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Monday, August 11, 2008
My Son, The Budding Racist
"We were walking and one of the older boys turned around and hit me with his knee." A spasm of giggles shook his oversized, 6-year-old body. "Right in the peanuts."
This news sends a hollowness into any man's gut. It's a sympathy pain like the one you should have felt when your wife was pushing the kid out, but you were too busy gawking and thinking, "Huey Lewis! Look at that! How is THAT frickin' possible?!"
"Are you all right?"
"Yeah. I fell to the ground. It reeeeeally hurt," he said, snorting and covering his face with his grubby little man hands.
"Buddy, why are you laughing? Dad's been hit there before and it is usually NOT a laughing matter. Unless it happens to someone else, of course."
"I don't know. Heeee-heeee-heeeee."
"What happened to the boy who did it? Why did he do it?"
"I don't know. They made him take a time out."
Needless to say, the next day's pick up at camp required a more thorough debriefing before we arrived home. So when Thing 2 scampered up into the minivan, I Mike Wallaced him.
"How'd it go today, buddy? Any one pop you in the sack?"
"Nope. We picked corn from the garden. And I got to use a rake and a garbage bag to pick up horse poop. Country makes big poop. Missy's are small. She's a pony."
"You," I gasped. "You picked up horse poop?"
"Yep. I picked up sheep poop yesterday."
Hamster starts running on the wheel. Light bulb flickers on. "So, now that you are so experienced, I can have you pick up the dog's poop around the yard for me, right?"
"Daaaaaad! No! This is CAAAAAMP."
Worth a shot.
"And what has been your favorite part of camp, buddy?"
"Hmmm … Cleaning the pig's house."
Geez, I'm shelling out $325 a week ($340 if you include the camp T-shirt) so Thing 2 can to do the counselors' chores?! What the frick?! I can't get him to brush his teeth most mornings, but he's picking up sheep squirts like it was piñata candy.
"So," I said in disbelief, "you REALLY like this camp, huh?"
"Yep. And best of all, there are no brown people."
Ow ow ow ow! My socially liberal, agnostic-fearin' heart! Someone at the hospital accidentially gave me David Duke's son!
"Uh, come again."
"Brown people smell funny."
I'm hoping he means campers like himself who come home every day covered in mud -- and now, I'm guessing, various barnyard excrements -- but I have my doubts.
"Buddy, have you gotten a whiff of yourself lately? You're not a batch of sugar cookies fresh from the oven."
"Brown people aren't very nice to me, either."
"What are you talking about? What about Quinten and Tarantino in your kindergarten class? You seemed to get along fine with them. Tarantino even came to your birthday party. He gave you the Spiderman glove thingy that shoots Silly String. You loved that."
"Well, I guess some brown people are OK. We do have one brown kid in camp."
"Does he smell?"
"Daaaaaad, it's a g-IR-LLLL."
"I sit corrected. Does she smell funny?"
His eyes roll upward in deep thought. "No. I can't smell her at all."
"Is she mean to you? Does she knee you in the peanuts? Does she?"
"No. She doesn't talk to me."
"Soooo … you admit that not all brown people …"
"And not all brown people are …"
"Mean to me?"
"Boy, that is so right. People come in all different colors, sizes and, uh, smells. Doesn't make them bad, just different. You don't have like everyone, just be nice and try to get along. Capesh?"
Eh, close enough. Besides, I think the minivan just took out someone's mailbox.
Yeah. It's a brown one.
37 comments:
At some point in a child's life the 'light switch' clicks on alerting them to the fact that people are different. I just wonder where the opinions about those differences come from. Hopefully, the influences will be good ones. But, we can't always be sure of that, can we?ReplyDelete
Oh, your story made me think of an unfortunate conversation I had with my youngest earlier this year. I was alone, husband was at work, and I heard the most gut wrenching scream coming from the general direction of the bathroom. My three year old came running out of the bathroom crying and shaking. Apparently, the toilet seat had just slammed on his penis (or his peanuts, as he calls it). Two days later, he zipped it in his jeans. To this day, he pees with the seat down and won't wear pants with zippers. Poor guy, traumatized for life.ReplyDelete
LOL...funny how life lessons come in all shapes and sizes..I wonder if another kid made the comment, and he just thought it sounded right...or maybe there was 1 kid who did smell "different" and now it's a general rule...Whatever, kids gonna learn one way or the other...ReplyDelete
Perhaps you need to get a dog that leaves turds the size of horse or sheep doo to interest him in helping with the cleanup?ReplyDelete
We are just getting to point where my little guy is comprehending that people are different. Can't wait for these conversations to start! As for the penis thing, at least yours wears pants. Mine just wants be nekkid from the waist down and play with his little member all day. He doesn't care what color that is!ReplyDelete
Mine doesnt even know his colors or is stubborn enough not to tell us. I have to fight the everyone is different thign everyday. There are to many people out there that just need to get over the whole color thing.ReplyDelete
WE call ours "dude." Little dude is always hitting big dude in the bobo's all the time. I cant help but laugh. That funny as hell to me.
- AnonymousAugust 11, 2008 at 10:24 AM
I went to a camp like that as a kid. And being the smart a** that I was (am) I remember actually standing in the middle of a poopie horse stall and saying the same thing to the couselors. "You mean to tell me CAMP is where I do all work for you guys on this farm? I don't work this hard at home- and there I get an allowance. Call my Dad. I am so DONE"ReplyDelete
And you know what? No more horse poop for the rest of the summer. And I was glad!
way to handle the racist thing.that one is hard.
LMAO - my girls would rather muck out horse stalls (for which I paid $300x2 for a week of mucking) than clean their rooms or their playroom.ReplyDelete
So I guess I'll have to resort to spreading manure on their toys and giving them a rake to get them to clean up.
Hey, whatever works ...
PS: They just corrected me - it's not a rake, it's a pitchfork. They still won't clean up.
I have found that the friends they make are kind of grandfathered once they realize the color thing. They grew up with brown, dark skinned friends, but somehow differentiate those from brown, dark skinned friends they haven't met.ReplyDelete
my kids didn't mention skin color... until they started school where the unlikely outcome of teaching about different cultures makes the kids recognize skin color.ReplyDelete
these days, they're all about celebrating diversity:
Great post...important issue to deal with, but...great postReplyDelete
We got to meet Michael Clayton and hubs and I were so excited (he was on my fantasy football team that year) and he was doing some charity work with the cancer kids. He reached down to pick up Peyton and she did that "melty bone, sink into a puddle) thing and squirmed free.ReplyDelete
She ran over to me and announces "I didn't want that big brown boy to hold me."
- AnonymousAugust 11, 2008 at 12:16 PM
Way to go, AHAU, you managed to teach your kid a life lesson AND entertain us all at the same time. BRAVO.ReplyDelete
This is the funniest shit I've read all day. I have so many thoughts I don't know where to start. Here goes:ReplyDelete
First, if you are paying for your kid to shoveling animal poo, just send him to our ranch. Normally, we would pay a kid for this, but since you are generous enough for you to pay FOR your kid doing it, we'd love to have him.
Mike Wallacing him? Seriously? How pissed are you going to be if I steal that for my everyday life.
On a more serious note, it is expected for children to notice differences and be confused by them. Totally natural, really. However, it is not natural for adults to cultivate it into a means of oppression like what still happens in the some families. You dealt with this the best way a parent could, you talked to him without freaking out.
- AnonymousAugust 11, 2008 at 2:11 PM
Fotunately at least the different people kids already know personally are ok. It is the unknown that is a problem.ReplyDelete
Come to think of it, adults are pretty much the same a lot of the time.
It is good your kid is learning that there is some element of sh!t in every part of life and sometimes we just have to stop and shovel it.
Maybe by "brown people" he means his fellow campers (regardless of skin color) who have been working on the chain gang with him all day, shoveling poo? It's within reason to expect that such "brown people" would be smelly indeed.ReplyDelete
Gazangus. I can hardly wait to tell my boys how cushy their day camp is!
My 5 year old daughter shocked me by saying she doesn't like "brown skin people". And this was said last year, when she was 4. Yikes!ReplyDelete
What kind of camp is this again?! Also, I will pay this boy cash money to come muck out my basement. It's full of toys, not animal waste, but I swear, it looks like a hell hole down there. Then we'll say 'peanuts' a lot, and I will laugh and laugh, and it won't be the least bit weird. No. It will be adorable!ReplyDelete
Funny ass post. First time visitor and glad I stopped by. Oh and you can call me stalker now.ReplyDelete
i go away for a while and come home to Uncool life lessons. about shit and race relations. i am never, ever leaving again.ReplyDelete
Oooh, I've had conversations similar to this with Noah. His Other dad is of the David Duke variety and sometimes there are conflicts.ReplyDelete
Also, if the other kid kept kneeing him in the balls, and teachers didn't see or help, what would you have him do? When words wouldn't make him stop. Would you tell to fight the kid?
So there's a kid in camp named Quinton and another named Tarantino? Your boy better keep on his toes for sword play and bad 70's b-movie references.ReplyDelete
man, nice alerting your kid to reason and logic.ReplyDelete
My three year old monkey asked my native american friend "can you speak spanish?" She said "no" and he replied "yes you can, you're brown." We explained to him that not all darker skinned people are spanish. He then replied with "Can you say juanita?" I don't know where that came from... lol.ReplyDelete
I can only assume you've already written up a treatment for this, next year's hottest primetime buddy comedy.ReplyDelete
If not, let me know and I'm off to the bank.
I mean, it's not a good idea and you should not want to do anything with it. Please sign here to that effect.
Camp does wierd things to young minds.ReplyDelete
Good luck with that.
- AnonymousAugust 12, 2008 at 9:48 AM
Oh dear. Well handled. Now get that kid a cup.ReplyDelete
That was great dialogue. I'm taking my pointers from you.ReplyDelete
Everything poopie is fun....unless it's in your own backyard and your dad tells you to clean it up.ReplyDelete
My kids are now teenagers and have moved on from the "brown people" thing to letting me know EVERYthing is "gay".
I guess it's true when my mother told me raising children takes not only patience but forty-seven rolls of duct tape, a club for their heads, steel-toed boots, and beer.
Holy crap, I just can't stop laughing over here.ReplyDelete
Please, please tell me that you made up the Tarintino part. No one is really that mean to their kid, right? Right?
Wait until some of the other prejudicial phases hit. The teen years are the worst. Just when I thought I knew what group Motley thought was cool, she was bagging on them! Luckily, at 19, I think she's got stuff kinda figured out now. *sigh*ReplyDelete
$340 a week, that is not bad. cAn't find anything for that around here.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousAugust 13, 2008 at 11:29 AM
Yeah, I feel ya on the racial thing. Sent the first kid to a public school with kids from 25 different countries. Felt all Angelina Jolie-ish about the wonderful world of diversity we were providing. Wasn't possible with the second, she's been in private school for 6 years. In the third grade she leaned back into a restaurant booth, sighed loudly and said, "I am SO glad I have white skin."ReplyDelete
Dead silence from entire table.
She looked around and said, "What? I like to get all brown in the summer and if I was already brown I couldn't."
Meanwhile the oldest is now watching the Olympics with the sole purpose of finding a "hot Asian husband."
I rock as a mom.
I think all parents have an "Ohhh my God, my kids' a RACIST!" moments at one point or another. You handled it beautifully, I think. Not that you need me to validate your parenting or anything.ReplyDelete
Dude..I have a German Shephard and she poo's enough for my entire neighborhood. I will GLADLY let you pay me $325 to let your kid come hang out all week and clean up my dog's poo. I can call it the HMC's camp for peanut kickers.
What would Huey Lewis do?ReplyDelete
The Girl once asked me if you had to have brown skin in order to be a bus driver. I still don't think I have answered her question adequately.ReplyDelete
This was so funny! Thanks for the laugh!ReplyDelete
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November 14, 2013
Participants at the October 2013 Innovators International meeting, held at the National Synchrotron Light Source II
Innovation and science are perfect partners in research and development (R&D). And that's what drew Innovators International to Brookhaven National Laboratory on October 30, 2013.
Connie Cleary, the Lab's new Commercialization Manager, and head of the Technology Commercialization and Partnerships Office, welcomed meeting participants with this promise: "Brookhaven has great science and resources that we can share with industry."
These speakers on the meeting agenda amplified Cleary's statement:
The day was punctuated by focused tours of user facilities conducted by knowledgeable staff:
Nineteen scientists, engineers and business specialists attended the daylong meeting to represent their companies:
Q&As with speakers, snippets of conversations during coffee breaks, lively exchanges during the tours, and detailed discussions at the working lunch were evidence of a productive day for all. That was reaffirmed in comments from attendees during the wrap-up session at the end. Also, Innovators International CEO Uri Neren requested speaker presentations to provide to the organization's members who were unable to attend.
Cleary acknowledged the teamwork involved in setting up this successful meeting with industry. "It was a true collaboration among CEGPA [Community, Education, Government and Public Affairs directorate], the user facilities, scientists and other staff," she said. "That same teamwork will serve the Lab well going forward."
Already, opportunities are becoming apparent for nurturing a budding relationship with Innovators International and its member companies. In his talk, for example, Steve Dierker announced that Photon Sciences will be holding a workshop in the spring of 2014 on enhancing industrial research at NSLS-II.
Innovators International is a private collaboration of senior innovation leaders from corporations, governments, and other organizations around the world. Founded in 2007 by R&D and strategy leaders from top international companies, the group helps its members develop the most cutting-edge approaches to innovation.
2013-4443 | INT/EXT | Newsroom


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As a Michigander for the past 21 years, I've heard my share of Detroit criticisms, jokes, and put downs, both from within and outside the Great Lakes State. While fingers can be pointed at the lack of past civic and political leadership in Detroit, our collective actions (or lack thereof) can certainly share in the responsibility. Some may scoff at such a notion, but here're a few reasons why:
- As a nation we elected leaders who adopted a tax code and laws that advocated, promoted, and accelerated flight from cities and suburban sprawl. Many in this nation continue to support such policies. Granted, this affects every city, but that doesn't mean it was beneficial for them unless they had scads of excess land for new subdivisions or the ability to annex freely.
- As a nation, we collectively turned our backs on inner cities and the residents thereof many years ago, only seeing fit to reverse course when the notion of revitalization became profitable.
- As a state, Michigan has some of the most arcane home rule laws that created thousands of 36 square mile "kingdumbs" (pun intended) that fight with each other like cats and dogs and seldom do the right thing.
- This nation very nearly turned its collective back on the auto industry due to political self-interest.
- As a state and nation we allowed expressways, poorly placed factories, urban renewal projects, sports stadiums, and other projects to carve up and displace perfectly healthy inner city neighborhoods, leaving a tattered and disjointed landscape.
- Residents/politicians living in outstate Michigan from Detroit would short-sightedly say, act, and vote as if Detroit was not their problem too.
- In Southeast Michigan, leaders and residents alike outside of Wayne County often could care less what happened south of Eight Mile.
- One of the best interurban transit systems in the nation was torn up and replaced by diesel-belching buses that have as many endearing qualities as a lump of coal.
- Corporations ran away from the city in the '60s and '70s…with some finally seeing the light of their actions and returning to Detroit in the '00s and '10s.
- Half of Detroit's professional sport franchises left for the 'burbs with one, the Pistons, still playing practically closer to Flint than Detroit.
- Far too many lenders and insurance companies red-lined inner city neighborhoods.
- Shady lenders who offered inner city loans foreclosed on homeowners the first chance they got.
- Absentee landlords let their properties decline into disrepair and blight.
- Politicians shied away from making the tough decisions, and rhetoric replaced reason in far too many discussions and decisions concerning Detroit.
- Too many people in Southeast Michigan acted like the city was an island unto itself, when, like it or not, their collective futures have been inexorably linked to Detroit's fate.
- Up until recent years, the national media tended to solely focus on the bad news about Detroit. There are many great things about Detroit, and piling on does nothing to reverse problems: it only reinforces misperceptions and stereotypes.
Shall I go on?
– Rick Brown


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VISUALIZING AND MODELING VOCAL PRODUCTION DYNAMICS by Erik Bresch A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING) May 2011 Copyright 2011 Erik Bresch
Object Description
|Visualizing and modeling vocal production dynamics
|Bresch, Erik
|Author email
|firstname.lastname@example.com; firstname.lastname@example.com
|Doctor of Philosophy
|Document type
|Degree program
|Electrical Engineering
|Viterbi School of Engineering
|Date defended/completed
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|Restricted until
|Date published
|Advisor (committee chair)
|Narayanan, Shrikanth S.
|Advisor (committee member)
Nayak, Krishna S.
Goldstein, Louis M.
|Understanding human speech production is of fundamental importance for basic and applied research in human communication: from speech science and linguistics to clinical and engineering development. While the vocal tract posture and movement can be investigated using a host of techniques, the newly developed real-time (RT) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology has a particular advantage - it produces complete views of the entire moving vocal tract including the pharyngeal structures in a non-invasive manner. RT-MRI promises a new means for visualizing and quantifying the spatio-temporal articulatory details of speech production and it also allows for exploring novel data-intensive, machine learning based computational approaches to speech production modeling.; The central goal of this thesis is to develop new technological capabilities and to use these novel tools for studying human vocal tract shaping during speech production. The research, which is inherently interdisciplinary, combines technological elements (to design engineering methods and systems to acquire and process novel speech production data), experimental elements (to design linguistically meaningful studies to gather useful insights) and computational elements (to explain the observed data and design predictive capabilities).; In the first chapter the use of RT-MRI as an emerging technique for speech production research studies is motivated. An outline is provided of the biomedical image acquisition and image processing challenges, potentials, and opportunities arising with the use of RT-MRI.; The second part describes novel hardware technology and signal processing algorithms which were developed to facilitate synchronous speech audio recordings during RT-MRI scans. Here, the main problem lies in the loud noise produced by the MRI acquisition process. The proposed solution incorporates digital synchronization hardware and an adaptive signal processing algorithm which allows the acquisition of speech audio with satisfactory quality for further analysis. This enables joint speech-image data acquisition that in turn allows for joint modeling of articulatory-acoustic phenomena.; The third chapter addresses the extraction of relevant geometrical features from the vast stream of MR images. In the case of the commonly used midsagittal view of the human vocal tract the geometrical features of interest are the locations of the articulators, and hence the underlying image processing problem to be solved is that of edge detection. Further complications arise from the poor MR image quality, which is compromised by the inherent trade-off between spatial, temporal resolution, and signal to noise ratio. A solution to the edge detection problem will be devised using a deformable geometrical model of the human vocal tract. Mathematically the proposed procedure relies on designing alternate gradient vector flows for the solution of a non-linear least squares optimization problem. With the new method the human vocal tract outline can be traced automatically.; Chapters 4 and 5 describe two vocal production studies using articulatory vocal tract data. The first study investigates 5 soprano singers' static vocal tract shaping during the singing production of vowel sounds, and it considers the much-researched theory of resonance tuning. The study successfully validates the usefulness of RT-MRI data and the data processing methods of Chapters 2 and 3. The second study focuses on the tongue shaping of English sibilant fricative sounds, and reproduces previously known findings with the new RT-MRI modality.; The last part of this thesis proposes a statistical framework for the modeling of articulatory speech data. Here, the main focus lies on the Coupled Hidden Markov Model as a candidate system to capture the dynamics of the multi-dimensional vocal tract shaping process. It is demonstrated that using this methodology it is possible to capture in a data driven way the well-known timing signatures of the velum-oral coordination of English nasal sounds in word onset and coda positions.; This thesis is concluded with a brief summary of the contributions and a discussion of possible future research directions.
|speech; speech production; MRI; magnetic resonance imaging; vocal tract
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|VISUALIZING AND MODELING VOCAL PRODUCTION DYNAMICS by Erik Bresch A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING) May 2011 Copyright 2011 Erik Bresch


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Without primaries ahead, Dems focus on November
As Republicans confront the likelihood of a three-way battle for their gubernatorial nomination on Aug. 12, Democrats are sitting back, saving their political ammunition and savoring incumbent Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who easily won his party's support for a second term.
In fact, all major state Democrats won uncontested re-election support, including U.S. Rep. Jim Himes of the 4th District, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro of the 3rd and U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty of the 5th, each of whom collected endorsements in their districts last week before Friday night's statewide convention in Hartford.
For Democratic State Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo, of Trumbull, it's a luxury to have a united team for a change. Four years ago, Malloy defeated Ned Lamont, of Greenwich, in a hotly contested primary, and eight years ago then-New Haven Mayor John DeStefano beat Malloy in a contentious battle of big-city mayors.
If anything, Republicans will have even more complications in a three-way primary pitting the endorsed gubernatorial candidate, Tom Foley, of Greenwich, against Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton and state Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, of Fairfield, who both earned enough delegate support and said they will push primaries.
"This potential three-way primary is both a dream and a nightmare. On one hand, over the course of the primary, voters will see just what these Republican candidates are: pandering politicians who are out of touch with mainstream Connecticut and on the wrong side of the issues," DiNardo said in a statement. "On the other, we're going to have to bear months and months of empty promises, laughable claims on tax cuts without spending cuts, and more pandering to the NRA. Every day we're seeing the Republican candidates distort, pander and move to the extremes. Now that's going to continue for months."
Noting the Mohegan Sun casino was the venue of the Republican convention, Scott McLean, professor of politics at Quinnipiac University, said that while McKinney might be the "better candidate," Foley is the likely primary winner at this point.
"They're doubling down on Foley," McLean said, recalling Foley's narrow, 6,404 defeat in 2010.
firstname.lastname@example.com; 860-549-4670; twitter.com/KenDixonCT; facebook.com/kendixonct.hearst; blog.ct news.com/dixon


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The first volume documenting and collecting Orson Scott Card's work for the last thirty years. Orson Scott Card has won many awards and honors over the years including the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Japanese Science Fiction, and John Campbell Award. His novels include Ender's Game, Tales of Alvin Maker Saga, The Worthing Saga, Xenocide, Speaker for the Dead, Folk of the Fringe, The Abyss, The Homecoming Saga, Maps in a Mirror, Lost Boys and many other novels and short story collections. Overlook Connection Press is proud to bring you this Orson Scott Card Bibliography by Michael R. Collings which accounts for every novel, story, poem . . . every word that ha been published and then some. This is a must for any reader, fan, or library who wants to learn everything about this wonderful author's work.
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Memphis, Tenn. – The Tennessee State men's and women's track and field teams opened the 2013 Outdoor Season with 10 first-place finishes at the Rhodes Open.
For the Tigerbelles, sprinters Ashontae Jackson and Quanisha Sales led the way by taking home titles in the 400 and 100-meter dashes, respectively. Jackson ran her event in 56.54 seconds which was nearly one second faster than her next closest competitor. Sales held off a pair of runners from Mississippi Valley State to win the 100-meter with a time of 11.83 seconds.
Jackson and Sales then paired with teammates Clairwin Dameus and Leslye Williams to place first in the 4x100 meter relay with a time of 46.64 seconds.
A team of four Flying Tigers also stood atop the podium when Travon Alexander, Royce Dates, Daryl Rice and Tyler Anderson ran the men's 4x100 relay in 42.24 seconds.
Rice won his second event of the day with a leap of 2.08 meters in the high jump and Dates took home first with a hop of 7.31 meters in the long jump.
Another Flying Tiger who had a big day was Jason Griffin who won both the 400 and 110-meter hurdles. Griffin won the 400 with a time 54.52 seconds and edged teammates Shawn Harris and Chris Hawkins in 110 meter after clearing the event in 15.09 seconds.
Ja'Lyn Burr rounded out the winners for TSU by leaping 1.63 meters in the women's high jump.
Tennessee State will next travel to Columbia, S.C. for the Weems Baskin Relays on Mar. 23.
--TSU Tigers--


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Europe Is Facing a Real Economic and Social Crisis
By Lee Jay Walker
Tokyo Correspondent – THE SEOUL TIMES
|Europe is facing a real economic and social crisis.
The demise of the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain was meant to see the triumph of democracy and capitalism. However, the current global economic downturn threatens to unleash both political uncertainty and major self-doubt. The mantra of market forces is over in the short-term and some nations like Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, and the Ukraine, and others, are in free fall. So what will become of the "new Europe?"
For now the main engines of Europe are grinding to a halt and this applies to Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy. At the same time the Russian Federation, which is the main energy based nation and major European military power, is also beset by major internal economic problems. Therefore, the engines of Europe are not only running low, but for nations like the United Kingdom, they are barely running at all and negative economic growth is predicted.
Meanwhile, for nations which dreamed about joining the democratic and economic club, after long years of communist control, are now faced with a new and harsh reality. After all, Latvia is predicted to contract by around 12% this year and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was asked to bail out this nation. Other nations, like the Ukraine, need major financial support in order to remain afloat and the list of nations in crisis is rising steadily.
At the same time, unemployment is nearing 10% in Ireland and it is even worse in Spain. Therefore, major social tensions will erupt and the initial mildness of demonstrations will grow in anger. Also, the very foundation stone of European Union identity will be tested because some nations will seek to implement certain forms of protectionism in various different sectors. Therefore, the social fabric of Europe will be challenged deeply and recent demonstrations in Ireland and Iceland will continue and other nations will face similar problems.
Clearly, for some political parties, and this applies to both the far-right and far-left, then this could be a time of growing political clout. After all, far-right political parties have been aghast by globalization, mass immigration, and the loss of national identity. While the far-left was alarmed by rampant capitalism, the free market, decreasing influence of trade unions, and flexible market conditions which led to temporary employment and limited working contracts. Therefore, if the current economic crisis continues it is clear that political tensions will also grow and the same applies to social tensions.
Given this reality, "There's a domino effect," stated Kenneth Rogoff, a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund and a professor at the highly acclaimed Harvard. He further added that the "International credit markets are linked, and so a snowballing credit crisis in Eastern Europe and the Baltic countries could cause New York municipal bonds to fall."
So 2009 is clearly going to test the banking sector, the feasibility of market forces after deregulation, and buzz words like globalization appear to be a nightmare. At the same time political tensions will increase and waves of unemployment will unleash other negative side effects. Also, the European Union will be threatened by new forces and the single union may be threatened by protectionism or by major political and economic disagreements.
However, one thing is for sure, and that is the first bout of the economic downturn was all about the banking sector and inefficient companies which needed fresh capital. Yet now the situation is getting worse and political tensions will unleash either major chaos or create tensions which threaten national governments. The Iron Curtain appears to be like a distant memory but the victorious forces of democracy and free market forces are in a retreat.
Now it is the turn of state intervention and nationalization. Therefore, can nations like Iceland, Latvia, the Ukraine, and others, re-invent themselves or will political tensions erupt? For now, it would appear that 2009 will get a lot worse before it gets a lot better. Given this, nations like Spain and Ireland which are suffering from high unemployment, must face up to the challenges ahead. So can Europe maintain its unity or will further cracks engulf the EU and wider Europe?
Lee Jay Walker Dip BA MA


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The 'Torturous' 2014 Draft
EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. — In my travels over the past week to watch Johnny Manziel game tape with people who know quarterbacks and quarterback play (more about that next week in Sports Illustrated and The MMQB), I had a coach tell me that trying to figure out which passer to pick this year is "torturous." I'll have a good chunk about the quarterback dilemma with one under-pressure general manager's view of the QB market … and why he agrees with the "torturous" description.
But 17 days before the draft begins (Lord help us: Seventeen more mind-numbing days of this), here's what I'm hearing:
- Houston, at No. 1, isn't set on Jadeveon Clowney. In fact, one FORS (Friend of Rick Smith) told me the Texans general manager likes Khalil Mack over Clowney, and we still don't know which quarterback Houston would choose if it chooses one first overall. I still think the Texans would go with a more sure thing with the first overall pick than a quarterback—and that sure thing could also be tackle Greg Robinson. But imagine Mack, the outside linebacker from the University of Buffalo, being the first pick in a stacked draft. Wouldn't that be something—a second straight Mid-American Conference player (Eric Fisher, Central Michigan, by Kansas City) as the top pick in the NFL draft?
- Jacksonville is the most logical spot for the loser of the No. 1 pick derby between Clowney and Mack. GM David Caldwell and coach Gus Bradley want a pass-rusher, badly.
- Detroit taking a tight end? I doubt it, but North Carolina tight end Eric Ebron, the clear top player at the position in this year's draft, was asked by one team he visited recently who he thought would pick him. "Detroit,'' he said.
- Arizona is sweet on a couple of quarterbacks, Derek Carr and A.J. McCarron, who are first- and second-round possibilities. With coach Bruce Arians' love of the deep ball, McCarron in round two seems a bit of a reach. I will say this about McCarron: He doesn't have a great deep arm by any standard, but he's an accurate deep-ball thrower when he does air it out.
- Pittsburgh likes Odell Beckham and Brandin Cooks at wide receiver, and one or both should be there at No. 15 if that's the direction the Steelers go—and they need to replenish the position after losing two receivers in free agency in two years. (I'd go corner if I were GM Kevin Colbert.)
- Tampa Bay is partial to, among others, Texas A&M wide receiver Mike Evans at No. 7. I've watched a lot of Johnny Manziel tape recently, and I'll say this about Evans: supremely talented, extremely hot-headed. He'd better cure his immaturity on the field, and fast.
- Hot guys right now: Ohio State linebacker Ryan Shazier, Notre Dame tackle/guard Zack Martin, Boise State defensive end Demarcus Lawrence. Cold guys right now: Louisville quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, UCLA linebacker Anthony Barr, Alabama tackle Cyrus Kouandjio.
- If Michigan tackle Taylor Lewan gets past Detroit (picking 10th in the first round), the Giants (12th) and the Steelers (15th), I doubt sincerely Baltimore would pass on him.
- Oakland? Clueless there. Sorry, Black Hole people. The Raiders seem like a logical place for Johnny Manziel, but Oakland hasn't exactly been the bastion of quarterback wisdom in this century. (See Stat of the Week.)
* * *
Why this is a bad year to stake your reputation on a quarterback.
As I said, I've been traveling to measure what smart people think about Manziel. In so doing, and in talking to a few of the decision-makers whose necks will be on the line, I've reached a conclusion about the position and the men who are charged with picking the passers this year.
It is a torturous decision, as the coach of a quarterback-needy team told me. As a GM, if you take a quarterback in the first round, any of them, you're going to go home and not sleep well that night. If you pass on a quarterback with some spellbinding tools—Manziel, for instance—you're going to go home and not sleep well that night, fearing what you've passed up.
The measuring for one such team, Minnesota, begins today. The Vikings begin eight days of final meetings to set their draft board this morning at the team facility south of Minneapolis. And GM Rick Spielman knows that his job, and the job of his coaches and scouts, might well ride on the two- or three-year results of what they do on this draft weekend. Because this is the year the Vikings should be in position to get their quarterback of the future.
Whomever that is.
"There's no Andrew Luck, no Peyton Manning," Vikings GM Rick Spielman said. "It is such a mixed bag with each player—every one of them has positives, every one of them has negatives."
"The torture part of it,'' said Spielman, "is you see a player sitting there when you pick who you know can help you right away, a significant player at another position, an impact player as a rookie. Then you ask yourself, 'How do we feel about our options at quarterback in the second or third round? Is it close? Is there a big separation, or is it close?' We've broken them down in all the ways we could think of. Analytically—measuring them against their five toughest opponents, indoor-versus-outdoor, by psychological testing, and it is such a mixed bag.
"That's a big reason why we made it a high priority to sign Matt Cassel back. Every one of these quarterbacks … nothing is a sure thing. There's no Andrew Luck, no Peyton Manning. It is such a mixed bag with each player—every one of them has positives, every one of them has negatives. And if that's the way you end up feeling, why don't you just wait 'til later in the draft, and take someone with the first pick you're sure will help you right now?
"I agree with that coach, whoever it is. It is torturous this year."
Spielman said the big benefit for Minnesota will be that, on the weekend before the draft, new offensive coordinator Norv Turner will get his hands on Cassel and Christian Ponder on the field during head coach Mike Zimmer's first mini-camp of the off-season. So Spielman would have had his eight days of meetings, and Turner would have had his three days on the field with the quarterbacks, and then the staff would be able to know: How urgent is our need at quarterback, and how much of a consensus do we have on one of the college guys in this draft?
"Ideally,'' said Spielman, "if we did pick a quarterback this year we would want to redshirt him anyway, and when he'd be ready to go, he'd play. But he'd probably use this year as a learning year. I can say that now, before our meetings, we'll have the coaches and scouts speak, but if we are going to consider a quarterback at eight, I better have consensus in the building that this is our guy. We all better feel good about one guy.''
I asked Spielman about the pressure of picking a quarterback in a year when all of them have zits.
"There's always pressure,'' he said. "This year, there's more.''
This year reminds me of 2011. In fact, GMs should learn from that year. Check out the quarterbacks picked in the top 100 that year:
1. Cam Newton, Carolina
8. Jake Locker, Tennessee
10. Blaine Gabbert, Jacksonville
12. Christian Ponder, Minnesota
35. Andy Dalton, Cincinnati
36. Colin Kaepernick, San Francisco
74. Ryan Mallett, New England
My point: Don't put the pressure on Teddy Bridgewater or Blake Bortles by picking them so high. Pick a surer thing in the first round, then a quarterback from a large pool in the second round. Or third.
Just as in 2012, when the Seahawks (Russell Wilson, 73rd overall pick) and the Eagles (Nick Foles (88th) picked quarterbacks at the right time, teams could do the same this year. Should do the same, really.
Ten years after Pat Tillman's passing, his memory is still honored by NFL fans across the league. (David Banks/Getty Images)
Remembering Pat Tillman … and his case for Canton
As America celebrates the 118th running of the Boston Marathon today—and the renewal of life a year after the terrorist attack there killed three and wounded 264—we also should remember that Tuesday is the 10-year anniversary of the death by friendly fire of Army Ranger Pat Tillman in Afghanistan.
GALLERY: Remembering Pat Tillman on the 10-year anniversary of his death
Tillman is a unique player, and man, in recent NFL history. The only time I ever spoke with him was an hour or so before a Cardinals practice in 1998, in Tempe, Ariz. Tillman was a rookie safety, drafted in the seventh round from Arizona State to the team that was just a couple of miles from where he went to college. And he showed up for work that day—and for our interview—riding a 10-speed bike. That's the only player I ever interviewed who arrived on a bike. The rest of the story is incredible, and incredibly sad. After 9/11, he chose to give up a potentially lucrative free-agent contract to join the Army and suit up to defend his country in Afghanistan. And while on duty April 22, 2004, Tillman was shot three times in the head by one or more of his countrymen. The circumstances around the death, which took place in a firefight with enemy forces near the Pakistan border in eastern Afghanistan, remain a mystery.
However he died, Tillman was a hero to millions in the country for sacrificing his NFL career to serve in the military, and that legend only grew when he died. He is one the most memorable, and admirable, figures of our time. It would be just to take a moment tomorrow to remember Tillman and his service and his sacrifice.
Now, I hadn't thought of the Hall of Fame part of it in several years, until Cris Collinsworth tweeted this on Sunday, after ESPN ran a tribute to Tillman:
Collinsworth and I have discussed this. He remains unconvinced by my argument, which is this: Should all 26 NFL players who have died in service to our country—either in World War II, Vietnam or Afghanistan—be enshrined in Canton? Is one NFL player's service worth more than others'? Should every player who served in wartime be enshrined, or put in a wing of the Hall of Fame? For instance, quarterback Eddie LeBaron was twice wounded in the Korean War, earned a Purple Heart, and came back to play in the NFL; he's not in the Hall—should he be? And what about others who played football and went on to great things? Byron "Whizzer" White, a running back in the NFL, went on to be a Supreme Court justice. Jack Kemp quarterbacked the Bills, then became a nine-term Congressman and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Should they be in?
I think football players and coaches and executives should be in the Hall of Fame for what they accomplish as football players and coaches and executives, and not for anything else.
There is, by the way, a large area of the Hall devoted to NFL men who have served, including a big display for Tillman. I highly recommend seeing it when you visit Canton and see the vastly improved Hall.
Quotes of the Week
"I don't see how people can say some of the things that they say when you have a guy that rushed for almost 1,100 yards with a torn meniscus. But a player like myself, that's accomplished so much in my career, it's always great to have things to put a chip on your shoulder, to have things to motivate you. I think I can turn a bad thing, [with] what people are saying, into a good thing. For me, that gives me motivation, keeps me hungry and keeps a chip on my shoulder to prove those naysayers wrong, because no matter how good you are, no matter what things you do—I could have rushed for 1,500-1,600 yards last year for the Titans and if we didn't make it to the playoffs, or we didn't win games, there would still be things that would be said.''
—New Jets running back Chris Johnson, on the criticism he heard last year, when he averaged a paltry 3.9 yards per rush while playing hurt for part of the season.
"His father treated him a little bit differently than he treated us. The abused don't always have to become abusers. Children of alcoholics don't have to produce dysfunctional families. And children who grew up poor don't have to repeat that cycle."
—Lions coach Jim Caldwell, via the Detroit News, speaking to inner-city high school students in Detroit on Wednesday. Caldwell's father, the coach said, went to work at age 9, was kicked out of his home at 13, and went on to work for General Motors for 35 years. His message, in part, was to read a lot, and make do with what you have. He told a story about making a kite out of paper and fishing line for a Cub Scout competition—and the kite flew higher than everyone else's.
"I'm going to give it a heavy shot. I would love to do it, and if I can do it, I'm keeping it in Buffalo."
—Donald Trump, who says he will make an effort to buy the Buffalo Bills, to the Buffalo News.
"I really just should have coached the team, but he [owner Randy Lerner] didn't want me to."
—Former Browns president Mike Holmgren to me last week, on whether he had any regrets about his years in Cleveland.
"If I find a heaven after this life, I'll be quite surprised. In my own years on this planet, though, I lived in hell for the first 49 years, and have been in heaven for the past 28 years. To live in a world where truth matters and justice, however late, really happens, that world would be heaven enough for us all.''
—The last public words of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, the former middleweight boxer and convicted-murderer-turned-wrongly-accused-cause-celebre, in a column he wrote for the New York Daily News two months ago when he was dying of prostate cancer. Carter succumbed Sunday in Toronto.
The New York Times wrote an excellent, thorough obit of Carter.
Stat of the Week
With Oakland considering releasing Terrelle Pryor (Alex Marvez reported Friday the backup quarterback will be cut if not traded), the nightmare that is Oakland's history of drafting quarterbacks in the last decade of Al Davis' life is alive and well. It's frightening, how bad Oakland was at picking quarterbacks this century. Detailing the four passers Davis drafted among in the top three rounds between 2001 and 2011, and whom the Raiders bypassed while picking each passer:
How bad was he?
Player bypassed (overall pick)
Marques Tuiasosopo
2 starts, 90 career attempts
WR Steve Smith (74)
Andrew Walter
2-7 as starter, 3-16 TD-Int ratio
DL Justin Tuck (74)
JaMarcus Russell
65.2 career rating. Out of NFL by 2010
WR Calvin Johnson (2)
Terrelle Pryor
56% passer, 3 career wins
QB Nick Foles (88)
*Pryor was drafted in the summer of 2011 with a 2012 third-round supplemental pick. The third-rounder would have been the 78th overall pick in the '12 draft, but the Raiders forfeited that pick by taking Pryor.
Factoids of the Week That May Interest Only Me
According to an official of the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon series I met in Boston on Friday as the running community gathered for the Boston Marathon, Bill Belichick will run the Rock 'n' Roll Half-Marathon in Nashville on Saturday. My guess is, with the long-range forecast for temperatures in the high 70s Saturday in Nashville, Belichick will be hoodie-free.
Minnesota special teams coach Mike Priefer had a good idea this month: He decided when his kicker and punter—Blair Walsh and Jeff Locke—reported back for the start of official (but not mandatory) workouts this spring, he'd have them go to TCF Bank Stadium, meeting with the University of Minnesota kicker and punter, and discuss the wind patterns and kicking conditions inside the stadium. Walsh and Locke went, took notes, and reported back to Priefer. It's the first of several trips they'll make to the stadium to research how to adjust their games, if at all, kicking outside for the next two seasons while the new Vikings stadium is being constructed in Minneapolis.
Mr. Starwood Preferred Member Travel Note of the Week
It was good to be in Boston Friday, watching the city prepare for such an important, healing event—this morning's Boston Marathon. In the Hynes Convention Center, where runners and their families were picking up racing bibs and going from booth to booth to shoe and apparel and nutrition companies, the mood was bright. The One Fund, which had a goal of $10 million for those injured and affected by the terrorist attack last year, has raised $70 million and is still going strong. The city was packed with joggers and walkers and people excited for the marathon to be back. I met a San Diegan, 64 years old, who was new to marathoning and was surprised to find out last year he qualified for Boston because he ran a qualifying time in his age group in a San Diego race. "I had to come,'' he said.
It's like everyone there says—no act of evil or people with evil intent will take away their race. Today's going to be a great, great day in Boston.
Tweets of the Week
Sager announced last week he has acute leukemia and will begin treatment now. In his place, his son Craig interviewed San Antonio's Gregg Popovich on Sunday's playoff telecast, and the Spurs coach was quite classy. "We miss you," Popovich said into the camera. "We want your fanny back on the court."
Last Thursday, Chad Johnson reached agreement with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. There, if he makes the squad, he'll team with Cris Carter's son, Duron Carter, to catch passes.
Kawakami believes Smith will not play for the 49ers in 2014.
Four years after being the No. 1 overall pick, Sam Bradford might be looking over his shoulder in St. Louis this fall. (Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
Ten Things I Think I Think
1. I think Arizona will take a quarterback in the first two rounds.
2. I think the Rams will take a quarterback in the first three rounds.
3. I think you shouldn't be surprised at that last one. Has Sam Bradford done enough to be untouchable in his four seasons with the Rams (18-30-1 record, 58.6 completion percentage, 6.3 yards per attempt)? I don't think so.
4. I think Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray helped himself Wednesday, showing good mobility and the passable arm strength NFL teams expected when he worked out in Athens, Ga., less than five months after he tore his ACL. Murray wore a brace on his surgically repaired left knee at Georgia's Pro Day. "I think I showed these teams they don't have to worry about my knee, they don't have to worry about someone who's not going to be able to participate in the preseason,'' Murray said. Time, and some pre-draft physicals, will tell. But Murray looks like a Day 2 pick.
5. I think I chuckle when the Lions say they are not concerned about Ndamukong Suh skipping Detroit's off-season workout program as he tries to work out a new contract with the team. It is 111 days since the season ended and Suh was last with his team. The Lions have a new coach, and a new defensive coordinator, and a new defensive line coach. Suh is the best player on the defense. Not concerned?The correct quote, if club president Tom Lewand were on truth serum, would be something like, Pretty lousy start to our off-season program when our best defensive player's a no-show—particularly when he's the guy who most has to buy into the new staff since he's going to be the highest-paid defensive player in our history. Yeah, we're ticked off. Wouldn't you be?
6. I think my Beat Writer of the Week is Mike Klis of the Denver Post. The controversy over Broncos offensive coordinator Adam Gase and quarterback Peyton Manning both being in Tuscaloosa the other day talking to the Alabama coaching staff raised a stink because coaches and their players cannot be working together in any form until the start of the official off-season program (which, for Denver, begins today). So Nick Saban mentioned that Gase and Manning were on campus, and if they were researching or working together on anything, it would be a violation of the collective bargaining agreement. Klis called the Alabama sports information office and requested an interview with Saban to clarify what happened. He was told he'd be hearing from Saban, from a "BLOCKED" phone. But now it was Friday night, and Klis had another assignment—his weekly umping job. He was in the first game of a slow-pitch softball tripleheader in the Golden, Colo., men's rec league near his home Friday night, doing a game between—and I love this matchup—the Alcoballics and the Sons Of Pitches. (Why didn't any of us think of those names for our softball teams?) A batter had just singled, and Klis felt his phone vibrate. He called time. The screen on the phone said, "BLOCKED." It was Saban. He asked Saban to hold on a sec, and he told the two teams he had a call he had to take. "Sorry, guys,'' Klis said, and he went behind the backstop and talked to Saban for seven minutes. Saban told him he didn't talk to Gase; Gase had family not far from there, and he just came by to talk to his assistant. He said he did talk to Manning. So Klis thanked him, went back and finished that game, and then dictated a chunk of a story plus quotes to his fellow Postie, Troy Renck, in his first week on the job after years of covering the Rockies. "That's a welcome-to-the-Broncos-beat moment,'' Klis said. Renck got the story up. Then Klis worked the last two games and hustled home to make adds to the story. "It was one of those situations that just happens sometimes in the job when you're trying to live your life,'' Klis told me Saturday. "I can't exactly say to Nick Saban, 'Hey Nick, can you call me between games?'"
7. I think, absent of much more proof that Manning and Gase planned a trip to Tuscaloosa together and met there to discuss anything, I doubt the league will sanction the Broncos over this. But if I'm John Elway or John Fox, I'm telling my coaches and players, "Let's not have any more coincidences about being in the same place hundreds of miles away at the same time in the off-season."
8. I think that's a cool honor that John Harbaugh got Saturday, being immortalized with a bronze statue at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He's the ninth coach to be so honored among football men in the aptly named Cradle of Coaches. Good company in the Miami Cradle of Coaches: Paul Brown, Red Blaik, Carm Cozza, Paul Dietzel, Weeb Ewbank, Ara Parseghian, John Pont, Bo Schembechler. "This cradle is the greatest honor in coaching, if you understand what it's all about,'' Harbaugh told Joe Kay of the Associated Press.
9. I think the draft should be Thursday, not two weeks from Thursday.
Have a question or comment for Peter? Email him at firstname.lastname@example.com
and it might be included in Tuesday's mailbag.
10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
a. My very best to my friend Jenn Aparicio, the wife of Baltimore radio personality Nestor Aparicio. Jenn has a rare form of leukemia. "This is heavy lifting,'' Nestor says. Jenn is one tough person, and an extremely optimistic, bright one. Her story is on Facebook, at #JennStrong.
b. Story of the week: Jesse Katz in Los Angeles Magazine, on the harrowing journey of Yasiel Puig from Cuba to Dodger Stadium. A terrific and vivid account that I highly recommend.
c. Great note on the FOX baseball telecast Saturday: The Angels have not been over .500 since opening day 2013. That is amazingly preposterous.
d. Not a big fan of Major League Baseball making the Red Sox and Orioles play Sunday night baseball, with the annual Patriots Day 11:05 a.m. start this morning at Fenway featuring the same two bleary-eyed teams.
e. I've always felt the biggest thing wrong with the NBA, from very much an outsider's perspective, is how bad teams embrace losing so it will help them rebuild. And when I read the Philadelphia 76ers owner, Josh Harris, tell USA Today after the team finished 19-63 this season, "I think the season has been a huge success for us,'' there aren't many other ways to spin that. The 76ers used this year to get into the best situation for the future, which involved clearing out the roster and losing as much as possible to be in the best draft position in 2014. Imagine being a Sixers fan, knowing your team hopes it doesn't win many games, and asking you to pay regular prices for tickets to see a bad team.
f. Great line by a sprung prisoner, Jonathan Fleming, to the New York Post, after being freed from prison when evidence surfaced he's been falsely imprisoned for 25 years for murder. He had a coffee. Starbucks. Latte. "Which kind am I drinking?'' Fleming said to the Post. "Latte? Much better than Tasters Choice and cream. Much better. It's real good. My first time ever at Starbucks. Coffee was like 40 cents when I first went to prison." Good news: The coffee's better. Bad news: It's not 40 cents anymore.
g. Mark Buehrle, Toronto: 4-0, 0.65 ERA on April 21. Yeah, we saw that coming.
h. Who's going to start the Giancarlo-to-Boston-for-young-pitching rumors?
i. Please learn to run the bases, Mike Carp. Please.
j. Coffeenerdness: Memo to Starbucks: If you care about quality, please address the situation at your BWI Airport locations. You've got some very long lines there, if a couple of stops last week are any indication.
k. Beernerdness: I have found it—the beer in the world that's closest to the refreshing and hooray-it's-spring taste of Allagash White. I found it in the Minneapolis airport the other night: Lift Bridge Farm Girl Saison, from the Lift Bridge Brewing Company in Stillwater, Minn. (And kudos for the airport bars at this great north hub, for having so many Minnesota microbrews and brews.) Light and refreshing and full of taste, "ale brewed with orange peel" as the label says, and worth your effort to find it.
l. One of the great sports TV shows I've seen was the "Hillsborough" ESPN 30 for 30 documentary on the 25-year anniversary of the English soccer tragedy when 96 fans died in a soccer-stadium stampede. Vivid and chilling and heartbreaking—and rewarding at the end. A tremendous piece of journalism on TV.
m. Shouldn't ESPN's "Sports Reporters" show be called "Sports Columnists?"
n. You've still got it, "Veep."
The Adieu Haiku
Hey Mel! Mel Kiper!
I miss my "Draft Report" book.
Bring it back next year.