memo to Osama: crawl back in your cave

Once again, Osama and the chief lunatics of the Middle East are demonstrating that they know nothing of the U.S. or of Americans. The threat to visit unspecified "consequences" if Bush is re-elected will have the specific consequence of making more than a few undecided voters vote for Bush, clean and load their weapons, and wait for warfare in the streets. I should say we only hope they wait, and not declare war on every mosque and every "Middle Eastern looking person" in their neighborhoods.

This tactic may work in Spain, but it will not work here. The reactionary consequences are so predictable that you wonder if the Republican National Committee didn't put Osama up to it. Naw, they are not that devious. Osama is reminding me more and more of Hitler and his desire to bring Gotterdammerung down upon our heads. Whatever the reward is for his head, it is time to double it.

the Red Sox victory - sheer lunacy

Am I the only one who noticed that the Heavens commemorated the Red Sox victory in Game Four by giving us a lunar eclipse?

Rest in peace, Babe Ruth

So much for that nonsense.

One impressive thing about this year's Red Sox team is how much baseball they played with two outs. When you are a kid, you hate to go to the plate with two outs. You don't want to make the third out but it seems almost inevitable. Your buddies in the dugout show their confidence in you by getting their gloves and catcher's gear ready to go on the field. But the Red Sox did a lot of hitting and scoring with two out. They also came back from the abyss, three games down, to win the next eight games. Maybe it had something to do with the terrible pounding they got in Game Three against the Yankees, which goes to show that it doesn't pay to humiliate somebody who makes his living with a baseball bat.

I disagree with today's Boston Globe. Pigs still can't fly, hell has not frozen over. But they got it partly right: The Impossible Dream can come true. Even if you have to wait a lifetime.

liberal, conservative - bah, humbug

For decades, politicians and other rabble-rousers in Florida have played the "pin the tail on the donkey" game. If I can make more liberal "tails" stick to my opponent's donkey, and keep a conservative "tail" attached to mine, I win. That's because too many people have a simple-minded view of life. If a person or an idea is a liberal, that's bad, but if the person or idea is conservative, that's good (or vice versa). Once the tail attaches to the donkey there is no longer a need to expend mental energy trying to analyze or understand either the person or the idea no matter how complex the subject might be. For some odd reason, most of the people who fall into this trap call themselves conservatives.

I'm happy to report that a long-time journalist for the St. Pete Times, who has spent a career following state government in Tallahassee, has written a nice piece exploding this nonsense. I'll let it speak for itself. Read it here: http://www.sptimes.com/2004/10/24/Columns/New_crises_facing_us_.shtml

fun and games in St. Louis

When the World Series resumes in St. Louis, new fans of the Red Sox who don't follow baseball very much will be shocked and surprised to see the one fundamental difference between the American League (home of the Sox) and the National League (home of the Cardinals): In the National League, the pitchers are in the batting order and are expected to bat. They will follow National League rules when they play in St. Louis. So, get ready to see Pedro Martinez at the plate with a bat in his hands and designated hitter David Ortiz playing somewhere (first base?) so he can stay in the batting order. I'll be happy to see the Sox win one of the three games they play in St. Louis.

Spammers should be dragged into the streets

Spammers should be dragged into the streets and shot. I've already had one "comment" here that turned out to be spam. That should be no surprise because Blogger is basically open to the world, but consider this: Several weeks ago, Juno announced a drastic change in policy regarding free mail users and so I decided it was time to create a new address elsewhere. I mean, ya know, I have five addresses already and it wouldn't do to have just four after dropping Juno. So I created one elsewhere. I won't say where, but I already have received six (6) (half a dozen) pieces of spam at that address despite the fact that I have never, ever used that address for any purpose whatsoever. They are using random address generators or something, sending these pieces of baloney out into the ether by the billions to nonexistent addresses hoping to catch new ones like mine. The real fools are people who open them and actually send money somewhere in response. Maybe they are the people who should be dragged into the streets and then separated from their money before they respond again.

Triumph!

Curious, but my blog post with this title has disappeared. Dropped out of sight. Gone. Ah, well, all I was doing was crowing about predicting the winner of Game Seven. I said the Yankee fans were better behaved than I expected, but they had eight innings to see that train roll down the track and the final outcome was predictable after the second inning. I also made some snide remarks about the relative size of the New York and Boston payrolls. Like, the difference in their payrolls is something like $57 million in 2004.

Now it is time to think ahead to Saturday. The Cardinals are a worthy opponent. No predictions here, but the Red Sox would probably win a barroom brawl and I suspect the World Series is going to have the ambience of a bare-knuckle fist fight. Red Sox in six. Not a prediction, just a guess.

Tonight, the Red Sox will triumph

Tonight is the impossible Game Seven, between the Red Sox and a team that began 3 - 0 and then lost the next three, between the Red Sox and a team that whipped them 19 - 8 but then lost the next three, and did I mention that the Yankees lost the last three games? Tonight they are still in Yankee Stadium but the Red Sox have momentum going. They will start with a better pitcher, they are going to play over their heads, and nobody will choke under the pressure. It will be a long game. The Yankees will not go down easy. Their fans will not be good sports about it. But they, too, will learn to say "wait until next year." I'm going out on the limb, here, but the view is good. From the end of this limb you can see the World Series.

Are the umpires wired?

A comment from an Alert Reader deserves a public reply. She finds the ability of the umpires to get together, discuss a wrong call, then make the right call without benefit of instant replay pretty remarkable, especially after seeing them do that TWICE in the same game. She wonders, do they have a radio so they can hear the announcers say "they messed that call up?"

Here is my authoritative answer: I don't know, but I will never make jokes about baseball umpires again.

These guys are famous for "calling it like they see it." Legions of managers have been ejected from the game trying to change an umpire's mind. I grew up believing their calls were final. . .and they almost always were before television. (There was baseball before television. There was baseball before radio.) On the other hand, even though the official rules don't actually require more than one umpire, the league championship games have six umpires on the field every night. You've gotta figure two or three are in position to see every play from a good angle. So, if one of them blows a call in a high-stakes game, I'm proud to see that they collectively want to get it right. If they are listening to the announcers by hidden radios implanted in their thick eyeglasses or their red and white canes, that would be OK with me. Uh oh, I did it again.

A-Rod deserved a 15-yard penalty

I mean, it was a deliberate foul, the way he slapped the ball out of Arroyo's gloved hand in the 8th inning. Every camera angle showed it. Joe Torre should have been ejected. The New York fans should have been ejected. I don't remember seeing a platoon of cops ready to restore order after a baseball game. Sheesh! Tomorrow night - er, tonight - will be the seventh game of the ALC Series, the first time a baseball team has ever come back from 3 - 0 to force a seventh game. Boston has the momentum. Boston is going to take it.

They'll win tonight, too

You heard it here first. Yeah, they are in Yankee stadium and yeah, the local fans have photos of Babe Ruth all over the place, but the team that wins tonight will be the last team to have a pitcher still standing. Boston has Schilling shot up with pain killers and he is hobbling, but Boston has Schilling on the mound. He is keeping a tight lid on the Yankees - ten batters in the first three innings, one hit. Now it is the top of the fourth and a Yankee fan in the left field bleachers has tried to knock the ball back into play, unsuccessfully trying to prevent Bellhorn from get credit for a home run. Tip: Next game, wear a white sweater so you won't be so obvious. Bottom of the fourth: New York gets two on with no outs, and they are left stranded. This will be a fast, low-score game. Yes, there will be a Game Seven.

The Red Sox are going to win

Yeah, it is 4-2 Yankees in the top of the eighth as I type this, but they are playing at Fenway, the fans have their rally caps on, and Timlin just struck out A-Rod. They want it. They wanted it last night. I can't explain Saturday night but this ain't Saturday. Just because no team has come back from being down 3 games to zero does not mean the Sox can't do it. Stay tuned. . .

Terrorists in Iraq are idiots

If there is any doubt in your mind that the terrorists in Iraq are mental defectives, consider this news flash:

Putin: Terror Attacks Aimed at Bush
Mon Oct 18,11:16 AM ET

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan - Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that terrorists are aiming to derail U.S. President George W. Bush's chances at re-election through their attacks in Iraq. "I consider the activities of terrorists in Iraq are not as much aimed at coalition forces but more personally against President Bush," Putin said at a news conference after a regional summit in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. International terrorism has as its goal to prevent the election of President Bush to a second term," he said. "If they achieve that goal, then that will give international terrorism a new impulse and extra power."

I do not doubt Putin's observations. This is further evidence that the terrorists understand absolutely nothing about the U.S. or its people. Bush supporters are fearful people. They are afraid of the terrorists, and they are afraid that Kerry is not strong enough to fight them. Bush himself is harping on that theme, accusing Kerry of being wishy-washy and not decisive enough to be the Commander in Chief of U.S. Armed Forces. Terrorism in Iraq or, worse yet, another attack in the U.S. would solidify the belief that Bush needs to be re-elected because of the "war against terror."

Up until a few months ago, I believed that the surest way to get Bush re-elected would be for peace to break out in Iraq, the kind of peace that would lull the U.S. into thinking it's safe to bring the troops home before November, 2004. The time for that is long past. A cease-fire on the eve of the election isn't going to happen but if it does, it will be viewed cynically and will have no effect on the election. If the terrorism continues or escalates, that would only help Bush.

reunions

I attended a reunion of the Naples (FL) High School Class of 1964 last weekend. There are more exciting things to do than be a spouse at a reunion of any kind, but this was sorta interesting because the "whatever happened to __" and "do you remember the time we __" chit-chat sounded exactly like what happens at my class's reunions (Clearwater High, Class of 1962, "the last of the great ones"). Some people don't find reunions worthwhile. They leave and never go back, and that's OK, but they miss the experience of seeing what time has done to their classmates. The old cliques have dissolved. The homecoming queen weighs 200 pounds and the football jocks are fat and bald. Nobody can find the address for the kid everbody thought would be the most likely to succeed. The girl nobody dated walks in looking like a million bucks and the guys slap their foreheads, saying wow, look what I've missed.

We did have one unique experience in Naples last weekend: The girl everybody concedes was the most popular girl in the class was incarcerated years ago for killing her husband. The details were extremely murky, but the story was that she was "railroaded." Last weekend, we learned that she was free after serving three years, and she is now married to the lawyer who got her out of jail. Somebody had her phone number and a dozen or so of her classmates spoke with her at her new home out West. I met the lady in college and she's a beauty, not a razor-totin' woman likely to kill anybody. This is the modern version of the knight (a lawyer in this case) riding up to the castle, slaying the dragon, and rescuing the damsel from captivity. Stories don't get much better than that.

fall in Florida, finally

Like clockwork, the 25th Annual Clearwater Jazz Holiday [see link below] has prompted Mother Nature to send in the first wave of cool air, just in time for Halloween. It is spooky how these two events occur almost simultaneously - I mean, practically the same day - ever year. Fall has been creeping in for the past couple of weeks. . .the humidity dropped below 90 for a few days and the air was cooler in the mornings, but signs of fall in Florida are subtle and you have to pay attention. We are home for the weekend, having gone to Naples for a high school reunion last weekend. In Naples, to belong to the "old-timers club," you have to have lived there when Hurricane Donna came ashore in the fall of 1960. Because the ranks of that generation are beginning to thin out, they also allow spouses, children and grandchildren of "old-timers" to join the club. I may have more to say about that later, but I have run out of excuses for not mowing the lawn and repairing fence damage from two hurricanes ago. So, away from this keyboard. Time to get outside and crank it up.

Visit the Clearwater Jazz Holiday: http://www.clearwaterjazz.com/bin/site/templates/splash.asp

the French

October 5 was the 90th anniversary of the first air battle of World War I, when French and German aircraft exchanged gunfire. I don't know how that dogfight turned out but we all know how World War I turned out.

Yesterday, the President of France continued the French tradition of expressing their warm regards to the U.S. for helping the British and other Allies pull their fat out of the fire, twice in the same century, when he said:

Chirac lashes out against US cultural domination
Thu Oct 07 2004 21:37:42 ET

"French President Jacques Chirac warned Thursday of a "catastrophe" for global diversity if the United States' cultural hegemony goes unchallenged. Speaking at a French cultural center in Hanoi ahead of Friday's opening of a summit of European and Asian leaders, Chirac said France was right to stand up for cultural and linguistic diversity. The outspoken French president warned that the world's different cultures could be "choked" by US values. This, he said, would lead to a "general world sub-culture" based around the English language, which would be "a real ecological catastrophe". "

If Mr. Chirac wants to criticize American entertainers, especially those who wear their underware outside their clothing, look like $250 hookers from Fort Lauderdale, and have an IQ below room temperature, I would join his criticism. I can understand their historic resentment of anyone who uses English instead of perfect French. But, "catastrophe?" "Choked by US values?" "Ecological catastrophe?" As they say in France, give me "les break-o." When I think of French "values," I don't generally think of anything that the rest of the world should want to emulate except wine-making. Was he being critical of Prez Bush or the US involvement in Iraq? Was he diverting attention from allegations that France was cozy with Saddam Hussein? I don't think so. His comments were delivered to an audience in Hanoi. Here's the rest of the story: "Vietnam is a former French colony, but only around 375,000 of its 81 million people speak French. English is considered by most people a far more valuable and practical second language, particularly among businessmen." What can we say? C'est la guerre. If history had turned out differently he could be complaining about German, not English.