With the first quarter of the season in the books, Scott Burnside (East) and Pierre LeBrun (West) evaluate each team’s performance:
Eastern Conference
Pittsburgh Penguins
Grade: A
Trending: Up
Summary: The Penguins roared into the second quarter of the NHL season riding a nine-game winning streak and with captain Sidney Crosby playing as well as he ever has (he has put up points in 16 straight games as of Tuesday). Marc-Andre Fleury appears to have found his mojo and the Penguins look like a team to be reckoned with come April.
Western Conference
Detroit Red Wings
Grade: A-plus
Trending: Up
Summary: A second-round exit last season had some people wondering if the NHL’s model franchise was nearing a downturn after being one of the elite squads for 15 or so seasons. Um, scratch that thought. The Wings are back and apparently as great as ever, screaming out of the gates in the opening two months of the season with the best record in the Western Conference. Nicklas Lidstrom appears ageless at 40, Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg both deserve Hart Trophy consideration, and Jimmy Howard just can’t lose a game. Life is grand in Hockeytown, USA.
Pearl Harbor Day
Sixty-eight years ago today... "a date which will live in infamy"... the nation was shocked out of its complacency and determination to stay out of the conflict engulfing the rest of the civilized world by the horrific Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Here's an excerpt from President Roosevelt's speech to congress on the following day:
The men who fought back at Pearl Harbor formed the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association about ten years after the war and they used to hold a reunion in Hawaii every five years... until 2006, when they held their last reunion there. I published this post to mark that occasion (note that the link to the news article is dead now):Pearl Harbor Day
It’s said — quite often and by many, many people — that 9/11/2001 “changed everything.” And it is indeed true for the current generations of Americans. But I’ll submit that 12/07/1941 “changed everything” to a degree it is impossible for us who were not alive and going about our business on that Sunday in December, 1941 to realize. Those of us whose parents were members of The Greatest Generation understand my point. A smaller subset, those of us whose parents fought in World War II, understand the point a little bit better, perhaps. We have the benefit of hearing the first-person narratives of that day in December 1941, and stories from the long, long days that followed…from the dark and despair of the war’s first year to the signing of the Japanese surrender on the decks of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay not quite four years later. And a lot in between.
The USS Arizona - Then and Now (U.S. Navy photographs)
They are leaving us. The Pearl Harbor Survivors Association is holding their last meeting today.PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii - With their number quickly dwindling, survivors of Pearl Harbor will gather Thursday one last time to honor those killed by the Japanese 65 years ago, and to mark a day that lives in infamy.This will be their last visit to this watery grave to share stories, exchange smiles, find peace and salute their fallen friends. This, they say, will be their final farewell."This will be one to remember," said Mal Middlesworth, president of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. "It's going to be something that we'll cherish forever."The survivors have met here every five years for four decades, but they're now in their 80s or 90s and are not counting on a 70th reunion. They have made every effort to report for one final roll call.Their last meeting. I know All Things Must Pass, but it saddens me so. We owe them so much, and our thank-yous seem inadequate compared to the sacrifices they made.
But: We shall continue, we shall honor their sacrifices, we will remember, and we shall rededicate ourselves to the task that faces this generation…the one that began on 9/11/2001. The Greatest Generation expects it from us.The 2006 news article may not be available any longer, but the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association is still alive and kicking. They are few now, but thank God some of those heroes are still around. It won't be too much longer until they're all gone and as I said above: "It saddens me so."
2 x Graycliff Crystal Edicion Limitada Presidente (7.2"x50)I'm thinkin' it's gonna be a Gurkha. Those puppies are good lookin' cee-gars.
2 x Rocky Patel Decade Toro (6.5"x52)
2 x Oliva Master Blends III Torpedo (6"x52)
2 x Gurkha Centurian Double X (6"x60)
2 x Man O' War Virtue Toro (6"x50)
A Diversity Roadmap: Air Force officials have launched a Diversity Strategic Roadmap designed to help the service "attract, recruit, develop, and retain a high quality, talented Total Force." Members of the Air Force diversity operations division wrote the document and officials in USAF's manpower and personnel directorate are charged with overseeing execution of the roadmap's priorities. "We hope to foster an environment in which every individual's contribution is valued and respected and we can capitalize on the uniqueness of each airman to enhance organizational effectiveness and readiness," said Lt. Gen. Richard Newton, deputy chief of staff for manpower and personnel. He added, "Diversity allows everyone . . . to reach his or her potential and provide their capabilities to the Air Force and to the joint team." The Air Force released the document on Nov. 17. (SAF/PA report by TSgt. Amaani Lyle) (Diversity Strategic Roadmap full text)
“Wild Horses” almost wrote itself. It was really a lot to do with, once again, fucking around with the tunings. I found these chords, especially doing it on a twelve-string to start with, which gave the song this character and sound. There’s a certain forlornness that can come out of a twelve-string. I started off, I think, on a regular six-string open E, and it sounded very nice, but sometimes you just get these ideas. What if I open tuned a twelve-string? All it meant was translate what Mississippi Fred McDowell was doing—twelve-string slide—into five-string mode, which meant a ten-string guitar. I now have a couple custom built for that. It was one of those magical moments when things come together. It’s like “Satisfaction.” You just dream it, and suddenly it’s all in your hands. Once you’ve got the vision in your mind of wild horses, I mean, what’s the next phrase you’re going to use? It’s got to be “couldn’t drag me away.”
That’s one of the great things about songwriting; it’s not an intellectual experience. One might have to apply the brain here and there, but basically it’s capturing moments. Jim Dickinson, bless him—he died August 15, 2009, while I was writing this book—will say later on what “Wild Horses” was “about.” I’m not sure. I never thought about songwriting as writing a diary, although sometimes in retrospect you realize that some of it is like that.
What is it that makes you want to write songs? In a way you want to stretch yourself into other people’s hearts. You want to plant yourself there, or at least get a resonance, where other people become a bigger instrument than the one you’re playing. It becomes almost an obsession to touch other people. To write a song that is remembered and taken to heart is a connection, a touching of bases. A thread that runs through all of us. A stab to the heart. Sometimes I think songwriting is about tightening the heartstrings as much as possible without bringing on a heart attack.That's from Life, of course. "Wild Horses" and I go back to the day "Sticky Fingers" was released, days that found me on Turkey's beautiful Black Sea coast and in the throes of a love affair with a (then) unobtainable woman. The song remained a favorite down through the years, mainly for the plaintive and oh-so-familiar emotions the song evokes. These days the lyrics take on an entirely different but no less applicable meaning. I'd be thinking of this:
I watched you suffer a dull aching painThat, of course, is a story much too long to go into. It's true what Keef sez, tho: the best tunes are all about tightening the heartstrings, a stab to the heart. What's funny-strange is how the meaning and/or relevance changes down thru the years yet remains as true as it ever was. Perhaps even more so.
Now you've decided to show me the same
But no sweet, vain exits or offstage lines
Could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind
The Ego Has Landed
Here's one of our favorite bits from the New York Times WikiLeaks story:Bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison: When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of "Let's Make a Deal." Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama.And if the Slovenians didn't want to meet with President Obama, they'd have to take two prisoners!
Today's Times, meanwhile, reports that "the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (due out in 2013, and known as DSM-5) has eliminated five of the 10 personality disorders that are listed in the current edition":The first bullet point describes more than a few politicos and one or two people I actually know. But, Hey! Self-absorption is no longer a problem! The lunatics HAVE taken over the asylum.
Narcissistic personality disorder is the most well-known of the five. . . .The central requirement for N.P.D. is a special kind of self-absorption: a grandiose sense of self, a serious miscalculation of one's abilities and potential that is often accompanied by fantasies of greatness. . . .The second requirement for N.P.D.: since the narcissist is so convinced of his high station (most are men), he automatically expects that others will recognize his superior qualities and will tell him so. . . .Finally, the narcissist, who longs for the approval and admiration of others, is often clueless about how things look from someone else's perspective. Narcissists are very sensitive to being overlooked or slighted in the smallest fashion, but they often fail to recognize when they are doing it to others.Most of us would agree that this is an easily recognizable profile, and it is a puzzle why the manual's committee on personality disorders has decided to throw N.P.D. off the bus.Can the timing be coincidental? And don't they mean "under the bus"?
