I stayed away from opining on the entire Shirley Sherrod/Andrew Breitbart fiasco because it felt like a convoluted mess where all sides emerged tainted by association with it — the Obama Administration, the NAACP, the right-wing blogosphere, and the mainstream media alike.  Well, that and because I am extremely lazy and unmotivated to blog more than once or twice a week.

Anyway, word comes today that Sherrod intends to sue Breitbart (H/t to Ace of Spades HQ), presumably for defamation or libel for … posting a video of something she actually said in public.  Somewhere, someone is giving Ms. Sherrod some very poor advice.

For starters, Sherrod made her litigious announcement at a convention held by the National Association of Black Journalists.  Hmm … the last time she spoke so controversially, it was at an NAACP event.  And then there’s that whole interview she and her husband did where he proclaimed that “We must stop the white man and his Uncle Toms from stealing our elections.”

Does she only attend, speak at, or affiliate herself with matters and organizations pertaining to race?  Because then, by the very definition of the word, she might be a tad … racist herself.  Just sayin’.

Well, good luck to you Ms. Sherrod in your judicial endeavor.  I think it will prove extraordinarily unlikely that you will emerge victorious, merely because there are likely tens of thousands of examples where out-of-context quotations and attributions are published in all facets of media each and every day.  Even your cheerleaders in the mainstream press will likely be quietly sitting this one out in fear of the repercussions.

This is also notwithstanding the fact that, from what I’ve seen, Andrew Breitbart seems like the type of gentleman who will not merely roll over and seek a settlement in this matter.  What comes out in an open court during this case might prove fascinating, indeed, don’t you think?

Captured this video this morning at the Douglaston LIRR station.  An unmarked helicopter (just labeled “001″) continued to fly in sweeping, erratic fashion back-and-forth over the inlet of Alley Pond Park.  Note how it barely makes it over the treetops on each pass; it continued this behavior for nearly ten observed minutes before my train came and I had to depart.

It was probably some form of pilot training, or even an ecological survey being performed on the rehabilitation of the area wetlands.  But still, nearly ten years after 9/11, abnormal flight activity gives me a bit of the chills.

Apologies on the strange vertical video formatting.  Still learning how to take high-definition clips with my iPhone 4, and obviously this time out I forgot to re-orient the phone so that it captured the scene horizontally!

I was walking down a very dark and deserted street in bucolic Hoboken, New Jersey, at around 1:30 AM Sunday morning, heading from a local bar to where my car was parked seemingly a mile away.  Nothing bad happened, rest assured, nor did I expect it to, honestly.  But it started an intellectual exercise in my mind that I thought was interesting.

What if some unsavory individual had accosted me, and demanded my money, phone, etc.?  Generally speaking, I am very non-confrontational (I might bluster, but when push comes to shove I always pursue the path of least resistance), so likely I would have complied with whatever he asked in an effort to get it over with as harmlessly as possible.

But, what if, in a moment of courage/stupidity/whatnot, I decided to fight back vigorously and loudly — say by grabbing the alleged weapon, screaming to create a scene, or even attacking my assailant — thereby making it clear he would not succeed today under any circumstance without a major incident.  Would he flee?  I imagine most criminals expect their prey to back down quickly and easily, and with increased resistance the odds/incentive for a successful conclusion to their act begin to decrease rapidly.

Going further, what if everyone acted as I did in my fantasy going forward?  What if the tenability of undertaking a relatively simple criminal act becomes  so … untenable … that it stopped happening altogether?  Maybe there would be an occasional mugging or two each year, and God forbid one might even go horribly wrong and leave a fighting victim dead.  But if there were no other muggings ever throughout the year, would it be worth it?

Generally speaking, law enforcement encourages us to not resist an attacker, and to leave the work of fighting the perps to the professionals.  But what if that’s just a form of unconscious job protection?  We are now implicitly encouraged to fight off potential terrorists and hijackers on airplanes in the aftermath of 9/11, and as a result no successful attacks have occurred.  What if this same way of thinking applied to all forms of criminal activity?  What if, instead of taking it, we all really fought back wildly any time *any* form of illegal activity went down?  Would the removal of the incentive thereby remove the act forever?  Would it mark the end of crime as we know it?  Or would the perpetrators find new avenues to pursue their ill-gotten gains?

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

Today, in a not-so-random conversation with a person to be named later, I referred to one of my professional strengths as believing in the democratic nature of information.  Basically, what I meant is that, in the past, a few individuals — big media, corporate public relations teams, and the like — controlled nearly all of the means of communicating and marketing products, messages, and the like.  They held all of the cards, and picked all of the platforms to disseminate their messages.  Many corporate Web sites still to this day have homepage content that is surfaced only by a “crack committee” of top thinkers who believe they know best as to what’s important to readers and what is not.

Unfortunately for them, but to the benefit of the rest of us, that’s not the way it really works anymore.  Thanks to cheap hosting solutions, varied content authoring platforms, and social media such as Facebook and Twitter, nearly everyone has their own personal soapbox to promote interesting and informative links, commentary, and even the infamous TMI on what they had for breakfast.  Information is now (small-d) democratic, and everyone controls in their own way the means of communication.

This is also ultimately a good thing for the corporate Web guy or gal, because in such an age it becomes less important to fuss and fret over e-blast nuances and what “big four” items go on the homepage: just focus on providing good, useful content and your army of brand advocates will do the grunt work for you!

Let’s talk about two means of distributing information specifically: the Twitter phenomenon #FollowFriday and the old-fashioned blogroll.

#FollowFriday is one of those organic, community-driven concepts that arose early in the platform’s development. Draft a quick 140-character post that includes the hashtag #followfriday (or a truncated #ff if you prefer) and then list any number of favorite users you can squeeze into the rest of the tweetspace. Presumably, this is your “recommendation” of the week, and by sending the Tweet you encourage your followers and the larger Twitter community to start interacting with these top users.

Of course, as with any Internet meme, #FollowFriday quickly devolved into a mass of willing and eager spammers promoting their wares, and it became difficult to find the real gems in a sea of cubic zirconia. That’s why I really liked the blogger Single City Guy’s solution last week.  Rather than the standard tagged tweet, SCG instead drafted a blog post listing a few corporate and personal accounts that he enjoys, and then explained in a few simple words why each user should be followed, and what they bring to the table.  In short, it was a simple, efficient, and logical means of recommending users, and a worthy solution towards further democratizing even the recommendation of content creators.

Meanwhile, we old-school bloggers sit idly by and question, haven’t we been doing this all along?  Isn’t the blogroll — that lengthy and oft-outdated litany of links that fill most sidebars — essentially the prototype for recommending users back in the day?  Well, yes and no.  Like most bloggers, I’d be willing to admit that my list is likely very outdated, and I fail to update it as often as I do my list of RSS feeds filling my Google Reader account. Heck, with the different options now available for blog readers to share content via highly trafficked social media, its questionable at best if the blogroll even facilitates any standing in site page ranks or search engine positioning.

Has the blogroll gone the way of the dodo?  I debate that very thought each time I open this humble site, and one day I think you will find it no longer beckoning my users to visit my friends and trusted Internet comrades.  That doesn’t mean I don’t still love you guys and value your content, it’s just that — with a simple tweet or digg — I can provide a far larger traffic share than any static link my small site could ever provide.

What say you, though?  Do you think the means of distribution are now in each of our hands?  Are you getting rid of that stale link list yourself to free up more space for advertising?  Drop me a line in the comments if you want.

As a huge fan, this test could not have regurgitated a better compliment. And here I always thought I wrote like Faulkner…

I write like
Chuck Palahniuk

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

One of the treats of my everyday commute is passing by an old LIRR diesel locomotive, parked and still ready at a moment’s notice for it’s daily duties.  Sadly, those probably involve minor tasks such as shuttling equipment around the Long Island City railyards, and not carrying several thousand dashing commuters to New York City from points east.

It was real-time docudrama like we have never seen before, filled with an incredible volume of hyperbole and enough potential story-lines to populate a small novel.  On live television, the so-called most coveted free agent in all of sports descended from his reclusive mountaintop and informed the world as to what professional basketball franchise had earned the right to spend over $100 million over the next few years for his services at small forward.

And in the span of that one-hour television special, one man — “King” LeBron James, now of the Miami Heat — transformed himself into the single-most-hated man in all of sports and popular culture.  While undoubtedly set for life financially, James did more to damage his personal brand than six months of oil spillage in the Gulf of Mexico has done for BP.

Lesson #1, for Business Managers and CEOs: Stop surrounding yourself with sycophants and find your fool.

It truly was amazing that we ever even came to this point.  As the Sports Guy so eloquently stated, any decision by James to sign elsewhere than with his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers would wind up being a colossal kick to the scrotum of that franchise, and to the entire state of Ohio.  To do so as part of a major, live television special proved even worse, and ranks one of the cruelest acts one man can make to an entire populace that isn’t a felony.

LeBron famously has surrounded himself with an entourage of friends and handlers dating back years.  Was no one among them courageous or honest or bright enough to review the big picture of this scenario and whisper in his ear that this might not be the best idea?

Not to be outdone, the following morning Cavaliers Majority Owner Dan Gilbert issued a statement of his own on the entire farcical scene, a letter filled with the sort of jilted ex-lover agony and spite that, while reeking of awesomeness, perhaps might have been better off not seeing the light of day. In Comic Sans font, no less.

How many bad business decisions are made every year in similar situations, where through a corporate culture of fear or sycophancy there doesn’t exist a single sole to inform the emperor that he is, in fact, stark naked?  Never fail to surround yourself with opposing viewpoints; even in disagreement valuable perspectives and lessons can be learned.

Lesson #2, Teddy Roosevelt doesn’t live here anymore

As rumor has it, James and his new-found teammates in Miami, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh decided as far back as the 2008 Olympic Games to all eventually sign with the same team.  Imagine if a cadre of NBA owners banded together similarly and decided to not sign a group of players under any circumstance; the outcry and lawsuits would take up the entire Summer offseason, and create a potential labor strife that could bankrupt the league and send it the way of the ABA.

That doesn’t mean that men should not be free to associate or conduct business as they see fit.  I just want to know why King James and his court jesters are allowed to collude in such a fashion and nobody else can.

Lesson #3, Not all publicity is good publicity

In many ways, the move to have a prime-time special dedicated to “the Decision” proved to be a masterstroke.  More than the aforementioned oil spill, Lindsay Lohan going to jail, terrorists arrested in Europe, or NJ transit suffering a massive power failure stranding hundreds of thousands of commuters in the evening rush, James and his show became the must-talk-about event of the day.  Twitter was positively afire with commentary, and it appeared as if both ESPN and James would rake in the advertising dollars and public consciousness cachet.

Then the show went on air.

Despite reported assurances that LeBron’s declaration would occur within the first ten minutes, the program instead proved to be a drawn-out, 60-minute on-air fellatio of the basketball star, filled with pundits punditing, in-game highlights, and a multitude of softball questions lobbed in the subject’s direction courtesy of Jim Grey (“are you nervous?”).  Curiosity at the spectacle soon turned to outright hostility and snark, and by the time the big news was revealed 30 minutes into the broadcast, both the network and focus were outright subjects of public scorn.

Did ESPN know where LeBron James was going all along, and fail to report it in the interest of sacrificing journalistic integrity for money and ratings?  Can we ever trust them to break a story again?  Why would James insult his entire home state in such public fashion?  Did anyone actually buy the hype that this was all about benefiting charity?

People took to the streets and actually burned James’ Cavaliers replica jerseys in effigy.  That’s heady stuff, folks, and does not happen every day. A great number of people, particularly thought leaders and conversation starters, tuned into the broadcast.  That they universally walked away with negative reactions reflects a massive marketing failure.

Lesson 4, Make no mistake, life and professional wrestling are one and the same.

If you happened to have been reading my Twitter stream last night, you would have noticed the uncanny parallels between the LeBron James Decision and the classic professional wrestling heel turn.  Indeed, it was 1996 all over again, as visions of Hulk Hogan turning his back on WCW and founding the New World Order with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash ran rampant through my mind.  With the lines between reality and farce so blurred, it was hard for me to not expect James to come onstage wearing his Cavs jersey before smashing a steel chair over Gilbert’s head and revealing a Heat jersey underneath all along.

Simultaneously, in becoming the biggest heel in sports, LeBron managed the impossible: by default due to their rivalry, he has turned former alleged rapist Kobe Bryant babyface.  It’s shades of Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin at WrestleMania 13.  Once a beloved fan favorite, Bret’s bitterness and frustration pushed him over the edge to the dark side, while Austin — changing nothing in his persona — started to bask in the cheers of the fans merely for opposing the new found villain.

Compare and contrast the events for yourself, and see if you are not stricken by the similarities.

In the end, though, ultimately all that matters are the dollars.  LeBron James will play out his 5+ years in Miami, likely without any form of championship (can Miami even afford to field a full roster with three superstars on the payroll?), and the rest of us will go on with our lives.  But for one day in 2010, man, what a scene it was.

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The sports world is abuzz over the current free agency of basketball superstar LeBron James, arguably the best player in the game since the heyday of some guy named Michael Jordan.  Where will the charismatic and talented young forward known as “King James” spend the prime of his career?  Will he help to rejuvenate a dormant and struggling New York Knicks franchise?  Will he opt to follow in the shoes of his hero Jordan and call Chicago home?  Or will he reward the team that he started his career with, the Cleveland Cavaliers, with a dose of loyalty and a hometown discount?

Trust me, LeBron, you don’t want to go to any of those teams.  The Knicks will remain a joke for as long as the team remains anchored to the albatross that is the Dolan/Cablevision ownership team.  In Chicago, you will forever be in the shadow of your idol.  Cleveland will never be an elite NBA Champion.

No, you need to shock the world and sign with the New Jersey Nets.

The Nets are the dream team of the NBA in the next ten years.  Owned by filthy-rich, enigmatic characters such as real estate developer Bruce Ratner, rap legend Jay-Z, and the mysterious Russian Mikhail Prokhorov, the Nets are a clean slate destined to take the New York area by storm as the re-christened Brooklyn Nets starting in 2012.

Imagine the sell-out crowds night after night at the Barclays Center.  Imagine the millions in “Brooklyn James #6″ jerseys that would be sold in malls worldwide.  The jersey would become the most popular and iconic sale in all of sports since a certain red and black #23.

Plus, in the biggest market in the world, flush with money and fame, and free from the noose that is Madison Square Garden, James would be perfectly positioned to launch a revolution in New York and pocket enough money to ensure Forbes-level riches for his progeny for generations to come.

LeBron, your choice is really clear if you think about it.  Make the once-home of Dr. J and Rick Barry — and red, white, and blue basketballs — your new sports mecca.

Update: In an article dated last Thursday, the NY Times noticed the same thing: that this city is up for grabs, and the Nets right now are out-marketing their more-traditional rivals.

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In the gentlemanly world of good social graces and proper political discourse, it is a show of class and respect to not speak ill of recently deceased members of the opposition party.  This is a fair and laudable endeavor, but in times such as these, a closer inspection of the legacy left by former West Virginia Senator Robert C. Byrd illustrates a number of disturbing elements that can serve as a teachable moment for historians, pundits, and all proper-thinking Americans.

You see, Senator Byrd — for all of the praise and fanfare delivered in his honor upon his passing — actually represents many of the worst traits possible in an elected representative, and should instead be held up as a shining example of what not to do when called into public service.

Byrd’s term in the Senate spanned nearly nine six-year terms in office, a period of over 50 years.  This alone emits grave warning signs for any lover of freedom and liberty, for the trappings of high office are not a lifetime entitlement or an honor earned lightly.  Power is the ultimate corruptor, to paraphrase an old saying, and our system was clearly founded with the intent of facilitating a nearly constant rotation of officers, freeing the tree of liberty from any unsightly growths or parasites.  That one man could attain and hold that sort of power — regardless of action or intent — for so long is a frightening indictment of both the system that elects him and the voter that puts him there.

Such power and longevity are the sort that allow for over 30 buildings, roads, and other facilities to bear the departed Senator’s name for all posterity, a legacy not unlike that of the statues of Rome or the monuments of the District of Columbia.  In this case, though, it was often Byrd himself who facilitated the namings, rather than having the honor awarded posthumously.  Indeed, one must wonder if someone as obsessed with his own glory as Byrd was truly served his constituents with full intellectual honor, or was rather merely obsessed with his own quest for notoriety and fame.

“I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side … Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.”

Finally, there is the most obvious and concerning history of Byrd as racist and leader in the notorious Ku Klux Klan.  Byrd’s past is a checkered one indeed, and his most lasting legacy was as a strong opponent of civil rights, famously spending 14 hours on the floor of the Senate filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Now, all men can and do change, but why Byrd catches a break for merely being a product of his time and culture, when our Founding Fathers and, more recently, Byrd’s colleague Strom Thurmund, are not spared the same quarter, is one of the great mysteries of liberal bias indeed.

But I come not to bury the honorable Senator from West Virginia.  Rather, I look at a world now no longer filled with the likes of Byrd, Ted Kennedy, and Jack Murtha, and breathe a sigh of relief.

Hi, my name is Ted. If you are reading this Web site, you probably already know me. If not, or even if you do, allow me to reintroduce myself.

Like I said, my name is Ted, and I am a member of the working poor.

You don’t hear a lot about us in the mainstream media, or from the mouths of the pundits and elected officials of this great country.  But, unintended consequences have conspired to render persons of my ilk the forgotten castaways of history.

You see, our society, like all successful ones of of the past, has rightly created a series of rewards and incentives, through custom and law, that encourage the traditional arrangement of marriage and the drive to procreate and continue the species. We see these incentives every day, hidden in plain sight through a tax code that offers deductions for children, marriage, and home ownership. Similarly, the progressive movements of the past century have added a sense of social justice to public policy; as a result the destitute and troubled have access to services such as unemployment benefits, healthcare, and other forms of public assistance.

Unfortunately, someone has to pay for all of these policies and incentives. The rich have their own army of tax practitioners at the ready, deployed to move their money around in a manner that evades pure taxation of all income at the dictated rate, so while there is little doubt that the wealthy pay a substantial share of the burden, it’s often the under-the-radar, single, urban renter that bears the brunt of funding the tax expenditure allocation.

Hence our conversation. Currently, I owe both Uncle Sam and the fine State and City of New York a tidy sum venturing into four digits for the past year. How is that possible, the recipient of a refund might ask? Well, last year I had the “brilliant” idea of selling an old 457 retirement plan from a former employer to back out of some credit card debt. When that hard-earned but ultimately “extra” income added onto my regular salary, it rendered all potential tax breaks (tuition, interest on student loans) moot — I flat out no longer qualified to deduct them. So I got crushed and, now struggling to pay this debt off — because the government is always first in line at the credit trough, of course — the credit cards had to take a secondary position and now even that debt is practically back to where it was.

And what of those credit cards? Well, of course, the responsibility and burden to make up that arrears is entirely my own. No one held a gun to my head and made me take out that extra $500 to gamble in Atlantic City, or forced me to buy that iPhone. I, Ted, chose to get into bed with the major financial institutions, and for that I take full responsibility. That doesn’t mean the credit card companies are innocent bystanders in this sad tale, though. The various fees, hidden charges, and fluctuating percentage rates are all carefully crafted to extract every last fiscal juice out of anyone and everyone that comes into contact with them.

The United States basically now has a system of business, taxation and social welfare where, if you are married or destitute or filthy rich, you can afford to live. But dare you be single and live in a major metropolitan area with a decent salary and all bets are off. You now fund the lifestyles of everyone from the poor mom on public assistance to the corporate exec flying to congressional hearings in his private jet. I don’t begrudge anyone personally — you never know what circumstances led to poverty and you don’t want to punish successful business — but clearly something is not working because no matter what I do the opportunities of the American Dream right now are flat-out impossible. And for that, I blame both progressive government policy and the absurd notion that multinational corporations can become too big to fail yet be free of all responsibility to operate responsibly.

I’m trying to dig myself out, make no mistake about that. I’ve carefully selected the most important debts first for repayment, and will work to be held accountable for those values as quickly as I can. As debts are recouped, the next in line will take its place. These are my debts, and I will pay off any and every cent owed to the best of my ability. Too bad the Powers That Be in government don’t adhere to the same philosophy. Economies of scale do not apply to line items in the red, and the classic Keynesian moving money around and increasing spending — even on an unimaginably and exponentially larger scale — will still never result in reduced debt and deficits.

Ted knows this, why don’t they?

It’s no secret, dear reader, that I blog lately with about the same frequency as appearances of the asteroid Apophus. Fortunately, I have buddies such as the Cranky Conservative to pick up my slack and churn out content that usually matches what I would have said anyway with far greater frequency and intellectual quality. Heck, I think I even stole this intro from an old post he used to link to me a few months ago.

Anyway, two articles in a row the CC blogged today raised my ire, enough to awaken from my slumber and descend from Mount Douglaston to opine, so here we go.

1) David Weigel is a douchebag (my working version of the post title). Honestly, before the other day, I had never heard of Weigel and could not have cared less whether or not the gentleman was fired from his comfy office at the home of journalistic detritus known as the Washington Post. Reading his defenders lauding his laurels, though, I have to wonder what they are smoking down there in the Beltway these days. Dude played himself off as the WaPo’s go-to Conservative (Big “C”) commentator, yet:

• Received most of his talking points from the enigmatic lefty JournoList, where he referred to Ron Paul supporters as “Paultards” (OK, full disclosure, I might do that as well), wished no less than death upon Rush Limbaugh, and expressed his gushing admiration for the well-maintained creases of President Barack Hussein Obama’s pants (OK, I made that part up).
• Had the confusing temerity to call North Carolina Congressman Bob Etheridge’s accosting of an innocent citizen a “hug” (was “love tap” too cheeky?), BUT
• Thought that it was A-OK for the Sarah Palin stalker Joe McGinniss to move in next door to his obsession in the interest of investigative journalism.

Guess what I’m saying is dude can suck and egg and enjoy unemployment. Go work for the Huffington Post and out yourself among the simpleton like-minded. Oh, wait, look where the first place you ran to boo-hoo was!
2) Meanwhile, author and Regis High School drop-out Pete Hamill is finally getting his diploma from the famed Jesuit institution that helped shape me and a large majority of my readership. In doing so, Hamill (by way of the CC) exposes the fatal flaws of the Jesuit education, which raises countless generations of doubt-filled, liberal-minded ex-Catholics taught more to question the tenents of their religion than to embrace it’s finer points for all posterity.

Far more personally, though, allow me to offer my own take on the Hamill Diploma: fuck you Pete and fuck you Regis High School.

I busted my ASS through four years of utter hell to get through the pompous and pretentious student body (present company excluded) and even-worse faculty, to the point that I continue to have nightmares and dreams filled with Regis hallways to this day. I did it all in those four years: all nighters, doing homework on the subway, and yes cheating my ass off to graduate. Now this joker with his Z-list author status waltzes in and gets the same despite choosing to walk away so many years before.

Maybe in this horrific economic times Pete offered to give a sizeable donation to the Annual Fund. Bully for them all, because my broke ass can’t afford to make any contributions personally.
Just think, Paul, had you blogged also about the New York Mets you might have been three for three!

This isn't the hole your daughter asked you to plug, Mr. President.

“I, [name], do solemnly swear, that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God.”

It’s a simple and elegant turn of phrase, actually, and succinctly sums up the essence of what sorts of responsibilities the leader of the free world takes on.  Minor mishaps aside, the last man to recite the oath in official circumstance was Barack Hussein Obama, the current resident of the White House.  It is his charge to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and faithfully execute all laws which lie under his jurisdiction.

So, how’s he doing on those accounts?

Let’s start with his prosecution of the war he (admittedly) inherited in Afghanistan.  This is, of course, also the war which Candidate Obama proclaimed in 2008 to be among the most important we’ve ever waged, and one that he would pursue to the fullest extent he could.  Unfortunately, if his on-the-ground commander in the theater, General Stanley McChrystal, is to be believed, the President is instead a rather petulant child, unprepared for thinking about the grim strategies of warfare and driven only to face-to-face meetings when called out on such in Rolling Stone.  Say what you might about an armed forces leader running to the adolescent, sophomoric arms of the most overrated publication of the past century, there seems little doubt that McChrystal’s sentiments and depiction of events don’t ring true; indeed, the article is a frightening recounting of the past two years that actually chills me in a way I haven’t felt since the aftermath of 9/11.  It is a sad farce that our leaders blunder and blister while our enemies embolden and steel up for the next sad round of the War on Terror in Afghanistan and the surrounding lands.

Closer to home things are not much better.  The United States’ southern border is porous and ripe to be taken advantage of by individuals looking to steal jobs, commit crimes, or worse right in our homeland.  Rather than enforce the federal laws enacted to secure the border — laws merely reinforced by recent Arizona state law — the President has seen fit to sue first and find reasons later.  In fact, as now two reputable Senators have confirmed, Obama views the border as merely a political travail, to be dealt with only when he feels like it, and after he gets what he wants in other legislative bargaining.

Sadly, these decisions serve a terrible unexpected consequence: they greatly endanger American lives, both abroad and at home.  Every additional solider that dies due to confused or half-hearted military strategy, every teenager gunned down by accident over a failed drug deal perpetrated by undocumented immigrants, every businessman or mom murdered via terrorist act, officially lies in the hands of Barack Hussein Obama.  And for this, he should be considered a prime candidate for removal from the office he clearly has neither the sophistication or morality to handle.

Wow, I hope they find out if Gary Condit is guilty!

There exists a phenomenon among New York City subway riders that astounds and confuses me.  When I first noticed it, I reasoned that it had to be a mistake, a one-time example of poor attention to detail.  Then I realized that I have seen it reoccur approximately one time every month, if not far more often.

I speak of individuals reading yesterday’s newspaper.

You might wonder if, perhaps, the random person was merely reading some interesting article of research or commentary that he or she saved from a prior examination of the content.  Sadly, this cannot be the case, as the reader is usually focused on the early pages of the main news or sports section, reading about outdated political developments or a happy recap from a ballgame long cast away into history.  In the instance I observed last week, in fact, a gentleman on the LIRR was reading a paper from the week earlier!  I hope that whole “Top Kill” thing engineers at BP are devising works out!

Is it a grand conspiracy among newspaper retailers in the labyrinthine transportation system, one where they sneak outdated unsold issues into the day’s stack in the hopes that some unobservant sucker will help them recoup that lost 50 cents?  Is it the utter frugality of the City worker that causes him or her to have no qualms over finding and taking advantage of a used, free copy of the discarded paper on the seat beside them or in the garbage?  Is New York secretly filled with an army of obsessive-compulsive readers that absolutely cannot let a single article in any day’s New York Daily News go unread before adding the issue to the recycle bin?  Maybe that last edition of Marmaduke was so good it required an additional reading!

I’m always tempted to confront the random historic reader and inquire if he or she knows the true story behind his or her paper of record, or to act prophetic and predict the outcomes of the major criminal investigations of two nights prior.

Instead, like any good New Yorker, I chuckle to myself internally and look forward, pretending that the mistaken reader — and all of my fellow travelers — do not exist.

There is perhaps no greater sign of impending demise in a nation than the pragmatic acceptance of the mantra “good enough.”  Rome met its end soon after its citizens stopped building great roads and aqueducts and instead focused on childish entertainment and sport, and it is a worrisome observation that the United States, poisoned by the seeds of progressive “equality of outcome” ideology, may soon suffer the same fate.

Serving as a justice on the United States Supreme Court should be considered among the most important and humbling honors bestowed upon any citizen deemed worthy.  Only the very best — the most experienced and literate scholars of the Constitution, with decades of experience and a considerable resume of import — should be considered for such a role.  After all, this is not a position that comes up for periodic review and reelection; a term on the Court runs for life, unbeholden to the fickle winds of political change.

I’m sure New York’s own Elena Kagan is a lovely, wonderful woman, and worthy of many different forms of professional recognition for her time in the hallowed halls of both academia and government.  If she is truly the very best that the country has to offer in terms of constitutional scholarship, though, then we are in for a larger world of hurt than we ever imagined.  Kagan’s record appears to be one of little legal consequence, to the point that nearly all articles touting her nomination repeat the point.  In fact, one could reasonably conclude that Kagan is President Barack Hussein Obama’s own Harriet Miers, a trusted aid of ultimately little import, a cypher of unknown skills and talents who owed her entire career more to cronyism than merit (of course, one could say the same about the President himself).

I’m not saying Kagan won’t end up behind the bench, or even do a great job when there.  I’m just wondering…is this truly the best we have to offer these days?

* * *

Meanwhile, while not making historical nominations, the President made news this weekend by revealing that his entire technocratic facade — including his vaunted love of the Blackberry and incredible command of social media — was just that, an orchestrated campaign by the powers behind the Manchurian Cypher to paint him as something he is not.  In fact, he completely doesn’t get the “iPods, iPads, Xboxes, and Play Stations of the world,” and laments how technology is apparently stifling democracy.

I’m sorry, Mr. President, but you simply cannot be more incorrect.  Perhaps more than at any other time in human history, our total and instantaneous access to information, at the tips of our fingers, ensures access to the truth and the assurance of some semblance of democracy.  Perhaps this steady and constant flow of knowledge and data is what Obama — and likely any would-be politician or bureaucrat — loathes. No longer does the left-wing exclusively control the mechanisms of the communications machine, and as a result their entire worldview and dominance will eventually wind up at stake.  Rather than blindly regurgitating economic, social, or environmental policy, now the underlying science and reason can be debated and disseminated by the average citizen sitting at his or her keyboard, and published for free instantly.

This doesn’t mean that our nation isn’t in grave danger from falling into a Grecian-like level of catastrophe and mediocrity; it just means that the path to get there will be much more difficult to travel, and that any number of citizen patriots stand at the ready every day to take up the call to virtual arms in the war of ideas.

Blog Maverick: Tax the Hell Out of Wall Street and Give It to Main Street

It should always be the natural reaction of any lover of freedom and liberty to be inclined towards opposing any new proposed tax, especially those proffered in the name of the public good.  This blog post from Mark Cuban, though, makes for an interesting read.  Cuban shows that, at the very least, he has more of a passing understanding of economics, incentives, and what forms of trading have brought the United States to the brink of fiscal collapse — certainly more than Paul Krugman or anyone currently residing in the White House or Capital — and offers up a 25-cents-per-share tax on all trades made in the various US stock exchanges.  I’m not inclined to immediately disagree with him, either: speculative trading of derivatives and other “insecure” securities, combined with profligate deficit spending in Washington, will slowly but surely lead us down the path of becoming the next Greece.  Cuban’s innovative strategy at least aggressively tackles the issues at hand and makes more than anything else I’ve heard recently.

Ron the Angry Editor: Time for You to Go

I’m no Constitutional scholar, but it seems as if the document that serves as our lifeblood is fairly certain and detailed when it comes to acts of treason, so much so that proposed legislation stripping those homegrown perpetrators of acts of terror of their citizenship may be a moot point — it’s already there in Article III.  Personally, while generally skeptical of laying *any* new ideas or powers at the feet of Congress — even those already enumerated, if unenforced — I stand all in favor of defending our territories to the fullest extent possible, and if that means expelling a few more ex-pats and/or breaking out the old treason guillotine, so be it.

Agency Spy: Hispanic Ad Firm Offers “Gringo Masks” to Arizona Mexicans

Have I mentioned how much I admire and respect the leadership and good citizens of Arizona for their bold and courageous stand towards defending the United States border from all threats, foreign and domestic?  Any individual arrested for any crime — jaywalking through murder — should be run through any and every known database of citizens, criminals, and the like for potential matches, and if the offender is determined to be in this country illegally, he or she should be expelled post haste after serving the appropriate time for his or her crime.  While sympathetic towards anyone that seeks freedom from tyranny, it remains baffling to me that the potential incentives towards undocumented immigration remain so much more powerful than the vast, untimely bureaucracy that overlords legal immigration.  It’s unfair and only does greater disservice to those lost and uncounted on our streets in the long run.

That being said, I’d like to also offer a hearty fuck you to the folks at the Zubi advertising agency for their ridiculous, over-the-top effort to offer lame political commentary in the interests of raising their own meager profile.  Instead of wearing a ridiculous mask to “blend in,” how about you create a real campaign encouraging safe, legal immigration, the benefits of learning the language of the majority, and other common-sense tips that can truly help those seeking a new life to achieve that potential most possibly?

Darth Vader, the mythical character featured prominently in six separate Star Wars flicks, has an awful lot of “street cred” in today’s popular culture.  The American Film Institute ranked the mysterious and dark figure as the third greatest villain in cinematic history.  Quotations and parodies of his bad-assery abound.  Heck, I even follow the Sith Lord on Twitter.

I mean, just look at the guy: the black leather and circuitry, the menacing breathing, the booming James Earl Jones voice, the cape…if that doesn’t scream pure evil awesomeness I don’t know what does.

But I’m sorry my friends and readers.  It’s time someone stepped up and let the awful truth be known: Darth Vader is the biggest pussy loser fuck-up we’ve ever seen, and for that he should be ridiculed, not celebrated.

Vader’s legendary backstory is renowned. Raised as a slave on the desert planet Tatooine, young Anakin Skywalker was discovered by the Jedi and eventually rose to prominence on their ruling council before succumbing to the teachings of Emperor Palpatine and turning to the Dark Side of the Force.  From there, he led a campaign to murder and eliminate all remaining Jedi in the Galaxy and restore a totalitarian form of peace and order to the realm before finally meeting his long-lost son and reconciling with his more noble side in a heroic, suicidal sacrifice.

That is all a bunch of fucking bullshit revisionist history.

Skywalker/Vader fell ass-backwards into his lot in life, and fought every turn and misfortune kicking and screaming with the petulance of a small, spoiled child.  Looking at the totality of his wasted and failed existence, one cannot help but wonder why even Palpatine kept his ass alongside him for so long.

Let’s take a look at the dude’s life, shall we?

Episodes 1-3

In The Phantom Menace, celebrated as perhaps one of the worst movies of all time, we first meet a young slave named Anakin Skywalker on the remote desert wasteland of Tatooine, somewhere in the Outer Rim territories.  It’s here that we learn that his midi-chlorian count is way above normal — an indicator of a strong connection to the Force — and it is also here that George Lucas lays the first egg in setting up his most important character’s backstory.  You see, Skywalker was born without a baby daddy, much like the savior of a certain major Earth religion.  Wouldn’t it have been better here to have his poor mother impregnated during a one-night stand by some random scoundrel, or perhaps even by a certain mysterious, charismatic politician on a fact-finding mission to the planet?  Why go the Immaculate route?  All it does it set up an impossible standard from which the poor bastard — literally — never recovers.

From there, we learn that Anakin is a podracer, one of the best on the planet, especially for a human being.  Only thing is, he’s lost every race he’s ever participated in…and usually wipes out in the process.  It’s only in his last, most important race — where there is little doubt that Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn interferes somehow (watch how he sits through the whole race in a transitive, meditative state) — that the kid earns his freedom and a convenient ride onto a Nubian starcruiser to a greater life.  Oh yeah, and he totally and callously abandons his mom at this point to go on the a wild Jedi goose chase, uncertain if  Council will even accept him as one of their own.  Good job, kiddo.  No wonder you’ll suffer nightmares about this act for the rest of your life.

Oh yeah, and he also thinks that skinny, moderately attractive Semitic chicks from outer space are “angels” and not just starfucking Queens/Senators out for a joy ride while their homeland burns under Trade Federation occupation.

Then comes the final battle of Episode 1, where Anakin and his astrodroid R2-D2 mistakenly fly a spaceship into outer space, only to crash it into the Trade Federation command ship and accidentally blow it up in an act more comparable to 9/11 than a heroic sneak attack.  Finally, with Jinn impaled in battle at the hands of homosexual gymnast and mime Darth Maul, the council relents and allows Skywalker to become Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Padawan learner.  Congrats, kid, it took the dude that found you dying before anyone was willing to give you a chance.

Fast forward ten years to Attack of the Clones.  Here, an older, wiser Skywalker finally reunites with his beloved angel Padme and, perhaps because he thought she would find it impressive, begins to spill every whiny detail of his life to her mere hours after meeting.  That’s great, Annie, but I usually wait until never before telling the chick I wanna bang about all of my problems.  This quasi-courtship continues throughout his special mission to protect her on Naboo, and, as voyeurs, we the audience are treated to lots of dialogue about the corseness of sand (and how it gets everywhere) and about how the fascist in training is tormented by nightmares of the mom he abandoned ten years ago with barely a goodbye.

So Skywalker returns to Tatooine to rescue mom…and arrives just as the bitch dies in his arms following weeks of torture, rape, and abuse at the hands of the Tuskan Raiders.  Ouch, that harshness will kill anyone’s mellow.  Our hero retailiates the only way he can — by murdering everyone in sight and then boasting of it later to his main squeeze, who eats it up like cake.  Guess Padme is one of those chicks that really likes the bad boys, eh?  Finally, the lovebirds head to Gionosis to rescue Skywalker’s mentor Kenobi…and promptly get caught and sentenced to death at the hands of a bunch of big CGI lizard beasts.  Only rescue by Mace Windu and the full Jedi Council prevents a certain end…and even then Anakin eventually gets his whole arm chopped off in battle with the elderly Count Dooku.

The last we see of the mostly human Anakin Skywalker comes during Revenge of the Sith, a movie that revolves around how both sides — the “good” Jedi and the “bad” Palpatine — continually play mind games with the dude.  I mean, the supposed heroes of the Universe fuck with him so badly that they let him onto the Council minus the traditional rank of Master…but only if he goes and spies on his buddy the Chancellor.  Fuck you, Jedi!  With friends like that, who needs enemies?

It merely takes a few uncomfortable bonding moments in an Opera House and a (false) promise of life-giving powers before Skywalker saves Palpatine, converts to the Dark Side of the Force, and then…kills a bunch of kids while some clones take out the remaining Jedi.

Note also that Anakin is now sporting a significant scar on his face, a development that occurs during the Clone Wars between Clones and Sith. Even offscreen the dude can’t win.

The movie concludes with an epic struggle on the boiling lava planet of Mustafar, and even in this wretched den of evil Skywalker manages two colossal lapses in judgment that ruin his life forever:

• He force-chokes his wife to near death over jealously; and
• He gets utterly fucking destroyed — burned to a crisp and with all four appendages sliced off to boot — by his former master Kenobi.

As we have seen time and again, though, the newly crowned Darth Vader is saved from death by his superiors, and resurrected as the leather-clad Frankenstein’s Monster he’s more universally recognized as.  Even that doesn’t stop him from one last “DO NOT WANT” crying act, though.

Episodes 4-6

Lest you think it’s only the abominable “prequel trilogy” that sets up the character as a total spaz and loser, a quick recap of the original three movies shows that he really doesn’t get any better with age.

The opening to A New Hope, one of the most famous scenes in cinematic history, witnesses Vader’s forces immediately losing the plans to the Death Star to a latently homosexual droid (which he built but apparently never remembers) and his more butch fireplug counterpart.  Yes, for the second time, Vader is totally pWn3d by a gay dude (not that there’s anything wrong with it).

With no alternatives, Vader relentlessly tortures Princess Leia (his daughter, again unbeknownst to this imbicile) and is complicit in blowing up a fucking planet…but nothing comes of it.

Finally, the rebel forces are outed as hiding on the fourth moon of the Planet Yavin, and rather than taking care of shit the right way (see below), Vader and crew wind up losing the battle to a bunch of amateurs, their battle station the size of a moon blown to smithereens, and Vader helplessly caroms off into space after one mediocre laser blast from a giant “hunk of junk” cargo ship.

In The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader definitely scores some major redemption points, but when starting at a base of negative 10 million there’s really nowhere to go but up.  Still, Vader manages to lose the Millennium Falcon not once, not twice, but three times before a bounty hunter he had the foresight to hire locates it for him.  Then he reveals his parentage to his long-long son Luke, after cutting his arm off mind you, and the dude chooses death by plunging into the Cloud City abyss rather than joining up with dad.  That’s some cold shit right there.  Oh, and then Vader goes ahead and loses the Falcon for the fourth time to end the movie.  Great job, asshole.

Finally, all is revealed in Return of the Jedi.  Turns out, Vader has just been the Emperor’s bitch all along, and his lone highlight is successfully capturing Luke Skywalker…who had surrendered unconditionally to save his friends and get the Sith Lord off the moon of Endor.  Back on Death Star II, Luke winds up kicking Vader’s ass only to spare him on the brink of death by rejecting his feelings of anger and hate (you know, what Anakin didn’t do years before).

Palpatine is left with no choice but to kill Skywalker, but the now one-armed Vader intervenes and “turns back” to the light, saving his son and ending the Galactic Civil War by dropping the Emperor down a power shaft.  Then he dies anyway, revealing his Humpty Dumpty-like eggface to a horrified audience of millions, a saved man worthy of the whole “Force Ghost” thing in the closing celebration.

And I’m sorry, I know he helped his son out and all, but WHY THE HELL IS THIS MAN ALLOWED BACK INTO THE PEARLY GATES OF JEDI REDEMPTION?  Let’s go back and count the numbers of people the dude relentlessly slaughtered, shall we?

• The Tuskan Raiders (“and the women! and the children! They’re like animals and I slaughered them like animals!”);
• Count Dooku (in unmerciful fashion at the conclusion of their second duel in Sith);
• The Jedi children in the temple;
• The entire planet of Alderon;
• Several admirals and other commanders in the Imperial Fleet, over mistakes far less heinous than his own; and
• Probably many more in the twenty years that elapse between Sith and Hope.

Dude should not be getting a party in his honor, he should be on the receiving end of one of the deepest and pointiest pitchforks in the annals of Jedi Hell.

Really, though, this is all a failure of George Lucas, or more specifically his failure to understand even the basics of plot, film direction, and character development.  Lucas, though, is laughing all the way to the bank, so instead we must use this exercise to point blame at the source.

Fuck you, Darth Vader, not even the greatest voice actor of his generation can save the fact that you are an asshole and a colossal fuckup to boot.  Please turn your villain card in at the nearest movie theater, pronto.  Even the giant floating head in Zardoz is more worthy of recognition than your candy ass.

Wow, I completely missed this until alerted to it by Paul’s comment in the post below.  Did President Barack Hussein Obama really have the audacity to refer to limited-government, fiscally responsibly activists as “tea baggers” — a very real and grotesque sexual slur — and only a short while later lament the lack of civil discourse in American politics?

In Jonathan Alter’s “The Promise: President Obama, Year One,” President Obama is quoted in an November 30, 2009, interview saying that the unanimous vote of House Republicans vote against the stimulus bills “set the tenor for the whole year … That helped to create the tea-baggers and empowered that whole wing of the Republican Party to where it now controls the agenda for the Republicans.”

Tea Party activists loath the term “tea baggers,” which has emerged in liberal media outlets and elsewhere as a method of mocking the activists and their concerns.

On Saturday, the president delivered a commencement address at the University of Michigan where he said one way “to keep our democracy healthy is to maintain a basic level of civility in our public debate … But we can’t expect to solve our problems if all we do is tear each other down.”

Tell you what, Mr. President, when your party loses Congress this November — and when you lose reelection in the largest landslide in American history — do I have permission to personally teabag you like some Halo n00b?

Sadly, I can’t tell any longer if he’s just “acting stupidly” or genuinely this hypocritical and disingenuous.  Thanks, 52%!

In case you had forgotten, and you very well could have in this magical Era of Unicorns and Rainbows and “Hope and Change,” but the United States — no scratch that, the very Western society in which we live based upon reason, liberty, and the rule of law — continues to face the very definition of an existential threat from forces that would see us all enslaved and destroyed.

In this case, I’m not even talking about the political policies of President Barack Hussein Obama and his oligopolistic/fascistic brethren in Congress, the news media, popular culture, unions, and more.  Instead, I speak of radical Islamic fanatics looking to convert, maim or kill us all merely for being who we are.

Contrary to what the soft, “why do they hate us?” thinkers of the day would have you believe, we are not at war with these terrorists merely because of a failure to communicate properly with them, or because our side has some longstanding oppressive grudge against them.  No, jihad is woven into the very fabric of their culture, and for the true believer, peace can only come through utter subjugation or annihilation.

We should consider ourselves fortunate that the attempted Times Square bombing this past weekend, much like the airline incident over Detroit late last year, fizzled merely due to perpetrator incompetence, and perhaps offer a quiet, solemn thanks to George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and crew for forging a strategy that essentially wiped out many of the terrorist training and base camps in Iraq and Afghanistan, the sources of so much of the knowledge and planning that led to the attacks on the World Trade Center and elsewhere.

Sadly, we cannot say the same for the current regime that occupies the White House and halls of government, even on down to City Hall.  With these brainiacs running the system, it’s truly a miracle that I’m still alive today to even type this missive.

• Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano: “You know, at this point I have no information that it’s anything other than a one-off.”
• Senator Charles “Chuckles” Schumer: “The odds are quite high that this was a lone wolf.”
• Mayor-for-Life Michael Bloomberg: “If I had to guess 25 cents, this would be exactly that. Homegrown, or maybe a mentally deranged person, or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.”

Of course, these words pale in comparison to those of MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer, who actually managed to lament on record her sorrow that the bomber was named Faisal Shahzad, and not some dirty little Tea Bagger or the like, because it’s only going to “brew” (pardon the pun) so much more of that oh-so-awful racism that we all suffer from.  For that, Ms. Brewer deserves not only a spot on the unemployment line, but perhaps also a one-way ticket to Riyad, where she can spend the remainder of her days trapped underneath hot, restrictive clothing and subject to unbearable and reprehensible misogyny, over fears that she could potentially cause an earthquake with the power of her boobies.

Be afraid, folks, be very afraid.  The individuals you have empowered simply don’t care about you merely care about lining their cronies’ pockets with your taxpayer dollars, and are in direct violation of their solemn oath to preserve, protect, and defend you, while their enablers in the media and elsewhere alternate between cheering them on or looking the other way.  Death — for us — is not far behind.

Every so often, we the people are reminded of our civic responsibilities in this great society of ours and are called to serve a greater duty, a symbol of our individual, inalienable liberty.

I speak, of course, of being called to jury duty.

Nothing says democracy like spending a day or two sitting in a cramped, stuffy waiting room amidst the huddled masses of the great melting pot while fellow travelers get called at random to appear in an equally stuffy, wooden courtroom where two attorneys can question and determine your worthiness to sit in judgment of your fellow citizen.

All joshing aside, I was actually looking forward to this opportunity, which comes but once every six years for the residents of New York State, and hoped that I would, this time, at least get voir dire‘d, if not chosen for a panel outright.  Unfortunately, my fellow court-mates were not so enthusiastic, and I had seven hours to listen to some of the greatest/flimsiest/most blatantly transparent excuses ever.

Take the good doctor, who — this being a civil case involving personal injury and potential physician testimony — stated that any MD who would dare testify on the stand simply must be “on the take,” and therefore she could not be trusted to take said doctor at his or her word.  Well then, not much you can say in response to that.  Suffice to say she did not get selected.

Then there was the lady, who may or may not have been perfectly lovely, who was wrapped from head to toe in her burqa and proclaimed that she did not believe in or follow the United States system of justice, but instead deferred exclusively to sharia law.  Again, most interesting and hard to really debate.  One cannot help but wonder why, if she feels so strongly about such things, she chooses to live here on this continent instead of in one of those many fine Islamic republics that dot the Eastern Hemisphere.  Then again, unintentionally, the lady proved highly representative of the ultimate triumph of American liberty: we are so free that we don’t even force our citizens to respect our own laws and traditions.  Wait, maybe that’s a bad thing.   Could be subject to interpretation.

Regardless, it was not to be for me this time, and after a day of service I was released without questioning back into the productive workforce with a certificate of accomplishment and a sense that, perhaps, I had experienced a sense of America at her most transparent: noble, free, and populated by the most average of populations.

Update: The title for this post should be “Let’s Play Two!!” but only the first word is appearing in my browser.  Eh, stupid WordPress.  So, my apologies if it looks like a moron titled this post or left you hanging.

Today marks the renewal and rebirth of Spring as no other day can: it’s the traditional Opening Day for Major League Baseball.

I’m not going to lie, this marks a strange and complicated year for me as a fan.  Perhaps the combination of the Mets’ repeated disastrous ends to the last few seasons, capped off with the destruction of Shea Stadium where I spent so many days as a youth, and yet another unfortunate Yankees championship in 2009, left me a bit jaded and unenthusiastic for the 2010 season.  But after one two-run homerun by David Wright in the first inning I’m feeling a bit better.

Doesn’t mean I expect the New York Mets to end up in the playoffs in October, though.

Oh, and let me take this opportunity to, once again, give a hearty fuck you to the folks running Major League Baseball.  I sit in an office building in Manhattan with spotty radio reception, at best, and no cable television access (at least, I don’t want to go into the Boardroom and obviously turn on the big screen projector when nobody else is in there).  Guess what?

As a result, there is absolutely NO way for me to listen to this afternoon’s game.  WFAN, both on its deplorably designed Web site and via iTunes, changed its Internet stream to reruns at gametime.  Neither is it available on the Mets or MLB Web sites…unless I want to pay for it.  No thanks, I’ll only be in this situation once this year.

Content paywalls don’t work unless the product is at an absolute premium.  All you have done is punish me as a fan and left me disgruntled.  The game is broadcast via satellite to the world…free your Internet to do the same!

As to my annual fantasy team, the draft completed successfully on Saturday afternoon and I’m relatively satisfied with the outcome.  Here’s my roster, for the record.  My main points of concern would have to be a lack of a top-notch stud pitcher and that I’m heavily dependent on the fates of seemingly few teams (Arizona, the Mets, San Francisco).