Scooter’s history, now we need to get the rest of Bush’s posse, starting with Rove, then Cheney and Rumsfeld, all the players who had a hand in duping the country into believing that invading and occupying Iraq was both justified and the next logical step in the “War on Terror.”
It’s about time someone in this criminal administration is sanctioned, called to task, held accountable. Thousands of people have waited a long time for the monkey smirk to be wiped from W’s face. We’d love to see Cheney drop his trademark sneer, but that won’t happen even if the VP is perp-walked down Pennsylvania Avenue at high noon. No, Cheney is too hard-core to change his ways; W is simply too dense.
All in all, this was a banner day for those of us who have felt like we lived in an alternate reality the past four years, Bush-World, a dim and awful place where truth is meaningless and criminal behavior goes unpunished.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Note to CA GOP: Leave Me Alone
October 25, 2005
California Republican Party
1903 West Magnolia Blvd.
Burbank, CA 91506-1727
Inre: BS Mailing for Arnold’s BS Agenda
Dear Republicans:
You miserable bastards.
How did my name get on your freaking mailing list? For your information, I am a registered Democrat with a decidedly Progressive outlook, and a union member active in the political arena. In fact, I just returned home from an Alliance for a Better California phone bank that was calling voters to urge them to reject the Governor’s ridiculous “reform” agenda.
To open my mailbox and see a photograph of our doofus Governor nearly made me keel over -- first with anger, then laughter.
Schwarzenegger is a joke and a disgrace to our state. The man is utterly clueless and his slate of initiatives will do nothing – NOTHING – to address the problems facing California.
I wouldn’t join Arnold for a walk across the street let alone in his misguided effort to screw public school teachers, silence union members, and give the Governor’s office extraordinary powers over our fiscal future.
I don’t know where you bought my name and address, but kindly remove me from your database. I don’t believe I could stand the shock of seeing Arnold’s face on a piece of mail addressed to me again.
Sincerely,
Brian Tanguay
Progressive Union Activist
California Republican Party
1903 West Magnolia Blvd.
Burbank, CA 91506-1727
Inre: BS Mailing for Arnold’s BS Agenda
Dear Republicans:
You miserable bastards.
How did my name get on your freaking mailing list? For your information, I am a registered Democrat with a decidedly Progressive outlook, and a union member active in the political arena. In fact, I just returned home from an Alliance for a Better California phone bank that was calling voters to urge them to reject the Governor’s ridiculous “reform” agenda.
To open my mailbox and see a photograph of our doofus Governor nearly made me keel over -- first with anger, then laughter.
Schwarzenegger is a joke and a disgrace to our state. The man is utterly clueless and his slate of initiatives will do nothing – NOTHING – to address the problems facing California.
I wouldn’t join Arnold for a walk across the street let alone in his misguided effort to screw public school teachers, silence union members, and give the Governor’s office extraordinary powers over our fiscal future.
I don’t know where you bought my name and address, but kindly remove me from your database. I don’t believe I could stand the shock of seeing Arnold’s face on a piece of mail addressed to me again.
Sincerely,
Brian Tanguay
Progressive Union Activist
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Land of Wonder
Sometimes you start to wonder what’s happening in this world.
A school principal in some East Coast city cancelled prom night because the kids had a history of getting hammered on booze and drugs, staging orgies, and spending too much money on parties and limos.
Damn, you think, that’s horrible. But then what do we expect. We wean our kids on glitzy celebrity shows, tales of the rich and famous, the Paris Hilton’s, the supermodels, the actors and athletes who make more in a week than the average working stiff in America makes in two or three years. We show kids the glitz and gilt-edged world that some lucky folks inhabit, dangle it in front of them like diamonds hanging from a perfect earlobe.
In LA’s Skid Row, a permanent underclass lives on the streets in the shadow of ongoing gentrification. Thousands of people – some of them mentally ill or physically handicapped or both – make their way through rat and roach infested streets, past dealers and pimps and whores, boarded-up buildings and rusted cars. Maybe it’s one city, but it’s two completely different worlds.
Same in other cities, of course. The past twenty-five years haven’t been easy for the working class, with wages stagnant and jobs leaving for China faster than you can say, “So long manufacturing base.” Call for decent jobs at decent wages with decent benefits and people think you’re crazy or naive.
Capitalism, man, free enterprise, though when the going gets sticky Capital likes a hand from Government, a tax break, a subsidy, a guarantee; Capital likes to steal from the public and then make the public pay the tab.
So you see multi-million dollar condos going up alongside Skid Row, glitz and luxury above and beyond Third World poverty and hurt. Don’t look out the window and you won’t see it. Nobody’s fault, right, just the way it is, there have always been rich and poor, and hey, maybe them folks on the street deserve their sorry lot.
We fashioned this deal by placing capital over labor, profit above people, private gain above public good. It came like a wave that just kept coming, surging, washing away everything in its path. For the fortunate minority, this big wave ushered in the best of times; the rest were left to pick through the waterlogged rubble.
America.
A school principal in some East Coast city cancelled prom night because the kids had a history of getting hammered on booze and drugs, staging orgies, and spending too much money on parties and limos.
Damn, you think, that’s horrible. But then what do we expect. We wean our kids on glitzy celebrity shows, tales of the rich and famous, the Paris Hilton’s, the supermodels, the actors and athletes who make more in a week than the average working stiff in America makes in two or three years. We show kids the glitz and gilt-edged world that some lucky folks inhabit, dangle it in front of them like diamonds hanging from a perfect earlobe.
In LA’s Skid Row, a permanent underclass lives on the streets in the shadow of ongoing gentrification. Thousands of people – some of them mentally ill or physically handicapped or both – make their way through rat and roach infested streets, past dealers and pimps and whores, boarded-up buildings and rusted cars. Maybe it’s one city, but it’s two completely different worlds.
Same in other cities, of course. The past twenty-five years haven’t been easy for the working class, with wages stagnant and jobs leaving for China faster than you can say, “So long manufacturing base.” Call for decent jobs at decent wages with decent benefits and people think you’re crazy or naive.
Capitalism, man, free enterprise, though when the going gets sticky Capital likes a hand from Government, a tax break, a subsidy, a guarantee; Capital likes to steal from the public and then make the public pay the tab.
So you see multi-million dollar condos going up alongside Skid Row, glitz and luxury above and beyond Third World poverty and hurt. Don’t look out the window and you won’t see it. Nobody’s fault, right, just the way it is, there have always been rich and poor, and hey, maybe them folks on the street deserve their sorry lot.
We fashioned this deal by placing capital over labor, profit above people, private gain above public good. It came like a wave that just kept coming, surging, washing away everything in its path. For the fortunate minority, this big wave ushered in the best of times; the rest were left to pick through the waterlogged rubble.
America.
Sunday, October 16, 2005
The CTM Chronicles - Orlando
I haven’t written about Chuck T. Miller lately though my old friend has been on my mind. The cell phone number he gave me the last time we talked has been disconnected. He may be in Phoenix still, waist deep in domestic difficulties, though I’d bet he ditched that scene in favor of a quick run to Cabo San Lucas or Cozumel. He’s no doubt hooked up with another woman by now. For years Chuck joked that all he wanted was a young, sexy trust fund baby, preferably a natural blonde with a forty-DD chest and long legs, with limited emotional baggage and free of psychotic ex-boyfriends or overprotective parents. “She’s out there,” Chuck always said, “and someday I’ll find her.”
An advertisement in the Independent about Patricia Simmons is what made me think of Chuck. Patricia Simmons, renowned psychotherapist and author, frequent guest on Oprah, and a hit on the lecture circuit, was appearing at UC Santa Barbara to promote her new book, The Canine Prophecy: A Field Guide to Training Men. Patricia’s first book, the one that made her reputation, was called, Breaking Chains: A Woman’s Guide to Escaping Bondage. Years ago, before fame and fortune, when she was known as Patricia Capriati, Patricia was Chuck’s main squeeze.
He met her in Orlando, Florida, where he was managing the Gypsy Rose Funeral Parlor and Family Fun Center, an oxymoronic combination of enterprises that fit Chuck perfectly. Out back of the funeral parlor was a nine-hole golf course and water park, both owned by a mysterious woman from New Orleans – a bonafide “voodoo witch” in Chuck’s words – whose motto was, “The dead can’t hurt you. It’s the living you have to watch out for.” You could bury your dead at Gypsy Rose’s, then go out back and improve your short game. Chuck handled the grieving customers, sold them deluxe coffins and overpriced flower arrangements, mowed the fairways and greens, repaired the water slides, while Patricia, only a few months out of high school, answered the phones and kept the books.
Patricia was a refugee from a sadistic German-born mother and an ex-GI father who walked out with a fishing pole on his shoulder and never came back, never wrote, never called, just vanished from her world, leaving her with unanswered questions and misplaced guilt that his disappearance was her fault. How we battle the wounds of childhood! We heal, but the scars remain, reminders of unhappy times. Breaking Chains was a stunningly specific account of a life gone off the rails, of abuse, neglect and sadism. Chuck figured prominently in the book as well, the portrayal less than flattering: “In the heart of this man, as in all men, lurks an evil streak.” Chuck’s version of his time with Patricia was very different -- the moment he hooked up with her he knew he had made a grave mistake, and then his problem became how to cut her loose without sending her over the edge. She was his “beautiful psycho” and the “barnacle on my back.” Unhinged, unpredictable, and possessive to the extreme, Patricia rarely let Chuck out of her sight and stuck by his side like a seeing-eye dog, going so far as to follow him into the Men’s room of the McDonald’s down the street from the funeral home. She talked about them being one spirit and destined to be inseparable forever. She showered with Chuck and insisted that they hold hands during meals. One day Chuck was fixing a busted lawn mower in the maintenance shed and accidentally sliced his finger open. There was Patricia, not with hydrogen peroxide and band aids, but with her tongue, lapping up his blood, ecstasy on her face and a drop of blood on her lovely chin.
Over the years Chuck has had more than his share of violent episodes with women. They’ve thrown plates and butter knives and bottles, stabbed him with keys, forks and safety pins; they’ve threatened him with Mace and pepper spray, burned his clothes, slashed his tires. Patricia added her own chapter in Chuck’s tortured relationship history. When Chuck insisted that Patricia give him some breathing room and privacy, allow him to pee and poop in peace, take a few links out of his chain, she wigged out, took it to mean that he no longer loved her. Then, to prove how much she loved him, she tried to run him down with a golf cart.
Chuck never loved Patricia, but he was fond of her and cared for her and worried about her. The more he struggled to get away, the tighter Patricia clung to him. Chuck became a prisoner in his own life. Whatever he did, wherever he went, Patricia was right there. She was a preternaturally light sleeper who woke at the slightest sound. Chuck said Patricia slept with her eyes open. They fought constantly and even got themselves banned from McDonald’s.
In the end, Chuck did what Patricia’s father had done, picked a spot and made a break for it. He slipped away from Gypsy Rose’s in the owner’s decrepit Datsun pick-up, with $50 to his name, a change of clothes, a harmonica and a Bible, and a pint bottle of whisky. The Datsun died in South Carolina. Chuck stuck out his thumb, headed nowhere in particular as long as it was away from Patricia. He wasn’t on the highway ten minutes before a woman in a red Corvette slowed down to give him a look. Her name was Alice DuPont and she was traveling to New York City.
An advertisement in the Independent about Patricia Simmons is what made me think of Chuck. Patricia Simmons, renowned psychotherapist and author, frequent guest on Oprah, and a hit on the lecture circuit, was appearing at UC Santa Barbara to promote her new book, The Canine Prophecy: A Field Guide to Training Men. Patricia’s first book, the one that made her reputation, was called, Breaking Chains: A Woman’s Guide to Escaping Bondage. Years ago, before fame and fortune, when she was known as Patricia Capriati, Patricia was Chuck’s main squeeze.
He met her in Orlando, Florida, where he was managing the Gypsy Rose Funeral Parlor and Family Fun Center, an oxymoronic combination of enterprises that fit Chuck perfectly. Out back of the funeral parlor was a nine-hole golf course and water park, both owned by a mysterious woman from New Orleans – a bonafide “voodoo witch” in Chuck’s words – whose motto was, “The dead can’t hurt you. It’s the living you have to watch out for.” You could bury your dead at Gypsy Rose’s, then go out back and improve your short game. Chuck handled the grieving customers, sold them deluxe coffins and overpriced flower arrangements, mowed the fairways and greens, repaired the water slides, while Patricia, only a few months out of high school, answered the phones and kept the books.
Patricia was a refugee from a sadistic German-born mother and an ex-GI father who walked out with a fishing pole on his shoulder and never came back, never wrote, never called, just vanished from her world, leaving her with unanswered questions and misplaced guilt that his disappearance was her fault. How we battle the wounds of childhood! We heal, but the scars remain, reminders of unhappy times. Breaking Chains was a stunningly specific account of a life gone off the rails, of abuse, neglect and sadism. Chuck figured prominently in the book as well, the portrayal less than flattering: “In the heart of this man, as in all men, lurks an evil streak.” Chuck’s version of his time with Patricia was very different -- the moment he hooked up with her he knew he had made a grave mistake, and then his problem became how to cut her loose without sending her over the edge. She was his “beautiful psycho” and the “barnacle on my back.” Unhinged, unpredictable, and possessive to the extreme, Patricia rarely let Chuck out of her sight and stuck by his side like a seeing-eye dog, going so far as to follow him into the Men’s room of the McDonald’s down the street from the funeral home. She talked about them being one spirit and destined to be inseparable forever. She showered with Chuck and insisted that they hold hands during meals. One day Chuck was fixing a busted lawn mower in the maintenance shed and accidentally sliced his finger open. There was Patricia, not with hydrogen peroxide and band aids, but with her tongue, lapping up his blood, ecstasy on her face and a drop of blood on her lovely chin.
Over the years Chuck has had more than his share of violent episodes with women. They’ve thrown plates and butter knives and bottles, stabbed him with keys, forks and safety pins; they’ve threatened him with Mace and pepper spray, burned his clothes, slashed his tires. Patricia added her own chapter in Chuck’s tortured relationship history. When Chuck insisted that Patricia give him some breathing room and privacy, allow him to pee and poop in peace, take a few links out of his chain, she wigged out, took it to mean that he no longer loved her. Then, to prove how much she loved him, she tried to run him down with a golf cart.
Chuck never loved Patricia, but he was fond of her and cared for her and worried about her. The more he struggled to get away, the tighter Patricia clung to him. Chuck became a prisoner in his own life. Whatever he did, wherever he went, Patricia was right there. She was a preternaturally light sleeper who woke at the slightest sound. Chuck said Patricia slept with her eyes open. They fought constantly and even got themselves banned from McDonald’s.
In the end, Chuck did what Patricia’s father had done, picked a spot and made a break for it. He slipped away from Gypsy Rose’s in the owner’s decrepit Datsun pick-up, with $50 to his name, a change of clothes, a harmonica and a Bible, and a pint bottle of whisky. The Datsun died in South Carolina. Chuck stuck out his thumb, headed nowhere in particular as long as it was away from Patricia. He wasn’t on the highway ten minutes before a woman in a red Corvette slowed down to give him a look. Her name was Alice DuPont and she was traveling to New York City.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
When Arnold came to Town
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger came to town yesterday, ostensibly for a “town hall” meeting, held, strangely or perhaps appropriately enough, in a huge garbage processing facility. The peculiarity about this “town hall” gig was that you had to be “invited” to attend -- invited and presumably screened for ideological purity. In my imagination I see a humorless man in a black suit asking questions like, “Do you hate unions and think they should be banished from the face of Kahlifornia?” “Do you like Governor Schwarzenegger’s style?” “How about his tan?” “Do you think Arnold should run for President, if the Constitution can be amended to allow it?” And so on down the line.
Like George W. Bush, and perhaps more so given his background, Arnold specializes in these staged, controlled events. Heaven forbid that he engage in an honest back-and-forth with real workaday folk, members of the lower classes, the great unwashed; much better to see the adoring white faces of well-to-do Chamber of Commerce types, not an apparent freak among them; no risk of citizen outrage or brash acts of civil disobedience inside the cavernous garbage facility.
And all that noise outside, the whistling, the chants, the drums, pounded by college kids and off-duty firefighters, union members, students, a few elderly souls, well, according to Arnold, that’s just the braying of the status quo that is strangling the Golden State.
Shades of the surreal, shades of George Orwell, shades of make-believe.
Arnold blames “union bosses” for California’s ills. Union bosses? What do these men or women look like, Jimmy Hoffa? The character Kathy Bates played in Misery? Who is Arnold talking about, exactly? He makes it sound as if union members have absolutely no say-so in how their dues are used; that’s a fabrication. Or maybe it’s just politics, twenty-first century style, the age where unfortunate truths are ignored or twisted until they no longer resemble a truth at all.
We made noise the day Arnold came to town. The man and his people figured they could take on all the state’s caretakers at one time and succeed. They misjudged, then they mismanaged, and now they’ve got Arnold running east and west to sell a skeptical public on his pet initiatives.
Arnold is running hard and hoping an apathetic public will stay home on November 8th.
Like George W. Bush, and perhaps more so given his background, Arnold specializes in these staged, controlled events. Heaven forbid that he engage in an honest back-and-forth with real workaday folk, members of the lower classes, the great unwashed; much better to see the adoring white faces of well-to-do Chamber of Commerce types, not an apparent freak among them; no risk of citizen outrage or brash acts of civil disobedience inside the cavernous garbage facility.
And all that noise outside, the whistling, the chants, the drums, pounded by college kids and off-duty firefighters, union members, students, a few elderly souls, well, according to Arnold, that’s just the braying of the status quo that is strangling the Golden State.
Shades of the surreal, shades of George Orwell, shades of make-believe.
Arnold blames “union bosses” for California’s ills. Union bosses? What do these men or women look like, Jimmy Hoffa? The character Kathy Bates played in Misery? Who is Arnold talking about, exactly? He makes it sound as if union members have absolutely no say-so in how their dues are used; that’s a fabrication. Or maybe it’s just politics, twenty-first century style, the age where unfortunate truths are ignored or twisted until they no longer resemble a truth at all.
We made noise the day Arnold came to town. The man and his people figured they could take on all the state’s caretakers at one time and succeed. They misjudged, then they mismanaged, and now they’ve got Arnold running east and west to sell a skeptical public on his pet initiatives.
Arnold is running hard and hoping an apathetic public will stay home on November 8th.
Monday, October 10, 2005
A Letter to Yankee Owner George Steinbrenner
Dear George:
Well, I’m sitting here on October 10, 2005, watching your Yankees choke in another postseason contest. They trail the Angels 5-2 in the sixth, and there’s no hope for the boys now because the Angels bullpen is tougher than a foot thick cement wall. Your guys had their chance in the top of the fifth, but took a powder with two on and nobody out. What is the team hitting with runners in scoring position? .220? .190? I don’t know and looking the stat up now would be a waste of energy.
It’s the same tired story with the Yanks – a dearth of clutch hitting from some of the highest paid players in the game. This garbage happened in 2003 when the Marlins took the Yanks down in six games, and it happened last year in games four through seven of the ALCS. Remember that, George? Of course you do because it was the most complete collapse in MLB history, a smudge on the ledger of the greatest franchise in professional sports.
And while we’re speaking of Yankee futility, let’s not forget that in the 2001 World Series the Yanks scored a total of fourteen runs. In seven games.
But I could live with that defeat because Clemens pitched a strong seventh game and Mariano Rivera had the ball in the ninth with the lead. You can’t whine when you lose with your best guy.
That was the last high water mark. Ever since 2001 the boys have stumbled around like blind badgers on a frozen lake. A-Rod is hitting a dazzling .143 this series. Mike Mussina lasted a whopping 2 2/3 innings after his much ballyhooed West Coast stay. Face it, George, Mussina is a pampered wimp, an embarrassment to professional athletes everywhere. My four-year-old daughter has more guts.
And as if more proof was required, how about Hideki Matsui, who through seven innings has stranded six base runners. The Yanks have had chance after chance after chance to score runs and put the Angels away, but can they manage a squib single, a bloop double, or even a lazy pop-up that drops between fielders when it really counts?
Hell no. Do you ever sit back in your luxury box and think that a lot of these boys are vastly overpaid? Like by $8-10 million a year? Jesus, it must just get your goat to pay all that cash for such dismal results. Maybe you should ask A-Rod and Matsui and Bernie Williams for a sub-par performance refund.
If nothing else, at least Randy Johnson pitched some strong innings tonight, partially redeeming his horrible outing in Game 3
K-Rod is about to punch out Ruben Sierra…no, ol’ Ruben actually tapped out to short. Inning over, Yanks on the sad end of a 5-3 score. They’re toast, George, blackened, inedible, wasted. This must be killing you. Watching the boys lose these big games is excruciating. So many Yankee fans nearly passed out last year watching the Red Sox roll to four straight victories.
Damn. The nimrod announcers on Fox, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, just asked this rhetorical question: Who in our listening audience didn’t give the Yankees a huge advantage when Bartolo Colon had to exit the game in the second inning? Ah, I didn’t. I know better. For the past four or five seasons the Angels have had New York’s number, beating the Bombers like a gong at home and in the Bronx. In fact, before this series began I predicted that the Angels would prevail in five.
I hate being right all the time, but it didn’t take a baseball genius to figure the outcome. The Angels have more ways to beat the Yankees than the Yankees have to beat the Angels. Take note, George, it’s not just about big money and home runs – it’s about speed, defense, and timely hitting; it’s about moving runners into scoring position by laying down a bunt or hitting behind a runner; it's about moving from first to third on a single.
For the record: Matsui stranded eight base runners tonight. A-Rod killed a potential ninth inning rally by hitting into a double play. A-Rod had a marvelous regular season, but when it comes to these pivotal do or die contests, he never comes through. In this series, A-Rod, Sheffield and Matsui were a combined 13 for 57, a .228 average. Three RBI’s between them.
Game, series and season over. Start rebuilding, George.
Well, I’m sitting here on October 10, 2005, watching your Yankees choke in another postseason contest. They trail the Angels 5-2 in the sixth, and there’s no hope for the boys now because the Angels bullpen is tougher than a foot thick cement wall. Your guys had their chance in the top of the fifth, but took a powder with two on and nobody out. What is the team hitting with runners in scoring position? .220? .190? I don’t know and looking the stat up now would be a waste of energy.
It’s the same tired story with the Yanks – a dearth of clutch hitting from some of the highest paid players in the game. This garbage happened in 2003 when the Marlins took the Yanks down in six games, and it happened last year in games four through seven of the ALCS. Remember that, George? Of course you do because it was the most complete collapse in MLB history, a smudge on the ledger of the greatest franchise in professional sports.
And while we’re speaking of Yankee futility, let’s not forget that in the 2001 World Series the Yanks scored a total of fourteen runs. In seven games.
But I could live with that defeat because Clemens pitched a strong seventh game and Mariano Rivera had the ball in the ninth with the lead. You can’t whine when you lose with your best guy.
That was the last high water mark. Ever since 2001 the boys have stumbled around like blind badgers on a frozen lake. A-Rod is hitting a dazzling .143 this series. Mike Mussina lasted a whopping 2 2/3 innings after his much ballyhooed West Coast stay. Face it, George, Mussina is a pampered wimp, an embarrassment to professional athletes everywhere. My four-year-old daughter has more guts.
And as if more proof was required, how about Hideki Matsui, who through seven innings has stranded six base runners. The Yanks have had chance after chance after chance to score runs and put the Angels away, but can they manage a squib single, a bloop double, or even a lazy pop-up that drops between fielders when it really counts?
Hell no. Do you ever sit back in your luxury box and think that a lot of these boys are vastly overpaid? Like by $8-10 million a year? Jesus, it must just get your goat to pay all that cash for such dismal results. Maybe you should ask A-Rod and Matsui and Bernie Williams for a sub-par performance refund.
If nothing else, at least Randy Johnson pitched some strong innings tonight, partially redeeming his horrible outing in Game 3
K-Rod is about to punch out Ruben Sierra…no, ol’ Ruben actually tapped out to short. Inning over, Yanks on the sad end of a 5-3 score. They’re toast, George, blackened, inedible, wasted. This must be killing you. Watching the boys lose these big games is excruciating. So many Yankee fans nearly passed out last year watching the Red Sox roll to four straight victories.
Damn. The nimrod announcers on Fox, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, just asked this rhetorical question: Who in our listening audience didn’t give the Yankees a huge advantage when Bartolo Colon had to exit the game in the second inning? Ah, I didn’t. I know better. For the past four or five seasons the Angels have had New York’s number, beating the Bombers like a gong at home and in the Bronx. In fact, before this series began I predicted that the Angels would prevail in five.
I hate being right all the time, but it didn’t take a baseball genius to figure the outcome. The Angels have more ways to beat the Yankees than the Yankees have to beat the Angels. Take note, George, it’s not just about big money and home runs – it’s about speed, defense, and timely hitting; it’s about moving runners into scoring position by laying down a bunt or hitting behind a runner; it's about moving from first to third on a single.
For the record: Matsui stranded eight base runners tonight. A-Rod killed a potential ninth inning rally by hitting into a double play. A-Rod had a marvelous regular season, but when it comes to these pivotal do or die contests, he never comes through. In this series, A-Rod, Sheffield and Matsui were a combined 13 for 57, a .228 average. Three RBI’s between them.
Game, series and season over. Start rebuilding, George.
Sunday, October 02, 2005
The Crack in the Edifice
You can see the cracks forming in the GOP edifice. Everywhere you look another scandal or example of glaring incompetence and outright indifference. They were on an amazing run, in control of all branches of the federal government, most, if not all, of the corporate media, a majority of statehouses; their corporate allies and benefactors were pleased with the services they received in exchange for beefy campaign contributions.
They could do no wrong it seemed. George W. Bush won reelection despite a record of failure and deceit unrivaled in American history. Bush told us that white was black and black white, and if we couldn’t see it, well, that meant we were unpatriotic or anti-American, against free enterprise and individual initiative. Bush gave us his monkey sneer and cowboy strut while Karl Rove stood behind the velvet curtain pulling on the strings.
They mastered the political game with message discipline, quick retribution against those that wavered, and slick spin. When the news refused to fit their vision they created their own. “It’s hard work,” Dubya said during one of his debates against John Kerry, but Dubya never worked that hard, preferring the solitude of his Texas ranch instead, hunkering down with Laura while Iraq burned and New Orleans flooded.
Calling oneself a Liberal or Progressive hasn’t been easy during the Bush/Cheney/Rove regime. The thunderous right-wing media machine ridicules everything we believe in, and the Democratic Party stumbles around like a blind man in a dark room, looking for its soul and passion in all the wrong places. Sorry, folks, but Hillary won’t get us where we want to go. She’s part of the ruling apparatus. Ditto Joe Biden. Those folks play the center and tinker around the margins.
But all along our values were right. We knew the Iraq invasion was a disaster before it happened; we knew that tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans would only make the gulf between rich and poor even more grotesque, concentrating wealth and power in so few hands that even our democracy would be threatened; we knew that the crony capitalism practiced by the Bush junta would lead to wide-scale corruption; and we never bought into the failed lie that government is inherently incompetent and therefore incapable of playing a moderating role in society.
There are millions of us, and we’re fed up. We look around the country and wonder where we are. Is this America? Is the almighty greenback and what it can buy the only thing that matters anymore? What about justice, equality, widespread prosperity, and social responsibility? Don’t those things matter?
We believe they do. There’s a crack in the ruling edifice. This is our chance.
They could do no wrong it seemed. George W. Bush won reelection despite a record of failure and deceit unrivaled in American history. Bush told us that white was black and black white, and if we couldn’t see it, well, that meant we were unpatriotic or anti-American, against free enterprise and individual initiative. Bush gave us his monkey sneer and cowboy strut while Karl Rove stood behind the velvet curtain pulling on the strings.
They mastered the political game with message discipline, quick retribution against those that wavered, and slick spin. When the news refused to fit their vision they created their own. “It’s hard work,” Dubya said during one of his debates against John Kerry, but Dubya never worked that hard, preferring the solitude of his Texas ranch instead, hunkering down with Laura while Iraq burned and New Orleans flooded.
Calling oneself a Liberal or Progressive hasn’t been easy during the Bush/Cheney/Rove regime. The thunderous right-wing media machine ridicules everything we believe in, and the Democratic Party stumbles around like a blind man in a dark room, looking for its soul and passion in all the wrong places. Sorry, folks, but Hillary won’t get us where we want to go. She’s part of the ruling apparatus. Ditto Joe Biden. Those folks play the center and tinker around the margins.
But all along our values were right. We knew the Iraq invasion was a disaster before it happened; we knew that tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans would only make the gulf between rich and poor even more grotesque, concentrating wealth and power in so few hands that even our democracy would be threatened; we knew that the crony capitalism practiced by the Bush junta would lead to wide-scale corruption; and we never bought into the failed lie that government is inherently incompetent and therefore incapable of playing a moderating role in society.
There are millions of us, and we’re fed up. We look around the country and wonder where we are. Is this America? Is the almighty greenback and what it can buy the only thing that matters anymore? What about justice, equality, widespread prosperity, and social responsibility? Don’t those things matter?
We believe they do. There’s a crack in the ruling edifice. This is our chance.
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