WOE IS SYRACUSE

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Immigration, Ferguson, Ebola, bocce, nudity…..all take a back seat to the Syracuse basketball story. I mentioned recently I was concerned about this year’s basketball team. Concern being a rare occurrence. It has been many years since Syracuse has had a team not up to snuff. This may be the season.

I watched the Syracuse/California game last night. Not since Pearl Washington’s days have I seen  a Syracuse team that had neither a defense nor offense. The fabled Syracuse zone was not working. California was penetrating at will. As to the offense, there was none. Most of the time, Syracuse looked like a bunch of guys playing pick up ball. Everyone shooting. Shots forced. The ball not going in the hole.

Can Boeheim weave the team together? I think not. The talent is there. If he does, it will be the miracle of miracles.

The Syracuse basketball team is my team. Right or wrong. Good or bad. I am with them to the bitter end!

I spent much of yesterday writing next week’s KONK Life column. Why Decapitation. The story of what is behind the ISIS beheadings.

I only stayed for the first bocce game last night. I left early to watch the Syracuse/California game. We won the first game 16-15. A squeaker. Tom is back from New Jersey. He won the game for us. His last shot a bocce one. The opposing team could not knock the shot out.

My cell phone is dead. I do not know how we fared in the next two games.

Last evening was the last night of the season. Playoffs are saturday. We were on the bubble to make the playoffs. I do not know how we and the other teams on the bubble fared.

I am excited about tonight. I cannot wait. I will be attending an evening of Cole Porter music at the Waterfront Playhouse. Porter’s music thrills me.

Jenna is joining me. We will probably have dinner first at the Hot Tin Roof.

The President has spoken. An executive order is forthcoming re immigration. I think he was correct in doing what he did.

What concerns me is how off the track the Republicans are. Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma was one of the worst. I have always admired Coburn. Yesterday, he had it wrong however. He said on television before Obama’s talk that what the President was going to do would cause or was anarchy and that violence could result. Violence by the people.

I think some Republicans sit in a small smoked filled room with their glasses of bourbon in hand beating the drums about what a bad person Obama is. They do it so much, they start believing themselves. Lunacy.

Gail Collins, the syndicated writer for the New York Times, had an interesting observation in a recent column. It had to do with Republicans and Democrats. I do not share it with you in that vein. I share the following as an odd ball happening in today’s world.

Collins reported that a recent South African study revealed an off the wall happening in the Antarctic. Fur seals are having sex with penguins.

I wonder if someone will blame this relatively new development on global warming.

Enjoy your day!

 

LAKE ORTA

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Each day is an adventure.

Yesterday’s adventure was a trip to Lake Orta.

The lake lies a one hour drive north of Novara. Go a bit further and you end up in Switzerland. An hour and a half away is France.

The trip to Orta was uphill. It took me into the Little Alps. So called because the mountains are smaller than the Alps themselves. No snow capped peaks.

The mountains, roads, trees and views reminded me of upstate New York’s Adirondacks. The same. With one major difference. The buildings. All huge and made of stone and granite. None wood. No wooden camps. Medieval Italy again. The buildings were all constructed in the 1,000 AD to !,500 AD era.

I finally ran into the Italy I experienced last year. Everything that goes down has to come up. The Orta village sits on the water at the base of a hill. Parking is near the bottom, though not quite. The last 1,000 feet is up to you.

The down trip went well. It always does. Up was another story. Shades of last year. I had to stop and rest a few times. However, I must admit I seem in better physical shape. The steps were long and twisting. Elevating at a 45 degree angle. The whole walkway only four feet wide. The buildings hovered next to and on top of each other. Built at a time when there was no vehicular traffic. Also at a time when narrow passageways were a safety factor in case of attack. The enemy would have to come drown the narrow walkways while the residents were pouring boiling oil down on them from the windows above.

I sat a couple of hours in the square. Piazza, actually. In italian, piazzetta. I am learning.

There was a tiny island about 300 feet off shore in Lake Orta. St. Giulio Island. A beauty. Completely covered with granite/stone structures 1-5 stories high. A church steeple visible off to the side.

I sat in the piazza and mellowed out on the view and a couple of drinks. Peaceful, restful.

I had dinner in a little hole in the wall restaurant located off one of the walkways. An outstanding meal! Rigatonis cooked in a light oil and mixed with small finely chopped vegetables and goat cheese.

My day started badly. Verizon sucks!

I spent hours and money getting set up for this trip. I cannot use my computer, tablet or data port. The problem is the data port. I cannot even put someone else’s wi-fi into my computer. It will not take. Verizon supposedly had everything worked out. They obviously do not know what they are doing, their store people do not know, the people they put me in touch with did not know. I am screwed. I wanted to do a number of things from Europe. Including my blog talk radio show.

I went to a computer store yesterday. Big! Like a huge super market. It was for communication items. The store made available computer geeks to help. Free of charge. Three spent over an hour with me. They finally concluded that Verizon did not know what they were doing. But they did not know, either. I had to go we elsewhere.

I did not come to Europe to get frustrated and run around trying to get my equipment to work. I am using a friend’s computer that accommodates my needs, except for tablet internet reception and being able to do my blog talk radio show.

I have not given up yet on the blog radio show. It is scheduled as usual for 9 tonight. That will be 4 am Novara time. I have a geek friend of a friend coming over later in the day to see if he can help. If so, the show will go on. If nothing, I failed in getting the problem corrected. Sorry.

Some observations.

The Italian people are very nice. Quiet. Congenial. Not boisterous. Do not raise their voices. Passive is the best term to describe them. Contrasted with Italo-Americans. Of which, I am one. We are boisterous, aggressive, know it all and in your face. I have concluded that those Italians who immigrated to the United States a hundred years ago were similarly passive, etc. as the ones today. However, being strangers in a new country they developed aggressive and loud qualities in order to survive and succeed. The new nature never left us.

Proving the point that Italians are passive, they have to be the most conquered and occupied country in the history of man. Italy’s history is replete with successful invaders. Starting with the Romans of antiquity to Attila the Hun to the World War II Germans.

The passivity was perhaps ingrained before the Roman invasion or has developed over the centuries from being an occupied country so many times.

I have not seen one beard in the three days I have been in Italy. Beard’s apparently are a local thing. Key West has them. Novara does not. I must look luck a nut when I am out walking wearing a baseball cap and exhibiting my beard. As stated yesterday, I have not seen one baseball cap either

My friend Silvio Berlusconi is in trouble again. Yesterday he was sentenced to seven years in jail for having sex with a 17 year old girl and abusing his power in trying to help her in a separate matter. He was sentenced two years ago to four years in jail for tax evasion. He is not considered convicted under Italian law until his appeals are exhausted. The process takes several years. His popularity continues. He is considered to have an excellent chance to be elected Prime Minister again.

I have a habit of saying…..Only in America! Sometimes…..Only in Key West! Now…..Only in Italy!

I discussed Napoleon yesterday and his impact on this area of Italy. Since then I have discovered that Napoleon was not French. He was born Italian. Born in Corsica of a noble family. The story is he ended up in France because he believed in freedom and equality and wanted to help the French fight for those things.

Immigration is a major issue in Italy as in the United States. In England, also. I had the good fortune to talk with a Brit last night.

The story is the same. The immigrants arrive, stay illegally and become social welfare burdens. The Italians and English have forms of socialized medicine. Because so many immigrants are eligible, care for all is delayed. Between three weeks and three months. Then there is the increased taxation to take care of the immigrant population.

A world problem.

My blog talk radio show tonight at 9. Tuesday Talk with Key West Lou. Will I be there? The question of the moment. Tune in and see. That is the best I can do. If I am on, it should be a terrific show based on my travels and what is happening world wide.

Enjoy your day!

TV / INTERNET SHOW FRIDAY AT 10

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Another magnificent morning! Brilliance everywhere! Key West brilliance!

Friday is two days away. Friday means the Key West Lou Legal Hour. Ten in the morning my time. Available on television and the internet.

For TV viewing, Comcast Channel 87 and U-Verse Channel 19 from Key West northward through Miami-Dade County. Elsewhere and world wide via the internet. www.tvchannel19.com.

Topics include the built in killer to the proposed Senate immigration bill, how DNA exonerated a former Police Chief convicted of murder after spending 15 years in jail, the unsolved  mystery of 30,000 panties found on a highway, another brain dead not so dead story, new husband who took wife’s last name gets all screwed up with Florida’s DMV, Florida’s python problem manifests itself in South Africa’s crocodile problem, and more.

The more includes a trilogy involving toilet paper: puppy poop and newspapers, toilet paper rationed in a Pennsylvania school, and lottery winner who wanted to donate a truck load of toilet paper to a social agency that once helped her.

Join me. Interesting material. Guaranteed to keep your attention the whole hour.

I spent most of yesterday preparing the preceding topics and others for friday’s show. My plan was to follow up those several hours with a shower and trip to the Chart Room. Instead, I cleaned the garage. What possessed me, I do not know!

I avoid servile labor of any kind. Garage cleaning is not one of my talents. Nor desire. I started throwing a few boxes out, moving things around, and all of a sudden it was 7 in the evening.

So much for the Chart Room. I showered, had something to eat, and went to bed. The man was tired.

My refrigerator is empty. I am still not totally back into this eating thing. This morning’s blog is being done a bit early because I have to get to Publix. The cupboard is bare!

Enjoy your day!