"Is There No One Else?"

The various Republican responses to the State of the Union speech brought something sharply into focus: Every time the Grand Oligarch's Party sends someone out to debate, attack, or counter President Obama, I'm reminded of a scene from Troy.

Early in the movie, Achilles (Brad Pitt), is to battle, mano y mano, with the best the other side has to offer. Of course, because he's Achilles and Brad Pitt,  he dispatches his larger, seemingly more powerful rival with shocking ease and an almost carefree nonchalance. Then, he stands facing the rest of the enemy army and says, challenging and mocking them in the same breath, "Is there no one else? Is there no one else?"

Mitt "I Really Didn't Want To Be President Anyway" Romney?

Marco "Always Remember To Hydrate" Rubio?

Rand "Yes, By God, I Believe This Shit!" Paul?

John "Weepy" Boehner?

Mitch "Corn Pone" McConnell?

John "Did I Mention I Was A POW?" McCain?

Lindsey "Belle of the South" Graham?

"Is there no one else?"

A Cold Day In Hell

It should by now be obvious to anyone who follows these things that only very, very rich people can afford to own sports teams.

It should be equally obvious to anyone who has followed the story of the Phoenix Coyotes that their latest prospective owner is not very, very rich. And it's that extra "very" that makes all the difference in the world.

Even with a guarantee of $15 million per year from the City of Glendale for "managing" Jobing.com arena, and a year's time to get his investors lined up, Mr. Greg Jamison couldn't get the necessary jack together to satisfy the NHL and become the latest in a long line of folks who thought they could do something despite all the available evidence to the contrary.

My late father-in-law used to say that "if you take a laborer, and beat all the sense out of him, then you have a truck driver." I mention this only because Mr. Jerry Moyes, owner of Swift Trucking, lost by his own estimation $200 million trying to keep the Coyotes afloat. Of course, he had a lot more dough than Jamison (but not nearly so good a deal with Glendale, by the way. Curious that.) But the old saying "throwing good money after bad" applies even to the extremely wealthy.

So, for the time being at least, there's still a hockey team in Glendale, Arizona--many miles away from the majority of its fan base in the East Valley, owned by the league, drawing half filled arenas most nights--that sensible people won't even consider investing in unless the good citizens of Glendale agree to subsidize them.

Glendale got into this pickle thanks to the visionary Mayor, Elaine Scruggs. She is gone now, of course. And, naturally, on her way out the door, crawling from the wreckage as it were, she voiced her disapproval of the city's deal with the Coyotes. Once again, I am reminded of Eisenhower warning about the dangers of the Military Industrial Complex after standing by for 8 years while the Military Industrial Complex took root. But better late than never, I guess.

Anybody know a sucker who's also a billionaire?

The Only Thing You Need To Know

The only thing you need to know about the Republican Party as it is currently constituted:

When you are crazy, you don't get better.

You don't get saner all of a sudden.

You may, however, at any given moment, get crazier. Much crazier.

And that's when the fun begins!

Once upon a time, there was only one political party, "the property party", as Gore Vidal memorably described it. Oh, the Democratic wing was a little more liberal and the Republican wing a little more conservative, but they both had essentially the same vision of and for America.

Now...? Well, now one "wing" has been taken over by a bunch of anti-government, anti-tax, anti-minority, anti-union, anti-science, anti-education, anti-progressive, antediluvians.

That's a lot to be against. Most of the 20th Century, in fact.

What are they "for"? They are definitely pro-gun and pro-Bible. Oh, they claim to be pro-life, too, but what they really mean is pro-patriarchy/anti-women. You know, "Barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen."

They accept no "facts" except their own. They accept no history except their own. And, because of this, they believe all sorts crazy things.

But, as I was reminded while watching The Who in concert last night, you shouldn't try to go backwards. It can be very painful.  More importantly, it is, ultimately, pointless.

The world moves in one direction. And nostalgia can be deadly. Especially when the things you are so nostalgic for never really happened--at least not in the ways you imagined they did.

Pitching, Defense, and 3 Run Homers

Earl Weaver believed that baseball was "pitching, defense, and 3 run homers." This won him a lot of games, but might have cost him two World Series. A bunt here or there may have beaten the Pirates in 1971 and '79.

Because of a family connection (my mother was a first cousin of his, but she was 12 years older and there were a lot of Weavers, so they weren't particularly close), I met Weaver in 1969, just as the Orioles started their great run.

We would drive over to Anaheim for the Orioles' yearly visit to play the Angels. We stayed at the Grand Hotel, same as the team, and would often share a meal, usually breakfast, with Earl.

Coors and tomato juice. Cigarettes. And flirting with the waitress. Those are my most vivid memories of breakfast with Earl.

Then there was the evolution of his personal style. When I first met him, he sported what looked to be a suit from Sear's and a haircut from the corner barber shop. Fitting for a minor league "lifer". As the years passed, and the Orioles became the team in the AL, the suits became more tailored, the shoes sported exotic leathers, and, for awhile there in the 70's, I'm pretty sure the hair was permed.

Weaver was the first manager to rely on an in-depth statistical breakdown of every pitch thrown, every ball hit, every possible match-up, and how they might affect his strategy. He used this knowledge to put players in situations where they had the best chance to succeed.

Other managers platooned before him. Hell, Casey Stengel won a bunch of pennants with the Yankees by mixing an ever changing assortment of role players and spot starters with DiMaggio, Mantle, Berra and Ford. But if Stengel used any charts, they were all kept somewhere in that amazin' head of his.

Nowadays, every team has a room full of sabre metricians working around the clock to crunch numbers, looking for that edge, or that undervalued player. Every pitch and every swing are recorded, cataloged, and endlessly analyzed. Weaver's success paved the way for much of that.

Weaver, and his contemporary--and sometimes bitter rival--Billy Martin, were also two of the greatest umpire baiters in major league history. Thank God for You Tube, where some of Earl's best work in this field has been preserved for eternity.

Earl Weaver's Orioles played the game the right way. They seldom beat themselves. For 15 plus years they were always in the race. 6 division titles, 4 pennants, 1 World championship.

He probably wouldn't last nearly as long these days. The umpire baiting, the drinking, it would be too easy a target for these TMZ, 24 hour Sports Center, times. He'd spend his time apologizing or on probation.

Rest in peace Earl, the world is a duller place without you.

The Era Of Liberalism Is Back!

Boy, if only that were true!

Mitch "There Was A Turtle In The Woodpile" McConnell, R-Heart o' Dixie, is screaming from the roof tops that his dreaded enemy, "liberalism" is making a comeback, aided and abetted by that uppity colored man in the White House. (OK, he didn't say all of that, but you know he thinks it.)

I'm sure his breathless screed was designed to appeal to his base, the gun lovin', God fearin', anti-science, xenophobic, Hillbilly freak show that makes up the heart of today's Republican Party.

To McConnell's "warning" I can only respond, WE SHOULD BE SO LUCKY.

Ya'll remember liberalism, don't ya?

Unions and the creation of the Middle Class.

Pensions.

Child labor laws.

40 hour work week, with weekends off.

Public works.

GI Bill.

Minimum wage.

Voting Rights.

Social Security.

Medicare.

Public Education.

Minority rights.

Protecting the environment.

These were all products of liberalism and its twin, progressivism.

McConnell's party, on the other hand, champions tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires and unlimited assault rifles and ammo for everyone else.

You choose.

Flea Wags Dog

I know it's early, but I have a strong candidate for my Arizona Republic headline of the year:

"Biden, NRA find little consensus...neither yields in White House meeting."

See, because Americans are so damn good at shooting each other, much better than all of those second rate, socialist countries that we despise, we have to have meetings at the highest levels of the government and with all concerned parties to try and figure out a way to maybe slow down the slaughter of the innocents a little bit. Or at the very least make it somewhat more difficult. More "sporting" if you will..

And the NRA, as one of the chief funding mechanisms of the Republican Party, is obviously a concerned party, with all the attendant thoughts and proposals that concerned parties have.

Now, because I don't have to be as polite as, say, Vice President Biden, my first response was "who gives a fuck what the NRA thinks?"

Because, hey, I already know what the NRA thinks: "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." And "lots of guns good--more guns better!" "From my cold dead hands", etc etc.

The NRA, after all, is a lobbying organization whose chief goal is to enrich the gun manufacturers of the world. If they could figure out a way to get .50 caliber machine guns into the hands of each freedom loving, Second Amendment defending American, they would gladly do it. Imagine the profit margin on a machine gun!  Just the thought of it, and the nice rewards he would get from its manufacturers must make Wayne "A Gun Is A Tool--And So Am I" LaPierre all gooey inside.

What I didn't realize, though, is that apparently the NRA is also an equal branch of the government.

They not only get a seat at the table, they get to dictate policy! At least for their Republican underlings. And the handful of Democrats that act like they were Republicans, of course. You know who you are.

See, according to the NRA, when Madison, Jefferson, Mason, Hamilton and the rest were drawing things up, they wanted the guys who represented the flintlock manufacturers to have a say in how many and what kind of flintlocks each free white male could own.

Everybody knows that. My God, the right to bear arms is the sole basis of our freedom. And blah, blah, blah...

Here's the deal: assault rifles and 30 clip pistols are not for hunting or self defense. They are for killing lots of people as quickly as possible. The folks who feel they need them for protection, especially from the Feds, are mentally defective in some fundamental way. Paranoid, delusional, psychopathic--pick one. They have a deep seated fear of "the other" of "them."

If you want to blame it on video games, fine. But make sure you blame the Bible, too. It's full of violence, especially the Old Testament. And let's not forget Shakespeare. Somebody is getting murdered every time you turn the page. When you get right down to it we are a barbarous species. And we should never make it easier for us to indulge our killing instinct.

Hey, here's an idea for a TV reality show: let all the assault rifle lovin', Black Helicopter fearing, Federal 'gubmint' hating, minority despising homophobes buy all the AR-15's and ammo that they want, send them up to Idaho and let's see how long they last against a couple of platoons of Marines with air support. If the Marines are busy elsewhere, just send a couple of drones.

Good clean fun for the whole family. Make that Hillbilly Hand Fishin' show look like a bunch of inbred, genetic mutants. Oh, wait...

Point Of Pride

Fanfare please!

In case you missed it, Arizona leads the nation in cuts to education!!!

Was there ever any doubt?

Since almost everyone agrees that education is the key to our future, this might seem like really bad news.

And it would be, if we cared about the future...

But that's not how we roll in the Grand Canyon State!

To Hell with the future, we want to live in an imaginary, libertarian past.

So sure, it would be nice for Arizona to be first in funding for education, but let's face it, that's never, ever going to happen.

However, there is a silver lining:

Being the worst guarantees a surplus of stupid people, which is good news for all of the minimum wage paying employers.

And, in addition to being stupid, many of them will also be angry, and those two qualities combined guarantees a strong Republican Tea Party base for a long, long time.

So it's a win win for Arizona!