Not so fast

Andrea Harris has a favorite stop of mine in blogworld.  (You can see her off to the side there in the Pantheon.)  This post of hers, about tourists having mental meltdowns when their real trip abroad destroys their romantic notions of the destination, brought brought out a comment that is making me scratch my head a bit:

Pity they didn’t bother to read about Paris (especially material not put out by the travel industry) rather than rely on a medium intended and designed to transmit lies.

I object to this, and I will explain why.  (At length - lucky you!)  Movies are not a medium intended and designed to transmit lies, any more than television, or novels, or plays, or art, or video games. All these are media intended and designed to transmit IDEAS or STORIES. Some of those may well be outright lies; some of those are excellently-crafted. There are also truthful stories, and beautiful ideas, and nobility and kindness and grandeur.

Since images and feelings are more immediate, most art aims for those instead of thoughts. No argument on that point. I do think that to simply call the whole thing "lies" by design is to miss the point, however. One of the earliest moving pictures was in fact used to truthfully answer a question: does a horse pick all four feet off the ground at once while galloping? (Turns out that they do.)

Look - I'm a storyteller by nature, if not by profession.  (And there's a long post brewing about that conflict: stay tuned.)  This is my passion.  I would be willing to go on a limb and say that for most creative community, that passion is a primary motivation.  They have turned that passion into a job.

Once you turn a passion into a means of commerce, things change.  As long as I'm just writing, I can just write.  Once I am also selling, then the writing has to meet the demands of those to whom I wish to sell.  It's a dilution - not much of one, since an audience wants a compelling story above all, and storytellers are nothing if not compelled.  Still, they may have no taste for the story struggling to free itself from my mind.  At that point it's the old familiar choice: give 'em what they want or say what I need to say?

Here's the thing, though: that tension exists in EVERY business.  Some people's passion is food.  They become amazing chefs.  They also have to consider: will people pay money to eat this?  How much?  Again, the dilution is slight.  People want great food, chefs want to cook great food.  But people can scarcely afford $100 meals every night, not in great enough numbers to keep the chefs themselves fed.  So ingredients are swapped, flavors change, and viola - Chili's.  Or Wendy's.

I won't pretend that line cooks at a chain restaurant give two shakes of a rat's patoot about Great Food in the abstract, but they care at least about how the particular food they're actually cooking, that it should be done properly and please the customers.  And the people who develop the menus care much more about that abstract, the ideal of flavors.  Even Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy's, cared a great deal about it, even if it was just burgers and fries.  He may not have been a chef on the par of a Gordon Ramsay or Julia Child, but he cared.  He had to.  Ultimately, if you make too many changes for commerce - too much dilution - then one loses both the passion and the commerce.

You will find the same tension in every walk of life: in education, in politics, in construction, in sports.  There is a perfect ideal, that drives everyone with a passion, and then there is the economic reality.  It would cost too much to make every teacher an Ivy League-quality professor (and not every one of them could be, anyway), though the children would benefit.  It costs money to campaign, money to run a government - too much to run unelectable candidates no matter how great they may be at governing.  Should my house get obliterated by meteorites or something, it would cost twice as much to construct the way it was originally built vs. using modern materials like sheetrock.  And the greatest players in the world command a great deal of money, more than any one franchise could pay (even the Yankees or Red Sox); so they make do with affordable players rather than pursue the perfect ideal of 162-0.

Yet those ideals exist.  Those passions are real.  Every teacher wants to teach as well as possible, every politician hopes to govern, every housebuilder (and homeowner!) wants the home to endure, and every team wants to win every game, or at least their league's chamionship.  Without those ideals, that passion, there would be no point in even starting.

That's why I say again that filmmaking is about ideas and stories, not lies.  Based on some of the loopier things that movie-folk say and do, it's easy to believe that Hollywood is full of narcissists who dictate What is Acceptable to the rest of us, when in fact they are full of crap.  There is some justice in the claim, perhaps, in certain examples.  Certainly Tim Robbins and Sean Penn have done more than their share of loopy lefty proselytizing.  But they didn't become actors to be able to dictate What is Acceptable, they did it because their passion is in the stories they tell.  Those who have lost that passion are usually the worst at their profession, and again, this holds across all walks of life.

Not surprisingly, when singers and athletes and kindergarten teachers also lose that passion, they become fairly useless in their fields as well.  That doesn't mean that music, sports, and knowledge itself is intended and designed only to convey lies, does it?

(Funny how this comes up when I'm working on a story that indirectly touches this idea - that of the storyteller as a professional liar.  Reality keeps anticipating me.  Bad reality!  No cookie!)

Some days all you need..

..is a cigarette and Scripture. Fron NRO's the Corner.

Spam in the place where you blog

The latest trick for the spambots is to snag some bits of a legit article from a web page, run it through Google's translator a few times, and then post it with links to the usual suspects.  This one, in Joe Posnanski's comments section (probably gone by the time you click this thread) was a winner:

...in Wednesday night’s game, Blackhawks wachovia center 3-2. “We have read this story,” Chris Pronger defenseman said. . But in this case just support him and make sure he’s feeling good about Chanel Bracelets.

Note that this came out several hours before Game Six.  Philly, go support him!  Make sure he's feeling good about bracelets.

(Cut to 17,500 screaming Philadelphians yelling, "Prong-er's Brace-lets!" *clap clap clap-clap-clap*)

But, yeah - Strasburg.  Fourteen whiffs, no walks, seven innings. Kid's stupid good. Apparently they pulled him after seven innings so he could go to the Gulf and plug the oil leak with a well-placed slider. (His fastball would have just cracked the Earth open and caused a volcano.)

The Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity Awards

Quit laughing!

Jesse James...

...is an idiot.

Tyler Perry's 80-20 rule. You've got 80% of what your want, but you lose that 80% chasing the 20% you ain't got.

The Tampa Tribune. Why?

Over the weekend Helen Thomas went Judenrien. President Obama blew off any mention of the 66th anniversay of D-Day to go to the theatre. Yesterday 5,000 people took to the streets of NYC to protest the mosque to be built across from the WTC.

None of these items made the print edition of the Tampa Tribune. Why again, am I subscribing to this fishwrap?

At least I have the Internet where I can get real news. That is until the FCC has its way.

Yogi Berra @ D-Day

Before he was a Hall of Famer, before he won a gazillion World Series with the Yankees, Seaman Second Class Lawrence Berra was a part of the D-Day invasion 66 years ago. He talks about it here.

Judenrein

If Glenn Beck would have said this, MSNBC would have devoted three days of programming on it. The US Senate would have sent a letter to Fox demanding they fire him. But Helen will get a pass, and we all know why.

While I'm on the subject, Obama could bomb Tel Aviv and make the eating of pork mandatory and still not lose the Jewish vote. Most American Jews have long abandoned the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for the god of FDR, JFK and BHO.

The hand that empties the cradle rules the world

Mark Steyn rocks hard, again:

Europe’s economic crisis is a mere symptom of its existential crisis: what is life for? What gives it meaning? Post-Christian, post-national, post-modern Europe has no answer to that question, and so it has 30-year-old students and 50-year-old retirees, and wonders why the small band of workers in between them can’t make the math add up. 

America and its famed "Puritan work ethic" has been, up until now, somewhat insulated from this phenomenon.  The current Administration's attempt to impose a Euro-style cradle-to-grave state from above has met with a huge wave of opposition.  However, how long can it last?  The culture has already abandoned most of everything else associated with actual Puritans, for good or ill; the work ethic isn't just going to prop itself up once everything else has gone.  And in the end, the next generation always has to carry on the struggle of civilization against entropy; if there isn't a next generation, then the struggle is by definition lost.  It's little sense worrying about a healthy society if there's nobody left to socialize with.

When Barack Obama started redistributing American wealth, a lot of readers dusted off Mrs. Thatcher’s bon mot: “The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” But European social democracy has taken it to the next level: they’ve run out of other people, period.

However, the Puritans may have been on to something.  Laugh all you like, they helped build from nothing the incredible country we live in.  Tossing out all of the ideas that inspired them is not going to help us keep up.  Has discarding their alleged prudery helped us enjoy more fulfilling sex lives?  We console ourselves by saying "They thought sex was dirty and we don't," and that may have more than a bit of truth about it - but we're the ones who've suddenly stopped having kids.  (Whatever we say they thought, they must have been enjoying themselves.)  The few that we do have are in many ways worse-cared-for, despite our obsession over shielding them from every-increasing bits of the unfairness and routine difficulties of life.  We legislate winning and losing out of their games, and find that they can't handle setbacks, nor succeed with grace.  We put their feelings in front of their education or their discipline, and are amazed that they are uninquisitive, self-absorbed, entitled, and lazy.  Good luck forming lasting and healhty relationships that way.

Those who are going to solve the first trouble are the ones who are toting four and six and more children along in a minivan while their enlightened neighbors snicker in an empty house.  I suspect the way they raise those kids is going to start to solve the other problems as well - on a practical level, you need to have good working rules in place to have a successful family society, and the larger it gets the more opportunities for learning those lessons that also serve in the larger human family.  On a cultural level, the smart money is on the culture that values virtue, hard work, friendship, healthy competition, winning with class, and losing with dignity; the one that treasures life and all its pleasures and thinks about how they ought to work together in the best order - not trampling each other and themselves selfishly.  Giving up that advantage is a disaster.

I'm hopeful despite it all, but we have to start to at least appreciate the good lessons our ancestors taught us, even if some points are disupted.

Portrait of the umpire as a sad man

How many pitchers mounds can Alex Rodriguez cut across?  Shortly after a tiff with A-Rod about ballplayer etiquette, The A's Dallas Braden shut down the Rays on May 9.  Then Philadelphia's Roy Halladay punked the Marlins on Mother's Day.  (This completed a Phillies Family Holiday perfecto, as Philly's Jim Bunning set down 27 straight Mets on Father's Day in 1964.  Take note - Grandparent's Day is September 12 this year.)

Last night we nearly had a third A-Rod Crossing, with Detroit's Armando Galarraga setting down 26 consecutive Cleveland Indians.  And then... well, you can see it for yourself.  (Maybe the problem is that the Indians aren't from Florida.  A fictional owner tried to move them there, but both she and Galarraga were thwarted with two out in the ninth.)

I saw this in a very loud sports bar.  From the look of it, I thought that Galarraga may have bobbled the ball as he caught it - you see that it's much more visible than normal on a play like that.  It was later that I saw, and read, that umpire Jim Joyce thought the runner had beaten the throw.

God bless Jim Joyce.  He was convinced that he was right, so he made the call, no matter how tough it would be.  That is not easy.  Those calls are always so close.  Had this been a routine fourth-inning grounder in a game where the Indians had already gotten a hit, nobody would remember it five minutes later.  Now the guy may unfairly go down in history with the rest of the world's refs who've completely blown it, and on a play that's always tricky to get right, that can honestly be missed.

From that link above there's a gallery of infamous blown calls.  You'll notice as you scroll through that Joyce has been helpfully included.  Some of the others in the list are far worse, though.  For example, the "fifth down" touchdown for the University of Colorado was far worse because it was easily preventable.  Not even included on the list is the bizarre incident from last season's playoffs, when two Yankees wound up stuck at third - neither of them actually standing on the bag! - but Tim McClelland ruled one safe after he was tagged.*

* McClelland is on the list elsewhere, though - the Pine Tar Game.  He was the home plate ump that ruled George Brett out on Billy Martin's appeal, leading to one of the more memorable sports meltdowns ever... and leading to the bizarre four-out conclusion much later in the year.

But really, McClelland at least had a base to stand on in the Pine Tar Game.  And he was dealing with the wily Billy Martin, who never missed a trick, who would invent tricks if there were none to miss at the moment; in a situation where there was no specific rule or precedent.  The more recent one - how do you not know that a stationary runner is not in fact standing on the base?  Joyce had to watch the runner, the pitcher, the ball, and do it all at full-speed with the call deciding whether or not the pitcher had just completed a perfect game.  To me that's far less culpable.

(And not for nothing: one of these calls shouldn't be on that list at all.  Brett Hull's goal was good.  He's allowed to be there with possession of the puck, even if the puck itself is not in the crease when it's shot.)

What do you all think?  Should the Commissioner's Office overturn the call and give Galarraga the perfect game?

UPDATE - today Jim Joyce is working behind the plate at the Tigers game.  Detroit sent Galarraga out to hand in their lineup card before the first pitch, and while Joyce sobbed, the Detroit crowd gave them a standing ovation.  Goosebumps.  That's true class and grace.  Appropriate label has been added below.

Mr P

Mr & Mrs P are the elderly parents of a friend of mine. Mr P, who will be 89 in July, fell and broke his hip a few days after Easter. He had spent time in a nursing home rehabbing it. He was doing fine. He would telling me tales of his transfer from horse-drawn artillery to aviation during WW2 (The war ended before he could go overseas). He had a little dementia. (If having a new found devotion to Mrs P and wanting to hear hymns are symptoms of dementia, then I know a lot of guys who could use a little of that.)

Which explains my involvement. I sing hymns to Mr P. I pick the oldies but goodies out of my hymnal (I have my own hymnal - I'm a church music team geek!) and he sings along the best he can. He forgets a lot of things, even sometimes thinks I was with him in Saudi Arabia 40 years ago. But as soon as I start singing he remembers who I am.

He had been in a nursing home. Two weeks ago he got an infection and is now in the hospital. He is not doing so well. His dementia is getting worse. He no longer acknowledges me in the room. But he still tries to sing with me. Last week Mrs P told me what we were both thinking, that he may not make it.

Let me tell you why I sing to him. Because Mr P likes it, of course. But that's not the primary reason. These hymns I sing to Mr P are mini sermons that tell of the salvation given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ. It is my hope that God will use this music to reach him where normal conversation can't.

Another complication for me is that I'm sweet on his daughter. A kindly Christian schoolteacher (unlike the angry right-wing nut I am). But that's a problem for another day.

What I wore to Church Yesterday

It was the Sunday before Memorial Day, so it seemed like the thing to do. The person taking this photo is new with the camera, which explains the shadows. The beard's growing back. I look too much like my big brother The Chief.

Unlike this guy, I can produce documents supporting all the ribbons I am wearing.

Going down the valley one by one

We keep losing good blogs.

Going through my sidebar and link list, trying to catch up on some folks, I found a few that have given up the gig.  WunderKraut is the latest, joining Dawn Eden, Rachl Lukis (who may return), Still Stacy, the Boy Named Sous (such a great blog name), and WordGirl.*

* it's odd that the blogger of the name has been replaced by quite a fun PBS kid's show of the same name.  I love having family friends with young kids, I get an excuse to enjoy this stuff with them.

It's oddly sad when a regular stop goes quiet.  It's rarely because the blogger in question has passed or is too ill to continue (though sadly, that does happen).  But there's a small grief there anyway.  A beloved voice fades out of the chorus - and out in the internet, that voice is usually all we meet of that real person.  It's just a little little window into a full life, but it shines such a light.

It's not a bad thing - it probably means that WK and family are busier and happier than ever, and he's devoting more time to more fulfilling pursuits than this.  I'm hopeful for him, and selfishly, a little sad for me.

Be well, my brother.  And the rest of you wonderful fake folks who live in the magic box - don't go 'way just yet.

Thirty years ago

What if 7:11 was closed?



Favorite part of the pic is John Tonelli going crazy over on the right.

HISTORY WILL BE MADE.

Combatting gang influence in schools

The dreaded B16 gang.

Many members of this gang wear a beaded necklace called in their code a "rosary". Be warned, if this crew should gain a foothold in your public school there will be outbreaks of prayer and obedience to God and acts of charity and loving your neighbor. School administrators will soon lose control of the situation if they don't nip this rosary thing in the bud.

I'm going to rule out my first thought, which was that the principal doesn't know what a rosary is. I don't get it. If I am a teacher and I see a kid with a rosary, I'm thinking that's one kid who won't be giving me any problems.

This young guy's mom is calling the ACLU. I wouldn't be holding my brerath waiting for them.

Sorry the link doesn't let me cut and paste.

From "the Sun still rises in the East" files

The Mets suck again.

Let it be known to future historians that the area around Shea Stadium and Citi Field was known as "Flushing" long before Mets fans longed to do just that to their crappy ball club.  The latest example:  Angel Pagan, the Mets' backup center fielder, last night hit an inside the park home run AND started a triple play in consecutive innings.

Yeah, they lost anyway.  To the Nationals.

It could be worse.  Just now I see on the ticker that the Reds have scored eight runs in the top of the second in Atlanta.  If those were the Mets they would probably blow the lead: they'd give back a couple in the home half, a run here and there in the middle innings, and then a six-run blow-up in the eighth by four relievers while Willie Randolph cackles madly, jabbing knitting needles into a giant voodoo doll of Mr. Met.

UPDATED - holy smokes!  Atlanta DID win.  Cincy pulled a Benitez on us.

Politicians and the Lord's Own Hockey

Charles Wang owns the New York Islanders.

He also owns a good bit of the land surrounding the Nassau Coliseum and would like to build things on it: office space, residential units, shopping, and a nice new building for the Islanders to play some hockey.  His idea was to build a suburban destination for people, since that part of Hempstead is a hunk of nothing next to the highway.

Nassau County's then-executive, Tom Suozzi, liked the idea.  The fans loved it.  Of course Wang was behind it, as a way to generate revenue not tied to his hockey team, which (let's face it) currently sucks like an Oreck.  Kate Murray, mayor of Hempstead, however, hemmed and hawed and stalled.  One thing after another with this whole project: they insisted on all sorts of detailed reports, then refused to read them on the grounds that they were too complicated and the residents deserved a simple plan; they demanded environmental impact statements and then dragged their feet on vetting them; they ignored the many construction jobs, the larger tax ratables of new residents (and Hempstead sorely needs them) and new businesses (ditto).

This has been dragging on for longer than this lead-in; but all of a sudden check out this guy, senior councilman Anthony Santino:

Too much is at stake for the town to take a wait and see approach. Supervisor Murray and I intend to be proactive in the creation of a reasonable zoning plan that ensures that the Lighthouse gets built so that it spurs reasonable growth and development, expands the tax base, provides for construction jobs and long-term employment opportunities, and creates a new home for the New York Islanders.

(stick-tap to Chris Botta at Isles Point Blank)
 
If so very much is at stake, why has Hempstead taken a wait-and-NEVER-see approach for lo these three or more years?  Proactive?  You had a plan on the table with all the legwork done.  You're the ones who wanted it scaled back and back until there was essentially nothing but a retrofitted Nassau Coliseum.  NOW all of a sudden you want the tax base and construction jobs and long-term residents?  OH, and by the way, at the end of the sentence, yeah, why not let the Islanders stay?  Y'know, so the guy who OWNS THE TEAM might actually build all this crap for us on his own dime - which was what he WANTED TO DO IN THE FIRST PLACE.
 
I hate lying crapweasel politicians.  (Yes, probably a redundancy, but I am really irked right now.)  And Botta's got this clown pegged, right down to his red bulbous Pinocchio nose:

Essentially what Santino is doing is paving the way for Hempstead’s inevitable slashing of the project in June by two-thirds. The timing of Santino’s letter, after the recent double-dip of news of the Shinnecock Casino followed by the Islanders playing ball with the Mets, is not coincidental.

I really want my guys to stay put, but if they do go to Willets Point or something, Hempstead's only got Mayor Murray to blame.

Steal this dog!

But don't let the face fool you - all ur sox are belong to hur, ha ha ha ha.

Scene from a hockey movie

[Shot: EXTERIOR, DAY.  We see a sign that reads "Boston Bruins Team Headquarters, C Julien Commanding."  The "C Julien" is graffiti'd out with cuss words.]

[INTERIOR.  Rows of beds are filled with injured Boston Bruins players while nurses in white move to and fro. In one bed is MICHAEL RYDER, seemingly perfectly healthy, busily painting.  Enter BILL SIMMONS, the Sports Guy.]

SG: Man, what a disaster.  [sees Ryder and wanders over]  You don't look so bad.
MR: Yeah.
SG: What you working on?

[We see Ryder's painting.  Goalie Tuukka Rask is making saves on six pucks at once, with explosions in the background, while fending off Daniel Carcillo with his stick and cradling a baby in his catching glove.]

RYDER: It's just not coming together!
Off-camera voice: Hey, Mike, can I take a break?
RYDER: Oh... sure Tuukka.  Take five.
TUUKKA: Thanks.  [He hands the baby to a confused Daniel Carcillo and stumps off to get some Gatorade.]
RYDER: It's hell, Sports Guy.  We had the whole city.  We were doing great.  Now look at this place.

[The camera pans the room.  DAVID KREJCI has his whole arm in a cast, in traction.  BLAKE WHEELER moans and rolls over.  PATRICE BERGERON sits and rocks numbly.]

SG: [points to a bed with a moaning player] What about that guy?
RYDER: Mark Savard.  Severe concussion.  Poor guy thinks he's Kate Smith.
SAVARD: [tossing away sheets and standing] Godddddd bless A-mer-i-caaaaa!  Lannnd that I loooooove!  [He is surrounded by orderlies, who sedate him]  Staaaannnnd.... beside... herrrrrr......  andguierrrrzzzzzz....
RYDER: Hockey is hell.
SG: Listen... this is awkward.  But we had those plans for the rest of the playoffs.  Soon, when you get out of here, maybe we can go back to how things were.
RYDER: Playoffs?  PLAYOFFS?  We've lost three straight games!  [grabs a cup from the nightstand]
SG: Four.  Blew a 3-0 lead at home last night.  [RYDER spits out the drink]
RYDER [in voice-over] I think that was the point at which I developed my shooting problem.

[RYDER cues up a puck and shoots it at an empty net at the foot of the bed.  He misses by twenty feet and hits Ken Socrates in the head.]

Breaking: Area Man Has Perfect Workday

Westchester, NY - Robert Smith was not expecting to have a good day at the office, and he was right.  Instead, it was perfect.

Smith, 24, became the 20th person to have a perfect day at work, retiring a disgruntled customer on the phone at 4:58 pm and successfully clocking out without a single complaint or error.

"He got into a zone and just wouldn't let up," said his division manager, Leslie Jones.  "Bobby's still young, but we've always believed in him."

Amalgamated Consolidated, Ltd., hired Smith fresh from USC in 2006, during the sixth round of interviews, to replace retiring veteran Steve Winkler.  "I didn't know much about the East Coast," said a jubilant Smith.  "I was expecting people to be jerks out here, but everyone's really been great."

One of his coworkers doused him with a shaving cream pie at that point.

Smith, who was born in Oakland, was involved in a minor controversy a few weeks ago when pro ballplayer Alex Rodriguez cut across his lawn while jogging one Saturday.  Smith was trying to mow it at the time.

"Yeah, I just moved, I haven't hired anyone yet, and here comes this dude just cutting through," said Smith, who owns a corner lot.  "I might have to plant some hedges or put up a fence."

"Who?" A-Rod said when told of Smith's perfect workday.

Smith dodged trouble early when his immediate supervisor, Oscar Ruiz, cancelled a budget meeting just minutes before it was scheduled.  Then Amalgamated scored bagels and coffee off of the Westchester Beverage Service's starting sales rep, Pat Miller, and Smith settled into a groove.  His perfect day was never seriously threatened after that.

Smith retired fourteen clients on emails, nine on phone calls, and only needed four face-to-face consultations.

Why I haven't watched Law & Order..

...in over 10 years.

Here's another reason. I started to figure out that when the perp pleads out early, that means it's time for Jack McCoy to prosecute Big Pharm, Big Gun, Big Tobacco, Dick Cheney. Leftist, but it's worse crime was predictability.

This is starting to become embarrassing

The "I never was a maverick" John McCain wants to build the fence. Three years ago he was calling people who made statements like this racists. But that was before he had to pretend to be a Republican for a contested primary.

Why would Senator McCain embarrass himself like this? For senators, 70 is the magic number. If your senator is 70 years old, the only way he is leaving is in a box. And if you have to change parties (80 yr-old Arlen Spector) or legislate from a nursing home (92-yr-old Robert "Sheets" Byrd) you will puke up whatever principles you had in order to save your spot in D.C.

Straight Talk Express. Puhleeeese!

Dear A-Rod, All is forgiven

If this is what happens to guys after Alex Rodriguez cuts across the pitching mound, nobody is going to whine about the "unwritten rules of baseball" and "respect for the game" any more.

Dallas Braden definitely owns the mound now.

Braden pitched the 19th perfect game in major league history on Sunday, shutting down the majors' hottest team and leading the Oakland Athletics to a 4-0 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays.
...
"Pretty cool," Braden said. "I don't know what to think about it just yet. There's definitely a select group. I'd like to have a career more than today."

Of the 17 who have thrown perfect games since 1900, Braden is one of the least accomplished, though he's got a shot at a decent career.  Unless things go very wrong for him, however, he will stay ahead of Charlie Robertson, who shut down Ty Cobb's Tigers in April of 1922, in just his fifth major-league pitching appearance.  The Tigers thought that he was doctoring the ball; he finished his career with some awful overall numbers, so they may have had a point, but '22 was clearly the best year he had as a pitcher.

Another fun fact - Braden's Mother's Day perfecto bookends with Jim Bunning of the Phillies, who retired all 27 New York Mets on Father's Day, 1964.  Less-than-fun fact - in the second game Rick Wise only gave up three hits himself, and both Met runs were unearned thanks to four Phillie errors.

I don't know how long I have left.

I'm managing my diabetes well, so I may last another ten years. This would be about the age that my fellow diabetic Waylon Jennings passed. If Jesus really likes me I may hang for another twenty years. (Of course, if Jesus really,really likes me He may take me home while the Rays are in first place.)

I have maybe ten to twenty Cinco de Mayos left. On every single one of those I will be wearing an American flag.

On a related front, I quit watching local news last week. It's sweeps month and the Tampa FOX affilliate decided they would rather pander to Hispanic viewers than accurately report on the AZ law. If the FOX affilliate is doing this God knows what the other stations are doing.

update from 'fly - first off, please don't scare your co-blogger and your readers!

Second, you quit watching just in time to miss what the Media Research Center has noticed.  The total so far is currently 37-3 - that's not the score of the last Eagles/Cowboys playoff game, but the ratio of media stories against the law vs. in favor.  This is a law, incidentally, that has 70% support among the citizens of Arizona.  We're told ad infinitum that if the proportion of a small subset of things (football coaches, lawyers, athletes, nuclear physicists) does not equal the proportion of people at large, then it's RACIST! and SEXIST! and EVILIST!  Well, then, what does this say about the media and their objective reporting of what they see?  How can they find such a large majority against such a popular measure?

Third - or, ok, first again - remember the old gag we used to have: Jesus doesn't just love us, He likes us, and does neat things for us.

Fifty-six years ago

3:59.4.

It wasn't a record for very long, but the number will stand forever.

Car Wars: the Phantom Motive

Ace takes the (mind) trick with this one:

It's amazing to me how the media is so confident in the accuracy of their speculations about right-wing motives-- racism, hatred, anger, etc. -- and yet never seems to be able to turn this talent for psychological profiling towards Islamic terrorists.
...
Seriously, it's scary how they so perfectly report to me my motivations and intent for every single thing I say and every single thing I do and even every single thing I merely hope for.

Yup. Last night I was at the rink, hanging in the lobby with a few teammates between games. The TV, for reasons man was not meant to know, had a commentary by professional idiot Bill Maher, saying, in so many words, that the recent Arizona law about illegal immigrants was passed solely to disciminate against "brown people." Since I'd just lost the prior game on two embarassing goals in the final 90 seconds, my temper was not at its best, and I basically cussed out the television. The counter guy - a good guy and all, but a reflexive leftie - snapped back, "Of course it's about race!"

There was no time to talk about it then - I had to go back down and lose the next game on two embarassing goals. (This time at least I spread them out.) But of course - race. All about race. Why shouldn't the Left think it's about race when one of their favoritest groups EVAR is quite literally "The Race"? La Raza is all about the racial grievances and hating Whitey. To a leftie, the natural reaction is simply to hate right back; though of course the leftie would say that it was Whitey who was hating first.

Once I tried to trace this labyrinth of contradictions and dead-ends with a leftie friend. If hate is wrong, I asked, then why is hating back suddenly all right? "It's like fighting back against a bully," he answered. That sounded reasonable to me, so I then asked why in schools, when facing actual bullies, those who fight back are punished equally to their aggressors. "That's different!" he said, shocked and saddened. "Those kids are learning that violence is OK. It is never OK." Again, reasonable, I thought - misguided but at least it sounds plausible. "But then, why are violent groups like La Raza never called to account publicly? Why are ecology protesters noble when they start burning stuff down? Why isn't that not OK?" My friend got exasperated at that point, as well he might in trying to follow that sort of rabbit-hole illogic. He gave up and said that I just didn't understand nuance.

Long ago I decided to simply give up the rabbit-hole. It's helped my sanity a great deal, though as we've seen, not always my temper.  Like in most rabbit holes, I imagine that sooner or later the cards will all come tumbling down, and we can wake up in the sunlight.

(The opening review of this sad tale can be found at the Coalition.)

Simple truths

Doc Zero is joining a little discussion about exactly how much time ought to be spent going over first principles when it comes to political discussions.

It's a good question because lately the debate has all been about the individual issues facing the country now: this or that bill or foriegn policy choice.  It's not unimportant, but I think that those debates are ultimately lost regardless of the outcome if we accept those as the thing to be discussing; it would mean that the assumptions leading up to those debates are already settled, and increasingly, settled against the liberty of the people.  Debating the size of some bailout assumes that the bailout is needed and valid; debating "health care reform" assumes that government has authority over health care in the first place.  We have to start earlier.

I always try to remind myself that the Constitution is remarkable for its simplicity and elegance. It was not a document written by intellectuals as an abstraction, just to prove a point or propose a theorem. The Founders wrote a library's worth of those sorts of documents - letters to and fro, arguing this or that point, and public essays, and outlines in their journals. Eventually they published the Federalist Papers and other documents to present those refined ideas to the general public. But when it came down to the actual construction of the government, they took all that theory and argument and burned it down to a plain and sparse document.

In some ways the Constitution is like the tip of an iceberg. The part above the water is the actual charter that governs our public affairs; the Federalist Papers and such are the part below that support it. It's good to know that part and it gives insight and understanding - but it is IN NO WAY REQUIRED to be a good citizen. The Constitution as written is enough. And here's the thing: it was always meant to be enough. These remarkable, towering giants who codified our freedoms did not write a Constitution as an exercise, or to prove their cleverness; they weren't writing for an audience of "scholars" and "Constitutional lawyers" and other experts. They wrote a plain document, meant to be easily understood, so that every citizen could know his rights and the limits of the authority the government could exercise over him. The simplest farmer or struggling merchant could know in five minutes what his government was and was not permitted to do, and where he stood in relation to it - and that standing was equal before the law with any other citizen, regardless of social standing, buying power, education, or rival creed.

Now, a certain amount of smaller laws naturally build upon this foundation.  Some of it is necessary; some of it is of debatable use.  But there are two things that are certain to be disastrous - first is to actually chop away at the foundation: to melt the iceberg bit by bit, right by right.  Second is to build so much upon it that it submerges entirely.  Either way, when it goes under all the construction goes with it, and we are all alike headed for the bottom.

That's why I don't trust "Constitutional scholars" when they tell me that the Congress has authority to do all sorts of enormous, intrusive (and costly) things based on the "commerce clause" or a "penumbra" or some case law precedent.  I rather trust what the document says, and it says very clearly that the Congress can do a certain number of limited things.  The writers didn't merely write a commerce clause, they spelled out the 18 specific things that Congress was permitted to do: Article I, Section 8. 

The first of these 18 things says, in part, "...to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States..." and that would seem to cover a lot more than just the rigid list.  This seeming is really a mirage.  Our Congress is dazzled by the lights coming off the iceberg, but what they think they see is not there.

First, they often neglect the common Defence and they certainly neglect paying the Debts; why then should they be trusted by what they say is our "general Welfare"?

Second, the general welfare of the country as a whole is NOT necessarily the individual welfare of the many citizens who live there.  There are 435 Representatives, 100 Senators, one President, and 9 Supreme Court Justices - 545 people.  Managing the affairs of the country as a whole - its foreign policy, its roads and mail and armed forces, its public debts, and its citizenship and immigration law - is enough of a job for them.  Managing the affairs of over 300 million individuals is preposterous.  There is no possible way it can be done, unless the numbers of such people are multiplied to an intolerable burden.

Third, the Constitution says that we the people establish it; it is not the government's statement to us of how they will operate, but ours to them.  It was not written just to promote the general Welfare, either:

establish Justice - equality of treatment and opportunity under the law
ensure domestic Tranquility - peace and safety on the streets; controlling crime and putting down mobs
provide for the common defence - treaties, alliances, fighting and discouraging enemies abroad
secure the Blessings of Liberty - the free exercise of the "inalienable rights" all citizens inherently posess

I've saved "general Welfare" until now because it is the point of dispute.  There are plenty of people who assume this means that the government is ultimately responsible for taking care of us in every respect, and that if when some are not as generally well-off as others, they have the right and obligation to correct it through force of law.  I think that's self-evidently false.  Any government that does that destroys the general Welfare, so it simply can't mean that.

Nor does the Constitution say that.  To quote the great saint Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons, "It will mean what the words say."  And the Constitution spends a lot of time spelling out exactly which things Congress and the rest of the Government are permitted to do.  It's plain that those things are what is meant by promoting the general welfare of the United States.  That's why that list of 18 items in Article I, Section 8 STARTS with "general welfare."  It's not meant as a catch-all for "whatever Congress damn well pleases, and shut up, that's why."  It's an idea that is then defined throughout the rest of the document: to promote the general welfare, Congress is permitted to do these certain and specific things; the President is permitted to do these things; the Courts will do this and this but NOT those, etc. etc.

The last of the list of 18 items is to make any necessary laws for executing the powers of the government as granted by the Constitution.  The highlighted phrase, again, reinforces this basic notion of a government restrained by law, subject to limits that it cannot ignore or alter at whim.

Then come the Amendments, and they are the clincher, especially numbers nine and ten:

9. The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
10. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

It's as clear as the words they wrote - the government's powers are strictly defined by the Constitution, but NOT the people's rights.  If it's not specified, then the government is not allowed to do it, and the people are - or the individual states they live in.

It's easy to see how that makes sense - a State is easier to change than a country.  If the people think that the government ought to step in to handle something, it's quicker to ask their home state to pass the law.  If it's a bad idea it's then easier to change the law back, and not be overridden by the interests of fifteen other states.  If it's a good idea then the other states are free to adopt it themselves.  And if all else fails, the people who don't like that law can move to another state.  In fact, people do it all the time.

Of course one could always leave America as a whole.  The lefties certainly threatened it enough over the past 25 years, depending on who was sitting in the Oval Office.  But nearly none of them did, and why should they?  They are citizens of a still-great nation.  It would be terrible to be forced from their own country.  It would be equally terrible if that country simply vanished out from underneath all of us.  That's unfortunately what threatens us now.  The government has long since stopped actually reading the Constitution and instead prefers to do whatever it pleases.  It so happens that a lot of it pleases a significant number of the people as well - but according to the Constitution, that doesn't matter.  Even a popular law can be unconstitutional and thus invalid.  Therein is a large part of our safety: it's easy to ride some popular opinion at the moment, but the law is a lasting thing and it can endure long after the people have wearied of its burden, because the few who profit from it defend it to the bitter end.

Thomas More:  He should go free, were he the devil himself, until he broke the law.
Roeper:  So you would give even the devil benefit of law?
More:  I would.
Roeper:  I would cut down every law in England to get the devil!
More:  Oh?  And when the devil turned round upon you, where would you hide once the law's gone flat?  I give the devil the benefit of law - for my own safety's sake.

Nobody thinks that things will suddenly turn upon them.  Cromwell didn't, and the very monster he loosed upon More came for him as well.  The Framers of the Constitution knew this.  These government intrustions will intrude upon everyone, including those so gladly endorsing them now.  That's why it's worth remembering the actual Constitution, and what it says, and sticking to it.

Hey, NYC!

Your mayor is an idiot.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg appeared on Katie Couric’s show Monday night to discuss the attempted car bombing in Times Square. Between reassuring viewers at home that New York was safe and praising the city’s resilient spirit, Bloomberg wondered aloud if the culprit behind the Times Square car bomb was “a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health-care bill or something.”

Now there is a chance that the Pakistani-American arrested at the airport trying to head out of the country may have been upset about Obamacare, but I think not. And before any of you teabaggers get any ideas, Nurse Bloomberg is warning you about any reprisals against poor Muslims.

This is wrong

It's just wrong.

Gratitude (Update)

update to this.

She goes to jail.

Listen, Darlin', you can whine all you want about the gummint getting into your business, but you let them into your business when you had them pay for your kids. No judge is asking me who visits my apartment because Hillsborough County isn't paying my rent.

The only gummint employee getting into my business is my VA doctor.

What offended me the most..

...about Charlie's speech.

"God my Father?" I don't like it when politicians who actually have Christ as their Savior get all Jesusy on the stump, so I really despise it when this pandering votewhore all of a sudden gets religion.

Notice the cheers when Charlie mentioned saving schools. A lot of teachers union hacks out there. Better to have them at a Crist speech than in the classroom raping their students.

Today is Cristmas Day!

Or St. Cristpian Day (We few, we happy few, we band of moderates). Today Charlie decides and according to FOX and others:

Fox News has learned that Charlie Crist has decided and plans to announce that he is running as an Independent for the U.S. Senate. The official announcement is scheduled at 5pm in St. Petersburg, Florida tomorrow.

Crist has said that under no circumstance would he drop out of the race, saying he will do what is best for the voters of Florida. Crist says Republicans in Washington want him to stay in the Republican party but voters in Florida have told him they want him to run as an Independent.

What voters, Charlie? Like everything else about you, the great demand for you to run as an indi is fake. As of yesterday you were trying to cut a deal with the White House.

Charlie Crist, soon to be independent Senate candidate from Florida, tried to reach White House chief of staff Emanuel through intermediates. WH refuses to take the call. Dems plan big talent/money blitz for Kendrick Meek. BTW: Obama's approval rating in FL is in high 40s, per internal Dem polling.

Marco already has a video up to remind us of what Charlie may have forgotten.

It is wrong for me to love this so much!

Gratitude...

...or lack thereof.

From the start, Angel Adams has blamed the system.

The government hasn't given her enough food or money to deal with her 15 children, she says. Last week, she and 12 of those children - ranging from 11 years to 6 months - were living in a motel room with little food and dirty clothes.

So the government helped even more.

The Department of Children & Families has arranged for temporary housing, rent-free, in a six-bedroom home. Hillsborough Kids Inc. paid the more than $6,000 she owes to the Tampa Housing Authority, and the authority cut short a five-year ban on Adams so she can move in to a new home. The kids have new clothes and shoes.


On Monday, Adams was told to quit complaining and start helping herself.

"The mother has been less than gracious in accepting any of the help that (Hillsborough Kids) has been providing," Nick Cox, regional director for DCF, said Monday. "In fact, I think there has been a certain level of anger that she has exhibited to them, not to mention the sheriff's office."

Let me tell you of the two areas in my life where I am receiving aid from the American taxpayer. First is my health care at the VA hospital. (Some of you will give me a pass because I am a vet; be advised that my health issues are not service-connected.) Doctors try to motivate patients to take better care of themselves. After going to a few Tea Parties, I am taking care of myself and watching what I eat so that I can lessen the burden my health care puts on my fellow citizens. (I know-I'm a rightwing nut.)

The second area of my life where I am being subsidized with gummint largess is my use of the local bus system. I know that my fare doesn't pay for the entire system, but I am at least being good to Mother Gaea.

The difference between me and the mother of 15 is that I know that the payroll for the VA health system isn't pooped out by unicorns. I am cared for because of the generosity of you folks out there, which is something of which I am very grateful and a little self-conscience.

So please accept my heartfelt thanks.

Thanks XKCD!

Randall Munroe is a funny guy, but his latest is kind of a kick in the head the day after finally going out and buying one of the darned things.

To answer his bafflement - LCD monitor notwithdtanding, an HDTV beats the stuffings out of the poor, pixelly look of our old box, especially when watching the Lord's Own Playoff Hockey.  And good luck gathering 25 people around your cell phone for the Super Bowl.

Having a gayer-than-thou attitude..

Update: I really need to get out more.

...in sports.

Three bisexual men filed a lawsuit in Seattle, Washington against the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance (NAGAAA) claiming they were discriminated against for not being gay enough to participate in the organization's Gay Softball World Series, The Seattle Times reported Tuesday evening.

The three men who filed the suit, Steven Apilado, LaRon Charles and Jon Russ, claim their softball team, D2, was disqualified from participating in the softball championship because the alliance ruled they were "nongay."

I don't even want to think about the kind of evaluations needed in order to determine if you are gay enough to play in the Gay Softball World Series.

But wait, there's more! In politics.

Veteran Rep. Babette Josephs (D., Phila.) last Thursday accused her primary opponent, Gregg Kravitz, of pretending to be bisexual in order to pander to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender voters, a powerful bloc in the district.

"I outed him as a straight person," Josephs said during a fund-raiser at the Black Sheep Pub & Restaurant, as some in the audience gasped or laughed, "and now he goes around telling people, quote, 'I swing both ways.' That's quite a respectful way to talk about sexuality. This guy's a gem."

Kravitz, 29, said that he is sexually attracted to both men and women and called Josephs' comments offensive.

A straight guy pretending to be bi? What would Rock Hudson think of that? Maybe I am a male lesbian, a woman attracted to other women, but trapped in a man's body.

I really need to get out more.

Happy Earth Day!

Just a reminder from a few years ago that a good way to love Mother Earth is to love the mother of your children.

The Lord's Own Hockey...

...in Liberia.

The booming and controversial used-clothes business in Africa means hockey jerseys can be found sprinkled throughout this war-torn West African nation.

Bizarrely, the authentic hockey jersey has become a status symbol among the poor for its "premium-grade" rating and high price tag ($4 CDN).

"It is tough, tough material," street vendor Evelyn Togbah raves. "If you buy it, you can wear it for 20 years."

The bright NHL sweaters outshine the dirty, ripped and torn T-shirts hanging off many struggling Liberians who are forced to repeatedly wear one or two shirts. More than half of Liberians live on less than $1 a day.

If only deputies were allowed to get married...

I'm not even Catholic and I'm having fun with this.


He was hired to protect the public. Instead, 51-year-old deputy Charles Bullock is accused of doing just the opposite.

A 15-year-old boy told Naples police Bullock sexually assaulted him three times in the food court bathroom while Bullock was on duty.

This story was buried down the memory hole. I was lucky enough to be listening to a Tampa talk radio station when this was mentioned in a news report. I had to do two searches on Google to find this. I can guaranty you that if this were Father Charles Bullock of Collier County FL it would be on all my local TV newscasts.

Please Come to Boston..

...and sweep the Bosox!

At 4-9, including 1-6 at home, the Red Sox are off to their worst start since 1996. Not since the 1932 team went 1-9 at Fenway has a Red Sox team started this poorly in Boston.

The Rays are en fuego, winning seven straight on the road include shaming the Sox in their own house. The starting pitching mowed down the beanbeaters. Big Papi may have to start taking steroids again.

I should enjoy it while it lasts. This team is made for this year alone. At least 4 guys (Carl Crawford, Carlos Pena, the closer Soriano and Pat the Bat) will be gone next year.

Charlie picks option #1

Crist vetoes the education reform bill.

Next, Jeb Bush rips into him.

Then Charlie's campaign chairman, former GOP Senator Connie Mack jumps ship.

Quinnipac has Charlie in a statistical dead heat with Rubio in a three-way.

And now a local FOX station is reporting that Crist will anounce an independent run today. I think he's going to wait awhile and let the negative ads and the teachers union hacks do their work. Take a poll and if the primary still looks bad, then announce his indie run right before the April 30th deadline.

I know it's wrong, but I'm loving this.

More evidence that you may have a drinking problem

When you throw up on someone at a Phillies game on purpose.

Captain Michael Vangelo with the Easton Police Department was off-duty when he took his 11 and 15-year-old daughters to the Phillies game Wednesday night.

"When I say disgusting, there was not only insults and vulgarities directed at us, but also beer was thrown at us," Vangelo told CBS 3. Unfortunately, the evening only got worse.

"I actually heard the individual behind me say, 'I'm gonna get sick', then I couldn't believe what I saw. He actually had his fingers down his mouth and into his throat to make himself vomit. He vomited and lurched forward and it was hitting my daughter," Vangelo explained.

Puking up on the daughter of a police officer. I've been to a few Phils games at the Vet vs the Mets, and with all the Mets fans coming down from North Jersey it can get rough in the stands. Serving Ortlieb's in wastepaper buckets didn't help either, but my issues in this area are well documented.

One great thing about the playoffs

The first night, all four lower seeds won on the road.  Brilliant.  Love love love the Stanley Cup playoffs.  And of course, as things progress you get the mighty Playoff Beard, invented by the mighty Islanders teams of the late seventies and early eighties.

This recent example is a paragon of the Playoff Beard - Mike Commodore during the 2006 playoffs:

The flowing red 'fro puts it over the top.  Well played, Mike Commodore.  It's too bad the league wouldn't let you play helmetless just for the occasion.

The Lord's Own Hockey Baseball

Now that the Islanders are officially golfing until draft day, there's nothing to do but count down to that special summer day when the Mets are officially eliminated from contention.

They're off to a great oddball start.  For example, here's April 4: Marlins 7, Mets 6 in ten innings.  Notably, the Mets trailed 6-1 before tying the game.  More notably, NONE of their six runs scored on a base hit.  They got two sac flies, two bases-loaded walks, an error, and the tying run was balked home.  They went 0-6 with runners in scoring position.

But leaving aside negativity for a moment, I want to note this amazing game by Toronto's young Ricky Romero at home against the White Sox.  Romero tossed seven no-hit innings, permitting only two walks.  His only bad stretch was to open the eighth - he plunked AJ Pierzynski and then gave up a homer to Alex Rios.

What a tough exit.  The kid struck out twelve of the first 19 men to stand against him.  Then he finished popout, flyout, walk, grounder, HBP, dinger, and three grounders.  Still, this looks like a terrific young pitcher in the making.  No wonder the Jays felt like they could trade Roy Halliday.

In related news, Victor Zambrano is still available.

Catholic priest pleads guilty to child molestation

Well, not exactly.

Former teacher Stephanie Ragusa pleaded guilty today to having sex with two middle school students.

Ragusa, who taught at Davidsen Middle School, faces up to 10 years in state prison and 10 years of probation when she is sentenced June 15.

She pleaded guilty to three counts of lewd and lascivious battery in a March 2008 case involving a 14-year-old boy.

She also pleaded guilty to two counts of having unlawful sex with a minor in an April 2008 case involving a 16-year-old boy.

Both boys were students at Davidsen Middle.

Just making my point. And here's more news about the Tampa Bay teacher abuse scandals

Charlie's options...

..since Rubio is beating him like a rented mule (57%to 28%)

April has been the cruelest month for Charlie. First, moderate Republican Rudy Guiliani endorsed Rubio. (That's what you get for endorsing McCain at the last minute in the 2008 Florida Presidential primary. And McCain won't come to your rescue - he's too busy pretending to be a conservative in his own primary).

Second, an education reform bill that the teacher union hates and Jeb Bush loves is on his desk to be signed into law. Charlie (of course) can't make up his mind to sign it or veto it.

Third, this Rassmussen poll comes out which is devastating to his campaign.

Fourth, Mario killed him in fundraising last quarter $3.6 to $1.1 million.

Charlie has till April 30th to decide whether to stay in the GOP primary or run as an independent. Here are his options:

1. Veto the education bill and amnounce an independent run as governor. He will have to after Jeb Bush endorses Rubio in the primary. He still loses, but has a better chance of winning if it's discovered the Rubio has a girlfriend in Argentina. Going independent will severly damage a future run for president as a GOPer.

2. Sign the bill into law which may keep Jeb out of the primary. Hope that the Argentine girlfriend turns up before August 24th.

3. Call Rubio and offer to drop out of the race if Marco will promise to endorse Charlie vs. Bill Nelson for the other Senate seat in 2012. Nelson can be beat by any Republican who is sane and to the right of Nelson Rockefeller.

I know that Jesus would not derive the kind of pleasure I am from the misfortunes of our governor. But this weasel has been hugging the middle for so long it is a joy to see him finally pinned down.

Thanks for chiming in

The poll widget was new, so I decided what the heck, give it a try.  I'm pleased to see that the yeas outweighed the single "nay."  I may run another one sometime, we'll see.  Maybe I'll run a poll asking what poll to run, if I'm in a metatextual mood.

Now they tell us take it back

Sorry, Spider... the narrative must endure.

In a sex abuse scandal that some victims compare to what happened in the Catholic Church, at least 36 swimming coaches have been banned for life by the USA Swimming organization over the last 10 years because of sexual misconduct with teenagers they coached.

Yup... that's the lead.  The comparison is not incorrect, and that's the horror and shame of it - but the lead?  "Hey, thousands of young girls are being exploited by scumbag swim coaches, let's have a go at the Church!"

And you know who else is to blame?

A San Jose swimming coach, Andy King, 62, was sentenced to 40 years in prison last year after authorities discovered a pattern of sexual abuse that stretched over three decades up and down the West Coast and involved more than a dozen teen female victims.
...
King's lawyer, Jamie Harley, said some of the responsibility belongs to the swimmers' parents whose ambition for their children blinded them to the problem.

You know, the parents whose questions kept forcing this hideous man to flee from town to town despite his skill at actually coaching.


You know who's not to blame?  USA Swimming.

In 2008, USA Swimming gave King a clean bill of health, saying his background screening had been approved.

...
According to USA Swimming, the organization only checks for criminal convictions and does not include background interviews or investigations with local police.
...
"We want to have the gold standard and I think we do an awesome job," said USA Swimming executive director Chuck Wielgus. "I don't think we're perfect.

Hmmmm.  So instead of calling this guy out, they call out the Church, even though her scandals are decades old and this has just happened.  And that "victims say" lead?  There is not a single quote anywhere in this article from a victim talking about the Catholic Church... not a one.  So, was that a victim's quote, or something the author decided needed to be said?

Now they tell us

It's not a Catholic thing.

"We don't see the Catholic Church as a hotbed of this or a place that has a bigger problem than anyone else," said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "I can tell you without hesitation that we have seen cases in many religious settings, from traveling evangelists to mainstream ministers to rabbis and others."

Here in Tampa Bay, we don't worry about the priests. Your 14-year-old son is more at risk of being raped by his female public schoolteacher.

Dear God...

....they are coming here!

If you aren’t familiar with Westboro Baptist Church, they are a hate group known for targeting their hatred towards gays and lesbians. They are led by Fred Phelps, from Topeka, Kansas and according to the site’s picket schedule; they plan to picket several spots in Tampa in the next few weeks.

It's a strange mix of events they are protesting. I see no connection between Bon Jovi, Plant High (a public school with a good football team) Tampa Catholic High and Without Walls Church. Apparently there is a connection between rockers from Jersey, good high school football, papists and churches that have female pastors with big hair and bad stewardship of finances.

Actually, I'm a little miffed that my church is not on their radar.

The difference between Deepak Chopra and God..

.. is that God doesn't think He's Deepak Chopra.

The U.S. Geological Survey is blaming day-to-day seismological changes for Sunday's 7.2 earthquake along the U.S.-Mexico border.

But Deepak Chopra, the famed alternative-medicine practitioner and transcendental meditation guru, is pretty sure he knows what really happened."Had a powerful meditation just now -- caused an earthquake in Southern California," Chopra wrote to his nearly 179,000 Twitter followers shortly after the quake.

And then, to clarify: "Was meditating on Shiva mantra & earth began to shake," he tweeted. "Sorry about that."

The epitome of humility!

Thank God I'm not a parent.

I'd be living in terror that my daughter would meet this guy.

Levi Johnston, Sarah Palin's grandbaby-daddy and the bane of her existence, is pitching his own docu-series in which he will introduce viewers to Alaska.

Why shouldn't this deadbeat live off Palin's fame? There's a whole cable network (MSNBC) doing it.

BTW Levi, about the Playgirl spread. The vast majority of Playgirl customers are not women. You may be developing a fan base you might not appreciate.

I couldn't take it anymore

As many of you may know, a man was arrested by the FBI for threatening the life of GOP congressman Eric Cantor.

Knowing that last week my local rag went wall-to-wall with coverage of the racist tea partiers turning D.C. into Selma, today I was expecting a write-up on someone actually charged with a crime against a Jewish congresssman.

Not. One. Word.

I left a phone message with an editor of the Tampa Tribune. I am sure that there is a plausibly explanation for this oversight other than the SCREAMING OBVIOUS!!!!!!

I only subscribed to this fishwrap because I can't read baseball box scores off a computer screen. It won't take much of an excuse for me to dump it.

How to tell if you have a drinking problem

Is your family worried about your drinking?

Is your drinking causing problems at work?

Do you have money problems because of your drinking?

Are there times you can't account for, where you don't remember things you have done?

Have you ever thrown up on the hood of a '76 Volare?

Have you ever woken up in a stranger's backyard?

Have you ever tried to resuscitate a dead animal?

State police have charged a central Pennsylvania man with public drunkenness after he was seen giving mouth-to-mouth "resuscitation" to a long-dead opossum along a highway.

Trooper Jamie Levier says several witnesses saw 55-year-old Donald Wolfe, of Brookville, near the animal along Route 36 in Oliver Township Thursday about 3 p.m. The trooper says one person saw Wolfe kneeling before the animal and gesturing as though he were conducting a seance, while another saw the mouth-to-mouth attempt.

Levier says Wolfe was "extremely intoxicated" and "did have his mouth in the area of the animal's mouth, I guess".

Oliver Township is about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

We still know what you are...

....but you're not as cheap as once thought.


A day after Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., and ten other House members compromised on their pro-life position to deliver the necessary yes-votes to pass health care reform, the "Stupak 11" released their fiscal year 2011 earmark requests, which total more than $4.7 billion--an average of $429 million worth of earmark requests for each lawmaker.

Of the eight lawmakers whose 2010 requests were available for comparison, five requested more money this week than they did a year ago: Rep. Jerry Costello, D-Ill., Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, D-Pa., Rep. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., Brad Ellsworth, D-Ind., Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, and Rep. Charles Wilson, D-Ohio.

Forgive an outsider for giving my Catholic friends some advice. All these good Catholic congresspeople were publicly disobedient to the clearly stated will of their spiritual leaders. My church leadership would never tolerate something like this. I can't get specific, but I have seen them deal with public, unrepentant disobedience.

The days of sending polite letters are over. The days of polite press releases are over. The whole world saw this happen. If these bishops don't go on Fox News screaming bloody murder your church is going to turn into the Democratic National Committee with holidays.

I'm sorry. Someone had to say it. And since I'm a teabagging racist I may as well go all in.

So much for the Straight Talk Express

Arizona is fixing to pass the toughest law in the land to combat illegal aliens.

A bill empowering police to arrest illegal immigrants and charge them with trespassing for simply being in the state of Arizona, is likely just weeks away from becoming the toughest law of its kind anywhere in the country.

Already passed by the state's Senate and currently being reconciled with a similar version in the House, the bill would essentially criminalize the presence of the 460,000 illegal immigrants living in the state

Of course what makes this newsworthy is that the Maverick himself, the Straight Talk Express, one the primary sponsors of lagislation to give amnesty to illegals three years ago now has no opinion on this.

McCain is in the midst of one of the toughest primary campaigns of a lengthy career in politics

McCain, who once back a bipartisan effort to grant illegal immigrants amnesty, has deflected questions about whether he supports the legislation.

It's got to be killing McCain to actually have to pretend to be a Republican just to get through this primary.

Maybe I should move to Nevada

Sue Lowden is going all Rubio on Harry Reid's Crist:

The poll – conducted by Mason-Dixon – shows Sue Lowden beating Harry Reid by a margin of 52 to 39, and soundly defeating her leading primary opponent, Danny Tarkanian, by an 18-point margin – 47 to 29 percent. The poll shows Sharron Angle earning 8 percent of the Republican vote and John Chachas shows at 1 percent.

You younger guys might not get this, but Ms Lowden looks just like a grown-up Marcia Brady.

Takeover Takedown

As of last night, thirteen separate states are already suing the federal government regarding the Health Insurance takeover.

While reporting this last night, the local talking head said something that made me laugh aloud: he assured us that "experts" (whom he neither quoted nor identified, natch!) said it was Constitutional, because "federal law trumps state law." (He may as well have added "So there!")

Now, he's right that the Constitution is binding on the several states, but that still leaves open the question of whether THIS is Constitutionally permissible.  So here I am with my pocket copy of the Constitution... Look, it's the Tenth Amendment! "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
 
For the sake of this post, we have to set aside the vast numbers of times the Congress has already ignored the Constitution and pretend that this time, they do care what it says and will abide by it.  You may pull something making this stretch, so take your time.

Good?  Good.

Right at the outset this Amendment is bad news for would-be totalitarians and Big Brotherists: it states openly and plainly that the powers of the United States Government are delegated to it by the people via the Constitution.  They are not inherent to it like the rights of the people are to them.  They are borrowed, and therefore can be taken back when used unwisely or recklessly.  In brief, We the People are the adults of this relationship; the Congress, the President, and the Courts are the balky children, and their powers over us are an allowance we grant exclusively at our sufferance.  We can ground them if they misbehave.  And this is the consistent language of the rest of the Constitution: in the Preamble, it is We the People who ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States, not the other way around.  Article I starts thus: "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States..." etc.  And that confirms what was written in the Declaration of Independence, that Governments are established only to protect the inherent rights of the people, "deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed."

I highlighted those two words "herein granted" because they further illustrate what the Tenth Amendment was designed to emphasize - the Constitution is meant as an upper limit, not a minimum requirement.  If said powers are not "herein" the Constitution, they are "reserved to the States respectively, or to the People."  And even in the faintest penumbra and emanations of the Constitution, there is nowhere the right to have one's health costs insured by the Federal Treasury.  There's no right to have them insured at all by anybody.

So... going all the way back to our talking head, I would say that a federal law has to be Constitutional in order to be valid and binding on the states.  This thing ain't.

Am I confident about this?  Absolutely.  Will it matter to our rapacious government?  I'm not holding my breath, let's just say that.  If governments stuck to what they were told we may all still be British subjects; no revolution would have been necessary.  By their nature governments prey on their own people.  They don't shrink unless someone shrinks them. and then only with great truculence.  And We are not the same People as the revolutionaries and Founding Fathers.  They helped carve the colonies out of the wilderness, fought to keep them safe, and did so with no promise that their far-distant King and Parliament could swoop in at a moment's notice with millions in federal aid if some flood or fire obliterated their town.  Even the most urbane and loyalist of them had to be a lot more self-reliant than we are.

Not for a moment am I ungrateful to live today, with modern medicine, roads, cheap goods, the Internet, and a thousand other conveniences.  Still I have to say, they're not the reason for living, and they never were.  None of them would mean much if we were reduced to subservience.  Chains of gold and velvet still bind.  These particular chains are in fact so lavish that their forging will beggar every mother's son of us, and we will be a nation of pauper slaves instead of the land of the free and the home of the brave.

AND an update from Noel at Cold Fury: such a major and transformative act has been bipartisan, up until now.  Hell, even Prohibition was a two-thirds majority idea.  As that was eventually repealed, so let this be.

Well, we've got this much going for us, anyway

AKA another good reason to bitterly cling to that grog:

Two major studies confirm the current medical consensus that moderate drinking appears to be good for the heart but heavy drinking is bad for health in general.
...
The new study, using data from nine National Health Interview Surveys done between 1987 and 2000, is more thorough than previous reports and provides "some of the strongest evidence to date" of a link between moderate drinking and a lower risk of cardiovascular disease...

So, when this new health plan drives us to drink, we're all right as long as we moderate - and with what it will cost, we won't have the money to overindulge.

Hey, maybe the government will actually give a tax credit to anyone who opens a still?

We know what you are...

...and now we know the price.

U.S. Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Menominee) announced three airports in northern Michigan have received grants totaling $726,409 for airport maintenance and improvements. The funding was provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration.

Gee whiz, Bart! You ARE a cheap date.

PS - update from the 'fly, for some linky love: Slublog strikes again.

I don't know about me...

... but you civilians are screwed.

I am a political prop. You know how politicians get all worked up over problems at the VA hospitals? I can see my congresscritter Kathy Castor in front of the Tampa VA hospital right now, whining, "Tech Sergeant Barking Spider bravely drank beer on three continents defending his country, how can we turn our back on him now?"

Now mind you, with Obama's picture hanging in the lobby of said VA hospital I may not be used as a prop much until the next GOP administration.

So I may be screwed as well. But you civilians - definitely screwed.

Once again, a crime?

Update to this.

The perp is a 16-year-old from Atlantic County. Mind you, if this were my son I'd beat him till my arm fell off. I still do not understand how this is a crime. Keith Olbermann has said much worse and he isn't in jail. Since when is offending with words a crime?

The Bible has some pretty offensive stuff in it. Would reading those portions over a Wal-Mart intercom be a harrassment and bias intimidation crime? This bugs me a little.

More People Watching Cartoons...

...than CNN or MSNBC.

In total Viewers, Fox News was the #2 ranked cable network last week in primetime, averaging 233,000 viewers behind USA. MSNBC was #26, CNN was #32, and HLN was #37. In total day, FNC was #4, CNN was #29, MSNBC was #33, and HLN was #35. You can see the full rankings for the top 30 below.

The Cartoon Network is #13. More people saw the president get shredded by Bret Bair then watch CNN and MSNBC combined.

I Love This!

GOP Senator Tom Coburn has a warning for House Dems:

"I want to send a couple of messages to my colleagues in the House.

If you voted no and you vote yes, and you lose your election, and you think any nomination to a federal position isn't going to be held in the Senate, I've got news for you. It's going to be held.

Number two is, if you get a deal, a parochial deal for you or your district, I've already instructed my staff and the staff of seven other senators that we will look at every appropriations bill, at every level, at every instance, and we will outline it by district, and we will associate that with the buying of your vote. So, if you think you can cut a deal now, and it not come out until after the election, I want to tell you that isn't going to happen. And be prepared to defend selling your vote in the House."

You can tell that the polls are against this by how Republicans are acting. They would never be this courageous if the polls weren't in their favor.

A Crime?

A soon-to-be-fired employee of a South Jersey Wal-Mart needs to bone up on his comedic skills:

Wal-Mart officials are looking at security tapes after an announcement was made for "all black people'' to leave a store in South Jersey.

A man used the public-address system at the Route 42 store in Washington Township Sunday night and calmly announced: "Attention Wal-Mart customers: All black people leave the store now.

Now, if I ran this Wal-Mart this guy would be fired seven times over and banned from ever setting foot in the store, even as a customer. That may be over reacting, but not as much as the local cops:

Washington Township police and the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office are investigating the incident as a possible bias crime.

This stunt was racist, unfunny, and any other negative term you can think of. But a crime? If broadcasting crude and nasty racial insults were a crime then the entire lineup of MSNBC would be in jail.

I may have just broken federal law

I just filled out my census form. I will concede every point made in all the commercials about the need to turn the form in for my neighborhood to get its fair share of gummint largess.

Having said that, why is it necessary for the gummint to know my race to accomplish this? Are we allocating federal dollars based on skin color?

I was tempted to claim to be a Puerto Rican on #8 based on my birthplace, but I didn't. I gave the gummint all they need to know in this area. For question #9 I checked other and wrote AMERICAN.

I was at an Obamacare protest at my congresswoman's local office yesterday, so I am in a civil disobedient mood.

It's good to have goals...

.....even if it's to become the fattest woman in the world.

Donna Simpson, from New Jersey, weighs 273kg but told the Daily Mail newspaper she had her heart set on reaching her goal weight of 1000lb (450kg) in two years.

The 42-year-old already holds the title of the world's fattest mother after giving birth to her daughter in 2007 when she weighed 241kg.

"I'd love to be 1000lb ... it might be hard though, running after my daughter keeps my weight down," Ms Simpson told the Daily Mail.

273kg is about 600lbs, so she has a ways to go. She's eating as much as she can and moving as little as possible. But she has managed to earn a living.

To put on enough weight, Ms Simpson will need to eat 12,000 calories a day, which is six times the recommended daily intake for women.

In order to pay for the enormous amounts of food she is eating — her weekly grocery bill is $815 — Ms Simpson makes money by running a website where men pay to watch her consume fast food.

I need to get out more. I know there is stuff on the Internet to turn guys on - some of it really sick -but this specific proclivity is news to me.

I'm not calling my congresswoman this week

A friend asked me if I was calling my congresswoman this week ask her to do the clear and unambigious will of the people of American and Florida and stop whatever magic trick they are planning to do the pass this health care mess.

I can't do it. For one thing, in my case it would be a waste of time. Rep. Kathy Castor's district is heavily gerrymandered Democrat; as long as she doesn't give birth to Glenn Beck's love child her seat is safe.

As for my Dem Senator Bill Nelson, he could be reached if he were up for re-election this year. But this guy has crawled into a hole until 2012.

I'm guessing that their DC offices will not be taking calls this week. Being the angry, right-wing nut that I am, if I got through to a local office I would probably take the opportunity to get my licks in while I can. It would be wrong for me to offer to come up to Sen. Nelson's office and help him find his kugeln. Or make cracks about him hot racking with Lt Cmdr Massa.

During this Lenten season, I'm thinking that if our Lord could silently face the mistreatment and abuse he took on the way to the cross, maybe I can hold my tongue a little bit during a time when elected officials disrespect voters..

Maybe I can give up snark for Lent.