Wednesday, June 25, 2003

Remembering a legend

I was driving to work on Thursday morning at about 7:15 am. I flipped on WLS, expecting to hear the morning hosts Don and Roma talking about the United Nations or President Bush or boycotting French fries, or some other current event of temporary importance. Instead, I quickly deduced that Mr. Rogers was gone. Basically, it felt like I had been hit by a truck. One of my childhood friends was gone.

If you think about it, my generation has had very few well-known figures pass on. We were nothing more than (perhaps) a gleam in our parents' eyes when JRK or RFK or MLK were assassinated. While some entertainment figures have passed on in my lifetime -- Walter Matthau, John Candy, Kurt Cobain, Michael Landon, and River Phoenix come to mind. With the possible exception of Michael Landon on Little House, none of these men served as a role model for people of our generation. In today's world, animated vegetables are the only role models trying to teach children moral lessons on television. Technically, they aren't even on television -- you have to rent them at the video store!

Mr. Rogers though -- he pulled it off. He never was preachy like the adults on Sesame Street or elsewhere. He was your friend, so you wanted to listen to what he had to say. In lots of ways, you wanted to be like him -- kind, caring, and seemingly well-adjusted. He invited you into his home on a regular basis. You could depend on him to always do certain things. He'd come inside, change into slippers and a cardigan, feed his fish. Even as a child from a relatively stable, two-parent home, I appreciated the calm and stability that Mr. Rogers exuded. No matter where my life took me, I knew that Mr. Rogers would be on PBS, sending his trolley back into the make-believe world and providing well-reasoned explanations about the way the world works to confused children everywhere.

He was just an ordinary man who wanted to make the world a better place for children. While he may not have found a cure for cancer or negotiated a peace treaty, he influenced the lives of those who will. As many have remarked this week, the neighborhood seems much less beautiful now that he's gone.

ps. Lots of people have offered their two cents on Mr. Roger's passing, but this piece over at ejshea.com perhaps captures it best. Be sure to read his 2002 Dartmouth commencement speech as well. What a wonderful man.

pps. Realize this post may be a day late and a dollar short. Internet has been down, and the weather is still not helping my cold. Fiddling with a few other posts at the moment - hope to get them up soon.
Turkey notes

Had a lovely first Thanksgiving with my in-laws, for anyone who might be interested. I come from a relatively small and isolated family -- we usually just headed out to eat after the parades on Thanksgiving Day. It was quite a change to spend the day with my husband's family, in a house packed full of cousins and munchkins. I even made mashed potatoes from scratch for the first time, which was kind of fun. (Note to anyone interested: I am actually a pretty decent cook -- just inexperienced and lacking time to practice. My husband can vouch for that. And to anyone wondering, after being married for almost five weeks, it is still really weird to say/type that. I have a husband -- it makes me feel so old! Anyways...wonderful but weird).

We ended up driving around Central Illinois all weekend, as we had dinner with my parents on Saturday evening. During this meal, I made mention of the fact that I didn't want to see James Bond's new movie because of Halle Berry. Once again, I was forced to defend my boycott of liberal Hollywood's movies. My dad's exact comments were "So are you going to do that for everything? You don't know that the chef who cooked your pasta wasn't a liberal -- maybe you should send that back!" Maybe you had to be there. He has a point, but I still stand by my principle. I don't need my hard-earned money going to fund their agendas! Regardless, that will have to be a story for another day. Goodnight!

Monday, June 23, 2003

Where do you draw the line?

Decisions like today's split on Michigan's affirmative action policies are exactly the reason that I personally will never be able to support Sandra Day O'Connor for chief justice. Once again she has proven that she is not a true conservative in principle. While it's all fine and dandy to say that diversity is a wonderful thing, it is not the government's place to decide that one person's ethnicity makes them "worth more" than another. While I am happy the quotas were struck down, I am extremely disappointed that we are still influencing our assessment of people's capabilities based on something as trivial as the color of their skin.

Sorry if I sound grouchy. Chalk it up to me having a bad day and a rough week and this didn't perk me up one bit... The only pleasant, unexpected thing that happened today was I gained some respect for Stephen Breyer. What a strange week so far...

AMENDED: Mark Byron has up the best blogglet that I have seen on the topic so far...a snippet that I particularly liked follows.
"This case starts to look like the racial gerrymandering cases of the last decade, where Sandra and friends tried to figure out how funky a districting map could get before it was unconstitutional, leaving them in the old obscenity definition of knowing it when you see it. Where the heck is the line, Sandy?"

Sunday, June 22, 2003

Friday Fives

I'm really exhausted and encountering a mental block as to positng topics -- so here goes nothing.

Friday Five for June 20th

1. Is your hair naturally curly, wavy, or straight? Long or short?
Pretty straight. Usually cycles between long and chin-length.

2. How has your hair changed over your lifetime?
It's gone from an honest strawberry-blonde to strawberry-golden-brown.

3. How do your normally wear your hair?
On my head? I don't know. I still rely on scrunchies & barrettes too much for a 25 year-old, but I just don't have the patience for styling.

4. If you could change your hair this minute, what would it look like?
It would have more body and perhaps be curly.

5. Ever had a hair disaster? What happened?
I let the two neighbor boys across the street cut it when we were four and five respectively. BAD idea.

Friday Five for June 13th

1. What's one thing you've always wanted to do, but never have?
Be on Jeopardy. I almost made it at 16, but my knowledge of useless trivia has decreased markedly since then.

2. When someone asks your opinion about a new haircut/outfit/etc, are you always honest?
I think I'm honest but gentle. I give good feedback with bad...that sort of thing.

3. Have you ever found out something about a friend and then wished you hadn't? What happened?
I have found out things about friends that I wished weren't true. I am not sure that I mind knowing the truth about people. We all make mistakes. When I find out an unpleasant truth about someone, it just gives me a better idea of the person they are, how they respond to adversity, whether they make amends...that sort of thing. I have never had to deal with such an unpleasant truth that I couldn't forgive a person. Although in the worst cases, our trust in one another was destroyed and never regained to the same level.

4. If you could live in any fictional world (from a book/movie/game/etc.) which would it be and why?
Tough call. I'd say Gone With the Wind, but the Civil War frightens me a bit. Anne of Green Gables? The Cosby Show?

5. What's one talent/skill you don't have but always wanted?
I would have loved to have exceptional musical talent, but I am not sure I have the right disposition and willingness to practice hours on end.

Thursday, June 19, 2003

Questioning academic freedom on campus? Look in the mirror

Josh Claybourn writes on how he recently contributed to an article written by collegiate Daniel P Denvir in the latest issue of Academe (magazine of the American Assocation of University Professors) last month. In this article, Mr. Denvir argues that most conservatives would like to squelch academic freedom on campus. Consider this ill-supported, fallicy-laden excerpt from Denvir's piece. (Josh cites this passage as well, but I have a somewhat different point to make).
"The right's target is not the violation of student freedom of thought but, rather, the fact that certain thoughts and questions are being raised at all. The right would seem to prefer that issues like race, class, and nationhood be kept simple and static."

Au contraire Mr. Denvir! In my experience, conservatives are the ones who are upset that certain thoughts and questions are NOT being raised at all. At this point in academia, certain issues that are still debated in regular society are now accepted as fact. For example, the question of whether paying so much attention to race, class, and nationhood is a good thing for the overall cohesiveness of our society. While I truly appreciate diversity in my friends and colleagues, I do not think that schools and workplaces should be trying to instill this in us as a moral and constantly throwing support at separatist affinity groups.

While I agree that one should practice tolerance of people with different sexualities, religions, or cultures, I feel that this means we should treat everyone with the same basic courtesy that we expect as people. I don't think that we have to celebrate viewpoints that a substantial number of people believe are morally wrong and/or destructive to harmony within our society. In academia though, multiculturalism is something that most college campuses want to celebrate at all costs. Meanwhile extracurriculars like athletics that promote understanding and teamwork between people of different races, ethnicities, and backgrounds are being cut left and right, while schools continue to shell out big bucks for diversity speakers and programs.

In my experience, it is the conservative who struggles to get his ideas heard in the classroom. It's the conservative who worries that he will be embarassed or punished if he voices his opinion. On college campuses today, fighting the establishment means standing up against the politically-correct mantra that is now seemingly accepted as gospel truth. I agree that there is a place for extremely liberal professors within academia, but I will happily help expel professors who knowingly and illegally contribute to terrorist organizations. (It's not free thought, it's the law). I will also argue that such extremist professors should not be allowed to wield the significant amounts of power that some currently hold on campus. Finally, students should not be mandated to participate in such "diversity" classes (as several local private liberal arts schools are currently proposing). If nothing else, it could be hostile to some students' academic careers. If I were to take a class like "How to Be Gay", given my viewpoints on the subject I would probably flunk it.

Let me close with a personal anecdote here. When I was a senior in college, I was lucky enough to have the pleasure of meeting Dinesh D'Souza. He was invited to my college through an endowment as our speaker that year. Even before his visit, the more liberal students and professors on campus started to complain. They weren't just complaining that D'Souza was a poor choice of speaker. It was not as if our college never had liberal speakers...we'd had Angela Davis that same year for crying out loud. They were objecting to the fact that he was being allowed to come our campus and say such hurtful, hateful things. (Their words, not mine)

Their protests fell on deaf ears, and the evening went off quite well. The auditorium was packed, and Mr. D'Souza gave an intelligent, interesting speech on assimilation into American culture and his personal experience. A few people in the audience became quite agitated and angrily asked questions. He answered them in his usual calm, thoughtful demeanor. Some people booed his answers, but he responded quite graciously. I saw no hate, just his viewpoints. I was thrilled to meet him afterwards.

That evening sent liberal campus groups into a tizzy. There were fliers all over campus asking students to skip class on Friday and volunteer at multi-cultural and socioeconomically-correct charities in the community to show they objected to Mr. D'Souza's "hate-filled comments". About a third of the students skipped (some professors as well), and soon the school had called an all-campus forum to discuss his speech. Six professors took the stage, only one of them remotely supportive of Mr. D'Souza's right to be heard. Instead the panel talked for a couple hours about how his viewpoints were harmful to the campus "community". When an acquaintance opined that they might be misinterpreting D'Souza's speech, he was told that he couldn't understand because he wasn't black. (That forum was actually a turning point for that friend and his family. They have since abandoned the liberal ways of their youth, left academia, and became conservatives. So thank you Mr. D'Souza for giving the speech that prompted my friends' conversion to the conservative cause...changing lives when you didn't even know it).

One of my biggest regrets about my college experience is that I did not stand up and more obviously object to the firestorm or controversy that followed D'Souza's speech. I was fully immersed in my senior honors thesis at the time, and I was preoccupied with graduating with honors and Phi Beta Kappa. I wasn't certain that the school's PBK committee would still invite me to join if I had voice my disagreement. I abandoned my rebuttal column for the student newspaper on how "I would be in class that Friday afternoon because I believed the freedom of expression and intellectual inquiry", and I posted it anonymously on a college internet board instead. A moment of cowardice of which I am not proud...but I was very attached to such pretentious academic honors at that point my life.

So in response to Mr. Denvir's assertion that conservatives are the ones attempting to suppress intellectual freedom on campus, I must disagree. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

Wednesday, June 18, 2003

gap in the action

I feel silly even posting this, as half my posts the last few weeks have been about me being too tired to blog. I'm beat. I sat around trying to think of good posts the past hour or so, but I don't think I could put the necessary words together to make my points at the moment. My project at work has hit a demanding stretch and after 9+ hours of staring at a computer screen or arguing with business partners each day...it's hard to produce intelligent blogentary.

In my absence, make sure to check out:

Ben Kepple's new site, as he appears to be having a rough week
Bobby's description of his new love affair, had me going for a minute
Ben Domenech's wonderful commencement advice on being successfulGlenn Reynold's column on blog personalities over at Tech Central Station
Josh's intelligent opinion on how to approach / deal with homosexuality
Lileks spot-on commentary on Bill O'Reilly and the internet
After the Crittenden interview, Kevin offers a review of AmandaBright@Home. I read it on Opinion Journal, but after reading his commentary I am tempted to make the book my vacation read as well.

Monday, June 16, 2003

It's now 10:20, and the sleepies have most definitely hit me. It's my first day running since before I acquired a cold last weekend, and I am wiped out! This will be limitng my posting this evening, but hopefully a little extra rest will do my mental capacity some good.

In the meantime, check out Kevin Holtsberry's blog. He's on fire today with a great piece analyizing Jonah Golderberg's NRO column on the true nature of conservativism. He also managed to land a fabulous interview of Danielle Crittenden, the author of Amanda Bright at Home. I loved the WSJ serial, and I hope to revisit the book's premise in a post later this week. Until then!
Everyone has been talking about VH1's list of the "Top 100 Songs of the Past 25 Years". I stopped by myself tonight to take a look, and I thought I would offer a few observations.

Overrated Songs
"Come to My Window" Meliss Etheridge (91)
"Hot in Here" Nelly (65)
"I Want It That Way" Backstreet Boys (61)
"OPP" Naughty by Nature (48)
"Baby One More Time" by Britney Spears (28)
"My Heart Will Go On" Celene Dion (24)
"8 Mile" Eminem (4)
"Billie Jean" Michael Jackson (2)

Underrated Songs
"I Will Survive" Gloria Gaynor (44)
"Faith" George Michael (51)
"Tempted" The Squeeze (66)
"I Wanna Be Sedated" The Ramones (75)
"Wonderwall" Oasis (95)

Songs I heard at Saturday night's bachelorette outing
"Sexual Healing", Marvin Gaye
"Walk this Way", RunDMC
"I Love Rock n' Roll", Joan Jett

Songs I wouldn't have thought of, but I do like
"Fast Car", Tracy Chapman
"Good Riddance / Time of your life", Green Day
"Once in a lifetime", Talking Heads
"Paradise by the Dashboard Lights", Meatloaf
"Rapper's Delight", Sugarhill Gang

80s Honor Roll Picks
"Tainted Love" Soft Cell
"Whip It" Devo
"In Your Eyes" Peter Gabriel
"Little Red Corvette" & "When Doves Cry" Prince

MIA - where are these songs?
"867-5309 Jenny" Tommy Tutone
"99 Luftballons" Nena
"Friends in Low Places" Garth Brooks
"Margaritaville" Jimmy Buffet
"It's the End of the World as We Know It" REM

EDITED: 6/17 for grammar/presentation

Thursday, June 12, 2003

The new Blogger was looking pretty good until I tried to publish my last few pieces. First try...got a transfer error. It says publishing is still in progress, but I guess we shall see. I am somewhat hopeful this will fix my archiving issues though. Crossing my fingers!
WMD Irrelevancy?

I've been exploring a few new blogs lately. The pages I read on a regular basis are generally those of bloggers who have interests similar to mine (conservative politics, faith, irrational preoccupation with pop culture, et cetera) or who write in a "voice" similar to my own. However this week has made it incredibly clear to me that there are many good blogs lurking out there. I will never have time to read them all, but it doesn't hurt to feature a "new find" now and then.

My new find of the week? Brought to you via links from Ben Kepple and Dean Esmay, we have The Dissident Frogman. This bilingual English/French blog is a must-see. The header "Time to take sides: The Dissident Frogman, Art vs. Europression" almost says it all. Unfortunately I do not have the resources to post his banner "No WMD?", but please visit his site to see the Flash piece and his stellar related commentary.

It captures my feelings on WMD issue quite well. What are they? Quite frankly, I think it is hoopla being stirred up by the press in an attempt to delegitimize this war. While they may try to remain neutral, the vast majority of journalists seemed to be against the war. Now that the war is over, the operation was successful, these same people are looking for something, anything to help turn the tide of public opinion against these men, to give their previous assertions a shred of legitimacy.

Does it bother me that we haven't found WMD yet? A bit. Do I think that Bush, Blair, or anyone else in our government lied to us about their existence? No way. The war has been over for less than three months. We've found several different sets of missiles that Iraq told the UN never existed, as well as two mobile chemical labs "scrubbed clean". We have found mass graves of hundreds of children, thousands of Kurds. We have freed hundreds of children from the prisons they had been held in since their parents refused to join Sadaam's ruling party.

How can journalists assert that the war was "unjustified" knowing all this? No journalists are going to convince me on that account. WMDs were one reason for the invasion of Iraq, but they were far from the only one. Iraq was in non-compliance with the UN resolutions and was supplying the UN with blatantly false information...period.

The thing that really bothers me about the WMD? That we aren't in control of them yet. Iraq has been on our radar screen since the "Axis of Evil" speech. By last November, it seemed like war was inevitable. By late January, it seemed the conflict was imminent. When did it start? March 20th. The Iraqis knew this was coming for a good five to six months. Do you think they aren't going to try to hide them? My biggest concern at the moment is whether Iraq's WMD are in the hands of radicals from neighboring crazy regimes.
Good heavens

I just reread my last post. Eek! I sincerely apologize for the grammatical errors in my posts as of late. I really need to start writing these earlier in the evening, so the fog of sleep is not clouding my proofreading skills and forcing you to read such disjointed drivel.

That being said, I don't know how likely it is the typos will cease in the near future. The project I am on at work is hitting crunch time, so I am putting in overtime AND trying to get back to exercising regularly. I will do my best though.

Tuesday, June 10, 2003

random thoughts

I keep intending to write about topics, but various columnist who espouse their opinions for a living keep beating me to the punch. I stumbled across several great columns today.

For example over at the WSJ's online Opinion Journal, Pete DuPont makes a wonderful point about the state of the American educational system. By comparison testing our hearts out, we aren't really proving that our students are learning anything. In not insisting that our students pass a basic skills exam to graduate from high school, we are making it harder to determine that their secondary educations have failed them.

Over at Town Hall, Mona Charen discuss the "Where's the WMD?" controversy that the media keeps trying to whip into a frenzy. She intelligently points out that even if we can't find the chemical evidence that WMD have been built in Iraq, we have found evidence that Sadaam tortured and randomly executed his own people. In certain situations, the line between right and wrong is clear. I'm proud that we are standing on the right side of it. WMD? They will turn up eventually or they won't. I'm convinced that we have done good here, although more remains to be done as we strive to establish a democratic government that will not become an instrument of religious extremists.

Also at Town Hall, Phyllis Schlafly offers a very informative column on a subject near and dear to my heart: the outsourcing of IT jobs to India/China. I have touched on this before, but it has become increasingly bothersome to me the longer I have been in the workforce. Thousands of recent IT and engineering grads are still searching for jobs, because the technical work has been offered to workers on L-1 and H1B visas that will do the job for about one-fifth the standard US salary. I have seen it and think it's the wave of the future...unless we do something to stop it. These visa regulations are being abused, and I urge you to voice any disagreement with these laws to your Congressman.

In other news, Josh Claybourn turned 22 today. Hope it was a good one Josh!

Sunday, June 08, 2003

weekend rundown

My husband and I spent the weekend back in my hometown, attending the wedding of a girl I grew up with and helping my parents prepare for my sister's graduation party. A good time was had (and too much food was eaten) by all. Therefore, just have a quick rundown of links tonight.

Congrats to Benjamin Kepple on the new look over at his site. I've been growing increasingly frustrated with Blogger the past few months, and I'm considering enlisting Dean's services at some point in the future. First, I just have to convince my penny-pinching self that the minute chunk of change is best spent on hosting. Stay tuned.

Speaking of Ben, he has a rather interesting exploration of Harvard's stance toward weblogs and the "rules" on allowable speech it is seeking to enforce. Not that I'm surprised that this goes on in the Ivy League, but seeing such tendencies towards censorship at America's "premier" academic institution frightens me a bit.

Mike Krempasky has up an interesting summary of the Dem candidates debate in Iowa. Funny and right on the money to boot. Love the stuff on Howard Dean.

Sammy Sosa has been a disappointment lately, but the Cubs performance against the Yankees was far from it. Hooray for interleague play. Karros came through after Hee Seop Choi's scary tumble on Saturday and pulled the Cubbies through. Tonight's game was nerve-wracking but fun to watch. Is it way too early to start daydreaming of post-season play? Now if someone could just start beating the Astros...

Friday, June 06, 2003

it's a friday!

Trying something different here. As I've been having trouble deciding what to post lately, I'm going to give you a little insight on my life and (at least temporarily) give the Friday Five a try. Today? Lovey dovey stuff.

1. How many times have you truly been in love? Really and truly in love? Once - i.e. my husband. Puppy love? Twice. In love with the idea of a relationship I potentially could have had with someone? Three or four times.

2. What was/is so great about the person you love(d) the most? Hard to put into words. My husband is intelligent, considerate, respectful, overall just a really interesting person. He has a great sense of humor, loves God innately, values tradition but seeks improvement, and is a huge softie underneath his gruff jock exterior. He has his faults sure, but I truly feel blessed that God sent us into one another's lives and that we will (hopefully) get to grow old with one another.

3. What qualities should a significant other have? Respect for you as a person and your dreams, patience, loyalty, the ability to make you laugh. A personal requirement is that he have basically the same set of values and Christian beliefs, because I couldn't start a family with someone who did not.

4. Have you ever broken someone's heart? Twice, I think.

5. If there was one thing you could teach people about love, what would it be? "You don't choose love, it chooses you." My first thought was that romantic love comes looking for you when you stop looking for it. I struggled with many of the guys I dated my first three terms of college -- in my retrospective opinion, because we really didn't have the same values. I was incredibly frustrated and decided that I needed to refocus on myself and my faith. A few weeks later, my husband and I fell in love after over a year of platonic friendship.

I'm no Yoda, but there are my thoughts on love. Hope it's not too sappy for the usual IG audience!

Wednesday, June 04, 2003

giving in?

I have mixed feelings about all the progress that is supposedly being made in Middle Eastern peace talks in Aqaba this week. I am not the world's foremost expert on history and issues between Israel and Palestine, so I will defer questions most arguments to someone who is more knowledgeable about these topics. I realize Sharon is not perfect either. However, I can unabashedly say that I detest the fact that various organizations have been using terrorist tactics in an attempt to further the Palestinian cause for decades. Not the way to peaceful resolution and independence folks...or it's at least not the way to gain the respect of the civilized world.

My gut instincts are telling me to be skeptical about this "peace process" and the potential for its success. On one hand, I think such peace talks are a necessary evil. I don't foresee Middle East tensions easing until a Palestinian state is created. Suicide bombings will keep getting worse -- more children, parents, and grandparents will keep dying in Israel's schools, workplaces, and busses until something changes.

On the other hand, something about this feels wrong to me. We are giving in to the child throwing a temper tantrum at the candy counter. We are giving the schoolyard bully what he has wanted all along. We are meeting hijackers' demands. We are basically saying, "Hey, go ahead. Keep behaving unacceptably. Eventually, we will get tired of putting up a fight. You will win. Your blackmail tactics will have worked. We will yield our ground and give you some of the land you have been demanding for years."

So pretend you are a terrorist organization. What would you do if these tactics had worked? Cease and desist? Accept the portions of the compromise that you were not pleased about? Start peacefully co-existing with your good buddies the Israelites? One would like to think that this would happen, but Hamas and other organizations have not shown themselves to be reasonable neighbors/negotiators in the past.

My guess is that these organizations will head right back to work, employing such reprehensible terror tactics in an effort to obliterate the Jewish state in general...since they have stated that as their ultimate goal all along. I hope I'm wrong though.

Tuesday, June 03, 2003

the standard

There's an interesting article up over at the Weekly Standard on the "Big Four" of blogging: Instapundit, Andrew Sullivan, Mickey Kaus, and The Volokh Conspiracy. Specifically, this article notes that if these four men were to coordinate their campaign coverage, they could possibly exert a substantial influence on the 2004 Presidential Race. I don't check any site multiple times a day, but I was intrigued by this article. It's nice to see the more mainstream press note that the blogosphere's influence on the web is growing.

In other Weekly Standard news, I love Larry Miller. He should think about giving up acting and writing full time. Actually given the last movie I saw him in (uncredited role in A Guy Thing), it appears I may be on to something here. Hmmmphf. He has a doozy of a column up on how Americans have incredibly short memories and seem to have forgotten all about the war and the curious period of detachment that the American public seems to have reached. Highly recommend reading it.
Put a cork in it?

There's quite a bit of disappointment in our household this evening, as Sammy Sosa was caught using a corked bat at Wrigley Field tonight. I'm interested in seeing how this is explained. The footage on WGN made it quite clear there was something darker and spongy, about the size of a champaigne cork, in the middle of the broken bat. Will the Cubs blame someone else and say that usage of the bat was a mistake? Will Sammy Sosa accept personal responsibility for the choice he made and/or apologize to his fans? Will he be able to spring back into the line-up after another 10-game break from play? Will his legacy be tarnished because of this? How willing will his fans be to forgive this error in judgment?

In the grand scheme of things, I realize that baseball is not tremendously important. Part of me finds it terribly ironic that many Cubs fans may feel more betrayed by Sammy's illicit rendezvous with a cork bat than our former president's illicit rendezvous with an intern half his age in the Oval Office. But I digress...

Updated: Word is that Sosa will admit to using the corked bat in his post-game conference and tell the press that this was a batting practice bat that just got mixed in with his regulars. Interesting approach but the most honest? Perhaps we will never know.
Updated 6/4: Ben Domenech has up a great bit on his theory that Sosa's corker was an honest mistake. He also raises some intersting points on what vultures sports commentators are at the first hint of scandal.

Monday, June 02, 2003

Argh. A half-hour's worth or work, and I think blogger just ate it. Will post tomorrow or Wednesday.