Our concern earlier in the week that the PTSD-caused murders by returning Iraq Vets were exacerbated by Amphetamine ran smack into the Baseball hearings yesterday, where it was revealed that in the last 2 years that 103 major leaguers have suddenly discovered they have Attention Deficit Disorder and need to take amphetamine in order to concentrate on the diamond. The mind boogles at the sight of some $2 million a year center fielder staring aimlessly at the Goodyear blimp above while the ball sails over his head. “Coach I need that Adderal to concentrate on the game.”
Quite frankly, America is running on “Speed” of one kind or another. College students regularly show up on campus with Ritalin prescriptions and the classic “all-nighter” to finish that paper is no longer fueled by lots of coffee or Red Bull. We regularly hear of those “masters of the universe” on the big Wall Street trading desks ducking out to the john every hour for a quick hit of blow to keep their courage up in the face of market uncertainty. Doug Glanville, a former Texas Ranger outfielder writes this morning about the baseball stimulants problem, but he could have been talking about a greater social phenomena of this particular moment in America.
We’re scared of failure, aging, vulnerability, leaving too soon, being passed up — and in the quest to conquer these fears, we are inspired by those who do whatever it takes to rise above and beat these odds. We call it “drive” or “ambition,” but when doing “whatever it takes” leads us down the wrong road, it can erode our humanity. The game ends up playing us.
This could get interesting-Dennis Kucinich has demanded a recount of the New Hampshire Primary “Mr. Kucinich’s letter cited “unexplained disparities between hand-counted ballots and machine-counted ballots.” Salon’s reporter is skeptical, but thinks the recount should go on. Needless to say, Obama would have the most to gain as the hand count precincts (and the exit polls) had Obama ahead. Only the Diebold Computer counted precincts went in Hillary’s favor. I doubt this is the incident of Diebold’s notorious vulnerability to hacking that many investigators have been looking for, but its critical the hand count go on.
—-
The Packers this afternoon were like the Pack of Lombardi’s era: Pure execution. Run to Daylight.
One question, can some football historian tell me which NFL star was the first to introduce the “Rasta” haircut? Bob Marley would surely be smiling.
—-
What’s up with Country Music? On my way home from the pool this morning, I was flipping through the radio channels and came to what I thought was the country music station, but for the next ten minutes I listened to music that would not have been out of place on any “easy listening station”. Everybody sounded like old Eagles records or sappy piano based ballads. Of course I’m old school and the best moment for me in Country Music was when my friend T Bone Burnett won the Grammy for Oh Brother, Where Art Thou
. This huge success (15 million CD’s sold, I think) spawned a genre more to my taste called Alt. Country. But the old Country radio stations would never really play it. It would have been one thing if they had played the old classics like George Jones and Tammy Wynette, but this mellow country stuff is dreck.
BTW-T Bone’s new Record with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss-Raising Sand is amazing. Is it country? Who cares? Its beautiful.
Categories: Entertainment, Journalism, Music, Politics, Sports Tags: Country Music, Diehbold, Football, Green Bay Packers, New Hampshire, Oh Brother where art thou, Voting Machines
Yesterday four madmen rode the largest waves of their “Big Wave”career’s. Grant Baker, one of the surfer’s summed it up:
When asked to gauge the size of the biggest waves, Baker pointed to a poster of Parsons that promoted the 2002 surf movie “Billabong Odyssey.” The photo was of a stunning Cortes Bank ride that XXL judges deemed greater than 60 feet high.
“That doesn’t even come close to what we were seeing,” Baker said.
Long added: “It just all came together. Definitely the best surf session of my life.”
At halftime, the fact that the Patriots-Giants game turned out to be so good is just gravy to the NFL Network in their two year battle with Comcast and Time Warner Cable. The telecast on both NBC and CBS is a three hour infomercial for the fledgling network to make its pitch to cable subs directly, much like the famous “I Want My MTV” campaign. Brian Roberts of Comcast cannot be happy that Congressional pressure led to the unprecedented roadblock of the game on two national broadcast networks.