At 2 A.M. this morning I awoke, thinking about Primo Levi. In particular, I wondered in what year he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. To my shock and dismay, I discovered he never won the prize. How could this be? The internet carries about one million entries referring to him and surely there must be at least 1000 articles and many books written about him. Since 1970 there about 15 writers I never heard of who have been honored with the Nobel. They cannot all have had his significance. It is too late now to give him the honor he deserves because the award is given only to living writers.

Of his many books, two stand out: (1) If this is a man, Levi’s account of his time in Auschwitz; (2) The Periodic Table. London’s Royal Institution selected the latter as the best scientific book ever written.* The first has been widely hailed as the finest account of the horrors of Auschwitz ever written.

Songs have been written about him and the German rock band Heaven Shall Burn named their song “If this is a man” in his honor. The magician David Blaine has Levi’s concentration camp number tattooed on his arm and Christopher Hitchens dedicated his book, The Portable Atheist, to his memory with very stirring words. Leonard Cohen’s book of poetry, Flowers for Hitler, has quotations from Levi. There is so much more but I will stop. Consult Wikipedia for more.

For me, the important message of Levi’s omission is that it calls the Nobel selection process into question, perhaps into disrepute. Unfortunately, the selection committee never gives its reasons but the names of some of the winners makes pretty clear that politics is involved.

Officially, authorities ruled Levi’s death a suicide but for several reasons this seems preposterous, not least of which is that a man who survived the awfulness of Auschwitz seems such an unlikely candidate to give up on life. [Of the 650 Italian Jews in his shipment, Levi was one of only twenty who left the camp alive. The average life expectancy of a new entrant was three months.] More likely, his fall down a flight of steps was an accident. Levi was 67 when he died and still very productive. What a loss to the world.

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The four finalists for the honor of being the best science book ever written are:

The Periodic Table by Primo Levi
King Solomon’s Ring by Konrad Lorenz
Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

Other nominees include:

The Double Helix by James Watson
The Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht
Pluto’s Republic by Peter Medawar
Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin
Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter
A Mathematician’s Apology by G.H. Hardy
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
The Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif – a book that deeply impressed me when I read it as a teenager.

I have never paid a bit of attention to Facebook but now, in the light of the Nobel Prize winner Amartya K. Sen’s experience, I swear never to try it. Sen is, in my opinion, one of the world’s great combination scholar/humanitarians. His technical work in the area of social welfare functions and decision theory has been a great influence on my own thinking.

Here is a link to this great man’s unfortunate Facebook experience. Just CLICK HERE.

Alex Rodriguez – you know who he is – was limping along as a Texas Ranger on a salary of  $252 million designed to be paid out over a 10 year period.    Barely able to make do, Alex left for greener pastures.   He renegotiated a salary with the NY Yankees that will bring him $275 million also over 10 years.    Do not for one moment think Alex is happy.  Consider that nearly all of Alex’s income is via salary and you can understand his miseries.   Larry Ellison, head honcho of Oracle Industries “earns” a salary of $180 million per year, and keep in mind that salary is just a very small part of what Larry collects each year.   Surely Alex knows this and it is eating his heart out.

Now that Alex has become the youngest baseball player ever to reach the magic mark of 600 home runs for a career, he will certainly demand that the Yankee management reconsider his true worth.   After all, one day Alex will hold the home run record for a career.  That is worth something.  Among his bargaining chips will be that such nobodies as Joe Mauer of the Minnesota Twins and Johann Santana of the NY Mets make $23 million per year.   Do you even know who they are?    That they are so close in salary to Alex must strike him as intolerable.    In fact, it is killing me.

Who is more valuable to mankind than Alex?   I can’t think of anyone.   It is good that Ellison has announced he is leaving 95% of his money to charities because he couldn’t get a base hit if his life depended on it.   Although Alex hasn’t said what he will do with all his money, it is a very good bet that he plans to one-up Larry and leave 98% of his money to charities.   That’s the kind of guy he is.

When we were 10 years old, we learned that Alex, living in Macedonia, climbed aboard his stout-hearted steed and galloped around the “known world,” demanding obedience from all those he met. And he got it. With that, he became Alexander The Greatest, and we adored him. Two thousand years later, tall and handsome George Washington survived a bitterly cold winter and rallied his camp followers to kill a bunch of fools wearing red coats. We loved him. Still do.

A bit more than 100 years after George managed well without an overcoat, we learned that Al Einstein announced that a particle in fluid at a thermodynamic temperature T is characterized by a diffusion coefficient D=k (subscript B)T/b where k(subscript B) is Boltzmann’s constant and b is the linear drag coefficient on the particle. This overwhelmed us with admiration and we applauded when a bunch of the guys in Stockholm handed Al (now called “Albert”) a prize that they named after the dynamite king. At around that same time, Georg Cantor told us that infinity was much more complicated tha we poor mortals understood, so we hailed him as the mathematical genius of all time. We struggled mightily to determine if he was smarter than Albert but finally gave up. It didn’t matter so long as they both got their share of groveling from us.

Upon arriving in college, we discovered the genius of Geoffrey Chaucer, the first true master of English prosody and poetry and we were almost thrilled out of our minds when we read:

When that Aprilis, with his showers swoot*,
The drought of March hath pierced to the root,
And bathed every vein in such licour,
Of which virtue engender’d is the flower;

We needed no more convincing than that and we greedily devoured the next 10,000 lines.

All these men are justly celebrated as OUR HEROES, and for good measure we have tacked on Babe Ruth and Tiger Woods. Life without heroes is unthinkable and I, for one, have constructed a list of 10,000 more persons who we spend half our days worshipping. It is our capacity for worship and idolizing that sets us above the alligators and we feel entirely justified when we turn these lowly creatures into handbags and wallets.

All hail PEOPLE, and we may now glorify ourselves.

The sporting life is not the way to riches but for a precious few it has been a bonanza. Here are the Kings of Dollars. Keep in mind that only a small part of their fortunes came from playing games. The rest is vile, capitalist investment.

[This is easily the most important post I have ever published - or will publish.]

Tiger Woods – $900 million in his mattress and elsewhere.
Michael Jordan – $500 million.
Magic Johnson – $500 million.
Greg Norman – $410 million.
Michael Schumacher – $400 million.
Arnold Palmer – $375 million.
Alex Rodriguez – $300 million.
Jack Nicklaus – $280 million.
Oscar de la Hoya – At least $175 million. Possibly double that.
David Beckham – $175 million.
Phil Mickelson – $150 million.
Kobe Bryant – $140 million. [Up to now, mostly from sport.]
Floyd Mayweather – $90 million. [Up to now, mostly from sport.]
LeBron James – $90 million. [Up to now, mostly from sport.]
Klitschko brothers – $30 million each. [Entirely from sport.]

But what about those slam-dunking, grand-slamming, hole-in-one producing Rothschilds? Well, actually, this family of great athletes began segmenting over 150 years ago and many of those impoverished descendants are rumored to have as little as $1 billion each. Still, if need be, it is said that the clan can be rallied together to come up with $400 billion. The House of Rothschild keeps a low profile and disdains comparisons with the nouveaux riche such as the Rockefellers who, in turn, are contemptuous of Gates and Buffet (who seem to have to share a single necktie). The first Rockefeller did not mind flaunting his wealth and he remains (officially) the richest person who ever lived. (Cleopatra is down around 20th place.) At one time, Jack’s wealth was 3% of the gross domestic product. In comparison to that, Gates and Buffet combined are candidates for the poorhouse. But we can only build fantasies concerning the Rothschild wealth. Damn Jew bankers! All they wanted was to be in charge of the planet – and they were (and maybe still are.)

Mrs. Cheryl Bereza Berryman wrote a comment on one of my recent posts. I do not remember her but she was a student of mine about 25 years ago. Cheryl says my course was a life-changing experience for her and she is very grateful to me. Naturally, I feel flattered but I am also puzzled and not entirely pleased. Over the years, other students have said kind words of the same sort, so, with some reluctance, I have to say I may have misled them.

In my humble opinion, a good professor does not need to be a dynamic presence. Too often, I tried to be a show: “Okay, boys and girls, for my next number I will spin 6 saucers and balance a baseball bat on my nose while simultaneously refuting the philosophies of Spinoza and Descartes.” For me, those guys were simply excuses to dazzle my audiences. The upshot of it was that the philosophers were neglected. I never took the trouble to prepare a single lecture before entering a classroom. I gave the students glitz rather than substance. Lots of razzmatazz, signifying nothing.

I can’t help wondering what Cheryl actually got out of the course. Could she tell me, if pressed to do so, one thing she actually came away knowing from that course? Maybe she can and, if so, I am happy for her and for myself.

So, to Cheryl and the others, I apologize. I think I fooled you and that is nothing to brag about.

JoEllen both speaks softly and carries a small stick. Therefore, I receive no lashes or beatings for my criticisms. My first offense is that I sometimes write about her, destroying her dream of anonymity.

She calls to me from 50 feet away and while I have water running. Hostilely, I scream out, “Never again speak to me as long as you live unless you want me to hear what you are saying!” Over the last 15 years I have made this stupid announcement 100 times. I refuse to enumerate my other lunacies vis-a-vis JoEllen.

I have been an Amanda Beard fan since 1995, not because she is one of the greatest swimmers of all time (but she certainly is that) but because I think she is more beautiful than any movie star. She has appeared on the cover of many magazines and has had the disgusting honor of being labeled one of the “hottest-looking” athletes in the world. Now, the mother of a 14 months old child, she is coming out of retirement in the hope of making the U.S. Olympic team for the fifth time in 2012. I am afraid her comeback will be a disaster and I am achingly hoping she will change her mind.

Tilda Swinton, arguable the best actor alive, is appearing in a movie called I am Love, a sure-fire non-success at the box office. It has received wonderful reviews and I am told the lady has lost much weight since she flashed her abundant love handles in Michael Clayton, opposite George Clooney. For her performance, not for her love handles, she won an Oscar. I am anticipating gorgeousness in addition to another award-winning performance. Go, Tilda.

Usain “LIghting” Bolt of Jamaica will meet America’s Tyson Gay in a much heralded match over 100 meters in Stockholm on August 6. Americans may not care much but for the rest of the world Track and Field is the number two sport behind soccer. In 2008, after the Olympics, an international panel of sports writers selected Bolt as athlete of the year in a close vote with swimmer Michael Phelps who finished second. The incident cost me my friendship with someone I thought was one of my closest and dearest friends. I had the effrontery to tell him I agreed with vote. He said I was ridiculous and I demanded to know why. His response? I should never talk to him or to write to him again. “Friendship, just the perfect friendship. When other friendships will be forgot, ours will still be rot.”

But here’s Judy G celebrating the perfect friendship. I won’t stop loving you, Tom.

As with everyone who ever drew a breath, I find that, wonderful as my vacation was this past week, the best part was returning home. Anyone who understands this is welcome to explain it to me because, frankly, I don’t know why it is so…..

I read in some newspaper that Rod Blagojevich’s attorney has an interesting defense for his client – he is too stupid to be devious…….

California, like the Army, goes its own way. Anti-semitic events are up 22% over the previous year. It led the nation with 275 incidents. Altogether, there were 1211 anti-Semitic acts across the nation – vandalism, assaults and batteries, bombing of synagogues, harassments, and you name it. This is a nice reduction from 2008…..

Bowing to pressure, would-be Leader of the Free World, John Kerry, has agreed to move his 76-foot, $7 million yacht to home state Massachusetts from where it is parked in Rhode Island. He owes $437,000 in a one-time sales tax. He now brags, “We have always complied with tax laws and always will.”

My wife and I continue to argue about social security benefits. I think people like us should not be entitled to them because of our fabulous wealth and she says, “I am damned if I am willing to surrender them so long as Warren Buffet and people of his ilk continue to pay less income tax than those who slave in his employ.” Buffet is probably in a de facto tax bracket of under 10%. She has a point, and I think I will give up the dispute…..

I read somewhere that France has just declared war on al-Qaeda. Prime Minister Francois Fillon announced “We are at war with al- Qaeda.” Is that all it takes, an angry declaration by a politico? Does Frankie mean that up until his announcement, he and binny Laden were good buddies? In what way did Osama tick him off? Actually, I know. Frenchman Michel Germaneau was abducted in Niger. Nasty! Give ‘em hell, Frankie. Send in half a dozen fighting men….

The Good and the Sad. It may not mean much to you but The Nicest Man In The World just died. He was about 86 years old and his heart finally gave out. He began life idolizing Norman Thomas, (which makes good sense to me), but eventually became much more than that – a good friend of Norman. When his daughter, Amy, was just a tiny little girl, she ran up on a stage and give The Great Man a good hug, reaching up above his knee to do that. So he loved her. To the end of his days, The Nicest Man in the World would not sacrifice his principles so he always voted socialist and this infuriated his Democrat wife (who blamed Gore’s defeat on him) and may, for all I know have been instrumental in their divorce. JoEllen gave the keynote memorial address at the death of his first wife who, in her turn was loved and idolized by JoEllen. How do I know MURRAY SEIDLER was the nicest man in the world? Well, I have it on the authority of JoEllen Vinyard herself, and that, pal, is good enough for me.

In the fall of 2007, Carolina Alvarado, a freshman at Brooklyn College, was reading William Faulkner’s notoriously dense and difficult Light in August. Her professor, Josep Entin says he was bowled over by a paper Miss Alvarado wote that illuminated the book for him as no other essay had ever done. Since then, he has become her cheerleader as she continues to read other Faulkner novels. Next fall, she will attend Princeton’s graduate school on a full scholarship and will continue her studies of Faulkner. Carolina arrived in the Unites States as a 9-year old child from the Dominican Republic and has put herself through college working a late night shift as a waitress. Her parents do not speak English. They don’t understand the full significance of a Princeton scholarship and Carolina’s mother was impressed ony because she knows Michelle Obama is an alumna of Princeton.

How did Carolina develop a love of literature and how did she find it in, of all people, through a reading of America’s most celebrated hard-to-read novelist? I won’t speculate about this but interviews of the young woman have made clear that she does not read these books because “one ought to read them” but reads them for pleasure. She says, “Faulkner asks all the right questions about memory and self-definition.” His characters illuminate her studies of religion, her second major. She has just begun reading Absalom, Absalom! and says, whatever else, she reads, she will always read Faulkner for his work “resonates” for her. She considers Absalom, Absalom! the densest of all Faulkner’s works and, in that very quality, he is the supreme pleasure-giver.

No one has ever praised James Patterson, the King of best sellers, for writing novels that “resonate,” and those who read only Patterson novels because they prefer “light reads” after a hard day’s work (probably not as hard as Carolina’s) are making a big mistake if they think they are having more fun than Miss Carolina Alvarado has been having with Faulkner.

There is an old saying with two variations: “If you have time to read only one book this year, make it…” and “If you can see only one movie this year, make it….

Into this mix, I would like to offer “If you have time to regularly read only one blog – not counting this one, of course – make it http://americantribune.org

It is the brainchild of one my regular readers, Dr. Publico. I am pushing this blog not out of appreciation for his loyalty as a reader of gendinsjournal.com but because it is sensationally good. Check it out.