Random Thoughts for Today

I've decided to post some random musings for get-to-know-your-blogger purposes, but this is not a "link round up." There may be links, but usually it will be to clarify the comment for those who don't happen to know to what I am referring. Also, I don't plan on making this a daily thing because sometimes I don't have anything worthwhile to share with you and I don't want to force it.

Yes, for reasons I've explained before, I'm voting today. The Voting Rights Act passed in 1965...when my dad was 37 years old. (Call me sentimental.) Oh, and if someone posts pics of me from later tonight smiling, that's not joy--that's just deep-seated schadenfreude.

Congrats to the Giants on winning the World Series. As the champagne corks popped in San Fran, I'm sure Brian Cashman was on the phone with Cliff Lee's agent expressing his heartfelt condolences as Pink Floyd's "Money" was playing in the background. [insert evil laughter here.]

Say what you will about Donovan McNabb, on no planet and in no parallel universe is benching him for Rex Grossman a reasonable decision. I'm sure many Chicagoans were rushed to emergency rooms after falling off bar stools and laughing uncontrollably after seeing the substitution...and then the hit...and then the fumble...and then the touchdown.


bellum medicamenti delenda est.

Just for Fun Friday

I'm on the road, so I'm pre-posting this Thursday. The last time I tried a Hulu link, it failed. So, if the following embed doesn't work, check it out here.



Have a good weekend, and LET'S GO YANKEES!

Where's George (Orwell)?

I don't usually dig features.

Seriously, I cringe every time I see what I have dubbed "Oprah Moments" on ESPN--some harrowing tale of some amateur or has-been professional athlete--or worse, sick and/or dying kids-- overcoming ridiculous adversity to arrive at some sort of peace in their life. If I wanted to watch stuff like this, I'd watch Lifetime. (Granted, I sit there and watch them as I wait for the second-run of the Yankees highlights that air late in the show. And, predictably, the very-much intended touching moment touches me too, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.)

So, too, would I read Reader's Digest if I wanted to read stories and articles about random happenstance "You'll never guess what happened after Timmy got the cat out of the tree" yarn.

Bah.

I have forsaken television news--save the rarity I'm home to watch the NewsHour (which I unashamedly follow on Twitter)--not only for its general lack of substance, but the choice to air some sort of feel-good filler at some point in the broadcast. Of all the stuff going on in the world, the fact that Jane Hemshaw has been cooking pies down on Main Street for 47 years doesn't rise to the level of making me give a good [gosh darn.]

So all that being said, I LOVED this piece in WaPo today. I loved it because I'm a book reader and, since coming to DC, I am enamored by decentralized autonomous happenings. Yes, I know all about the 'Where's George' dollar tracking--but this is actually spreading ideas around the globe as opposed to "I wonder where that piece of paper is."

[Christal] Groves is a member of BookCrossing, a free-book-tracking Web site where anyone can, as a brochure puts it, "share your books with the world and follow their paths forever more!" Its fans can register a book, add a brief journal entry, then place it in a public spot. The hope is that someone else will pick it up, record their find online and pass it on -- becoming a link in a long chain of serendipitous literary discoveries.

Of course, the first thing I thought of is sharing books on the ideas of liberty, though I think leaving Human Action or An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations around may be counterproductive. (You kinda have to WANT to read those to get through them. And even then, they're a challenge.) I think it would probably be best to start out with Economics in One Lesson or The Road to Serfdom--or, perhaps for the less strictly-libertarian inclined: 1984 or Animal Farm.

Anyway, I thought I'd share the feature with you before I dive back into the dreary news of skyrocketing national debt, a possible war brewing in Zimbabwe, and, worst of all, the Red Sox gaining a game back against my beloved Yankees.

Treat yourself today and pick a up a book.

"I'm very sorry and deeply regretful"

Yep, Alex Rodriguez just admitted to steroid use:

"I did take a banned substance. For that I'm very sorry and deeply regretful"

I make absolutely no secret about my love for the Yankees--but my problems with this whole mess are entirely separate from that. There was a problem, it is no longer a problem, let it go. Now Congress is just dragging baseball through the mud to make examples of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens--and taking down every person they can in the process.

What's next, shall we start dragging in college football programs--unless, of course, you really think that many 20 year old men are naturally that big, fast and strong? I'm fine with policing the sports, drug testing and all that, but tearing apart a man's reputation 6 years after his last positive--and might I add "ANONYMOUS"--test, is ridiculous, wrong, and probably illegal.

The government has better things to do than pursue these ridiculous perjury charges which led to the outing of A-Rod. The witch hunts are causing nothing but pain for baseball players and fans--all in the name of cleaning up a game that has, now, the strictest anti-steroid policy among major American sports. American politicians holding athletes' feet to the fire for lying is akin to them lecturing the American consumer for spending beyond their means and then...

Oh yeah.

Goodbye, Yankee Stadium

I am certainly among the minority of my friends insomuch as I hail from the Midwest and I am a Yankees fan. People ask why--most think it is because of their ridiculous run in the late 90s and that I, like so many of the people sporting the spankin' new blue hats with the red "B" emblazoned on their ignorant domes, was some sort of bandwagon jumper. Au contraire. Strat-o-matic baseball and Don Mattingly are to blame for this Indiana boy's love of the pinstripes. But I digress.

Anyway, so last night was our final farewell to the House that Ruth built 85 years ago. As a Yankees fan, there was certainly something missing as there is only a slim mathematical (i.e., no) chance of the Yankees making the playoffs this year. But, it was good to watch it anyway.

But for those of you who, like so many of my friends, are Yankee haters--envy, it seems, becomes most baseball fans--I found this little gem this morning over at Volokh:

Yankee Stadium, R.I.P. Today is, of course, the final game for “the Yankee Stadium,” as it used to be called, and the Sunday NY Times has a terrific 2-page spread with reminiscences of their “Stadium moments” by Paul Simon, Jill Abramson, Robert Creamer, Keith Olbermann, Michiko Kakutani, and several others. They’re quite moving. I’m a Brooklyn boy, and I was six years old when our Dodgers left town, never to return, and to say I never got over it is an understatement. I couldn’t root for them anymore, needless to say – damn you, Walter O’Malley, damn you to hell! – but at least we still had the Yankees . . . to continue to loathe and despise. It was a hard time to be a Yankee-loather – from 1957 to 1964, the Yankees of Mantle, Berra, Ford, et al. won 7 American League pennants in 8 years (though, blessedly, they only won the Series three times in that span). But in my candid moments, I have to concede: at least they were the kind of team worth hating. That was always the thing (and still is) about the Yankees; I guess there are people who “hate” the Atlanta Braves, or the Colorado Rockies, or the Houston Astros – but you can’t hate one of them like you can hate the Yankees, which is a purifying, soul-affirming, life-enhancing kind of hate.

I had the chance to see the Yankees at the Stadium twice this year. (both losses, but whatever.) The second time was with two of my best friends--one Cards and one Cubs fan--and even they got a little misty when they showed the video of Yankee Stadium highlights.

Love 'em. Hate 'em. You have to respect them.

There's always next year. LET'S GO YAN-KEES!

Yankee Stadium 1923-2008, R.I.P.