Just dessert

What can I say, Terence Moore is right. Such affirmation is rarely uttered by regular readers of the AJC sports section, but I can’t disagree with his thesis —

If there ever was a city that didn’t deserve a team doing the unprecedented and the unthinkable such as the Braves along the way to 14 consecutive division titles, that city is right here in the heart of Dixie. Or should I say that city is right here in the heart of apathy? …

Only six of the Braves’ past 19 home games in the division series were sellouts. Five involved the Cardinals and the Cubs, whose fan bases were louder and often larger than those of the Braves. That other sellout came two years ago, when the national media kept mentioning the contrast between the wired crowds in Houston and the bored ones at Turner Field. In essence, Braves fans were punked into at least showing up for a fifth and decisive Game 5.

As for Braves home games in the National League Championship Series, they’ve sold out just three of their previous 12, and their last one against the Diamondbacks in 2001 drew 14,000 folks shy of capacity.

The place was packed this past weekend for the Braves’ regular-season games against the Red Sox, and that was good for the Red Sox. While the Red Sox players contributed to the Braves’ slide in the standings, the Red Sox fans made so much racket compared with their counterparts that you’d have thought there was a Green Monster in left field.

I already can hear those tired and familiar excuses. Here’s the most nauseating: You can’t find an Atlanta native anymore, and you have so many people who are from someplace else. Well, I know a lot of Atlanta natives, and given today’s highly mobile society, most cities away from the East and the upper Midwest are transient these days. Phoenix. Miami. Dallas. San Francisco. Seattle. Los Angeles. Denver. (Fill in the blank.)

The bottom line is that Atlanta fans need a wake-up call regarding pro sports, and maybe they’ll get one now that the Braves’ dominance is going to sleep.

Of course, there are plenty of Atlanta sports fans who aren’t spoiled, but unfortunately we’re in the minority. The majority is busy checking up on some high school wide receiver’s latest time in the 40.

Happy (belated) summer solstice

Ready for a jolt?

Noted and quoted

“Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.”

– poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The great disappearing act”

That’s how John McCain describes Congress’ toothless ethics reform legislation. You knew it would turn out this way. Plenty of talk, little action.

Senators and House members can still fly on corporate jets, take trips paid for by private groups and leave Congress for plum jobs with industries and groups that they helped with government contracts and other favors.

“Too many members are addicted to the financial perks and benefits they receive from lobbyists and other influence seekers and have been unwilling to give them up to address corruption,” said Fred Wertheimer, the president of Democracy 21, a nonpartisan congressional watchdog group.  …

Some Republicans worry that their party blew it, especially with midterm elections next fall and approval ratings for the GOP Congress in the cellar. “We missed an opportunity,” said Republican Rep. Kenny Hulshof of Missouri. “The bill was inadequate. We need to continue to push forward, not just because of what might happen between now and the election, but because it’s the right thing to do. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard.”

They never will, unless the media — and voters — keep pressing the issue. I’m not holding my breath.

Stop Keenen Ivory Wayans before he directs again

From the family that brought you “White Chicks” comes “Little Man”:

A wannabe dad (Shawn Wayans) mistakes a vertically challenged criminal on the lam (Marlon Wayans) as his newly adopted son.

I’m sure you’ve seen the commercials, which promise plenty of dick and fart jokes. Me laugh hard when baby use dirty words and smoke big cigar.

And don’t you know it’ll make a shitload at the box office.

America, fuck ya!

Extremist of the week (tie)

Maintaining my balance — not literally, as I’ve knocked over two glasses this morning in my state of vertigo, but metaphorically — the Malcontent recognizes NRA Chairman Wayne LaPierre, a worthy far right companion to Greg Palast:

Americans mistakenly worried the United Nations is plotting to take away their guns on July 4 — U.S. Independence Day — are flooding the world body with angry letters and postcards, the chairman of a U.N. conference on the illegal small arms trade said on Wednesday.

“I myself have received over 100,000 letters from the U.S. public, criticizing me personally, saying, ‘You are having this conference on the 4th of July, you are not going to get our guns on that day,”‘ said Prasad Kariyawasam, Sri Lanka’s U.N. ambassador. …

The campaign is largely the work of the U.S. National Rifle Association, whose executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, warns on an NRA Web site of a July 4 plot “to finalize a U.N. treaty that would strip all citizens of all nations of their right to self-protection.”  …

LaPierre, who also uses the site to pitch his new book, “The Global War on Your Guns,” asks NRA members to send letters to Kariyawasam and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warning that “the American people will never let you take away the rights that our 4th of July holiday represents.”

Happy (belated) summer solstice

Ready for a jolt?

Noted and quoted

"Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis."

– poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The great disappearing act”

That’s how John McCain describes Congress’ toothless ethics reform legislation. You knew it would turn out this way. Plenty of talk, little action.

Senators and House members can still fly on corporate jets, take trips paid for by private groups and leave Congress for plum jobs with industries and groups that they helped with government contracts and other favors.

"Too many members are addicted to the financial perks and benefits they receive from lobbyists and other influence seekers and have been unwilling to give them up to address corruption," said Fred Wertheimer, the president of Democracy 21, a nonpartisan congressional watchdog group.  …

Some Republicans worry that their party blew it, especially with midterm elections next fall and approval ratings for the GOP Congress in the cellar. "We missed an opportunity," said Republican Rep. Kenny Hulshof of Missouri. "The bill was inadequate. We need to continue to push forward, not just because of what might happen between now and the election, but because it’s the right thing to do. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard."

They never will, unless the media — and voters — keep pressing the issue. I’m not holding my breath.

Stop Keenen Ivory Wayans before he directs again

From the family that brought you "White Chicks" comes "Little Man":

A wannabe dad (Shawn Wayans) mistakes a vertically challenged criminal on the lam (Marlon Wayans) as his newly adopted son.

I’m sure you’ve seen the commercials, which promise plenty of dick and fart jokes. Me laugh hard when baby use dirty words and smoke big cigar.

And don’t you know it’ll make a shitload at the box office.

America, fuck ya!

Extremist of the week (tie)

Maintaining my balance — not literally, as I’ve knocked over two glasses this morning in my state of vertigo, but metaphorically — the Malcontent recognizes NRA Chairman Wayne LaPierre, a worthy far right companion to Greg Palast:

Americans mistakenly worried the United Nations is plotting to take away their guns on July 4 — U.S. Independence Day — are flooding the world body with angry letters and postcards, the chairman of a U.N. conference on the illegal small arms trade said on Wednesday.

"I myself have received over 100,000 letters from the U.S. public, criticizing me personally, saying, ‘You are having this conference on the 4th of July, you are not going to get our guns on that day,"’ said Prasad Kariyawasam, Sri Lanka’s U.N. ambassador. …

The campaign is largely the work of the U.S. National Rifle Association, whose executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, warns on an NRA Web site of a July 4 plot "to finalize a U.N. treaty that would strip all citizens of all nations of their right to self-protection."  …

LaPierre, who also uses the site to pitch his new book, "The Global War on Your Guns," asks NRA members to send letters to Kariyawasam and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warning that "the American people will never let you take away the rights that our 4th of July holiday represents."

Customer service

While attempting to track down a live person within the Kaiser Permanente phone maze today, I lapsed into my Howard Beale routine, screaming — quietly, internally — as I received yet another numerical option.

But I’ve got nothing on former AOL subcriber Vincent Ferrari:

VINCENT: I don’t know how to make this any clearer, so I’m just gonna say it one last time. Cancel the account.

AOL: Well explain to me what’s, why…

VINCENT: I’m not explaining anything to you. Cancel the account.

AOL: Well, what’s the matter man? We’re just, I’m just trying to help here.

VINCENT: You’re not helping me. You’re helping me…

AOL: I am trying to help.

VINCENT: Helping… listen, I called to cancel the account. Helping me would be canceling the account. Please help me and cancel the account.

AOL: No, it wouldn’t actually…

VINCENT: Cancel my account…

AOL: Turning off your account…

VINCENT: …cancel the account…

AOL: …would be the worst thing that…

VINCENT: Cancel the account. I don’t know how to make this any clearer for you. Cancel the account. When I say cancel the account, I don’t mean help me figure out how to keep it, I mean cancel the account.

AOL: Well, I’m sorry, I don’t know what anybody’s done to you Vincent because all I’m…

VINCENT: Will you please cancel the account.

AOL: Alright, some day when you calmed down you’re gonna realize that all I was trying to do was help you… and it was actually in your best interest to listen to me.

Follow the entire conversation here.

Extremist of the week

Conspiracy theorist Greg Palast (check out the Sam Spade duds … he must be speaking truth to power) takes the inaugural prize –

I’m a big fan of getting around the privileged class. So, you know, we do have a Huey Long today. He’s called Hugo Chavez. When the levees broke in New Orleans we had a president who sent in rescue teams and desalinization plants. It was Chavez, but our State Department sent back the planes. In the book I report on Chavez’s assassination — I just thought I’d do it in advance. You know, I reported on two stolen elections (2000 and 2004). Now I’m reporting on 2008 being stolen. I figure if I do it in advance I might be able to affect things.

With Castro ailing, I guess the nouveau radical chic needs a new hero. Much like red icons past, Chavez brokers no dissent. Of course, I’m sure Palast considers himself a free speech absolutist. Interesting contradiction, proving again that the far left is just as frightening as the far right. 

Noted and quoted

“If you are going through hell, keep going.”

–Winston Churchill (maybe Bush should appropriate that as his newest slogan)

Where I’m glad I’m not

Treacherous times for my second home –

The southern end of the San Andreas fault near Los Angeles, which has been still for more than two centuries, is under immense stress and could produce a massive earthquake at any moment, a scientist said on Wednesday.

Yuri Fialko, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at La Jolla, California, said that given average annual movement rates in other areas of the fault, there could be enough pent-up energy in the southern end to trigger a cataclysmic jolt of up to 10 meters (32 ft).

“The observed strain rates confirm that the southern section of the San Andreas fault may be approaching the end of the interseismic phase of the earthquake cycle,” he wrote in the science journal Nature.

A sudden lateral movement of 7 to 10 meters would be among the largest ever recorded.