that he was a swimmer at U. Illinois. He spent most of his AF career in F-111s. It’s a true story.

One day a long, long time ago, there was this pilot who, surprisingly, was not full of b.s….But it was just one pilot a long, long time ago…. And it was just for one day.

This is of a genre called navigator humor. There isn’t a whole lot of it. Over.

Memorial services for Arthur H. Missias, 1948-2010, will be held at the Portage Northern High School Igloo at 1 p.m., Friday, January 29. Somehow it seems appropriate that we say goodbye to Artie  in a place named for extreme cold. I doubt I could even begin to tally all the hours we spent with kids and teams  in the coldest damn rinks all over the Midwest and Ontario. Art gave his all to his players, to the sport of ice hockey, including the American Hockey Association of the U.S. [AHAUS], Portage Northern Varsity Huskies  Hockey, the Kalamazoo Optimist Hockey Association [KOHA], and, most recently to the Bronco Women’s Hockey Club at Western Michigan University. I have no idea how many games or championships  his teams won, but it was a bunch; what I know is that he hated to lose. And he maintained contact with most of his players and considered them family. He, Julie, Chris and Sarah live about 100 yards away from me and I walked Shanahan past the house twice a day. In the afternoons, while Art was in chemotherapy,  he would be out in the sun relaxing and I would hear that  familiar low growly yelp, “HEYWOOD!”  It was the same yell he used in the rinks all through winter. He was one of a kind and had an uncontrolled laugh that could melt a crowd of any size. Art was not physically imposing, but he was a giant in all ways that mattered : Husband, son,brother, nephew, dad, friend, mentor, coach. If they have hockey up where he’s going, I have a pretty good idea who’ll be working the bench, probably already getting stuff organized as we speak.