Early Morning Channel Surfing

So it was 4 a.m., the History Channel's documentary about the Sputnik crisis was over and the channel had gone to an infomercial. Time to channel surf. I scrolled through the pages of the guide and at the end of the movie channels, Sundance had a 1960 documentary of the Wisconsin Democratic primary race between Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Sen. Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota.

Well, 1960 is of interest to me because it is the year I was born, and here was a documentary that showed not just the two candidates, but the society of the time. The documentary took place from March to April 5th, when the primary election was held. It was the same country that I was born into about three weeks later, one that has changed quite a bit in the last few decades. So I flicked it on.

On shows like this one, I'm just as interested in what the places looked like, what the people looked like, what they were wearing, what they were driving. They say that the past is a foreign country, and this one was very alien to the visitor from 2008.

The cars were all from the 1950s, of course; 1960 had just begun, after all. And they were all American-made, with not a foreign car to be seen. Bulbous Detroit iron with lots of chrome and big tailfins, like the recently invented intercontinental ballistic missiles, meant to impress with their bulk alone. And with gasoline almost as cheap as water, who cared about gas mileage?

The men were mostly wearing suits and hats, although at one rally, Humphrey addressed a group of farmers mostly dressed in overalls, talking about farm subsidies (he was in favor of them). The women all were wearing dresses with long skirts. "Cat glasses" were in vogue for the ladies.

Both candidates spent a lot of time glad-handing the locals in the small towns of Wisconsin, signing autographs, shaking hands. The young people seemed particularly enthused by Kennedy. The graphics in the home-made signs in the background at a Humphrey call-in television show looked amateurish compared to the glitzy campaign signs of 2008.

Humphrey was much younger than I remembered him being when he won the Democratic nomination eight years later. Still, he seemed older than Kennedy, who was a youthful 42 years of age at the time. There was also a marked contrast in styles, with Humphrey always wearing a hat when outdoors, as most men still did at the time, while the trendsetting Kennedy was bare-headed to show off his full head of hair. Jackie Kennedy was with him at some of the campaign rallies, and brother Bobby showed up for one memorable cameo. Amazingly, Humphrey and Kennedy were the only ones campaigning in 1960; according to the Wikipedia article on the 1960 U.S. Presidential election:

[Stuart] Symington [of Missouri], [Adlai] Stevenson [of Illinois], and [Lyndon] Johnson [of Texas] all refused to campaign in the presidential primaries, thus limiting their chances of winning the nomination. All three men hoped that the other leading candidates would stumble in the primaries, thus leading the Democratic Convention's delegates to choose them as a "compromise" candidate acceptable to all factions of the party.

How times have changed! Can you imagine a candidate today hoping that everyone else will screw up and the nomination will just fall into his (or her) lap?

I was also surprised that only 14 states and the District of Columbia had primary elections in 1960. How did the other 36 states select which candidate to support? Did the state party bigwigs just get together in a smoke-filled room and say, "Joe Blow is our guy"?

Then there was the campaign music. The Kennedy campaign used "High Hopes" with different lyrics, while the Humphrey campaign chose an altered-lyrics version of "Davy Crockett"; one scene has four guys playing it on accordions. Yeah, it was cheesy, but hey, we're talking about Wisconsin, after all!

It was interesting to see more footage of JFK than I've seen in the past. There are a few clips from iconic speeches and the film from the assassination that we've all seen, but not much of Kennedy behind the scenes just being himself. This documentary had some of that, with some behind-the-scenes Jackie as well. It was endearing and more than a little sad, knowing what was to come later.

Hannity Colmes-less?

I read a short article in this morning's newspaper which said that Alan Colmes is going to be leaving Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes show after twelve years. Whatever shall he do? Wherever shall he go? Colmes has been good at what he does, which is to act as the lefty Democrat to balance out Sean Hannity. The show won't be the same without him after he leaves; who else will be able talk as fast as one of those guys reading the small print in the commercials in order to walk all over what conservative guests are saying? That was usually the best clue that the conservative was making a good point, because Colmes would talk faster and faster.

My guess is that he is getting out now in order to try to capitalize on the current vampire craze. You never see Colmes in the day time... Just sayin'.

Cool Pictures

You might not have heard, but Google has links to the digitized photo archives from Life magazine, including a lot of pictures that were never published. If you go to the Google home page, you can click on the Image search tab and currently, there are links to some possible searches of the Life photo archives, including World's Fairs and Marilyn Monroe. You can also click on the link and see some searches by decades, ranging from the 1860s (U.S. Civil War) through the 1970s. Or you can just do a generic image search and add "source:life" to the search string, and it will look only in the Life archives.

I find the older pictures to be especially fascinating. Seeing President Lincoln standing in front of a tent at Antietam in 1862 or Red Cross founder Clara Barton seated next to an ornate clock, wearing a dress with a hoop skirt several feet in diameter, is a window on another time. The people were like us in many ways, but their lives were very different. Technology changes the way we live, but not who we are.

The amazing thing, when you think about it, is how brief our "modern" period really has been. Automobiles, for instance, have only been around and in common use for about a century. My father is 70 years old, and has been around for about 70% of the era of the car. His father was born in 1911, at a time when the horse was still the main mode of transportation for most people; if they were going to travel long distances, it would be by train. Within his lifetime, Man walked on the Moon and sent probes to other planets in the solar system, most people owned automobiles and had flown on airplanes for long-distance trips.

And yet, our photographic archives only go back a century and a half. We have photographs of Lincoln and all subsequent American presidents, but if you want to see what George Washington looked like, you have to depend on the skills of portrait artists. So if you, like me, find the old pictures interesting, feel free to sift through those vintage images of the past.

Every Silver Cloud...

This morning, while driving into town to get my car serviced, I saw that the price of gasoline at some stations had dropped below $2.00 per gallon. Considering that less than three months ago, we saw gasoline at $4.00 per gallon, it seems so cheap that it's like it's almost free. My advice is to enjoy this while we can, because it probably won't last.

To continue the mangled figure of speech in the title, every silver cloud has a dark lining. While we all celebrate the fact that we're going to be sending less money to countries that don't like us much as long as gasoline is cheap by recent historical standards, we should look at the flip side: Those same countries that derive much of their income from oil sales, such as Iran, Russia and Venezuela, will be having less money coming into their coffers. Combine that with the worldwide economic downturn and there could be a rather dangerous situation if one of those unfriendly regimes gets into a desperate financial situation.

On the other hand, if the repo guys show up in Iran to take back the centrifuges that the mullahs can no longer afford to pay for, well, that would be pretty good.

Not All Racists Wear White Sheets

Sometimes they wear "Abercrombie polos and Birkenstocks." (via Instapundit)

A number of Rod 2.0 and Jasmyne Cannick readers report being subjected to taunts, threats and racist abuse at last night's marriage equality rally in Los Angeles.

Geoffrey, a student at UCLA and regular Rod 2.0 reader, joined the massive protest outside the Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Westwood. Geoffrey was called the n-word at least twice.

It was like being at a klan rally except the klansmen were wearing Abercrombie polos and Birkenstocks. YOU N-----, one man shouted at men. If your people want to call me a F-----, I will call you a n-----. Someone else said same thing to me on the next block near the temple...me and my friend were walking, he is also gay but Korean, and a young WeHo clone said after last night the n-----s better not come to West Hollywood if they knew what was BEST for them.

I read this disturbing story and thought about it for a while. It seems that even among the groups that have been most in favor of teaching "tolerance," the lesson still hasn't sunk in for everyone. "Tolerance" for thee, but not for me. But it didn't take long for me to figure out why these people felt so much anger against black voters. Let me explain:

The current incarnation of the Democrat party is based on identity group politics. Various minority groups who believe that they are "victims" of America's society have banded together to act in concert, believing that they will be stronger together than separately. This is the lesson of the fasces: Each of the sticks can be easily broken, but when you bundle them together, they are unbreakable.

The anger among the gays against the blacks who voted against same-sex marriage in California is because they see those voters as having unbundled themselves from the fasces for their own convenience: They welshed on the unwritten agreement that Democrats vote together as a group, "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours." Sure, they're mad at the Mormons and Catholics and fundamentalist Christians and Republicans who voted for Prop 8, but most of those people were not their allies in the Democrat party in the first place. With blacks, however, it's different: "Hey, I scratched your back, I voted for Obama! And now you don't support me?" No wonder there was such incoherent anger.

Trouble In Paradise?

Already? Apparently.

Obama campaign workers angry over unpaid wages

Indianapolis - Lines were long and tempers flared Wednesday not to vote but to get paid for canvassing for Barack Obama. Several hundred people are still waiting to get their pay for last-minute campaigning. Police were called to the Obama campaign office on North Meridian Street downtown to control the crowd.

The line was long and the crowd was angry at times.

"I want my money today! It's my money. I want it right now!" yelled one former campaign worker.

This illustrates the problems that President Obama will have with his supporters. They have very high expectations built up. They want what they have coming to them, and they "want it right now!" Patience may be a virtue, but it's not one of theirs.

Some people weren't satisfied with filling out a claim form for money they felt was still due to them.

"They say that they gonna call you or they going to mail it to you, but I don't know. We'll see what happens," said Antron Grose.

"Talking about they'll mail it to us. I ain't worried about that, man. They're not going to mail nothin'," said Martin.

For people who canvassed for and elected a man running on "Hope," they certainly seem lacking in it.

And Yet...

Bill Whittle speaks eloquently for me at National Review Online:

When he is inaugurated, President Obama will be my president. He cannot be otherwise. I will disagree with him at just about every turn, in all likelihood, and that is my right and duty as an American. However, in an emergency he will have my unqualified support, and I will always wish him wisdom and hope that he may do what is best for this great country of ours. I do not wish — I do not ever wish — to see my country suffer so that I may gain political leverage. If at this same time four years from now, President Obama has acted in such a way as to make us safer, and more prosperous and free, it will be my greatest pleasure to admit I was wrong about the man. I look forward to that day. I hope to see it come to pass.

Amen, brother. Amen.

Dems: Blacks vs. Gays?

I saw from a post at NRO's "The Corner" that California's Proposition 8, which would ban gay marriage in that state, is winning by a 52-48 margin with 92% of precincts reporting. California is one of three states in the country where gay marriage was legalized by the courts. It seems that white voters voted against the amendment by a 53-47 margin, but black voters (who were 10% of the electorate on that issue) voted for it by a 70-30 margin.

What is the fallout going to be if Prop 8 passes because of the overwhelming black turnout for Barack Obama? Blacks and gays are two of the Democrats' most reliable constituencies, and yet here are the black voters raining on the gay voters' parade. This may be a microcosm of some of the conflicting interests of Democrat constituencies in the days and weeks to come. There will be some sharp elbows and sharp knives as the Dems fight among themselves for the spoils of victory.

Obummer!

A few comments about yesterday's election results and predictions for the future, before my freedom of speech gets redefined and banned as hate speech:

Last night's theme music was R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)."

Well, America, you've decided to give the keys to the liquor cabinet and the Ferrari to your teenager. Figuratively speaking, of course. I hope your insurance premiums are paid up.

Prediction #1: 2009 will be the Summer of Obummer. The term "Obummer!" will enter the national lexicon as President Obama does things that will disappoint or anger those who voted for him.

"My electric bill doubled last month after Obama signed the Cap-and-Trade Laws!"
"Obummer, man!"

"My kid has to do 100 hours of community service in the Obama Youth!"
"That's an Obummer!"

"I lost my job when Obama raised the taxes on my boss and he had to cut back on personnel."
"Wow, what an Obummer!"

"Obama said I was going to get a tax cut, but now my taxes are going up even more than under Bush!"
"Obummer!"

Prediction #2: By May Day, which will mark the end of Obama's first hundred days, his popularity will fall below 50% and will never go back over that mark for the rest of his presidency, unless there is a terrorist attack that causes the nation to rally around him temporarily.

Prediction #3: Campaign finance reform is dead. No presidential candidate will ever again take public financing.

Prediction #4: I saw Jesse Jackson crying at the Obama victory speech last night. It wasn't "smiling-through-the-tears" crying, though. He looked like his dog had just died. I think the reason why he didn't look happy was that people like him and Al Sharpton are out of a job. The era of the race huckster is over.

If a black man can be elected president in this country, then nobody can blame his or her own failure to succeed on racial discrimination. That crutch is gone for good, even though many will still bitterly cling to it.

Prediction #5: Vice President Joe Biden will be an endless source of amusement over the next four years.

38 Minutes

That's how long it took me to get through the line and vote this morning after the polls opened at 7:00 a.m. I got there a few minutes before that, and there were about forty people in front of me. It went a lot quicker than that line at the Sarah Palin rally!

Anyway, I've done my civic duty. I hope that you do yours as well, and think well and hard about the choices in front of you. It seems like every four years, we hear that it's the most important election of our lifetime. That may or may not be true, but it is certain that the choice America makes today will take us down one of two very different roads. I believe that a McCain presidency would at the very least do America no harm. I cannot say that about an Obama presidency. But that is a choice that the rest of you will all have to make for yourselves.

Throw Us Off the Campaign Plane, Will You?

The other day, the Obama campaign threw the reporters of three newspapers that endorsed John McCain (The New York Post, the Washington Times and the Dallas Morning News) off Obama Force One in order to make room for Jet and Essence and a documentary crew. Just a coincidence, the Obama campaign told us. Not payback, oh no. The Messiah wouldn't do something like that!

Today, the New York Post strikes back:



OBAMA 2012: FOUR YEARS LATER by Jonah Goldberg

OBAMA 2012: A TERM OF FI$CAL PAIN by Nicole Gelinas

OBAMA 2012: HIS TRIUMPHS ABROAD by Ralph Peters

If you think an Obama administration is going to be all sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, with everyone getting tax cuts and a pony, you won't want to read those articles. If you're a little skeptical and still undecided... Well, it's your time, and your choice.

Recycled Sip Endorses McCain-Palin

I'm sure that shocks you.

For me, it's not a difficult choice. We know who John McCain is. If elected, he would be a competent president for the next four years. And I like Sarah Palin; I don't buy into all the crap that the MSM has tried to spoon-feed us about her being an idiotic rube. McCain was not my first choice in the primaries, or my second choice, but I'll vote for him as being far preferable to the alternative.

However, at this point, unless the polls are completely off (a distinct possibility), the American people are about to elect a man that we know next to nothing about, and who the MSM has not investigated or vetted; indeed, they have deliberately closed their eyes and avoided reporting anything that might have kept him from being nominated by the Democrats.

Barack Obama is a man whose resume is thin and whose hubris is colossal. He associates with far more unsavory characters than the average politician, and all of them are far left wing extremists, which tells us a lot about his character. CHARACTER MATTERS! I think that he is a very dangerous man. If America elects Barack Obama, there will be buyer's remorse very, very quickly.

America is not a socialist nation, but socialism is what we will get for the next four years from Obama, Pelosi, Reid and the rest of their party. And you don't get a mulligan on this one if you screw it up. The next president will probably name at least two Supreme Court Justices, as well as numerous federal judges on lower courts, and those Justices will likely be on the court for decades. Obama would likely damage our country for four years, but the damage caused by his appointments could last far longer.

You have been warned. Choose wisely. And if you choose Obama, be prepared to hear "I told you so!" from me for the next four years as our country spirals down into disaster.

It Could Have Been Worse...

There he goes again:

Jerry Lewis makes another anti-gay slur

CANBERRA, Australia - Jerry Lewis made an anti-gay slur on Australian television similar to one he apologized for using on his annual telethon a year ago.

Following a news conference in Sydney Friday, Lewis, 82, was asked by a Network Ten national TV reporter for his opinion on the Australian nation sport of cricket.

"Oh, cricket? It's a f-- game. What are you, nuts?" Lewis replied.

The network broadcast the comment in full on its Friday evening news bulletin along with footage of Lewis handling an imaginary cricket bat with an effeminate gesture.

...

Lewis was still in Australia on Saturday and has performances booked there through Nov. 1. His Australian spokeswoman Julie Cavanagh said he did not intend to comment.

The comedian held Friday's news conference to promote his latest stage show that is touring Australia. It is a retrospective of his career that includes show tunes with a 24-piece band, excerpts from his scores of movies and television shows, and his trademark slapstick comedy.

I think the story misses the real point: Lewis didn't just insult gays, he insulted the entire country of Australia. About the only thing he didn't do was tell them that Vegemite sucks and accuse them of being a bunch of sheep-rapers. (Punchline: "The sheep's a liar!")

So, let's see what he managed to do here: He offended the "show tunes" crowd (Not That There's Anything Wrong With That) that would be many of the the paying customers coming to see his stage show (Show Biz Rule #1: Don't offend your paying customers! You can't afford to lose any of them!). And he offended Australia's national sport (probably a different subset of the Australian population, although I'm sure that some of the "show tunes" people are also cricket fans). And of course, it's not just their national sport, but that of the UK and India as well. So in one fell swoop, he managed to offend about a billion people. Nice work, Jerry.

As noted in the subject title, it could have been worse: He could have offended soccer fans (who are well known for their hooliganism), which would have included everyone in the world outside of the U.S. and Canada. Then again, soccer fans don't carry wooden bats...

Solidarity With Joe the Plumber

I agree 100% with Iowahawk's post. And thanks to him for his kind permission to use this graphic to show my solidarity with Joe the Plumber.

Here's a comment I left at the US News site on a post by Michael Barone:

The Mask Slips

Joe's question just caused Obama to slip and accidentally reveal his true socialist nature. He might just as well have told Joe, "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." Yup, just gonna spread that wealth around. It's the Soviet -- err, American way.

The inquisition that the Tanning-Bed Media has visited upon a private citizen who merely dared ask a question of the Obamessiah has been shameful. Too bad they didn't have the professional ethics to investigate Obama himself anywhere near as thoroughly! And this is the kind of fate that the rest of us can expect from Obama's lapdog media and his Kossacks and other digital brownshirts if he is elected.

I AM JOE! It's the "I Am Spartacus" of 2008. Let our elite media overlords know that we won't go quietly!

Curious Ad Strategy

In case you haven't heard, Oliver Stone has made a movie about George W. Bush that is coming out soon. It stars Josh Brolin in the title role. Brolin is the son of Hollywood actor James Brolin and the stepson of liberal Hollywood icon Barbra Streisand. The movie appears to be ready to perpetuate all of the liberal tropes about Bush, and will no doubt be just as fair and accurate [eye roll] as the rest of Stone's films have been. Just from the ads I've seen, Brolin appears to play Bush as a complete idiot who somehow stumbled into power; we are shown how uncouth Brolin's Bush character is by the fact that during meals, he talks with his mouth full.

The odd thing is that the film company has been running saturation ads for the movie on Fox News Channel. I don't know how many ads they're running for it on CNN (which I don't watch because it leans left) or MSNBC (which leans so far left that it's lying on its left side), but the audiences for those channels would seem to be far more likely to go to the theater to watch a Bush-bashing flick. Running ads for W. on Fox News is about as much of a waste of money as some of those loans that Fannie Mae was giving out.

And then there's the question of whether the loony left people really want to see a film about Bush. The typical response from those people to seeing or hearing about Bush is identical to the people of Oceania in George Orwell's book 1984 when they see Emmanuel Goldstein on their telescreens: They stand up and bay out their rage during the Two Minutes Hate. I suspect that there will be more than one incident of audience participation when this movie hits the theaters, because they just won't be able to help themselves.

Last thought: The ad ends with the claim "Based on a true story." Yeah, right. Here's your "true story": George W. Bush was twice elected President of the United States, and Hollywood liberals hate his guts. Anything beyond that from Oliver Stone is likely to be fiction at best.

14,164 Minus 8,579 Equals?

Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of the New York Stock Exchange's all-time record high of 14,164. It was not a happy anniversary, however, as the Dow-Jones continued its frenzied plunge, losing another 679 points to fall to 8,579, a loss over the past year of 5,585 points, about 39% of the stocks' value. Even worse, it doesn't appear that the bottom has been reached, as stock markets around the world continue to plummet.

The equation in today's blog post title is more rhetorical than mathematical. The real question is how it will play out in the upcoming election. A lot of people who have lost small fortunes in the past few weeks are going to be very, very angry, and somebody is going to get the blame. They won't connect the dots and see the malfeasance of various Democrats like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank who enabled and exacerbated the housing crisis; they'll just say "Bush is in the White House, so it must be the Republicans' fault!"

I'm afraid that Barack Obama will benefit from the anger of the middle-class voter who has been watching his retirement funds evaporate faster than a puddle in Baghdad, despite the fact that the policies that Obama is likely to implement will probably make the situation worse, not better. In a panicky market, however, it's unlikely that the voters will be any more rational than the traders on Wall Street.

One thing's for sure: I wouldn't want to be one of those Wall Street wheeler-dealers when the Obama administration's Justice Department starts trying "economic criminals." And yes, I have already heard that term bandied about, albeit by Ralph Nader rather than any mainstream Democrat. However, if Obama is elected and brings his pals along with him (Secretary of Education William Ayers, anyone?), Nader will be a typical mainstream voice of that administration.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Here's What Real Justice Would Look Like

It's too bad for Skylar Deleon that Johnnie Cochran is dead, because it sure sounds like he could use a better lawyer:

Defense in SoCal yacht killings says client did it

Defending a man accused of killing three people, attorney Gary Pohlson took an odd angle in his opening statement.

He said his client is "guilty of all three murders."

Pohlson told a jury Tuesday that Skylar Deleon killed Arizona couple Tom and Jackie Hawkins, who were thrown off their yacht and bound to an anchor. He also killed another man he met in a work furlough program, Pohlson admitted. But the lawyer argued his client should not die for his crimes.

"My goal is simply to save Skylar Deleon's life," Pohlson said in a 15-minute opening statement.

Riiiiiiiight. This guy deliberately murdered the couple in order to steal their yacht, by tying them to the anchor and throwing it overboard. You know what they really ought to do to him? They should take him out beyond the 12-mile limit, tie him to an anchor and throw him overboard, just like he did to that couple. That would be justice. Although I might be a bit more merciful: I'd give him a wet suit and an oxygen tank with an hour's worth of oxygen, just so that he would have time to think about what he did. Of course, he'd probably be crushed to death by the water pressure before he ran out of oxygen. Gosh, that would be a shame. But I wouldn't shed any tears for him.

How I Spent Monday Afternoon

I went to the Sarah Palin rally at Germain Arena in Estero yesterday. The rally itself was great. Getting in and getting out were stone cold hassles.

I went with one of my co-workers and her nephew. We got to the Arena around 12:30, and ended up parking at the end of nowhere in the Miromar Outlets parking lot. After a lengthy walk, we found the end of the snaking line to get into the arena. Here is how it looked when we started out:



That's also near the area where I got up close and personal with the pavement. When we were getting to the end of the line, there was a small hole in the ground by the curb, camouflaged by the grass. I tripped over it and fell, landing on my left knee and left hand. I ended up with a small scrape on the palm of my hand and thought at the time that was the worst of it.

The people in the crowd were a cross-section of southwest Florida, although I saw very few minorities. There were a lot of women of all ages, many wearing Sarah Palin t-shirts or buttons. There were also a handful of hippie-looking Obama supporters there to protest. They were about as welcome as a Red Sox fan in Yankee Stadium, or vice versa.

Anyway, we followed the long, snaking line as it wound back and forth, and about 2:15, we finally got to the front door. We were lucky; a lot of the people behind us got turned away because the arena was full. When we got to the door, we spotted this lady. I liked her sign:



When we got into the arena, we had to go through the metal detectors but nobody was checking tickets. The arena has a capacity of 7,000, and there were at least several hundred people on the floor as well. Needless to say, by the time we got in, there were no visible seats left, and no more people were being allowed on the floor. I managed to find some seats in the very last row, directly behind the podium: The worst seats in the place, in other words. On the other hand, I did make it in. The people I went with ended up at the top of the next section over, since Marcella's nephew knew some of the cops running security.

There were a few speeches by other Florida politicians, and then, finally, Sarah Palin made her entrance to thunderous applause from the crowd. I didn't get any good pictures inside, unfortunately. This is the best one I got:



Other then a few protesters, who were widely jeered by the crowd, the rest of us were receptive to Gov. Palin's speech. The crowd was very loud and enthusiastic. Afterward, she shook hands and signed autographs for some of the lucky people on the floor by the podium.

Then it was time to face the gauntlet of getting out. I swear, whoever set the event up did a terrible job. There should have been cops directing traffic out of the arena and the nearby parking lot. There was nothing, and it took us more than an hour to get out of the parking lot.

I noticed that my right ankle was getting more and more sore as we inched our way out of the parking lot. I dropped the others off at their cars and drove home, and when I finally got there, two hours after leaving the arena, I found that my ankle was so sore that it hurt to walk on it. There wasn't any real swelling, and it obviously wasn't broken or I wouldn't have been able to walk all over hell and gone earlier; it had just stiffened up. I took some aspirins and elevated it, but by work time, it was still too sore to walk on, so I called out. It's feeling better today, so hopefully I'll be able to go to work tonight.

Just A Little Tease

I've got something interesting coming up this afternoon. There might even be pictures, depending on whether I'm allowed to bring my camera or not. It's gonna play hell with my sleep schedule, but sometimes, you just have to reach out and grab the brass ring.

All will be explained in good time.

Hard Times On Lake Michigan

Three of the eight teams that made the Major League Baseball playoffs are located in cities on Lake Michigan: The Chicago Cubs, the Chicago White Sox and the Milwaukee Brewers. After tonight's games, those three teams are a combined 0-5. Maybe it's something in the water?

Both the Cubs and the Brewers find themselves in an 0-2 hole, a dire situation in a best-of-five series. This is especially stunning for fans of the Cubs, who have lost their two games at home to the Los Angeles Dodgers by a combined score of 17-5. They now have to go to L.A. and win two games if they want to bring the series back to Chicago on Tuesday.

I switched over to the end of the Cubs-Dodgers game after the debate and the Cubs were down 7-1. The camera crew focused in on various distraught Cubs fans in the stands, including one fellow who was wearing half a watermelon on top of his head with a big C carved into the front. You had to feel bad for them, because their team had played so well during the regular season, and they certainly weren't expecting the Cubs to come out and play so poorly in the first two games of the series. Then again, these are Cubs fans, who have a century-long history of disappointment since their last World Series win. Barring a longshot comeback (maybe a 15% chance), that history will be extended another year.