Starting Five

1. Dave. We know that he has a son and we know that he lives in Connecticut, not terribly far from Newtown. So we anticipated the “Late Show” host having something to say about Sandy Hook and he did not disappoint. (15 minutes in). Letterman has changed so much over the decades. From NBC to CBS. From ruddy brown hair to gray. From wearing wrestling sneakers with a blazer and khakis to expensive suits. From mostly sarcastic to sometimes somber, a person who understands that he has a massive forum in which to share worthy views. Part of it was 9/11, part of it was his open surgery, and certainly part of it was becoming a father (so why are WE so serious?!?)

2. A convergence of the trinity of New York City’s most intriguing athletes of 2012 occurred last night: R.A. Dickey left, Jeremy Lin returned — just for one night — and Tim Tebow, well, he will hopefully land in a better place. The Mess traded Dickey to the Toronto Blue Jays (and ESPN’s Buster Olney now declares the Canadian club as the favorites to win the A.L. East). Lin scored 22 points as the Houston Rockets beat the Carmelo-free Knicks at the Garden, New York’s first home loss this season. And Tebow watched idly as Mark Sanchez threw four interceptions as the Jets lost at Tennessee and, mercifully for those of us who watch ESPN, were eliminated from playoff contention. All three inspirational athletes deserve better than New York City has given them.

3. Jim Boeheim gets to 900 wins as the Orange defeat Detroit. In one sense that puts the inveterate Syracuse coach –who is also an alum — in the same class as Mike Krzyzewski and Bob Knight (the only two Division I coaches to attain that summit), and yet no one seriously puts Boeheim in their class as coaches, do they? Coach K has four national championships, the other Coach K has three. Boeheim has one. A marvelous career, although the events of last year are certainly a blemish, but that total is more of a monument to longevity… and hail (and snow, and slush) to anyone who can survive 50 winters in Syracuse, N.Y.

4. Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii passes away at the age of 88. Inouye was the longest-serving U.S. senator and as genuine a war hero as you’ll ever meet. He lost his right arm in a battle in Italy in World War II. In the firefight, Inouye used his good arm to pry a grenade out of his useless hand and toss it back at a German who was reloading his rifle. Earlier, in another battle, he was struck in the chest with a bullet but the slug hit two silver coins that he kept in his pocket for good luck. Inouye was first elected to the Senate in 1962 and his 50 years of service (there’s a lot of that going around today, apparently) is the second-longest tenure in U.S. Senate history. Inouye’s last word, according to his office, was “Aloha.” Larry Beil would appreciate that.

 

 

 

5. The bravest man in overseas reporting, NBC’s Richard Engel, is freed five days after being taken hostage in Syria. Yes, my sister wonders, but did they damage his face? Is his hair still lustrous and wavy?

Reserves

The world’s oldest living person, Dina Manfredini of Johnson, Iowa, is now…dead. Manfredini was 115 years old. Shouldn’t there be some type of crown or sceptre that is handed off to the oldest-living person when their forebear dies? We’d be for that.

On February 13, 2009, you could buy a share of Sirius satellite radio stock (SIRI) for nine cents. Today that same share is selling for $2.99, or about a 3,000% upgrade.

Our close friend Maureen “Moe” Cavanagh has written a story, pro bono (who would be so dumb as to write for free???), about an altruistic storekeeper in our neighborhood who is taking the words of Robbie Parker (yesterday’s “It’s All Happening”) and living by them. And here’s the profile of Moe that we wrote long, long time ago in Sports Illustrated. 

We’re thinking that the word “Sandy” will be used quite often in next season’s episodes of “The Newsroom.”

A dozen FACTS about guns and mass shootings, courtesy of The Washington Post.

A few more thoughts about Sandy Hook, evil, the media and pop culture…

One of my favorite books — and I’m not alone here, if high school reading lists and Pulitzer Prizes are any indication — is “To Kill A Mockingbird.” The title, of course, refers to the evil of harming something that only brings the world joy. And while that is certainly a salient theme when we contemplate the tragedy of Sandy Hook, the other aspect of the novel that hit me over the weekend was the thought of Boo Radley. In the story Arthur “Boo” Radley is a reclusive neighbor, disturbed and anti-social, whom the local children have built up to be some kind of monster. In the story’s climax, however, it is Boo Radley (portrayed, in the 1962 film by a young Robert Duvall) who saves Scout Finch from the true villain. He is a hero. In Newtown, though, their Boo Radley was a monster. Disturbed, most likely, and perhaps mentally ill, but still a monster.

The Newtown massacre, the slaughter of innocents, also had me thinking about “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.” While we often think of it as just a holiday cartoon with a hilarious theme song, there is of course a greater message that is translated at the end. And that of course is that someone who perpetrates evil, who takes away all of the trappings of Christmas, can ever take away our faith. In that sense, albeit to a far greater degree of being violated, in fact, to the superlative degree of such, the shooter was the Grinch. And while he took away so many lives, he could not extinguish faith. Or decency. Or love. You see that in the way that people are reacting to the tragedy, in how strangers from all over the country are reaching out to Newtown and its people to offer prayers or assistance (personally, we are fans of the man from California who paid for all the coffee yesterday for patrons of the Newtown General Store). 

So many lives taken, so many more irrevocably damaged. And yet, somehow, we will all gather in the town square, hands clasped, and sing “Yahoo Doray.” And while the shooter did not mean to steal Christmas — at this point who knows what his motives were? — the point remains that you cannot take away goodness, no matter how many 30-round clips you are carrying.