​Lakers? L.A.?
Quick: How many grizzly bears are there in and around Memphis?
Discounting zoos, my guess would be zero. Yet there is a professional basketball team called the Memphis Grizzlies.
Figure that one out. Apparently the NBA has not given the matter a great deal of thought. It made good sense to name the old Vancouver franchise the Grizzlies, considering the wilds of British Columbia. But Memphis, the hometown of America’s lord and savior, who is coming again if he is not already not dead? Lots of possibilities for an appropriate name there. Fans of Memphis, rise up! DJs of that riverboat town, sponsor contests!
Yes, my critics, I can see your letters. “How many bears are there in Chicago?” My answer: Fifty-three, not including the taxi squad. Besides, who can put “football” and “Chicago” in the same sentence and not instantly think Bears? One does not think Maroons, the eccentric nickname of the University of Chicago athletes. One thinks, and I repeat, Bears. Case closed.
It is an odd thing, the naming of sports teams. Odd when they are formed, odder when they change their names but stay put, oddest when they retain their names while moving to another city that has built a finer stadium or sports complex as a come-hither.
New York Jets. Any city with a large airport can lay claim to that plural noun. New Jersey Nets. Any basketball team, etc. How clever: Jets and Nets. When Las Vegas obtains its first NBA team, I lay significant odds that it will be the Vegas Bets.
Then there is the category of teams changing their monikers for ethical reasons. Stanford comes to mind. “Indians” became “the Cardinal.” Palo Alto must have a single member of that species of bird flying around. That’s the first point. The second point is this: how many people are there outside of universities who object to naming a team the “Indians”? A friend of mine is an Indian chief in Oklahoma; he uses the term with abandon, even in the politest of conversations. He reads Tocqueville. He gathers the tribe for powwows. Not “Native American” powwows. Indian powwows.
And now the oddest case in captivity: the Los Angeles Lakers. Lots of lakes in and around Minneapolis, where the team originated. Guess how many in L.A., which seduced them?
One. But only if you count the Brea Tar Pits, which is about the size of a large putting green and is said to contain fossils of mammoths and sabertoothed cats.
Attention, local DJs: sponsor a contest to rename this team. Mammoths? Cats? Tar Pits? Or maybe just the Pits.
 
 

​Several of the religions I’ve test-driven put a big emphasis on the idea that Jesus is coming again. They get this idea from the Bible, which says somewhere that we should be prepared for Him. This is probably in the New Testament, which would account for the fact that the Second Coming doesn’t play a big part in the Jewish religion. At least during my long stint as a born-again Jew (five months), the subject never came up. The belief seems to be that the Messiah hasn’t even shown up the first time, so why worry about something like the second? There’s some good thinking behind that view.
 
Anyway, there are these religions based on the belief in a Second Coming. The believers are very Christian, of course, and they spend their lives being good so when Jesus arrives they won’t be caught with their pants down, so to speak.
 
Maybe you’ve seen these bumper stickers that say things like “In case of rapture, this car will have no driver.” I used to own one of those cars. But I got a lot of satirical comments from agnostics, so I traded that car in for a car that expressed other opinions, like “Save the whales” and “Have you hugged your kid today?” I felt a little guilty about this last one, I have to admit, because I was young at the time and didn’t have any children. Complete disclosure: still don’t, never did.
 
I talked to my preacher about this guilt thing. He said, “Don’t worry, God will provide,” but by the twinkle in his eye I could tell that what he had in mind in the way of my having kids had more to do with him than with God. If he’d have been better-looking and had a more substantial take-home pay and wasn’t already married I might have bit, but I did the moral thing and quit his church. I was still a believer in the Second Coming, so I didn’t convert to another religion. I just transferred to another church down the block with pretty much the same beliefs.
 
This new church looked reasonably safe. The preacher must have been about 80. What impressed me about him was the fact that even at that age he was practically certain that he’d still be around when Jesus came back. You have to admire somebody with those convictions, which he expressed every Sunday morning. In fact, my admiration took me to the point where I figured I’d stick with his church for ten years. If he died before the big event, of course, I’d have to convert to another religion, but that was a chance I was willing to take.
 
Three months after I made this decision, Jesus hadn’t come back. Questions were beginning to form in my mind. I decided to go have a talk with the reverend.
 
I asked the old guy about that first bumper sticker. “If Jesus came when I was driving down a residential street at maybe 40 miles per and I got raptured, wouldn’t this be dangerous for the kids on the block?”
 
I guess he’d never thought about this possibility, because he hemmed and hawed and finally came up with the idea that I couldn’t possibly be charged with manslaughter because I’d be on my way to heaven with Jesus and his entourage.
 
“But what about the kids?”
 
“If they’re saved,” he said, “they’ll be rising with you.”
 
“And if they’re not?”
 
“Then they’ll be getting what they deserve.”
 
There’s a certain logic to that argument, I had to admit. Then I went on to some other questions that had been bugging me. What do you say to Jesus when you meet him in the air? “I’m Talia la Musa and I’m pleased to meet you”? “Where are we going?” “Do you provide oxygen masks?” “What’s going to happen to my Jewish friends?” “Is it true that we’ll be having caviar for breakfast?”
 
I also wanted to know, Will Jesus be giving us quizzes to check our knowledge of Bible verses? What if you don’t speak Hebrew or Greek, will he be able to speak English? Would it be worth my while to learn the sacred languages, I mean would I get extra credit? But what good would extra credit do you if you’ve already made the cut?
 
I was going to ask the minister another question, but I was too embarrassed: What if you have a fear of heights? It didn’t really matter, though. He’d been having a hard time with my questions and by this time he was fast asleep. Not dead, because he was still breathing. About this time I got to thinking, what if he does die? I might be held responsible by the authorities. Besides, his death would only prove that the Second Coming is a long, long way off, so I’d better get out of this religion and go check out some others.
 
In my opinion, joining a religion based on the idea that Jesus is about to show up again will only make you a nervous wreck.

Sunday afternoon last, the Hopi Orchestra and Chorus launched the recently-refurbished Zuni Concert Hall on its second maiden voyage with a performance of Beethoven’s Symphonie Nr. 9 in d-Moll (Op. 125).
According to the glossy program, designers and workmen had cooperated to knock out the asbestos-laced ceiling, the better to show off the overhead plumbing and to increase the reverberations one hundred percent. Arturo Unknown, director and conductor, wisely chose Beethoven’s tribute to all that is wunderbar in life as the inaugural opus to take advantage of this improvement. Unfortunately, the wonderful harmonies elicited from the second violinists and the front-row cellists by his magic wand were offset somewhat by the misbegotten noises spewn out now and again by a pair of sleepy oboeists, not to speak of a nervous cymbalist and a slight young drummer who did not always perform on cue. On those admittedly rare occasions, the advertised reverberations would better have been held in check by the ancient asbestos.
The mezzo wore a loose-fitting purple tent, the better to hide her excessive poundage. The soprano displayed to good effect a tight red dress, disguising her age with the aid of  a carefully-selected Clairol shade and several Revlon products. The Menschsänger were attired for the occasion in penguin garb, the better to belt out the dramatic notes that were called for in the score. The glee club sat above and behind the orchestra proper, patiently awaiting their turns to give lusty voice to the joy for which the piece is noted, resisting the temptation to blow their noses.
The adagio molto e cantabile—the third movement of this magnificent but ageing warhorse—is much too long and repetitive. Mr. Unknown could have cut it in half with no ill effect and for the benefit of those who are trying to hold their water. The bass, much like a prizefighter, imbibed bottled water before each of his allotted turns. The results were breathtaking. Not since the late Martti Talvela has this critic heard a male voice able to strike a low F at a decibel level the equal of an overextended lyric soprano.
Afterwards, all soloists received bouquets from designated music lovers who deluged them as if on cue. At the last curtain call, the soprano graciously deposited hers on the conductor’s stand, signifying thereby her appreciation of the musical background provided by the little people in her life—at least one would wish to think so. She may also have been allergic to the daisies. Another and more garish explanation might be that she wished to signify her undying devotion to a secret lover.

​Never let it be said that back in Panhandle County (which, as I recall, was located in either Texas or Oklahoma, or maybe Kansas), we didn’t receive a good education. They taught us the Classics, such as that old favorite tune, “Dixie,” and several of the poems of that great American poet, James Whitcomb Riley.
 
Pan Count Grade School also instilled in me my lifelong love of reading and writing. This was very helpful. Without this installation, I would never have read George Orwell, author of that classic essay, “Why I Write.”
 
As I recall, George’s major points were, Number One, he wrote because he liked to see his sentences on paper, and Number Two, he got a kick out of getting back at his enemies.
 
Samuel Johnson, on the other hand, is quoted as having said that only a fool writes for the enjoyment of it. His major point was that money is always the object. This point was probably what inspired his friend, Boswell, to write a book about ol’ Sam.
 
I don’t write very much anymore. Being dead is only a part of the reason. It could possibly be the only reason, except for the fact that I’ve been cremated and outfitted with a robotic body, like several of my fellow companions. So being dead is not a good reason for not writing much anymore. Oh, I could use it as an excuse, but my buddies would be on my tail in the twinkling of a star. Which is to say, they’d heap hot coals of scorn on my aluminum head in every column. If they can continue to write, why can’t ol’ Orville the Fourth?
 
I used to write because I was an aspiring writer. Fame, glory, heaping hot coals of scorn on the occasional idiots in our midst—these were among the reasons. I also enjoyed the occasional paycheck doled out by my editor.
 
Now I don’t write much because I spend my time wisely, in deep meditation. It isn’t the rotgut I imbibe that leads me into the depths of thought. At least that’s not the sole and only reason. It’s the joy, as the composer John Cage once put it, of having nothing to say.
 
At least that’s how I interpret his motto: “It’s hard to say something as good as simply nothing.”

Thirteen years ago, God seems to have had a word with His People. The news went largely unreported in the secular media, though it contained a story of His wonder-working powers and strong evidence that He exists and has kept up with modern technology.
 
On a July Sunday back in 2003, “Strange News” had this headline: “LIGHTNING STRIKES PREACHER WHO ASKED FOR SIGN.” Though the subject of the relation between meteorology and religion is beyond my area of expertise—I rely on the learnéd opinions of my colleague Talia la Musa for such items—my curiosity made me click this headline. I came across the following news story, which I emailed to Ms. Musa, who emailed back that she is currently busy working on the problem of purgatory and urged me to form my own opinion of the story.
 
“Bolt Hits Steeple, Travels Through Guest Evangelist’s Microphone,” reported a journalist at 1:35 p.m. EDT. The journalist’s source was a member of the First Baptist Church of Forest, Ohio. This anonymous member told the reporter that a guest evangelist was speaking on the subject of repentance when, apparently to make a strident point, he asked God for a sign. Soon thereafter, the steeple of the church was struck by lightning, which proceeded to travel through the microphone, blowing out the sound system and “enveloping” the preacher, who (perhaps miraculously) escaped unharmed.
 
The evangelistic service then resumed for some 20 minutes, at which point some perceptive member of the congregation noticed that the First Baptist Church was on fire. The building was evacuated, apparently without further incident, except for the $20,000 damage.
 
When asked to report his impressions of this incident, the member in question is said to have called it “Awesome, just awesome!” He declined to elaborate.

​The Bible as a whole is a marvelous collection of books. I have no doubt that many of its parts are divinely-inspired and that the whopping majority of its verses were written when “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit,” including the verse somewhere in the New Testament that informs us of this fact. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that “All Scripture is given by the inspiration of God, and is profitable” for a wide variety of benefits, but a high percentage of Scripture certainly qualifies as being inspired and helpful to those who have God’s stamp of approval.
 
There are exceptions to every rule. Even the law of gravity doesn’t always work. For instance, I once “shot an arrow into the air,” as one of Author Unknown’s poem reports, but, rather than “falling to earth I knew not where,” it kept right on going. The reason I’m sure of this is because I spent half an hour looking for it. This was out in a sandy desert, where fallen arrows are easy to locate. I conclude that my arrow is now either in orbit or has just kept going right on up. Another example, this one from the Bible: Jesus ascended into heaven. I don’t think Sir Isaac Newton could explain that one without having to admit my point, that there are exceptions to every rule, including his law of gravity.
 
One major exception to the amazing spiritual material you read in the Bible is the Book of Leviticus. I noticed this recently after I ran into a traveling Bible salesman, who gave me a special two-for-the-price-of-one deal: I gave him 25 dollars for a leather-covered, gilt-edged Bible (with Helps), and he threw in a bonus—a schedule for reading the entire Bible in exactly one year.
 
Genesis, I believe all right-thinking critics would agree, is a fine read. It has everything the reader looks for in a book: explanations (e.g., how we got the world), romance (Adam and his wife chasing each other around in the buff), tragic flaws (Abraham pimping for his wife Sarah), moral examples (Joseph turning down a great chance with Potiphar’s wife), and a surprise but happy ending (Joseph getting even with his big brothers for selling him into slavery and then being able to see his father and kid brother before he dies, full of years).
 
I got through all of Genesis in two evenings, way ahead of schedule. Exodus started out the same way. The first evening I stormed through the story of Moses and how he led his and God’s people into the Wilderness and ended up with the Ten Commandments. Again, a great read, by and large. I say “by and large” because those commandments were mostly negative. Don’t do this, don’t do that. Fine advice, of course, but where’s the positive attitude? I went to bed expecting that the next evening I would run across what had so far been missing.
 
Wrong! Six weeks later, I was a month behind schedule. Exodus had been excellent reading, up to a point, specifically to the end of Chapter 20 (I’d give the book as a whole about a C+, maybe a B-), but by the time I’d finished Leviticus I could see that the Bible salesman’s two-for-one deal had been a scam.
 
Immediately after the Ten Commandments, Exodus launches into what it calls “the ordinances.” In other words, the fine print. Interesting rules, anyone would have to agree, but in my humble, humanly-inspired opinion, quite unnecessary. Take the first rule: “When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing.” This ordinance is followed by contingency plans. For instance, if you give your slave a wife and she bears him children and he comes to love her and them and he decides to remain your slave, you’re required to bore his ear with an awl and he must serve you for life.
 
Many of us might find all of this offensive, but if you keep reading you’re in for a real shock. Next ordinance: “When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do.” Followed by additional legal explanations. God must have had a lawyer on call.
 
Ready for more? Let’s move to the Book of Leviticus, which starts off with the laws governing the burnt offerings (cattle, sheep) that God will find acceptable. This raises all kinds of questions: Does God eat animals? Don’t animals have rights? If you’re a vegetarian, do these laws apply to you?
 
Later: “You shall not let your cattle breed with a different kind.” No reason is given; besides, cattle might have their own ideas. “You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard.” We are not told if this applies to women.
 
Then: “If a man takes a wife and her mother also, it is wickedness; they shall be burned with fire.” One could, I suppose, make a case for this punishment. But then: “If a man lies with a beast, he shall be put to death; and you shall kill the beast.” (The same with woman and beast.) This seems to assume that animals have a moral sense. (There is, of course, food for thought in the inconsistency between the ideas that animals have no rights but that they have a moral sense.)
 
One last ordinance caught my attention. It seems that the Lord told Moses to tell his brother Aaron, who was apparently in charge of priests, that no one could practice priestcraft if he had a blemish. No blind priests, no lame priests, no priests with mutilated faces or arms or legs, no hunchback priests, no dwarf priests, no priests with scabs or crushed testicles.
 
And what if one doesn’t give a fig about these ordinances? Then the Lord says he “will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.”
 
Leviticus: a book to avoid.

​At the request of Ms. Talia la Musa, we at MJTT have completed the daunting task of determining God’s IQ by taking up the even more daunting task of determining the IQ of Jesus (J).
 
This is, to be sure, a project that is as difficult as it is controversial. Indeed, it is so difficult that, to my knowledge, few if any theologians have had the courage to tackle the question. To be sure, there are a few wags who have put their irreverent, deficient senses of “humor” before the internet-surfing public by concerning themselves with this issue. Their “findings” can be ignored.
 
The difficulties of the task are, in the main, two. First, there is the issue of the ontological status of Jesus: that is, was he the Son of God (SOG) and thus a coequal, or was he merely a nice man who offered thoughtful ideas concerning how one might consider living one’s life? If the latter, one must determine which of the many accounts of Jesus’s life and teachings can be considered historically accurate. There are, after all, four gospels in the orthodox canon, and numerous others that have been uncovered in and around the Ancient Near East (ANE).
 
The method we at MJTT chose to follow was to work out the implications of each and every possibility.
 
If J was indeed the SOG, the obvious answer to Ms. Mews’ question is that, being a coequal with G, J had an IQ of 107.364. (See my previous piece.)
 
But, as one of our devil’s advocates pointed out, we were being much too hasty. For human experience teaches us that, though “the apple never falls far from the tree,” said fruit does indeed fall. Or, in the language of the common man or woman, the intelligence of a son may be either superior to or inferior to that of his father. Much if not everything depends, insisted our skeptic, on the IQ of the mother, in this case, presumably, Mary (M). What is more, that skeptic pointed out quite tellingly that the Catholic Church has already determined that M was the Mother of God (MOG).
 
At this point we at the MJTT came to realize that we were faced with a “can of worms.” For we knew of no formula that could determine the probability of genetic mutation in the complex situation of a mother being both the mother of the father and of the son, let alone of the indeterminate “holy spirit.”
 
Thus it came about that what had earlier been considered a daunting task (a “slam dunk,” in the idiom of our basketball-crazed nation) was now on the brink of becoming insuperable (a “tough cookie”).
 
As for the problem of determining whether the latter assumption was correct, we were one in assenting to the proposition that there is no extant theory accepted by all participants in the discussion of this question. Thus we joined the crowd down at the Hôtel Adios Watering Hole, in search of inspiration that would lead us to a precise version of the aforementioned theory.

​This has not been a lackluster summer at MJTT. At the suggestion of a colleague, we have been working on the problem of God’s intelligence.
 
This is a difficult problem, not least because to our knowledge no thinker, be he or she a philosopher or a scientist, has been able to solve it. A quick click through Google will confirm our initial guess that many have seen fit to tackle this conundrum, but the most elementary logic dictates that there is a vast difference between tackling a problem and solving it.
 
The initial phase of our solution, which the regulars at the Hôtel Adios Watering Hole have come to call Myles’ Theory of Ultimate Intelligence, consisted of creating a two-column table. Column A contains a list of facts that redound to God’s credit as creator and sustainer of the universe—for example, Yosemite Valley, the Mud Pots in Yellowstone National Park, the sunsets at the Grand Canyon, and the healthy, hearty orgasms a young married couple are wont to enjoy before that activity has borne fruit. Column B contains a list of negative facts that are attributable to God’s activity as creator and sustainer of the universe—for example, war, poverty, illiteracy, social injustice, and child pornography.
 
Having finished this relatively awesome task, we considered the problem of choosing a post-two-column step in the construction of my theory. This step consists of determining a method for working with our data.
 
After a thorough discussion we determined, a priori, that we should divide God’s credit by his or her negative results. We then agreed, again a priori, that we would assign an IQ score to the result of this mathematical calculation, taking an IQ of 100 as our base. In other words, we determined that if the result of our calculation were >1, God’s IQ would be over 100, and by a factor the complexity of which is inappropriate for discussion in a short piece. Contrarily, if the result were <1, God’s IQ would be less than 100, etc.
 
The discerning reader will immediately recognize that I have omitted the question of variables. That is to say, I have not mentioned the values that must be assigned to the items in both God’s credits and his/her negative facts.
 
We at MJTT were not unaware of this sub-problem. We solved it in the fairest, most accurate way we could: we polled the audience at the Hôtel Adios Watering Hole, asking such questions as whether and to what degree the plus (+) of a Grand Canyon sunset overrode the minus (–) of the Iraq War.
 
But to the results of our labor. According to my theory, God’s IQ is 107.364.

The emails we have received from those who have read our last column have been many, inquisitive, and for the most part congratulatory.
 
“Ingenious!” writes a historian of science at Harvard University, adding, “Myles na Gopaleen stands in the long line of outside-the-box thinkers extending from Copernicus and Galileo, through Newton, then Darwin and Mendel, continuing with Edison and Ford, to Abrikosov, Ginzburg, and Leggett.”
 
“Just between the two of us,” writes an anonymous person from Oslo, “you’re a shoo-in for a 2020 Nobel.” (Translation mine.)
 
“To hell with you and MJTT!” writes a major stockholder in British Petroleum.
 
“I can’t wait for the details!” writes a UCLA professor of engineering who lives in the high desert 80 miles from Los Angeles.
 
These responses are typical.
 
The smattering of complaints from the automobile industry deserves an answer. Put simply, we suggest that that industry retool itself and put in a reasonable bid for the engineering feats that lie ahead.
 
As for the details, many astute readers were quick to notice that the same subway train we at MJTT envision runs downhill both ways. How can this be? Have we been misreading Sir Isaac Newton all these centuries?
 
In answer, recall that Sir Isaac lived in a simpler world. The horse had not yet been replaced by the auto. Pollution in those days consisted largely of the dung that lay strewn in the streets of London. Were he alive today, Newton’s attention would have been drawn, not to a descending Winesap, but to the common traffic jam. What we have dubbed the Myles Junior Principle (MJP) could now be called the Ike Newton Principle (INP).
 
In short, we have no doubt but that Newton would have combined the notion of gravity with that of the piston.
 
Recall that in my previous column, I spoke of the common see-saw. I mentioned the analogy between that device and the imagined subway system. Now, I ask the reader and irate commuter to imagine a pair of vertical pistons, one on each end of the system. Powered perhaps by ocean waves, or windmill farms, these pistons would move up and down simultaneously (i.e., P1, on one end of the system, would be moving up, P2 down.), thus drawing the subway train in direction X in the morning and in direction Y in the afternoon.
 
N.B. Could any of my cosmopolitan readers recommend a five-star hotel in Oslo?

​The futurists at NASA are working on flying cars.
 
Who would not want to escape the traffic jams that beleaguer the 50-mile daily commute by hopping aboard a private vehicle at 7:30 a.m. and arrive at work, fresh and friendly, at 8:00?
 
That is the vision of the personal air vehicle division of the vehicle systems program at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.
 
The IQ-laden brains at Langley are quick to acknowledge, however, that their dream will not assume material shape for at least another generation—or, put differently, until they have been burned, mixed with ordinary flesh, deposited in an urn, and placed on the mantle of a house of the future.
 
We at MJTT modestly suggest that the Langley lads and lasses spend their waning years observing their children and/or grandchildren prepare for the next Olympics. We have a better idea.
 
Our premise is that Langley has not sufficiently considered the implications of its dream: air congestion, air vehicle crashes, the cost of pilot training, and of course pollution.
 
Our own solution to the commuter problem cuts to the chase. We propose nothing more than the total re-engineering of the subway system.
 
This simple but brilliant solution is built on the old-fashioned idea of gravity, which was first noticed and formulated by Isaac Newton, who was rewarded for his discovery by a knighthood and a long life, bestowed on him respectively by a British king and a Christian God.
 
Consider this. On going to work, one descends into what appears to be an ordinary subway station. One enters the train car in the usual manner. The train takes off—downhill! In twenty minutes, one exits the car, enters an elevator, and soon finds oneself at street level.
 
Then, after work, one serenely descends into the subway station from which one had emerged nine hours and change ago. One enters the car in the usual manner. The train takes off—downhill! Again! And in twenty minutes, one exits the car, enters an elevator, and soon finds oneself at street level, at exactly the spot from which one had left at 7:30 a.m.
 
How is this possible?
 
By what might be called the Myles Junior Principle (MJP). Imagine the common playground piece of equipment, the see-saw. Image two children of similar weight, perched on each end of that see-saw. Now imagine the two playing a game using a single marble, shuttling it back and forth by raising and lowering themselves.
 
The analogy is exact: the marble represents the subway car; the legs of the two children represent the power agents.
 
Details of this down-to-earth but masterful idea will or will not be considered in my next blog.