The Alford plea: Iowa style

There's a legal maneuver known as the Alford plea in which a criminal defendant does not admit the act and asserts innocence, but admits that sufficient evidence exists with which the prosecution could likely convince a judge or jury to find the defendant guilty. Upon receiving an Alford plea from a defendant, the court may immediately pronounce the defendant guilty and impose sentence as if the defendant had otherwise been convicted of the crime.

In Iowa, the Alford plea has new meaning following the departure of Hawkeye men's basketball coach Steve Alford for the University of New Mexico. The move allows Stevie Wonder, as I've derisively taken to calling him, to save face without admitting his many coaching failures. It also spares Athletics Director Gary Barta the eventual task of casting judgment on the tenure of the Indiana golden boy.

I confess that I was an early proponent of Alford. I even sent an e-mail to then-Athletics Director Bob Bowlsby -- which I mistakenly sent to all of the employees of the company where I was working at the time -- encouraging him to send the likable Tom Davis packing and hire the hot coaching prospect out of Southwest Missouri State.

But that was eight years ago. A lot of things have happened over that time to change my perspective of the man hired to take Iowa basketball to the next level, not the least of which is that he didn't. One NCAA tournament victory in eight years. A losing record in regular season Big 10 games. Pierre Pierce.

This is not what anyone imagined the next level would look like.

Sure, he won two Big 10 Tournaments and had a school-record seven straight winning seasons, but he never endeared himself to the same Iowa fans who cheered his arrival. His approval ratings would mirror those of George Bush following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- universal support squandered.

Laking professional teams, Iowa's Division I sports programs are subject to intense scrutiny. Alford was subject to so many rumors, it's impossible to say if any were valid. But I'm inclined to believe that most rumors have some basis in reality, such as the repeatedly denied rumor that New Mexico was courting Alford.

Regardless, Alford is clearly a confident man. There's nothing wrong with that, necessarily, unless confidence is read as cockiness or arrogance by the fan base. Worse yet if your performance doesn't measure up to your self esteem.

I wish Alford nothing but the best in New Mexico, but I'm glad he's gone. I have no intention of expressing my views to the Iowa AD about who the next coach should be. I only hope lessons learned from the Alford era will value substance over style.

What Seattle Has Taught Us

It is too possible for everything to be uphill from everything else. In both directions.

16-year-old boys can have a patisserie habit.

Your hair will do that thing. No. matter. what. you. try.

There is no Italian food here.

Or ice cream.

However, Potatoes, Idaho. $7 is an acceptable menu choice.

Denial may be a powerful force, but just because they deny it's raining doesn't mean they're not wet.

Monorail!

If alcohol doesn't cure what ails you, something fried with cinnamon and sugar will.

Jimmy Hendrix had lovely penmanship. And then he died.

RIP: Calvert DeForest, aka Larry "Bud" Melman

Calvert DeForest, the white-haired, bespectacled nebbish who gained cult status as the oddball Larry ``Bud'' Melman on David Letterman's late night television shows, has died after a long illness.

The Brooklyn-born DeForest, who was 85, died Monday at a hospital on Long Island, Letterman's ``Late Show'' announced Wednesday.

He made dozens of appearances on Letterman's shows from 1982 through 2002, handling a variety of twisted duties: dueting with Sonny Bono on ``I Got You, Babe,'' doing a Mary Tyler Moore impression during a visit to Minneapolis, handing out hot towels to arrivals at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.



``Everyone always wondered if Calvert was an actor playing a character, but in reality he was just himself -- a genuine, modest and nice man,'' Letterman said in a statement. ``To our staff and to our viewers, he was a beloved and valued part of our show, and we will miss him.''

The gnomish DeForest was working as a file clerk at a drug rehabilitation center when show producers, who had seen him in a New York University student's film, came calling.

He was the first face to greet viewers when Letterman's NBC show debuted on Feb. 1, 1982, offering a parody of the prologue to the Boris Karloff film ``Frankenstein.''

``It was the greatest thing that had happened in my life,'' he once said of his first Letterman appearance.

DeForest, given the nom de tube of Melman, became a program regular. The collaboration continued when the talk show host launched ``Late Show with David Letterman'' on CBS in 1993, though DeForest had to use his real name because of a dispute with NBC over ``intellectual property.''

Cue cards were often DeForest's television kryptonite, and his character inevitably appeared in an ill-fitting black suit behind thick black-rimmed glasses.

DeForest often drew laughs by his bizarre juxtaposition as a ``Late Show'' correspondent at events such as the 1994 Winter Olympics in Norway or the anniversary Woodstock concert that year.

His last appearance on ``Late Show,'' celebrating his 81st birthday, came in 2002.

DeForest also appeared in an assortment of other television shows and films, including ``Nothing Lasts Forever'' with Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd.

At his request, there will be no funeral service for DeForest, who left no survivors.

I love Wisconsin, but seriously!

They love to hunt in Wisconsin, perhaps too much, at least in the case of this disturbed young man in a wire story today. Come to think of it, that hermaphrodite deer story from a while back was also in Wisconsin. Coincidence?

SUPERIOR, Wis. (AP) -- A 20-year-old Superior man received probation after he was convicted of having sexual contact with a dead deer.

The sentence also requires Bryan James Hathaway to be evaluated as a sex offender and treated at the Institute for Psychological and Sexual Health in Duluth, Minn.

"The state believes that particular place is the best to provide treatment for the individual," Assistant District Attorney Jim Boughner said.

Hathaway's probation will be served at the same time as a nine-month jail sentence he received in February for violating his extended supervision.

He was found guilty in April 2005 of felony mistreatment of an animal after he killed a horse with the intention of having sex with it. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail and two years of extended supervision on that charge as well as six years of probation for taking and driving a vehicle without the owner's consent.

Hathaway pleaded no contest earlier this month to misdemeanor mistreatment of an animal for the incident involving the deer. He was sentenced Tuesday in Douglas County Circuit Court.

"The type of behavior is disturbing," Judge Michael Lucci said. "It's disturbing to the public. It's disturbing to the court."

Greetings from SEA

Where a good time is being had by all.

4 years wasted and 3,217 dead

As we mark the fourth anniversary of war in Iraq, the central question remains unanswered. Why?

This post doesn't answer that question, but it reminds us how terribly misled we have been. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about a blow job. Lying your way to war seems infinitely more grounds for removal.

New Rules for Cliches

I'm glued to Bill Maher's HBO show from start to finish, but if pressed for a favorite segment it would be "New Rules." In that spirit, I present these suggested New Rules for cliches.

In a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel column titled "Thompson won't spend millions on mediocrity," Mike Vandermause writes "While some teams have been throwing money around like drunken sailors, Thompson has taken a more conservative approach."

I have no quarrel with the Packers' GM here. It's with the columnist and his "drunken sailor" reference. Isn't this disrespectful to troops who haven't had a drop of alcohol since being assigned their hopeless mission in Iraq -- which is neither Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, for those who care?

NEW RULE: Metaphors for frivolous spending must now refer to Pacman Jones instead of members of the military. Never heard of Pacman? Among the 10 incidents where the Tennessee Titans' cornerback has been interviewed by police is his presence during a Las Vegas strip club/NBA All-Star weekend triple-shooting that left one man paralyzed.

The trouble started after 4 a.m., when Jones and his entourage of a half-dozen people -- including the alleged shooter -- returned to the club for the second time that evening.

Jones tossed hundreds of $1 bills on the stripper stage. When a dancer started grabbing the money without Jones' permission, he got angry, grabbed her hair and slammed her head against the stage.

How many drunken sailors have you seen behave like that?

Next up is the latest cliche, "it is what it is." No, it isn't. It was what it was, perhaps, but you can't refer to something that happened in the past as if it were happening now.

NEW RULE: "It is what it is" becomes "It was what it was." Either that, or we go back to talking about giving 110 percent and putting pants on one leg at a time.

Suddenly it occurs to me that I'm out of suggestions and that you might have ideas of your own. So I end this encouraging you faithful readers to submit your NEW RULE for cliches.

Best Spring Break Forecast Ever!

photo by Dean Forbes

Tuesday, March 20
Showers
46°/38°

Wednesday, March 21
Showers
48°/44°

Thursday, March 22
Showers
51°/48°

Friday, March 23
Showers
52°/44°

Saturday, March 24
Few Showers (woo!)
52°/42°

No better sound

A serious amount of giggling is going on around my kitchen table this Saturday night, but, for once, I'm only listening. Instead, my daughter and Best Friend are drinking an ill-advised amount of Pepsi as they try to determine how long they've known each other and what their first and best and most recent "misadventures" have been. Nothing like a nostalgic fourth grader.

Yes, I am eavesdropping a bit, but not to find out that they met when when one made blue Gatorade come out of the other's nose. Most of what they're saying is incomprehensibly silly, but I love to hear this particular friendship both take root and bloom. The vagaries of elementary school being what they are, who knows how long this duo lasts, but the odds seem good that they'll be together for me to remind them of this night long after they've forgotten the flood of cola that eventually coated the linoleum.

While they won't have Neopets or a menagerie of little plastic bobbleheaded animals in common for much longer, their shared sensibility and sense of humor could last, and will, if the number of spur-of-the-moment sleepovers I approve has anything to do with it. I can't choose my daughter's friends, but I can certainly play favorites, at least now, when they're young, and the mothering is easy.* Life is hard and kids are mean; doing my part to help my child have friends she can rely on seems the least I can do, even if it means an eternally sticky floor.


*relatively

If I could put pretentiousness in a bottle. . .

from a Seattle restaurant menu:

BOTTLES

BUDWEISER, St. Louis, Missouri 4.
COORS LIGHT, Colorado Springs, Colorado 4.
HEINEKEN LIGHT, Amsterdam, Holland 5.
CORONA, Mexico 4.
HEINEKEN, Amsterdam, Holland 5.


I think I'll be sure to have dinner there next week so I can ask them to check the Born On dates, too.

I guess they showed me

Or, the post in which Allison is forced to admit Missouri did something right. Living in the lllinois half of this bi-state area, one grows to expect a certain amount of misguided condescension from Missourians, a group of people who tend to believe that the world ends at the western edge of the Mississippi, or at least right past the strip clubs clustered near the east end of the river bridges. “Why would anyone live in Illinois?” they wonder. Well, for starters, it’s not Missouri, the state with an educational system that rivals that of Arkansas and a population happy to have sent John Ashcroft both to their governor’s mansion and the U.S. Senate.

Thankfully, my interaction with Missouri's government is usually limited to filing my Non-Resident tax return, a document that, even more than most government forms, is Brazil-like bureaucracy put to paper. While I suppose I should just be happy that I'll never have to again file paper returns in three states against $12.47 of income divided among nine W-2s (true story) (except for the $12.47 part) (but it might as well have been), the Missouri 1040 irritates me so much that for years I have gladly paid the extra twenty bucks for a second Tax Cut state program just to not have to deal with it--even though I, as a non-resident, still had to print a ream of paper forms to send with paper copies of everything else across the border to Jefferson City so I could wait for my paper refund check. Such burdens I bear. Until this weekend, when I finally summoned the energy to find an envelope and a stamp only to find out, nearly accidentally, that I could finally file Missouri's return online. The Show Me state gets with the century! Strange but true.

Stranger still, though, was the fact that two days after I filed, my refund was in my checking account. Two days? That's so efficient as to be distrubing, but at least Missouri won't have what's rightfully mine to help fund the kind of mean-spirited, short-sighted immigration legislation that makes me glad I don't live there. That bill's another post or three, but in the meantime I guess I'll take my refund money and buy a few week's worth of gas to get to my job, in part funded by Missouri tax dollars, helping educate the very Missouri students that proposed Missouri law would thwart. Ah, Missouri government. What is it you're showing me?

A winning Pack gathers no Moss

Up to this point, I've dismissed rumors of the Packers' interest in acquiring wide receiver Randy Moss as baseless speculation. But apparently, as is usually the case, there's something to the rumors.

As reported in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, General Manager Ted Thompson was to make a pitch to the Packers' brass today about his keen interest in acquiring the troubled -- and troubling -- wideout.

Sources have said the two teams have been discussing Moss for more than a month. On Monday, a source familiar with the inner workings of both organizations said Thompson had spoken directly with Raiders owner Al Davis about dealing for Moss.

Apparently, Packers negotiator Andrew Brandt has already had preliminary talks to restructure Moss' remaining base salaries of $9.75 million in 2007 and $11.25 million in '08.

Yes, the clock is ticking on Brett Favre's Hall of Fame career and a solid deep threat would greatly improve his chances of going out on top. But Moss? Not Santana, mind you, Randy.

The same guy who infamously pretended to moon Packer fans in Lambeau Field when he was the poster boy for that model organization, the Minnesota Vikings. The same guy who pouts, seems to have lost a step or three and takes more plays off than on for the Raiders, another model organization.

Favre isn't a vocal leader, but he has shown he doesn't take kindly to fools (see Javon Walker). And even if Moss were to play nice for a year for a quarterback he reportedly respects, what happens when Favre retires?

One of the things I've always respected the most about the Packers is how they carry themselves as an organization, on and off the field. With chairman of the board Bob Harlan, the chief architect of that stellar public image, set to retire in May, years of hard work could come tumbling down with one ill-advised trade.

I beg you, Ted Thompson, don't do it.

Cause and Effect

So first I read this:

Cheney Assails Those Favoring Iraq Drawdown, in which the devil himself again accuses the Democrats in Congress of treason.

And then I read this:

Dems Abandon War Authority Provision, in which said Democrats again prove themselves to be, to put it far more politely than they deserve, freaking useless.

And then, just for the hell of it, I took my blood pressure: 166/88. Again demonstrating that the top number is the one that responds to fury.

Surely, given the sheer quantity of rot that's cascading through this most malevolent mis-administration, from the White House to the military to Justice to every agency in its poisoned line, the entire evil enterprise will come crashing down under its own contemptible weight. For all of our sakes, I hope that implosion comes soon. For me, I just hope it comes before the stroke.

(Not) Bright and early

While reverting to a pre-dawn commute sucked just as much as I knew it would, in the interest of mental health and lower blood pressure allow me to try to rise above my genes (if we can't find something negative to say--eh, we can always find something negative to say) and accentuate the positive in this morning's pitch black drive:

1. Turning up a new-to-me CD loud enough to keep me (and my fellow commuters) awake.

2. Not being slowed down on the bridge by drivers who cannot tell the difference between the reflection of the sun and actual brake lights.

3. Are you kidding me?

God save little league baseball

I've been party to innumerable dysfunctional organizations in my lifetime -- even shared one with my fellow blogger here -- but I'm not sure anything compares to this well-intentioned, but hopelessly inept little league baseball program I've latched onto.

I don't even know where to begin, so I'll start with the latest fiasco.

We're hosting a tournament next month and as of this writing 36 teams have signed up. It wasn't my bad idea, but I stepped up as tournament director and have dedicated myself to making it a success.

With soccer and wrestling tournaments in town that same weekend, hotel rooms are scarce. Our vice president, who also happens to coach my son's team, made arrangements to block off 10 rooms at a hotel on the outskirts of town.

So I was troubled Friday morning when the coach of one of the visiting teams that I had steered toward this hotel informed me that our rooms had been canceled. In response to my urgent inquiry, coach tells me he canceled the reservations because we would have had to pay for any rooms that weren't rented.

Are you kidding me?!!!! I shouldn't have been surprised though. This is the same coach who last year repeatedly signaled slow runners on second base to steal third with two outs, the game on the line, and good hitters at the plate.

And he's not even the least competent member of our board. That would be the treasurer, a man so elected because of his success as a well-digging businessman. The very definition of luddite, he doesn't do e-mail. When I questioned him about my inability to fax him information about the organization, he explained the his wife was on the computer and I should fax before 8 a.m. or after 6 p.m.

Just yesterday he explained to me in excruciating detail his plans for improving the high school field. Soon after, my eyes glazed over, he handed me our organization's checkbook. Keep in mind, he's the treasurer and I'm the secretary.

He won't be available for next weekend's scheduling meeting, he explained, because he's escorting his ADD grandson with a rocket arm but shit for brains to Phoenix for a baseball camp. He invited my son along, you know, depending on what he wanted to do with the sport.

Fortunately, I didn't need the $700 entry fee as an excuse. My son will be in school, where he belongs. Sure I'd love to see him sign a major league baseball contract someday, but I'm not putting all of my eggs in that basket.

In order to stand the test of time, this organization will need brighter minds than those who currently rule the roost.

Curses! (on Sunday, even)

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

When I was a kid, I rarely heard the 60 Minutes second hand tick by, but when I did, it was a thrill. Did I have some inappropriate interest in Morley Safer or Mike Wallace? Was Andy Rooney's whine music to my ears? Most definitely not. But if we were still at my grandma's house after 6 o'clock, we weren't going back for the second church service of the day, and that was more than fine with me.

Times change, though, and lately that infernal ticking has been the last thing I wanted to hear on a Sunday, as it was only be a sign that the CBS schedule--and my DVR timer--was screwed up again, and it still wasn't time for The Amazing Race theme music to kick in. That's one annoyance I don't need, Sunday evening being just another name for Monday morning to me.


By Sunday evening, I need to be working, making plans and creating materials, or at least deciding how I'll finesse my semi-preparedness. I've been happy to shove responsibility aside, though, at least for an hour, to make sure that I get to watch Rob and Amber race. Judge me if you will, but having my favorite contestants on my favorite show is definitely Must See TV for me.

If you don't know who Rob and Amber are, you clearly need to watch more television, as they have been doing a fine job of stretching out their 15 minutes. If you know who Rob is and wish you didn't, then I don't think we can ever be friends.

I'd describe the appeal of the inexplicably infamous Boston Rob in more detail, but it's all a moot point now. He and Amber were Philiminated tonight, leaving this edition of The Amazing Race without any actual All Stars and my Sunday evening schedule with a gaping hole. If Rob and Amber are off somewhere memorizing the spelling of Philippines instead of flummoxing other racers and entertaining me, I've no choice but to find another method of procrastination. Like, say, writing a post.

Out on a school night

If only the guest of honor hadn't been felled by Jack in the Box--go figure--our rare Thursday evening foray into the grown-up world have been a birthday celebration, but, the birthday boy was in fact indisposed. What else for the rest of us to do, then, than to go out for no reason on a school night. Life is short. Weekends are few. And the world's twenty-year-olds shouldn't be the only ones having weeknight fun.

On the other hand, no twenty-year-old would have made it into this particular bar, Harrah's security being more tediously thorough than TSA agents screening my old friend Muhammed at the airport. It's not as if a quick glance in our general direction wouldn't prove we're--thank goodness--not under twenty-one, but we lost the first fifteen minutes of the opening act to the ticket purchase/id check/"reward card" issue/ticket scan/card scan/hand stamp gauntlet. I want those fifteen minutes back, too, because damn, that boy can sing (not that you can prove it with a youtube video).

Will Hoge
Woman Be Strong