Brad

Clint Hartung has passed away. For you youngsters, he's symbolic of unfulfilled talent. Highly thought of when he came up with the Giants in the late 40s but he never amounted to much in half a dozen seasons. Here's the NY Times oituary, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/sports/baseball/22hartung.html?ref=todayspaper

I had my doubts but still funny. Good for a laugh.

Hopefully. Good yarn anyway.

As an attorney, we always get dragged through the mud. Here's a story send to me by a friend where I said, YEAH! *** Part of rebuilding New Orleans caused residents often to be challenged with the task of tracing home titles back potentially hundreds of years. With a community rich with history stretching back over two centuries, houses have been passed along through generations of family, sometimes making it quite difficult to establish ownership. Here's a great letter an attorney wrote to the FHA on behalf of a client: A New Orleans lawyer sought an FHA loan for a client. He was told the loan would be granted if he could prove satisfactory title to a parcel of property being offered as collateral. The title to the property dated back to 1803, which took the lawyer three months to track down. After sending the information to the FHA, he received the following reply: "Upon review of your letter adjoining your client's loan application, we note that the request is supported by an Abstract of Title. While we compliment the able manner in which you have prepared and presented the application, we must point out that you have only cleared title to the proposed collateral property back to 1803. Before final approval can be accorded, it will be necessary to clear the title back to its origin." Annoyed, the attorney responded as follows: "Your letter regarding title in Case No.189156 has been received. I note that you wish to have title extended further than the 206 years covered by the present application. I was unaware that any educated person in this country, particularly those working in the property area, would not know that Louisiana was purchased by the United States from France in 1803, the year of origin identified in our application. For the edification of uninformed FHA bureaucrats, the title to the land prior to U.S. ownership was obtained from France , which had acquired it by Right of Conquest from Spain . The land came into the possession of Spain by Right of Discovery made in the year 1492 by a sea captain named Christopher Columbus, who had been granted the privilege of seeking a new route to India by the Spanish monarch, Queen Isabella. The good Queen Isabella, being a pious woman and almost as careful about titles as the FHA, took the precaution of securing the blessing of the Pope before she sold her jewels to finance Columbus 's expedition. Now the Pope, as I'm sure you may know, is the emissary of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and God, it is commonly accepted, created this world. Therefore, I believe it is safe to presume that God also made that part of the world called Louisiana . God, therefore, would be the owner of origin and His origins date back to before the beginning of time, the world as we know it, and the FHA. I hope you find God's original claim to be satisfactory. Now, may we have our damn loan?" The loan was immediately approved. ****

I put in one of my posts and it said I write like Nabokov. I wish!

It's true Sir Alex did say it was "disappointing" but the article did not elaborate disappointing in what way. He could have been talking about England's performance as in the same paragraph he also talked about France's performance. Without more, it's hard to draw the conclusion that he found the entire WC disappointing. Interesting, however, that he has turned the England job down. Now that he's accomplised everything there is to accomplish, why not think about 2014 (and take a sabbatical from Man U). However, unless his points about the poundings the players take in the Premier League aren't followed, it doesn't matter who the manager is.

Peter, Any thoughts?

I don't if these are all available but has anyone mentioned Jackson' Ville (Savoy) Bags Meets Wes Savoy also put out several years ago when they were re-issuing a lot of stuff "Early Modern." Well worth it if you can find it.

Ditto. He had a beautiful tone. I have a few of his albums but, of course, not enough.

Thank you for the thread Hans and the link to your site (excellent restrospective). Unfortunately, I never picked up this disc -- don't know why -- but I'll have to look for it if I can.

There's no point arguing with a closed mind, which indeed is a terrible thing to waste.

What's scary is that you were surfing for Ray Coniff

george something i wrote on george earlier in the day. Reading your article bought to mind something one of Steinbrenner's limited partners once said, "there's nothing more limiting than being a limited partner of George's." Re the estate tax, I read somewhere the bill would have been $500 million and, in all likelihood, the Steinbrenner would have had to sell the Yankees to pay the bill.

The only trouble I have with the Andres Cantor call is that most of his calls sound the same. However, you get the passion that seems to be missing among some of the British broadcaster. Had the US avoided the tendency to give up the early goal, they might have gotten to the semis.

Some news from the Spanish paper Marca: Juventus are apparently interested in Diego Forlan to the tune of 20 million Euros. Real Madrid have signed or are close to signing Sami Khedira of Germany. According to Argentine sources, Spain and Aregentina will pay a friendly in NY on September 7. If that report is correct, I'm presuming the new Giant Jets Stadium in the Meadowlands. Hopefully this is correct and I will be there! And the really big news, Paul is moving to the Madrid Aquarium

I couldn't disagree more and the fact that you say you weren't expecting anything is revealing. Even though the players are a little tired, it's great theater and for me, as a Spain fan, the WC didn't disappoint in the least. From that perspective, it was one of the best ever If I had to think back to some of the other WCs I've seen they didn't disappoint either: Brasil winning their third cup in 1970; Maradona's "hand of god" in 1986; France in 1998; and Brasil again in 2002. This WC had some great moments also: the Kiwis holding off Italy, Landon Donovan getting the goal that sent the US into the Round of 16, the Netherlands ousting Brasil and Iniesta scoring the goal that won it for Spain. Probably no unknown players but Forlan's performance was wonderful to watch.

Feliz cumpleanos EKE BBB!

Regarding Steinbrenner, I wouldn't say he abused the system, he just used what was available to him. I don't see anything wrong with that. He's also a mixed bag. As I noted in Chris A's thread, not a person I would have wanted to work for -- just remember what he did to Dick Howser, which was pretty shameful. On the other hand, he apparently did some good public works. What is somewhat objectionable is forgetting how he behaved and deifying him. He engineered trading away young talent (like Doug Drabek) for washed up talent. Lastly, let's not forget that the Yankees did not get good until he was out of the picture because of the Spira matter and Gene Michael was allowed to put the team together without interference. It was his work that led to four titles.

My recollection, which could be wrong, was that both new NY stadiums were privately financed although some city participation in permits, etc. and so forth was obviously necessary.

I just returned from China and the weather was terrible. In Shanghai every day was high 90s and humid. You'd walk out at 800am and it was like walking into a furnace. Very oppressive. Beijing was the same but not humid. You have to walk around with cold water or you won't survive.

Thierry Henry has moved to the Red Bulls of the MLS. Not sure how much he has left. He is scheduled to play next week when they face Tottenham at an exhibition in NJ.

Maybe they were crap but NZ deserved the three in that match, and that match was one of the more exciting ones I saw in the WC as Italy was desperate for a win and NZ held them off.

Only a poor officiating decision (more diving) prevented them from beating Italy and moving to the group of 16.

Chris, You and I agree on this one. He terrorized his employees and abused his managers. Moreover, he pled guilty to a campaign violation and tried to blackmail one of his players. The team only got better in the 90s when he was serving his suspension. On the baseball front, he made terrible trades, giving away young talent for washed up vets. The coverage got so bad today I had to turn off the radio.

At least JJ is consistent. Has Al Sharpton weighed in yet?