An Open Letter to the Nobel Committee

Proving once again that Phineas T. Barnum was the most perceptive man that ever lived, the Nobel Committee has bestowed upon Albert Gore and his legion of conspirators (uh… collaborators) the prestigious Peace Prize.

This year’s award continues a long tradition of honoring nitwits, incompetents, charlatans, and murderers, including the Greatest Former President in American history, James Earl Carter and that renowned man of peace Yasser Arafat.

Mr. Arafat, it turns out, should have been awarded the Piece of the Action prize for his well-known ability to shake down gullible do-gooders and convert vast sums of cash earmarked for long-suffering Palestinians to his own account.

However, why should Prince Albert, Jimmah and Mr. Arafat be the only parasites sucking on the Nobel nipple? I’ve devoted the last several months to a research project which has uncovered a serious global phenomenon that is so critical in its scope and consequences it could mean the end of life as we know it by the middle of next year’s baseball season.

I have summarized my findings in this…

Open Letter to the Nobel Committee

Ladies and gentlemen, and children of all ages,

I have been making precise calculations since June 20th of this year and I’ve uncovered incontrovertible evidence of Anthropogenic Global Darkening. According to my observations there were 15 hours and 6 minutes of daylight on June 20th. Yesterday, my instruments measured 10 hours and 16 minutes of daylight. This is due to a steady, measurable decrease in sunshine each and every day.

So do the math. If the current trend continues the Earth will be completely shrouded in darkness in precisely pretty soon. I propose that everyone on the planet who has more than I do, give everything they have to me. I will then distribute the funds to everyone on the planet who has less than me, minus a small administration fee.

The overwhelming consensus of people who think the way I do agree that this is the only way to save the Earth from the coming Dark Age.

You can do your part by liquidating your holdings and sending the cash to:

The Gullibility Foundation
P.O. BOX 1984
Chappaqua, New York


Response to this open letter has been gratifying.

D.B. of Brooklyn writes:

Let me be the first to scream “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!”

There, I did it.

Upchuck from Katonah is eager to contribute, but has a logistical question.

Since it's Sunday it’s kinda hard to liquidate all my assets. I realize the urgency of this but can I wait until the markets open tomorrow?

And do you accept Pay Pal?

Kindred from Knoxville, Tennessee points out an omission.

You forgot the zip code. And Al will be mad that you are cutting into the earnings of his global warming tax credit company he prospers from.


Sender from Possum Gulch, Arizona concurs with my findings.

That is terrifying! I too have noticed the shortening days. Also, I have been comparing the daily temperatures since July. I am seeing a worrisome trend.

Omar from the Southern Hemisphere is in Global Darkening Denial.

He writes:

Caramba, señor.

I have been taking daylight readings as well and have reached the opposite conclusion. I measured diez horas of sunshine on Junio vente y uno, and more than quince horas of sunlight yesterday. This trend can only be the result of Anthropogenic Global Brightening. In a very short time we will all be scorched and blinded by eternal sunlight.

Anyone who was tempted to contribute their hard-earned treasure to the Gullibility Foundation should instead forward all their worldly goods to:

Instituto del Estúpidos
Santiago, Chile

Snail Darter from Witch’s Elbow, Georgia has his own cause to promote.

I am sure that your fine institutions are worthy of support, and I hope you land billion-dollar grants from Soros and Greenpeace and Algore Inc., however I am not able to contribute at this time. Currently all my meager donations are being sent to the Fund to Save the Fat Three Ridged Mussel, which is in danger of extinction if the uncaring, speciesist bastards in power here in Georgia decide to favor humans and hoard the remaining water so idiot humans can drink and bathe.

These inoffensive mollusks, of the family parasitic glochidia, are quickly being decimated by anthropogenic demusseling as well as the competition for habitat from the interloping Asiatic Clam.

The clams stowaway on ships transporting skilled workers who travel here to fill high-paying jobs in sweat hops on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Once here they displace indigenous Fat Three Ridged Mussels and establish take-out restaurants, nail salons and real-estate offices.

I can’t rest until these defenseless mussels are safely lying unthinking in the mud, occasionally spewing out a bubble or some feces. I'm sure you will understand.


Clem from Walpole, New Hampshire has had his consciousness raised.

Damn those exotic Asian clams! Up with parasitic glochidia! Save the mussels! The world can't wait! Global demusseling is happening, people!


But Luke Skyfreeper gets the prize for going straight to the heart of the matter.

I hereby certify that I have less than you do, so I need to get on the redistribution list. Can I just freepmail you my contact info?

And thanks for your service to mankind!

BTW: I accept PayPal.

Pay It Forward

I hesitate to tell this story because it is so terrifying it makes me shiver.

Maureen and I were involved in a rescue incident yesterday.

It was a gorgeous day, bright and clear, so we decided take the bike out for little spin along the beach. When we arrived at Jones Beach (Field 6) it was about time for our afternoon coffee. We parked the bike and went to the snack shop.

Sitting out under the bright blue sky, with the surf pounding and the wind blowing through my scalp we sort of lost ourselves in the beauty of the moment. I should have remained vigilant.

Vito Corleone reminded his son that "Women and children can afford to be careless" but he never told me.

When it was time to leave we turned toward the parking lot to discover...

I had left the lights on!

I ran as quickly as these old legs would carry me, but it was too late. The strain of keeping those lights lit was just too great, and the Little Battery That Could... suddenly... couldn't.

Being trained in crisis management I immediately sized up the situation and went directly to the Umbrella Lady. I asked her if the Park Police could provide a jump start.

Her answer chilled me to the bone.

"It's not a matter of could they," she said. "The big question is will they."

Oh, no.

Stranded here less than 100 yards from the water's edge with man-eating sharks lurking invisibly just under the surface, I was paralyzed with fear.

"It will be dark in less than four hours!" I cried.

That's when a strong and confident voice pierced through the darkness of my agony.

"Aw, quit your whining. I have jumper cables in my Cadillac."

I looked up at my rescuer, flushed with relief.

Alvin stood there, tanned and stunningly fit for his 85 years. The 1945 Navy Air Corps WWII cap perched atop his head glistened in the afternoon sunlight.

"Let's go kid" he commanded, as if he were still leading men into battle.

And go we did.

Alvin grabbed his cables from out of the trunk, hooked us up, and with one hit on the starter button... WE WERE SAVED!

When I tried to offer Alvin a gratuity, he just waved me off. "If you find someone who needs help, stop and lend a hand. AND QUIT THAT WHINING!"

With the Honda engine purring I looked at my dear wife.

"Does this mean you don't want to bike to Alaska with me next Summer? I asked.

"I don't want to bike home with you now" came her terse answer.

"Call me a cab" she ordered. I sheepishly obeyed.

Then... oh no... my cell phone battery is dead.

But that's another story.

So Long Scooter

About 25 or 30 years ago I stopped in at the legendary NYC pizza joint, Pizza City, on my way to visit Mom and Dad. Inside, I discovered lights, a camera crew and Yankee great Phil Rizzuto filming a TV commercial. Phil was about 60 at the time and still looked as if he could step out onto the field and play shortstop.

When he got to the punch line he went into a pantomime baseball swing and then flashed that great Rizzuto smile straight into the camera.

As he took his phantom swing I noticed his biceps and forearms, muscles rippling. Now Phil was 5'6" and weighed 150 pounds with his pockets full of quarters, but 20 plus years after his retirement as an active player he was still ripped. You could never notice it under those baggy uniforms they wore back then. At that moment I realized why elite athletes are elite athletes.

During the breaks for lighting and camera changes, Phil talked with the customers, signed autographs and retold some of those great stories we had all heard a thousands times, yet loved to hear once again.

So long Scooter. We'll miss you.

Wizards Win Waldbaum's Cup!

June 17, 2007 Stony Brook, New York

The Oceanside Wizards capped off another successful season with a 3-2 victory over the very talented Newfield Wave of Selden to win the Waldbaum's Cup Championship.

It was a hard fought match from the opening whistle. Cheyenne opened the scoring in the first half, taking a great centering pass from Ali Cassidy and slamming the volley into the back of the net for a 1 goal lead. Newfield came roaring back to tie the game at the half, and then took a 2-1 lead early in the second period.

But the Wizards kept the pressure on. Cheyenne made a lightning-quick dash down the right wing and slammed a long blast high into the far corner of the goal to tie the match.

Then, showing the toughness that has made her the team's high scorer, Ali Cassidy beat her defender in the center and went in on a breakaway.

The Newfield keeper made an aggressive play to stop her at the 18 but Ali kept her balance, chipped the ball over the keeper and then slammed it into the back of the net for THE WINNING GOAL!

The Wizards then played smart and disciplined defense and got another stellar effort from goalkeeper Devin to bring the Waldbaum's Cup to Oceanside.

Great effort. Great Game. Great season from a truly terrific group of young ladies.

Father Knows Best, Again

In celebration of Father's Day today's post is a reprint of my very first blog attempt.

December, 2006

I very rarely read New York Magazine, but a cover story caught my eye last week as I scanned the magazine rack in Dr. Zaman's waiting room.

Authentic Happiness. Now there's a concept.

The author of the article, a New Yorker, treated the subject the way the Discovery Channel describes UFO sightings. They know UFOs are fiction, dammit! Why do so many people claim to have seen them? Happiness, authentic or not, is something that most New Yorkers experience through the eyes of others. Happiness, like alien visitors from another planet, is an illusion; a construct created by delusional fools to camouflage their misery. To a practical and prudently-maladjusted New Yorker happiness is simply unfathomable.

Unhappiness? Now there's something the author could sink her teeth into. What causes unhappiness? What can we do about it? Well, since happiness is an illusion and unhappiness is reality, why would anyone want to do anything about it? More to the point, since unhappiness is the default position and therefore uncaused, why is she writing about the causes of unhappiness?

I think she's stumbled upon something here.

The lack of wealth does not cause unhappiness, she claimed. Rather, it's a relative lack of wealth that causes unhappiness. Instantly, hundreds of conversations raced through my mind. The law partner who whined to me about how tough it was trying to make ends meet on $500,000 a year. My upper-middle-class friend from an upscale town in Westchester whose 17 year old daughter sobbed because her new Lexus didn't have the performance package (a $5,000 option). It's an interesting question. New Yorkers can't help but be bombarded with evidence of conspicuous and excessive consumption. Very few of us can look around and not see thousands of things we can't have. But is this the cause of unhappiness, or simply the trigger?

My father, in addition to being a man of immense intellect and courage, is able to place almost any situation in its proper perspective. Years ago, while fishing on my small runabout in Reynolds Channel I mentioned that it would be nice to have one of those fully-decked-out sport fishing boats that were buzzing past us. He pointed to the crowd fishing on the Magnolia Street Pier and said that those guys were looking at us and thinking the same thing. I was an adult at the time but this was an Andy-and-Opie moment, one of many that we've had over the course of the decades.

"Go after what you want in life," he taught me, "and don't look into anyone else's wallet." It was a lesson I took to heart at a very early age.

Basically it all comes down to this: If I get what I want, I'm a happy guy.

"Mr. Martini..." called Dr. Zaman's nurse. I put down the magazine, smiling, and went in for my yearly echocardiagram. "You're 100%," the doctor reported. "Keep exercising, watch what you eat and STAY OFF THAT MOTORCYCLE!"

"One out of three ain't bad," I mumbled.

The next morning I played the Red Course at Eisenhower Park and shot a 40 on the front nine.

Authentic happiness.

On the back, the course having somehow discovered my true handicap, double bogey followed double bogey followed double bogey for a 49. Yet just as I descended into sleep that night a wide-screen HD image emerged: A perfect swing with my 3 iron, my second shot soaring toward the Par 5 First Green and gently coming to rest 20 feet from the pin.

Before I could reach for my putter, I was fast asleep.

Happy Father's Day to all.

Ich Bin Ein New Yorker?

You can't blame Illinois-ans for feeling a burdensome sense of inferiority these days.

The White Sox are languishing around the .500 level. The Blackhawks and the Bulls are playing golf again during the playoff season.

Even the most rabid Cubs fans are wondering why their team is still in the Majors. If this was the European Premiereship League the Cubs would have been relegated to Serie "F" in 1909, never to return. A T-shirt seen at Wrigley Field recently stated: "Hey, every team has a bad century once in awhile."

Okay, so the White Sox clobbered the Yankees last night, but that doesn't count. Everybody beats the vaunted Bronx Bombers.

I won't even pile on and mention the pathetic performance by Dah Bears last January.

A short-lived sense of euporia lifted Illinois residents for a short time when they found themselves with the two front runners in the Democratic race for the presidential nomination.

This should have come as no surprise since Illinois, the Land of Lincoln, has a long and storied (some say bizarre) political tradition.

Illinois, after all, is the only state in the Union that has three senators and was able, without the slightest giggle, to report that JFK received 160% of the vote in Cook County.

So why is it that the good citizens of Illinois in general and Chicago in particular still feel this underwhelming sense of inferiority vis-a-vis their big brother to the east.

Maybe a recent story in the New York Post has something to do with it.

While campaigning through the Empire State Senator Barack Hussein Obama declared himself a New Yorker to an adoring crowd of admirers. His rationale, curiously, was the fact that he attended Columbia University more than two decades ago. Am I nitpicking? I think not. Not until I hear him declare himself Hawaiian--or Indonesian for that matter--will I believe that his identification with NYC is anything less than evidence of the deeply-held sense of inferiority experienced by most, if not all, citizens of the Second City.

Gadzooks! Even the self-applied nickname is an affront. They could have called themselves The Big Shoulders Comedy Troupe, The Windy City Comedy Troupe. Jeez-Louise, even the Hog Butchers Comedy Troupe is better than Second City.

Tell me, do you know any New Yorker who attended... let's say... Union College of Barbourville, Kentucky who would declare to the world: "I am an Appalachian"?

No! New Yorkers are New Yorkers down to the bone and will tell you so at every opportunity.

Yes, I tell people that I graduated from UCLA (University on the Corner of Lexington Avenue) but that's a joke.

My own senator, Ms. Rob-Em Clinton, considers herself multi-lingual because of her ability to slide between Brooklyn-ese, Arkansas drawl and Midwestern nasal twang within the same sentence. Curious? Not if you understand her history. But then again, enlightened people should maintain expansive and inclusive definitions of both multi and lingual.

Just ask Rosie O'Donnell. I understand that she recently told a joke in the obscure Chinese dialect spoken only in the remote region of Ching-Chong. Talk about inferiority, here's a pathetic blob of protoplasm who tells everyone that her hard edge comes from growing up in New York, when she spent her formative years in a remote ex-urbian outpost known as Commack, Long Island.

I'll bet Commack-ians are busting their buttons over this dubious honor.

Sort of like Chappaqua being famous as the adopted hometown of Bill and Hillary. But then again, Chappaqua has long been known as the bedroom community of choice for every low-life dirtbag lawyer in New York, so what's new.

But back to the main topic. Why do Barack and Hitlery have this compulsive desire to be Noo Yawkers? I think it's the inborn sense of optimism and confidence that native New Yorkers radiate. By growing up in the most densely populated and frenetic community in America, one develops a hard-shell patina as a means of protection. But, by the same token, New Yorkers instinctively understand that a collective personality inclined toward tolerance, grudging courtesy and mutual respect for each other's space is essential for peaceful coexistence. Outsiders may believe that New Yorkers are cold and distant. I believe that we're incredibly good natured given the circumstances. But, you'll just have take our word for that.

When the burly truck driver in the diner bellows: "Hey Mack! I said pass the sugar!" as one did to me yesterday, we know that he means it lovingly. It's kind of like baseball signals or what Bible scholars call a shibboleth: language meant to be understood by a close knit community. And that's what we are; eight million plus neighbors who understand each other perfectly. Interlopers may chomp on a knish in front of the TV cameras then retreat to their gated compounds, but they will never understand what it means to be a New Yorker.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy proclaimed "Ich bin ein Berliner" and his words resonated throughout the world because he was affirming solidarity with people who had suffered isolation from friends and neighbors, brothers, sisters and cousins. When today's politicians proclaim that they are New Yorkers because they spent a four hour layover at La Guardia, to quote John Cleese, it is something completely different.

How Do You Fix a Problem Like... Sha-Ria?

Just in case anyone this side of the kook border had any doubts that multi-cultural tolerance and "reasonable accommodation" have reached ridiculous proportions, here's a story that's guaranteed to warm your hearts.

A regular reader of this esteemed blog, The Warbasse Warlord, happened into his friendly neighborhood supermarket last week to stock up on sale items. Wow! Boar's Head Deluxe Ham for $5.99 a pound. As that great American philosopher, Stymie, once said: "Isthmus be my lucky day!" And from there it only got better as special offer after special offer for the Memorial Day Weekend jumped out at him shouting: "Buy me! Buy me!

So after filling his cart with low-cost goodies, including a $3.99 watermelon, buy-one-get-two-free Snapple, and a pound of Boar's Head Dead Pig (sliced thin), off he went to the checkout.

That's when he made a giant leap, unknowingly, out of the serene republic of Brooklyn and into...

The Twilight Zone.

Suddenly, the bagboy began speaking to the cashier in a very agitated tone.

"What's the matter?" asked the Warlord.

"Do you have meat in any of your packages?" she asked.

"Yeah, we're coming up on a big barbecue weekend," he answered.

"Well... uhh... Hassan can't touch any meat that's not Halal," came the explanation.

Call me intolerant, but bagboy at a non-kosher supermarket was probably NOT the best career choice for this pluralist American in training.

My good friend and legal counsel, Oliver Wendall McMansion, had a similar situation a few years back. On a Monday he hired an associate; a seemingly well-adjusted young lady who had graduated from a respected law school. On Tuesday she informed her new boss that she could not work in the cubicle that had been assigned to her because she suffered from adult ADD and needed a private office to screen out the distractions. This particular suite of offices consisted of one private office (belonging to the boss) and a large open area divided with cubicles. According to the Americans With Disabilities Act Oliver W. could either give up his sanctum, build her a private office, or face an ADA lawsuit.

One day on the job and this new employee orders him to "accommodate" her disability or incur the wrath of legions of angry Washington bureaucrats.

Here in New York, where cabbies are not allowed to refuse service to people who look as if they just stepped out of a dumpster, there are constant stories about Muslim hacks who refuse to pick up young women who are dressed inappropriately. It almost makes me want to get behind the wheel to pick up the crumbs these guys leave.

So what's a multi-cultural society to do? Reasonable accommodation makes sense to a reasonable person. It's just that "reasonable" is another of those elastic terms that members of the American Left interpret in the most ludicrous ways to justify the most idiotic policy decisions.

And every time we think it can't get any dumber the headlines shriek out about a woman in Florida who wants to take her driver's license picture with just her eyes showing behind a Casper the Friendly Ghost veil or a federal judge says that a youth sports league has to allow a teenage girl to play soccer with a table cloth wrapped around her face.

While we're at it, why not provide a driver's license exemption for members of that legendary southern civic group.

It just gets goofier and goofier.

Does an employer have to provide flex time for a worker who's not a "morning person."

Do our courts need special procedures to accommodate killers who come from cultures where honor killing has a long and glorious tradition?

Should we make a reasonable accommodation for immigrants from regions in Africa where the phrase "Having our neighbors for dinner" has a completely different meaning than it does here?

And what about me? I'm lazy and undisciplined. Why should I have to compete against people who are focused, ambitious and persistent?

Where's the justice... where's the reasonable accommodation... for those unlucky masses who suffer from my disability?

Why should I lose out to those who are the winners in life's lottery?

Why indeed?

Sha-Ria... say it loud and there's music playing. Say it soft, and it's almost like preying.