How Does it Feel...

If you know me, you know I'm a college football junkie.  If you know this you also likely know that the college game upsets me.

I mention as much here on occasion.

You shouldn't care about that, of course, and I hope you don't.  It's my problem after all, one I created for myself when I fell in love with the game as a youngster.

I never grew out of college football like I did, say, baseball or my eighth-grade blue jeans.

I like to watch college football.  Years ago, I loved playing it during a single season in Ashland, Oregon.

These days a lot of crap surrounds the college game, most of it generated by the big money that has taken over the collegiality of the game.

For me, the aesthetics of the game are being pushed aside by the cash flow coming down from the mountain top--which here is a metaphor for television.

Here's an article from Rolling Stone published a few days ago that succinctly sums up today's game and the problems generated by the enormous amount of money now attached to it.

Worth a read, I say. You might like it because the author's first and last premise is the same; that football doesn't mean shit, but that the corruption now surrounding the game means everything.


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Which Team?

Will the Oregon team that thumped Michigan State in Sept. show up versus Stanford Saturday?


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RIP Galway Kinnell

The poet died Tuesday at age 87.











The Bear

In late winter
I sometimes glimpse bits of steam   
coming up from
some fault in the old snow
and bend close and see it is lung-colored   
and put down my nose
and know
the chilly, enduring odor of bear...


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Essay of the Day

It is ironic, considering democracy’s pitiful state worldwide that, in accordance to its etymology, it literally means “common people’s rule” or, more simply, “people’s power.” The English term democracy and the 14th-century French word democratie come from the Greek demokratia via the Latin democratia. The Greek radical demos means “common people,” and kratos means “rule, or power.” How did we manage to pervert such a laudable notion of power to the people and diametrically turn it into a global system of rule at large under the principles of oligarchy and plutocracy? Everywhere we look, from east to west and north to south, plutocrats and oligarchs are firmly in charge: puppet masters of the political class. They have transformed democracy into a parody of itself and a toxic form of government. The social contract implied in a democratic form of governance is broken.

I know it.  You know it.  Toward a global referendum.


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Classic Fight

The greatest era of welterweights.

My friend Bob and I finished up watching the Giants win the WS tonight and Bob says to me, "You know what I miss?  The great fights."

"No kidding," I said. "How about this one?"

And so here it is.

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Trouble in Paradise

Never let a billionaire tell you how to write a story, unless you want to be the story in the age of celebrity journalism.







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Worth Watching

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How I Get My Baseball Fix

Man, I have a hard time sitting through a whole baseball game these days. Once upon a time I watched every pitch of the World Series with the passion of a real fan.

Can't do that anymore.  I've changed, the game hasn't (well, the players have.  I don't know many of them these days, either).

I have a new method now.  It's worked fine during this year's WS, which resumes about an hour from now in K.C.  I put the game up on my computer and listen to it while I surf the net for more interesting things to read and watch.

I might watch a segment of a documentary, or study a clip of something, or read a magazine article online.

Then I peek in occasionally, usually when I hear something happening that is "must see."  If the game is tight in the final innings, I bring it up and watch.

In this manner I saw Madison Bumgarner finish his four-hit gem Sunday evening.  I'm not able to say I saw his mastery throughout the game, but it's evident he had it--what I saw was good enough for my present tastes.

It's all I need, and it has the advantage of offering an opportunity to get something else done with the evening--though at this point I don't have a clue what it is I should get done tonight.

Well, I do...laundry.  But I'd rather stink at this time than think about it.  My laundry energy is low tonight, I do believe.

All I know is I won't focus all of my attention on the game because I can't.

Later:  On the other hand there is something riveting about watching a mauling.  It's like watching a traffic accident, or watching oneself screw up time and again.


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Send Up

I haven't watched SNL in years, through its ups and downs, but this truly is funny.


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Sad

Timing is everything in hitting, and life.

You never know, and that is just too damn bad.


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Mass Media and Society

The mass media blindly support the ideology of corporate capitalism. They laud and promote the myth of American democracy—even as we are stripped of civil liberties and money replaces the vote. They pay deference to the leaders on Wall Street and in Washington, no matter how perfidious their crimes. They slavishly venerate the military and law enforcement in the name of patriotism. They select the specialists and experts, almost always drawn from the centers of power, to interpret reality and explain policy. They usually rely on press releases, written by corporations, for their news. And they fill most of their news holes with celebrity gossip, lifestyle stories, sports and trivia. The role of the mass media is to entertain or to parrot official propaganda to the masses. The corporations, which own the press, hire journalists willing to be courtiers to the elites, and they promote them as celebrities. These journalistic courtiers, who can earn millions of dollars, are invited into the inner circles of power. They are, as John Ralston Saul writes, hedonists of power.

You know you're better off with a little Hedges in the morning, so don't even contemplate arguing with me.

"Kill the Messenger" trailer.


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God and Baseball

World Series.

7th inning.

To honor our troops all around the world (179 nations).

God Bless America.

Right...


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Report

Unranked Kentucky is giving number 1 Miss. State a game!

Stanford is beating OSU with ease, and Michigan State is handling Michigan.

I'd like to see both Mississippi schools lose, just to make the playoff committee squirm.


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Weekend

Ought to be a good day for football watching with the possibility of a few "upsets."

Looking forward to OSU and Stanford, Ole Miss and LSU, maybe a couple of others.

Oregon won, but that defense needs work.  Cal's offense is as good as they come, but Oregon gave away a lot with poor tackling.

People will want to blame the coaches again, of course, but I put it on the players.  If you haven't learned to tackle in space by now you probably don't have the ability to do so consistently, which means you're not a serious contender for the championship.

The 1.5 hours in the dental office yesterday wasn't as painful as I expected it to be.

That's what I call good news these days.


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Joy

Off to the dentist again today, hopefully for the last time this go-round. My trip last month was brutal, and the doc says this one will be similar.

Then I should be set, perhaps for the rest of my days, but for tinkering here and there.

I've been fortunate, even at that.  Many in my family lost all their teeth when they were much younger than I am now.

Seemed genetically predisposed in part, but the rousing poverty amid my rural clan also made its mark, as it does on everything health-related.

No doubt I'll be in a little discomfort tonight.  Maybe the Ducks will help me through it by clobbering Cal?

But I'd take a high-scoring shootout as long as the good guys win.


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