Thursday, February 19, 2015

Zombie Conversation

Dear Joel,

The other day I put three invitations in the mail. I'm inviting a few folks to have lunch with me in a few weeks. I think we're going to go to Zombie Burger in Des Moines, because I don't want my lunch mates to be too comfortable, and I think Zombie Burger will creep them out just enough. Also, they have great burgers there!

Wanna know who I'm inviting?

1. Thomas Sowell, author and economist. Sowell has recently been very influential in my opinions on economics, politics, education, and other issues. I just finished reading The Thomas Sowell Reader, which is a collection of his writings from books, journals, newspaper columns, etc. He's an incredibly intelligent guy with a great sense of humor and writing style. He doesn't write about faith or religion, much, so I would want to ask him about some of those beliefs of his which he does not address (at least in the tidbits I've read from him).

2. Goliath, Philistine and giant. Recent scholarship suggests that Goliath was probably 6' 9" tall rather than well over 9' tall, so first of all, I'd be interested to size him up. Then I'd ask him what it was like facing off against David, and find out what he'd do differently if he could go back to that battle again (I imagine he'd start with, "I'd duck").

3. Nolan Ryan, major league pitcher. This guy played for so long - I read he struck out 7 sets of fathers and sons during his career (including Bobby and Barry Bonds).

This list was hard to narrow to three. Some of the other guys I strongly considered were:

Kenesaw Mountain Landis - 1st commissioner of baseball, famous for banning the 8 White Sox players implicated in throwing the 1919 World Series. I'd ask him if he had any regrets, and how he feels about the idiotic replay rules in baseball today (can you tell I'm itching for opportunities to gripe about them?).
Nikola Tesla
Orville (or Wilbur) Wright
Rosa Parks
General William T. Sherman

My question for you: Have you ever thought about becoming a stand-up comedian? If you were to try it out, what kinds of topics would you include in your act?

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