Ring My Bell

I’m sure there’s plenty of whacky political news to harp on about this week.  Like Alaska Republican senatorial hopeful Joe Miller having a reporter handcuffed and arrested by private security at a political rally for attempting to ask him some questions.  Or Kentucky Democratic senatorial hopeful Jack Conway insinuating that only Christians are fit to hold public office.  Or maybe Delaware Republican senatorial hopeful Christine O’Donnell apparently being unaware that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution explicitly prohibits Congress from making any laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof - in precisely those words.  Or even the circus of absurdity that is the New York gubernatorial race.  (We might actually touch on that one later.)  But I don’t want to talk about any of those.  Instead, I want to talk about football.  I don’t want to talk about scores or which teams are good and which would be better off playing in the CFL (I’m looking at you, Cowboys.)  I want to talk about America’s pastime, in terms of life and death.

This past weekend was a bad weekend to be a brain.  On Saturday afternoon, Rutgers defensive lineman Eric LeGrand was attempting a tackle on a kickoff return when his head impacted another player at an awkward angle.  LeGrand tumbled to the ground, awkward and stiff, his neck broken.  The latest word is that he is paralyzed from the neck down.  On Sunday, Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison twice, in the span of about ten minutes, slammed head first into the helmet of the ball carrier, resulting in both offensive players being removed from the game with concussions.  Minutes later at the other end of Pennsylvania, Atlanta Falcons cornerback Dunta Robinson speared Eagles receiver DeSean Jackson in the chin with his helmet, resulting in concussions for both men.  Jackson’s was so severe he will not be able to return to the field this coming Sunday.  Later on in Foxborough, Massachusetts, Patriots safety Brandon Merriweather left his feet and fired the top of his helmet into Ravens’ tight end Todd Heap’s face, knocking him out of the game.  And in the night game between the Colts and Redskins, Washington tight end Chris Cooley left the game after another helmet to helmet collision.  Penalties were only called on two of those hits.

I know people assume that football is a violent sport, and that things like this happen all the time..  And to a certain extent that is true.  But even in a sport were violent collisions are routine, last Sunday was particularly gruesome.  Even former Patriots safety turned NBC analyst Rodney Harrison, voted “dirtiest player in the game” by his peers during his playing days, went on air during halftime Sunday night and called for the league to start suspending players for the type of hits that had been dished out all day long.  If Rodney Harrison thinks you’ve gone too far, it’s time to pay attention.

We are a violent nation.  We live for conflict and we love to fight.  We were born of war, we came of age in war, and we couldn’t survive barely more than a decade of the 20th century without engaging in one - hot or cold.  We glorify battle and lionize soldiers, irrespective of their conduct, choosing to believe that whatever actions they take on the battlefield must be justified because they because they are risking their lives so the rest of us don’t have to.  We prefer to have a select group of people fight our wars for us, and agree it would be a nice bonus if none of our guys were killed in the process.  

Sports are war games for civilized people.  Two opposing sides, risking their health and safety in combat until one defeats the other.  And no American sport is more analogous to combat than football.  Even the terminology is barbaric.  The offensive and defensive lines are said to “battle in the trenches,” quarterbacks are “gunslingers,” throwing “bombs” from “shotgun” formations.  Defensive players patrol the field like “heat-seeing missiles,” “blowing up” receivers who venture into their territory.  And it is this mentality that has lead to the current situation.

I typically avoid qualifying my statements, but in this case I feel I have to.  I love NFL football.  I own six jerseys, primarily of defensive players.  I have two fantasy football teams, one chock full of defensive players.  I pay a ridiculous amount of money for NFL Sunday Ticket so I can spend ten solid hours every Sunday watching every single game played between September and February.  I accept that it is a violent game, that it is inherently dangerous, and that sometimes really bad things happen to the people who play it.  But this business of hitting people in the head to knock them out of games has got to stop.  And if the players aren’t interested in stopping it, the league has to step in and do it for them.

Defensive players are going to complain - they’ve already started.  Steelers assassin James Harrison - guilty of knocking out two Cleveland Browns last Sunday - admitted in an interview Monday morning that he is indeed “out to hurt people.”  In reference to the hit that briefly knocked Joshua Cribbs unconscious, Harrison said, “I thought Cribbs was asleep... he’s knocked out, but he’s going to be okay.”  He has already announced - through his agent - that he plans to appeal the $75,000 fine levied against him, claiming he is now “confused about how to play football.”

James Harrison is not the sharpest pencil in the box.  This is the genius whom, when invited to the White House two years ago as part of the Super Bowl winning Pittsburgh Steelers (as every president invites the winners of every major sports championship to visit every year), refused to attend because, “if the President wanted to meet the Pittsburgh Steelers, he should have invited us before we won the Super Bowl.”  Perhaps he doesn’t understand that people who are knocked unconscious are not just “asleep,” that an impact hard enough to bounce the brain off the side of the skull is infinitely more hazardous to one’s health than the act of taking a nap.  Perhaps he doesn’t know that science now confirms that repeated blows to the head can lead to loss of motor function, dementia, Alzheimer's or worse, and do so much more quickly that previously thought.  Perhaps he doesn’t care.  Perhaps he’s not interested in being able to remember the name of his wife, or where his kids go to school, or how to put on his socks before tying his shoes.

But I do.  I care.  I think that even the remains of James Harrison’s questionable intellect deserve to be protected from idiots like him.  People watch football games to see incredible athletes do incredible things; a sixty-yard tackle-breaking touchdown run, a forty-yard toe-tapping sideline reception in double coverage, an interception returned for a touchdown against Peyton Manning in the Super Bowl.  But incredible players can’t do incredible things sitting on the bench for weeks on end after being hit in the head by some jackass trying to make an ESPN highlight reel.  This nonsense has got to stop.  The head is not a battering ram, and the helmet is not a weapon.

I’m not sure what the solution is.  The league has decided that effective immediately, helmet-to-helmet hits will result in suspensions - for multiple games if necessary.  That’s probably a good place to start.  Obviously fines weren’t working.  What’s five or ten thousand dollars to guy making ten million a years?  But taking them off the field for a game or two, that means something.  If you are a great player, and you have to sit because you cracked someone in the head with your helmet, you’ve not only forfeited your game check, you’ve let your teammates down by not being there for them when they need you.  In the culture of football, that means more than a couple grand.  And if that doesn’t work, maybe we go back to playing the game without helmets altogether.  I guarantee that the first time a linebacker leaves his feet and slams his skull into the head of an opposing running back will also be the last time.

And now for something completely different.  Where the primary season gave us gems like Basil Marceaux Dot Com, the general election has gifted us Jimmy McMillan, of The Rent Is Too Damn High Party, candidate for governor of the great state of New York.  Where Basil Marceaux Dot Com’s platform was, let’s say, complicated, and loosely federated (“ending the slavery of traffic stops”, planting “vegetation on vacant land and selling it for gas”, investigating “why democracy invaded the U.S State on July 16, 1866, and so on), Jimmy McMillan’s message is plain and simple.  Yup, you guessed it.  The rent is too damn high.

A roof over your head, food on the table and money in your pocket.  The rest will take care of itself.  You gotta love an honest politician.  The manicured mutton chops don’t hurt either.

Housekeeping

Usually I try to update this blog once a week, on Tuesday or Wednesday night.  For the next several weeks that will shift to Wednesday or Thursday night, to accommodate the schedule of my paying job.  That being said, the paying job is siphoning additional time this week, and as such, I will forego an update this week.  Check back next week.

Promises to Keep

Is it Friday yet?  It’s not?  Really?  Sigh.

I checked the opinion polls today.  Apparently my previous post had absolutely no impact on Democratic voter enthusiasm.  In fact, if Gallup’s latest voter tracking polls are to be believed, I may have consigned the Party to an 87-seat loss in the House of Representatives.  Now I know things aren’t great out there, but 87 seats?  Come on.

But that was last week.  This is a whole new seven-day period.  As such, I would like to mention something that failed to get the attention it deserved during my fruitless search for rainbow-crapping unicorns.  About two weeks ago, Republicans released something they called a “Pledge to America.”  Standing in front of a palate of pressure-treated lumber at a hardware store just outside of D.C., House Minority Leader John Boehner declared this pledge to be a blueprint for Republican fiscal responsibility should they take over Congress in November.  I would like to take this opportunity to call shenanigans on John Boehner.  What he calls a “blueprint to restore America,” I might call, quite generously, intellectually dishonest.

In short, the Republican “plan” aims to reduce the deficit by repealing any unused TARP funds, trimming 100 billion dollars of discretionary spending, de-funding healthcare reform, and, or course, cutting taxes.  The idea is that “…with common sense exceptions for seniors, veterans and defense…” these steps will set the United States back on sound fiscal footing and reverse the march toward socialism we’ve apparently been on since January of 2009.  If you are partial to that worldview I suppose all that sounds pretty good.  But even a cursory evaluation of the details reveals the absolute fiscal fraud the self-proclaimed party of fiscal responsibility has become.

First, as we discovered late last week, funds expended under the TARP program have been almost completely repaid.  The amount currently outstanding totals approximately $50 billion, and by the time the Republicans retake the House, the taxpayers may even have turned a profit on their investment.  There isn’t going to be any unused TARP money to repeal.  Strike one.

Second, I know it sounds like a lot of money, but $100 billion worth of discretionary spending amounts to virtually nothing in a 3.5 trillion dollar budget.  It is, in fact, less than 3% of the annual budget.  No Republican seriously believes that cutting 3% from the budget will set America’s fiscal house in order.  But the reason they can get away with it is because so few people actually understand where their tax dollars actually go.  There is a common misconception that if we simply trim a little from the welfare budget and reduce the amount we spend on foreign aid; we wouldn’t need to borrow money from anybody.  Sadly, like so many other things about politics, it isn’t that simple.  Below is a pie chart from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, quantifying what tax dollars actually pay for.

Taken together, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid and Defense/Security (including veterans benefits) total nearly 70% of Federal spending.  If Boehner’s statement regarding “common sense exceptions for seniors, defense and veterans” implies that the programs making up more than two-thirds of the budget are off limits to anything but token reduction, (and that certainly is what it implies), it’s pretty easy to determine how less-than-serious he is about deficit reduction.  Add that to his comment to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday two weeks ago about not wanting to talk about solutions, and this “pledge” becomes comical.  Strike two.

Finally, Republicans propose to cut costs by de-funding healthcare initiatives and lowering taxes.  The healthcare initiatives they propose to cut have yet to be funded.  Pretty easy to take back something you haven’t yet delivered.  But refusing to fund healthcare changes would leave Republicans with no way to address the current almost (and in some cases actual) double-digit growth in healthcare expenditures.  Add to that the cost of extending the Bush tax cuts for all income earners (about 750 billion dollars), and the continuation of at least one foreign military conflict and we could likely have a budget deficit under a Republican House that was larger than it was under Democratic control.  Strike Three.

The truth about the “Pledge to America” is that it isn’t.  There is only one fiscally honest Republican in the House of Representatives and his name is Paul Ryan.  Ryan’s solutions for reducing deficit and debt are not my solutions, but at least he understands that in order for anything to be accomplished without any sort of tax increase (if that is even possible), Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid and Defense must all endure dramatic cuts, all of which would be deeply unpopular.  And it is telling that not a single other Republican on Capitol Hill has signed on to Ryan’s proposal.

It would be nice if Americans could talk about these things like adults, instead of fourth graders throwing rocks at each other on the playground.  If your family was to encounter financial hardship and needed to take additional steps to make ends meet, you could either reduce your expenses, increase your income, or some combination of both.  I would suggest that reducing expenses AND pursuing employment offering higher levels of compensation might be the best course of action to take.  A similar approach of decreased expenses and increased revenues would probably be beneficial to America’s current fiscal situation.  But the further down the road of nonsensical pledges we travel, the harder it is going to be to return to any semblance of fiscal sanity. 

Pots of Gold

Primary season is finally over. The candidates have been selected, the match-ups have been set, and now the real mud slinging can begin. Word on the street is; things look bad for the Democratic Party. They will likely lose control of the House of Representatives in November, and if they try really really hard, they could lose the Senate too. Nice work Democrats. Is there nothing you can’t screw up?

I guess none of this is particularly surprising. In mid-term elections – especially those coming in the midst of an economic downturn – the party in power always loses seats. People get angry when things aren’t going well and lash out at those they feel are responsible. There are only so many ways to express my incredulity at the fact that so many “independent” voters are so willing to return control of the government to the party and principles that spent the previous decade running it into the ground, so I’m not going to try to find another way this week. This week I want to focus on Democratic voters.

That’s right donkeys; I’m talking to you. Why the long faces? What’s got you so depressed that you would rather stay home on Election Day than vote for a Democratic candidate? Did you like it better when you were in the minority, and all you had to do was complain? Life was so much simpler then, wasn’t it. Are you playing a little rope-a-dope? Attempting to lull Republicans into a false sense of pomposity, then slug ‘em hard with the left hook of enthusiasm two weeks before the finish line? Because on the scrap heap of bad ideas, that one is somewhere below choosing to kick the ball away at the start of overtime in the Super Bowl. Are you perhaps convinced that midterm elections just don’t matter all that much anyway? I’m sure President Clinton could quickly disabuse you of that notion. Or is it that many of you are suffering from a near fatal case of unrealistic expectations?

This past Tuesday, President Obama hosted a town hall meeting with a group of supporters in Washington D.C. hoping to pump up the troops and get a little feedback. What he got was a room full of well-dressed people complaining that in the first 40% of his presidency, he simply had not done enough for them. I don’t fault them for being well dressed; it would be silly to show up to a meeting with the President in flip-flops and pajamas. But I would like to take issue with this idea that Barack Obama has somehow failed his supporters.

This President has accomplished three things that no Democratic president in the last 50 years (or more in some instances) has achieved. Burning an enormous amount of political capital in his first month in office, he passed an $800 billion economic stimulus package that kept many of us working when we otherwise would have lost our jobs, and according to an overwhelming majority of economists, kept this economy from sliding into the abyss. Burning whatever political capital he had left, he then signed into law the first major healthcare/health insurance reform since the passage of Social Security. Seven other presidents have attempted that and failed. He succeeded. And after that, running on fumes, he managed to slip through a financial reform bill, attempting to ensure that Wall Street can never again take us for the ride they took us on two years ago. Barack Obama accomplished an astonishing amount given the dung heap of an economy he had to work with and the absurd level of resistance he faced from his opponents.

But you wanted more than that, didn’t you, Democrats. Sure, you got healthcare reform, but you wanted a single payer system. You got financial reform, but you wanted Wall Street broken up like AT&T in 1984. You got $800 billion in stimulus money, but you wanted $1.5 trillion. You wanted an end to our foreign wars, but you got a reduction in one and escalation in the other. You wanted Guantanamo Bay detention center closed, but you got a Congress that refused to do it. You wanted comprehensive immigration reform, but you got a Congress that would rather demagogue and campaign on the problem than attempt to solve it. You wanted 10% annual economic growth and a Rolls Royce in every garage, but you got four consecutive quarters of 3% annual growth and a garage in foreclosure. In short, you wanted unicorns that crap rainbows, and what you got was a dose of reality.

During the Presidential election campaign you claimed you wanted to be talked to like adults. You claimed you could, indeed, handle the truth. It appears as though those statements were inaccurate. Nobody said recovery would be easy. In fact, it was made abundantly clear to everyone that climbing out of the most devastating recession since the Great Depression was going to be pretty damn hard. The fact that we haven’t recovered eight million lost jobs in 18 months is not a knock on the President; it’s third grade mathematics. The reason you didn’t get a Citigroup break-up, or a Gitmo closure, or a public health insurance option is because there simply were not 60 votes in the United States Senate to give them to you. The President doesn’t get a vote, and he can’t force any Senators to vote a certain way. It’s not his fault you belong to a party that couldn’t vote unanimously to back out of a parking space. The reason you didn’t wake up to a unicorn crapping a rainbow in your backyard January 21, 2009, is because unicorns don’t crap rainbows, and there is no such thing as a unicorn. Welcome to the real world. It sucks. Deal with it. Quit moping, get off the couch and vote.

Finally, Jon Stewart has announced that he will be holding a “Rally to Restore Sanity” on the Mall in D.C the day before Halloween. Not to be outdone, Steven Colbert revealed 4 minutes later that he would host a “March to Keep Fear Alive” at the same time and location. Regular readers of this blog know that I have great respect for Jon Stewart. I find it absolutely incredible that the most intelligent political analysis on television comes from a guy who makes fart jokes for a living. And accordingly, I wish him success with his rally. But I can’t help but worry that there simply isn’t much sanity left to restore.

A Hard Day's Night

Just finished a throughly engrossing conversation examining why I seem to be the only person on the face of the earth who doesn't think the Beatles were the greatest thing since high-fructose corn syrup. And on that note, I am on vacation, for the final time this fiscal year. Check back next week for an election season update.

Headless Horsemen

Only 19 hours until football people!

A Discovery Channel special debuted this week. One full hour of Rudy Giuliani explaining how frightened, yet poised and decisive he was during the events of 9/11. How is it that nine whole years after the incident this man is still allowed to exploit that tragedy for his own personal gain?

According to poll results released early this week, voters think Republicans would be better at handling the economy than the Democrats. No word on whether or not those are the same respondents who 18 months ago told pollsters they thought Democrats would be better at handling the economy than Republicans, but that’s neither here nor there in this conversation. The point is that voters seem to have the memories of goldfish. People really trust the Republican party - the party that doubled the national debt in eight years, oversaw the near complete collapse of the American financial system, and supervised zero net growth in both employment and net income - to better handle the economy? Really? Are all those people masochists, or just plain stupid? It’s perfectly reasonable to tell a pollster that you trust neither party to handle the economy. It is the height of absurdity to claim you trust the people who broke the system more than the people who have at least made some attempt to fix it.

Nevada Republican senatorial hopeful Sharon Angle announced this week that she will “be a mainstream senator.” Huh? Sharon Angle based her entire Tea Party-supported primary campaign on the idea that mainstream senators were ruining the country. If she intends to be a “mainstream” senator, why should any of her supporters vote for her? I suppose Sharon Angle’s idea of “mainstream” might be a little different from everyone else’s. It would have to be. In the universe most of us live in it certainly isn’t considered “mainstream” to pay your doctor for your kidney surgery in chickens and goats?

Speaking of crazy people, Arizona (I know, I know) Governor Jan Brewer found herself in the news again last week after a dismal debate performance against her Democratic challenger. Things went bad from the opening statement, as Brewer got lost in her notes, fumbled with her words and stared awkwardly through several long, unintended pauses. And that was before anyone asked any questions. During the debate, she attacked her opponents closeness with labor unions as the reason the state has experienced a decline in convention tourism this year. When her opponent responded with a much more plausible explanation, that it was actually the Governor’s signing of the now-famous anti-immigration legislation, and false stories of decapitations in the Arizona desert repeated by Brewer on multiple occasions, she found herself at a complete loss. After the debate, when reporters asked her multiple times why she refused to recant the false allegations of decapitations in the desert, Brewer pretended not to hear them, ended the Q&A session and walked away. The next day the Governor announced she would not participate in any more debates prior to the election, because she doesn’t “believe things come out in proper context in an adversarial atmosphere.” Nice. Just what is the proper context for a 20 second pause, and fairy tales about headless bodies in the desert?

Of course, the pathetic part about this is that none of it matters. As weak as her performance was, we’re talking about Arizona here. The only qualification you need to win as a Republican is a pulse. In fact, according to one poll taken after the debate, Brewer’s lead over her challenger actually increased by three points, 60% to 38%. Seriously. Can’t we just cut that state loose and call it a day?

Rumor is that following Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s announcement this week that he will not run for another term, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel will step down to run to replace him. When was the last time Chicago had a mayor not named Daley? Isn’t it written into the city by-laws or something, that the mayor must be named Daley? This is going to be weird.

Finally, following an investigation into improper receipt of gifts while at USC, it appears as though New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush will be stripped of his Heisman Trophy. This comes on the heels of an NCAA disciplinary ruling against USC in which the school lost scholarships, was forced to vacate wins and was banned from bowl and tournament appearances for the next several years. I am slightly conflicted about this. Universities make tens of millions of dollars off of these players, yet the players aren’t allowed to accept any form of compensation whatsoever. But, Bush knew the rules, and chose not to follow them. Due to that fact, he forfeits the trophy. It’s pretty simple. What I don’t understand is why the Heisman Trust has decided not to award the trophy to the runner up. They have instead decided that for the first time in over 70 years, the 2005 Heisman Trophy will remain unawarded. Why? Why bother having a first and second runner up if you aren’t going to award them the trophy if the winner is disqualified?

Don't Tread On (My Perception Of) Me

I had the day off today. Woke up late, went in to pick up my cheque, grabbed a Slurpee from 7-Eleven, and dropped in on a Chevy dealership to check out the new(ish) Camaro. So far so good. Came back home, flipped on the television, noticed the market finished the day up 250 points, feeling okay. In the process of changing the channel, accidently punched in 360 instead of 390, and instead of Alex Trebek, stumbled across Glen Beck. What a way to ruin a perfectly nice day off.

There really isn’t much more I can say about this clown that hasn’t already been said. It’s mentally exhausting to try to cut through the madness, fear-mongering and absurdity perpetuated by this man on a daily basis. But as cancerous as he is to American society, I have to give credit where credit is due. Glen Beck has managed to so something very few people in history - especially in wealthy, modern civilizations - have managed to do. He has created an alternate reality.

This past weekend Beck held a rally at the Lincoln Memorial, on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech, given at the same location. Something Beck claims was merely a coincidence. (And if you believe that, there’s a really nice bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.) Reports very on number of attendees. Independent crowd estimating agencies estimated between 87,000 and 100,000 people showed up. Resident conservative crazy person Michelle Bachman “...will not allow the media to claim less than a million...” people in attendance. So, between 87,000 and one million people came to Washington to listen to Beck reveal his plan to “put American back on the right track.” He was a little light on specifics, but the impression I got was that it had something to do with “turning back to God”, and investing with Goldline. But underneath all the self-aggrandizement and the Obama derangement syndrome, there is something very powerful he has managed to tap into. Fear.

Glen Beck lives in a bizarro world. A world much like the one the rest of us live in, yet opposite. In Beckworld, whites, Christians and conservatives are persecuted minorities, threatened with extinction by liberal elites and minorities, intent on transforming America - the last outpost of freedom in the world, into a socialist utopia. In a country in which 65% of the population is non-Hispanic white, Beck feels white people have lost influence and their values have been abandoned in favor of others. Despite the fact that 77% of Americans identify themselves as Christian, Beck insists Christianity is under attack, persecuted by the godless masses trying to rid the country of religion. Even though conservatives are the largest single ideological group in the United States (at 40%, with only 21% identifying as “liberal”), Beck would have us believe that the political system is out to get them. In spite of the fact that Fox News pulls in more viewers that all other cable news channels combined, he insists the “mainstream media” is out to distort the facts and withhold the “truth” about whatever the “scandal” of the day is. In Beckworld, white Christian conservatives are an endangered species. The rest of “us” are out to get them, and it’s his responsibility to shepherd the flock through the valley of the shadow of death. And purchase a little gold along the way. It doesn’t matter if the facts contradict anything or everything he’s preaching. Those facts are agents of the conspiracy against him. There are no facts, there is no truth, outside of that delivered by Beck or any of his disciples. Regardless of how false it is. And the fact that so many people believe in him and his gospel says a lot about the mindset of a certain segment of this country.

Early Wednesday afternoon, a man walked into the Discovery Channel headquarters in Silver Springs, Maryland and took several people hostage. Several hours later the situation came to a close with police shooting the hostage-taker, James Lee, to death. As usual, media coverage of the event consisted of breathless, fact-less speculation and hours of helicopter video of the mechanical equipment on the roof of the building. Fascinating. It seems Mr. Lee had some grievance with humanity, referring repeatedly in his online manifesto to humans as “filth” and claiming the only way to save the planet is to eliminate the “human pollution.” He apparently felt Discovery was not doing enough to advance environmental concerns. So, he decided to advance the cause himself by strolling into the building with a gun. Note to Mr. Lee: taking hostages is rarely an effective way to advance your agenda.

Finally, Washington Nationals (or “Natinals,” as they refer to themselves on occasion) rookie phenom Steven Strausburg will miss the rest of the season with an elbow injury requiring Tommy John surgery. A couple months ago when Strausburg make his major league debut, ESPN declared his first game to be more significant than the Chicago Blackhawks breaking a 49-year drought winning the Stanley Cup about a week earlier. Of course, they said similar things about Mark Prior and Kerry Wood, before they blew out their arms and dropped off the face of the earth. Yet somehow, nobody saw this coming with Strausburg. Until it happened. Apparently, the human body simply isn’t designed to consistently throw a baseball at 102 miles-per-hour. It just isn’t. I certainly don’t mean to gloat, but ha ha. Okay, that isn’t true. I’m gloating. And I’m perfectly okay with that.