Aug 29 2008
Regular readers of my column -- and I am indebted to all half dozen of you -- will know that I play cricket during the summer in my role as a chronic eccentric. In fact, I am one of the founding members of the Pittsburgh Cricket Association.
This weekend, and this may sound like a joke but isn't, the Toronto Police Association is sending a team to play Pittsburgh. Games will be played Saturday (Aug. 30) and Sunday (Aug. 31) at Linbrook Park in Franklin Park.
Saturday's game starts at 1 p.m. and will go through to 4 or 5 p.m., although the opening festivities are scheduled to start at noon. The mayor of Franklin Park is said to be bowling (pitching) the first ball of the game, which I will be playing in.
The game on Sunday will be longer and will start at 9 a,.m. and go through to 4 p,m. or so. I am not in Sunday's team but will attend for at least part of the day. Both games will be fund-raisers for the Franklin Borough Police Department, to help them in their important duty of keeping the borough safe for cricket and other aspects of higher civilization. In short, you will be asked to make a voluntary donation.
If you would like to bring a picnic and acquaint yourself with baseball's ancient ancestor, I would be happy to explain the game to you personally provided I am not batting or fielding at the time. Please feel free to introduce yourself.
It's a rare opportunity: Where else can you watch Canadian cricketing police officers on a weekend in Pittsburgh?
One caution: If it is raining, stay home. Rain stops cricket matches. A sticky wicket is not a pretty thing.
The address of Linbrook Park is 2631 Big Sewickley Creek Road, Sewickley, Pa. 15143-8642. Here are the directions:
From the I-79 Warrendale Exit:
Red Belt West. Follow all the way to Big Sewickley Creek Rd (approximately 4.5 miles).
Turn left onto Big Sewickley Creek Rd.
Linbrook Park will be on the right, about 1/4 mile down. Once in the park, follow the road over the bridge and into the woods. You will soon come to the field on your right.
From the I-79 Wexford Exit:
Rt. 910 West. Follow past Stone Mansion Restaurant (on right) and Sts. John & Paul Church (on left) and all the way down the hill to the Stop sign (Dragun's on left)
Continue straight (or as straight as possible) onto Rochester Rd.
Follow for approx 1/2 mile. Bear to the right onto Big Sewickley Creek Rd (going toward Ambridge)
Linbrook Park will be on the left, about 3/4 mile down. Once in the park, follow the road over the bridge and into the woods. You will soon come to the field on your right.
Aug 29 2008
Oh no! Not someone else that pronounces nuclear as nucular as Dear Leader George W. Bush does. Do our ears deceive us? No, that pronunciation did seem to come from the lips of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as she introduced herself to the nation at large today after being chosen by John McCain as his running mate.
So much for the experience argument raised by Republicans against Barack Obama. Mrs. Palin has more experience hunting moose than handling foreign affairs.
Admittedly, she would only be vice president, an office that hopefully will recede into its former obscurity once Dick Cheney retires as co-president. But we all should wish the 72-year-old Mr. McCain good health if he becomes president - talk about having a running mate unready to serve. Beyond being an interesting and attractive character, Mrs. Palin will have to put a rock on her resume to prevent it floating away.
Ah, but it was a cheeky move by Mr. McCain and I like a bit of excitement and daring as much as the next person. In some ways, I think her selection was a masterstroke of political guile.
You want a woman candidate, bitter Hillary supporters? We have one just for you. In fact, Mrs. Palin's pitch to them was plain: She even had the chutzpah to mention Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary in her speech.
The hard-core feminists won't buy this but plenty of Hillary supporters among the white working class, where pro-life Democrats abound, will lap up her personal history, all that hunting and fishing and beauty pageant stuff. Joe Biden, potentially irritating at the best of times, will also find her hard to debate without seeming patronizing. Any tough-guy bombast will go over like a lead balloon.
If this election is fought on ideas, I think the Democrats win. If it is fought on the usual obsessions - gun rights, abortion - the Republicans win. In short, I think Barack Obama and the Democrats should be worried because the obsession camp just got a nice new recruit.
My one hope is that Mrs. Palin will turn out to be a female Dan Quayle. The more she spoke today the more I got the impression of someone who drinks the Kool-Aid with her caribou steaks. That may not play well to a larger audience.
It's an irony worth noting that this most conservative of women would not have been standing at that podium but for the pioneering work of liberal women. Now she will bite the hands that fed her. I didn't think that this hugely interesting race could get any more interesting but it just did.
Aug 29 2008
Before the impatient national eye turns from Denver to John McCain's VP pick, a quick wrap-up of the Democratic National Convention.
Wildly adoring crowds always make me nervous, but Barack Obama was in great form in accepting his party presidential nomination. If people don't know who he is now, they are living in a cave. He added substance to his poetry and, not to tempt the gods with hubris, looked presidential in the process.
Aug 28 2008
On the third night in Denver, Bill Clinton endorsed Barack Obama - perhaps to spite Maureen Dowd's image of him as vengeful and bitter over Hillary's defeat. He said all the right things and said them forcefully without ambiguity.
The old rascal showed once more why he was such a successful politician. The crowd loved him and he played them like a sweet violin in a bluegrass concert.
Of course, sincere insincerity is the coin of the realm in politics and with the Clintons in particular it is hard to know what they are up to. So why this great show of support for Obama when they spent months dragging him down? Well, they are nothing if not smart and they can figure out that if Obama goes down without their support, they just might get the blame, which would kill Hillary's chances four years hence.
So it was all smiles - the smiles of still hungry tigers.
Pity John Kerry, who spoke after Bill. Talk about a hard act to follow. He was greeted by the audience with all the enthusiasm of someone announcing that the bar was closing. To his credit, Kerry got them going in the end with some uncharacteristic liveliness.
Joe Biden was a lively one too. Although he sometimes stumbled, his fighting words were necessary and fitting. But there is something about Joe Biden - perhaps the monumental ego barely constrained by his clothes - that I can't warm too. He made a good rabble-rousing speech last night, but I am not a rabble and I was not roused.
Aug 27 2008
The second night of the Democratic National Convention was much more interesting than the first. The speakers got feisty, which the Democrats need to do to win. There was also Hillary Clinton's amazing speech.
I am no fan of Hillary's. The last speech I heard her make was at the end of the primary season when the reality of defeat was at last dawning. It was quite revolting - a wholly self-centered, ungracious, unrealistic, pointless and destructive piece of oratory unmatched in recent political annals.
On Tuesday night, she was magnificent. She articulated the Democratic message better than any other speaker to that point. She did all that she could possibly do to bring her supporters around. As she is personally responsible for feeding the sense of grievance that incited many thousands of them to personally hate Obama, she had a lot to do to make that up but she did rise to the occasion, matching the right words with a perfect delivery. So hurrah for her.
We shall see whether it works - and my guess is not completely and maybe not enough. Clinging to their resentments like a toy, some of them will cut off their noses to spite Obama's face. The feminists among them are going to love the McCain administration, which will appoint more judges of the conservative activist variety so that every woman has a chance to be Lilly Ledbetter.
As it happened, Lilly Ledbetter spoke earlier in the evening to remind everyone of the stakes in this election, that is, everyone not too busy hating Obama to care. Lilly Ledbetter was the worker in a tire and rubber factory who was paid less than male colleagues for years.
After she was tipped off, she sued and won at first, only to be eventually rebuffed by the Supreme Court, thanks to the legal gymnastics of its conservatives. They held that she had to complain within 180 days of the first act of discrimination, an impossibility given that she didn't know about it at the time.
So, ladies for Clinton, vote for McCain in spite by all means. Be sure, however, to learn the art of mind-reading at work.
Lilly Ledbetter is no polished, professional speaker but her tale had is own force.
In his own way, Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania also did well at the podium that was once denied to his father because of his anti-abortion views.
Sen. Casey is a very nice and decent guy but he isn't the most animated person in the world. There are fiery speakers and there is Bob Casey, Mr. Mild. But on this night, he made a real effort to get his arms moving as he ripped into John McCain and he succeeded in waking up the crowd, even those perhaps who expected the Casey spot to be nap time.
I learned last night that PBS is the channel for serious students of politics. Too often the other networks wouldn't show what was going on, unless it was someone like Hillary. They preferred to have their talking heads chatter away as a speaker behind them provided the background noise. It struck me as the height of arrogance - commentators forgetting who was the story.
Tonight, Bill Clinton. He could turn over the whole apple cart.
Aug 26 2008
In his farewell address of 1796, President George Washington warned of the potential evils of political parties ....
"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
"Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it."
We are now in the midst of the periodic repudiation of George Washington's wisdom. Whether the Democratic National Convention leads to despotism, even of that incomplete and incompetent sort pioneered by George W, Bush, I do not know, but the first night in Denver did impose on me the tyranny of tedium.
Political conventions strike me as weird. Weirder still are the people captured in the audience by the camera with looks of vacant hero worship reminiscent of some crackpot sect. No way would I sit at a political convention waving someone's name on a stick while making delighted noises, and I console myself that George Washington wouldn't have done it either. There are not enough hospitality suites at a convention to make me act like that in public.
While I sympathize with Sen. Ted Kennedy's brave battle against brain cancer, I was not moved to weeping as some in attendance apparently were. He raises in me mixed emotions. I think he should have had the good grace to retire completely after the tragedy that his actions triggered at Chappaquiddick almost 40 years ago.
On the other hand, he has done more good for American society since than most people achieve in their lifetimes - certainly more than most of his critics, which would include me.
But, even if I had felt emotional, I still would have been struck by one great burst of fatuousness. He said at one point:
"We are told that Barack Obama believes too much in an America of high principle and bold endeavor, but when John Kennedy called of going to the moon, he didn't say it's too far to get there. We shouldn't even try."
Who told us this? Apparently the mysterious "they" who are always saying ridiculous things to put us off. However, I have never heard anybody say that Barack Obama "believes too much in an America of high principle and bold endeavor." They have said many things about Obama and this has never occurred to them as far as I know.
As for Michele's speech, I thought it was nice but not great. To me, it was obvious as a matter of political necessity that at some point she would have to counter the claim that she is unpatriotic by saying she loved America - and so she did. And so she doubtless does. And so do we all. Ho hum and pass the flag.
Still, the Obama kids are cute, but, as I've always said, it's easy to be cute if you are a kid - the trick is to do it after age 60.
While all this was going on, Joe Biden was sitting there like the cat who swallowed the canary and was just dying to tell us about it at great length.
I always thought that Biden was insufferable in the various Supreme Court nomination hearings but I do think his choice as the VP candidate makes some sense in giving the ticket some foreign policy experience.
Moreover, there is a certain pleasing irony in Obama, who supports new sources of energy, teaming himself with a great font of hot air and natural gas to energize his campaign.
Aug 25 2008
In a column last year about smoking, I gave my definitions of liberals and conservatives. I wrote as follows:
A liberal: A person who believes that consenting adults may have any sort of sex they like but shouldn't be allowed a cigarette afterwards.
A conservative: A person who has his underwear perpetually in a bunch but blames the laundry for the situation.
My definition of a liberal is true enough, alas, but now I would add an alternative definition for a conservative: A person whose personal prejudices are arranged into a political theory to justify their innate selfishness.
My greater point is that plenty of conservatives are not conservative and plenty of liberals are not liberal. If these definitions are not already elastic enough, it's nothing compared with the terms "left" and "right." No wonder these terms are confused. Their origin can be traced back to where the deputies sat in the French National Assembly of 1789.
I am proud to describe myself as a liberal, heir to an honorable tradition, but I don't believe I am a leftist. And as a liberal centrist who shares something in common with conservative moderates, I was put off by the lead story in today's Post-Gazette" "Liberals a Sideshow in Denver: But Move to Center Is Clear."
No, there are liberals at the center, too, and it plays to the talk radio stereotype of liberals to suggest otherwise.
Aug 22 2008
My hat is off to that distinguished group of college presidents who wish to start a national debate about possibly lowering the drinking age from 21.
While I am delighted to see a ridiculously counter-productive social policy attacked on grounds of common sense, I think these academics might have more hope of getting concrete blimps off the ground.
Very few countries in the world assume like the United States that their adult children are such babies. But there is strong support for this proposition in various quarters, especially in the lawmaking community, which breaks into a cold sweat at the very mention of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
You got to hand it to MADD, though. They are the spiritual descendants of those lantern-jawed temperance ladies who gave us Prohibition. (Witness their opposition to privatizing state stores in Pennsylvania, when there is no evidence that the existence of state stores makes us any better off in regards to alcohol abuse compared with most other states).
Years after Prohibition crashed and burned, this new generation of alcohol's enemies were able to reinvent themselves and come back with a vengeance with a genuine call on public sympathy and a narrower focus on the young.
To be fair, they have done some good, because drunken driving laws were absurdly lax when they first started out.
That the drinking age is 21 is a perfect example of the folly of legislating on the basis of religious beliefs. Yes, thou shall not kill is a commandment along with thou shalt not steal, but you don't have to be religious to see the wisdom of those edicts. Drinking liquor is different. Not withstanding the turning of water into wine, some denominations think alcohol is the work of the devil. That has hugely influenced attitudes toward young adults drinking.
Nothing is going to change. Many kids will go on drinking to excess while learning the highly subversive lesson that it is fun to disrespect the law - a law that, being so removed from reality, is almost begging to be disobeyed. In our folly, we have made drinking the final proof of real adulthood - so of course kids are going to drink in college and elsewhere.
If I were dictator, I would reduce the drinking age and raise the driving age. I would certainly crack down on drunken driving if the drinking age were lowered.
I have previously written about this in a column.
After writing that column, I got an email from a reader recounting a sad story involving his college-age son who was not yet 21. The kid had gone to a college party and had some beers - which is what kids regularly do - and then decided to walk home rather than drive.
Although I got the impression he was not visibly staggering, cops like to hassle kids because many think it is in their job description and he was stopped and subsequently arrested after admitting to the beers. He would probably have been alright had he driven instead. He was caught out for ultimately making the right choice, for being responsible at the last. That conviction will likely come back to haunt him later in life.
What a fine lesson to teach. What a crazy social policy.
Aug 20 2008
I am not one to get too excited about meeting famous people but on my recent vacation I met someone from my boyhood whom I was genuinely excited to meet: Roy Emerson.
Back in the '60s, when the great tennis tournaments were restricted to amateurs, he was the No. 1 player in the world. He ended up winning 12 Grand Slam singles titles and 16 Grand Slam men's doubles titles (according to Wkipedia). That was the era when Australia dominated tennis with players like Rod Laver, Neale Fraser and Roy Emerson, aka "Emo."
I am a tennis player myself, unfortunately, a poor one, but that was not the only fascination. Emerson also attended the same high school as I did, the Brisbane Grammar School, a venerable all-boys private school, although he had left years before I got there .
I happened to meet him in a brief visit to Martha's Vineyard, where we attended a cocktail party hosted by The Boathouse in Edgartown. The Boathouse has built a new and fancy tennis and fitness club outside Edgartown and Emerson, who is a fit 71, was on the island to play an exhibition match (full disclosure: My nephew has been working this summer as an assistant tennis pro at the new club).
In 1964, after Emerson had won his first Wimbledon singles title, he came back to address the boys of Brisbane Grammar. I remember the occasion very well and I started by telling him, only 40 years or so too late, how much I had enjoyed his inspirational comments.
To my dismay, he couldn't remember a thing about it, although he was obviously a sharp bloke. I guess he had made tons of speeches over the years and that one had long ago slipped into the black hole of memory. After that embarrassing setback, we had a very nice chat.
At the end of the evening, I bid him goodbye and expressed my pleasure in at least meeting someone from the old school, a rare occurrence in these parts.
"Ah," he said, "if you stayed longer, we could have chanted the school fight song." And he proceeded to repeat the opening stanza: Wong, wong, tarry ya,
The Brisbane Grammar School fight song is justly famous for being totally inane, with insane lyrics thought up by a mad person to embarrass generations of boys. So at his prompting, I could only repeat the next line: Light dark. ya ya.
Some things you never forget.
Aug 19 2008
I love the Olympics but this year I feel cheated. The Olympics provide a smorgasbord of events but what fare are we served up by Bob Costas and his NBC crew every night in prime time?
A restricted diet indeed. It consists of gymnastics (not my favorite but what they do is pretty amazing,) swimming and now track and field events (no problem with any of that), diving (which is a sort of wet gymnastics) and women's beach volleyball, always women's beach volleyball, the cheesiest event in the games. Sometimes they will show the men too, but you get the feeling that is only to cover their flank from allegations of sexism.
But the whole sport is about sex. NBC is obsessed with women's beach volleyball and those leaping gals in their bikinis. I have the strong sense that if the players were wearing T-shirts and shorts like the men, they would disappear off the screen.
Meanwhile, traditional games of volleyball - as played in high schools and colleges - are also being played at the Olympics but many hours are not devoted to showing that. From this, NBC's attitude can be fairly deduced: To heck with them! They are not wearing bikinis!
Many other sports are slighted too. I have yet to see one boxing match in prime time. What of the rowing? Field hockey? Soccer? Softball? Cycling? Hardly a mention amid the leaping bikinis. To get NBC's attention, the traditional athletes need to shed some clothing and play rock 'n' roll.
I have one other beef - this one also perpetrated by newspapers, including the Post-Gazette. We are told we are No. 1 in the medals tally. Hurrah for us!
No, we aren't. The truth is that we are trailing the Chinese in achievement. Consider the medals table in this morning's PG. The United States leads with 72 medals total, followed by China with 67 and Russia with 36.
But that makes sense only if all the medals are equal in value. They aren't. They come in three categories, gold, silver and bronze, each one different from the next and worth more in honor and prestige. (If this were not so, the gold medal winner would stand level on the podium, not be placed above the rest).
When I worked on The Times of London in the sports section many years ago, they had a more sensible system: Gold medals were given the value of three points, silver medals were given two and bronze one - which reflects reality (a gold is at least three times the honor of a bronze and twice that of a silver).
Let's recalculate that table.
The United States had 22 gold medals (66 points), 24 silvers (48 points) and 26 bronzes (26 points) for a total of 140 points. Pretty good.
China had 39 gold medals (117 points), 14 silvers (28 points) and 14 bronzes (14 points) for a total of 159 points. China leads in a more realistic accounting.
But at least we all know that our leaping bikinis are doing better than their leaping bikinis - and that's the main thing.
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