Random Thoughts on 6 Degrees.

Okay, when pressed for blog material, I have used random association at times.  My favorite form of this is to find "order" to the randomness in the game of Six Degrees of Separation.

I started with a living celebrity that I recognized whose birthday is today, January 4, 2017.  I chose Dyan Cannon, an actress who turned 80 today.  Looking at her filmography, I chose "Heaven Can Wait (1978)," in which she stared as Julia Farnsworth, murderous wife of millionaire Leo Farnsworth.  Mr. Farnsworth had been drugged and drowned, but the mistaken death of "Joe Pendleton" is rectified by angelic agents by resuscitating the victim.

As Mr. Farnsworth, Joe buys the Los Angeles Rams, and as just after Farnsworth is killed for good, Joe enters the quarterback who had just been accidently killed on the field.  Anyway, I looked for an LA Rams team from around the time I was born, finding the 1951 NFL champs but choosing the 1955 season in which they failed to reclaim that title.  I wanted a connection closer to my birth (for some reason).

Though loosing badly, the quarterback for the Rams was the legendary Norm Van Brocklin.  Van Brocklin was a distant cousin of my wife. Another "link" to Van Brocklin: he died in my "home state" of Georgia.  This information is trivial, and doesn't exactly link me to the famous quarterback and coach.  However, it does show the verity of the "Six Degrees" theory.

How 'Bout Them Dawgs!!

I do not follow basketball - not even church league here at home - but here is another blog about basketball in as many days!

From the sports page of the New York Times:

"The sixth-seeded Bulldogs, who won four league games all season, won four in four days and captured the Southeastern Conference tournament championship and an automatic berth in the N.C.A.A. tournament with a 66-57 victory over Arkansas."

With a losing season going in, the Dogs tenaciously held on through a literal storm to get a spot in the big show -- March Madness! At least one man - their coach, Dennis Felton - received a "new lease on life" as his dismal season had put his job in jeopardy.

I am NOT going to embarrass myself by posting my "picks" this year. And I do not hold out any hopes that my alma mater will upset the likes of Duke, North Carolina, or Boston College. But let this Georgia Boy vicariously bask in the glory of the moment!

A Line in the water?

The state of Georgia is dry. Not blessed with a lot of streams, rivers, and dammed up lakes, it has taken to begging water from it's neighbors like South Carolina. And now, a dispute as old as the state of Tennessee has presented a new attraction: water!

It seems that the smaller, more geographically blessed neighbor to the north has a river with plenty of mountain fresh water. The trouble is, it is JUST our of reach. Unlike the Savannah river to the east (which it shares with us in the fair state of South Carolina) and the Chattahoochee River to the west (which has its headwaters just south of the Atlanta airport) which it has to share with Alabama, the Tennessee River is not part of the official border. At least not on the maps.

But the law that the US government used to establish the Tennessee border specifically called for the 35th parallel to be the southern border. That line slices across a bend in the Tennessee River.

As this screen shot from Google Earth plainly shows, the tri-state corner is certainly in the Tennessee River. Clicking on it ought to give better detail.


So, what gives, Tennessee? Just because a few guys almost two hundred years ago put the corner post on land a mile south of here (who could blame them, really, especially in the winter!), it does not change the geography! The law could have designated the River as the boundary, but that would have given up a valuable water way to the "good ol' boys" established in Washington and Atlanta (or Milledgeville, or where-ever it was in those days).

Furthermore, if the boundary marker determines all points east, then Georgia should be about 140 square miles bigger. That's about the area of the city of Atlanta! Think of what developers could do with that! I grew up in Georgia back in the twentieth century [aka "the dark ages"], and my family lives there now [I'm the only foreigner], so I certainly will root for them to win this dispute. It will be giving up more than just water rights. But it will be good if the Supreme Court can come to a conclusion here pretty soon.

We will share some of our water. Tennessee can do as much.