Dog Days Potpourri

We’re in what they call the dog days now, that part of summer when lassitude replaces energy and the baseball pennant races take definite shape. My Yankees are still in first place but I have an uneasy feeling that the defending champs had better watch out for an ambush from the Red Sox.

Flooding in Pakistan and China, record setting heat and raging wildfires in Russia. I heard a meteorologist on Democracy Now say that seventeen different nations have recorded all-time high temperatures this summer. Is this evidence of a planet simmering in greenhouse gas? What other explanation is there? Europeans get it; Latin American nations do too.

But not on the fruited plain. America is the land of make believe, where people like Rush Limbaugh froth and fulminate for hours every week about liberal plots to weaken this great nation, turn it away from the hallowed ground of capitalism and individual freedom. If you believe Rush Limbaugh, global warming is nothing more than a liberal ruse designed to rob decent Americans of their birthright. I can hear Limbaugh’s voice in my head: Don’t worry about the extreme weather you see around the world – get in your car and burn all the gas you can afford. Car-pooling is for liberal sissies! Bicycles are for Europeans! Mass transit is for socialists! You’re an American and it’s your divine right to buy toilet paper, dog food and laundry soap in bulk and drive all day and night if you damn well feel like it.

American denial. It’s going to nail us in the ass. Reality is a terrible thing to ignore.

As the dog days drag on, here are some things I find annoying:

Baseball players who cross themselves or point skyward after knocking a base hit or a home run, as if God is paying a whit of attention to them. I don’t think God is watching. Frankly, I don’t think God give’s a shit about baseball or any other sport for that matter. OK, maybe God follows the World Cup every four years, but that’s it. I’m certain God doesn’t root for any one team or any particular player; if God did, the Chicago Cubs would have won a World Series at least once during the past century.

Baseball announcers who talk about pitchers as if they are a weak sub-species of professional athlete. “Oh, I wonder if having to run the bases is going to take something out of Roy Halladay’s fastball. He was out on the base paths a long time last inning and we’ll see if that affects his velocity.”

Give me a break.

Sports fans who slap high fives in the stands. That’s almost as lame as the wave.

Any television commercial hawking fast food, though I reserve particular malice for Carl’s Junior: “Don’t bother me, I’m sucking down enough fat, sodium and cholesterol to stop an elephant’s heart.”

Gag.

I just remembered another annoying thing about baseball players: jewelry. What’s the deal with baseball players and the junk they wear around their necks? St. Christopher medals, Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception medallions, barricuda teeth, wolverine testicles, strings of garlic, strands of twisted leather, and gold chains that look hefty enough to pull an Abrams tank from a ditch.

Oh, sweet Jesus, ESPN’s camera just stopped on the face of George W. Bush, worst president in American history. W and Laura are sitting with Nolan Ryan at the Yankees-Rangers game in Arlington. Ryan appears to be doing all the talking, no doubt trying to explain the mechanics of throwing a split-finger fastball in a 0-2 count. “What you want to do is bounce that pitch about six inches in front of the dish, make the hitter go down and get it.” Laura is smiling as if genuinely interested (I’d bet heavily that she’s bored out of her skull) while her husband shoves peanuts into his mouth. I wonder if Bush, now that he’s retired, ever thinks of all the human beings who died violent deaths while he resided in the White House. Probably not. Bush was never one for introspection. Shit happens. War is messy. Hell, most of them were Muslims anyway. Our God is better than their God.

These dogs are too tired to bark, and even the approach of an intrepid Jehovah’s Witness can’t coax them off the shade porch. I guess the dogs will eat when they get hungry enough.