The Devil, you say!

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations lists "Every man for himself and the Devil take the hindmost" as an 'early 16th century' proverb. It also has evolved to mean weak members of a group, such as the trailers in a pack of wolves.

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Great Period Piece!

The Alienst

Strange bedfellows

Sometimes God Throws You A Bone

Mario Pei

I needed one more class to fulfill the course requirements for my Masters, but I couldn't find anything to fit into my busy business schedule. A last-minute cancellation gave me an opening for a Saturday 8AM linguistics seminar; it's sounded excruciatingly boring, but I had no choice.
Surprise #1 - the course was hosted by Mario Pei, world renowned linguist doing a guest shot from Harvard.

Miriam Makeba

Surprise #2 - Pei was a shy showman, fluent in half a dozen languages, able to converse in a hundred others, so magnetic and engrossing he could've easily done a TV talk show guest shot.During one lecture the affable native Italian segued into African dialects, complete with throat clicks and glottal stops. He produced a turntable and album, and spun us Miriam Makeba and her incredible 'Click' song; halfway through he joined her, karaoke style, and brought the house down! Africa and its history opened up to the class.

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The Time of my Life

It was July, 1964. I was an Air Force veteran, had just graduated college, and was going to get married in August. The New York Mets were playing in their third season - their first at Shea Stadium - and I was a crazy fan. (They finished 10th, 40 games out.) The All-Star game was at Shea; by the rules, every team had to send one player. The Yankees, of course, had several - here's one, posing with the Mets' lone representative. You know the Yankee, but I'm not going to tell you the Met, you'll have to guess!
NASA's Project Mercury 'The Right Stuff,' remember? had evolved into Project Gemini, but a 2-man Gemini flight wasn't scheduled until 1965.
I had a summer job as a camp counselor/swimming instructor at Bungalow Acres, a day camp in Mt. Freedom, NJ. Part of the job was ferrying 8 Newark kids to and from camp. I was lent a '59 Mercury station wagon to do the job. Getting my charges up to camp by 8am was a huge pain in the ass, but the ride back became a legendary piece of business we all looked forward to.
Everyone was tired, there was no A/C in the car, but I started a routine that the kids latched onto with enthusiasm - it was against camp rules and probably illegal, but I  jury-rigged everyone's bathing suits to door handles and the radio antenna and we flapped like geese and arrived home with dry suits!
But the big fun was the radio. FM radio was feeling its oats, and loud, static-free music was still a thrill. The kids would sing along with most tunes (they were 9 to 11 year olds) but they waited anxiously for the Four Seasons, first, because everybody lived next door to them (figuratively) and second, they were HOT. When their big '64 hit came on, that Mercury ROCKED! (Click 'Mercury' --Top of your lungs, now - remember, you're 10 years old!)

Man's Best Friend

Over the Christmas break, Diana and I dog/house sat for two mixed labs, a 5-year-old black, 'Clarence,' and a much older white, 'Bruce'.

Clarence & Bruce

"Feed them twice a day; Bruce has the run of the house, but if you go out Clarence has to go in his crate' - a pretty large thingie in the kitchen corner. 'Just say "Kennel up" and he'll go in. Let them outside twice a day - the yard is fenced- and they'll come to the door when they're ready.'

 Perfecto. Two of the nicest dogs EVER, plenty of personality, friendly... they knew what was expected of them and they gave it, but they each pushed the envelope just enough to let you know they knew what they were doing - Clarence would stay out a little longer, every once in a while grabbing a toy and coming to the door with a 'Play with me' look (I gave in twice); Bruce wouldn't go out right with Clarence, he'd hang back for 10 or 15 seconds and give a look like, 'Hey, I'm the Boss. I go out when I damn well please!'
 Clarence would suck up for a pet or a scratch, but Bruce? He'd sit on his bed in the corner and stare you down; when you got up, walked over and gave him a couple of hugs you got a couple - just a couple - of tail wags, like 'That's good...yeah, that's good.'

Those two dogs had more personality than half my friends!
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How Does Trump Compare With Nixon?

I just finished watching 'All the President's Men Revisited.' Redford has produced a reflective masterpiece. I came away with two incontrovertible thoughts:

1. I'd forgotten just how bad Nixon had been. It wasn't just the Watergate burglary, it was the President of the United States and dozens of conspirators, acting with sustained evil, conspiratorial intent.
2. Trump has been FAR WORSE! How can we have missed this obvious comparison? He really needs to resign - impeachment is too good for him - and he should be imprisoned. I would suggest a ten-year sentence, eligible for parole in a year. Oh yeah, and any financial gains he has accrued during his tenure should be confiscated.

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