More than 200 volunteers showed up at the Fort Wayne Rescue Mission on Thanksgiving Day.
[. . .]
The volunteer coordinator with the Fort Wayne Rescue Mission said that there was a huge increase in the number of people coming out to help this year, and a lot of those were families volunteering together.
We were all kind of bummed this morning when we came in and discovered this,” said Salvation Army Capt. Lynneta Poff.
A tangled mess of barbed wire shows the extreme thieves were willing to go to, stealing food from the Evansville Salvation Army’s food pantry.
“You can see where they cut the fencing, cut the barbed wire down there to gain access over the fence,” said Poff.
[. . .]
Among the stolen food was several packages of hot dogs, sausage patties, frozen fish, ground beef, bacon, a ham and even several apple pies. It would have fed more than 200 people who rely on the Salvation Army every day for a hot meal.
All volunteers are special, but the ones who give up family time create even better family time with their donation of service. All thieves intend to harm others, but those who steal from the people who can least afford to lose it deserve the lowest circle of hell. The holidays seem to bring out the extremes in everybody.
So, they want to extort a fee from us for getting around the way we want to so they can use the money to force us to get around the way we don’t want to:
MUNSTER, Ind. - A mass transportation organization wants Indiana residents to pay a “green” fee of $10 on each car and truck on the road to help promote mass transit options.
The Indiana Transportation Association’s 2009 legislative agenda calls for a $10 environmental registration fee per vehicle. The group also wants an increase in the amount of sales tax currently dedicated to mass transit.
The fee could raise an estimated $52 million for mass transit across the state, ITA Executive Director Kent McDaniel told The Times of Munster.
“Transportation problems don’t end at the city limits,” McDaniel said.
That comment sort of tells us where they’re coming from. They don’t care that much how we get around in town (though I’m sure they’d be happy to see every car in the country scrapped). They mostly want to keep us off the highways between Fort Wayne and Indy and Gary and South Bend and Evansville and anywhere else. Good luck with that. Maybe our current awareness that fuel is a finite commodity will last, but I doubt it. We’re so intent on individual pursuits here that mass transit — having to do our business by somebody’s else’s schedule — has never caught on here and never will.
Amid the blizzard of résumés blanketing Washington as the Obama era dawns, there is a superbly qualified candidate for full employment whose name has been overlooked. We refer, of course, to William Jefferson Clinton, America’s 42nd chief executive and commander in chief. Yet now, by a wonderful combination of circumstances, comes an opportunity to harness his unquestioned political talents to benefit his country, the Democratic Party, New York state and his spouse. If, as is expected, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes secretary of state, New York Gov. David Paterson could send her husband to the U.S. Senate.
[. . .]
Who in his party could question so historic and dazzling a choice? In a stroke, the appointment would provide Sen. Clinton’s indefatigable husband with a fitting day job, serve the interests of a state beset by a meltdown in its most vital economic sector and offer a refreshing reverse twist on a tradition whereby deceased male senators, representatives or governors are succeeded by their widows.
We’re never going to get rid of them, are we? They ought to winding down about the time Chelsea is ready for her run. Don’t forget, women got skipped over for their turn at the White House.
A quarter century of answering the phone has netted more than 29,000 crime tips, helping lead to more than 8,000 arrests.
Those tips were a factor in more than 9,000 solved crimes, including 68 homicides.
Pretty impressive numbers. Police can’t always get as much cooperation as they need when people have to be identified as the source. Even when there isn’t a fear of retaliation, there can be strong feelings against being a “snitch.” If anonymity and cash are what it takes to make the city safer, so be it.
At least the BMV is smart enough to know when to back down:
The state Bureau of Motor Vehicles has ditched a new rule that prohibited the mention of God on personalized license plates.
The rule, which took effect Nov. 6, had drawn protests from people who for years had bought license plates with sayings that included ‘‘Be Gods” and ‘‘God Can.”
BMV Commissioner Ron Stiver said Tuesday he decided to reverse the policy, which prohibited vanity plates referring to race, religion, deity, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or political party or affiliation.
The policy was ‘‘well-intended and legally defensible,” Stiver told The Indianapolis Star. ‘‘At the end of the day, it comes down to what makes the most common sense.”
The BMV will return to its previous practice of having a committee of BMV employees review each request for a personalized license plate, deciding whether the plate ‘‘carries a connotation offensive to good taste and decency or would be misleading.”
I’m sure the policy was well-intended, but I’m not certain about the “legally defensible” part, and I bet Stiver isn’t, either, given the state’s own “In God we Trust” plates. Suppose I can get away with SWLMFSM (Straight, White, Libertarian Male in support of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) plates?
Another sign the economy is really in the tank – when even the nerds can’t be counted on the feed their obsession:
No Romulan ale or Klingon blood pie for “Star Trek” fans this weekend in Indianapolis.
Days before the long-running annual “Star Trek” convention on the Eastside, the event’s national organizer has pulled the plug. And that’s left local organizers scrambling at warp speed to cobble together a replacement event.
“I’m sure a lot (of) it was because of the economy,” said Kim Huff, convention chair for the local Starbase Indy fan club. “I don’t doubt some of the numbers were down. The economy has been bad for everyone.”
No, Kim, it has nothing to do with the economy. The Enterprise had to drop out of warp on the way here to deal with an infestation of Tribbles on Altair IV. Have you people at Starbase Indy lost your communicators, or is there too much interference in Mom and Dad’s basement?
The multicultural apologists for America’s past are tolerable as long as they just shoot their mouths off once in a while, then slink away to wallow in the guilt they so crave. But sometimes they get out of hand:
Protesters descended Tuesday on Condit Elementary School in Claremont, tersely arguing over the construction-paper pilgrim and Native American costumes worn by kindergartners at a decades-old Thanksgiving tradition. Police were called to the school when tensions rose.
Officers also were monitoring Claremont Unified Supt. David Cash’s home after he received hate mail and told police that he feared for his safety.
Despite a four-decades history, school officials had decided to eliminate the Native American and Pilgrim costumes after complaints from some parents that they were “demeaning and stereotypical.” Not to be thwarted, some kids showed up in homemade costumes, and school officials didn’t force them to remove them. That was too much for the protesters, who showed up with signs that said, “Don’t Celebrate Genocide.”
And so it begins for another year. Happy feel-good-but-don’t celebrate-anything-specific holidays!
“Lost cause” update, in a Detroit Free Press interview with Harry Reid:
Q: With more Democrats in the Senate and the House and a Democrat in the White House, how do you see congressional efforts playing out on such issues as health care and immigration?
A: On immigration, there’s been an agreement between (President-elect Barack) Obama and (Arizona Republican Sen. John) McCain to move forward on that. … We’ll do that. We have to get this economy stuff figured out first, so I think we’ll have a shot at doing something on health care in the next Congress for sure.
Q: Will there be as much of a fight on immigration as last time?
A: We’ve got McCain and we’ve got a few others. I don’t expect much of a fight at all.
If Obama and McCain have reached agreement, it pretty much means amnesty for all the illegal immigrants already here and a phony “get tough” plan that will do nothing to keep any more from coming. Of course, they do have to get that pesky “economy stuff” sorted out first, so maybe they’ll figure out that now, when they just keep piling bailout on bailout and most Americans are beginning to see what a shell game it is, is not the time to enact a plan that will further enrage at least half of us. I know, I’m a dreamer.
And do they really mean to pick this fight early in the year? Some want to:
But Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., said if lawmakers don’t consider the issue early, it could “slide into midterms” — the 2010 election — and again become a contentious campaign issue.
“This is one of those issues that needs to be done early on,” said Menendez, noting that it has been difficult for Congress to approve even bipartisan measures such as the Dream Act.
The legislation, which would allow children of illegal immigrants more access to college and citizenship, is one measure that could pass next year, experts say.
So, get it done early, and maybe by midterm elections, the voters will have forgotten all about it. Good luck with that.
A new informational video on the Indiana Supreme Court’s Web site is intended to help people who want to represent themselves in court.
The 46-minute video, “Family Matters: Choosing to Represent Yourself in Court,” is aimed at helping people represent themselves in cases such as divorces, mortgage foreclosures, protective orders and small claims.
Just kidding. I’m all for anything we can do to get the law back into the hands of the ordinary people it is supposed to protect. Not that I need such instruction myself, being a verteran watcher of “Perry Mason” and “Matlock” and “L.A. Law” and “The Defenders.” All you have to do is make the prosecutor look foolish, outwit the senile old judge and get the jury eating out of your hand. Piece of cake.
Here’s the video. “The (Indiana Supreme) Court and its representatives want your court experience to be a positive one.” Cool. Does that mean I get to win? ‘Cause, you know, that’s what would make it positive for me.
After being skewered by Congress and lampooned on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” the CEOs of Detroit’s three automakers may end up making their return trip to Washington by car as they seek a federal bailout.
The Detroit area’s auto industry, whose livelihood depends on the health of Chrysler LLC, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. spent the weekend e-mailing and discussing how to set up a giant car caravan to seek help from Congress.
Caravan? Why don’t they just bite the bullet and do a real car pool? I want to know which one makes them late because he isn’t ready on time, which one talks too much, which one always has to have another rest room stop, which one makes them go back because he thinks he left the stove on, which ones whines incessantly “Are we there yet?”, which one gets to ride in front with Dad and stick his tongue out at the one in the back seat and which one gets them lost because he knows which way to go, dammit, and just never you mind what that stupid sign said. I mean, if they want to really convince us they understand ordinary folks, come on!
Ouch. Zogby did a poll right after the election that found Americans don’t really trust the media and that Republicans are more distrustful than Democrats – big surprise. Here’s the distressing part:
Nearly 80% of respondents consider national television news to be unreliable and 84% consider radio to be unreliable.
According to 37.6% of those surveyed, news sources on the Internet are considered to be the most reliable
Now, I don’t want to get into the whole “Internet is the most trusted source for news” debate that I’m sure others will want to engage in. TV and radio can defend themselves. But newspapers are so little regarded that they aren’t even asked about? We may be in deep trouble right now, but a great deal of the news on TV, radio and the Internet, originates with newspapers, OK? Without us, none of those sorry pundits would have a damn thing to talk about.
Indiana University has demonstrated how to beat the rap: Slap your own wrist, then no one else will have to:
The Hoosiers received three years’ probation and no further punishments beyond those previously self-imposed and already served or being served.
[. . .]
“I don’t want to say it’s a reprieve for Indiana, but they’re being seen by the NCAA as much less culpable,” said Michael McCann, a sports law expert from Vermont Law School. “Maybe this is their reward for being forthcoming, and it’s a message to other schools: Be honest and you won’t be punished nearly as much. The steps Indiana took appear to be the right ones.”
Kelvin Sampson, on the other hand, is essentially banned from the NCAA for five years, for being who he is and doing, therefore, what IU knew he would do and wanted him to do, which was to recruit the best pretend-student players he could find so that the team would win lots of games, the alumni would be happy, and the school would rake in lots of money. But when he got caught crossing the sham lines made by the NCAA to somehow make this sordid endeavor look respectable, he refused to fall on his sword and therefore make the school look bad.
Sad to say, I’m one of the millions who made this farce possible by waching the games and actually caring about who won the damn things.
Lori Drew seems like a pretty despicable person. For her part in the hoax that led a 13-year-old girl to commit suicide, she deserves eternal condemnation. But it was clear that she didn’t really violate the law. She was cruel, thoughtless and heartless, yes, but not a criminal. The prosecuting attorney in Missouri said as much when he declined to prosecute. But U.S. Attorney Thomas O’Brien didn’t want to let her “get away with it,” so succumbed to the Al Capone/O.J. Simpson Syndrome — if we can’t get her for that, we’ll get her for something. So he used the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, a law aimed at hackers, to allege that Drew intentionally accessed MySpace servers “without authorization.” There’s just one small problem with that, as Jacom Sullum explains:
But the charges did not fit the facts of the case. O’Brien claimed Drew’s access to MySpace’s computers was unauthorized because she violated the social networking site’s terms of service (TOS) by providing false information and harassing another user. But he never presented any evidence that Drew saw MySpace’s TOS, let alone agreed to them.
Furthermore, O’Brien’s interpretation of the law would make criminals of us all. Shortly after the indictment, Orin Kerr, a George Washington University law professor who later volunteered as a pro bono attorney for Drew, noted, “Since everyone who uses computers violates dozens of different TOS every day, the theory would make everyone who uses computers a felon.”
The Drew trial has bothered me from the start, and Sullum puts his finger on how it perverts the law and why it should worry us all. The law is meant to carefully — and coldly, analytically — prescribe and proscribe our actions so we know how to behave toward one another and what the consequences are if we don’t behave that way. The law is supposed to be a substitute for the hot passions of the anger that leads to revenge, not a tool of it. The law isn’t to be used to “get” people we don’t like. If we encourage vigilantes like O’Brien — and that’s what he is — to use the law as a blunt instrument to punish mean people we can’t figure out how to get rid of, we are giving our implicit approval for such tactics to be used against us, too.
There is an exchange I love to quote from “A Man for All Seasons” between Sir Thomas More and William Roper — but I don’t think I’ve done so on this blog yet. Roper has criticized More for giving “the Devil the benefit of law.” More asks him if he’d cut a road through the law to get after the Devil, and Roper says he would cut down “every law in England” to do that. More then says:
Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!
So, like a lot of family members faced with funeral expenses, especially in these tough financial times, Mrs. Pickett was taken aback at the cost of laying her mother to rest.
“A very, very simple cremation, no urn, just a plastic box, guest book, memorial cards,” she says, listing the expenses, which she tried to keep low.
For the memorial service, she rented the local inn at a municipal park for $430, but supplied her own boom box for music so she didn’t have to pay an extra $100 to use the sound system. Co-workers and her employer provided the food for the 50 or so guests who attended.
[. . .]
It was even simpler than Mrs. Pickett had first envisioned. And still the grand total was about $3,300.
I have mixed feelings about funerals. They seem to cost an awful lot of money at a time when families have trouble making sensible decisions about money. But I’ve been to enough of them to know that the distraction provided by the rituals helps loved ones get through the period of numbness when they’re not sure yet how they’re going to cope. I’ve been torn about my own sendoff, at times thinking I wanted all my loved ones to throw an elaborate celebration of my life lasting for days, sometimes thinking I’d rather just have my ashes put in a coffee can and taken to the Appalachians and thrown into the wind.
Finally, I realized I don’t care one way or the other. Ain’t really my party.
My first impression is that people like Gail Collins are delusional and should be under lock and key in an asylum somewhere, given all they are willing to ignore, not the least of which are the requirements of the Constitution, the incredible logistic necessities of the intricate transition process, the safety and well-being of the United States and common sense. Then I give them the benefit of the doubt and realize they are just giving in to wretched rhetorical excess for the pleasure of having one last go-around at Bush Derangement Syndrome:
Thanksgiving is this week, and President Bush could make it a really special holiday by resigning.
Seriously. We have an economy that’s crashing and a vacuum at the top. Bush - who just took a trip to Peru to meet with Asian leaders who no longer care what he thinks - hasn’t got the clout, or possibly even the energy, to do anything useful.
[. . .]
Putting President-elect Barack Obama in charge immediately isn’t impossible. Vice President Dick Cheney, obviously, would have to quit as well as Bush. In fact, just to be on the safe side, the vice president ought to turn in his resignation first. (We’re desperate, but not crazy.) Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would become president until Jan. 20. Obviously, she’d defer to her party’s incoming chief executive, and Obama could begin governing.
That’s about the silliest of all the “Bush should just go now” pieces I’ve seen so far, and that’s saying something. What the hell are these people going to do when Bush is gone and they have to deal with the day-to-day reality of discovering their guy in the White House is just another politician? Yes, they can use up some energy by beating back Obama Derangment Syndrome — isit possible there are actually some shallow Republicans out there who think the problem is just that one person they simplemindedly zero in on as the devil?Tsk, tsk. But that will get them only through around Jan. 25.
Don’t you hate a certain kind of snitch? Not the witness who cooperates with police and helps bring a criminal to justice. Not the whistleblower who brings government corruption to light. I mean the petty kind of snitch who does it out of pure meanness. The goody two-shoes who was always running to the principal’s office. The office troublemaker who listens in on conversations, then tattles to the boss. The neighbor who tries to win a running dispute by calling code enforcment.
And the kind of fan the NFL apparently wants to turn us into:
The New England game was the first use of Lucas Oil Stadium’s new text-messaging system that allows fans to use their cell phones to quickly and anonymously report problems to stadium security. The NFL expects the technology to be in place in all its stadiums by the end of the season.
Larry Hall, the Colts’ vice president of ticket operations and guest services, expects the text system to get more use as fan awareness increases. It can be used for housekeeping issues and medical emergencies, as well as reporting unruly behavior.
I’m sure there are a few drunk and rowdy fans who occasionally get out of hand, but, as the story noted, Colts fans are among the most polite in the league. The benefit of getting security to those rowdy fans a little quicker seems likely to be outweighed by the number of fussbudgets who will report anything at all they don’t like. People who go to football games like to root for the home team, which means they are likely to stand up and yell from time to time. People who want to experience the game without all that messy human interaction should probably just get a TV with a bigger screen.
I haven’t read “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” the epistolary novel of teen angst from the 1990s, so I have no idea how good it is. It got a four-and-a-half star rating from the 1,269 amazon.com readers who reviewed it, but Publishers Weekly was a little snippy, describing it as a “trite coming of age novel” with a protagonist it is hoped will eventually find a suitable girlfriend and “increase his vocabulary.”
It does seem to be the sort of book teens rave about, as we all did about “Catcher in the Rye,” because its autor seems to “get” youthful anxieties. About 50 of them showed up a a Portage school board meeting to support the book, which had been pulled from the 9th-grade curriculum after a committee review based on a parent’s complaint. But the board decided to stick with the original decision because the book deals with “substance abuse, sexuality and strong language.”
A committee made up of administrators, teachers and parents reviewed the book and decided the book shouldn’t be part of the ninth grade curriculum, although members did recommend copies should be put in the library.
Students at the meeting said they already deal with many of the issues in the book and that reading it as part of a class gives them the chance to talk to their teachers about them.
The board’s decision seems reasonable enough. The book isn’t really “banned,” since any student can check it out of the library, but the school doesn’t have to be seen as giving its imprimatur to the book’s message. Everybody wins.
But the students who wanted to talk to their teachers about the book raised a good point. If the book really isn’t suitable for students that age, it shouldn’t even be in the school. If the board lets it stay in the library, it must not be all that harmful. But if it contains material that requires thought and might raise a lot of questions, is it better to just let students experience the book on their own, or would it be better for an adult to take them through it and discuss the issues involved?
Just asking. Seems like the school board wants to have it both ways and is doing the worst by the kids it can possibly do in the process.
Twenty states require teens to have 50 hours of driving practice before they get a license, and Indiana is one of only 10 states that have no practice requirements at all. So this seems reasonable:
Teenagers would be required to complete at least 50 hours of supervised driving practice and wait longer before getting an Indiana driver’s license under a proposed bill unveiled by lawmakers Monday.
The bill, aimed at reducing the number of crashes caused by young people, also would ban teen drivers from using cell phones and handsfree devices while driving. Probationary drivers would have to display a placard issued by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles in the rear window of their vehicle.
This is a “graduated license” proposal that would lift certain restrictions (such as no passengers during the first 180 days and no late-night driving) being lifted as the driver progressed. Drivers wouldn’t get an unrestricted driver’s license before age 18, which sounds about right. Driving would then become an adult privelege, one of those benefits you get after high school. Teen brains — especially the areas governing judgment and risk assessment – aren’t as well developed as adult ones. Any law that tames their driving habits until they can mature a little is a good move.
An Evansville man being arrested on accusations of public intoxication and disorderly conduct received a new charge when he allegedly offered to buy the arresting officers dinner if they would let him go.
Police say Angelo J. Cooper, 32, later changed the offer to $10 and a toaster before threatening to harm the officers a short time after they declined. Cooper is being held today in the Vanderburgh County Jail on charges including bribing a public servant, a Class C felony, and intimidation, a Class D felony.
Bribes aren’t what they used to be, are they? Tough economy.
None of the offers were accepted, the police dutifully noted and the newspaper obligingly reported. Reminds me of a joke that I can’t really tell here. It involves a woman and her husband and a retiring mailman, and the punchline has the woman saying to the mailman, “But breakfast was my idea.” The toaster and the $10 were just the booze talking, but I bet dinner was his idea.
In Forbes, Reihan Salam, an associate editor of The Atlantic, has a nice write-up on Mitch Daniels as one of a long line of “sober Republican pragmatists” from which Indiana has benefited. Depending on what the landscape looks like in 2012, such a common-sense conservative could even be a good match in a run against Barack Obama:
There will never be a cult of personality around Daniels, who is hardly known for his soaring rhetoric. He’s a mild-mannered, unassuming and unpretentious Midwesterner. Unlike Obama, he hasn’t exactly had a meteoric rise. Instead, Daniels is an experienced executive with a record of turning dysfunctional governments around. Best of all, Daniels is not under the illusion that government is meant to give purpose and meaning to our lives–the politics of “Yes We Can.” Rather, Daniels is offering a politics of “Yes You Can.” He’s focused on making sure that government does a few things well, and that it helps and does not hinder hardworking families who are trying to get ahead. Republicans should follow his lead.
I dunno. Seems like a reach to me, though I agree with most of what he says about Daniels. And since my record is so good — after all, I predicted John McCain’s early demise in the GOP primary and said I wouldn’t mind at all seeing a Fred Thompson-Hillary Clinton race — you should definitely pay attention to me.
Suddenly, cash is back. Shoppers are planning on cutting back on Christmas this year. And when they do buy:
A shift to cash is one of the changes in consumer behavior that has emerged since the financial meltdown that could depress consumer spending this holiday season and affect shoppers’ habits long afterward. Analysts think Americans are likely to stick with buying only what they can afford, just as their parents or grandparents did after the Great Depression.
That’s an Indiana story. There’s a national one in much the same vein. I’m not sure what to make of it, since I’m one of the new converts to a cashless society. I resisted for a long time — I felt naked and unprepared for the day unless I had at least $100 in cash on me. But then I finally started using a debit card, then I got an account for online banking to pay the bills. Never mind paper money — I barely even use a checkbook anymore.
There is something, I don’t know, ethereal about going cashless. It sometimes doesn’t feel like real transactions in the real world. I’m not spending money, I’m just signing my name or clicking the mouse button, and that makes the numbers go down in one column and up in another one. There’s no sense that I’m now exchanging the hours I worked for the goods or services produced by the hours somebody else worked.
If the return-to-cash thing catches on, maybe it will be one good result of this meltdown in the long run. We’ve needed to give up our live-for-today-pay-for-it-tomorrow mentality. Maybe we can build an economy based on saving and investment instead of consumption:
The only good thing that I can possibly think of about this financial crisis is that it may break the rat race of constantly ratcheting consumption, which has surrounded most Americans with nice things that don’t really make them happy.
This may be a pot-calling-the-kettle-black kind of thing. I’ve spent a good many years waiting for the newest toys (children’s and adult) to come along, and I still like my electronic gadgets. But at a certain point in your life, you realize that stuff is just that. If my house caught on fire, I’d grab the cats and my laptop, and maybe some photos if there were time. But the rest? A momentary regret or two, then move on.
Barack Obama may be a believer in public education, but his support goes only so far:
It is the Quaker ethos that is the most striking feature of Sidwell Friends School, the one chosen by President-elect Obama for his daughters Sasha and Malia. A sense of community, equality and friendship runs through every classroom: children are encouraged to strive for their best, but to value above all their relations with each other and their place in the school family.
We should not begrudge the Obamas for this choice at all. They acted in the best interests of their children. But most parents, especially those trapped in the worst public school systems, would like to have such a choice. The next time Obama speaks about vouchers (he’s been against them, but there are vague rumblings that he might be persuaded to be for them), he should make it clear that he understands this.
Does John Madden really say anything? I don’t mean ever – he always has interesting thoughts on football, as here, where he talks about what it was like to coach a lot of characters on the Oakland team:
When a character would come in, he didn’t lead the band; the band was being led by pretty solid guys. You had that. It was just a break in the monotony. Ted Hendricks was probably the biggest combination of a guy that was a character, great player, Hall of Famer. You don’t want characters just because they’re characters - ‘Boy, I got a whole bunch of characters, none of them can play football, but they’re funnier than hell.’ I got Ted Hendricks, who was a great player, a Hall of Fame player, now he’s a character. I liked that, too.
I mean when he’s doing a football game. Before the Indianapolis-San Diego game last night, Al Michaels asked him what San Diego had to do to win. Well, Madden said, the first thing was that the quarterback had to have a good night. And he had to have support from his receivers and the line. But a good offense wouldn’t be enough, because Indianapolis had so many weapons, so the defense had to have a really good game, too, and they especially needed to penetrate so they could get to Peyton Manning. And in the end, that might not be enough, either, so the special teams had to be sharp, too. He talked, I swear, for three minutes, and what he basically said was: For San Diego to win, the offense, defense and special teams have to play well. At least he didn’t say, and they have to score the most points.
I think we all suffer from John Madden’s Disease from time to time, especially when we’re in territory so familiar to us. I’ve felt a twinge of it when doing my 20th blog post on illegal immigration or my hundredth editorial on fiscal restraint. What the hell did I just use 700 words to say? That if the federal government is serious about budget deficits, it has to spend less? Brilliant! But probably more than half of the talk we do in day-to-day life is like that, too. Blah, blah, blah the weather. Blah, blah, blah, my co-worker. Blah, blah, blah, this town sure has changed. Makes me occasionally want to blurt out something inappropriate or out of context just to see if people are paying attention enough to wish to have a real conversation.
We lost the genius of Jimi Hendrix too soon, but Jim Morrison died at about the right age!
Welcome to the New & Improved Opening Arguments, with 20 percent more battery life and only half the calories!
OK, you got me, it’s exactly the same as the Old & Unimproved Opening Arguments. It has just been moved to a new address because of . . . well, because the people in charge of such things want to keep busy, for reasons that are probably above my pay grade to undersand. Something to do with better accounting for vistitors and ad revenue and all that boring business stuff. There are still a few glitches. The recent comments aren’t showing, for one, and the 20-some links I most recently added to the blogroll aren’t there, either. But these will be fixed, I’m told.
I do intend to write less about politics and more about the rest of life, now that the election is over. But, looking over the news just waiting to be commented on today, I see that this might not be a sudden switch.
And if you have any ideas for how this blog might be improved to suit what you expect from a blog, go start your own blog. Well, that got us off to a good start, didn’t it?
