The Icepick Cometh

Dear readers (both of you),

We're now more or less blogging exclusively over at our WordPress.com site at http://theicepickcometh.wordpress.com.

So c'mon and visit us over there and read The Icepick's new post on the Dark Knight and President Bush, a reaction from a movie nerd to a piece earlier this summer in the Wall Street Journal.

Thanks for reading and for following us over there.
That is all.

Hugs and hisses,
PublisherCat

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Raised in the shadow of a high-ranking Navy father and grandfather, serving and suffering honorably in a war most of the rest of the country would rather regret if not forget, John McCain is the pitch-perfect example of his generation — overshadowed by others older and younger than him (even his younger Veep candidate!), fighting the good fight, respected, productive, a leader backstage, yet measuring just shy of national leadership at center stage.

Like a famous senator from more than 150 years ago, more likely to serve America than lead it.

I'm not the first one to suggest the comparison between John McCain and Henry Clay. Indeed, one author believes McCain is actually Henry Clay reincarnated. We'll not touch the spiritual end of that, but the same author notes, quite appropriately, that Henry Clay was declared in 1957 by a JFK-led Senate committee to be the greatest U.S. Senator in history. Likewise, the author notes, McCain is a respected and influential Senator. He is popular, too, I would add — Joe Biden and Joe Lieberman called him a great friend — and despite his maverick status, McCain has long been one of the most powerful senators in a non-leadership post.

Henry Clay ran for, and lost, the Presidency three times.

McCain's Silent Generation, as described by Strauss & Howe, comprise Americans born from 1925 to 1942. They "grew up as the suffocated children of war and depression. They came of age just too late to be war heroes [McCain obviously bucks this point, but his war was Vietnam, not WWII of the 'Greatest Generation'] and just too early to be youthful free spirits. Instead, this early-marrying Lonely Crowd became the risk-averse technicians and professionals as well as the sensitive rock ‘n rollers and civil-rights advocates of a post-crisis era in which conformity seemed to be a sure ticket to success."

Likewise, here's an excerpt from Sam Tanenhaus' New York Times story earlier this year on McCain's generation, one largely born in the ’30s but who have never elected one of their own as President:

Young people born in the 1930s experienced no such tumult [as did the Baby Boomers]. They typically came of age in the 1950s, when consensus reigned, and with it conformism. Young Americans were collectively disengaged from politics and distrustful of ideology. They were the “silent generation,” content to be guided by their elders: Eisenhower, the avuncular white-haired president who had been the hero of World War II, and the Wise Men who formulated the strategies of the cold war.

In this climate the young were more likely to serve than to lead. The Korean War, which raged from 1950 to 1953, claimed nearly as many American casualties as Vietnam, and yet, despite the universal draft, there was scarcely a protest from those waiting to be called.

Strauss & Howe's groundbreaking 1991 book, Generations, defined American generations in roughly 20-year splits occurring in cycles of four. They later renamed the archetypes, but their theory did not change. McCain's Silent Generation lines up with the Compromise Generation of of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun, who were a collective "zero for twelve in runs for the Presidency" and whose generation "were fated to careers of secret turmoil and hidden frustration" who "at their best, their irrepressible instinct for openness and honesty ennobled even their failures."

Strauss & Howe quote a 73-year-old Henry Clay (at one year older than McCain):

"'Life itself is but a compromise,' observed the … 'Great Compromiser' himself, as he proposed the last of his famous balancing acts. 'All legislation, all government, all society is formed upon the principle of mutual concession, politeness, comity, and courtesy.'"

Or as McCain would surely say today, the ability to "reach across the aisle" to "reach out our hand to any willing patriot, make this government start working for you again."
 

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Meh.

It was not a great and rousing speech — yes, his personal story is rich and worthy, and at another time, perhaps in place of either Bush, Sen. John McCain could have been (past tense) a fine president (or at least better than either Bush). But like his Silent Generation cohorts, he still seems more of a behind-the-scenes worker. Just like those of a prior generation (but of the same generational type, as Strauss & Howe defined it) — Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun — he is a Great Compromiser (not, of course, a compromiser of his own ideals but rather a person who can get two sides to talk ). And though his backstory inspires, he himself lacks that inspirational touch of a leader.

That's as much the reality of his generation as it is of John S. McCain.

You can see it in his speaking.

What could have been the most powerful part of his speech, where he at last made the very frequent drawing on his own POW history relevant (it's been powerful, yes, but relevant?), where he said he hoped no family should go through what his has in War, he topped the ball rather than drive it solidly.

I still don't know if it was a problem of delivery — he was getting there, his voice rising in power. But he didn't finish the note with a flourish, with inspiration in his voice. I originally thought this was a failing of the speechwriting, rather than the delivery.

I'm running for President to keep the country I love safe, and prevent other families from risking their loved ones in war as my family has. I will draw on all my experience with the world and its leaders, and all the tools at our disposal — diplomatic, economic, military and the power of our ideals — to build the foundations for a stable and enduring peace.

See? Re-reading it, it reads so much better than when he spoke it. This is where a great speaker can inspire the masses, something as true and as old as the ancient Greek democrats themselves, something the GOP has been deriding lately, but overlooking (oddly, they the Party of the Great Communicator).

What did turn out to be the most powerful part of his speech, the "a cause greater than yourself" line, resonated with me. It echoed in some ways the JFK and Obama calls to service.

If you find faults with our country, make it a better one. If you're disappointed with the mistakes of government, join its ranks and work to correct them. Enlist in our Armed Forces. Become a teacher. Enter the ministry. Run for public office. Feed a hungry child. Teach an illiterate adult to read. Comfort the afflicted. Defend the rights of the oppressed. Our country will be the better, and you will be the happier. Because nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself.

Some of these, ironically, harken to Obama's derided days as a Community Organizer ("Defend the rights of the oppressed") and one of them recalls a famous calling of the newspaper business: "Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." (Of course, I once drank the Kool-Aid and felt that way about journalism (and still do in many ways). My skills were in writing, in curiosity, in seeking truth and telling people about it. I felt like I could use my skills to make the country a better place in many ways, I really did (sniff). But his Party hates the media, so what I have to offer the country is useless, according to them. Cheers. And I digress.) That's McCain, though: unpredictable as ever.

Still, there were not enough specifics for my taste in tonight's speech (with the notable exception of the "doubling the child tax exemption from $3,500 to $7,000" and a few others), and too much of the GOP's old party lines.

Otherwise, I cannot dislike McCain. He is honorable. He has served and suffered. Yes, he is a hero. If it had to be a Republican the last eight years, why couldn't it have been him? In many ways I like him better than the bitter Pelosi and Reid in Congress. Not so much the very ambitious-sounding Palin (the third song played playing after McCain concluded his speech was Heart's "Barracuda," and McCain better what his back from someone who, gifted speaker as she is, clearly seems to like the spotlight — fine for the person at the top of the ticket, maybe not so much for the Veep, eh?).

(Minor point: I can't make that much of this, since I thought it was bullshit when it was called on Obama, but where was McCain's flag pin on his lapel? Granted, you can in no way question McCain's patriotism, but this only serves to point out the ridiculousness of questioning Obama's.)

(On the other hand, McCain needs to watch out for the ambitious Veep selection he's selected — talk about a pragmatic Gen X'er, grabbing the brass ring and not letting go!)

All that said, and like I said with Hillary, Obama is simply a better choice this time around. That's no dis on McCain (or Hillary, for that matter). Don't blame him. It's just his generation.
 

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Sorry about my progressive brethren bashing her speech tonight, and I agree with absolutely nothing she said (in fact, was enraged throughout with what she was saying, especially in mocking community organizers — has Sarah Palin ever been in a big city, ever shook the hands and cared for someone in an inner city setting?), but Obama-Biden have a real fight on their hands.

The Republicans do nothing better than fire up their base and encourage them to come out in overwhelming, angry numbers from those small towns I know so well. They do this much better than the Dems do in pulling in their own base (in a battle between bringing in college students vs. small-town residents on Election Day, never bet on the college students). Palin may get an "F" for content — frankly, she misrepresented Obama's position on taxes and there's a lot of talk about her late-coming opposition to the Alaskan bridge-to-nowhere — but I think Gov. Sarah Palin hit it out of the park as far as delivery. Sorry, but it's true.

You can hate everything she said, you can make fun of her accent or her sneers all you want, but she was probably the best speaker with the best delivery among the Republicans since the primaries began. I'd be worried about meeting her again on the national campaign trail in four or eight years.

I'm wondering how many voters from my own Generation X will swing toward McCain with a running mate from the 28- to 47-year-old set that was Raised on Reagan. Oh sure, all the people I know would never consider voting for him, no matter who he was running with. But that's a small, mostly urban-leaning segment of the population. My own generation, I still believe, is largely conservative.

And don't underestimate the Hockey Mom appeal — as Campbell Brown was saying a little while ago on CNN, that femininity, that "mom-ness" (for lack of a better word, and I'm paraphrasing here) carriers a lot of weight for many voters. (Brown later questioned Harry Reid's use of the word "shrill" to describe Palin's speech, noting that word is almost always used to describe a woman, not a man. That kind of response from Reid is not what Obama needs.)

And to take Brown's analysis a step further, there will be women, moms especially but feminists too, who will vote for McCain-with-Palin, even as Palin stands against everything they themselves stand for and have fought for, simply because they can connect with her. And, no, I am not talking about Hillary's former and still supporters. I'm talking about the fence-sitters.

Even Hillary connected with women as a Woman, but not necessarily as a Mom, not in the way that Palin I think just did, simply by dint of having more children to trot out onto a stage.

Finally, frankly, McCain is savvier than credit has been given him. By announcing the Veep pick as soon as the Democratic Convention was over, but not a minute sooner, he didn't let the Dems attack her during Prime Time Convention TV. But by also airing the family's pregnancy laundry publicly, he surely must have anticipated the media firestorm that would have resulted (there's unfortunately more focus on that than there has been over legitimate criticisms, such as her lack of experience, her back-and-forth on pork-barrel spending, and her husband's past connection to a secessionist movement; as always, sex sells in the public imagination; and there's also this.).

And, of course, a big enough media firestorm that they can (accurately or not) link to the Democrats against a defendable Republican (i.e., not Larry Craig) almost always produces a bitter, well-organized, how-dare-you, victimized backlash that brings out the loyal troops, picking up steam and on-the-fencers along the way. Well played, McCain.

This is a real fight, and if you don't believe me and underestimate this, then get ready for four years of McCain-Palin.

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Well, glad press freedom battles are limited to Vietnam, and would never happen in America, least of all in this 2008:

• Amy Goodman and Two Democracy Now! Producers Unlawfully Arrested At the RNC
• AP photog arrested while covering anti-war protest
• Update: Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar Released After Illegal Arrest at RNC
• Call for withdrawal of charges against three journalists manhandled and arrested outside Republican Party convention

So glad to see our freedoms are protected here in America, because, you know, the world hates us for our freedoms and all that.
 
 
And while we're at it, stifling Freedom of the Press is not limited to violent means. John McCain's campaign has taken-its-ball-and-gone-home by canceling an appearance on Larry King's show because Campbell Brown at CNN had the nerve to ask some tough questions of a McCain spokesman.

Remember, this too is America:
 

 
and this:
 

 

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McCain's VP choice and her very public position on the Abortion debate aside, I have been uncomfortable with some aspects of the discussion over her teen daughter's pregnancy. While very relevant in light of Palin's anti-Choice politics, and relevant to the so-called Family Values debates and the moral high ground claimed by the Republicans, that's exactly where the line should be drawn and end. Does it mean the VP is a bad mom more focused on her career than her children? There's a lot to criticize Sarah Palin over, and I'm not sure I'm ready to level that as a criticism.

Now, does it relate to her anti-Choice politics and the general Republican theme that strong morals and a Family Values-style upbringing is the sole cure to curbing teenage pregnancy (and evidently all the other ills perpetrated by those godless liberals)? You bet it relates. But I almost want to wear kid gloves with her over this whole issue.

Perhaps it's that I know enough wonderful non-traditional families in which the children were born to a young mom, or to unmarried couples, or to adoptive parents (married or united). So as much as the debate relates to Palin and McCain — and even the quick statements from their campaigns that the young couple will wed makes me wonder if, in trying to show that the couple is "doing the right thing," they're also leveling a subtle insult to non-traditional families — I must admit to some discomfort over some of the criticism.

Now, on the other hand, her prior (though very recent) courtship of the Alaskan secessionists and her husband's enrollment in that party is more than fair game — the gloves come off for that one, and come off with a quickness. Talking Points Memo closes their recent post on this issue with this:

It's worth pondering how big a deal it would be if Obama had ever courted the support of a group whose head had said this kind of thing about America and her flag. Oh, wait...

And while we're on it, questions about the State Trooper scandal and her lobbyist's connections are also open to close public examination.
 

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Perhaps it was a speech that was more policy-oriented and political than broad and overtly hopeful, but Mrs. Icepick said that's what she wanted to hear, so who am I to argue?

Let there be no doubt: This was a passionate address, and there were touches of inspiration in between the specifics and firey rhetoric that put to rest questions of whether Obama can go on the offensive when needed — a Jedi-like approach of using force when diplomacy and reason have failed.

In many ways, it was a cumulation and conclusion to the major speeches we've heard this week — Hillary's inspiration, Bill's reminder of our own potential, Kerry's preemptive attacks, and Biden's foreign policy focus.

There was the forward-looking call to serve the next generation and the Kennedy-like call to service, something I particularly liked:

And we will keep our promise to every young American - if you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford a college education.

But in between the policy talk, and right before invoking the legendary speech delivered 45 years earlier, Obama did not forget to focus on the theme that brought him so far: Hope.

Instead, it is that American spirit — that American promise — that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.

That promise is our greatest inheritance.

He distanced himself from the old (and inaccurate) criticism of liberalism of the ’70s — that government owes you something, but you owe nothing. Instead, Obama focused on the hard work we all must do and offered a call for personal responsibility.

Yet, in many ways, in many of the approaches he offered, there was a welcome return to the progressive themes that he seemed to abandon since the end of the primary season. While acknowledging the country's differences on Choice, guns and same-sex marriage, he sounded very much like a progressive in calling for an ambitious end to our dependence on foreign oil within 10 years — though 2018 sounds like a long time away, it's not. He also endorsed progressive ideas like eliminating tax breaks to corporations that don't need them and ending crippling capital gains taxes for small businesses, ensuring a "world-class" education to every child, fulfilling the promise of affordable health care, and, especially as the father of two young daughters, addressing major concerns of Hillary's supporters, most notably equal pay for all women.

Far be it from this cynic to agree with a sentiment like "We are a better country than this," but let's see where we can take this.

Change happens because the American people demand it - because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.

Strong and forceful, specific yet still broad, practical yet still full of Hope.
 

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Less than 24 hours after Hillary's memorable speech, her husband got into the act, as Bill Clinton followed up on Hillary's pledges to unequivocally support Barack Obama, while also going on the offensive against McCain. One of his memorable lines: "People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power."

Later, in response to the crowd's chants of "Yes he can," Clinton, ever alert and able to pivot, picked it up and said: "Yes he can; but we have to elect him, first," deftly showing in one on-his-feet sentence his support for Obama and his acknowledgment of the hard work ahead for the assembled Democrats, work that he sounded prepared to continue himself.

Like Hillary on Tuesday night, the former President sounded ready to lead the Clintons' supporters by the power of his example in supporting Obama.

As an aside, a figure frequently flashed on the CNN crawl noted that there have been 12 previous presidential candidates younger than the now 47-year-old Obama, including the 45-year-old Bill Clinton. In his speech, President Clinton noted that he, too, was targeted as being too inexperienced in 1992, something we was able to deflect and overcome.

And all that said, John Kerry gave a pretty good follow-up — they called it a very un-Kerry-like speech immediately afterward on PBS. Kerry completely went on the offensive about the differences between "Candidate McCain vs. Senator McCain" and was more firey than I remember him as a candidate four years ago. Like Bill Clinton, Kerry noted McCain's status as a Great American, and even as a fine Senator, but not as a good candidate for President: "Are you kidding me folks? Talk about being for it before you're against it. Before he ever debates Barack Obama John McCain should finish the debate with himself."

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Interesting piece by former Carter speechwriter James Fallows in The Atlantic reviewing the debates from the primaries, with a good analysis of the candidates' speaking and debating styles, which the author notes are not the same thing (prepared speaking vs. debating, that is). It is interesting to note the look into Obama's rhetorical skills in light of some of the more recent presidents. To wit:

Based on his rhetoric, Barack Obama would arrive not because of support for his list of programs, although he has offered them, but because of support for his cast of mind. His speeches and debate answers show us how he thinks, much more than they reveal exactly the policies he would advance for, say, improving the economy, dealing with the Chinese (where his proposals have often seemed surprisingly crude and ill-informed), or coping with crime or climate change. Every administration turns on the president’s cast of mind: Bill Clinton’s startling gifts of intelligence and even more startling lack of self-discipline; George W. Bush’s toxic combination of decisiveness and lack of curiosity; Ronald Reagan’s sunniness and lack of interest in detail. But for some presidents, cast of mind is a central feature — the person, much more than the plan, represents the promise of the presidency. Obama is one of these.

I'm not sure his China platform is as ill-informed as Fallows claims, but otherwise, Fallows seems right on the money.

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This is the Hillary that we once knew — a dynamic speaker, a leader, and ultimately, finally, a uniter: "Were you in this campaign for me, or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him, that young mom with cancer, that young boy and his mom surviving on minimum wage? Were you in it for all those people who feel invisible?"

Talking Points Memo called Hillary's Tuesday night keynote speech "powerful" — and how can you argue that?

For me, my faith in Hillary has been restored, if not my faith in some of her supporters or her choice in friends from earlier this year (the execrable trio of Mark Penn, Harold Ickes and Howard Wolfson, and the incompetent Terry McAuliffe).

This is a person who has long had to make the best of situations that may not be the best for her personally, but may be the best for others, for the party, for the country — a classic Spock-like case of the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few (or the one). That's a hero.

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With apologies to Defiantly Dutch, who would assuredly disagree (thanks for the plug, Double D), what the hell is wrong with Connecticut these days? Earlier this summer you had some overly aggressive moneyed homeowners in Greenwich trying to shut down Wiffle ball-playing teens and kick them back into the Great Indoors where they apparently belong.

Now we've got a youth baseball league in New Haven booting a 9-year-old pitcher and probably his entire team because he's too good a hurler.

After reading about these back-to-back fiascoes, I have to ask, why doesn't Massachusetts annex the Northwest Corner and add it to the Berkshires and let tiny Rhode Island have everything else from this crazy state? (In a battle of disgraced politicians, I'll take Providence's Buddy Cianci over former Connecticut Gov. Rowland.)

Let's see, here are some things that Connecticut cursed us with: the Hartford Whalers, Joe Lieberman, Carl Pavano, Benedict Arnold, and the movie Mystic Pizza.

Good things to come out of the Nutmeg State? (nicknamed after something you put in your apple cider, I might add.) You have Katharine Hepburn, no arguing that. I'm OK with Meg Ryan, too. Wiffle Ball itself was alleged to have been invented in Fairfield. And then, … um, the Danbury Mall was pretty cool for a week in, like, 1987 (it once was the site of an even cooler fairgrounds). That's about it.

And, no, I didn't forget the worst offender in Connecticut's lineage — no, not the various other corrupt elected officials from the self-named Constitution State. It's that all-consuming monolithic sports Galactus in Bristol.

I love this quote from the AP story on the 9-year-old pitcher:

League officials say they first told Vidro that the boy could not pitch after a game on Aug. 13. Jericho played second base the next game on Aug. 16. But when he took the mound Wednesday, the other team walked off and a forfeit was called.

League officials say Jericho's mother became irate, threatening them and vowing to get the league shut down.

"I have never seen behavior of a parent like the behavior Jericho's mother exhibited Wednesday night," Noble said.

Um, you think she was irate? Hey, I can't stand most kid-sports parents — even if they're not the infamous hockey dad, I think most parents should be banned from watching their kids play as soon as they start doing more than cheer their daughters and sons and begin commenting, criticizing and, hell, even speaking anything other than "Yay." But if I was this mom and they kicked my kid out because he threw too fast, yeah, I'd go apeshit too. Not hitting-people-apeshit — you can't condone that. But there would be some raised voices, yes.

More coverage.

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Sorry I haven't linked to my man Mark Kriegel as often as I should — I am still having trouble forgiving him for going Hollywood and moving to sunny L.A., to say nothing of his current employer — but he has hit it right on the head with this column, which my Father the Would-Be Sportswriter shared with me.

Kriegel argues that New York has truly become home of the Hedge Fund Class, and its sports teams are reflecting that reality. Forget Gawker's Creative Underclass — they (we) are just the rabble mob muttering underneath this pile of money. Yes, the money has arguably brought a cleaner, safer city, but at the cost of keeping it, and by extension most of the desirable places in the state and the country, nearly unaffordable to the middle class, to say nothing of anyone trying to support a family at a lower rate than that.

It's a weird twist on Benjamin Franklin's famous quote on liberty and safety — the money has brought both (or as much as attainable in these dark days), but at a cost that none but the wealthy can afford.

At least the Yankees are not laying off workers part-time, at least as far as we know. Then again, who knows what Hank Steinbrenner has up his sleeves for the average front-office worker?

Hey, we reached 102! (as in, this is the 102nd published post and you actually read this far).

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Hate to get all radical (if not rad) on you, but I heard this story on NPR about jailed Vietnamese journalists on the drive home, and despite my near overwhelming disappointment and rage at newspapers these days, this story out of Vietnam underscores the importance of press freedom in this world of ours, no matter if the product if on the Internet or (gasp!) in printed form. I hope those pushing for the larger global economy keep these basic freedoms and all human rights into consideration when considering trading with these countries.

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Cameo spoiler alert follows…

It features Tommy "Tiny" Lister (a.k.a. Zeus) in a small but significant role — not much more than a cameo, really. It really is no spoiler (beyond the fact, that, yes, the former pro wrestler who played Deebo is in the greatest Batman film of all time) to reveal that he does not once utter "my bike" to Bruce Wayne.

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I haven't forgotten you, loyal readers (all 2 of you). We've just been on vacation a little bit.

Watching Old-Timer's Day with My Father the would-be Sportswriter, and thinking of Thurman Munson, who died on this day 29 years ago, while trying to educate the Baby in the lore of baseball (and bunny cars).

A few days ago, the Yankees traded for Detroit's Ivan Rodriguez, and I thought the same thing this blogger did at Bronx Banter: what would Munson have thought about the Yankees acquiring a catcher with the nickname of "Pudge," the same as his hated Red Sox rival Carlton Fisk?

Anyway, more blog posts in the future, after vacation. Enjoy the summer.

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There's a throwaway shot in the opening episode of Generation Kill, which premiered on Sunday night on HBO, that establishes that These Are Not Your Father's Marines. With the sun setting on their encampment, two silhouetted Marines wearing boxing gloves throw some wild, leaping kicks at each other without ever throwing a punch.

The wide shot lasts for a mere few seconds as we transition from one scene to the next, but it's a telling few seconds — previous generation's warriors might climb into the base ring and go at it for a few rounds as a physical way of blowing off steam. Today's soldiers and Marines (and by extension, today's civilian 20-somethings) are bred on MMA and video games (and as we see in this episode too, irony and satire) and are more likely to engage in driveway boxing or backyard wrestling as they are a game of baseball on the base. As Mark Kriegel once wrote of this generation (he was talking about civilians), "These are the guys who made 300 a huge hit."

I don't know if it is too early to call it a profane version of Band of Brothers or merely the Marines version of The Wire, but after watching that premier episode for the third time, I am ready to be hooked again on another David Simon show, if only for the seven-episode arc of this miniseries adaption of Evan Wright's book.

But that transitional shot aside, I am hoping that the new HBO miniseries will go beyond the War is Hell and the They're Different Millennial/Gen X Soldier themes we've already seen in Iraq War (I and II)-related movies, like Three Kings (one of my favorites) and Jarhead. Those movies, to varying degrees, covered the nihilism apparently necessary in modern warriors, along with the misogyny, racism and homophobia which is presented at times as a coping mechanism in a World Gone Mad and also as something obviously deadly and seriously wrong (sometimes all in the same scene or in the same line of dialogue, though certainly not always or with all characters).

You never really saw any of this to the same degree in previous war movies about previous wars, with one notable exception that I can think of — Full Metal Jacket.

More to the point, and where I think and hope this new show is going, and as the Newark Star-Ledger's Alan Sepinwall has observed, Generation Kill's first episode is already setting up the David Simon theme of the individual vs. the institution which he explored for five seasons of The Wire — the futility of One vs. The Machine, the lack of Voice for the knowing rank-and-file vs. the obliviousness of management (even if this obliviousness is sometimes necessary).

This is all not to say that older warriors never used gallows humor or said things among themselves that they'd never say in public — shhhh, go into any locker room in the country, or for that matter, spend time in an all-male office.

And, as Sepinwall also noted, it's interesting getting thrown into a new show and being thoroughly confused and not understanding a thing about it for the first 30 minutes, and then still needing repeat viewings of the same episode to gain greater understanding. I used to enjoy mocking those who complained that the Baltimore world of The Wire was too dense and difficult to understand for novices, but I forgot how hard and yet how rewarding it can be discovering a new world on an intelligent TV show.

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My opinion on the infamous Obama magazine cover on this week's New Yorker? Outrage at first, then thoughts of the New Yorker still thinks it's relevant? How quaint. And finally an appreciation for the satire of it (or the attempted satire). I have to admit, I didn't like it, even if the cover is poking fun at those who would hold such false asssumptions about Obama.

But more importantly, it reminds me of the controversy last year over the Danish cartoonist whose work incited death threats and riots from those who would choose to stifle the free expression of ideas. If you believe in defending that right, then you have to defend the New Yorker.

More discussion at Romenesko.

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I admit I was hoping for more liberal politics (I'm a liberal, after all, though I prefer "progressive," much the same way conservatives prefer that label rather than "reactionary"), but this post from The Root on Obama's pragmatism reflects my own thoughts from a week ago.

Here's a sample from "The Audacity of Pragmatism" by John H. McWhorter:

Politics is about pragmatism and compromise—even for leftists, even for black ones.

and

Some Obama fans, one suspects, would almost savor that as an opportunity to go martyr, decrying how the evil system thwarted the audacity of hope.

Check out this New York Times article — "In Illinois, Obama Proved Pragmatic and Shrewd" by Janny Scott — from last year for more examples of Obama's necessary practicality, a trait that reflects our generation even more than anyone's left or right political leaning.
 

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A game of chess, is like a swordfight. You must think first, before you move.

I told Lord Jim I owe him a finder's fee for this (and all full credit for the Wu-inspired headline above).

Knights in the ring as chess boxers slug it out

To me, this merely deepens our unanimous decision.

I might even watch this summer's Olympics if they added chess boxing, but only if Girthy lifts their protest.

And if the sport's origins are accurate, this should give us something to do in the coming crisis in 2020 (or in 2034, according to the graphic novel that introduced the sport, as cited in the Agence France-Presse article).

The Kingpin just castled with his rook and lost a pawn indeed.


UPDATE July 10:

The RZA launched a new site for Wu-Tang and chess fans recently at Wuchess.com. RZA also swung by a team chess tournamanet at the Chelsea Art Museum last weekend.

More on the RZA and chess.
 

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Perhaps it is the right time for a reckoning of sorts. We've spent a lot of space here slagging on the Boomers, and justly so. But this is not to forget what my own generation has wrought.

I was reminded of this by a comment from an obviously angry Boomer to a Talking Points Memo Café Reader Post last week, and also because I was returning some videos, er, up late last night watching American Psycho on HBOZ (which I think is an underrated, though often poorly directed, satire on the ’80s. I'm digressing again, I know.)

My generation largely revered Reagan as youngsters, looked up to late-Boomer (and early Gen X'er) Yuppies and DINKs and the ’80s stockbroker culture, to say nothing of unleashing Charlie Sheen (both in real life and Bud Fox from Wall Street). My generation also whelped Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity (both born in 1961, the same year as Obama). My own politics aside, we were fast on our way to becoming a more conservative generation than our parents — think Alex P. Keaton and you're not far off the mark — at least until George W. Bush came along.

According to Michael Connery on TPM Café, late-era Baby Boomers and Gen Xers are still the most conservative segment of voters in the country, raised in part during the boom of College Republicans in the 1980s and into the 1990s, during a time period, Connery notes, when Democrats ceded the seeding of the next generation of would-be liberals in the aftermath of Mondale and Dukakis. Democrats didn't begin to rise again until after Bill Clinton came to power, who nevertheless appealed more to the centrist base represented by the Democratic Leadership Council than traditional liberals.

In Strauss & Howe's book Generations, the authors note that in 15 of 16 polls from 1981 to 1988, my generation gave Ronald Reagan a higher approval rating than other other generation, except for the still-living members of Gen X's related generation, the Lost Generation (born between 1883-1900).

All is not lost, though, from my Progressive perspective. In fact, Republicans have to be kicking themselves for potentially blowing it with the Young because of the turn-off of George W. Bush — I wonder if, in the back of their minds, this is where some of the Republican backlash at Bush is coming from. Not that former Bush-supporters are suddenly going to become liberals, but the lustre is long gone.

Still, aside from Obama's popularity with my generation, and especially with the Millennials, it's possible the majority of my generation (born 1961-approx. 1980) may end up considered more conservative.

But putting the Left and Right aside, Gen X is nearly certain to end up in the Pragmatic camp, regardless of how that is defined on the political spectrum.

You see this already in Obama's post-primary shift in recent weeks, if not true to his hoped-for liberal roots, to some centrist-sounding stances. It's rather easy seeing the more centrist Hillary taking the position Obama recently staked on the FISA amendment, for instance, until you consider the gains he may realize from this position in the general election, as well as his necessary reversal to rejecting public campaign funding.

If you follow Strauss & Howe's logic and timeline, our "reactive" or "nomad" generational type, bound together as we are by our birth years, typically is less interested in ideology and more concerned about getting things done. Our "doing-what-you-gotta-do" generation is the only true way to combat the excess of the Boomers, which will haunt us for years to come with longer lifestyles embodied by "spending our children's inheritance" attitudes in prolonged retirement (hey, at least we're not Europe).

I consider myself a Pragmatic Progressive (as I would consider Obama, considering his life story and borne out by his recent political moves). Pragmatism is a hallmark of our generation. Pragmatism was the way we survived (if not thrived) growing up and beginning our careers, and it certainly will be the way we mature as leaders and advise as elders in old age. Think Harry S Truman or Eisenhower (especially upon Ike's exit, warning of the growing power of the institutions he helped promote), both members of the Lost Generation that Strauss & Howe links through history to Gen X.

Even the Wall Street types we helped popularize understand this pragmatism in coming out and supporting Obama. (link to Daily News via Talking Points Memo)

Time will tell if our conservative base or our pragmatism (or both) define Gen X in the history books, as we have the very real possibility of electing our generation's first president in the liberal yet pragmatic Barack Obama.

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What is it about baseball, or base-e-bol as The Baby calls it? (He says it almost like Chico Escuela's "beisbol been berry berry good to me," which Sammy Sosa would sometimes pay homage to in 1998.)

What is it about a late afternoon game under sunny skies and lightly breezy temperatures, about sharing a game with two people you adore and love, about a guy walking around with cold beer to sell you, about hot dogs, about soft-serve ice cream in miniature helmets, about no matter how much The Game pisses you off because of steroids, big-ego players and (shamefully) most of my fellow Yankee fans (not the true-Yankee blue Bleacher Creatures of the ’90s who were denizens of Sections 37 to 43 before alcohol was banned there, but the loud-mouth and obnoxious ones guzzling gas in SUVs with Yankee decals on their trailer hitches; perhaps many Red Sox and Mets fans feel the same way about their obnoxious cohorts)?

Despite all that, what is it that makes the game still great to see live, even if your toddler can only sit still in awe for an inning and-a-half? Is it the clichéd pastoral nature of a game that for the formative years of its inception was really a city game¹? Is it summer evenings under a waning sun? Is it the pure simplicity and complexity of the game, the only major team sport without a clock?

Whatever, we took The Baby to his first real game last weekend. He can't stop talking about it. Though this was his favorite part:




¹From George Vecsey's, Baseball, 2006, Modern Library, an imprint of Random House:

Hoboken, the birthplace of another American institution, Francis Albert Sinatra, has lobbied to be considered the home place of baseball [possibly the first big recorded game took place there on June 19, 1846, some 162 years ago last week], but its urban grit and anonymous proximity to New York City make it a poor competitor with upstate Cooperstown for the honor. In the minds of the American builders of baseball, the game needed the appeal of the woods and pastures, with the players retaining the posture of farmers and outdoorsmen. This image was more myth than reality: baseball was a city game.

Within a few miles and short ferry rides, the Knickerbockers could challenge teams like the Empires, Atlantics, Eagles, Putnams, Washingtons, Gothams, Eckfords, and Phantoms in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and New Jersey, whose rosters included men from the shops, factories, offices, and civil service of the metropolis. Some clubs were organized along ethnic lines, like soccer teams of future generations, but others represented trades or companies or neighborhoods.

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I just like the idea of Cheney as a barnacle on the Ship of State.

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Thank God this wasn't part of the baby's first-ever baseball game.

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I really don't understand this at all, but anything that discusses politics and the RZA, even elliptically, in the same post is OK with me, sort of. Gawker weighs in, too. (of course, I saw it on Gawker first, but who's tracking?)

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My favorite quote after reading the coverage of George Carlin, who died Sunday at age 71:

“Scratch any cynic,” he said, “and you’ll find a disappointed idealist.”

My second-favorite George Carlin quote:

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."

Not entirely off-topic:

A photo of George Carlin was on the cover of Monday's USA Today with an appetizer of some of his well-known jokes and bits surrounding him — "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television," "JUMBO Shrimp," "Hippy-Dippy Weatherman."

I swear he was either rolling over in his grave or laughing from beyond at the sheer absurdity of the mere existence of USA Today and its corporate ownership, responsible more than any other newspaper for the dumbing down of America, and all it made me want to do is curse Al Neuharth for inventing something as shitty as USA Today and and forever vowing to hold it against any writer who ever worked for Gannett merely for contributing to the lowering of the level of intelligence in this county — something George Carlin couldn't help but laugh and be angry about when he said "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that" — and then I realized that George Carlin is now gone and USA Today is with us forever and I was sad.

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Sixteen Tons. What do you get? Another day older, and deeper in debt.

Big to-do in the New York Capital on Thursday with truckers clogging the streets with a rally to protest taxes and tolls and the high price of diesel.

Before you shout irony at the idea of protesting gas prices by driving and idling, you need to remember one thing: You might argue with their methods, but we're talking blue collar families. We're talking workers that were sold the American Dream, and of course I am paraphrasing David Simon here, that if you worked hard and did your job, then America has a place at the table for you, that you can make a proud living wage. And, again paraphrasing David Simon, that's not so true; your life is actually worth less every day, as Simon has frequently said.

You might argue that $5 per gallon gas (and $6 per gallon diesel) can help wean the country off environment-killing and unsustainable oil (foreign and domestic), much the same way that $8 per pack cigarettes can help wean smokers off of their own killing habit. And I would agree with you.

At some level, it's a good thing, especially if it forces people to give up their showboaty and unnecessary SUVs and sprawling McMansion existence (though I disagree with the biofuels bandwagon).

And as this AP article points out, drivers can recoup some of their fuel costs through adjustable surcharges — but there's apparently a lag, which creates a cash-flow problem that many of them cannot ride out (excuse the pun) until the money comes in.

However, kicking the oil habit will be fruitless if government does not strongly step in to increase mass transit and to increase the use of rail in hauling goods, which is vastly more energy efficient, emits less greenhouse gas (PDF) and is generally safer than trucking. Trucks would still be needed, but for shorter trips — hauling from rail sidings to the goods' destinations. By far, trucking consumes the most fuel out of any other form of transportation.

But what of those driving the trucks?
 
In many ways, America (and that means you and me as much as the government) has sold them a bill of goods that trucking was a viable way to earn a living. And for years perhaps it was viable, if not overly lucrative.

Now what? Those that can get out, are leaving (AP article again).

But how many more American workers is our Economy going to simply cut loose in (paraphasing Simon again) the Triumph of Capitalism over the Individual?

The truckers' case is somewhat difficult, in that their industry was based on a large dose of destroying the environment, through emissions, through oil consumption and through both reaction to and encouragement of sprawl. That said, you can't begrudge a person making a living — man gotta eat.

And you and I, friend, share some blame, too. American's recent conspicuous over-consumption largely helped fuel the boom in the shipping business. Up until a year or two ago, the economy (and the purchasing of goods hauled by truckers) was booming despite mounting credit use among consumers — it was unsustainable growth, a bubble as ripe for popping as the housing bubble has been.

Though reflexively, the truckers' approach may seem like bullying tactics — we don't get our way, so we're going to make life miserable for everyone else, block traffic, stop the flow of goods, blockade Manhattan, etc. And some protesters' choice in language attacking the very people who buy the goods who keep them in business seems, at best, counterproductive.

You need only check out the protests in Spain and France to see how ugly it could get, to say nothing of the conflicting emotions produced — sympathy for the truckers' plight and ire drawn from their bullying approach.

Despite that, once you get past the emotions on both sides, our question today is what do you do with the truckers?

Far be it from pointing out my own hypocrisy, but I've whined about the loss of newspaper jobs since I began this blog (and long before that). That industry is as much a dinosaur-in-the-making as the fossil-fuel-using trucking industry.

Perhaps the news industry is too big, and too obsolete (in the era of online information). I tend to feel the same way about gas-guzzling delivery systems in the face of cleaner technologies such as existing systems (rail) and yet-to-be-developed models (green trucks? less consumption (gasp!) by consumers?).

I don't have the answer to this. Worker re-training? Seems like small consolation. And with powerful political forces involved and invested in the status quo, both in the halls of our legislatures and in certain still-powerful unions, you're not going to see trucks disappear entirely anytime soon.

You will probably see more protests about high-priced diesel, and perhaps some pandering by re-election-minded pols with the adoption of gas tax relief "holidays" (which will cause a need to compensate with taxes elsewhere and encourage oil companies to step in and profiteer, to say nothing of consumers getting a shock with the sudden spike in price when the tax holiday expires).

Perhaps all that can be done is to discourage the next generation from getting into that industry, as harsh as that may sound. And I mean that about both trucking and about newspapering.

———

Quick quote: "A single intermodal freight train can remove as many as 280 trucks from the highway system while using significantly less energy than highway travel in the process." (PDF)

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Mighty Mite Mike Lupica unsurprisingly tops New York sportswriters in estimated salary in a post from The Big Lead on the highest paid sporstwriters (Update: The Big Lead posted a follow-up), with former SI and current ESPN Mag thinks-he's-funny-man Rick Reilly topping the estimated national list of sportswriters (broadcasters who think they can write are left off the list).

Gawker links to it, and adds its own chart and commenter-generated snark for these writing men plus one writing woman. Though we'd gladly pay to read Whitlock and Feinstein (and Gary Smith, as noted in the updated post), the list skews heavily toward hack-scribblers with Lupica, Albom, Reilly, Mariotti and (often) Simmons. Bitter/jealous much? Hell yeah, I am!

Continuing on our sports theme, and for our Boston (both current residents and fans of) readership (apparently, there's quite a few of 3 of you): Congratulations! This is for you, beaneaters:

"Boston Just Can't Get Enthusiastic About Sports Rioting Anymore"
(via Deadspin.com)

and this:

Police arrest 23 during Celtics revelry
(link and photo of potential He-Man relative via Boston Globe

Finally, can't Italy win without drama and a dose of skirting failure? Though the Azzuri beat France 2-0 in their final group-stage game in the European Championship on Tuesday in a rematch of the great 2006 World Cup final — of Zidane head-butt fame — both Andrea Pirlo and Snarling Dog Gennaro Gattuso, Italy's star midfielders, got themselves eliminated from the quarterfinal Sunday against Spain by picking up their second yellow cards of the opening stage.

Pirlo's smashing penalty kick in the 25th minute and Daniele De Rossi's goal in the 62rd minute carried the Italians past Les Bleus. Former Fiorentina striker Luca Toni (Number Nyne!) looked great in the first half, just missing wide on at least three sublime touches inside the box. Both goals came after France went down to 10 men, despite the efforts of the unparalleled Thierry Henry.

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Lost, perhaps, in the sad news last week of the death of Buffalo's own Tim Russert was the death of another journalist — Eliot Asinof's passing at 88 a week ago can hardly be called sudden in the way Russert's was, especially because Big Tim was 30 years his junior.

Still, let's not forget Asinof. His 1963 book Eight Men Out, filled with research, interviews and (according to the Times) some fiction was a groundbreaking work, and one of the many influences of The Young Icepick in his quest to become a Writer — I read it at age 15 when an edition was released to coincide with John Sayles' excellent 1988 movie.

Asinof's conceit, hammered home in Sayles' film, is the eight Black Sox of 1919 were victims of a miserly owner and a unionless system that chewed them up with no chance for the freedom that today's free agents enjoy, even though at least five of the eight were in fact guilty of throwing games to the gamblers.

The scandal ruined the lives of many yet, in an ironic way, saved the sport from shadiness by paving the way for Babe Ruth and the needed strong, centralized leadership of baseball's Office of the Commissioner; strong and heavy-handed, and perhaps too heavy-handed at times — Ford Frick helped kill an early Asinof screenplay attempt at the Black Sox story — though Bud Selig has acted like he's been apologetically making up for prior commissioners.

There was much heartbreak on individual lives in the pages of Eight Men Out, from the young boy's plea of "Say it ain't so, Joe," to the sad decline of the talented but naive Buck Weaver, still looking for another chance to play practically until the day he collapsed and died on a street on Chicago's Southside at age 66.

The story gets a lot of justified mileage as a tale of the Loss of American Innocence, coming on the heels of the horrors of World War I and the moralizing by the Baby Booomer-like righteous leaders of Strauss & Howe's Missionary Generation that instituted Prohibition.

Asinof, Bruce Weber's Times obit states, was blacklisted in the 1950s, with Asinof claiming, “after he got hold of his F.B.I. file, the blacklisting came about because ‘I had at one time signed a petition outside of Yankee Stadium to encourage the New York Yankees to hire black ballplayers.’”

The passing of Asinof, who lived in upstate Ancramdale since 1985, near where I cut some teeth covering semi-semi-semi-pro ball in cow country, was sadly missed by my sometimes favorite sports blogs, which shows there is some (some) use for newspapers still. (Though how weak is it that in Chicago, muse of Nelson Algren, home of the Black Sox story itself, the Tribune ran the obit written and distributed by the New York Times, and not by one of its own writers, perhaps highlighting the downward turn of the Sam Zell's Tribune and the local press in general. But again, I digress.)

Happily, I discover via The Google this blog post at Bronx Banter at Baseball Toaster by writer Alex Belth, who quotes Roger Kahn as saying Asinof had "an enduring anger at what he perceived to be injustice" — my kind of hard-working writer.

Belth later quotes Glenn Stout as saying Asinof was one of the first writers (including Al Stump of Cobb fame, another Icepick favorite) to legitimize baseball history as a serious subject.

Meanwhile, the past few days marked another mourning — the end of the annual exhibition Hall of Fame game in Cooperstown. I feel nothing but sadness about this and have nothing but good feelings for Cooperstown and the Hall, but I am currently reading George Vecsey's Baseball (yes, it was a Father's Day gift) and perhaps I am the naive one, but the amount of racism sewn into the fabric of the game's history never fails to amaze me.

The Hall and the Abner Doubleday myth were largely (if not wholly) created by the racist Albert Goodwill Spalding (yes, of the Spalding sporting goods fame) who, according to Vecsey's book, organized an international barnstorming tour in 1888 without any black players, yet took along a black man as a "mascot" who was vulgarly (I had to read this twice to believe it) "paraded around in front of Asians, Australians, Africans, and Europeans with a leash around his neck, a wonderful advertisement for the American character, indeed," Vescey writes.

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Nice theory by pollster John Zogby about the end of Boomerism as we know it. Unfortunately, the Baby Boomers are like a Freddy or a Jason flick — just when you think they're dead, they're not dead.

I largely doubt this is the end of the Clintons, or the Bushes for that matter. Not only will their influence last for decades — the Boomers threaten to be the longest-lived generation ever, thanks to medical science — but their age-cohorts fill Congress and will likely overtake the Supreme Court — even an Xer like Obama can't stop that.

And while the Silents silently bemoan never electing one of their own as president (unless McCain pulls an upset of Da'Tara proportions), the Boomers can self-absorbedly whine about not having a stake in this election.

Not to worry. The Boomers, by the count I agree with, span the ages of 65 to 48, meaning they'll be 69 to 52 in 2012 and 73 to 56 in 2016. Even the oldest of the Boomers won't be too old to run in those years. This is, after all, also the Botox Generation, so while McCain makes 72 look like, well, 72, a 77-year-old Boomer will look like half that age in time for the coming Crisis of 2020. And with our luck (and thanks again to Science), that 77-year-old on the campaign trail of 2020 will not only be collecting retirement benefits (which my half-sized generation will be paying for with blood), but will also likely extend her life-expectancy to 126, or until around 2069, just in time to ruin the New Sixties!

———

As I've previously said, I agree with the Strauss and Howe cut-off of 1961 to divide Boomers and Gen Xer's. Obviously, it's an arbitrary and symbolic date, but one that works for these reasons:

• The Pill was first marketed as a birth-control device in mid-1960 (impacting 1961 birth rates).
• Except for a slight upward tick at the start of the '60s, U.S. birth rates began their long decline into the 1970s, when Roe vs. Wade helped make Generation X the most aborted generation in history.
• The difference in attitudes and life goals between those born in the '50s vs. those born in the '60s. It's not as much as a stretch as you might think, argue Strauss and Howe.

Special thanks to our tipster and unanimous decider, Lord Jim, for directing us to Zogby's HuffPost article.
 

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Random thoughts while waiting out a wind-whipping thunderstorm at a local cafe:

For the Blogfather.

Had this months ago. And I thought I was embarrassingly re-stating the obvious.

I don't know the answer to this, but if Obama can figure something out to help these people (more rural transit, gas subsidies for those making under a certain income) and put the supposed lack-of-middle-class-cred comments to rest, he should hit this issue, and hit it hard.

And now, for tonight's anti-newspaper rant:

If you're a kid in college wanting to be a journalist, it's not too late to change your sucker bet. Don't worry, the newspaper industry isn't what you thought it was, and hasn't been for 20 years. It's a Boomer-centric society, where hiring and news coverage is dictated by those who think new rules to make things better — including clubby hiring and obstructionist and narrow-minded coverage — apply to their younger employees, but not to them. It's the continuation of the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do ethos of the Boomers.

Because, like a lot of other industries, the Boomers got in and locked the door behind them and said, no, sorry, this is for us. You go get us coffee, child, and we'll use up most of the resources so there's nothing left for you. And then create new rules to limit your advancement (while not limiting our own), all in the name of protecting "the children" and "the earth." Which they pretty much fucked already.

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Can't endorse the new Indiana Jones movie, which we saw at the drive-in last weekend while The Baby more or less slept in the back seat (Iron Man, the second half of the double feature, was much better, and since I dug out my Black Sabbath CD and started playing "Iron Man" in the car, The Baby has taken to saying "Ionman" — but I'm digressing again).

It's not that the new Indy is particularly bad, though it's not good, or that it wastes Karen Allen in a comeback role (someone on Gawker said, "Oh, that's what a MILF looks like"), or that it manages to rip off the first X-Files movie, Back to the Future, and Spike Milligan's old crazy guy from the Bastille from History of the World, Part I, while forgetting how much fun the old Indiana Jones movies could be (though Harrison Ford looks like he's having tons of fun without having to lift the undernourished Calista Flockhart around). It even wastes a pretty good premise of Indy getting older (it takes place in 1957), if no less adventuresome, proving for the fourth time in nine years that George Lucas, God bless him, should be nowhere near a laptop (somehow, he didn't write the screenplay, though Steven Spielberg does a pretty good George Lucas imitation in directing — that's not a compliment).

No, it's merely because St. Jimmy is upset that Too Short isn't in it, as Lord Jim misidentified him. He meant Short Round, and the actor who portrayed him also played Data in The Goonies. He is alive and well (though he used to be called "Ke Huy Quan" and not "Jonathan Ke Quan," as Babble calls him, but jeez, he turns 37 this year — not very funny).

———

UPDATE JUNE 10: I should say that the motorcycle chase through Indy's New England college was pretty cool (and at least they weren't on skateboards, which the Back to the Future-like scene preceding it seemed to be leading to).

Also, He-Man seemed to enjoy Shia LaBeouf's performance, so the movie was not without redeeming value.

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Well, I guess it turned out that Triumph the Insult Comic Dog had as good a chance of winning the Belmont as Big Brown.

Don't weep for Big Brown and his owners, though. They'll make a killing in stud fees. And that's the problem — horses are bred and trained for their retirement years (after age 3), rather than for winning. Sure, they need to win the big races to command big stud fees, but the syndicates and conglomerates that own the Sport of Kings these days proudly operate like owners of mutual funds. That attitude, protecting your investment (protecting your brand, as the business-types say) has infected the entire sport for too long. It's not about winning. It's all about the money. That's why we're likely to never see a Triple Crown winner again.

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We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you this important post about Saturday's Belmont Stakes. For what seems to be like the 10th time this decade, a horse enters the race having won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness in the last few weeks and has a real shot at winning the elusive Triple Crown. No horse has done that since Affirmed in 1978.

As a track veteran — I remember selling back some freshman textbooks in my second weekend of my first year of college to scrap up $50 to go to Belmont, but they were math textbooks, and I wasn't getting no "A" in calculus as an English major, anyways — I want to share the advice that has given me, like, three winning days in 17 years of track visits.

I was part of a group of friends camped out at the top of the stretch in 2004, a perfect spot among a record 120,139 gamblers in Elmont to watch Birdstone overtake Smarty Jones down the stretch and spoil the most recent Triple Crown bid. I had money on the Philadelphia favorite Smarty, but I also had maybe $10 on Birdstone to win, and wound up heading back to Mrs. Icepick in Midtown with a waking hangover and a couple of hundred in "blood money" at something like 36-1 odds, as I recall. (Digression No. 1: It's hazy how much I won, and I can't believe I went home with $360, so maybe it was a $5 win ticket and I won $180, but it was still a decent haul. Karma still has me paying for that, because I haven't had a winning day at the track since, though I won again with Birdstone in the Travers later that year, though not enough at 9-2 odds to make up for the rest of that Saturday in Saratoga. But I digress.)

If you're determined to beat the crowds, if not the house, on Saturday, here's some free tips:

1. Plan your bathroom breaks and your visits to the teller windows. The lines for both grow increasingly longer as the day drags on. I wouldn't attempt to visit either within three races of the Stakes race.
   
   
2. Don't wear open-toe shoes if you plan to use the restrooms, especially if you're a woman and, in desperation, need to use the men's room. Trust me on this one. And don't go passing out in the restrooms, either. Think sloshed, both the patrons and the viscous layer on the floor.
   
   
3. If you're bleeding and in need of first aid, the nurses station is top-notch, though it's in a subterranean alcove underneath the huge grandstand, near the jockey room. They're awfully nice down there. Trust me on this one, too.
   
   (Digression No. 2: On my way back after visiting said nurses station in 2004, President Reagan's death was announced over the loudspeakers. Strange coincidence that such an icon of my ’80s youth died while I was stumbling through the hallowed halls of Belmont. But I digress again.)
   
   
4. Don't even attempt to drive there, unless you plan on arriving around 6 a.m. There was a special Belmont/drunk train from Penn Station the last time I went. Plan accordingly. It took us quite a while to get out of the track at the end of the day, as I remember, too.
   
   
5. I have only one bit gambling advice: bet on overwhelming favorite Big Brown to place, not win. Modern horses are bred to stud these days, not for the grueling and increasing distances of the Triple Crown, especially the 1½ miles of the Belmont Stakes. There's no reason to think any differently this year. Remember, it's only happened 11 times in 88 years (of course, with my luck and reverse psychology, I just handed the Triple Crown to Big Brown). Many of today's sportswriters can still remember three horses pulling off the feat in the ’70s, so it's no wonder they can be a bit nostalgic.
   
   Anyway, with 10 horses in the field and Big Brown at 2-5 odds and on the inside post, you're not making shit picking him to win, or with him on top of any exotics. So wheel him in the No. 2 slot with an exacta for $2, which will cost you $18, and enjoy the show. You still won't make much money, but you're a lock (in my book) for cashing a winner. And who doesn't love a winner?
   

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There really isn't very much difference between them, at least policy-wise. Yeah, there is some difference in their health care plans and there's that silly gas tax thing. But the differences in policy between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are minuscule when compared to John McCain's beliefs.

This was my point months ago, privately: when placed side-by-side, there isn't much difference in beliefs between the two Dems.

So with that as a given, if you are going to vote Democratic, who would you rather vote for?

An inspiring, rallying speaker with little baggage who can actually make you believe "hope" is more than just a cynical campaign slogan and whose default mode by him and his handlers is not to attack, thrust, lie and wage a scorched earth campaign that threatens to not only keep the presidency in Republican hands, but to bring down an entire party with him?

Or a candidate from a former First Family with baggage dating back at least 16 years that is nevertheless beloved by swooning Baby Boomers, a candidate who represents a continuation of the angry divisive politics of the last 20 years, politics from both sides of the aisle that place mud-slinging over respect, a candidate comfortable being represented by the slimy likes of the execrable Harold Ickes and Howard Wolfson, the booted Mark Penn, silly Lanny Davis and the utterly incompetent Terry McAuliffe? (And where are the women leading and directing her campaign, oh paragon of feminism and supposed inspiration to our mothers and daughters? You fired Patti Solis Doyle, the last woman who held a visible leadership post in your campaign.)

This pains me to write this, in many ways. I supported Hillary in running for Senate as a new New Yorker in 2000. I believed in her during her "It Takes a Village" days. That was inspiring. And at the time, I supported President Bill Clinton's policies voraciously.

What can I say? Obama is more inspiring. Obama has better progressive credentials. Obama, simply, is better.

Want an example of how much better? When the Rev. Wright controversy threatened to derail Obama's campaign, the candidate responded by giving one of the most lucid and inspiring speeches on race delivered in the last 40 years.

On the other hand, when charges of sexism reached a frenzy in the last 10 days, what great speech has Hillary delivered in response? Instead, she let a bunch of shrill-seeking men and women shout on her behalf on the blogs and at Saturday's Democratic Rules Committee meeting.

Slate's Meghan O'Rourke says Hillary wasn't feminist enough and talks of how Clinton has lost a generation of voters (um, I had that a few days ago). She ran as an establishment candidate. Not surprising, since the Boomers are the establishment — funny enough for the sell-out Woodstock generation that made its name in the late ’60s as anti-establishment.

Clinton simply didn't inspire awe the way Obama did. She ran as an insider, he ran as an outsider, and after almost 16 years of bickering and divisive politics, outsider status carries a lot of weight. It did across the aisle: John McCain, portrayed as the consummate Republican outsider maverick, is their nominee.

And you wonder why people are swooning for Obama, the media included? Obama is a candidate for these times, not the Boomer Clinton, not the Silent Generation McCain. "This is our time," he said Tuesday night, and the crowd roared. How could you not?

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Abraham Lincoln's experience before he was elected President at age 51 in 1860 was limited to serving one term in the House of Representatives (which technically lasted only 15 months, because the 13th Congress didn't hold its first session until December 1847, well over a year after Lincoln's August 1846 election) and eight years in the Illinois legislature.

John F. Kennedy, 100 years later, was a Senator for eight years and a member of the House of Representatives for six before becoming President at age 43.

Both were inspiring speakers.

Barack Obama, age 46 (he turns 47 in August), has been a Senator for three years and counting and served almost eight years in the Illinois legislature.

Kennedy's got him on elected experience. Lincoln, not so much. Obama will split the difference in age this November. Beside the relative youth, he's got something else in common with these two giants.

He is the most inspiring speaker I have listened to in my lifetime. I'd say he's better than Reagan.

That ability to speak equals an ability to inspire. And if you can inspire, you can lead like no other. Even Reagan did this in the awful (in retrospect) ’80s.

Setting aside Hillary's dubious claims of having way more experience than Obama (she's served in the Senate four years longer, and that's all I'll give her), I view the ability to inspire as a greater quality than having any level of greater experience.

That's not to say an abject lack of experience trumps oratory ability.

But if you cannot get people to follow you, to be inspired by you actions and words, then all the experience in the world won't make you a great executive leader. Bob Dole had decades of experience, but that did not make him a great presidential candidate, certainly not enough to unseat President Bill Clinton in 1996. John McCain is a great leader in the Senate, with decades of experience, too, but he doesn't have the inspirational qualities to be a great executive.

And for all of Hillary's laudable accomplishments in the Senate and for sitting as First Lady, she's inspiring to bitter Baby Boomers (men and women) and provokes as much invective in nearly everyone else.

It's amazing that a person who spent seven years in the Senate building alliances and allegiances with cohorts on both sides of the aisle can throw that all away in just a few short months by reverting to the Clintonian divisiveness.

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I just went to Hillary's Web site, as she suggested in her sort-of good, very defiant, very divisive, better-than-McCain's-but-not-nearly-as-good-as-Obama's speech tonight, and a pop-up box appeared essentially saying be "one of 18 million and stand with Hillary."

So I told them:

Please quit. Obama is the better candidate. Stop trying to divide the party.
 

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Looking at the largely over-50 women and men disrupting the Democratic Rules Committee this afternoon with their sad Woodstocky cry of Denver! Denver! I realized something I had not previously considered. When people like them claim that this is the last chance ever for a woman to become president (which, if you believe that, then what the hell was the feminist movement about — promoting women's rights or promoting Hillary Clinton?), what they really mean is that this is the last chance for there ever to be be a Baby Boomer woman president, which might be true.

Because just like their hero, these Boomers are "all about me." It's not that there will never be a another woman who can be president (and one who hopefully won't need to ride her husband's coattails to rise to the Senate and beyond — you call that an inspirational story for women everywhere?). It's just possibly the last chance for a woman born before 1960 to become president. Quite frankly, it might possibly the last chance for any Baby Boomer to reach the White House.

Want to see the level of contempt Hillary has for the next generations? Right now on her official Hillblazers Web page — the page for "Young Leaders for Hillary in 2008" — the dominant item on the page is something called "Project T-shirt," which states: "We need your help to make a critical decision -- our next official campaign t-shirt."

So, on the day of the Rules Committee meeting, when her candidacy hangs in the balance, the major message on her Web page specifically geared toward the Next Generation is to design a fucking T-shirt. Not go out and protest with the Boomers. Go make a pretty picture to print onto a freebie.

In other words, you're too young to be of any good of us other than making a logo. This is perfect, because it's indicative of what both the Clintons and her Baby Boomer supporters are all about. I can just see her marketing department dreaming this up, like it's some bullshit corporate gain-share team-building exercise — "I know, let's draw in some younger voters by having them design a decal for a T-shirt. That's what the young kids like to do now, with their Photoshop and whatnot. It will help us 'connect' while letting the younger voters think that we think they're important."

To be fair, Hillblazers has links down the side with "5 Things You Can Do!," like becoming a Hillary supporter on the Facebook and other newfangled social networks.

I have to say I am truly sad for any Gen X'er or Millennial who supports this candidate, especially since she and her advisers see you as nothing other than expendable pawns in her campaign.

Incidentally, Obama has a Web page for his younger supports, too, called Generation Obama (ahem, and who coined a headline using a similar phrase? Um, yours truly) talking about grassroots activism and starting a support chapter in your community, with not a hint of anything so condescending as designing a fucking T-shirt.

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OK, now that we got that out of the way, check out this headline from Talking Point's Memo: Who's Disenfranchised? by Josh Marshall. This expresses what I've been cooking in the back of my brain but never made the full jump to put into words: If those in Florida and Michigan who voted for Hillary are so "disenfranchised," what about the people in those states who did not go out and vote at all on those days because they were told that their Primary was not going to count?

Now those people's voices will only be heard as part of this compromise Hillary supporters have unsatisfactorily pressured the Democratic leaders to concoct today, by counting those two against-the-rules elections at a 50% discount.

This does not erase the fact that people didn't vote in those primaries because they were told it was more-or-less a mock election, like those elections we used to do in middle school when the candidates were Reagan, Mondale and Bill the Cat. Hillary had no compunction to disenfranchise those would-be voters by making those elections "real," essentially discarding their worth as ballot-casters in order to change the rules to suit her. Typical of Hillary. Typical of a Boomer.

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