My worst experiences were from my own dumbass attacks tho. I think there’s still an imprint of my chin in St Joe River Dr where I dumped myself after braking hard on gravel on a slope.

Got a comfy bike now to sedately cruise around the poooches and baby strollers in Foster Park .

Thanks! I’m listening as I write.

I’ve borrowed this book from the library, and it’s due back today. I’d sorta like a copy, but on Amazon, even the used copies start at $16.73. One of his other books is $33.98 used. I guess people who buy Pinker don’t want to give up their copies.

But prices of used on Amazon don’t make much sense. Used paperbacks of “Marley and me” start at $7.88, but used hardback of the same book start at $3.18. I’m a cheapskate, but I’m bad at getting books back to the library on time, so buying used on Amazon is often cheaper. Especially if I turn around and sell the book again after I’m done with it.

No, you brought it up, by asking “Is basketball Kosher?”

Kosher is a yiddish word that means “fit to eat” according to the dietary laws found in the bible.

Pinker is great on all the uses and economics of the various curse words. (Kids around here call them “swears,” as a plural noun, which is a construction I hadn’t heard before.) What we knew already? Maybe, but nothing most folks would ever be able to articulate half so well, and that’s half the fun of him. (Plus, watching a prof go the Lenny Bruce route counts as high entertainment for a language geek.)

Guess most profs wouldn’t sneer at either the MIT or the Harvard gig. I’ve definitely had my MIT Media Lab fantasies! Too bad MediaMOO was a ghost town by the time I finally figured out how to play, there.

For one thing, I think moving to Harvard from MIT is probably evolution, in the forward sense.

But why are serviceable words called ‘curse’ words? If I’m watching a basketball game and inveigh against the f@#@ing refs, I’m not cursing them. I might want to, but there’s no curse applied. Is damn a curseword? Well, literally, yeah. Is fuck a curseword? Nope. So when you trample on the language, what does any of that mean?

There’s actually a single curseword. That would be damn, or damned.

Anything else might be offensive, or anathema in polite conversation, but it sure as shit isn’t a curseword.

This subject is abused further with the term expletive. “Rosy-fingered”?

I think down south in our benighted nature, we may have figured this out. It’s cussing, y’all

The Bill Clinton racism crap is still crap, unadulterated, and any claim it wasn’t something induced into the race for divisive purposes by Obama people is pretty much ridiculous.

I’m not arguing with you about anything important. Hillary’s being pilloried by Olbermann, and that’s seriously pissing me off, I don’t care one way or another, if we just have no more Bush. But the coverage and the Deanie-Baby possibilities are exceptionally unfair and have me worried. Taken at his own word, Barrack’s gonna vote for Vader. What sort of shit is that?

I’ve been reading a new book called “The Stuff of Thought” by Steven Pinker. Great book, but it’s both thick and dense; not summer beach reading. I’ve made my living, most of my life, with words, so it’s of interest to me; if someone’s idea of good reading is Tom Clancey or Janet Dailey, they might find it dry. Come to think of it, it is dry. But I’m enjoying it, anyway.

Pinker’s thesis is that we do most of our thinking by manipulating words. He says that if you tell someone that by pulling a switch on the railroad, you can divert a train that would run over five victims, killing them, to a siding where one person would be killed. Do you pull the switch? Most people say yes. Then you take another group, and tell them that there’s a bus that will run over and kill five people, but you can stop it with something heavy - and the only thing heavy enough is a fat man standing next to you. Do you throw the fat man under the bus, killing him? Most people won’t.

And yet, it’s the same arithmetic, isn’t it?

At the time of Nam, I’d have told you that non-combatants free up other troops to engage in combat, and thus you were just as much a baby-killer as anyone else. At this point, I’d take notice that you undoubtedly exhibited a lot of courage in putting yourself in dangerous situations, saving lives by doing so, and so I will say “thanks”. I don’t know that you saved anyone I know, but since I don’t know who did, you’ll do.

Viet Nam was a war we all fought, whether or not we crossed a border or an ocean. And it’s a war we’re all still fighting. Well, except for you. I’m glad you’re over it, because there are a lot who aren’t.

And as far as that goes, this country still hasn’t gotten over the war between the blue and the gray, and that’s been almost 150 years.

No matter which side you were on, we should be over it by now, shouldn’t we? As stupid as the human race is, it’s a wonder we can figure out how to breed.

Perhaps I should have said hoops. Basketball hoops are usually made of mild steel, michaelj.

You’re aware that supposedly there was a man who ate a 747? A little bit at a time, admittedly, but he did it. Ben Sherwood wrote a book about it. I couldn’t get past the first couple of chapters, though. You should be able to grind a couple of hoops into powder, and mix it into your other food, and wolf them down in a few weeks, three months at the most. And being metal, hoops are both kosher and pareve.

What’s with the impulse to eat sporting goods, michaelj? And shouldn’t you be worried more about the mental health aspect and the effect on your digestive system, than the jewish dietary laws? I mean, if you get an obstructed bowel from composite leather swelling up, you’re probably going to need a surgeon, not a bottle of magnesium citrate.

Our star basketball player was a seriously gigantic guy called Bill Thigpen. 6-6 or 6-7 about 250. Great brain and huge heart. He shredded Rudy T when we played Hamtramck (believe me, that’s how you spell it.). He took a job as a reporter for I think, the Michigan Citizen, and was murdered when he got too close to some drug scum in Wayne County. I’d love to hear the true story of Bill Thigpen if Nancy Nall could get to it. I always wanted justice, just couldn’t get there. I’d flatter myself to say he was my friend, but he was sort of a hero of mine.

Cody High. Gutdom, Dexter. Makes me think of the greatest song Steveland Morris ever wrote. “I believe when I fall in love, this time it will be forever.” I believe that melody is better than the Beatles or the Stones ever managed.