Ask Grandstander

[apicalbodscan]

Will Obama survive Wrightgate?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by apicalbodscan

Will Obama survive Wrightgate?

Sure, big deal, Obama's church pastor says extremist things, how is the Senator responsible for that? Billy Carter didn't stop Jimmy from getting elected, Billy Sol Estes didn't stop LBJ.

[LongtimeBravesFan]

What are your thoughts on Woodrow Wilson? Specifically, his views on race, his getting involved in WWI, his post war peace efforts with the League of Nations and his being hidden after his stroke?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by LongtimeBravesFan

What are your thoughts on Woodrow Wilson? Specifically, his views on race, his getting involved in WWI, his post war peace efforts with the League of Nations and his being hidden after his stroke?

Maybe if he had been a more charismatic personality, he might have done a better job at inspiring support for his lofty aims. His failure with the League of Nations arose from the false expectation that there could be peace without police. The world was no more prepared to behave in the idealistic manner which Wilson envisioned, than NY City is today prepared to place all their laws on the honor system. I don't wish to single out Wilson too terribly much since the decade which followed WW I was chugablock with unrealistic idealism. Trying to legally outlaw war was my favorite head scratcher from those days, exactly how were they figuring on enforcing such a treaty?

Wilson was a Southerner born four years before the start of the Civil War. His parents were slaveholders. Wilson would have had bred into him, a set of attitudes towards African Americans which whether it emerged as paternal concern, cruel indifference or outright hatred, would always be centered on the assumption of their inferiority. All that Wilson did to retard racial progress, seemed to me to be based on that assumption, as well as the assumption that the majority of Americans agreed.

The concealment from the public of the full extent of Wilson's incapacity was of course the wrong decision. It was the rectified by the passage of the 25th amendment.

[vtred]

Weekly "what if" fight match-up:

Tornado vs. Hurricane?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by vtred

Weekly "what if" fight match-up:

Tornado vs. Hurricane?

I'm a veteran of four hurricanes, three in my early teens and the last when I was 19. I don't recall being scared by any of them, in fact they seemed like great adventures. You got plenty of advance warning and could make preparations for riding them out, and in the aftermath, it was cool to go around looking at the damage, provided of course you were looking at someone else's damage and not the remains of your home. I recall being especially fascinated by the huge holes that would appear in the ground where trees had been uprooted.

My singular experience with a tornado was having a water spout suddenly appear over Biscayne Bay and head directly toward the sailboat I was in at the time. It was me, a friend and our dates, so we put up a brave front, but I was quite terrified. The thing wound up hopping over us, doing enough violence to the water to swamp our boat, but otherwise leaving us unharmed.

So back then I would have chosen hurricanes over tornados, but these days I've forsaken them both in favor of earthquakes.

[Wiggen]

What is the worst thing to happen to the Beatles - Yoko Ono, an assassin, cancer, a one-legged golddigger, or a dumb kid forgetting two minutes worth of lyrics on American Idol?

[apicalbodscan]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

So back then I would have chosen hurricanes over tornados, but these days I've forsaken them both in favor of earthquakes.

Earthquakes are the worst in my view. No warning. And very little one can do.

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by Wiggen

What is the worst thing to happen to the Beatles - Yoko Ono, an assassin, cancer, a one-legged golddigger, or a dumb kid forgetting two minutes worth of lyrics on American Idol?

Splitting up the song writing team of McCartney and Lennon. McCartney was always too much of a lightweight lyrically, but was a great with the music. Lennon's tunes were run of the mill, but was the better lyricist. Fused, they made terrific songs, apart we wound up stuck with Lennon's bad tunes and McCartney's airheaded lyrics.

[LongtimeBravesFan]

don't wish to single out Wilson too terribly much since the decade which followed WW I was chugablock with unrealistic idealism.

A result of too much bathtub gin?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by LongtimeBravesFan

A result of too much bathtub gin?

That there was bathtub gin is a portion of the problem. Along with outlawing war, the US decided to outlaw private vice as well via Prohibition. That turned out to work about as well as outlawing war.

[phenweigh]

Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever was released as a double-A sided single. Yet, according to Wikipedia; "Penny Lane" reached #1 in the United States, while "Strawberry Fields Forever" peaked at #8.

Since the two songs were on the same record, how did they chart differently?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by phenweigh

Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever was released as a double-A sided single. Yet, according to Wikipedia; "Penny Lane" reached #1 in the United States, while "Strawberry Fields Forever" peaked at #8.

Since the two songs were on the same record, how did they chart differently?

The chart makers snuck around people's homes and monitored how often one side was being played rather than the other.

[skrable]

Can I have a peony?

[LongtimeBravesFan]

If the Watergate break in had not happened, how do you think historians would remember Richard Nixon?