06/12/2000

Over-Under

Seattle Mariners Quiz: 1) Who is 2nd to Ken Griffey Jr. in career
HRs? 2) Most pitching wins, season? 3) Name the two
Mariners pitchers who have thrown no-hitters? Answers below.

Over-Underrated

I feel compelled to finish up some of the topics that American
Heritage magazine covered in their annual issue of "Most
Overrated / Underrated." Now remember, folks, none of the
following necessarily represents the opinion of your editor.

Most Overrated President: Historian Richard Brookhiser chooses
FDR for being hailed as the "savior of capitalism." Brookhiser
says, "Saved it from whom? The Depression-era radicals -
communists, socialists, Father Coughlin - were annoyances,
whose candidates never got much more than 2% of the popular
vote in a presidential election during the 1930s. Heuy Long was
a regional figure who would have flamed out if he had not been
shot."

"Saved it how? The mixture of improvisation and failure that was
the New Deal kept the economy limping, until war production
revived it. Roosevelt (and Hoover) took a recession and made it
a catastrophe."

Most Underrated President: Brookhiser''s pick? Ronald Reagan.
"In his case the reason is not domestic policy but war. Reagan
won a world war without a Somme or a Stalingrad. Truman laid
the groundwork and Bush was in at the death, but Reagan begat
perestroika, which led to the swiftest collapse of a hostile
superpower in history."

Most Overrated Roadside Architecture: According to author Phil
Patton, it''s diners."refurbished in recent years to look more
fifties than they were in the fifties...Today the reborn diners
provide the visual equivalent of Karaoke, mouthing the images of
the past without the tune.they drip with Yuppie irony.their
meals drove Americans to the dependability of standardized
national fast-food chains."

Most Underrated Roadside Architecture: Patton picks modern
gas stations. "Beneath hovering canopies, they create a national
package for the invisible products of service and gasoline."

Most Overrated Singer: Barbra Streisand. At least that is the
opinion of author Gary Giddins. "She is an icon of America''s
love of display and personality at the expense of sincerity and
taste. Everything she sings is charged with self-loving vulgarity:
worship me, she bellows, and forget the song. Streisand has a
huge instrument and not an inkling of what to do with it."

Most Underrated Singer: Giddins goes for Bing Crosby.
Admittedly, from 1931 to 1965, to call him underrated would
have been inconceivable. But today, that''s changed. Still
admired for his jazz records (one bandleader called him "the first
hip white person born in the U.S."), Bing "had unparalleled
versatility; equally affecting on country, cowboy, Hawaiian, and
standard songs."

Most Overrated Song: Publisher Max Rudin selects Stephen
Sondheim''s "Send in the Clowns" from "A Little Night Music."
"The just-over-an-octave range and talky, note-y melody make it
easy prey for nightclub singers, but they should stay clear. In its
dramatic context the fact that the song is delivered by an aging
actress jilted by an old lover is some mitigation for its self-
mocking, histrionic attitude." The song takes itself too seriously.

"No one is there...Don''t you love farce?"

The Nuclear Briefcase

When Boris Yeltsin was regularly incapacitated, the question
always arose, where is the football that, with its codes, could
launch nuclear missiles?

So now it''s in the hands of Vladimir Putin. But what is the
procedure for its use?

"The nuclear button is an effective way to control Russian nuclear
forces and also a symbol of the presidency," Yeltsin''s former
spokesman, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, recently told Reuters.

Putin has departed with the suitcase several times since he''s been
in charge, once when he flew as a co-pilot on a fighter jet to and
from Chechnya. Officials said the suitcase was in a second fighter
jet directly behind, but Putin''s opponents claimed it was
irresponsible to part with it even for that time, about an hour in
total.

The briefcase is typically carried by an officer dressed in a
distinctive black navy uniform which makes it easy for the
president to single him out in a crowd.

A senior parliament member, Alexei Arbatov, describes, "The
nuclear button transmits presidential sanction for the use of
nuclear weapons to command centers where General Staff
officers are on duty around the clock. On receiving a coded
signal, officers.using appropriate codes, determine that it was
the president who sent it, rather than someone else."

When the authenticity of the presidential message is confirmed,
duty officers open safes with their own codes and send them to
missile launch pads and nuclear submarines.

Then the codes are installed (in the cruise computers), launch
keys are turned and the missiles blast off. And it really, really
works.

Actually, about 30 people are involved in handling the nuclear
button network. The defense minister has a similar nuclear button
but the president does not need to coordinate his orders with the
military chief.

Arbatov explains, "The first order (from the president) does not
need a confirmation by the second." But Alexei didn''t make clear
whether the defense minister would need the president''s
authorization to use his nuclear button."

So order your official Russian nuclear briefcase today! Operators
are standing by.

Jamar Ervin

Who is Jamar and, if you are an afficionado of track and field, why
should you care? Well, Ervin is a freshman at Camden High
School in New Jersey and all Jamar did last week was win the
state''s Meet of Champions 100-Meter dash in 10.35. That broke
the all-time freshman high school record in America. And, even
more incredibly, Jamar just went out for the track team one
month before last week''s meet!

Jeff MacNelly

We have a special affection for cartoonists here at
StocksandNews, in case you haven''t noticed. MacNelly died last
week at the age of 52. Winner of three Pulitzer Prices for his
editorial cartoons, he was also the creator of the strip, "Shoe."

MacNelly''s father worked on Barry Goldwater''s presidential
campaign in 1964, an event that helped shape Jeff''s own
conservative views. In his cartooning, he said his philosophy was
deceptively simple: "You hammer at what outrages you that day."

MacNelly once quit doing editorial cartoons but it was a
retirement that lasted only one year. He missed the daily
stimulation. "When it comes to humor, there''s no substitute for
reality and politicians..Political cartoonists violate every law of
professional journalism. But when the smoke clears, the political
cartoonist has been getting closer to the truth than the guys who
write the political opinions."

[Source: Rick Kogan / Chicago Tribune]

Golfing Lingo

Having failed to "score" on the course this past weekend, I
nonetheless need to note a little blurb that recently appeared in
Sports Illustrated, listing synonyms for "going low" (firing a low
score), something I can''t say I''ve ever done.

"All systems go, burn it up, dial in, feel it, fill it up, get ridiculous,
go crazy, go deep, go nuts, go off, off the chart, pin hunting,
point and click, press the button, run the table, shoot nothing,
shoot zero, switched on, zone in."

Top 3 songs for the week of 6/8/74: #1 "Band On The Run"
(Paul McCartney & Wings) #2 "The Streak" (Ray Stevens)
#3 "You Make Me Feel Brand New" (The Stylistics).

Hooters

Harry K passed along this story from Ottawa. It seems that nine
teenaged boys, aged 14 and 15, were suspended for eating lunch
at a Hooters Restaurant during a school trip. A letter sent to the
parent''s said they were booted for conduct "injurious to the moral
tone of the school." In addition, the letter further stated that the
boys showed "persistent opposition" to authority.

One student told an Ottawa paper that he was handed a letter
from the principal and had a short conversation with her.

"She said (Hooters) was a strip joint and that I shouldn''t be going
there," said 14-year-old Joey McLennan. "We tried to tell her it
wasn''t."

I imagine what really did the students in was when they tried to
convince school authorities that they were really at Hooters for
the food.

Quiz Answers: 1) Griffey hit 398 homers as a Mariner. Jay
Buhner is second at 279 entering this season. 2) Randy Johnson
is the Mariners only 20-game winner, winning that number in
1997. 3) Johnson threw a no-hitter in 1990. Chris Bosio, 1993.

Next Bar Chat, Wednesday.