Politics: Sports for the clumsy

The Packers' unending season

2011-02-04T12:17:00.002-06:00

The Green Bay Packers beat the Chicago Bears in the Game of the Century on Jan. 23, 2011, and earned a right to face the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV on Feb. 6 at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
It's an exciting time in Packerland, as this is the first time they've gone to a Super Bowl since the 1997 season. (That's the one we like to not talk about, a loss to the Broncos.)

From the Packers' last trip to the Super Bowls, I'd forgotten how much NFC Champion stuff was out there, I've held off on buying up a lot of it until after the Super Bowl. I figure if the Packers win, then THAT's the gear I'll want. Plus, the stuff is pretty expensive; NFCC hats are going for $26-$30.

For what it's worth, I like the Packers to beat the Steelers, not because I'm a blind homer but because I believe the Packers were good enough this season to be undefeated.
Consider, the team went 10-6 with 15 players - six opening-day starters - lost for the season to Injured Reserve. None of those six losses was by more than 4 points, and the Packers had real opportunities to win each one:

Loss 1, vs. Bears - Packers commit 18 penalties for 152 yards - two of which came on what would've been drive-killing INTs in the fourth quarter when the Packers had the lead - and still only lost by a FG.

Loss 2, at Washington - K Mason Crosby missed potential game-winner with 7 seconds left in regulation, defense can't hold in OT

Loss 3, vs. Miami - Aaron Rodgers tied it with 16 seconds to play, but defense couldn't hold in OT and we lost by a FG.

Loss 4, at Atl - GB tied it with a minute left before reserve LB Matt Wilhelm commits a 15-yard facemask on the ensuing kickoff, which puts Atl at midfield. They gain 22 yards in 49 seconds and hit the game-winning FG.

Loss 5, at Det - Rodgers leaves with a concussion, but Detroit is no longer a joke anyway. They're going to push for the division next year.

Loss 6, at NE - We led that game 17-7 near the end of the first half until that big lineman put together a 71-yard TD return and the Patriots made it 17-24. We also led 27-21 and 27-24 in the fourth quarter. Matt Flynn played a hell of a game for his first start . His inexperience kept him from calling a play at the end, a flub that a more experienced Rodgers likely wouldn't have committed. Now, would he have fired a TD? Who knows, but he likely would've gotten off a play. And maybe a bevy of healthy starters on D would've kept the Patriots from taking the lead in the first place.

There are two things that scare me about the Steelers; their linebackers and their running game.
OLBs James Harrison and Lamarr Woodley both have double-digit sacks. So Pitt will bring pressure from the edges. Rodgers will HAVE to get the ball out quickly - something he hasn't always done, though he's made tremendous progress from 2009.
RB Rashard Mendenhall accrued the majority of his carries in the second half of games, and the plurality of his yardage in the fourth quarter. The Packers need to hold him to a reasonable total - he's averaged a modest 79 yards per game on 3.9 a carry.

UConn women impressive, but leave men out of it

2010-12-21T19:43:00.004-06:00

Further evidence of liberal creep into sports media has really been burning my beans lately; endless chatter among the sports-minded that the University of Connecticut women's basketball team, poised to win its 89th consecutive game, will be "breaking" the UCLA men's record set 1971-74.

Even UConn coach Geno Auriemma recently went off on media for what he perceived as a lack of coverage, repeatedly asserting that his ladies were breaking a men's record.

While the UConn women's streak is remarkable - impressive in every conceivable way - it is not breaking a men's record. Among their 89 straight vanquished opponents, not one has been a men's team. This is because the UConn women play - wait for it - women's basketball. Division I women's basketball, to be precise. Thus, saying they can break a record set by men holds no more water than to credit men for surpassing an achievement set in the women's game. To compare the women's game to men's is as apples-oranges as comparing DI records with those in DII or DIII. The sports, and divisions, are distinct.

And those who insist that the Huskies are breaking a men's record unwittingly advance the thought that the men's game is superior to the women's and thus compiling a win streak that is longer than one found in the men's game must make the women's more impressive.

This type of subtle sexim has no place in sports or its coverage.

The women's game is impressive and has done wonderful things for the physical and psychological well-being of countless women through the years. But to continue to imply that it's the little sister to its more popular counterpart puts it right back on the end of the bench.

Congratulations, UConn women ... let's leave it at that.

The sanctimony ... err, sanctity of the bowls

2010-12-14T13:36:00.004-06:00

Time for my annual rant about how NCAA Division I football needs a playoff. I can't leave it alone because I heard it again last night; a college FB talking head - in this case former Ohio State and Minnesota Viking running back, and apparent med-school dropout, Robert Smith - talk about how college football's regular season is so much more exciting than in any other sport.
Um, what?
For whom?
Certainly not for the fans of teams that begin the season outside the top 10 rankings. Yes, preseason rankings have as much to do with who plays for the national championship as anything. So your school's legacy works in your favor - or against it - before any team has taken its first snap.
Certainly Smith hasn't forgotten his NFL career, which peaked when his Vikings went 15-1 in 1998. They lost in the second week of the season that year but went on a run that didn't end until the NFC Championship game. If the NFL had adopted the BCS model, his Vikings would've been out of contention long before October. THAT, my friends, is what renders the regular season obsolete.
Not to mention the fact that the regular season is what prepares team for the postseason in the first place. Ask the New York Giants, who in 2007 got hot late in the season and went on to foil the unbeaten New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. Or ask the Pittsburgh Steelers, who in 2005 sneaked into the playoffs as the bottom seed, only to march to a Super Bowl win in Detroit.

Gamblers aside, I'd like someone to tell me why anyone would watch a bowl game in which neither participant has the slightest hope of playing for a national championship.
Is it for the prestige? Well, if you're vying to become the champion of the vaunted Beef 'O Brady's St. Petersburg Bowl, or the New Era Pinstripe Bowl, or perhaps my favorite for its illustration of systemic absurdity, the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl.

How can anyone make this anti-playoff argument with a straight face? My other favorite arguments ...

* It would stretch the season into the next semester
Really? So men's and women's basketball, wrestling, etc., will need to choose a semester at some point, it sounds like.

* Our bowl system is unique and needs to be preserved
Hah. See above.
Then see the bowl committees voluntarily shut down every bowl founded after 1950. Hold your breath for that one.

* It makes the season too long
This is the only argument that has any degree of plausibility, in that college bodies arguably aren't built for a potentially 18-game schedule.
Presumably, that's why coaches are allowed more than 80 scholarships to field 11 guys at a time.
Coaches have the depth; they should use it.

The solution is simpler than the BCS honks would have us believe: The NCAA can turn its back on all of the bowls, as it did against the National Invitational Tournament in basketball, it can set up its own brackets and invite teams all on its own.

My suggestion would be for 16 teams. You win your conference? Congratulations, you've earned a chance - however remote, it's still a chance - to play for the national championship.
That leaves us with five at-large bids. One will almost always go to Notre Dame - just being a realist - which truthfully leaves us with four. Those would be distributed among conference runners-up, or the Flavor of the Month that's having a great season and could be that Cinder-fella story that we hear so much about during the basketball tournament.
By all means, keep your precious BCS rankings; just use them as an excuse for seeding.
Here's what this year's brackets would look like:

Just one example of a way to do it; here would be the matchups if you didn't even take the conference winners and just went with the straight BCS rankings:

16 Alabama
1 Auburn (can't imagine anyone wanting to tune in for this yawner)

9 Arkansas
8 Michigan State (two evenly matched defenses; Ark is 31st in NCAA, MSU is 34th)

12 Missouri
5 Wisconsin

13 Virginia Tech
4 Stanford

11 LSU
6 Ohio State (No. 7 defense at No. 2 D)

14 Oklahoma State
3 TCU (No. 1 offense in the country at No. 9 O)

10 Boise State (honestly, who could bear watching this rematch!?)
7 Oklahoma

15 Nevada
2 Oregon (No. 2 offense vs. No. 3)

Never Let You Go

2009-10-07T19:29:00.002-06:00

If this image doesn't touch you, you have no soul.
Paige Bennethum, 4, clutches Daddy one last time before he ships off to Iraq last July from Fort Dix, N.J. She said she "didn't want to let go of him." Leave it to a small child to say what a lot of grown-us don't know how to express.
May God bless your daddy, Paige, and as many as possible so they can get home in one piece.

RIP, Adrian

2009-09-17T20:18:00.002-06:00

Patrick Swayze succumbed yesterday to pancreatic cancer, a disease that normally claims its victims within about six months but that Swayze held off for a remarkable two years.
While he's best known for his leading roles in 'Dirty Dancing,' 'Roadhouse' and 'Ghost,' many of us will remember him best not for his solo acts but for a duet of sorts he did with another man who left us too early.
Swayze and Chris Farley squared off in an October 1990 skit on 'Saturday Night Live' that will immortalize both men.
Now both are gone.
Enjoy.

Patrick Swayze - Chippendale
Uploaded by tressage. -

Cornelius Timberlake

2009-09-14T12:30:00.002-06:00

For some reason, I've had this stuck in my head for a long time. Gotta love people - especially celebrities - who can make fun of themselves.

Forever Young

2009-09-11T21:31:00.001-06:00

What can I say but that I'm thinking about my son?

Teddy and the Brett

2009-09-04T02:58:00.003-06:00

Busy news cycles lately. No sooner did Michael Jackson moonwalk off this mortal coil than Ted Kennedy succumbed to brain cancer, on Aug. 25, at age 77.
It was easy to roll one's eyes at the liberal love-fest and glossy record-polishing that was sure to follow, but nearly two weeks later, I've found the media portrayals to be pretty fair. Chappaquidick was not glazed over; rightfully so. And for all the talk about Kennedy's accomplishments, it stayed fairly loose. This too is fair, considering liberals themselves have been critical of some of the higher-profile programs in which Kennedy played a significant role, including No Child Left Behind, for which Kennedy was a key champion during George W. Bush's first year.
I'm not going to spend a lot of time waxing about Kennedy's record or legacy, as plenty of better writers than I have done so over at RealClearPolitics.com; folks who know more about both than I.

While Ted departs, Brett Favre returns. Again. This time for good. Unless his arm hurts too much.
About three weeks after telling the Minnesota Vikings he was done, Favre publicly changed his mind one more time, kicking his legacy ever-closer to the curb of late-night comedic punchlinedom.
Favre looked rough in his first game with the Viqueens, though granted he'd only been in camp about three days. Incidentally, this apparently didn't play well with the guys who'd been busting their humps for the weeks leading up to that point - go figure - as reports surfaced that there was the infamous "schism" infecting the locker room.
He's since looked better, though he obviously has yet to hit the wire-to-wire grind of the regular season.
He has his excuses all set; his supposed damaged biceps tendon and now allegedly cracked rib ready to serve as the fallguys should his age-eroded skills prove unworthy of an NFL starting role.

The Packers looked very strong in three of their four preseason games, hammering Cleveland, Buffalo and Arizona before falling to Tennessee. The starting unit for the new 3-4 defense forced a number of turnovers - turning some directly into points - and the offense scored on 10 of its first 11 drives. It's all preseason, where O's and D's show nothing but vanilla packages, so we can safely assume neither of the Packers' units will look as sharp in the regular season, but anything resembling that should help them compete for the NFC North championship.
They'd better look sharp, as they open the season on NBC's 'Sunday Night Football' against the Decatur Staleys.

RIP, Michael Jackson news

2009-07-08T02:46:00.004-06:00

On June 25, 2009, the world changed.
At least that's what the non-stop news coverage of the death of the 'King of Pop,' Michael Jackson, would have us believe.
From the day it was announced that he'd passed away at a hospital in Los Angeles, CNN and other news channels have been wall-to-wall coverage of Jackson's death. And I imagine the tabloids are just getting started.
Speculation about why he died runs rampant, and it appears the coup de grace was his insistence on taking a drug called Diprivan, which is used to put people under for surgery. It isn't so much a 'pain killer' as it is 'death in a bottle' for someone who doesn't know what he's doing. That any physician would hand this to him and say, "Well, all right, Mr. Jackson, whatever you say," is itself worthy of investigation.
And make no mistake, Jackson gave us some great music:

Jackson 5
ABC
I Want You Back
Solo
Thriller
Beat It
Billie Jean
Bad
Man in the Mirror

But it also seems criminal to have so much attention paid to someone who, in 1993, paid more than $20 million to a 13-year-old boy in an out-of-court settlement after the boy had alleged that Jackson had molested him. While that doesn't necessarily mean Jackson was guilty, it was inevitable for such a situation to arise given Jackson's penchant for allowing young boys to spend nights at his Neverland Ranch.
Jackson's memorial service was today (Tuesday), so while we'll be subjected to the teary image of his daughter squeaking to the world that she loved her daddy (really? We HAVE to drag his previously secluded children into this now?), the news spotlight should now shift toward more worthy topics.

RIP, Farrah Fawcett, who had the misfortune of dying, of cancer, on the same day as Jackson. She was 62. Her unfortunate timing reminds me of poor Eddie Matthews, a Hall of Famer and former Milwaukee Brave, who likely would've gotten a couple of days of good sports coverage ... if he hadn't died on the same day as Dale Earnhardt.

Meanwhile, former NFL quarterback Steve McNair was shot four times early on July 4. His 20-year-old girlfriend, an Iranian national named Sahel Kazemi, lay dead on the couch next to him with a gunshot wound to her head. McNair had a wife of 12 years, as well as four boys.
Police haven't yet ruled it the murder-suicide that it appears to be because of some fishiness on the timeline as to when his buddies discovered the bodies and when they called 911. Apparently a friend of McNair's walked into the apartment and past the bodies, which had been dead for several hours, into the kitchen, then back again, noticed the bodies and then ... called his buddy. About 35 minutes elapsed between his discovery and when they called 911.
What else is fishy, at least to me, is that McNair was shot twice in the chest and twice in the head; not a bad grouping for a young lady who'd just purchased the murder weapon two days prior.

Finally, RIP to the seven soldiers who died in Afghanistan between the day Jackson died and the day of his memorial. Networks devoted about one-20th of the time to them as they dedicated to Jackson, even a week and a half after Jackson died. I wouldn't expect a full biopic on every soldier who is killed in action, but for Anderson Cooper to spend nearly three times as long on the 'Wife Carrying World Championship' as on their deaths is simply inexplicable.

The Left silences our heroes

2009-07-04T07:16:00.002-06:00

Wausau's American Legion canceled its annual ceremonial tribute to our fallen soldiers scheduled for today, July 4. They usually have speakers and a 21-gun salute.
This year, following the Legion's events, the Wausau Tea Party Patriots were to hold their own events, protesting high taxes and selling merchandise to support families of fallen soldiers.
But the Legion canceled its event after, according to the Wausau Daily Herald, it received about 30 anonymous phone calls from people threatening to boycott the Legion's golf course.

First, there simply has to be more to the story. I have a hard time believing that this bastion of hardened battlefield veterans was scared off by people threatening to withhold golf.

Second, this is another example of intolerance from the Left when it encounters a viewpoint with which it disagrees. If you don't like the Wausau Tea Party, then after the Legion is done with its events ... LEAVE!
Or have ACORN gather up some of your like-minded sycophants for you and stage your own rally (what, in FAVOR of higher taxes? selling trinkets to support the families of fallen terrorists? seriously, what the hell is there to hate about what the Tea Party plans to do?).
The Left should be very proud.

New look at an old hero

2009-04-25T12:02:00.010-06:00

This isn't exactly news, but I just watched a two-disc set on the battle at Iwo Jima (February 1945) and was reminded that one of the six soldiers photographed in the iconic image of the men raising the flag on Mt. Suribachi was from Wisconsin.

John Bradley was born in Antigo, raised in Appleton, and ultimately died back in Antigo (July 10, 1923 to Jan. 11, 1994). He was wounded in battle after the flag-raising and was pulled from the front to help sell U.S. war bonds. While he was horrified by what he witnessed on the battlefield, particularly as a Navy corpsman, he did portray himself in the 1949 John Wayne classic "Sands of Iwo Jima".

He suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and was haunted by the torture and death of his friend from Milwaukee, Ralph "Iggy" Ignatowski. The two had been holed up during battle on Iwo, when Bradley lit out to assist a fallen Marine. When he returned to where he and Ignatowski had been, his friend was gone and no one seemed to know where he'd gone. It wasn't until days later that Bradley and others discovered Ignatowski's body, which had been dragged down a tunnel by the Japanese. Iggy had been tortured beyond belief, and Bradley never really recovered from the episode.

Following is his citation for the Navy Cross:

"For extraordinary heroism in action against the enemy at Iwo Jima on February 21, 1945 as a hospital corpsman attached to a Marine Rifle platoon. During a furious assault by his company upon a strongly defended enemy zone at the base of Mt. Suribachi, Bradley observed a Marine infantryman fall wounded in an open area under a pounding barrage by mortars, interlaced with a merciless crossfire from machine guns."
"With complete disregard for his own safety, he ran through the intense fire to the side of the fallen Marine, examined his wounds and ascertained that an immediate administration of plasma was necessary to save the man's life. Unwilling to subject any of his comrades to the danger to which he had so valiantly exposed himself, he signaled would-be assistants to remain where they were. Placing himself in a position to shield the wounded man, he tied a plasma unit to a rifle planted upright in the sand and continued his life saving mission. The Marine's wounds bandaged and the condition of shock relieved by plasma, Bradley pulled the man thirty yards through intense enemy fire to a position of safety. His indomitable spirit, dauntless initiative, and heroic devotion to duty were an inspiration to those with who he served and were in keeping with the highest tradition of the United States Naval Service."

Bradley's story is recounted by his son James in the 2000 book 'Flags of Our Fathers,' which Steven Spielberg and Clint Eastwood turned into a 2006 movie of the same name.

NCAA champion!

2009-04-23T19:39:00.003-06:00

Conquered one pool - tops out of 20 - and came in fourth among 300 in another. Woo-hoo!
NC beat the hell out of Michigan State in the final, extinguishing any semblance of drama after about ... oh, the opening tip.

Now it's on to fantasy baseball, where I'm 2-0 in our head-to-head league. Getting my ass handed to me this week, so it could be a long season. But we're onto Phase 2 of the Triple Crown.

A title within reach

2009-03-29T20:59:00.003-06:00

OK, so Lord Bubba's Cup may have eluded me in my fantasy football league last fall. But 2009 is offering hope I can believe in, as I'm holding a narrow lead in my NCAA bracket pool, thanks to my having three of the Final Four correct - Michigan State, UConn, North Carolina, and Villanova upset my pick of Pittsburgh.
If UConn beats Mich St and UNC beats 'Nova to meet in the championship game, I can win it outright if UNC beats UConn. But if UConn beats UNC, it'll come down to our total-points tie-breaker.
Exciting stuff, even for a lukewarm basketball fan.

And since we just drafted for a fantasy baseball league for the summer, it could be the start of an unprecedented Triple Fantasy Crown; the March Madness pool, fantasy baseball, and finally the coup de grace, fantasy football.

NCAA may be SOL with BHO

2009-03-26T20:08:00.002-06:00

Stomping all over my lofty mood after having gone 26-6 and 13-2 through the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament, Congress apparently is threatening to examine the anti-trust protection of the NCAA to force it to hold a playoff.

Now, I'm as big an advocate of a D-I playoff as you'll find. The BCS honks (as Jim Rome so lovingly calls them) will never convince me their position is the right one, nor that more money can be made off individual bowls than off a tournament format. (The men's basketball tournament entrenches my belief every year when even non-hoops fans scramble to fill out brackets.) But federal intervention is a sign of nothing less than desperation.

After passing an $800 billion "stimulus" bill that no one in Congress read - a bill that even the vice president admits has about "a 30 percent chance" of working - after unveiling a budget that will add roughly a trillion dollars to the National Debt EVERY YEAR, and while scratching its collective head over how/what to do over rising unemployment and a housing market that's been circling the drain for almost two years, Congress now wants to debate over how college football should crown its champion.

But before we storm the Bastille to lynch those filthy liberal Democrats for daring to bastardize our new national pastime, we need to keep one thing in mind: The College Football Playoff Act of 2009 (HR 390) was introduced by Joe Barton, a REPUBLICAN from Texas. Just when you thought Republicans from Texas were done taking a beating in the national media. ... In this, Barton deserves every snide barb Keith Olbermann and his ilk are likely to hurl his way.

President-elect Obama

2008-11-05T22:08:00.005-06:00

Supporters of Barack Obama gather near Grant Park in Chicago to celebrate his victory in Tuesday's presidential election.

It always sounds weird to hear that phrase, regardless of whose name it includes. We get used to four or eight years of hearing "President So-and-so," and then the new name inserted there hits us with all the oddity of looking at a weather map from another state.

But there it is; President-elect Barack Obama.

And so ends the long national nightmare that is ... no, not the Bush presidency - still nearly three months of that - but this seemingly eternal campaign for the presidency. I, for one, am simply glad it's over. It's like a visit from the in-laws; you don't actually hope anyone dies, but you're REALLY glad when they're gone.

Anyway, my guy didn't win. ... I don't mean McCain, he was never my first choice. Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney were well ahead of him in my eyes.

Regardless, this offers an interesting opportunity. I suspect many of my Republican buddies will rally around Uncle Rushie as a lonely beacon of hope over the next four years.

As for me, I'm going to try to take a little different approach this time. Rather than the endless cycle of spin and parsing semantics, I'm going to do my best to give Obama a clean slate. He wasn't my first choice among Dems, and was well down my list in general, but he's there now. So I'm going to try to understand the policies he puts forth. Sometimes I may agree with him. Sometimes I may wholeheartedly disagree. I will be vocal about both.

But if 52% of voters felt it was time for this mercurial concept of "change," then I think even a traditional conservative such as I could make an attempt to be the change we seek in others.

I watched on CNN the massive gathering of Obama supporters in Chicago's Grant Park and was simply stunned at the spectacle of it all. I don't know how this guy will govern, but between this and his August DNC speech at a packed Mile High Stadium in Denver ... there's no question this guy knows how to put on a show. It made me wonder what the hell it would look like if Obama would've gone on to lose, but despite that ... even I have to admit it was a pretty awesome sight.

So now the Dems have a firm grip on the Senate, the House and now the White House, and even on the state level, they now hold the Senate and - for the first time in 14 years - the Assembly. This in addition to the governor's mansion.

The Dems have no real roadblocks to implement the promises they've made.

No excuses.

And that's got to scare more than a few Dems.

P.S. I found an interesting interactive map at JSonline, which shows how each of Wisconsin's 72 counties has voted for president since 1964.

Countdown to history

2008-11-03T23:14:00.004-06:00

Within 24 hours of this posting America will have indicated its preference for its first African-American president.
RealClearPolitics shows Obama with a 278-132 lead in electoral votes among states whose polls are outside the margin of error one way or another. When throwing every state to one candidate or another, regardless of margin of error, puts Obama way over the top at 338-200.
Obama's election would be a pretty remarkable feat considering it was barely 45 years ago that blacks couldn't even be assured the opportunity to vote in every part of this country.
No less than Ward Connerly - he of crusades against racial preferences - even proffers hope at Obama's election, in that it could mean a fundamental change in the definition of Affirmative Action. Connerly seems to think Obama would shift this definition from racial to socio-economic.
This is something I've said for years; that one's ethnicity doesn't enable him to inject "diversity" into any setting, but one's socio-economic status does.
Consider: Two kids - one black and one white - could grow up next door to each other, go to the same schools and graduate from the same college with the same degree, and some companies would be more likely to hire the black kid just because he represents "diversity."
Continuing to focus on race-based diversity ignores the significant gains minorities have made, socially and economically.
Shifting that focus to classes of Americans who are struggling with the emasculating effects of joblessness and poverty, however, could be just the change our country needs.

A Savage election?

2008-10-14T22:02:00.006-06:00

As McCain continues to slip in the polls, with just one debate and three weeks to go until Election Day, yack-radio host Michael Savage put forth an interesting theory. ("Interesting" in the "watch a marshmallow explode in the microwave" sense.) He seems to think that Mitt Romney was all lined up to be McCain's VP choice but that the tea leaves were not boding well for the economy, which prompted the RNC to push McCain to leave Romney on the sideline for 2012 and pick up Sarah Palin as electoral cannon fodder.
I don't buy that for a number of reasons, just one of which being that putting Romney on the ticket would've given him a great opportunity to flex his economic muscle, albeit at the expense of overshadowing McCain.
That and McCain hates him.
Savage has become an empty can. He echoes the same rhetoric he always has and I'm just tired of him. His show is still pretty strong in the ratings, but I get pretty war-weary of the conservative talkers and the constant barrage of things Dems want to do to destroy our country. Don't get me wrong, I'd get sick of lib-talkers too if there were actually any on the air anywhere.

But with The One opening a larger lead nationally - 5 or 6 percentage points in most polls, with more than 360 electoral votes at least leaning his way - he would appear to have this thing all but wrapped up. That'll give the Dems the White House, probably a firmer majority in the House and possibly a veto-proof majority in the Senate. Come late January, they'll have no excuses.

Meanwhile, the Republicans can cycle out some dead wood.

McCain-Palin rock Green Bay

2008-09-21T00:20:00.016-06:00

OK, maybe "rock" is a bit strong. But with the long lines and overpriced memorabilia, John McCain's and Sarah Palin's visit to the Resch Center on Thursday had all the makings of a rock concert. ... I'm convinced this is what it would look like if Lawrence Welk were to tour with Hannah Montana.

It was a good time, and given what I went through to obtain my "VIP" ticket, it dawned on me the true value of these visits.
One could simply walk into a McCain campaign office and pick up a free ticket that would get you into the seats. But if you wanted a VIP ducat, which would allow you on the floor and possibly within reach of a handshake or autograph, you had to make 100 calls at that office's phone bank.
So while these visits are an opportunity to generate some free publicity in the local news, it's also a way to spark some local volunteers to get out and make calls or knock on doors (to get the tickets). It's all about energizing the base.
So about one hour and countless hang-ups and messages later, I had my VIP pass, and it was off to GB ...

Naturally, there were some Obama backers there. They kept a respectable distance, and at least they were clever. One was wearing a McCain mask (not sure who the other mask-wearer is supposed to be), and the big wooden thing in front of them is a "rubber stamp" that I think actually worked, as they appeared to stamp something on their sign. Let's see the Pro Lifers match that when they crash Obama's next visit.

Barb, a woman I spoke with briefly down on the floor wearing a "Republican" print dress, prepares her sign by scrawling "1st S.B.C.T. mom" across the top of it. It turns out her son is in the same unit - Striker Brigade Combat Team - as Palin's son Track and will be deployed with him shortly. While she was made to give up her homemade sign at the door, she was hoping to catch Palin's attention with this one. As it happens, Palin mentioned her by name in her speech.

Palin and McCain enter the arena.

Palin kicks off, following introductions by state attorney general J.B. Van Hollen, Republican Party of Wisconsin chairman Reince Priebus and 8th Congressional District candidate John Gard, who is shown at the far right.

McCain speaks, and a Secret Service agent obscures a direct sightline of Palin's ass.

McCain works the ropeline after his stirring speech about ... did I mention Palin was standing right behind him? I'm looking over the right shoulder of the lady whose left hand you see here, so if I'd really pushed forward, I might've gotten a handshake with the man ... and then gotten shot.

More ropeline, this with some "ultra VIPs" who got their own little bullpen area. Someone told me they were like wives of state assemblymen or something. ... THAT warrants a personal meet-and-greet!?

Palin and McCain work their way down the runway and out of the arena, but not before shaking some more hands and inking some autographs. It wasn't until I'd taken my spot on the floor that I'd realized I hadn't brought a Sharpie with me. I didn't imagine I'd get close enough. But I'll know next time. And they will be back. After all, Wisconsin IS a swing state!

Let the political games begin

2008-09-06T08:07:00.004-06:00

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin cheerfully advising a well-wisher Sept. 5 in Cedarburg, Wis., "If you touch me, this guy here will blow your head off."

In the wake of the Democrats' and Republicans' national conventions, we have officially entered the final phase of Silly Season; the home stretch of the general election.

And silly it is!

John McCain deftly announced his VP pick the day after the Dem convention ended, sparing us from the media slobberfest that surely would've ensued. He even recorded an ad graciously congratulating Obama for his acceptance speech, which happened to fall on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech. McCain's maneuver also thrust the nation's hottest ... ERRRR, most qualified governor, Alaska's Sarah Palin, into the national spotlight.

The Dems responded by congratulating McCain on choosing a woman to get one step closer to the White House than the Dems' own semifinalist, Hillary Clinton. ... Oh wait, no they didn't. Actually, they lambasted and lampooned and have been every bit as dismissive and condescending as one would expect liberal elitists to be. Obama has intentionally mispronounced her small hometown of which she was mayor. Women have decried the choice for assuming that Hillary-backers would vote for her just because Hillary was out. Not to be left out of the liberal hatefest of Palin, Dr. Laura even chimed in about how Palin has no business running for office until her children are adults. So where are the feminists? They're calling leftist talk radio and echoing the National Organization for Women, which not only doesn't defend Palin for being a woman balancing a career and a family, but chastises her for being Pro Life.

McCain wasn't my first choice for Republican president, and as far as my list of VP possibles, I didn't have Palin on top. *snicker* But she was on my list, right there with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. I felt both could be great candidates in '12 or '16 and could have benefited from more time in their respective states.
If McCain was going to choose a Religious Right conservative, then why not Mike Huckabee? He was a governor and is a pastor, garnered a fair amount of votes as the last Republican standing in the primaries, is a fine speaker and smooth debater, and he's funny. This is important because it makes him a frequent talk-show guest and makes him likable; important for a Republican these days.

Anyway, they're not the cards I wanted, but it's what I've been dealt, so the whole game comes down to one futures bet; federal and Supreme Court judges. There are other issues, such as the war on terror, which I believe McCain would prosecute more adeptly than would Obama, but I'm hearing the next president could appoint three SC Justices, and those are appointments that could affect the next 30 years.

Bring on the debates!
Presidential:
Sept. 26 in Oxford, Miss.; foreign policy, nat'l security; Jim Lehrer moderating
Oct. 7 in Nashville, Tenn.; town-hall meeting; Tom Brokaw moderating
Oct. 15 in Hempstead, N.Y.; domestic, economic policy; Bob Schieffer moderating

VP debate:
Oct. 2 in St. Louis; Gwen Ifill moderating

RIP Gene Upshaw (1945-2008)

2008-08-21T15:06:00.002-06:00

No player in National Football League history had as much impact on both offense and defense as Gene Upshaw; on offense, as the Hall of Fame left guard for the powerful Oakland Raiders of the 1970s ... then in defense, since 1983, of the best interests of the members of the NFL Players Association.

Upshaw died early Thursday morning at the age of 63. He succumbed to pancreatic cancer, which he reportedly didn't even know he had until Sunday. As someone who lost a grandfather to pancreatic cancer in 1993 and visited with him during the bed-ridden last two weeks of his life, I find it unfathomable that anyone could get to within days of death from this disease without knowing something was seriously amiss.

Anyway, Upshaw's legacy is mixed. Few will find any fault with his playing career - 11 Pro Bowls in 16 years - though former Broncos linebacker Tom Jackson came the closest to besmirching Upshaw when he eulogized that Upshaw "never got called for holding."

But Upshaw's second career, as the players' union head, drew more criticism. In recent years, retired "old timers" had become distinctly more vocal about what they perceived as a lack of empathy from Upshaw in the struggle that many former players have had with medical bills and health care. Former Buffalo Bills guard Joe DeLamielleure may have been the loudest, alleging that Upshaw said he "doesn't represent former players."

Upshaw's tenure endured other rough patches, particularly when the owners broke the union - decertified it - in 1987. The players had struck, canceling one week of the season, and ultimately worked without a collective bargaining agreement until 1989. (Makes one wonder what would've happened if the USFL had been able to hold out until this time and capitalize on its rival league's best players suddenly without teams.)

But in the end, NFL players are making infinitely more money than they were in Upshaw's day. To Upshaw's credit, though, according to numerous testimonials given by a litany of former teammates - particularly on Sirius NFL Radio all day Thursday - always stressed benefits over salary.

Upshaw tributes
CBS Sportsline
NFL.com

Obama-lympics

2008-08-19T13:36:00.004-06:00

Listening to Barack Obama twist and contort around the straightforward questions put to him (parts one, two, three, four, five) at the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., last Saturday night by Pastor Rick Warren, I'm starting to think debate should be an Olympic sport.

It certainly can't be any dumber than some of them that have been included.

This is probably as good a time as any to define what is and isn't a sport. While this may sound like a deep intellectual exercise, I think I've developed a pretty good handle on it over the years, as someone who's covered a number of different sports and athletic endeavors.

First, there is the differentiation between "athlete" and "sport." Cheerleading; absolutely they're athletes, but don't call it a sport ... Bowling; absolutely a sport, not exactly athletes.
The two camps are not mutually inclusive; not all cheerleaders are athletes, not all bowlers aren't.
Simply put, anything that REQUIRES a judge, every time the event is held, to let us know who won is NOT a sport. A sport is an event in which two or more contestants (or teams) vie for a common prize which only one can win. Further, a sport is something for which training (or simply practicing) can enhance one's performance. And I suppose the real difference between a "sport" and a "pastime" like stone-skipping or rock-paper-scissors is the widespread base of fans or competitors. Unfortunately that can include silly sports that adults should be embarrassed to compete in, but they're sports nonetheless.

So, below is the list of this year's Olympic events being held in Beijing.

Aquatics - swimming events that require a judge are not sports, though these folks are outstanding athletes.
-Diving (8)
-Swimming (34)
-Synchronized swimming (2) - the Spanish ladies got in trouble for wanting to wear battery-powered flashing suits ... still want to argue that this is a sport?
-Water polo (2)

Archery (4)

Athletics (47) - track and field

Badminton (5)

Baseball (1) - sickens me to think this is going away in, I think, 2012

Basketball (2)

Boxing (11) - actually the trickiets one for me because it does involve judges, which has resulted in substantial screwing over the years (see Roy Jones Jr. in Seoul 1988), but the judging involves primarily the number of punches landed, which is virtually indisputable ... and the possibility of a knockout, as a normal course of the event, is always a very real possibility (if not a likelihood in amateur boxing)

Canoeing (16) - if this is anything like the kayaking, based on navigating gates; no style points involved here

Cycling (18)

Equestrian (6)

Fencing (10)

Field hockey (2) - just as an aside, this sport strikes me as the hockey equivalent to ice fishing; can't wait for the lakes to thaw to fish, can't wait for them to freeze to play hockey ... a silly sport that men shouldn't play, but a sport nonetheless

Football (2) - SOCCER!!!

Gymnastics (18) - perhaps the most sensitive bunch related to this topic, it's important to draw this distinction; easily the best all-around athletes in the world, but don't tell me that an event predicated on how the participants wear their hair and uniform is a sport

Handball (2)

Judo (14) - similar to boxing, but without the likelihood of knockouts ... to me, they should take the pads off and go MMA-style

Modern pentathlon (2) - running, equestrian, swimming, fencing, shooting

Rowing (14)

Sailing (11)

Shooting (15)

Softball (1)

Table tennis (4) - certainly a sport, but a makeover may not be a bad idea

Taekwondo (8) - see Judo and Boxing

Tennis (4)

Triathlon (2)

Volleyball (4)

Weightlifting (15) - similar to boxing, judges exist solely to determine WHETHER a lift has been made, not HOW WELL it's been done

Wrestling (18) - in pure athleticism, second only to gymnasts

Hats off to Aaron Rodgers in debut

2008-08-11T21:05:00.004-06:00

Green Bay's James Jones loses his helmet on a 30-yard touchdown reception against Cincinnati safety Marvin White in the first half Monday in Green Bay.

It's a good thing I didn't play the Brett Favre Drinking Game, or I wouldn't have made it out of the first quarter.

If I'd taken a shot every time Mike Tirico, Tony Kornheiser and Ron Jaworski uttered Favre's name, it wouldn't have been long before I would've been tanked like George Jones on an international flight.

The Packers opened their preseason with a Monday Night Football date at home against the Cincinnati Bengals. It was the first time since 1993 that someone other than Favre took the opening snap, as Aaron Rodgers shed the red jersey for some live action.

All in all, he looked pretty good. He went 9-of-15 for 117 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT; at least one of those incompletions was a bobble by Donald Driver that should've been caught (and, failing that, probably should've been picked), and the INT was not Rodgers' fault, as it was bobbled into the air by Chris Francies. So while it counts in the stat book, it's irrelevant in terms of Rodgers' development.

Most importantly, Rodgers displayed much of the elusiveness and discipline - such as throwing the ball away rather than forcing something - that he showed flashes of at Dallas last November.

I'm not worried about Rodgers - my primary concern for him is regarding his health - I was more curious to see Brian Brohm and Matt Flynn.

If Brohm's stomach was churning with his first NFL action ... well, then he played like he felt (8-17, INT). He looked lost the whole time he was out there. His INT came on a play where he locked onto his receiver, though the receiver did get hit from behind. It's Brohm's first NFL action, and Papa John's Cardinal Stadium only held about 42,000 fans, so I'll cut him some slack.

But Flynn, on the other hand, was impressive. The former LSU QB appeared decisive, finishing 12-of-21 and guiding the Packers to a late touchdown to pull the team to within 20-17. (Kregg Lumpkin may have played his way off the roster, as the backup RB fumbled in Packer territory while Flynn was driving the team toward a potential game-tying FG.)

The best moment of the game came during Rodgers' stint, when he hit James Jones at the 15 on a 30-yard TD; Jones took a wicked hit and lost his helmet. I believe it was the first Lambeau Leap by a hatless player.

Regarding the Favre saga, Tirico had the observation of the night; that the Packers' front office made a move toward getting its team back.

How true that is, and I would argue that it's taken until now for the team to recover from the Ray Rhodes era (OK, year).

1999 was the team's first season after the departure of Mike Holmgren. Rhodes was renowned as a "players coach," which in his case meant hands-off and letting them run the asylum. This was the beginning of Favre's presumed "ownership" of the team, I believe.

After Rhodes was fired and Mike Sherman hired in his place, then subsequently made GM by the departing Ron Wolf, it makes perfect sense to me that Sherman would've had too much on his plate to interfere with Favre's leadership role.

So when Ted Thompson took over as GM in 2005, his personality wouldn't allow for a player to hold as much sway over a team as Favre's did. It was evident through episodes such as Favre's tantrum regarding Thompson's refusal/failure to bring in Randy Moss in 2007, and his no-nonsense approach to handling Favre's retirement this year, that Thompson felt it would be HIS team, or at least NOT a player's team.

So far, Thompson has made some fine draft picks and the team - the youngest in the league - appears loaded for ... err, "bear" for some time to come.

Bring on the season!

Scorpions rock Ft. McCoy

2008-08-10T15:59:00.003-06:00

Scorpions line up for my picture during 'Countdown'. From left are ... Polish guy whose name I'll never be able to remember or pronounce, Rudolf Schenker, Matthias Jabs and Klaus Meine.

Another half-decade, another Scorpions concert down.
After traveling to Green Bay to see these German 'ambassadors of rock' in 2004 - I first saw them April 7, 1991 at the Brown County Arena - a couple of buddies and I journeyed to Fort McCoy, just outside of Sparta, for the Scorps' 2008 visit, which was in support of their Humanity: Hour 1 album released last year.
I even came away with a guitar pick from the Wisconsin-native guitarist (didn't catch his name) for Alice Cooper, who preceded the Scorpions (and followed opening act Hip Kitty). So I'll probably find some small cheapy frame for my ticket stub and guitar pick (which has Alice's picture on it).

We were front and center, about five rows back from the barrier, drained a few pitchers, saw a few fights break out around us ... all in all, a pretty good time.
Alice Cooper came out on stage in his trademark bloodstained tailed tuxedo with a cane he promptly tossed into the crowd a few feet from us. One my buddies was one of about five guys to get at least one hand on it. He got a good solid grip on it and gave it a good rip ... and got only the small plastic cap off the end of it while the rest of it disappeared into the humanity. Oh well, it's a piece of Alice Cooper memorabilia of which few of us can boast.
The guitar pick came flying toward me and bounced around a few sets of hands before dropping toward the ground. I looked down and glimpsed it in the bottom of a folded chair we'd brought, shot for it and gripped the heck out of it. I'd seen what those animals did to people who left drumsticks and other bulky items unguarded; no one was getting my pick.

The Scorpions always have been a bit of an escapist, guilty pleasure for me. While I consider myself a big fan, I'll be the first to admit they're about as paint-by-numbers as a major act can be; their performances playing out like some sort of Rock & Roll High School project and their lyrics conveying all the originality of a sophomore lyric-writing assignment in the English-as-a-second-language department.
So one needs to be willing to suspend some disbelief to be a Scorpions fan. But a fan I am, and rock they did. Even got to snap some pictures with my new camera phone (which I would post here if I could figure out how to send them to myself).

RIP, Bernie Mac (1957-2008)

2008-08-09T08:29:00.002-06:00

Bernie Mac is dead at the age of 50.
The former standup comedian and more recent star of 'The Bernie Mac Show' and 'Mr. 3000' apparently died of complications from pneumonia.
I liked Bernie a lot. His standup was sufficiently filthy, and he seemed to have rounded himself into a more complete actor with some of his work, which included the 'Ocean's Eleven' franchise. My affection for 'Mr. 3000' comes from the fact that he played a Milwaukee Brewer, and that much of the movie was filmed in Milwaukee.

Actor and comedian Bernie Mac dies at age 50
By F.N. D'ALESSIO Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO (AP) -- Bernie Mac, the actor and comedian who teamed up in the casino heist caper "Ocean's Eleven" and gained a prestigious Peabody Award for his sitcom "The Bernie Mac Show," died Saturday at age 50.
"Actor/comedian Bernie Mac passed away this morning from complications due to pneumonia in a Chicago area hospital," his publicist, Danica Smith, said in a statement from Los Angeles.
She said no other details were available and asked that his family's privacy be respected.
The comedian suffered from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease that produces tiny lumps of cells in the body's organs, but had said the condition went into remission in 2005. He recently was hospitalized and treated for pneumonia, which his publicist said was not related to the disease.
Recently, Mac's brand of comedy caught him flack when he was heckled during a surprise appearance at a July fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate and fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama.
Toward the end of a 10-minute standup routine, Mac joked about menopause, sexual infidelity and promiscuity, and used occasional crude language. The performance earned him a rebuke from Obama's campaign.
But despite controversy or difficulties, in his words, Mac was always a performer.
"Wherever I am, I have to play," he said in 2002. "I have to put on a good show."
Mac worked his way to Hollywood success from an impoverished upbringing on Chicago's South Side. He began doing standup as a child, and his film career started with a small role as a club doorman in the Damon Wayans comedy "Mo' Money" in 1992. In 1996, he appeared in the Spike Lee drama "Get on the Bus."
He was one of "The Original Kings of Comedy" in the 2000 documentary of that title that brought a new generation of black standup comedy stars to a wider audience.
Mac went on to star in the hugely popular "Ocean's Eleven" franchise with Brad Pitt and George Clooney.
His turn with Ashton Kutcher in 2005's "Guess Who" topped the box office. It was a comedy remake of the classic Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn drama "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" - with Mac as the black dad who's shocked that his daughter is marrying a white man.
Mac also had starring roles in "Bad Santa," "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" and "Transformers."
In the late 1990s, he had a recurring role in "Moesha," the UPN network comedy starring pop star Brandy.
The comedian drew critical and popular acclaim with his Fox television series "The Bernie Mac Show," which aired more than 100 episodes from 2001 to 2006.
The series about a man's adventures raising his sister's three children, won a Peabody Award in 2002. At the time, judges wrote they chose the sitcom for transcending "race and class while lifting viewers with laughter, compassion - and cool."
The show garnered Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for Mac.
"But television handcuffs you, man," he said in a 2001 Associated Press interview. "Now everyone telling me what I CAN'T do, what I CAN say, what I SHOULD do, and asking, `Are blacks gonna be mad at you? Are whites gonna accept you?'"
He also was nominated for a Grammy award for best comedy album in 2001 along with his "The Original Kings of Comedy" co-stars, Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley and Cedric The Entertainer.
In 2007, Mac told David Letterman on CBS' "Late Show" that he planned to retire soon.
"I'm going to still do my producing, my films, but I want to enjoy my life a little bit," Mac told Letterman. "I missed a lot of things, you know. I was a street performer for two years. I went into clubs in 1977."
Mac was born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough on Oct. 5, 1957, in Chicago. He grew up on the city's South Side, living with his mother and grandparents. His grandfather was the deacon of a Baptist church.
In his 2004 memoir, "Maybe You Never Cry Again," Mac wrote about having a poor childhood - eating bologna for dinner - and a strict, no-nonsense upbringing.
"I came from a place where there wasn't a lot of joy," Mac told the AP in 2001. "I decided to try to make other people laugh when there wasn't a lot of things to laugh about."
Mac's mother died of cancer when he was 16. In his book, Mac said she was a support for him and told him he would surprise everyone when he grew up.
"Woman believed in me," he wrote. "She believed in me long before I believed."

All eyes to the AFC East

2008-08-09T07:42:00.003-06:00

All of a sudden, this is shaping up to be an oustanding season for AFC East fans.
Chad Pennington, the QB displaced by Brett Favre's arrival with the New York Jets, has signed a two-year contract with the Miami Dolphins. So, to recap ...
g Jets coach Eric Mangini and New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick don't like each other, Belichick feeling like Mangini betrayed him by leaving the Patriots organization, a feeling undoubtedly compounded by Mangini's turning in Belichik for "Spygate" early last season.
g Now, Favre is the new sheriff in town and will face off against the Pats' Tom Brady - the only player to edge Favre for league MVP honors last season - and Brady's new favorite target, Randy Moss - who Favre desperately wanted Green Bay to pick up early in 2007.
g Pennington, who was unceremoniously - and unapologetically - dumped by the Jets once they had Favre in camp, will now QB the Dolphins, who happen to have as their new Vice President of Football Operations one Bill Parcells, who had a messy "divorce" of his own from Belichick.
g Finally, the Buffalo Bills ... well, they don't really have a stake in the Jets vs. Pats vs. Dolphins triumvirate. But they are undergoing some changes this year as they'll be playing at least one home game in Toronto (likely in preparation for the team's permanent departure from Buffalo upon the death of founder/owner Ralph Wilson). Yeah, once ol' man Ralph shuffles off this mortal coil, I'm guessing the NFL will finally actualize its wet dream of NFL football in Los Angeles ... a market that couldn't support the Rams and Raiders and that couldn't care less about getting a team of its own.

Anyway, the East Coast media - ESPN chief among them - will have a football field day this year.

New Jersey for Favre

2008-08-07T08:45:00.003-06:00

And on the seventh day (of August), everyone rested.
The Green Bay Packers officially ended the Brett Favre era by completing a trade to the New York Jets late last night. Favre went to New York in exchange for a conditional draft pick, which we're hearing could range from a first-rounder (if the Jets make the Super Bowl) to a third (if he takes 50 percent of the snaps). It likely will be a second-rounder, which will come if Favre takes 70 percent of the snaps and the Jets make the playoffs.
And with that, the screwing of Aaron Rodgers is complete. Favre has succeeded in turning a significant portion of Packerland against A-Rodg, or at least stubbornly in Favre's favor. It reminds me of what Jim Rome talks about all the time regarding L.A. post-Shaq/Kobe. While Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal won three NBA championships together, the second-largest TV market in the country was not big enough to accommodate their egos, and the Lakers traded O'Neal to the Miami Heat two years ago. Since, L.A. has been split between factions that blame Bryant for their inability to get along, and those who blame O'Neal. According to online polls, it seems a stunning number of Packer fans are still on Favre's side through this whole mess.
Here's why they're wrong:
Favre has put us through this song and dance for at least the past three offseasons; "will he retire or won't he?" He put his own indecisiveness ahead of the team's well-being, as his indecision carried through free agency and the draft each time. If he'd decided to retire in May or so, the team would've been F'd if it had passed on any significant QBs through free agency or the draft.
So this year, it seems Packer management got down to brass tacks with Favre and demanded that he make a decision. He retired. The team proceeded accordingly through free agency and the draft, and he - almost predictably - began to rethink his decision in June. Even then, he only floated feelers about the possibility of returning; he didn't definitively come out and say he wanted to come back. Then all through July he hinted around a return, even appearing on an interview with Appleton native Greta Van Susteren to talk about how unfairly the Packers had treated him.
Really Brett? You were one of the highest-paid QBs in the league, let alone in Packer history. Why don't you ask Javon Walker how unfair the team was to YOU? You started games when you were too injured, or going through too ineffective a period, to be worthy of such an honor. Why don't you ask Don Majkowski how unfair the franchise was to YOU? And when the team drafted Rodgers and you subsequently publicly refused to mentor him, how again was that unfair to YOU?
Favre has always kept Packerland at arm's reach; outside of football-related activities, he only appeared once in the offseason, that for his charity softball game.
And given his performance in two of his last three bad-weather games - at the Bears and at home against the Giants - he played like he'd just gotten off the bus from Kiln, Miss.

Goodbye, Brett. And thanks to the unceremonious way to smeared your legacy on your way out the door ... good riddance.

For Packers, it's all about family

2008-08-02T06:47:00.004-06:00

Just one day until Packers Family Night, which means one thing for sure; given the way things have played out with Brett Favre, they may want to change the name to Dysfunctional Family Night. Divorcees get in free!

Yeah, it's been tough watching this worm turn. To summarize:

Favre tearfully retired on March 6. The Packers moved ahead accordingly through free agency and the draft (picking up QBs Brian Brohm and Matt Flynn on draft day). Then Favre decided sometime in June he might want to play again. By July, that inclination turned stronger and Favre decided that yes he indeed wanted to play.
Problem is, the Packers have moved on, citing the need to see what they have in Aaron Rodgers in order to determine what to do with him as this is his contract year. Rodgers has looked good in spot duty but obviously has never started a game, and actually has had a tough time staying healthy when he has played. (He broke his foot relieving Favre in their 35-0 trouncing at home against the Patriots in 2006, and then even after a much-touted showing against Dallas last November, summarily pulled a hamstring in practice a few days later.)
Many fans, and sports-talking heads, however, are Favre loyalists who insist the veteran is the team's best chance at reaching the Super Bowl.

There are two games to which I point that tell me the Packers and GM Ted Thompson have made the right decision; the Packers' last game at the Bears and the NFC Championship game against the Giants. In both games, the weather was very cold and conditions were generally pretty crappy. In both games, Favre looked like he didn't want to be there, and his play reflected that. In the Bear game, he went 17-of-32 for 153 and two picks, one of which Brian Urlacher returned 85 yards for a score in the 35-7 loss. In the NFC title game, he went 19-of-35 for 236 yards and 2 TDs but also had 2 INTs, one of which famously ended the Packers' threat in overtime and led directly to Lawrence Tynes' game-winning field goal in the 23-20 loss.

Aside from the raw numbers, particularly against the Giants, Favre was practically sprinting back to the Hot Seat between series, stuffing handwarmers into his face mask like he'd discovered some new kind of snack. Meanwhile, his counterpart, Eli Manning, who also hails from the balmier climes of Gulf region, BTW, didn't fair much better statistically. But he DID stand pretty resolutely next to his bare-faced coach on the opposite sideline. So what kind of message does this send to one's team, when its leader goes 3-and-out and then instead of poring over snapshots of defenses, huddles under a parka until it's time to underperform again.

These two games tell me this; that Favre may truly want to play. Right now. But what happens if the Packers tear up their plans in order to accommodate his whims, and then when the weather starts to turn in December, Favre suddenly remembers why he retired in the first place? What happens if they go 8-4 into December and then lose 3 of their last 4 and miss the playoffs? Or if they do make the playoffs and either lose their first game or go 1-1? Basically, anything short of what Favre and his acolytes are promising, a full-steam run at the Super Bowl?

I'll tell you what happens; we'll find ourselves in the exact same spot as this year. And God forbid Favre would have a Pro Bowl-caliber year, which would only "prove" he can still play. Meanwhile, we'd lose Rodgers to free agency. Granted, that might not mean anything ... we simply don't know.

But the team is young enough, and solvent enough - about $30 million under the salary cap, second best in the NFL - that it can afford to take the chance that one of its three young QBs can be the guy to front this franchise for the next 10 years.

Now if we can just get Rodgers out of that No. 12 and back into the 8 he wore at Cal.

Tony Snow dead at 53

2008-07-12T08:22:00.002-06:00

One can only run so far, so fast, from cancer. At 2 a.m. Saturday, conservative commentator and former Press Secretary Tony Snow had simply run out. The longtime Fox News anchor died from the disease; he was 53.

Former Bush press secretary dies

By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Tony Snow, a conservative writer and commentator who cheerfully sparred with reporters in the White House briefing room during a stint as President Bush's press secretary, died Saturday of colon cancer. He was 53.
"America has lost a devoted public servant and a man of character," President Bush said in a statement from Camp David, where he was spending the weekend. "It was a joy to watch Tony at the podium each day. He brought wit, grace, and a great love of country to his work."
Snow died at 2 a.m. at Georgetown University Hospital, according to former employer Fox News.
Snow, who served as the first host of the television news program "Fox News Sunday" from 1996 to 2003, would later say that in the Bush administration he was enjoying "the most exciting, intellectually aerobic job I'm ever going to have."
Snow was working for Fox News Channel and Fox News Radio when he replaced Scott McClellan as press secretary in May 2006 during a White House shake-up. Unlike McClellan, who came to define caution and bland delivery from the White House podium, Snow was never shy about playing to the cameras.
With a quick-from-the-lip repartee, broadcaster's good looks and a relentlessly bright outlook — if not always a command of the facts — he became a popular figure around the country to the delight of his White House bosses.
He served just 17 months as press secretary, a tenure interrupted by his second bout with cancer. In 2005 doctors had removed his colon and he began six months of chemotherapy. In March 2007 a cancerous growth was removed from his abdominal area and he spent five weeks recuperating before returning to the White House.
"All of us here at the White House will miss Tony, as will the millions of Americans he inspired with his brave struggle against cancer," Bush said.
Snow resigned as Bush's chief spokesman last September, citing not his health but a need to earn more than the $168,000 a year he was paid in the government post. In April, he joined CNN as a commentator.
As press secretary, Snow brought partisan zeal and the skills of a seasoned performer to the task of explaining and defending the president's policies. During daily briefings, he challenged reporters, scolded them and questioned their motives as if he were starring in a TV show broadcast live from the West Wing.
Critics suggested that Snow was turning the traditionally informational daily briefing into a personality-driven media event short on facts and long on confrontation. He was the first press secretary, by his own accounting, to travel the country raising money for Republican candidates.
Although a star in conservative politics, as a commentator he had not always been on the president's side. He once called Bush "something of an embarrassment" in conservative circles and criticized what he called Bush's "lackluster" domestic policy.
Most of Snow's career in journalism involved expressing his conservative views. After earning a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Davidson College in North Carolina in 1977 and studying economics and philosophy at the University of Chicago, he wrote editorials for The Greensboro (N.C.) Record, and The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk.
He was the editorial page editor of The Newport News (Va.) Daily Press and deputy editorial page editor of The Detroit News before moving to Washington in 1987 to become editorial page editor of The Washington Times.
Snow left journalism in 1991 to join the administration of the first President Bush as director of speechwriting and deputy assistant to the president for media affairs. He then rejoined the news media to write nationally syndicated columns for The Detroit News and USA Today during much of the Clinton administration.
Roger Ailes, chairman of Fox News, called Snow a "renaissance man."
Robert Anthony Snow was born June 1, 1955, in Berea, Ky., and spent his childhood in the Cincinnati area. Survivors include his wife, Jill Ellen Walker, whom he married in 1987, and three children.

Jesse Helms dead at 86

2008-07-09T18:12:00.003-06:00

An interesting POV from Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe regarding the July 4 death of former Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC).
Interesting that liberals don't seem to want to forgive Helms' segregationist past (while he was a Democrat), yet have no problem glossing over that of Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV).

Dancing on the grave of Jesse Helms
By Jeff Jacoby
Globe Columnist / July 9, 2008
LIBERALS DIDN'T think much of Jesse Helms when he was alive, and their feelings didn't soften with his death.

"Jesse Helms, you rat bastard, burn in hell," announced a headline at Daily Kos, the hugely popular left-wing blog; "Please excuse me while I dance upon his grave," gloated another.

In The Nation, the former North Carolina senator was memorialized as "Jesse Helms, American Bigot." For its online audience, The Washington Post resurrected a column David Broder produced when Helms announced his retirement: "Jesse Helms, White Racist."

The invective streamed in from across the pond as well. "There seemingly wasn't a right-wing, retrograde social issue Helms met that he didn't like," wrote Melissa McEwan in a savage essay on the Guardian's website. "It was . . . his unmitigated intolerance toward people of color that will define his legacy.

Well, hating Helms is nothing new. More than 16 years ago, the scholar Charles Horner observed in Commentary that for many people Helms had become a "symbol of the evil against which all enlightened people are automatically ranged." As with the poisonous rhetoric of today's pathological George W. Bush-haters, the point of the virulence expressed toward Helms was typically character-assassination, not contention - it was aimed at demonizing the man rather than debating or disproving his ideas.

For some liberals, Helms's death had long been a fantasy. "I think he ought to be worried about what's going on in the Good Lord's mind," NPR's Nina Totenberg said in 1995, "because if there is retributive justice, he'll get AIDS from a transfusion. Or one of his grandchildren will get it."

What the left despised most about Helms varied with the seasons. There was his unyielding anticommunism. His visceral opposition to homosexuality. His war on government funding of obscene art. His blackball of William Weld's nomination as ambassador to Mexico. His staunch support of the tobacco industry. And, of course, his segregationist past.

In the one-dimensional demonology of the left, Helms comes across as an unreconstructed racist who dreamed of Jim Crow every night and whose first words each morning were "Segregation forever!" The truth was considerably different - and more admirable.

Helms came to prominence as a foe of desegregation. "He battled as hard as any of them," editorialized the conservative National Review in 2001, "a shameful legacy, of which he was never ashamed." In those days Helms was a Democrat, as were most Southern segregationists. But by the time he entered Congress in 1973, he had changed both his party and his mind. Far from using his office to roll back civil rights, argued Walter Russell Mead, a noted scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations, Helms "deserves to be remembered as one of a handful of men who brought white Southern conservatives into a new era of race relations."

Mead, who grew up in the South, recalled listening as a boy to Helms's "anti-integration, anti-Martin Luther King commentaries on WRAL-TV." But once the battle was over and the civil rights laws were passed, Mead wrote years later, Helms did something "very revolutionary for Southern white populists: He accepted the laws and obeyed them." He shunned violence, hired black aides, and provided constituent services without regard to race. Instead of leading his followers into resistance, Helms "disciplined and tamed the segregationist South," prodding it "into grudging acceptance of the new racial order."

Yet rather than hail his statesmanship and acknowledge his contribution to the civil rights revolution, liberals marked his death by reaching for pejoratives. Helms's sin was not racism; it was his tenacious political incorrectness. Had he been willing to tack left on other issues, his racial wrongs would have been forgiven.

Consider, for example, the treatment meted out to Helms's senior colleague, Sam Ervin. He was beloved by the left notwithstanding his defense of segregation and his vote against elevating Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court. When Ervin died, The Washington Post's front-page obituary began by saluting him as a "hero to many" for his role in the Watergate hearings. His opposition to nearly every civil-rights bill of his career wasn't mentioned until the 24th paragraph - of a 25-paragraph obituary.

The real Jesse Helms was never the cartoon villain his enemies so loved to hate. But then, he didn't much care what they thought while he was alive. He certainly doesn't care now.

Jeff Jacoby can be reached at jacoby@globe.com.

Patriotism and Obama

2008-07-04T23:29:00.007-06:00

If other countries around the world do hate America, I figured out today why; competitive-eating contests. The fact that there even IS an International Federation of Competitive Eating tells me the outcry over rising food prices should be ignored just awhile longer. Granted, other countries are obviously involved in this international body, but scarf-and-barf contests have been part of county fairs across America for decades.
Oh well, at least an American won the Nathan's hot dog eating contest this year.

The way our presidential race is going, I'm surprised Barack Obama and John McCain didn't show up at the event. Hell, maybe that would be a better way to settle the event than the way they're going.

While no one is seriously questioning McCain's patriotism, that seems to be one of the tacts being taken by some conservative voices. Obama has opened himself to a laundry list of allegations:

* I used to think his alleged refusal to hold his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance was largely derived from this photo taken during a campaign stop in Iowa last year. But then I found this video, where he stands for the duration of (a truly awful rendition of) the National Anthem, and I realize he made a conscious decision to not place his hand over his heart. I usually just fold my hands, but Obama is the only one on the stage who didn't get the memo.

* Michelle Obama said repeatedly that for the first time in her adult life, she was proud of her country for voting for her husband. ... I'm willing to cut her some slack if only because she's not the public speaker, Barack is. She's just a hospital administrator. A six-figure income earner who ... has actually complained about America's private sector for much of her adult life, all the while enjoying the advantages it's afforded her. Hmm.

* Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor of 20 years and his self-described "spiritual mentor", and Michael Pfleger, still serve on the Obama campaign's spirital advisory committee. If one's character can be judged by the company he keeps, then the hateful speech spewed forth by these two clowns should be enough to keep Obama out of the White House.

* Obama's refusal to wear a flag lapel pin has been a biggie with the conservative talkers. To me, it was easily dismissable had he simply said he'd forgotten to wear it that day and "to me, the real issue is how can we put forth patriotic legislation rather than worry about whether someone is just wearing the right uniform."
But no. He went into this pseudo-intellectual justification for how he felt the lapel pin had become a substitute for true patriotism, an explanation that did little to assuage the elitist persona he's been cultivating. It's an image that's been fertilized by his San Francisco speech in which he asserted that only bitter small-town Midwesterners would "cling" to guns and religion and antipathy toward people who aren't like them.
I'm even willing to cut him slack about that, in assuming he meant that when people have lost hope, they "cling" to their core beliefs. (Even though he happened to pick red-state red meat that often is cocktail party fodder among the liberal intelligentsia.)
I have two problems with what Obama's talking about here; one political and one personal.

One, I think Obama might be too smart for his own good here. Much like in 2004, when John Kerry gave some head-scratching answers involving "blind double-regressive studies" of something-or-other, I don't think most people have the time or patience to sit through some long-winded explanation of the finer points of Obama's thought processes.

Secondly, symbolism means a lot, which is something every campaigner knows. Obama apparently has figured that out too since Lapel Gate broke, as he not only wears a lapel pin from time to time, but he always appears in front of a row of American flags standing sentry at his campaign events. And isn't it even why he drew up his own pseudo-presidential seal?
So much for his principled stand.
Sometimes all Americans need is reassurance that you have their best interests at heart. Smile and a wave at the cameras? Check. Pressed suit and a power tie? Check. Carefully orchestrated campaign stops and speeches with the right mix of people in the background to assure as many demographics as possible that you're looking out for them too? Check. Wear a tiny symbol proudly on your chest to assure us that you too remember 9/11, even if it's to criticize the policies that may have led to that terrible September day? ... We'll get back to you on that one.

Breadline Tour - Week 1

2008-06-28T08:49:00.002-06:00

Well, it's been a week since I lost my job ... and it's been a week of full-time job searching since.
As I've told some of my friends, I need to get myself a job so I can relax.
A lot of really great people have stepped up for me, offering to pass along copies of my resume to people they know. Between their generosity and my own networks I've established over the past couple of years around here, my cover letter, resume and writing samples may have passed before the eyes of more than a hundred people. That's not counting targeted submissions for specific job postings.
As a formerly out-of-work friend of mine told me, when you're doing it right and actually putting in the work to find a job, it IS a full-time job.

I realize, too, that this presents a unique opportunity for me to allot time to some pursuits I'd always only kicked around previously. Whether it's putting myself out there as a freelancer, putting together a Web-based business, or even writing a book, I'm going to try to maximize the time I now have available.

I'm very grateful for my friends who've called and checked in with me all week. I wish I had more to tell them. Those calls will taper off, as will my flurry of resume-sending, and it will be then that I'll find out what kind of person I really am.

McCain's women

2008-06-22T23:33:00.002-06:00

Interesting Yahoo story about potential women John McCain could add to the GOP ticket as VP. Could be an interesting chess match between McCain and Obama on this one, as to who will name a veep first. I'm still rooting for Mitt Romney, but these ladies are interesting.
As for the Dems, I'm still predicting Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who as a white woman would bring all of Hillary Clinton's favorables without the Clinton baggage.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin

Palin, 44, would add youth to the GOP ticket. As governor she has shown a willingness to veto some of the state’s large capital projects, no small plus for fiscal conservatives. But it’s her personal biography, which excites social conservatives, and reformist background that might most appeal to McCain.
She’s stridently anti-abortion, and recently brought to term her fifth child — who she knew would have Down syndrome. A hunter, fisher and family woman with a rapid professional rise, Palin is a natural for Republican framing.
In 1982, Palin led her underdog high school basketball team to the state championship, earning the nickname “Sarah Barracuda.” Two years later she won the beauty pageant in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska — and was also named “Miss Congeniality.” By her early thirties, she was the mayor of Wasilla.
In 2003, as ethics commissioner on the state's Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, she risked her rising political star by resigning her position in protest of ethical misconduct within the state’s Republican leadership as well as then-Gov. Frank Murkowski’s acceptance of that impropriety. Though this briefly made her an outcast within the party, within a year several state Republican heavyweights were reprimanded for the conduct she’d decried.
Her reputation with the party thus redeemed, Palin defeated Murkowski in the 2006 Republican primary on the way to being elected governor.
As governor, she’s continued challenging the state’s powers that be, even winning tax increases on oil companies’ profits. Her approval rating has soared as high as 90 percent, making her one of America’s most popular governors.
“Palin is becoming a star in the conservative movement, a fiscal conservative in a state that is looking like a boondoggle for pork barrel spending,” said Kellyanne Conway, a Republican pollster who specializes in women’s politics.
“She’s young, vibrant, fresh and now, and a new mother of five. She should be in the top tier,” Conway continued. “If the Republican Party wants to wrestle itself free from the perception that it is royalist and not open to putting new talent on the bench, this would be the real opportunity.” But several top Republican Party leaders, who asked that their names be withheld so they could speak frankly about vice presidential options, said that Palin remains out of the top tier for now. “Too unknown and inexperienced,” said one GOP insider. Others pointed out that she is not only based far from the continental 48 — and in a state with just three electoral votes that should already be in the bag for the GOP — but also has no foreign policy credentials or experience.

Carly Fiorina, former Hewlett-Packard CEO

Carly Fiorina has an up-by-her-own-bootstraps success story, having worked her way from a start as a young secretary straight through the glass ceiling to become Hewlett-Packard’s chief executive from 1999 to 2005. She presently serves as the chair of the organization tasked by the Republican National Committee with preparing the party’s crucial get-out-the-vote operation. It’s no symbolic post, but a crucial position for a party facing an uphill presidential contest.
Along with eBay.com CEO Meg Whitman — who has also been brought up occasionally as a long-shot GOP vice presidential prospect — Fiorina is one of the most prominent female executives of the last decade.
Fiorina is also already close to McCain. The two of them recently sat down at his Arlington headquarters with frustrated Clinton supporters and urged them to shift their political allegiance to him. On the campaign trail and on shows like CBS News “Face the Nation,” she’s served as a ubiquitous advocate of the candidate. Privately, she has also become one of McCain’s most trusted economic advisers.
Grover Norquist, a fiscal conservative leader and longtime party organizer, touts Fiorina’s economic and executive bonafides but labeled her a “dark horse” vice presidential prospect. One Republican state party chairman said, “everybody would be very pleasantly surprised with her” before adding that “the danger is that she hasn’t been vetted” — a concern echoed by several GOP insiders.
These insiders also expressed concern that adding her to the ticket would do little to galvanize social conservatives, some of whom still view McCain with suspicion and antipathy. They also brought up her lack of foreign policy experience, and expressed concern that her reputation as “the most powerful woman in business” — as she was once called by Forbes magazine — could prove a dubious distinction at a time when economic anxiety is reaching levels unseen since the late 1970s.
While McCain has criticized excessive executive salaries, Obama spokesman Bill Burton has already issued a statement pointing out that she “presided over thousands of layoffs at Hewlett-Packard while receiving a $21 million severance package” when she was fired by the company’s board of directors in 2005.

Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison

Last week Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, the longest-tenured female Republican senator, joined McCain for a fundraising sprint in the Lone Star state. Hutchison, who until recently headed the Senate Republican Conference, now serves as chairwoman of the Republican Policy Committee, two top Beltway party posts.
Hutchison had already engaged on McCain’s behalf, defending his embrace of the controversial conservative Pastor John Hagee earlier this year and making the rounds as a surrogate on the Sunday political shows (including an appearance Sunday on ABC’s “This Week”), though, like McCain, it’s a medium that does not suit her. And also like McCain, she is not a gifted campaigner.
In Texas, where she has been comfortably reelected, one Republican strategist notes that she’s “proven she can get scores of Hispanics in a huge state surrogate.”
“She’s underused as a surrogate to the party,” the strategist added.
But despite her popularity in the state and in the party and her years of experience, insiders are skeptical she’ll be selected. Like Alaska, Texas is already a solidly Republican state in presidential races. And adding Hutchison — who supports embryonic stem cell research and is relatively moderate on abortion (she is against outlawing the procedure, though she also opposes federal funding for it) — to the ticket would also alienate some social conservatives.
And then there’s the energy problem. Hutchison has long been a defender of Big Oil, which may make political sense locally but could prove a liability in a national race at a time when oil companies are enjoying record profits even as Americans pay record amounts at the pump.
Insofar as Hutchison, Palin or Fiorina are seriously considered, the question McCain's team may first have to answer is how much of a premium to place on gender.
Then there is the media factor. McCain himself aches for the favorable attention of a press corps he feels prefers his rival. The vice presidential pick is one of the few remaining set pieces that will ensure him the spotlight, and could build excitement about his candidacy. And as even Republicans are noting, they could use a bit of excitement.

New beginnings

2008-06-21T00:35:00.002-06:00

I got fired today.
They can dress it up however they want; "downsizing," "economic downturns," "sacrificing," etc. But it all adds up to the same number ... 86'ed.
I feel like I should be angrier than I am; like I should feel betrayed and backstabbed. But the fact is, I almost feel a sense of relief.
The job didn't provide the challenge I wanted. In fact, I knew from the day I started I wouldn't advance any higher, so I relinquished my right to bitch about that aspect of it.
But after years making contacts with the media, and training through Toastmasters, I tried in vain to convince my boss to let me take on a greater share of responsibility in publicly representing the company.
Meanwhile, I'd kicked around ideas for a variety of capitalistic ventures, which I'll now spend some time sorting out in order to determine how I should proceed. If ever I were going to research and write a book, now would be as good a time as any. If I'd ever thought about going live with that innovative new Web site, I gots the time to tinker.
These are advantages, windows that would've remained painted shut had I remained with my now-former employer.
And I realize I've been truly blessed, both with a wonderful, supportive spouse and with some really great friends (and even acquaintances) who've lent that all-important sympathetic ear through these first 24 hours. More hours will be asked of them, to be sure. But I do think the numbness will fade, hopefully to give way to an anger that will drive me to a level I may not have attained if not for this one vital fact ...
I got fired today.

RIP Tim Russert (1950-2008)

2008-06-21T00:22:00.004-06:00

Journalism lost a legend last Friday. On June 13, just two days before Father's Day, Tim Russert of NBC News collapsed and died of a heart attack.
Fittingly, he was working on the set of "Meet the Press," a show he'd anchored since 1991. Russert loved the show and suffered no fools lightly in that realm. Big-league politicians always went on and had to know each time what they were going to get. To a person, each has described Russert as "tough but fair."
It was just a couple of months ago that even the left-wingers were complaining about how hard Russert was on the Democratic candidates in one of their debates. Considering that Russert was born and raised a Democrat, and that he'd worked for Democrats Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Mario Cuomo, this bulldogging was to his credit.
The big Buffalo native also was an avid Bills fan. I have him on an NFL video lending some comments about his beloved Bills. "We just wanted one; just one," he seemed to implore.
I wish I'd been more deeply invested in Russert. I've always respected him but wish I'd watched 'Meet the Press' more and maybe even read his book, 'Big Russ and Me,' which is a tribute to his hardworking father.
Come to think of it, maybe reading that book - written by a man known for lifting up others, and in praise of a father who dutifully worked two full-time jobs to put his kids through college - would be the finest tribute a person could pay him ...

Video tributes
Meet the Press, Father's Day, 6-15-08 (Part I, II, III, IV, V, VI)
Jay Leno clip: Tim talks about his book, 'Big Russ and Me.'
Conan O'Brien clips: On meeting Pope John Paul II, and Tim's son.

Print tributes
Obit, Harper's magazine.
The New Yorker
Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal
Robert Novak
'1,500 gather at Russert's memorial,' Washington Post

Olbermann fumbles again

2008-06-12T19:25:00.002-06:00

I'm not sure what possessed me to sit through the latest edition of Keith Olbermann's "Spastic Commentary" on Thursday, but there I was, morbidly curious as to what evils Republicans hath wrought upon the world this hallowed eve.

Tonight's target was presumptive GOP nominee John McCain, particularly the Arizona Senator's statement to Matt Lauer on "Today" that a timetable for bringing troops home from Iraq is "not too important." Missing from this seemingly ghastly statement is the context, which McCain followed with emphasis that what's important in our presence there is that our level of casualties decreases to the point where American soldiers stationed in Iraq will be in no more immediate danger than those stationed in South Korea, Japan and Germany.
Olbermann started his segment by feigning to establish a "context" for McCain's comment by stringing together McCain's statements from January 2002, March 2003, May 2008 and others where he variously stated that troops would win an easy victory, that they would be greeted as liberators, that they could stay for "a hundred" years, that they would come home victorious (by the end of his first term), and finally that their presence doesn't matter so much as their safety.
But of course, Olbermann confuses the issue by contradicting himself, and McCain's statement, by emphasizing the very thing that McCain said IS important; the casualties.
McCain has stated repeatedly that America has had troops stationed in South Korea, Japan and Germany for more than 50 years, virtually without incident, and that he hopes to see a similar scenario in Iraq; namely that we would reach a point where, if troops must be stationed in Iraq, that they can be stationed there SAFELY.
Yet Olbermann dredges up the names of soldiers who've recently died in Iraq, and others who have committed suicide. Tragedies all, but each example is one you DON'T hear emanating from South Korea, Japan and Germany. Presumably this is because those soldiers have not been involved in the hellish firefights that too often engulf our troops in Iraq. So ensuring a safer situation on the ground there would seem to be in everyone's best interest.

Yet Olbermann attempts to back his point - not in his Comment but earlier in his show - by bringing in John Kerry and doing everything possible to make McCain look and sound like a doddering old fool.
Calling into question McCain's age - calling the man "confused" - is a veiled slam at his senility.
If McCain's mind fails him in any capacity, it's that he's forgotten more about warfare than Keith Olbermann will ever know.

So once again, Olbermann misses the mark and an opportunity to drive home a salient point. His blind hatred for all things Bush - and inability to think of an original sign-off - ranks him no higher than Michael Moore and Bill Clinton on the list of liberals who have mastered the art of Opportunity Lost.

The Wage Gap: a lack of common cents?

2008-04-26T08:43:00.002-06:00

The Wisconsin Women's Council released a study on April 22 (Earth Day) called "Mind the Gap! Women, Wages and the Pay Gap in Wisconsin." It alleges that women make about 77 cents for every dollar made by a man. The report's evidence lies in the median wages earned by men and women.

At first glance, it's easy to get into a lather about it ... to the point of, say, standing on street corners with placards touting "equal pay" legislation.

But there's a glaring omission from the WWC's "report," an accounting for the types of jobs surveyed. I checked with the Bureau of Labor Statistics and found men to grossly outnumber women in higher-paying fields, and conversely women to grossly outnumber men in lower-paying, support- or service-oriented fields (p. 8). I'm no mathematician, but it wouldn't seem hard to come up with this 77-cent disparity if one were to simply gloss over the job titles.

In fact, the WWC is missing an important point on this. Despite the report's willful ignorance, this alleged "wage gap" has shrunk a great deal over the past 30-plus years; from about 62 percent to near 80 today. While women do predominantly populate lower-paying jobs, this closing gap would mean there are far more women in higher-paying fields. The Feministas should be CELEBRATING THAT instead of crying about this manufactured outrage.
Secondly, even the BLS' own report on women and earnings shows that men are punished far more severely, in terms of relationship to median wage, than are women (p. 5).

The NBA's ghetto culture

2008-04-14T15:39:00.003-06:00

Either Amy Lawrence is an idiot, or ESPN is really as liberal as I've long feared.

There is a case to be made for the latter, as many of the TV and radio "personalities" seem to espouse such views. But there certainly could be a case made for the former as well.

Last weekend, I caught some of Lawrence's act on our local ESPN affiliate, 1230 AM WXCO. She was prattling on about the NBA, so I was only half-listening anyway. But then I heard her opine on why she felt the NBA spiraled into such decline since the retirement of Michael Jordan. She described the thuggish perception that many folks have of the NBA as being embodied by an "aggressive" style that's "in your face." She was close, but she missed the bigger mark.

The NBA's ghetto culture.

As a white guy from northern Wisconsin, I probably know as much about the ghetto as I do, say, uranium enrichment. But what I do know is what's espoused and glorified on TV. The "hip hop culture," as Bill O'Reilly calls it, deifies materialism and misogyny. My guess is it's an effort to show how The Man ain't keeping you down. This entails a lack of respect for anything other than oneself, embodied in the "look at me" SportsCenter highlights from most basketball games. There's more glory in a dunk, it seems, than an assist.

And it's the tattoos and baggy drawers that, IMO, is turning White America away from the game.

It's possible - and likely - that Lawrence never would've gotten away with saying it was the NBA's ghetto culture that has turned away a largely white fan base. And I found myself thinking the NBA simply needs a white superstar to bridge that gap. But I realized that perennial MVP candidate Steve Nash, and '07 MVP Dirk Nowitzki, are the closest things to the next Larry Bird that we're likely to see for a long time. So the NBA has its stars; all it needs now is an audience.

Thoughts on how the NBA can generate fan interest

The NBA has seen its postseason ratings decline precipitously over the years, and it's not hard to see why. They stretch a seven-game series out to nearly two weeks, and that's after allowing half the league into the postseason.

Commissioner David Stern needs to take a page from two events in recent years that should've taught him something already: One, the lockout of 1998, which delayed the start of the NBA season to January and shortened the season to I think 54 games. Every game mattered a lot more, and it's a lot easier to relate to a sport when its season fall within one calendar year. (The NFL is an exception, as the vast majority of its seasons fall within one calendar year, and I think it makes a big difference when a season is referred to as 2007 vs. 2007-08.)
Two, the NBA needs to recognize how popularity March Madness is at the collegiate level and whittle its seven-game series (at least in the playoffs) to best-of-three. I understand why they wouldn't want to go with a single-elimination tournament after an 82-game season, but a best-of-three would put heightened emphasis on that first game. Suddenly, Game 2 is an elimination game. And the better team should still be able to shine through.

And I have to believe that the revenue the NBA would be sacrificing from its gates would be more than made up in TV ad revenue for these newly important - and relevant - games.

Gas today: $3.39/.49/.59/D $4.09

Thundersnow

2008-04-10T20:58:00.002-06:00

I officially live in a snowglobe, amid the winter that wouldn't end.
After a couple of weeks of temperatures well into the 40s, enough to melt most of our snow except for the piles on the north faces of buildings, I'm sitting here listening to pellets of ... something being pelted off my windows by a wind that must gusting at 40 to 50 THOUSAND miles per hour.
But that's not the best part; I'm also sitting amid flashes of lightning and gentle peals of thunder. That's twice this winter (once a few weeks ago earlier in March) that we've had thundersnow.

It's enough to make me think bears, bats, squirrels and the European Hedgehog have the right idea.

'Just words'

2008-03-30T18:36:00.007-06:00

The other night, I gathered with some of the guys for some drinks, billiards and general bullshit in a buddy's basement. At one point, a lifelong friend of mine referred to his wayward pool game as "retarded."
At that point, another longtime friend of mine spoke up, a man who's a live-in caregiver for two older, cognitively disabled men. Meanwhile, I have a family member who is severely autistic and unable to care for herself. Both of which Friend A knew full well. So to put it diplomatically, an effort was made to "make him see the error if his word choice."

We asked if he'd go into Harlem and call somebody a "nigger." Or if he'd call a gay friend of ours a "faggot." Or someone else a ... (insert slur here). To my mounting disappointment, he defiantly insisted that the word "retard" should not mean to us what it did, ultimately insinuating that we were simply "oversensitive."

He tried to turn it into an offensive on how we can't make him find, or not find, something funny. The problem was, he hadn't been making a joke. And no one was saying a person should or shouldn't find anything funny. In fact, I reasoned, we often find things funny precisely because their absurdity and outrageousness say we shouldn't. I pointed out to this vocal backer of Barack Obama that Obama himself gave a renowned speech called "Just Words" (just prior to the Wisconsin Primary); a speech in which Obama referred to "I have a dream," "We hold these truths to be self-evident" ... all to illustrate the absurdity of insinuating that words have no resonance.

Meanwhile, Friend A insisted upon his freedom of speech. But it was pointed out to him that with every right comes a responsibility. Freedom of speech is not absolute, and anyone requiring proof is free to joke about a bomb in an airport sometime.

Instead, I was oversensitive.

This from someone who's never walked into a restaurant only to have nearly every set of eyes staring as you walk toward your seat; not at you but at the person you're with. ... This from someone who never went on a road trip with his parents to South Dakota when he was about 10, and was seated at a short lecture in some small nature preserve only to have another kid actually physically stand in the front of the room, point and laugh at your disabled companion. ... This from a person who's never had his eighth-grade principle clear him out of the classroom while he openly scolded the rest of the class for making light of your sister being "retarded." ... This from a person who was never the 13-year-old who - wanting nothing more as an adolescent than to fit in - had to walk back into that classroom.

This from a person who's never had to wonder what it was to like to fully appreciate the construct of a full "family of four," including everything from sibling rivalries to riding on a roller coaster at a county fair.

Nope. I was oversensitive.

It was all I could do to keep from shoving his pool cue so far up his ass he'd have to say "Aaaah" to chalk it. If for no other reason, than this is a person who openly prides himself on his "enlightened" and "liberal" view of American society.

How in God's name, it was put to him, could he then so loosely use a pejorative that would denigrate and belittle the ONE segment of the population that could never speak up for itself. A black guy walks into a room, an obviously gay person, a woman ... etc., and I know damn well he wouldn't use any of the aforementioned terms in their presence.

Instead, he chose the one demographic who could be sitting right next to him, hear him call him a "retard," and never think to - or be able to - speak up on his own behalf.

I spoke to Friend A the next day for quite some time, and the "retard" subject never even came up. Nor did an apology. I didn't ask for one because an apology sought is worthless. And I didn't bring up the "retard" issue because I was still pretty hot about it and didn't want to lash out at him. Yet I'm sitting here, two nights later, still stewing about it to the point of writing some anonymous blog about it that I half wish he'd read, and half wish would be nothing more than idle venting that will alleviate this hurt and mild sense of betrayal.

I guess I'm oversensitive.

A playwright gets it right

2008-03-26T21:01:00.002-06:00

David Mamet - who apparently is a playwright of some renown - recently penned a piece for the Village Voice outlining his recent conversion from "brain dead" liberalism to that of more classical conservatism. It's a long piece, and he meanders, but it's worth a read for the points he does raise.
His overriding assertion is that the "sides" shouldn't hate each other the way they do. This is a view akin to my own.
I've told friends for years that there are a whole lot of people making a whole lot of money on the fact that our country is divided into red/blue, liberal/conservative, black/white, etc. I find myself falling into the same trap - even if it's just to temper some of the vapid rhetoric I hear constantly thrown at President Bush, Republicans and conservatives - but I try like hell to rise above this. That's not to say I have no concept of "right" and "wrong," but I do recognize shades of gray in most issues.
One of these days maybe I'll lay out my beliefs in this space. (Might not be a bad idea to help sort out the nuances of the issues. Maybe everyone should do that.)

Voice of Reagan dies at 75

2008-03-26T20:55:00.002-06:00

Hal Riney, the man who voiced Ronald Reagan's "Morning in America" commercials in 1984, died Monday (March 24) at his home in San Francisco. He was 75. Links to the commercials are below along the right. Some brilliant ads.
Apparently he was a man of some renown in the advertising community, and he had an interesting back story. This from the San Fransisco Chronicle:

S.F. ad man Riney dies

(03-25) 15:24 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Hal Riney, the San Francisco advertising man whose iconic and memorable work helped establish the city as a leading creative center for the industry, died of cancer in his San Francisco home Monday. He was 75.
Whether his client was an automobile manufacturer, a wine cooler or the committee to re-elect President Ronald Reagan, no one could put as graceful a spin on Americana as could Hal Riney. He made likable, engaging advertising in a career of nearly 50 years.
Some would say he is best remembered for creating the brand and image of General Motors' Saturn automobile division, establishing a memorable alternative to Detroit car culture in the process. Others would argue he is equally famous for the codgers Frank Bartles and Ed Jaymes, who sing the praises of the Gallo wine cooler that bore their names. Another case could be that his best work came in 1984, when he wrote soft-textured, 60-second montages of Americana, telling stories of swelling national pride, making people comfortable about re-electing Reagan. The ads - titled "It's Morning Again in America" - assured the public it would be folly to return to the days before Reagan's tenure.
Western style
These advertising campaigns and many more had a unique and relaxed Western feeling to them and stood in contrast to so much in a New York-dominated industry. Importantly, Riney's ads prompted marketers to pay attention to the San Francisco ad scene. He narrated many of them, and his gravelly voice is as memorable as the products he promoted.
Before Riney, Howard Gossage had established San Francisco's ad industry roots. Riney's proteges, Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein, who started with Hal Riney & Partners doing "Billy Ball" ads for the Oakland A's, left in the spring of 1983 to establish what is today one of the country's top agencies, and they in turn encourage the next generation of San Francisco creative advertising people.
In fact, Riney's disciples went on to found no fewer than 28 advertising agencies, said Goodby.
"He created an atmosphere and body of work that attracted the highest level of creative people outside New York," said Goodby, co-founder of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco. "Some would say higher."
Throughout his work, Goodby wrote of Riney, "there was an optimistic, perhaps even romantic, vision of America. It was a land populated with people of similar values, small-town Fourth of July parades, and rocking chairs on shady porches. There was little tolerance of fakery and cant. It was this vision he mined in his 1984 campaign for Reagan, and even in his advertising for beer and automobiles."
Hal Patrick Riney was born July 17, 1932, in Seattle and was reared in Longview, Wash., a lumber mill town on the Columbia River. His father was a cartoonist, writer, newspaper publisher, actor, salesman and gambler who was jailed after writing "a check that wasn't the best check he could have written," Riney recalled.
His father abandoned the family, including his mother and older sister, when Riney was 5, but he was an idyllic figure for the young Riney, who kept a photo of him in his office above his Underwood typewriter.
His mother was a teacher who became a volunteer at a fire lookout during the summers of World War II in Washington's Cascade Range - where Riney fell in love with the outdoors.
He graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in art in 1954. After a stint in the U.S. Army, he took a job in the mail room at the San Francisco office of BBDO, then the city's largest advertising agency. He was soon promoted to art director.
Nine years later, he became the agency's creative director. It was at BBDO, in the mid-1960s, that he hired composer Paul Williams to create a theme for Crocker Bank of San Francisco. The song, "We've Only Just Begun," went on to become a No. 1 hit by the Carpenters.
During that time, Riney met Jerry Andelin, the art director with whom he would collaborate until his retirement.
In 1976, Riney opened the San Francisco office of New York agency Ogilvy & Mather. David Ogilvy later said it broke his heart when Riney ultimately left to start his own agency, said Steve Hayden, vice chairman at the New York agency.
"Hal Riney went on to prove just what a massive talent he truly was," Hayden said. "Like David before him, Hal trained an entire generation of stars that continue to dominate the industry to this day, and proved irrefutably that his beloved San Francisco could provide all the talent needed by the world's biggest accounts."
Lee Clow, another famed adman, now global director of media art for TBWA Worldwide in Los Angeles, said, "Hal Riney was one of our fiercest competitors and, personally, one of my greatest inspirations. The man was truly a genius. His voice for storytelling and his art changed the way we think about advertising. His work will continue to inspire us."
Writing at the bar
He may have been considered a genius, but for many he was unassuming. Riney told the story - dating to when he was a member of the 1984 Reagan re-election group called the Tuesday Team - of writing three of the Reagan ads, and a few others that the campaign did not use, in about 2 1/2 hours in a San Francisco bar, Reno Barsocchini's. At the time, the bar was just below his office on Battery Street.
"It was lunchtime, and I remember a guy sitting next to me, one of those guys who hangs around the bar, and he says, 'What are you doing, Hal?' I said, 'Well, I'm writing the president's advertising.' And he thought that was bull- and just snickered," Riney told The Chronicle in 2004.
Riney was a demanding manager. "You had to be on your guard because he always had his wheels churning, a project going on in his head," Goodby said. "There was the feeling he was operating on a higher plane than your presentation seemed to be on. I would also say our sense of humor was wetter than his. He would consider the humor we do a little crass," Goodby said of himself and partner Silverstein.
In 1982, on a trip to Honduras, Riney's Sahsa Air Lines flight was hijacked on the tarmac in Tegucigalpa. Honduran rebels with semiautomatic pistols and bombs rigged with dynamite held the plane. He made a daring escape.
"I just opened the goddamn emergency hatch, jumped out and ran like hell," Riney told The Chronicle that year. "I zigzagged while I ran, expecting shots that never came." Coming home, he circulated a memo to his staff that read, "A belated thank you for your concerns while I was on that airplane. Actually, my research shows that there were 37 in favor of rescue, 29 in favor of blowing up (the airplane) and the remainder undecided."
Goodby recalled that in early 1983, Silverstein had been persistently prodding him to quit the Riney agency and start their own. When the two finally went in Riney's office to give him notice, Riney asked, "What brings you fellows in?" Silverstein said, "Tell him, Jeff," leaving to Goodby the unpleasant task of giving him the news.
"He said, 'If you fellas get tired of making your own coffee over there, you should call me up,' " Goodby said. "I thought that was a sweet reaction."
Goodby omitted mention of the video he made that shows Goodby, Silverstein & Partners on a gleeful pleasure cruise, torpedoed by a vengeful Riney.
In 1985, Riney purchased the Ogilvy & Mather office and renamed it Hal Riney & Partners. It later created the Saturn campaign, centered on the pretty-as-a-picture town of Spring Hill, Tenn., where the car was manufactured, free of the auto industry baggage of Detroit. The tagline was "A different kind of company. A different kind of car," and it was the most successful new model introduction in GM history.
In 2003, the agency was sold to the Publicis Group of Paris and renamed Publicis & Hal Riney.
Hall of Famer
Among his awards, Riney was inducted into the American Advertising Federation's Advertising Hall of Fame in 2002, and the American Association of Advertising Agencies presented him with its lifetime achievement award in the same year.
In his private life, Riney was a doting father who wrote and illustrated hundreds of unabashedly sentimental letters to his children. One of these included a poem explaining that the Easter Bunny was actually a lawyer for a special-interest group who, once a year, assuaged his guilt by distributing candy.
Riney died surrounded by his family, and his death was announced by his wife, Elizabeth Sutherland Riney.
He is survived by his widow and his children, Ben, 21, and Samantha, 19, from a previous marriage.
Memorial gifts can be sent to Save the Children at www.savethechildren.org or to Earthjustice, for its work to protect Pacific fisheries, at www.earthjustice.org. A date for a memorial service will be announced by the family.
E-mail George Raine at graine@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Brett Favre calls it a career

2008-03-05T23:08:00.010-06:00

As the intonations of another stellar season fade into our memories, we're suddenly aware that they were the ebbing bars of a coda to a symphonic career.

Brett Favre reported on Tuesday that he will retire. He is scheduled to address the media in a press conference (live on Packers.com) at 11 a.m. Thursday at Lambeau Field.

Favre's legacy among Packer fans is dichotomous. He's been both earthy and aloof; the Wrangler-pluggin' plowboy from down home, and a guy who always seemed outside arm's reach of the community that worshiped him. He's concocted plays of the breathtaking variety, for better and for worse. For every last-gasp touchdown to snare a victory from the jaws of defeat, there was an inexplicable interception that left even his most adamant supporters scratching their heads.

Favre walks away from the NFL as its all-time leader in passing yards and touchdowns, passes attempted and completed, interceptions, and in both victories and consecutive starts by a quarterback. (He started 275 consecutive games, including playoffs; next on the list is 31-year-old Peyton Manning at 160.) Popular both among sportswriters and his fellow players, Favre was voted All Pro seven times and to the Pro Bowl nine times, respectively.

For me, Favre represents the last tether to an era when I came of age along with my hometown team, as the 1990s saw the Packers rise from the NFL's septic tank. Favre was the subject of the first significant move by newly hired GM Ron Wolf, who went on to add Reggie White as a free agent a year later, nudging the Packers down the road to immortality. The '90s was a heady era for a young guy such as myself, watching his childhood team rack up not just victories, but winning seasons! This from a team that did better with its three-game strike replacement players in 1987 than with its regulars, and that had gone 9-24 at home from 1986 to the point that Favre took over under center in 1992. All of a sudden people were talking about a Super Bowl? For us?

Aaron Rodgers, who will slide in for Favre, could become a fine quarterback. He will be no Favre, which could be a mixed blessing for the fourth-year Cal product. He insists on wearing Lynn Dickey's No. 12, so he'll have some karmic issues to overcome right off the bat; especially if his early injury bug has been any indication. But finally the Packers, the youngest team in the NFL, have a quarterback who can grow right along with the guys who've been starting for a couple of years now. I think the fans will give Rodgers plenty of slack; it's the players who'll need to be more forgiving. Say what you will about Favre, but he was no first-year starter. And that's what the starters will have to keep in mind when Rodgers inevitably struggles. Obviously, only time will tell.

But in bidding farewell to Favre, I'll feel only the pang of hoping I appreciated what I had as a fan. But I'll shed no tears into my keyboard and will leave the slobbering Maddenesque tributes to others across the Internets. I won't refer to him as a "friend" or deify him like I fear many in Packerland will. I'll simply thank him for his effort, and for a job well done. Somehow, I think that's all he'd want.

Obligatory Favre tribute:

Bob McGinn, Journal-Sentinel: Favre knows it's time for change
Ray Ratto, San Francisco Chronicle: Best ever? Maybe best highlight
Bob DiCesare, The Buffalo News: Still time to unretire
Mike Bianchi, Orlando Sentinel: Rides off into the sunset
Tom Sorensen, Charlotte Observer: Fearless Favre will be missed
Bill Plaschke, LA Times: Everyman's QB
Michael Wilbon, Washington Post: Favre's star power
Kevin Sherrington, Dallas Morning News: Makes the right call
John Romano, St. Petersburg Times: Retirement leaves NFL duller
Judy Battista, New York Times: Goodbye on his own terms
Joe Posnanski, Kansas City Star: Throwback to old-time QBs
Barry Horn, Dallas Morning News: Favre would be a first-string broadcaster
Bob Wolfley, Journal-Sentinel: Stay out of the broadcast booth
Bob Ryan, Boston Globe: Favre barely among top 10
Gene Frenette, Florida Times Union: Please don't audible and return
Randy Galloway, Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Retirement hardest transition for QB

Highlight archive:

The Day that Football Died - Annette Summersett
Favre era begins: comeback vs. Cin 9/20/92
On-field interview from Cincy game
Interview with Larry McCarren PRIOR to Cincy game
Favre's first start: Pitt-GB highlights, 9/27/92 (ESPN's Chris Berman "not trying to start any quarterback controversy")
Favre-Freeman beats Vikings in OT 11/6/00
Favre-Jennings beats Broncos in OT, 10/29/07
Favre goes 4-0 vs. Raiders, 12/9/07
Favre's last playoff win, vs. Seahawks, 1/12/08
NFL Network tribute, 3/6/08 (Steve Mariucci)
NFL Network 'Total Access' interview, 2/8/08 (Deion Sanders, Mariucci)
Farewell press conference, 3/6/08 (Yahoo version; Opening remarks, why he retired, on his legacy, on Aaron Rodgers, on what's next)

William F. Buckley, RIP (1925-2008)

2008-02-27T16:40:00.005-06:00

One of the founders of the modern conservative movement, William F. Buckley, has died at the age of 82. He had a quixotic sense of humor and possesses the intellectual wit and wisdom I can only hope will spread throughout our current state of political discourse.
He'd filed his final column with National Review on Feb. 2.

Tributes to Buckley:
ABC Evening News - Buckly vs. Gore Vidal ("I'll sock you in the goddam face", Aug. 28, 1968; Commentary on the presidency I: Oct. 28, 1968; Commentary on the presidency II: Nov. 5, 1968)
Alfred Regnery, American Spectator - Conservatism's heart and soul
Ann Coulter - RIP, enfant terrible
Charlie Rose video - An appreciation
Chicago Tribune (w/video) - Often imitated, never duplicated
John Judis, The New Republic - He was a rebel, but not a heretic
L.A. Times - The last true conservative
Michael Barone, U.S. News & World Report: Buckley: a history changer
National Review - A celebration
New York Post - Transcendant
Peggy Noon, Wall Street Journal - May we not lose his kind
Rich Lowry, National Review - Buckley's life: a success
Rush Limbaugh - personal account
Slate - Why did William F. Buckley talk like that?
Toronto Globe & Mail - As long as he was alive, the liberals could never win
Wall Street Journal - Buckley transformed American politics
Washington Post - Conservatism loses its most eloquent voice

Obit (Associated Press)
Conservative author Buckley dies at 82
By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer 59 minutes ago
NEW YORK - William F. Buckley Jr. died at work, in his study. Communism had fallen long before. A Republican was in the White House. The word "liberal" had been shunned like an ill-mannered guest.
At the end of his 82 years, much of it spent stoking and riding a right-wing wave as an erudite commentator and conservative herald, all of Buckley's dreams seemingly had come true.
"He founded a magazine, wrote over 50 books, influenced the course of political history, had a son, had two grandchildren and sailed across the Atlantic Ocean three times," said his son, novelist Christopher Buckley. "He really didn't leave any stone unturned."
Buckley was found dead in his study Wednesday morning in Stamford, Conn. His son noted Buckley had died "with his boots on, after a lifetime of riding pretty tall in the saddle."
His assistant said Buckley was found by his cook. The cause of death was unknown, but he had been ill with emphysema, she said.
As an editor, columnist, novelist, debater and host of the TV talk show "Firing Line," Buckley worked at a daunting pace, taking as little as 20 minutes to write a column for his magazine, National Review.
Yet on the platform, he was all handsome, reptilian languor, flexing his imposing vocabulary ever so slowly, accenting each point with an arched brow or rolling tongue and savoring an opponent's discomfort with wide-eyed glee.
"There's no `weltschmerz,' or any sadness that permeates my vision," he told The Associated Press during a 2004 interview at his Park Avenue duplex. "There isn't anything I reasonably hoped for that wasn't achieved."
President Bush called Buckley a great political thinker, wit, author and leader. "He influenced a lot of people, including me," the president said. "He captured the imagination of a lot of people."
But Buckley was also willing to criticize his own and made no secret of his distaste for at least some of Bush's policies. In a 2006 interview with CBS, he called the Iraq war a failure.
"If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we've experienced, it would be expected that he would retire or resign," Buckley said at the time.
Luck was in the very bones of Buckley, blessed with a leading man's looks, an orator's voice, a satirist's wit and an Ivy League scholar's vocabulary. But before he emerged in the 1950s, few imagined conservatives would rise so high, or so enjoy the heights.
For at least a generation, conservatism had meant the pale austerity of Herbert Hoover, the grim isolationism of Sen. Robert Taft, the snarls and innuendoes of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Democrats were the party of big spenders and "Happy Days Are Here Again." Republicans settled for respectable cloth coats.
Unlike so many of his peers and predecessors on the right, Buckley wasn't a self-made man prescribing thrift, but a multimillionaire's son who enjoyed wine, sailing and banter and assumed his wishes would be granted. Even historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., who labeled Buckley "the scourge of American liberalism," came to appreciate his "wit, his passion for the harpsichord, his human decency, even ... his compulsion to epater the liberals."
Buckley once teased Schlesinger after the historian praised the rise of computers for helping him work more quickly. "Suddenly I was face to face with the flip side of Paradise," Buckley wrote. "That means, doesn't it, that Professor Schlesinger will write more than he would do otherwise?"
Buckley founded the biweekly magazine National Review in 1955, declaring that he proposed to stand "athwart history, yelling `stop' at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who urge it."
Conservatives had been outsiders in both mind and spirit, marginalized by a generation of discredited stands — from opposing Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal to the isolationism that preceded the U.S. entry into World War II. Before Buckley, liberals so dominated intellectual thought that critic Lionel Trilling claimed there were "no conservative or reactionary ideas in general circulation."
"Bill could go to the campus with that arch manner of his. And he was exciting and young and conservative," conservative author and columnist George Will told the AP in 2004. "And all of a sudden, conservatism was sexy."
In the 1950s, "conservatism was barely a presence at all," Will said. "To the extent that it was a political presence, it was a blocking faction in Congress."
The National Review was initially behind history, opposing civil rights legislation and once declaring that "the white community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail."
Buckley also had little use for the music of the counterculture, once calling the Beatles "so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art, that they qualify as crowned heads of antimusic."
The magazine could do little to prevent Barry Goldwater's landslide defeat in 1964, but as conservatives gained influence, so did Buckley and his magazine. The long rise would peak in 1980, when Buckley's good friend Ronald Reagan was elected president.
"Ronnie valued Bill's counsel throughout his political life, and after Ronnie died, Bill and Pat were there for me in so many ways," Reagan's widow, Nancy Reagan, said Wednesday in a statement.
Buckley's wife, the former Patricia Alden Austin Taylor, died in 2007 at age 80. Christopher is their only child. Buckley is also survived by two brothers and three sisters.
Christopher Buckley remembers his father's one losing adventure, albeit one happily lost. William F. Buckley was the Conservative Party's candidate for mayor of New York in 1965, waging a campaign that was in part a lark — he proposed an elevated bikeway on Second Avenue — but that also reflected a deep distaste for the liberal Republicanism of Mayor John V. Lindsay.
"By this time I realized he wasn't just any other dad," Christopher Buckley told the AP. "I was 13 at the time, and there were mock debates in my fifth grade home room class. And there were people playing him, so that was kind of strange.
"And that's when you get the sense that your dad is not just Ozzie and your parents are not Ozzie and Harriet. But he was a great dad, and he was a great man, and that's not a bad epitaph."

Huckabee, Dems visit Wausau

2008-02-16T13:19:00.008-06:00

Former cannon-fodder ... errr, Senate candidate Tim Michels introduces former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on Thursday before an audience of about 300 at Stoney Creek Inn just south of Wausau.

Must be an election coming up. All of the "final four" are crawling around Wisconsin these days leading up to our primary on Tuesday (Feb. 19). Three of them will have visited Wausau - Mike Huckabee at a rally at Stoney Creek Inn last Thursday, Barack Hussein Obama at an invite-only meeting with students and some faculty at Northcentral Technical College on Saturday morning (photos), and Hillary Clinton in a public rally either Sunday or Monday.

I attended the Huckabee rally, for which they cleverly closed off most of the banquet hall, to crowd everyone toward one end and make it look more packed than it otherwise would've been. That's politics; I would've done the same thing. I do wish they would've distributed Huckabee signs, though, so folks could wave them in front of the dozen-or-so cameras assembled in the back.

Huckabee was a humorous speaker and came across as a genuinely good guy, even following his obligatory Packer reference with, "See, this is the part of the speech we call 'pandering to the locals.'"

He looked at me! He looked at me! *swoon*

Huckabee signs autographs on his way out the door. (It was about 5:45, and he was due in Green Bay about 8 p.m.)

Huckabee's speech hit all the right notes, of course, and I was impressed with what a smooth speaker he is. Even on debates I've noticed that. His theme Thursday was clever, in that it urged Wisconsin to stand apart from other states as the one that confused the pundits and voted for Huckabee. It was just refreshing to hear someone be candid about their place in the race.

I actually would've liked to hear Obama (I understand he gave a pretty thrilling address at UW-Oshkosh), but I understand why he closed his appearance. If the 17,000 he drew in the People's Republic of Madison was any indication, Wausau, lacking a convention center, never would've had room for those who would've turned out. It would've been a logistical nightmare. When President Bush visited in October 2004, he packed the amphitheater at Marathon Park. Obviously it was too cold for Obama to use that venue, though I bet he could've filled it.

I might attend Hillary's thing, depending on what time it is. (After all, the Daytona 500 is Sunday.) I'll probably end up voting for Hillary; in the primary, anyway.

UPDATE: I'm watching some speeches from candidate visits on Wisconsin Eye right now and thought I'd tack on a link to the channel's campaign videos.

A human without a soul

2008-02-13T19:41:00.007-06:00

We can't help how we feel. And sometimes a story will strike us a certain way and we just can't shake it.

I ran across such a story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune the other day that will stay with me for a long time. And it will make me give my 7-month-old son a big bear hug every day.

Demond Reed is dead. Were it by an accident, I would be sad but would move on with my life.

Demond was beaten to death by the woman entrusted to care for him.

Demond was 4.

His father, Tony Reed, a 21-year-old from Chicago, was visiting relatives in Minneapolis. He was pulled over in late January and was arrested on an oustanding felony warrant. So he asked his cousin, Carla Poole, a 37-year-old in Minneapolis who turned out to be a drug addict, to care for Demond for the time being.

He couldn't have imagined that would be the last he would see of his little boy.

Demond's sin? He soiled his pants. Imagine the audacity of a 4-year-old soiling his pants.
A 4-year-old boy. Who was constantly asking questions about the animals in his alphabet book.
Poole's reaction? She ordered her other children, ranging in age from 4 to 11, to hold his arms while she beat him.

Feel free to stop reading anytime. It gets worse.

After Poole saw what she'd done, she laid Demond's body on a bed for two days before calling police, Feb. 6, to tell them he'd gone missing. Then she wrapped his cold body in a black plastic bag and threw him in a cluttered closet. ... Like an old pair of Nikes.

Before doing all of that, she'd ordered her children to make up stories about what had happened to Demond. Eventually, the 11-year-old told police the truth. This truth included her recounting that Demond's face looked like it was "pushed in."

Are you nauseous yet? Wait.

An autopsy revealed multiple bruises over Demond's body, puncture wounds and bite marks on his stomach, broken ribs and an injury associated with an object being forced into his mouth.

Apparently she's undergoing "psychological evaluation," this woman who was of sound enough mind to have four children of her own. The Star Tribune stated there was no evidence she'd ever abused them, though a baby came away burned and with broken bones after being in her care. (Charges were never filed because police couldn't determine which of the adults present committed the act.)

For years, I told everyone who would listen that I was against the death penalty for anything short of DNA proof. That it shifted the nature of our criminal-justice system from "rehabilitation" to "vengeance."

I've changed my mind.

Demond deserves vengeance.

Demond Reed, 4

Mitt steps aside

2008-02-07T18:02:00.000-06:00

Maybe I should stop picking a horse in this race; they keep coming up lame.

After rooting for Fred Thompson to give us more than he did in his brief run (more like an amble) toward the White House, I was forced to pick someone else after he dropped out Jan. 22. That someone was Mitt Romney, the only one left in the race still espousing conservative ideals, and a brilliant businessman to boot.

Today, Mitt quit.

He addressed the CPAC conference in Washington, D.C., (might be a better version here) and almost sounded like he was on the brink of tears in telling them how much they meant to him and how he was stepping aside for the good of his party and the country. Technically, he "suspended" his campaign, which allows him to hold onto his delegates until the convention, leaving himself one last possibility to power-broker.

Otherwise, the only thing standing between John McCain and the Republican nomination is Mike Huckabee ... oh, and Ron Paul.

Thank you, Schmuckabee, for refusing to drop out of the race though you never had a prayer outside the Bible Belt. Thank you for splitting the conservative vote in hopes McCain will pick you as his vice president. How do I know you had a deal, despite your denials? Because McCain released his delegates to you in West Virginia to give you your first win since Iowa.

Thank you, ignorant Americans who voted for McCain because ... why, exactly? Because he was a POW and you consider him a war hero? Bob Dole was a war hero too, and look how that turned out.

Even after McCain admitted that the economy wasn't his "strong suit," even in this time when foreclosures are at a record high and economists are warning us about a looming recession, you idiots STILL voted for McCain over Romney, a man who made a quarter-billion dollars as a venture capitalist and has pulled at least one major company from the brink of financial ruin. Why? "He's a war hero and doesn't want us to lose in Iraq." TELL ME that's not the reason you voted for him.

No one ever mentioned the fact that McCain is 72. But they sure as hell will in the general election. Those Democrats, who would rail to high heaven against such an "age-ist" stance if it were someone on THEIR side, will absolutely abuse McCain's age in the general.

Romney may be the genius I imagine him to be. He apparently is already floating the idea of running in 2012. He'd be a leading candidate either way, as he'd either be going against an incumbent Democrat, or a President McCain who will be 76. In that case, bowing out graciously now would save him some money, and save him from suffering an actual defeat down the line.

Stupor Tuesday 2008

2008-02-05T20:53:00.000-06:00

I hope Mike Huckabee isn't counting on a Christmas card from Mitt Romney this year. ... Or any year, for that matter.
It's because of Huckabee's insistence on staying in the race that the anti-McCain vote is being split between him and Romney, thus accounting for McCain's big lead right now.
Not bad for a guy who hadn't won since Iowa and was supposedly out of money. But I suppose, if Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani can still get votes despite dropping out of the race ...

McCain is racking up state after state. And I know it doesn't quite work this way, but if you combined Huckabee's votes with Romney's (as they're both anti-McCain votes), Romney would run away with it.

Bubba has some interesting observations on the presentation of it all. He's right. With all the on-screen graphics, I feel like a sugared-up diabetic with ADD. And if that's not enough information to trip your braker, CNN has panelists breaking the votes down so far, Roland Martin was discussing at length how Hillary Clinton did among white women in Tennessee.

Can't wait for November.

Last man in Iwo Jima photo dies

2008-02-04T22:31:00.000-06:00

Last man in iconic Iwo Jima flag-raising photo dies

On CNN.com
REDDING, California (AP) -- Raymond Jacobs, believed to be the last surviving member of the group of Marines photographed during the original U.S. flag-raising on Iwo Jima during World War II, has died at age 82.

The iconic image of U.S. Marines raising the flag on Mount Suribachi in February 1945.

Jacobs died January 29 of natural causes at a Redding hospital, his daughter, Nancy Jacobs, told The Associated Press.
Jacobs had spent his later years working to prove that he was the radio operator photographed looking up at an American flag as it was being raised by other Marines on Mount Suribachi on February 23, 1945.
Newspaper accounts from the time show he was on the mountain during the initial raising of a smaller American flag, though he had returned to his unit by the time the more famous AP photograph was taken of a second flag-raising later the same day.
The radioman's face isn't fully visible in the first photograph taken of the first flag-raising by Lou Lowery, a photographer for Leatherneck magazine, leading some veterans to question Jacobs' claim. However, other negatives from the same roll of film show the radioman is Jacobs, said retired Col. Walt Ford, editor of Leatherneck.
"It's clearly a front-on face shot of Ray Jacobs," Ford said.
Annette Amerman, a historian with the Marine Corps History Division, said in an e-mailed statement "there are many that believe" Jacobs was the radioman. "However, there are no official records produced at the time that can prove or refute Mr. Jacobs' location."
Jacobs was honorably discharged in 1946. He was called up during the Korean conflict in 1951 before retiring as a sergeant, his daughter said.
Jacobs retired in 1992 from KTVU-TV in Oakland, where he worked 34 years as a reporter, anchor and news director. E-mail to a friend

Super Bowl XLII: Giants spoil Pats' perfection party

2008-02-03T22:27:00.000-06:00

GLENDALE, Ariz. - It wasn't the "No. 1" that the New England Patriots were expecting.
After a season in which victories became routine for the 18-0 Patriots, a truly outstanding performance by the New York Giants hung a digit in the loss column for the Patriots in the game that mattered the most.

Eli Manning found Plaxico Burress in the corner of the end zone to stake a 17-14 lead with 35 seconds to play, and the Giants' defense harrassed and held Tom Brady on the Patriots' final desperate drive to preserve the win Sunday in Super Bowl XLII.

The Giants' defensive line - LDE Michael Strahan, NT Fred Robbins, DT Justin Tuck, RDE Osi Umenyiora - anchoring a defense that led the league in sacks during the regular season, pressured Brady all evening, sacking him five times.

There were other highlights, of course, but the first one that comes to mind for me is Manning's escape of a sack on their go-ahead scoring drive. Facing a third-and-5 at his own 44 with less than a minute to play, Manning spun out of the grasp of DE Jarvis Green (97) and LB Adalius Thomas (96) before regaining just enough composure to find David Tyree at the Patriots' 23. Tyree went up for it like a jump ball and clinched the ball to his head while fighting off Pats S Rodney Harrison for a clutch grab. Amazing play, reminiscent of Steve McNair's escape during the Tennessee Titans' final near-TD drive against the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXIV.

Safe to say, Big Blue Interactive will be abuzz for sometime about this one. Patriots Planet ... not so much.

Meanwhile, the 2007 Patriots join the ranks of the 1934 and 1942 Chicago Bears, who went unbeaten until losing in the league championship game. So yes, 1972 Miami Dolphins, you can pop your rancid champagne as the only team to seal the deal.

Reflections

It makes me wonder about some games that weren't:
* The Super Bowl that wasn't; how the Packers would've fared against New England if they could've gotten it done in the NFC Championship game two weeks ago. It's a sickening recollection of the 1996 NFC Championship game when the Cowboys trounced the Packers and went on to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XXX.
* And even about the Packers' NFC Wild Card game Jan. 4, 1999, when they got jobbed out of what should've been a Jerry Rice fumble that would've sealed the win and sent them to Atlanta, then possibly Minnesota, then possibly a rematch with Denver in Super Bowl XXXIII.
* And, I suppose, no bitter recollection of missed football opportunities is complete without wondering how the Packers would've fared at Carolina for the 2004 NFC Championship game had the Pack's defense been able to hold Philly on the now-legendary 4th-and-26 ... or if Favre hadn't panicked and thrown up a duck that got picked off in overtime ... or if Ahman Green had scored on 4th-and-goal, or if the Packers had gone for it on 4th-and-1 inside Eagles territory instead of punting ... (hm, guess I'm still not over that one).

Had a good time, though. Bubba and Sara came up from Neenah with Ron and Don, and our friend Joni joined us. Had some Italian beef roasting in the crock pot all day, and washed it down with a big sandwich cookie decorated up as a Super Bowl party favor, which was sugary enough to malnourish an African nation for a month.

No Pro Bowl party next weekend, but hopefully a couple of folks over to watch the Daytona 500 the Sunday after that. Then ... pitchers and catchers report and we embark on baseball season.

Go Pats, I guess

2008-02-02T23:14:00.000-06:00

As kickoff for Super Bowl XLII approaches (let's see, it's about 11 p.m. the night before ... pregame should be starting anytime now), I'm having a hard time with this one. Part of me realizes what a great story it'd be for the Giants to knock off the 18-0 Patriots. But a much larger part of me wants to see the Pats seal the deal, if for no other reason than to shut the 1972 Dolphins up once and for all.
But I'm not sure the Dolphins would gracefully bow out of the spotlight. In fact, they might actually get worse.

The '72 Dolphins, the only team in NFL history to finish an entire season undefeated (having gone 17-0), have been anything but gracious victors in the decades since their remarkable achievement. They make a spectacle of themselves everytime a team approaches that hallowed "undefeated" mark, often appearing on the sidelines when a team goes 12-0 or 13-0 and (privately) popping open champagne whenever the last unbeaten team falls. It was cool when they did it on that Monday night in 1985 (Gifford and Namath look so young ... and sober!) when the 12-0 Chicago Bears rolled into Miami to play the Dolphins, but that's because it was in THEIR Orange Bowl.
But lately they've been in the media again, most notably coach Don Shula chirping about how the '07 Pats should have an asterisk because they got caught cheating in the first half of the first game of the season. And Mercury Morris was on Sirius NFL Radio the other day running off at the mouth about how they'll "welcome" the Pats into "the club" if the Pats finish the deal Sunday.

Welcome them into the club? Punk, you'll be lucky if they let you stand in line outside THEIR club! What the Patriots would do by winning the Super Bowl would be SO much more impressive than what the '72 Phish accomplished. In fact, Shula, since you only played a 14-game schedule and were able to keep your team together longer because of the lack of free agency, shouldn't YOUR team be the one with the asterisk?
Besides, the Patriots' only violation was one of semantics. The guy who got caught videotaping the Jets' defensive signals on the sidelines was guilty of just that ... doing it FROM the sideline. Teams are free to do this from the stands or the lux boxes.
And it'd be different if they'd gotten caught in the last game of the season.

Anyway, if the Pats win, the '72 Dolphins would probably just keep cropping up to remind people that they, too, did what the Patriots will have done, even though they would not have. Just go away, Phish, and quit tarnishing your legacy with the rantings of a bitter washed-up jock.

About the game

The Patriots opened as 14-point favorites, but the line has moved to Patriots (-12). If I were going to lay money on this one, it'd be on the Giants to cover because I feel good about their not losing by two touchdowns.
The biggest factor is going to be the matchup between the Giants' secondary and the Patriots' receivers.

When the Pats have the ball
NY can get pressure on QBs, as evidenced by their league-leading 53 sacks this season. And the key is they can do it with their front four, which will not only help them shut down the Patriots' beatable running game (115 ypg/regular season) but also can free up LBs Kawika Mitchell (weakside), Antonio Pierce (middle) and Reggie Torbor (strongside) to drop back into coverage. This will be key if they're to take away Randy Moss (98 rec, 23 TDs) and Wes Welker (112 rec, 8 TDs).
The Giants' DBs were injured late in the season, so depth could be a concern.

When the Giants have the ball
QB Eli Manning has had an oustanding postseason, having thrown 4 TDs and no INTs, with a passer rating of 99.1. He'll be tested against a Pats defense that can shift to accommodate any offensive system.
But the big difference-maker for the Giants could be their running game. Big back Brandon Jacobs (6-4, 256 lbs) and the much quicker Ahmad Bradshaw (200 lbs) would free up a lot of options for Manning if they can get loose on a New England rush defense that was fairly stingy during the regular season (98 ypg).
Plaxico Burress hauled in 11 balls for 154 yards against the Packers in the NFC Championship game, and while I expect Asante Samuel to be stuck to him like a rap sheet to an Eagle fan, we're still talking about a 6-5 wideout vs. a 5-10 corner. Samuel is one of the best in the game, but so is the Packers' Al Harris, whose lunch was summarily eaten - and lunch money subsequently stolen - by Burress two weeks ago.

Prediction (because every jag in the country has to have one)
Giants 21
Patriots 31
* Pats will trail, and won't clinch until late in the game.

Mac comes back with Florida win

2008-01-29T20:12:00.000-06:00

While not official as of this moment, CNN and other sources are reporting that Rudy Giuliani is contemplating not only dropping out of the race for the presidency but throwing his support behind John McCain as well.
CNN just projected McCain as the winner of the Florida primary, edging Mitt Romney by about 4-5 percent. As Giuliani finished a weak third after staking his entire campaign on his performance there, he is effectively done and is likely to drop soon. It appears he still will participate in the Republicans' CNN debate Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. I'd like to see him stick it out for one more week, though, through Super Tuesday (Feb. 5). I think he owes at least that to his supporters and volunteers.

Romney outspent McCain about 10-to-1, so I don't understand why he hasn't gained more traction. Someone with his business credentials should be making more gains among people who are increasingly citing the economy as their primary concern. While National Review endorsed Romney, they also wrote a piece recently drubbing him for his lack of empathy; for being a bit technocratic on the trail.
I think he's going to rue his decision not to buy TV advertising in the Miami market. While it is the most expensive such market in the U.S., the result of Romney's decision may be manifested in a graphic that CNN just flashed; that McCain won 50 percent of the Cuban vote, Giuliani 34 percent and Romney a paltry 10 percent.

Even though national polls show McCain as the only Republican to regularly beat Dem frontrunners Clinton and Obama, Romney has less baggage for the Dems to attack.

Fred steps down

2008-01-22T22:04:00.000-06:00

Fred Thompson bowed out of his bid for the presidency today. With that, the former Tennessee Senator ended a sad chapter that began too late, offered too little fire, and has now ended too soon.

An actor with an impressive filmography, folks expected him to tap that ability to "play the role" of the tall, conservative father-figure type we all envisioned. But alas, he lacked the theatrical skills of Ronald Reagan.

He campaigned as though he expected the votes, the money and the media attention to simply roll his way once he finished teasing the public about whether or not he'd run. Confidence? Maybe. Presumptuousness? Perhaps. Laziness? That probably will be the perception. A strong field of Republicans prevented him from hijacking the media attention he probably thought would come so easily. And more ballsiness like his refusal to participate in the grade-school 'show of hands' could've played pretty well nationally.

He should've announced months ahead of time that he'd officially start campaigning after Labor Day, then hit the trail with that same confidence but this time with all the gusto of a man who felt it was not his desire but rather his DUTY to become president.

Coulda, shoulda woulda ...

Packers lose to Giants; this one hurts

2008-01-20T21:46:00.000-06:00

Somewhere, there's a box of "Green Bay Packers, NFC Champions" T-shirts headed for India.

The New York Giants rewrote the ending of the Packers' storied season with a 23-20 overtime win in the NFC Championship on Sunday at Lambeau Field.

This one hurts.

The game was minus-1 degree at kickoff and dropped to minus-4 by the end, but it was the hometown Pack who looked most affected; most notably Brett Favre. The man whose legend was predicated largely on his cold-weather prowess has now, in two games, looked less-than-mortal in ill conditions. On Dec. 23, the Packers went into Soldier Field and left a steaming hunk of nothing on the field en route to a 35-7 loss to the Chicago Bears. The temp was 16 degrees with a minus-18 wind chill, and Favre went 17-of-32 for 153 yards and two interceptions.

This Sunday, he went 19-of-35 for 236 and two TDs and two INTs. The last INT was simply a bad throw to CB Corey Webster (who he'd beaten for a 90-yard TD early in the game), which gave Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes a chance to avenge two missed field goals by hitting a 47-yarder that decided the game.

While it was cold for everyone, Favre looked more uncomfortable than most, ducking back under cover after each offensive possession; the camera caught him stuffing handwarmers inside his headscarf like he'd just discovered a new snack. He looked like he'd just gotten off the bus from Mississippi, when in reality his Giants counterpart, Eli Manning, also hails from the Magnolia State and didn't seem nearly as uncomfortable.

During those possessions, Favre's passes were often off target, negating the team's ability to go deep and take advantage of the Giants' starting two backup CBs. (Favre's last pick was on a deep out, which he usually makes.) So for all the Packers' troubles going deep, the Giants' defense did an outstanding job covering the short, high-percentage stuff as well. LB Antonio Pierce single-handedly blew up an otherwise wide-open screen pass; DT Justin Tuck another. The Giants also shut down the Packers' rediscovered running game, holding Ryan Grant to 29 yards on 13 carries a week after he'd gashed Seattle for 201 and three scores.

Manning didn't even wear a headscarf. He finished 21-of-40 for 251 yards. He wasn't outstanding, missing as badly as Favre on many throws, but he didn't look rattled either. The Packers slowed monster RB Brandon Jacobs (21-for-67) but had no answer for Plaxico Burress. The 6-foot-5 WR hauled in 11 balls for 154 yards against one of the best cover-corner duos in the league.

The Giants converted just 6 of their 16 third-downs; the Packers just 1-of-10.

But they had so many other opportunities. ... Tynes missed field goals of 43 and 36 yards, the latter of which would've won the game but for a bad snap and a bad hook left. ... R.W. McQuarters got Favre's first pick, early in the fourth quarter with the Giants leading 20-17, but he fumbled it on the return and the Packers' right tackle (and Auburndale native) Mark Tauscher recovered. The Packers tied it on a Mason Crosby field goal. ... Of the Giants' 6 third-down conversions, two were on huge penalties called on the Packers. One was a questionable (translation: complete bullshit) roughing-the-passer call on FS Nick Collins. Another was a more legitimate call on CB Al Harris for illegal use of hands while intercepting Manning early in the third at midfield. ... After McQuarters fumbled a Packer punt with 2:30 to play in the fourth, CB Jarrett Bush tried to pick it up, bobbled it, and the Giants wound up recovering. Bush, a young player who either was trying to get onto SportsCenter or was simply hoping to provide the spark his team's offense couldn't, could have given the Packers a 1st-and-10 near midfield. ... On the next play, Ahmad Bradshaw broke loose for a TD run that was called back on a holding penalty, and sighs of *whew* went up across Packerland.

But enough X's and O's.

My issue with Favre's duck-and-cover routine is because of the message I would think that sent to the rest of the players. Maybe they didn't care; it just looked bad to me on the other end of a TV feed, on a nice cushy sofa in a warm living room.

But it's easy to look for a scapegoat when you've invested so much emotion into this team. After an overachieving season that had the Packers as 75-to-1 odds to make the Super Bowl in August, we found ourselves wishing for a classic storyline of Old Man Favre spoiling the Patriots' bid for a perfect season in Super Bowl XLII before riding off into the sunset. This after watching the Giants upset the Dallas Cowboys a week ago and thus routing the road to the Super Bowl through Lambeau.

But this was the second time I've felt it was the Packers' last, best chance to win a Super Bowl; the other being the team's 20-17 overtime loss at Philadelphia on Jan. 11, 2004. That one, too, ended largely due to an inexplicably awful INT by Favre.

This one is going to take a few days, as it's difficult to decide right now if I want Favre to come back and put this young-but-burgeoning team over the top and into the Big Game, or walk away and let Aaron Rodgers, who is entering a contract year, take the reins.

Pending anything official from Favre, I guess I've got time to think about it.

Can Fred make it four?

2008-01-15T22:06:00.001-06:00

Mitt Romney is breathing a huge sigh of relief after winning the Michigan primary, making it three Republican winners in as many primaries - Huckabee in Iowa, McCain in New Hampshire. (Romney won a virtually uncontested Wyoming caucus between Iowa and NH.)
Next is an elimination round of sorts, as Fred Thompson has all but said he would need to win the Jan. 19 South Carolina primary - or at least finish strong - to continue his campaign.
Current polls don't bode well for Thompson, as he trails Huckabee, McCain and Romney. So, as much as I like Fred, and as much of his water as Fox News has been carrying lately, I think we'll be bidding farewell to him soon.

Dems drinking their own poison

2008-01-14T21:09:00.000-06:00

I'm loving this.
As the race for the Democratic nomination as whittled to three, the top two - Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama - are bickering about who injected race into their campaign rhetoric first.
Clinton said in an interview recently that Martin Luther King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. "It took a president to get it done," she said.
Black America took great offense, asserting that Clinton was minimizing MLK's efforts at civil rights reform; that no matter what he did or would've done, it would've gotten nowhere without Whitey.
Thing is, she's right.
No matter how many beautiful speeches MLK gave, and no matter how many non-violent protests and marches he would've organized, nothing would've killed institutional racism without legislative action. And who was in Congress at that time? White men. Why did MLK stage all of those actions? To stir emotions, in Americans both black AND white, and put pressure on the lawmakers.
But the knee-jerk reaction from Black America is simply the harvest of the seeds of what the Democratic Party has been sowing for generations. "Whitey is out to get you" ... "Whitey is keeping you down" ... "You need us to lift you up and out of poverty" ...

This same mind-set is evident in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Even two-plus years later, people still cry out to the government to help them. And now that the Democratic Party has the ideal opportunity to literally lift blacks out of the impoverished 9th Ward and rebuild new homes in another part of the city, on higher ground, with a fresh start. So what do the Dems promise this largely black population? To rebuild the 9th and put them all right back where they were; right back where the Democracts think poor, uneducated blacks belong ... forming a block by which to vote another Dem back into power.

Dems, GOPs and ...

2008-01-11T21:41:00.000-06:00

Well, primary season is under way in the most wide-open presidential election since at least 1952 (some say 1932). As of this writing, the Dems have whittled their field to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.
Meanwhile, the GOP still can't decide who wants it least: John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Ron Paul, and I guess Duncan Hunter is still hanging around for some reason.

"Change" seems to be the big mantra for this cycle, as Obama has been beating that drum, with Clinton following and now Romney (!?) following as well. But I say, for those who want REAL change, you have a number of options besides just the ol' Donkey and Elephant (of whom there are actually 50-some and 80-some, respectively, besides the ones we see on TV). Behold the Undercard for 2008, courtesy of Project VoteSmart:

American Party, Matthew Jay Borman
Citizen's Party (can't even find a Web site for these guys), William David Beadles
Constitution Party, J. Boydston and Todd Marvin Clayton
Green Party (a.k.a. The Gore Killers), Jared Arlen Ball, Elaine Brown, Cynthia McKinney, Kent Mesplay, Kat Swift
Independence Party, Jose Miguel Aparicio
Libertarian Party (WAY too many to name)
Native American Party, Jacques Yves Boulerice (a.k.a. 'Chief Jack')
Prohibition Party, Gene Amondson
Reform Party, Bruce Calvin Trask
The Light Party, Da Vid
United Fascist Union, Jackson Kirk Grimes

What I wouldn't give to see these guys share a debate stage. Can you imagine Da Vid taking a run at Chief Jack's health-care plan?

Seriously, I don't understand why some news channel doesn't devote one evening to a Third Party Debate, where they'd invite the nominee from the top six or eight "alternative" parties that received votes in the last election (logistically you'd have to limit it so the moderator could get to everyone). You can't tell me that wouldn't draw viewers. At least it'd be easy to find Jack Grimes.
But no, apparently we need 20 Republican debates and 22 Dem debates to hear the same crap we hear every other time these phonies get in front of a camera.
You'd think the least they could do is hold themed debates. Why can't the NEA sponsor an Education Debate, with 90 minutes devoted to education, for both Dems and GOPs? The US Chamber of Commerce on business policy? The AFL-CIO on labor issues? The American Medical Ass'n on health care? The VFW, American Legion and Paralyzed Veterans of America on defense/military matters? Etc. There's no shortage of advocacy groups for major issues.
It's too bad there aren't any viable third parties out there - though the Libertarians and Greens probably draw the most votes - just to keep our major leaguers something approaching honest.

Happy New Year in Review

2008-01-01T10:05:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year! ... or, as I've come to know it, Happy Hangover Day!

And so it's time to look back at some notable stuff from 2007:

Nov. 3 - Navy ends a 43-year losing streak to Notre Dame by stopping them in overtime. Navy played bowl-worthy football all season, and ND had a down year. Whatever. No excuses. Anchors aweigh!

Oct. 26 - Trinity University, from Texas, trailed Millsaps College 28-22 with 2 seconds to play and the ball at their own 39-yard-line. What to do? Reach WAY back into the playbook, complete one pass, then follow it with 15 laterals until Millsaps' players start giving up and you sprint past them into the end zone for the 28-22. Ready ... BREAK!

Sept. 23 - Oklahoma State beat Texas Tech 49-45. Great game worthy of accolades up and down from OKS coach Mike Gundy about his players, coaches and program, right? Mmm, not so much. Instead, Gundy chose that setting to berate a beat columnist for a piece she wrote on one of his players. His verbal assault gave us such gems as, "I'm a man. I'm 40!" Enjoy.

Sept. 1 - Appalachian State, defending Division 1-AA champion, shocks the football world by beating No. 2-ranked Michigan in an instant classic. The Mountaineers blocked a Wolverine field goal at the end of regulation to preserve the 34-32 victory. Cool stuff. As it would turn out, App State would lose just two games and go on to win the D 1-AA championship. Again. Way to pick'em, Michigan.

Aug. 1 - The I-35W bridge collapsed in Minneapolis - captured on this surveillance video - forcing government officials nationwide to refocus the need for improved infrastructure. This attention led to the closing of the McCleary Bridge in Wausau, which had a crumbling pier supporting two lanes and had gone unannounced for two years. In looking around for information on bridge disasters, I found this clip of the Tacoma Narrows on Nov. 1, 1940.

June 10 - 'The Sopranos' ended its seven-year run with the most controversial series finale I can remember. People have been talking about it ever since; mostly complaining about it, some praising it. As I don't have HBO, I couldn't watch it live, but in looking back at it, I think it's brilliant. The camera shifts from person to person and you the viewer find yourself wondering who will be the one to whack Tony. You know it could happen at any time, and it could come from anybody. And that's how Tony lives his life. Perfect.
And, to her credit, Hillary Clinton spoofed the Sopranos episode in a campaign ad.

April 16 - Seung-Hui Cho, a 22-year-old Korean man, went on a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, killing 32 and wounding 25 more before fatally shooting himself as his coup de grace. During the rampage, he took a break to mail a video manifesto to NBC explaining his twisted rationale. A student caught some of the gunshots on his camera phone. CNN made it part of a longer report. Eerie stuff.

Luminary Christmas

2007-12-30T16:51:00.000-06:00

Was just talking about this with someone and remembered I'd seen it on a Miller Lite commercial a couple of years ago. You may remember it as the dancing lights set to "Wizards in Winter" by Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I found it on - where else - YouTube, otherwise known as the Black Hole of Spare Time.
Check it out, complete with a detailed explanation of the background behind the display.
Gives me some ideas for my own Christmas light decorating ... none of which I'll do, but ideas nonetheless.

Oh, and for anyone who doesn't share in the whole "Christmas spirit" thing, there's one of my new favorite blogs, Tacky Christmas Yards. My favorite is titled "Hunting Season."

Feliz navidad.

Mitchell report little more than gossip

2007-12-13T23:26:00.000-06:00

Former Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine) released to the media today his report on the use of steroids in baseball. His report named 86 current and former players who allegedly used performance-enhancing substances over the past 15-20 years; 55 current, 13 MVPs, 8 Cy Young award winners (seven of which came from Roger Clemens).

The 409-page report relied on testimony of people such as former New York Mets clubhouse attendant named Kirk Radomski, who got pinched in April for money laundering and distribution of steroids. Radomski received checks written by New York Yankees personal trainer Brian McNamee, who claimed in Mitchell's report to have personally injected Clemens and fellow pitcher Andy Pettitte with performance-enhancers. Clemens, naturally, vehemently denies McNamee's assertion.

That Clemens will now have his name linked to Barry Bonds - whose name also appeared in the report, to no one's surprise - is to scar him with the accusation that he cheated. He may have, may not have, we simply don't know. But now he's forced to prove a negative; that he didn't do something.

Sports media are already asking the obligatory question of whether Clemens and/or Bonds should get into the Hall of Fame. That their names have been released as being part of baseball's Steroid Era, lacking any proof, could be baseball's version of McCarthyism.

Lambeau leaps, lands on Raiders

2007-12-11T07:48:00.000-06:00

Greatness past ... and present.

Dave (FSU jacket) and Bubba (Raider gear) find themselves among friendly Packer fans just before the Cheeseheads laid the wood to their Raiders on Dec. 9.

Went to the Green Bay Packers' trouncing of the Oakland Raiders on Sunday at Lambeau Field. Great time; 20 degrees, sunny (at the start), no wind, Lambeau Leaps at both ends of the stadium by the time it was all over, and a couple of buddies of mine who are big Raider fans.
Green Bay improved to 6-4 - including five straight - over the Raiders, who have played so poorly the last five seasons their logo has asked for a patch over its other eye too.

I decided to compile a bit of a storehouse of info on the Packers-Raiders "rivalry". Found a great site for all types of FB stats and such in the process:

Year, Winner, Score, Site
2007, Green Bay 38-7, Green Bay
2003, Green Bay 41-7, Oakland
1999, Green Bay 28-24, Green Bay
1993, Green Bay 28-0, Green Bay
1990, Green Bay 29-16, Los Angeles
1987, Raiders 20-0, Green Bay
1984, Raiders 28-7, Los Angeles
1978, Raiders 28-3, Green Bay
1972, Raiders 20-14, Green Bay
1968, Green Bay 33-14, Super Bowl II (We in Packerland would like to thank Raider Nation for allowing the Super Bowl championship award to be named the Vince Lombardi Trophy.)

For the Packers, Big D stands for 'dump'

2007-11-29T23:41:00.000-06:00

Well, the latest Game of the Century has come and gone, with the Packers falling to Dallas (*sigh* again), this time 37-27. They "fall" to 10-2, while Dallas remains 11-1 and in command of the NFC. While it's disappointing, it should ease the sting to imagine that few could've envisioned the Packers being 10-2 at this point in the season.

The Packers were without an injured Charles Woodson, an outstanding cover corner, and situational pass-rush specialist Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila (as well as a couple of defensive linemen who make up a very deep rotation).

But you can't commit 9 penalties for 142 yards (!) and expect to be considered a serious Super Bowl contender.

Yes, the Packers got jobbed on what should've been an interception when Al Harris stripped Terrell Owens, but Harris also grabbed a gift INT in the end zone later in the game when Owens went butterfingers on a pass. The O did nothing with it.

And I lost track of all the pass interference penalties they got nailed for, as well as the 15-yard facemasks.

That was just plain stupid, undisciplined football. Not the stuff of a 10-1 team.

The game could mark the end of an era, as Brett Favre left the game (his 249th consecutive regular-season start) in the second quarter with an elbow injury. He got sacked by backup CB Nathan Jones, who blitzed off the Packers' slot and had a clear shot at Favre, who whacked his elbow on Jones' helmet. Favre admitted in his presser that he'd also separated his left (non-throwing) shoulder on the play. It's similar to an injury he suffered last season, from which he returned in a week, but nerves are funny things, so we'll have to see. Nerve problems ended Dan Marino's career. At least Favre has 10 days before getting another crack at embarrassing the Oakland Raiders, a game I'll be attending with Bubba.

The most competitive atmosphere of the night may not have been in Dallas but in Wausau as people scrambled to find someplace that was A.) showing the game and B.) not so jampacked with people that it was exceeding fire-code capacity up to two hours before kickoff.

It was another NFL Network game, which means real fans couldn't watch it on Charter because the cable system and the NFL can't decide whose greed should override the other's. (NFLN wants it on Charter's basic tier, while Charter wants to put it on a special pay tier.)

A Soldier's Last Ride

2007-11-21T21:37:00.000-06:00

People often speak of things that have moved them. Sometimes it's a song. To others, it's a well-crafted speech, delivered so impeccably that to change a word would be to change a note in a Mozart concerto.

To me, it can just as often be the written word. While there are few things that move me like the sheer strength of vibrato brought forth like a flood from the guttural depths of a man or woman blessed with the gift of song, there is simply nothing that manipulates the imagination like perfectly crafted prose.

It's such verse that makes us physically feel the sunny chill of the autumn air at a Saturday afternoon football game at some high school in Manitowoc. Can make us hear the din of voices familiar and new that surround us in a cocoon of warmth at a dinner table. Can make us feel the pain anew of a love unrequited. Or can make us relive the glorious moments of our firstborn son's first cry.

Rob Kaiser wrote such a column for the Post-Crescent of Appleton, Wis. It was about a dead soldier but yet, so much more. It was appropriately titled, "Soldier makes his final trip home."

Kaiser described everything that would've seemed so mundane on any other November day. But through every detail - the mileage on the hearse, the rain droplets attacking the windshield, the sob of a mother whose son will never again experience those mundane redundancies - Kaiser makes us realize this without saying it. Of all people, Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish once said of writing a beautiful song that you can say it's raining without saying it's raining.

While Kaiser could have seized the stage to spew forth any pro- or anti-war screed and had it taken to heart by those who agreed with it, he didn't. Nor did he point out to us that each of these details he pointed out to us was something we the living would experience in his stead.

He left it to us.

Just like the soldier's death leaves it to those left behind to cope with why. And how. And what now.

Without further adieu, I give you Rob Kaiser's account of a soldier's final ride:

Soldier makes his final trip home

A bit of ceremony, tears mark Neenah welcome for fallen Sgt. McDonald

MILWAUKEE -- First out of the cargo hold of Midwest Airlines Flight 305 was a baby stroller, then a child's car seat.

And then, slowly, through the labored machinations of a team of airline employees in orange vests, there emerged one end of a long white crate.

"That's it right there," Robert Karrmann said softly as he stared at the strange cargo through the rain-beaded windshield of the hearse he had driven onto the tarmac at General Mitchell International Airport.

Inside the crate was a casket: that containing the remains of Sgt. James W. McDonald, the Neenah native who was found dead the morning of Nov. 12 in his barracks at Fort Hood, Texas.

The final leg of McDonald's final trip home had begun.

In a shiny black Cadillac hearse with 70,000 miles on it, Karrmann drove McDonald's body Saturday afternoon from Milwaukee through the lonely brown sprawl of rural Wisconsin to Neenah, the town where he grew up, and, where, early this week, he will be buried. The two-hour trip under dull milky skies traversed the two worlds of Sgt. McDonald, who was at once a military man and the boy next door — "Our Own American Hero," as one welcoming banner read, but also, still and always, Little Jim from Irene Street.

Though McDonald didn't die in Iraq (the Army has not said how he died, so even his family doesn't know), his death and homecoming have brought the war to Neenah, which has had no problem taking the measure of McDonald and finding him a hero even though he didn't die in action.

Joan McDonald considers her son McDonald a casualty of war.

"Oh, so much," she said.

"Yes," McDonald's sister Jennifer added fiercely.

The family is awaiting a toxicology report, Joan McDonald said. Her son was taking a variety of medications because of a head injury suffered in a roadside blast in Iraq. "But even if it ends up being the medication, he wouldn't have been taking all that if he hadn't been injured," she said.

Not knowing doesn't really bother her — at least for now.

"Until this is over, I don't care," she said.

Saturday all that mattered was getting her son back where he belonged.

The homecoming of Sgt. McDonald, past fallow fields and silos and woods dotted orange with gun hunters stalking deer, was planned carefully.

Saturday morning as Karrmann waited for the family to arrive at the Westgor Funeral Home in Neenah so the procession could leave for the Milwaukee airport, he prepared for the long trip by sipping black coffee. The hearse, a rental from a local livery costing $125 for the day, waited outside as a gentle snow fell.

Karrmann, a short, slight man with an angular face, green eyes and short graying hair grooved with comb marks, shrugged on his black suit coat and parted the blinds with his hand to look outside.

"Well, looks like we have some interesting weather," he said.

The driver from Captain's Limousine Service who would take to the airport McDonald's family — parents, grandparents and sisters - drove up in a long black Hummer. He wore a black bow tie and a jacket with his name, David, embroidered over the right breast.

Karrmann was glad the Hummer was black. "I thought it was going to be white, but it's perfect that it's black. It matches."

What it matched was the hearse, which Karrmann calls "the coach."

The coach, which would be McDonald's last ride, was plush. The interior of the hearse was dark blue, the seats leather and supple and soft, the dashboard a shiny wood veneer.

Inside, the hearse smelled like leather. It smelled clean, too; the livery service makes sure it delivers these things freshly washed.

Finally, the family arrived and the procession left the funeral home.

As Karrmann steered the hearse out from under the canopy at the front of the funeral home, tiny snowflakes settled lightly on the windshield, turning to water and beading up on the glass. Karrmann turned on the wipers. The hearse was quiet on the road. The turn signal ticked like a metronome.

They headed down Church Street, the little flags on the front of the hearse snapping with ever more urgency. One of the flags was the American flag. The other was for the Army. The hearse passed the rail yard and turned onto Cleveland Street, where the procession stopped to pick up McDonald's grandparents at their little beige wood-frame house.

Karrmann, whose leg sometimes bounces anxiously as he's waiting for traffic to pass so he can turn, has been a funeral director for more than 10 years - ever since bailing out of the restaurant business, where being a manager sometimes required working 110-hour weeks. But this is different, what he's doing today. He's not handled a military funeral before.

"The notes, the notes, the notes," he said.

But there was also something else — a certain feeling.

At 12:05 p.m., Karrmann arrived at the airport. The plane was due in at 12:47.

Waiting on the tarmac behind the wheel of the hearse, Karrmann glanced over his right shoulder to see if the back of the coach was clean. The floor in the back was polished wood. The walls and ceiling were the same dark blue leather as is in the front.

Karrmann looked at his watch. 12:48.

"Here it comes," he said. A royal-blue jet pulled into view, turning left toward the jetway.

Karrmann and the hearse faced the white nose of the plane head-on, as did the limo sitting on the tarmac next to the hearse.

Karrmann got out. A Midwest employee approached him sheepishly. Sgt. McDonald's last plane ride had not been prepaid. Somebody owed the airline more than $400.

The white crate appeared as a woman in the plane peered down from a window.

Midwest employees cut the black nylon straps and lifted the crate. Sgt. 1st Class Toni Kaiser and Staff Sgt. Jeffrey Theal, wearing their Class A dress greens, fought the cold, stiff wind to drape the casket with an American flag as Joan McDonald sobbed, a hand to her mouth.

And then Midwest employees helped Kaiser, Theal and Karrmann lift the casket into the hearse for the ride home.

On the way, the rain turned to snow turned to sleet turned to rain. An urban industrial landscape gave way to sprawling fields and rolling hills and woods and billboards. The pale gray road rushed back and under the hood of the hearse, the dotted white line coming on forever.

When the procession arrived in Neenah, local firefighters and police joined the procession from a staging area at the old Big Lots, just off Exit 131 from U.S. 41.

Karrmann drove in front of the McDonald's little wood frame house on Irene Street, where about 50 friends and family lined the curb to greet the hearse. Many wept. Some saluted. A small child pressed his face to the window of a brick house.

The procession passed over a train, which wailed as it moved slowly west. And then it arrived at the funeral home.

After the casket was rolled inside, Karrmann stood still, blinking.

In the funeral director's eye stood a tear.

GOP: The Greatest of All Time?

2007-10-09T17:35:00.000-06:00

Found a USAToday/Gallup poll that asked people who they thought was the greatest president ever. The plurality of respondents picked Abraham Lincoln (18%); no huge surprise. But No. 2? Ronald Reagan garnered 16%. (JFK was third at 14%, and Bill Clinton was the last in double figures at 13%. FDR only got 9%.)

Heisman trophy namesake buried in Wisconsin

2007-10-06T18:35:00.000-06:00

Just found out last week that John W. Heisman, former director of the Downtown Athletic Club, and for whom the Heisman Memorial Trophy is named, is buried in Rhinelander (Grave D, Lot 11, Block 3 of the city-owned Forest Home Cemetery). That's about 45 minutes north of Wausau.
Apparently his wife was a Rhinelander native.
That's a pretty cool get for Wisconsin, and definitely worth a roadie for any serious football fans who find themselves in the vicinity.

Favre hits record-setting TD pass

2007-10-01T22:11:00.000-06:00

On Sunday, Brett Favre hit Greg Jennings on a 16-yard slant for a touchdown as part of the Packers' 23-16 win over the Minnesota Vikings in the dreaded Metrodome. It was the 421st of Favre's career, which broke Dan Marino's record of 420. The previous record-holder? Fran Tarkenton at 342. The next active player with a shot at breaking Favre's new mark? Peyton Manning, who moved to 283 on Sunday. In between are John Elway (300), Warren Moon (291) and Johnny Unitas (290).
If Manning doesn't catch Favre, it may be awhile before anyone else does. The next active players after Manning? Kerry Collins (a backup in Tennessee) and Steve McNair (starting in Baltimore), both at 174.

Also on Sunday, and lost in the hoopla surrounding the "home run" record, Favre surpassed Marino to become the all-time leader in pass attempts. Last week, in a 31-24 win over San Diego, Favre surpassed Marino for the lead in pass completions. And to claim the grandaddy of them all, passing yardage, Favre would need to finish this season with 3,861 yards; not unrealistic at all, as Favre was one of six QBs to surpass that mark in 2006. With two more INTs, he'll tie George Blanda for the all-time lead in that dubious category, too. According to a story in the Journal-Sentinel, Blanda may actually get a bit misty when Favre inevitably breaks Blanda's mark. Though Blanda's record for most INTs in a season (42) is probably safe, even from Favre.

Thing is, Favre is far from done. He hit No. 422 later in the Vikings game and is showing no signs of slowing down. In fact, he's showing signs of a reversal from the direction he'd been heading the past two seasons. Touchdowns were down, interceptions were up; it appeared Favre was fading quickly to black.
Perhaps it's the youth around him re-energizing him, perhaps it's playing within the confines of Mike McCarthy's system ... or maybe he just wants to antagonize Bubba for one more season. Whatever it is, it has Favre leading the league both in completions and attempts, and among the leaders in passer rating, yardage and TDs.
And the best part about it is he has to be mentioned seriously as an early contender for league MVP, which of course would be No. 4 for No. 4.

Packer fans, enjoy it while it lasts. Our quarterback makes a little more history every time he takes the field, and we're blessed to watch it every week in our home market.

GOP misses opportunity at 'black' debate

2007-09-29T07:16:00.000-06:00

I'm pretty disappointed in the Republican Party right now. Though the deadline for third-quarter filings was looming, the Big Four (Giuliani, McCain, Thompson and Romney) felt it necessary to skip the All-America Presidential Forum (see both the GOP and Dem debates here) hosted by Tavis Smiley on PBS on Thursday night.
This one night after the Dems debated in New Hampshire; a seemingly prime opportunity to grab back some headlines during this political preseason.
But instead of addressing this primarily black audience on primarily "black" issues, the Big Four decided to hopscotch around the country gladhanding for those few hundred thousand dollars that they hope will convey a sense of momentum among an electorate that probably doesn't much care at this point.

Anyway, I'm proud of the guys who did show - Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter. Oh, and Alan Keyes was there, too. I'm not sure why. Apparently someone left the back door ajar. (Incidentally, my disdain for Keyes has nothing to do with his race; it has everything to do with his intolerance.)
The reason I'm proud of them is because they acquitted the GOP well and, for the most part, said what I would have liked to in that setting. They shifted the focus from race to colorblind opportunity for ALL Americans.
The only way to get away from race being an issue in America is to stop MAKING it an issue.

Though I probably would've taken it a step further. When asked about the disproportionate number of young blacks who drop out of school and end up in jail, I would've placed a lot of blame on the Democrat Party. Reason? Because they foster a culture of dependency and consequence-free victimhood, to the degree that it's almost as if no black ever "deserves" to go to jail now. It's always racism.
Take the so-called "Jena 6." The alleged "civil rights leaders" are turning out in droves to scream into megaphones about how outraged they are about the six black teens charged with attempted murder for kicking the crap out of a white kid who called one of them an N. The white kid was treated and released in less than three hours.
Were those six black kids indicted because of racism? In this case, I think they actually were. But who's listening? Sharpton and Jackson have cried wolf about racism for so long about so many things, who pays attention when it really does rear its head?
The one kid who's become a poster child in all of this, Mychal Bell, a stud running back on the high school football team whose coach has touted his potential as a big-college recruit, also has the longest rap sheet and is probably the most deserving of jail time.

Blacks won't realize true emancipation until they divorce themselves from the Democrats and embrace the individualism espoused by the GOP.

Presidents and 'The War'

2007-09-23T22:14:00.000-06:00

Two very cool things going on TV-wise right now (aside from the Packers going 3-0 by beating San Diego today):

The War - Wisconsin Public Television is airing this Ken Burns documentary in seven parts, the first of which I recorded tonight. Interspersed will be some Wisconsin-related war shows regarding WWII, Korea, and the USS Wisconsin. Do yourself a favor and check it out.

Presidential Libraries - C-SPAN is airing a series on presidential libraries, 2 hours each Friday night. They started with Hoover and will proceed chronologically through Clinton. Learn more.

Patriots' act nabs Belichick for wiretapping

2007-09-14T21:39:00.000-06:00

Oh, the wannabe-pundit sportswriters are having a field day with this one.
With Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots getting busted for, essentially, warrantless wiretapping of opposing coaches' signals, writers such as Bill Simmons of ESPN just can't help themselves:

"Spying on opponent's signals is just plain seedy. It's one step above playing footsie with someone in an airport men's room. It's a disgrace. It's embarrassing."

But without knowing the parameters allowed by the NFL's and NFLPA's collective-bargaining agreement, I think Belichick and the Pats have gotten off easy.

Yeah, Belichick will have to write a painful check of $500,000 to the league, and yes the Pats will have to turn over $250k to the league office, and the team will have to (most likely) give up a first-round draft pick in '08. But if the Patriots brazenly broke an expressly verboten rule, and gained an advantage over the Jets that allowed them to beat the Jets, 38-14 last Sunday, then they should have to forfeit the game to the Jets.

Now, the NFL's rule is that any team that forfeits a game will lose that game 2-0. So the irony in my scenario would be if the Jets needed the total-points tie-breaker at the end of the year and, despite the "win" they would have been awarded over the Pats, wound up MISSING the playoffs because of the points they would NOT have gotten by winning the forfeit 2-0.

At the very least, the Pats should have to give up BOTH first-round picks in '08, and Belichick should be suspended a game. Or at least forfeit one of those picks to the Jets, the team that was wronged by Belichick's misdeed.

Heard someone make an interesting point, though, that the league could eliminate the problem all together by allowing the defensive coordinator to radio plays in to the "QB" of his defense, usually his middle linebacker.
To that, I say why not let all offensive and defensive players have radios in their helmets.

Godspeed, Kevin Everett

2007-09-10T22:01:00.000-06:00

Amid the blurred colors and barely controlled chaos of the opening weekend of NFL games, the world changed dramatically for one young man Sunday in Buffalo, N.Y.
Kevin Everett, No. 85, a backup tight end and a third-round draft pick out of Miami by the Buffalo Bills in 2005, lay motionless on the field.
Fans and players awaited some sign of movement from him. A kick, a twitch. A quick reassurance that he was all right.
Nothing.
Everett dislocated his neck and injured his spinal cord on the opening kickoff of the second half. He launched himself into the ballcarrier, the Denver Broncos' Dominik Hixon, and hit Hixon's left shoulder pad face-first. Everett displaced his third vertebrae, pushing it over his fourth and creating a scissor effect against his spinal cord. Doctors are saying the cord isn't damaged, so there may be some hope for Everett to walk again, though they're calling such chances "slim."

I can't imagine what went through Everett's head in the moments after he dropped to the turf at Ralph Wilson Stadium. He never lost consciousness; I'm not sure which would be preferable, given the circumstances. The fear would be unfathomable. The regret. The immediate sorrow for everything you've ever done wrong in your life. Instant bargaining with God (or any god) for every word, thought or action you've ever perpetrated in your life. Silently begging for this to be just another stinger; just another scare among the many that longtime football players experience.

Instead, it appears Everett will become the fourth NFL player paralyzed by an on-field hit during the modern (post-merger) era.
Mike Utley was rendered paraplegic after hitting the unforgiving turf at the Pontiac (Mich.) Silverdome while playing for the Detroit Lions in November 1991. Utley offered an inspiring thumbs-up while he was being wheeled off the field, something countless players have replicated since then, as a reassuring gesture to fans and teammates.
Darryl Stingley never got that chance, having been rendered quadriplegic in a collision with Oakland Raiders safety Jack Tatum during a 1978 preseason (read: meaningless) game. Stingley died in April at the age of 55.
New York Jets defensive tackle Dennis Byrd broke his neck and was paralyzed in a collision with teammate Scott Mersereau in 1992. But Byrd miraculously recovered, inspiring a book and movie titled, "Rise and Walk: The Dennis Byrd Story."

I find myself wanting to launch into some heartfelt plea for stem-cell research, and for the NFL and NFLPA to do more for players both current and retired to ensure they get the medical care they need ... but I won't lay out some chest-beating case for it here. My thoughts are still with Everett. And frankly, the circumstances should speak for themselves.

Here's hoping that the Bills place Everett in their stadium's Ring of Honor, perhaps next to Bob Kalsu, who was killed in action in Vietnam in 1970. Kalsu exhibited valor on the battlefield as the only active NFL player killed in Vietnam. But Everett will have effectively given his life embodying the courage of all football players.

UPDATE: Neurosurgeon says Everett could walk again.

Kicking off silliness

2007-09-06T18:02:00.000-06:00

So I'm settling in to watch the Saints @ Colts in the Thursday night opener of the NFL season, and who do I see bounding across my television screen? Not Reggie Bush. Not Drew Brees. Not Peyton Manning or Marvin Harrison. Hell, not even John Madden's head and Al Michaels' ego vying for space in the booth. But that would've been preferable to what DID grace my screen; Kelly Clarkson.

I think.

I don't know my manufactured pop idols.

But what the hell is the NFL doing to us with this non-football pregame garbage? When did Kelly Clarkson become synonymous with "football"? (Unless there's something I'm missing about the "big tight end" and "eight men in the box".)

Obviously the NFL knows a bit more about marketing than I do, as hundreds of thousands of people are probably listening to her warble through her own pregame warm-ups, while my audience consists of ... well, you.

But honestly, who will tune in to watch both her AND the game? ... Then again, given the choice between watching her strut and gyrate across a stage, and being unable to remove my gaze from Chris Collinsworth's Adam's Apple ... maybe I know where MY pregame vote would lie after all.

The 'Hunt for a Fred November'

2007-09-05T22:04:00.000-06:00

Fred Thompson, former Tennessee Senator and actor, just announced, on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", that he is indeed running for president. It ... is ... ON!

E85 comes to the Wausau area

2007-08-31T22:22:00.001-06:00

I saw a big sign in front of the BP in Marathon today advertising E85 ethanol. First one I've seen in this area. Went for $2.65 a gallon today, whereas the regular stuff went for $3.07/3.17/3.27/D 3.12.
I know corn-based ethanol isn't the be-all end-all, as production isn't all that efficient, and widespread usage could cause a whole new set of problems with prices and shortages, but hopefully other forms of ethanol will catch on and help us alleviate our dependence on foreign oil.

Personally, I think we should ban tobacco and allow tobacco farmers to replace their crops with industrial hemp, which, incidentally, counts ethanol as one of its myriad uses.

Vintage Base Ball alive and well

2007-08-24T23:13:00.001-06:00

Ran across a story today about former Yankee pitcher Jim Bouton, who attained fame with his irreverent tell-all book, "Ball Four," in 1970. Bouton, it seems, has founded the Vintage Base Ball Federation, which held its first World Series in Westfield, Mass.
The VBBF is like a Civil War reenactment for washed-up jocks. The league, real baseball through and through, adheres to the rudimentary rules of the 1880s and immerses visitors like they just stepped out of the Wayback Machine.
Those paying (a thoroughly modern) $10 will pass by Keystone cops walking the beat, through wrought-iron gates, past newsboys hawking the day's paper, and even primly dressed ladies demanding their right to vote.

Games are played during the day - no electricity, of course - and players' equipment is as throwback as it gets. Fielding gloves about the size of an oven mitt. Bats with handles nearly as thick as the barrels. And uniforms with collars.

If you're a baseball fan, you gotta love this. Eat your heart out, Ray Kinsella!

Milwaukee even has a team (though it's in the VBBF's rival league, the Vintage Base Ball Association); the Cream Citys.
The oldest professional base ball team in Milwaukee is the Grays, who played one season (1878) in the National League. After that, Milwaukee began fielding its first incarnations of the Brewers, a one-season wonder in 1884 (Union Association), and another in 1891 (American Association). The Brewers came about again in 1901, before they moved to St. Louis and became the Browns. (They moved again in 1954, becoming the Baltimore Orioles.)

One last historical footnote; one that brings up an interesting point. Moses "Fleetwood" Walker was the first black professional baseball player. He took the field for the Toledo Blue Stockings of the American Association in 1884, their only season.
Which brings me to this: As cool as I think these vintage leagues are, I'd be curious to know how they would handle any black players wanting to play with them. With the exception of Walker (and his brother Welday, who joined Fleet on the Blue Stockings), blacks were largely shut out of the game during the era the Vintage leagues represent. And blacks were completely shut out with the dawn of the Negro Leagues in the late 19th century.
It's not unlike women wanting to join men in Civil War reenactments. Women fighting would've been unheard-of at the time, but several have expressed an interest in joining men for these exercises now.
Part of me says authenticity is authenticity and should be left alone. But another part of me thinks we should throw it open to whoever would want to indulge in the experience. Especially blacks and women, who never would've had that opportunity back then. (There IS a Vintage league strictly for women.)

Anyway, in thinking about it, I'd love to see something like this start up for Negro League teams. It seems like a fine way to honor the men who were relegated to those leagues. And the most beautiful part of it would be knowing that the men on the field are there because they chose to be, not because it was the only avenue our society allowed them.

Wisconsin's firsts are many

2007-08-23T12:06:00.000-06:00

The Daily Reporter, a construction trade newspaper, ran a fascinating list of "firsts" associated with Wisconsin.
I hadn't realized that, among other things, Frank Lloyd Wright's son, John, invented Lincoln Logs here. I loved my Lincoln Logs.

Bonds ball and 'potential revenue'

2007-08-23T09:16:00.000-06:00

So apparently Matt Murphy, the 21-year-old New Yorker who emerged from the melee with Barry Bonds' record-setting 756th home run ball on Aug. 7, will auction it off.
No surprise, considering he figures to make half a million or so on it.
What surprises me about this - and frankly torques me more than a little bit - is his contention that the IRS had designs on taxing him for the ball's "potential revenue." Basically, the IRS, according to Murphy, claimed it could tax him on the income he COULD GET from selling the ball.
This is outrageous. Thanks to eBay, we ALL have "potential revenue" just cluttering up our houses.
Didn't we fight a revolution in part due to unfair tax practices?

I have the solution for Murphy, though, should he decide to change his mind and keep it. He should tell the IRS, "OK, if you're going to charge me for an imaginary income, I'm going to pay you imaginary taxes. ... 100%, if you'd like."
And I'd go very very public with that, too.

He plans to auction it Aug. 28 to Sept. 15 through Sotheby's Auction House, split the money 51-49 with friend Amir Kamal, and use the money to pay his way to becoming a physical therapist.
After the scramble that netted him the ball in the first place, he may have some customers ... right off the bat.

Whites happier than minorities; nice work, liberals

2007-08-21T11:25:00.000-06:00

An AP poll released Tuesday has found that white youths, 13-34, are generally happier with their lot in life than are minorities.

Good job, liberalism.

RIP, Michael Deaver

2007-08-19T15:39:00.000-06:00

Michael Deaver died Saturday at the age of 69, following a battle with pancreatic cancer.
I don't have any posters of Deaver up in my house or anything, but his work may be one reason why I have a picture of President Reagan hanging proudly on my Dead Legends wall.
You see, Deaver was the first of his kind; he often said, "The only thing I did was light him well."
It was Deaver's job to put Reagan in the best possible setting to help the Great Communicator properly shape and convey his message.
Reagan was the last president to escape the 24-hour news cycle that has reduced modern politics to an endless volley of beautiful hair and "which is worse" soundbytes. There were still only the Big Three networks, CNN hadn't reached any prominence yet, and Al Gore had not yet made the Internet accessible to us commoners. So supplementing Reagan's policies and speeches was that much more important.
It's unfortunate that politics has taken the superficial turn that it has, but Deaver deserves credit for being a visionary in that regard, and helping hone the image of a man beloved by so many.

McConnell: Why are we obsessed with sex predators?

2007-08-18T12:33:00.000-06:00

Was listening to a little bit of Mike McConnell's radio show (listen online at his home station M-F 9-12, Sat 12-3) on WSAU, the local affiliate here that runs his show on Saturdays, and he raised an interesting point.
He asked why we treat sexual predators so much differently from other criminals, meaning that we require them to register and then allow people to track their every move, even online.
McConnell, a thinking man's conservative if ever there was one, went so far as to liken our obsession with sex criminals as a sexual titillation in itself.

I wouldn't go that far. But he has a point; why DO we require sexual predators to affix their names to a registry? Because they're still a danger to re-offend? Then why the hell are they out of prison?
As McConnell pointed out, isn't it just as much within our interest to know if our new neighbor has a history of burglary? Or arson? Or, for that matter, murder?

We require NONE of these felons to register. This leads me to think the law should be more consistent, in that either we recognize sexual registries as unconstitutional double jeopardy, or we require all felons to register.

I've long advocated for open-ended sentencing, where a sex criminal would get not the 10-20 years they usually get now, but rather they'd essentially get life in prison with parole a possibility in 10-20 years. Meaning, if after X amount of time, a panel of psychologists determines the person is a reasonable danger to reoffend, there is no reason to let him out. As our prison system is supposed to be about "rehabilitation," he clearly would not have "learned" anything behind bars.

Finally, I do think the mandates for sexual registration need to be tweaked. I recently learned that a childhood friend of mine is a registered sex offender. Knowing him how I do (or did, anyway), I have a hard time believing he would've "abducted a child not his own" for sexual reasons. In his case, it was more likely an ugly custody battle that took an unfortunate turn. But, sex crimes and mandatory sentencing being what they are, the judge probably had little to no leeway in convicting him of "abducting" the child, which, "zero tolerance" being what IT is, would've necessitated a trip to the registry for him.
It's possible he's really a twisted pervert who wanted to do something unspeakable to that child, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if he was actually the "victim" of legal wrangling. Which is unfortunate, in that it cheapens what registries were intended to do.

Having said all of that ... here is Wisconsin's sex offender registry.

Gas today: $2.92/3.02/3.12/D 3.06

Olbermann fumbles again

2007-08-17T07:45:00.000-06:00

I could dedicate a whole separate blog to Keith Olbermann's hate-fueled fact-fumbling, but I'll just touch on one here.
He did it again last night on "Countdown." He misrepresented and omitted whatever was necessary to make President Bush look like a bungling murderer.

In a follow-up to the Crandall Canyon mine disaster, where six miners have been trapped since Aug. 6 and three would-be rescuers died this morning (Aug. 17) trying to get to them, Olbermann dedicated several minutes bashing the recess appointment of Richard Stickler to the head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, noting that his appointment was opposed by the AFL-CIO, Democrats, and enough Republicans to force Bush to make the end-around. Olbermann pretty much left it at that and went to Arianna Huffington, and the two picked at Bush thereafter.

Mix that with the fact that Stickler was an executive with Murray Energy, which donated $10,000 to Bush-Cheney and happens to own the Crandall Canyon mine, and the whole process sounds fishy enough to make people think, "Bush really F'd up this one."

What Olbermann DIDN'T tell us was that Stickler's agency did its job. The MSHA investigated that very mine July 5. According to Mineweb.com:

Federal mine inspectors have issued 325 citations against the mine since January 2004, according to CNN.
In 2007, inspectors issued 32 citations against the mine, 14 of them considered significant.An examination by Mineweb of MSHA records shows that MSHA's last regular inspection of Crandall took place on July 5. During that visit, inspectors cited Genwall Resources for violating a rule requiring at least two separate passageways be designated for escape in an emergency, reportedly the third instance in less than two years that the mine has been cited for the same problem.

The Deseret Morning News reported that the mine has been cited 176 times since early 2005. This predated Stickler's appointment by more than a year. And DURING Stickler's tenure - just this year, in fact - the MSHA has issued 33 citations to the mine, including three orders. This mine was clearly a problem for a long time, and Stickler - shady appointment though he may be - was doing his job as the head of the oversight body.

So again I'm forced to defend Bush in the face of overzealous, misguided attacks. My friends on the Left like to call Olbermann the Edward R. Murrow of our time ... when in reality, he's just a former sports hack with a political axe to grind.

Bubba's wedding

2007-08-13T17:15:00.000-06:00

Went to a wedding Sunday I thought would never happen Sunday. Bubba finally decided to settle down. Got himself a nice girl, too.

He was big on this being a "nontraditional" wedding, as neither of them was big on the whole "church" thing. So we held the ceremony in the Shattuck Park pavilion in Neenah. It's a fairly new facility, and as you can see at the link, it's a beautiful setting for some summer nuptials. The festivities were held late in the afternoon, so the worst of the sun had passed. While it was still well into the 80s, the gentle breeze and the boats rocking in their Fox River moorings just yards from us made it all OK.

The ceremony was brief and to the point, and all in front of 40-some people. And all with a heavy emphasis on the post-ceremony dinner. Just the way Bubba wanted it.

That's not a "Bubba likes to eat" joke, either. He's just always been at his most comfortable when a group of friends (or in this case, family) can sit around at length for dinner, drinks and a steady stream of BS'ing.

Best of all, he gave me the opportunity to be his best man, which immediately told me a whole host of other guys must've had plans that weekend.

Actually, it was a pretty special gesture, as Bubba and I have known each other for just over 10 years. He began harrassing me ... ERRR, "making my acquaintance" when he was still advocating for students' rights to sleep late and graduate at UW-Oshkosh while I was the editor of the Advance-Titan.

He's held a long string of positions where his primary responsibility was to oversee the health and well-being of other people, before and since those days in the A-T's basement office in Reeve Union. Big and blustery as he is, few have cared more about their fellow man than Bubba. It was that sense of selflessness and altruism that I tried to convey in my Best Man Speech, and I think I did all right. Made everyone laugh a few times, at Bubba's expense, and had them groaning about what a sweet guy he was when it was all over. Mission accomplished.

So if you have a drink handy while you're reading this, raise your glass, mug or bottle in a toast to Bubba and his new wife.

Bully TR

2007-08-13T12:38:00.000-06:00

Apparently I'm not the only one who admires Teddy Roosevelt. The AP has a story on how today's candidates are trying to liken themselves to him, no doubt perverting his legacy all over the political map.

For a long time I've tried to reserve my hero worship for legends who are dead. Why? Because they can't F up their legacy. Take it from a guy who as a child worshiped at the altar of Darryl Strawberry.

Tommy steps aside

2007-08-13T10:17:00.000-06:00

And the campaign of Tommy Thompson for president is over. The Journal-Sentinel did a pretty comprehensive job of blogging his post-mortem.
After finishing sixth in the Iowa straw poll on Saturday, he acknowledged that he'd fallen well short of his goal of at least second. This, coupled with his ninth-place finish in fundraising for the last quarter, sounded the death knell.

I say good for him; it's time.

It's not that I don't think he would make a good president. As much as libs and Dems hate him, even they've acknowledged relative success with his BadgerCare, SeniorCare and welfare reform, and a reasonably gay-friendly record as governor and during his time in the legislature.
But even when given opportunities to directly discuss these hot-button issues, he ignored his health initiatives and stumbled all over himself by portraying himself as a discriminatory bigot by saying employers should be allowed to fire employees for being gay.

May his campaign manager, Steve Grubbs, never manage another campaign. Grubbs, who graduated from the University of Iowa in 1994, managed Bob Dole's 1996 campaign in the Hawkeye state. He lost that one, too, by 10 percent to Bill Clinton.

Barry Bonds: Home Run King

2007-08-08T17:20:00.001-06:00

Like much of the country, I missed the 'Yawn Heard 'round the World' last night, as Barry Bonds hit his 756th home run. He did it on a 3-2 pitch off the Washington Nationals' Mike Bacsik in the fifth inning. To Bacsik's credit, he gloated afterward about how now he can go around to card-show signings with Al Downing, the hurler who gave up No. 715 to Hank Aaron.

I'm not sure how I feel about it. I thought for a long time I hated Bonds and was saddened that he would get the record. But I think I came to grips with this eventuality after Bud Selig and MLB failed to suspend him at the start of the year. I thought at the time that the federal investigation would give MLB just the excuse it needed to sit him down. Then there was the chatter that he may have purjored himself. Still nothing.

Now, as we wait for Bonds to wind down his career so we can gauge exactly how many Alex Rodriguez and Albert Pujols need to hit to surpass him, I actually find myself feeling sorry for Bonds.

I never thought I'd say that, much less think it, but what if we're all wrong about Bonds? I know there's a whole book out - Game of Shadows - chronicling his use of game-enhancers, and that he's never tested positive for 'roids (there IS no test for the Human Growth Hormone that has supposedly run him through a second puberty). But how much of this is self-perpetuating? How many reporters has he run off because of reporters who've rubbed him the wrong way over the years? Members of the media pay for the sins of others all the time. Even in my days as a sportswriter, I can't tell you how many phone calls I'd get from people all pissed off at ME because they didn't get their paper.

And maybe Bonds is a jerk. I don't know. I kind of assume that most pro athletes are jagoffs, to varying degrees. Ninety-five percent of them have lived a life of privilege and will retire by their mid-30s with a fair amount of coin in the bank. In 1999, I covered a Giants-Brewers game at County Stadium and stood in the Giants' clubhouse just a few feet from Bonds. I didn't try talking to him because he'd gone 0-for-whatever that day and was a non-factor. Thus, no reason to talk to him. A very professional approach, as too many sportswriters double as part-time jocksniffers, but I did deprive myself of the opportunity to get blown off by one of the all-time greats.

But I think I feel sorry for Bonds not because he's made his bed about being a tool, but because ... what if he DIDN'T actually take enhancers? He'll never be able to prove that negative. Hell, if he hasn't taken 'roids, he MIGHT AS WELL START, and we'll see if he can get to 800 dingers before his head explodes and his feet burst from his spikes like the Incredible Hulk.

Sweaty Uncle Teddy

2007-08-02T23:02:00.000-06:00

Just got back from Ted Nugent's appearance at the Wisconsin Valley Fair, where he held court Thursday, Aug. 2. What a show!
I'm not usually a big classic-rock guy. Haven't been since getting burnt out on it during my college summer jobs spent listening to WAPL in the '90s. (Didn't realize Pink Floyd and The Doors only had three songs.) But this was a little different.
For starters, I wasn't all that familiar with Nugent's stuff; by reputation only, really. I remember a comedy bit about a classical station that changed its format to classic rock but kept its classical DJs. So this British-accented gent back-announced "The Rolling Stones quartet ... with Honky Tonk Women, and befo' that, we had the Ted Nugent orchestra with Wang Dang Sweet Poontang."

But really, Nuge largely kept his politics out of it. Save for a couple of single-digit salutes to Gov. Jim Doyle and Sen. Russ Feingold, of course. But he was just saying what most of us were thinking on some level.

But, from the opening intonations of "Free for All" to the closing coda of his "Fred Bear" encore, Nugent's show was a study in the kind of energy and enthusiasm we all should hope to have at the age of 59. It carried through to his "sacrifice" of the Great White Buffalo via flaming arrow near the end of his set. He offered some tributes to each branch of service, too. And if I had a nickel for every time he invoked the "Spirit of the Wild" in northern Wisconsin ... well, I'd have several nickels.

But I think that's what really got me about 'Nuge,' knowing that he really meant what he was preaching. He wasn't just saying it to get ratings or sell a book. I felt like he really believed the conservative, all-American mantra he's been preaching all these years. After all, he predates Fox News Channel and its conservative pundits by almost 30 years.

At Nugent's show, I felt comfortable, like I was among friends who believed as I did. It felt good to love my country, to wish for victory in Iraq, and to be an American. Live Earth this wasn't.

Twin Cities bridge collapse

2007-08-01T21:42:00.000-06:00

At least seven people are dead in a massive bridge collapse on I-35W that spans the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. More are sure to follow, but storms and nightfall were hampering search-and-rescue efforts.

Homeland Security is saying it's not terrorism, a conclusion on which I'm honestly a bit torn. On the one hand, if it were a terrorist strike, it would prove wrong idiots like John Edwards, who thinks the War on Terror exists only on bumper stickers. Maybe he should sign up for the Homeland Security update from CQPolitics, from Congressional Quarterly. On the other, Bush-haters would be quick to blame Bush and use the incident as proof not that there is a war on terror but that "Bush hasn't made us any safer."

Thoughts and prayers with those killed and injured in the bridge collapse.

Gas today: $2.99/$3.09/$3.19/Diesel $3.04

Am I part of the game or not?

2007-07-24T21:07:00.000-06:00

I was watching SportsCenter the other night, and I saw a fan getting escorted out of the stadium I think in Philadelphia. (Second one in about three days, I believe.)
Did he throw beer on a player? Nope.
Get into a drunken brawl in the stands? Nope.
Barrel over a little kid in pursuit of a foul ball? Nope.

Seems this fan's sin was to have touched (i.e. "interfered with") a ball that was in play. Now, anyone who follows baseball has seen those fans along the first- and third-base lines straining with every inch of their bodies to reach a ball that is bouncing foul in their general direction. But that wasn't the case with this guy. He was sitting in the outfield bleachers, and a ball had bounced hard off the warning track to well within his arm's reach. All he did was stick his arm out and grab it. Pretty instinctive response, really.

Instead, he got hauled away by stadium security like he'd just gotten back from streaking. For this, I ask Major League Baseball: Are we part of the game or not?

All we sports fans see on TV are ads for video games that are so real you almost bruise; we see cameras placed in every orifice on the field during big postseason series; and we get players in dugouts and huddles "miked up" so we can feel like we're right there next to them. It's partly how owners justify charging us the outrageous rates they do for tickets, beer and food. ... But God forbid we would actually feel some kind of entitlement to a ball bounding our way.

Look, I'm not saying the fan should've been able to jump the rail, call off an outfielder camped under a fly ball, and haul it in for himself. I'm just saying that intent always has to be taken into account. The big yellow foul poles at either end of the outfield are considered part of the field of play, and if a batted ball hits one on the fly, it's a home run. Why can't fans be classified similarly? If a fan reaches for a ball, and is within reason in doing so, why can't that determine the result of the play like the foul poles? The fan snags it, it's a home run or ground rule double; the fan drops or redirects it, it caroms around and possibly results in a double.

My point is I get tired of being taken advantage of by Big Sports. It's bad enough that the Packers (and all of the other NFL teams) charge full price for tickets, beverages and food for exhibition games. But we suck it up because we're fans and, hey, it's either see them or don't. The least they can do is let us keep our seat if a once-in-a-lifetime souvenir comes our way.

Gas today: $3.14/.24/.34/Diesel $3.09

NBA reaping what it sows

2007-07-24T20:23:00.000-06:00

With the media salivating over disgraced NBA official Tim Donaghy's promise to name names of coaches, players and other officials in his alleged gambling escapades, I find myself wondering how eager they'd be if he also promised to name sports writers.

This whole thing should surprise no one, especially with regard to the NBA, which David Stern has run like his own little fiefdom for the better part of 20 years. You know this thing reaches all the way back through the '90s and "the Jordan Rules." And I'm willing to ... err, bet, that it includes playoff pairings and the draft lottery, the latter of which is inexplicably shielded from the public. Gee, nothing fishy there.

The chickens are coming home to roost. And the egg will be on Stern's face.

The Newest Knight

2007-07-17T22:50:00.000-06:00

The clock ticks toward the end of the first day of life for my new son. And I wonder.
Holding him close in a rocking chair, I gaze into his tightly shut eyes. And I daydream.
I recall the musical beauty of his first life-affirming cry. And I pray.

I thank God for granting me a healthy son and a strong wife to deliver him. I hope He will grant me the two things for which I regularly pray; the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job. These are the only two things any person truly needs, as they complement one another, and both lead to all of life's other little wants that we so often mistake as needs.

It's easy to get sappy when talking about babies. One comedian took aim at that habit, saying that people who have children have pretty much given up on their own lives and are willing to pass the torch to another generation that may not "F it up as bad as I did." But there's something to that. It's hard to look at this little 9 pound blank slate and NOT think about what could lie ahead for him.

I'm not talking about the 2044 election cycle, when he'll first be eligible to run for the presidency. I'm talking about the simplest of things; the types of conversations we might one day have. Consider Ben Folds' "Still Fighting It," an ode to his son in which he imagines a day when "maybe we'll both sit down and have a few beers." Will he like sports? Will he be musically inclined? Will he be a multi-billionaire? Or will he grow up to have a simple job, write an occasional blog containing his ruminations about social, political and sports issues, and go on to have a child of his own?

As with most things, the truth likely lies somewhere in the middle. But I love the possibilities. And I love him.

Blame the object? Or the person?

2007-07-15T22:16:00.000-06:00

Something struck me while listening to the news story about five teenage girls killed in a car accident after the driver was apparently distracted by text-messaging a friend while she was driving.
I found it interesting that in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shooting, people were quick to blame the shooter's ability to buy firearms and the renewed cry for gun control. But after the deaths of these young ladies in New Jersey, people focused on the girls' use of their cell phones.

In both cases, the misuse of a legal, inanimate object led to the needless deaths of far too many people. But in the former case, voices cried for regulation, whereas in the latter case, those same voices cried out for common sense in the use of the object that led to their demise.

The irony is that the proper use of a firearm is likely to lead to someone's death or great bodily harm, whereas the proper use of a cell phone is unlikely to kill anyone. Note the term "proper use." If a firearm is being "properly used," that means it is being used in self-defense. This means that using the firearm is, in the shooter's judgment, preventing undue harm coming to them or someone else.

The common thread through both of these cases is the importance of proper use, especially in the case of the text-messaging driver, which proved that even the most seemingly benign tool can be deadly when misused.

Health care hits home

2007-07-14T10:42:00.000-06:00

Still no baby. I'm starting to wonder if the wife is really pregnant or just covering up for some dramatic weight gain.

Anyway, this impending birth, coupled with a friend's recent mild heart attack, got me to thinking about health care. (And really being thankful that she and I are able to have health insurance because I don't know how anyone could have a baby or a heart issue without it.)

I always found it hard to believe that 47 million Americans have no health insurance. I'd really like to see that broken down to how many are children (who thus COULDN'T be independently insured), how many of the rest don't have health insurance because they CAN'T get it, and how many CHOOSE not to get it and simply roll the dice that they won't get sick. My suspicion is that if all 47 million of those folks broke down their expenses, a majority of them could afford health insurance even if it was in leiu of things like cable TV, cell phones, or even multiple vehicles.

"Oh, that's so cruel."
Not really. In my case, when I was in my mid-20s, fresh out of college and powerdrunk on my first "big boy" paychecks, health insurance was nothing more to me than some annoying forms to fill out before I found out how much vacation I could take. I had it, and fortunately I was reasonably healthy enough that I didn't realize until recently how fortunate I was to work at places that offered it.

Not that I'm going to sit here and defend insurance companies, but they are free-market entities that can choose whether or not they want to cover someone. And from a truly bottom-line standpoint, it would make the most business sense to cover the person who, evidence would indicate, would be LEAST likely to file a claim. Government encroachment on this business model reeks of socialism.

I understand that pre-existing conditions can sometimes skew people's rates and make health insurance unaffordable. And anyone who has to go into the hospital for anything more than an aspirin is easily looking at a bill equal to one or two years salary. No one can afford this.

So what is the government's role? Theories abound, of course, but I feel the gov't should simply be there to fill in the gaps; to take up the slack where people have no other options. That's consistent with the general theory of conservatism, which would seek to lay out options for people and thus grant them a degree of empowerment to solve their own problems. The bottom line is to give them the ability to choose, something liberals love to trot out when it applies to abortion (another thread, another time).

Tommy Thompson may have the answer, not that you'd know it by his moments in the national spotlight as a GOP presidential candidate. Tommy initiated a program called BadgerCare when he was governor of Wisconsin (1987-2001). BadgerCare, which began in July 1999, covers those who work for an employer who doesn't offer health insurance, but who make too much money to be covered by Medicaid. By covering those who make up to 185% of the poverty level (which, if the poverty level is typically set at $18,000, would reach up to $33,300). Its original goal was to cover 40,000 Wisconsinites, including 23,000 children, by the end of 1999.

The state Department of Health and Family Services published a report card on the program in 2005, and you'll see that the scores are generally reported as average-to-above-average.
Actually, there are some other status reports on it regarding coverage of kids, and from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation noting programs mimicked by New York, New Jersey and the Clinton administration. The Economic Research Initiative on the Uninsured at the University of Michigan released a study calling BadgerCare a success. And even Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle has called BadgerCare "a model for the nation."

(It irritates me that Thompson has made no mention of it, as health care is obviously such a hot topic right now. ... But, again, another thread, another time.)

I'll stay on this topic if I learn more about BadgerCare. But for now, wish Bubba a healthy recovery.

Gas today: $3.35/.45/.55/Diesel $3.09.

Balloons, but not for Junior

2007-07-07T21:53:00.000-06:00

Well, no baby yet.
So the wife and I went to the Balloon Glow on Saturday (7-7-07) that kicks off the annual Balloon Rally that visits Wausau every year. Got some cool photos. I'm told the regular balloons go for about $70,000, while customized models (see the ultra-cool rubber ducky here) can go from $110,000 to $150,000. Also, the operators use 10-gallon tanks of propane, and they go through about 30 gallons on an average ride.
Not a hobby I'll be taking up anytime soon.

Update: Just found out today why the Balloon Glow seemed so utterly lame on Saturday. All of the baskets were detached from the balloons and sitting on the ground because gusting winds would've made it dangerous to have that many in the air in such close proximity at one time. Normally, I've been told, they hover fairly low to the ground, then do their "countdown to glow," and then fire 'em up. Now THAT would be pretty cool. Oh well, next year. Junior (not born yet) should dig that.

Ernie would love this one.

No, the duck's not actually on fire.

7-07-07 ... and counting

2007-07-06T23:01:00.000-06:00

As this once-in-a-millennium day dawns, I find myself wondering if it will be the beginning of my new life as a dad. My wife's due date arrives today, and she's as ripe as she's going to be. She's gotten so big the baby looks like he's going to fall right off the front of her.

But God bless her for being so brave and strong through everything so far because the more I learn about the intricacies of pregnancy, the more I thank the Lord that I'm a guy. Organs getting shifted around by the growing fetus, acid reflux, constipation, soreness pretty much everywhere. The whole "gaining 30 pounds" thing I think I could handle. But the rest would be enough to cure any gender-confused man.

So the nursery has been painted and papered; the requisite blue sports-themed outfits have been purchased, washed and organized; and here we sit, afraid to plan anything more than 12 hours ahead or travel more than half an hour in any direction just in case "it happens." (Though I'm starting to think this whole birthing process is much more gradual than we're led to believe in the slapstick comedies on TV.)

Though, God willing, he'll be born safely and healthy. Then maybe he can become my own little version 2.0, and I can impart some of the wisdom I've taken from the mistakes I've made ... and go from being a father to fully a dad.

See it again, Uncle Sam

2007-07-06T22:19:00.000-06:00

With immigration being such a hot topic in the news lately, it got me to thinking. What must America look like to a foreigner?

I had the opportunity to see a nation from just such a vantage point in 1998, when some friends and I took a whirlwind tour of some parts of Europe around our Memorial Day weekend. I saw Paris, London and Amsterdam in about one week. That's not much time to really absorb the culture, but it was just enough to see the biggest tourist attractions; the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, and Arc de Triomphe in Paris; Big Ben, Westminster and the Tower of London; and ... well, let's just say "Amsterdam" and realize that those who know, know.

Anyway, one thing that has really stuck with me from that trip was one of the more mundane sights. As we cruised through the French countryside headed for the Chunnel, I gazed out the window at the terrain. It didn't look terribly different from Wisconsin; rolling pitches, farm fields. But somehow the farmhouses looked different. They looked like they had housed generations under their quaint roofs. They weren't like our houses, with wooden and vinyl siding and looking like they were built sometime in the last 50 years. These French homesteads were built of brick and stone. It struck me that some of those houses could have been older than my home country.

It made me wonder what kinds of conversations went on in those houses. Probably idle chatter about the crops, maybe school, maybe the local soccer team. Hell, maybe even sneering at the ignorant American tourists who were probably breathing on the glass gazing out at the French countryside from that damned Chunnel train again.

I also think about my honeymoon in Greece in 2004. As the tour bus wound around the treacherous hillsides, I could scarcely take my eyes off the seemingly endless fields of olive trees, the rocky slopes, and the occasional sheep herds that moved among it all. I wonder now, what would Greek tourists think about a ride along a long, straight stretch of country road in northern Wisconsin. "Ooo, look, honey; cows!"

Perhaps my points is that, in both cases, what was so everyday and mundane to them seemed new and fresh and fascinating to me. It's that mind-set that I try to adopt sometimes on my way to work in the mornings. Sometimes I'll take a different route. Oh, sure, the highway is faster. But like in the movie "Cars," that faster route can sometimes take you past things you'll never otherwise see. I cruise through the American countryside, ride the crest and trough of each rolling undulation on the paved strip that guides me past cornfields, cow pastures and American farmhouses.

And I try to see America again through a fresh set of eyes.

Heisman Heroes: Nile Kinnick

2007-06-24T20:18:00.000-06:00

A friend of mine recently loaned me a book called "The Heisman: Great American Stories of the Men Who Won," by Bill Pennington. I'm only through the first couple of chapters, but if they're any indication, what a fantastic read this is going to be.

Pennington's first player profile is on Nile Kinnick, the 1939 Heisman winner for whom Iowa's Kinnick Stadium is named. It's actually named partially in honor of his brother Benjamin as well, as both ultimately were killed in service of their country in World War II.

Nile Kinnick played for Iowa through two awful seasons in 1937-38 before leading the Hawkeyes to a 6-1-1 record in the year of his Heisman campaign. But what struck me most about Kinnick was not the accolades, nor even the photograph of the determined go-ahead touchdown against Notre Dame that still adorns offices at the University of Iowa. Rather, this young Republican, who gave an eloquent introduction for Wendall Wilkie on Wilkie's visit to Iowa during the 1940 presidential campaign, put his law career on hold to join the U.S. Navy Air Corps on Dec. 4, 1941. Note that not only was this prior to the institution of the draft, it also was three days BEFORE the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Of his decision to join, Kinnick wrote to his brother George: "I would be lacking in appreciation for all America has done for me if I did not offer what little I had to her."

Kinnick met his end on June 2, 1943, when on a training run in the Carribbean he ditched his plane in the sea rather than risk jamming an overcrowded carrier deck with his oil-hemorraging Grumman F4F Wildcat. Search parties were immediately dispatched for him, but he was never found. One last heroic effort by a man whose courage and selflessness we all should aspire to emulate.

Bring back Badger baseball

2007-06-20T09:47:00.000-06:00

Loathe as I am to give The Capital Times in Madison any undue credit, one of their sports columnists wrote an interesting piece raising the possibility of reanimating the University of Wisconsin's baseball program, dormant since the end of the spring 1991 season.

Apparently, UW Athletics Director Barry Alvarez mentioned, off-handedly on a radio show, the possibility of bringing back the baseball program. This is good news for those of us bitter with former university president Donna Shalala, who spearheaded the demise of the program as a means of reducing a $1.9 million budget shortfall.

Wisconsin, the only Big Ten team without a baseball program, deserves another avenue to shine in the national spotlight, especially given the ESPN-driven increase in interest for the College World Series.

To that end, the Cap Times notes that Wisconsinites should be paying close attention to the Anteaters of the University of California-Irvine, who are progressing through the CWS this year after reviving their own program. It was killed in 1992, the year after the Badgers, and has since jumped from NCAA Division II to Division I.

Well, go Anteaters: Zot, zot, zot!

Update: Oregon State beat Cal-Irvine 7-1 in their elimination game today, so the Anteaters' storied season is over. ... And yes, it was the Beavers-'Eaters game ... so SOMEbody had to go down!

Ron Paul: Back to the Future?

2007-06-17T02:04:00.000-06:00

Just found myself chatting up some of the attributes of Ron Paul (R-Texas), who is running for president. He's still one of 10 in a crowded field, but he stands out in a very important way. He's a Libertarian. And he's very much a throwback to what the Republican Party once represented, particularly as it stood under Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater.

Paul favors abolishing a laundry list of federal agencies and departments, everything from Education to Energy to the IRS, all in favor of state control. I fear he's the last of a dying breed of true Republicans. Sadly, evidence of this comes in his dismissal by his fellow Republican presidential candidates as the kooky comic relief; the Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel of the right.

No one has been more complicit in his marginalization than Fox News, which hosted the GOP's second debate, added a text-message poll at the end of the event, then downplayed the fact that Paul actually led their (completely unscientific) poll immediately afterward, and ultimately finished second.

My cynical side tells me the big networks - not just Fox, but all of them - want to maintain the Left/Right status quo, as well as wars in Iraq and everywhere else, because conflict makes good ratings. I think my cynical side happens to be right; as right as Ron Paul.

(Gas today is $3.09/3.19/3.29/Diesel 2.99 ... no bitching about 'Big Oil' gouging us today.)

Opening Day Night

2007-05-31T22:27:00.001-06:00

There's something about Opening Day. Even if it's at night. And even if it's for a semi-pro team comprised of collegiate players, most of whom will only set foot in a major league stadium if they buy a ticket.

But there's something pure about the game. There's a certain nostalgia embodied in the layers of thick paint that coat the steel railings; a unique odor of brats and ballpark franks that will linger, if only in the mind, long after the fans have gone home.

They conjure a feeling that is as pure as the joy of stopping to watch a father play catch with his son after the game is over and the players have left the field. A son who may be too small to hold the regulation-size bat of his heroes, but who swings just as mightily at his hopeful father's playful toss.

We're lucky in northern Wisconsin. We have the Woodchucks nearby in Wausau. A couple of hours to the east, we can always visit the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, a Class A affiliate of the Seattle Mariners. A few hours to the southeast awaits Miller Park, the major league cathedral that houses the Milwaukee Brewers. But we're lucky not because of the easy commutes to "better" baseball. We're lucky for the humble ball diamonds that dot the countryside in between. American Legion, Little League, rec leagues and random gatherings of kids who don't bother with "uniforms" and "rules."

Somewhere there is a son playing catch with his dad. And that's the best game there is.

A Brat Haiku

2007-05-25T19:51:00.000-06:00

Must be Wisconsin/
I watch Racing Sausages/
Soon I will eat one

The Reagan Diaries

2007-05-24T21:07:00.000-06:00

Just picked up my copy of The Reagan Diaries, Ronald Reagan's personal day-by-day account of his time in office, just released on May 22. At 784 pages, it's pretty thorough, but not nearly thick as it could've been. Apparently the author had to cull from five full 8.5 x 11 bound volumes just to pare it down to this.

I'm looking forward to it, but I'm also looking forward to finishing the book "Silent Wings," about World War II glider warfare, a book I've been working on in fits and starts for several months. Of particular interest to me is the CG-4A, a model that is being restored near my hometown.

Brew Crew whew

2007-05-24T07:14:00.000-06:00

While the Brewers (28-19) have lost 9 of their last 13, they should offer no apologies for playing in a weak division. They've maintained their 6.5-game lead in the NL Central thanks largely to the second-place Astros and Cubs losing also.

The Crew have seen their team batting average deflate about 10 points, which drops them from third in the NL to sixth, still second in the division behind the Cubs. They're still hitting .242 with runners in scoring position (including stranding 6 in scoring position against Brad Penny in a 5-1 loss to the Dodgers on Wednesday night), which puts them ahead of only Arizona (25-23), Pittsburgh (19-26, -8), Cincinnati (18-29, -10) and Washington (18-29).

That's not good, but at least there's room for improvement.

Meanwhile, the Brewers' team ERA through the first six innings of any game is 3.41 - BEST IN THE NL - while their late-inning ERA bloats to 4.74 - third-WORST in the NL. Here's what I can't figure out; the bullpen has looked solid.

Only Carlos Villanueva has given up one or more earned runs in his last half-dozen appearances. Derrick Turnbow has only been "Turnblow" twice, taking two losses and blowing one save in his last 10 appearances. Francisco Cordero hasn't failed to convert a save opportunity yet and is tied with Arizona's Jose Valverde for the NL lead in saves.
Southpaw sidearmer Brian Shouse gave up two in a loss to the Phillies (which combined with Turnblow's 4 earnies in an 8-6 loss snatched from the jaws of a 6-2 victory) but has been solid this season. (Not bad for a FIB.)
Matt Wise has been money all season as the setup guy for Turnbow, getting one strikeout in four of his last five innings of work, and only giving up a run in Wednesday night's 5-1 loss.
Chris Spurling has been a pleasant surprise. He's given up just 3 runs all season, and none since May 5.
Elmer Dessens could be the missing link to mediocrity, now that I look at it. He hasn't even appeared since last Friday, and the Saturday before that, he gave up 5 runs to the Mets in a 9-1 loss.

But it all comes back to driving in those runners once they've reached second or third. In the Brewers' 9-of-13 skid, they're 2-3 in one-run games, and they've scored 3 or fewer runs in 8 of their last 11.