If you go carrying pictures of Comrade Che

So there were 30,000 people demonstrating at the State Capitol yesterday, talking about the immigration issue. The Archbishop weighed in. The constellation of left-wing activists, rent-a-Marxists and professional grievance mongers were all present and accounted for. Flags from just about every country in the Western Hemisphere fluttered in the breeze.

Like a moth to a flame, the ongoing debate over immigration is almost impossible to resist. This debate goes to the very essence of what makes this country what it is. It is also a vast buffet of competing agendas and a 55 gallon drum of cynicism. In short, it’s a uniquely American discussion. But what drives the players?

I think we have to look at it with two words – opportunity, and opportunism. Those who come to the U.S. from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, the D.R., etc., are here because life back home is unacceptable. If you’ve ever been to Central America, it’s obvious why someone would risk their life to come to America. In my youth I spent a summer as an exchange student in Guatemala. I lived with a wealthy family who lived in a comfortable home on the outskirts of Guatemala City, who also owned a coffee plantation near Antigua (well known to anyone who has spent time at a Starbucks) and had a vacation home near the volcanic and amazingly gorgeous Lake Atitlan. While I was there, I was able to see how “las indigenas,” mostly the descendants of Mayan cultures, lived. And it was terrible. I saw women washing their clothes in a polluted stream. I saw beggars and sad faced children, the entire panoply of poverty and privation, skulking down the roads, occasionally staring at the tall, nervous young man in their midst. What I learned is that many of these people were unable to speak Spanish, instead conversing in Mayan dialects. So they had no chance to get ahead, especially with a corrupt, military-dominated government that viewed summary execution as an acceptable application of state power.

If that is how you live, picking sugar beets outside Fergus Falls for $6/hour or washing dishes for the Udupi Café in Columbia Heights would be a decided improvement. And chances are good you would come to El Norte. Not surprisingly, some people have made it here. And I don’t blame them for that. It is my great fortune, and an accident of my birth, that I entered the planet in Chicago, scion of middle class parents, rather than in a remote Mayan village.

But there’s a rub, of course. Those who are unable to communicate for themselves often are the mercy of those who would communicate for them. This is where the opportunism of the professional grievance mongers come in. Left-wing movements always trumpet their credentials as advocates for the downtrodden. They regularly issue polemics, make signs, organize marches and the like. Where the nexus between these groups and the immigrant community becomes even more problematic is when you start getting the “reconquista” and “Aztlan” rhetoric. In this telling, evil America has stolen the land from the downtrodden through its 19th century imperialist wars against Mexico. California, and everything in it, rightly belongs to the People, not to those gringos who control and exploit the land now. And the leftist firebrands who swear allegiance to Castro, Chavez and Che will right this historic wrong. And provide banners and logistical support, too!

But it’s rot, of course. The variety and number of Venezuelans who are coming north is increasing now, specifically because Chavez is imposing his own dictatorship. Cubans have long been willing to risk death by climbing onto makeshift rafts, hoping to avoid the sharks long enough to wash up in America. But Cuban refugees are not typically popular, because they are known to do things like support Republicans.

So what do we do? Keep revisiting the matter. More tomorrow.

Valhalla, I am coming (yet again)

The subject du jour is still immigration. We’re still hearing that illegals are stealing American jobs and the shrieking is getting out of control. Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that unemployment is down to 4.7% and that employers added 211,000 jobs to payrolls in the last month. Maybe I can get me one of those jobs; that is, unless one of those dastardly illegals is going to do my managerial-style work for $6/hour. I’m picturing some guy in a potato field simultaneously working a BlackBerry. I don’t know how this astonishingly acrimonious debate will end, but one thing is clear enough – anyone who wants a job in America will eventually find one. And I’ll be one of them.

Shotgunning

Another day, another set of applications and resumes into the ether. I have managed to contact two financial organizations, an engineering firm and a home shopping network. Strangely enough, all have available positions that well match my skills and qualifications. There’s a reason this blog is called Mr. Dilettante – I have always been a fellow with wide-ranging interests. The counter argument is that wide ranging interests betray a lack of focus. Guess I’ll find out soon enough.

Mayberry RFP

Another day, another set of potential issues/interviews. The most intriguing of the day is a position for an RFP/Grant Writer for a financial concern here in the Twin Cities. Working on RFPs all day requires similar skills to those one must exhibit in the job search. You must provide cogent, thorough answers as economically as possible, buttressed with factual statements. You have to differentiate yourself. You also have to accept defeat, often rather a lot. Competition is tough and clients have become increasingly savvy to the strengths and weaknesses of service providers. There are very few places to hide in today’s marketplace. Companies that do not perform are littering the roadway. And they are often dressed in failed RFPs.

It sounds like a challenge worth trying.

Differentiation

While being out of work is no fun at all, thinking about your next job can be useful. Thinking about the challenges that drive prospective employers does make a difference in your search, even if the employer does not give you a chance.

Today’s employer du jour is Carlson Leisure Group, one of the many tentacles of the Minnetonka-based Carlson family empire, whose holdings range from Radisson hotels, to Friday’s restaurants, to a chain of travel agencies that is increasingly endangered by the diffusion of expertise made possible through the Internet and the DIY ethos it inspires. The challenge, increasingly, for specialized business like travel agencies is showing how they add value. Why would you need a travel agent if you have access to hotel information, airline reservations systems and effective on-line providers like Travelocity and Orbitz? Explaining why you are better, and getting the customers to pay for the premium, is increasingly daunting. Can you demonstrate that a vacation planned through an agency is better? Or better yet, cheaper? Would you even be willing to guarantee it?

Applied expertise is the crucial competitive advantage for businesses. It is easier than ever to find out how things work, but having the know-how to ensure that they do work is where things get sticky.

Looking

The advantage of blogging is that you can use your blog for a variety of purposes. I will be chronicling my job search efforts on Mr. Dilettante, as a way to keep my faithful readership (perhaps up to double digits by now) apprised of my efforts and also to help me stay on track. Unemployment is a dreadful thing – you feel like a hobo in a rail yard as you watch the trains go by, trying to hop a train that keeps moving.

It’s now two days of gainful unemployment. I am working at the Minnesota Workforce Center in lovely Blaine, Minnesota. The State of Minnesota provides a variety of resources to those seeking employment, but at the same time it’s somewhat dehumanizing. In order to take advantage of what is available at the MWC, you need to sign in and essentially make yourself available to the whims of the bureaucracy. Everyone wants to be helpful, of course, but there’s a whiff of the warden in this facility, especially given the number of counselors who patrol the cubes, watching you to ensure you are not doing something bad. I have sent about seven more resumes out to various prospective employers today, the most promising of which is the Memorial Blood Centers of Minneapolis. MBC has had some tough times lately; while they run a tight ship and have always been a praiseworthy organization, it is has been difficult to get people to donate blood in recent years. It’s difficult to understand why – with the ongoing threat of terrorism and the continuing war in Iraq, you would think that people would be willing to roll up their sleeves and offer a pint here and there, but it has not been happening enough. Perhaps I’ll have a chance to do something about that….

Solsbury Hill

I'm losing my job today. My employer has chosen to shutter its Minnesota operations and those of us who were unable to relocate to distant Oregon will be out of work on Monday morning. It's not a sad thing, per se - business is business and my employer is making a rational decision, even if it causes me to endure temporary hardship. Peter Gabriel wrote one of his best songs on the occasion of his departure from the band Genesis. Following are the lyrics:

Climbing up on Solsbury Hill
I could see the city light
Wind was blowing, time stood still
Eagle flew out of the night
He was something to observe
Came in close, I heard a voice
Standing stretching every nerve
Had to listen had no choice
I did not believe the information
(I) just had to trust imagination
My heart going boom boom boom
"Son," he said "Grab your things,
I've come to take you home."

To keep in silence I resigned
My friends would think I was a nut
Turning water into wine
Open doors would soon be shut
So I went from day to day
Tho' my life was in a rut
"Till I thought of what I'd say
Which connection I should cut
I was feeling part of the scenery
I walked right out of the machinery
My heart going boom boom boom
"Hey" he said "Grab your things
I've come to take you home."(Back home.)

When illusion spin her net
I'm never where I want to be
And liberty she pirouette
When I think that I am free
Watched by empty silhouettes
Who close their eyes but still can see
No one taught them etiquette
I will show another me
Today I don't need a replacement
I'll tell them what the smile on my face meant
My heart going boom boom boom
"Hey" I said "You can keep my things,
they've come to take me home."

Gabriel's departure from Genesis is one of the greatest examples I know of the notion of "addition by subtraction." Genesis became a much more successful band after he left, while his own solo career has completely eclipsed his efforts with Genesis. Sometimes it's like that. You have to face whatever's ahead, with your heart going "boom boom boom," but it's always better to look ahead and trust that better days are coming. Because they are.

Valhalla, I am coming

Half a million strong, they march through the streets of Los Angeles. Thousands more in Chicago, and Denver, and Phoenix. Some want justice, some want Aztlan, some conflate the two. And thus the political issue of the year arrives full force.

My natural inclination is to have great sympathy for immigrants. What makes our nation great is that we have generally accepted those who seek a better life. Whether Irish from the coffin ships, or Bavarian Catholics escaping the Kaiser's conscription, or Jews escaping the furies of European pogroms and the Holocaust, or Italians, or Poles, or Cubans, or Vietnamese, or Hmong, there has always been room in America to accommodate those seeking a better life. I admire anyone with the gumption to pull up stakes and leave horrors behind, betting on a brighter future.

But the tension always comes - all these newcomers are different. They speak a different language. They have different customs. Their foods smell funny. They don't accept our notions or our values. They take away our jobs. So sayeth the critics now, echoing the complaints of the Know-Nothings 150 years ago.

How dare we call them Know-Nothings? After all, the millions who are here illegally are here illegally, doncha know? They are criminals, we are told.

The marchers respond, "somos ilegales, no somos criminales." They are not criminals, just illegal. Distinctions, of course. We must make distinctions. Unsophisticated Red State rubes! Can't understand, won't understand. Tancredo, that demagogue! Might this be racismo? Claro, es obvio.

*****

Are things really different now? And are these latest immigrants different? The impulse, the noble striving, that drives the immigrant to cross the border, to board the raft, to overstay the student visa, is the same as always. People do want a better life. The Rascals sang it way back in '68 - People Got To Be Free. It's such a cliche that Garry Trudeau put the words in the president's mouth in a Sunday cartoon not long ago. The problem we face -- how do we, all of us, define better? Do the sojourners who risk so much accept the American ideal? Or do they come and follow the dictates of the professional grievance mongers, the cult leaders of identity, La Raza? And how do they choose?

How do we choose? When half a million people are marching on the streets of Los Angeles, it's not a rent-a-mob. We have to make intelligent decisions about how we deal with the 11 million people who are here, who live in the shadows, who find their way to El Norte. These immigrants are not simply sent back across the border. It doesn't work that way. It won't happen. We don't have the means. We don't have enough guns and bayonets. And if we did, this would no longer be America.

But if the people are coming, how do we teach them what it means to be an American? We have such difficulty deciding these most basic questions; civics classes are anything but civil. The word that hangs over all, a giant wall cloud flashing with electricity and pregnant with flooding rains, is assimilation. How do we ensure that those who come to America become Americans?

We need to answer this question first. Otherwise we are, at best, Quebec. At worst, we become Iraq, or Kosovo, or Darfur. We live in an existential era, where we face existential threats. But do we recognize the work ahead?

GMU, CHS, CHC, OMG

We are now in one of those times during the year where there is a surfeit of sports. Some of the most compelling events take place during March and April, including high school tournaments, collegiate winter sports championships and then the Masters in April. Some amazing things this weekend, including:

• George Mason to the Final Four. While the notion of Cinderella is part of the mythology of the NCAA tournament, Cinderellas usually don't get to the Final Four. Most years, the teams in the final are large, famous universities - the Valparaisos and Murray States might win a game or two, but usually see it end the second weekend. This year the lineup of teams in the Final Four includes the usual array of heavyweights, including the University of Florida, Lousiana State University (better known as LSU) and the University of California, Los Angeles (a/k/a UCLA). These are all long-standing members of the college basketball aristocracy, especially UCLA, the most storied school of all. Then there's George Mason University, an obscure Virginia commuter school with almost no claim to fame. But the Patriots beat such worthies as Michigan State, North Carolina and Connecticut to get to the Final Four. This may be the greatest run in the history of the tournament, and that's saying something.
• Cooper High School gets to the MSHL finals. If you were to look up "also-ran" in the dictionary, you'd find Cooper High School. Cooper is a first ring suburban high school that serves Robbinsdale and New Hope. For years, Cooper was the poor sister of the powerful Classic Lake Conference, where they regularly got their butts handed to them by prosperous suburban schools like Edina, Minnetonka, Hopkins and Wayzata. This year, though, it was different, until the end. The Cooper Hawks came flying out of their new league, the North Suburban, with a glittering 25-3 record. They then fought their way all the way to the state finals, where they faced mighty Hopkins. Would the Hawks finally claim revenge over a longtime nemesis? Would Cooper finally bring home the big hardware to their, barren windswept trophy case? Unfortunately, the answer was no, but after all the years of mericless thrashings, it was nice to see the long-suffering Cooper kids kids get a chance to enjoy just a little bit of glory.
• How do you lose to the College of Holy Cross? If your team is Middlebury, or Plattsburgh State, or Tufts, it would be easy enough to understand. But if you are the University of Minnesota, crown jewel of the STATE OF HOCKEY, it's about as embarrassing a development as possible. Somehow the mighty Gophers, featuring a glittering array of talent bound for the NHL, lost to the team fielded by a school whose greatest athlete is Bob Cousy, a basketball player from the 1950s. Hockey hubris, pure and simple. The Gophs didn't take Holy Cross seriously. Big mistake. You can hear the taunts of the North Dakota Sioux fans echoing all the way down I-29.

It's almost too much sports to deal with. But goodness knows, it's fun. And next week it continues. Climb on board the George Mason bandwagon, everyone....

Fast Times at Roseville High

Two separate events at Roseville High School are worth a look.

1. A male student is in custody for blackmailing a younger female student. The male student apparently had videotaped the younger student performing a "sex act" and had threatened to post her exploits on the Internet. In order to forestall that, the male student had demanded that the female student perform "sex acts" on him and, apparently, one or more of his friends. He then expanded his demands that she provide him with gas money. Police have apparently confiscated several tapes from the male student.
2. Meanwhile, an ever-popular pedagogical chestnut went wrong during a "dramatization" for "Banned Books Week." Apparently a RHS librarian, attempting to show what happens when books are banned, began tossing copies of books into a box that was decorated with flames. The books included perennials such as "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "A Catcher in the Rye." But then the librarian went too far. He tossed a copy of the Koran into the box, then a Bible. Among the students attending the spectacle was a Muslim student, who apparently felt that tossing a Koran into a box decorated with flames represented desecration of the Sacred Koran. She went to an outside Muslim advocacy group, which demanded, and got, a public apology from the school district for the librarian's heinous crime. He has also been ordered by the school district not to comment further on the matter and apparently has some cultural sensitivity training on tap.

So what do these two events have in common? I've been trying to figure it out, but I think the common thread is coercion. It's obvious in the first case - teenagers are awash in a culture of sex and apparently it's quite difficult these days to avoid getting involved with sexuality at a very young age. It's easy to blame all this on the usual bad example suspects (Bill Clinton, Britney Spears, various Minnesota Vikings, etc.), but ultimately the issue is not bad behavior by public people as much as it is confusing freedom with license and, in the end, entitlement. I've always had misgivings about the sexual revolution. While I understand that young people are going to experiment and that a "just say no" approach won't stop kids, I think the freedom to explore sexuality has become a license and potentially a requirement. It's not cool to say no and it would be easy to imagine that the young female student felt coercion to perform well before she was caught on tape and then faced the overt coercion of a blackmailer. You can call this atmosphere a lot of things, but it's not freedom.

Then there's the matter of the Koran incident. It's evident that the librarian was trumpeting free speech in his own tendentious way, but he ends up getting silenced. Free speech certainly includes the right to complain, so I don't have an issue with the Muslim student complaining about the demonstration per se. What concerns me is that the school district felt compelled to publicly apologize for the librarian's actions. Why should anyone apologize? And why announce the show trial results for the librarian? If the argument is that people should be more sensitive, again, the question is, why? The unsubtle point the librarian was making is that there are those who would censor books because their goal is to censor thought. And as the riots and violence surrounding the publication of cartoons depicting Mohammed amply demonstrate, there's pressure on the larger Western society to accept Islamic strictures on speech and behavior. If we are serious about free speech, that means we can't have educators apologizing for championing free speech. And we need to remain vigilant. Kids quickly understand the distinction between the lessons that are taught, and the lessons that are learned. And Roseville High School seems to be teaching a lesson here. It's one that blackmailers implicitly understand.

Darling, you've got to let me know

Should he stay or should he go? If he stays there will be trouble. And if he goes it will be double. You've got to let me know, should he stay or should he go?

My apologies to The Clash. So, what is the deal over at the U? Unsurprisingly, last night the Gopher men's basketball team gets drilled in a meaningless NIT game against the Cincinnati Bearcats. The morning edition of the Star Tribune arrives on my front porch with a jumbo front page headline that men's basketball coach Dan Monson has been relieved of his duties, but it appears this morning that athletic director Joel Maturi didn't follow through on actually capping the coach. This morning the Star Tribune website reports that Monson has not resigned or been fired and plans to return. And no one knows whether Monson is a dead man walking or if the Strib has a "Dewey Defeats Truman" moment on its hands. Meanwhile, Sid Hartman probably has to hit the speed dial to Lubbock, Texas several teams to keep his "close personal friend" Bob Knight apprised about the bungee coach.

How embarrassing for everyone involved. Monson twists in the wind, Maturi looks ineffectual and the Star Tribune has to backtrack. Credibility is hardly a growth industry these days, but even by the increasingly bizarre standards that govern sport, this is an especially egregious sequence. If the U wants to get rid of Monson, that's fine -- while he has run a much cleaner program than Clem Haskins, Jim Dutcher and Bill Musselman ever did, the Gophers have been left behind by the other Big 10 schools under Monson's watch. But if you intend to fire a guy, at least fire him. If they are in a firing mood over on campus, perhaps someone should fire Maturi as well.

I Pity The Fool

That is what the cartoonish actor Mr. T used to say. Well, I pity the fool who has to replace the real Mr. T -- Paul Tagliabue, that is. The longtime NFL commissioner announced his retirement yesterday, ending an amazingly productive 17 year run as the leader of the most successful, well-run organization in sport.

Ever since Pete Rozelle took the reins of the NFL in 1959, the league has become an amazing force in popular culture. While pro games were on television prior to that time, Rozelle was able to get the disparate, fractious owners of NFL teams to pool their resources and sell themselves as entities within a league, which has led to amazing profits and growth for all of them. Teams like the Pittsburgh Steelers, which was decidedly a mom-and-pop organization prior to 1960, are now financial powerhouses. The Rooney family, which still owns a controlling interest in the Pittsburgh franchise, is now fabulously wealthy. Tagliabue took Rozelle's vision and ran with it, presiding over 17 years of labor peace and great wealth for all who participated, owners and players alike. Could you even imagine a community owned non-profit team like the Packers even existing, let alone thriving, in any other sport?

It didn't have to be this way - back in the 1950s, college football was still king and the NFL was essentially a regional operation; most of the country did not pay attention to the comings and goings of the pros. Now the NFL is almost inescapable. Here in Minnesota, if someone from Winter Park clears his throat, five television cameras and fourteen reporters seem to materialize on the spot. While the Twins, Timberwolves and Wild struggle to get on the front page of the sports section, minor Viking personnel moves run above the fold. How does this happen? Because the people who run the NFL have made it part of our lives. Millions of people are currently gearing up for, and planning to watch hours of, the NFL draft, which is an administrative exercise.

Tagliabue, like Rozelle, was key in the packaging of pro football and brokering its insertion deep into the American psyche. It's an amazing achievement, especially to this baseball fan, and Tagliabue deserves a lot of credit for it.

Luck of the Irish

So, it's St. Patrick's Day, once a somber religious feast honoring one of the most venerated of Catholic saints, now an excuse for the pipe fitter's union to march through downtown Chicago and for frat boys to vomit on their shoes. In honor of the event, let's take two angled glances at the St. Patty's day conundrum.

First, consider this now-classic "SNL" bit, featuring John Belushi's enlightened musings on the "Luck of the Irish"

http://www.whysanity.net/monos/snl_belushi.html

Then, we return to William Butler Yeats, this time to his recounting of the events of Easter Rising of 1916

http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/779/

Much of the romanticism attached to Ireland stems from the almost endless supply of cruelty and misfortune the Irish have suffered, both at the hands of oppressors and through the disastrous choices that so many Irish have made in response to their circumstances. Like many Americans, my ancestors, bearing the surnames of Donovan and Murphy (among others), emerged from the coffin ships and found nurture in this new land, where their descendants have found better opportunities and better lives. They chose not to stand like MacDonagh and MacBride, Connolly and Pearse, but instead fled the darkness of the Emerald Isle. The irony is that they had to leave places like Wexford, Sligo, and Cork in order to experience the Luck of the Irish, understanding that Branch Rickey was right -- luck is the residue of design. On this St. Patrick's Day, I remain grateful for their sacrifices and the risks they took during their passage, so that I, their great-great-grandson, could enjoy a better life.

Multi-tasking

How many things can the human brain process at once? Sometimes, you have to wonder. This morning my co-workers and I were participating in one of those interminable conference calls that litter the schedules of corporate America. There's a standard protocol; the meeting organizer tries to keep things on track, asking questions that are often met with awkward silences. The organizer then might call out someone's name, a la the Ben Stein character in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," and the the person either fails to respond, or says, not necessarily sheepishly, "sorry, I was multi-tasking."

The amazing thing is, "I was multi-tasking" always seems to be an acceptable excuse for not paying attention. You immediately wonder why the meeting is even taking place if people aren't required to even follow along, let alone participate. You also wonder what on earth the "multi-tasker" was doing. Typically, "multi-tasking" is some combination of the following:

• Sending instant messages to other participants, commenting on how lame the meeting is
• Browsing websites
• Reviewing e-mail
• Getting actual work done

It's amazing, the wondrous tools that are typically available to the typical American office worker. My computer allows me to "multi-task" in all of the listed ways, plus others that I haven't mentioned. But sometimes I wonder if having the ability to do many things prevents us from accomplishing anything that really lasts, that really matters. But hey, at least I can follow the NCAA basketball tournament on one webpage today....

The Hot Stove League

Let's consider where we're at. Spring training is in full swing. The NBA and NHL are in high season. Arguably the most enjoyable event of the sporting year, the NCAA men's college basketball tournament, is now underway. The Masters is less than a month away. So, of course, it's time to write about football.

It's an amazing thing, but the off-season maneuverings of the Vikings are crowding all the other events from the front of the local sports pages. In the past week the Purple has managed to take away the the field goal kicker from the Packers (Ryan Longwell), sign a rising young linebacker (Ben Leber), add a talented running back (Chester Taylor) and sign an offer sheet for the best offensive lineman available in the free agent market (Steve Hutchinson), then follow those moves up by trading away the player widely viewed as the franchise, Daunte Culpepper. An amazing series of events in the past four days, all brought about by a team that won't even take the field for nearly six months. If one ever doubted the level of interest in the National Football League, this off-season should blow away those doubts.

The Culpepper trade is probably the most interesting development of all. Daunte's fall from grace was almost Aristotelian in scope. The proud leader of the Vikings was brought low by poor performances, an ill-advised boat trip and a devastating knee injury during the star-crossed 2005 campaign, followed by an increasingly bizarre semi-public e-mail exchange with the new management of the team. Now he has been sent packing to Miami, leaving the ancient Brad Johnson and potentially two of Brett Favre's lesser-known caddies (J.T. O'Sullivan and perhaps the visiting free agent Craig Nall) as the only backups available. One has to wonder how that will work.

Having said that, at least the Vikings appear to be doing something. My beloved Packers have nearly as much money to spend, but have spent hardly any, only retaining the services of the diligent but modestly-talented Aaron Kampmann thus far, while losing Longwell and others. Meanwhile, all eyes in Wisconsin continue to be trained on Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where the sainted, grizzled Favre licks his wounds and ponders his future. I don't think inertia will goad the legendary competitive juices of ol' number 4 to go out there one last time, especially when Fox and/or CBS likely have a standing offer of a comfy chair in either their studios or press boxes. The 2006 season may be six months away, but our gaze remains fixed on the empire of Tagliabue....

Tail Gunner Russ

I grew up in Wisconsin and we have an unfortunate tradition of sending demagogues to the U.S. Senate. The most infamous example is the now-reviled Joseph McCarthy, who emerged from my hometown and blustered his way to fame and then ignominy through his crusade against Communists. A combination of overreach and the withering exposure afforded his campaign through the scrutiny of journalists like Edward R. Murrow brought this alcoholic small-town lawyer low.

Next Wisconsin sent a different type of demagogue, William Proxmire, to the Senate. Proxmire was an inveterate publicity hound who monthly regaled his pet journalists with the "Golden Fleece Awards," where he publicly "shamed" his colleagues by shining a light on their pet projects. While Proxmire was largely correct about many of the boondoggles he spotlighted, he never did anything about actually taking these items out of the budgets. Things would pass anyway and he simply earned a reputation as a gadfly. Meanwhile, any initiatives he might offer were simply set aside by the Senate leadership, making him the least effective senator in Washington throughout his career.

Comes now Russ Feingold, emerging from the back bench with a resolution to censure President Bush for authorizing the NSA eavesdropping on conversations involving American citizens suspected of contact with Al Qaeda. Link is below:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060312/ap_on_go_co/bush_censure

Feingold is convinced that Bush broke the law. It's not at all clear that he did, of course. Existing case law is at best inconclusive and the 1978 FISA law has not faced constitutional scrutiny. I personally think it's time to challenge FISA and the mechanism behind it. The money graf is this:

"Congress has to reassert our system of government, and the cleanest and the most efficient way to do that is to censure the president," Feingold said. "And, hopefully, he will acknowledge that he did something wrong."

While Congress has always wanted to conduct foreign policy, authority to do so has always resided with the executive branch. And for good reason - if Congress controls foreign policy, it puts decisionmaking into the hands of 535 individuals with competing agendas. For a country to have an effective foreign policy and face it offers the world, it needs to speak with one voice. If Feingold thinks current policy is wrong, his task should be to get to the hustings and offer his vision to the voting public. Congress can hardly "reassert" something that it does not have authority to do. I can assert that I am the King of Spain, but that doesn't mean I'll be able to get free tapas in Madrid any time soon.

Ultimately, Feingold's compadres understand that his proposal is silly, which is why minority leader Harry Reid was backpedaling from the proposal yesterday. You have to wonder why my fellow cheeseheads continue to send morons to the World's Greatest Deliberative Body.

Under Ben Bulben

William Butler Yeats has always been one of my favorite poets. One of his last poems was "Under Ben Bulben," a poem meant as his own elegy. Its tone and form is quite different from some of his other works, especially the gripping "Easter 1916," which described the Easter Rising, when Irish nationalists sought to pull off the yoke of the British, with disastrous results. In "Under Ben Bulben," Yeats, arguably the greatest Irish poet, offers the following advice:

V
Irish poets, earn your trade,
Sing whatever is well made,
Scorn the sort now growing up,
All out of shape from toe to top,
Their unremembering hearts and heads
Base-born products of base beds.
Sing the peasantry, and then,
Hard-riding country gentlemen,
The holiness of monks, and after
Porter-drinkers' randy laughter;
Sing the lords and ladies gay
That were beaten into the clay
Through seven heroic centuries;
Cast your mind on other days
That we in coming days may be
Still the indomitable Irishry.

VI
Under bare Ben Bulben's head
In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid.
An ancestor was rector there
Long years ago, a church stands near,
By the road an ancient cross.

No marble, no conventional phrase;
On limestone quarried near the spot
By his command these words are cut:

Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!

I've always believed that Yeats was on to something important here - while he faced death, his gaze was straight ahead. He understood that the challenges for those he left behind would still be there, long after he took his final resting place in Drumcliff churchyard. Yeats would be amazed at the modern Ireland, now at the vanguard of Europe, prosperous and cosmopolitan. Ireland has progressed further in the past seven decades than it had in the "seven heroic centuries" that Yeats recounts.

Kirby Puckett's death last week has brought on a lot of singing of praises for the heroic decade he spent as the center of the Twins. But it was fitting and proper that one of the Puckett Scholars played a prominent role in the memorial service held yesterday at the Metrodome. The Puckett Scholars program provides scholarship monies to minority students attending the University of Minnesota. Programs of this sort are forward thinking, looking straight ahead at the future.

Yeats's command is that we understand the resonance of the past, while keeping our gaze fixed toward the future. While we should enjoy the romance of a wonderful, thrilling baseball career, still fresh in so many minds, we need to cast a cold eye on both life and death. While Kirby's life will forever be part of local legends, his enduring legacy will stem from the performance of the Puckett Scholars. The future awaits - Horseman, pass by!

A nice glass of port

I've been trying to stay away from politics, but the apparently resolved Dubai Ports World dispute is just too juicy to ignore. Briefly, it looks like DPW will not be taking over managing six U.S. seaports, instead turning over their interests in these locations to a yet-unnamed American company. What do we learn from this?

• No one is much afraid of W. After the president threatened to veto any bill that interfered with the transaction, Congressional leaders simply shrugged their shoulders and passed it anyway, with the House committee involved voting something like 65-2 in favor of scotching the deal. I'd dearly love to see Bush veto something, especially with the amount of pork that's been coming through Congress lately, but he hasn't, which remains one of the most puzzling things about this presidency.
• Islam is not winning any p.r. battles. Dubai is as close to an actual U.S. ally as anyone in the Gulf region, but even they are viewed with great suspicion these days. I don't think anyone is buying the "Islam is a religion of peace" trope any more. And that has implications well beyond this particular incident.
• The Department of Homeland Security is the Holy Roman Empire of government. As was pointed out back in the day, the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. I don't know what DHS is supposed to do, but there's little evidence that it does much of anything well. The perception out there is that we as a nation are no more safe now than we were on 9/10/01. And billions of dollars have been allocated to doing little more than moving around office furniture in the federal bureaucracy.
• Demagoguery is always in season. One thing I can guarantee is that DHS could definitely not protect anyone standing between Charles Schumer and a microphone.

Well, on to the next manufactured crisis.

Meanwhile, in other news...

We find that the latest expose on Barry Bonds is about to hit the stores. "Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports," co-authored by San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, is scheduled for publication March 27 by Gotham Books. In it, Fainaru-Wada and Williams provide copious details about Barry Bonds's motivation to take a variety of performance-enhancing drugs (apparently, jealousy of slugger Mark McGwire); his efforts to find a drug that would help him avoid injuries while packing on additional muscle; and his sometimes bizarre relationships with his personal trainer Greg Anderson and Victor Conte, head of the now-infamous BALCO, preferred supplier of all manner of performance-enhancing drugs.

Let's stipulate that everything in this book turns out to be true. And let's imagine that Bonds is only one of the many people who apparently put their souls out for lease with an option to buy. I still wonder what we do with the information. I continue to suspect that the records that Bonds, McGwire, Sosa et al. achieved in what's now known as the "Steriod Era" will trade a deep discount. But I also suspect that all three of these gentlemen (and I use the term advisedly) will merit inclusion in Cooperstown some day. Bonds was well on his way to Cooperstown long before he is alleged to have begun taking these drugs. I am still persuaded that, given the amount of rogues who are already safely in the Hall, it will be well-nigh impossible to keep Bonds out. I guess they could open a separate wing for Bonds, Cobb, Speaker and some of the other bad dudes and offer disinfectant to people who visit the area....

More Puck

A.E. Housman's poem "To An Athlete Dying Young" is a good place to start today:

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields were glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.

Puck lived long enough to avoid the fate of the Shropshire lad who is the subject of Housman's poem, and it is clear that his name will not die "before the man." In fact, his name will live on, not only in Minnesota but everywhere people who love baseball gather. One day on, it's not any easier to think that Puck is gone.

The tributes and enconia are everywhere - be sure to read both Star Tribune sports columnists (Jim Souhan and Patrick Reusse), both with deeply useful meditations on Puckett's too-brief life and legacy. We pass quickly over the past few years, post-Cooperstown, when it all seemed to go so wrong for Puck. If you want the details, Frank Deford's merciless 2003 SI piece is still out there on the internet, but you don't really want to know. Not today, at least.

Early though the laurel grows, it withers quicker than the rose.

In our increasingly impatient, iconoclastic world, heroes are hard to find. But maybe heroes aren't what we need so much as we need humans, with all their imperfections, their appetites and their dreams. It takes a big dream to get from the projects of Chicago to the Hall of Fame. Puck's greatest legacy may be that he had the wit and imagination to find a role that was well beyond what anyone might have expected - not baseball player, but purveyor of joy.

Puck

Okay, every blogger in Minnesota is probably writing about Kirby Puckett today, but how can you not? Despite his fire hydrant shape, his recent personal foibles and his sudden, Howard Hughes-like disappearance from the public eye, he still towers over the local sports scene in countless ways. And the universal emotion seems to be great sadness.

There's never been a player quite like Kirby Puckett. He had a squatty build, most like Yogi Berra or maybe the old Houston Astro Jimmy (Toy Cannon) Wynn. But he was a different personality - voluble, friendly, endlessly amusing. And he could do the most amazing things. You never thought he could get to the line drive hit in the gap, or the towering fly ball that would barely clear the center field fence. But he did. And he hit nasty line drives no matter where the pitch was delivered, in the strike zone, over his head, off his shoetops. All the kids wanted to play like Puck. All the kids wanted to have the zest for life that Puck had.

And when the moment mattered the most, when the Twins had their back to the wall, he carried the team on his broad shoulders. Game 6 of the 1991 World Series remains one of the greatest personal showcases of one man in the history of baseball, comparable in legend to the 1932 "called shot" of Babe Ruth, or the 1977 "Mr. October" performance of Reggie Jackson. The most unlikely looking hero of all. But that's who he was. A true life force - happy to be alive, equal to the challenge; when Puck hit the game winning homer that sent Braves hurler Charlie Liebrandt skulking off the field and the 55,000 Twins fans into a frenzy that night, it was just right.

And now he lies near death in a Scottsdale hospital. Only 45 years old, but likely stilled by a massive stroke. And I think a lot of us feel a lot older than that today. I know I do.

Update: Word came last night that Puck passed away yesterday afternoon. Only 45. Our theoretical sadness now turns to the real thing, as we contemplate this loss.

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said that American lives do not have second acts. It’s easy to misinterpret the meaning of that statement, but in the case of Kirby Puckett, it turns out to be true. As important and special as his baseball career was, he had more work to do, the second act work of raising children, sharing wisdom and leaving even greater footprints. And now that work remains unfinished. As Puck pointed out in his farewell to baseball speech in 1996, nothing is promised in life. And in the end, that may be the best wisdom and the most fitting legacy he can provide to his grieving fans. Meanwhile, I assume he’s busy giving St. Peter and the various archangels and seraphim the needle. And that should make all of us smile.

WBC, IHOP, CYA, SNAFU

Alternate title: Acronyms Are Our Friends.

So the Twins opened up their spring training schedule yesterday with a nice, workmanlike 6-3 victory over the Boston Red Sox. The Twins started their ace, Johan Santana, who got his work in as he prepares for the 2006 season. Nice to see, but now Santana, Carlos Silva, Justin Morneau and various others disappear for 2-3 weeks. Why? Because it's time to play the first World Baseball Classic (WBC), silly!

Before this 16-team contrivance, the acronym WBC was best recognized as one of the alphabet-soup boxing commissions that crown champions based on bribes, er, I mean pugilistic glory. But now WBC stands for a tournament in which countries that don't actually play the sport are entitled to field a team with excess, ethnic sounding Americans. The Italian team is relying on 3rd and 4th generation U.S. citizens, while the Netherlands is using players that sound vaguely Dutch, but may be German. After all, who can tell? The Italian team in particular is amusing - they approached Yankee righthander Mike Mussina to play, since his name seems like it could be Italian. Turns out that Mussina has no identifiable Italian ancestry at all. In sum, the tournament is essentially as international in flavor as the International House of Pancakes is.

So the WBC is silly and harmless, right? Would that it were. While the teams from the Netherlands and Italy are less genuine than the famous Jamaican Bobsled Team, the teams representing two actual baseball hotbeds, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, are fielding strong teams that will likely compete with great ferocity. Santana and Silva will likely be the front line pitchers for Venezuela and this concerns the Twins greatly. While players now train year-round, pitchers rarely cut loose until the end of spring training, so they do not strain their arms. If Santana or Silva were to be injured because of this tournament, the effect would be devastating for the Twins and their chances for success in 2006. Although pitchers are supposed to be on a pitch count in the tournament, do we honestly believe that the Venezuelan coaches wouldn't ask Santana to pitch to just one more batter in order to defend the national glory? And would Santana defy the request?

There's nothing inherently wrong in trying to get a tournament of this sort going, but the time to have it would be after the season. And rather than making it a 16-team tournament and including ringers, it would make more sense to limit the tourney to those places where baseball is actually played (e.g., the U.S., Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Mexico, Japan, etc.) If any team suffers a loss that hurts their chances, there will be hell to pay.

Oh, and one last thing -- I wouldn't call anything a "Classic" until such time as it has achieved "Classic" status. This time around it should have been called the World Baseball Tournament, or something like that. That would be more polite than calling it what it really is.

Forget the steroid allegations

Here's something far more disturbing. And there's video, too.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2348706

I'm just trying to imagine what John McGraw would have thought about this. Wow.

Barry Bonds will be one of the biggest stories in 2006, no matter what. He is quite likely to pass Babe Ruth and he will have a chance to approach Henry Aaron's all time mark of 755 home runs. There remains a lot of controversy over the sluggers of this era, especially given the apparent prevalence of steroids and other performance enhancing substances in the modern era. While I remain plenty skeptical about the moralism that underlies many of these controversies, the records of Ruth and Aaron are about as lofty as anything in sports. How does Bonds stack up? It will be interesting to find out.

Leo Durocher's Proving Ground

Based on the series of Star Tribune articles emanating from Ft. Meyers, the Twins have spent the offseason accumulating the greatest collection of saints and gentle souls since Pentecost. Yesterday I mentioned the piece on Tony Batista, who in the Strib's telling is a gentle, itinerant preacher man of a ballplayer who dispenses wisdom and mammoth home runs in equal measure. In the past few days, we've been regaled with tales of the gentlemanly Rondell White and Luis Castillo, who can dominate games from the second base position, all while maintaining a level of decorum and dignity that would make Mother Theresa seem to be a malcontent.

Should we be the least bit cynical about any of this? Yeah, I think so. While I have no reason to doubt that all of these gentlemen are indeed fine fellows and we should all be grateful for their presence, baseball is not necessarily a gentleman's game. Indeed, some of the best teams of recent history have been known more for their contentious behavior than for contending for the baseball equivalent of the Lady Byng Trophy. Indeed, since 1970, you would be hard pressed to name a team that has won a World Series with a choirboy reputation. Even the Twins teams of 1987 and 1991 had tough, gruff customers in key positions - the 1987 edition featured crusty Don Baylor and Gary ("Rat") Gaetti, while the 1991 squad had surly righthanders Scott Erickson and Jack Morris leading the charge. It was no accident that the White Sox passed the Twins once they acquired the attitudinally-challenged A. J. Pierzynski. Teams that win usually have an edge - think of the Finley-era A's, the Yankees of the 70s and late 90s, the Big Red Machine.

So what do we make of the Twins charm offensive? Well, I'd suggest wishing them well, but remembering the words of Dale Carnegie dropout Leo Durocher, who said that in baseball, nice guys finish last. The Twins won't finish last (thank you, Royals!) but I'd be surprised if they won the division this year. You will start to see boxscores later this week, so we'll have an idea soon enough.

Tony Batista, International Man of Mystery

The Star Tribune is in the middle of a series about some of the key offseason acquisitions for the Twins. Of these, the most interesting offseason pickup is likely Tony Batista, who returns to the big leagues after a year in Japan. The Strib's writeup is here:

http://www.startribune.com/509/story/269599.html

Batista is an interesting bird, to say the least. He is a bit itinerant; hasn't been in one place for more than two years in his career. He also is highly religious. In other words, he's probably a good replacement for some of the more corrosive fellows who were in the Dome last year. The question is, what does he have left? And will he perform better than Corey Koskie, who was available but who ended up in Milwaukee. I'm guessing Batista will bat about .275, with 25-30 homers and 80-90 RBI out of the 7 hole. That's better production than the Twins have seen out of that spot since, I don't know, forever.

Sittin' on the Dock of Dubai

Watchin' the pundits blow away. Sittin' on the Dock of Dubai, wastin' time.

Looks like, nothin's gonna change/every day still remains the same
Bush can't do, what people say to do/so I guess he'll remain the same

My apologies to Otis Redding. But the more I read about this controversy, the more I feel like I'm lost in the funhouse. I can't think of the last time the Wall Street Journal and the Minneapolis Star Tribune came down on the same side of an issue. Stuff like this is why I've been blogging about baseball for the last week. And why I am returning to baseball.

Where have you gone, Albert Pujols/A nation turns its lonely eyes to you

Yesterday I offered up the name of Albert Pujols as the best player in baseball today. I received one comment on the post, where fellow blogger "Execu-bot," the proprietor of the Raspberries! blog (found at: http://ontheoregontrail.blogspot.com) noted that he had never heard of Albert Pujols.

Here's what you need to know - Execu-bot is not some garden variety ignoramus. He is, rather, a bright, college-educated young man with fine manners and wide-ranging tastes and knowledge. He also follows sports. But baseball is not one of them. And that's a problem for baseball.

Baseball has long claimed to be "America's Pastime," but it really hasn't been for a long time, maybe since the 1960s. During that decade, the National Football League began to capture the hearts and minds of more and more fans, as the legendary Packers of Lombardi, followed by the Cowboys of Landry and the Steelers of Noll, became the pre-eminent sources of sports entertainment in the country. Part of the change was marketing - images of the 60s and 70s NFL gladiators are often now seen with the surging orchestral ministrations of NFL Films and offered with the "Voice of God" narration of John Facenda, Harry Kalas and other stentorian Philadelphia announcers featuring helmeted gladiators with steam coming from their masks. Comparable baseball films usually feature porn-star quality music and the more ordinary sounding Curt Gowdy, with mustachioed bohos sporting double-knit fashion monstrosities. Come to think of it, some of the best ballplayers of the era looked a bit like porn stars.*

Baseball by its nature is quotidian - during the season, there's a game nearly every day and each contest is just a contest, not an EVENT like an NFL game. For those of us who love baseball, the challenge is to help people understand why the rhythms of the game and the slow, steady accretion of detail that occur during the course of a season are worth following. But it's not been easy for a long time now. For baseball to survive and prosper, Execu-bot and his contemporaries need to understand why Albert Pujols matters, even if they choose not to follow the game as closely as hopeless causes like me.

*at least that's what I hear; your humble host has of course never indulged in watching such horrible things. Nuh-uh. No way, Jose.

Who's the best player in baseball today?

Want to start an argument? Ask people who is the best player in baseball today. You can make arguments for a lot of guys - Alex Rodriguez is in his prime; Johan Santana can be unstoppable; Ichiro Suzuki is clearly one of the great hitters in history. But I'll take Albert Pujols. At the age of 26, Pujols has averaged 40 homers and 125 RBI per season, with a lifetime batting average of .332. His overall statistics eerily mirror the early career of Joe DiMaggio. Add a self-effacing personality and a team-first attitude, and you have a player for the ages. His home run in the 2005 NLCS off Astros fireballer Brad Lidge was not enough to propel the Cardinals to the World Series, but was about as perfect an example of clutch hitting as you are likely to see.

Sayonara, Sammy Sosa

Word is that Sammy Sosa, apparently unwanted after a desultory 2005 in Baltimore, is retiring from baseball. He apparently finishes 5th all time on the home run list, with 588 dingers behind his name.

But he also leaves with a trail of suspicion. Many in baseball openly wonder if Sosa was a cheater, if he filled his body with steroids. He had already been suspended once for using a corked bat in 2001. Did he sell his soul for a place in baseball history? Some are questioning whether he belongs in Cooperstown.

Hard to know, of course -- while there have been whispers for years, we have not seen any actual, public allegations of misconduct. Unlike Sosa's contemporary, Rafael Palmeiro, who has tested positive for steroids, we do not have conclusive evidence, nor are we likely to.

So how do we view Sosa? My view is that he is one of the greatest home run hitters ever. It's not clear that steroids were the deciding factor - so many of Sosa's majestic home runs were sent over the short walls of Wrigley Field, it would be difficult to say that the dimensions of his main ballpark were not the main factor in his success. There are two players, both safely in Cooperstown, whose careers make an excellent argument for Sosa.

• First, consider Mel Ott, the great Giants 1st baseman, whose career was primarily in the 1930s. Ott stands 19th on the all time list, with 511 homers. Ott was a dead-pull left handed hitter, who played the majority of his career in the Polo Grounds, with a short porch of only 297 feet down the right field line. Ott clearly benefitted from his ballpark, but no one has seriously argued that his good fortune in playing at the Polo Grounds somehow disqualifies him from the Hall.
• Next, consider Gaylord Perry. The big righthander lasted over 20 years in the big leagues finishing his career 17th on the all time list with 314 total victories. Throughout his career Perry threw an illegal pitch, the spitball. He was able to conceal his methods and, even though he was searched almost every time he took the mound, he was able to get through his career without serving any significant time under suspension. He is safely in the Hall.

There's a lot of moralism (and moralizers) in baseball. Always have been. The baseball writers often act like a priesthood, conferring blessings on some and not on others. While there are many who would view the Hall of Fame as some sort of sacrosanct institution, baseball's Holy of Holies, there's little reason to believe that it is. Politics, public relations and horse trading have always been part of the Hall. Given what we now know about Sosa's career, it's difficult to imagine keeping him out of the Hall. And the same goes for Palmeiro, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds. Maybe they can replace the logo on their caps with an asterisk or something....

Baseball is here

And we're starting to see how things are shaping up. As a cheesehead living in Minnesota, I am able to follow both the Twins and the Brewers without conflict, especially since the Brew Crew moved to the NL back in 1997. At first glance, it appears that both teams are moving in opposite directions - the Brew Crew made significant progress in 2005, while the Twins slid back to the pack as the Mighty Whities finally removed the 85 year stench of the Black Sox scandal. But it's deceptive. A few things to consider:

• The Twins picked up a few potentially useful spare parts in the offseason. Rondell White and Ruben Sierra are not necessarily great players at this point, but either will be an improvement over Matt (Beer League) LeCroy as the DH.
• As my drunk but wise college friend John Ed used to say, you need pitching and management. And the Twins still have an edge over most teams in this department. Johan Santana is one of the best pitchers in baseball and Joe Nathan is a reliable closer. I would take either over the Brew Crew's number one options (Ben Sheets and Derrick Turnbow) at the same positions. If you had to have a pitcher, would you rather have Brad Radke or Chris Capuano? Would you rather have Carlos Silva or Doug Davis? Right now I would take Toma Ohka over Kyle Lohse, but neither are any great shakes. Advantage, TC Men.

Much more to talk about - this space will devote more time to baseball and less time to politics in the coming days. It's going to be fun. I have a hunch that another team on a long-time losing streak is going to get off the schneid this year. Any guesses?

We think you are misleading, therefore you should be silent

I have to wonder what the Minnesota State DFL is thinking right now. They have been calling for WCCO-TV and KARE to stop running pro-Iraq War ads that are being financed by a conversative campaign group. The ads that have run thus far show returning soldiers talking about their views on the war, and along with similar views expressed by the families of soldiers who died in Iraq. Here is the text of an e-mail asking DFLers to get involved.

Dear DFLer,

I’ve heard from many of you that you are disturbed by the misleading "Midwest Heroes" ads produced by Progress for America Voter Fund that are currently being run by KARE 11 and WCCO. The ads erroneously make a connection between Iraq and the 9/11 terrorists attacks and suggest that the war in Iraq will prevent an attack by Al Queda in America. The 9/11 Commission findings clearly state that there was no connection between Iraq and the the Al Queda terrorists attacks on 9/11. We must call for media responsibility regarding this issue. We have extraordinary sympathy for our troops and their families and believe that while our soldiers’ role is to protect the citizens of our country, it is our role as citizens to protect our soldiers and to make certain that they are not misused. It is a travesty that the tragedies of five countries and the deaths of our brave men and women are being used in this type of propaganda. Right now, our state is a testing ground for these ads. If Minnesota speaks out and says no to this ad, the entire country can thank us. What we do here, now, will have an enormous impact on the success or failure of this kind of swiftboating in 06.

You can view the ads at: http://www.midwestheroes.com/

Additionally, WCCO did a Reality Check stating that the ad is misleading and partly true, which in my mind means that it is partly false. See it at: http://www.wcco.com/video/?id=14609@wcco.dayport.com

If you feel that this ad is doing a disservice to our troops and is misleading at best, and pure propaganda at worst, please call:

KARE 11 at 763 546 1111
WCCO at 612 370 0611

to ask for the removal of the ads. Letters to the Editor in your local paper would be helpful to point out the untruths being communicated to citizens as fact. Thanks in advance for being a voice of truth, and for all that you do to improve the state of our nation and state.
DFL Chair Brian Melendez will be holding a press conference at the State Capitol today at 2:30 to ask that this ad be pulled from the air waves. He will be joined by congressional candidate and veteran Tim Walz. Please tune in to your evening news to see coverage of this important event.

Sincerely,
Donna

Donna Cassutt, Associate Chair,Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party

We can argue until the end of time whether or not al-Qaida is involved in the current Iraqi situation - truth be told, a large part of the national debate since the war started has surrounded this point. What I think is objectionable here is that, rather than continuing the discussion, the DFL wants to simply silence the organization producing the ads. I'd humbly suggest that if the DFL is so confident that these ads are false, they should simply present countervailing evidence and let people decide for themselves. I'd also suggest that the DFL's timing on this effort may turn out to be somewhat less than propitious, with the "Saddam tapes" and the "HARMONY" documents starting to come into the public arena. The overall perception of the war may be in for a dramatic change very soon.

I wish there were less political ads on television - I really do. But suppressing speech does nothing to further understanding. If the DFL were more confident, they wouldn't need to take this approach.

Q. What Are The Four Best Words in the English Language

A. Pitchers and catchers report.

Baseball season is coming - the winter begins to fade and the images of ballplayers jogging on emerald green fields in Florida and Arizona begin to filter into our consciousness again. Major League Baseball has its challenges, to be sure. The current economics essentially doom several franchises to second division finishes. The steroid scandal tarnishes the glowing deeds of recent years and calls into question the records that McGwire, Sosa and Bonds. With each egregious stumble, Commissioner Bud Selig demonstrates that while you can take the boy out of Wisconsin, you can't take the Wisconsin out of the boy.

But still. You see the grass, glistening with dew. You hear the gloves pop. You see the kids, not yet cynical, holding out notebooks for a signature from a hero who may never even see a major league field. You sense that, if the Red Sox and the White Sox can do it, even your Rockies or Devil Rays or Brewers have hope. Even if your hopes have been dashed before, this might be the year. What could be better?

The only thing that remained in Pandora's Box was Hope. And in February and March, Hope gets a furlough.

Happiness Is a Warm Gun

The hunting accident involving Vice President Cheney over the weekend took an ominous turn this morning - news reports indicate that some of the bird shot that hit his hunting partner Harry Whittington, had migrated near his heart. We can hope that the elderly Whittington will survive this setback. A few thoughts:

• An accident is an accident. If Cheney comes off a bit like Elmer Fudd after this incident, that's not surprising, although this might be the best-case scenario.
• Not reporting the incident immediately was a poor decision. Did the news media have an absolute right to know immediately about the incident? Not necessarily, but full disclosure is always a better idea. At least Cheney & co. got Mr. Whittington immediate medical attention, unlike a certain senator I could name who let the person affected by his accident drown....
• Not surprisingly, the late night comics had a field day with Cheney. My only quibble with that is, why did David Letterman feel compelled to bring up Cheney's "lesbian daughter" twice during the show, once in a tasteless bit by announcer Alan Kalter and then in the Top Ten list? She's not relevant to the discussion, any more than Chelsea Clinton would have been to a discussion of Bill Clinton's foibles. Leave the families out of it.
• Many of the people who are responsible for disseminating news in this country know little or nothing about hunting. I heard reports of Mr. Whittington being hit with "buckshot," among other things. No one hunts quail with buckshot; it would essentially vaporize the birds. If Mr. Whittington had been hit at that range by buckshot, he'd have been dead at the scene.

A prayer for Mr. Whittington for a speedy recovery.

Iowahawk Explains It All for you

If you aren't a regular reader of Iowahawk, you should be. He is one of the funniest guys on the Internet. He's in rare form here:

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2006/02/seething_midwes.html

Just a few excerpts:

Like a pot of bratwurst left unattended at a Lambeau Field pregame party, simmering tensions in the strife-torn Midwest boiled over once again today as rioting mobs of green-and-gold clad youth and plump farm wives rampaged through Wisconsin Denny’s and IHOPs, burning Texas toast and demanding apologies and extra half-and-half.

***

But by far the fiercest demonstration took place in Green Bay's Lambeau Shrine parking lot where throngs of Packer faithful burned Texas flags and effigies of Roger Staubach as Lutheran pastors led them in chants of "Those who defame the Vince suck" and "Favre is Great." Many of the frenzied demonstrators were seen ritualistically beating themselves with mozzarella sticks.
The crowd eventually dispersed, lured away by local supper clubs and the nickel slots of nearby Oneida Bingo Casino, but Pastor Doug Schmidtke of Fond Du Lac's Grand Lutheran Temple threatened continued community unrest "until the infidels of Texas deliver an apology. And the head of Tom Landry in a paper bag."

***

In response to growing pressure and threats of Wisconsin boycotts, VHT Technologies dismissed Davidson on January 21, issuing a fulsome personal apology from CEO George Uhl asking Wisconsinites "to consider VHT the next time you are choosing a supplier of multiphase diodes," and "please don't kill me."
Despite the olive branch, the Packer community finally exploded into the streets Sunday, as already frayed emotions were further enflamed by the awarding of the Vince Lombardi trophy to the Super Bowl's victorious Pittsburgh Steelers.
Numerous request to Texas Governor Rick Perry to execute or extradite Davidson to Wisconsin have thusfar gone unheeded, but it is unclear whether the Governor can withstand the growing political pressure for a cathartic public beheading. With nearly one million ethnic immigrant Midwesterners now living in Texas, experts say Perry risks alienating an important voter bloc. More troubling, some analyst believe that south Texas is currently infiltrated by a sleeper cell of tens of thousands of elderly Midwestern snowbirds, each of whom is armed with a Winnebago capable of smashing into a fast food restaurant.

Moments of Clarity - Installment III

Hey, guess what? It looks like a lot of people in the Islamic world don't like snotty Danish cartoonists. As the protests, riots, and now killings (of a Catholic priest in Italy) demonstrate, we are not dealing with Western standards of rationality. So what are we learning?

• While it may not be possible to get enough to eat, or for a woman to walk the streets without a chador, in many parts of the Muslim world, there appears to be a ready supply of European flags for burning. I think I'd like that concession right about now.
• We are all Danes. More to the point, we are all infidels. And it's a dangerous game to pretend otherwise, or to downplay the meaning of this.
• The cynicism of Bashar Assad, Hosni Mubarak and the other worthies of the region knows no boundaries.
• Those freedoms we hold dear could evaporate quite quickly. As the Founders understood, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

Blowing Second Hand Smoke

If you were watching the Super Bowl yesterday, you may have seen an ad during halftime, sponsored by MPAAT, the Minnesota Partnership Against Tobacco. The ad was done in typical MPAAT style, with all the subtlety of a German jazz band. A solitary smoker in a bar lights a cigarette, and suddenly airplane-style oxygen masks drop from the ceiling. A stentorian, voice of God narrator drones on about all the known carcinogens in second-hand smoke.

MPAAT's actions are offensive on a number of levels.

• The purpose of MPAAT and its now moribund partner, Target Market, was to aid those who wish to quit smoking. Funding for MPAAT activities come from the large tobacco settlement that then-Attorney General Skip Humphrey negotiated in the late '90s. MPAAT's primary mission was to help get smokers to quit. MPAAT is swimming in money and they could easily fund smoking cessation programs that could help others. Instead, they have chosen to put their considerable institutional muscle (and nearly unlimited pile of money) into smoking bans. Can you imagine how many people could have been helped with the money MPAAT used on their ad?
• I quit smoking over 15 years ago; millions of other Americans have done the same. I was able to do it cold turkey because my fiance (now my lovely wife) was supportive of my efforts and because I was able to get away from the environments that I associated with lighting a cigarette. I did not worry about going into bars or restaurants, even though back then it was a rare place that completely banned smoking. There's no doubt that second-hand smoke is annoying to many, but smoking a cigarette is hardly the same as launching mustard gas, which is how MPAAT portrays things.
• An earlier ad that MPAAT put on is especially egregious. It shows a woman who appears to be around 60 years old. She claims that she has never smoked in her life, but that she is dying of lung cancer and that her place of employment was often "blue with smoke." She also said she worked in the same place for 40 years. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that all the assertions made in this ad are true. Even if they are, it does not prove that second-hand smoke caused her cancer, as correlation does not equal causation. She may have lived in a home with radon. She may have been a coal miner on the side. She may have simply been unlucky. The thing that's most amazing about the ad is that it asserts that 40,000 people have died from second hand smoke. But, apparently, none of them are from Minnesota, as the woman in the ad is from Canada. If second hand smoker were as pervasive and pernicious as MPAAT would have you believe, you would assume they could find a Minnesotan to appear in their ads.

The urge to save is often the urge to control. Reducing smoking is a decent, honorable goal. Herding smokers into the cold and treating them as pariahs is neither decent nor honorable.

SOTU

I didn't see much of the the State of the Union speech - had a more pressing engagement - but a few thoughts.

• Even if the Democrats feel they did good by effectively killing Bush's Social Security initiative last year, it's bad form to gloat about it. And it will look a lot worse in a few years when the bills come due. The D's really need a plan.
• The NSA wiretap thing redounds to Bush's credit, and he framed the issue well again yesterday. Unless and until the media provide a specific, credible example of someone suffering a real loss of civil liberties or some other form of persecution as a result of the program, ideally with video, the Democrats will derive no benefit. Moreover, the squishy legalisms reinforce the stereotypes that currently plague the Democrats generally.
• Cindy Sheehan really doesn't help anyone's cause. It would be helpful if someone took her aside and patiently explained that her 15 minutes are up.
• I'm not sure I want a car that runs on wood chips. Reminds me too much of the movie Fargo. But hare-brained, off the shelf ideas are a staple of SOTU addresses.

Who wants a dope slap?

So many candidates, so little time.

• John Kerry phones in the orders from Switzerland, then leads the troops up the hill for a filibuster of Samuel Alito. He looks back and sees that nearly half of his soldiers aren't marching. He should enjoy watching Justice Alito being seated at tonight's State of the Union address.
• A website supporting Coleen Rowley's campaign for the 2nd Congressional district photoshops a picture of incumbent John Kline into a Col. Klink uniform, then pulls the image from the site after the initial reaction turns negative. Captured copies of the picture are all over the Internet. Doesn't matter what you do, folks - the internet is forever.
• Longtime libertarian David Boaz pulls a bunch of statistics out of the ether (or potentially other nether regions) in today's Wall Street Journal, arguing that because 17 million Kerry voters did not think that the government should do more to solve the country's problems, while 28 million Bush voters support either gay marriage or civil unions, that there are somehow 45 million people who have "broadly libertarian attitudes." The Libertarian Party stands ready to capture this underserved group of gallant Americans, as soon as their next candidate can move out of his mother's basement.

Moments of Clarity - Part Deux

We had another clarifying moment last week, which has been beat to death in the blogosphere but is worth a quick visit. Joel Stein is a columnist with the Los Angeles Times and he is, ostensibly, their humor columnist, filling the same niche that Dave Barry held for years with the Miami Herald and that James Lileks holds with the Star Tribune. He wrote a column last week that was many things, but funny is not one of them. Briefly, he wrote a piece in the Times in which he told America that he doesn't support the troops. The link is here:

http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-oe-stein24jan24,0,1168298.column?coll=la-news-columns

He then went on Hugh Hewitt's radio show and demonstrated that, among other things, he doesn't understand what the troops do, how they think, or that he even really knows anything about the military. A transcript is here:

http://www.radioblogger.com/#001332


Mr. Stein has been visited by the furies from all over the blogosphere in the wake of this two-item parlay, but I would suggest that his honesty is yet another moment of clarity. His cheerful, even blissful ignorance allows those who are considering his arguments to accord them proper weight. There's an argument to be had about the proper role of the military, whether soldiers should be fighting in the Middle East or whether soldiers should be armed social workers who are airlifted into tsunami zones and the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, to use just two recent examples. But we haven't been having that argument. Maybe we should.

Moments of Clarity - first of a series

It's a common phenomenon; you know something, but you don't have clear, empirical evidence to support your position. Then something happens and it all becomes clear. As we start to get further into the new year, we are getting a few moments of clarity.

• A democratically elected Hamas -- this one has something for cynics of all ages. Hamas is and continues to be a terrorist organization; despite that, you are already hearing stories about how Hamas has had a history of providing mutual aid for impoverished Palestinians and how they have demonstrated compassion in the wrecked precincts of Gaza. It's not clear how those gestures are exculpatory for the murders of Jews and Palestinians in Israel, but we don't want to dwell on those sorts of things, now do we? That a corrupt group might provide good works as a cover for their more nefarious activities is hardly a new story. Here's a history lesson. Back in the 1960s there was a particularly vicious Chicago street gang called the Blackstone Rangers and they managed to convince a lot of people that they were some sort of mutual aid society. The Rangers made an ostentatious display of feeding poor citizens, helping some kids get to school, taking meals to shut-ins and other similar endeavors; in a hilarious but cringe-inducing moment, they even managed to get a group of "youths" with their imprimatur a chance to sing "My Beautiful Balloon" on the old Smothers Brothers show on CBS. Given the low esteem earned by the Chicago Police Department in that era, it was not surprising that the Rangers were given a bit of a pass. But while the Rangers were publicly doing their good deeds by day, they continued to be the prime supplier of drugs to the neighborhoods of the south side, eventually killing off most of their competition. Once they completed their consolidation of power, they then mutated into a new organization called El Rukn, taking on some of the trappings of Islam while continuing to kill anyone who got in their way. Their leader, Jeff Fort, eventually decided he wanted to have more power and volunteered El Rukn services to Moammar Khaddafi, even volunteering to undertake terrorist activities and attempting to get a rocket for terrorist attacks. No word on whether or not they were brought down through a FISA wiretap, but they were brought down during the 1980s and Fort and his colleagues are aging gracefully in the Illinois correctional system. It's all quite clear now that Fort and his acolytes were simply gangsters, but a lot of otherwise bright people made excuses for them for years. Perhaps members of Hamas may get a chance to perform on American Idol in the coming weeks. And it's also quite clear that those who have been blaming Israel for building walls and barriers to protect its citizenry have not understood what the Israelis are up against. Perhaps now that the Palestinian citizenry has chosen an organization that expressly wants to destroy Israel as their government, they might begin to understand.

More moments of clarity anon.

Is there a Ford in your future?

For now, yes - the long-feared announcement from Ford Motor Co. came down today and, for now, the St. Paul plant that has been manufacturing Ford Rangers has managed to survive the ax. So the workers will continue to report to the facility, the developers will sigh and put their plans back in their hip pockets and new St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman can go back to worrying about more pressing matters, like crippling the Payne Ave. bars with smoking bans and other Nanny State initiatives.

And yet, the stay of execution hardly seems a reason to celebrate. There's a pretty compelling argument to be made that it would simply be better if the plant were to close now, rather than dragging the matter into the indeterminate future. As difficult and disruptive as it would be to those families who rely on Ford for their tidy incomes, many of the workers at the plant would simply be able to take early retirement and end up with a better overall financial position. Meanwhile, younger workers would be better off facing a future without Ford now, rather than waiting until they are older and potentially less able to adapt to new circumstances. Meanwhile, it's a matter of location, location, location for potential new developments at the site; a mixed use development with offices and new (read: expensive) homes could generate significantly more tax dollars for the city and surrounding area. And St. Paul will need the additional revenue once the bars close down because of the smoking ban.

Exit Patty Wetterling

It appears that Patty Wetterling is getting out of the race for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Mark Dayton. This is interesting on many levels.

• Having Wetterling out of the race clears a path for Amy Klobuchar to get the DFL endorsement for the seat, which will allow Klobuchar to turn her attention to running against the prospective Republican candidate, Mark Kennedy. Klobuchar vs. Kennedy will be a great race, pitting two smart, accomplished candidates, both of whom are far superior to Sen. Dayton, whose performance in the Senate has ranged from anonymous to embarrassing.
• Wetterling's long-standing role as an advocate for missing children, stemming from the 1989 disappearance/kidnapping of her son Jacob, has made her one of the most admirable figures in Minnesota. She had hoped to parlay the 15 years of goodwill she has earned into higher office. I've always wondered why she would believe that becoming a politician would be more helpful that what she's accomplished with the Jacob Wetterling Foundation. I imagine that her popularity actually was hurt once she declared herself a partisan, especially since it was evident during her 2004 campaign that she had not thought through many of the issues currently driving American politics.
• Press reports indicate that Wetterling was essentially coaxed out of the race by the majordomos of the DFL, who have long preferred Klobuchar. While Wetterling's name recognition in Minnesota is close to 100%, Klobuchar is a much better candidate for the DFL and the party operatives recognized that.
• It's not clear if Wetterling is now going to sit 2006 out, or if she will instead throw her hat into the ring as either a congressional candidate (for Kennedy's seat), or potentially as a candidate to become the 494th consecutive female Lt. Governor in Minnesota. Wetterling had previously endorsed the unfortunately named Elwyn Tinklenberg for the 6th District seat, but she may change her mind. If Mike Hatch offers her a chance to be his running-mate for Lt. Governor, it may be difficult to turn down the invitation. She certainly is qualified for the position, considering such non-entities as Joanne Benson and Mae Strunk have held the seat.
• I do wonder about the politics of fame; does being a famous person of good reputation make you a viable candidate for political office? As much as I've admired Wetterling, I never once thought she was a serious candidate. On the flip side, this is the state that elected Jesse Ventura and that continues to send the moronic Betty McCollum to Congress. We'll see about fame - in Pennsylvania, former Steelers great Lynn Swann is running for governor and is already ahead of his likely opponent, Ed Rendell. I guess to ensure equal time, perhaps Rendell should attempt to be a sideline reporter on the college football broadcasts. Or maybe Suzi Kolber would like to throw her hat into the ring....

Adventures in Marketing

Do you have something to offer? And is anyone willing to buy it? Sometimes there are things that make you wonder.

I understand that Daunte Culpepper, NFL quarterback, is now expecting the Minnesota Vikings to renegotiate his current contract, as he believes he is worth more than what he currently receives. Prior to this season, Mr. Culpepper was known for his general passing prowess, winning personality and imposing physique. But in 2005, it all went bad for him. At times he seemed genuinely at sea without having Randy Moss available to make spectacular downfield grabs. He then became implicated in the infamous "Love Boat" scandal, apparently for enjoying a public lap dance. Then he had a severe kneee injury that may permanently alter the course of his career. Meanwhile, his backup, Brad Johnson, managed to quietly lead the Vikings to a six-game winning streak, salvaging a winning season and almost saving Mike Tice's job.

So this year's resume entry for Mr. Culpepper includes the following:

• Shaky, even substandard performance
• Embarrassing and potentially criminal behavior
• A serious injury

But he's worth more now. You have to wonder what he's thinking.

Assisted Suicides

News came today that the Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of assisted suicide in Oregon. While the decision was narrow, it was nice to see the Court actually stay out of something for a change. My own view is that the law is wrong-headed and I worry about the long-term implications of an assisted suicide law, but if we believe that the people should decide, we owe Oregonians great deference in making their decisions.

In another sense, the statute in Oregon may come in handy for some of the public figures who seem to be in favor of committing public, career suicide in recent days. My goodness, we've heard a lot of intemperate things in recent days. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin went deep into Pat Robertson territory with his musings about God's punishment of his city via Hurricane Katrina; one wonders what the mayors of Sodom and Gomorrah would have done if there were CNN cameras about. Hillary Clinton subtly compared the House Republican leadership to plantation owners while speaking in a church on Martin Luther King Day; guess that separation of church and state thing is a bit more malleable than we'd been led to believe. There's also a rumor that Al "No Controlling Legal Authority" Gore weighed in on supposed Bush criminality on Monday, but it's not evident that anyone cares what he says these days.

Meanwhile, the stench of Abramoff may be adhering to Republicans. There is a growing perception that the congressional leadership is fundamentally corrupt and needs to be replaced; the problem is that the most visible Democrats these days are people like Nagin, Clinton, Ted Kennedy and others of this sort. Can the Republicans fumigate themselves? Can the Democrats remove their moonbattery? This election cycle should be one of the strangest ones yet.

President Bush said he wanted to change the tone in Washington. As the banner said on the boat in San Diego -- "Mission Accomplished."

The creative imperative

My daughter celebrated her sixth birthday yesterday. She is a very sophisticated kindergartener, wise beyond her years. She has an active imagination and loves to draw pictures of her family, her toys and everything else she sees. Her production levels challenge the "starving artists" who ply their wares in suburban Holiday Inn conference rooms; if I were inclined, I could paper my entire office with her masterpieces.

What my daughter does with her crayolas and construction paper seems innate - she must create. I understand the urge; the rationale of the blogosphere is that people feel the need to create, to communicate, to share their world and worldview with others. One of the frustrations for those with creative impulses is that they are often ignored or even scorned. The most guilty group in this regard are the educated elites, those who "deconstruct" text and images, superimposing semiotics and other arcane theoretical constructs over the words and images. The process allows the elites to commandeer the meaning and the message of artists and writers.

This is the world my daughter is entering right now. She insists that she is an artist and plans to be an artist when she grows up, although that would mean ending her current career as the fourth Powerpuff Girl (she's apparently the Pete Best of this group). As she learns and grows, she will find that the world attempts to channel creative impulses. My hope is that she will have the opportunity to create as she sees fit. But I fear that she will not.

McCarthy 2006

For those of us who grew up in the Fox River Valley of Wisconsin, the name McCarthy has an especially pungent resonance. We were the place from which sprung the man whose very name became synonymous with demagoguery of an especially odious, fact-free kind. Joe McCarthy, whose grave is about 1 mile from my boyhood home, represented Wisconsin in the Senate in the 1950s and became famous, then infamous, for his bullying performances in various Senate committees tasked with fighting the Red Menace. McCarthy rose steadily in prominence until he was brought low by his own overreaching, along with the now-famous scrutiny of Edward R. Murrow and Joseph Welch, among others. McCarthyism entered the language to describe unscrupulous behavior, specifically charging someone of disloyalty or some other malfeasance, typically without evidence or concern for the truth.

Lately the name McCarthy has been on display again, but not in conjunction with the disgraced senator resting at St. Mary's Cemetery. Another, very different McCarthy recently passed from this world - Sen. Eugene McCarthy, known famously as "Clean Gene" and fondly remembered for his 1968 presidential campaign. Eugene McCarthy was a complicated fellow, principled but typically unwilling to suffer fools gladly. He became known in his later years for being a poet and a bit of a contrarian, even supporting Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign against the Democratic incumbent, Jimmy Carter. Gene McCarthy told the truth as he saw it and while he was a bit of a maverick politically, he operated without fear or malice.

Joe McCarthy's main venue was in the committe meeting rooms of the Senate, where an absurd variation of McCarthyite behavior took place this week. Prospective Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito came before the solons, looking upward (as the witnesses do) at the assembled colossi of the Senate Judiciary Committee. There Alito was regaled by seemingly endless inquisitions about mutual funds, low-powered alumni organizations and decisions involving strip searched children and insufficiently regulated machine guns. While in McCarthy's day he was the primary inquisitor, Alito faced such paragons of morality as Edward M. Kennedy, Joseph Biden and Patrick Leahy, known respectively for drowning secretaries, plagiarizing Labour Party speeches and leaking classified information. It was an appalling spectacle; many of us waited in vain for a modern-day Murrow to showcase the performances of these gentlemen, alas in vain. But you have to believe that old Tail Gunner Joe would have admired the senators for their technique.

Finally, we saw yet another McCarthy emerge in the Fox River Valley, as the Packers selected Mike McCarthy as their new head coach. This McCarthy is touted as a straight-talking, tough minded Pennsylvanian who embodies the spirit and football know-how associated with the area near Pittsburgh, home of the sainted Marino, Namath and Ditka, among others. I'm hopeful that this McCarthy will turn out better than the one who emerged from further up the river 55 years before.

Lou Rawls

Way back when I started this thing last month, I said that Lou Rawls is likely more influential than John Rawls. Lou Rawls died last week and I've learned a few things about him that underscore that point. If you don't know who John Rawls is, I'll get to that in a moment.

Rawls began his career in 1960s and was a contemporary and sometimes singing partner of the great Sam Cooke. He was, for the most part, hard to classify - while he could sing gospel, jazz and r&b, he didn't really specialize in any genre. As a result, most people knew him for about two things - his 1977 disco-era hit "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine," a huge smash that nearly anyone who was beyond diapers at the time likely remembers well; and for his long-time association with Budweiser beer commercials. Rawls provided voiceover and vocals for the Busch family for nearly a generation.

But among Rawls's contemporaries, he was held in very high esteem - Frank Sinatra, among others, was a big fan;' Sinatra considered Rawls one of the finest singers in the business. And Rawls quietly used his fame for good work, including a long stint working with the United Negro College Fund on their telethon. Lou Rawls lived well.

John Rawls? He is viewed by many (especially those on the Left) as the greatest political philosopher of the 20th century. But I like Lou Rawls much better. I'll elaborate on the reasons in future posts.

Live from Brookdale Library

A few random thoughts on a snowy Sunday....

• The Vikings chose well in selecting Brad Childress as their new head coach. After the paranoia of the Dennis Green era and the palooka-ism of the Tice regime, Childress will bring an air of quiet professionalism to what has been an increasingly bizarre organization. While watching the Vikings has brought much amusement to those of us who live here but do not support their efforts, it has been difficult for the fans of the team to go through all the intellectual contortions. The teams that have been most successful (Patriots, Panthers, Steelers, etc.) in the recent era have been rather dull. Dull seems to work. And it appears that's what's coming to Minnesota.
• The "Bush Lied! People Died! Plus He Spied! So he must be fried!" line of argument that I've been hearing lately is less than convincing. Democrats have always treated some laws as holy writ (cf. the famous Boland Amendment of the 80s, which took on the mystique of a constitutional amendment), but simply have ignore other lawbreaking ("lying to a grand jury doesn't rise to the level of an impeachable offense") when it suited their purposes. Hypocrisy is always in season in Washington, so I would imagine that all this will end soon enough. Then again, perhaps 2009 can't come soon enough for some people.
• Speaking of the next election cycle, one thing that will be most interesting is whether or not the two national politicians most associated with "centrist" thinking are able to get through the party faithful on both sides. I'm thinking of John McCain on the Republican side and Joe Lieberman on the Democratic side. Both arouse passion verging on hatred among the ideological foot soldiers of each party, to say nothing of bandwith-consuming amounts of vitriol within the blogosphere. Just a hunch - neither one is going to get the nod in 2008, even though both would likely be better for the country than the candidates likely to emerge from the upcoming primary season. And here we are writing about this at the very beginning of 2006.
• I have a good friend named Julie who may have even read this blog at one point or another; she has complained about the content of the highly recommended Umlaut Free (www.umlautfree.com), so I know she does lurk about somewhat in these dusty precincts. She had an excellent take on the now celebrated "gay cowboy" movie, Brokeback Mountain. She noted that the movie, rather than being a noble exercise in showing the beauty of following your heart (often confused with your gonads, but never mind), is actually a portrait of two dishonest men who are living a lie and who break up marriages and abandon their families. She senses that there is nothing noble at all about the amorous wranglers. But for many in Hollywood and among our other elites, following the call of your genitalia is the highest form of aesthetic pursuit, even if it leads to a puptent in Wyoming. It's more authentic, doncha know.

Barry has left the building

Yesterday was Barry Alvarez's last day as the head football coach at the University of Wisconsin. Alvarez led his Badgers to an impressive 24-10 victory over the Auburn Tigers, who were a 10 point favorite over the Badgers. The Badgers dominated the game, outgaining the Tigers by a substantial margin, controlling the lines of scrimmage on both sides of the ball and, all in all, playing a more physical game against a team that was widely regarded as superior.

In order to understand the impact that Alvarez has had at Wisconsin, you need to understand how terrible the Badgers were prior to his arrival in 1990. The Badgers of the late 1980s were a horrible team, overmatched physically and lacking fundamentals of the game. There was a game that was especially emblematic of this era, when the mighty Miami Hurricanes came to Madison and gave Bucky Badger a 51-3 whipping, cavorting around Camp Randall Stadium at will and bashing the Badgers without mercy. The iconic ABC announcer Keith Jackson was in the building to describe the carnage and by game's end he was muttering about how the Badgers didn't look like a major college football program. For the Badgers and their fans, it was a humiliating moment. At that point, if you had predicted that by 1999, the Badgers would have won shares of 3 Big Ten titles and would have won 3 Rose Bowls, you would have been considered a lunatic. But that's exactly what happened.

The best part about Barry's last game was the last drive of the game. The Badgers received the ball at their own 1 yard line with about 9 minutes left in the game. If Auburn had made a defensive play, they would have been in position to score quickly and rally for a win. But the Badgers methodically drove the ball down the field, running and passing in equal measure and never going out of bounds, keeping the clock running. With less than a minute left, the Badgers had reached Auburn's 1 yard line, in a position to score yet another touchdown, having driven the length of the football field. The Badgers then took a knee and quarterback John Stocco ran over to the sideline in celebration, handing the ball to Alvarez. The drive was workmanlike, relentless, disciplined and completely successful. Just like the Badgers have been under Barry Alvarez.