The Saints are 4-0 . . . but so what?

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Drew Brees did not have a “bad game.” Not throwing for 300 yards and multiple touchdowns does not constitute having a bad game. What Brees did, in fact, was better than throwing for 300 yards and multiple touchdowns: he kept the ball out of the hands of the Jets’ defense – and that is what good quarterbacks do when facing a very good defense: they simply take what the defense allows and give them nothing in return. Brees finished the game 20-32 – a 62.5 completion percentage – with zero touchdowns and, more importantly, zero interceptions against an extremely talented and well-coached defense. How is this a bad game?

I believe it is safe to assume that the only way Brees could have finished this game with the kind of outlandish numbers he put up almost every game last year and the first two games this year was by playing catch-up all game long – and I don’t think the Jets’ offense is good enough to have taken such a big lead by itself. In other words, the only way Brees would have put up big numbers was in an effort to make up for mistakes early in the game. Instead, Sean Payton appeared to realize that the Jets had won their first three games by converting turnovers into points and thus devised a conservative game plan in order to minimize the risk of turning the ball over to the Jets – a plan Brees carried out quite successfully. So Brees and Co. played it safely and did not turn the ball over, which in turn allowed the Saints defense to play aggressively and make the big plays it did in order to help win the game. That doesn’t sound like bad football to me; it sounds like smart, effective and winning football.

So, with Drew Brees playing a larger-than-acknowledged role in this latest victory, the Saints are now 4-0. This perfect start leaves me with one question: so what? The Saints could win seven of their next twelve games and still miss the playoffs. Nothing is guaranteed in the NFL, except for the fact that bad officiating will have an unfortunately big impact on at least one important game every season. Winning seven of twelve is difficult enough, but for the Saints to be all-but-assured of a playoff spot it must win eight of its next twelve games. Does that seem like a sure thing to anybody? Didn’t think so.

Yeah, the 4-0 start is great and everything, but it means nothing other than that the Saints are allowed one or perhaps two more mistakes than the teams that are not 4-0. This is not to say that Saints fans shouldn't feel optimistic, mind you. In fact, there are plenty of reasons for Saints fans to be optimistic at this point, the most important of which are three facets of the game in which the Saints have shown noticeable improvement this season.

First, Sean Payton’s play-calling is restrained and once again creative. With the exception of his decision to go for it on 4th-and-goal instead of kicking the field goal (always take the points when playing an excellent defense, coach!), Payton appears to have found some much-needed self-control. I didn’t see any reverses on third-and-short, nor did I see any halfback options or reckless downfield passes into triple coverage. The game plan appeared simple: be patient and take what the Jets give since they’re probably not going to give up anything big. Along with this new-found ability to adjust, Payton seems to have found the creativity he displayed his first season with the Saints as well. By that statement I probably mean that he’s actually calling run plays again, of course. Despite its obvious ability to score big, the Saints’ offense sorely lacked a consistent running game the last two seasons, and much of its inconsistency appeared simply to be a lack of confidence on the part of Payton to put the ball in the hands of his perfectly capable running backs. This year Payton seems to have realized that just because you can score seemingly at will via the pass does not mean you must score at will via the pass. Running the ball effectively takes more time off the clock and keeps your defense well-rested – this fact was overlooked in explaining all the woes experienced by the New Orleans defense the past two seasons (not that it excuses most of those embarrassingly blatant blown coverage disasters in the secondary) – and ultimately gives your team a better chance to win much of the time even if the team is not scoring as many points.

The defense is greatly improved – and not just because of the arrival of Gregg Williams, though he has much to do with it. The personnel is simply better: Darren Sharper has filled the slot of the monumentally incompetent duo of Kevin Kaesviharn and Josh Bullocks; Tracy Porter is back from his broken wrist and taken over for the horribly overmatched Jason David ; Jabari Greer and Randall Gay are the third and fourth cornerbacks rather than Jason Craft and Aaron Glenn; and Will Smith and Charles Grant, though both remain overpaid for their respective contributions, are healthy again and playing at a higher level than last year. Throw in Gregg Williams’ more diverse and more aggressive defensive schemes, and this unit now looks almost completely different from the past two seasons’ defenses. Sure, it’s still early in the season, but it is safe to assume that this New Orleans Saints defense will not allow as many third-down conversions or easy scores as the last two Saints defenses did.

The third improvement might be slightly overlooked, but it is definitely important: the special teams have improved just enough to make things easier on the defense. Gone is the instability at kicker – John Carney has been reliable on field goals, and Thomas Morstead is getting longer, more consistent hang time on his punts and more touchbacks on his kickoffs, thus allowing fewer opportunities for big returns by the opponent. Sure, our return men are still shaky – I cringe every time Reggie Bush runs side-to-side with the ball over-exposed for easy pickings – but they're not horrible by any means, either. The improvement on kickoffs and punts, however, is especially important since the Saints’ return coverage has been generous and inconsistent over the entirety of Payton’s tenure as head coach; the addition of Carney and Morstead appear to have solved the kicking problem and given the defense just enough more room for error to be even more aggressive.

The 4-0 start is excellent, but perspective must be kept: a perfect quarter season means very little in this league. A few injuries here and a suspension there – coupled with some bad luck and unfavorable officiating (which seems to destroy at least one half of one game every season) – and this 4-0 start easily could turn into a 9-7 season in a league as competitive as the NFL. Nonetheless, the Saints appear to have improved significantly in enough facets of the game to give the team’s long-suffering fans a legitimate reason to feel optimistic about the last twelve games of the season – and hopefully beyond.

Murray Rizberg's Completely Worthless 2009 NFL Forecast

I like the fact that football starts late in the year. It just makes sense to me. Baseball, the more methodical and pastoral of the “big two” sports, appropriately starts in the spring, when optimism is still in bloom. By the time fall has rolled around – and half of my expensive electronic gadgets have self-destructed well before their expected lifespan and all of my New Year’s resolutions have gone up in flames – I am more than ready for a little controlled violence. I need to see people bashing each other’s brains in. Badly. And football season arrives at just the right time. That time is now.


The AFC North should be a two-horse race between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens. In fact, the only things separating these two teams with superb defenses and mediocre offenses are their uniforms - and the Steelers have the clear advantage here (their blank-on-one-side helmet is probably the coolest gimmick in all of sports, followed closely by the blank-on-both-sides helmet of their division rival Cleveland Browns). Under current league rules, the Bengals are prohibited from making any post-season appearances until they get rid of those ridiculously garish striped uniforms. Start your petition now, Cincinnati fans.

Perhaps the most difficult division to forecast this season is the AFC South, a division in which all four teams – Houston, Indianapolis, Jacksonville and Tennessee – have a legitimate shot to come out on top. After performing a series of four-way, best-of-three coin flips, I have determined that it is Houston’s year to win it. A division title for Houston would be fantastic news for those who really want to see the team with the most narcissistically un-original nickname in sports – the Texans – revive a slightly revised version of the most wretched sports fight song ever! Or am I the only person kept awake at night by recurring nightmares of the “Houston Oilers Number One!” fight song? Perhaps those should have been best-of-five coin flips now that I think about it. Oh, and while I'm thinking about this: why should I be the only person plagued by the "Houston Oilers Number One!" fight song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvWn_yGaA-Y

The New England Patriots appear ready to make the AFC East much less competitive this season. Now that he is married, Tom Brady will be more motivated than ever to extend his time away from home. That motivation – coupled with the fact that Brady is the greatest quarterback on the planet – should be reason enough to believe the Patriots will take their rightful spot atop the division. The rest of this division consists of a bunch of also-rans with no real starting quarterbacks and no real reason to bother trying to compete with New England. Or do people suddenly believe the NFL’s quarterback efficiency rating has actual merit?

Only because we were obligated, we come to the AFC West, the division with the largest number of teams that can’t even compete for the PAC-10 title. The Kansas City Chiefs fired their offensive coordinator just a few weeks before the start of the season, indicating only that they wanted to try an entirely different approach to losing at least ten games. The Denver Broncos, meanwhile, suspended T.O. wanna-be Brendan Marshall in an attempt to eradicate what little talent the offense had left. And the Oakland Raiders, well – come on, the name alone acts as its own punch line at this point, doesn’t it? This leaves the San Diego Chargers as the only team who should even bother suiting up on Sunday this season – and even they’re one Tila Tequila night out from having a viable defense.

The NFC North might not be the most competitive division in the NFL, but I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if ain’t the most entertaining. Minnesota Vikings coach Brad Childress spent the entire off-season engaged in an endless, pathetic attempt to lure Brett Favre out of his sixtieth retirement. Now that Childress' love has been requited, the Vikings are hoping to be rewarded with a division or perhaps even a Super Bowl title. Sorry, Minnesota; you essentially sold your soul to the devil for a geriatric, arthritic and deaf Paganini in cleats. Chicago Bears fans – possibly the most classless (their treatment of Saints fans in 2007 will never be forgotten) and clueless of all NFL fans (these people actually still worship Mike Ditka!) – believe Jay Cutler is their ticket to the Super Bowl; meanwhile, on planet earth, almost everybody else thinks Jay Cutler is nothing more than the Bears’ ticket to an 8-8 record. Detroit is the only team in the NFL coming off a perfect season. Sure, it was perfectly shitty, but perfect nonetheless. Rookie quarterback Matthew Stafford might lead this team out of its perfect incompetence, but he most assuredly will not lead it to the playoffs. This leaves the Green Bay Packers – with its improved defense and high-powered offense led by some dude not named Brett Favre – as the division winners.

NFC South winners do not repeat – it’s in the NFL by-laws, apparently. This by-law, along with Carolina’s crappy defense and crappy quarterback, eliminates any chance the Panthers had at winning the division. And since enough Atlanta Falcons fans actually believe their team won its division last year, the Falcons have no chance, either. Thus the division comes down to two teams: the New Orleans Saints and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Actually, the division thus comes down to two quarterbacks: Drew Brees and Byron Leftwich. The weight loss is admirable, Mr. Leftwich, but Drew Brees almost broke one of the most hallowed records in all of sports last year. New Orleans takes it.

In the NFC East, the Dallas Cowboys – relying more on their underrated running game – will return to the playoffs as a wildcard team. Jerry Jones has decreed that no other team in this division is worthy of even a mention, so we must move on now.

Last season the Arizona Cardinals surprised everyone in the universe by coming out of the lowly NFC West and nearly defeating Pittsburgh for the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Of course, it’s important to remember that the Cardinals reached the Super Bowl as the beneficiaries of possibly the worst playoff performance by a quarterback in the history of football. Too bad Arizona can’t play Carolina every week in 2009; otherwise they would make the playoffs. Many people like Seattle’s chances of returning to the playoffs this year, but I like their weather up there better. San Francisco will be the team to beat this year in the NFC West; if it isn’t, 49ers players will learn just how serious new head coach Mike Singletary was when he vowed to snap the necks of each and every player on the team. Something tells me those guys are sufficiently motivated. I think there’s another team in this division, but damn if I can remember who the heck it is!


Thus we arrive at the post-season. Here are some betting tips to avoid:

AFC Wildcard: Indianapolis def. Houston; San Diego def. Baltimore
NFC Wildcard: Dallas def. San Francisco; Green Bay def. Minnesota

AFC Divisional Playoffs: Indianapolis def. New England; San Diego def. Pittsburgh
NFC Divisional Playoffs: Dallas def. NY Giants; New Orleans def. Green Bay

AFC Championship: San Diego def. Indianapolis
NFC Championship: Dallas def. New Orleans

Super Bowl MCMLXXXIX: San Diego 31, Dallas 21


MVP: Drew Brees, QB, New Orleans
Offensive Player of the Year: Maurice Jones-Drew, RB, Jacksonville
Defensive Player of the Year: Mario Williams, DE, Houston
Offensive Rookie of the Year: Knowshon Moreno, HB, Denver
Defensive Rookie of the Year: Aaron Curry, OLB, Seattle
Coach of the Year: Mike McCarthy, Green Bay

Mascot of the Year: Boltman (San Diego) – have you seen this fucking thing?!!?

An Open Letter to the Democratic Majority (revised version)

Dear Democratic Majority,

Quit being the humongous fuckin' pussies we all know you to be, forget this perverted fantasy of "bi-partisanship," and just pass some meaningful goddamned healthcare legislation right fucking now - you know, like your asshole counterparts did with the Bush tax cuts back in 2001. That's how politics works, you fucking dipshits. You won the last two election cycles by wide margins and control a large majority in Congress and can do virtually whatever the fuck you want to do - so why are you acting like a bunch of fucking pussies who want to put on a bake sale with your opponents in the Republican Party. You have power, morons - fucking act like it. Fuckin' losers.

Sincerely,

Murray Rizberg

Cosmetic Rehabilitation

It seems the Republican Party finally has realized that – after suffering back-to-back electoral annihilations at the hands of the Democrats in 2006 and 2008 – it really needs to change in order to appeal to a greater number of voters in the future. While being pounded as thoroughly as the GOP was in those two elections is never a fun experience for any political party, Republicans should very easily be able to see at least one bright silver lining: such electoral losses usually indicate that there are plenty of aspects in a party’s operations that can be changed in order to win voters back. For instance, party leaders could acknowledge that their Faustian deal with the religious right was a terrible mistake and then return to truer Goldwater-style conservative social policies that openly embrace gay marriage and a woman’s (legal) right to choose. Another option the GOP has is to grow up in its foreign policy thought process and stop wanting to use the military to obliterate any country whose policies do not agree with the Republican Party’s. Or, the whole lot of them could simply stop trying to peddle the absurd myth that “trickle-down” economics ever trickles anywhere past the richest two percent’s ten-car driveways. And those are just three of the options this beleaguered political party has at its disposal in order to regain the one thing it actually cares about: political power!

So what option has the Republican Party embraced as its first step to winning back the general public? Would you believe they’re going to Glamour Shots for a makeover? Duh! Should we have expected anything else from the party of “Mission Accomplished”? Obviously not. It seems that the Republican Party is starting an initiative called the National Council for a New America – which sounds suspiciously like the inbred child of the Project for a New American Century and the National Review – in order to connect to voters around the country in a series of “town hall” style meetings open to the entire public. The thing is, though, that this “council” consists of a bunch of rich white guys – and Bobby (Ray) Jindal, of course.

Huh? Did I miss something? The Republican Party is going to try to win voters of all backgrounds by essentially starting a traveling think tank? And not just any traveling think tank, but a traveling think tank consisting of a bunch of conservative retreads? Please, somebody look at this roster and explain to me how these guys are going to be able to bring new voters who don’t already carry assault rifles and watch Faux News into their stagnant political party:


• Bitter, vanquished 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain
• Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, brother of possibly the worst president ever
• House Minority Leader John “only by cutting the capital gains tax can we stop the AIDS epidemic in Africa” Boehner
• Mississippi governor and former über-lobbyist Haley Barbour
• Senate Minority Leader Mitch “blame the auto workers union” McConnell
• GOP House Whip – and the man behind the plot to humiliate freshmen Democratic senators on youtube – Eric Cantor
• Former Massachusetts governor Mitt “Who Let the Dawgs Out” Romney
• Token non-white and experienced exorcist Bobby (Ray) Jindal


Granted, I’m still adjusting to these bifocals, but I just can’t see how new voters will be attracted to a group of such established conservative giants, unless these longtime giants do a political (and ethical) about-face this very instant. Considering the fact these people by definition do not change easily or quickly, I don’t see this about-face occurring anytime soon, either.

So where does this inability to undergo quick change leave the GOP and its traveling think tank town hall meetings? The obvious first guess would be that these meetings will attract almost exclusively those people who participated in the teabag demonstrations in April: angry, disenchanted voters who carry the pathological misperception that they are disenfranchised as well. [After all, most of these people are white (still the majority after all these years!), middle class (whose taxes are being lowered despite what they are foolishly led to believe by their conservative masters at Faux News), gun-owning (is there a weapons ban up for vote I’m not aware of?), Christian (still waiting for that constitutional ban on Christianity) fools (see previous four adjectives) who are just now becoming angry about government spending – after never uttering a single objection while their glorious leader Dubyah and his buddies in congress spent the public’s money like a bunch of drunken frat boys on a six-year spring break in Tijuana. I’m sorry, but these people have zero credibility or common sense.] Even if a few treasonous, America-hating liberals do decide to go to one of these town hall meetings and ask honest questions of these conservative leaders, they are very likely to be shouted down and/or run out of the meeting altogether by the innate hostility of the fundamentally ignorant people who are very likely to be in a great majority at such an event. In other words, the “wide open policy debate” allegedly desired in this council’s letter is very likely never to occur, and these town hall meetings will amount to nothing more than a bunch of broken record conservatives preaching to the angriest choir in America. Yeah, I’m sure this traveling think tank side show is going to build that (new) permanent Republican majority in the blink of an eye.

It should be obvious to anyone with even the slightest ability to look at matters objectively that the modern Republican Party just doesn’t get it. At a time when Republicans absolutely need to look inward, they are still looking outward. Rather than choosing to go to political rehab to restore their dignity, direction and integrity (assuming they ever had any), Republicans appear to be – as always – choosing merely to repair their cosmetic problems in an attempt to make themselves more presentable to the voters – all the while failing to understand that their interior flaws are what’s causing the electorate to see exterior ugliness. Republicans can – indeed, they must – start by coming back to planet earth – you know, the place where the Employee Free Choice Act does protect union members’ right to anonymous voting, where Matthew Shepard’s murder was a hate crime rather than a mere fatal robbery, where humankind is causing grave danger to the environment, and where people who break the law are held accountable for their actions – and not just when a Democrat lies about oral sex. Simply put, Republicans have to grow up, stop habitually lying to themselves and the general public, accept reality and live within its confines, and then – maybe then – be able to offer themselves as a legitimate alternative to the Democrats and thus regain their relevance.

I realize that’s a terrifying prospect to most Republicans out there (especially that whole introspection thing – ew!), but they should think about it this way: if they do offer a legitimate alternative to the Democratic Party, it will be just a small matter of time before those almost equally clueless Democrats screw up so badly that voters will flock to the Republicans the same way they did to Democrats in 2006 and 2008.

Based on this ridiculous National Council for a New America, however, I’m not holding my breath for a Republican takeover anytime soon.


http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/29/gop-set-to-launch-rebranding-effort/

The Political Reality of Prosecuting Bush Administration Torturers

I know bi-partisanship is important to Barack Obama – and it should be. He campaigned on a promise to try to end the seemingly unbreakable and destructive negativity that separates the Democrats and Republicans. One of Obama’s most well-known pre-presidential skills was his ability to find common ground with those with whom his side did not agree. And this willingness to open dialogue with opponents is an admirable trait that also sets a good example that communication and compromise – and not merely brute strength – are the best ways to attain one’s goals.

The problem, however, is that until he became president, Barack Obama had never been forced to try to compromise with an opponent as loud, selfish, aggressive, uncompromising, delusional and hypocritical – in a word, infantile – as the modern Republican Party. This is a party that regularly trots out its spokespeople on national television to “debate” current affairs by passing on bald-faced lies about those affairs. (For instance, GOP talking heads still hit the airwaves and argue against the Employee Free Choice Act by falsely claiming that it removes union members’ rights to cast votes anonymously – even though this lie has been debunked over and over and over again in all forms of media. Is it just me, or do Republican talking heads sound more and more like zombies that mindlessly chant “need more brains” – or in this case, “need lower taxes” – every time they make an appearance?) This is a party that has made blatant hypocrisy its primary game plan; just yesterday former Republican congressman Newt Gingrich claimed that Barack Obama’s recent handshake greeting of Venezuelan’s leftist president Hugo Chavez sent a “terrible signal about how the new administration regards dictators.” I guess Mr. Gingrich thinks ruthless, genocidal dictators shaking hands with members of the Republican Party sends a better signal somehow? OK, fine, but this is also the party that, despite piles of evidence that contradict its argument, is still trying to convince you that the human race is having no effect on the environment whatsoever. And let’s not forget that a fairly large portion of this party inexplicably believes that the world was created in six days after god snapped his fingers like a genie. OK, so where exactly does president Obama think he’s going to find that common ground he’s so intent on sharing with Republicans? He certainly didn’t find any in the stimulus bill: not a single Republican member of the House of Representatives voted for it (and only two GOP senators broke party rank to vote yes). Foreign policy? Not unless Obama brandishes his nuclear ammo first and asks questions later. Warrant-less wiretapping? Ha! Just kidding. Prosecution of war crimes against the Bush Administration? Now hold on a second . . .

In the past couple of weeks it has become public knowledge that president Obama does not intend to pursue prosecutions against C.I.A. field officers who tortured prisoners upon the orders of their superiors. And, if White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is to be taken at his word, president Obama already has decided that he does not wish to prosecute any member of the Bush administration – not even those who supervised the use of torture and falsely claimed it was a legal means of interrogation. Obama was clear on his reasoning regarding the decision not to prosecute C.I.A. officers:

This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and
emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and painful
chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing
disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame
for the past. Our national greatness is embedded in America’s ability to right
its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence.
That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together
on behalf of our common future.

No sooner had those insights into president Obama’s intentions and motives regarding the pursuit (or non-pursuit) of justice against the Bush administration come to light than the New York Times published an article revealing that convicted 9/11 terrorist Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was waterboarded a total of 183 times – one-hundred eighty-three times! – in a span of one month. This fact begs the question: at what point did Mohammed’s interrogators stop torturing for information and start torturing for shits and giggles? Or were they ever really torturing for information? No matter how one chooses to assess this revelation, the reality is that it is mind-numbingly despicable. It is despicable that my country – a country that, despite its well-documented past of transgressions against certain groups of the human race inside and outside its borders, is supposed to lead the way in human rights – sank to the level of its worst enemies by treating its prisoners in such an inhumane (and ineffective) manner. It is despicable that the leaders of my country would be so absurdly short-sighted as to believe that treating other human beings in such a way – no matter what heinous crimes they had been suspected of committing – would have absolutely zero consequences in the future? And it is despicable that our leaders went before the entire world and lied about the fact that they not only approved of using such degrading techniques, but that they actually conspired to apply such techniques and then attempt to make it legal to do so for all involved.

And still Barack Obama believes – or at least claims to believe – that is sufficient for us as a nation (and as one of the world’s supposedly civilized nations) to simply acknowledge the wrongdoings of the previous administration and then “turn the page.” Well, it’s time to tell Mr. Obama loudly and clearly that he is dead wrong – and no amount of political capital he foolishly think he’s going to gain by not pursuing justice against members of the Bush administration is worth the price. We all know this decision is motivated purely by politics (and perhaps a little self interest because of the possible consensual wrongdoings on the part of his Democratic allies); what other reason could somebody who has spoken so eloquently against the injustice of the Iraq War and the injustice of these “enhanced” interrogation techniques – and who is so intent on reclaiming the United States’ destroyed reputation around the world – have for not following through on such a clearly defined belief system? Clearly he believes he has something to gain by not pursuing justice against those who committed these terrible crimes – and that thing is political capital.

And this is where Obama quite possibly has become completely misguided. The first thing he should have learned (and learned very quickly) as a Democratic president is that the possession of political capital has absolutely no effect on any attempts to negotiate with this Republican Party. The members of this party do not believe in compromise; they believes only in the child-like delusion that, though they are no longer the majority in either house of congress, laws should be passed their way or no way at all. They believe that to give even one inch on any issue is traitorous to their cause and, more importantly, lethal to their own personal political survival (it has become readily apparent that Republican politicians increasingly see themselves as panicked Frankenstein’s monsters being chased through the streets by an angry, bloodthirsty constituency – sad indeed). This a party that believes its first duty is to regain power over the political process and its second duty to do whatever it wants to with that power – doing what’s right for the growing majority of unhappy citizens who cannot afford health care or their own homes is nowhere on this party’s agenda, folks. This is a minority party that will say or do anything – including things that fuel the fires of ignorance, hatred and possible violence against its enemies – in order to prevent the passing of laws of which it does completely approve. In short: political capital has absolutely no effect whatsoever on the way Republicans go about their business. Whether they are rolling in political capital or are completely bereft of anything even resembling political capital, Republicans operate with a “my way or the highway” mentality. They cannot be reasoned with and they cannot be bargained with.

Crimes – very serious crimes – were committed by people both high and low in rank in the Bush administration. These crimes all but destroyed our reputation around the world and more than likely produced a whole new generation of people (Muslim or not) with bottomless pits of burning hatred for the United States – future terrorists, in other words, who were created by the same man who foolishly claimed to have been “winning the war” to defeat terrorists once and for all. The only true way to restore the world’s faith in our country and its system of government is to bring those who committed these horrible crimes to justice. Bringing these criminals to justice would not be a mere act of political retribution – in fact, politics has nothing to do with it; more accurately it would be a sensible, just course of action, a course desired by many citizens of this country and an even greater number of citizens outside this country. Is the denial of justice for so many millions of people worth the acquisition of political capital – political capital that cannot even be used?

We can only hope that President Obama does not think so and thus allows the Attorney General to proceed pursuing the justice he is legally obligated to carry out.

Aura & Mystique? Luckily for Curt Schilling, they're not just names of dancers

Major league baseball player Curt Schilling just retired after 23 indelible seasons in the show, and already the debate is raging: is he worthy of induction in the Hall of Fame or not? With both confidence and hesitation, I believe the man is worthy of enshrinement in Cooperstown. Ironically, the most important factor that earns Schilling my vote is the very same thing that Schilling rightfully dismissed when discussing the rival New York Yankees’ dominance over his Boston Red Sox during the historic 2004 season: aura and mystique. For all of his numeric shortcomings as a Hall of Fame candidate, Curt Schilling still should be granted membership into that exclusive club of baseball greats because of the aura and mystique surrounding his postseason performances – performances that always will rank among the greatest the game has ever seen.

Let’s get the hesitation out of the way first. Judged solely on his regular season statistics, Curt Schilling is definitely not a Hall of Fame pitcher. Perhaps the best way his career can be described is years of underachievement followed by solid years of intermittent dominance and injury. The overall numbers, with the exception of his extraordinary control, are not eye-popping: a 216-146 record with a 3.46 ERA, a 1.14 WHIP and 3,116 strikeouts. These are impressive numbers all around, but not ..Cooperstown.. worthy by most standards. Compared to perennial Hall of Fame underdog Bert Blyleven’s career numbers – 287 wins, a 3.30 ERA, 1.20 WHIP and 3,701 strikeouts (but in a more pitcher-friendly era, it must be noted) – Schilling’s numbers don’t quite add up despite the slight edge in WHIP. The immediate rationale, then, is that if Bert Blyleven is not worthy of admittance to the Hall of Fame (which he appears not to be according to the voters), then neither is Curt Schilling. This is the point at which some in the pro-Schilling crowd will argue that his numbers would have been better had he not lost parts of seven of his seventeen full seasons in the majors due to injury. Of course, that argument is always followed in knee-jerk fashion by the anti-Schilling crowd’s “Don Mattingly” argument, which goes like this: if Don Mattingly, whose stellar career with the Yankees was cut short by injury, isn’t worthy of the Hall of Fame because of the time he lost to injury, then neither is Curt Schilling (or anybody else for that matter). I think the injury argument is weak in either player’s case: assuming Schilling had pitched full-time every season, his numbers probably still would not have reached certain Hall of Fame levels, while Mattingly’s initial back injury occurred so early in his career that it practically snuffed his Hall of Fame chances in that instant. These injuries are more of a legitimate argument in his favor because, based on other circumstances, Schilling is closer to being a true Hall of Famer than Mattingly is; that is, slightly improved regular season numbers might have solidified Schilling’s Cooperstown odds while merely increasing Mattingly’s odds a few percentage points. Injuries or not, no matter how you stack the numbers in Curt Schilling’s regular season career, these numbers neither secure nor quash his chances of being voted into the Hall of Fame; they merely make one pause a bit before examining his other possible Hall of Fame qualifications.

While Curt Schilling’s regular season career has no make-or-break effect on his ..Cooperstown.. chances, it can be argued that Schilling’s postseason career definitely has a make-or-break effect on those chances. Whether it’s fair or not, a player’s postseason performance can – and, assuming the player has a long enough postseason career from which to pass fair judgment, should – have an effect on his candidacy for the Hall of Fame. The question of fairness must be addressed because the anti-Schilling crowd will use part two of the Don Mattingly argument. The question inevitably asked by many of this opinion goes something like this: is it really Don Mattingly’s fault that he reached the postseason only one time in his injury-shortened career? Of course it isn’t because baseball is, after all, a team sport. The only answer I have for those who prefer to dismiss or at least diminish a player’s postseason performance as a measuring tool for that player’s Hall of Fame candidacy is simple: life isn’t fair. Mattingly got the shaft not only because of his chronic back problems, but also because he happened to play for the Yankees during their longest championship drought ever. If Mattingly wants to curse anybody for his fate (though, to his credit, he has been much too gracious to do so), he should begin and end with George Steinbrenner, whose constant meddling doomed the Yankees during this drought. Curt Schilling, on the other hand, while suffering some injuries that surely damaged his statistical credentials for the Hall of Fame, did not suffer the same postseason fate as Don Mattingly. And, one could argue, given the opportunity to produce when the pressure to perform is at its most intense, nobody performed as well as Schilling: an 11-2 postseason record in 19 postseason starts with a 2.23 ERA, 120 strikeouts and a 0.97 WHIP. Those numbers are nothing short of ridiculous. Toss out that horrible start in Game 1 of the 2004 ALCS – horrible only because of an injury so severe he shouldn’t have been out there in the first place – and those numbers are even more dramatic: an 11-1 record with a 1.87 ERA and 0.91 WHIP. Those numbers represent the closest to a sure thing major league baseball might ever see in the postseason – can that fact ever be overrated? I don’t think so. So though it might be a shame that many great players never had the opportunity to pile up such incredible playoff achievements the way Curt Schilling did, to begrudge or belittle Schilling’s virtuoso success under the brightest lights merely because he was fortunate enough to have been there in the first place makes no sense whatsoever.

Curt Schilling’s postseason statistics are amazing, but there still will be many people who argue that those statistics do not merit him a place in the Hall of Fame. To that point a second argument can be made: like it or not, the Baseball Hall of Fame is just that: a hall of fame. What kind of place would it be if it were just the Hall of Statistics? Or the Hall of Achievements? Obviously statistics and achievements play the biggest part in determining a player’s admission into the Hall of Fame, but those are not the only criteria. There is a third part – an intangible quality – that factors into the process. This unquantifiable part is necessary because without it, entrance to the Hall would become strictly a numbers game. In this hypothetical, completely statistical method there might be set numeric standards (adjusted for different eras, of course) that everyone – the players, managers, owners, fans, sportswriters, etc – knew would make or break a player’s chances for making the Hall of Fame. How is this the least bit interesting? Don’t get me wrong: in most instances I am a vocal advocate of objectivity; the Hall of Fame, however, is different. By definition it cannot be strictly objective. The Hall of Fame was created to honor individuals who made lasting contributions to the game of baseball, whether those contributions are well known (as in the case of Josh Gibson, Eddie Mathews and Tony Gwynn) or almost completely overlooked (as in the case of early Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss, former White Sox and Indians manager Al Lopez and Negro League pitcher Leon Day). The Hall of Fame was created with the fans in mind, too: it not only gives them a place to recall the great players and great moments that created some of the most lasting memories, it also gives them a place to learn about some of the less famous people whose contributions should be remembered. Curt Schilling, by virtue of his extensive success in the most important of games – as well as a regular season career that was by no means average – has earned a place in that former category of Hall of Fame players. Two generations of baseball fans, whether they loved or hated him, will never forget the contributions of Curt Schilling. They will remember a baseball player who consistently saved his best for the games that mattered the most. They will remember a man who joyfully took on the challenge of helping a historically beleaguered franchise end an eighty-six year championship drought and then – health and career consequences be damned – delivered the goods and helped end that title drought. They will remember a ball player who, by the end of his career, had an air of invincibility about him under the most important and intense circumstances. In short, the fans will remember a Hall of Fame-quality starting pitcher.

Before the start of the 2001 World Series Curt Schilling, upon being asked if the young Diamondbacks franchise would have problems dealing with the tradition-heavy Yankees franchise, famously replied, "Aura and mystique? Those are dancers at nightclubs." In Curt Schilling’s case, aura and mystique were definitely not just names of dancers; they were near-tangible qualities he possessed, qualities he had earned through consistent regular season success and extraordinary postseason success. If that fact does not make a player worthy of the Hall of Fame, I’m not sure what would. Hopefully the baseball writers who actually vote on the matter will feel the same way.

Melatonin & the Apocalypse

So I'm a horrible insomniac - everybody who knows me is aware of this fact (if you weren't, you might not have been aware that we've had a chimpanzee impersonating our head of state the for last eight years, either, but I digress). Anyway, I've been to the doctor a few times over the past several years for other reasons and have always mentioned the insomnia problem to him. For some reason, however, my doctor has offered little to no help with this problem, which, of course, is just another way of saying, "That rat bastard damn fool won't give me any freakin' drugs!" Yeah, that's what I want. And it's what you want, and it's what the person sitting across the room from you wants and it's what all your kids want, too.

OK, so I went in to see the doctor for a routine checkup on January 5, and while I was there I mentioned the insomnia problem yet again, thinking that maybe the 634th time would be the charm. Instead he did some blood tests and called me back a week later to tell me I had high cholesterol. Great, doc, but, umm . . . I CAN'T FUCKING STAY ASLEEP MORE THAN TWO TO THREE HOURS IN A ROW ALMOST ANY NIGHT OF THE YEAR! That's right: not "any night of the week," but "any night of the motherfuckin' YEAR!" FUCK! What about THAT?

His suggestion? "Have you ever tried melatonin?" Well, I had tried it many years ago, and it had virtually no effect whatsoever. That was then, though, so I thought why not try it again? After all, I used to think that George Will was a douche bag, and now I think he’s a colossal douche bag! So obviously things do change, don’t they? I mean, if the American voter can choose a black dude with almost no political experience over an old, rich white war hero, isn't just about any kind of change possible? Melatonin it would be, I decided.

I am now about to enter my fourth night of the Great Melatonin Experiment, and what have I to show for it? Would you believe a post-apocalyptic ....New Orleans....? Huh? What's that? Yes, that's correct: a post-apocalyptic Big Easy. That's the kind of fucked-up dream I've been having multiple times a night for the last three nights. Two of my ex-girlfriends have made frightening appearances in these dreams, one of whom inhabited a dream for the sole purpose of running me over in her car (I'm still not sure if her intent was to kill me or merely maim me by hitting me with her car; hopefully my subconscious will be quick enough on its feet to squeeze in an inquiry the next time she pops up in my dream). Another dream found me at a restaurant angrily confronting Saints head coach Sean Payton about why he had ordered the stuffed bell pepper instead of fried chicken for lunch. Obviously my subconscious is not nearly as obsessed as I am with trying to find out why coach Payton refused to put in Deuce McAllister in short yardage situations against both Washington and Denver earlier this past season. But out of all the strange dreams I've had the last three nights, none can top one of the dreams I had last night. You see, in this dream I was living in a ....New Orleans.... under martial law . . . because brain-devouring zombies were overtaking the city after a nuclear attack had left the it in ruins. Don't ask me why I wasn't a zombie as well; I mean, it's my subconscious - it's not exactly the most rational entity in the universe we're talking about here! At one point I found myself speeding along ....Airline Drive.... with a police car chasing me, but I absolutely refused to pull over. Could you blame me? I didn't know if it was the regular NOPD or the zombie NOPD that was chasing me - and I don't even know which one scares me more! The whole thing was just completely irrational. At one point I even ducked into the ultra sleazy London Lodge Motel to escape the zombies and ended up turning on the miraculously functioning tv with satellite reception, flipping right past the Red Sox game and onto a porn channel! How preposterous a scenario - I would never choose porn over the Red Sox in real life! Does anything under the influence of melatonin make any sense? Apparently not.

It is 2:39 AM, and the melatonin pill should be going to work very shortly. Based on the last few nights of bizarre dreams and disturbing nightmares one could easily understand my apprehension about what kind of dreams await me later. Throw in the fact that I went straight from being surrounded by thirty small children at a friend's daughter's sixth birthday party to watching The Dark Knight earlier tonight, and I'm beginning to think I should have just gone back to NyQuil and called it a week.