Franco Zeffirelli --- a friend of both Magnani & Callas

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A salute to the immensely talented director Franco Zeffirelli. Any man who was friends with both the great Anna Magnani and Maria Callas is indeed a marvelous man. Ti saluto, Honorevole Zeffirelli!

Politicians, especially the U.S. President, should NOT play golf

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Yes, I know, Dwight Eisenhower played golf and he was a popular President. But Ike was tolerated because he was an old guy and had done heroic service in W.W.II . Still, even Ike had the whole "golf thing" hurt him; JFK came in and essentially called Eisenhower and old duffer. "The torch has been passed to a new generation, born in this century . . ." Get it? I'm young and virile, said JFK, not an old duffer like Ike. Golf is not a sport for any politician to be seen playing. Dan Quayle was photographed in his golf duds for a magazine and it made him look like the quintessential country-club elitist. George W. Bush didn't help his reputation playing golf. Presidents (really ALL politicians) should bowl, or play basketball. These are macho, "everyman" sports. Even horseback riding is OK. A man on horseback, ironically, doesn't look elitist in the USA. It looks like you're a "cowboy" and you got that whole "John Wayne" image going for you. Ronald Reagan routinely was seen riding horses and it made him look great. Also, don't jog. Jimmy Carter, as President, was photographed panting for breath and looking sick as a dog while jogging. Looks bad. Don't wind-surf. Candidate John Kerry did and he never lived it down. Bowl! Ride a horse like a cowboy! If the horse throws you, get right back on the horse and everyone cheers and says how brave you are to get back on the horse. Shoot hoops on the local playground. Another great sport is simply playing catch with a baseball and baseball gloves. Think Steve McQueen in the "Great Escape" with his baseball and glove. You play catch with your son or daughter and you look like a loving parent. But NO GOLF !!! Barack, I hope you're listening.

I saw Woody Allen in one of his last stand up engagements

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True story: Shortly after he made "Everything you wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask" Woody Allen performed in a theater of the round in the San Fernando Valley in L.A. County. The "opening act" was Jim Croce -- I put "opening act" in quotation marks because for some strange reason there was a delay that night and Croce actually went on second. Allen was terrific and took questions from the audience. But what I remember most was this bit he did with a little piece of lint on his jacket. You have to picture the scene: Woody Allen is alone on stage and it's a theater in the round. There is just a single spotlight on him; the rest of the theater is dark. Now, when there is just one spotlight it tends to light up the dust around the person and you can see stuff floating in the air. In the midst of his act, Woody plucks a small string -- a piece of lint -- from his jacket and flicks it in the air. The lint is floating in the air. Woody then tells a joke and the audience laughs. When the audience laughs, the air from the audience laughter causes the lint to jump up in the air ! After a couple of more jokes the audience notices this lint which is still hanging in the air. With each burst of laughter the lint dances higher and higher! Soon everyone is laughing twice: once for the Woody Allen punchline and then again when we all see the lint jump up higher in the air. After each burst of laughter, the lint jumps up! Then when we see the lint jump up, we laugh again and the lint jumps a second time ! It seemed that Woody kept this piece of lint dancing and jumping in the air for twenty minutes! True story.

Teachers are great! Stop evaluating them.

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Old European saying, "If they are roses, they will bloom." The idea is that if you have talent, it will show itself. I go further: If you are smart, you won't be kept ignorant for long.

So why are teachers the "whipping boy" for all politicians? Blame the students for not trying. If you don't have talent you won't make it. So try harder. Stop blaming someone else.

By the way, what's the point of all this dumb evaluation? The late Steve Jobs didn't get "evaluated" by someone (except the marketplace). If it was left to his employees, they might have given him a bad evaluation because he tended to yell and pressure folks (that's maybe why he was a success). He was his own boss and did what he wanted. Same with all the other billionaires. They weren't evaluated.

Be your own boss. Get out of teaching; you can't ever please these folks. Everyone --parents, principals, students -- is your boss as a teacher. Everyone, including the President of the U.S., feels they know how to do your job and has the right to criticize you. I admire the Teamsters. Nobody pushes the Teamsters around. Nobody "evaluates" them. They just are left to do their jobs. Don't trust the "Dilbert-like" boss to evaluate you.

To those who stick with teaching, I admire you. All teachers are good teachers. They're the ones doing the real work. Not their critics.

MADNESS! NO OIL PIPELINE OVER OGALLALA AQUIFER ! IT WILL LEAK OIL AND POISON THE AQUIFER. REMEMBER I TOLD YOU SO.

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Note the date: September 14, 2011 and REMEMBER I TOLD YOU SO!

The madness will never stop. The proposed Keystone Pipeline will leak and it will poison forever the Ogallala aquifer, poisoning the water supply.

OIL PIPELINES LEAK! Get it? They LEAK!

OIL LEAKS, TOO!

Look at what BP did in the Gulf of Mexico; they swore it could never happen but it did. The rig blew and oil gushed everywhere. Same with Yellowstone pipeline; same with Exxon Valdez, same with . . . same with . . . etc.

The Ogallala aquifer is fresh, pure, irreplaceable water.

We have no say. None. One person, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, will single-handedly, and unilaterally make the decision to forever poison the greatest pool of fresh water aquifer on the planet. President Obama could stop her but it looks like he won't. NINE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNERS, including the Dalai Lama, oppose the pipeline and have written fellow Peace Prize recipient President Obama but will he listen?

Robert Redford, too, says NO to the pipeline. Daryl Hannah got arrested saying NO to the pipeline. Redford, Hannah, and the Nobel Peace Prize winners are right: NO TO THE PIPELINE.

No true environmental report or findings were ever made. No analysis. No research. It is beginning to look like the whole world is corrupt. Is anybody there? Does anybody care?

If, God forbid, they allow this poisonous oil pipeline to go through, kiss the environment goodbye. All that talk about the environmental protection and caring about ecology was lies and hogwash: nobody cares. It's all about the quick buck.

If, God forbid, they allow this pipeline, REMEMBER I TOLD YOU IT WOULD LEAK. NOTE THE DATE: September 14, 2011 before the pipeline approval date. If, God forbid, they allow the pipeline to go over the Ogallala aquifer, remember I told you it would leak its oil poison into the ground water. REMEMBER!! REMEMBER!!!! I was right and they were wrong. REMEMBER I TOLD YOU SO

STOP THE KEYSTONE OIL PIPELINE THROUGH NEBRASKA!

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STOP THE KEYSTONE OIL PIPELINE THROUGHT NEBRASKA! IT WILL POISON THE TRILLION GALLON FRESH WATER OGALLALA AQUIFER FOREVER! THIS PROPOSED PIPELINE IS MADNESS, I TELL YOU, MADNESS!!

What can I do? I have written Secretary of State Hillary Clinton telling her not to allow the pipeline through Nebraska. It will inevitably break and forever poison the entire Ogallala Aquifer, one of our country's most precious and fragile assets. I am no crank. I supported Democrats my whole life, including the Clintons and President Obama. But the proposed oil pipeline is madness. It will break despite the bogus assurances to the contrary. And it will poison forever the pristine fresh water of the Ogallala Aquifer.

I have also written to President Obama to stop this oil pipeline.

But what good does it do? I protested against the Viet Nam war as early as

1966 as a child. Did anyone listen? The war continued. There were more deaths; more maimed; more injured; more treasure wasted.

And all for what?

To protect Saigon from being overrun by the Communists! Of course, today Saigon doesn't exist -- it is called Ho Chi Min City! So . . . why didn't anyone listen to me? Think of the lost lives that could have been saved.

Now, they are set on a course to pollute the fragile, pristine Ogallala Aquifer.

I have written letters, supported organizations and now I post on my blog; but what good is it?

Nobody listens. Nobody cares. Then one day everything is ruined and the powers that be just shrug. Why won't anyone listen? DON'T DO THIS! PROTECT THE OGALLALA AQUIFER !

IT IS PURE MADNESS TO BUILD AN OIL PIPELINE OVER THE OGALLALA AQUIFER

Here is what I have to say,

Dear Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,

Please use your authority to STOP TransCanada Keystone XL from building an oil pipeline over the Nebraskan portion of the Ogallala Aquifer. The Aquifer is irreplaceable. As we saw with the BP Oil Co. and the Louisiana gulf spill, as well as the Yellowstone River spill, all assurances that "nothing could ever happen" are bogus. It is insane to jeopardize the most pristine fresh water resource in the country. One spill, and the entire Aquifer is forever ruined. As one scientist said, "there is no room to allow for any chance at a spill, however small, of petroleum near that national treasure."

A route further east--outside of Nebraska--is ultimately less expensive compared to the risk of the damage to the environment of Nebraska.

If you must have a pipeline then you must find a better, safer route to transport the petroleum. DO NOT BUILD THE PIPELINE THROUGH NEBRASKA!

But don't take my word for it. Listen to a scientist:

"As a longtime professional meteorologist with training in hydrology and as a passenger on airlines flying over and observing the blowouts caused by central irrigation pivots, I full-heartedly agree that to allow TransCanada Keystone XL to run a pipeline anywhere near the Ogallala Aquifer is sheer lunacy.

There is no room to allow for any chance at a spill, however small, of petroleum near that national treasure. It is a treasure in the real sense of the word. In the past several decades, farmers and ranchers have experienced significant droughts and were saved only by the availability of the water in the Ogallala Aquifer.

Even today, small towns in Nebraska are facing large costs to clean their drinking water that was polluted by spills from livestock feeding pens and from chemical fertilization of croplands.

The Sandhills can be described as one huge beach, similar in character to the beaches now being polluted by the Gulf oil spill.

Even if TransCanada were to be required to double-pipe the petroleum, there would be a chance of an accidental spill, but even more so, with hundreds of miles of pipeline through vast unpopulated areas, the threat of terror attacks should make even the most "Drill, Baby, Drill" enthusiast reconsider support for the pipeline along the present route.

The cost of a route further east, although large in dollars, is small in comparison to the damage that could be done to the lives and economy of Nebraska, Nebraskans and all others in states relying on the precious water in the aquifer.

Transport the petroleum, but do it over a safer route.

Richard H. Klodnicki, Lincoln"

=====================================================

And here is what BOLD NEBRASKA thinks about this crazy oil pipeline idea:

1. The pipeline would cross the Nebraska Sand Hills, a fragile and unique ecosystem that is easily damaged and difficult to repair.

2. It is a threat to the Ogallala aquifer, one of the world's largest supplies of groundwater, and the primary source of groundwater for agriculture and domestic use in Nebraska. Once an aquifer is contaminated, it is expensive and difficult to clean up. Experience has taught us that most clean up efforts have focused on containment rather than actual removal of contaminants.

3. Building the pipeline would provide oil companies more incentives for further development of the tar sands in Canada, an expensive and extremely environmentally damaging process that generates greenhouse gases, pollutes watersheds and destroys woodlands and other wildlife habitat.

4. The proposed pipeline would use higher pressures and thinner pipe walls than have been typically used in pipelines. As the disaster in the gulf has shown us, oil companies should not be allowed to use risky methods because flaws in design and construction can lead to catastrophic results.

Detective John Falotico arrested the Son of Sam. Trust the reports of the New York Times.

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There is a much needed clarification regarding the capture of the notorious Son of Sam killer, David Berkowitz.

Recent obituaries of Detective Edward Zigo seem to credit him as the arresting officer, even using phrases such as "slapped the cuffs" on the killer. Det. Zigo was NOT the arresting officer of the Son of Sam. In fact, the detective officially credited by the New York Police Department as the arresting officer was Detective John Falotico. Moreover, Detective Zigo was not even present at the arrest of David Berkowitz. REPEAT: Mr. Zigo was not even present at the arrest of the Son of Sam. Mr. Zigo was out getting a search warrant. Mr. Zigo was assigned to work with Detective John Falotico.

May I tactfully suggest that everyone read the obituaries for both John Falotico and Ed Zigo from the true "journal of record" the newspaper, The New York Times. Trust the New York Times to accurately describe the facts.

See the obituary for John Falotico from the New York Times here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/15/nyregion/15falotico.html

And the obituary for Ed Zigo from the New York Times here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/nyregion/23zigo.html

Again, trust the New York Times to get the facts right. That's why the New York Times is the "journal of record" and why it is a great newspaper. Don't trust just any report: stick with the best, The New York Times. Everyone should read the New York Times obituaries for both John Falotico and Ed Zigo in order to learn the true story. The New York Times gets its facts right!

See the obituary for John Falotico from the New York Times here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/15/nyregion/15falotico.html

And the obituary for Ed Zigo from the New York Times here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/nyregion/23zigo.html

Again, the New York Times gets the facts right.