I remember it.  I remember when he said it.  He did not say it on Facebook or on his web site.  But it was widely publicized and was recently repeated on ABC news, World News Tonight with Charlie Gibson.  Maybe you should ask Gibson. 

 He had stamina.  At fifty, most "real dancers" are washed up.  Most fade by forty.  At thirty, MJ was at the top of his game.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqxo1SKB0z8&feature=fvst  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mU8QoZMVOU

Fred Astaire said Jackson was the best dancer of his generation.  Astaire knew a thing or two about dancing. 

Michael Jackson worked very very hard.  He studied the choreography of Jerome Robbins to develop choreography for his videos; some believe he invented the form of the music video.  He certainly elevated it.  Michael Jackson was considered the most famous person in the WORLD; one could go to villages in Africa where no one had heard of an American President, and they had heard of Michael Jackson.  

 You may not appreciate him, you may not like his music.  But pay attention.  Michael Jackson had more going on than maybe you can imagine.  Many performers of today claim they learned how to perform by watching him.  He was an innovator.  

The most important dating advice came from Meher Baba: Be Here Now! 

I went on a hike with a friend the other day and he  spent an hour on his cell phone on business calls.  The world has become so 24/7 with respect to business, and companies feel so uninhibited about contacting workers at any time for any reason, that not answering the phone would have been economic suicide.  He had the decency to be very embarrassed about it.  Still, several months ago when my sister asked her boss not to email her on Sundays with the expectation of an immediate reply, her boss got very upset, claiming that a global company requires constant attention.  My sister got another job just to reclaim her Sundays. 

Still the worst cell intrusion was a woman at a dinner party who took a call during dinner from her husband and stayed at the table and talked for twenty-five minutes.  Oh yes, I did keep track of the time, there was nothing else to do.  The rest of us just ate and looked at each other and shrugged.

Last year I saw a sign at a cash register that said "No talking on cell phones while in line."  That a sign was required was sad.   

Well, we would not have wanted Iranians coming to the US to tell us how wrong Bush v. Gore was in 2000.  So why not consider the golden rule in international politics?  The President has said plainly what is and should be the U.S. position. 

But I do think it was good for the State department to ask Twitter to remain available for Iranians to communicate.

Not really.  Obama’s supporters have been driving subcompacts and hybrids and don’t qualify for this.  This particular benefit is aimed at pumping money into buying cars, and we all own the car companies now, and increasing the average mpg on the highway by pulling off some of the cars that get less than 18 mpg.  However, I wonder if they are really going to take the clunkers off the road?  If they are just going to be resold, it doesn’t do much other than put money into the car companies.

If I understand this legislation correctly, it only benefits people who own cars that get less than 18 miles per gallon.  Those of us who have been driving cars that get 25 or more mpg all these years get no benefit.  Sure it is good for the planet, and good for all of us.  But sometimes I get a little irritated that folks who buy socially irresponsible vehicles are getting a bailout, just like the bankers who did socially irresponsible lending got a bailout.  These days, maybe it helps to be irresponsible if you are irresponsible in the right way. 

 Still, because it helps the planet, you gotta support it.  For years, California has had a cash for clunkers program that no one knew about.   http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/avrp/avrp.htm  Now I don’t think there is money to fund it.

And yet, Twitter may help save Iran from tyranny.  Wouldn’t that be amazing? 

It is generally a hate crime when the crime is intended to harm more than the specific individual directly harmed.  Thus lynching a black person to send a message to blacks is a hate crime.  I find it odd that you do not see that the murder of an abortion doctor in his church is also a hate crime.  Terrorism is a crime that is intended to make others feel intense fear.  There are hardly any doctors left who will perform late term abortions, they have been terrorized so successfully.  Of course it is terrorism. 

It is a hate crime as well.  Hate against women.  Think of the women who are in dire straits — maybe they have discovered in their sixth month of pregnancy that they have cancer — who will no longer be able to find a doctor to perform the procedure that may save their lives.  There was a woman who discovered that her fetus was developing without a brain and would be stillborn and opted for a late term abortion instead of suffering through three more months of futile pregnancy.  I just don’t think these "pro-life" people realize that they are trying to turn over to government decisions that are complicated, personal and agonizing, and that they would not do that with any of their own most difficult decisions.  Some things should be worked out by the woman and her doctor.  

Anyway, a person who kills a doctor for doctoring kills more than the doctor.  George Tiller was a hero to the women he helped.    

http://pilarski.casinocitytimes.com/articles/14700.html That is the link that explains the President election odds for the typical person.

I suppose I just do not get the "fun fantasy" of a game in which you are unlikely to win, that consumes your time and money; why not spend your time and money on something where you are more likely to win, or at least less likely to lose?    The only way buying lottery tickets could be fun is if you had any expectation of winning.  I don’t. 

The odds of winning the lottery are roughly one in 18 million.  The odds of being elected President are roughly one in 10 million.  Seriously.  If you look at it from a mathematical viewpoint, it makes very little sense.  See http://pilarski.casinocitytimes.com/articles/14700.html  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gamble/odds/california.htm…

 Obviously one’s odds would increase from a number of things in either endeavor, like putting your name on the ballot of collecting a hundred million warchest to run on.  [Or conversely, buying more and more lottery tickets, quickpicks.]  But I have known people whose lives were turned upside down by gambling and they were not thinking with the analytical parts of their brains.  Or they would have figured out the odds were pretty bad.

One of the disadvantages of spending my youth as a math major is that I find it very difficult to imagine myself winning a lottery.  The odds are soooooo long.  I am more likely to be elected President.   [Just from a statistical perspective.]

The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for humor.  It is simple and always fun and funny.  The other Kennedy Center honors are good too.  I watch the Oscars and Emmys and Tonys and Golden Globes, but I really love the MTP.  And of course the Nobel prize lectures are now online, and I find them fascinating:  http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/2008.html

They should do a steel penny like we had in World War II.  [When zinc and copper were too precious.] After all, we cannot afford the penny, it costs more than a penny to make. 

 I love the art in coins, but I don’t think Abe would resent being presented in steel; he was a man of steel in a way, having founded the Transcontinental railway system.  [In the  middle of the Civil War!  How is that for multitasking!]

I do not believe you have been paying attention.  Jane Fonda has variously apologized and expressed regret for the way in which her presence in Vietnam was manipulated by Hanoi to cause harm.  It is in numerous interviews.  it is in her memoir.  Really, she is a lovely person who was trying to bring to an end a war that cost 50,000 American lives and uncounted Southeast Asian lives, her purpose was noble.  Many of us were trying to end the same war with marches and letters to the editors and votes for less hawkish members of Congress and more.  For some people she will continue to be a lightening rod because she was there.  But she was not alone.  Even Pope Paul VI wanted to mediate an end to the Vietnam war.