The Mouth of Sauron endorses Senator Hobbit
October 31, 2006 by Phil Barron · Comments
A match made in Mordor
It’s somehow fitting that news of this comes out on Halloween: Zell Miller, faithless and accursed, crosses party lines to support noted Tolkien scholar Rick Santorum.
Former Sen. Zell Miller, a Georgia Democrat who supported President Bush in 2004, will head a new group of Democrats supporting Pennsylvania GOP Sen. Rick Santorum’s reelection bid.
“I am not involved in any other race in the country,” Miller said during a radio interview Monday, according to a news release from Santorum’s campaign. “I am only doing this for Rick Santorum. I believe in Rick Santorum’s leadership that much.”
Santorum is trailing in public polls to his Democratic challenger Bob Casey, Jr.
Apparently Miller just couldn’t pass up yet another opportunity to betray his former party, much as he did when he spoke in support of George Bush’s reelection at the GOP convention. He’s hasn’t exactly backed a winner this time; not only is Santorum behind in the polls, but he’s hard up for funds for TV ads in this critical final week before the election. Frankly, it’s hard to imagine what Miller can possibly do for Santorum’s sinking campaign that a doorstop couldn’t do, and with considerably less anger.
Technorati Tags: Rick Santorum, Zell Miller, PA-Sen
Humbled by the fantasy gods
October 31, 2006 by Phil Barron · Comments
In a word: defeated! I blame this weekend’s fantasy football loss to the Legion of Doom squarely on the St. Louis Cardinals, who evidently sucked up all of the sporting karma in the Bi-State area. The Rams lost this weekend. So did the Missouri Tigers. And the Fighting Illini. And, uh, my heretofore unbeaten Purple Stallions. Though I now find myself tied for wins and losses at 6-1 with the surging luniz scoring machine, I’m bumped to second place because his team has more overall points than mine (1058.67 to 976.85). Oh, the stinging shame of it!
My quarterback situation remains a glaring weakness: The Dallas Cowboys’ demotion of Drew Bledsoe left me scrambling for an alternative, and I settled on Andrew Walter of the Raiders. Bad idea. Walter earned me negative points, as did Chad Pennington of the Jets who picked this weekend to have his worst performance of the year. But it was a QB I don’t even own who unexpectedly did me in at wide receiver: Matt Leinart’s woeful outing for the Arizona Cardinals doomed the usually reliable Anquan Boldin. I also made unfortunate choices in kickers (Wilkins over Gould) and defenses (Carolina over San Diego). These were decisions that looked sound on paper…but then, so did the charge of the Light Brigade.
Well, better to lose now than during the playoffs, I say. The first order of business is to win against D’BrickHOUSE next week. Though we are both hobbled by bye week absences, I’ve worked up some decent replacements for most positions (and am once more rolling the dice on substandard QBs…having no choice). D’BrickHOUSE, on the other hand, seems to have few options for replacements. And his star RB, the dangerous Shaun Alexander, won’t be back from his foot injury this weekend. Woo-hoo!…though I hope he gets better in a week or two.
The dream of an undefeated season is gone. I guess I’ll have to settle for winning the championship.
Addendum: There’s a funny NFL commercial in which a fantasy owner is watching a pre-game show with his buddies. The announcer says, “Julius Jones is useless against the 3-4 defense! Take my advice and bench him!” The owner’s buddies all prod him to make Jones inactive, which he does. Two hours later, the TV displays scenes of Jones making touchdown after touchdown. “Hope you started him!” exclaims the announcer. The owner is reduced to lying on his couch and chewing on the corner of a pillow.
No, I didn’t do that this weekend.
Technorati Tags: Fantasy Football
We’re, uh, number one
October 30, 2006 by Phil Barron · Comments
St. Louisans flush with pride over their baseball team and its world championship have a more dubious distinction to their account today, one that probably doesn’t warrant a parade down Market Street. The Gateway City tops the nation in crime, and here, as in baseball, we…uh, beat Detroit:
St. Louis named most dangerous U.S. city
A surge in violence made St. Louis the most dangerous city in the country, leading a trend of violent crimes rising much faster in the Midwest than in the rest of nation, according to an annual list.
The city has long fared poorly in the rankings of the safest and most dangerous American cities compiled by Morgan Quitno Press. Violent crime surged nearly 20 percent in St. Louis from 2004 to last year, when the rate of such crimes rose most dramatically in the Midwest, according to FBI figures released in June.
“It’s just sad the way this city is,” resident Sam Dawson said. “On the news you hear killings, someone’s been shot.”
The ranking, being released Monday, came as the city was still celebrating Friday’s World Series victory at the new Busch Stadium. St. Louis has been spending millions of dollars on urban renewal even as the crime rate climbs.
Look for City Hall and the police department to issue strenuous objections to Morgan Quitno’s methodology - the weighting of particular crimes measured, not including St. Louis County in the metro roundup, and so forth. That’s been our standard response in the past. But it’s an ill wind indeed that doesn’t blow somebody some good news:
The bad news for St. Louis was good for Camden, New Jersey, which in 2005 was named the most dangerous city for the second year in a row.
Camden Mayor Gwendolyn Faison said Sunday she was thrilled to learn that her city no longer topped the most-dangerous list.
“You made my day!” said Faison, who has served since 2000. “There’s a new hope and a new spirit.”
Camden will doubtless throw its own parade shortly.
Technorati Tags: St. Louis, Crime
People were paying attention to the wrong fairy tale
October 28, 2006 by Phil Barron · Comments
Cardinal Nation hopes ESPN’s Keith Law can get over the heartbreaking Redbird victory
It’s no fun being the ogre in someone else’s fairy tale. The St. Louis Cardinals did that in 2004 - losing to the Red Sox in four straight and having to watch Boston clinch in the middle of the old Busch Stadium.
This year - with another darling of destiny, the universally-favored Tigers, awaiting them - the Cardinals said something along the lines of “Screw that.” It was entirely improbable, but not impossible…because, as FOX Sports kept telling us, you really can’t script October.
The new Busch Stadium has been officially christened. There’s your fairy tale ending.
And hey - it finally stopped raining in Mudville. Just in time for the parade.
Technorati Tags: St. Louis Cardinals, Baseball
Fox, Couric, Rush, and the burdens of association
October 27, 2006 by Phil Barron · Comments
I caught, quite by accident, Katie Couric’s interview with Michael J. Fox last night. It was terribly compelling, not least because it provided what anyone with a brain (even having a heart isn’t required for this) would recognize as a moment of political clarity. In the light of Fox’s classy and dignified response to the contemptible mockery of Rush Limbaugh, the state of what passes for public discourse in this country was laid bare. I doubt that Couric had such high-mindedness in mind; she was just playing to what many people perceive as her greatest strength, the art of the interview. But it’s possible that the implicit comparison between Fox and Limbaugh will resonate beyond the specific issue of stem cell research and will affect what voters think about political discussion in general. One can hope, anyway.
As for Limbaugh himself: it’s hard to overemphasize just how inimical, how deeply harmful he and those like him have been to the culture at large. Just whan you think he can lower himself no further, he finds new ways to debase both himself and us. My solution to the Limbaugh problem has been to simply not listen to him, and that approach has served me pretty well. But insofar as broadcasting the views of Limbaugh is to grant him license, to tacitly agree with whatever hateful thing comes out of his mouth, I am amazed that so many radio stations continue to carry him. Ratings count for a great deal, of course. But really - and to choose just one example, a local example - is KMOX really proud of its association with the likes of Limbaugh? That the self-styled “Voice of St. Louis,” which broadcasts across the continental U.S., willing broadcasts the kind of bile that regularly issues forth from Limbaugh is almost beyond belief.
For a station that claims to have “the heartbeat of the community in mind, responding to charitable needs,” KMOX’s hosting of the demonstrably uncharitable Limbaugh seems more than a little out of place.
Scrunch
October 27, 2006 by Phil Barron · Comments
It’s a terribly onomatopoeic word, scrunch. Sounds awfully cute spoken aloud, but when produced by the collision of objects in space - automobiles, say - it loses its cuteness really fast. I heard it in such a context while driving yesterday. It was the product of a pickup suddenly attempting to become one with my car.
In response, I produced some sounds of my own. Something along the lines of “Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.“
Not that I feel the need to stress here my non-culpability in the accident, but it’s astonishing how things can happen to you out of the friggin’ blue, even while you’re taking every precaution you can think of. It’s a metaphor for something or other.
I’m fine. The car is driveable, but damaged. So now I’m walking the okay-dokey trail of Auto Insurance Gulch, and am reminded of what a colleague once said her own agent told her years ago: “Insurance isn’t pretty.” So far, though, the insurance machine seems to be working just as it should, and everyone I’ve spoken with has been helpful and competent. Fingers crossed that things stay that way.
In the meantime, I’m a touch paranoid about other motorists. Probably not a bad way to be.
What’s in, what’s out
October 27, 2006 by Phil Barron · Comments
Even this guy wouldn’t take voting advice from Jeff Suppan. On second thought, he probably would.
In:
Scrappy little white guys. (Hey, Deadspin said so too.)
Red-colored raingear.
The notion, valid or not, that Cardinals fans are the best basefall fans in America:
In fact, if you administered baseball IQ tests, Cardinals fans would be Mensa members. They don’t miss a thing, including opposing starters who throw shutout inning after shutout inning with a suspicious brownish-yellow substance on their pitching hand.
Out:
Blatantly-anti-Cardinals ESPN scribe Keith Law.
Criticising the post-season play of Scott Rolen.
The Tigers in five?
Technorati Tags: St. Louis Cardinals, Baseball
Tigers in three, eh?
October 25, 2006 by Phil Barron · Comments
So much for that prediction, I guess.
From Gene Wojciechowski at ESPN:
As assorted media members waited in the interview room for Looper to finish out the ninth, a well-known national baseball writer (sorry, no names) muttered, “I can’t believe the Cardinals are going to win the World Series.”
Cardinal Nation says this is for you, well-known national baseball writer*:
*My money says it’s Keith Law. His comment from October 20:
I think we’re about to get a graphic depiction of how much worse the National League is than the American League.
Uh-huh.
I got nothin’
October 25, 2006 by Phil Barron · Comments
Nothin’ to say, really. Some days, some weeks, are like that.
Maybe later, then. Maybe tomorrow.
Wonder if this guy will be at the game tonight?
October 24, 2006 by Phil Barron · Comments
For some reason, I think he will be. Hope he brings signs. That would be cool.
Go Cords. Or Cards. Or, well, whatever.
Technorati Tags: St. Louis Cardinals, Baseball
