Sun - May 11, 2008
WHITLESS WONDERS
or, how lots of penguins fans are idiots
too.
On Thursday, I went to pains far greater than
necessary to point out that, besides being possessed with
a couple of skilled players and a whole lot of knuckle-draggers, the
Philadelphia Flyers are also possessed of a loyal but often idiotic fan base.
It is one thing, after all, to think your team has a chance to win in this
series, quite another to pretend that Sami Kapanen could play alongside Evgeni
Malkin without suffering irreparable nerve damage. Today, in the interests of
fairness, and because I'm sick and tired of hearing these morons yapping at
Mellon Arena and on sports talk shows, I'll face a few simple pains and point
out, as I've pointed out plenty of times before, that Penguin Nation has its own great
Confederacy of Dunces, and that many of them reside in the sorry states of
ignorance and denial about one Penguin in
particular.
If you want the surest test of how much a fan or a bandwagon-jumper or any other semi-sentient being in Western Pennsylvania knows about hockey in general or the Penguins in particular, ask them what they think of Ryan Whitney. If he tells you that Whitney is a future Norris Trophy candidate, and/or that he had a season characterized by both frustrating lapses of focus and astonishing flashes of brilliance, and/or that he's having a strong playoff run after what he would be the first to describe as a subpar year, then you know you're talking to someone who understands the team and the game and has enough knowledge of both to speak thoughtfully and intelligently and those and many other subjects. But if he tells you that Whitney sucks, and/or that he should be benched, and/or that he's the source not only of the all Penguins' problems but also global warming, the rising cost of oil, and the presence of Al Qaeda in the world, then you'll know that you're sitting in Section C12. Or D26. Or most other sections of a Mellon Arena these days filled to capacity with people who can not tell a bad pinch from a brilliant breakout pass, stupid headhunting from sound positional defense, or Luke Ravenstahl from someone actually qualified to be mayor.
If you encounter people like this, you should, for the sake of your own patience and sanity, simply smile and back away. Shield your children if you have any. And hope the next person you meet will have not just opposable thumbs but also sense and reason and an actual understanding of the sport and the team for which they claim to root. (In other words, hope you find a real Penguins' fan and not just a lazy, loudmouthed Steelers' fan with nothing better to do until July. But I digress...)
A few simple stats, and a few simple moments from Friday night's game, are all I need to prove my point. (Though, to anyone with a real knowledge of the game who's actually been paying attention, the point has already proven itself. But I digress again...)
Right now, ten games into their Stanley Cup Playoff run, two players are tied for the Penguins' lead in +/- rating: Evgeni Malkin and Ryan Whitney. In other words: the two Penguins players who've produced the team's two highest scoring differentials, are the guy everyone (I included) is touting as the best player in the postseason so far, and the guy all the dull-eyed, empty-faced, half-witted morons in the stands and on the phones either want to bench or run out of town on a rail. Which means, of course, that Whitney's +/- rating is higher than any other defenseman -- including recent fan favorite Brooks Orpik, who's been laying out some great hits -- those shots on R.J. Umberger and Scott Hartnell on Friday were top-drawer highlight reel checks -- but whose postseason +/- rating is just Even.
Right now, ten games into their Stanley Cup playoff run, Whitney is second among defenseman in scoring. He has five points (all assists) to Sergei Gonchar's six (one goal, five assists). This despite playing about six-and-a-half fewer minutes per game than Gonchar, and despite being removed from the top power play unit, on which Gonchar still plays, in favor of a fourth insanely skilled forward. Whitney is also second among Penguins' defensemen in Shots on Goal (behind Gonchar) and third in Average Ice Time (only 4 seconds fewer per game than Orpik).
So you can see, of course, why the Neanderthal set wants to see him benched.
Friday night's game, in which Whitney was a +2, had an amazing first assist (more on that later) on Evgeni Malkin's game-winning goal, and logged more ice time (21:48) than any Penguin not named Sergei Gonchar (22:44), is the best example yet of how well Whitney has played and how little the beer-and-more-beer morons have noticed. To Whit:
Yes, Whitney took a careless Delay of Game penalty early in the first period, when he attempted a clear off the glass and flipped the puck into the crowd instead; he seemed a bit too cautious, and he should have chipped the puck off the boards or the glass earlier to get it out. But he missed by inches at worst, and that's the kind of penalty that every defenseman takes throughout the course of the season. And, yes, he took a tripping penalty in the third, but that one was a joke: a clear, oh-I've-been-shot flop of a dive by Scottie Upshall that sold a penalty Whitney hadn't actually committed. And, sure, there were one or two times when he tried to clear the puck but didn't quite get it out of the zone, but if we benched everyone who did that during a game, there'd be no one left to play but the crazies in the stands. Most of whom, I imagine, couldn't clear the puck if you gave 'em a shovel and a pickup truck with which to do it.
Now.
Let's talk about how Malkin's first goal -- the one that came with 6.5 seconds left in the period, that proved to be the game winner, and that everyone's talking about as the turning point of Game 1 -- never would have happened if not for the amazing, tape-to-tape, blue-line-to-blue-line, threaded-through-three-Philly-skaters, diagonal breakout pass that put Malkin into the zone with under ten seconds left. If Whitney's not skating head-up ready to make a play, if he doesn't spot both Malkin and the crease through which to pass to him, and if he doesn't sizzle that puck all the way through the neutral zone right to Malkin's blade, Malkin doesn't break in to the zone untouched, and he doesn't have a clear lane to wrist a shot past Biron. That was a beautiful shot. And it was only possible thank to a beautiful Whitney pass -- the kind that, with all apologies to the fantastic abilities of Sergei Gonchar and Kris Letang, no one on the Penguins' roster can make any better.
We could also talk about the other half-dozen or so beautiful breakout passes -- including the one in the first period, when Malkin's line ripped and roared and cycled for what seemed like a week-and-a-half in the offensive zone -- that sprung an offensive rush or sparked some sustained pressure. Or we could talk about the number of times Friday, just as he has all postseason and all season, that Whitney got the puck to a forward in stride in the neutral zone and allowed him to take off and back off the Flyers in the neutral zone. Or we could talk about the great positional defense he played many times throughout the game, keeping Flyers to the outside of the offensive zone and not allowing them to get a shot off.
In fact, let's talk about one of those situations -- one that true fans of the team and the game recognized, but that all the drooling yahoos completely missed.
In the third period, Mike Knuble got a breakout pass and was headed down the right wing. He had only Whitney to beat. As usual, the Cro-Magnons in the crowd called for Whitney to step up! and hit him! Much to their consternation and my joy, Whitney did not. If he had, and missed, Knuble would have had a breakaway, or a two-on-one at best. But the way Whitney played him, Knuble dumped and chased. Because he had a head of steam and was already moving forward, Knuble closed ground on Whitney. Because Whitney had to turn and get to speed, Knuble beat him to the puck. What does Whitney do? Exactly what he needs to do -- assuming, of course, that he's playing good D and sticking to the system and not trying to please the unibrow set in the crowd: he angles Knuble away from the net, keeps him outside, and forces him up the boards, then ties him up against the glass until help arrives to support and retrieve the puck. He kept Knuble -- a big, strong guy with a heavy shot who likes to drive the net -- on the outside, never let him get even a whiff of a scoring chance, and handled that one-on-one situation about as well as you possibly can.
In the midst of that sequence, about the time Whitney had driven Knuble back to the boards, a couple of idiots behind me actually yelled out that Whitney was blowing another play, and that he never should have let Knuble get the puck, and that he should have smashed him into the boards (which would have almost surely drawn a penalty, since Knuble had his back to Whitney the whole time). They were not satisfied with outstanding defense -- no doubt because they wouldn't recognize it even if it bit them on their ignorant asses -- and instead wanted either a big hit, a magic trick, or a repudiation of the laws of physics.
It would take all three, apparently, for the talk-radio dipstick set to be satisfied with Ryan Whitney's play in this postseason. Those of us with IQs -- both regular and hockey -- in the triple digits are plenty satisfied with his performance. Because we know what we see. And because we actually understand it when we see it.
(Oh -- and one more thing:)
(Let's Go, Pens.)
If you want the surest test of how much a fan or a bandwagon-jumper or any other semi-sentient being in Western Pennsylvania knows about hockey in general or the Penguins in particular, ask them what they think of Ryan Whitney. If he tells you that Whitney is a future Norris Trophy candidate, and/or that he had a season characterized by both frustrating lapses of focus and astonishing flashes of brilliance, and/or that he's having a strong playoff run after what he would be the first to describe as a subpar year, then you know you're talking to someone who understands the team and the game and has enough knowledge of both to speak thoughtfully and intelligently and those and many other subjects. But if he tells you that Whitney sucks, and/or that he should be benched, and/or that he's the source not only of the all Penguins' problems but also global warming, the rising cost of oil, and the presence of Al Qaeda in the world, then you'll know that you're sitting in Section C12. Or D26. Or most other sections of a Mellon Arena these days filled to capacity with people who can not tell a bad pinch from a brilliant breakout pass, stupid headhunting from sound positional defense, or Luke Ravenstahl from someone actually qualified to be mayor.
If you encounter people like this, you should, for the sake of your own patience and sanity, simply smile and back away. Shield your children if you have any. And hope the next person you meet will have not just opposable thumbs but also sense and reason and an actual understanding of the sport and the team for which they claim to root. (In other words, hope you find a real Penguins' fan and not just a lazy, loudmouthed Steelers' fan with nothing better to do until July. But I digress...)
A few simple stats, and a few simple moments from Friday night's game, are all I need to prove my point. (Though, to anyone with a real knowledge of the game who's actually been paying attention, the point has already proven itself. But I digress again...)
Right now, ten games into their Stanley Cup Playoff run, two players are tied for the Penguins' lead in +/- rating: Evgeni Malkin and Ryan Whitney. In other words: the two Penguins players who've produced the team's two highest scoring differentials, are the guy everyone (I included) is touting as the best player in the postseason so far, and the guy all the dull-eyed, empty-faced, half-witted morons in the stands and on the phones either want to bench or run out of town on a rail. Which means, of course, that Whitney's +/- rating is higher than any other defenseman -- including recent fan favorite Brooks Orpik, who's been laying out some great hits -- those shots on R.J. Umberger and Scott Hartnell on Friday were top-drawer highlight reel checks -- but whose postseason +/- rating is just Even.
Right now, ten games into their Stanley Cup playoff run, Whitney is second among defenseman in scoring. He has five points (all assists) to Sergei Gonchar's six (one goal, five assists). This despite playing about six-and-a-half fewer minutes per game than Gonchar, and despite being removed from the top power play unit, on which Gonchar still plays, in favor of a fourth insanely skilled forward. Whitney is also second among Penguins' defensemen in Shots on Goal (behind Gonchar) and third in Average Ice Time (only 4 seconds fewer per game than Orpik).
So you can see, of course, why the Neanderthal set wants to see him benched.
Friday night's game, in which Whitney was a +2, had an amazing first assist (more on that later) on Evgeni Malkin's game-winning goal, and logged more ice time (21:48) than any Penguin not named Sergei Gonchar (22:44), is the best example yet of how well Whitney has played and how little the beer-and-more-beer morons have noticed. To Whit:
Yes, Whitney took a careless Delay of Game penalty early in the first period, when he attempted a clear off the glass and flipped the puck into the crowd instead; he seemed a bit too cautious, and he should have chipped the puck off the boards or the glass earlier to get it out. But he missed by inches at worst, and that's the kind of penalty that every defenseman takes throughout the course of the season. And, yes, he took a tripping penalty in the third, but that one was a joke: a clear, oh-I've-been-shot flop of a dive by Scottie Upshall that sold a penalty Whitney hadn't actually committed. And, sure, there were one or two times when he tried to clear the puck but didn't quite get it out of the zone, but if we benched everyone who did that during a game, there'd be no one left to play but the crazies in the stands. Most of whom, I imagine, couldn't clear the puck if you gave 'em a shovel and a pickup truck with which to do it.
Now.
Let's talk about how Malkin's first goal -- the one that came with 6.5 seconds left in the period, that proved to be the game winner, and that everyone's talking about as the turning point of Game 1 -- never would have happened if not for the amazing, tape-to-tape, blue-line-to-blue-line, threaded-through-three-Philly-skaters, diagonal breakout pass that put Malkin into the zone with under ten seconds left. If Whitney's not skating head-up ready to make a play, if he doesn't spot both Malkin and the crease through which to pass to him, and if he doesn't sizzle that puck all the way through the neutral zone right to Malkin's blade, Malkin doesn't break in to the zone untouched, and he doesn't have a clear lane to wrist a shot past Biron. That was a beautiful shot. And it was only possible thank to a beautiful Whitney pass -- the kind that, with all apologies to the fantastic abilities of Sergei Gonchar and Kris Letang, no one on the Penguins' roster can make any better.
We could also talk about the other half-dozen or so beautiful breakout passes -- including the one in the first period, when Malkin's line ripped and roared and cycled for what seemed like a week-and-a-half in the offensive zone -- that sprung an offensive rush or sparked some sustained pressure. Or we could talk about the number of times Friday, just as he has all postseason and all season, that Whitney got the puck to a forward in stride in the neutral zone and allowed him to take off and back off the Flyers in the neutral zone. Or we could talk about the great positional defense he played many times throughout the game, keeping Flyers to the outside of the offensive zone and not allowing them to get a shot off.
In fact, let's talk about one of those situations -- one that true fans of the team and the game recognized, but that all the drooling yahoos completely missed.
In the third period, Mike Knuble got a breakout pass and was headed down the right wing. He had only Whitney to beat. As usual, the Cro-Magnons in the crowd called for Whitney to step up! and hit him! Much to their consternation and my joy, Whitney did not. If he had, and missed, Knuble would have had a breakaway, or a two-on-one at best. But the way Whitney played him, Knuble dumped and chased. Because he had a head of steam and was already moving forward, Knuble closed ground on Whitney. Because Whitney had to turn and get to speed, Knuble beat him to the puck. What does Whitney do? Exactly what he needs to do -- assuming, of course, that he's playing good D and sticking to the system and not trying to please the unibrow set in the crowd: he angles Knuble away from the net, keeps him outside, and forces him up the boards, then ties him up against the glass until help arrives to support and retrieve the puck. He kept Knuble -- a big, strong guy with a heavy shot who likes to drive the net -- on the outside, never let him get even a whiff of a scoring chance, and handled that one-on-one situation about as well as you possibly can.
In the midst of that sequence, about the time Whitney had driven Knuble back to the boards, a couple of idiots behind me actually yelled out that Whitney was blowing another play, and that he never should have let Knuble get the puck, and that he should have smashed him into the boards (which would have almost surely drawn a penalty, since Knuble had his back to Whitney the whole time). They were not satisfied with outstanding defense -- no doubt because they wouldn't recognize it even if it bit them on their ignorant asses -- and instead wanted either a big hit, a magic trick, or a repudiation of the laws of physics.
It would take all three, apparently, for the talk-radio dipstick set to be satisfied with Ryan Whitney's play in this postseason. Those of us with IQs -- both regular and hockey -- in the triple digits are plenty satisfied with his performance. Because we know what we see. And because we actually understand it when we see it.
(Oh -- and one more thing:)
(Let's Go, Pens.)
Posted at 02:50 PM
A DAY LATE AND A DOPPLER SHORT
or, the weathermen blow it
again.
It's been a while since I took our esteemed local
meteorologists to task for their sensationalism, their rank incompetence, or
their inability to know the difference. This is not, of course, for lack of
opportunity, but rather for excess of courtesy; after all, you can only hammer
these people so often before the point gets made, the joke gets old, and the
dead horse gets beaten to dust. But this weekend's performance was so abysmal,
so wholly and utterly and pathetically wrong, that I just can't resist a brief
chronicle of it.
On Friday, they said, the rain would end by noon. And it did. But then it started again at five. And continued, with varying degrees of intensity, until around seven o'clock Saturday morning.
Last night, they said that today's rain would arrive around four or five in the afternoon. This morning, they said the rain would arrive around noon. As I sit here writing, at 10:05am, I'm listening to the sound of a hard rain pelting off my skylight.
It sounds just like the tapping of my fingers before I post. And the ticking of my head before it explodes.
On Friday, they said, the rain would end by noon. And it did. But then it started again at five. And continued, with varying degrees of intensity, until around seven o'clock Saturday morning.
Last night, they said that today's rain would arrive around four or five in the afternoon. This morning, they said the rain would arrive around noon. As I sit here writing, at 10:05am, I'm listening to the sound of a hard rain pelting off my skylight.
It sounds just like the tapping of my fingers before I post. And the ticking of my head before it explodes.
Posted at 11:40 AM
Sat - May 10, 2008
66
plus 5.
I said it four weeks ago today, after Game 2 of the
Ottawa Senators series, and, after watching his mind-blowing, bone-rattling
performance in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals last night, I'll say it
again:
The combination of strength and speed and skill and sheer, indomitable will, the explosive impact he's had all over the ice, the way he's elevated his already stratospheric game to dizzying new heights, the fact that he makes something -- usually, many things -- happen on every single shift, the realization that from the time he goes over the boards until the moment he steps back on the bench you simply can not (and should not) take your eyes off him, all add up to a simple and glorious conclusion: that there is only one word in the language, much less in the NHL vernacular, sufficient to describe his performance:
Marioesque.
Sidney Crosby and Marian Hossa were outstanding last night. Ryan Malone was a force at both ends of the ice and a workhorse on the penalty kill. Jordan Staal, Jarko Ruutu, and Tyler Kennedy continue to shine on that swooping, rocking, and rolling third line. Marc-Andre Fleury was fantastic yet again. Peter Sykora had maybe the prettiest move and goal of the night.
But Malkin. My God.
I'll have much more to say about him as this series rolls on. But for now, let's just stick with the simple fact that something else I wrote four weeks ago today has, in the intervening eight games, proven happily prophetic:
There is now a second word in the language, the vernacular of the NHL, and the playoff lore of this franchise to describe his performance:
Malkinesque.
It has a nice ring, doesn't it? And if it keeps on going, it's gonna have another.
The combination of strength and speed and skill and sheer, indomitable will, the explosive impact he's had all over the ice, the way he's elevated his already stratospheric game to dizzying new heights, the fact that he makes something -- usually, many things -- happen on every single shift, the realization that from the time he goes over the boards until the moment he steps back on the bench you simply can not (and should not) take your eyes off him, all add up to a simple and glorious conclusion: that there is only one word in the language, much less in the NHL vernacular, sufficient to describe his performance:
Marioesque.
Sidney Crosby and Marian Hossa were outstanding last night. Ryan Malone was a force at both ends of the ice and a workhorse on the penalty kill. Jordan Staal, Jarko Ruutu, and Tyler Kennedy continue to shine on that swooping, rocking, and rolling third line. Marc-Andre Fleury was fantastic yet again. Peter Sykora had maybe the prettiest move and goal of the night.
But Malkin. My God.
I'll have much more to say about him as this series rolls on. But for now, let's just stick with the simple fact that something else I wrote four weeks ago today has, in the intervening eight games, proven happily prophetic:
There is now a second word in the language, the vernacular of the NHL, and the playoff lore of this franchise to describe his performance:
Malkinesque.
It has a nice ring, doesn't it? And if it keeps on going, it's gonna have another.
Posted at 10:09 AM
Fri - May 9, 2008
(CONFERENCE-FINAL) NOTES FROM A FRIDAY AFTERNOON
clearing the bandwagon of my
mind.
For your consideration: another curious collection
of thoughts, reactions, and observations that didn't make it into a full-length
post this week. So they're sort of like all that damn green tree pollen that's
been covering everything in sight the past few weeks. You're not quite sure
where they came from, but you know they're not going away any time
soon...
• I have long argued that accusations of the Clinton Camp playing the race card have been a bit of a stretch and almost always been blown out of proportion. But when Senator Clinton, no matter how weary and unfocused she may have been, sat down with a USA Today interviewer and said, I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition... Senator Obama's support among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again... There's a pattern emerging here, well, that looked and sounded to me like a whole house of race cards.
• It may well be true, but saying it that bluntly and that gracelessly -- especially now -- feels both dirty and desperate. When I read the text, I had a sudden urge to take a shower. After I heard the sound clips, I did.
• Funny, isn't it, that everyone piled on Hillary for knocking back a shot in an Indiana bar a couple of weeks ago -- she's a poseur; she's stooping to act like she's in touch with the commoners; what a phony baloney bitch -- but no one, at least not in the mainstream media, felt the need to question Obama's sudden interest in (loudly) ordering a beer at a pub in North Carolina. Funnier still when you consider that Hillary knocked back that shot like she knew what she was doing, and that Obama, after brandishing it for all the reporters and photographers to see, sipped that "PBR" like he was drinking a fine sherry.
• The Strange Bedfellows Tour continues, with a link to another Christopher Hitchens piece that seems to me spot on. Perhaps because I made a similar argument just last week. Here's the money paragraph: Nettled at last by the way in which this has upset his campaign, Sen. Obama last week cut the ties that bound him to his crackpot mentor. Well, high time. But those who profess relief at this should perhaps revisit what they thought (and wrote) about the earlier Philadelphia speech in which Obama was held to have achieved the same result with less trouble. If he was right last week, then the Philly speech was a failure on every level, and if it was a failure on every level, and thus left Obama hideously vulnerable to the very next speech made by his foaming pastor, then that must raise questions of eligibility for the highest office.
• In the wake of some bloggers and commenters still contorting themselves to defend -- or even to praise -- the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, here's an interesting email from one of TWM's most regular readers: All I can say is this: a nation that is afraid to expose the inanity, the grotesque immorality, of Rev. Wright is not ready to have a black man or woman for president. We're not sufficiently racially mature if we feel a need to patronize, or to treat Wright's expression of the black "experience" as worthy of respect.
• PittGirl's on a roll today -- even issuing a thumb war/Parcheesi/Guitar Hero challenge to we humble purveyors of the Smart, Handsome, Articulate, Incredibly Dashing, Non-Self-Pitying Boys Society (TM, Patent Pending) -- but this is, by far, her best work of the day. And the week.
• Looking for a sweet, full-featured, shockingly affordable all-in-one printer/scanner/copier/fax for your home (or any) office? I heartily recommend the Canon Pixma MX 310. An inelegant name, perhaps, but one hell of an elegant -- and efficient -- machine.
• After family and friends, there are few greater arrivals at your door than a five-pound box of Wilbur Buds.
• Though I imagine there will be a few more Oh my God! moments mixed in with all the action and suspense sure to dominate the last three episodes, last night's rich, mythology-packed installment of LOST feels like the one everyone will be thinking about and talking about and, no doubt, wildly debating for the next seven months. It was that good. And that much of a wicked, mind-bending tease.
• Yeah, I know it's Sweeps. And I know the show lost what was left of its dignity a long, long time ago. But when I wake up to hear Meredith Vieira telling me that the Today show will tell me more about that huge sinkhole in Texas, and then asking me to wonder whether something like that could be waiting under your town -- or under your house, I just want to scream. And then hope that, if another one of those sinkholes does exist, it's beneath the Today show studios.
• While we're on the subject of great and grating media sinkholes... You know that strange and fabulous days are upon us when I'm agreeing with great swaths of a Bob Smizik column. But today's piece about the rise of Penguins passion and fandom gets it just about right. Here's the rightest of all: The team is positioned to be a contender, if not a champion, for years to come. They have a stable full of young players who are both fan and media friendly. Of greater significance, most of the players, and virtually all the stars, are as wholesome as the boy next door. Some, in fact, are young enough to be the boy next door. Parents looking for role models need look no further. The Penguins are thick with them. These guys aren't packing guns, they're not getting arrested, they're not being sought for child support payments, they're not demanding to be traded. They are the anti-modern day athlete, and no one exemplifies that more than the team's best player, Sidney Crosby.
• Amen to all of that, but especially to the last two sentences.
• Though Mr. Smizik gets most things right in that column, here's one bit he surely gets wrong: the notion of the Penguins' youthful fan base. There's no question, of course, that this team has energized the under-30 and even the under-20 crowd in Southwestern Pennsylvania. And that surely bodes well for the future of the franchise and for the finances of all the people, including all the residents of the city and the county, who stand to benefit from it. But to be a base, you have to have been there from the beginning. Or at least for more than three years. Loyal, long-time fans and season ticket holders are this team's true fan base. Without them -- without us -- the team wouldn't have lasted long enough to excite all these new, young fans. The rock-solid foundation on which this team stood, between the Jagr and Crosby eras, was the core group of fans who continued to support the team even when it was losing, when it was enduring those pre-lockout lean years with little chance of success but a lot of scrap and hope and hard work anyway. I'm thrilled for every fan in the city, the county, and the whole damned region who's discovered this great team and, through them, this great sport. But please don't tell me the newcomers and bandwagon jumpers are the team's base. They're great, and they're a huge part of the future. But they're merely building new levels of support and success atop a foundation that's been there all along. Even when it was watching the likes of Steve McKenna and Konstantin Koltsov.
• Now. After five almost interminable days of waiting, like the weeks before Christmas and vacation all rolled into one, and after five truly interminable days of fan idiocy and media frenzy, it's nice to know the boys will finally get back to playing some hockey tonight. And that all three Hermann boys, along with our surrogate brother and uncle The Blizz, will be there to watch 'em.
• (Let's Go, Pens.)
• I have long argued that accusations of the Clinton Camp playing the race card have been a bit of a stretch and almost always been blown out of proportion. But when Senator Clinton, no matter how weary and unfocused she may have been, sat down with a USA Today interviewer and said, I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition... Senator Obama's support among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again... There's a pattern emerging here, well, that looked and sounded to me like a whole house of race cards.
• It may well be true, but saying it that bluntly and that gracelessly -- especially now -- feels both dirty and desperate. When I read the text, I had a sudden urge to take a shower. After I heard the sound clips, I did.
• Funny, isn't it, that everyone piled on Hillary for knocking back a shot in an Indiana bar a couple of weeks ago -- she's a poseur; she's stooping to act like she's in touch with the commoners; what a phony baloney bitch -- but no one, at least not in the mainstream media, felt the need to question Obama's sudden interest in (loudly) ordering a beer at a pub in North Carolina. Funnier still when you consider that Hillary knocked back that shot like she knew what she was doing, and that Obama, after brandishing it for all the reporters and photographers to see, sipped that "PBR" like he was drinking a fine sherry.
• The Strange Bedfellows Tour continues, with a link to another Christopher Hitchens piece that seems to me spot on. Perhaps because I made a similar argument just last week. Here's the money paragraph: Nettled at last by the way in which this has upset his campaign, Sen. Obama last week cut the ties that bound him to his crackpot mentor. Well, high time. But those who profess relief at this should perhaps revisit what they thought (and wrote) about the earlier Philadelphia speech in which Obama was held to have achieved the same result with less trouble. If he was right last week, then the Philly speech was a failure on every level, and if it was a failure on every level, and thus left Obama hideously vulnerable to the very next speech made by his foaming pastor, then that must raise questions of eligibility for the highest office.
• In the wake of some bloggers and commenters still contorting themselves to defend -- or even to praise -- the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, here's an interesting email from one of TWM's most regular readers: All I can say is this: a nation that is afraid to expose the inanity, the grotesque immorality, of Rev. Wright is not ready to have a black man or woman for president. We're not sufficiently racially mature if we feel a need to patronize, or to treat Wright's expression of the black "experience" as worthy of respect.
• PittGirl's on a roll today -- even issuing a thumb war/Parcheesi/Guitar Hero challenge to we humble purveyors of the Smart, Handsome, Articulate, Incredibly Dashing, Non-Self-Pitying Boys Society (TM, Patent Pending) -- but this is, by far, her best work of the day. And the week.
• Looking for a sweet, full-featured, shockingly affordable all-in-one printer/scanner/copier/fax for your home (or any) office? I heartily recommend the Canon Pixma MX 310. An inelegant name, perhaps, but one hell of an elegant -- and efficient -- machine.
• After family and friends, there are few greater arrivals at your door than a five-pound box of Wilbur Buds.
• Though I imagine there will be a few more Oh my God! moments mixed in with all the action and suspense sure to dominate the last three episodes, last night's rich, mythology-packed installment of LOST feels like the one everyone will be thinking about and talking about and, no doubt, wildly debating for the next seven months. It was that good. And that much of a wicked, mind-bending tease.
• Yeah, I know it's Sweeps. And I know the show lost what was left of its dignity a long, long time ago. But when I wake up to hear Meredith Vieira telling me that the Today show will tell me more about that huge sinkhole in Texas, and then asking me to wonder whether something like that could be waiting under your town -- or under your house, I just want to scream. And then hope that, if another one of those sinkholes does exist, it's beneath the Today show studios.
• While we're on the subject of great and grating media sinkholes... You know that strange and fabulous days are upon us when I'm agreeing with great swaths of a Bob Smizik column. But today's piece about the rise of Penguins passion and fandom gets it just about right. Here's the rightest of all: The team is positioned to be a contender, if not a champion, for years to come. They have a stable full of young players who are both fan and media friendly. Of greater significance, most of the players, and virtually all the stars, are as wholesome as the boy next door. Some, in fact, are young enough to be the boy next door. Parents looking for role models need look no further. The Penguins are thick with them. These guys aren't packing guns, they're not getting arrested, they're not being sought for child support payments, they're not demanding to be traded. They are the anti-modern day athlete, and no one exemplifies that more than the team's best player, Sidney Crosby.
• Amen to all of that, but especially to the last two sentences.
• Though Mr. Smizik gets most things right in that column, here's one bit he surely gets wrong: the notion of the Penguins' youthful fan base. There's no question, of course, that this team has energized the under-30 and even the under-20 crowd in Southwestern Pennsylvania. And that surely bodes well for the future of the franchise and for the finances of all the people, including all the residents of the city and the county, who stand to benefit from it. But to be a base, you have to have been there from the beginning. Or at least for more than three years. Loyal, long-time fans and season ticket holders are this team's true fan base. Without them -- without us -- the team wouldn't have lasted long enough to excite all these new, young fans. The rock-solid foundation on which this team stood, between the Jagr and Crosby eras, was the core group of fans who continued to support the team even when it was losing, when it was enduring those pre-lockout lean years with little chance of success but a lot of scrap and hope and hard work anyway. I'm thrilled for every fan in the city, the county, and the whole damned region who's discovered this great team and, through them, this great sport. But please don't tell me the newcomers and bandwagon jumpers are the team's base. They're great, and they're a huge part of the future. But they're merely building new levels of support and success atop a foundation that's been there all along. Even when it was watching the likes of Steve McKenna and Konstantin Koltsov.
• Now. After five almost interminable days of waiting, like the weeks before Christmas and vacation all rolled into one, and after five truly interminable days of fan idiocy and media frenzy, it's nice to know the boys will finally get back to playing some hockey tonight. And that all three Hermann boys, along with our surrogate brother and uncle The Blizz, will be there to watch 'em.
• (Let's Go, Pens.)
Posted at 01:19 PM
THE WALL (5/1/08 - 5/7/08)
they gave the last full measure of
devotion.
Specialist Jeffrey F.
Nichols.
Sergeant Glen E. Martinez.
Lance Corporal James F. Kimple.
Corporal Miguel A. Guzman.
Lance Corporal Casey L. Casanova.
Private Corey L. Hicks.
[Name Not Yet Released.]
[Name Not Yet Released.]
Sergeant Glen E. Martinez.
Lance Corporal James F. Kimple.
Corporal Miguel A. Guzman.
Lance Corporal Casey L. Casanova.
Private Corey L. Hicks.
[Name Not Yet Released.]
[Name Not Yet Released.]
Posted at 08:32 AM
Thu - May 8, 2008
IDIOT HOCKEY POST OF THE WEEK
and the month. and the season. and quite
possibly the decade.
So a friend and former student of mine just
referred me to this Facebook Smack Talk Wall devoted to the
upcoming Penguins-Flyers series. He thought I'd enjoy the silliness on both
sides, but most especially the raging, rampant idiocy of a post made by Tom of
Philadelphia at 7:39 this morning:
No way these Flyers gonna lose to the Pens never happened. Never will. Sorry to burst your bubble, but Hossa won't be worth it if you go down to us now. Any team that plays Kapanen on the fourth line is very deep. On, your team, he'd be on lines 2 or 3.
Because I'm feeling uncharacteristically charitable, we'll ignore the suspect syntax, the inelegant diction, and even the sub-grade-school punctuation, and get right to the heart of poor Tom's idiocy: his contention that Flyers fourth-liner Sami Kapanen would be a second- or third-liner on the Penguins.
Now. Anyone who knows anything -- and I do mean anything -- about these two teams knows, prima facie, a priori, and ad infinitum, as surely as he (or she) know his (or her) own name, that this is a flaming pile of horse manure, and that to question the logic of it is to imply, quite foolishly indeed, that even the faintest hint of logic went in to the patently absurd making of it. The statement, devoid of all sense and reason, is its own best refutation.
But, since I'm a stickler for argument and evidence, and because you know it's gonna be a whole lot of fun, let's follow through with it anyway.
Here's Sami Kapanen's 2007-2008 stat line: 5 goals, 3 assists, with a plus/minus rating of -12, averaging 13:19 of ice time per game. Not exactly scintillating numbers. But, hey, I'm sure Tom's seeming lunacy must have some basis in fact. So let's compare those numbers to the numbers of the Pens' second- and third-liners.
(We have a bit of a problem picking a 2nd line, however, because once everyone got healthy, the Marian Hossa trade created what are essentially two first lines; on any given night, either the Crosby line or the Malkin line could be considered the #1 unit. Which means, of course, that either unit could also be considered the second line. So, in fairness to Tom, let's just compare Kapanen's stats to the stats of all six of the Pens' possible second-liners:)
KAPANEN: 8 in 74. -12
CROSBY: 72 in 53. +18
HOSSA: 66 in 72. Even
DuPUIS: 27 in 78. +4
MALKIN: 106 in 82. +16
MALONE: 51 in 77. +14
SYKORA: 63 in 81. +1
That's right, kids: Kapanen's numbers pale (19 fewer points, 16 lower +/- ) in comparison even to those of Pascal DuPuis, who spent much of his season on the third line for the Atlanta Thrashers and only recently joined a top-two line after coming to the Pens in the Hossa deal. And Kapanen has 43 fewer points (and 26 lower in +/-) than Ryan Malone, the lowest scorer on Evgeni Malkin's line. So it looks like Tom's contention that Kapanen could play on the Pens' second line is just as much a festering pile of cow chips as we all already knew it was.
But, once again, in fairness to Tom, he did say lines 2 or 3. So let's give him the benefit of a doubt we already know he does not deserve, and, just for kicks, compare Sami Kapanen's stats to the stats of the Pens' third-liners. For the sake of some context, and because we're at least getting a little closer to reality, we'll also throw in ice time figures:
KAPANEN: 8 in 74. -12. 13:19
STAAL 28 in 82. -5. 18:16
RUUTU 16 in 71. +3. 10:12
KENNEDY 19 in 55. +2. 12:13
That's right, kids: Kapanen averaged more ice time in more games than two of the Pens' third liners, and yet he still only managed half (or less-than-half) of their point totals. While also compiling a +/- rating some 14 (or 15) points lower. Which means that Tom's contention that Kapanen would surely be a third-liner for the Pens is the steaming pile of dog crap that we always knew it was.
But, hey, maybe Tom just got carried away with his pre-playoff exuberance. Maybe his passion for his home team just got him a little too fired up. Or maybe he hit the wrong numbers (and letters) on his keyboard, and actually meant to write that Kapanen is just as accomplished as the Pens' own fourth-liners. So, just for shits and giggles, let's take a look at those numbers too:
KAPANEN: 8 in 74. -12. 13:19
TALBOT 26 in 63. +8. 15:28
ROBERTS 15 in 38. -3. 13:20
LARAQUE 13 in 71. Even. 7:42
That's right, kids: all the Pens' fourth liners have better numbers than Kapanen too. Even the Pens' most lightly used fourth-liner -- tough-guy enforcer Georges Laraque, he of the hands- and skates-of-stone -- has scored five more points than Kapanen, while playing playing in three fewer games and averaging almost six fewer minutes of ice time per game. Which means that Tom's contention, even if we adjust for exuberance and insanity, is just as much of a stinking puddle of cat pee as we always knew it to be.
Now. None of this means, of course, that the Flyers can't win. (They certainly could.) Or that the Flyers aren't deep. (They certainly are.) Or that Sami Kapanen is not a fine and perfectly serviceable fourth-liner for a team in the Eastern Conference Finals. (He is.) But it does mean that -- surprise, surprise -- Facebook Tom from Philadelphia has no idea what he's talking about. That the Penguins are even deeper than the Flyers. And that, if Sami Kapanen were indeed a Penguin, he wouldn't be able to crack the lineup at all.
I've already made that case quite clearly, but in case you need any more evidence, here it is:
KAPANEN: 8 in 74. -12. 13:19
JEFF TAAFE: 12 in 45. +2. 9:35
Taafe, a solid two-way contributor whose numbers are considerably better than Kapanen's even before you adjust for ice time and games played, has yet to appear in a Pens' playoff game.
No way these Flyers gonna lose to the Pens never happened. Never will. Sorry to burst your bubble, but Hossa won't be worth it if you go down to us now. Any team that plays Kapanen on the fourth line is very deep. On, your team, he'd be on lines 2 or 3.
Because I'm feeling uncharacteristically charitable, we'll ignore the suspect syntax, the inelegant diction, and even the sub-grade-school punctuation, and get right to the heart of poor Tom's idiocy: his contention that Flyers fourth-liner Sami Kapanen would be a second- or third-liner on the Penguins.
Now. Anyone who knows anything -- and I do mean anything -- about these two teams knows, prima facie, a priori, and ad infinitum, as surely as he (or she) know his (or her) own name, that this is a flaming pile of horse manure, and that to question the logic of it is to imply, quite foolishly indeed, that even the faintest hint of logic went in to the patently absurd making of it. The statement, devoid of all sense and reason, is its own best refutation.
But, since I'm a stickler for argument and evidence, and because you know it's gonna be a whole lot of fun, let's follow through with it anyway.
Here's Sami Kapanen's 2007-2008 stat line: 5 goals, 3 assists, with a plus/minus rating of -12, averaging 13:19 of ice time per game. Not exactly scintillating numbers. But, hey, I'm sure Tom's seeming lunacy must have some basis in fact. So let's compare those numbers to the numbers of the Pens' second- and third-liners.
(We have a bit of a problem picking a 2nd line, however, because once everyone got healthy, the Marian Hossa trade created what are essentially two first lines; on any given night, either the Crosby line or the Malkin line could be considered the #1 unit. Which means, of course, that either unit could also be considered the second line. So, in fairness to Tom, let's just compare Kapanen's stats to the stats of all six of the Pens' possible second-liners:)
KAPANEN: 8 in 74. -12
CROSBY: 72 in 53. +18
HOSSA: 66 in 72. Even
DuPUIS: 27 in 78. +4
MALKIN: 106 in 82. +16
MALONE: 51 in 77. +14
SYKORA: 63 in 81. +1
That's right, kids: Kapanen's numbers pale (19 fewer points, 16 lower +/- ) in comparison even to those of Pascal DuPuis, who spent much of his season on the third line for the Atlanta Thrashers and only recently joined a top-two line after coming to the Pens in the Hossa deal. And Kapanen has 43 fewer points (and 26 lower in +/-) than Ryan Malone, the lowest scorer on Evgeni Malkin's line. So it looks like Tom's contention that Kapanen could play on the Pens' second line is just as much a festering pile of cow chips as we all already knew it was.
But, once again, in fairness to Tom, he did say lines 2 or 3. So let's give him the benefit of a doubt we already know he does not deserve, and, just for kicks, compare Sami Kapanen's stats to the stats of the Pens' third-liners. For the sake of some context, and because we're at least getting a little closer to reality, we'll also throw in ice time figures:
KAPANEN: 8 in 74. -12. 13:19
STAAL 28 in 82. -5. 18:16
RUUTU 16 in 71. +3. 10:12
KENNEDY 19 in 55. +2. 12:13
That's right, kids: Kapanen averaged more ice time in more games than two of the Pens' third liners, and yet he still only managed half (or less-than-half) of their point totals. While also compiling a +/- rating some 14 (or 15) points lower. Which means that Tom's contention that Kapanen would surely be a third-liner for the Pens is the steaming pile of dog crap that we always knew it was.
But, hey, maybe Tom just got carried away with his pre-playoff exuberance. Maybe his passion for his home team just got him a little too fired up. Or maybe he hit the wrong numbers (and letters) on his keyboard, and actually meant to write that Kapanen is just as accomplished as the Pens' own fourth-liners. So, just for shits and giggles, let's take a look at those numbers too:
KAPANEN: 8 in 74. -12. 13:19
TALBOT 26 in 63. +8. 15:28
ROBERTS 15 in 38. -3. 13:20
LARAQUE 13 in 71. Even. 7:42
That's right, kids: all the Pens' fourth liners have better numbers than Kapanen too. Even the Pens' most lightly used fourth-liner -- tough-guy enforcer Georges Laraque, he of the hands- and skates-of-stone -- has scored five more points than Kapanen, while playing playing in three fewer games and averaging almost six fewer minutes of ice time per game. Which means that Tom's contention, even if we adjust for exuberance and insanity, is just as much of a stinking puddle of cat pee as we always knew it to be.
Now. None of this means, of course, that the Flyers can't win. (They certainly could.) Or that the Flyers aren't deep. (They certainly are.) Or that Sami Kapanen is not a fine and perfectly serviceable fourth-liner for a team in the Eastern Conference Finals. (He is.) But it does mean that -- surprise, surprise -- Facebook Tom from Philadelphia has no idea what he's talking about. That the Penguins are even deeper than the Flyers. And that, if Sami Kapanen were indeed a Penguin, he wouldn't be able to crack the lineup at all.
I've already made that case quite clearly, but in case you need any more evidence, here it is:
KAPANEN: 8 in 74. -12. 13:19
JEFF TAAFE: 12 in 45. +2. 9:35
Taafe, a solid two-way contributor whose numbers are considerably better than Kapanen's even before you adjust for ice time and games played, has yet to appear in a Pens' playoff game.
Posted at 09:59 AM
Wed - May 7, 2008
THE KID PAINTS THE KID
at the pittsburgh gifted
center.
Ethan J. Hermann
Sidney
2008
Oil on Canvas
11 3/8 x 15 7/8
Posted at 02:32 PM
WE WANT TO FOLLOW THE RULES
except when we don't.
You know, this is the kind of crap that makes my
head explode...
[From a memo (An Update on the Race for Delegates) sent to the Superdelegatessent by Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe. Emphases mine:]
...Just as the Presidential election in November will be decided by the electoral college, not popular vote, the Democratic nomination is decided by delegates.
If we believed the popular vote was somehow the key measurement, we would have campaigned much more intensively in our home state of Illinois and in all the other populous states, in the pursuit of larger raw vote totals. But it is not the key measurement. We played by the rules, set by you, the DNC members, and campaigned as hard as we could, in as many places as we could, to acquire delegates. Essentially, the popular vote is not much better as a metric than basing the nominee on which candidate raised more money, has more volunteers, contacted more voters, or is taller.
The Clinton campaign was very clear about their own strategy until the numbers become too ominous for them. They were like a broken record, repeating ad nauseum that this nomination race is about delegates. Now, the word delegate has disappeared from their vocabulary, in an attempt to change the rules and create an alternative reality.
We want to be clear – we believe that the winner of a majority of pledged delegates will and should be the nominee of our party. And we estimate that after the Oregon and Kentucky primaries on May 20, we will have won a majority of the overall pledged delegates According to a recent news report, by even their most optimistic estimates the Clinton Campaign expects to trail by more than 100 pledged delegates and will then ask the superdelegates to overturn the will of the voters.
But of course superdelegates are free to and have been utilizing their own criteria for deciding who our nominee should be...
I could highlight the presumption (that onerous first sentence, most of the first two paragraphs, and the transition to the last sentence). Or criticize the condescension (like a broken record...ad nauseum...alternative reality). Or even complain about the grammar (it should be were somehow, Mr. Plouffe, not was).
But all I really want to do is note the incredible irony -- by which I mean, duplicity; by which I mean, hypocrisy -- of a campaign that crows about playing by the rules and then, two paragraphs later, argues that the rules shouldn't apply, and that following the rules will be a very bad thing indeed. You know, as long as doing so may hurt Senator Obama.
It would be funny, were it not so infuriating. Maddening, were it not so sickening. And surprising, were it not so typical.
Last night in his North Carolina victory speech, Senator Obama lamented that John McCain's plan to win in November appears to come from the very same playbook that his side has used time after time in election after election. He warned of attempts to play on our fears and exploit our differences to turn us against each other for pure political gain. He said that the real question, then, is not what kind of campaign they'll run; it's what kind of campaign we will run.
Your campaign manager's memo to the Supers, like many other things we've seen and heard these past few months, gives us a pretty good idea, Senator. And you know what? It may sound different, but it sure does look -- and smell -- the same.
[From a memo (An Update on the Race for Delegates) sent to the Superdelegatessent by Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe. Emphases mine:]
...Just as the Presidential election in November will be decided by the electoral college, not popular vote, the Democratic nomination is decided by delegates.
If we believed the popular vote was somehow the key measurement, we would have campaigned much more intensively in our home state of Illinois and in all the other populous states, in the pursuit of larger raw vote totals. But it is not the key measurement. We played by the rules, set by you, the DNC members, and campaigned as hard as we could, in as many places as we could, to acquire delegates. Essentially, the popular vote is not much better as a metric than basing the nominee on which candidate raised more money, has more volunteers, contacted more voters, or is taller.
The Clinton campaign was very clear about their own strategy until the numbers become too ominous for them. They were like a broken record, repeating ad nauseum that this nomination race is about delegates. Now, the word delegate has disappeared from their vocabulary, in an attempt to change the rules and create an alternative reality.
We want to be clear – we believe that the winner of a majority of pledged delegates will and should be the nominee of our party. And we estimate that after the Oregon and Kentucky primaries on May 20, we will have won a majority of the overall pledged delegates According to a recent news report, by even their most optimistic estimates the Clinton Campaign expects to trail by more than 100 pledged delegates and will then ask the superdelegates to overturn the will of the voters.
But of course superdelegates are free to and have been utilizing their own criteria for deciding who our nominee should be...
I could highlight the presumption (that onerous first sentence, most of the first two paragraphs, and the transition to the last sentence). Or criticize the condescension (like a broken record...ad nauseum...alternative reality). Or even complain about the grammar (it should be were somehow, Mr. Plouffe, not was).
But all I really want to do is note the incredible irony -- by which I mean, duplicity; by which I mean, hypocrisy -- of a campaign that crows about playing by the rules and then, two paragraphs later, argues that the rules shouldn't apply, and that following the rules will be a very bad thing indeed. You know, as long as doing so may hurt Senator Obama.
It would be funny, were it not so infuriating. Maddening, were it not so sickening. And surprising, were it not so typical.
Last night in his North Carolina victory speech, Senator Obama lamented that John McCain's plan to win in November appears to come from the very same playbook that his side has used time after time in election after election. He warned of attempts to play on our fears and exploit our differences to turn us against each other for pure political gain. He said that the real question, then, is not what kind of campaign they'll run; it's what kind of campaign we will run.
Your campaign manager's memo to the Supers, like many other things we've seen and heard these past few months, gives us a pretty good idea, Senator. And you know what? It may sound different, but it sure does look -- and smell -- the same.
Posted at 01:51 PM
Tue - May 6, 2008
PUTTING HIS MUSIC WHERE HIS MONEY IS
and putting his money where his mouth
is.
Remember, about a year ago, when Nine Inch Nails creator
and resident musical genius Trent Reznor gave an interview to the Australian
Herald Sun decrying the sorry state of his own record label, the
festering bureaucracy of the Recording Industry of America, and the wanton,
miserable greed that both perpetuate upon fans of his and other bands' music?
Here's a refresher:
I created a little issue down here because the first thing I did when I got to Sydney is I walk into HMV, the week the record's out, and I see it on the rack with a bunch of other releases. And every release I see: $21.99, $22.99, $24.99. And ours doesn't have a sticker on it. I look close and, oh, it's $34.99. So I walk over to see our live DVD Beside You in Time, and I see that it's also priced six, seven, eight dollars more than every other disc on there. And I can't figure out why that would be.
Well, in Brisbane I end up meeting and greeting some record label people, who are pleasant enough, and one of them is a sales guy, so I say, Why [are our records and DVDs priced seven or eight dollars more than other releases?] He goes, Because your packaging is a lot more expensive.
I know how much the packaging costs -- it costs me, not them; it costs me 83 cents more to have a CD with the color-changing ink on it. I'm taking the hit on that, not them. So I said, Well, it doesn't cost $10 more. He goes, Ah, well, you're right, it doesn't. Basically it's because we know you've got a core audience that's gonna buy whatever we put out, so we can charge more for that. It's the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy it. True fans will pay whatever. And I just said, That's the most insulting thing I've heard. I've garnered a core audience that you feel it's OK to rip off?...
That [extra $10 is] not going into my pocket, I can promise you that. It's just these guys who have fucked themselves out of a job essentially, that now take it out on ripping off the public. I've got a battle where I'm trying to put out quality material that matters, and I've got fans that feel it's their right to steal it, and I've got a company that's so bureaucratic and clumsy and ignorant and behind the times they don't know what to do, so they rip the people off.
I have one record left that I owe a major label, then I will never be seen in a situation like this again. If I could do what I want right now, I would put out my next album, you could download it from my site at as high a bit-rate as you want, pay $4 through PayPal. Come see the show and buy a T-shirt if you like it. I would put out a nicely packaged merchandise piece, if you want to own a physical thing. And it would come out the day that it's done in the studio, not this Let's wait three months bullshit.
In the almost twelve months since he gave that interview, Reznor negotiated himself out of that last major label contract stipulation and, months before selling copies of it in stores, released a double disc of 36 instrumentals for free on his band's website. Today, he takes the next step, stays true to -- and, in fact, even exceeds -- his promise in that interview, and, as firmly and defiantly as any artist I can remember, puts his music where his money where his mouth is by releasing the band's brand new album, The Slip, for free, in multiple audio resolutions, on the NIN web site.
Enter an email address, get a download code, and choose your resolution. That's it. You can't even give them money, a la Radiohead, if you want to. Though you can, come July, purchase CD or vinyl copies if you're interested in the physical product.
You don't have to like the guy's music -- and, though I love it, I certainly understand why some people don't -- but you sure as hell have to admire and respect (and maybe even salute) him, his word, and his steadfast commitment to the integrity of both his fans and his art. The gesture would be pretty punk, if it weren't so damned, defiantly rock & roll.
I created a little issue down here because the first thing I did when I got to Sydney is I walk into HMV, the week the record's out, and I see it on the rack with a bunch of other releases. And every release I see: $21.99, $22.99, $24.99. And ours doesn't have a sticker on it. I look close and, oh, it's $34.99. So I walk over to see our live DVD Beside You in Time, and I see that it's also priced six, seven, eight dollars more than every other disc on there. And I can't figure out why that would be.
Well, in Brisbane I end up meeting and greeting some record label people, who are pleasant enough, and one of them is a sales guy, so I say, Why [are our records and DVDs priced seven or eight dollars more than other releases?] He goes, Because your packaging is a lot more expensive.
I know how much the packaging costs -- it costs me, not them; it costs me 83 cents more to have a CD with the color-changing ink on it. I'm taking the hit on that, not them. So I said, Well, it doesn't cost $10 more. He goes, Ah, well, you're right, it doesn't. Basically it's because we know you've got a core audience that's gonna buy whatever we put out, so we can charge more for that. It's the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy it. True fans will pay whatever. And I just said, That's the most insulting thing I've heard. I've garnered a core audience that you feel it's OK to rip off?...
That [extra $10 is] not going into my pocket, I can promise you that. It's just these guys who have fucked themselves out of a job essentially, that now take it out on ripping off the public. I've got a battle where I'm trying to put out quality material that matters, and I've got fans that feel it's their right to steal it, and I've got a company that's so bureaucratic and clumsy and ignorant and behind the times they don't know what to do, so they rip the people off.
I have one record left that I owe a major label, then I will never be seen in a situation like this again. If I could do what I want right now, I would put out my next album, you could download it from my site at as high a bit-rate as you want, pay $4 through PayPal. Come see the show and buy a T-shirt if you like it. I would put out a nicely packaged merchandise piece, if you want to own a physical thing. And it would come out the day that it's done in the studio, not this Let's wait three months bullshit.
In the almost twelve months since he gave that interview, Reznor negotiated himself out of that last major label contract stipulation and, months before selling copies of it in stores, released a double disc of 36 instrumentals for free on his band's website. Today, he takes the next step, stays true to -- and, in fact, even exceeds -- his promise in that interview, and, as firmly and defiantly as any artist I can remember, puts his music where his money where his mouth is by releasing the band's brand new album, The Slip, for free, in multiple audio resolutions, on the NIN web site.
Enter an email address, get a download code, and choose your resolution. That's it. You can't even give them money, a la Radiohead, if you want to. Though you can, come July, purchase CD or vinyl copies if you're interested in the physical product.
You don't have to like the guy's music -- and, though I love it, I certainly understand why some people don't -- but you sure as hell have to admire and respect (and maybe even salute) him, his word, and his steadfast commitment to the integrity of both his fans and his art. The gesture would be pretty punk, if it weren't so damned, defiantly rock & roll.
Posted at 01:28 PM
THESE HUNGRY EDITORS WON'T BE DENIED
but the rest of us will.
Part me of thinks I should not disparage anyone who
wants to support the Penguins during this (or any) playoff run. But then
another part of me endures loutish, drunken fans at the Arena -- I went to a
Pens game two weeks ago, and a Steelers game broke out -- and silly, ignorant fans on talk radio and silly, awkward editorials in the morning paper,
and, well...
Spare us the wagers of cheesesteaks vs. Iron City.
Spare us the unfortunate mix of a little knowledge and a lot of cheek. If only because no one would ever wager cheesesteaks against Iron City. They'd wager cheesesteaks against Primanti's sandwiches. Or maybe pierogies. And Iron City against Yards. Or maybe Yuengling.
Any way you mix the two, hockey fans know it's going to come out bitter.
Oh, yes. Very bitter. Especially in Pennsylvania, where the masses cling to sports and sticks almost as much as they do to guns and religion.
Isn't that right, Barack Obama endorsers?
That's how it's always been with the NHL's Pennsylvania rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers, who will open a best-of-seven series here Friday night for the Eastern Conference title. For anyone not paying attention (and it's hard to understand how), this is the playoff round before the Stanley Cup finals.
If they're not paying attention, I doubt they're still reading. And if they really want to be informed about hockey playoff rounds, I doubt they'll be looking just below British shocker: Voters dump the Labor Party in local councils on your editorial page.
That's Stanley Cup as in championship.
That's repetitive as in redundant.
That's championship as in the kind the Penguins haven't copped since 1992, when star center Sidney Crosby was still shy of his fifth birthday.
That's awkward -- as in grating -- parallel structure. Please stop.
And another thing: Copped? Copped? Who are you, Raymond Chandler?
But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Too late.
The young Pens have come this far, capturing two rounds of playoffs in the remarkably short span of eight wins and one loss, just by doing that -- taking it one game at a time.
Did anyone proofread this thing? Or did they just decide that a couple of paragraphs so awkward in tone may as well be equally awkward in syntax?
They also have counted on every man to find his one shining moment, as newcomer Marian Hossa did in his overtime goal Sunday.
One shining moment? Who wrote this? Jim Nantz? James Brown? Verne Lundquist? In the middle of a PG editorial, a bad CBS Sports broadcast (yes, I know that's redundant) broke out.
Not that Friday night's face-off will be just another game. The Pens go up against their cross-state nemesis, who beat Pittsburgh in five of their eight meetings this season, including an 8-2 humiliation in December.
Whatever the Pens suffered in that loss, it was, I assure you, no more humiliating than the printing of this editorial.
Let's hope the Flyers had their fun. This is the series that counts.
And this is the editorial that hurts.
These hungry Penguins won't be denied.
Cramming two clichés into just six words. Impressive. If not necessarily creative. Or admirable.
Someone call Gene Collier. Quick.
Go ahead, bring it.
If you say so, Mr. President.
My God. If there's anything more desperate and pathetic than newspaper editorial boards trying to sound hip and cool by writing about a local sports team, it's newspaper editorial boards trying to sound hip and cool by writing about a local sports team in an arch, affected vernacular that even the team's players would not dream of employing.
Sidney Crosby: If you want a rivalry, there's one right there. As players, we know that the playoffs are always intense, but it throws some spice into it when it's Pittsburgh-Philadelphia.
Marian Hossa: We're going to enjoy this, have a day off, and then we're going back to work to get ready for the next opponent.
Ryan Malone: It's going to be a battle. We've worked hard to get where we are now. Why not play them and have this big rivalry? It's going to be great for the fans.
PG Editorial Board: Go ahead, bring it.
Whatever the Flyers bring, it is sure to be only marginally less dignified on the ice than the PG Editorial Board is here in print. For anyone not paying attention (and it's not hard to understand why), that's the final, and most lamentable, insult of all.
Spare us the wagers of cheesesteaks vs. Iron City.
Spare us the unfortunate mix of a little knowledge and a lot of cheek. If only because no one would ever wager cheesesteaks against Iron City. They'd wager cheesesteaks against Primanti's sandwiches. Or maybe pierogies. And Iron City against Yards. Or maybe Yuengling.
Any way you mix the two, hockey fans know it's going to come out bitter.
Oh, yes. Very bitter. Especially in Pennsylvania, where the masses cling to sports and sticks almost as much as they do to guns and religion.
Isn't that right, Barack Obama endorsers?
That's how it's always been with the NHL's Pennsylvania rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers, who will open a best-of-seven series here Friday night for the Eastern Conference title. For anyone not paying attention (and it's hard to understand how), this is the playoff round before the Stanley Cup finals.
If they're not paying attention, I doubt they're still reading. And if they really want to be informed about hockey playoff rounds, I doubt they'll be looking just below British shocker: Voters dump the Labor Party in local councils on your editorial page.
That's Stanley Cup as in championship.
That's repetitive as in redundant.
That's championship as in the kind the Penguins haven't copped since 1992, when star center Sidney Crosby was still shy of his fifth birthday.
That's awkward -- as in grating -- parallel structure. Please stop.
And another thing: Copped? Copped? Who are you, Raymond Chandler?
But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Too late.
The young Pens have come this far, capturing two rounds of playoffs in the remarkably short span of eight wins and one loss, just by doing that -- taking it one game at a time.
Did anyone proofread this thing? Or did they just decide that a couple of paragraphs so awkward in tone may as well be equally awkward in syntax?
They also have counted on every man to find his one shining moment, as newcomer Marian Hossa did in his overtime goal Sunday.
One shining moment? Who wrote this? Jim Nantz? James Brown? Verne Lundquist? In the middle of a PG editorial, a bad CBS Sports broadcast (yes, I know that's redundant) broke out.
Not that Friday night's face-off will be just another game. The Pens go up against their cross-state nemesis, who beat Pittsburgh in five of their eight meetings this season, including an 8-2 humiliation in December.
Whatever the Pens suffered in that loss, it was, I assure you, no more humiliating than the printing of this editorial.
Let's hope the Flyers had their fun. This is the series that counts.
And this is the editorial that hurts.
These hungry Penguins won't be denied.
Cramming two clichés into just six words. Impressive. If not necessarily creative. Or admirable.
Someone call Gene Collier. Quick.
Go ahead, bring it.
If you say so, Mr. President.
My God. If there's anything more desperate and pathetic than newspaper editorial boards trying to sound hip and cool by writing about a local sports team, it's newspaper editorial boards trying to sound hip and cool by writing about a local sports team in an arch, affected vernacular that even the team's players would not dream of employing.
Sidney Crosby: If you want a rivalry, there's one right there. As players, we know that the playoffs are always intense, but it throws some spice into it when it's Pittsburgh-Philadelphia.
Marian Hossa: We're going to enjoy this, have a day off, and then we're going back to work to get ready for the next opponent.
Ryan Malone: It's going to be a battle. We've worked hard to get where we are now. Why not play them and have this big rivalry? It's going to be great for the fans.
PG Editorial Board: Go ahead, bring it.
Whatever the Flyers bring, it is sure to be only marginally less dignified on the ice than the PG Editorial Board is here in print. For anyone not paying attention (and it's not hard to understand why), that's the final, and most lamentable, insult of all.
Posted at 11:13 AM
Mon - May 5, 2008
AN OLD KIND OF STATISTICS
not a new kind of politics.
With a tip of the hat and a tilt of the axis to
Chadwick Matlin (great name) over at Slate.com, I offer here my own, slightly
souped-up graphic to illustrate the creative -- by which I mean, phony;
by which I mean, unprofessional; by which I mean, unethical --
graphing strategy they were, until about an hour ago, using on the
BarackObama.com ResultsCenter
page:
The first bar graph is the one they had been using before Mr. Matlin's piece (charitably titled Obama's Fuzzy Delelgate Math; it should have been called Obama's Bullshit Delegate Graph) appeared at 5:35 this afternoon. The second bar graph illustrates the correct proportion that Senator Clinton's 1,611 delegates should have filled. It's a considerable difference. And so a considerable ginning of both the image and the relative strength of the numbers.
Now. The Obama Camp deserves some credit for correcting the image so quickly. (You know, the kind of credit deserved by a teenager who, caught in a lie, admits the truth instead of just lying again.) But it deserves far more blame, and at least a little bit of scorn, for producing and posting the image in the first place. It's a simple case of Stats 101. Or Graphic Communication 101. Or Ethics 101. (Hell, my BusComm sophomores knew better by the third week of class.) You don't tweak or twist or fudge or otherwise knowingly misrepresent proportions on a graph. Not when you want to be honest and forthright about the data. And especially not when you claim to possess the ethical and intellectual high ground.
I've said it before (and before, and before, and before), and I'll say it again: new kind of politics, my ass.
The first bar graph is the one they had been using before Mr. Matlin's piece (charitably titled Obama's Fuzzy Delelgate Math; it should have been called Obama's Bullshit Delegate Graph) appeared at 5:35 this afternoon. The second bar graph illustrates the correct proportion that Senator Clinton's 1,611 delegates should have filled. It's a considerable difference. And so a considerable ginning of both the image and the relative strength of the numbers.
Now. The Obama Camp deserves some credit for correcting the image so quickly. (You know, the kind of credit deserved by a teenager who, caught in a lie, admits the truth instead of just lying again.) But it deserves far more blame, and at least a little bit of scorn, for producing and posting the image in the first place. It's a simple case of Stats 101. Or Graphic Communication 101. Or Ethics 101. (Hell, my BusComm sophomores knew better by the third week of class.) You don't tweak or twist or fudge or otherwise knowingly misrepresent proportions on a graph. Not when you want to be honest and forthright about the data. And especially not when you claim to possess the ethical and intellectual high ground.
I've said it before (and before, and before, and before), and I'll say it again: new kind of politics, my ass.
Posted at 08:40 PM
HILLARY X
the little that is all.
Remember when some people -- including that
all-high arbiter of cultural identity, Professor Cornell West -- were wondering
if Barack Obama is black enough? It's safe to assume, I suppose --
Professor West, after all, is now a staunch Obama supporter and advisor -- that
everyone worried about such things decided that he is. But I've been wondering
whether those same people are now afraid that Hillary, long-time favorite of
African-American voters and wife of the former First Black President, is perhaps too
black.
While Senator Obama orates himself across the country, telling us that he has a dream of hope and change, Senator Clinton takes a more fierce and occasionally radical approach, stirring up trouble and angering the establishment and doing her best to win the nomination by any means necessary. It's not just Senator Breath of Fresh Air vs. Senator Sniper Fire; it's Senator Dr. King vs. Senator Malcolm X.
Which means that John McCain must be Senator George Wallace.
While Senator Obama orates himself across the country, telling us that he has a dream of hope and change, Senator Clinton takes a more fierce and occasionally radical approach, stirring up trouble and angering the establishment and doing her best to win the nomination by any means necessary. It's not just Senator Breath of Fresh Air vs. Senator Sniper Fire; it's Senator Dr. King vs. Senator Malcolm X.
Which means that John McCain must be Senator George Wallace.
Posted at 12:39 PM
MORE BREAKING NEWS
for those of you who were born
yesterday.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is
reporting that a visiting professor at Carnegie Mellon has discovered
that the mood people are in strongly affects how willing they are to follow
advice.
I eagerly await the results of her next study, in which she will attempt to prove once and for all that people really do cry when they're sad.
I eagerly await the results of her next study, in which she will attempt to prove once and for all that people really do cry when they're sad.
Posted at 11:01 AM
Sun - May 4, 2008
HALFWAY THERE
eight down, eight to go.
Photo
Credit: Peter Diana, Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette.
(Let's Go, Pens.)
(Let's Go, Pens.)
Posted at 06:22 PM
COME HELL OR HYPERBOLE
here at the end of (undefeated)
days.
It is a testament to how jaded we've become, how
melodramatic we always are, or how ham-fisted Ron Cook and his Post-Gazette
sports editors can be -- I'm casting a third of a vote for each -- that a
single playoff loss after seven consecutive playoff wins can be called
adversity, or that a single subpar night and a couple of boneheaded
decisions after seven games of unmitigated brilliance can produce a
headline like Crosby, Malkin seek redemption
today.
I suppose if they lose today, the Pens will have endured a calamity, and Sid and Geno will need to seek the divine absolution that only Bishop Zubik, or a couple of Game 6 power play goals, can deliver.
To avoid that scenario, the inevitable infuriations of the newspaper columns to follow, and the idiotic ministrations both would demand of local sports talk radio -- let's just end the series today, shall we, boys?
(Let's Go, Pens.)
I suppose if they lose today, the Pens will have endured a calamity, and Sid and Geno will need to seek the divine absolution that only Bishop Zubik, or a couple of Game 6 power play goals, can deliver.
To avoid that scenario, the inevitable infuriations of the newspaper columns to follow, and the idiotic ministrations both would demand of local sports talk radio -- let's just end the series today, shall we, boys?
(Let's Go, Pens.)
Posted at 10:21 AM
YOU CAN CHECK OUT ANY TIME YOU LIKE
but i can never leave.
With a tip o' the hat and a flip o' the Triptik to
one of PittGirl's Facebook minions, I must direct your
attention to my new favorite internet make-your-own: CustomMotelSign.com. It's a great, throwback,
road-trip kinda concept, and what sets it apart -- besides some excellent
execution -- is the impeccable taste with which its creator, Tom Blackwell,
chose the original
sign.
By the time you see the second N, it's like you're looking at the fourth star.
By the time you see the second N, it's like you're looking at the fourth star.
Posted at 09:57 AM
Sat - May 3, 2008
NOT THAT COMPLEX AFTER ALL
or, the uncritical joys of
renunciation
Just shy of four months ago, I was surprised to
discover that I agreed with whole, great swaths of a column by
Charles Krauthammer, a Washington Postie with whom I often disagree.
After reading his latest column reprinted in this morning's
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, I was almost as surprised to discover that
rhetorical lightning can indeed strike
twice.
This will, no doubt, be counted against me by my pro-Obama critics. On more than one occasion, I've been dissed or emailed or insulted by people who, closing their minds and opening their web browsers, decide they can happily dismiss and reflexively vilify me just because I, on occasion, happen to agree with a guy (or a gal) they can write off as a neocon kook. You know -- as if the world is divided into good and evil, as if they have the exclusive right to decide which is which, and as if that stance is not in direct violation of the ideals they, by supporting Senator Obama, claim to espouse.
And yet those sorts of do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do sorts of hypocrisies these days abound in Camp Obama, as Mr. Krauthammer -- who is, I think, wrong about many things but still right about these (see how easy that is, kids? just a simple, substantive, case-by-case judgment; that's a new kind of rhetorical politics you really ought to try sometime) -- neatly observes:
At a news conference in North Carolina, Mr. Obama explained why he finally decided to do the deed. Apparently, Mr. Wright's latest comments -- Mr. Obama cited three in particular -- were so shockingly "divisive and destructive" that he had to renounce the man, not just the words. What were Mr. Obama's three citations? Mr. Wright's claim that AIDS was invented by the U.S. government to commit genocide. His praise of Louis Farrakhan as a great man. And his blaming 9/11 on American "terrorism."
But these comments are not new. These were precisely the outrages that prompted the initial furor when the Wright tapes emerged seven weeks ago. Mr. Obama decided to cut off Mr. Wright not because the reverend's words or character or views had suddenly changed. The only thing that changed was the venue in which Mr. Wright chose to display them -- live on national TV at the National Press Club. That unfortunate choice destroyed Mr. Obama's Philadelphia pretense that this "endless loop" of sermon excerpts being shown on "television sets and YouTube" had been taken out of context.
This last part is not entirely true. Because one important thing changed: he had the (what's that word again?) audacity to insult Senator Obama. To question his sincerity. To suggest that he was just playing politics. In other words, as they say in those bad movie trailers: This time, it's personal.
I suspect that, as much as the National Press Clubbully loony pulpit, was the reason for
the change of heart. And the sudden willingness to disown someone he once said
he could no more disown than his own grandmother. Combine those two factors,
mix in a newly energized press corps that, in the middle of a surprising but
almost certainly inevitable course-correction, has finally decided to draw some
fresh blood from Senator Breath of Fresh Air, and you get what we saw and heard
but did not quite buy in North Carolina this week.
So much for unity. So much for a new kind of politics.
Mr. Obama's Philadelphia oration was an exercise in contextualization. In one particularly egregious play on white guilt, Mr. Obama had the audacity to suggest that whites should be ashamed they were ever surprised by Mr. Wright's remarks: "The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Rev. Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour of American life occurs on Sunday morning."
That was then. On Tuesday, Mr. Obama declared that he himself was surprised at Mr. Wright's outrages. But hadn't Mr. Obama told us that surprise about Mr. Wright is a result of white ignorance of black churches brought on by America's history of segregated services? How then to explain Mr. Obama's own presumed ignorance? Surely he too was not sitting in those segregated white churches on those fateful Sundays when he conveniently missed all of Mr. Wright's racist rants. Mr. Obama's turning surprise about Mr. Wright into something to be counted against whites -- one of the more clever devices in that shameful, brilliantly executed, 5,000-word intellectual fraud in Philadelphia -- now stands discredited by Mr. Obama's own admission of surprise. But Mr. Obama's liberal acolytes are not daunted. They were taken in by the first great statement on race: the Annunciation, the Chosen One comes to heal us in Philly. They now are taken in by the second: the Renunciation.
You almost have to pity them in a way: they've sunk so much faith and hope into this man and this campaign that they're left with two choices: renounce them both and admit the mistake, or keep plowing blindly and uncritically ahead, growing (dare I say?) more bitter by the day, reduced to demonizing or insulting or a priori dismissing anyone who dares question Senator Obama's credibility.
Which, again, just for the record, sounds an awful lot like the much-maligned old kind of politics to me.
This 20-year association with Mr. Wright calls into question everything about Mr. Obama: his truthfulness in his serially adjusted stories of what he knew and when he knew it; his judgment in choosing as his mentor, pastor and great friend a man he just now realizes is a purveyor of racial hatred; and the central premise of his campaign, that he is the bringer of a "new politics," rising above the old Washington ways of expediency.
It's hard to think of an act more blatantly expedient than renouncing Mr. Wright when his show, once done from the press club instead of the pulpit, could no longer be "contextualized" as something whites could not understand and only Mr. Obama could explain in all its complexity. Turns out it was not that complex after all. Everyone understands it now. Even Mr. Obama.
Just as he -- and plenty of other people -- did all along.
This will, no doubt, be counted against me by my pro-Obama critics. On more than one occasion, I've been dissed or emailed or insulted by people who, closing their minds and opening their web browsers, decide they can happily dismiss and reflexively vilify me just because I, on occasion, happen to agree with a guy (or a gal) they can write off as a neocon kook. You know -- as if the world is divided into good and evil, as if they have the exclusive right to decide which is which, and as if that stance is not in direct violation of the ideals they, by supporting Senator Obama, claim to espouse.
And yet those sorts of do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do sorts of hypocrisies these days abound in Camp Obama, as Mr. Krauthammer -- who is, I think, wrong about many things but still right about these (see how easy that is, kids? just a simple, substantive, case-by-case judgment; that's a new kind of rhetorical politics you really ought to try sometime) -- neatly observes:
At a news conference in North Carolina, Mr. Obama explained why he finally decided to do the deed. Apparently, Mr. Wright's latest comments -- Mr. Obama cited three in particular -- were so shockingly "divisive and destructive" that he had to renounce the man, not just the words. What were Mr. Obama's three citations? Mr. Wright's claim that AIDS was invented by the U.S. government to commit genocide. His praise of Louis Farrakhan as a great man. And his blaming 9/11 on American "terrorism."
But these comments are not new. These were precisely the outrages that prompted the initial furor when the Wright tapes emerged seven weeks ago. Mr. Obama decided to cut off Mr. Wright not because the reverend's words or character or views had suddenly changed. The only thing that changed was the venue in which Mr. Wright chose to display them -- live on national TV at the National Press Club. That unfortunate choice destroyed Mr. Obama's Philadelphia pretense that this "endless loop" of sermon excerpts being shown on "television sets and YouTube" had been taken out of context.
This last part is not entirely true. Because one important thing changed: he had the (what's that word again?) audacity to insult Senator Obama. To question his sincerity. To suggest that he was just playing politics. In other words, as they say in those bad movie trailers: This time, it's personal.
I suspect that, as much as the National Press Club
So much for unity. So much for a new kind of politics.
Mr. Obama's Philadelphia oration was an exercise in contextualization. In one particularly egregious play on white guilt, Mr. Obama had the audacity to suggest that whites should be ashamed they were ever surprised by Mr. Wright's remarks: "The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Rev. Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour of American life occurs on Sunday morning."
That was then. On Tuesday, Mr. Obama declared that he himself was surprised at Mr. Wright's outrages. But hadn't Mr. Obama told us that surprise about Mr. Wright is a result of white ignorance of black churches brought on by America's history of segregated services? How then to explain Mr. Obama's own presumed ignorance? Surely he too was not sitting in those segregated white churches on those fateful Sundays when he conveniently missed all of Mr. Wright's racist rants. Mr. Obama's turning surprise about Mr. Wright into something to be counted against whites -- one of the more clever devices in that shameful, brilliantly executed, 5,000-word intellectual fraud in Philadelphia -- now stands discredited by Mr. Obama's own admission of surprise. But Mr. Obama's liberal acolytes are not daunted. They were taken in by the first great statement on race: the Annunciation, the Chosen One comes to heal us in Philly. They now are taken in by the second: the Renunciation.
You almost have to pity them in a way: they've sunk so much faith and hope into this man and this campaign that they're left with two choices: renounce them both and admit the mistake, or keep plowing blindly and uncritically ahead, growing (dare I say?) more bitter by the day, reduced to demonizing or insulting or a priori dismissing anyone who dares question Senator Obama's credibility.
Which, again, just for the record, sounds an awful lot like the much-maligned old kind of politics to me.
This 20-year association with Mr. Wright calls into question everything about Mr. Obama: his truthfulness in his serially adjusted stories of what he knew and when he knew it; his judgment in choosing as his mentor, pastor and great friend a man he just now realizes is a purveyor of racial hatred; and the central premise of his campaign, that he is the bringer of a "new politics," rising above the old Washington ways of expediency.
It's hard to think of an act more blatantly expedient than renouncing Mr. Wright when his show, once done from the press club instead of the pulpit, could no longer be "contextualized" as something whites could not understand and only Mr. Obama could explain in all its complexity. Turns out it was not that complex after all. Everyone understands it now. Even Mr. Obama.
Just as he -- and plenty of other people -- did all along.
Posted at 02:12 PM
Fri - May 2, 2008
(GETTIN' READY TO GO TO HUNKER) NOTES FROM A FRIDAY AFTERNOON
tipping the cows of my mind.
For your consideration: another curious collection
of thoughts, reactions, and observations that didn't make it into a full-length
post this week. So they're sort of like all those aisles and aisles of
miscellaneous crap just waiting to be bought at Home Depot. But without all
that damned dust...
• It's been a while since I updated these totals, but with the passing of yet another Mission Accomplished anniversary, it seems like a good time to do so. If you count the 24 persons still officially listed as missing, the September 11th American death toll was 2,998. The Iraq War American death toll currently stands at 4,065. Which means that George W. Bush leads Osama bin Laden by 1,067 innocent American lives. And counting.
• If Hillary were trailing Obama by that many delegates, she'd have already dropped out. And rightly so. If bin Laden doesn't hurry up and close the gap, the Superterrorists are all gonna throw their support behind Bush, and the race for biggest American-butchering jackass in the world will be officially wrapped up.
• It's obvious by now that when Bush said Bring 'em on, he didn't mean that he wanted to fight 'em; it meant he wanted to beat 'em at their own game.
• Well, then... Mission Accomplished indeed.
• Speaking, as I was a few moments ago, of Barack and Hillary, I'll stand down on those subjects this week and turn the commentary over to another rip-snorting piece, post-Pennsylvania-primary, from Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi. It's all worth reading and considering, but here, for my ear, is the money passage: With all his verbose deflections of Hillary's attacks and unconcealed annoyance over silly nonissues like his failure to wear a flag lapel pin, Obama inadvertently painted himself into a corner as a know-it-all, a pointy-head who would rather yammer in polysyllables and talk to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than wear the fucking American flag on his chest — as Hillary, meanwhile, was promising to "obliterate" Iran and in the process roping in hordes of nondescript suburbanites who'll crawl through the mud for "Madam President" while marching to classic rock tunes like the "Horst Wessel Song." Clinton's genius was in seeing that it was possible to play the liberal/intellectual-baiting game not only with Republicans but with Democrats — and that by forcing her opponent to take the high road, she could scour the fish-rich waters of the low road. The result has been an epic clash, a war of cultural types that has nothing whatsoever to do with issues and everything to do with self-image. It's become a pitched fight between the fucked-over suburban little guy and the vilified intellectual, two groups that for years have felt put upon and dispossessed, for different reasons. The fact that their respective champions are identical superstar U.S. senators/multimillionaires makes the bitter hatred this schism is inspiring absurd, but it doesn't make it any less real. Or likely to end anytime soon.
• As a quick follow-up to last week's Home Depot vs. Giant Eagle Self-Checkout Note: I bought three items at Giant Eagle earlier this week, and it took me almost four minutes to complete the transaction. I bought a three-foot fluorescent light bulb at Home Depot this afternoon, used my check card, got cash back, and was on my way in under 45 seconds. The difference between the two makes me nuts. It also makes me want to forgo eating and just make lots of home improvements instead.
• TWM Strange But True Tip of the Week: if you like chocolate-covered almonds, try the CVS -- yes, the pharmacy chain -- brand. They're shockingly good and incredibly addictive; at that price, and even at considerably higher prices -- I'm talking to you, Trader Joe's -- you won't find any better.
• TWM Music Tip of the Week: if you like Tom Petty, Ryan Adams, Gram Parsons, The Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, or any other great, country-tinged roots-rock, check out the over-thirty-years-in-the-making debut album from Mudcrutch, Petty's pre-Heartbreakers band. All those glowing reviews are true: it's not a self-indulgence, and it's not a novelty project; it's a CD as good as anything he's done since Full Moon Fever, and evidence -- as if we needed any more -- that the guy has talent and inspiration to burn.
• Orphan of the Storm, my favorite track so far, may be the greatest Gram Parsons song Gram Parsons never wrote. And it's surely the most gorgeous song I've heard all year.
• Thank God viewers sent Brooke White packing on American Idol this week. I was really starting to fear for her health, if not her sanity; that look on her face during the first few bars of I'm a Believer Tuesday night was virtually indistinguishable from the look on Shelley Duvall's face in the last half hour of The Shining. If she'd have had to sing even one more week, I'm afraid she would have died of fright right there on the stage.
• I can almost picture it now. Paula Abdul would turn into that crazy, flesh-rotting woman in the bathtub in room 237, Ryan Seacrest would be running around that stage wagging his finger and shouting This... is American Redrum!, and that cranky brit would, after seven seasons trapped as the only responsible caretaker of the Idol Hotel, would grab a microphone stand, leap up on stage, and beat David Archuleta senseless while screaming Heeeeeere's Simon! at the top of his crazy lungs.
• The Pens played last night like a team that, after seven straight wins, just couldn't summon the urgency or concentration to compete. Sure, they had some good chances, Marc-Andre Fleury was strong in goal, and Jordan Staal and Tyler Kennedy worked and forechecked like madmen, but the rest of the team was sloppy, turnover prone, and seemed, until those last few minutes, to be mailing it in and waiting for another sweep. Credit the Rangers with having other ideas. And expect the boys in black and gold, delivered an extra dose of adrenaline by an amped-up Mellon Arena crowd, to have no such problems come Sunday afternoon.
• I heard a few minutes of local sports talk radio this morning, and it sounded like more than a few people were already starting to panic. I even heard two different discussions about whether the Pens would lose the series. Now. I'm not saying it's not possible. But the Pens lose one game after starting the playoffs with seven straight victories, and people have to be talked down from the ledge? What kind of lunatics are you? Did you expect them to win the Stanley Cup without losing a game? (This sort of bipolar sanity -- from unrealistic optimism one day to irrational pessimism the next -- only confirms my suspicion that the Pens' bandwagon is filled with bored, half-drunken, half-witted Steelers fans. But more on that in another post...) If you'd told me at the start of the week that they'd split in New York, or if you told me at the start of the series that they'd be coming home for Game 5 up three games to one, I'd have been doing backflips. Now, suddenly, that scenario seems so dire that people are threatening to do backflips off the Liberty Bridge.
• Hang up the phone, have another beer, and hang on 'til Sunday, okay?
• Okay.
• It's been a while since I updated these totals, but with the passing of yet another Mission Accomplished anniversary, it seems like a good time to do so. If you count the 24 persons still officially listed as missing, the September 11th American death toll was 2,998. The Iraq War American death toll currently stands at 4,065. Which means that George W. Bush leads Osama bin Laden by 1,067 innocent American lives. And counting.
• If Hillary were trailing Obama by that many delegates, she'd have already dropped out. And rightly so. If bin Laden doesn't hurry up and close the gap, the Superterrorists are all gonna throw their support behind Bush, and the race for biggest American-butchering jackass in the world will be officially wrapped up.
• It's obvious by now that when Bush said Bring 'em on, he didn't mean that he wanted to fight 'em; it meant he wanted to beat 'em at their own game.
• Well, then... Mission Accomplished indeed.
• Speaking, as I was a few moments ago, of Barack and Hillary, I'll stand down on those subjects this week and turn the commentary over to another rip-snorting piece, post-Pennsylvania-primary, from Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi. It's all worth reading and considering, but here, for my ear, is the money passage: With all his verbose deflections of Hillary's attacks and unconcealed annoyance over silly nonissues like his failure to wear a flag lapel pin, Obama inadvertently painted himself into a corner as a know-it-all, a pointy-head who would rather yammer in polysyllables and talk to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than wear the fucking American flag on his chest — as Hillary, meanwhile, was promising to "obliterate" Iran and in the process roping in hordes of nondescript suburbanites who'll crawl through the mud for "Madam President" while marching to classic rock tunes like the "Horst Wessel Song." Clinton's genius was in seeing that it was possible to play the liberal/intellectual-baiting game not only with Republicans but with Democrats — and that by forcing her opponent to take the high road, she could scour the fish-rich waters of the low road. The result has been an epic clash, a war of cultural types that has nothing whatsoever to do with issues and everything to do with self-image. It's become a pitched fight between the fucked-over suburban little guy and the vilified intellectual, two groups that for years have felt put upon and dispossessed, for different reasons. The fact that their respective champions are identical superstar U.S. senators/multimillionaires makes the bitter hatred this schism is inspiring absurd, but it doesn't make it any less real. Or likely to end anytime soon.
• As a quick follow-up to last week's Home Depot vs. Giant Eagle Self-Checkout Note: I bought three items at Giant Eagle earlier this week, and it took me almost four minutes to complete the transaction. I bought a three-foot fluorescent light bulb at Home Depot this afternoon, used my check card, got cash back, and was on my way in under 45 seconds. The difference between the two makes me nuts. It also makes me want to forgo eating and just make lots of home improvements instead.
• TWM Strange But True Tip of the Week: if you like chocolate-covered almonds, try the CVS -- yes, the pharmacy chain -- brand. They're shockingly good and incredibly addictive; at that price, and even at considerably higher prices -- I'm talking to you, Trader Joe's -- you won't find any better.
• TWM Music Tip of the Week: if you like Tom Petty, Ryan Adams, Gram Parsons, The Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, or any other great, country-tinged roots-rock, check out the over-thirty-years-in-the-making debut album from Mudcrutch, Petty's pre-Heartbreakers band. All those glowing reviews are true: it's not a self-indulgence, and it's not a novelty project; it's a CD as good as anything he's done since Full Moon Fever, and evidence -- as if we needed any more -- that the guy has talent and inspiration to burn.
• Orphan of the Storm, my favorite track so far, may be the greatest Gram Parsons song Gram Parsons never wrote. And it's surely the most gorgeous song I've heard all year.
• Thank God viewers sent Brooke White packing on American Idol this week. I was really starting to fear for her health, if not her sanity; that look on her face during the first few bars of I'm a Believer Tuesday night was virtually indistinguishable from the look on Shelley Duvall's face in the last half hour of The Shining. If she'd have had to sing even one more week, I'm afraid she would have died of fright right there on the stage.
• I can almost picture it now. Paula Abdul would turn into that crazy, flesh-rotting woman in the bathtub in room 237, Ryan Seacrest would be running around that stage wagging his finger and shouting This... is American Redrum!, and that cranky brit would, after seven seasons trapped as the only responsible caretaker of the Idol Hotel, would grab a microphone stand, leap up on stage, and beat David Archuleta senseless while screaming Heeeeeere's Simon! at the top of his crazy lungs.
• The Pens played last night like a team that, after seven straight wins, just couldn't summon the urgency or concentration to compete. Sure, they had some good chances, Marc-Andre Fleury was strong in goal, and Jordan Staal and Tyler Kennedy worked and forechecked like madmen, but the rest of the team was sloppy, turnover prone, and seemed, until those last few minutes, to be mailing it in and waiting for another sweep. Credit the Rangers with having other ideas. And expect the boys in black and gold, delivered an extra dose of adrenaline by an amped-up Mellon Arena crowd, to have no such problems come Sunday afternoon.
• I heard a few minutes of local sports talk radio this morning, and it sounded like more than a few people were already starting to panic. I even heard two different discussions about whether the Pens would lose the series. Now. I'm not saying it's not possible. But the Pens lose one game after starting the playoffs with seven straight victories, and people have to be talked down from the ledge? What kind of lunatics are you? Did you expect them to win the Stanley Cup without losing a game? (This sort of bipolar sanity -- from unrealistic optimism one day to irrational pessimism the next -- only confirms my suspicion that the Pens' bandwagon is filled with bored, half-drunken, half-witted Steelers fans. But more on that in another post...) If you'd told me at the start of the week that they'd split in New York, or if you told me at the start of the series that they'd be coming home for Game 5 up three games to one, I'd have been doing backflips. Now, suddenly, that scenario seems so dire that people are threatening to do backflips off the Liberty Bridge.
• Hang up the phone, have another beer, and hang on 'til Sunday, okay?
• Okay.
Posted at 03:41 PM
MISSION BITCHSLAPPED AND ABANDONED
cold beyond comprehension.
Yesterday, on the fifth anniversary of President
Top Gun's Mission Accomplished speech, another American soldier died. He
(or she) was the 4,065th American killed in Iraq. The 3,926th since that
speech.
On my way home from dropping off Ethan at school, Patterson Hood's voice, a couple of persistent, insistent chords, and the distant, plaintive wail of a harmonica came snaking out of the 4Runner's speakers. They felt like an elegy. And a prophecy.
THE HOME FRONT
Drive-By Truckers
The hours creep across her face
As she paces across the floor
And she can’t even get to sleep
Since Tony went to war
She feels bitchslapped and abandoned
By a world she thought she knew
Cold beyond comprehension
As their little girl turns two
Now they’re saying on the flat screen
They ain’t found a reason yet
We’re all bogged down in a quagmire
And there ain’t no end to it
No 9/11 or uranium
To pin this bullshit on
She’s left standing on the home front
The two of them alone.
On my way home from dropping off Ethan at school, Patterson Hood's voice, a couple of persistent, insistent chords, and the distant, plaintive wail of a harmonica came snaking out of the 4Runner's speakers. They felt like an elegy. And a prophecy.
THE HOME FRONT
Drive-By Truckers
The hours creep across her face
As she paces across the floor
And she can’t even get to sleep
Since Tony went to war
She feels bitchslapped and abandoned
By a world she thought she knew
Cold beyond comprehension
As their little girl turns two
Now they’re saying on the flat screen
They ain’t found a reason yet
We’re all bogged down in a quagmire
And there ain’t no end to it
No 9/11 or uranium
To pin this bullshit on
She’s left standing on the home front
The two of them alone.
Posted at 09:24 AM
THE WALL (4/24/08 - 4/30/08)
they gave the last full measure of
devotion.
Staff Sergeant Shaun J.
Whitehead
Private 1st Class William T. Dix.
Sergeant Mark A. Stone.
Sergeant Marcus C. Mathes.
Private 1st Class Adam L. Marion.
Specialist David P. McCormick.
Staff Sergeant Bryan E. Bolander.
Staff Sergeant Clay A. Craig.
Sergeant 1st Class Lawrence D. Ezell.
Specialist Ronald J. Tucker.
Captain Andrew R. Pearson.
Staff Sergeant Chad A. Caldwell.
Private 1st Class William T. Dix.
Sergeant Mark A. Stone.
Sergeant Marcus C. Mathes.
Private 1st Class Adam L. Marion.
Specialist David P. McCormick.
Staff Sergeant Bryan E. Bolander.
Staff Sergeant Clay A. Craig.
Sergeant 1st Class Lawrence D. Ezell.
Specialist Ronald J. Tucker.
Captain Andrew R. Pearson.
Staff Sergeant Chad A. Caldwell.
Posted at 09:07 AM
Thu - May 1, 2008
IT'S NOT THAT I'M PATHETICALLY, HYSTERICALLY MEGA-SUPER-SUPERSTITIOUS
it's that i'm uncontrollably, pathetically,
hysterically mega-super-superstitious.
And once we've hit lucky seven(-and-oh), you do
not, under any circumstances, or even under threat of great duress, think about
thinking about the slightest chance of the unlikeliest possibility of ever
messing with that success. So:
LET'S GO, PENS!
LET'S GO, PENS!
Posted at 02:13 PM
GRIPES & PREJUDICE
protests and a-muse-ments.
Now that we've dispensed with race and politics and the still
happily contentious Democratic Primary process, let's move on to address this
week's far more controversial pronouncement: the choice of Keira
Knightley as this year's Official Muse of
TWM.
I have, in the now almost four-year history of this blog, taken some inflammatory stands and advanced some unpopular opinions. I've gone against the grain, across the grain, and sometimes obliterated the grain altogether. And yet every year, without fail, my choice of a muse -- which started out as a joke and a bit of a lark but soon became a much-anticipated tradition -- generates as much email, as much controversy, as much dissension and dissatisfaction as anything else I write.
Oh, sure, I always hear from people who approve of the choice; just about every male, heterosexual reader I had in my first year approved of Carolyn Murphy, and readers of both genders signed off on Naomi Watts and Kate Beckinsale. But the most rapid and rabid responses, rolling in for days and sometimes weeks after the announcement, are the complaints. The outrages. The questions and the criticisms.
I suppose, in some ways, this is progress. In the beginning, people would email to protest the very concept; now, they're emailing just to protest the choice. The Official Muse has become an essential part of the TWM fabric -- a silly little part of this humble little site that, in the end, holds your attention and gets at least some of you fired up. I like that. Enough that I look forward to the reaction. And enough that, this year at least, I feel compelled to respond to at least some of the major gripes and prejudices:
She's too young...
Ms. Knightley is 23. A bit young, perhaps, for a 39-year-old writer, but, um, it's not as if we're actually dating. Or... uh... uh... what was I saying again? I seem to have gotten a bit distracted.
Anyway -- since my last three muses were 33, 39, and 35, it's not exactly like I'm making a habit of it.
...too thin...
Would that we all had that problem.
Now. That said -- I am drawn first to eyes and smiles and brains and talent, none of which has much to do with meat or flesh or waist size. And, while I agree that Ms. Knightley could (and probably should) add a few pounds to her frame, it's worth noting that most of this year's finalists (Jenna Fischer, Shonna Tucker, Margo Timmins) and one of my other perennial finalists (Rachel Weisz) are all far from waifish.
...not a good role model for young girls...
Apparently because she's too thin. Or famous. Or something. But, even if we ignore that my purpose here is not to pick the Role Model Citizen for America's Impressionable Girls, I'd say that someone who's young, incredibly talented, successful on her own terms, smart, funny, by all accounts fiercely independent, already an Oscar nominee, and, so far at least, free from any hint of scandal or embarrassing behavior is, whether or not she could stand to add a few extra pounds, a pretty damned good role model for young women.
...another blonde...
She's a brunette.
...another foreigner...
Who are you, Lou Dobbs?
Yeah, okay. Guilty. I've now chosen three consecutive Muses who hail from outside the United States. I also do not wear a flag lapel pin. And I hate NASCAR. So just deport me now. Or don't vote for me for president. And, in the meantime, I'll promise to bring it back home and Buy American next year.
...the star of a chick flick like Pride & Prejudice...
Which happens to be a brilliant and beautiful film. Please don't blame Keira if your wives and girlfriends force a little bit of culture and refinement upon you whenever this film plays on cable or satellite. (Which, to be fair, was just about every night for many long months.)
...the star of a chick flick like Bend it Like Beckham...
Which happens to be a hilarious and beautiful film. Which happens to feature Keira in soccer shorts and sports bra (a lot). And which also happens to star another incredibly beautiful and talented young woman (Parminder Nagra). Time to pay more attention to these flicks, gents.
Ms. Knightley has also, just for the record, been the star of some decidedly non-chick flicks like King Arthur and The Jacket and Domino. And those three little movies about the pirates.
...only a mediocre actress...
I, her peers, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, and a whole host of critics would beg to differ. As would this amazing scene...
...among many, many others.
As more complaints and criticisms email in, I'll be sure to note them. When the compliments finally arrive, I'll be sure to note them too. In the meantime, thanks for engaging so fully and fiercely in TWM's annual spring rite of nomination and inspiration. And don't be surprised if, sometime soon, I get enough protests and hear enough outcries that I feel compelled to head to Philadelphia, call together all my critics and detractors, and deliver a little defense of a speech I'll call A More Perfect Muse.
I'm thinking maybe Keira would come if I promised not to disown her a month later.
I have, in the now almost four-year history of this blog, taken some inflammatory stands and advanced some unpopular opinions. I've gone against the grain, across the grain, and sometimes obliterated the grain altogether. And yet every year, without fail, my choice of a muse -- which started out as a joke and a bit of a lark but soon became a much-anticipated tradition -- generates as much email, as much controversy, as much dissension and dissatisfaction as anything else I write.
Oh, sure, I always hear from people who approve of the choice; just about every male, heterosexual reader I had in my first year approved of Carolyn Murphy, and readers of both genders signed off on Naomi Watts and Kate Beckinsale. But the most rapid and rabid responses, rolling in for days and sometimes weeks after the announcement, are the complaints. The outrages. The questions and the criticisms.
I suppose, in some ways, this is progress. In the beginning, people would email to protest the very concept; now, they're emailing just to protest the choice. The Official Muse has become an essential part of the TWM fabric -- a silly little part of this humble little site that, in the end, holds your attention and gets at least some of you fired up. I like that. Enough that I look forward to the reaction. And enough that, this year at least, I feel compelled to respond to at least some of the major gripes and prejudices:
She's too young...
Ms. Knightley is 23. A bit young, perhaps, for a 39-year-old writer, but, um, it's not as if we're actually dating. Or... uh... uh... what was I saying again? I seem to have gotten a bit distracted.
Anyway -- since my last three muses were 33, 39, and 35, it's not exactly like I'm making a habit of it.
...too thin...
Would that we all had that problem.
Now. That said -- I am drawn first to eyes and smiles and brains and talent, none of which has much to do with meat or flesh or waist size. And, while I agree that Ms. Knightley could (and probably should) add a few pounds to her frame, it's worth noting that most of this year's finalists (Jenna Fischer, Shonna Tucker, Margo Timmins) and one of my other perennial finalists (Rachel Weisz) are all far from waifish.
...not a good role model for young girls...
Apparently because she's too thin. Or famous. Or something. But, even if we ignore that my purpose here is not to pick the Role Model Citizen for America's Impressionable Girls, I'd say that someone who's young, incredibly talented, successful on her own terms, smart, funny, by all accounts fiercely independent, already an Oscar nominee, and, so far at least, free from any hint of scandal or embarrassing behavior is, whether or not she could stand to add a few extra pounds, a pretty damned good role model for young women.
...another blonde...
She's a brunette.
...another foreigner...
Who are you, Lou Dobbs?
Yeah, okay. Guilty. I've now chosen three consecutive Muses who hail from outside the United States. I also do not wear a flag lapel pin. And I hate NASCAR. So just deport me now. Or don't vote for me for president. And, in the meantime, I'll promise to bring it back home and Buy American next year.
...the star of a chick flick like Pride & Prejudice...
Which happens to be a brilliant and beautiful film. Please don't blame Keira if your wives and girlfriends force a little bit of culture and refinement upon you whenever this film plays on cable or satellite. (Which, to be fair, was just about every night for many long months.)
...the star of a chick flick like Bend it Like Beckham...
Which happens to be a hilarious and beautiful film. Which happens to feature Keira in soccer shorts and sports bra (a lot). And which also happens to star another incredibly beautiful and talented young woman (Parminder Nagra). Time to pay more attention to these flicks, gents.
Ms. Knightley has also, just for the record, been the star of some decidedly non-chick flicks like King Arthur and The Jacket and Domino. And those three little movies about the pirates.
...only a mediocre actress...
I, her peers, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, and a whole host of critics would beg to differ. As would this amazing scene...
...among many, many others.
As more complaints and criticisms email in, I'll be sure to note them. When the compliments finally arrive, I'll be sure to note them too. In the meantime, thanks for engaging so fully and fiercely in TWM's annual spring rite of nomination and inspiration. And don't be surprised if, sometime soon, I get enough protests and hear enough outcries that I feel compelled to head to Philadelphia, call together all my critics and detractors, and deliver a little defense of a speech I'll call A More Perfect Muse.
I'm thinking maybe Keira would come if I promised not to disown her a month later.
Posted at 10:35 AM
Wed - April 30, 2008
TWO WRIGHTS STILL MAKE A WRONG
or, why that lunatic egomaniac still
matters.
Before we move on to even more controversial matters, let's talk once
more about the star-crossed, now-mercifully-divorced relationship between
Senator Breath of Fresh Air and Reverend
Race-Baiter.
First, let's give credit where it's due: despite an over-reliance on his favorite vowel and at least a couple of slippery equivocations -- more on those in a moment -- Senator Obama yesterday wisely dispensed with the emotional aloofness and rhetorical sleight-of-hand that have so far characterized his remarks about Reverend Wright and, avoiding the airy rationalizations (a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice) of his wildly overpraised (if occasionally dissected) More Perfect Union speech, got right down to business:
When he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS; when he suggests that Minister Farrakhan somehow represents one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st century; when he equates the United States' wartime efforts with terrorism, then there are no excuses. They offend me, they rightly offend all Americans, and they should be denounced. And that's what I’m doing very clearly and unequivocally here today.
That's well-said and well-crafted. It hits right at the dark heart of Wright's paranoid absurdities, exposes them to the lights of sense and reason, and does not attempt to do anything but heap upon them the scorn they so richly deserve. It is precisely what he should have done last month: rather than teeter on an oratorical tightrope as he did in Philadelphia, Senator Obama went underground in Winston-Salem and stopped playing co-dependent to his former pastor's whack addiction. He did the same thing in the Q&A a few minutes later:
I want to make absolutely clear that I do not subscribe to the views that he expressed. I believe they are wrong. I think they are destructive.
From a candidate and a campaign that have repeatedly addressed political "distractions" with little more than rhetorical dissertations, this felt, finally, like one of those much-vaunted, little-delivered breaths of fresh air. It took a lot more hot air and a few personal attacks to provoke it, but the result was refreshing nonetheless.
Less refreshing was Senator Obama's claim that he hadn't heard Reverend Wright's AIDS comments until Monday...
Q: Have you heard the reports about the AIDS comment?
BO: I had not. ... And so when I start hearing comments about conspiracy theories and AIDS... then that goes directly at who I am and what I believe this country needs.
...when they were, in fact, a matter of public record (and video infamy) weeks ago. They emerged, after all, long before the Philadelphia speech in which they were not addressed or even acknowledged. Does Senator Obama expect us to believe that, in all of the earlier eruptions over Reverend Wright's comments, he had never once heard, not even from his own aides, that Reverend Race-Baiter made those accusations? And if we do believe it -- which I don't -- then what does that say about Senator Obama's ability be informed on even the most simple and sensational of cultural matters? I mean, it's not like Bush and Brown and Chertoff failing to know about the evacuees at the New Orleans Convention Center, but neither is it a reassurance that Senator Obama will know even the most obvious facts of the problems to which he must respond.
Which leads us, finally, to why Senator Obama's Better Late Than Never Remarks yesterday still qualify as a Too Little Too Late Response today. It leads us to why the Reverend Wright, in all his loony, egomaniacal vainglory, still matters today just as he has mattered all along: because of what he suggests about the judgment of a man who, lacking enough experience or accomplishment to make his case, has repeatedly told us to trust his judgment.
And yet there he was yesterday, in the second paragraph of his opening statement, admitting that he may have erred in his (twenty years) of judgment of Reverend Wright:
And based on his remarks yesterday, well, I may not know him as well as I thought either.
If you don't well know a man who, in your own words, has been like family to [you,] a man who officiated [your] wedding and baptized [your] children and strengthened [your] faith and was a part of your life for the past twenty years, then who or what do you know well? What does that say, in the end, about your ability to see and to judge and to divine the true heart of a person, the true power of a moment, the true importance of an issue? If your judgment has been that intimately and consistently wrong for the last twenty years, how can you expect us to trust it for the next four? And how can you expect us to believe that you will not, as our current president so often has, be swayed by the thoughts and mistakes and sometimes even rank incompetencies (or, in this case, lunacies) of the men and women in your administration to whom you turn for counsel?
The closest Senator Obama comes to an answer, and it is hardly a reassuring one, appears earlier in the paragraph:
The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago.
That is fair enough. And almost certainly true. But surely that change did not occurr just this week. Or month. Or year. Surely that change occurred, as all metamorphoses do, in distinct stages, with marked and obvious differences, with such sight and sound and occasional, irrational fury that someone whose great judgment, whose acute ability to assess a situation and divine a solution, is repeatedly being touted as Oval-Office-worthy, would have noticed, and then duly reacted, sometime between 1988 and the day before yesterday.
First, let's give credit where it's due: despite an over-reliance on his favorite vowel and at least a couple of slippery equivocations -- more on those in a moment -- Senator Obama yesterday wisely dispensed with the emotional aloofness and rhetorical sleight-of-hand that have so far characterized his remarks about Reverend Wright and, avoiding the airy rationalizations (a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice) of his wildly overpraised (if occasionally dissected) More Perfect Union speech, got right down to business:
When he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS; when he suggests that Minister Farrakhan somehow represents one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st century; when he equates the United States' wartime efforts with terrorism, then there are no excuses. They offend me, they rightly offend all Americans, and they should be denounced. And that's what I’m doing very clearly and unequivocally here today.
That's well-said and well-crafted. It hits right at the dark heart of Wright's paranoid absurdities, exposes them to the lights of sense and reason, and does not attempt to do anything but heap upon them the scorn they so richly deserve. It is precisely what he should have done last month: rather than teeter on an oratorical tightrope as he did in Philadelphia, Senator Obama went underground in Winston-Salem and stopped playing co-dependent to his former pastor's whack addiction. He did the same thing in the Q&A a few minutes later:
I want to make absolutely clear that I do not subscribe to the views that he expressed. I believe they are wrong. I think they are destructive.
From a candidate and a campaign that have repeatedly addressed political "distractions" with little more than rhetorical dissertations, this felt, finally, like one of those much-vaunted, little-delivered breaths of fresh air. It took a lot more hot air and a few personal attacks to provoke it, but the result was refreshing nonetheless.
Less refreshing was Senator Obama's claim that he hadn't heard Reverend Wright's AIDS comments until Monday...
Q: Have you heard the reports about the AIDS comment?
BO: I had not. ... And so when I start hearing comments about conspiracy theories and AIDS... then that goes directly at who I am and what I believe this country needs.
...when they were, in fact, a matter of public record (and video infamy) weeks ago. They emerged, after all, long before the Philadelphia speech in which they were not addressed or even acknowledged. Does Senator Obama expect us to believe that, in all of the earlier eruptions over Reverend Wright's comments, he had never once heard, not even from his own aides, that Reverend Race-Baiter made those accusations? And if we do believe it -- which I don't -- then what does that say about Senator Obama's ability be informed on even the most simple and sensational of cultural matters? I mean, it's not like Bush and Brown and Chertoff failing to know about the evacuees at the New Orleans Convention Center, but neither is it a reassurance that Senator Obama will know even the most obvious facts of the problems to which he must respond.
Which leads us, finally, to why Senator Obama's Better Late Than Never Remarks yesterday still qualify as a Too Little Too Late Response today. It leads us to why the Reverend Wright, in all his loony, egomaniacal vainglory, still matters today just as he has mattered all along: because of what he suggests about the judgment of a man who, lacking enough experience or accomplishment to make his case, has repeatedly told us to trust his judgment.
And yet there he was yesterday, in the second paragraph of his opening statement, admitting that he may have erred in his (twenty years) of judgment of Reverend Wright:
And based on his remarks yesterday, well, I may not know him as well as I thought either.
If you don't well know a man who, in your own words, has been like family to [you,] a man who officiated [your] wedding and baptized [your] children and strengthened [your] faith and was a part of your life for the past twenty years, then who or what do you know well? What does that say, in the end, about your ability to see and to judge and to divine the true heart of a person, the true power of a moment, the true importance of an issue? If your judgment has been that intimately and consistently wrong for the last twenty years, how can you expect us to trust it for the next four? And how can you expect us to believe that you will not, as our current president so often has, be swayed by the thoughts and mistakes and sometimes even rank incompetencies (or, in this case, lunacies) of the men and women in your administration to whom you turn for counsel?
The closest Senator Obama comes to an answer, and it is hardly a reassuring one, appears earlier in the paragraph:
The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago.
That is fair enough. And almost certainly true. But surely that change did not occurr just this week. Or month. Or year. Surely that change occurred, as all metamorphoses do, in distinct stages, with marked and obvious differences, with such sight and sound and occasional, irrational fury that someone whose great judgment, whose acute ability to assess a situation and divine a solution, is repeatedly being touted as Oval-Office-worthy, would have noticed, and then duly reacted, sometime between 1988 and the day before yesterday.
Posted at 10:15 AM
Tue - April 29, 2008
IT'S NOT THAT I'M HYSTERICALLY MEGA-SUPER-SUPERSTITIOUS
it's that i'm pathetically hysterically
mega-super-superstitiious.
And after six times the charm, you do not, under
any circumstances, even think about considering, much less entertaining, even
the most remote or distant possibilities of messing with success.
So:
LET'S GO, PENS!
LET'S GO, PENS!
Posted at 02:43 PM
GREETINGS, GIFTS, GRATUITIES
and plaintive cries for
humanity.
I am, of course, incredibly biased -- the guy's
been one of my best friends for twenty years, and he was the
Mother-of-All-Toasts-Giving Best Man at my wedding -- but even if I didn't know
him, and I had just stumbled upon this Contact
Info text next to a grainy photo of a guy with a really wide eye that
seemed to be staring straight over my left shoulder at something sure to scare
the hell out of me, I would still repeat it here, because it's one of the
funniest things I've read online in a very long
time:
Please send greetings, gifts, gratuities, business offers, endorsements, requests, love letters, and fond farewells to:
jim [a/t] jimpascoe [d/o/t] com
If you can't figure out this coded email, please consult with someone under the age of 16.
If you are a spam robot and CAN figure this out, I will immediately rent THE TERMINATOR and cry for humanity.
So if you're under 16, a souped-up new spam robot, or just someone who appreciates good humor, please consider sending Jim a greeting or a gratuity. Tell him that TWM tipped you off. And then ask him to play "Freebird."
Please send greetings, gifts, gratuities, business offers, endorsements, requests, love letters, and fond farewells to:
jim [a/t] jimpascoe [d/o/t] com
If you can't figure out this coded email, please consult with someone under the age of 16.
If you are a spam robot and CAN figure this out, I will immediately rent THE TERMINATOR and cry for humanity.
So if you're under 16, a souped-up new spam robot, or just someone who appreciates good humor, please consider sending Jim a greeting or a gratuity. Tell him that TWM tipped you off. And then ask him to play "Freebird."
Posted at 01:24 PM
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Published On: May 11, 2008 02:59 PM
Published On: May 11, 2008 02:59 PM