Tonight, Tonight, Tonight... The likely final 3.5 innings of Game Five of the World Series will be played tonight, following Monday night's game being stopped in the middle of the 6th inning due to heavy, cold rain and high winds Monday night. One of the people on whose behalf I was rooting for the Phillies, unfortunately, will not be around to see it. My assistant's mother passed away Monday afternoon. I'd come in Monday hopeful that I'd find evidence of raised spirits following not only the Phillies having won games three and four Saturday and Sunday, but especially follwing their spectacular win Sunday night. It was as if a switch went on in the players' heads and they remembered that there was something advantageous they could do with one or more of their players on base. Prior to this, from at least the National League finals games forward, the team seemed unable to just go ahead and hit a home run, especially when they had men on base. Instead, there mo
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Rooting Just a brief post to note that with the first game of the World Series running tonight I'm in the highly unusual position (for me) of caring one way or the other. We'll have it on here, and as with the last several National League games I'll likely be watching some of it. The difference this year? That it matters to several people that the Phillies are in it, and hopefully will win. Two are women who don't know each other, but who both happen to be longtime Phillies fans and also happen to be in late stages of metastasized colon cancer - one of whom is the mother of a friend since the age of 5, the other the mother of a co-worker. Another two are father and daughter - my father-in-law and wife - who are enjoying a re-connection through the pennant race. She, the eldest child, was as close as he came to having a son, though the years have seen them drift apart in terms of being in on something like this. Am I going to become a baseball fan? Highly unlike
Stop. Think. Laugh. Then Just Say No The dark fascination with how some people have been so mind-numbed as to buy into the folksy tripe offered by the Palin Package remains in mind. That they're buying into it to an extent that they not only ignore her evasions and prevarications but believe her as a "straight-talker" almost beggars belief. Fortunately, Sam Smith's done a nice job of covering it already, so I'll point you there. My favorite single line from the piece? " What we got was our first vice presidential candidate ever to speak in tongues. " The kindest thing I can say about those who back her for office are that they're desperately mis-informed. I suspect most of them are simply used to the Fox News/Rush Limbaugh/Bill O'Reilly/Karl Rove "news" feed flood of boilerplate talking points that they hear so often every day that the nonsense takes on a mass and substance in their minds that apparently replaces any need for substan
Reconstruction I'm not feeling much of an urge to get back into any sort of routine with this. I have multiple, partially-completed entries sitting as drafts and I suspect most of them will stay that way. Still, I wanted to post something about my state of affairs rather than simply comment on the most frustrating aspects of the ongoing political scene. I'll hit one of those, briefly, in a post I'll take care of immediately after sending this one along. The daily frustrations, disappointments and lack of anything resembling a hopeful perspective continues as part of my pointless, wallowing routine. I am Jack's Unproductive Self-Loathing. On the plus side, I've managed to get a couple relatively solid nights of sleep, though those were achieved through a mix of exhaustion and chemical assist. Sometimes the end's more important than the means. Two Thursdays back I gave a friend from childhood, Bob W., a call as a follow-up to some recent emails following my mom