A friend of Karen’s has free tickets to tonight’s Bulls-Knicks game, which is sure to be a thrill a minute. Of course we’re going. This will take valuable time away from my Oscar-pick research, but free tickets are free tickets.
Month: March 2003
Twelve fingers and no coordination
Cubs’ reliever Antonio Alfonseca, known affectionately — one presumes — as “el pulpo” (octopus) for the extra digit on each hand, will be out until May after slipping on the wet infield grass in a spring training game.
The Cubs were already chancing it by deciding to stay with Alfonseca as their primary closer, though closers are generally overrated. Now they will have to make it through the first month with a closer-by-committee setup. This could turn out well as it did in 2000 when Tom Gordon’s absence early on gave Jeff Fassero and Kyle Farnsworth the opportunity to shine and gain their manager’s confidence, or it could be the first in a series of misfortunes that will tell the story of the Cubs in 2003.
Anyone care to place their bets?
Oscar wants to get his war on
So, for now, the Oscars are still set for Sunday, but with no red carpet. What would a postponement accomplish, exactly? If Wednesday had not seen the start of a long-expected war but, say, a terrorist tragedy parallel to Sept. 11, then I could understand some reticence.
But even considering a postponement is just self-aggrandizing Hollywood at its best. I think the entertainment press doesn’t think the Oscar races are too interesting this year. And why roll up the red carpet? Out of deference to the war effort, it’s said. Huh? I don’t understand what the connection between the two is supposed to be.
Or is it that actors are so terrified of some kind of terrorist attack — because we all know Joan Rivers is target No. 1, right after the White House? Puh-leeze. Get a grip, Hollywood. Just do the show.
I understand, though, that if something important happens during the broadcast, the show will be stopped for breaking news (because, you know, there are only three broadcast stations, no radio, no Internet …) and then resumed right where the action left off. That means the show could be even longer than usual, perhaps hitting the five or six-hour mark.
I can’t believe we’ll have to wait that long just to see some dopey musical win best picture. Oh, well. I’ll upload my Oscar picks sometime tomorrow, so stay tuned if you want to win the big prize at your Oscar party.
In the meantime, here’s a great source for Oscar buzz.
It’s the protestiest thing yet
What amazes me about yesterday’s protests in Chicago is that plans for direct action have been in the works for weeks among anti-war groups around the country.
Heck, one only needed basic cable to hear speaker after speaker call for anti-warriors to “shut it down” on C-SPAN last weekend. Yet Chicago police somehow were asleep on the job, inconveniencing thousands of Lake Shore Drive commuters.
It just goes to show how ignored the anti-war movement is in this country that they could openly be planning these direct actions and go pretty much unheeded.
That said, what the protesters in Chicago did and how they did it was pretty cool. Somehow they pulled it off without all the usual jerkiness and violence so common to such efforts. It made for great television, which is precisely what they were going for.
I’m not exactly sure what the direct actions accomplish, though. Millions around the world protested a few weeks ago and Dubya called it a focus group. Congress already surrendered any say over the war to the president. It’s in his hands now, and he’s not listening to anything anti-warriors have to say.
So … what? We can either focus on this war and trying to cause a ruckus and annoy city residents who have pretty much no say in the conduct or the decision to go to war, or we can make sure Iraq is the last war of its kind by developing an alternative to endless, destructive war in the Middle East.
Nobel Peace Prize … then prison
Will the Fawell guilty verdict change how politics is practiced in Illinois? Only if U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald doesn’t let it end with him and goes after former Gov. George Ryan, as is much rumored.
Otherwise, the lesson to politicians will simply be to let your underlings do what they want, just don’t give the go-ahead to shred documents, as Ryan — who has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by admirers of his death penalty stance — did.
Getting back to where we were
Some hawks might interpret the market’s two-day rally as a sign that the war’s actually good for the economy. Au contraire.
The markets are just now pricing in where they would have been all along before the uncertainty about a possible war had never come about. The only possible benefit of the war — an increased oil supply coming out of a rebuilt Iraq — could have been achieved by simply lifting the sanctions on Iraq.
“As far we’re concerned, this thing is just getting started”
Quoth Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld on the limitless movie franchise possibilities of the war with Iraq.
It’s a great feeling to know you’re alive
Just had a talk with my boss, Mark Wells, the publisher of Insurance Journal, about a story I’m working on. And, apropos of nothing, he said I was doing a great job. He had read some of my stuff and thought I was doing really good work.
In other good-for-me news, I was awarded an honorable mention in the Felix Morley Journalism Competition, which is certainly better than I thought I’d do. I don’t get any money, but I do get an ego boost. And that must be worth something.
UPDATE: I just got a call from the copy chief at Liberty Suburban Newspapers offering me a copy editing gig there, which of course I can’t take … but it’s nice to be loved.
National Guardman is more than meets the eye
A member of Ohio’s 594th National Guard Unit legally changed his name to Optimus Prime — you know, the leader of the Autobots, aka the “good” Transformers.
Here’s a piece a local TV station did on the guy.
More fun with Homeland Security
Apparently, the old page that hosted captions for the frankly confusing Ready.gov illustrations has disappeared.
But some have been salvaged and are on display here.
Three little words
“Baker weathers strange spring,” the Trib’s Paul Sullivan reports. No kidding.
If the words if, and and but could hit, field and pitch the Cubs would have a championship team, since they’ve got enough ifs, ands and buts to rival the Yankees. But the giant question mark that is the 2003 Cubs is not enough.
Kerry Wood’s out with an inner ear infection, and closer Antonio Alfonseca slipped on the grass (!) and strained his hamstring. It’s going to be a long season, but I hope to see good things from Wood, Mark Prior, Hee Sop Choi, Bobby Hill and Corey Patterson. They could be the nucleus of a perennial — if … and … but.
The real Irish legacy
Gene Healy speculates about a certain strain of what he calls “McLibertarians” — Irish-American libertarians influenced by the Irish people’s experience with brutality and repression at the hands of, well, everyone to have a deeply engrained enmity toward the state.
Nice story. It might even be true. The Irish-American experience is as good an example of good, old fashioned collectivism as you’ll find. From the “Gangs of New York”-era racism and blood feuds to the Irish domination of machine politics (and its major beneficiaries, firefighters and police officers) in major cities like Boston, New York and Chicago, it’s just one long tale of getting ahead by getting in good with the government.
And the homeland ain’t so hot, either. They’ve been fighting for decades over Northern Ireland, essentially in a contest to see which side can force its religion down the other’s throat. Hardly a libertarian sentiment. I’m an O’Reilly. I’m a libertarian. But I’m not going to let sentiment get in the way of reality here. It’s much likelier that white men in America are much more predisposed (though still by a far margin mostly indisposed) toward to the ideas of freedom. That explains a lot more than Irishness.
By the way, at least one historian says the “No Irish Need Apply” thing has been blown way out of proportion, latched onto by Irish-Americans eager to claim some victimhood and overlook the nasty legacy of Irish involvement in American political history.
Here’s a song about a waiter
That’s how I once heard Bob Dylan jokingly introduce “Gotta Serve Somebody” in concert, but it’s clear that his born-again faith has not disappeared from his music but only become more integrated into his art.
Bob’s born-again period is much-reviled by many, but those gospel songs are as passionate as “True” as Bob’s protest songs, his surrealist songs, his bitter love songs. Put simply, they are great songs. And now the folks who know what gospel is have put together a tribute album called, “Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan.”
The album Web site is actually very good, and features clips from all of the songs on the album by artists such as Aaron Neville and the Fairfield. No cover is as good as original Bob (even Jimi Hendrix muffed the lyrics to “All Along the Watchtower“), and I’m not particularly enamored of the over-emoting characteristic of black gospel music, but this should be a fun listen because the artists understand Bob’s faith and accept it wholeheartedly.
The capper, though, has got to be Bob’s duet with Mavis Staples on what sounds to my ears like a rewritten version of “Gonna Change My Way of Thinking.” I’m looking forward to hearing this album in its entirety.
kboreilly.com 
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