At a protest in Washington, DC, Dechea Dolma, a Tibetan from New York City, responds with tears to deaths in Lhasa under Chinese troops’ crackdown. Protests around the world coincided with the Olympic torch relay begun in Olympia, Greece. Photo by Melina Mara / TWP.
truthout / April 2, 2008 / The Rag Blog
old stork’s a good friend
bringing me my next of kin
girl boy scale of ten
joy hope win win
where goeth cousin toad
hopping round its damp abode
disappearing by the load
croaking as its sky erodes
every mile that we go
takes us with it in its flow
to the fork in the road
to the stork or the toad
old stork’s soaring high
with driven gleam in its eye
slinging gifts across the sky
like Santa on a contact high
hear toad croaking loud
a mating call to do it proud
used to be it drew a crowd
silent now its head is bowed
every night and every day
we are pulled along the way
to the fork in the road
to the stork or the toad
as stork takes the well-loved path
we all add up we are the math
floating in placenta bath
borne by flying psychopath
toad takes a different road
passing lawns too green and mowed
passing fields of poisons sowed
with its cracked genetic code
every mile we begin
takes us only further in
toward the fork in the road
to the stork or the toad
stork stork who art thou
come on out and take a bow
come on out and tell us how
you become a sacred cow
listen toad and you will hear
how all of life is held so dear
just procreate and have no fear
ignore the chance your time is near
as we sit and breathe in traffic
could it really be more graphic
at the fork in the road
to the stork or the toad
life is strong it will survive
says the stork in overdrive
never mind the empty hive
mutations will keep us alive
ribbit ribbit gasp and choke
is that some kind of killing joke
laugh it up you can have my toke
I’ll be in my toxic soak
as our world tumbles around
can you almost hear the sound
from the fork in the road
to the stork or the toad
old stork’s not to blame
works hard for its good name
just bringing life though all the same
a vacation wouldn’t be a shame
old toad’s breathing hard
drying up in your back yard
frying in the sun like lard
flattened like a playing card
every day and every night
we are nearer to the sight
of the fork in the road
to the stork or the toad
can’t we all just get along
honk the storks in surround song
life is good it can’t be wrong
and you know we all belong
tell that to toad I’d say
as it whiles its time away
as the time becomes the day
when toad becomes a memoray
as we come to the fork
to the toad or the stork
do we pause at our choice
do we ever give it voice
do we use our mental torque
or stand there like a dork
have we wondered at our plight
can we flee is there flight
do we plea or do we fight
at the fork in the road
for the stork and for the toad
our choice is more than either or
if a window shuts bust out the door
go around and break some glass
go through the roof
break through the floor
get off your ass get off your ass
By Larry Piltz, 2007, In the Year of our Toad
Indian Cove / Austin, Texas
Posted April 3, 2008 / The Rag Blog
Mukasey Knew About 9/11 Before It Happened Keith Olbermann
Mukasey Hints US Had Attack Warning Before 9/11
By David Edwards and Muriel Kane
02/04/08 “Raw Story” — – When Attorney General Mukasey delivered a speech last week demanding that Congress grant the president warrantless eavesdropping powers and telecom immunity, the question and answer session afterwards included one extraordinary but little-noticed claim.
Mukasey argued that officials “shouldn’t need a warrant when somebody with a phone in Iraq picks up a phone and calls somebody in the United States because that’s the call that we may really want to know about. And before 9/11, that’s the call that we didn’t know about. We knew that there has been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn’t know precisely where it went.”
Blogger Glenn Greenwald picked up on Mukasey’s statement, suggesting, “If what Muskasey said this week is true — and that’s a big ‘if’ — his revelation about this Afghan call that the administration knew about but didn’t intercept really amounts to one of the most potent indictments yet about the Bush administration’s failure to detect the plot in action. Contrary to his false claims, FISA — for multiple reasons — did not prevent eavesdropping on that call.”
Keith Olbermann has now featured the story on MSNBC’s Countdown. “What?” Olbermann asked incredulously after quoting Mukasey. “The government knew about some phone call from a safe house in Afghanistan into the U.S. about 9/11? Before 9/11? … You didn’t do anything about it?”
“Either the attorney general just admitted that the government for which he works is guilty of malfeasant complicity in the 9/11 attacks,” Olbermann commented, “or he’s lying.”
“I’m betting on lying,” concluded Olbermann. “If not, somebody in Congress better put that man under oath right quick.”
After September 11, 2001, it was revealed that the CIA and FBI had intercepted a variety of messages including phrases such as “There is a big thing coming,” “They’re going to pay the price” and “We’re ready to go.” None of these messages gave specific details and none reached intelligence analysts until after the destruction of the World Trade Center.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “Mukasey did not specify the call to which he referred. He also did not explain why the government, if it knew of telephone calls from suspected foreign terrorists, hadn’t sought a wiretapping warrant from a court established by Congress to authorize terrorist surveillance, or hadn’t monitored all such calls without a warrant for 72 hours as allowed by law. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for more information.”
This video is from MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann, broadcast March 31, 2008.
Progressive activists on the march, in April.
By Thomas Good / April 2, 2008
March was a very busy month for activists around the country, and April appears to be continuing this trend. Here is a preview of some upcoming events.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — SDS to protest Rhode Island Governor Carcieri’s Anti-Immigrant Policies.
From Brown SDS: Join Providence community organizations for an action against Carcieri’s anti-immigrant executive order. On Thursday, April 3, 2008, meet at Brown University’s Faunce Arch at 3 p.m. For more information on the Governor’s policies see the article in the: Providence Journal
NEW YORK — Impeachment Action at Congressman Jerrold Nadler’s office.
On Thursday, April 3, from Noon to 1 p.m. local impeachment activists will be visiting the Manhattan office (201 Varick St.) of Congressman Jerrold Nadler. Congressman Nadler is Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. It is there that H. Res. 333/799 (the bill to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney) now sits and Congressman Nadler has so far not signed on to it.
NEW YORK — Anti-war rally at Staten Island Baptist Church – April 5, Noon – 2 p.m.
Peace Action of Staten Island, Military Families Speak Out, First Central Baptist Church, Unitarian Church of Staten Island, Pax Christi, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, Movement for a Democratic Society, the College of Staten Island Peace Club and other community groups and residents from neighborhoods all over Staten Island will rally to demand an end to the Iraq war and occupation. Individuals and groups will converge in the parking area of First Central Baptist Church at Wright Street and Van Duzer Street in Stapleton. Rev. Demetrius Carolina and Congressional Candidate Stephen Harrison will be among the speakers to address the rally. The Rude Mechanical Orchestra and the First Central Baptist Children’s Choir will provide music.
From the Staten Island Advance: In the five years since the war in Iraq began, groups of Staten Islanders have staged numerous protests to voice their frustration over what they see as a tragic foreign policy decision by the government.
To mark the fifth anniversary of what is increasingly an unpopular war, Peace Action of Staten Island will join with more than a dozen groups Saturday at First Central Baptist Church in Stapleton. {1}
DENTON, Texas — Student walkout at University of North Texas:
Monday, April 7, 9:11 a.m. – University of North Texas Student Walkout Against War & Campus Military Recruitment.Meet in Front of University Union BuildingStudents & Activists throughout the U.S Welcome! For more info: http://www.antiauthoritarian.net/NLN/www.myspace.com/unitedaid Andrew Teeter: bigteets44@hotmail 817.455.3787 Aron Duhon: Adduhon@live.com or beatnikk24@hotmail.com 409.828.0393
[ NOTE: this announcement follows an article in the Marine Corps Times which states that, “The Defense Department has announced a new get-tough policy with colleges and universities that interfere with the work of military recruiters and Reserve Officer Training Corps programs.” {2} ]
NEW YORK — Columbia 1968 – 2008, a 40th Anniversary Event.
From the website: Columbia 1968 and the World, A 40th Anniversary Event – April 24 – 27, 2008. This spring marks the 40th anniversary of the 1968 student protests at Columbia University. A group of alumni participants, working with faculty and students, has developed a program for a three-day conference to reexamine those events from a wide range of viewpoints and in the context of what was happening in 1968 in the country and the world. The conference will provide a chance for people who lived through that period to reconnect, reconcile, and reflect. And it will engage current students in a discussion about issues of war, race, and the role of the university—issues that are still with us 40 years later. What follows is a preliminary schedule of events showing confirmed speakers. Unless otherwise noted, all sessions will be held at the Columbia Journalism School, 116th Street and Broadway. {3}
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — “Red Ink: Celebrating the Radical Tradition in Literature with Julia Wright” event at Robin’s Bookstore: Sunday, April 27, 2 p.m.
From the website: Julia Wright, as Keynote Speaker, will be discussing Richard Wright and his work. Also featuring Tom Good, Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History; Theodore Harris, Our Flesh of Flames; Ewuare X. Osayande, Misogyny & the Emcee: Sex, Race & Hip Hop; John Potash, The FBI War on Tupac Shakur and Black Leaders; Fred Stanton, musician; Lamont Steptoe, Oracular Rumblings and Stiltwalking; and an open reading of other area writers who want to continue the Wright tradition of politically inspired writing. {4}
For more April Actions check out the NLN Event Calendar.
Next Left Notes / The Rag Blog
UN Humanitarian Lawyer, Karen Parker, On the Violation of Human Rights in California
By Cathy Garger, Mar 18, 2008, 08:00
A raging human rights battle brewing between the federal Department of Energy and the people of California will soon be coming to a head. Citizen activists and environmental rights groups are up in arms over the right of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) – previously called the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory, and before that, Lawrence Radiation Laboratory – to explode toxic and radioactive materials into California’s air. Ever since this news story broke outside San Francisco in December, 2006, local citizens have opposed the Laboratory’s standard practice of exploding 1,000 lbs. of toxic and radioactive materials annually at its Site 300 location.
The origin of the face off between citizens and the federal government began a month earlier. On November 13, 2006, LLNL had received permission from the local San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District (SJVAPCD) to allow explosions up to 350 lbs. per detonation. The decision to allow larger explosions was appealed and LLNL has since submitted another application for a new permit.
Desiring more “bang” for the taxpayer’s buck, Livermore Laboratory’s most recent April 24, 2007 filing of a permit application with SJVAPCD asked for permission to increase the detonations of sixty (60) dangerous materials – including Depleted Uranium – by 800 (eight hundred) percent.
In recent correspondence with Jim Swaney, Permit Services Manager for SJVAPCD, the permit is still on hold. The snag in the approval process involves the transition of management of the federal facility that develops and “tests” bombs. In October, 2007, the management of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was privatized. As Swaney explained, the new managing firm, Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC informed SJVAPCD “they needed time to finalize their contract procedures and budget the money” necessary for SJVAPCD to hire a contractor(s) to perform an environmental assessment, as required by the California Environmental Quality Act.
Although a permit has been filed for permission to increase the quantity of materials by eight-fold, outdoor explosions of radioactive Depleted Uranium and Tritium is a time-honored tradition at the outdoor Site 300 explosion area. The 7,000 acre site opened for nuclear detonation “experimentation” in 1955 and radioactive explosions have been performed with regularity outside in the greater San Francisco Bay area for over five decades. As stated on the Laboratory’s website, its “explosions, known as shots, result from destructive tests of high explosives… 100 to 200 of them a year in the last 10 years.”
The Livermore Laboratory is seeking to increase these frequent San Francisco Bay area “blasts” from the current 1,000 lbs. to 8,000 lbs. annually. The new permit states that up to 350 lbs. of materials may be detonated per explosion, “with no more than one detonation occurring in any given hour.” Under current provisions, up to 100 lbs. of materials per explosion are allowed.
Among the five dozen substances listed in the permit, public opposition centers around the most hotly contested nuclear weapons material called “Depleted” Uranium. A product of nuclear processing, Depleted Uranium is used in munitions which, when fired or exploded, produce up to 80 percent ceramic Uranium Oxide aerosols. This hazardous material is used in combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq – and presumably in Somalia as well.
The use of Depleted Uranium in combat has been declared illegal under the UN Sub Commission of Human Rights. Its use is also a violation of various treaties, conventions, and international laws.
In order to determine the legality of Depleted Uranium use inside the United States via federal “experimentation” and “testing,” I spoke with Karen Parker, JD, founder of the Association Humanitarian Lawyers. The long term proponent of international human rights specializes in humanitarian law and provides expert testimony and legal counsel for the United Nations. In spring, 1996, Parker made a presentation on Depleted Uranium to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
On the matter of the extent that Depleted Uranium causes harm, Ms. Parker has written, “DU weapons ‘kill’ in inhumane ways, causing cancers, kidney problems, eye problems, lung diseases, and according to the medical researchers who have investigated it, many other serious conditions. Additionally, DU weapons cause disabilities in the children of those exposed – cranial-facial anomalies, missing limbs, grossly deformed and non-viable infants and the like – so in this sense are teratogenic.”
“As these conditions can occur to non-combatants or may arise long after military operations have concluded, DU weapons are necessarily inhumane. The teratogenic nature of DU weapons raises the possibility of a genocidal effect. Finally, DU weapons unduly contaminate the natural environment, including water and agricultural land necessary for the subsistence of the civilian population for beyond the lifetime of that population.”
The United Nations Sub-Commission on Promotion and Protection of Human Rights passed a resolution in 1996 finding the use DU weapons “incompatible” with existing humanitarian law. This resolution began a series of initiatives by the Sub-Commission on DU weapons and several other weapons of concern, including fuel-air bombs, cluster bombs and “bunker busters.”
Read the entire interview with Karen Parker, and more, here (includes links).
Washington — In an aggressive move to finish building 670 miles of border fence by the end of this year, the Department of Homeland Security announced today that it will waive federal environmental laws to meet that goal.
The two waivers, which will allow the department to slash through a thicket of environmental and cultural laws, would be the most expansive to date, encompassing land in California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas that stretches about 470 miles.
The waivers are highly controversial with environmentalists and border communities, which see them as a federal imposition that could damage the land and disrupt wildlife.
But they are praised by conservatives who championed the 2006 Secure Fence Act, despite the reluctance of President Bush, who has said a broader approach is needed to deal with illegal immigration.
Republicans greeted the news with satisfaction.
“It’s great. This is the priority area where most of the illegal activity is going on and where most of the deaths are occurring,” said Rep. Brian P. Bilbray (R-Solana Beach), chairman of the Immigration Reform Caucus. “The quicker we can get the physical fence up, the sooner we’ll avoid situations like the deaths of agents. And it’s still a national security issue. You just have to stop this kind of open traffic along the border.”
Wildlife groups reacted with dismay.
Brian Segee, an attorney with Defenders of Wildlife, said, “It’s dangerous, it’s arrogant, it’s going to have pronounced environmental impacts and it won’t do a thing to address the problems of undocumented immigrants or address border security problems. It’s an incredibly simplistic and ineffective approach to complex problems.”
The waivers are intended to clear the way for fencing to block pedestrians and cars, as well as extra camera, towers and roads near the border. A special waiver was issued for a project in Hidalgo County, Texas, that would combine levees and a barrier.
Congress gave Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff the power to waive federal law in order to build the fence quickly. Since construction began, the department has faced fierce opposition from local communities and has had to go to court against more than 50 property owners simply to survey land to determine whether it is suitable for a fence.
The department has so far built 309 miles of fence.
Some of the resistance comes from landowners who protest that the path of the fence might block their access to the Rio Grande; other opponents are concerned that it could increase the danger of extinction for endangered animals, such as the ocelot, a wild cat whose mating habits may be affected.
Chertoff has called the waivers a last resort, and department officials say the agency is committed to minimizing the impacts to the environment and wildlife.
Homeland Security officials said many of the 470 miles have already undergone environmental review and that the agency is committed to environmental responsibility.
“If that was true, the waivers wouldn’t be necessary,” Segee countered.
Homeland Security has previously issued three waivers.
One, on September 2005, was to complete roughly 14 miles near San Diego; another in January 2007 was used to build infrastructure near the Barry M. Goldwater military range in southern Arizona. A third waiver was issued in October 2007 near the San Pedro National Riparian Conservation Area, also in southern Arizona.
Environmentalists have complained about the fence because they say it puts already endangered species such as two types of wild cats — the ocelot and the jaguarundi — in even more danger of extinction. They say the fence would prevent them from swimming across the Rio Grande to mate.
“Unwilling to consult with local communities or to follow long-standing laws, Secretary Chertoff chose to bypass stakeholders and push through this unpopular project on April Fool’s Day,” Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope said in a statement. “We don’t think the destruction of the borderlands region is a laughing matter.”
Chertoff has said the fence is good for the environment because immigrants degrade the land with trash and human waste when they sneak illegally into the country. — AP.
Telecom Immunity: Playing the 9/11 Card … Again
by Tom Burghardt / April 1st, 2008
The Bush administration, never known for its veracity on any issue, once again is playing the “9/11 card” in an desperate attempt to continue violating the Fourth Amendment rights of the American people.
US Attorney General Michael Mukasey, a darling of Senate Democrats prior to his confirmation as Bush’s top lawyer, said in speech on Thursday at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco that the September 11, 2001 attacks could have been prevented, “if the government had been able to monitor an overseas phone call to the United States,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Mukasey went on to claim that “we knew that there had been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn’t know precisely where it went. You’ve got 3,000 people who went to work that day, and didn’t come home, to show for that.”
Correctly calling Mukasey on his mendacious pronouncements, Chronicle reporter Bob Egelko writes:
Mukasey did not specify the call to which he referred. He also did not explain why the government, if it knew of telephone calls from suspected foreign terrorists, hadn’t sought a wiretapping warrant from a court established by Congress to authorize terrorist surveillance, or hadn’t monitored all such calls without a warrant for 72 hours as allowed by law. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for more information.
A congressional investigation found in 2003 that the National Security Agency had intercepted messages between one of the Sept. 11 hijackers and an al Qaeda safe house in the Middle East as early as 1999, but had not shared the information with other agencies. (Bob Egelko, “Mukasey Backs Bush Efforts on Wiretapping,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 28, 2008, Page B-1)
That we are supposedly to believe that the National Security Agency, the largest and most secretive outfit in the US intelligence “toolbox,” was somehow “blinded” by “unreasonable” civil liberties concerns, and were “following the letter of the law” regarding warrantless wiretapping of foreign terrorist organizations, beggars belief.
In fact, prior to, and even after 9/11, the United States and their favorite clique of murderous intelligence assets, the Afghan-Arab database known as al-Qaeda, were preoccupied with a series of destabilization operations that stretched from Central Asia to the Balkans.
From Chechnya to Kosovo, al-Qaeda operatives and their BND-CIA-MI6 handlers were subverting Russian and Yugoslavian national sovereignty and fomenting rebellion alongside dodgy Saudi and Gulf “charities” that served as a cats-paw for Western imperialist interests.
As with all strategic intelligence operations undertaken by the United States and their “friends,” the Saudis were playing a double-game: seemingly advancing the regional interests of their US partners in crime, al-Qaeda-linked Saudi “charities” were simultaneously wedded to a game plan they hoped would lead to the creation of a reactionary, far-right Islamist beachhead in the heart of Central Europe. That they did so with US-NATO collusion is beyond question.
Read all of it here.
Williams, who battled manic depression and drug addiction, was greatly influenced by surrealism and dadaism. In “The Fleeing Somnambulist” – the closing track on the very influential “Catastrophe Ballet” recording – a gentle lullaby is trampled by marching jackboots. Elsewhere in the piece, Williams intones, “There was a man in a huge, white goats head sweeping through the German landscapes…”
Williams’ lyrics are infused with anti-fascist and anti-racist sentiment but perhaps the best characterization of his core message comes from the man himself. In 1994, he told an interviewer: “But as far as a message, just trying to have people keep their minds open. You know, THINK! It seems like a lot of people in the world today don’t spend much time doing that.” {1} Williams died ten years ago today — on April 1, 1998. His death was ruled a suicide.
Thomas Good / Next Left Notes / April 1, 2008 / The Rag Blog
I have watched Rev. Wright in utter awe.
By William A. Von Hoene Jr. / Chicago Tribune / March 26, 2008
During the last two weeks, excerpts from sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., pastor for more than 35 years at Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago’s South Side, have flooded the airwaves and dominated our discourse about the presidential campaign and race. Wright has been depicted as a racial extremist, or just a plain racist. A number of political figures and news commentators have attempted to use Sen. Barack Obama‘s association with him to call into question Obama’s judgment and the sincerity of his commitment to unity.
I have been a member of Trinity, a church with an almost entirely African-American congregation, for more than 25 years. I am, however, a white male. From a decidedly different perspective than most Trinitarians, I have heard Wright preach about racial inequality many times, in unvarnished and passionate terms.
In Obama’s recent speech in Philadelphia on racial issues confronting our nation, the senator eloquently observed that Rev. Wright’s sermons reflect the difficult experiences and frustrations of a generation.
It is important that we understand the dynamic Obama spoke about.
It also is important that we not let media coverage and political gamesmanship isolate selected remarks by Wright to the exclusion of anything else that might define him more accurately and completely.
I find it very troubling that we have distilled Wright’s 35-year ministry to a few phrases; no context whatsoever has been offered or explored.
I do have a bit of personal context. About 26 years ago, I became engaged to my wife, an African-American. She was at that time and remains a member of Trinity. Somewhere between the ring and the altar, my wife had second thoughts and broke off the engagement. Her decision was grounded in race: So committed to black causes, the daughter of parents subjected to unthinkable prejudice over the years, an “up-and-coming” leader in the young black community, how could she marry a white man?
Rev. Wright, whom I had met only in passing at the time and who was equally if not more outspoken about “black” issues than he is today, somehow found out about my wife’s decision. He called and asked her to “drop everything” and meet with him at Trinity. He spent four hours explaining his reaction to her decision. Racial divisions were unacceptable, he said, no matter how great or prolonged the pain that caused them. God would not want us to assess or make decisions about people based on race. The world could make progress on issues of race only if people were prepared to break down barriers that were much easier to let stand.
Rev. Wright was pretty persuasive; he presided over our wedding a few months later. In the years since, I have watched in utter awe as Wright has overseen and constructed a support system for thousands in need on the South Side that is far more impressive and effective than any governmental program possibly could approach. And never in my life have I been welcomed more warmly and sincerely than at Trinity. Never.
I hope that as a nation, we take advantage of the opportunity the recent focus on Rev. Wright presents—to advance our dialogue on race in a meaningful and unprecedented way. To do so, however, we need to appreciate that passion born of difficulty does not always manifest itself in the kind of words with which we are most comfortable. We also need to recognize that the basic goodness of people like Jeremiah Wright is not always packaged conventionally.
The problems of race confronting us are immense. But if we sensationalize isolated words for political advantage, casting aside the depth of feeling, circumstances and context which inform them, those problems not only will remain immense, they will be insoluble.
William A. Von Hoene Jr. of Chicago is a member of Trinity United Church of Christ.
Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune
From Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog
An Israel-Palestine Peace Plan – A Rag Blog Discussion
David Hamilton posted a draft of a proposed Israel-Palestine Peace Plan on The Rag Blog, March 29, 2008, as a means of initiating a positive dialogue on the subject. The discussion has been joined by Rag bloggers Steve Russell, Paul Spencer, Alan Pogue and Jim Retherford. The discussion has been last updated on April 3 with a comment from Mishal Al-Johar of the Palestine Solidarity Committee.
For the entire thread as it currently exists, go here.
Or so said a solemn Bill Stern to a radio audience of millions. Stern, who died in 1971, was a famous sportscaster whose commitment to fact was episodic. A wit responded that if Lincoln had said that to Doubleday (who was not there), Doubleday might have replied, “What’s baseball?”
Baseball’s creation myth is that young Doubleday invented the sport one summer day in 1839 in farmer Phinney’s pasture near Cooperstown. Actually, Doubleday spent that summer at West Point. The only thing he ever started, sort of, was the Civil War: He was an artillery captain at Fort Sumter. When he died in 1893, his New York Times obituary did not mention baseball.
Today, baseball arrives in the nick of time to serve an urgent national need. It gives Americans something to think about other than superdelegates. Think instead about:
1. Who are the four players with 10 or more letters in their last names who hit 40 home runs in a season?
2. Who are the 11 players who have four or fewer letters in their last names and hit 40 home runs in a season?
3. Which two players who hit back-to-back home runs have the most combined letters in their last names?
For you who wasted the winter by not studying such stuff, the answers are below. The rest of you probably are SABRmetricians. Tim Kurkjian of ESPN (do you know that more than 10 American children have been named Espn?) recalls a convention of the Society for American Baseball Research:
“‘Who from SABR might know where I can find the all-time list of pinch-hit, extra-inning grand slams?’ I asked the very first man I saw at the convention. The man smiled and — I am not making this up — pulled the list from his breast pocket. ‘I have it right here,’ he said.”
Would that today’s subprime wizards of Wall Street had comparable mastery of the numbers important to their business. What Edmund Burke said of the study of law — that it sharpens the mind by narrowing it — might be true of baseball, too, but baseball people at least know what they are supposed to know. Long after he retired, Ted Williams ran into a former pitcher who said he once struck out Williams. “Slider low and away,” said Williams. “Old men forget,” said Shakespeare’s Henry V at Agincourt. Old baseball men don’t.
Washington was the setting for “Damn Yankees,” the most stirring drama since Shakespeare, who didn’t do musicals. Opening in 1955, it concerned a Senators’ fan who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for one terrific season as a Senators’ outfielder. This is supposedly a Faustian bargain, but such bargains are presumed to be bad. What is a mere soul when weighed against such a season?
Of course, there might be a gender difference here. As the philosopher Dave Barry has noted, “If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant’s life, she will choose to save the infant’s life without even considering if there are men on base.”
Bill Veeck, who did more for America in one night than most of us do in a lifetime (the night in September 1937 he planted the ivy along Wrigley Field’s outfield walls), said that the great thing about baseball — aside from the fact that you do not need to be 7 feet wide or 7 feet tall in order to play it — is: Three strikes and you’re out, and the best lawyer can’t help you. Baseball, which provides satisfying finality and then does it again the next day, is a severe meritocracy that illustrates the axiom that there is very little difference between men but that difference makes a big difference.
Even if you are not big. Asked in 1971 how it felt to be the shortest player in the major leagues, the Royals’ Freddie Patek, a 5-foot-4 infielder, said, “A heckuva lot better than being the shortest player in the minor leagues.”
Copyright 2008, Washington Post Writers GroupPage
Thanks to Jim Baldauf / The Rag Blog
Some thought the above picture, posted earlier today (April 1, 2008), was an April Fools joke. Well, if it is, the joke’s on all of us. Below, from a different source, is another station, this one at Furnace Creek in Death Valley. Clearly a cut rate operation.
Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog
Thorne Webb Dreyer, Editor
