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Hardball October 8, 2008 in Uncategorized | 10 comments Linus is playing in a fall baseball league. It’s for kids age 10 to 12, but Linus and a few other nine year-olds were invited to play up based on their ability. It’s the first live pitching Linus has faced other than me. We didn’t really know what to expect. I did tell him that many times kids that age have a hard time finding the strike zone. It makes for long games, and it’s also tough on the kids. Kids want to hit the baseball, not draw walks. But at the same time, you don’t want them swinging at pitches that are so far out of the strike zone they simply can’t hit them. The first game was interesting. There are two or three nine year-olds on Linus’s team. There are a couple kids on the team who just started seventh grade; big difference between a fourth-grader and a seventh-grader. One kid, the coach’s son, is probably taller than I am. I caught a couple of the young kids just staring up at him, mouth agape. They were definitely intimidated. Then the game started; the coach’s kid is the first pitcher Linus’s team uses. Basically, this is one of those kids you see throwing in the little league world series; he’s certainly going to be pitching in high school, perhaps even as a freshman. No question he throws harder than I do, he pounds the strike zone (mostly) and for good measure throws a nasty 12-to-6 curveball that just made me and a couple other parents laugh. I think one kid made contact, a foul ball. Most didn’t even bother to swing. I was stunned; Linus later said he was very, very glad that kid is on his team. The other pitchers in the league range from decent to first-timers. In three games, Linus has two strikeouts, has been hit by pitches twice, and has seven walks. Great on-base percentage! His last game ended when he was hit in the mouth by a pitch. Fortunately the kid didn’t throw very hard, but when you take one in the chops it doesn’t have to be a hard pitch. Linus was fine, getting ready to take his base, when suddenly blood started running down his cheek. I ran out to check on him to see what happened; I thought he was bleeding from the mouth and was obviously concerned. When he saw the blood (and tasted the blood), he also got concerned. He didn’t cry, but he was shaken up; all the adults recoiling and gasping and screaming for a first aid kit probably contributed to his concern. And then I saw that he wasn’t bleeding from his mouth; he was bleeding (profusely) from a hole in his cheek. The ball had smashed his cheek into his teeth, and his awkward combination of baby and adult teeth means a couple teeth point out more than down. One of those teeth pushed right through his cheek, creating the hole. It was a bizarre injury, to say the least. We cleaned him up and took him into an urgent care facility. I could tell he was afraid of needing stitches, and truthfully I was too. But the hole was small enough they were able to superglue it shut, and so far, so good. He’s only able to eat soft foods right now because the inside of his mouth is still pretty raw, but mouths heal fast. His face is all kinds of swollen right now…just in time for school pictures yesterday. (He’ll get the retakes.) He has another game on Sunday, and he told me he’s playing. truth about enzyte He doesn’t want that to be his last pitch before winter, and of course, he wants to get a hit. That’s my boy. October 1, 2008 in Uncategorized | 3 comments Well, maybe just a little depression. But talk to people who lived through the real Depression, and in addition to stories (and more stories) about hardship, you’ll also hear how much closer families became during those tough times. I know I’ve often pined for less time for my family playing the Wii, and more time eating dirt and skinning rats for their pelts so we can have fur-lined underwear. All I’m saying is an economic downturn doesn’t have to be all bad. For one thing, when tough economic times hit the U.K. in the 1970s the miracle of punk rock occurred. Pissed off, down and out people make great music. And better yet, they do it with drums and guitars. I’m hopeful that an economic downturn will mean fewer hi-tech doodads like keyboards and beat machines, so all this electro/ambient/house music will mostly go away. That’s for people who want to simulate depression; no need if we have the real thing. Another good thing about some serious hardship for today’s generations would be that we could finally stop hearing about The Greatest Generation. We probably could have stopped talking about them in 20 years anyway because, well…you know. But now we can stick it in their face while they are still around. Sure, they went through economic hardships, but it’s not like they ever had that much before the depression in the first place. Some people had to sell their bowler hats and their flapper dresses and their phonographs. Big deal. Try not being able to pay for your Blackberry service, or not be able to upgrade to an iPod touch. That’s your new Dorothea Lange photo right there, our disgusting, filthy kids pretending to talk to each other on cell phones that don’t work. On second thought, my kids already do that. October 1, 2008 in Uncategorized | 4 comments Sarah Palin doesn’t agree with Roe v. Wade…but she definitely believes there is a right to privacy in the Constitution. That’s kind of like saying you love television, but hate TV. She doesn’t get that privacy is the crux of the pro-life argument against Roe v. Wade…and that’s one of her core beliefs. Politics is a confidence game, like so many human endeavors. But Sarah Palin’s confidence is shot. Of course she was better as governor–she was confident then. Of course she gave a kick-ass convention speech–not only because someone else wrote it and it appeared on a teleprompter, but because she was confident. More confident than she had ever been in her life, most likely. Hell, she was the friggin’ savior of the ticket and all she had to do was show up, pass out her biography and read her speech, and the election had turned. That’s some confidence, right there. But since then? All she’s learned is how much she doesn’t know. You’ve seen the Couric videos. They don’t lie. She’s had the McCain people in her ear 24/7 from the first day she gave an interview. “Don’t say this about Pakistan. Don’t say this about changing Washington. Don’t contradict McCain. Don’t talk about Roe v. Wade. In fact, the less you say, the better.” She’s getting that message loud and clear, all in the week before she goes before millions on live TV with the Presidency on the line. That’s why she can only speak to make-believe media now, because she is truly a make-believe candidate. And she knows it. (And you better believe the media black-out works both ways; not only can the media not get access to her, but the McCain people have to be insulating her as much as possible from media coverage and commentary. Which is difficult to do considering she reads “all media, everything”.) I know, I know. Many, many reasonable people I know are scared about the “lowered expectations” and the Great Biden Debate Gaffe of 2008. People, trust your eyes and ears. It takes confidence and concentration and mental acuity to perform, even if that performance consists only of reciting canned answers to anticipated questions. It’s not easy, yet a lot of politicians make it look easy. They do this because they have mastery over facts and history, or are confident and experienced enough to fake it when they don’t. She has none of that. She’s right back in college(s), cramming for the biggest test of her life. And yuck! They are oral exams. And double yuck! Live in front of millions of people! The good news is that even though it’s for the Presidency, it’s a pass/fail test, and no matter what, she’ll never, ever have to take it again. Tomorrow night could be like watching someone drown. And even if she treads water…we know it’s only because she’s wearing water wings, not because she can really swim. The damage is already done. She’ll always be the woman in over her head on the Katie Couric videos. Always. Over and over again. The only way that gets erased by anything that happens tomorrow night is if an even worse gaffe comes up. But hey, what are the odds of that? And yeah, I do feel bad for her. She sucks in a lot of ways, but I can think of at least 10 people alone from the last eight years who deserve this more than her. October 1, 2008 in Uncategorized | 1 comment Well, it still looks like a go for Sarah Palin in the debate tomorrow night. I still think there’s a decent (relatively speaking) chance it won’t happen, but time is clearly running short for that prediction to come true. One thing I don’t understand about GOP support for Palin is this notion that it’s somehow honorable or preferable for a VP candidate to be a “regular person”. All I know is, I work with a whole bunch of people whom I admire very much for their skill and wisdom. These people aren’t exactly the CEO, either. They’re middle-managers at a large Fortune 500 company, that’s all. But they know their business, they know how to handle relationships, they have proven track records of overcoming obstacles. That’s why they manage lots of people. Meritocracy, you see. And the people above them? Even more impressive. Do these people who think Palin is qualified, or worse, actually think it’s “neat” that she’s not qualified, not have people around them in daily life that impress them? Can they not see that there are some jobs which require skill and expertise? We’ve all known the kind of people who sneer at people who do jobs the sneerer could never comprehend, let alone hold. And we’ve all been that person at some point, acted out on that “Everybody else is stupid” mentality. It’s the mentality that makes us believe we could call better plays for the Vikings, even though we don’t know the difference between a trap and a dive. It’s the mentality that makes us think we could run the company better than the CEO, even though we’ve never managed a corporate budget of any size or have any comprehension of the challenges a CEO really faces. But usually, when push comes to shove, lucid people step back and realize that we aren’t all the same. There’s a reason some people are in higher pay grades than other people, or have vastly different responsibilities, a very good reason that usually has to do with proven competence and a need for results. But lucidity and empathy are not universal. I draw three conclusions. |