At the Justice Department, Affirmative Action is the Lord's Work

I came across this item in a recent article about Monica Goodling. She was a top aide to Alberto Gonzales, our "bestest" Attorney General. Monica, who we have learned, was in charge of most of the hiring and firing in the Department of Justice is a very proud graduate from Regent University's Law School. Regent is ranked a “tier four” school by US News & World Report, “the lowest score and essentially a tie for 136th place.” Yet approximately one in six Regent graduates is employed in government work, and 150 serve in the Bush administration.

Regent is affiliated with our friend Pat Robertson who blamed the 9-11 attacks on liberals and secularists, has personally steered hurricanes away from Virginia Beach, and continues to encourage our gov't. to assassinate despots throughout the world.

Special preference hiring is the Lord's work. It is not about the legal proficiencies of the candidates in the hiring pool, it is about the purity of their souls.

"For many are called, but few are chosen."
Matthew xxii. 14.

Mein Fuhrer.......I can walk!

Vice President Richard Cheney's is convinced that his office is not part of the Executive Branch of the federal government. And therefore, he is not required to file annual reports with the federal National Archives and Records Administration. The Vice President has often been misjudged by his critics for his disregard for the checks and balances created by the framers of our Constitution.

“Except for the occasional heart attack, I never felt better.”

Some believe his confusion may stem from the various medications that reduce the blood flow to his brain. Are some of Mr. Cheney's astonishing ideas a result of increasing confusion brought on the various blood thinners, blood pressure reducers and diuretics he is taking on a daily basis? Perhaps his grand design for a better, stronger America just doesn't fit within the constraints of contemporary democracy.

Here are some of his most memorable quotes. Is he slowly losing it? Or does he have a grand vision that will lead this country to a better place?

On his lack of military service.

"I had other priorities when I was younger."

On his inability to distinguish a bird from an older, Republican lawyer.

"I am the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend."

On his deadly accurate predictions about the Iraq War.

"I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

On his good relations with the legislative branch of government

"Go f**k yourself."

At one time he was recognized as a sterling legislator serving 11 years as a Congressmen from the great state of Wyoming.

-96th Congress: 4 Sponsored; 0 became Law
-97th Congress: 4 Sponsored: 0 became Law
-98th Congress: 8 Sponsored: 0 became Law
-99th Congress: 7 Sponsored: 1 became Law (H.R.1246 : A bill to establish a federally declared floodway for the Colorado River below Davis Dam.)
-100th Congress: 7 Sponsored: 1 became Law (H.R.712 : A bill for the relief of Lawrence K. Lunt.)
-101st Congress: 1 Sponsored: 0 became Law

Unfortunately, promoting and passing legislation was just too mundane for Mr. Cheney. These piddly acts of legislative give and take should be left to lesser humans.

We only have been afforded an occassional glimpse into the dark, mysterious, wonderful chamber called Dick Cheney's brain. Neo-cons like Vice President Cheney, Norman Pohderetz, Richard Perle or Dr. Strangelove do see the world through a different set of lenses that you and I. Is it genius or just bad medicine?

"Mr. President, it is not only possible, it is essential. That is the whole idea of this machine, you know. Deterrence is the art of producing in the mind of the enemy... the fear to attack. And so, because of the automated and irrevocable decision making process which rules out human meddling, the doomsday machine is terrifying. It's simple to understand. And completely credible, and convincing."

the Nexus of Genius, Obsession and Madness

I came across this short black and white film of Glenn Gould. He was remarkable in many ways. I added Jackson Pollock and Orson Welles just because this is my blog. Each of them was obsessed with their artistic medium and, at the same, frustrated by its inadequacy to communicate their artistic vision. That tension was always apparent in their art.

Some Random Thoughts

My first one....

I am trying to lose some weight to take the pressure off my arthritic knees. My orthropod told me at a recent check up that for every lb. you lose; you take 5 to 6 lbs. of pressure off of your knee joints. As I jumped on the elliptical machine last night to start my workout, I tried to set the duration, difficulty and calories burned indicators on the machine. The machine requests your age and weight. The baseline weight that appeared on the led reader was 150 lbs. I turned to a colleague who was working out on the machine beside me and said, "If I weighed 150 lbs., I wouldn’t be spending so much quality time on this damn thing. I didn’t weigh 150 lbs. when I was born!” He started laughing so hard, his foot slipped off of the machine. Fortunately, he was OK.

My second one...

This is a wonderful example of the dark, strange obsessions the right wing have about the Clintons. I am surprised Ann Althouse did not find some way to incorporate the Foster suicide into her quasi-Freudian rant. Ms. Althouse was attempting to deconstruct the recent youtube video the Hillary Clinton campaign put out as a parody of the Sopranos. Here's her analysis:

Bill says "No onion rings?" and Hillary responds "I'm looking out for ya." Now, the script says onion rings, because that's what the Sopranos were eating in that final scene, but I doubt if any blogger will disagree with my assertion that, coming from Bill Clinton, the "O" of an onion ring is a vagina symbol. Hillary says no to that, driving the symbolism home. She's "looking out" all right, vigilant over her husband, denying him the sustenance he craves. What does she have for him? Carrot sticks! The one closest to the camera has a rather disgusting greasy sheen to it. Here, Bill, in retaliation for all of your excessive "O" consumption, you may have a large bowl of phallic symbols! When we hear him say "No onion rings?," the camera is on her, and Bill is off-screen, but at the bottom of the screen we see the carrot/phallus he's holding toward her. Oh, yes, I know that Hillary supplying carrots is supposed to remind that Hillary will provide us with health care, that she's "looking out for" us, but come on, they're carrots! Everyone knows carrots are phallic symbols. But they're cut up into little carrot sticks, you say? Just listen to yourself! I'm not going to point out everything.

What was that??? Ms. Althouse teaches law at the University of Wisconsin. She either has a very light teaching load or can’t find the right match on Sean Hannity’s Dating Service. Can you imagine her Freudian/legal analysis of all those juicy latin words that are often used in English Common Law? Habeus Corpus, caveat emptor, or corpus delicti must leave her with a “Emma Bovarian” like climax! As someone wrote about Ms. Althouse's analsysis..."She is slowly creeping into Dick Morris Land filled with Hillary paranoia, delusions of grandeur and toe-sucking fantasies." I really don't like the Bushies, but I would never engage in this kind of stultifying, Oprahesque, pseudo-psychological probing. There isn't much there to begin with.

My third one...

I guess this ad for Trojan products is rather controversial. Some networks will play it and others will not.



Not surprising that there appears to be a double standard here. We repeatedly are bombarded with erectile dysfunction products but contraceptives that prevent disease and unwanted pregnancies are verbotten! I believe it would a great deal easier explaining the Trojan ad to a curious pre-teen than to describe why her grandfather had to seek immediate medical attention after an erect 4 hours!

A Great Rant! Sorry for the Bad Language

Joe Bageant's worldview...

Dead Man Shopping: Stonewall Jackson prays for retail sales in the lost potpourri zone

Homicide Victim Identified

Update: A warrant has been issued for the alleged shooter of Mr. Aufrance. The suspected shooter is Zachariah Hassell, who just turned 15 on June 2, should be considered armed and dangerous, police said this morning.

Zachariah, whose nickname is Little Zach, is known to frequent the area of the 100 block of E. McMicken. His last known address is in the 2100 block of Freeman Avenue. Isn't this crazy? A fifteen year old shooting people on the street at 5:30 in the afternoon!


This is a recent headline from local section of the Cincinnati Enquirer. Another African American male, Michael Aufrance, was shot in the head twice and later died at a local hospital. His companion was shot as well. It was a tragic event repeated over and over again on our streets and throughout the cities of all sizes in the USA.

This shooting was only about 4 blocks from my house. At night time when I have my windows open, I hear many sounds of the city from car backfires to ambulance sirens. I have become familiar with the sound of gunshots. They have a distinct pop, pop, pop sound. A week or so ago, I was shaken out of my slumber by 3 pops. That morning I learned an individual was shot not far from my home.

I drive that street, McMicken Ave., to and from my office practically everyday. The shooting occurred at 5:30 in the afternoon about same time I drive home. I missed the shooting because I came home early to walk the dog before going to the Y to workout.

On same street a few years ago, a colleague of mine had to stop in the middle of the street because another driver in front of him was making a drug buy. One of the dealers or lookouts came up to his passenger side and in the little crack of the window bent over and said, "Thank you for being so patient." Good customer service never grows out of fashion!

The article went on to provide a criminal rap sheet for Mr. Aufrance that includes "convictions for possession of cocaine, possession of drug paraphernalia and criminal trespass, according to court records." Needless to say, the victim was not a boy scout or an innocent bystander. The shooter clearly wanted him dead. And he succeeded. I took a quick look at his various records in the Municipal and Common Pleas Courts. It really was an extensive rap sheet. No violent crime but mostly, possession, theft, receiving stolen property, etc. It extended over 10 years.

A former neighbor of mine was over at our house the other night for dinner. She is from an extended African American family with deep roots in Cincinnati. In her vernacular, Mr. Aufrance was "given up to the streets along time ago." I think what she meant was that he was a drug addict who hustled for cash through dealing, stealing or other low level criminal activity.

At first glance, this is just another gun-related murder that most of us will forget about tomorrow. There just are too many. Who really cares? Mr. Aufrance was a crack-addled druggie with a long history of criminal activity. He was "lost to the streets." He was nobody. I tried to find a street address or phone number for Mr. Aufrance to no avail. I did find his father's name and address. His father lives in a town 120 miles north of Cincinnati and he is 81 years old. Apparently, Michael Aufrance is somebody to someone.

I'm not sure how to react to Mr. Aufrance's pathetic ending. The only thing that separates his death from others that occur in the same manner is that his murder happened on a very familiar street so close to where I live. Most of the time my eyes glaze over when I read about another young male that was found shot to death at 4 AM in parking lot somewhere in the city.

I really do not want to get preachy or expose my softheaded, liberal tendencies. Michael Aufrance, his murderer, his father, his companion, the police investigators, and the reporters covering this crime, me, you and most of Cincinnati are all victims of this tragic event. There is collateral damage. The constant drip, drip, drip of gun-related violence makes all of us more cynical, more prejudice, and more accepting of these kinds of crimes. I have no answers. I only have questions.

As I drove home last evening, I took a quick glance at the crime scene. There was no evidence or reminder of the murder. The yellow crime tape was gone. Kids were out playing on the same sidewalk where Mr. Aufrance was murdered.

Fortunately, it is very hot in Cincinnati. Tonight I will have my air conditioning turned on and the windows closed. If another Michael Aufrance is murdered, I will not hear it.

An Evil Pleasure

I have to begrudgingly admit that "The Family Guy" is funny and at times, rather clever. I rarely laugh out loud while watching TV. Although at times the show is very sophomoric, I do find myself laughing at Peter and his family. Here is a very ingenious parody.

Fawning vs. Satire: You are the Judge

As you scan your Sunday New York Times, do you ever take the time to read the Style Section? In many ways it reflects a parallel universe. Who are these people? Do they ever sleep? Or eat for that matter? They all are young, slim, with great teeth and, apparently, have unlimited bank accounts.

The best part of the Sunday Style Section is the featured Wedding/Celebration that chronicles every detail of a couple, gay or straight, as they migrate from the dating tango to the vows portion of the festivities. Often when I read these announcements I am perplexed. Are the reporters covering these very important events fawning or making fun of the various betrothals they are writing about? Frankly, I can’t tell sometimes.

Here is an example from a recent Style piece. “’He’s dynamic, charismatic,’ she said. She told him she had left her boyfriend, hoping that Dr. Fox ‘would take the bait.’ She recalled his reply: ‘I have a friend you might be interested in.’ But a few months later he, too, was smitten, at first by her commitment to social causes. He then noticed she had “’terrific lips, great skin,’ he said…’. I dropped to one knee on the sand at sunset in front of a bunch of strangers and proposed.’ She said, ‘Yes.’”

Terrific lips and skin? Are they kidding? This is more like a Clinique' commercial than a wedding announcement.

Here’s another excerpt from another ripping yarn of romance and upper middle class titillation: “Mary’s a deep old soul, which comes out in her music,” said Eames Yates, a friend, “and Leslie is like a beautiful chandelier on the Fourth of July, wonderful and glamorous and smart.”

A beautiful chandelier on the Fourth of July? Apparently this writer has been inhaling far too much Fabreze spray.

Perhaps the reporters covering about these earth-shaking events do know how supercilious or unctuous their writing appears to be. It has evolved into a particular style that mixes together a NY Times commitment to specific detail with saccharine hyperbole and a romance novel prose.

Here are a few attempts that I have crafted mixed with some that are truly from the Weddings Section of the NY Times. Can you separate my modest efforts from the real NY TImes reporting?

1. “After their first meeting, Deidre Hudson, 35, never wavered. She knew Robert Brueil, 38, was her man to catch. She just needed time and opportunity. It was her first cousin’s wedding in the Hamptons two years ago that offered her a first real chance to get acquainted.”

2."In June, they met in Paris, where Mr. Gaghan was filming commercials; Ms. Mortimer was in Europe for the couture presentations. And then, like the music going quiet in a movie and a look exchanged, they decided to stay together. “We had barely kissed, it was very chaste,” Mr. Gaghan said. “Within three days in Paris, we knew we wanted to spend our lives together.”

3. “’I was just relishing the moment of being there,’ said Ms. Openshaw, 42, of the solo trip to Italy she took in October 2005, a few months after an 11-year engagement ended. Her reverie was interrupted when another tourist sat down. ‘Boy, am I hungry,’ declared Durant Schwimmer, who noticed Ms. Openshaw reading a guidebook as he dived into a ham sandwich.”

4. “’Bar Mitzvahs are terrible places to meet eligible partners,’ said Helen Schimberg, age 39. ‘My nephew Josh is very special in my life. He was born a “preemie” and my sister never thought he would make it. He had so many health problems.’ Trevor Amblin, 42, was seated at the same table. As he introduced himself, he knocked over Helen's wine glass. ‘Fortunately,' she said, 'it was Sauvignon Blanc.’”

5. “'This isn’t the wedding I dreamed of as a little girl,' she said, 'but it certainly helped me to see what is really important, that Andrew and I get married and have our families witness it. In the end, that’s all we’ll remember.'”

6. “Life takes many twists. Sheila Hornshaw, 26, was not prepared for her second encounter with Edgar; ten years since the junior quadrille.”

Send me your answers at Hadleytd@gmail.com. I will send you the correct responses. “Leslie is like a beautiful chandelier on the Fourth of July.” Geez...How can I top that one?

Carl Douglas Was My Hero

A great song and a great performance!

Ivy Covered Walls are Increasingly Printed As Legal Tender

Columbia University receives a $400 Million gift and Antioch College closes. Something is very wrong here!

The increasing disparities in income in our country reaches to all segments of our society. As someone who has dedicated his professional life to public higher education, I am increasingly unsettled by the quest for cash that has infected all aspects of higher education. Columbia University just received a gift of $400 million from one of the wealthiest people in the USA, John Kluge a CC '37 grad. This is just one part of Columbia's capital campaign to raise $4 billion.

At the same I read today that Antioch College in Yellow Springs, OH will be closing and reorganizing. Antioch is closing due to "declining enrollment, a small endowment, and an overwhelming dependence on tuition revenue." Antioch recognized by many as a bastion of alternative approaches to learning has many noted alumni including Coretta Scott King and Stephen Jay Gould. Many of the innovations introduced at Antioch are accepted learning practices throughout higher education.

Much of Mr. Kluge's Columbia's recent gift will be dedicated to helping students with financial need. Most students with high need depend on loans to pay the gap between the grants they receive and the remaining portion of their college costs. The cost of attending Columbia including room and board, books, tuition and fees totaled $47,229 this past academic year. At first glance, this appears to be a good thing given how much it costs to attend Columbia!

Antioch's cost per students for this past year was $39,447. Apparently it wasn't cheap to immerse oneself in one USA's most alternative learning environments. Antioch's total endowment was $30 million. Not enough to keep the college afloat.

Chasing big time donors for cash is a full-time occupation for college and university presidents at large and small institutions. It is common practice for a college president to assume the role as the chief public affairs and fund raising officer of an institution and another individual, normally the chief academic officer, becomes the internal operational officer. Long gone are the days that college presidents ate lunch in the faculty club and chatted about big ideas with their academic colleagues. They are on the road courting potential donors, politicians, and influential alumni.

In a recent article, Walter Kimbrough, the President of Philander Smith College, bemoans that kind of philantropy that makes Columbia richer and ignores the colleges like Antioch or Philander Smith. Mr. Kluge's gift will help only a small portion of all of Columbia's students who are labeled as financially needy. Only 16% of columbia students apply for the Pell Grant each year. Believe it or not 60% don't apply for any financial aid and have the resources to meet the $47,000 costs!

At Philander Smith, a historically black liberal arts college in Little Rock, AK, 83% are Pell Grant eligible and will graduate with more loans to pay off than Columbia grads. Mr. Kimbrough goes further and sites a study published by the Education Trust that reported "In 2003, about 100 research extensive universities spent $257 million in financial aid for students from families earning over $100,000 a year, almost as much as that spent on students from families earning $20,000-40,000, and more than that spent on students from families earning less than $20,000." The Columbia Universitys and the University of Michigans of the world are using their institutional resources to induce the best and brightest to enroll on their campus who have financial capacity while at same time ignoring the needs of those who have real financial challenges.

The authors of the Trust report go further, “these universities find it more important to use their own money to buy high-income students, who will almost inevitably attend an elite institution no matter what, than to expand the enrollment of… low-income students.” Why? High income students are far easier to educate. They add to the prestige of the college and university by attending and adding their high SAT scores to the institution's ranking in US News and World Report. And hopefully, will become the kind of wealthy alumni like Mr. Kluge who will give back at some time in the future.

Higher education attempts to cloak itself with the mantle that we are creating new knowledge and innovation, educating for democracy and valuing diversity in our students and faculty. However, we are infected with the fund raising disease. Yes, just like the other aspects of our country, rich colleges are getting richer with country club facilities, wealthier and academically gifted students, and ever increasing endowments. At the same time, Antioch has to close its doors, Philander Smith continues to enroll poor students with many academic challenges, and college presidents are measured soley are their ability to raise money.

Pentagon Confirms It Sought To Build A 'Gay Bomb'

If you look at the picture of the explosion very carefully, you can see the outline of Liberace's face.


'A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.

Pentagon officials on Friday confirmed to CBS 5 that military leaders had considered, and then subsquently rejected, building the so-called "Gay Bomb."' Ah yes... what a brain trust we have in the Pentagon. An Air Force lab in my own great state of Ohio asked for $7.5 million to perfect a bomb that would inject a particular hormone into our burly fighting men so that they would become more interested in gay sex, Bette Midler movies, and Home and Garden TV and less interested in killing each other. This was just another idea suggested by the great minds in the military to make war less lethal and more like a Senior Prom. If war wasn't so messy and bloody, our military would never have trouble getting all the money they want from the Congress.

I think it also reveals the ignorance of our various military think tanks to presume that men injected with gay hormones would be less aggressive and more apt to send anonymous notes on Craigslist to set up hookups. Most of those researchers haven't been to Smith and Hawkins for their 50% off sale after the Holidays! I have seen a lot metrosexual, quasi-sexual and homosexual men throwing some mean elbows there to buy that last piece of artificial, but tasteful holly!

Same Old...Same Old

It is reported in today's NY Times, 3 months after the beginning of Bush's surge, fewer than 1/3 of the Baghdad neighborhoods have been cleared of insurgents by American or Iraqi government forces. The American assessment, completed at the end of May, reported that only 146 or Baghdad's 457 neighborhoods are under the physical control of the American or Iraqi forces.

The articles goes on to report that "In an interview, Brig. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, the deputy commander of the First Cavalry Division, which has responsibility for Baghdad, said '...while military planners had expected to make greater gains by now, that has not been possible in large part because Iraqi police and army units, which were expected to handle basic security tasks, like manning checkpoints and conducting patrols, have not provided all the forces promised, and in some cases have performed poorly....That is forcing American commanders to conduct operations to remove insurgents from some areas multiple times.' Around 30,000 Iraqi Army and national police forces and another 21,000 policemen have been deployed in Baghdad. 'Many of the Iraqi units have turned up at less than full strength and other units have been redeployed from the capital,' General Brooks said, 'leaving fewer than expected.'"

The local commander of the Iraqi national police, a force run by the Shiite-run Interior Ministry, has been replaced three times since March. Yogi Berra was right. It is deja vu all over again! How many times have we heard that our Iraqi allies fighting for the future of THEIR country are not stepping up to the plate? The Iraqi government, police and the army are not ready and will never be ready. We keep trying get them to hit at the Triple A level and they just can't hit a curveball.

The magic hour to evaluate the surge was supposedly set for some time in September. This recent assessment and announcements coming from the Defense Dept., White House and Iraq already are intimating that September is far too early "to truly evaluate the effectiveness of the surge." I cannot believe that any military strategist worth his or her salt thought that an additional 25 or 30 thousands troops would salvage this bloodfest.

More obfuscation, more deceit, more body bags. I believe the surge strategy was devised as a means to stall for time and to prolong the war. Bush and his minions want to dump this mess on whomever is elected in 2008.

Third Base? Don Hoak!

There is a wonderful moment in the film, “City Slickers” in which Helen Slater becomes so frustrated with the Billy Crystal’s and the late Bruno Kirby’s heated discussion about baseball, she yells, “I like baseball. I just don’t memorize who played third base for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1960!” They both responded simultaneously, “Don Hoak.” As I sat watching the movie in the darkened theater, I too blurted out Don Hoak at the same time.

Yes, at one time I also was a baseball junkie just like Billy and Bruno. I prided myself on knowing all kinds of Pirate baseball trivia: the career on base percentage for Manny Sanguillian (.326), the number of home runs Bob Robertson hit in 1971 (26), or Willy Stargell’s middle name (Dornel). I have very fond memories of going to Pirate games in the 60s in old Forbes Field with my dad and sitting in right field just to watch Roberto Clemente play outfield using his patented basket catch. I used to listen the Bob Prince on my transistor radio call games on hot summer nights while lying in bed. I continued to follow the Pirates and MLB throughout the 70s and 80s. The Pirates had some decent teams and actually won the World Series in 1979. Slowly though, things started to change for the worse. The Pirate’s management could not compete with the big market teams. The Pirates traded away or lost all their young talent due to free agency. The final straw came with the 1994 strike. Over that year, I lost complete interest in the Pirates and MLB.

I confess I still watch the creeper on EPSN to see if the Pirates won or lost yesterday’s game. Living in Cincinnati, I still go to one game a year when they are in town. But my passion and love for all things baseball is pretty much gone. I don’t know anything about the team or the manager. I am sure I don’t know any of the players’ middle names!

The Pirates were in town last week. Surprisingly they took 3 out of 4 games from the Reds who are not having a very good year. Some friends and I went to a Sunday day game. The Pirates won 14 to 10. There were lots of hits, good defensive plays and 7 home runs. It should have been more fun than it was. What happened to MLB? Or am I just getting too old!

Let me offer a few insights I had as I was watching the game. First, the stadium in Cincinnati is one of the new “old” parks designed for watching baseball. The place was one large billboard for anything from Diet Pepsi to Injury Lawyers. Soon the players themselves will be offering ad space on their derrieres. Ballparks always sold ad space. I should expect it in the overheated world of commercialization of professional sports. Every empty space on any surface has some advertisement.

How can a family afford to attend a game anymore? Peanuts, a slice of pizza or an ice cream for 4 bucks? A lite beer for 6 bucks? And a microbrew for $7.50! Pretty soon we will have 60 days same as cash offers just to entice families to go. There is something wrong about a family forking out 50 bucks in refreshment costs when your left fielder, who is paid about $1,000 an out, looks like he is sleep walking on the field.

Can anyone bunt anymore? I watched two pitchers strikeout trying to bunt. They looked like they had 2X4’s in their hands as lunged at the various pitches.

I still can’t figure out why so many commentators have their undies bunched up about the steroid stuff. I know they are bad for many obvious reasons. But after the negative fall-out from the ‘94 strike, most owners looked the other way as Barry Bonds hat size exploded from 7” 1/8 to about a 10”. Baseballs leaving the park brought in patrons, ad dollars, and bigger TV ratings. Additionally, all these purists who say that steroid use contaminates baseball records are only fooling themselves. Don’t you think Ty Cobb or Babe Ruth would have used steroids if they were around back then? They would have done anything short of killing someone to extend their careers or hit more home runs. As a friend said, “They tended to use performance inhibitors, not performance enhancers.” Those players of the bygone era just didn’t have the benefits of modern pharmacology.

And finally, what’s wrong with a little quiet every once in a while? In the “olde” days I remember the organ played a few tunes between innings. Now, we are bombarded with jumbotron video games, raucous fireworks, hip-hop music and yes, even the dreaded 15-second infomercials. I almost believe those responsible for marketing baseball use all this stuff to distract fans from how bad the actual product is on the field.

I know some of you are probably mumbling this is just another of Fat Boy Tom’s rants about getting older and losing interest in something he enjoyed when he was younger. It probably is. But MLB has changed. It increasingly looks and feels more like one of those junk sports ESPN2 puts on at 8 AM Sunday morning. When sports idiot savants like me don’t know the starting line-ups for the Pirates or any MLB team, something is wrong.

Sadly, Don Hoak died of a heart attack when he was 41 while at the wheel of his car, chasing his brother-in-law's stolen car.