You ain't seen Random yet

As if 40 posts in April were not enough, I seem to be having a Larry King moment (minus the suspenders and half dozen wives):

• *To the Googlers among us, I do not know if Josh Hancock was drunk, though the fact that Mike Shannon's offered to call him a cab perhaps implies something, but I do know that he was not at the Bob Costas event, though LaRussa and Edmonds and Rolen were. It's still a shame.
• *My insurance company sent me a new ID card. It's platinum. (Really!) Considering my claims total, I'm hoping for frequent flier miles.
• *Am I not supposed to notice that plain old unleaded is suddenly two pennies away from three bucks without even the excuse of a major holiday or major hurricane? Can't wait until Memorial Day or the invasion of Iran, whichever comes first.
• *Squickiest news of the day: even non-religious Muslim women in France are paying up to $4k to have their hymens re-sewn. I understand there are social, cultural, and religious implications, and yet, my reaction can accurately be summarized in three letters: yow!
• *And finally, I just have to ask: Random Hospodarsky, where are you now?

No Moss!

I wasn't at all disappointed that the Packers didn't trade for Randy Moss. The record is clear that I never wanted him in Green Bay. What's troubling is that the Packers seem to have managed the draft as if they were going to get the troublesome receiver, and didn't. I hope like hell a few of these players amount to more than special teams contributors. But if Ted Thompson thinks he's got three years to develop these players into something, he's as delusional as a Cubs fan. As a flamboyant coach whose name escapes me once said, "This is the NFL and that stands for Not For Long if you don't produce."

Based on free agency and the draft, the 8-8 Packers might improve to 9-7 next year. I see no Super Bowls in Brett Favre's playing future.

Is this heaven? No, it's Iowa

Spring finally came to Iowa this weekend. All the better that it was an uncommonly unscheduled weekend in my household. In January, when I question why I live here, I need to remember days like these. Years ago, when I couldn't cope with the monotony of gorgeous day after gorgeous day in Southern California, this is why.

With no work conflicts or little league baseball games scheduled, I was able to get a 39-mile bike ride in with members of my RAGBRAI team. I mowed the lawn, swept out the garage, set up the gazebo-screenhouse type structure, planted some tomatoes and grilled like a madman. Saturday night brought the first bonfire of 2007. My farmer's tan is well on its way, and it's not even May (not to mention I'm not even a farmer).

I wish I had gone full Monty into this spring-is-sprung weekend, but I did keep track of the NFL draft, particularly as it was mis-managed by the Green Bay Packers. But why go there? That would only spoil the mood.

Now that was a Saturday night

Life, I've been told, is all about risks. And last night we took one, daring to be in the presence of a purveyor of "moral evils" who "espouses the destruction of innocent human life." Oh, wait, that's only what we did according to an Archbishop bucking to be Cardinal. What really happened is that we saw Sheryl Crow in the form of a surprisingly hot rocker chick (the days as a mellow singer songwriter type are long gone) put on an absolutely awesome show, but only after Billy Crystal had us helpless with laughter for a solid hour. If there's a twinge of envy there, just feel it, as it really was that good, and I'm sure the chunk of change I donated to the Bob Costas Cancer Center for the privilege of floor seats is enough to balance it out for all of us.

Although the Archbishop provided punch lines for both emcee Bob Costas and Billy Crystal, Crow never mentioned him by name. She did say her parents had come up for the occasion: "If there's any trouble," her dad said, "I'll be here to protect ya." But there was no trouble, unless someone was trampled when St. Louis society rushed the stage when they heard the opening notes of "All I wanna do." I'm not kidding. The prime seats are reserved for the black tie corporate types, as that's how the hospital foundation gets the big bucks; if you can't laugh at Muffy going ga ga for the song she heard on Y98 that one time, what can you laugh at? Sheryl Crow dedicating "Strong enough" to Karl Rove, perhaps?

Everyone except the Archbishop seeming to understand what's appropriate, that was about the extent of the politics on the Fabulous Fox stage last night. Oh, Billy Crystal did compare 1965 to 2007: both had an unpopular president from Texas and an unwinnable war, but that's not politics, that's just facts. Otherwise, it was just great entertainment for a great cause. I wish, right now, I could remember more specifically what was sung and said (about life with Billy Crystal's grandfather and the basketball game his school played against Lew Alcindor's in particular), but I was laughing too hard, enjoying myself too much to be carefully filing it all away. Oh, it will come back to me, now and then, here and there. Because life is not only about risks, it is also about moments. And last night, from the comedy, to the music, to the late night dinner at the counter of the well-worn Courtesy Diner, was full of them.

RIP Josh Hancock

"Cardinals mourn the loss of Josh Hancock" reads the title of the press release. And, given that Mr. Hancock was a pitcher, my first thought was that the Cardinals need to talk to whichever PR guy works the weekends, because to me that statement just makes it sound as if the team is taking its failure to win a bit too seriously.

But, sadly, the 29 year-old was killed in a car crash last night on Highway 40, and, mercifully, tonight's game against the Cubs has been postponed. In a bit of Alanis Morissette irony, the last time a young Cardinals pitcher died, the Cardinals were also playing the small Bears.

In 2002, when Darryl Kile died in his Chicago hotel room, I remember hoping that he hadn't overdosed or done something similarly stupid. In the same way, I hope Hancock wasn't drunk. It doesn't matter, of course; the death of a young man is always tragic. I just would rather the focus stay there than on lurid details that allow certain types of people to feel smug when they should be feeling sorry.

A young guy died and his people are hurting; that's all that matters. After I read the minimal release, I reflexively Googled and found a little story about Hancock being late to Thursday's game, apparently because he overslept on his nice, new bed. I'm sure it only made the paper because of why his teammates kept calling when he didn't answer his phone:

With righthander Darryl Kile dying before a game in Chicago five years ago, the Cardinals don't take it lightly when a player doesn't show up at the park on time.

Reliever Jason Isringhausen, the only pitcher still on the club who played with Kile here, said, "(Hancock's) phone always shuts off. Everybody was trying to reach him. That's why it's so different here because of what happened with Darryl. So everybody worries. That's got more to do with it than oversleeping.

"We were all a little nervous. We don't care if you're late. That happens. We want to know that you're OK."

Iowa moves to ban ski masks

Or maybe they should after this unfortunate-incident-turned-pathetic-excuse. I've lived here most of my life and, while it can get cold, I don't think I've ever found it necessary to wear a ski mask. Certainly never in April. Or indoors. Or following a massacre that unnecessarily alarmed the country. That's right, I think the story was overblown. A tragedy for certain. But a reason to examine security at every college campus? I think not.

All she wants to do

According to Stltoday.com, "someone who 'publicly espouses the mass destruction of innocent human beings'" will menace my fair city this Saturday night. Who should we be battening down the hatches against? You tell me:

A) Dick Cheney
B) Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal*
C) Sheryl Crow
D) Pol Pot, back from the dead

Just too easy, wasn't it?

Of course the answer is singer, songwriter, cancer survivor and former girlfriend to the stars Sheryl Crow, and that infuriating characterization comes courtesy of St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke.


Crow, as the ticket I hold in my hot little hand tells me, is returning to her home state this weekend in order to perform at a fund raiser for the Bob Costas Cancer Center at Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital. Burke objects to Crow's positions on abortion rights and stem cell research and thus has resigned the Cardinal Glennon board in protest. That's his right, and a principled if pridefully public position, but one that also seems to include the equations blobs of protoplasm = "innocent human beings" and children with cancer = political pawns. Jesus Christ!

never struck me as such a grandstanding kind of guy. Then again, he never supported any multi-billion dollar institutions, either, and I don't mean children's hospitals. Crow is admittedly political: anyone who's been in touching distance of Karl Rove has certainly given it up for The Cause. However, she won't be making any speeches on the Fabulous Fox stage this weekend; she'll be singing to support a foundation that has raised more than $10 million for a hospital that treats children regardless of their "medical condition or social, religious, ethnic or economic backgrounds," or the fact that their parents voted yes on Missouri Constitutional Amendment 2 to allow stem cell research.

According to the same article,

"This event is about helping sick kids," [Cardinal Glennon board member Allen Allred said.] "I'm disappointed and saddened there are people in our community who are attempting to use this event to further a political agenda. If we go down that road, do we start asking doctors for their positions on abortion? Do we quiz every single donor what they think of embryonic stem cell research before accepting their money?"

To Mr. Allred, I say amen and hallelujah. To Archbishop Burke, I say enjoy your Saturday night, if that's possible in your world. I certainly will.

*Darfur, but I should've made you look it up

NFL Draft Preview: WTF #1

So the Rams trade a fifth round pick to the Chiefs for returner extrordinaire Dante Hall. Good for them. Where the hell were the Packers?

Getting Hall with a fifth pick would eliminate the temptation to take Ted Ginn Jr. with their first pick while still filling a gaping hole on special teams. It would have freed them to take the best available player -- either a field-stretching receiver or a promising back.

It's turkey season here, I'm told. May be a good time to take up hunting.

Tit-for-tat

Sometimes I love Harry Reid:

Referring to Dick Cheney, Give 'em Hell Harry said, according to NYTimes.com, “I’m not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has a 9 percent approval rating.”

Hell if I know

Memory is a strange and wondrous thing, especially if you don't think about it too much.

In my long-term internet (e-mail, technically) home, I'm on the verge of entirely hijacking someone's thread, burying sincere answers to questions about family vacation ideas with childhood stories that may be amusing (you want I should show you the laughs?) but are not helpful. But, that's how it goes on the world wide web, perhaps especially among a bunch of women who have known each other since double-you-double-you-double-you-dot was a curiosity, not a banality. Take what you need and delete the rest; that key is prominent for a reason.

The mental delete key is there for a reason, too, though I wish I knew how it worked, or who is in charge of it. Because sometimes it doesn't seem to make sense. Tell a story often enough, of course, and not only does it become true, according to your brain, it also becomes fairly permanent. Ignore something and, eventually, once your brain stops torturing you with it, it probably will go away.

Everything else becomes the Reader's Digest version of life, condensed and incomplete. Some images at least tell a sketchy, disconnected, flip -book version of a story. The time a panicky seven year old broke every rule she knew when she didn't see her mom in front of the school? That's the look of the shopping center sidewalk, the feel of the rocks in front of an empty house, the clatter of the empty Pepsi bottles in the back of a stranger's VW.

Other stories I know to be true, but I can't make sense of the pictures in my mind. I know that I once spent twelve hours in a gas station in Blytheville, Arkansas: the torture is seared into my brain forever. Or, at least, the idea that I was alternately miserable and giddy is; the specifics are gone. I know I spent most of a week one summer visiting a college in Nashville, Tennessee and rode back home with a kid from church and his mother. I remember the rain against the windshield, the debate about the speed of the wipers, and the sinking feeling when we concluded that they were, indeed, getting ominously slower. I'd say, and I believe, there was a Welcome to Blytheville sign to greet us when we stopped, but I just may be making that up. I can see old black men in hats conferring over the hood of the car, discussing how the appropriate alternator might be obtained, and later, I would bet, how my friend's mother might be silenced. I wish I could remember the car.

I have it in my mind that we never got out of that mystery vehicle, though that can't possibly be true. Shouldn't I have a horrifying gas station bathroom story? I know that, once we finally escaped Blytheville and then Arkansas, I drove that car through Sikeston, Missouri on our way home, though I was not licensed at the time. I can see the glare of headlights, and McDonald's neon, and remember the surreal feeling of it all. And then, when we finally for the love of baby Jesus made it home, watching Andy nearly collapse in the street, his legs numb from being folded into the back seat for so long.

What I cannot remember, and what seems a key piece of the story, is this:

We were in Nashville. We were headed to the Illinois side of St. Louis. Get out a map if you must. What the hell were we doing in Arkansas?

Earth Day 2007

My only Earth Day contribution was biking to my son's baseball games across town -- but my wife drove my SUV so that's really no contribution at all. Then again, it's more than the Bush Administration could muster. They don't even like to be touched by Sheryl Crow. It's a wonder they're so opposed to gay marriage.

Karl Rove Gets Thrown Under the Stop Global Warming Bus

Last night Thelma and Louise drove the bus off the cliff or at least into the White House Correspondents Dinner. The "highlight" of the evening had to be when we were introduced to Karl Rove. How excited were we to have our first opportunity ever to talk directly to the Bush Administration about global warming.
We asked Mr. Rove if he would consider taking a fresh look at the science of global warming. Much to our dismay, he immediately got combative. And it went downhill from there.

We reminded the senior White House advisor that the US leads the world in global warming pollution and we are doing the least about it. Anger flaring, Mr. Rove immediately regurgitated the official Administration position on global warming which is that the US spends more on researching the causes than any other country.

We felt compelled to remind him that the research is done and the results are in (www.IPCC.ch). Mr. Rove exploded with even more venom. Like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum, Mr. Rove launched into a series of illogical arguments regarding China not doing enough thus neither should we. (Since when do we follow China's lead?)

At some point during his ramblings, we became heartbroken to think that the President of the United States and his top advisers have partially built a career on global warming not being real. We have been telling college students across the country for the past two weeks that government does not change until people demand it... well, listen up folks, everyone had better get a lot louder because the message clearly is not getting through.

In his attempt to dismiss us, Mr. Rove turned to head toward his table, but as soon as he did so, Sheryl reached out to touch his arm. Karl swung around and spat, "Don't touch me." How hardened and removed from reality must a person be to refuse to be touched by Sheryl Crow? Unphased, Sheryl abruptly responded, "You can't speak to us like that, you work for us." Karl then quipped, "I don't work for you, I work for the American people." To which Sheryl promptly reminded him, "We are the American people."

At that point Mr. Rove apparently decided he had had enough. Like a groundhog fearful of his own shadow, he scurried to his table in an attempt to hibernate for another year from his responsibility to address global warming. Drama aside, you would expect as an American citizen to be able to engage in a civil discussion with a public official. Instead, Mr. Rove was dismissive, condescending, and quite frankly a bully.

Ultimately, we were left wondering what on Earth Mr. Rove was talking about when he said "the American people." If more than 60% of American voters, the Supreme Court, over 400 cities, the US National Academy of Sciences, numerous major US corporations, and others don't constitute the American people, then what does? The truth is, if this administration cared one iota about the American people, they would have addressed this problem long ago, and the sad reality is that this problem has been left to us, all of us, since the current administration has abandoned this issue entirely. In the absence of true leadership, we must guide ourselves. We can solve this, but we had better act fast.

www.stopglobalwarming.org

This is a very simple game.

So here's the thing about baseball in April. Although it is early, and there are forty-'leven more games to play (I'll have to get out the Ouija board and ask my grandma what number that word represents, though I'm certain it's way closer to 151 than 51), all the games count, and if a team screws around long enough it won't be able to win more than, say, 83, no matter what.

No matter the month, it's hard for a team to win without hitting the ball, and thus the Cardinals find themselves with the lowly winning percentage of .412. Oh that it were the team batting average instead, but except for some key hits that miraculous October, they haven't hit the ball in a long, long time. LaRussa says they're unprepared. I say that professional baseball players pretty much ought to be able to handle that.

I'm not a one dimensional fan. I appreciate good defense as much as anyone who grew up watching Whitey Herzog's teams, but saving runs is only part of the equation. You still can't win with 0 runs. And with some of these pitchers, you may not win with 5. So, hit the ball, win my heart forever and steal a base, and then hit the ball again. That's Jason Marquis on the mound, not Cy Young or Daisuke Matsuzaka: what are you waiting for? Have you not been playing this game since you were 5?

Well, according to hometown columnist Bernie Miklasz in today's paper, the mighty Pujols is waiting for divine intervention:

"And just because I'm going through what I'm going through now, I won't change my approach. I'm going to keep working my tail off and wait until God tells me that this is the moment when it explodes and never stops."

Preferably before the end of April.

A magical night of destiny to remember before puking in the limo

Like, the prom is tonight--do you know that high school girls still say like? they do, fer sure--but like anyway the prom is tonight, and ohmigod! what a nightmare because I have like nothing to wear and I haven't been to tan , like ever! or to have my hair done or like anything and oh, wow if I had a flask I bet it wouldn't even fit in my purse.

Bummer.

Well, this should be interesting. Tonight, I actually am required to go to a prom, to take tickets, to eat what I'm warned will be a "white" dinner chosen by undeveloped 17-year-old palates, to try to help ensure that the illegal substances and potential baby-making are kept in the parking lot where they belong, and to see if it's possible to be discreet enough with the iPod earphones when they play the songs that I'm just not cool enough to like.

Twenty years ago, I couldn't get a date to my senior prom, but, as I recall, I just wanted a reason to wear a particular sapphire blue dress. Nineteen years ago, I turned down the guy or two who asked. I don't remember why, but that means I haven't been to a prom since I was a sophomore serving punch and cookies in a bow tie and tails. Your mental image of me grows cooler all the time, doesn't it? I expect, though, to see the same thing tonight that I did back then: some people having a great time, a lot of people wishing they were having a great time, and a few people wishing they were somewhere else. Maybe I'll let you know.

Side effects log

Does it sound like an exaggeration to say it struck fear in my heart to realize the freakish property of my better-be-a-wonder-drug-prescription that renders soda flat could alter the taste of my favorite carbonated beverage, beer? Well, that's because it is, but not much of one. Given my medically hassled state, I feel entitled.

So far, I have confirmed that bottled Killian's isn't what it should be, but I'm not sure if the change falls under the wishful thinking category of not-so-terrible-but-definitely-different or the-more-I-drink-the-less-I-care. It is, after all, only Thursday, and there's a daunting amount of procrastinated work to be done.

not exactly Paul Revere

In the age of communicate first, think second I suppose it's not surprising that the sight of two school resource officers (our normal allotment is one) walking through the high school doors would lead to a flurry of surreptitious calls and texts home, and then, as fast and accurate as an aboriginal boomerang, the electronic equivalent of parents marching into the office demanding to know why the school was locked down.

It wasn't, of course.

The side doors are always locked, even when some disturbed kid hasn't committed some unspeakable act thousands of miles away. Not that the distance is relevant, but still.

I don't mean to be disrespectful, but the next time authorities are at a loss as to how to spread urgent news quickly, perhaps they could harness the power of high school kids with cell phones. The news may not be exactly accurate, but the alarm, it will be sounded.

Tavin Dillard meets Barney Fife

The imaginary town of yesterday

Does a thought still qualify as random if I have it nearly 5 days out of 7?

Most weekdays mornings I pass a billboard for a new version of The Truman Show come to life.
"Return to the Town of Yesterday: from the 100s to the 800s." And too many weekday mornings, I cannot help but think: "if I had been around 'yesterday' with $800,000, I'm pretty sure I could have bought myself a whole freaking town." Sometimes I even picture myself as Nellie Oleson's worse nightmare: a pioneer with real money. (It's a really long drive.)

Today, someone--some developer--with a lot more than $800,000 is building an entire town and selling it off piece by piece. New Urbanism is in some ways an appealing concept--I'd love to spend less time in my car--but I can't help but roll my eyes at people who drive and drive and drive right past Actual Urban Environments in order to go live in a Newly Urban flood-prone bean field, where folks never have to use their cars unless they want to go to work or to eat or to school or the supermaket or to the doctor or the bank or the library or the florist or the daycare or the store or the post office or the non-non-denominational church or the movies or to, heh, the gas station. But, it's a lot cleaner than the real city, if you know what I mean and I think you do. There's even a moat, I mean drainage ditch, I mean "scenic canal."

Choosing to live and work where I do, I know I'm part of the problem, too, but hell, at least I'm not pretending.

Confessions of a tournament director

My long personal nightmare is over, yet I can't sleep. I've had, like, 8 hours of sleep since Thursday, yet I'm compelled to blog about my weekend -- and then never broach the subject again.

The subject is little league baseball and the context is the 42-team tournament I was charged with running. Then came the continued cold weather, the snow (nothing says spring like an April snowstorm), the cancellations, the change of locations, the withdrawals, the sometimes-failed communication, the inherent dysfunctionality, walking tacos and more.

Then Zingy slaps an RBI single into right center and his mom roars. The men blocking my view from the concession stand are compelled to move, finally. I have an unobstructed view when the (substitute) second baseman muffs a grounder and Zach, playing shortstop, erases the error. I admire how he goes about his business. His efforts for double plays are no longer futile and his range is expanded.

Everybody loves a slugger. I admire smart baseball.

Smart baseball players -- no matter how fast -- don't try stealing home while trailing by one with two strikes, two outs and runners on second and third. Ours did and cost us the game and, it turns out, any chance at the pricey trophies we awarded for first and second place.

Smart coaches -- no matter how delusional -- don't send players under such circumstances. Word is ours didn't, and that the player acted on his own.

That's not smart baseball on many levels.

There's more but I'm tired. Rereading this, it's not terribly coherent. I'm not sure what I was trying to say. Except, it's over and yet has just begun.

Playin' Ball

Our practice field is a 45 degree climb from the bottom of the deck stairs, and it's barely wide enough for a not-quite-ten-year old's throw. Any decent hit requires a walk over or around or through the mouldering rail fence and into the neighbor's yard, but neither of us mind, at least not yet. The season has just begun.

It's the lowest of low-key seasons, just a city softball league with a half-dozen teams. No traveling, no tournaments, but preoccupations enough: will she stay focused, will she have fun, will the coach give her a chance? Will this year's pitchers give her anything to hit? Because for us, it's all about the hitting.

"That felt so good!" exclaims my daughter, as she smacks a legitimate extra base hit.

"That's what you want," I say, smiling to myself.

Like mother, like daughter: both would stand at the plate and hit all day, both only field because you gotta, often with results that reflect that imbalanced interest.

I try, though, I do, forcing her to catch more than hit. She's game, because she also knows she needs that practice more, but both of us are antsy to pick up the bat. Before we go in, I make her pitch to me, too. Just one.

All right, just one more.

"That's okay, Mom. I know how it feels."

I'm no athlete, and I'm not really a ballplayer. If anyone's going to help her improve her game, it's probably not going to be me. I can't do much more than give her a few pointers and a long ball to chase. But it's fun to share something with your child, and if that something is the love of a good, solid hit down the middle, I'll take it.

Virtual Editorial Page

Why yes, it is Others-Have-Said-It-Better, First Day; isn't that what Sunday is for?

Even if you don't take two minutes to read his entire take on Imus, consider the insight that Pitts crammed into this one line: "If you are pushing boundaries, what are you pushing them toward?"

Firing of Imus removes leader of sorry band
BY LEONARD PITTS JR.

Obviously, someone has put crack in the nation's drinking water.

What else can one think after the spasms of bigotry to which Mel Gibson, Isaiah Washington, Tim Hardaway and Michael Richards have treated us over the last nine months? That's a lot of stupid in a short period of time.


And then there's radio shock jock Don Imus who, as even polar bears must know by now, last week leveled racist and sexist insults against the Rutgers University women's basketball team, most of whom are black. Until then, the team was best known for a gritty season that brought them within a game of the championship. Now they are famous as the objects of a misbegotten attempt at banter between Imus and producer Bernard McGuirk.


''That's some rough girls from Rutgers,'' says Imus. ``Man, they got tattoos . . .''

''Some hard-core hos,'' observes McGuirk.

''That's some nappy-headed hos there,'' says Imus.

The resulting firestorm cost Imus many of his sponsors and his MSNBC simulcast. Thursday, CBS canceled his show outright.

And there are a few things that need saying here:

One, it is beyond pathetic that two grown men would use the reach and power afforded them as members of the media to mock the looks of a bunch of college girls.

Two, while it is fitting that Imus' slur has angered and energized the African-American community, one hopes we'll see this same indignation next time some idiot black rapper (paging Snoop Dogg) refers to black women in terms this raw or worse. Indeed, it's doubtful Imus would have even known the word ''ho'' -- black slang for ''whore'' -- had idiot black rappers not spent the last 20 years popularizing it.

Three, to make this about Don Imus is to miss the point.

There is something entirely too precious about all this, particularly the expressions of shock and disappointment by Imus' media friends and his corporate partners. To put it another way: What did Imus do last week that he has not done repeatedly? We're talking about a man who has built a career on verbal diarrhea. He has slurred women and gays and blacks and Jews. He once referred to Gwen Ifill as ``the cleaning lady.''

Yet none of that was enough to keep him out of radio's Hall of Fame, nor to keep such VIPs as Tom Brokaw, Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, John Kerry and John McCain off his show. So what's it mean that Imus finally is paying the piper, given that he has danced so long without paying a dime?

What's it mean, all this sound and fury about one stupid remark, when he is an avatar of a school of ''entertainment'' that stretches far beyond him to video channels and bookstores and TV screens? In this school, coarseness is its own justification, rudeness its own reward. One pushes boundaries of propriety not to enlighten, not to say something vital, not even to make people laugh. One pushes the boundaries because they are there. And the willingness to do so gets mistaken for courage and authenticity.

Don Imus ought to be ashamed of himself, but no more so than Kerry, Matthews, Brokaw, Biden and anybody else who lacked the wit to understand that the willingness to offend in and of itself represents neither courage nor authenticity. The question is, what are you offending for? If you are pushing boundaries, what are you pushing them toward?

It is painfully clear that Imus was pushing toward nothing, unless you count the gratification of his own ego and misanthropy.

What's sad isn't that he was willing to lead in that direction. What's sad is that so many of us were willing to follow.

More Con Than Neo

by Maureen Dowd

Usually, spring in Washington finds us caught up in the cherry blossoms and the ursine courtship rituals of the pandas.

But this chilly April, we are forced to contemplate the batrachian grapplings of Paul Wolfowitz, the man who cherry-picked intelligence to sell us a war with Iraq.

You will not be surprised to learn, gentle readers, that Wolfie in love is no less deceptive and bumbling than Wolfie at war.

Proving he is more con than neo, he confessed that he had not been candid with his staff at the World Bank. While he was acting holier than thou, demanding incorruptibility from poor countries desperate for loans, he was enriching his girlfriend with tax-free ducats.


He has yet to admit any real mistakes with the hellish war that claimed five more American soldiers as stunned Baghdad residents dealt with the aftermath of bombings of the Iraqi Parliament, where body parts flew, and of a bridge over the Tigris, where cars sank.

But he admitted on Thursday that he’d made a mistake when he got his sweetheart, Shaha Ali Riza, an Arab feminist who shares his passion for democratizing the Middle East, a raise to $193,590 — more than the taxpaying (and taxing) Condi Rice makes. No doubt it seemed like small change compared with the money pit of remaking Iraq — a task he once prophesied would be paid for with Iraqi oil money. Maybe he should have remunerated his girlfriend with Iraqi oil revenues, instead of ripping off the bank to advance his romantic agenda.

No one is satisfied with his apology. Not the World Bank employees who booed Wolfie and yelled, “Resign! Resign!” in the bank lobby.

Not Alison Cave, the chairwoman of the bank’s staff association, who said that Mr. Wolfowitz must “act honorably and resign.”

Not his girlfriend, who says she’s the suffering victim, forced by Wolfie’s arrival to be sent to the State Department (where, in a festival of nepotism, she reported to Liz Cheney).

And not his critics, who say Wolfie has been cherry-picking again, this time with his anticorruption crusade. They say he has used it to turn the bank into a tool for his unrealistic democracy campaign, which foundered in Baghdad, and for punishing countries that defy the United States.

Wolfie also alienated the bank by bringing two highhanded aides with him from Bushworld, aides who had helped him with Iraq. One was the abrasive Robin Cleveland, called Wolfie’s Rottweiler. The other was Kevin Kellems, known as Keeper of the Comb after his star turn in “Fahrenheit 9/11,” where he handed his boss a comb so Wolfie could slick it with spittle for TV. (Maybe his girlfriend didn’t get enough of a raise.) Like W., Wolfie is dangerous precisely because he’s so persuaded of his own virtue.

Just as Ms. Riza stood behind her man on the Iraq fiasco, so Meghan O’Sullivan stood behind W.

Ms. O’Sullivan, a bright and lovely 37-year-old redhead who is the deputy national security adviser, is part of the cordon of adoring and protective women around the president, including Condi, Harriet Miers, Karen Hughes and Fran Townsend.

Even though her main experience was helping Paul Bremer set up the botched Iraq occupation and getting a reputation back in Washington “for not knowing how much she didn’t know,” as George Packer put it in “The Assassins’ Gate,” Ms. O’Sullivan was promoted nearly two years ago to be the highest-ranking White House official working exclusively on Iraq and Afghanistan.

It was clear that she was out of her depth, lacking the heft to deal with the Pentagon and State Department, or the seniority to level with W. “Meghan-izing the problem” became a catchphrase in Baghdad for papering over chaos with five-point presentations.

But W. was comfortable with Meghan, and Meghan-izing, so he reckoned that a young woman who did not report directly to him or even have the power to issue orders to agencies could be in charge of an epic bungle, just as he thought Harriet Miers could be on the Supreme Court.

This vacuum in leadership spawned the White House plan to create a powerful war czar to oversee Iraq and Afghanistan, who could replace Ms. O’Sullivan when she leaves. The push to finally get the A-team on the case is laughably, tragically late.

The Washington Post reported that at least five retired four-star generals have refused to be considered; the paper quoted retired Marine Gen. Jack Sheehan as saying, “The very fundamental issue is, they don’t know where the hell they’re going.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

The Bastard Children of Ma Bell

With many grudges, the brittle shell of fury endures long after heart of the matter has evaporated. I don't remember exactly why I was so angry at Ameritech back in 1998; I have a vague idea that it had something to do with a screwed up bill and some unwanted call waiting that would not go away, but I know I was full of righteous indignation when I switched our local service to AT&T. (I know, way to stick it to The Man by becoming a customer of the even bigger The Man. It balances out. Our long distance is, honest to God, through the Illinois Farm Bureau. Eventually you get used to climbing the pole.)

Since then, my only opinion about phone service, besides Never Charter, as I can't imagine trusting my 911 service to the freaking cable company, has been Never Ameritech, which eventually meant Never SBC, as one swallowed the other a few years back. When we moved into this house, I kept AT&T on general principle and never gave it another thought. Until I received an automated message from AT&T the other day assuring me that my "new" phone number--the same number I've had for four years-- was now fully operational.

"That," I thought, "can't be good."

I assumed this non-solicited, non-change change had something to do with the latest turn of the merger carousel: Ameritech cum SBC is now the "new AT&T", meaning that by doing nothing at all I've been switched from AT&T to AT&T, except that the latter AT&T is really my old nemesis with new letterhead.

Letterhead which I got a copy of in the mail today, filling me in on my "new" order, and giving me the URL of my new billing and account information system. Curious as to what information I might find connected to an account I'd never requested, I tried to log in. Alas, it's a system which I cannot access, as despite the fact that that my "new" four-year-old number number is "fully operational," the rest of the system apparently doesn't know that I or my number exist. The virtually-but-not-exactly-identical-system that knows I exist tells me I'm no longer a customer of (that) AT&T.

Could Charter be that bad?

Then again, it would violate another personal principle to give Charter one more dime, so I'll give the old Ameritech/new AT&T one more chance. My phone still works, and I expect they'll figure out how to charge me for it soon enough. In fact, according to today's mail, the new total looks to be $11 less than the old. I can probably be bought for that, at least for a while. Besides, when they screw it up, I've got my old grudge right here ready to go.

Fine by me

Well, my fine (non-feathered) friends, this is a fine how do you do. The official word is that I'm not entirely fine and dandy. Fine! I admit it. Sort of. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is not news. Going face-first into the breakfast table was not my finest hour. When I consider, though, that it took a fine-toothed comb to prove that I'm not exactly in fine fettle, fine doesn't seem such a poor choice in adjective. It's not as if I've been claiming to be fabulous. Besides, if this has indeed been my chronic, life-long state, I'll never get any closer to fine, anyway, on this or any other fine day. The fine print in the drug brochure says I might, but if I ever really get to be in a fine mess, I've no doubt it will all be that medicine's fault. There may be a fine line between taking and giving, but do you really think I'd quote the Bee Gees, even if this line made sense? Not a chance. My brain waves may sometimes be erratic, but my musical taste remains fine.

Happy Birthday, Dave

Birds Do It. Bees Do It. People Seek the Keys to It

By Maureen Dowd

The mind reels at the mind.

The Times’s science section devoted itself yesterday to the topic of Desire, the myriad ways in which the human mind causes the body to get turned on.

It now seems that instead of desire leading to arousal, as researchers once believed, arousal may lead to desire.

The brain, as D. H. Lawrence once wrote, is a most important sexual organ, and men and women have extremely varied responses to sexual stimuli.

As Natalie Angier, The Times’s biology expert, noted, research has shown that women differed from men “in the importance they accorded a man’s physical appearance, with many expressing a comparatively greater likelihood of being aroused by evidence of talent or intelligence — say, while watching a man deliver a great speech.”

This could explain why many Republican women are so frustrated. They have been deprived of the bristly excitement of hearing their men on the stump delivering great speeches for quite some time now.

The Daddy Party, sick with desire for a daddy, is like a lost child. John McCain, handcuffed to the Surge, announced yesterday he has the support of Henry Kissinger. Why not just drink poison? As the Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi slyly said, “Leave it to Mitt Romney to shoot himself in the foot with a gun he doesn’t own.”

Rudy Giuliani, already haunted by the specters of Bernard Kerik’s corruption and Judy Nathan’s conjugal confusion, yesterday made things worse. He did the same thing John McCain did in South Carolina in 2000, a sickening pander the Arizona senator told “60 Minutes” Sunday that he did “for all the wrong reasons.” As Marc Santora reports from Montgomery, Rudy said he would leave the decision about whether to fly the Confederate flag over the Alabama State Capitol to the people of Alabama.

Even cable news showed little interest in President Bush’s big speech on Iraq yesterday, as he continued to excoriate Democrats for hurting the troops by trying to get an exit strategy, a day after Moktada al-Sadr’s spokesman denounced the Liberator as “the father of evil, Bush” while Sadr thugs burned and shredded American flags and shouted, “Leave, leave occupier.”

Four years ago, the conservative commentator Kate O’Beirne thrilled at the sight of President Bush strutting in his flight suit and mocked Bill Clinton’s doughy thighs, noting, “Women don’t want a guy to feel their pain, they want a guy to clean the gutters.” But on “Meet the Press” Sunday, she sorrowfully admitted that Republicans had lost their national security swagger because of Iraq, and now have “a real brand name problem” and “a competency problem.”

“It used to be people thought they might not much like big government, but they can run it,” she said of her party’s leaders. “Now they seem to like it fine, but not be able to run it at all.” A point underscored by this week’s Time cover: “Why Our Army Is at the Breaking Point.”

As Adam Nagourney and John Broder report in today’s Times, Republican leaders are despondent and jittery as they watch their major candidates strain in sycophantic ways to prove their ideological credentials even as they see W.’s administration and war turning into an ever-tighter noose. Watching the Democrats’ fund-raising advantage with alarm and astonishment, they concede it will be tough to hold the White House.

Mr. Nagourney and Mr. Broder quote Mickey Edwards, a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma who now lectures at Princeton, saying that the party does not have any candidates who are compelling. “I just don’t know,” he adds, “how they can run hard enough or fast enough to escape the gravitational pull of the Bush administration.”

Except for Larry Birkhead, all the “Who’s your daddy?” brio this week belongs to Senator Barack Obama, who told David Letterman he would not be Hillary’s second on a ticket, and who remarkably managed to beat her on primary fund-raising with a more democratic and recyclable pool of donors.

That feat of strength led to the hilarious spectacle of Terry McAuliffe, who had been using the Bush-Cheney line of you’re-with-us-or-agin’-us to try to bully Democratic fat cats into giving solely to Hillary, telling ABC’s Jake Tapper: “Ultimately, forget the money. You’ve got to get the votes. And right now, Hillary wins in that category.”

Like the panic in the Daddy Party, the crazed sputtering in the once-dominant Mommy Camp is something to behold.

Hillary has been wielding Bill as a bludgeon on support and money. If you were ever behind him, you’d better fall into line behind her. But doesn’t that undermine her presentation of herself as a self-reliant feminist aiming to be the first Madame President? If you can only win by leaning so heavily on your man for your muscle, isn’t that a benign form of paternalism?

Careful what you Google for

During the weeks that I've been caught in a web of referrals to one specialist and then another--despite the fact that I'm fine--I've done my share of medical Googling. It's a risky proposition, given the number of hypochondriac agoraphobes who have internet access these days, but I'm a Knowledge is Power kind of gal. Weeding hysterical message board postings out of search results is just the price I pay for a little manufactured peace of mind.

Sometimes, of course, there's no peace of mind to be found. Nothing good, I can assure you, comes from typing urology exam "what to expect" into the search box. Memo to Google: Greying out that "I'm feeling lucky" button for certain queries would be a lot kinder, don't you think? While I am glad to lack the parts that urologists seem especially interested in, I'm afraid I may have clicked myself into at least one catheter-themed nightmare.

At least I did stumble onto something distracting to read while I cross my legs and cringe: The Whiteley Index: A Self-Test for Hypochondria. It's a test I'm guaranteed to fail--I'm fine!--but, for some reason it's the funniest thing I've read all day. (Question 4: If you feel ill and someone tells you that you are looking better, do you become annoyed?) If I had as little to do with my life as the anonymous Iowan, I'd spam that survey all over those aforementioned message boards, but, happily, that's not remotely the case. Instead, I'll keep myself busy, and not think about Thursday, and not Google anything that ends in -ology!

Happy Zach Johnson Day

With my apologies to Bob Feller for the unintended omission, I give you this AP story on the Iowa angle of Zach Johnson's Masters victory. One missing detail: it's Zach Johnson Day in Cedar Rapids by declaration of the mayor. Much as this town loves a parade, gravy packets will not be distributed.

Asked to describe himself shortly after his Masters victory Sunday, Zach Johnson said, "I'm from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. That's about it. I'm a normal guy."

That helped steal the heart of the state.

Iowans were beaming like proud parents on Monday.

"He's like an Iowa kid. Kind of naive, very humble, and just a cool guy," said Ryan Hartman, Johnson's former teammate at Drake University in Des Moines and one of his closest friends. "My wife, who is a big city girl, said it best. She said that he is the nicest, most genuine person she's ever met."

What makes Johnson's victory all the more remarkable to those who know him best is that he hardly looked like Masters material growing up in eastern Iowa. Johnson was so small as a youngster that he joined the junior program at his parents' golf club, Elmcrest Country Club in Cedar Rapids, four years after many of the boys had started playing.

After a strong but hardly remarkable stint at Cedar Rapids Regis High, Johnson showed up at Drake in 1994 as a 128-pound freshman who couldn't drive the ball worth a lick.

But he could putt, and as Johnson's slight frame grew, so did his overall game. He eventually became one of the better college golfers in the Midwest, but his former coach at Drake, Jamie Bermel, said he never saw anything to indicate that Johnson could one day top the world's best at Augusta National.

"He wasn't a very big kid," said Bermel, currently the coach at Colorado State. "Real tough competitor. Just a solid player who got a little bigger - and kept getting better and better and better."

Johnson joined the Prairie Golf Tour in 1998, and made a slow but steady progression through the minor league circuit. He earned his PGA Tour card after winning Nationwide Tour player of the year in 2003, and broke through with a win at the BellSouth Classic in 2004.

Mike Cigelman, Drake's associate athletic director, said Johnson's personality never changed as his paychecks grew. That was evident to him during a lunch Johnson had with the Drake golf team last year at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles, site of the Nissan Open.

"He was the same guy a year ago that he was 10 years ago. He has an outstanding work ethic, yet he keeps things in perspective," Cigelman said. "Everyone at Drake is incredibly excited and proud of him. His achievements are the talk of the day for every faculty and staff member I've encountered."

Johnson is perhaps the unlikeliest Masters champion since Larry Mize in 1987, and joins baseball Hall of Famer Bob Feller and former NFL MVP Kurt Warner atop a small list of Iowans who have excelled on pro sports' biggest stages.

"It means a lot. Iowans take a lot of pride from fellow Iowans," Johnson told ESPN on Monday. "I love going back. That's where everything started. ... I live in Florida now but going back to Iowa just feels great. I look forward to going back there with the green jacket."

Hartman, echoing the sentiments of Johnson and many Iowans, said that in a state without a major pro sports team, Johnson's win at the Masters is something all of Iowa can rally behind. It was true at Elmcrest, where members packed the lounge on Easter Sunday to watch TV, and for Hartman, whose phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from friends and former teammates.

Hartman sent a text message to his now-famous buddy late last night.

"I said, 'Your life will never be the same. Great playing, and I'm still crying,"' Hartman said. "He sent me something back this morning that said, 'Luv ya. I'll buy you some Kleenex."'

Lesson Plan

It happens every year. Awakened by the spring thaw, history teachers everywhere realize they have a matter of weeks to do the trans-continental hustle from the Treaty of Versailles to the fall of Saigon (let alone the thirty years that followed). It's no wonder that history repeats itself; consider how relatively few people know what happened the first time, even among those who thought they were paying attention. There's never time, and there's not always content.

The most recent decades aren't reduced to CNN Headline News in every classroom, of course, but they aren't often taught with the detail accorded the supposedly more glorious past. More recent events are harder to burnish to a pro-American glow, and that means fewer textbook pages, despite the fact that a straight knowledge of the 60s, for example, would help anyone interpret the present. (Read, for example, this RFK speech on Vietnam posted by his son.)

Regardless, American History is necessarily a survey, each day's new headlines being full of potential Terms to Know whether anyone gets to that chapter or not. If integration, for example, is reduced to Brown v. Board of Education and nine Arkansas teenagers, that might just have to do. There's room for little more on the final exam. Luckily, education is not limited to credit-bearing classes; think of all we wouldn't know if it were. Sometimes it's found in the pages of Sports Illustrated.

Gary Smith's story about the football team of Little Rock's Central High is compelling reading, and it also describes an aspect of the integration story that I had either never known or forgotten: that Governor Faubus closed the Little Rock high schools completely for the 1958-59 school year. The Governor. Closed. The schools! While I'll never comprehend the depth of hate and fear generated by the notion of black and white kids in the same classroom, I thought I at least knew the major details of the turmoil that surrounded it. But the fact that a governor shuttered a city's high schools for a year rather than continue integration left me, as an English friend says, gobsmacked.

Part of my shock is the distance between today's prevailing attitudes and those held in certain 1950s minds. As a teacher of minority kids, I have no illusions about the state of public education or race relations, but at least we've come far enough that the notion of a modern day Governor Faubus getting away with educational murder is laughable. (Today, it's the feds that will kill the schools, but that's a different story). Another part of my shock, however, is that I didn't know, and I really should have. I realize that I never gave too much thought to the consequences of integration on the majority of students, and the fact that some of those initially involved kids had no school to go to just makes the depth of that impact all the more clear.

Fifty years is fifty years: before my time, on the one hand, but right smack in my time, all of our times, in the other hand. We're still living out the rest of that history, whether we realize it or not. Awareness trumps ignorance, surely. And so I have to think: what else don't I know?

Top 10 Things Mirna & Schmirna Have in Common with Dick & Dubya

Because sometimes no apparent reason is the best reason of all:

10. One is the size of a ventriloquist dummy, one behaves like a ventriloquist dummy
9. Anti-American sentiment grows everywhere they go.
8. They're the most sanctimonious group of characters on reality TV.
7. Two of them were born in Syria, three of them can find Syria on a map.
6. More mute buttons are hit when they're on screen than any other time.
5. The only reason Charla hasn't shot Mirna in the face is that they haven't come to the quail hunting roadblock yet
4. None of them belong to the reality based community.
3. They have all spent time in undisclosed locations.
2. Three of them speak some kind of maddening pidgin English. (The other one just lies. )
1. The longer they're around, the more unpopular they get.

Charla and Mirna, you're team number two

On the utterly contemptible scale, tonight's Amazing Race runners-up still trail America's most contemptible couple, Georgie boy and Dick. Read this, anonymous boy, and tell me I don't understand what's happening.

Move over Kurt Warner

There's a new sports hero from Cedar Rapids and his name is Zach Johnson, 2007 Master's champion. You can get the inside scoop here from the best journalist I've ever considered a friend. And if you get tired of the Master's hysteria -- though we're completely entitled -- you might put Mike Hlas on your must-read radar. Like Zach Johnson, Kurt Warner and Ashton Kutcher before him, he's better than Cedar Rapids. Lucky for us locals that Mike stayed home.

Who says there's no Easter bunny?

Fifteen stuffed animals in the chair next to me say different. That's our take thus far this weekend from the children's version of slots -- drop in two quarters and try to hook a stuffed toy with a claw-like device. We haven't been perfect by any means, but we're averaging better than any slot machine I ever experienced.

By some twisted kind of continued spring fever induced logic, we checked into a local hotel for the holiday weekend. Even if it's still freezing outside, we can at least pretend its warm in and around the indoor pool and hot tub.

It's been nice to get away, even less than five miles from home. We've eaten like kings, enjoyed showers with water pressure you can only find at a hotel, slept in and napped too, and took a little family time. Bonus that we also found a most-generous vending machine/arcade type device.

Let's see Tavin top that!

Happy Easter.

"All the shit we been through, you really think I'd kill ya?"

There's surely something inappropriate to be said about the resurrection of the character of Tony Soprano, the final season of The Sopranos finally premiering on Easter Sunday and all. But I'll leave that to someone else. I just hope it's good. I no longer expect great, or even for the season to be worth the wait, these last episodes having been strung out for so long that I barely recognize my phone's ringtone as the show's theme song anymore.

As David Chase stretched his once untouchable story arc into seven seasons, the glory days receded into the past: Paulie and Christopher have been out of the Pine Barrens for six years. A show's momentum is rarely sustained for a decade, even when it doesn't disappear from the screen for years at a time, even when the lead character doesn't lapse into a coma. Over its run, the TV landscape has also changed. Four seasons of The Wire mean that my favorite fictional sociopaths are now Baltimore drug dealers, not New Jersey mobsters. HBO is no longer the sole cable home to DVD-worthy TV; I can't wait to catch up with the second season of Weeds.

But the end of The Sopranos is end of The Sopranos, so I'll probably even do it the DVR-era honor of watching it in real time this week, or nearly. Here's hoping it's worth the trouble for the next nine.

He's no hermaphrodite, but--

Chris Machian for The New York Times

Continuing the fine copy-and-paste tradition we've worked hard to develop, here's a story about a Creighton University athlete who's a decent pitcher--with both arms. The obsession with lefty/righty match-ups kind of drives me nuts, but that's pretty cool.

The Stanley Cup in St. Louis (for real!)

How long can I write baseball posts that have nothing to do with an actual game? As long as it takes the Cardinals to remember they're paid to hit and catch and throw, even in April, even when it's cold, and even when they're the only game in town.

The Blues' home schedule fizzled out last week, but it turns out the Stanley Cup was at Busch Stadium Tuesday night. I'm not sure why the greatest trophy in all of sports (oh yes, it is) was in St. Louis, unless it was a part of a cities-whose-teams-will-not-win-it-in-this-lifetime tour, but its mere presence does illustrate one thing that makes the Cup great: it travels.

While other trophies pass the years in hermetically sealed glass cases, the Cup gets out there and goes. Not only does each player on the NHL's championship team get his name engraved on one of the Cup's silver rings, but he also gets to spend 24 hours with hockey's holy grail, doing, well, whatever. That players drink from it goes without saying, but the Stanley Cup has also been on roller coasters, jet skis, and motorcycles, and in a sauna, an igloo, and Red Square. Players have eaten from it, slept with it, and used it as a baptismal font. Doug Weight even brought it back to St. Louis last year after winning with Carolina, and it sounds as if he had a great day. Say what you will about hockey, but that, sports fans, is a trophy worth winning.

A few years back, when the Blues made the Western Conference Finals, the Cup even visited a local shopping mall as part of a promotional campaign. We stood in line and had our photo taken with it, but I'm chagrined to say that too many years of "look, don't touch" brainwashing kicked in and I didn't put a finger on the most touchable trophy there is. When I realized what I'd not done, it was too late; given the current state of the franchise and my poor prospects as a hockey professional, I'm not sure I'll have another chance. I did, however, feel a little less like a dork when I read that Chris Carpenter, a one-time hockey player, declined to lay his hands on the Stanley Cup when Brett Hull and Kelly Chase brought it by the Cardinals' clubhouse last night.

Meanwhile, the Redbird faithful just hope his failure to reach out and touch it really is about sporting respect and not about the sore elbow he later disclosed. If Carpenter can't pitch, April really will be the cruelest month, no matter what hardware comes to town.

Hoosier Hawkeye

I have to be honest. My first reaction to news that Todd Lickliter was hired as the new Iowa men's basketball coach was, "not another Hoosier." You see, like his failed predecessor Steve Alford, Lickliter grew up in Indiana, played high school ball for his father and college ball in Indiana. Lickliter even returned to coach his alma mater, an honor that has thus far eluded Stevie Wonder.

Then I got to checking into the new head Hawk, and started to think AD Gary Barta did quite well in his first major hire. While coaching vacancies have been filling up left and right, Iowa is the only one I know that landed a current NCAA Coach of the Year. And while Alford led Southern Missouri to the sweet 16 before his Iowa arrival, Lickliter has had Butler there two years running. They gave eventual champion Florida all that it wanted, while Iowa gathered for the NIT selection show only to be denied.

Meanwhile, the rights to firestevealford.com are available on E-bay. Hawkeye State claims to have already purchased firetoddlickliter.com, saving Iowa the trouble.

Something to be proud of

For a high school teacher, I'm not such a fan of high school. I didn't hate it; honestly, I'm hard pressed to come up with many bad high school memories, though I can't completely vouch for the veracity of the internal highlight reel that I've been editing for twenty years. Regardless, four years was plenty; coming back to high school every day is a minimum condition of my employment, not a perk--and I just work in a high school, not my high school; teaching in the high school from which one graduated is not a phenomenon I can comprehend, let alone explain.

At any rate, it suits me to operate on the fringes, to be more in the high school than of the high school. Between living a considerable distance from the campus and having a group of students far more likely to be at work than at a practice or in club meeting after the school day ends, my list of faculty extracurriculars would make for a sketchy yearbook listing. Last night, however, I broke my pattern in a big way, showing up at school at night when I hadn't even been there during the day to make sure I attended a special event, and I'm so glad I did.

Our school has an awards night that basically allows any teacher to honor any student for any kind achievement. That always seemed a little bogus to me, an opportunity for "participant" to be elevated to "outstanding" as if in some politically correct science fair, but in reality many of the Seniors who receive Warrior Pride awards are the same kids who receive every other honor the school hands out. My nominee wasn't in that supposedly select group, but he wasn't out of place, either. Far from it.

His grades won't put him at the top of his class, but they're more than respectable, especially considering that four years ago he spoke no English at all. His work ethic and determination put me to shame, but what I admire most is his attitude. He knows the world is a difficult place, that others have advantages he can't dream of and he has barriers they can't even conceive, but he faces that reality with a shrug and a smile. "Oh, well," he says. "This is my life. What else am I going to do?"

I was as pleased as anything to be able to recognize him in public, to say to the crowd, and to him, in so many words, "Look at what he's done! Look at what he'll do!" I was only a fraction as pleased and proud as my student was, though, and that's the best part. Not only did he get a medal and a nice night out, but, from his expressions of appreciation and the look in his eyes, he also got a boost that will carry him through the end of the semester and out into the world. And, right there, I got my reward--and another high school memory of my own.

Opening Day

I believe in the Church of Baseball. I've tried all the major religions, and most of the minor ones. I've worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I heard that, I gave Jesus a chance. But it just didn't work out between us. . . .It's a long season and you gotta trust. I've tried 'em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball.

--Annie Savoy, Bull Durham.

As a baseball Annie, Susan Sarandon's character had, shall we say, her own way of demonstrating her devotion, but that's a great movie and a great quote. And really, I'm not sure there's any other way to describe Opening Day at Busch Stadium than as a worship service: today, no foolin', is Opening Day.

Nothing should be easier than making fun of an event that features 50,000 red-clad people cheering for a beer wagon, but given how annoyed I am that my brother chose to gouge a coworker instead of his own flesh and highly-pressured blood when he sold his tickets for tonight's game, it's clear I don't have it in me. Given the opportunity, I'd have been clapping along to the Budweiser jingle, too.


If the rest of the game looks like the first four innings, there won't be much else to clap for, but that's really not the point. The best part of tonight happened long before Carpenter's first pitch (which was, for the record, a ball). There's something about a parade of convertibles and a gathering of old ballplayers and a lot of talk about tradition that's really just so much hooey that makes me smile despite myself. What can I say? I've drunk the Kool-Aid, and it is Cardinal Red.

I do draw the line somewhere, but it's not straight. The music that was played when the championship banner was hoisted above the stadium was so reverential as to be ridiculous, but except for the "we're afraid you won't live through the season" subtext, those same strains almost seemed fitting when they accompanied Stan Musial's motorized entrance onto the field. After all, if a church has gathered in that stadium tonight, he's certainly the pope. I'm not sure how many of the current players quite appreciate who "baseball's perfect warrior" is, but at least they knew--or followed directions well-- enough to shake his too-frail hand as they entered the field. Kiss his ring, boys; maybe something will rub off.

And that's the heart of the Cardinal Nation appeal. Musial is an icon, and for good reason. He's as respected off the field as he was on, and he's been off the field for forty-three years, longer than even Lonnie has been alive. Seeing him, along with Schoendienst and Gibson , Herzog and Andujar interact with today's team is the main reason I wish I were there. Somehow the representatives of '42, and '67, and '82 make '07 seem to be, for a moment, more than overpaid athletes, if champion overpaid athletes at that. It's a trick of time and memory, of course. None of those aging men were ever more than ballplayers, but each has been made larger than life by the fun-house mirror of a generation's adulation. Out on the field, they're more symbols than individuals, sport-jacketed repositories of millions of memories.

It's as if winning only once every twenty-plus years was precisely calculated to snag one generation and then the next, making each feel a part of something bigger while magnifying the importance of a handful of players. If it were a marketing strategy, it'd be genius. Everyone in the stands has someone to claim as her own, but there aren't so many revered players that their names won't fit on a banner or plaque or outfield wall. Explicating why anybody really cares would require more psychoanalysis than I can muster, but today I'm content to take the value of this enterprise on faith. I'll save my doubts and complaints for another time; today is Opening Day.

Another reason to love Google

On a day like today, there's nothing a company that's rolling in IPO cash can't do:

New! Introducing Gmail Paper

Everyone loves Gmail. But not everyone loves e-mail, or the digital era. What ever happened to stamps, filing cabinets, and the mailman? Well, you asked for it, and it’s here. We’re bringing it back.

A New Button
Now in Gmail, you can request a physical copy of any message with the click of a button, and we'll send it to you in the mail.

Simplicity Squared
Google will print all messages instantly and prepare them for delivery. Allow 2-4 business days for a parcel to arrive via post.

Total Control
A stack of Gmail Paper arrives in a box at your doorstep, and it’s yours to keep forever. You can read it, sort it, search it, touch it. Or even move it to the trash—the real trash. (Recycling is encouraged.)

Keep it Secret, Keep it Safe
Google takes privacy very seriously. But once your email is physically in your hands, it's as secure as you want to make it.

Learn more about Gmail Paper

Spring Break '07: Beam me up, Scottie

I had the best intentions of blogging about my Spring Break adventure in the Ozarks, but modern technology arrives last in the wilderness. Injun Joe's had all of life's conveniences to offer and miniature golf too. The Lake of the Ozarks State Park didn't measure up by these standards, but blows Joe's out of the water in terms of a camping experience.

We left Hannibal for Lake of the Ozarks on Thursday morning, Lisa in her maiden voyage at Hope’s wheel. I bided my time catching up on recent newspapers and checking e-mail. We arrived in the Ozarks at 1 p.m. and stopped for lunch at the Happy Fisherman – at least I hope he was happier than his waitresses.

We continued to our reserved campsite at Lake of the Ozarks State Park. Though apparently not yet quite open for the season, it’s hard to complain about the peace and solitude of a state park in the middle of the last week in March. I do have a bit of a beef with people who lock up campsites and don't use them, but that's another post. Thunder and heavy raindrops sent us scurrying to erect our canopy and we huddled briefly in the air-conditioned confines of our camper until the mugginess wore off.

That blew over quickly and we enjoyed an afternoon of warmth, nature and ladderball. We were awoke about 4 a.m. by a heavy storm, but merely had to close the vents to keep the water out and laid snug as a bug in our four-wheeled vacation home. Eventually the rain stopped and I cooked a heavy breakfast before Zach and I ventured out on the bicycles we had gone to great expense and effort to bring along.

I quickly discovered it's a lot hillier in Missouri than Iowa. I must put the three full months remaining before RAGBRAI to good use.

We spent the afternoon and early evening doing the typical Ozark tourists stuff -- roaming through souvenir shops, getting an old fashioned family photo taken, racing go-carts (I went from last to first despite having Karissa as a passenger), and playing miniature golf (I won again).

After loading up on firewood at the grocery store, since the park wasn't yet providing such service and the advice I got from the nearest convenience store was anything but convenient, we headed back to camp for a bonfire and brats. Karissa and I teamed up against Zach and Lisa for a game of Sequence (we won one and lost one). After burning all the firewood, we headed inside to watch "RV" again, but I don't even recall seeing the opening scene.

We had agreed previously that, as charming as Injun Joe's was, we would leave the Ozarks by 3 p.m. and endeavor to complete the entire 325-mile journey home. That way Zach could sleep in his own bed before his little league season-opener today.

We left shortly after 2 and arrived home shortly before 11. Hope made it, the bikes made it and we made it -- all a little worse for the wear, but refreshed by the experience. I love traveling, except for the travel part.

It's neat that you can now ride down the highway and e-mail messages around the world. It'd be better if you transport yourself around the world just as easily.