Locally, besides the election that is, the big story is whether Wisconsin will show up for their night home game against Penn State. Coach Joe Pa gave the New York Times a blunt assessment of the Wisconsin Badgers' woes.
"They let Michigan off the hook, and I think they let Ohio State off the hook," Penn State's Hall of Fame coach said.
Penn State fans hope the Lions offense went conservative in last week's unstylish win at Purdue and will open things up again against Wisconsin. Galen Hall and Jay Paterno likely will expand the playbook, particularly with top wideout Jordan Norwood back, but quarterback Daryll Clark must continue to play smart on the road. Wisconsin reserve running back John Clay has provided a lift in each of the team's last two losses. Clay has to touch the ball more for the Badgers to have a chance at an upset.
Well, another wheel may have fallen off the Straight Talk Express last night when Sen. McCain actually found the common (or maybe, not common) decency to defend Sen. Obama during one of his fakey psuedo-town-hall-meetings last night in Minnesota. The GOP Presidential nominee was actually booed when he said, "I have to tell you he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States,"
My question is, where did they find so many angry people in Minnesota, yah dere hey? Aren't they all warm and fuzzy like Garrison Keillor? Another sportswriting colleague Steve Rushin once said that if it was up to Minnesotans, they'd be called the Prettty Darn Good Lakes, as in, "they're not so great, but..."
Nobody here is bitter or angry. As far as I can tell, nobody in Minnesota ever gets riled up about anything. Minnesotans really are, as the expression goes, "Minnesota nice." They are beyond nice. They make Mister Rogers look like ####.
If you drove your car at 85 miles per hour into a Minnesota family's house, their reaction, once they pulled you out of the wreckage and gave you some hot cocoa, would be to apologize for building their house in a location that you would eventually want to drive through.
Which may be why no Minnesotan has ever been elected president.
The hometown Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports, Coleman told reporters that after a day of fasting and prayer for Yom Kippur, a "time of fasting, soul-searching and refocusing on your life," he had decided to change the tone of his campaign.
"We're in a place that I don't think any of us of this generation, this time, have ever seen before," Coleman said. "At times like this, politics should not add to the negativity. It should lift people up with hope and a confident vision for the future."
Almost wryly, Coleman added that he also "decided I was not all that interested in returning to Washington for another six years based on the judgment of the voters that I was not as bad as the other guys. I want voters to vote for me and not against the other folks."
Security is expected to be somewhat tighter than usual for Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Pailn, who Dave Barry once observed combines "the fresh-faced feisty toughness of a small-town Alaska hockey-mom snowmobiling mayor governor who can kill and field-butcher a mature grizzly bear using only a nail file and her teeth."
As reported here previously, the governor of Alaska and the nation's “most popular hockey mom,'' will join the winner of the Flyers' regional search for the “Ultimate Hockey Mom” contest and drop the puck at center ice.
Writing to the board last summer, San Francisco resident Paul J. Miller expressed a view that many others had raised: "Attention should be given to mental health assistance," he wrote, "not paying tens of millions of dollars to contractors who are just trying to milk money from citizens."
On the other hand, the Psychiatric Foundation of Northern California has supported the idea, contending that the effectiveness of barriers has been "dramatic" at such landmarks as the Empire State Building and Eiffel Tower.
The group also cites a study of 515 people who were stopped from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. It concluded that 94% of them were alive or had died naturally long after their thwarted attempts.
In its 14-1 vote Friday, the agency's directors determined that a net would be the least visible of five alternatives.
The others included extending the height of the bridge's railing from four to 12 feet -- an option widely criticized as too obtrusive.
All of the possibilities -- except doing nothing -- would cost $40 million to $50 million.
Still, most of the players on these teams for these photo-ops are Republicans -- call it a Charles Barkley anti-populism. When the Atlanta Braves were summoned to the White House for their photo-op moment with then-President Bill Clinton, relief pitcher Mark Wohlers leaned over to say, "Sir, I think I'm the only one up here who actually voted for you."
If that wasn't funny enough, the Mark Wohlers Obsession page reveals that when the Braves' pitcher met Public Enemy rapper Chuck D, he told his child, "Austyn, dear, don't use any of the words that Chuck D uses. Only Daddycan use those words..."
When stupid hair is outlawed, only outlaws will have stupid hair
Keith Olbermann has already beaten me to creating a Worst Person In The World list, featured nightly on MSNBC's Countdown, but I'd still like to nominate Lincoln Middle School Principal Curtis Davis in Manatee County, Florida for the honors.
12 year old Zachary Sharples, his father and his 4-year-old brother trucked to the barber shop last weekend and all got Mohawks in solidarity with the Tampa Bay Rays winning their first playoff series.
That proved his undoing when he showed up for class at Lincoln Middle School in Palmetto in Manatee County on Monday: He was summarily dumped into an in-school suspension for violating the dress-code.
"I was in the gym, waiting for the bell to ring, and the principal came up to me and said we are not allowed to have mohawks in school," Zachary told the Suncoast News.
The principal brought him to the guidance office, and the counselor confided in Zachary that she too was a Rays fan, but that mohawks violate school policy and Zach had to pay the price.
"I had to go into something called camp," he said. "It was one room, the whole day and I couldn't do anything. I just had to sit there."
There is a happy ending of sorts as young Zach's family is moving and his new school won't have a problem with his rather ugly haircut. Still, what kind of #### bans a haircut? If he thought the mohawk would become a distraction to learning, then what was the suspension and subsequent media storm that followed it?
It was a painful reminder for me of when my former step-daughter was in school. It seemed as if each year brought a new litany of rules and regulations -- each one intended to instill some kind of discipline and respect. These "law and order" types never have a clue that they're just making fools out of themselves and instead teaching the kids that too many grownups have an enormous stick up their collective ####.
Why do so many self-styled idiots make rule after rule and restriction after restriction upon youngsters -- forgetting that they themselves were young and stupid once upon a time? Because they can, of course. As Eddie Cochran told us all fifty years ago, "I'd like to help you, son, but you're too young to vote."
Of course, the national TV networks aren't especially thrilled to see Tampa Bay and not the New York Yankees in post-season play. The Daily Commercial, a Lake Country, Florida paper sums up their horror.
Fox television executives are likely sticking pins in a Tampa Bay bobblehead, hoping to keep the Rays out of the World Series. In the sordid world of television ratings, a Philadelphia-Tampa Bay World Series would be the worst thing since "Cop Rock." Who knows? By beating the Red Sox in six games to set up the "dreaded" Tampa Bay-Philadelphia World Series, maybe the Rays can force broadcasters into joining everyone in 2008, instead of dwelling on the past.
And since those Tampa Bay Rays are facing the Boston Red Sox, it's surely time for the provincial and parochial East Coastie media to start looking down their noses at the hopelessly tradition-barren Floridians. The Boston Globe's Dan Shaughnessy kicks off the snobbery.
It's not the Yankees this time. No century of history, no House That Ruth Built, no famous facade in the backdrop. It's not Cleveland with Bob Feller throwing out the first pitch. It's not Chicago with ancient references to Eddie Collins, Black Sox, South Siders, and cheapskate Charles Comiskey.
No. We're a little thin on tradition this time. The Red Sox are playing the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League Championship Series and it reminds me o####raig Nettles line when he found himself playing for the San Diego Padres after a long run with the Yankees. Dressed in his Padres UPS-driver uniform, pining for his old Yankee pinstripes, Nettles said, "You really notice it on Old Timer's Day. In New York we had Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Whitey Ford walking into Yankee Stadium. Here it's Nate Colbert coming back trying to sell you a used car."
Still, the column did contain a humorous recollection of the time they tried to have an NHL preseason hockey in the Rays' home dome, Tropicana Field -- then called the Suncoast Dome.
The Bruins' Chris "Knuckles" Nilan was one of the first skaters to notice a problem with the ice surface. The sheet was soft and chippy and green slime oozed from exposed pipes when players skated during warm-ups. Fans booed during an hourlong delay while Dome officials tried to correct the problem. Finally, the game was canceled. More boos. But it was a good move in the name of safety.
Had the game been played, said wise guy Nilan, "They would be calling this the Knuckledome."
Does anybody else out there think that it's waaaaaaay too early for the start of hockey season anyway? I mean, what's the hurry? It's just a sad reminder that summer is gone and we might as well start finding our gloves and boots.
Still, the Detroit Free Press' Drew Sharp believes that the game's return could be a tonic to a city in the crosshairs of the economic meltdown.
For a few hours Thursday night, Detroit wasn't home to a scandal that will land its former mayor in jail or increasingly distressing economic news from the automotive industry. It wasn't home to bad baseball or even worse football.
There was finally something worth smiling about, something that didn't instinctively make you recoil in apprehension at the mere mention of the city's name.
The Red Wings struck one final pose with the Stanley Cup, then immediately distanced themselves from what was the old achievement and what's now the new objective. It's the lingering aftertaste of champagne and echoes of worship from appreciative fans four months after the last game that contributes to "Stanley Cup hangover."
But if they're seeking a motivational underdog they can embrace, they need look no further than their own city.
The Tigers were a disaster. The Lions remain a disaster.
Michigan football struggles through a transitional period while the Pistons introduced another new coach while returning pretty much the same roster.
And there remained pockets of empty seats at Joe Louis Arena on Thursday, more evidence of the devastating effects of the economic climate. It's not a question of taking the Wings and their remarkable consistency -- 17 straight playoff appearances -- for granted. It's simply a matter of money becoming tighter.
"[Jones] is completely idiotic in this situation," began Smith, who once had his own Quite Frankly show on ESPN.
He was just warming up.
"I’m really ticked off right now," Smith continued. "Because one of the things that I think a lot of people can’t say, but obviously I can say being an African-American, I don’t see too many white players getting into these kinds of situations."
Smith outlined three years of "trials and tribulations" for A. "P" Jones and one major "second chance" given by Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.
"It’s entirely embarrassing," Smith said. "As an African-American, I’m really getting sick and tired of having to sit up here and give some kind of explanation as to why these guys find themselves in this situation.
"My last comment: White players are not finding themselves in these situations. We’ve got to start taking a look at ourselves."
Finally, there's certainly been a deluge of race-baiting by the Republicans and their friends, since they're terrified one of THEM(and you know what I mean) might actually get elected President, but I would still like to explain something to people who saw the angry white folks frothing at the mouth in Wisconsin on their television sets.
Waukesha County, where that election rally took place, is the home of white flight in my home state of Wisconsin. It's the home of Congressman F. James "what are all those brown people doing here?" Sensenbrenner. And it's where all the Milwaukeeans moved to get away from them goshdarned coloured folks and so they're pretty darn upset about it, you betcha.
Still, just mentioning that squeaky Reptile's name (and yes, his voice has always been that irritating) brought to mind a column by a colleague and former editor Joel McNally.
McNally once wrote that Sensenbrenner was the kind of person who never realized calling himself F. James gave his opponents a ready-made campaign slogan.
John Shivers is in his 25th season as a journalist -- for the least two years producing and hosting a funk music show -- Back In The Day w/ Johnny Rasta -- on WSUM 91.7FM Madison, WI. Started in radio as a Morning Sports Reporter and Late Night DJ with WMAD 92FM. Served a quarter-centu ry as a sportswriter most recently, for the Milwaukee Shepherd Express, including stints as a beat reporter covering Major League Baseball (Milwaukee Brewers) and college football and basketball (Wisconsin, Marquette & UW-Milwaukee) . Born on January 5, 1957, John is the great-grandso n of slaves who first homesteaded in Wisconsin in the 1840's. He holds a BA in Broadcast Journalism (2001) from UW-Milwaukee with a Minor in Africology. John, now single, resides in Madison, WI with his beloved kittie: Black Jack (McDowell)
