May Sweeps
Most of you know that the May Sweeps period begins on television tonight, helping to establish local advertising rates for the coming year. But did you know that it's Sweeps time in the blogosphere as well. It's true. We're trying to budget for next Fall just like our cousins in the cathode-ray tube. That's why today the CM Archives is introducing a scandalous new gay story arc. It's probably a one-time shot, but it's called
"A Country Boy Finds His Prince."You've got to hand it to the Cupids at the
Carlyle Group Dating Service. It I think it's true love.
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The witch-hunt for steroids continues on Capitol Hill this week. Somehow, in a time when baseball players wear red-tinted contact lenses to better see the seams on the ball, when the FDA approves the use of Human Growth Hormone for short, healthy children, and the Chairman of the Congressional Committee investigating steroid use pushes Laser Eye Surgery back at his home in Virginia, the phrase
performance enhancement has become synonymous with cheating. I'll let the salient Bill Saletan finish the
thought.
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The Des Moines Register still has the results posted for the Iowans in the Boston Marathon.
Check out the big man on top.
The 96th running of the Drake Relays is underway in Des Moines. I think it would be funny if radio and television reporters at the scene pretended to be shot when starting guns go off during their reports.
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Finally tonight,
this guy is dead. I never knew his name until now, and I have only vague memories of "Lou Grant," but this gentleman has always embodied warm and safe television for me. He was one of the great, comforting voices of our time. I'm going to have some toast tonight with Smuckers jam spread atop it. I think it would be a nice gesture if you did the same.
Moeller TV Listings 4/28
The Cards hit the Superstation this weekend. Pay particular attention to Friday night's Cards/Braves match-up in which former Oakland aces Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder do battle. Hudson is 2-0, with an 0.96 ERA for the Braves in April, while Mulder is coming off a 10 inning shutout effort against Houston, in which he reminded Roger Clemens why he should have retired after the Cardinals' Game 7 polishing last year.
The Simpsons celebrate #350
A favorite TV show of ours, "The Simpsons," will air it's 350th episode Sunday. At a birthday party for the show in Los Angeles on Sunday, creator Matt Groening singled out some of his favorite episodes. "There's a bunch I really like. I love 'Bart Sells His Soul,' the old episode (from 1995) where he sold his soul to Milhouse for five bucks. I love the one where we had Frank Grimes ['Homer's Enemy,' from 1997]. And I like an episode we have coming up where Bart converts to Catholicism."
The episode in question was originally scheduled to air earlier this month, but was postponed after the death of the pope. It will now air May 15th. Groening says the network made the decision to delay the broadcast. "We think it's offensive whenever you run it," he said.
How long will the series continue? Groening was quoted in the New York Times Sunday as saying, "the show has almost reached its halfway point." It's widely believed that he was joking.
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Bad news this week for fans of manure spills: The Chronic Complainer bill has failed to make it through "funnel week" in the Iowa Legislature. The bill was intended to keep neighbors of factory farms from filing odor and air quality complaints against animal-feeding operations. Under law, House File 701 would have defined as a "chronic complainer" anyone who, within two years, files three or more complaints that aren't worded to allege specific law violations. The complaintant would be liable to pay damages to the factory owner and restitution to the state.
Isn't it comforting that lobbyists are now writing so many of the bills being prepared at the statehouse? In case you were wondering, Doug Struyk of Council Bluffs introduced the legislation. He was backed by the Iowa Farm Bureau, the Iowa Poultry Association, and the Iowa Agribusiness Association. He says he doesn't know how widespread the problem of filing false environmental nuisance bills has become, but "you hear stories."
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Trivia Question of the Day: Paul McCartney will open the new Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines with a concert in October. Tickets went on sale Monday morning through Chris' employer, Clear Channel Communications. Choose the Paul McCartney song that best describes Chris' ability to score tickets to the show for himself, his friends, and his family.
a) "No More Lonely Nights"
b) "Let 'Em In"
c) "Dress Me Up as a Robber"
d) "Too Many People"
e) "Let It Be"
Answer below.
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Here's a favorite anecdote from the new Tony LaRussa book, "3 Nights in August:"
"In 1984 against Toronto, Lloyd Moseby came up in the late innings, with the White Sox clinging to a one-run lead and runners on second and third with two outs. Still in the habit of inquiring over the inevitable, LaRussa came out to the mound to ask (Hall-of-Fame pitcher, Tom) Seaver how he felt. But Seaver refused to sugarcoat it:
'I don't have much else left.'
And then he proceeded to tell LaRussa precisely how he was going to pitch to Moseby: purposely run the count on him to 3-1 to lull him into a false sense of superiority, give him a hitter's count, then get him out with a changeup.
'Don't worry about it,' he told LaRussa.
LaRussa trotted back to the dugout, trying not to worry about it. He watched as Seaver threw a fastball in and off the plate to run the count to 3-1. Then he watched as Seaver threw Moseby a changeup that was down and away but still fat enough to desire. Moseby swung, his timing upset by the fastball Seaver had just thrown. He popped the ball up behind third base to end the inning."
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Trivia Answer: I will accept
d or
e. Sorry.
Some late April baseball thoughts
I say with great confidence that the most extreme bias by the national news media is not left-wing, right wing, or even profit-based (at least not directly.) It's on behalf of Boston and New York sports teams against the rest of the sports world.
Because the issue of balanced sports coverage is limited to the sports page, anchors and reporters feel no obligation to hide their colors. It's completely accepted practice that East Coast teams playing in states that border Connecticut get twice or three times the amount of coverage that other teams get because of their large population bases.
ESPN's
Sportscenter, the American television show in most dire need of a well-resourced competitor, covered yesterday's Red Sox/Devil Rays brawl in Tampa in huffy detail. The Red Sox, since winning the World Series in a very professional manner, have behaved abominably on and off the field. Miffed by high and tight pitches by the D-Rays' Lance Carter yesterday, Boston sluggers Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz both staged re-enactions of that famous play-- "I'm going to charge the mound, but I'm going to do it very slowly so the catcher has time to step between us. Then I'll just point my bat at the pitcher while my teammates rush onto the field." The ESPN anchor, whose name I neither know nor care about, said (I'm paraphrasing all,) "listen to Devil Rays' broadcaster Joe Magrane." Magrane: "Look at Curt Schilling out there running his mouth. What else is new? How old is he? Shouldn't he have a walker with him?"
Now, just a note about Magrane: he's a former Cardinals pitcher, and a favorite one of mine. He was the NL ERA leader in 1988, and an 18 game winner in 1989. He used to wear a t-shirt under his jersey that read, "Throw Strikes, Babe Ruth is dead," and he once told reporters that he was reading a book called "JFK, The Man and the Airport."
Anyway, this stooge anchor- and Craig Kilborn wannabe- adds, "By the way, Magrane won 57 games in his career." Huh? Really, and how many did you win? He'd probably never heard of Magrane before viewing the tape. Am I the only person that thinks this is blatant sucking up to Boston fans? Maybe it's me.
God, I hate Curt Schilling.
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It's time for a round of
Real/Not for Real. Four MLB teams have winning percentages of .600 or better this morning...
Baltimore (12-7), however, is
Not for Real. The Orioles will stay near the head of the pack in the AL East for another month or so, but they don't have the pitching at the front or the back end to hang with the ESPN clubs in the division.
The Chicago White Sox (15-4) are
Not for Real. You have to like their starting pitching, but this Ozzie Guillen thing is going to blow. This guy's
off his rocker, and it takes precious little to hurt Frank Thomas' feelings. The Sox are a good club, but the Twins are going to be division champs again, and the Wild Card will come from the East.
The Los Angeles Dodgers (13-5) are
For Real. I'm shocked that the absence of Barry Bonds would have such an immediate impact on the NL Western Division. The Los Angeles Seniors are off to a fabulous start, and they've done it without closer Eric Gagne, and slugger Jayson Werth, a guy who impressed me enormously in the playoffs. Brad Penny didn't make his first start until Sunday, and it looks like he's ready to go as well. The Dodgers are headed back to the playoffs, and they'll be tough to beat, especially at home.
St. Louis (12-5) is
For Real. Despite 105 regular season wins last season and wins in 9 of their first 14 games this year, the Cardinals were 15th in last week's CNNSI power rankings. How can this be? Because the national press doesn't know how good Chris Carpenter is. His late-season injury kept him out of the October spotlight last year, but this year will be different for the pitcher and the team. There might be little margin for error for the Cubs, who need to fix their bullpen, and the Astros, who need to find a way to score runs. The Cards have been cruising early despite slow starts by their big sluggers. If the Cards remain healthy, and get pitching from Mark Mulder and Matt Morris like they did last week, the division is wrapped up already.
Bonehead derails baseball
Ross Peterson and I got some bad news Saturday-- The Baseball Show on KXNO will be pre-empted again this week. The Iowa Cubs were forced into a Sunday afternoon doubleheader after Saturday's game was lost to a power outage. A one-car accident outside Greer Stadium in Nashville resulted in a downed power pole, cutting off power to the facility.
Last week, we had a pretty good start to the show. We did ninety minutes before the Phillies/Braves game, introducing the concept of the show and recapping the early season highlights. Ross informed me that the radio station is actually available on-line. The I-Cubs stream the broadcasts of their games and keep the station on-line 24/7. (This is probably in violation of Clear Channel company policy, so lets keep this between us.) Check your sound card on
this site, and we'll meet you there Sunday, May 1st at 5:06pm after the I-Cubs/Memphis game.
The Age of Responsibility
The head of the National Association of Broadcasters, who should be speaking out on behalf of the First Amendment, is suggesting that indecency regulations be extended to cable and satellite. NAB President and CEO Eddie Fritts says broadcasters prefer "responsible industry self-regulation" to government action, but added, "If Congress decides to regulate broadcasters for indecency, does it make any sense for cable, satellite TV (and) radio to get a free pass?"
The answer to Fritts' question is yes. It makes sense because the government owns the broadcasting spectrum. They do not own the cable service and satellite technology that brings information and entertainment into our homes.
Fritts' comments, of course, reflect the broadcasters' selfish financial interest. Bored and dissatisfied consumers have been abandoning broadcast television and radio in droves over two decades, as broadcast fare becomes more bland, repetitious, and corporate-driven.
Cable and satellite companies have already taken critical steps to block questionable material. Virtually every cable system offers technology that locks out channels and programs. Inherently, the process of cable subscription provides parental control.
Ironically, even the Babysitter-in-chief George W. Bush is not advocating this expansion. "I think there ought to be a standard," he said last week, "On the other hand, I fully understand that the final edit, or the final decision is a parent turning off the TV."
Whoa! Here we have the President actually advocating policy in step with his rhetoric regarding personal responsibility. So, of course, a White House spokesperson stepped in Friday to annouce that Bush had "misspoke." Apparently, he was simply expressing support for legislation that passed the House increasing broadcasting fines, not addressing cable and satellite technology. These moments of unintentional honesty are the only benefits of having a dunce as President.
Eddie Fritts won't be making many more speeches. He's stepping down from the position he's held for 23 years as soon as a successor can be found. Unfortunately, support for cable and satellite regulation is NAB policy.
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Quote of the day:George W. Bush, after signing the rewrite of the Code that makes it more difficult to file for bankruptcy:
"Bankruptcy should always be a last resort in our legal system. If someone does not pay his or her debts, the rest of society ends up paying for them."
Statistic of the day:Our national debt, 11:22pm cst, 4/21/05--- $7,784,737,622,270.32
The Gospel according to Karl Rove
I've been trying to go lightly on the Roman Catholic church this month. Pope John Paul II didn't do the world any favors by denying women a place in his church's leadership hierarchy, and opposing gay rights and family planning programs across the globe, even as millions died of AIDS in the developing world. And while the mainstream media could have at least
acknowledged Paul's shortcomings, his passing hardly seemed like the time to
dwell on these shortcomings.
The selection of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany as the new pope, however, must be considered a slap in the face to the enlightened world, and it stands to be an obstacle to peace and social justice in the world. It's hard to imagine a more "in-your-face" conservative than Ratzinger. A Vatican reporter for the National Catholic Register recently wrote, "Indeed, it would be hard to find a Catholic controversy in the past 20 years that did not somehow involve Joseph Ratzinger."
As a Cardinal, the German Ratzinger has shown absolutely no flexibility on the issues of contraception, celibacy for priests, or the role of women in the church. Since 1981, he's headed the Vatican office that oversees doctrine. In 1987, he intervened in the case of Rev. Charles Curran, stripping the man of his right to teach because he encouraged dissent. The new pontiff has strongly opposed efforts to re-write Scriptures in gender-inclusive language. Last year, he was the man who told American bishops it was OK to deny Communion to those who support such "manifest grave sin" as abortion and euthanasia. But like many conservative bishops, he allowed exemptions for church members at odds with the church's stance on the death penalty or its anti-war position in Iraq.
The College of Cardinals could have sent a powerful message of inclusion to the developing world by selecting a pope from Africa or South America. They could have demonstrated a commitment towards reform to an increasingly-secularized Europe and a scandal-shaken America. [Of course, they could have also shown this commitment by refusing to allow former archbishop, Cardinal Bernard Law, to lead a funeral Mass for Pope John Paul in Rome last week. (Court documents show that Law shuttled known pedophile priests from parish to parish without informing worshippers during his tenure in Boston.) Law was even allowed to participate in the selection of the new pope, even as the Catholic church in America copes with the spiritual and legal fallout of the estimated 450 alleged sexual abuse claims on Law's watch.]
Cardinal Ratzinger, today, adopted the name "Benedict XVI," a move which has been interpreted by some as a gesture of reconciliation to those who have become alienated from the church in recent years. Benedict XV saw the church through the conflict of World War I, and also reached out to Muslims and Orthodox Christians during his period of leadership from 1914 to 1922.
I'm not holding my breath. Ratzinger's record as a Cardinal indicates the opposite of reconciliation will take place. Conservative Catholics will surely be pleased with today's selection, but the church, as a whole, is destined to become even more polarized. And the rest of the world will simply feel increased alienation from the Roman Catholic church. Residing outside the walled fortress of the Vatican, we'll deal with the repercussions of the new pope's medieval ideas.
Semelroth loses again
When our friend, Keystone, IA native Rob Semelroth, is not boring us with dull public health statistics, he can be found running lengthy foot races. (But what is he running
from? Am I right, people?) While finishing fifth in the Des Moines Marathon last fall, Rob's time qualified him for the Boston Marathon, the oldest and most prestigious annual distance race in the world. Today, he ran that race.
Rob signed me up for a slick e-mail service that would deliver race updates to my computer. I was to receive four updates this morning and afternoon. As it turned out it was too slick to be true, as I received only one e-mail. At the 10 kilometer mark though, Rob-- or "Bib 1183," was on a pace just off 6 minutes per mile, with a projected finish time of 2:41:34.
On-line this afternoon, I found his official finish time of 2:41:31-- and you can drop 21 ticks off that time factoring in the staggered start. That's five minutes shorter than the run time of "Pulp Fiction," good for 110th place overall, and a standing in the top 100 for his gender at #99. You can search Rob's numbers on
this page.
Among the many other things implied by these race results (such as Rob's fondness for carbohydrates,) I believe we can now make the case, definitively, that Rob-- one of the 100 greatest athletes in the world in his sport at this moment-- has established himself as the most accomplished athlete in the history of Benton Community (IA) High School. Outland Trophy winner Chad Hennings was a great college football player, but never one of the top 100 professional players, and the sport of American football is played almost no where else on the globe. I welcome your comments on this hypothesis, keeping in mind that Rob reads this.
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The "Deadwood" news keeps on a-coming. The West Virginia Surf Report, an amateur website, has calculated the total number of 'fucks' uttered in the HBO series. Season One contained 831 'fucks,' or an average of 69.3 per episode (1.23 per minute.) Season Two, excluding last night's episode for now, has seen a greatly increased rate of 'fucks,' with 688 through the first six episodes , 98.3 per episode (1.84 per minute.) That's a grand total thus far of 1519 'fucks,' or a "cumulative series 'fucks'-per-minute" of 1.45. And a Peabody.
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I keep seeing it in the paper, but I still can't figure it out-- why are they allowing the '84 Cardinals to pick the next pope? No doubt, Ozzie Smith and Bruce Sutter are Hall of Fame ballplayers, but I don't think they're even Catholic. Tito Landrum? Andy Van Slyke? Maybe, I guess, but even the Hispanic guy has a Jewish last name-- David "Green." Tommy Lasorda must be spinning in his grave.
Mea culpa
I promise no more chat about "Deadwood" for awhile, but this
website is too cool. Check it out.
The Peabodys
Two of our favorite TV shows-- "Deadwood" and "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"-- won Peabody Awards last week. The Peabodys recognize distinguished achievement in radio and television, and are administered by the faculty and students of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.
Check out the complete list of this year's winners at this
website. Also, if time permits, explore the list of past winners. "The Sopranos" won two consecutively in 1999 and 2000, and an often surprising list of other shows have won, from "The Office" (2003) to "The Bernie Mac Show" (2001) to "MTV Unplugged" (1994). There are also a whole slew of "Frontline" specials on the list.
Anchorman
I'm sitting in the anchor chair tonight as the rest of the web does my work for me...
We start with a report on the status of TV's best comedy.
"'Arrested Development' rages against the dying of the light." Adam Sternbergh
reports from New York.
In commemoration of Pamela Anderson's new series, the FDA has lifted the ban on silicone breast implants.
Here's Lauran Neergaard.
Cubs manager Dusty Baker is feuding with the media in Chicago amidst his own comments that he treats players' injuries with "holy water." Our Jay Mariotti
cuts loose from the Windy City.
The House of Representatives gives a command performance of Bizarro-Robin Hood. The AP has
details.
Finally tonight, a shout-out to music legend Johnnie Johnson, who died this morning at his St. Louis home. Johnson played blues piano, and could be heard on Chuck Berry's early classics, "School Days" and "Back in the U.S.A." He was honored by Berry with the immortal tune, "Johnny B. Goode."
Johnson was born in West Virginia, and came to St. Louis in the 1950s, where he formed his own R&B band, the Johnnie Johnson Trio. He composed much of Berry's music on the piano, then Berry converted it to guitar and wrote the lyrics. Johnson's been called the "founding father of rock-n-roll." He was inducted into Cleveland's "Rock-n-Roll Hall-of-Fame" in 2001.
He died after suffering recently from pneumonia and a kidney ailment. He was 80.
From Des Moines, I'm Chris Moeller.
Courage.
Moeller TV Listings 4/13- Free Pam's nipples!
The FOX series, "Stacked," starring Pamela Anderson, premieres tonight at 7:30 central. I'm going to give it a look. Christopher Lloyd, one of the greats, also stars, and it's created by Steven Levitan, the force behind "Just Shoot Me."
Anderson, on Howard Stern this morning, said that the network censors forced her to "tape down" her nipples since nipples can't be detected under clothing prior to 10:00 eastern. As Bill Maher says, how far are we going to go to turn America into Utah? Pornography was once brilliantly defined as "anything that gives a judge a hard-on." It says very little about these network arbiters that any suggestion of the female form-- even covered-- is considered obscene.
You must be 20 years or older to read this blog
Indiana Pacers center Jermaine O'Neal says the NBA's attempt to install an age limit on its players is racist. Commissioner David Stern has asked for a 20-year-old age limit in the next collective bargaining agreement, with incentives provided to players who defer their draft eligibility to stay in college.
O'Neal is absolutely correct in opposing this move, and I'm also willing to go along with the contention that the move has racist implications. O'Neal pointed out Monday that the two most recent Rookies of the Year have been high school draftees, and there were seven high school draftees in this year's All-Star game. How exactly do you make the case that these players are unprepared to play at the professional level?
"As a black man," O'Neal said, "you kind of think that's the reason why it's coming up. You don't hear about it in baseball or hockey. To say you have to be 20, 21 to get in the league, it's unconstitutional. If you can go into the U.S. army and fight the war at 18, why can't you play basketball for 48 minutes?"
Right, right, and right.
In football, the Maurice Claretts and the Mike Williamses of college age were denied their chance to begin earning a living, and lived as pariahs outside the pro ranks until Clarett won a court battle to enter the draft. If these players wished to keep playing competitively over the last two years, they risked life, limb, and their financial futures on the college fields.
The naysayers were silent in 1936 when Bob Feller started his big league baseball career with Cleveland at the tender age of 17, and if they weren't, they bit their tongues after he fanned 76 batters in 62 innings.
The reason you see the NFL attempt to keep a death grip on their age policy is that they want to maintain the freebie development league they have set up on college campuses. The players there are disingenuously referred to as "student-athletes," though we all know they are full-time athletes rewarding their coaches with million dollar deals and filling corporate coffers without compensation of their own.
The NBA situation adds a wrinkle to the subject in that it's a sport thoroughly dominated by African-Americans. The commissioner privately believes that the "bling-bling" youth culture of the league threatens its future marketability. This is the race factor coming into play. Whereas Feller was a "phenom" farmboy and a human interest story at whom we marveled for dominating American League hitters, even before graduating from his Van Meter, IA high school, we look with great suspicion upon the LeBron Jameses and Amare Stoudemires of the NBA. We know they can play, but we're not sure if they can handle themselves in the public spotlight? In the corporate NBA, this uncertainty is bad for business. The players' union is beginning to waver in their opposition to the age limit, as well. College age players, after all, eat up valuable positions on NBA rosters. And a man's gotta haul his own luggage in the CBA.
ESPN.com's wire story today about O'Neal's comments includes a hideously biased sentence: "O'Neal went to the NBA straight out of high school in 1996... (He) didn't blossom into the star he is today until he was dealt to the Indiana Pacers during the 2000 offseason. The obvious implication is that O'Neal needed all of what is the college standard of four years to reach his potential in the NBA. Left out of the equation, though, is how much money he made for himself and his family in those four years while ultimately reaching the same plateau.
An unscientific poll on the website revealed that roughly two-thirds of basketball fans believe the NBA
should impose a 20-year age limit on entering the league. In a similar poll, 95 percent of Americans believe they pay too much in taxes, while every one else pays the right amount.
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I'm watching the Cardinals and Reds tonight on Fox Sports Midwest. Whatever became of Barry Larkin?
Moeller TV Listings 4/12
"Frontline" producer Mike Kirk was a guest on "Drive Time Des Moines" this afternoon. If you can tear yourself away from the Cards/Reds game on TV or radio, catch his documentary "Karl Rove- The Architect," tonight at 9pm Central on PBS.
Profiles in Courage
The rest of the world has been learning a lot about the Roman Catholic church over the last couple weeks. Today, for example, I learned that you don't have to be a member of the College of Cardinals to be anointed pope. The only requirement is that you be a male baptized in the faith.
Now, far be it for me to butt in where I don't belong. After all, I'm a German-American, Missouri-Synod Lutheran converted to agnosticism. (I prefer the term "unaffiliated heretic.") But then again, the Catholic church has never hesitated to offer me advice.
So, if I were them, I would drop the prohibition on women in the clergy-- a long overdue move-- and then I would name Caroline Kennedy to be the next pope.
Assuming she wants the job, consider this: the Catholic church has never had an American pope... or an Irish one. Caroline is smart and compassionate, beloved in the Western World, and respected throughout. She's committed to human service. Her faith appears devout and humble (both admirable qualities.) She would offer the church the rock star quality they've been perpetuating this week over the grave of Pope Paul II. She's firmly committed to the church's core principals of social justice, non-violence and peace. She's respected within the various global communities that the Vatican's been apologizing to over the last two decades-- i.e., the scientists, Jews, Muslims and Eastern Orthodox Christians.
The news media would label Caroline a "radical" and "progressive" successor, but hasn't the time come for one of those, for the church's own survival. Even if you dismiss the gap between Vatican teaching and Catholic church-goers' beliefs, you have to acknowledge the increasing lack of priests as a major challenge to the church. The exclusion of women and married men, by all accounts, has lead to the shortage. A "progressive" pope, by providing a contrast to the previous one, would display the church's commitment to balance, resulting in the promotion and conservation of the church's most important principles.
She has also restrained from campaigning for the job, which, I'm told by Chris Matthews on MSNBC, is a plus.
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By the way, did you know that if you re-arrange the letters in "Chris Matthews"...?
You get "he CharMs twits."
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Norman Soloman, head of the Institute of Public Accuracy, a liberal policy think tank, supported John Kerry over Ralph Nader in the 2004 Election. Then in March, he criticized one of Kerry's principal fundraisers, Moveon.org, for refusing to take a stronger anti-war stance. In doing, he made the argument that "only clear opposition to the war can change the terms of the national debate-- taking the paths of least resistance won't get us very far."
Anti-war "leader" Medea Benjamin, the Green Party Senate candidate in California in 2000, also backed John Kerry in 2004. Now, she's criticizing Congressional Democrats for not voting against President Bush's request for an additional $81 billion dollars for the Iraqi war.
Matthew Rothschild, editor of the Progressive magazine, endorsed Kerry as well. In the magazine's last issue, he condemned 18 "spineless" Senate Democrats for backing the bankruptcy legislation that "will fill the coffers of the credit card companies while bleeding consumers dry."
Editors at the Nation magazine begged Nader in an editorial to leave the Presidential race last year, and suggested that he was damaging his own public legacy. On Inauguration Day, they wrote that Democrats would be "well-advised" to oppose Bush's agenda. They feared that "the fainthearted among them (are) already wringing their hands and sounding retreat," and declared that "an aroused progressive movement will be needed to provide the necessary backbone."
They would know from backbone, eh? Evidently, that means standing up against the corporate Democrats when it counts the least, rallying the troops until it's time to cave in again four years from now.
In their defense, though, you'd have a tough time going back to work, too, if you took a year off.
An auspicious beginning
On Jan. 16th, 1991, network television shows were pre-empted because of the start of the Persian Gulf War. One of the shows that wouldn't air that night was the pilot episode of a little NBC sitcom entitled "Seinfeld." Now the radio version of "Seinfeld," "The Baseball Show on KXnO" has endured the same opening day fate.
An early finish on the Iowa Cubs baseball game forced KXnO programming to switch to Masters Golf coverage. A resiliant Tom DeMarco then sunk a putt on the 18th to force a sudden death playoff with Tiger Woods. The playoff round wiped out the last 25 to 30 minutes of the show.
The show is still a go for next week, but for now, I feel like the pope at a Scottish soccer game.
The Baseball Show on KXNO
If you live in the Des Moines area, I invite you to listen to "The Baseball Show On KXnO," a new all-baseball topical discussion show starring my co-worker, Ross Peterson, and me. Ross and I have been discussing the large and small issues of the game throughout the past couple years, apparently within close enough proximity of the station programmers, that we have been permitted to take our thoughts to the airwaves. Ross is a great guy, and he has really been the engine behind the effort (although, I have been a glossy coat of Armor All on the dash.) He's a Yankees fan and I'm a Cards fan, as you know, but all MLB teams will hopefully be represented, including the Cubs, against my objections.
The show will have a floating start time on Sunday evenings. We will follow the Iowa Cubs broadcasts that day, filling the gap between that and the ESPN Radio Sunday Night Baseball pre-game show at 6:40. This week could be the shortest show of the year. The I-Cubs have a 2:30 central starting time in Albuquerque. Root for quick-working pitchers.
KXnO is an all sports-formatted station found in Des Moines at 1460 on the AM dial. The X and O in the call letters refer to the x's and o's on a coach's clipboard, not to "hugs and kisses," as many people believe.
Our game
Spring has sprung. It happened in Des Moines on Monday when the tree outside my bathroom window sprouted leaves. During my morning shower, there was nothing. By my late afternoon shower, (I take about eight showers a day) the season was in bloom.
The first three days of baseball have provided just the escape from winter that I had hoped they would. The Cards debuted on Fox Sports Midwest last night to the virginal pleasure of Des Moines, IA. The Birds proved to be too much for Roy Oswalt, if not for Andy Pettitte (today's pitcher,) down in Houston. Cincinnati, the birthplace of professional baseball, enjoyed another thrilling opening day. (Surely, the high point of the Reds' season.) The Yankees and Red Sox played a great three game series that almost made me buy into the hype; and surprises abounded, from the shallacking of John Smoltz, to the Cubs waiting almost five full innings before their first pitcher was ejected.
Just a couple more thoughts...
1. The steroid talk in the media is mercifully subsiding, though strangely it hasn't shifted to football, despite the admissions of Saints head coach Jim Haslett and the investigation of the Carolina Panthers. The double-standard continues.
2. Still, the suspension of Alex Sanchez stinks to high heaven. Major League Baseball drops the axe on one player just before opening day. (Makes it look good.) Sanchez is essentially a nobody on a nobody team. I'm starting to wonder about the "anonymous" testing. I saw the list of seven or eight players who got tested in the Cardinals' camp. Of those, only Ray King made the team, and he's the union rep. Strange.
3. Spring Training Statistic of the Year 2005- Albert Pujols - 75 at-bats, 0 strikeouts
4. The Tony LaRussa book by "Friday Night Lights" author Buzz Bissinger reached bookstores yesterday. Here's an excerpt...
"The rivalry between the Cubs and the Cardinals is probably the oldest and perhaps the best in baseball, no matter how the Red Sox and Yankees spit and spite at each other. That's a tabloid-fueled soap opera about money and ego and sound bites. That's a pair of bratty high-priced supermodels trying to trip each other in their stilletos on the runway. But the Cards-Cubs epic is about roots and geography and territorial rights. It's intertwined in the Midwestern blood and therefore refreshing and honest and even heroic.
5. Think the Cubs are sensitive to their fans' nervousness over the health of Kerry Wood and Mark Prior? Prior was put on the disabled list, not with a designation of "elbow inflamation," but of "precautionary." Precautionary what?
6. Cincinnati Reds player Ryan Freel was arrested for drunken driving. I have no comment about it. I'm just pointing it out.
7.
TRIVIA QUESTION- A handsome, hard-working, talented guy turned 30 years old this week. Was it?
a. "Chris Moeller Archives" administrator, Chris Moeller
b. his twin, Aaron Moeller
c. Cardinals' thirdbaseman Scott Rolen
d. all of the above
The answer below...
---
Once, years ago, when I was operating the NCAA tournament pool at work, the boss took the jackpot. At the time I didn't think there could be any worse public relations development for the future of the pool, but this year at work, there was-- the teenage son of that same boss won the money. Everyone's none too excited that their hard-earned money will be spent on girlie magazines and new rims. No wait... those were
my plans for the money.
---
TRIVIA ANSWER- d, of course.
The Deadwood Pioneer- Early Edition
The best show on television this year is HBO's "Deadwood." Though David Milch's revisionist western is more faithful to historical reality than its Hollywood predecessors, and unendingly gratifying in its squalor and grittiness, its true genius lies in its incorporation of the American language.
No one in Milch's 1876 Deadwood speaks in simple sentences. It's jazz music-- ultra-stylized, purposely muddled, inverted and subverted, of its time and out of time, lyrical, and gloriously filthy. Take, as examples, these excerpts from last week's show: On the rumors that the camp's gold claims may be in jeopardy, "Panic's easier on the back than the short handled shovel." On the messenger of such rumors, "Nor the sort'd shrink from a lie, or more than one, to advance his purpose, or be ignorant how to circulate his falsehoods without others knowing the source." What should the messenger do next, "Would that argue for allowing word of my presence to circulate a bit before I present myself officially?" The response, "A man might use that time to put some stink on his Johnson." You get the idea.
Ian McShane and Timothy Olyphant are "Al Swearingen" and "Seth Bullock," respectively. An evil man and a good man who become more and more alike with each passing episode. As "progress" comes to the Deadwood camp, whether it be in the form of telegraph poles ("Messages from invisible sources,") deep-pocketed mining brokers, or Yankton politicians, Swearingen and Bullock fight each other, and these external elements of the Dakota Territory, for the soul of the camp-- Bullock, a slave to his code of ethics, and Searingen, to his established commercial interests along Deadwood's muddy and narrow "thoroughfare." Bullock, wearing the lawman's badge, provides for his dead brother's family while fighting an attraction to the camp widow, Alma Garrett, a recovering dope addict from back East. Swearingen, the backbone of the show, is a Main Street pimp who dispenses the mayor his title, wields power over the newspaper publisher, and throws the word "Sheriff" at Bullock like a dagger.
"Deadwood" writers keep an extraordinary number of plates spinning at one time-- richly-woven stories, accented by brilliant characterizations. Brad Dourif's world-weary "Doc Cochran" is a standout, dispensing primitive and agonizing remedies to the sick and dying. Milch, as he did on "NYPD Blue," shames the established medical shows on television with his realities of death and dying, conduct and compromise.
He's delivering a new, truer American history. Last year, Wild Bill Hickok, played by Keith Carradine, strode through town and met his maker as a celebrity gunslinger and man of traditional Western morality. He left in his wake, Calamity Jane, portrayed by Robin Wiegert, a man-ish, drunken, self-pitying hanger-on, destined to become a hero during the outbreak of yellow fever and be buried next to her idol, Wild Bill. Wiegert's performance is no less than the greatest re-imaging of an American historical figure on the page or screen since the founding of the Republic.
"Deadwood" should be viewed in schools as a supplement or stand-in for American history textbooks. It would be a breath of pungent, foul air to blow the antiseptic stink from the classrooms.
