Poor Rush

I felt bad for Rush Limbaugh, I really did. The prospect of him owning some portion of the St. Louis Rams didn't bother me, in part because it would have confirmed my belief that the city of St. Louis is entirely without redeeming qualities, and it would have added a fun new element to watching one of football's worst teams get beat week after week. But mostly, I feel bad for Rush because I'm a liberal. I love the First Amendment, and while I understand that the freedom of speech does not shield you from what other people may think about you, I wish the world weren't that way. Unfortunately for Rush, the world is very much that way, even though what Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton did to him was just as repulsive as what Glenn Beck did to Van Jones.

While I don't have any special insight into his character aside from reading his really dated book once, I have always had the impression that Rush is a joke. On one hand, he is happy to let the liberal world believe that all Republicans are as radical as he sounds, he admits that. But on the other hand, he is also playing a joke on his right-wing listerners, who are more than happy to repeat his most radical polemics, oblivious to the fact that he actually believes less than a third of what he's saying. So I fail to see how Rush's exaggerated opinions are less acceptable in the world of professional sports than Marge Schott's actual opinions.

But Rush lost me today, when he -- whether seriously or as part of his big act -- made the deal into a grand conspiracy of his own martyrdom.

Limbaugh blamed Smith, executive director of the NFLPA and an "Obama-ite," along with Sharpton and Jackson, whom he referred to as "race hustlers," for Checketts' decision to drop him. He said his sacking was an example of the political clout wielded by President Barack Obama's administration.

By bringing Obama into this, Limbaugh confirms the same fear opponents of his bid used to deny him this opportunity: That his public persona cannot be apolitical. For the NFL to endorse his purchase, they would be giving a tacit endorsement to his politics, and giving him another pulpit to preach from.

Had Rush simply gone quietly, like so many other potential team owners who don't cry about their loss, he could have been the bigger man and he could have proven himself as someone who can interact with people who are not right wingers, and can not attract controversy. Instead, he proved that he is, in fact, a bigger asshole than Mark Cuban. Congrats, douche bag!

I'm back, monkeys!

So, did I miss anything?

My time away? Well about six months ago, I started seeing hallucinations of my best friend's dead girlfriend. Turns out my Vicodin addiction was out of control, and I ended up having to check into an insane asylum for a period of two to three months.

Everything's pretty much back to normal now, although until I get my blogging license back, Foreman will technically be running the show.

I'll refrain from any promises about updating regularly, or not growing board of blogging and quitting again, but I do have thoughts I'd be interested in putting into writing, and blogging them -- even to a nonexistent audience -- is slightly less pathetic than simply typing them and saving them to my hard drive unread, or forcing them on people I know in the form of 140-character Facebook updates.

We'll take things slow. Like the Good Book says, one day at a time.

Commence with real content!

Minnesota defies Masionic/Trilat conspiracy

Dear David Icke,
If the lizard people are as powerful as you suggest they are, why can't they get their votes counted in a lousy Senate race?

My Testimonial

Dear friends,
I have lived most of my life built around things I thought to be true. Those assumptions, I suppose, contributed in some small way to my driving down a lonely stretch of ice-covered highway yesterday, where I lost control of my vehicle and, at speeds upwards of 70 MPH, spun 180 degrees off the road. As my Jeep appeared headed toward a certain rollover, I was forced to face my own mortality, and that has a way of revealing those things we know to be true, but deny in the vain pursuit of a simpler, less demanding existence.
The truth that filled my mind during those harrowing seconds was this: The kid at the end of “Dead Man’s Curve” explains that that he now knows that everyone was right – he won’t come back from Dead Man’s Curve – but the fact that he’s explaining this to a doctor clearly means that everyone was wrong.
If my conversion of beliefs makes it impossible for us to be friends, or for you to continue to read my blog, I will understand. May you find the truth in time.

"Broad lawns and narrow minds"

Like your journalism free of perspective and inflammatory? Then pick up today's Chicago Tribune and turn right to the article by John Kass entitled "Tolerance fails t-shirt test." Here are some highlights:

As the media keeps gushing on about how America has finally adopted tolerance as the great virtue, and that we're all united now, let's consider the Brave Catherine Vogt Experiment.

Catherine Vogt, 14, is an Illinois 8th grader, the daughter of a liberal mom and a conservative dad. She wanted to conduct an experiment in political tolerance and diversity of opinion at her school in the liberal suburb of Oak Park.

She noticed that fellow students at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama for president. His campaign kept preaching "inclusion," and she decided to see how included she could be.

So just before the election, Catherine consulted with her history teacher, then bravely wore a unique T-shirt to school and recorded the comments of teachers and students in her journal. The T-shirt bore the simple yet quite subversive words drawn with a red marker:
"McCain Girl."
"People were upset. But they started saying things, calling me very stupid, telling me my shirt was stupid and I shouldn't be wearing it," Catherine said.

Then it got worse.

"One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed," Catherine said, of the tolerance in Oak Park.

But students weren't the only ones surprised that she wore a shirt supporting McCain.

"In one class, I had one teacher say she will not judge me for my choice, but that she was surprised that I supported McCain," Catherine said.

If Catherine was shocked by such passive-aggressive threats from instructors, just wait until she goes to college.

"Later, that teacher found out about the experiment and said she was embarrassed because she knew I was writing down what she said," Catherine said.

One student suggested that she be put up on a cross for her political beliefs.

"He said, 'You should be crucifixed.' It was kind of funny because, I was like, don't you mean 'crucified?' " Catherine said.

If Catherine was shocked by the passive-aggressive threats from instructors, just wait until she reads the article.

And while Kass never misses an opportunity to drop in an inflammatory and unattributable quote, while seemingly expecting elementary school students to be eloquent and evenhanded spokespeople for their parents' politics, his attempted hit piece has little resonance for this reader, who grew up in Oak Park, and -- horror of horrors -- grew up a Bush supporter. That's right, I grew up supporting the most conservative president in history, in Chicago's most liberal suburb, and yet, in my years of being conservative in Oak Park, I don't have a single story the likes of which Catherine piled up in eight hours. It's certainly not because I didn't share my views; if anything I was more outspoken about my beliefs. It must be by some miracle I wasn't 'crucifixed,' crucified, burned alive, or even threatened bodily harm, and lived long enough to get a look at life in the much more conservative towns of southern Illinois.

I invite any of Kass' readers who are left with the impression that Oak Park liberals are violent and intolerant to come downstate and try the same experiment in reverse; wear an Obama t-shirt for a day in a county that, as recently as ten years ago, still displayed a sign reading "If you're black, turn back" and you'd be lucky if all you experienced was the "intolerance" Catherine faced in Oak Park.

Free John McCain!

Military lore tells stories of POWs who hold their hands or blink their eyes in photographs and videos made by their captors in such a way as to send a message to their commanders. So when John McCain describes discussions he has with his "fellow prisoners," you could say he's losing it, but I suspect a darker possibility: McCain is trying to convey to voters that the RNC, out of hatred for McCain, is holding him prisoner, forcing him to run the worst campaign in American history.

So much for that bipartisan crap

So John McCain, who has built his campaign around the idea of putting country above party, has decided to ditch that strategy and instead pursue the bold strategy of accusing your opponent of being a decent guy, who will admit when an opponent has a good idea. In this spirit, McCain put together a video collecting moments when his opponent said "John McCain is right," (three moments, to be exact, about as many times as McCain felt the need to remind us that he was never elected Ms. Congeniality"). Of course, when you spend the entire debate mumbling about how that same opponent doesn't understand anything, and you show nothing but contempt for having to share the stage with him, maybe you don't really want to point out all the places you agree.

But it's understandable that McCain would want to compile this video of his opponent saying "John McCain's right" three times. He hasn't heard anyone say it in eight years.