NYC Marathon should be postponed

One of the hottest post-Hurricane Sandy arguments has to do with whether the New York City Marathon should go on as planned, just five days after the devastating storm.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others back the decision to hold the race as scheduled. The reasons are:

1. The race will make New Yorkers feel better.
2. The event will bring in lots of money for the city and local businesses.
3. Few public resources and/or money will be used for the event.

There are other arguments in favor of not postponing the event, but those in a nutshell are the main reasons. Here are some reasons why I think it's totally wrong to hold the race:

1. Too soon. It's conceivable that runners, who will begin in Staten Island, could actually pass by funeral processions or rescue personnel still searching for stranded residents. This isn't 9/11, where the dead bodies and ambulances were long gone by the time the marathon arrived. As horrible a tragedy as 9/11 was, it was nearly two months prior to the marathon. In fact, 9/11 was a geographically limited catastrophe. The carnage from Sandy is spread out all across the tri-state area. Staten Island, where the race begins, looks like some scene from an end-of-the-world movie. Look, in the days after 9/11, the NFL canceled football games that were to be played in stadiums far from Ground Zero. It only makes sense that a marathon, which will be run through or near some of the storm-damaged areas where people died and lost everything they owned, be postponed. 
2. Perceptions. How do you tell people who are being looted that the city's finest are going to be on duty for the marathon instead of patrolling their neighborhoods. It doesn't matter who is paying for police services, the perception is that the city cares more about protecting racers and fans than residents. This is an all-hands-on-deck situation. This isn't a time for diverting resources to large, non-emergency events.
3. Transportation. Have you seen what is happening in New York with the existing population trying to get around in the last few days without a subway system? Now the city is inviting tens of thousands of more people in for a race before the public transportation is even close to being fully operational. It makes no sense. It seems almost foolishly macho to insist that NYC will go on with the show. This was a natural disaster. We don't need to be defiant towards Mother Nature the way we were against the terrorists. There is no glory in holding this event in the shadow of such devastation and fresh suffering.

The marathon needs to be postponed. Even moving it back one week would at least allow for the odor of smoldering ashes in Queens and leaking natural gas in New York Harbor to dissipate. Yes, the logistics of that might be difficult, but so are the logistics of restoring large portions of a city.

To go on with the marathon now, without pause, makes me wonder about the priorities of the city that I was born in, at a hospital just a block or two from the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, which links Staten Island to Brooklyn -- the place where runners will start the race this weekend. No one is trying to take food off of anyone's plate or rain on anyone's parade. Those who are passionately arguing against holding the race are only asking that it be postponed, not canceled. If that means a little less tourism this weekend, so be it.

UPDATE: Less than two hours after this post, the mayor of New York City called off the marathon -- a decision even runners agreed with.

Congress should be charged with treason

At least one report is now claiming that by just approaching the "fiscal cliff" we're stalling the economy and causing more layoffs. That cliff is just two months away, so things could get far worse, according to most experts.

Because Congress is directly responsible for creating this fiscal cliff, I believe its members should be charged with treason.

Sound too extreme?

Well, I am open to other charges. But to say that Congress is not acting in some criminal manner is to be blind to all that has gone on in Washington recently.

If you were well on the way to recovering from cancer, but just as you were about to go into remission, doctors told you to stop taking your medicine and begin a diet heavy on bacon and hot dogs, and start smoking three packs of cigarettes a day, wouldn't you think that doctor should at least be thrown out of the medical profession. How about if he or she was injecting you with known carcinogens and your cancer returned? Shouldn't that doctor be charged with attempted murder or manslaughter?

This is what Congress is doing. They are killing the recovery. This goes way beyond negligence or even blatant incompetence. They are doing it on purpose and for selfish political reasons. They are raising fears in the business sector. They are acting as un-American and un-partriotic as anyone who would sabotage this country in any way, shape or form. And they are telling us that they are doing it to save the country. That's the biggest lie I've ever heard out of Washington. Even bigger than weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

I am not going to bother explaining what the fiscal cliff is or how we got here. I am tired of trying to tell people that they should pay attention to stuff like politics, climate change and other issues that directly impact them, even if they don't know it.

This country is going to get what it deserves by electing the people it does. This level of stubbornness and playing these insane, mean-spirited games of chicken on Capitol Hill occur because voters tend to vote against their own interests and support people who have zero honor and integrity. They do this because they don't open their minds or explore alternative views. They find an ideology they like, and they cling to it like never before, with no desire to compromise. They watch Fox News and never question whether its even close to being journalistically sound. Their guy clearly loses a debate and they can't even admit it. Some politician makes outrageous claims about rape, and they somehow dismiss it because he's on "their side."

It goes on and on.

This new lack of flexibility in voters and politicians is creating an epic mess that we may never be able to clean up. This country does not function best when it is divided the way it is now. It will, in time, destroy us from within if we don't seek common ground for the betterment of all. I fear the unwillingness of people to say, hey, maybe I am wrong about this or that, or perhaps I can bend my views based on new evidence, will do us in.

If we allow politicians to drive us over the fiscal cliff, we have no one to blame but ourselves for re-entering a recession or depression, which is what will happen in 2013. Regardless of who is elected president in November, if Congress continues to steer this country into the ground, they should be criminally indicted, not just voted out of office.

What really drives Romney?

Here's the thing I can't figure out about Mitt Romney. Why is he running for president?

Seems like a pretty basic question, but from my perspective, I don't see the usual motivating factors such as:

• A final stepping stone in a long political career. He was in the private sector most of his life and often seems uncomfortable with campaigning.

• Money and fame. He's already in the one percent in terms of wealth.

• Patriotism driven by involvement in the military earlier in life. He's no McCain or Kerry, let alone Dwight D. Eisenhower.

• Ego. Well, maybe, but he's sure not in Herman Cain's league. Romney seems uncomfortable around people, in fact.

Not even political ideology drives this guy. This is a Republican who many conservatives mistrust. The only reason he is supported on the right is because he is not Barack Obama.

It is beyond denying that Romney has switched positions on almost every position imaginable in the last decade, and sometimes from week to week. His main goal seems to be to get elected by any means necessary, not to push hard for any one particular political view unless it can help him get through a primary.

OK, so what is it that drives Romney? Well, it might be the very thing he talks very little about: Mormonism.

It wouldn't be the first time someone rich has run for national office to, in part, bring their religion into the mainstream. Some say John F. Kennedy wanted to be president to provide a certain degree of acceptability to Catholicism in America.

It's not that Romney necessarily wants to convert anyone to his faith. But when you really think about why Romney wants to be president, shedding light on Mormonism, even if subtly, has to be considered. Romney has been deeply involved in the Mormon church for his entire life. The religion remains on the fringe, a mystery to many Americans.

We are a country of firsts, and having the first Mormon president would have to be considered a major accomplishment to believers of that religion. Maybe that, at least in part, is what drives Romney.

Loco for logos at USA TODAY

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Logo Makeover for USA Today
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

I try to refrain from publicly mocking any former employer. It often backfires and sounds like sour grapes. So instead, I will just post this Colbert Report video and let you draw your own conclusions about the direction USA TODAY (and other news media) is heading.

I can say this, that regardless of what one thinks about this particular redesign, when companies start worrying more about logos and less about substance and integrity, those companies are usually out of good ideas.

No county for old men

I have heard people say that the older they get the less they know.

I wonder if that's just a nicer way of saying, "What the hell is going on these days?"

Well, I don't always have that much tact or false modesty. I know what's going on, or at least observe the trends, and I don't often like it. I might not have the reasons why certain things are, but I am not oblivious to the fact that they are happening.

Take this obsession with paving and sealing roads and parking lots in the affluent counties where I live and work. You would think Fairfax and Loudoun counties have nothing better to do with taxpayers' money than to freshen up the pavement at an obsessively frequent rate. While other parts of the country are dealing with potholes the size of your average moon crater, we here in Northern Virginia drive around on shiny parkways. Shopping centers and homeowner's associations also seem to have a fixation with smoothing out the pavement in parking lots at the first sign of a hairline fracture.

This is all fine, I guess. Better than navigating around gigantic cracks and getting realignments every six months. However, there is one big drawback, other than costs, to all this compulsive road maintenance.

We already are in traffic Hell around here! All this cosmetic road work is only adding to the backups and gridlock. Do we really need to tidy up our smaller thoroughfares while major projects like the Metrorail Silver Line (the biggest construction project currently going on east of the Mississippi) routinely close major highways through Fairfax County? Can I just get to the local grocery store without having to dodge orange cones? And where is this money coming from? I constantly hear that there are no funds for anything these days. Yet, the odor of fresh blacktop is always in the air in this part of Virginia.

I suspect the politicians are behind the pavement madness. Mayors of major cities learned a awhile ago that as long as the trash was picked up and the roads were plowed after a snow storm, they had a pretty good chance of staying in office. Voters have their priorities. Well, in these 'burbs (ranked the No. 1 and No. 2 richest counties in the country), the same principle holds true -- except here it's all about making sure the roads are pristine for all of the expensive cars that are going nowhere fast. Problem is, I can't even get out of my neighborhood anymore in order to go sit in the larger traffic jams a few miles away. I'd like to travel a mile or two through Fairfax and Loudoun counties without seeing construction crews. Some of the repairs are necessary, I suppose, some are simply redundant or cosmetic at best.

* * *

While I can take a stab at guessing why the roads in Fairfax and Loudoun counties are constantly being resurfaced, I don't fully understand the following unrelated trends and worsening hiccups. I realize these things, mostly trivial yet symptomatic of something bigger, are irritating and getting worse in the part of the world I call home. None are a deal-breaker for living here, but together they do add to the growing sense of bewilderment I have about modern-day life in Northern Virginia and maybe America in general.

• Why on many radio commercials is there a voice that sounds like the guy is talking through a cheap megaphone or an old ham radio with the volume cranked? Does a scratchy, distant voice somehow give the actor trying to sell a product more credibility or authenticity? I don't remember any financial adviser or home mortgage lender ever speaking to me with a tone that sounded like we were using two empty cans connected by a string. Yet, some advertising genius has come up with this concept that takes the quality audio of the digital age and sends it back to pre-analog days. What good is having an HD radio in one's Lexus if the commercials intentional sound like they were recorded in a cave? (Just for the record, I drive a 7-year-old Jeep).

• I went to a specialist today to have a "re-treatment" done on an 20-year-old root canal gone bad. I've gone to this guy before. He's very good. Loves his work. Has all the modern equipment to do this type of dental procedure. Yet, when he was prepping me, he almost began working on the incorrect tooth on the WRONG side of my mouth. With my mouth stretched open by something that looked like a miniature trampoline, I frantically waved him off, like an NFL referee gesturing that a receiver caught the ball out of bounds. How does this happen? I mean, it's a tooth. They use numbers to identify our molars. They take digital x-rays. They have a tooth chart on the referral slip and they are highly educated people. Even the assistant didn't catch it, and she had just taken x-rays of the tooth minutes earlier on my left side. I was about five seconds away from being needlessly drilled on the right. But these professionals aren't alone. I've noticed more and more screw-ups just like this -- from oil-change places overfilling car engines to coffee shop cashiers forgetting what I ordered a second after I said, "Tall coffee." I can understand if I order a "grande skim vanilla latte, three pumps, with two shots...blah, blah, blah." But c'mon, tall coffee ... and Mr. Barista forgets that order almost before I get out the "fee" in cof-fee? We seem to be having a widespread problem with focusing (yes, I know you're thinking I might be suffering from that as you read this post), regardless of the simplicity of the task or how much expertise one might have in any given field or service industry. Are we becoming too dependent on technology to correct us? Are we just stressed out? What's going on? Perhaps I am just noticing it more.

• Kids in bars have been a pet peeve of mine for the last few years. I recently complained about this new phenomenon to the manager of an eatery that I patronize fairly often. Couldn't understand why there was a kids' soccer team surrounding my cozy pub table while I was trying to watch a baseball game in a comfortably numb, adult state of mind. I don't get today's parents. Even if they couldn't care less about my needs, why would they want their kids looking at an unshaven middle-age man ordering another round and throwing his hands up every time Tyler Clippard blows another save. Why expose children to adult environments and tantrums when there is alternative restaurant seating, away from the bar, that is more suitable in every way imaginable? Is it the new society we live in, where there are no lines, no boundaries? Is it OK for 5-year-olds to belly up to the bar and sit next to a weathered biker on his eighth Bud or a drunken dye blonde with too much mascara? I guess so, because I see it all the time lately. Maybe these new-age parents are so starved for an adult outing that they are going to bring little Johnny to the bar regardless of what psychological scars it might leave on him or how much it annoys the heck out of every mature couple on date night. Folks, if you don't want to give up your bar-hopping days, don't have kids or get something that my parents used to refer to as a "babysitter." Remember those? And restaurant managers, I know you're trying to attract customers, but just remember, when Las Vegas went through its family-friendly stage 25 years ago, tourism plummeted. Seat the kiddies where they should be seated, away from the boozers and adult conversations. Learn from the Vegas experiment or else I'll do my social drinking and sports watching at home, where not only don't I have to be social, but I don't have to pick half-chewed Cheerios off my shoes.

In my somewhat disjointed quest to connect the dots once again, to make sense of it all, I will say that I think a lot of this stuff is just an indication of the current culture of over-the-top entitlement and overload that causes people to lose focus and commonsense. Admittedly, the anxiety and awareness that I feel about these things big and small could also be an indication of my becoming a cranky older man -- the get-off-my-lawn syndrome that overtakes some of us north of 50 years old. If that's the case, I might eventually need to leave this crowded, competitive and privileged area for a place that doesn't assault the senses or test one's tolerance levels like Northern Virginia does.

I am beginning to believe this is no county for old men. I see very few seniors around here. Loudoun, the wealthiest place in America, is becoming a place for young lions looking to make big bucks to support their growing families or tastes in upscale cars. It's a place to compete, whether for a bar stool or airtime on local radio stations or the left lane on highway into Washington. A part of the world where the roads are silky and the taxes are high to pay for the constant stream of new schools and infrastructure, where everyone is seemingly looking for an edge. In that search, we're losing something. Call it authenticity or common sense or just plain competence.

Maybe the entire culture shifts in favor of the young with each passing generation. Perhaps if I were 30 years old I would understand megaphone man on the radio commercials, be grateful for new pavement every six months or not think it's a big deal that a dentist nearly assaults the wrong tooth. Then again, I might not even notice those things. When you're 30, you are busy climbing the corporate ladder, still hanging out with your college buddies or raising kids. I just wish those kids weren't being raised at the bar stool next to mine.

Good luck connecting the dots

It's been a long time since my last post.

Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe that means I've been too busy with more rewarding ventures.

Nah. The lack of writing is just an indication of the malaise of summer and a fading desire to focus too much on any one topic. That is not to say certain things haven't crossed my mind during the dog days. Questions and observations seem to come in waves as one sits back and ponders it all.

For instance, the other day I was thinking about what our parents and teachers told us when we were children, and how much of it has turned out to be false.

Remember how we weren't supposed to sit too close to the television set, let alone touch the screen? Well, now many of us have to make a living doing just that -- sitting inches away from 27-inch computer monitors for hours. Heck, I remember when the biggest TV was 19 inches and my father said I would go blind or get brain cancer if I sat within 10 feet of it.

And then there are tablets.

Our fingerprints are all over our Kindles and iPads. Go to an Apple store and you'll be exposed to more germs than you will find on a toilet seat at a truck stop. Shouldn't these touch-screen devices carry some sort of warning label?

How about food? Red meat and whole milk were supposed to be good for us when we were kids. Now we're told that those items will send us to an early grave.

I was taught not to lie. Now being deceitful is practically a national past-time. You see it in advertising and politics. We are encouraged by otherwise respectable folks to inflate our qualifications when going for a new job or promotion. We color our hair to shave off a few years. We get cosmetic surgery in order to support the lies. We hire attorneys to lie for us when we can't keep our lies straight. And we reward them when they win.

Corporate lies have become particularly popular. Many large businesses have entire teams of professional "communicators" who will lie to employees, the public or the government, particularly in times of crisis or transition. Of course, government practically invented the institutional lie, so what goes around comes around, I guess. It often feels like part of some societal dance -- a dance of survival and getting ahead, no matter the cost.

I've been thinking about trivial stuff, too, like why we don't hear of reports of UFOs anymore? Can't recall the last time there was a well-publicized sighting. You would think that with everyone on the planet carrying smartphones with high mega-pixel cameras built in, this would be the golden era for visual proof of alien ships hovering on the horizon. Instead, it now appears that all of those grainy UFO photos from yesteryear might have been fraudulent? Either that, or the aliens decided not to visit Earth anymore.

Politics creeps into my mind still, in a more personal way, that is. I now wonder how I could have gone from moderately conservative to somewhat liberal. Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? Aren't we supposed to be liberal when young and idealistic, and grow more conservative with age and a greater sense of reality?

Modern-day Republicans jumped the shark in recent years and made it impossible for a lot of people like me to support conservative values anymore. As fair-minded people, we had no choice but to move to the left. The right seems bent on taking us back, and worse, just make up crazy and dangerous stuff as they go along. As Will McAvoy (the fictional news anchor on the HBO show The Newsroom) said in the series finale last Sunday, the Tea Party and right-wing extremists are, in essence, the "American Taliban." Yes, these people on the fringe scare me.

It amazes me that Mitt Romney is running even with President Obama in most polls. I mean, it's stunning to watch. Stunning. Granted, Obama should have paid more attention to the economy, but does that mean we have to punish him by electing a guy who doesn't know what a doughnut is, who caters to the American Taliban and hides his money overseas while trying to make us believe he's for the middle class?

I recently said I wouldn't write much about politics anymore. The lack of honor in our political system has become too depressing. I have made an attempt to watch less political news while tuning in to more baseball games this summer. But, of course, it's almost impossible to avoid the political ads, which brings me back to lying.

Have you seen the ad where Romney and Obama are on a stage together behind podiums, in a debate setting? Uh, did the right-wingers who made that commercial think we are so easily fooled that they could show an image of a debate that hasn't even happened yet? And what's with slow motion? Why is it that whenever a candidate is portrayed as the anti-Christ in a political ad, he or she is shown in slow motion? Is there something evil about slow motion? Should I not be watching slow-mo replays during football broadcasts to avoid demonic possession?

I know what you're saying by now. What the heck is this post about? Slow motion, demonic possession, whole milk, red meat, UFOs and political transformations?

Well, as I warned you in the beginning, this post wasn't going to have one obvious message. My thoughts move from decade to decade, subject to subject in no particular order or priority lately. Yet, if you look a little deeper, there is a message here.

For better or worse, things do become clearer with age and experience, yet the dots are harder to connect in this ever-changing, complex world, which is the opposite of how I felt at 25. Then, the dots seemed easy to connect, but life itself was filled with deceptive distractions and false assumptions ... and maybe fewer dots.

Top 5 annoyances about power outage

In hindsight, now that the power has been back on in our Northern Virginia townhouse for a couple of days after last Friday's devastating storm, I must say that the 100-plus degree heat wasn't the worst thing about being without electricity and air conditioning. Oh, believe me, sleeping on sheets that are hot to the touch is no fun. But it was the unexpected things that nearly broke me after three days without power during the summer's meanest heat wave. Here's what I will have the harshest memories about relating to the blackout of 2012.

1. My neighbor running a gas-powered generator 10 feet from our open windows. The noise was deafening. He was the only one in our townhouse community who had the nerve to run a generator in a tight, multi-family building area. We walked through the single-family area of our subdivision and saw generators placed on the far edge of one-acre lots where the noise wouldn't impact neighbors so severely, but not a single condo or townhouse owner, other than our next door neighbor, had a generator. Most condo/townhouse people had enough courtesy and commonsense to not blow out their neighbors' ear drums with the constant roar of a portable generator, which sounds similar to one of those large, industrial lawn mowers. To add insult to injury, our neighbor bought a window air conditioner so that he could close up his house and not deal with his own noise and polluting fumes.

2. People driving through intersections that had dark traffic lights without even slowing down was fairly common. When traffic lights are out, we are taught to treat intersections as four-way stops. However, in Northern Virginia, powerless traffic lights seem to mean something very different to half the drivers who I saw. In fact, I nearly got rear-ended several times by people who I guess wanted me to blow through the intersections.

3. Paying $60 for a cooler that probably didn't cost half of that pre-blackout. Yup, good old capitalism was rearing its ugly head all around the D.C. region. A hotel in College Park, Md., not exactly a garden spot, was charging $500 for a room. Gas stations were hiking up prices 50 cents and more. The grocery store that was supposed to be giving out free bags of ice, according to radio reports, was actually charging $2.00.

4. I will admit it, I missed my gadgets, my Internet connection, my ability to play electric guitar to relieve stress. Couldn't watch a ball game on television. There was only one radio news station with 24/7 coverage and I had to listen to it through a 1980s battery-powered boom box that I fortunately had buried in a closet years ago. I will never listen to that station or boom box again. Never want to hear another commercial or incompetent reporting.

5. Viewing people in less clothing than they would/should normally wear. I will leave it at that.


Overall, I give the people of Northern Virginia a C-minus in dealing with this crisis. The level of courtesy and pulling together was lower than I expected. This isn't an overly friendly area to begin with, but as a native New Yorker, I was kind of hoping that an emergency would bring out the best in people. While New Yorkers are often known for their rudeness, they do seem to be at their best when the "s" hits the fan in snow storms and other emergencies. I saw little evidence of that here, however.

Thousands are still without power on this Fourth of July. I feel for them. I am grateful that mere annoyances were the toughest things I had to deal with, but I am also disappointed by the every-person-for-him-or-herself attitude displayed by so many Virginians this week. Maybe more than being a reflection of a geographic area, it's a sign of the times we live in.

My musical journey in 12 minutes

Trying to squeeze 38 years of photos and audio into one 12-minute video is tough. Fortunately, there were big gaps in my amateur music career, otherwise the task would have been far more difficult. Still, a lot of material was left out of this video -- many good tunes.

This mini movie contains recordings of practice sessions and gigs -- my musical journey, sort of speak. The quality of the sound and images varies. Some of the songs were actually recorded on cassette tape. Remember that? To document this segment of my life, I felt it was important to include the clams as well as the gems, high- and low-production quality.

I have chosen to convert everything to black and white. It's an art thing -- a personal preference. Plus, it makes us all look more like bad asses instead of middle class geeks from the suburbs. There is no narration. In varying degrees, I perform on every song you hear. There are some images, like one of my father, that certainly turn back the hands of time.

This video serves as a personal reminder to me that music was an integral part of my life and hopefully can continue to be in the coming years, although that is getting tougher for various reasons. While I never seriously aspired to be a professional or had the talent to do anything more with music, we all have those "what if" moments in our lives when garage band morphs into rock stardom. Looking back, knowing what I know now, maybe it would have been wise to try to turn a passion into a career. The attempt, regardless of how unrealistic, is often more important than succeeding or failing. Of course, that would have meant taking music lessons, and for anyone who knows me, I am not a lessons guy when it comes to creative endeavors.

I am also reminded that I have had the good fortune of playing with many talented folks -- some very cool guys and gals. We all shared a common interest and made the most of it when we got together. Some of the musicians in this video were only passing ships, while others have become long-time friends. Maybe that's the best part of this musical journey -- the relationships.

It's not clear what is next for me, musically speaking. I am not sure when the last waltz will occur or when the music will die. Lots of classic rockers are, well, fading away or are transitioning to shuffleboard as a past-time. Others are busy with work and family, caring for elderly parents, or just lost the desire to make noise. The bad economy has apparently cut into the number of Baby Boomers looking to jam, too. Many are simply worried about surviving. I can relate. So, before too much more time passes, I am posting this video in order to boost my own spirits and to give anyone who might be interested a little view into what has been a fun hobby for a lot of years. With any luck, maybe I will "get in with the right sort of fellas" and fire up the Fender one more time. It has to be easier on the joints and the ego than playing softball.

A one-game comeback

Remember when we could soar?

Oh, perhaps not like an Olympic athlete or a falcon above the Blue Ridge.

But in our minds and ambitions. In our hobbies and our past-times. We were young lions. Climbing, running, jumping. Doing whatever was required on the playground or the office.

After a mere two decades away from playing any sort of competitive sport that didn't require a golf cart, I recently joined my company's softball team. Despite a chronically ailing shoulder and 20 pounds of extra weight, somehow I thought I could walk out onto the diamond and perform at a reasonable level at age 54.

Yes, 54. Isn't that the new 44? That's what I keep hearing.

The mind does play cruel tricks on our bodies at times. It markets things that we know in our hearts aren't true.

First the good news. I went 2-for-3 with the bat. Both hits were lined sharply. I scored two runs and had two assists and one put-out playing second base and shortstop in my first game out of softball/baseball retirement.

Now the bad news.

I was standing on first base. The next hitter came to the plate and blasted the ball into the gap in left center. There was no way I could legitimately stop at second without looking like a lazy, lame ass. I had to take third base. However, third base looked as far away as the moon to me as I made the turn. I had already slightly pulled a hamstring running out my hit to first base.

I made it to third. There was no throw to challenge me.

When he next hitter came up, he popped out to deep center on the first pitch. "First pitch" being the key phrase.

Tag up you say?

No way. I was still gasping for air from the run from first to third, and their was no way my hamstring was going to cooperate with another burst. OK, maybe not a burst. More like a pathetic meandering down the line. But you get my drift. I needed more recovery time.

I waited for the next batter to get a convincing hit that would allow a more leisurely stroll to home plate. Thankfully, that hit came and we didn't leave a potential run on third base.

After the game, the pain in my already-injured left shoulder was tear-jerkingly awful. But the worse was yet to come.

The next morning, a new injury appeared. A left knee swelled up. Can't recall what I did to cause the swelling other than to think that I could just go running around the baseball field like Father Time had stopped in the mid 1980s. Heck, I don't even think I stretched.

My arms were sore -- forearms, wrist, hands, fingernails. You name it.

My hamstring tightened.

My eyelids and hair hurt.

It took a week to feel better.

My comeback lasted one game. I hung up my No. 2 jersey and if I join any softball teams in the future, it will be in the 50-and-over league where you don't feel compelled to take the extra base or turn two in the field as a gorilla is steamrolling his way into you.

Playing with folks 20-30 years younger than myself, even though I held my own, is a prescription for aches, pains and humiliation that I no longer can get rid of with just a Tylenol or two.

Playing sports that require sprinting, diving, running into base runners trying to jar the ball loose from my glove is not a good way to spend a Wednesday evening when the pain for the next week makes putting on my socks a major challenge.

However, I am glad I tried it and didn't totally embarrass myself. But a man must know his limitations. And all the muscle memory in the world isn't going to make that run from first to third feel any shorter.

I feel lucky I did no long-term damage in my brief comeback.

Playing guitar, taking long hikes, learning new tricks related to work and career -- those are all still viable endeavors that old dogs can do fairly well. I am grateful for still being able to do those things.

Having a grapefruit-size sphere whizzing towards my head as my glove-hand reflexes can't match my enthusiasm may sound like a blast, but I think I will leave that sort of fun for folks with muscles that don't object so loudly.

I no longer want to soar.

I want to glide.

There is a subtle but noble difference.

No shame in teleprompters

Bruce Springsteen's use of a teleprompter on his current tour has apparently outraged some people.


As long as it doesn't negatively impact his performance, I am not sure why anyone would care if Springsteen occasionally glanced at a teleprompter to remind himself of certain song lyrics. It's not like he's standing in front of a music stand, glued to cheat sheets all night. And he's certainly not the first aging performer to use a teleprompter.


Do you think any of these critics could memorize the words to 50 or more songs from a catalogue of hundreds of tunes, then perform flawlessly on a stage in front of 30,000 fans, and do it at 60 years old with a million things swirling around them? I know I couldn't. I've been modestly playing and singing the same songs for over 35 years and still forget a chord change or one of the lines on a verse from time to time. Memorizing new songs has become nearly impossible. Heck, I can't remember where I placed the laundry basket on some days. That doesn't mean I am ready for the glue factory.


Few have ever accused Springsteen of mailing it in at a live performance. The E. Street Band plays extremely long sets with a high degree of energy and passion. That is the band's trademark. A teleprompter on stage isn't going to change that.


So why all the sour notes from some purists who think performers shouldn't use certain technologies on stage?


Maybe it has to do with our desire for authenticity in a world where using technology to cut corners or fool the audience is becoming the norm. Or maybe it's because we don't want to accept that the aging process does limit us in some ways. Sort of hits a nerve related to our own diminished abilities.


Classical musicians perform with sheet music in front of them. TV anchors certainly don't memorize their scripts. President Obama uses a teleprompter to deliver some powerful, thoughtful speeches. In my mind, the use of a teleprompter is not a deal-breaker. In fact, if used correctly, it can enhance a performance or a message. It's a communications tool, nothing more or less.


As long as Springsteen is actually singing the songs and not lip-syncing or relying on over-the-top digital effects, I have no problem if he utilizes a prompter. In a day and age of processed vocals and "musicians" who can't really play an instrument, I think implying that Springsteen is short-changing the audience is ridiculous. Even with a teleprompter, the integrity of his performances far exceeds that of many entertainers half his age. Springsteen is fit, still near the top of his game, and certainly not embarrassing himself on stage.


Until the day comes when he can no longer strum his Telecaster or he begins falling off stages, the "boss" is still the boss. He still connects with the audience and makes people feel very good.

'Luck' a tragic mistake for HBO

I am a fan of HBO. Most of the programming is marked by a level of quality that commercial television has not been able to match. Shows on the premium channel tend to be more realistic. The writing is sharper. The sets are more elaborate and historically accurate when appropriate. There is a progressive, even educational quality to HBO shows that you won't find on free networks. The documentaries exceed what you might see on PBS.


HBO is not afraid to push the envelope. Mature, cutting-edge subject matter should be able to be crafted and aired without pressures from sponsors or the censorship police. Because HBO makes its money from subscribers and not advertisers, there is a lot of creative and editorial freedom that is evident in the shows and documentaries that it produces. 


All of that came crashing down recently with a show called Luck. The drama series is nearing the end of its first season. It has high-profile actors like Dustin Hoffman. The theme centers on horse racing and the corruption that surrounds it. The show was renewed for a second season and was in the middle of production when HBO suddenly announced today that it is canceling the program.


Three horses have died during the filming of Luck. Opinions vary on what actually caused their deaths, but there is no denying that the horses were tied to the production of the HBO show.


I am glad that HBO pulled the show off the air as a result of the pressure from PETA and other animal rights organizations that helped bring the horse deaths to light. I am not pleased, however, that HBO embarked on a show that became all too realistic, where the putting down of these animals carelessly mimicked the fictional storyline. In addition, HBO did not come clean soon enough about the tragedies. If not for PETA, the show would have gone on and more horses might have died.


I only watched one episode of Luck, long before it was known that horses were actually dying in real life and not just fictionally on screen. Despite HBO promoting the heck out of the show and some critics claiming it was one of the best dramas HBO has ever produced, I found Luck gave me a bad vibe and fell far short of what attracted me to shows like The Sopranos or The Wire. Along with it being virtually impossible to follow and a tad boring, Luck had an intangible air to it that was unsettling to me, and I don't mean in an artful way. Something just felt wrong about the whole concept. As a result, I gave up on the show early on.


Of course, three dead horses connected to a now canceled HBO show doesn't even begin to address the real problem of the horse-racing industry, which in my opinion is no better than illegal dog fighting. Whether legal or not, profiting from these atrocities is an outrage.


HBO did the right thing in canceling Luck and probably lost millions of dollars in doing so, but might have lost millions more from people like me who would have canceled their subscriptions if the show wasn't nixed. Unfortunately, the chronic gamblers and business entities who support the horse racing industry have no such motivation to shut down that so-called sport.

Tough times for most majors

The Washington Post is reporting some interesting unemployment numbers today. Specifically, the statistics pertain to recent college graduates with various majors who are unemployed. Here's a sample:

• Liberal Arts: 9.4 percent unemployed.
• Computer and Math: 8.2 percent
• Business: 7.4 percent
• Journalism: 7.3 percent

I included liberal arts because I have a B.A. degree from a private liberal arts college. I listed journalism because it was my profession for nearly 30 years. Compared with what I perceived as being more desirable majors in this struggling economy, liberal arts and journalism grads aren't that worse off. Of course, everything is relative and none of these percentages are very good. All four majors are hovering right around the national unemployment rate, which was announced today to be 8.3 percent. Click here to read about the latest figures. It's another good news, bad news report.

GOP clown car rolls on

That's Samuel Wurzelbacher, left, standing next to former presidential candidate Herman Cain. Wurzelbacher won the Republican nomination in his Ohio congressional district on Tuesday night. Cain might have won the presidential nomination if he didn't have a pile of lady-friend skeletons in his closet, which led to his dropping out of the 2012 race. The two of them standing together seems unlikely, yet so right.


You might remember Wurzelbacher from the 2008 presidential campaign when he was dubbed "Joe the Plumber." He became a favorite of Sarah Palin's and others trying to attach themselves to middle America, apple pie and the struggle of the working class versus the big, bad government.


I am not familiar enough with Wurzelbacher's campaign to comment extensively on his primary win last night. However, anyone standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Cain, and who is in the good graces of people like Palin, raises suspicions that the sappiest of Americans have once again gravitated towards the candidate with virtually no qualifications and perhaps a questionable IQ.


This was once a fairly heavy political blog. In recent months, the GOP presidential primary has made me all too aware of the fact that politics can be hazardous to my mental health -- particularly Republican politics, which now peddles nothing but absurd lies and champions the goal of turning back the clock on a whole host of social, scientific and educational topics. From Virginia, with its new abortion laws, to Ohio, with Joe the Plumber, what is the point in following this clown car around? If my  fellow citizens are going to keep electing people who not only cling to their Bibles and guns but also embrace a false notion of what it means to be American, who are we bloggers to try to reason with them?


This is no longer my fight. I'll vote and give my opinion on occasion, but the political battle must now be waged by younger people, and by women and others who are losing their rights every time Republicans take over a state house or gain a majority in Congress. This is a fight for the unions, the teachers and doctors to take on with greater gusto than the Baby Boomers alone can muster. I don't have as much skin in the game as people who will still be around in 40 or 50 years or folks whose professions have been stripped to the bone by right-wing governors and misguided, union-busting legislation. So out of self preservation, my political comments here will probably be few and far between in the coming months. Yes, I know the prime political season is upon us, but trying to make sense of this theater of the absurd could land me in the insane asylum. Instead, I will write about other things -- subjects that don't make my blood boil with each keystroke -- because it is clear to me now that we are in a place in our history where we are no longer willing to listen to each other or have intelligent, let alone constructive, disagreements.


Where I see measured and smart progress under President Obama, others see something very different, very ugly that I simply can't understand, let alone agree with. Where I see self-serving, dark hearts in Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santorum, others see plain-speaking patriots. Rather than try to explain this Mars vs. Venus political contrast, I am choosing a different path for this blog, but not without a few more parting words. Maybe more than a few.


No matter who wins the GOP presidential primary, about half of Americans will vote for the Republican candidate in the general election. That means half the people walking around America support things like going to war with Iran, cutting off unemployment benefits and getting rid of health-care reform, even though most people don't truly understand the ramifications of any of those actions. It's astonishing to me that people can actually vote against policies and laws created to protect them and their loved ones, but that's where we are at now. We live in a partisan society so dumbed down by talk radio and entertainers posing as journalists, so drawn in by snake oil salesmen and bumper sticker merchants, that a guy like Mitt Romney can be a leading candidate for the White House. Despite years of fighting a fruitless war in Iraq started by another intellectually challenged and obscenely wealthy Republican, Americans right of center are once again showing signs of doubling down on hawkish and heartless stupidity.


I can't figure out Americans anymore. I can't make excuses for us to my friends from overseas. We have lost our way. I know it; the world knows it. Doesn't mean we can't reclaim our status, but it's going to be a heavy lift in the current political climate. Are we still better off than a lot of countries? Absolutely. Yet, the gap is closing. More and more Americans are retiring to foreign lands, partly for economic reasons, and partly because the quality of life here has been degraded in the last couple of decades. It's gotten that way because the political system seems to only work for one group now -- the ultra rich. For most everyone else, life has become a struggle to varying degrees.


Even if voters come to their senses and elect Obama in a landslide, 40-plus percent of the public will still favor what the privileged conservatives are peddling. The new brand of conservatism preaches that anyone who supports higher education is a "snob" and that forcing transvaginal ultrasounds upon women seeking abortions is a right of the state. And it doesn't stop there.


I used to think it was my civic duty to be an informed voter and to not just blindly punch the ballot next to an R or D. That was when politics was an arena for serious ideas from serious candidates. I bounced back and forth, from left to right, prioritizing whatever was important in any particular election year and voting for the best man or woman to address those concerns. Nowadays, however, the Republican party has moved into such an absurd, uninformed and manipulative territory on essentially every issue, that I can't even view it as a legitimate alternative to the Democratic Party. Everyone I vote for, by default, will now have to have a D in front of their names whether I like them or not. I don't care if it's an election for county dog catcher, I am voting Democrat because Republicans have forced me into that corner. I don't like not having choices, but such is the state of our political system and a party that used to be far more concerned about the middle class than it is now.


Regardless of how I prioritize what is important, the corrupt Republican Party has nothing left to offer me. Right across the board, from the economy to the environment, from energy and defense to the arts, the GOP doesn't have a progressive idea on its plate. Not a single thoughtful approach to solving problems or creating new, smart opportunities in a changing world. Time and time again, the Republicans answer is to move backwards, to put our clean air and water in jeopardy in order to earn a few extra bucks today (the Hell with tomorrow), to pad the portfolios of the the one percent, to use clever twists of words ("job creators" being one of the biggest hoaxes in recent years) to form trickle-down illusions that all too easily fool the people who long for opportunities or a return to America's prosperous past.


These Kool-Aid drinking "dittoheads"  think a pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico will solve all our energy and employment problems. They never consider for a second what might happen to the economy if something seriously went wrong with that pipeline. They don't credit Democrats for wanting to take a careful approach to such a risky endeavor, for holding out for a better, safer deal. They want to plunge ahead, just like they did in attacking Iraq, without any discussion of consequences or honest studying of the evidence. They are the new Republicans -- completely ignorant of history, science and general facts -- and proud of it. These Republicans shoot first and ask questions later. They have short attention spans. They cut taxes on the wealthy and take on two wars, and then blame someone else for the national debt. They actually think the BP oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico had a happy ending. Remember, it wasn't the Republicans who forced BP into paying millions in damages. If the GOP had it's way, BP would have escaped with nothing more than a slap on the wrist, and people in that region would have been suffering more than they already have.


Yet, I am not sure Gulf residents appreciate the fact that it was Democrats who forced the big oil company to be accountable. There is such a short-sighted, right-wing mindset in that part of the country that people can't see who is actually on their side and who isn't. In the South, being conservative doesn't mean conserving the environment, unfortunately. Instead, conservatism now means preserving weak regulations and flawed thinking that are often detrimental to the folks who are actually fighting against the people who want to help them.


This is depressing stuff. None of these right-wing clowns should ever get a sniff of being in public office -- not with their current values and lack of vision. I can accept a small minority of mindless extremists living amongst us. However, this is no small minority that is backing lunatic after lunatic. In fact, most of the South and entire mid-section of the country, particularly rural areas where education isn't always a priority, is falling into the traps set by the right at an alarming rate.


I understand hard times and desperation. I've experienced both. I don't, however, get why people think fighting more wars and giving greater tax breaks to the wealthy are solutions to problems in their specific lives, especially when these policies have never worked before. What is the connection between invading Iran or cutting Social Security and helping a family make ends meet in Iowa? If you're unemployed in Virginia, does it help you in some way for your political leaders in Richmond to focus exclusively on taking away women's rights? Wouldn't it be better to elect people who are at least trying to unearth innovative ways to allow you to keep your home or create a climate that will help you find work instead of voting for politicians whose main agenda has to do with contraception?


Explain this to me, seriously. What is it that attracts you voters on the far right to politicians who have no intention of doing anything other than fighting social wars that were decided a very long time ago while today's problems go unattended? Why were some of you so high on Cain? Is it because he was a successful businessman and you think he can do for the country what he did for the pizza business? Is that the only qualification you require, because there are a lot of successful business people in America, and I don't consider many of them qualified to handle the wide range of issues a president needs to command. Or maybe you just liked Cain's style and inability to speak proper English. Perhaps some people want to feel intellectually on par with their leaders and don't require them to know much about international affairs or anything else.


Personally, I want my president to be far smarter and more articulate than I am. It gives me confidence in the president when he at least appears to be well versed on complicated and crucial issues. If he can craft his own speech, great. If he can actually read the words, even better. Am I just being a "snob" for expecting these things from the leader of the free world?


It's also reassuring that the guy with his hand on the button is a calm, measured person who doesn't think that negotiation is some sissy-like approach to dealing with dangerous countries, yet is also willing to take a well-calculated shot when the enemy is in his crosshairs. It is alarming to me to hear the GOP candidates talking about attacking Iran without a single intelligence fact about the situation at their disposal. It undermines the efforts our current president and the agencies responsible for making sure the Iranian situation doesn't spiral out of control. Yet, these candidates want us to believe they are wrapped in red, white and blue. Oh really? How many of them have had to go to Andrews Air Force Base and watch the caskets of fallen soldiers being carted away? Would they be so macho if their kids were in the line of fire?


These candidates are a joke and should be considered walking insults to anyone who truly cares about this country.


Why would anyone with a daughter, regardless of where they live, support comments and positions that come from the likes of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (the anti-abortion, invasive ultrasound guy) or Limbaugh (the radio talk show host who likes calling women sluts)? Still, these guys have their fans. McDonnell is said to be in contention for a vice presidential nod from whomever wins the GOP primary. Limbaugh, while losing sponsors after his latest tirade against women, doesn't appear to be losing his audience.


As I said earlier, following politics these days isn't what it used to be and could lead to feelings of utter despair if you are the kind of person who wants to believe we all live in a fair and just country, where our neighbors aren't eager to send our kids to war or take Medicare away from grandma. As voters, we should demand one thing of both parties -- that they work together for all Americans, not just lobbyists and the richest of the rich.


Unfortunately, the divide-conquer-and-deceive mentality is more in fashion nowadays than the collaborative, honest approach, which means nothing of any great significance will get done to improve most of our lives anytime soon.


Most likely there are people within your own family or on your own block who want to build massive walls along the border of Mexico, regardless of how much it costs, how bad it will be for the environment or how ineffective it will become (ladders and tunnels will easily defeat the wall). Dopey ideas rarely lead to positive results. Weak ideas are often appealing to those in search of a quick solution to a difficult problem. I have empathy for those who are negatively impacted by illegal immigration, but I have no tolerance for paying billions of dollars for some half-baked solution that is cartoonish in concept. Are we now incapable of coming up with a smarter solution than a massive wall? With all the technology available to us, a wall is the answer conservatives offer with such zeal and confidence? Should we also go back to horse and buggy in order to deal with rising gasoline prices?


The people in our personal lives who embrace these shallow ideas are most likely decent folks, I am sure, but they have taken the bait offered by not-so-decent politicians. The red meat that the right-wingers throw to our loved ones and other acquaintances is mighty tempting and doesn't require much thinking, but it is fill with false promises and plays to their emotions more than their minds. I am not sure it's worth losing friendships over modest political differences, but the more people move to the right, the more distant I feel from them because this is no longer just about politics.


There are people sharing office cubicles with you who think Cain, Palin and Joe the Plumber possess the intellectual chops to navigate us through complicated times. Some people actually consider the lack of intelligence and limited perspective in some politicians as an asset. Yup, in the modern Tea Party/Republican universe, being idiotic and reactionary scores you points with a large portion of the electorate. It's these people whom I steer clear of in my daily life as much as I can. There is no debating any of this with them. No matter what, they are going to support Sarah, Herman, Rick, and yes, even Joe. So whether I encounter these rabid, new conservatives at a party or in the office, my position is to avoid political discussions at all costs.


I can hear the drums beating already. "Run Joe, run ..." all the way to the White House. You know what, as absurd as that sounds, it's very possible it could happen. We could be looking at a President Joe the Plumber in 2016. Perhaps even worse, we could see President Santorum in 2012 if fair-minded but apathetic people don't vote because they think that Obama has the election in the bag. Look, as disappointing as Obama has been in being slow to address the economy and certain progressive causes, he's been a pretty good president so far, and the economy is getting better. He's worthy of a second term.


As bad as the current GOP crop of candidates is, don't rely on your neighbors, friends or family members to make the right choice in November. Get out and vote or else the whole country will begin operating like Virginia has since Republicans came into power this year.


In the meantime, I backing away from blogging about politics for a bit. I don't need to see or hear anything more from Republicans to know that I am no longer interested in whatever they have to sell. Watching the clown car is no longer entertaining to me.