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.

First post of the season

It has been pointed out to me that there's been no mention of baseball here (save that soon-to-be-replaced counter) despite the fact that the season starts tomorrow. Well, of course not: the season doesn't start until tomorrow. Frankly, scanning the sports pages and halfway listening to the Grapefruit League games when I happen across one on the car radio is about all the attention I've given baseball this March. No matter. The season is long and the Spring is always irrelevant. I'm glad that the Cardinals, by way of Jocketty/Duncan alchemy or dumb luck, seem to have assembled five starting pitchers, but let's talk about that after they've rotated through April.

Had I not been off in the great Pacific northwest--a region that has no baseball, just a franchise willing to pay Jeff Weaver $8.3 million for what, 10 wins?--at the time, I'm sure I would have chimed in on the LaRussa brew-haha (wine, I know. indulge me), but instead I missed the local stations breaking into commercials with the .093 news and never quite got into that frenzied loop.

On the other hand, I expect far less frenzy to surround today's baseball spectacle, the inaugural Civil Rights Game, which will be played in Memphis between the Cardinals and the Indians, and not, as I had first pictured, between a white team and the last nine African-Americans in the major leagues. Apparently a five-minute Spike Lee film has been commissioned and serious panel discussions will be held. So, um, okay. I know there's history there, and such a focus surely can't hurt, but given that this affair mostly strikes me as an attempt by an often-maligned multi-billion dollar industry to wear the white hats for once, I can't take it too seriously.


Some folks, however, are taking very seriously the fact that the Indians, invited to this game because they employed the first African-American player and manager in the American League, still sport a logo that's the Native American version of Little Black Sambo or Steppin' Fetchit.

As Filip Bondy of the NY Daily News put it,

"The lack of empathy on this issue is truly inexplicable. One race can’t commit genocide against another, then turn that race into a mascot. A soccer team in Hamburg would never call itself the Jews and adorn its uniforms with caricatures. It certainly would never hold a celebratory civil rights game along the trail of a World War II death march."

Is that hyperbole or an honest point? I'm not sure. It is a fact that Memphis is along the route of America's own genocide, the Trail of Tears. Of course, it's also the site of the Cardinals' AAA affiliate, and, lately, their usual stop on the trek north from Florida. MLB may be acknowledging (or sidestepping) the Indians' issue with the Indians by having both teams wear insignia-free uniforms at their celebration of certain people's civil rights today, but there's only so far they'll go. Educating Americans on our own atrocities isn't on their agenda, and I can't say it belongs there. Then again, if the baseball marketers decided there was enough money to be extracted out of Cherokee pockets, I'm sure today's festivities would have a different look.

Being far from both Cleveland and the American League, I admit to having never given Chief Wahoo much thought, but, now that I think of it, he is kind of terrible. Then again, I may be kind of terrible, too, because this solution to Cleveland's logo conundrum really made me laugh.

Credit Where Credit's Due

from the Daily Kos

I rarely have anything good to say about the Missouri state legislature, but props to Rep. Jamilah Nasheed for giving the truth a shot down in Jefferson City.

Spring Break '07: Chapter 1

In my 1.5 square mile world, 200 miles seems like a long way to travel. But even I know it shouldn't take six hours -- not even in an RV dubbed Hope. Yet here I sit at the Injun Joe Campground outside Hannibal, Mo., 200 miles into our Ozark getaway for Spring Break 2007.

Captain's log, 5:26 p.m.: we pull out of our alley sooner than I dreamed would be possible just yesterday. Along the way we delivered my Jeep to my brother-in-law in Oxford so he could fix the stereo while we're gone. That added about 20 miles to our trip and cost us a good half hour. Then, since we hadn't had supper yet, we took the opportunity to visit the new casino in Riverside for the Friday night seafood buffet. It only now occurs to me that it's Wednesday night. Still, the crab legs were what you would expect from a buffet and the casino looked every bit as nice as we had been told. The golf course under construction looks really nice. We wasted no time -- or money -- in the casino, but still lost a good hour on dinner. So now it's 8 p.m. and we're only 45 minutes down the road. Not a good start.

Captain's log, 11:18 p.m.: Hope glides into a fully-equipped RV spot at Injun Joe's, I kid you not. Even in the dark, I can tell this place is uniquely Missourian. I hope to explore its scenic batting cages and picturesque go-kart track in the morning, before we continue our adventure. I had fully intended to layover in a Walmart parking lot, if only to irritate my wife. But in the end I decided an electrical hookup and bathroom facilities were necessities. We don't have a generator, yet, and I wasn't able to fill up on water before we left. Plus I wasn't sure you could legally transport Iowa water into Missouri. If you could, why aren't there places on the Iowa side pushing water to match the fireworks vendors on the Missouri side?

My goal was to get as far as Hannibal, and Injun Joe's was one of a few campgrounds that we had a number for and a general idea where to find it. Plus, since my son is reading Tom Sawyer in school, I thought he would benefit from experiencing it first hand.

"I thought you were kidding when you said we were going to Injun Joe's," he says as we walk the dog and survey the campground. "He's not even a major character."

Oh the irony.

Coming tomorrow (wireless Internets baby jesus willing): Lasting impressions of Injun Joe's and the journey to Lake of the Ozarks.

Fine, thanks. And you?

It has always been kind of a dumb point of pride with me to have a scant medical history, for Tonsilectomy, 1974 and Labor & Delivery, 1997 to have long been the only major entries on my chart. I'm forever grateful that last year's visits to the cancer doctor proved, thus far, to be a benign and finite chapter in my life, but I still wish I didn't have to record Breast Biopsy, 2006 on every new patient form. At the moment, however, that entry seems as irrelevant as a tumor could be. It's the slew of tests and consultations and ambulance rides that I've endured in the last month that mean my days as a blank medical slate are now permanently behind me, a fact as uncomfortable as all that EEG paste in my hair. Having to repeatedly recite all that evidence to the contrary makes it harder to insist that everything's okay.

I do still cling to my "I'm fine" mantra, and mostly I mean it, even as I'm surrounded by well-meaning people who insist on using words like scary and frightening and alarming. I appreciate their concern, but the bare facts of my story are adventure enough for me; I have no need for Halloween adjectives to dress up each re-telling. For one thing, I'm not afraid. Maybe it's just easier to be the one carted out on a stretcher than to watch it go by. Maybe I just know how I'm feeling. Or maybe there's just no point in panic. I'm sure that's easier to say with a stack of negative and normal results in my ever expanding file, but even if I finally do get a diagnosis, what is there to do except, in the words of the aging Rocky Balboa, to keep moving forward?

I am tired of being the patient, and you better believe I'll celebrate when the day of the last paper dress, blood draw, and doctor's office scale finally arrives, but in the meantime, I'm fine. Really. I am.

Packer trade talk

Best sentence I read all day: Unless the Raiders release Moss, the Packers probably aren't going to get him.

This from Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel columnist Tom Silverstein on possible signs of life in Cheeseland. I must confess, Michael Turner is enticing, but not at the cost of a first and a third pick.

Stupid Is as Stupid Does

I'm sure the anonymous Iowan would beg to differ, assuming he/she/it knows what that means, but I am not a stupid person. Sure, I may have once been flummoxed by the fact that there's no such thing as a travel-sized Twister game, but who says that's not just Hasbro's small-mindedness (or, I can't resist adding, lack thereof).

Now, when I first wrote that paragraph, it was the beginning of a rant about some of the people who deign to present at an international conference attended by 6,500. My indignation about that, however, has all but faded away, and, regardless, there are far more important targets for my ire, and yours, too. I'll let Leonard Pitts explain, because my public service announcement for today is that if you don't read him regularly, you really should.

Here and There

"I ain't gettin' on no time machine."
--Marvin Barnes

I don't know if Barnes, a player for the ABA St. Louis Spirits, really balked when asked to board a flight that departed Louisville at 8 a.m. and arrived in St. Louis at 7:59 a.m., thanks to time zones, but I choose to believe he did. That story is just too funny, and really, the sentiment is just too true.

While the actual air travel grows ever more tedious, from the "security" routines to the Greyhound-in-the-sky conditions of the jam-packed planes, there's still something a little magic about going so far so fast, a reason to marvel at having breakfast near the Mississippi and lunch with a view of the Puget Sound.


Those first happily disorienting hours in a new place always make me want to rush back to the airport and buy tickets to everywhere; the world is small, I'm reminded, and there for the taking. Being so far out of my normal habits already, time and money and all the obligations of life seem like no barriers at all. Let's go!

Funny, though, how quickly the novel is converted into routine, at least for my Taurus brain. By the next day, navigating an unfamiliar downtown seems second nature, eating every meal in a new restaurant is just what we do, and if a room near the top of a graciously restored old hotel isn't exactly home, it certainly is comfortable. Not only could I get used to this, I already am.

Of course, it's only that easy because I'm in touch with my family often enough that they don't seem so far away. I can tell that my daughter, who dreaded my departure, is not just being brave when she tells me, "I'm doing good," and I'm glad for both our sakes. Knowing that everything will be okay, it's easy to enjoy myself, but the tears that leap to my eyes once I spot her in the airport concourse show where my heart was the entire time.

The next morning, the extra hugs I receive prove that I've been gone as much as the clothes and souvenirs and conference materials that spill out of my half-emptied suitcase, but except for that hard evidence it feels like any other lazy Saturday at the end of any other normal week, with plans no more ambitious than to read the paper and go to the park and catch up on life. It's nothing if not routine, but for the moment I don't care what's going on in the rest of the world or what plane ticket I could buy.

Too bad, then, that it's really Sunday, with a busy Monday looming ahead and no more days off in sight. Maybe another time machine ride would be just the ticket after all.

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