Interrupting Liberal Victory week to celebrate my dirty old manhood.

More on the victories won by the liberal agenda over the past fifty years tomorrow. Let's instead focus on women with attractive faces and amazingly large breasts.

I knew that would get your attention.

The Huffington Post is absolutely obsessed with Christina Hendricks, the very busty redheaded actress who plays the office manager Joan Holloway Harris on the AMC show Mad Men, but they are not the only website happy to talk about her. Popeater.com ran a poll asking women of they would rather look like Ms. Hendricks or famously thin model Kate Moss, and also asked men who they would rather ogle. While the results are completely non-scientific, women preferred the voluptuary over the mannequin by a ratio of 3 to 1, while men would rather look at Christina instead of Kate by a margin of 5 to 1.

The obvious problem with this poll is the false dichotomy. Ms. Hendricks is naturally busty and weighs a lot more than the average actress today, but she is reality. Kate Moss is also reality, a very thin girl who has nearly no breasts. The choice presented today is between reality and fantasy. The other choice is some woman liposucked to within an inch of her life while she carries five pounds of plastic gel packs on her chest. The silly standard today is the unreality of Playboy models and Carrie Prejean, and I only hope the backlash against them continues.

As for Christina vs. Kate, I find myself in the vast majority. Besides her astounding body, Ms. Hendricks has the face of an angel and a voice that can turn a grown man's knees into melted butter.

I mean this only in the nicest possible way.


It was nearly three years ago I wrote a blog post about Joy Harmon, a 1960s starlet who is the main attraction in Village of the Giants, a movie of deep significance to My People in furtherance of Our Agenda. Ms. Harmon had a facial structure like Julie Christie's, with big beautiful wide set blue eyes and a luscious mouth, but Joy was also one of those big busted blondes in the style of Mamie Van Doren and June Wilkinson. In the dance scene from Village of the Giants, the camera spends a lot of time with her breasts and torso in the middle of the frame, and I have never heard one negative comment from a fan of giant women about the extra pounds she was carrying by today's standards.

I'm glad to see people openly praise Christina Hendricks for standing against the trend of crazy thinness in the entertainment industry today, but she shouldn't be turned into the new standard that must be met. Not one in a hundred women are going to be built like Christina or Joy in their respective primes, and women who aren't so naturally endowed but want to be end up looking like strippers or more specifically, like Pamela Anderson and Heidi Montag. If something positive can happen from this swing back on the pendulum, someone somewhere will remember that our mammalian brains equate a healthy softness in young women with fertility, which is kind of the whole evolutionary point, if memory serves.

Coach Natalie Randolph, a Modest Introduction

After the first football game of the 2010 season, a loss by the score of 28-0, head coach Natalie Randolph told the crush of reporters, "We lost a football game, that's all. We lost a football game."

She was right, of course, but somehow, with the ESPN guys, the Washington Post guys, several TV crews, anywhere from six to ten photographers on the ground and god knows how many print journalists ringing the track around the field, plus an HBO camera crew with prominent boom mike following Randolph's every move from pre-game warm-ups through the handshake line, it was easy to forget it was a high school football game.

It is a principle of physics that the act of observing will influence the phenomenon being observed. And so it was with the inaugural game of the Natalie Randolph Era for the Coolidge Colts.

I'm lucky enough to be working on a feature about Randolph and the Coolidge program. I spent all of last Friday at the D.C. high school, wandering the halls with the coach, with vice-principal Vernard Howard, meeting with the staff and principal Thelma Jarrett. That day? It felt special. It was undeniable.

The first week of school always feels different, but a big part of the reason this first Friday felt special was the anticipation of the Colts football game that evening. Typically, the first game for Coolidge would go unnoticed by all except the students, faculty, staff and alumni, but nationally the Natalie Randolph story has been treated as anything but typical.

The attention has been swift, overwhelming and unexpected, particularly by Randolph herself. In fact, when I asked her if she saw this attention coming, she said, "No, No!" and then had to laugh about it all.

Mostly because the school, the administration and the football players are known to Randolph, an environmental sciences teacher at Coolidge, she didn't really have to introduce herself to her team -- most of them already knew her.

I 'knew' her only as a football player. I first saw Randolph play in the 2006 NWFA championship, a game that her team, the D.C. Divas, won handily over the Oklahoma City Lightning. The Divas and the Pittsburgh Passion were respected rivals and Randolph's name has come up often in conversation with many of the Passion players I've interviewed over the years.

Walking the halls with her last week in search of a color printer she could use, one of her players came up to her with an effusive "Coach!" and gave her a big hug. Her response? "Where's your tie?" It was a good natured, warm admonition, as her players were all to wear shirts and ties last Friday and I sub-conciously spent the remainder of our walk picking out tie-clad young men.

Still in search of a printer, we passed some students on the stairwell, one of whom cussed in conversation with the other. I didn't even hear it but Randolph, like all teachers, has a singular ability to pick up on those kinds of transgressions and quickly correct them, which she did with a sharp, "Watch your mouth." The coach Randolph story may be all the rage and she, a young African-American woman coaching boys playing the manliest of sports, may be the media's darling, but she is still a science teacher trying to impart some knowledge and maybe plant the seed of interest in science in a few Coolidge students.

That is a fact not lost on Principal Jarrett, who chose Randolph not for her Divas resume or her years as a track star at the University of Virginia, but for her vision of athletics working hand in hand with academics. Her players attend a mandatory study hall every day for an hour when school lets out. Football is the carrot to get them there and the hope is, once there, with appropriate support, the boys can be successful student-athletes, with the emphasis on student.

When we picture a football coach, we have a certain image in mind. Grizzled. Square jawed. Male. But Randolph is none of those things. She is petite and pretty and young. Well, she is square-jawed and her jaw was set through much of Friday night's loss, prompting one of the photogs next to me to say, "She's so non-emotive. This is frustrating."

The game itself started almost too perfectly, as junior Calvin Brown took in the opening kickoff from the Carroll Lions and raced up the field into daylight. He had a pretty clear lane the whole way into the endzone, but slipped around the 46 yard line. The Colts put together a nice drive from there, but they made it hard for themselves, as they were penalized early and often. At some point in the game, I lost track, but there were three or four pre-snap penalties on Coolidge in their very first drive which I believe were directly attributable to nerves, the packed house and the throng of media rabble. After all, these are high school kids accustomed to several hundred people in the stands, not several thousand.

That first drive fizzled at the Lions' 3 yard line and the game remained scoreless into the second quarter before Carroll scored to make it 7-0 at the half. The Coolidge squad is young and undersized, they lost their best offensive player, Calvin Strong, to injury early in the first half and eventually they gave way to Carroll, which dominated the second half. With the score 21-0 late in the game, I made a note to myself that coach Randolph's biggest challenge at this point was to keep frustration and resignation at bay for her players.

The challenges are great for the coach. Her team is fast, but raw and small. It always takes time for a coaching staff to coalesce, and for the team as a whole, staff and players, to come together. It'll be interesting to see how Randolph handles it all, now that the initial rush of enthusiasm and commotion has passed.

I can hardly wait to get down to Coolidge again.

Liberal victory week continues:Reproductive rights

In 1879, the state of Connecticut passed a law banning the sale of any drug or device used for the purpose of preventing conception. It was on the books for decades and nearly never enforced until the 1960s when The Pill was invented. Doctors tried suing on behalf of their patients, but the courts said the doctors lacked standing to sue. In a 1961 case Poe v. Ullman, the court decided not to hear the case, but Justice Harlan dissented. The most famous quote from his dissent is as follows.

"...the full scope of the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause cannot be found in or limited by the precise terms of the specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the Constitution. This 'liberty' is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on. It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints."

A few years later, Estelle Griswold of Connecticut Planned Parenthood and Dr. C. Lee Buxton of Yale opened a clinic in New Haven to test the law once again. They were arrested, tried and found guilty and fined $100 each. Clearly, they now had standing and the case went to the Supreme Court, who struck down the statute. In the 7-2 ruling, even those who dissented called the Connecticut law "uncommonly silly". Griswold established the right of married couples to buy contraceptives in Connecticut. A 1972 ruling in Eisenstadt v. Baird gave the same rights to unmarried couples, using 14th Amendment rights of equal protection under the law.

Conservative scholars hate Griswold, and point to it as judicial activism. When you listen to our new army of "strict constitutional constructionalists" who listen to Glenn Beck and other ignorant pinheads, it's clear they think the government isn't allowed to do much of anything, using convoluted logic that makes the establishment of the right to privacy look pristine and direct in comparison.

We see in the Park 51 controversy the true colors of these sons and daughters of liberty. They accept the rights of others, but they want those rights to be trumped if any uninvolved party takes offense to the exercise of those rights. They want a weak and toothless government until such time as they want to use government to abrogate the rights of people to whom conservatives object. They claim to love liberty, but they keep courting bigotry and intolerance, hoarding liberty for themselves and denying it to people who aren't "real Americans".

They won't go away easily; they may never go away completely. But it's obvious who believes in the rights of all citizens and who believes those rights only belong to people the easily aroused mob finds unobjectionable.

Liberal victory week continues:The dismantling of the obscenity laws

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Preseason Postmortem Week 3: Goodbye Justin

After a crappy, penalty filled night in Denver, I'd surmise that collectively, the Steelers are happy to get out of Mile High. Whose stock rose? Whose fell?

Stock Up: Jonathan Dwyer, RB. First, he showed a really nice burst and vision taking in this 5 yard touchdown scamper. Then, he moved a mass of humanity about 17 yards when it looked like he would get nothing. Actually, you couldn't even see his jersey number, just a huge pile of huge people moving inexorably downfield. Immediately after that, he bounced off/over a would-be tackler and took off on this 40 yard run. It may not be enough for Dwyer to make the final cuts. He's battled some injuries during camp which have put him at a serious disadvantage and he has a long way to go to be a complete back - his blitz pick-up has been pitiful - but what we saw in Denver was awfully promising. I expect to see a huge serving of Dwyer in Thursday night's game.

Stock Down: Justin Hartwig, C. The handwriting was on the wall the moment the Steelers drafted Maurkice Pouncey, but there was no way to know it was speed-writing on the wall. Center is a tough position to play mentally and generally it takes a college guy a season or two or three to get comfortable in there in the pros. But Pouncey is a prodigy. Still, the thought heading into camp was that even if Pouncey was ready ahead of expectations, they'd still need Hartwig around as an insurance policy. If they keep Hartwig on the roster, the only person who might need a beefed up insurance policy is Byron Leftwich. Justin the Putrid's blocking could not have been worse had he snapped the ball, then immediately sat down on the field and dealt himself a hand of solitaire on his iPhone. He's always been one of the lesser centers in the league, but last night, he proved to be completely expendable. According to the always reliable Ed Bouchette at the PG, Hartwig is scheduled to make $2,080,000 this year, money that could be better spent elsewhere.

Stock Down: Dennis Dixon, QB. I scream, you scream, we all scream for Double D. But then, really, um, not so much, no. I still think that Tomlin & Co. were right to take a longer look at Dixon, but now that we've seen him with the first unit, he looked like a third string quarterback, or, depending on how well situated your team is, a second string quarterback, or even a first-string guy who still needs a lot of work. The kid is talented, but the offense clunked along with him in leading the way. Worse, his first interception was inexcusable. I know he was trying to make something happen, I know he was trying to make an impression on the coaches, but it turns out it was the wrong impression. That pass was a bad idea the second it left Double D's hand. He should have known better than to throw that. The second one, the DB jumped the route and the pass was imminently interceptable. I'm not sure how the Steelers are going to fare without Pig Ben for four games, but I do know this - what they cannot afford are pick sixes by whichever QB starts for them. And thus endeth the Great Dennis Dixon versus Byron Leftwich debate.

Stock Up: Charlie Batch, QB. Yeah, I know Charlie threw a pick-six, too, but on his interception, it looked like either Tyler Grisham or Emmanuel Sanders was supposed to break off or run a different route. For that play to work, the QB has to make the throw on faith that the wide out will be there. Other than that, Charlie looked good. Very good. There clearly isn't room for him on Pittsburgh's roster when Pig Ben comes back, but Charlie looks better than both Derek Anderson and Matt Leinart in Arizona. When the axe falls here, and it will, Chaz should get himself on the first plane to Phoenix. I'm sure Whizzer will be glad to see him.






Stock Up: William Gay, DB. Oh, it almost pains me to admit it, but as a nickel back, the guy's not bad. Just as a starting corner, well, not so much. His interception of Tim Tebow was a thing of beauty last night -- he made a great read on the play, baited Tebow into the throw and then, most importantly, actually held on to the ball for the interception. Well done, Mr. Gay. Well done.

While we're in the defensive backfield,




Stock Down: Keenan Lewis, DB. Lewis, starting in place of Bryant McFadden (who has a pectoral injury) gave up an eight-yard catch to Brandon Lloyd. Then he proceeded to knee Lloyd and appropriately enough, got a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct flag. This AFTER he was flagged earlier in the game for a late hit. Two unsportsmanlike in one game? C'mon. Lewis was starting due to McFadden's injury, but B-Mac has been less than awesome and the rumbling around camp was that Lewis actually had a shot to win the starting job. Epic fail. Although I have to admit, I enjoyed coach Tomlin's turn as coach Cowher. He grabbed Lewis by the collar and got all up in his face when he came off the field. Vintage Bill Cowher move. And I loved it. Then this, from the Trib - apparently Lewis, The Stupider, punched some glass thing and it shattered all over the joint. He has just taken himself from second or third on the corner depth chart and put himself in a battle for the sixth and last spot. The Stupider, indeed.

Stock Down: Dan Sepulveda, in this instance, K or more precisely, kick off specialist. Riddle me this: Why is it that the Steelers kickers are unable to put the ball in the endzone on kick offs? Even in Denver! Sepulveda's first kick went out of bounds. (Shaking head.) His second kick went to the 12 yard line. Third? Well, the Steelers didn't get so many chances at kick offs, what with all the stalled drives and interceptions and such, and Reed handled the two kick offs in the second half. It should be noted that Skippy's kicks were nothing to write home about, but were a bit better, coming down at the 8 and the 3 yard lines, respectively.




Need I even say it, Stock Up: Maurkice Pouncey, C. The kid went up against Jamal Williams, one of the best nose tackles in the league without question, and held his own. Williams gives wily veterans complete fits, but Pouncey looked good in his best test of the preseason. He will certainly have some mis-steps and missed assignments along the way, but there is no question Pouncey should be the starter on opening day and has the capacity to become an elite center at some point. And while we're here again ...

Stock Down: Bruce Arians playcall on 4th and 1. Love him or hate him, you have to admit, BA gets his brains all in a twist in short yardage situations. He must think he's the cleverest guy in the room. Nobody would expect Double D rolling out on a 4th and 1. Except that they would. And do you know why? First, they don't have to stay at home, because you really don't need five big bodies clogging the middle to stop the diminutive Mewelde Moore. And second, the Steelers almost never run between the tackles anymore in short yardage situations. I have a novel idea. How about run the ball with Issac Redman. Behind your burgeoning superstar at center. You know what? If it doesn't work, you don't have to try it again. The thing is, the play that he called would work if the defense was thinking a run between the tackles was coming. If the defense is thinking that way, it creates an opportunity for Dixon on the edge. But Denver wasn't fooled. Not by a long shot. And in fact, nobody's been fooled by BA's, er, creative play-calls in short yardage situations in a long time. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Except that they do. All the time.

Stock Down: Everybody who contributed a stupid penalty. Sepulveda for kicking out of bounds; Keenan Lewis, unnecessary roughness TWICE; Lawrence Timmons for roughing Kyle Orton; James Harrison for unnecessary roughness; Flozell Adams for consecutive false start penalties; and Stefan Logan for unsportsmanlike conduct. Man.

Prime Time Preseason Menu

As tonight's a prime time game, I'm not making game food, so much as dinner. Tonight is Moroccan Chicken Stew with Couscous. I originally stole, then slightly adapted the recipe from this blog. This quickly became a house favorite. It's been a while since I made it, so I'm reviving it for tonight's dress rehearsal versus the Denver Broncos.

My slightly modified version is below:

Moroccan Inspired Chicken Stew



Ingredients:
-- 8-10 chicken thighs (boneless, skinless version -- although today, I got bone in thighs and just skinned them myself. It was fairly gruesome and I would not recommend this for the faint of heart. In short, if you cannot watch "Bizarre Foods," then this probably is not a task you want to undertake.)
-- several tbsp cup extra-virgin olive oil
-- 2 onions, diced
-- 4 carrots, peeled and coarsely diced
-- 4 cloves garlic, finely diced
-- 1/2 tbsp ground turmeric
-- 2 tsp ground cumin
-- 1 tsp ground coriander
-- heavy pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
-- 1 cinnamon stick
-- 2 bay leaves
-- 2 c. chicken broth
-- Finely grated zest and juice of 2 lemons
-- 1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
-- 2 c. big, pitted green olives

Prep:
Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Brown the chicken all over and season with salt and pepper. Transfer the browned chicken to a plate. It might be easiest to work in batches, depending on the size of your cookware.

Reduce medium heat, add the onions and garlic and carrots & pinch of salt. Cook until the veggies are softened and brown, 5 to 6 minutes.

Add the turmeric, cumin, coriander, red pepper, cinnamon sticks, and bay leaves and cook until fragrant, just about 1 or 2 minutes.

Add the chicken broth, lemon zest, and the lemon juice. Return the chicken to the pot, add the chickpeas and olives. Increase the heat to medium high and simmer covered for about 30 minutes. It's nice and moist, so you can't really overcook the chicken. I let it cook for about an hour and it was moist and delicious as can be.

I serve it over whole wheat couscous. I am generally not a fan of things whole wheat, nor am I a big couscous head, but in this instance, I think the whole wheat couscous works exceptionally well.

Liberal victory week begins:Ending the draft

I saw a Gallup poll taken in 2009 that states only about 20% of Americans now self-identify as liberal, with 40% self-identified as conservative and 35% as moderate. I'm guessing the last 5% consider themselves Sandinista like my good buddy Padre Mickey. Party affiliations are much closer, with Democrats often in the lead as they were in 2008 when Obama crushed McCain. Party affiliation and position on the political spectrum aside, let it always be remembered that John McCain ran one of the worst campaigns for president in the last fifty years, showing less competence than George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis or Bob Dole, other candidates to took serious electoral ass-whuppings.

Now, the conservative movement thinks of themselves as the standard bearers of "liberty" and "freedom", which in their mind means paying lower taxes. I'm old enough to remember when freedom was the cause of liberals, and freedom meant "not getting your ass thrown in jail for no good cause". Many of the battles for freedom started in my lifetime, and time after time, people who self-identified as conservatives were against freedom and they got their asses kicked like the miserable cowardly dogs that they are.

A lot of young people didn't live through it, but I did. I had some personal stake in some of the changes that took place and nearly none in others, but that doesn't change the facts. Life in these United States is better for all our citizens because of the courage of liberal heroes who stood up against conservative villains.


I start this week of history lessons with one of the most remarkable and hard to predict victories of all, the end of the military draft. The United States has had a draft since the Civil War and there have always been people who complained. It was a real issue during World War I, when there were a lot of people in the country who were against foreign entanglements and didn't see the sinking of the Lusitania as provocation enough to enter a horrible slaughter thousands of miles away. The anti-draft movement of World War II and Korea were much less pronounced, but during Vietnam, it was a real political issue that divided the country along left-right lines.


One of the most vivid signs of that split was how people felt about Muhammad Ali, the heavyweight boxing champion who converted to the Black Muslims and claimed his religion allowed him to be a conscientious objector. Ali was deeply hated by a large segment of the population, so much so that Joe Frazier, a man who had to struggle against a racist system as well, was cast as an Uncle Tom because so many white scumbags pinned their hopes on him to beat Ali, since anyone with half a brain knew that there wasn't a white heavyweight who had a chance in hell of beating the mouthy and supremely talented boxer and showman.

Men who stood against the draft were seen as cowards, but they faced jail or exile for their beliefs, and quite simply, their argument that the draft was an infringement on their freedom was undeniable. The government could force them into a low paying and exceedingly hazardous job or throw them in jail. In the sixties, there didn't seem to be an alternative to the draft, but as about a half century has now gone by, we can say the draft protesters of the 1960s helped make life better for the generations that followed them, aided by two unlikely allies, the military itself and Richard Nixon.

The military has never liked the draft. Men forced into uniform don't make particularly good soldiers, and in Vietnam, they became a serious threat to the military structure with the not common but still troubling act of fragging. Fragging was slang for enlisted men seriously wounding or killing officers they disliked, named for the fragmentation grenade often used. The military brass knew the problem was draftees and cracking down on discipline would likely make matters worse. Nixon, for as much as he was reviled by liberals then (and now), was a very keen politician who understood that victories did not have to be the crushing of your opponents, but instead might work if you took a major issue away from your opponents. During his administration, the first steps were taken that turned the draft into a lottery which has since been effectively discontinued. The military lobbied hard to increase our military budget so steeply that we could field a smaller and exceedingly well equipped volunteer army to fight any war short of World War III without a draft, even when fighting two long wars today, started when conservative pinheads and military shirkers George W. Bush and Dick Cheney began two conflicts they had no idea how to end.

The end of the draft had a direct impact on my life. My dad was drafted and fought in Korea. He hated it deeply and instructed my brother in ways to make sure the Army rejected him when his time came. Even the lottery was discontinued when my time came and I could stay in school without worrying about it.

The people who fought hardest for this issue were liberals. Those who opposed change were, as usual, conservatives. We won and they lost. This is a steady, consistent pattern of the last half century and there are battles still to be fought or yet to be finished.

More tomorrow.

Anyone get a mars hoax e-mail?

I used to be an e-mail forwarder, but well... the nineties are over, right? I was wandering around the Internets today and I stumbled on this e-mail story that none of my friends who still forward e-mails sent to me. This is a good thing because I would have a hard time staying polite at something with this level of Rock F*#king Stupidity.

There is an e-mail that says Mars will look as large as the Moon some time in August. Tell your friends, tell your children and grandchildren, tattoo the dog, burn an offering and give it to the gods, big big party and you are all invited.

Of course it isn't true, not even close. The math is easy. The radius of Mars is about twice the radius of the Moon, which means if they were the same distance away from the earth, Mars would look to be four times the surface area because the area is proportional to the square of the radius. If Mars was twice as far away, then the two would look to be the same size.

Mars isn't twice as far away as the moon, it's much, much farther away even at its closest. The Moon is about a quarter million miles away. At its closest, Mars is about 60 million miles away. So even when Mars is really close, the Moon is more than 200 times closer.

If someone sends this to you, you have my permission to call bullshit on it. This e-mail has been sent every August for the past six or seven years and scientists are trying to get the word out. It's not working very well. We have these small weak levees of education trying to hold back an angry and rising sea of stupidity.

Random 10, 8/27/10

007 (Shanty Town) Desmond Dekker
Days Elvis Costello
Exodus Bob Marley and the Wailers
Semaphore Signals Wreckless Eric
It Hurts Me Too Eric Clapton
Pressure Drop Toots and the Maytals
Se Tu M'ami (Parisotti) Cecilia Bartoli
Christmas Must Be Tonight The Band
Biology Joe Jackson
Spiderwebs No Doubt

I have my doubts that the random selection process in the iTunes on my Mac would actually pass muster if checked for randomness. I might have a total of twenty reggae tunes on my computer out of 1,200 songs and three of them show up this morning.

Not complaining, just sayin'.

High Expectations

I've been struggling for the past nine months with how to deal with the expectations for our team for this season.

I prefer being the underdog. But it would be close to impossible to cast our team in that light this season and maintain any degree of credibility. It's always easier to lead when you can create an "us against them" mentality with your team. But this season, realistically, it's "them against us."

Our team has won two straight class AA-A state championships. We have nine starters returning, seven of whom are seniors, and seven of whom made one all-state team or the other. We've begun to receive notice outside of the state -- we will play the team that won the Ohio state "small school" championship game (they were later stripped of the title, under questionable circumstances in my opinion) in a game on Labor Day and our upcoming game against University High (last year's West Virginia AAA state champion) has already begun generating some buzz.

I think many coaches tend to ignore the psychological preparation for themselves and their team for a season. To me, that is the most important aspect of pre-season work for an accomplished and skilled team like ours. If you have a bunch of new or young players, then you need to get a ball on their feet as often as possible. But for our team, figuring out how to deal with the expectations and pressures of seeking a three-peat(c) was paramount.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to be in the position of having to deal with this kind of "problem." But it's easy for people to overlook the time spent off the field that goes into deciding how you will work your way through it, and that how you will handle and train a skilled team is just as taxing, just different, than doing the same for a younger or less talented team.

In the end, my choice was to simply admit that our prospects for the season should be promising and let the team know that it was up to them to decide whether we would achieve them or not. Fortunately, our players are very competitive and have even higher goals than most people would think. Planning how you will communicate with your team can be more important than planning what you will (and won't) tell people outside the team about what you're doing and why.

Although it's still early, so far we've embraced the expectations that we and others have placed on us. We spent a great weekend in Morgantown scrimmaging against some of the best teams in the state, I witnessed the best, most intense scrimmage I've ever seen when we battled University High on a lovely August evening, and we have already avenged our only loss from last season.

The view from University High's field the evening of our scrimmage.

There will no doubt be some bumps along the way (in fact, there were some in a scrimmage the morning after the University scrimmage), but the moments we've already experienced this season lead me to believe that sometimes expecting the most from your team, and telling them that, is the best option. Maybe even when it's not the only one.

Hey, Abe! Buddy! You gotta little sumthin'...ya know, sumthin' froggy on your face there.

No, not there... over a little to the right. Okay, yeah, now you got it.

Pointy headed scientists are congratulating themselves on the discovery of what they assume to be the smallest species of amphibian outside of the Americas. They have given the new species the name Microhyla nepenthicola, which is Latin for "really tiny frog we overlooked a few times". The creatures had been found before, but earlier biologists made the assumption that these were juveniles, li'l baby froglets that would grow into normal sized critters over time. Turns out this is normal sized for them.

Da itty bitty froggies! Dey so CUUUUUUUTE!


The real reason for the species name for da itty bitty froggies is that they were found living in the puddle of water inside a pitcher plant named Nepenthes ampullaria, a type of carnivorous plant found in Borneo, sweet Borneo*! Other critters fall into these puddles and get trapped and die, and the pitcher plant then lives on the nutrients from the rotting remains. The little froggies are so small that the inside of the pitcher plant is not some claustrophobic death trap, but instead a lovely luxury resort.

Isn't nature wonderful, and by wonderful, I mean goofy? Go figure.

*My sister Karlacita! will know where that is taken from.

Steelers Preseason. The Turk Cometh

Right after the Steelers get home from Denver, they will cut the roster down to 75 men and less than a week later, make the final cuts down to 53 players. When I was a kid, I remember two things that seemed different. It seemed like they were at camp at St. V’s longer and I distinctly remember three cut dates. But memory is a funny thing. It was probably exactly the same, but my conception of time was way, way different.

As to the here and now, here’s a handy guide to watching the last two games, who is on the bubble, who is a lock and who may be destined for the waiver wire:

QUARTERBACKS:

They’re gonna keep Pig Ben, Double D and Leftwich. What they do with Double D and Leftwich in Pig Ben’s absence is another matter altogether, but I for one will be sad to see the Charlie Batch era end for the Steelers. For the team, it’s the right thing to do. And Chaz should find work - there are at least a dozen teams who could use a good, smart back-up. When his playing days are over, I hope he comes back to his hometown for good. We’ll miss you Chaz. Hurry back.

OFFENSIVE LINE:

Last year, the Steelers kept nine linemen and assuming they do the same but there are a dozen lineman on the roster at the moment. At the moment, there are five absolute locks (Max Starks, Chris Kemoeatu, Maurkice Pouncey, Trai Essex and Hotel Flozell [more for his run blocking than his glacial pass blocking]) which leaves Justin Hartwig, Doug Legursky, Adrian Jones, Kraig Urbik, Ramon Foster, Tony Hills and Jonathan Scott battling it out for the remaining four spots. I get the sense (based on nothing at all) that Tony Hills and Ramon Foster have a really good chance of locking up some of those spots, so I’m going to try to keep one eye on the line the whole night. Beyond which, I believe it’s time to let Hartwig go and just start Pouncey. If you see a lot of Doug Legursky on Sunday, it may mean the coaches are leaning that way, too.

RUNNING BACK:

Again, last year, they kept five spots for running back. Suspect Mendenhall and Mewelde Moore are givens, which means there are six guys trying to make a push for the last three spots. They list Stefan Logan as a running back, even though he’s really just a return guy. If they go with Antonio Brown as the return specialist, I don’t think Logan’s a factor at all in the running back race. Issac Redman is sure to make the team this year (isn’t he?), which means there are spots left for only two guys. Frank the Tank has been on the field as a lead blocker a ton, plus he’s a beast on kick and punt return coverage, so that’s four. So that means that Dwayne Wright (listed officially as a fullback), sixth round draft pick Jonathan Dwyer and Justin Vincent are duking it out for that last spot.

TIGHT ENDS:
I don’t expect a change from last year’s three of Heath Miller, Matt Spaeth and David Johnson. Has anybody even see Sean McHugh on the field in the first two games? Eugene Bright? He’s probably been out there, but not so as anybody noticed.

WIDE OUTS:

Five is the magic number here. By my count it looks like this: Hines Ward, Mike Wallace, Antwan Randal El and the coaches love Emmanual Sanders. The question is, if they keep only five, what do they do about Arnaz Battle v. Antonio Brown? Of course, if they keep Brown as the kick return specialist, they’ll have six wide outs and perhaps only carry four running backs, since Stef Logan was a running back in name only last year.

It gets really interesting on the defensive side off the ball, particularly when you get beyond the line of scrimmage.

DEFENSIVE LINE:

Coach John Mitchell has spoken about how much he loves using the six man rotation of Casey Hampton, Brett Keisel, Aaron Smith, Ziggy Hood, Nick Eason and Chris Hoke. Last year, they kept seven, so keep an eye on these guys on Sunday night to battle for the final spot: Ra’Shon Harris, Steve McLendon, Doug Worthington and Scott Paxson.

LINEBACKERS:

The Steelers seem to always have a surplus of linebackers and some of the fiercest battles for spots are going on here. The mortal locks are (1) James Harrison, (2) LaMarr Woodley, (3) Lawrence Timmons, (4) James Farrior, (5) Jason Worilds and, it seems to me (6) Keyaron Fox. They probably didn’t bring back Larry Foote just to cut him, although that’s possible. But the battle for the last spot seems to be shaping up between Thaddeus Gibson and Stevenson Sylvester, both of whom have looked very, very good in the action they’ve seen thusfar. Oh, Patrick Bailey’s still hanging around, plus there are a bunch of other guys who will probably be cut sooner rather than later.

SAFETIES:

Troy Polamalu and Ryan Clark are givens. Will Allen's going to start in place of Clark on Sunday (altitude issues), so I think he may be the third man on the roster at safety. So Ryan Mundy (who knows the system and has looked good), Da’Mon Cromartie-Smith, and Justin Thorton are battling for that last spot. I’m thinking Mundy, but it bears watching on Sunday night.

CORNERBACKS:

Again, six is the number we’re looking at. Ike The Stupid is their #1 guy, and they brought Bryan McFadden back with the thought he would start on the other side. Joe Burnett made the squad last year and he looks pretty good so far this pre-season. That’s three. As to the remaining three:
They took Crezdon Butler in the 5th round this year, so short of a complete flame out, he’s got a good shot at the #4 spot.
Is it just me, or does Keenan Lewis look better than William Gay? Anybody? That’s five.
So William Gay, by virtue of experience, has a serious edge on David Pitman. I guess so, as I can't even recall seeing #30 on the field at all.

SPECIAL TEAMS:

Skippy, Dan Sepulveda and Greg Warren.

Say hello to my little friend.

We've had a very cold August in the Bay Area, lots of overcast days where the sun wasn't visible until noon, if then. That means very little in my apartment, which gets the afternoon sun and faces an enclosed terrace that shuts out any cooling breeze. I finally decided to get a portable air conditioner for the place late last month after suffering through two summers here, though I should say that usually the major suffering only lasts for a handful of days each year.

Yesterday, the cool wave ended. It was 98 degrees in San Francisco and over 100 in Oakland. My sauna like apartment would have been completely intolerable except for the new air conditioning unit, and even it only could keep a very small area cool. On the days when I've used it this month, it could usually cool down my entire living room when used for about an hour before the sun went down. Yesterday, it was on by the mid afternoon and stayed on even after I went to sleep, and could only keep a very small region cool. Getting up from my chair to go to the kitchen or the bathroom, I could feel the heat all over the apartment and it stayed hot until well after midnight. I woke up at 3:30 this morning and finally the rest of the apartment was tolerable.

Today, the forecast says it will be in the mid eighties, which is hot for Oakland but not record breaking like yesterday. The thing is, the forecast for yesterday said it would be in the mid-eighties as well, so we'll see what actually happens. Tomorrow it's supposed to be back to a high in the low seventies, which as a native son is the kind of summer day I really like, though some will complain it is too cool in the morning. I do a lot better in cool temperatures than I do in hot, and I always have. My new little investment, which to my nerdy eyes looks like a robot from Star Wars, meant I actually had a chance to get some sleep last night, so it's already paying off big time.

Winona Forever

You soon can expect another film to use the lesbian predator device, this time with Natalie Portman as the prey. In Black Swan, to be released later this year, Portman plays a prima ballerina tormented by a younger dancer who may or may not be a figment of her imagination. In any case, the younger ballerina (Mila Kunis) has a stalker quality, and there is quite of bit of sexual/romantic activity between these two women.

But my interest in this film is not due to its lesbian subtext. I'm more interested in the fact that Winona Ryder is also in this film. I just love that she's making a comeback. No, she is not the leading ingenue she once was, but she is carving out interesting roles for herself at age 38 after self-destructing ten years ago. I didn't realize she was back until I recognized her in Star Trek last year, playing Spock's human mother. After being the It Girl of the 1990s, she unraveled. In 2001 she was arrested for shoplifting more than $5,000 of nice things from Saks in Beverly Hills—including a $760 cashmere Marc Jacobs sweater and pair of $80 cashmere Donna Karan socks. Hey, at least she still had good taste while under the influence of too many prescription drugs. After an ugly trial, she was convicted of grand theft and sentenced to community service and drug counseling. If Timothy Leary is your godfather, which he is in her case, and if you grew up in a California commune, which she did, I think it's understandable that drugs might have an unhealthy presence your life. But she has apparently put that behind her and is still pursuing her craft of acting. I admire that she's taking supporting roles and becoming something of a character actor—more of an artist, I'd say, which seems to be her sensibility. As Johnny Depp once tattooed on his arm: Winona Forever! (Even though, after their breakup, he changed it to Wino Forever.)

The offending image

I'm on Facebook. I don't like the website much, but I like keeping up with friends. If it were a real place, it would be like some crap mall food court that was the only place everyone could agree to hang out.

The people supporting Proposition 19, the California initiative that would de-criminalize marijuana and let cities decide if they wanted to allow stores to sell it legally and be taxed, had an ad on Facebook and it was getting all those things you want for an ad on a website, like click throughs and "like" votes and fans. But Facebook has decided that a picture of a marijuana leaf is a forbidden image and the ads have been pulled down. You can read more at this link on the Huffington Post.

I am in favor of the initiative and will do what I can to support it. Besides putting this picture on my humble blog, I will post it to Facebook and ask all my friends who have an interest in passing Prop. 19 to do the same.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Lesbian predators redux

Lesbians are abuzz about the recent I Kissed a Girl episode of Rizzoli & Isles—which, I concede, was remarkable in just how thoroughly it was steeped in sapphism—HOWEVER, I must offer a word of caution in the celebration. I must turn on the lights at this rowdy house party. (Fair warning to those who have not yet seen the show.)

The plot of the episode relies on the age-old portrayal of lesbians as crazed sexual predators, and it also presents a clear anti-butch theme throughout. Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles are trying to solve the murder of a lesbian, whose sexually assaulted body is discovered in an alley near a dyke bar. In the victim's wedding photo, we see her in a white dress holding hands with her butch spouse in a suit. To catch the killer, Rizzoli is urged by a giddy Isles to go undercover as a lesbian. Isles herself ultimately joins in, posing as a busty waitress at the dyke bar. To attract the killer, Isles posts Rizzoli's profile on a dating website for lesbians. While our two gals spend most of the show acting like adolescents with crushes on each other—this includes discussing what kind of lesbians they would be if they were lesbians, talking side-by-side in bed while fully clothed, trading shoves during yoga class, and reacting excitedly to the slightest hint of emotion or insult from each other. When checking the categories of the online dating form, Isles seems to think she is defending her beloved tomboy friend by insisting that Rizzoli should be classified not as a butch, but, rather, as a "sporty" lesbian. "Butch" clearly indicated a slur. In the end, of course, it turns out the victim was killed by her butch spouse, who was working in cahoots with the butch bartender. As the curtain closes, Rizzoli & Isles celebrate their confirmed heterosexuality. The butches are punished, and the straight girls stride into the future.

All this is not to say that I did not enjoy the show. (Embrace double negatives.) Yes, it was fun to see Rizzoli brush up against Isles's breasts. Yes, it is generally a thrill to watch Angie Harmon swagger around as a rangy tomboy. But the show also confirmed that the ugly stereotype of the mannish lesbian predator is alive and well in popular culture. Are we still celebrating crumbs of visibility?

We've seen all this before. The Celluloid Closet documented it well. For most of the history of film (and television), gays and lesbians have been portrayed as something to laugh at, pity, or fear. Lesbians in particular were often seen as predators. The Rizzoli & Isles episode, with its murderous lesbians, fits this unfortunate model. The lesbians on the show reminded me of the sadistic drunk June Buckridge in The Killing of Sister George, of the doomed Martha Dobie in Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour, of the chilling Mrs. Danvers in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca. For the film, Hitchcock modified the masterpiece novel by Daphne du Maurier (herself a secret bisexual, as often was the case with lesbians of her generation), to amplify the creepy lesbian undertones. It's interesting to note that Mrs. Danvers was played by Oscar-nominee Judith Anderson, who also played another hated mannish woman on screen: Memnet in The Ten Commandments. I always kind of liked Memnet, but, naturally, she was thrown off the balcony.
I am reminded of another recent memorable unfeminine villainous lesbian. Regal old Dame Judi Dench pursues scrumptious Cate Blanchett in Notes on a Scandal. Both women behave very badly, but the straight woman behaves criminally. Nevertheless, be confident that the dyke is the villain. Even so, I can't take my eyes off Blanchett's performance as her character—dressed in the most beautiful knitwear—completely loses it. When things go badly, blame the dyke.

You people.

Regular readers of the blog know I love the show Mad Men. It does a great job of invoking the early and mid 1960s. I was just a fresh faced lad when these shows are supposed to take place, but I know they get a lot of the details right. Instead of giving a full summary and critique of this week's episode, let me give a plot point that is a tiny spoiler, no more than you might get reading a preview. The new firm has a chance to work with Honda motorcycles. Roger Sterling, a WW II veteran from the Pacific theater, hates the Japanese and does everything he can scuttle the possible new relationship.

The show captures the open racism of the time. This is when the n-word was said openly by unrepentant white racists, many of them Southerners. I remember the "genteel" Southerners on TV using the word "nigras", halfway between the then acceptable term Negros and the word they really wanted to use. It had gotten through to them that the n-word didn't play well on the national stage.

There was no such gentility about anti-Asian racism as the time. We've never turned any of the different slurs into "the j-word" or "the g-word" or "the c-word", and I don't hear people say those words anymore. Maybe I just run with a nicer crowd now than I did then, but there is a lot more sensitivity in the general public and definitely in the media than there was back then.


Except when it comes to Muslims. You can say any kind of slander against anyone in the Islamic community in public or on TV and the the press broadcasts it live for all the world to see. All Muslims might as well have Osama bin Laden on their speed dial according to a disgustingly large segment of the American public. There are videos of a protest against the Islamic community center at Park51, which you may know by the name given to it by idiots. A black guy in a skullcap wandered through, the crowd got ugly and the cops escorted him out before things turned violent.

The thing is, the guy isn't a Muslim. It's hard to make out the thing hanging off his necklace in this picture, but it's a representation of the Puerto Rican flag. The white skullcap was made by the athletic clothing company Under Armor. Still, a crowd of idiots could mistake him for a Muslim and focus all their hatred on him and go home thinking they are the people defending the American way.

I started with the picture of Roger Sterling from Mad Men for a reason other than he looks good in that suit and haircut. His character feels 100% justified to hate the Japanese, but the people around him are asking him to get over it because the war is over. In the minds of many Americans, we are still at war with the entire Muslim world. Let me give George W. Bush some credit, because he tried to stop that kind of talk, even though his attempts at diplomacy were often clumsy. I haven't seen a lot of Bush era people at the forefront of this racist nonsense. The people doing most of the rabble rousing are the clever but nasty Newt Gingrich and the stone stupid Sarah Palin, amplified by Fox News and then carried like a virus by all the rest of the media reacting to them like Pavlov's dog.

Freedom of religion and freedom of speech can be hurtful things, but this is exactly why the founders decided to make them rights instead of privileges that might be put to a vote. I'm a die-hard agnostic, and it would be wrong headed of me to expect all Christians to answer for Fred Phelps or the KKK or sectarian violence in Ireland or the Spanish Inquisition, just as wrong headed as Christians stopping the building of a community center in lower Manhattan or mosques all around the country because "you people caused 9/11".

Things have changed a lot since I was a kid, but the central evil of human nature is unlikely to ever go away. The targets may change over time, but the desire to punish "you people" is deep in our genetic make-up.

We don't deserve to survive as a species. Here endeth the lesson.

Yet again, hating on the Mac.

Yesterday, the Yahoo! fantasy football league run by my nephew Adam had its draft, and that was an enjoyable way to spend a couple hours. The Mutant Mercenaries drafted first, so I have last year's best running back Chris Johnson on my team, and I am also happy with several other picks. What I am not happy with is how the software that ran the draft worked on my Mac.

I used my usual browser Firefox, and of course it let me choose players and sort through the data in several ways, but there was a chat window that had no accompanying text box, so I could could read the stuff other people were writing, but could not comment myself. It's possible another Mac browser would have worked better, but this is just another way my Mac does not give me options that were readily available on even the most out of date PC that will connect to the Internet.

Grr.

p.s. I will keep a sidebar up on this blog showing the progress of the Mutant Mercenaries this year. My first game is two weekends from now against my nephew Adam's team, Condoms R 4 Sailors.

As Long Suspected, Pittsburgh Pirates Make Profit with Perpetual Cellar Dweller

For the last 10 years or so, I've been hollering, howling into the void of pain and ignominy that has become the lot of Pirates fans, clambering to see the Pirates' financials. Well, not for me personally to see them, but for somebody who can actually parse the ledgers of a Major League Baseball team to have a look-see. I believed that would never, ever happen and that, in fact, the Pirates were more likely to win a World Series than open their books.

Wrong!

'The Pirates made nearly $29.4 million in 2007 and 2008, according to team financial documents, years that were part of a streak of futility that has now reached 18 straight losing seasons. The team's ownership also paid its partners $20.4 million in 2008.

The documents offer a rare peek inside a team that made money by getting slightly less than half its income (about $70 million) from MLB sources -- including revenue sharing, network TV, major league merchandise sales and MLB's website. The team also held down costs, keeping player salaries near the bottom of the National League, shedding pricier talent and hoping that untested prospects would blossom.
...

"The numbers indicate why people are suspecting they're taking money from baseball and keeping it -- they don't spend it on the players," said David Berri, president of the North American Association of Sports Economists and the author of two books detailing the relationship between finances and winning. "Teams have a choice. They can seek to maximize winning, what the Yankees do, or you can be the Pirates and make as much money as you can in your market. The Pirates aren't trying to win."'

The full story at ESPN here.

The Pirates claim there is nothing nefarious in their financial practices. Nefarious? No. That's the wrong word. Indifferent is the word. Indifferent to the fans. And indifferent to even the mere notion of winning.

ESPN reports that the Pirates 2010 opening day payroll was just $2 million more than their opening day payroll in 1992. An increase of only two million dollars in 18 years would be bad enough, particularly given that baseball inflation is to regular inflation as dog years are to people years.

But according to the Baseball Archive database, the Pirates 1992 outlay was $36,228,647.00 and according to CBS Sports, the 2010 payroll was $34,943,000.00, actually about $1.3 million less than it was in 1992.

The 1992 Pirates were right in step with MLB. I've taken a look at the salaries of all the teams currently in first place (except Tampa Bay, which franchise didn't exist the last time the Pirates posted a winning record, so I substituted the second place New York Yankees for them in the AL East.) Read 'em and weep:

Yankees 1992 Payroll = $ 34,902,292.00
Yankees 2010 Payroll = $206,333,389.00

Minnesota Twins 1992 Payroll = $27,272,834.00
Minnesota Twins 2010 Payroll = $97,559,167.00

Texas Rangers 1992 Payroll = $26,228,500.00
Texas Rangers 2010 Payroll = $55,250,545.00

Atlanta Braves 1992 Payroll = $35,853,321.00
Atlanta Braves 2010 Payroll = $84,423,667.00

Cincinnati Reds 1992 Payroll = $35,429,559.00
Cincinnati Reds 2010 Payroll = $72,386,544.00

San Diego Padres 1992 Payroll = $27,689,604.00
San Diego Padres 2010 Payroll = $37,799,300.00

Except for the Padres, every one of those teams at least doubled their 1992 salary outlay. As to the Padres, every couple of seasons, some freak accident of a team with a tiny payroll and with a rabbit's foot up their collective butts comes along and contends. Meet the 2010 Padres. Sames as the 2003 Marlins. Or the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays. And every time it happens, it sends the Pirates talking heads into a frenzy of denial. Denial that good players come at a price and, most of the time, the teams willing to pay that price end up playing meaningful games in September.

Beyond which, the Pirates never are the Marlins or Rays or Padres.

In baseball, as in life, most of the time you get what you pay for. And what fans get is what the Nuttings want to pay for. A team that, even if they were to win every game remaining on their schedule, would post their 18th consecutive losing record, an organization that is unmoved by years of losing and impervious to ridicule, so long as the money rolls in.

Update for all the late comers. Here's the NPR story on this.