This old rock critic is increasingly convinced that the greatest American rock band was Guided by Voices.  Unfortunately, even as he was creating the band's almost infinite collection of memorable songs, Robert Pollard was also writing some of the most impenetrable -- and dark -- lyrics in rock history. 

Case in point is one of the best recordings of the '90s on arguably the greatest indy rock album (Bee Thousand).  Just the name makes me wince:  "Tractor Rape Chain".  But what an incredible track:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ6yS71j-cw

Stan Musial was my childhood hero -- even though he was an aging ballplayer on the brink of retirement.  There was just something magnificent about him -- I think even as a little boy I picked up on the respect in which others (like Warren Spahn) held him.  He may not have been the greatest ballplayer of all time (though he was close), but he was certainly the greatest person to ever play major league baseball.

Peter:  As you know, I just got back from Oxford last night.  Once again, while there I was struck by how much the UK -- thanks to U.S. television -- has adopted our Thanksgiving.  Oxonians now regularly wish me Happy Thanksgiving or tell me they are holding dinners of their own, Tesco offers turkey dinners with all of the trimmings, and there are fresh turkeys hanging at the butchers in the Covered Market.  I used to tease the Brits -- "You're celebrating McClellan's victory at Antietam, too?" -- but I've grown to appreciate that the desire to come together with your extended family and give thanks for all that you have been given, is universal.  These days, I just happily return their sentiment.

Next up, Christmas.  I didn't see a single Father Christmas this year -- but Thomas Nast's Santa Claus is everywhere . . .

Lynn and Carpenter "meltdowns"?   Sorry, but no.  Those were masterful pitching performances by Zito and Vogelsong.   And they were especially satisfying given the roads both men had taken to get to their respective triumphs.

I hate to burst anybody's bubble about the 'miraculous' survival of Cologne Cathedral in WWII, but it was anything but that.  When my parents were touring the cathedral years ago and the tour guide began describing this miracle, my father, who actually had bombed Cologne, whispered to my mother, "We left it standing because it was perfect for targetting the rest of the city."  On the same trip, sitting at a cafe enjoying his morning weiss beer and veal sausage, a local struck up a conversation with him, eventually asking, "Have you been to Cologne before, Herr Malone?"  My father casually replied, "No, but I've flown over it a couple times. . ."

Great idea, but bad execution.  Monroe, Harrison and Garfield are seriously underestimated; all were hardcore fighters, especially Harrison.  Ford was the best athlete of the bunch.  Some of the little guys -- Polk, Truman, TR, Eisenhower -- were real scrappers, but it wouldn't be enough in a knife fight.   Personally, I think it comes down to Jackson (the toughest), Lincoln, (longest reach and very strong); and Washington.  As already noted, Washington was immensely strong (he also entertained guests by straightening horseshoes), utterly fearless (Braddock's retreat, Long Island, Monmouth) and a physical giant.

It would be close, but my money's on the Father of our Country.

Peter:

With your elegant prose style, I have a hard time believing that you need much editing . . . :)

James Lileks:  As for Manfred Mann's common mondagreen, the fact that many people hear "douche" instead of "deuce" may have something to do with the fact that they pronounce it "douche."

I never understood that.  Obviously they listened to Bruce Springsteen's original version . . .and the Boss pronounces it right.

I always heard that the most famous mondegreen was Creedence's "There's a bad moon on the rise", which an amazing number of people heard as "There's a bathroom on the right."   Sometimes when it's on the radio I sing it that way just to make it stick forever in the head of anyone nearby.

I interviewed William Styron for my old PBS series.  He was in the same position as Fussell.  And despite being the most liberal of liberals, Styron told me that he had felt the same way as Fussell when he got the news of Hiroshima.  My late father-in-law, who had already been shipped from England to the South Pacific, and as conservative as Styron was liberal, told me the exact same thing.

Speaking as a former film critic, if I have to watch three films for the rest of my life -- in other words, several thousand times each -- they'd better be really great movies, with enough complexity that it takes, say, 500 viewings before I completely figure them out (no Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, or even The Searchers), capture enough of society and nature that I can recreate the outside world in my head (no, sadly, Brief Encounter or Casablanca), and upbeat enough to keep me from killing myself (no Third Man, Last Year at Marienbad, Bicycle Thief or Godfather Trilogy).   So, my choices:

Children of Paradise

The Rules of the Game

The Samurai Trilogy

Honorable Mentions:  His Girl Friday, The General, Napoleon, Lawrence of Arabia, Great Expectations, Stagecoach, Groundhog Day, Henry V (Olivier), It's a Wonderful Life.

Israel Pickholtz:

Thanks for the explanation of Moore's Law.  BTW: A little Google searching will show you that I was one of the first people to write about Moore's Law (1979) and that I've written more about it than anyone in the world.  Gordon happens to be an old friend of mine as well.  So yes, indeed, I understand that Moore's Law is a social contract between the semiconductor industry and society.  Do you really want me to write that every time -- a half-century after it was formulated?

(cont)   All that's really missing is the middleware and industry standard protocols that will process all of this datat that will stream off of sensors (on or in the body) and other devices, and make it usable to doctors (and legal to the FDA). As a director of middleware company, I can tell you that this revolution is less than 3 years away.

John Hanson:  You might learn something from this blog by my friend Brad Peters, CEO of Birst, a cloud analytics company:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/bradpeters/2011/09/23/66/

Peter Fee: Sensors are the great untold story of the tech revolution over the last decade. The technology has long trailed the rest of electronics because of the need for radical miniaturization and analog data collection (not to mention communications). But, thanks in part to Moore's Law, there have been some real breakthroughs in the last few years. You can now make sensors so small that you can swallow them, throw the in the ocean by the millions, even (soon) through them into the air to float on the winds. That's the beginning. We now also have a platform -- iPhone/iPad and their Android counterparts -- that is portable, has high resolution imagery and cameras, and will soon be in the hands of 2 billion people. As I noted in the WSJ piece, there now more than 10,000 medically related apps just for the iPhone -- and hundreds of newly funded companies building hardware and software for home medical monitoring. Everything is now in place to have a revolution in personal medical/health monitoring. (cont.)

Through me, Steve Jobs gave him an Apple III computer, which enabled my fatherto overcome his dyslexia and become a writer.  He wrote travel pieces for the New York Times and became a celebrated beer journalist, all while travelling the world with my mom.  He also played a crucial role in establishing the Sunnyvale Historical Museum before he died in 1988.Once, when I told him that he had helped save civilization twice, in WWII and the Cold War, he just laughed.

At the end of the war, my father, then a captain, re-enlisted as a sargeantin Army Intelligence, then transferred to the OSI with the creation of the Air Force.  He was an intelligence agent in North Africa, and bureau chief of counter-intelligence in Southern Germany (where I was born).  He had a lot of stories of spycraft, gun battles and capturing enemy agents.  We eventually came home to the States, where he was chief of security at Fairchild AFB in Spokane, and finally liaison between all of the intelligence agencies (CIA, FBI, Navy, Army, etc.) in Washington, DC.

He retired in 1963 as a major with the DFC, the Air Medal with two battle stars,and the AF Commendation medal for his intelligence work.  We then movedto Silicon Valley, where he joined NASA for the Gemini and Apollo programs, had a couple heart attacks, retired, and learned to program computers.