If statements a) and b) are true, then ...

Here is something to get your mind going.

Y'all have heard these two statements every so often; perhaps they have reached the point of cliche. But let's take a hard look at them:

a) Time flies when you're having fun.

b) Time moves more quickly when you're older.

Familiar, yes?

But if these statements are true, then this is also true:

c) You have more fun as you get older.

Trust me on this.

It's all about people

I tell you, I don't know why I get in these moods sometimes ...

###

Update: John Wooden dies at 99

Like the man said:

"Be true to yourself, help others, make each day your masterpiece, make friendship a fine art, drink deeply from good books — especially the Bible, build a shelter against a rainy day, give thanks for your blessings and pray for guidance every day."

Other Woodenisms:

"Learn as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die tomorrow."

"Don't give up on your dreams, or your dreams will give up on you."

Those 10 NCAA basketball championships with UCLA seem to be a mere footnote to the man's life.

The sports scene needs more guys like this. Shoot, the whole world at large needs more guys like this.

###

John Wooden Hospitalized, In 'Grave' Condition: Report

Greatest coach of 'em all, and his life and teachings transcend college basketball.

This is according to the Huffington Post:

John Wooden Hospitalized, In 'Grave' Condition: Report: "

LOS ANGELES — Former UCLA basketball coach and Hall of Famer John Wooden was reportedly hospitalized in Los Angeles on Thursday night ... Los Angeles television station KCAL and the Los Angeles Times reported that the 99-year-old Wooden was in 'grave' condition at UCLA Medical Center.The Times cited an anonymous school source who said Wooden's health has been an issue in recent weeks and that he was briefly hospitalized about a month ago. UCLA spokesman Marc Dellins told The Associated Press that he spoke to a Wooden family member Thursday evening and that the family asked that no other information about Wooden be released ... UCLA Medical Center spokeswoman Roxanne Moster said she couldn't confirm whether Wooden was there or not because it would be a 'violation of medical privacy laws' ... family members couldn't be reached for comment Thursday by the AP.

Some background:

Wooden led the Bruins to 10 NCAA championships – at one time winning seven in a row – during a 27-year run that ended with his team cutting down the nets one last time in 1975 ... the Bruins won 88 consecutive games from 1971-74 and 38 consecutive NCAA tournament games from 1964-74, both records ... NBA commissioner David Stern was asked about Wooden's contributions to the sport of basketball before Game 1 of the NBA finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics on Thursday night ... "We decided that we would not declare his obituary now, other than to say that he's the winningest coach in our history, four 30-0 seasons, and the ultimate aficionado of our game,' Stern said. 'We hope he's in peace right now, and we'll wait on events." Former UCLA great Bill Walton was at the finals and said he visited Wooden on Tuesday, but that he would "let his family do the talking."

How amazing is Wooden?

He coached a pair of troublesome young stars back in UCLA. One, an angry and isolated young black, known then as Lew Alcindor, who was incredibly gifted and incredibly tall. Later, Wooden coached a young white guy who was getting into political comment and late 1960s-early 1970s counterculture. But Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton both had fine basketball careers, and both grew up under Wooden's eye.

And his definition of success:

(Success) is a peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did the best to become the best that you are capable of becoming."

So straightforward. It doesn't get much better than that, and that's something the great minds have been wrestling with for centuries.

Here's Wooden's philosophy in an easy-to-follow graphic:

If it's unreadable here, go to this site for a blown-up version. Or check out the John R. Wooden Course.

###

 

"

Some wonderful truths to ponder late at night

As if I don't have enough distraction in my life, Mom sent this email of questions for me to ponder. And since I'm always trying to stimulate good thought and to open people's minds (sometimes with a wrecking bar), I thought I'd pass this along to y'all.

So, if you're lying awake at night for no reason, grab one or two of these questions and turn them over in your mind for a while. It may not help you get to sleep, but at least you'll have a reason for this insomnia.

Thank me later.


1. Is it good if a vacuum really sucks?

2. Why is the third hand on the watch called the second hand?

3. If a word is misspelled in the dictionary, how would we ever know?

4. If Webster wrote the first dictionary, where did he find the words?

5. Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack?

6. Why do "slow down" and "slow up" mean the same thing?

7. Why do "fat chance" and "slim chance" mean the same thing?

8. Why do "tug" boats push their barges?

9. Why do we sing "Take me out to the ball game" when we are already there?

10. Why are they called "stands" when they are made for sitting?

11. Why is it called "after dark" when it really is "after light"?

12. Doesn't "expecting the unexpected" make the unexpected expected?

13. Why are a "wise man" and a "wise guy" opposites?

14. Why do "overlook" and "oversee" mean opposite things?

15. Why is "phonics" not spelled the way it sounds?

16. If work is so terrific, why do they have to pay you to do it?

17. If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?

18. If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?

19. If you are cross-eyed and have dyslexia, can you read all right?

20. Why is bra singular and panties plural?

21.. Why do you press harder on the buttons of a remote control when you know the batteries are dead?

22. Why do we put suits in garment bags and garments in a suitcase?

23. How come abbreviated is such a long word?

24. Why do we wash bath towels? Aren't we clean when we use them?

25. Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?

26. Why do they call it a TV set when you only have one?

27. Christmas -- What other time of the year do you sit in front of a dead tree and eat candy out of your socks?

28. Why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway ?  (This last one was something the late George Carlin wondered about, too.)

###

HuffPo: Children are more likely to own a cell phone than a book

The numbers may be a little suspect, but it doesn't surprise me. 

I got this from The Huffington Post:

Children Are More Likely To Own A Cell Phone Than A Book, Study Says: "

Almost nine-in-10 pupils now have a mobile compared with fewer than three-quarters who have their own books in the home, it was disclosed ... the study by the National Literacy Trust suggested a link between regular access to books outside school and high test scores ... 

You can take this info and unpack it any way you like. We've already noticed kids don't read, and they grow up into adults who also don't read. Then they raise more children who don't read. Nothing new there.

Bottom line, parents: If you want your kids to read, set the example. Read to them. Read for yourself. Even if you grow up to be a totally evil uncool unhip parent (usually when the child hits about age 12), there's a chance some of that influence may stick. 

A generation ago, my friend Marco and I were bemoaning the popularity of Nintendo, which was the kiddie toy of the day. "We're raising a generation of Nintidiots," was how Marco put it.

But if Marco, a reader and guitar player, was reading this news article he might wonder how many of these pupils today have a guitar in their homes. And we're not talking about Guitar Hero either.

###

Please pass the gas ... or NOT!

This is classic ...

Here's an interview with inventor Frank Bibbo, from salon.com -- you may have to wade through a bunch of ads to get to it, though.

I'm wondering if this takes one of the fun aspects out of marriage  ... i.e. pulling the blanket over her head? 

I mean, there are some things in life that just ought to be shared.

###

Time to log off, you think?

As a public service ...





Think this deserves your immediate attention?

###

What do baby boomers think about today?

We'll let Peter Yarrow tell you:

If the name doesn't ring a bell, kiddies, think Peter, Paul, and Mary -- the great folk trio from the 1960s. If you're still lost, think "Puff The Magic Dragon." Got it?

And now it's come to this ...

Bucket List can get revealing: What have you done?

I got this by email from my brother Rick, and this is making the rounds among the family unit. It's revealing. Give it a shot, and have some fun!

Here are the rules of this Bucket List:

Hit forward and place an X by all the things you've done and remove the X from the ones you have not, and send it to your friends (including me), or post it to your blog.

This is for your Entire Life!

OK. Have you ever ...

(X) Shot a gun

(X) Gone on a blind date

(X) Skipped school

() Watched someone die

() Been to Canada

() Been to Alaska

() Been to Cuba

() Been to Europe

(X) Been to Las Vegas

(X) Been to Mexico

() Been to Florida

(X) Been on a plane

() Been on a Cruise Ship

() Served on a Jury

(X) Been lost

(X) Been on the opposite side of the country

(X) Gone to Washington, DC

(X) Swam in the Ocean

(Do I get bonus points for more than one ocean?)

(X) Cried yourself to sleep

(x) Played Cops and Robbers

(X) Played Cowboys and Indians

() Recently colored with crayons

(X) Sang Karaoke

(X) Paid for a meal with coins, only coins

(X) Made a prank phone call as a kid

(X) Laughed until some beverage came out of your nose

(X) Caught a snowflake on your tongue

(X) Danced in the rain

(X) Written a letter to Santa Claus

(X) Been kissed under the mistletoe

(X) Watched the sunrise with someone

(X) Blown bubbles

(X) Gone ice skating

(X) Gone skiing

(X) Camped out under the stars

(X) Seen something so beautiful that it took your breath away

(X) Are or have been married

() Have children

(Wrong plumbing. If I have, call the Weekly World News!)

(X) Have a pet

(X) Been skinny dipping outdoors

(X) Been fishing

(X) Been boating

(X) Been water skiing

(X) Been hiking

(X) Been camping in a trailer/RV

(X) Flown in a small 4-seater airplane

() Flown in a glider

() Been flying in a helicopter

() Been flying in a hot air balloon -

() Been bungee jumping -

(X) Gone to a drive-in movie

(X) Done something that should have killed you

(X) Done something that you will regret for the rest of your life

() Been to Africa

() Been to China

() Been to India

() Been to Korea

() Ever ride an elephant

() Ever ride a camel

(X) Ever eaten just cookies for dinner

(X) Ever been on T.V.

(X) Ever steal any traffic signs

(X) Ever been in a car accident

(X) Have a nickname? Wingnut, among others

There's more:

Favorite Drink: Sweet tea

How much do you love your job? Enough to keep doing it.

Is your car a 2 door or a 4 door? No doors

Favorite number? Google(.com!)

Favorite movie? Most recently seen again? Round Midnight

Favorite holiday? National Procrastination Week

Favorite dessert? Anything involving the use of chocolate.

Furthest place you will send this message? Worldwide, via blog

Who will respond to this the fastest: Whoever sees it first and has a civil service job.

SCORING: No rules here. Let your conscience be your guide. Too few checked off probably means you need to turn the computer off and get out more.

(Personal note: A few friends and I regularly get together, and one of the group pastimes is a game called Three Truths And A Lie. That's where you come up with four statements about yourself and have the rest of the group pick out the BS. Scoring is, well, it's like pants on a toll booth collector in that no one knows or really cares. The trick to winning Three Truths And A Lie is in the degree of separation between true and false statements; either all outlandish or none outlandish.)

Who Dat: Saints win wasn't just on the field

I'm not a big football fan, and I really don't have a team to pull for.

In baseball I have the Los Angeles Angels (a love affair that started in the mid-1960s) and Arizona Diamondbacks. In basketball I have the Lakers (dating back from their Jerry West/Elgin Baylor days) and Phoenix Suns.

The Rams were my hometown team growing up, but that's when Carroll Rosenbloom owned them and they called L.A. home. In Arizona we had the Cardinals, but it was pretty hard to feel good about a team that just pulled in from St. Louis and brought a bunch of lousy players with them. In my Arizona years, the director of the Cardinals offense was quarterback Tom (Pick Six) Tupa, who got his nickname from tossing six interceptions in one game. Pick Six was also a game in the Arizona State Lottery, only you had better odds buying one of those tickets than you did betting on the local team. A sorry lot, those Cardinals back then.

But I spent Super Sunday with my laptop open, banging out some work, with the game playing on the radio. And I nearly screamed my lungs out as the New Orleans Saints shocked everyone and beat the Colts to win the NFL title.

The Saints? Who dat? Who dey? What were they doing in the Super Bowl?

Back when the Rams were still in L.A., the Saints were horrible. They were about the only team those Cardinals could beat. The Aints.

But this year's Super Bowl was the biggest feelgood sports story you're going to hear for a long time. Less than five years ago, their city was torn apart by Hurricane Katrina. The city's population was cut in half from all the deaths, evacuations, and totally unlivable conditions. And in The Superdome, the Saints' home stadium, you got to see all the carnage close up.

Like everyone else then, I practically lived in front of the TV watching the Katrina footage. I saw the footage of riverboat casinos blown across parking lots in nearby Biloxi, and remembered a few friends of mine who worked there. Via the Weather Channel and news programs I saw the flooded streets of New Orleans, the destroyed houses marked with the number of dead people found inside, the looters breaking into stores. And the human devastation inside the Superdome.

I remember thinking that, after Katrina, it would be nearly impossible to get anyone to enter the Superdome again.

People died in that building.

Forget about football; a boy's game was the farthest thing from anyone's mind.

Survival was what it was all about, and the greatest gift anyone could give was a bottle of water.

Like many a good journalist, I'm a sucker for an underdog story. A story of redemption. And sometimes it's a sticky wicket. In the 2001 World Series I even considered pulling for those Yankees just because of 9/11. This is important to consider, because I'd rather eat a live bug than cheer for the folks in pinstripes. Fortunately, sanity -- and the Arizona Diamondbacks -- prevailed, and for the 35th year in a row I was rooting for the Yankees to get smoked.

This year's Super Bowl was a great story, five years in the making. Most of the story didn't happen on the gridiron.

###

If you can read this, you might be a mess. Or NOT!

This was posted by a friend of mine, and I thought it was interesting:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. If you can raed... tihs, psot it to yuor wlal. Olny 55% of plepoe can.

It made perfectly good sense to me.

###

Hey y'all, watch this! (Part 6,397)

Ooooh, man, this is definitely one of those don't-try-this-at-home situations.

I wonder if he had some of what Sen. Max Bacchus is having?

###

Vicar's shoplifting advice a symptom of the times

A Church of England vicar said earlier this week that if you're down and out, shoplifting may be the answer.

Father Tim Jones, the parish priest of St Lawrence and St Hilda in York across the pond, raised eyebrows worldwide when he suggested this course of action.

"My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift," he said. "I do not offer such advice because I think that stealing is a good thing, or because I think it is harmless, for it is neither."

It's better, he said, to steal from a large company that can better absorb the loss than a mom-and-pop operation, and to only take what you need.

The Venerable Richard Seed, Archdeacon of York, says the church does not endorse Fr. Jones' suggestion. "The Church of England does not advise anyone to shoplift, or break the law in any way," he said. "Father Tim Jones is raising important issues about the difficulties people face when benefits are not forthcoming, but shoplifting is not the way to overcome these difficulties."

There's a name for this mindset Fr. Jones seems to subscribe to. It's called "situational ethics," and if there's anything that explains why our society is on a fast train to nowhere, that's it.

With situational ethics, a person is constantly looking for a justification for his wrong actions, covering his butt with slick semantics, or couching his choices in lawyer-proof language. It could be someone saying he steals because he's poor, a politician who sells his vote for pork and calls it "compromise," or an adulterous president quibbling over the definition of "is," but it's all the same. Situational ethics puts us on the slippery slope to no ethics at all.

Hate to sound all intellectual and stuff, but some things are meant to be in black and white. Either something's right or it's not. Either something's true or it's not.

Now what's so difficult about that?

###

Sucking up info, by the gigabyte

There's no question information bombards us from all sides every waking hour, every day. But what's interesting is exactly how much information we consume.

The University of California at San Diego even studied this aspect of our culture, and was able to put a number on it.

According to this recent study, the average American absorbs 34 gigabytes of information every day.

No wonder people flip out a lot.

Think of it this way. The netbook I'm typing this on has a 160-gigabyte hard drive. Assuming I'm average (don't even go there), my brain would fill that hard drive in 4.7 days. I carry an 8-gigabyte flash drive in my pocket, and just my average daily activity would fill more than four of them. And if I tried to stream all this stuff on either my laptop or desktop? Forget it. The computer would melt.

In 2008, American brains processed a grand total of of 3.6 zettabytes of information. That's 3.6 billion trillion bytes, and there's no hard drive available to harness all of this.

Now, this information isn't limited to computer usage, but includes what you watch on the tube, what you read, what you listen to, and what goes through your telephone. In fact, television is still far and away the biggest purveyor of all this material. That's a lot of Fox News, infomercials, Seinfeld reruns, HBO, and WWF.

This study doesn't really consider the quality of the information processed. Information is information whether you're watching Gilligan's Island or The History Channel, surfing Web porn or the MIT open courseware site, reading romance novels or the Bible, listening to the pop diva du jour or John Coltrane. That's not differentiated in this study (although you may want to keep in mind my argument of finite capacities when deciding exactly how to fill your brain).

From Engadget:

... in terms of time, the study found that Americans spent about 11.8 hours a day consuming information in one way or another, the majority of which was spent staring at a screen of some sort -- and, yes, they did take HD content into account, but its growth apparently hasn't yet resulted in a huge jump in data consumption ...

Again, no wonder people are bad to flip out. I've argued that the human mind is like a hard drive, with a finite amount of storage space. The more crap you load into it, the less room there is for really important stuff. And when you're completely blasted by information, it can't be good for your mental healh. A person does need to get away from all this stimuli every once in a while, just to vegetate on the front stoop in his undershirt. Without the newspaper or phone.

I think it was Einstein who suggested a person should never remember something that is just as easy to look up, and he truly lived by that credo. The legend is that he couldn't remember his own address. I don't remember phone numbers myself -- not even my own -- but I don't need to because all that stuff is right there on my cell phone. Now I just need to remember which button to push ...

But despite my own best efforts to chill out every once in a while, I don't feel right if I don't have my cell phone on my hip, or a computer close by. When my portable mp3 player died a few weeks ago I thought I'd go crazy, but I've come to enjoy a little silence every now and again.

I'm not sure where I fit among the national average. I have a TV, and I think it works, but I never turn it on (thinking of using it as a monitor for a music server). But I have music playing nonstop when I'm home, so that accounts for a fair bit. And I'm at this computer a lot, but most of the stuff I deal in is straight text and minimal graphics. But it's a lot of text -- just my daily RSS news feeds (which is the bulk of my computer activity) accounts for more than a thousand headlines that I scan every day.

If I was to do a word count of my whole day, I don't even want to think about that. Maybe someone else is studying that. Whatever it is, don't tell me.

###

(art from flickr, by DeaPeaJay)

Is chocolate the great stress reliever?

In a world where the news seems to get worse and worse, there's finally something uplifting in the headlines: Chocolate can relieve stress.

According to psychcentral.com writer Rick Nauert PhD, chocolate does seem to help the body cope with stress, and helps to correct any biochemical imbalances related to stress.

H'mm ... Prozac in one hand. Chocolate in the other. Which one to take? Man, you've got to be kidding.

According to Nauert:

In a clinical trial, investigators found that eating about an ounce and a half of dark chocolate a day for two weeks reduced levels of stress hormones in the bodies of people feeling highly stressed.

I wouldn't have minded being a lab rat for this test.

OK. Who cares about what the clinical tests say? I could have done these tests myself and saved the scientific community a ton of money. Maybe I can't tell these scientists the chemical breakdown of how chocolate works on mind and body, but I can tell them the world would really suck without it.

Nauert's article also mentions a few other bonuses of dark chocolate:

Sunil Kochhar and colleagues note growing scientific evidence that antioxidants and other beneficial substances in dark chocolate may reduce risk factors for heart disease and other physical conditions.

That's the buzzword in nutritional circles these days: Antioxidants. That's the mystery stuff you find in some food that, if it doesn't cure all your ills, it helps to make the body more resistant to all kinds of illnesses. Fortunately, you'll find a good dose of antioxidants in all my favorite things:

Sweet tea (known in these parts as "Southern crack").

Coffee.

And now chocolate.

Bring it on. And while you're about it, fire all those viruses at me. I'll shed them like Superman does with bullets.

And then there's this:

Studies also suggest that chocolate may ease emotional stress. Until now, however, there was little evidence from research in humans on exactly how chocolate might have those stress-busting effects.

Ahh, the mystique of chocolate ... Di, a blogger who writes about her experiences in the love wars, will tell you about it:

I remember getting a book years ago for chocoholics like myself. In one chapter there was scientific evidence cited to show that the human brain experienced similar chemical reactions when they “fell in love” and when they ate chocolate. This led the scientists to the conclusion that people eat chocolate as a substitute for love. However, chocoholics like myself know that the opposite it true – that people fall in love as a substitute for chocolate ...

Now, even though I'm male (you know the Mars/Venus dichotomy), this still makes sense to me. A whole lot of sense. We guys may not talk about it, but we've got to have our chocolate too.

Another rumor I'd heard years ago was that some components of chocolate were structurally similar to THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. Now, that sounds like the makings of good urban legend, but aq dose of chocolate does seem to make the world a better, more peaceful place. Now, it's been many years (actually decades) since I've smoked one of those left-handed cigarettes, and I've never felt like I missed it. Who needs it when you've got chocolate?

I don't think chocolate will give you the munchies, but writing about it sure does. I think there's a last piece of cake in the fridge. I'm after it.

###

Growing older beats the alternative, but has its glitches

I love this! Thanks, Dad!

Observations on Growing Older
• It's harder to tell navy from black.
• Everything old is new again, but if you wore it before, you're too old to wear it the 2nd time around.
• Your kids are becoming you -- and you don't like them, but your grandchildren are perfect!
• Yellow becomes the big color -- walls, hair, teeth.
• Going out is good; coming home is better!
• When people say you look "Great", they add, "for your age"!
• When you needed the discount you paid full price. Now you get discounts on everything -- movies, hotels, flights.
• You forget names, but it's OK because other people forgot they even knew you.
• The last 2 outfits you wore had spots on them.
• You ask your husband or friend how your outfit looks, and they tell you the truth.
• The five pounds you wanted to lose is now 15, and you have a better chance of losing your keys than the 15 pounds.
• You realize you're never going to be really good at anything -- especially golf.
• Your spouse is counting on you to remember things you don't remember.
• The things you cared to do, you don't care to do, but you care that you don't care to do them anymore.
• Your husband sleeps better on a lounge chair with the TV blaring then he does in bed. It's called his "pre-sleep".
• Remember when your mother said "Wear clean underwear in case you GET in an accident"? Now you bring clean underwear in case you HAVE an accident.
• You used to say, "I hope my kids GET married; now it's, "I hope they STAY married!"
• Who wants to wear 3" heels anyway?
• You miss the days when everything worked with just an "ON" and "OFF" switch.
• When GOOGLE, ipod, email, modem were unheard of and a mouse was something that made you climb on a table.
• You use more 4 letter words -- "what?"..."when?"
• Your husband has a night out with the guys but he's home by 9:00 P.M.; next week it will be 8:30 P.M.
• You read 100 pages into a book before you realize you've read it.
• Notice everything they sell in stores is "sleeveless"?
• Many of the people in People Magazine you've never heard of.
• What used to be freckles are now liver spots.
• Everybody whispers.
• You have 3 sizes of clothes in your closet, 2 of which you will never wear again.
• But old is good in some things -- old songs, old movies, and best of all -- old friends!

Trust me. Even though I'm a mere pup of 51, I can relate to some of this stuff.

###

Airline fiasco: It's the laptop's fault

It wasn't like missing your freeway offramp. But you've no doubt heard plenty about those pilots who missed a whole city.

OK, what's 150 miles or so?

There was plenty of speculation about how they could have missed their Minneapolis destination with the radio calling them. They were asleep. They were debating airline policy.

After being grilled earlier this week, the truth came out: They were on their laptops.

They were so distracted they didn't get their heads back into the game until the tower called them and asked if they were thinking of bringing the plane down sometime that day.

The pilots said they brought their laptops on previous flights, in violation of company rules.

I originally thought the initial speculation that the pilots were so deep in a discussion of company policies that they forgot the job at hand was the right one. Really. I've worked for companies where that kind of stuff happens. But with the laptops entering the picture, then the whole thing makes a lot more sense.

Right now I'm sitting at my laptop, writing this, and if the house burned down around me I might notice later, like if a blazing chunk of ceiling lands on my screen. And if I'm doing something mentally taxing -- like bringing this laptop back to life after I destroyed a couple of system files -- I might not even notice then. But then I'm the same way when reading, when listening to music, or having a conversation. But playing with a computer -- even if it's something lightweight like FreeCell -- requires a whole extra level of concentration that you just might forget something important.

Like landing a plane.

###

 

BBC: Humpty Dumpty doesn't make a splattering mess

Y'all remember how it goes? ...

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall ...

And what happened next?

Whatever it was, the BBC decided it was just too disturbing for young minds:

... in a revised version of the nursery rhyme that aired recently on the British Broadcasting Corporation's children's channel CBeebies, the tale - which first appeared in print in 1810 - no longer ends with "all the king's horses and all the king's men/Couldn't put Humpty together again". Now, a crack squadron of His Majesty's finest hard-boiled military personnel has found the recipe to "make Humpty happy again" ...

No wonder we're raising a generation of wussies. The BBC has decided the mess that resulted from Humpty's fall -- brains? egg yolks? -- was just too disturbing for young minds to comprehend, so they felt the need to rewrite the poem to protect these children from something nightmarish.

In the nursery rhyme, Humpty Dumpty was a really benign character. A jolly, gaily-dressed egg-shaped character perched on his wall. At least that's what I remembered. Then, I read about Humpty in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, and realized he had a dark side. A mean-spirited troll who verbally crossed swords with Alice. I can't forget those immortal words of his:

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

See, The Humpster (Dumpster?) wrote the book on modern politics, and on modern news reporting. Not to mention our modern thinking: Hang the facts, the truth is whatever I want it to be. And that thinking is an elemental reason why we're so screwed up, but that's another rant for another day.

It was that other side of Humpty Dumpty that disturbed me as a child, not his horrible accident. But then I came to realize his falling off the wall was really no great loss.

The truth is out: Humpty Dumpty was pushed.

At 99, John Wooden is still as relevant as ever

John Wooden, who coached basketball players like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Gail Goodrich, and Bill Walton on NCAA championship teams, turns 99 today.

It took 15 years of coaching the UCLA Bruins for Wooden to win his first NCAA title; after that he never really stopped. An unprecedented 10 NCAA titles, seven of them in a row (from 1967 to 1973). Five undefeated teams. And he closed out his college coaching career in 1975 with his10th title.

To find a coach who even comes close to Wooden's record, you'd have to go to women's basketball, where University of Tennessee's Pat Summitt, coach of the Lady Vols, has eight and counting. In men's basketball, Adolph Rupp of the University of Kentucky, has four -- and I think they still needed to have some guy fish the ball out of the peach basket after each score then.

Wooden coached some real characters during a changeable era of our history -- the late 60s and early 70s. Abdul-Jabbar, then known as Lew Alcindor, was a 7-foot stringbean with some incredible game and a lot of anger in him. And Walton, during his early career with the Portland Trail Blazers, became something of a counterculture hero because of his ponytail, mountain-goat beard, vegetarian diet, and radical politics.

Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson earned his props for being able to coach Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, the uncoachable Dennis Rodman and a handful of role players into an NBA championship team. Wooden did the same thing with his Bruins decades earlier.

He still has gas in his tank, as Times reporter T.J. Simers wrote a few months ago:

This morning's breakfast will go on for three hours, Wooden unable to shake his visitor, the line a long one day after day for others also wanting some of his time ... New York Giants Coach Tom Coughlin was here a few weeks ago, a USC assistant football coach is the latest to call seeking a meeting ... as for Wooden, he would still like "to have dinner with both Joe Torre and Mike Scioscia," even making a concession, and saying they wouldn't have to eat turkey. He loves his baseball, all right, and his channel turner, stopping for Perry Mason, and every Saturday parking on the westerns, which got him an invite to meet Clint Eastwood on the set of " Changeling," Eastwood directing Angelina Jolie. "A very lovely woman," Wooden says with a smile. "Those lips are something." Like he said, he's not dead.

He's always been a class act. Equal parts motivational speaker, and basketball coach, one of the foundations of his teaching is the Pyramid of Success. He's also noted for his philosophical quotes about life and sportsmanship, such as: "Failure is not fatal but failure to change might be."

Some more Woodenisms:

"Young people need models, not critics."

"The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team."

"Learn as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die tomorrow."

"Talent is God given; be humble. Fame is man given; be thankful. Conceit is self given; be careful."

"Ability is a poor man's wealth."

"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."

"Don't give up on your dreams, or your dreams will give up on you."