HEY XJ, LESS TALK, MORE PLAY

Xavier Johnson is one of the CU Buffs Men's Basketball players, and you can read his official bio here. There is no doubt that the young man has talent, but as a sophomore, he has still has plenty to learn. And that would include not being so sophomoric.  I was not pleased with some of his taunting earlier in the season, and wrote an email to the coaching staff about it - and of course, got no reply whatsoever.  With the loss to injuries of Spencer Dinwiddie and Tre'Shaun Fletcher, there has not been too much to taunt about.  However, that did not slow down XJ.  After getting thoroughly schooled by Arizona, the number one team in the nation and obviously a much better team than CU, XJ proclaimed "We were playing the Number 1 Team in the nation, but they weren't that good."  And then added "We have better players than they do."  Reminder- -Basketball is a Team Sport!  The final score was 69-57, and it wasn't that close.  XJ and the boys followed up the Arizona loss with a laugh-er at Arizona State, losing 72-51 - fortunately, we did not hear anything from XJ after that one.  Next game - Utah - who played a very strong road game against Arizona.  Hopefully, there will be more play and less talk this Saturday.

GRAMMY'S HALF-TIME SHOW

I was watching the Nuggets win last night, but surfed over to the Grammy's and happened to catch the "half-time show."  I thought it was hilarious!

ENRICHING ELEMENTS

Even the Business Section of the local paper sometimes contributes material for the Planet Boulder archives - today's 15-Second Pitch that highlights local business reads:

Enriching Elements is Boulder's home for alternative spirituality.  We are a resource for art, jewelry, spirituality and alternative healing.  A family-owned store, we host events and discussion groups, have our own in-house jeweler and a shamanic healing practice.  It is our passion and our dream.

 I think that I need some shamanic jewelry to get me right with the Universe.

GOLD WATCH AND CHAIN

One of the tunes that brother-in-law Kenbob and I play when we get together:

Oh I'll pawn you my gold watch and chain, love
And I'll pawn you my gold wedding ring
I will pawn you this heart in my bosom
Only say that you'll love me again

Darling, how could I stay here without you
I have nothing to ease my poor heart
This old world would seem sad, love, without you
Tell me now that we never will part

Oh I'll pawn you my gold watch and chain, love
And I'll pawn you my gold wedding ring
I will pawn you this heart in my bosom
Only say that you'll love me again

Take back all the gifts you have given
A diamond ring and a lock of your hair
And a card with your picture upon it
It's a face that is false but is fair

Oh I'll pawn you my gold watch and chain, love
And I'll pawn you my gold wedding ring
I will pawn you this heart in my bosom
Only say that you'll love me again

Oh, the white rose that blooms in the garden
It grows with the love of my heart
It broke through on the day that I met you
It will die on the day that we part

Oh I'll pawn you my gold watch and chain, love
And I'll pawn you my gold wedding ring
I will pawn you this heart in my bosom
Only say that you'll love me again

THE 'SUPER BOWL'

EVOLUTIONARY THEOLOGY

 

Ah, Planet Boulder comes through again.  This coming Wednesday evening, a local outfit called the Integral Center is hosting The Reverend Michael Dowd, evolutionary theologian.

His talk and outline are as follows:

God 3.0:  An authentic spirituality for our time.

Reality is our God

Evidence is our scripture

Big history is our creation story

Ecology is our theology

Integrity is our spirituality

A healthy future is our mission

I plan on attending - unless there is a charge [cheapskate that I am].  Oh, I might spring for a few bucks.

JEWISH BUDDHA

I recently read a letter to the editor of the Boulder Daily Camera in which the writer referred to Yeshua [Jesus] as the Jewish Buddhist. Fascinated, I looked up a few things and a lot of information can be found here - Was Jesus a Buddhist - and here.

Some of the interesting parallels between the Buddha and Jesus 500 years later include both life stories and sayings:

* Born as an incarnate god.
* Born from a virgin mother.
* Birth claimed as a divine event and prophesied as the same.
* Birth attended by singing angels.
* Birth attended by wise men bearing gifts.
* Prodigious childhood.
* As a child astounded teachers with knowledge.
* Fasted in the wilderness for forty days.
* Tempted while alone by the devil.
* Resisted the devil successfully.
* After the devil left, supernatural events occurred.
* Were vegetarians (fish excepted).
* Began ministry at thirty years of age.
* Attract large following mostly from lower classes.
* Attracted disciples who traveled with him.
* Attracted one disciple who was treacherous.
* Changed disciples' names.
* Encouraged celibacy for their disciples.
* Consecrated in a holy river.
* Itinerant ministry instead of at a fixed place.
* Performed miracles such as curing blindness.
* Renounced worldly riches and required the same of their disciples.
* Ministered to outcasts.
* Advocated universal love and peace.
* Taught mostly through use of parables.
* Triumphal entries (in Jerusalem and Rajagripa).
* Gave major sermon from a mound.
* Disregarded by the dominant religious elite (Pharisees and Brahmans).
* Just before death dispatched disciples to preach in other areas.
* Death accompanied by supernatural event.

Sayings:

JESUS: "A foolish man, which built his house on sand."
BUDDHA: "Perishable is a city built on sand." 
JESUS: "Therefore confess your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be healed."
BUDDHA: "Confess before the world the sins you have committed."
JESUS: "In him we have redemption through his blood, the foregiveness of sins."
BUDDHA: "Let all sins that were committed in this world fall on me, that the world may be delivered."
JESUS: "Do to others as you would have them do to you."
BUDDHA: "Consider others as yourself."
JESUS: "If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also."
BUDDHA: "If anyone should give you a blow with his hand, with a stick, or with a knife, you should abandon all desires and utter no evil words."
JESUS: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you."
BUDDHA: "Hatreds do not cease in this world by hating, but by love: this is an eternal truth. Overcome anger by love, overcome evil by good."
JESUS: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."
BUDDHA: "Let your thoughts of boundless love pervade the whole world."
JESUS: "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone at her."
BUDDHA: "Do not look at the faults of others or what others have done or not done; observe what you yourself have done and have not done."
JESUS: "You father in heaven makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous."
BUDDHA: "The light of the sun and the moon illuminates the whole world, both him who does well and him who does ill, both him who stands high and him who stands low."
JESUS: "If you wish to be perfect, go sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven."
BUDDHA: "The avaricious do not go to heaven, the foolish do not extol charity. The wise one, however, rejoicing in charity, becomes thereby happy in the beyond."

Well, I guess this explains all those missing years unaccounted for in the Gospels!!

SILNA BROTHERS UPDATE

 

I originally wrote about the Silnas here, and this update is from the New York Times:

Author - Richard Sandomir

The N.B.A. has long hoped to be released from its financial obligation to Ozzie and Daniel Silna, brothers who owned the Spirits of St. Louis in the defunct American Basketball Association.

But it has never been easy. The Spirits were excluded from the 1976 merger of the two leagues. So the Silnas watched unhappily as the New York (now Brooklyn) Nets, the Denver Nuggets, the Indiana Pacers and the San Antonio Spurs were absorbed into the N.B.A. But the Silnas negotiated an astonishing benefit that was critical to the merger: an agreement to be paid one-seventh of the national television revenue that each of the four teams was to receive, as long as the league continued to exist. That amounted to being paid in perpetuity, and so far, the deal has provided the Silnas with about $300 million.

Their deal is as much a part of A.B.A. history as red, white and blue basketballs, the 3-point line and the big Afros of Julius Erving and Darnell Hillman. It is a lasting memory of how, through luck or prescience, the Silnas and their lawyer, Donald Schupak, capitalized on the league’s growing popularity.

The N.B.A. has tried to buy them out, including an effort before the financial crash in 2008. Negotiations have picked up in the last six to nine months.

On Tuesday, the Silnas, the league and the four former A.B.A. teams will announce a conditional deal that will end the Silnas’ golden annuity. Almost.

 

The Silnas are to receive a $500 million upfront payment, financed through a private placement of notes by JPMorgan Chase and Merrill Lynch, according to three people with direct knowledge of the agreement. The deal would end the enormous perpetual payments and settle a lawsuit filed in federal court by the Silnas that demanded additional compensation from sources of television revenue that did not exist in 1976, including NBA TV, foreign broadcasting of games and League Pass, the service that lets fans watch out-of-market games.

Still, the league is not getting rid of the Silnas altogether. They will continue to get some television revenue, some of it from the disputed sources named in their lawsuit, through a new partnership that is to be formed with the Nets, the Pacers, the Nuggets and the Spurs, according to the people with knowledge of the agreement. But at some point, the Silnas can be bought out of their interest in the partnership

.

The Silnas, of course, did not have to settle. They could have continued to make money from the N.B.A., without ever having to invest in players or build an arena. Clearly, their old agreement would have to be honored as long as the N.B.A. continued to exist

.

But there is a reluctance, more by Daniel, 69, than Ozzie, 80, to keep fighting the league, said one of the people who discussed the agreement. Although wealthy people often plan their estates, much of the Silnas’ riches from the N.B.A. is already in family trusts.

Bob Costas, the NBC sportscaster who called Spirits games, said in a telephone interview, “My guess is that for the N.B.A., the upside is that in the foreseeable future, there will come a time when they will not have to look at this and blanch and it will be in the past.”

League officials declined to comment because the settlement must be approved by the judge, Loretta A. Preska, who has presided over the case in United States District Court in Manhattan.

The Silnas’ deal resonates, at least in part, because it appears that they snookered the league, or, more accurately, the Nets, the Pacers, the Nuggets and the Spurs, who dealt directly with the brothers.

But Michael Goldberg, the A.B.A.’s former general counsel, recalled in a recent interview that the four teams were desperate to get into the N.B.A. and willing to satisfy the Silnas. 

“Schupak said they’d take TV rights in perpetuity as a kind of Hail Mary to get money down the road,” he said. “What was missing was someone saying, ‘Thirty years, 50 years, or until something happens, and it’s over.’ ”

The Spirits got a sweeter deal than the Kentucky Colonels, who were also not absorbed into the league. John Y. Brown, the Colonels’ owner, got $3 million to fold his team.

And while the Silnas, who were planning to move the franchise to Utah at the time of the merger, did not bring a roster that included Caldwell Jones and Marvin Barnes into the N.B.A., they got a $2.2 million payment — and all that television money. They never acquired another team and have attended to their investments (some of which went sour during the Bernard L. Madoff Ponzi scheme).

But their deal, widely called the greatest in sports history, if not in American business, lives on as a remnant of the marriage of the undercapitalized A.B.A. and the N.B.A. in its mid-1970s doldrums, before Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan.

“The only way to appreciate this,” Goldberg said, “is to go back in a time capsule to the bidding wars between the leagues; the N.B.A. tiring of them, and saying, ‘Let’s take four teams, but not St. Louis and Kentucky, and we’ll move on.’ ”

MALIBU'S NON-RESIDENT PSYCHIC

When we lived in Malibu, one of our close-by neighbors was Averi Torres, aka Malibu's Resident Psychic (R), and Psychic to the Stars (TM).  After reading her recent predictions for 2014 in the Malibu Times, [e.g. "Obamacare will see a lot of hiccups"], I had a vision that I too have the gift.  So here are my prognostications for the coming year.

Predicting what will not happen is easier than foreseeing what will, so here are some non-events, many of which you can bet the farm on:

*  Harold Camping will not make any End Of The World Predictions this year [unashamedly stolen from the Tomato Addict - h/t TA].
*  The Mayans are also still wrong about the EOTW.
*  The Nuggets will not win the NBA Championship.
*  The Rockies will not win the World Series.
*  The Avs will not win the Stanley Cup.
*  The CU-Men's basketball team will not win the NCAA Tournament.
*  The CU-Women's basketball team will not win the NCAA Tournament [curmudgeontary - if this team is the 12th best college team in the country, women's basketball is in sad shape.  I think I could put together a Grand Masters team that could beat them].
*  The Broncos will not win the Super Bowl.
*  No President of a Division I University will eliminate football...unfortunately.
*  Richard Dawkins will not become a Catholic.
*  The Pope will not become an atheist.
*  Ken Ham will not get his Ark built.
*  And speaking of global floods, there won't be one in 2014.

Some things that will happen in 2014:

*  Genetic analysis will show that Obama is actually 55% white, and the Republicans will immediately embrace him and all of his policies.
*  Global warming denialists will continue to not understand the difference between climate and weather.
*  The Tea Party will adopt Boulder's Celestial Seasonings as their tea-of-choice.
*  Ricky Martin will hook up with Anderson Cooper.
*  Hillary will hook up with Oprah.
*  Cyrus will hook up with Bieber.
*  Ted Cruz will hook up with Jared Polis.
*  4-20 Day at CU Boulder will be disbanded.
*  Zonker Harris will become a multimillionaire legally selling his artisan bud in Colorado.
*  Newt Gingrich will re-reinvent himself as a Democrat.
*  Ed & Mary will rack up a couple of more birthdays.
*  There will be over 1,000,000 earthquakes and nearly 50 hurricanes.
*  The Cumbre Viejo tsunami will devastate the east coast.
*  The Dow will hit 18,000 and I will be able to retire early [oh wait.....]

And as you may have guessed, here is my favorite psychic. 

NUGATORY NUGGETS

One more New Year's Resolution - I will not write any more about the Nugatory Nuggets unless they reach the playoffs or do something newsworthy like firing Shaw and rehiring Karl.  The Camera headline stated that the Nuggets hit rock bottom last night in their embarrassing [and boo-worthy] loss to the pitiful Philadelphia 76ers.  Wrong.  They are on their way to the cellar, a slot currently held by Utah, and it should not be too long before the Nuggets settle to the bottom.  In addition to last night's worthy-of-a-bag-over-the-head performance, apparently Andre Miller let Shaw have it court-side for sitting him the entire game.  The current 8 game losing streak is the longest such run in 10 years.  I feel sorry for the players since the current catastrophe is much more due to management than the team.

What I Would Wear To A Nuggets Game

MILE 21

 

 

Mile 21 a cappella Group from CU-Boulder

BE IT RESOLVED....



Top Five Across The Land

1.  Lose Weight

2.  Improve Finances

3.  Exercise

4.  Get A New Job

5.  Eat Healthier

So, no argument with any of those.  I plan to do them all, with perhaps the exception of number 4 - however, when one is retired, anything that one does is a "new job."  :-}  I also resolve to shout fewer expletives at the TV when the Nuggets [and occasionally the CU men's basketball team] make bone-headed plays!  Since I never played organized football or hockey, I do not shout at the Broncos or the Avs.  This is not really a resolution, but I hope to win the lottery - suppose that in order to do that, I will have to buy a ticket.  A tentative resolution - I recently learned that the Bolder Boulder gives a ribbon and certificate to runners who complete the 10K in less than their age, so perhaps I will attempt to finish in under 68 minutes.  [Side note - 78-year-old Jose Cardenas ran 49:11!!]. 

Now more seriously, a few meaningful resolutions that should be embraced by all [first published in 1912]

I resolve to be an instrument of peace;

Where there is hatred, I will show love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is error, truth;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

And where there is sadness, joy.

I resolve that I will not so much seek

To be consoled as to console;

To be understood as to understand;

To be loved as to love.