A Common Man

Check Him Out

2008-07-11T11:56:00.001-07:00

The Common Man invites you all to join him at his new website, www.the-common-man.com. Come one, come all for the reboot and the expansion pack.

Serious News and Pithy Comments

2008-01-24T15:24:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to see if you were paying attention. By the thundering silence inspired by The Common Man's absence, he assumes you were all struck mute (or the typing equivalent) by his refusal to show up on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week. Cowboy up, readers.

The Common Man was conspicuously absent because, frankly, he didn't feel very well for a few days there. He was not sick, mind you, for The Common Man does not get sick. But he had the stuffy nose, cough, and general achiness that mere mortals would associate with the flu or a cold, but which, in him were not signs of any kind of illness. Just so you're clear.

In the meantime, here's what's happened while The Common Man has convalesced:

If you think the U.S. has problems with it's border security, you should check out the border between Egypt and Israel, where upwards of 50,000 Palestinians poured through a hole they had just blown through the security wall to go shopping in Egypt. The Common Man cannot imagine what kind of sale must have been going on at the Egyptian malls for this kind of Exodus. It's not even the day after Thanksgiving.

Presidential candidates thankfully keep bowing out, meaning that debates become less crowded and candidates have the chance to talk more. Dennis Kucinich bowed out just today, far earlier than he did in 2004. He joins Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Fred Thompson, Duncan Hunter, and Tom Tancredo among candidates The Common Man knows about. Thompson, of course, withdrew two days ago after taking forever to decide to get in the race, skipping fundraisers, and speaking very, very slowly for several months. The Common Man wonders if Thompson didn't really drop out after Iowa, but that it took a month, between his reluctance to hold events and his slow talking, for him to get around to telling everyone. Anyway, fear not, you can still have a Ron Paul/Mike Gravel November crazy-off to look forward to.

Heath Ledger's death is sad, of course, because he was young and he leaves behind a daughter. The most profound impact this will have on The Common Man, however, will be making The Dark Knight even creepier.

Finally, in news that should have happened a long time ago, truly messed up singer Amy Winehouse has decided to go back to rehab. Winehouse was filmed smoking a glass pipe commonly associated with smoking crack, the other day, perhaps signalling that she is in some kind of distress. As for The Boy, when asked if he wanted to go to rehab, he still shook his head "no, no, no." (bonus points if you get that joke. by the way, will Winehouse ever be able to sing her one hit again, now that she actually has gone back to rehab? Is it now invalid? Thoughts?)

Send Out the Clowns

2008-01-18T12:22:00.000-08:00

Most of you understand, The Common Man is certain, that clowns are not cool. Sadly, while seemingly everyone knows this instinctively, there has never been enough evidence to formally prove that, indeed, clowns suck and everyone knows it. And so, every day in this great nation, thousands of Americans put on facepaint, big shoes, and rainbow suspenders and call themselves Coco, or Dummo, or Bill O'Reilly and generally annoy the piss out of everyone they meet in the name of "entertainment" and "making people happy." The Common Man has long wished for ammunition to wave in the face of these white devils, telling them to scram before they disturb The Boy.

Thankfully, according to this Reuters article, researchers at Sheffield University, in England, has done a study into clowns, clowning, and the overall effectiveness of clowns. Finally, there is scientific evidence that, indeed, clowns suck. In a survey of 250 patients, ages 4 to 16, in British hospitals, not one child claimed to like clowns. Penny Curtis (The Common Man loves British names), a lecturer at the university, explains that "We found that clowns are universally disliked by children. Some found them quite frightening and unknowable." Though the study certainly can't claim any kind of universality (250 subjects is simply too small a polling sample), the fact that none of the patients liked clowns is incredibly telling. So eat it, Binko.

Clowns, of course, are pouring out of their comically undersized VW Beetles by the dozens to protest these findings. In a follow-up article, Daisy D. Dots, aka Elaine Vercelloni, argued that, in her 21 years experience of undoubtedly disturbing clowning, "gives people, kids and adults a reason to be silly, to imagine and gives their minds a vacation if only for a moment." Yet, this doesn't really address the issue that most clowns that The Common Man has had to suffer through are painfully oblivious to the fact that no one likes them and just want them to go away. Indeed, how can you trust the opinion of a clown, when, frankly, they've made the terrible life choices that have led them down the clowning road to begin with.

Even those clowns who possess the slightest bit of self-awareness, and realize that their dire, perpetually smiling visage frightens people are still nuts. Pipsqueak The Clown, aka Heather Myers, argues that "There are those who are afraid of clowns, this is unavoidable, the same way that there are those afraid of dogs and spiders." But here's the thing, no one chooses to dress up as a dog or a spider, knowing that they're gonna freak some people out. Clowns who ignore or deny the effect that they have on the general populace, who in their guts find the nonstop happiness and chicanery dated and odious, are guilty of being a public nuisance. Bring in the paddy wagon, throw 57 of the buggers in the back and be done with them.

Seriously, is this the face of a person you'd let near your child?
What about these?

This guy?

What about this clown? Sure, he's funny (not in the executive or legislative branch. now that's comedy), but he'll eat your puppy in front of your child. Do you want that? Do you? The Common Man didn't think so. He wouldn't either.

So the next time you see a clown, you tell them about this study. Ask them about their lives. Ask them who they're really clowning for. And if they still won't stop, The Common Man says to hit 'em right in their red, squishy nose. Smell your flower now, Clarabell.

So Late (or Early) That Titles Are Irrelevent

2008-01-18T00:45:00.000-08:00

It's very late. Or perhaps it's early. The Common Man isn't sure, but it's quarter to four in the morning and he can't sleep. He did sleep, from 10 until 2, on the sofa in the basement, but he's been unable to sleep since then, having been convincingly awakened by taking the dog outside in the snow and rocking his little son back to sleep (on a side note, The Uncommon Wife is right to insist that The Common Man not fall asleep on the floor in the basement, because he won't sleep there all night and then he'll wake up and he'll be AWAKE). X-Files is on now, and it's not helping The Common Man get to sleep like it usually does (nobody does dry monotone like David Duchovny).

Why is The Common Man up so late (or early)? Why is he watching TV at 4 in the morning? The Common Man and The Boy are alone for the next couple days, as The Uncommon Wife is visiting friends of the blog Bill and Kristine Parker, and as yet unborn baby Parker (who The Common Man anticipates will be a friend of the blog at some point). The Common Man spends much of the day with The Boy (except for nap time) even when his mother is in town, but has come to take night time, when The Boy cuddles with his mother and The Common Man gets some time to veg, for granted. The Boy has morphed into an incredibly active, vibrant, and willful child, who loves playing with the volume on the stereo, electronic equipment of any type, and pulling at his puppy. And since The Boy's taken to pinching lately, playing with puppy is taking a form that The Common Man is uncomfortable with. Ralph the Evil Dog may love The Boy like no one else, but even puppies have their limits, and The Common Man doesn't want Ralph to feel anywhere near his.

Speaking of The Boy, he played outside in the snow for the first time today. Bundled up in his snowsuit and his boots (he refused to wear his hat and gloves), he hilariously crawled about in the new, fluffy powder, laughing and smiling away. The Common Man and he rolled in the snow until The Boy lost one of his boots. Then playtime was over. But it was a largely successful operation.

Anyway, The Common Man is going to try to get his beauty rest now. It's late, after all. Or early. Whatever. And there's a full day tomorrow.

They're baaaaaack...

2008-01-16T18:57:00.000-08:00

Well, just two episodes in and The Common Man is already sucked into American Idol. He's gotta watch something, after all, writers' strike and all. That said, this is always the part of the season that makes The Common Man somewhat uncomfortable. He hates the "contestants" who show up in the hopes of getting five minutes on TV. He hates the oversimplification of peoples' lives and stories, making them into caricatures. He hates that the producers choose the most embarrassing and disturbing contestants to show the national audience. It satisfies are collective schadenfruede, seeing clearly disturbed and unstable (and probably mentally retarded) people get humiliated by Simon's droll sarcasm.

Thankfully, Simon seems to have toned down his reactions this season, especially in light of some of his more controversial, hasty and callous comments last year. But Paula and Randy seem to have gotten a case of the giggles.

Still, here are a select few of the best lines from tonight's show:

After a woman went into labor in line in Dallas: "I only thought it was appropriate to name him Idol." Seriously.

Simon didn't come down on me like I thought he would, 'cuz he goes down on everybody.

My dad would say "I hate you," not like "I'm so jealous, I hate you," like, "I really hate you."

I love Celine Dion. She's my idol. I listen to her every day. She gives me warmth and strength when I sing. (ed. note: It must be a very cold and frail warmth and strength.)

Randy: I actually like you dog, I like the whole Randy Travis/George Strait thing man, 'cuz I grew up with that man.

I've got my eye-liner, or guy-liner, I should say.

Paula: Why do you have Simon's name on your hat?
Strange Asian man in white and silver costumenamed Reynaldo: For two reasons: Everyone everywhere, as long as there is free radio and television, speaks the name Simon. Secondly...
Randy: We don't want to know.

The one-of-a-kind Reynaldo: Simon, you are a great person. You give chance to everyone to sing to the whole world. Thank you. You are heaven's chosen to give chance to any talent for free of charge. You know they call you negative words. But there are people who like you and admire you. One of them is me. You are my glory, Simon.

Sometimes, Even When You Win...

2008-01-15T10:34:00.000-08:00

For a personal account of how and why the Michigan primary being held today is so screwy, The Common Man urges you to check out Rainster's blog. It's rife with the same disappointment and bitterness The Common Man often feels toward the democratic party that he wants to embrace, but is having trouble with. Awesome.

That said, what will be particularly interesting, coming out of Michigan, is how Hilary chooses to promote her inevitable "victory". Certainly, great deal will depend on how much of the vote she actually carries. It's an interesting conundrum: how do you tout a win when your top competitors were not running the race? Congratulations, you beat all 2 foot 9 inches of Dennis Kucinich, and the carcass of Dodd to a bloody pulp, but that's hardly something to brag about.

It's a shame that Michigan's "leap" forward in the primary season will cost them their delegates. On the one hand, The Common Man is happy that the penalty brought a small amount of sanity back to the primary process. Yet, can anyone really blame Michigan for trying to increase its influence on the race? As a state in deep crisis, with the highest unemployment in the country, and little promising news on the horizon, Michigan absolutely must get a candidate that is sympathetic to its troubles in order to keep its head above water. Why the hell wouldn't they jump forward, even if it costs them their Democratic delegates? Their exposure today is huge, and it gives candidates and pundits an opportunity to talk for the better part of a week about how much trouble the state is in and how important it is to get the state working again.

What is worrisome for Democrats, however, is the lack of exposure that some viable candidates are getting in a key swing state. If voters are particularly moved by a candidate on the Republican side, he could wrap up the state for the general election before that race has even started.

Good Books

2008-01-14T19:05:00.000-08:00

The Common Man has a morbid obsession with books and movies about the end of the world. Or at least the end of civilization. It's not that The Common Man wants to see the world burn. Far from it. Indeed, unlike those escapist nutjobs who cheered back in '96 when the aliens blew up the White House in Independence Day, The Common Man loves this world and this country (for all its faults) and does not yearn for a massive blizzard or devastating plague to kill everyone, so that the planet is cleansed or some such nonsense. Rather, The Common Man likes watching and reading about the end of the world because, as he sees the world being torn down, he gets to see what holds it together. That's why The Common Man has really enjoyed the last two books he's read, Max Brooks' World War Z and Richard Matheson's I Am Legend.

Brooks' novel, billed as an "Oral History of the Zombie War," is a cross between an ethnographic study and Night of the Living Dead Brooks assumes the persona of a U.N. appointed researcher, looking into the aftermath of a massive zombie uprising and how humanity survived. From the outbreak's beginning in China, to survivor's tales in Japan, the United States, Russia, South Africa, Canada, and Antarctica, Brooks' researcher criss-crosses the globe to get answers.

Unlike most sci-fi and horror novels, WWZ is able to circumvent most of the fright and the gore that would turn off casual readers. Instead, because readers know in advance that these men and women survive, they can act as calm observers to the ways that governments and individuals respond to the chaos around them. Readers get to examine not just what causes society to fall apart (overconfidence, style over substance, isolation, paranoia, and greed) but what stitches it back together again (religion, propoganda, cooperation, and physical connections rather than virtual ones).

It's a fabulous, fast read, in an accessible style and well paced. Each of the stories is sharp and memorable. It is biting in its critique, and generous in its reverance for humanity. Yet, it also wonders just at what point people start to lose that humanity when faced with crisis. The Common Man has never read another book like it, and recommends it highly, even for those who don't normally go in for sci-fi.

Matheson's I Am Legend, on the other hand, is old school sci-fi. Written in 1954, Matheson's novella has been adapted into film four times, most faithfully in Vincent Price's The Last Man on Earth. As most of you know, thanks to Will Smith, the story revolves around the lone survivor of a plague that has killed most of humanity and transformed others into vampires. The book centers around Neville's attempts to retain his humanity in the face of the crushing horror he witnesses every day and night, his struggle to find purpose and meaning in life when everything that used to give his life meaning has been stripped away, and what makes up identity and civilization.

The writing style is dated and it's easy to overlook the references (and critiques) of the Cold War and nuclear testing that always seem to pop up in '50s sci-fi. The story really is a downer, as Neville's slow downward spiral is inevitable in the face of the tragedy that has befallen him. But it's a compelling vision and a true classic of the genre. If you like science-fiction, this is a great book, especially the version just released by Tor Books (for the movie) that also has other Matheson short stories (including the excellent "Mad House," the story of a failed writer and professor whose frustration and anger are channeled into his home, which begins to fight back).

The Knee, The Whole Knee and Nothing But the Knee (or Awe Crap, Larry, I hurt it again)

2008-01-11T08:43:00.000-08:00

Many have inquired into The Common Man's health, and the specifics as to how he destroyed his knee. He figures that today offers a great opportunity to put to rest some of their concerns. First, the story.

The Common Man was skiing with his father and brother over the holiday vacation, in Flagstaff, Arizona. The Common Man, figuring that he had enough to pack for the trip, chose to leave his skis behind and rent them when he got to the slope. After waiting for two and a half hours to get rental skis, The Common Man and his father joined the aforementioned brother on the hill. On the third run of the day (during which, The Common Man was skiing impeccably, mind you), your hero hit an icy patch and began to slip down. The crappy binding on the crappy rental ski did not release, as it was supposed to, and when the back of The Common Man's ski caught in the snow, he felt a pop in his knee, fell, and skidded down the hill several yards. Upon getting up to get his pole, The Common Man felt his knee buckle (like Catherine O'Hara, in this clip from Best in Show), and he went down again. It was then The Common Man knew something was wrong. Since then, as he's discussed, The Common Man has discovered that there was significant damage to the knee. His ACL is completely torn, his LCL is partially torn, and he may have some cartilage damage. He will have to have reconstructive surgery at some point in the near future.

In honor of The Common Man's fallen knee, he presents the three biggest myths about ACL tears:

1) It hurts like hell. Every time a football player tears their ACL on television, he writhes around on the ground in agony. This has led to the popular belief that it must hurt like hell to tear your ACL. Not so, in The Common Man's experience. He has torn two ACLs now, and it has not hurt either time. The Common Man has felt a pop in his knee, akin to a rubber band breaking, as though something were breaking through a resistant force, but no pain. He's not sure why the football players cry and clutch and act as if they've been shot in the knee when these injuries happen. The best The Common Man can figure is either that they have had traumas significantly more damaging to their joints than he has, or that football players are big babies.

The injury itself just aches from time to time, but what really hurts is the recovery after the surgery, as The Common Man will have to learn to bend his knee all over again.

2) You can't walk on it. Not true. Walking is perfectly possible, with or without a brace on. That said, there is tremendous instability in the knee, meaning that walking without the brace is a bad idea, and should be severely limited. The Common Man can put weight on the knee and can do most of the normal activities he does in a day, including picking up and carrying The Boy. Cutting, however, is near impossible, and hyper-extension is painful as well. It is also very easy to damage the knee further, if one is not careful.

What is particularly interesting to The Common Man through this, is just how hyper-aware he has become about where he's stepping, what he's stepping on, and how he is stepping. He knows that there are regular strides, a long strides, and short strides, and strides up and down stairs, and lunges, and he knows what will hurt the knee further. The Common Man does not like to wear socks without shoes anymore, since they mask the surface on which he is walking, and are more slippery.

3) Recovery will take six months or more. Believe it or not, The Common Man is not a world-class athlete. While it may be true that an NFL cornerback or a NBA center may need a full season to recover from one of these injuries, to the point where they are 100%, The Common Man is looking at 3-4 months of rehab. The first month is the hardest, as there is significant swelling and overall grossness and The Common Man must start bending his knee again, and flexing his quad muscle. During the next two months, The Common Man will put more and more weight on the knee until he can function normally. He will still, for a while, need to be aware about how and where he is stepping, but he will be ok in time to mow the lawn in the spring.

So, although this is a tragedy, and you should all weep for The Common Man, he will be just fine, and looks forward to fighting off the pain (and the vicodin) to blog more about his recovery.

Stupid Strike, Be More Funny

2008-01-10T09:25:00.000-08:00

The Common Man is glad that The Daily Show and Colbert Report are back in time for the actual primaries, and is going to use this as an excuse to talk about the Writers' Strike that caused the shows to go on hiatus.

Of course, there are more compelling problems in the world today. Pakistan seems to be sloughing toward a meltdown. Iraq, though much improved, is still a dangerous place for our troops. Burma continues to violently restrict its citizens freedom. The budget deficit grows ever larger. Gay people still, for reasons that defy logic, can't enjoy the legal benefits of marriage. And, most disturbing, The Common Man had a bomb go off in his knee over Christmas that will require reconstructive surgery. It's a dangerous and confusing world.

That said, on top of everything else, the writers' strike is adding metaphorical insult to literal injury. Television's distracted America from national crises since Lucy was trying to get into Dezi's club (what Cold War? Those crazy Cubans). It's a time honored tradition and, frankly, The Common Man isn't sure that Americans know how to cope without it. The added stress of actually paying attention to the world around them could have any number of repercussions. Traffic jams around the water cooler, as working Americans first try to figure out what to talk about. Arguments between family members who have to talk to one another. Children facing the dangers of sexual predators and fast-moving traffic by having to play outside. Frankly, it's a nightmare.

Already, desperate Americans are turning to any crap to satisfy their cravings for electron-based entertainment. American Gladiators, for instance, is back (and is far more terrible than The Common Man remembers). Crowned, Deal or No Deal, and that damned show with a lie detector are all stepping in to fill the void left by House, Heroes, Reaper (the show you need to start watching) and The Office. As Americans continue to debase themselves by watching and accepting more crap, they will make it easier for networks to put crap out there. And the only good TV left will be on HBO.

Fortunately, The Common Man and The Uncommon Wife anticipated this crisis months ago, and began stockpiling shows on their Tivo that they wanted to watch, but didn't have time for. They have 11 episodes of Desperate Housewives and 10 of Grey's Anatomy to keep them occupied (and probably disappointed) until the strike is resolved.

Until then, The Common Man urges you to buy stock in Netflix. And to watch this to understand why the strike matters and why you should care, if you haven't already: Why We Fight.

The Other CW

2008-01-09T11:46:00.000-08:00

Well, that was unexpected. But maybe it shouldn't have been.

It's remarkable how often the conventional wisdom turns out to be incorrect. The Common Man has noticed, more often than not in recent years, if everyone believes one thing, it is a safe bet to go the other way. This is especially true today, in the wake of the New Hampshire primary yesterday.

Pundits everywhere had predicted Barak Obama would win the state in a walk, given his recent surge in the polls and the momentum he generated from his Iowa victory. Just yesterday on Bill O'Reilly's Radio Factor, the aforementioned host and his guest, former Presidential candidate and constant xenophobe Pat Buchanan, were united in their prediction that (roughly quoting Buchanan here) "Independents will determine this primary, and two-thirds of them will vote for Obama." They speculated that this would spell trouble for John McCain, who was counting on the independent vote to carry the state for the second time in the last three presidential seasons. Most of what The Common Man had read and heard over the past few days had expressed a similar sentiment, that Obama was unstoppable and McCain was in trouble. Given how many people were writing Clinton off for dead (especially because she *gasp* showed emotion), and were worried about McCain, The Common Man should have absolutely expected their triumphs yesterday.

That said, it's not like Clinton's victory could be called in any way decisive. Clinton's rousing 39 percent of the vote garnered her 9 delegates. Obama's 37 percent netted him, wait for it, 9 delegates. Given that the conventional wisdom today is that Clinton "won", it's fitting that both candidates walk away essentially tied. At least McCain can claim 3 more delegates than Romney, his closest challenger in New Hampshire.

Anyway, the big to-dos in Iowa and New Hampshire are over now, and we can get on to the rest of the country. Next up is Michigan, a swing state in the general election, which could actually tell us something about the electability of the field. Romney, following two defeats, looks poised to win (on what is essentially home turf for him) and Edwards needs a strong finish if he's going to stick around until the primaries swing south toward the end of the month. Of course, this sounds too much to The Common Man like conventional wisdom, so who knows?

In other news, The Common Man's Common Knee is going to need reconstructive surgery. In a phone conversation this morning, The Common Man's doctor informed him that has a fully torn ACL, possible cartilage damage, and a partially torn LCL. Not fun.

New Hampshire and The Common Knee

2008-01-08T06:20:00.000-08:00

Today, once again, New Hampshire will make its will known to an eager media and a largely apathetic public. It should be irrelevent, a nonevent. Yet, the second story on CNN.com today is about how McCain and Obama both won in Dixville Notch (population 75) and in Hart's Location (population 42). In Dixville, McCain won with 4 votes, while Obama won with 7. A total of 14 people voted. Now then, if 51 of the 75 residents of Dixville Notch can't get excited enough about voting for either candidate, even though their votes would be widely heralded and discussed, The Common Man wonders why the hell CNN and other major news outlets should give a damn.

Once again, The Common Man will not stoop to giving a prediction for the final result. He finds predictions droll and fears they may make him look foolish, should they go awry.

In the meantime, The Common Man will placate you with pictures of the inside of his knee, MRI'd yesterday:

By the way, if anyone out there is either a) is an orthopedist or b) knows what a healthy knee is supposed to look like could let The Common Man know if his Common ACL is torn or intact, that would be terrific.

One long item, and Two Quick Hits

2008-01-07T08:34:00.000-08:00

1) Roger Clemens' appearance on 60 Minutes last night was not particularly enlightening. Most, if not all, of the relevant details had been leaked beforehand, and made his 13 minutes of denial, befuddlement, anger, and explanation with Mike Wallace anticlimactic. The Common Man, as he's explained before, tends not to get too caught up in just who did steroids, since a) no other sport is held to baseball's high standard (where are congressional hearings into Shawne Merriman?) and b) he assumes that many, many players were doing them and that virtually all of the "clean" players, executives, owners, and commissioners were morally culpable. The had knowledge of what was happening and chose to respect the "clubhouse code" of silence (something which The Common Man has learned about first-hand), which may make them popular, but doesn't make them ethical.

So far, the best take The Common Man has seen on the Clemens interview comes from ESPN.com's Rob Neyer, who writes, "If the Rocket really does want to defend himself, change the minds of a lot of people, it sure would help if he'd learned at some point to come across as something other than a spoiled, petulant millionaire who thinks he did something for baseball. Rather than the other way around." Indeed, at times Clemens does come off as a spoiled child in his interview and seems to be under the impression that for throwing a baseball 90 MPH over 25 years, he has contributed positively to society. And that, perhaps, is the saddest part of this story, that many people will agree that his performance has enhanced their worlds, and that he deserves their awe and respect for it, that he receives the benefit of the doubt, rather than the $121 million plus with which he has been compensated for playing a game.

2) New Hampshire residents make a big deal about making up their own minds and not caring how the Iowa caucuses went. But you could not find a better indication of the disproportionate effect that these states have on the public consciousness than Barak Obama's recent surge in the polling of New Hampshirites. Despite doing nothing over the past week aside from winning the Iowa caucus, Obama jumped to a 10 point lead over Clinton. Seriously, America, if you don't want outliers like Iowans and New Hampshirites determining who your next president is going to be, you need to devise a national primary day a month before the national convention. It's as simple as that.

3) In ironic news, Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf is saying that recently slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is to blame for her own death, saying, "For standing up outside the car, I think it was she to blame alone -- nobody else. Responsibility is hers." There you have it. No assassination. No killers. Also, John Kennedy should not have been in a convertable. How dare Martin Luther King stand on a balcony? And Robert Kennedy had no business being in a kitchen. Ascribing blame to the victim in this case is particularly dastardly, especially since the victim cannot fight back. It's cynical and will undoubtedly undermine Musharraf's international position further (though, being unfamiliar with Pakistani internal politics, The Common Man has no idea how this will play in Rawalpindi). Still, The Common Man wonders whether Musharraf is the only man who can effectively control Pakistan right now, and worries that the elections now scheduled for February could determine the push Western Asia further into chaos for the next several years.

Ends of the Earth

2008-01-04T05:48:00.000-08:00

It's remarkable that, every four years, the eyes of this nation are transfixed upon Iowa and New Hampshire, states that get roundly ignored every other year in America. Like many of you, The Common Man knows little about either state and would, as a service to you, list of four things that he's at least pretty sure are true about each of the nation's most disproportionately influential states.

IOWA
1) Is Minnesota's Mexico. Look, a quick comparison
Minnesota..............................................Iowa
beautiful lakes and rivers...........................corn
major league sports...................................watching corn grow
a culturally relevant metropolitan area......Des Moines
Prince.......................................................Tom Harkin
attractive, relatively affluent people............no

You tell The Common Man where you'd rather live. Frankly, Minnesota should build a border fence.

2) Grows a lot of corn. According to the Iowa Department of Agriculture, Iowa grew corn on almost 13 million acres last year, nearly 16 percent of our national crop. That's a lot.

3) Has most famous non-major league baseball field. Somewhere in Iowa, there is a field. A field of dreams. It is the baseball diamond, cut out of a field of corn for the schlocky, hokey, but ultimately entertaining film (wait for it) Field of Dreams, in which we're lied to and made to feel bad about Shoeless Joe Jackson's level of involvement in the Black Sox scandal of 1919. Recent research has demonstrated that Jackson's play was, indeed, highly suspicious, and that he likely was the reason the fix was successful (indeed, if Jackson (a team leader and its best player) hadn't gone along with the plot, the other players may have reconsidered their involvement). Still, The Common Man would like visit, especially since the owners of the field (it sat across the property line of two farms) have resolved their differences.

4) Iowans are liars. As the previous paragraph demonstrates, Iowans are likely to tell any lie, half-truth or exaggeration to get you visit their state. Why should this country respect the opinions and caucus results of a bunch of lying liars? Are they making up the results? Maybe they manipulate the final tallies to make the races interesting so that citizens are obliged to tune in every four years to a state that otherwise doesn't matter.

NEW HAMPSHIRE
1) Apparently named after an old Hampshire. What happened to the old Hampshire, New Hampshire? Did you just leave it to die somewhere, hoping your past wouldn't catch up to you? Well, it did, New Hampshire. You were named after the county of Hampshire. And where is that, New Hampshire? That's right, it's in England. First of all, if it was so great back in old Hampshire, that you named your colony (then state) after it, why did you leave in the first place. Second, naming your state after a British county? Doesn't sound very American to The Common Man.

2) No state income tax nor sales tax. This, of course, makes The Common Man wonder how the state of New Hampshire pays for anything. No wonder the Old Man in the Mountain fell apart. God, spend a buck or two, it's only the only thing people visited your state to see. (Note to Common Self, when driving to or from Maine, always stop at New Hampshire state liquor store at exit 1.)

3) Gave us Sarah Silverman. This is perhaps the greatest contribution to American culture in the state's history. It almost makes up for #4.

4) State motto, Live Free or Die, used as title of aging Bruce Willis fiasco, Live Free or Die Hard. Look, The Common Man is the first one to admit how awesome the first Die Hard was. As an action movie, it blended comedy, fighting, shooting, and realism perfectly with unmatched precision. That doesn't change the fact, however, that the second and fourth installments of Die Hard sucked hard. Sucked out loud. Sucked in stereo. Indeed, the fourth film completely eschews the realism and grittiness that made Die Hard so noteworthy among action films in the first place, instead turning Willis' John McClain into a kind of white, middle-aged, bald superhero, capable of taking down a helicopter with a motorcycle. Though to be fair, the third movie redeems the Die Hard franchise significantly, but mostly because of Samuel L. Jackson and a terrific turn by Jeremy Irons as the villain who puts Willis through a series of amusing and dangerous obstacles. Isn't that just like the British, funny and evil at the same time. Sounds like a bad group of people to name a state after, New Hampshire.

Hats in the Ring

2008-01-03T04:53:00.001-08:00

Well, today's the day, isn't it? The day the primary season officially begins, and voters begin paring down their lists of viable candidates until just two remain standing. The Common Man will offer no predictions at this point, though he will remind you that he foresaw a strong finish for John Edwards back in July. As for today's vote, if the polls are any indication, Iowa is completely up for grabs in both parties. Not that it truly matters, mind you. As long as a candidate finishes strong, he (or she!) will demonstrate viability to carry over into New Hampshire next week. Unless, of course, that candidate is Mitt Romney or Hilary Clinton, for whom a defeat in Iowa would demonstrate considerable weakness (especially for Romney, who figures to get little support in South Carolina in a couple of weeks).

So who is The Common Man supporting? On one hand, it doesn't really matter. By the time that Pennsylvania votes, everyone will know who the nominee will be. But one must choose, musn't one? So The Common Man did. Up until recently, The Common Man had faced a dilemma. He was torn between two extremes, Barak Obama and Mike Huckabee. Surprised? So was The Common Man.

Obama's case was fairly clearcut. In a time when relatively few Americans trust their government or the politicians who inhabit it, Obama represents change and hope for a better future. Change because, of course, Obama is a relative newcomer to Washington politics and would be the first African-American president in this country's history (unless you count 24's David Palmer, a possibility The Common Man is not ready to discount just yet). Hope because, of all the candidates running for the Oval Office, Obama's words seem to inspire others in a way reminiscent of Democratic giants of the past, Kennedy, Roosevelt, Clinton. And, of course, as a Democrat, Obama believes in the various social programs that The Common Man believes the Federal government needs to have a hand in, social security, basic health care for children and the infirm, and increased funding for schools. And among his Democratic rivals, Obama's exit strategy for Iraq seems to be one of the more sane approaches (a staged pullout of most of the troops, an advisory force left behind for training, and the option to reinsert troops should the situation become untenable).

Huckabee, however, won The Common Man over with his truly compassionate sounding Conservatism and Christianity. On his website, he explains that "when it comes to the environment, I believe in being a good steward of the earth." Likewise, when discussing his pro-life views, he points out that "Life doesn't begin at conception and end at birth. Every child deserves a quality education, first-rate health care, decent housing in a safe neighborhood, and clean air and drinking water. Every child deserves the opportunity to discover and use his God-given gifts and talents." Perhaps most importantly, Huckabee has argued for remaining in Iraq as a moral issue. As The Common Man wrote in May, the issue in Iraq should boil down to the old "if you break it you buy it," store policy: "Any effort to leave the country, at this point, may be emotionally satisfying, but is immoral and will damage America's already shaky credibility with the people of the next country it invades (The Common Man is looking at you Iran!). Indeed, how can citizens of the countries that we "liberate" have any enthusiasm for our presence if our appearance is the harbinger of disaster, chaos, and destruction? The Common Man believes that the U.S. is obligated to stay.

Ultimately, however, I was frustrated by Huckabee's stance on gay rights. He writes, "I support and have always supported passage of a federal constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman. As President, I will fight for passage of this amendment. My personal belief is that marriage is between one man and one woman, for life." It's one thing for Huckabee to believe that marriage, particularly religious marriage is a heterosexual construct, it's another for him to push for the Federal government to sanction just whom its citizens can have relationships with, and what nature those relationships should take. Such a stance is directly in opposition to core conservative values. Indeed, while anti-homosexual groups like to argue that government's recognition of same sex unions would lead to a slippery slope of legalized perversion until you could marry your pet llama in a Catholic cathedral, a far more likely scenario, in The Common Man's humble opinion, is that the government could use this precedent to continue to limit the relationships Americans can form with each other. Christians and Jews wouldn't be allowed to do business together. Children from black neighborhoods wouldn't be allowed in white ones. And nobody better talk to the Arabs. Coupled with Huckabee's either unforgivably ignorant or cynically pandering call for the quarantining of AIDS patients in 1991, it's clear that Huckabee's views on homosexuality bend slightly sinister. The Common Man simply was not comfortable supporting a man who would violate his supposed core moral and political beliefs because of his apparent bigotry.

So in the end, The Common Man was left with Obama. Less of a fairweather candidate than Hilary. More viable than Biden (also, this country has had enough of Presidents sticking their foots in their mouths). Less crazy than Bill Richardson (who wants an immediate troop withdraw, Iraq and American interests be damned). And, well, The Common Man is stuck to find a tangible reason to pick him over Edwards, except that he just seems to be a step below in all respects.

Of course, The Common Man reserves the right to change his mind at any point over the next 11 months. Now get out and vote, Iowa.

The Return of the King

2008-01-02T05:37:00.000-08:00

Well, what's it been? Six months? Five? Nice long break. What's happened since then? Election, election, assassination, violence, steroids, Jamie Lynn, writers' strike. So nothing important? Good, The Common Man is glad he didn't miss anything.

Like many of you, The Common Man made several New Years resolutions. He is going to lose weight. He is going to be a better person. He is going to get at least 6 hours of sleep a night. And, finally, he will get his ass back to writing.

It's not that The Common Man hasn't been busy for these past months. Far from it. He's been teaching, and caring for the boy, and trying to run a house. It's been tiring, especially since The Boy has learned first to crawl, then to walk, then to run all over the house. The living room is now wholly dedicated to The Boy and his funtastic ability to get into trouble wherever he is. All the nicknacks are gone. Only the sofa, a chair, the stereo (35th anniversary Sesame Street CDs aren't going to play themselves), and a coffee table remain. The rest of the room is packed with toys. Cars, phones, stuffed animals, books. There is much to do when you are 13 months old, apparently.

But The Common Man doesn't need to tell you about tiring, for he is one of you, and you are surely tired too. It's a tiring world in which you and The Common Man live together. There are still just 24 hours in a day, but there is so much more content that fills that time. Even when you are not working, you are seemingly doing work: reading and researching topics online, cataloguing the opinions of others, deciding what content you will spend your precious few minutes perusing before you need to dive back into work. The Common Man knows how that is. He sympathizes. And he will be there to help you muddle through. Or at least to help you waste 10 more minutes reading his blog.

The Common Man is home. Go get his pipe and slippers, walk him to his La-z-boy, and he shall hold court.

American Idiots

2007-08-23T06:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, The Common Man reported back on the idiocy he heard on his various travels to and from the great state of Minnesota. Though prolific in their ridiculousness, none of the comments have been in the same league as some of the responses that The Common Man has heard regarding the Michael Vick case.

As, undoubtedly, you all know by now, Michael Vick is pleading guilty to criminal conspiracy charges in connection to an illegal dog fighting program that he helped run and in which he allegedly murdered several dogs who were not "cutting it" in the ring.

Condemnation of Vick and his actions have, of course, been plentiful. Virtually every media outlet, both sports and otherwise, have graphically documented how Vick would (allegedly) execute the dogs and the obscene amount of money he spent on the fights, and has justifiably excoriated the Atlanta Falcons' quarterback. Indeed, you don't need The Common Man to tell you how reprehensible Vick and his cronies are. On his nicest days, Vick did things to his dogs that The Common Man wouldn't even consider doing to Ralph the Evil Dog, who lives downstairs so that he doesn't eat the cat.

What has surprised The Common Man, however, is the amount of almost-defenses for Vick that have surfaced since the Federal inquiry began. NBC Announcer and Superstar cornerback Deion Sanders, for instance, wrote

"What a dog means to Vick might be a lot different than what he means to you or I. Hold on, don't start shaking your head just yet. Listen to me. Some people kiss their dogs on the mouth. Some people let their dogs eat from their plate. Some people dress their dogs in suits more expensive than mine, if you can believe that.
And some people enjoy proving they have the biggest, toughest dog on the street. You're probably not going to believe this, but I bet Vick loves the dogs that were the biggest and the baddest."

All-Pro running back and resident scholar Clinton Portis argued, "I don't know if he was fighting dogs or not, but it's his property, it's his dog. If that's what he wants to do, do it. I think people should mind their business." and revealed that "I know a lot of back roads that have the dog fighting if you want to go see it."

Yesterday, Stephon Marbury of the New York Knicks, contended that dogfighting is no different from hunting, saying "I think, you know, we don't say anything about people who shoot deer or shoot other animals. You know, from what I hear, dogfighting is a sport. It's just behind closed doors." Amazingly, Marbury's line of argument has been supported by the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP, whose president said, according to CNN.com, "he didn't understand the uproar over dogfighting, when hunting deer and other animals is perfectly acceptable." Such statements are ludicrous at their core, considering that most hunting is performed as cleanly and painlessly as realistically possible. No hunter that The Common Man knows (save perhaps for Dick Cheney and Karl Rove) think that dousing a deer with water and electricuting it is appropriate behavior.

These people who trivialize Vick's behavior, frankly, are stupid and should be lampooned. That said, what is most interesting to The Common Man in all the response to the Vick saga is how shocked that the mainstream, white media seems to be that a) anyone would consider defending dog fighting and b) that it is a seemingly popular activity in certain parts of the country, perhaps even close to socially acceptable. The Common Man believes that this shock is evidence that, quite frankly, mainstream America chooses not to know nearly as much about those who live outside of its purview than it should. Instead of looking into and confronting allegations of rampant dog abuse and fighting, until a prominent figure is involved, America turns away. Instead of delving into and solving the reasons behind poverty and high crime in America's urban centers, America turns away. This country and its media focus on soap operas (celebrity girls out of control!) rather than real problems that plague it, and that ought to make it ashamed.

According to the Michigan State Legal and Historical Animal Center,

"The Humane Society of the United States estimates that there are at least 40,000 dogfighters in America, though that number seems to underestimate the epidemic of street fighting in urban areas. In 2003, the city of Chicago alone recorded and responded to 1093 animal fighting complaints. Virtually all children in high crime urban areas are exposed to dogfighting in their own neighborhoods while American hip/hop culture glorifies the blood sport."

The mainstream media and the legal system has turned the other way, not caring that,

"The systematic desensitization of each new generation in high crime inner cities starts early on; there, most children are routinely exposed to dogfighting and are forced to accept the inherent violence as normal. The routine exposure of the children to unfettered animal abuse and neglect is a major contributing factor in their later manifestation of social deviance."

By paying attention, gentle readers readers, the people of this country could solve a lot of problems before they get started.

Travel Stories

2007-08-22T11:16:00.000-07:00

The Common Man has had to hear a lot of ridiculous things in the past week while journeying to and from his home state of Minnesota (for the 3rd time this summer). He is thankful, however, that relatively little of the inanity has come from anyone in any way connected with the Motherland.

The first leg of the journey, during which The Common Man was accompanied by The Uncommon Wife and The Boy, was marked by the whimsical musings of an 89-year old native of Yorkshire, England. She informed The Common Man, in between her interesting musings about being a radar operator in WWII and a G.I. bride afterward and her kernels of advice for raising up The Boy to be a right proper gentleman, that all the Arab states hated the U.S. because of the freedoms that Americans enjoy and that the Chinese were trying to poison us all (meanwhile, seated behind and in front of her were two people of Asian descent). She also fretted constantly that "all the fat people" will steal all the wheelchairs before she could claim one that she had reserved upon disembarking. To this end, she made The Common Man and several flight attendants promise to bring her bag to her after she made a mad dash from the back of the plane to the door in order to secure rolling passage from this plane to her next (a plan that, sadly, failed in its execution because, it turns out, two hundred able-bodied passengers are much more spry at leaping from their seats than an 89-year old with a bad hip).

That said, The Common Man acknowledges that certain 89-year olds have earned the right to be pains in the ass, because of their many years of continued existence, in spite of all this society does to try to kill them (booze, drugs, cigarettes, fatty food, crazy drivers, etc.). And The Common Man can even sympathize with the average 89-year old who is bitter and confused that the America that they grew up with seems to be gone, and who rants a little at those who they deem to be the culprits of the change. They aren't right, but they are harmless. By the way, she is supporting John Edwards for President.

Our first attempt to return to State College being rebuffed (bad weather and a late plane would have caused us to miss our connection in Detroit), The Common Man and family returned via Atlanta yesterday. Though disappointed at the delay, the trip was made entirely worthwhile by the Atlanta-bound passenger who asked the woman behind him in line, "Where's your funny accent?" when she revealed that she was from British Columbia. The Canadian woman had to tell her new geographically-challenged friend that British Columbia is not actually part of Great Britain, nor even on the same continent and that the most they do is "elongate their vowels" and say "aboot". This, naturally, led to many "Do you live anywhere near that Stonehenge thing?" and "Let me ask you a question, do you guys really drink warm beer?" jokes between The Common Man and The Uncommon Wife for the rest of the flight.

On the next leg of the journey, the flight attendant (Brenda) and the entire front row of the plane got to have a chuckle at the expense of the living, breathing stereotype of a fat, drunk, obnoxious, and lewd convention-goer (complete with arm-pit stains and small black mustache) who a) tried to order a Martini, b) apologized in advance to an Asian woman in case his bag fell out of the overhead compartment and hit her on the head, c) argued passionately that he would want a pilot who "had had a few drinks the night before" so that "they would be nice and relaxed" the next morning for their flight out, d) loudly announced to the Brenda that no one was "joining the Mile High Club" in the plane's single lavatory in the back, and e) tried to finagle a meeting in that same bathroom with her to join said Mile High Club or, barring that, figure out what hotel she would be staying at in State College and invite her to dinner.

Good times. Good times. It's amazing what interesting people The Common Man gets to meet when he travels. God bless the Brendas in the world and all the ridiculousness that they have to put up with. The Boy, by the way, slept, ate, and smiled most of the time on all four legs of our trip, and was a hit with travelers, airport personel, and flight attendants wherever he went.

Abrupt Change of Plans

2007-08-13T09:35:00.000-07:00

Here The Common Man was getting so excited to give you his review of the final Harry Potter book (completed last night at 10:45) and the Bush Administration had to go and ruin everything. The Common Man apologizes to all of his readers out there (all three of you), and promises that just such a review will be forthcoming, complete with spoilers, because that's how much of a hypocrite The Common Man is.

But today, we must bask in the glow that is today's news' loving, warming, loving glow. Ladies and gentlemen, Karl Rove is dead...in the strictest political sense of the word. It comes seven years too late, mind you, but it came. The Common Man is going to take credit for Rove's departure, since it coincided with The Common Man's return to blogging last week. Aware that The Common Man was back, was going to be around for a while, and would be watching his every move like a hawk, Rove decided to get out while the getting was good. One of The Common Man's Big 10 Goals for 2007 has been accomplished. He will now cross "Force Karl Rove to resign" off of his list and move on either to "Paint the living room" or "Negotiate reunification of North and South Koreas," whichever he happens to get to first.

Of course, Rove's resignation makes any difference in the strictest sense for this White House. The President's term is just 17 short months from completion and he does not have the political capital to even control his own party. He is the lamest of lame ducks. Barring an unforseen resurrgence in the President's numbers, Rove's brilliant politicking would have made no difference. And even if that were not the case, surely the President has several Rove deciples still on the White House payroll and the Evil Chessmaster himself on speed dial.

Not surprisingly, Rove is putting a positive spin on his departure, saying that he had been contemplating leaving for more than a year. Asked if he was being "run out of town," Rove said that anyone claiming that would be "like the rooster claiming to have called up the sun;" which, of course, doesn't happen, because the rooster's calls are being monitored and he and the sun haven't spoken for more than a year. In the immediate future, he plans to "go dove hunting in West Texas with family and friends, then drive my wife and the dogs to the beach." Dick Cheney is said to be all packed for the farewell hunting trip. Afterward, he will be writing a book and teaching at the university level, he said.

Rove's legacy will be an interesting one. He never had a clearly defined position within this White House, maintaining the title of Senior Advisor. It's possible that no single non-President has had as much influence over a President and his administration than Rove has. He is a remarkable fund-raiser and election strategist who is widely suspected of playing a part in some of the more underhanded campaign attacks in recent history, including a notorious push-poll in South Carolina that suggested to voters that McCain had an illegitimate mixed-race daughter. His seeming embrace post-structuralist philosophy has given rise to Rovism, described by Los Angeles Times columnist Neal Gabler, where "All politicians operate within an Orwellian nimbus where words don't mean what they normally mean, but Rovism posits that there is no objective, verifiable reality at all. Reality is what you say it is."

Is Rove the downfall of modern democratic politics? Have his methods and strategies and antics so poisoned and polarized the American political spectrum that there can never be consent, never be nonpartisanship? The Common Man does not know, but sees no foreseeable end to politics as we know it today. And much of that is because of Karl Rove's influence over national politics. He was and is an enigma, a lightning rod, and a(n evil?) genius. Anyway, wherever Rove goes from here, The Common Man is sure that his class will be popular. His first two students stand ready to enroll:

Damnation

2007-08-10T11:54:00.000-07:00

Ah, a new feature! As the week wraps up, this is a short list of things that The Common Man, over the past seven days, has either damned or condemned:

1) Time Magazine
Not two hours after The Common Man had sat with The Boy, reading and watching Baby Einstein, Time.com has the gall to come out with this article on how bad Baby Einstein is. Damn you, Time! Stop checking your facts (The Common Man is getting tired of fact checking; c'mon, chickens, take a risk!) and report news quicker. That's 20 minutes of development time that The Boy doesn't get back. Who's going to let The Boy live in their basement when he's 20 minutes of development behind everyone else trying to get a job out of college, Time Magazine? You? Not The Common Man, The Common Man tells you that. C'mon Time, get your head in the game. Give me news when I need it, not when you want to report it. Lazy bastards.

2) Spoilers
The Common Man has long had a policy regarding the Harry Potter books. He waits until just before the movie is released, then he reads the book so that, when he inevitably sees the movie, he remembers more of the plot and has more to complain about (The Common Man does like to complain). Sadly, soon after the release of the sixth book, The Common Man stumbled upon the big plot twist at the end on, of all sites, ESPN.com. Thus, was the surprise ruined. The Common Man held out for as long as he could, readers, sticking to his policy, but he's had to forgo it in the past week and has zoomed through book 6 and is engaged in fierce battle with book 7. Damn you, irresponsible internet writers, for spoiling plots and ruining surprises. Damn you all to Hell.

3) Primaries
With so many presidential primary seasons in full swing, there is a great deal of political activity with few actual political resolutions. There are debates going on right now across the country and it's hard to keep track of who is saying what and when and where, because the primary leapfrogging being done by South Carolina, California, Florida, New Hampshire, Iowa, and other states requires candidates to get their messages out and convince voters earlier and earlier. As it stands, the Iowa Caucuses may have to be held in December of this year to meet its legal obligation to be the first in the country. This is ridiculous. The Common Man is tired of all these debates and wants some time to make up his damn mind. He is becoming convinced that there needs to be a national primary held over the course of one day in June in order to reduce influence over the process by small, crazy states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina and to give the country enough time to get to know the candidates. The Common Man condemns political primaries and all they have come to stand for, the 10-word answer, the 7-second soundbite, and Gotcha! style debate.

4) White people
The New York Times reported this week that many areas in the country are in the process of having ethnic minority populations as their majority population. This has led to hand-wringing and fear-mongering by certain right-wing personalities that this country is becoming "less white." Yesterday, on Glen Beck's radio program, The Common Man even heard one idiot guest host wonder whether a country has a right to determine what color its population is going to be, and advocating some kind of "Master Plan" to make sure that whites remain a majority for a long as possible. Their concern, supposedly, is that "American culture," whatever the hell that is, is going to be supplanted by, primarily, a Mexican or African-American one (as though the finger prints of African-Americans are not all over White America's favorite foods, music, clothing, and art already). So, in response, The Common Man condemns white people for not having a culture that is worth emulating. Seriously, white people, you have bad food and bad music (Michael Bolton). Your contributions to popular fashion (disco, shoulder pads, piano-key neckties, and grunge) have been egregious. And even your precious language, with all of its exceptions, and special rules, and internal contradictions is less sophisticated than Spanish's simplicity. Hell, you want a language worth salvaging, try Russian, which has evolved past the point of needing articles. If you want to salvage your culture, Whitey, have a culture worth salvaging.

The End of the Chase

2007-08-08T03:39:00.000-07:00

This is a long one.

On the night that Barry Bonds hit the 756th home run of his major league career, breaking Henry Aaron's all-time record, The Common Man was asleep. This was not some planned protest of Bonds' alleged doping, nor misguided anger over the fall of baseball's most hallowed mark. Rather, it was a function of the game starting at 10:00 and of The Common Man getting three hours of sleep the night before. The Common Man's absence should not be confused with that of Bud Selig, baseball's commissioner, who refused to celebrate Bonds' record tying home run, and then cravenly left California two nights ago to attend "meetings" regarding former Senator George Mitchell's investigation into steroid use in baseball. Clever, Bud. And subtle.

The sports media (which, at this point, consists almost exclusively of ESPN) has made a great deal over whether Selig and/or Aaron (who are apparently close friends) would be in attendence when Bonds hit his homer, ascribing motives to their decisions ranging from "they believe that the record is tainted and would not want to have to stand and applaud a man that they feel cheated and marred the record books" to "they hate Barry Bonds and all that he stands for, that miserable, lying, cheating, cheater who cheated." This oversimplification obscures the fact that the two men apparently can have very different reasons for not wanting to be there. Hank Aaron, by all accounts, at 73 years old, did not want to spend a couple weeks traipsing up and down the opposite coast from where he lives, following Bonds like a glorified sheep dog.

Of course, the reason so many members of the media wanted Aaron in attendence was so that they could contrast him with Bonds, something that Aaron has seemed to want no part in. As Joe Morgan said yesterday (and The Common Man can't believe that he agrees with anything Morgan says),

"The thing that bothers me is that Hank is getting this adulation because people don't like Barry Bonds. He should have gotten the praise long before this. Hank Aaron was always a great player and it's unfortunate it takes him losing the record to get what he deserves."

Instead, Aaron filmed his reaction to Bonds' historic homer, which was played on the scoreboard during the post-homer celebration. He congratulated Bonds, calling his achievement, "it is a great accomplishment that required skill, longevity, and determination." Classy dude, that Hank Aaron.

Selig, on the other hand (as described by Baseball Prospectus' Joe Sheehan), after Bonds' 755th,

"As the crowd around him cheered, Selig rose slowly from his seat and made a grand show of putting his hands in his pockets, refusing to acknowledge the player, the achievement or even the excitement around him. With that one gesture, Selig made it clear what he is: an old man determined to protect the interests of other old men, even if it means degrading the game of baseball."

Selig has made an art out of bah-humbugging his way through his lengthy "interm" commissionership, largely decrying small market teams' ability to compete as the league (leading to increased revenue sharing, but implanting a feeling of grouchiness in the average fan of Pittsburg, Kansas City, and Minnesota), complaining about watching games in aging stadiums (leading to an explosion of new, taxpayer financed stadiums that do not provide the regional economic boom promised), attempted to contract two franchises (almost forever poisoning the wells of Minneapolis and Montreal as baseball cities) and focusing on players who have "betrayed the national pasttime" through their use of performance enhancing drugs while ignoring his office's decision to turn a blind eye to steroid use and the open, rampant, and possibly ownership-approved use of amphetimines (or greenies) by players. Fearing the outcome of drug testing would reflect poorly on the game, Selig chose not to implement testing policies, nor to address the issue in any way, prior to Jose Canseco's infamous book, Juiced. He fiddled while Rome burned, until the fire that players started could not be put out quickly, quietly, and with minimal damage to the game. And he blames the players, most specifically Barry Bonds for the problem of steroids in the game. For shame. His comment, from Milwaukee, was short. After congratuating Bonds, he reminded everyone that "the issues which have swirled around this record will continue to work themselves toward resolution," implying that the record was dishonestly attained.

It is widely assumed that Bonds cheated to get this record. Indeed, The Common Man thinks that he probably did as well. There is grand jury evidence (illegally leaked) that Bonds took amphetimenes. But there is no evidence, save for circumstantial evidence presented by people with axes to grind and much to gain by a continuing scandal, that Bonds took steroids. So everyone has jumped on the anti-Bonds bandwagon, buying into the media's portrayal of him as a steroid-inflated Hulk, arguing that "everyone knows" he took them. After all, look at who he hung out with! Look at the size of his head! Look, he's gotten bigger as he's gotten older (as though everyone (The Common Man included) hasn't gotten a little thicker as they've gotten older). There's so much smoke there must be fire.

But prior to invading Iraq, everyone in this country (and, indeed, around the globe) just knew that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction hidden in bunkers around Iraq. Colin Powell went to the U.N. He brought pictures. There was circumstantial and second-hand evidence that Iraq was trying to buy uranium. Hussein was a bad guy who hung out with bad guys. Of course he had WMDs stashed away somewhere. Anyway, the coalition of the willing has had a hard time finding those things that everyone (The Common Man included, even though he didn't like the war from the first shock to the last awe) knew just had to be there.

Fortunately, like Aaron, The Common Man believes that the majority of sports fans (and Americans) have better things to do than to excoriate a man whose greatest known crime is that he's sometimes a jerk to reporters. Hell, Ruth ran around on his wife, screwed anything that moved, was alternately generous and lousy to teammates, and ate himself out of effectiveness. Mantle drank himself to an early grave. So did Jimmie Foxx. Ty Cobb was a rabid dog who hated anything black, Jewish, or, frankly, alive. Steve Garvey has, like, a billion kids with half a billion women. Roger Maris was from North Dakota. Surely, these are worse crimes by far, and this country has fallen all over itself to romanticize those men and their accomplishments. And, true to form, a majority of fans in San Diego that night acquitted themselves well. Again, Joe Sheehan:

They respect Bonds’ talent and accomplishments, while feeling little warmth towards the man. They vote him onto the All-Star team. They acknowledge the questions that surround his involvement with BALCO, the suspicions that he used steroids, while also acknowledging the points in his favor–that he’s never failed a drug test; that the testing program MLB claimed to need so desperately has turned up mostly dry; that the investigation into Bonds’ behavior has dragged on for years with no resolution, taking on a tinge of “witch hunt;” that the book that so famously chronicled his activities was sourced by illegally-obtained testimony and by those with axes to grind; that Bonds’ image has been shaped by the media, and it is impossible to separate this story from that process.

The great middle ground of baseball fans doesn’t hate Barry Bonds. It doesn’t know him, and it hasn’t made up his mind about what he did and did not do. In the absence of that decision, the crowd at Petco Park last night did the right thing: it cheered the accomplishment, while holding back judgment on the man. It was a good moment for the game, and San Diego’s baseball fans can be proud of themselves today."

Would that baseball's commissioner could say the same thing. Screw you, Bud.

As for you, Barry. Congratulations. Enjoy your record until ARod gets around to breaking it in seven years.

Running Behind

2007-08-07T05:04:00.000-07:00

The biggest surprise for The Common Man, over the past month, is just how many interesting things there are in this house for The Boy to get into. Picture frames, drapes, pets, pet toys, pet food, surge protectors (or cords of any kind), books, papers. Virtually anything and everything is remarkably interesting to the average eight-month old once he gets crawling. And since The Boy is not the average eight-month old, he’s interested in even more than that.

Anyway, The Common Man has resumed his “training,” getting back on the elliptical machine in hopes that he will be able to keep up with his motoring little son. So far, so good, but The Common Man suspects that his success will only last as long as The Boy confines his movement to dragging himself, like a Navy SEAL in training worming his way under barbed wire, across the floor. Once he walks, The Common Man is afraid that The Boy will need to be strapped to a gurney at all times for his own safety. For who can keep up with anything that moves so fast?

Well, perhaps Al Gore III could. Now, The Common Man does not wish to appear to endorse AG3’s apparent excess of prescription drugs, partying, and speeding; far from it. But he does think that everyone needs to take five minutes and appreciate the fact that this kid got his Prius up to 100 MPH. The Uncommon Wife, until last winter,
drove a ’99 Chevy Metro until she put it out of its misery and upgraded to a Hyundai Sonata. The Metro seemed to fight against The Common Man every time he tried to get it above 65, as though going 66 would somehow align it cosmically (at least 2/3 of the way) with Satan (Cheney) and all that he stood for. Being a good car, a nice car, a safe car, it would stick to 65, thank you. Or, better yet, 60. Anyway, The Common Man imagines that getting a Prius above 65 would be a little like that. The car would reluctantly edge toward the precipice, rattle and buck a little, ask you if you were sure that you knew what you were doing, say a Hail Mary, and then shake in fear as its speed continued to climb. For breaking that magic 65 barrier, everyone should thank AG3, for he has taught them not just something about the Prius, but about themselves. To reach for the impossible, the unreachable. To go beyond themselves and to dream new dreams, no matter how unlikely. Hallelujah, the Prius went 100 MPH! It can keep up with The Boy! Now, The Common Man needs to convince Gore to do a little babysitting.

Or, perhaps, The Common Man and The Uncommon Wife can simply deny that walking exists when The Boy begins expressing curiosity (which he’s already doing, with his big boy standing). They can say, “With respect, The Boy, despite what you think you may see, there is no such thing as a domestic walking program going on in this house. And there is no internal disagreement between your parents about whether such a program should be instituted. Your parents feel confident that crawling is just fine for you and denies any existence of this so-called “walking”. Later, when The Boy points at The Common Man and The Uncommon Wife as they go about their daily business in and around the family home, as if to say, “HEY! You’re walking! How come you get to walk and I don’t?” they will testify that they do not recall testifying about walking and that, indeed, they never said that walking does not exist, just that it was ill-advised, given the time and place. Later, when The Boy becomes cognizant of the things that he can play with and those he can’t, The Common Man will apologize for any confusion that his previous testimony has caused and that, indeed, he always meant to say that there was walking and encourages The Boy to investigate it fully, now that he can be responsible about the whole thing.

Anyway, The Common Man and The Uncommon Wife haven’t decided just how to handle this yet, but they will figure it out soon. Now, if you’ll excuse The Common Man, The Boy has a handful of cat food.

Autobots Waged Their Battle To Destroy the Evil Forces of Michael Bay

2007-07-06T06:07:00.000-07:00

As he mentioned yesterday, The Uncommon Wife allowed The Common Man to indulge his inner eight year old, and went with him to see Transformers on the 4th. Careful readers will remember that The Common Man was all atwitter five months ago in anticipation of this film, when he wrote, "The Common Man prays that this film will be good, for it holds the unfulfilled dreams of his childhood in its hands." So how did it stack up? Was The Common Man's childhood reduced to robot-pummeled rubble by Michael Bay or was he magically transported back to 1986, in his parents' basement, making the familiar chkee-chkoh-chkoh-chkoh-kuh-kuh-kuh-kuh noises of his Transformers transforming?

The movie requires a significant suspension of disbelief (even more than you'd probably expect for a movie about giant transforming robots from outer space) and will require you to turn off your inner logic-detector (one is forced to continuously wonder whether Optimus Prime's extreme selflessness is a sign of stupidity, for instance, and why Megatron is the only Decepticon who speaks English when he's been frozen for 4,000 years and his minions have been living here for some time).

Also, some of the characterization of the Autobots was disappointing. Jazz and Ironhide, in particular, come off as petty and annoying. Bumblebee, for some reason, can't talk and speaks almost entirely in movie and song clips. Also, Bumblebee turns out to be a total bad-ass, which is ridiculous given how wussy he was in the TV show. And Ratchet may as well not even be there.

On a somewhat related note, The Uncommon Wife and The Common Man are in agreement on this point, there were far too many people involved in this movie, and not nearly enough giant transforming robots from outer space, or at least not enough time spent developing those giant transforming robots from outer space who were in it. The movie (and TV show, and cartoon, and the other movie, and the comic books, etc.) were called Transformers, not Some Kid and His Giant Transforming Robot Friends. But the inclusion of Shia Labeouf as Sam Witwicky is at least understandable, given that Spike Witwicky was a main fixture of the original. And the inclusion of his love interest (Megan Fox) is fine because it gives the kid something to do and because she's hot. But spending time with all the computer hackers, with a group of random soldiers (only one of whom is even decently developed) is totally unnecessary. Likewise, the inclusion of a government conspiracy subplot only made what should have been a fun sci-fi ride seem ludicrous (even for a movie about giant transforming robots from outer space).

Finally, there are long sections of the movie that are essentially motionless, allowing Bay to channel Charley Chaplin and do some physical comedy with his CGI robots. It's largely unnecessary (The Common Man really didn't care that Ironhide wanted to "eliminate the parents" or that he will rust after getting peed on by a dog. And as funny as it was to watch giant transforming robots from outer space try to hide around a back yard, it took away from the action. Also, some of the humor was inappropriate for a movie targeted toward a younger audience and suggests that Michael Bay is incapable of subtlety of any kind, given that characters openly and directly discuss masturbation (The COmmon Man imagines that an email exchange with Michael Bay would go something like this: Q: Did you enjoy making Transformers? A: YES, I ENJOYED MAKING TRANSFORMERS A GREAT DEAL. IT PLEASED ME AND I CAN'T WAIT TO DO IT AGAIN. I ONLY WISH THAT I HAD THE TIME TO INCLUDE MORE UNCOMFORTABLE SEXUAL REFERENCES SO AS TO DISTRACT YOU FROM THE FACT THAT 40 FOOT TALL ROBOTS ARE FAR COOLER THAN ANY IDEA FOR A MOVIE I COULD POSSIBLY COME UP WITH ON MY OWN.)

But Michael Bay's lack of subtlety does help the movie where it really counts. If Michael Bay knows how to do one thing, it's make things explode, and it turns out that, in a movie about giant transforming robots from outer space, explosions are pretty damn important. And cool. Very, very cool. It turns out that, once you turn off your brain, the movie is a hell of a thing.

The voice acting of Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and Megatron (Hugo Weaving) are excellent, as Megatron has never seemed more menacing and Prime has never seemed more like Prime (Peter Cullen needs to read The Common Man's eulogy as Prime; he doesn't care how old Cullen is, they can pre-record it).

And the Transformers themselves, the main attraction, are excellently rendered. Their fight scenes are fast but intricately detailed. In all, they are very cool. Which is why, of course, The Common Man wanted more of them. And more robots fighting. Perhaps in the inevitable sequel, The Common Man will get all the robot-on-robot violence he so desperately needs and the film can rid itself of those meddlesome fleshlings. Until then, The Common Man has gotten his fix, and actually enjoyed it a great deal. All things considered, The Common Man had an excellent time at the theater, watching his Transformers, but it's more because of how awesome the Transformers were than anything else about the movie (particularly the script and director). He recommends the film to any fans of the old school toys, though he's quite certain that it's not going to mean much to you if you never cared for Optimus the way The Common Man did and, sadly, still does.

The Squeaky Third Wheel

2007-07-05T05:43:00.000-07:00

The Common Man hopes that you had a wonderful 4th of July holiday. He did, going to see Transformers (review forthcoming), taking The Boy down to the creek and dipping his feet in, eating and drinking with The Deacon, and curling up with The Boy on The Deacon's front lawn to watch fireworks/pretend to be awake. It was a good day.

Something else that The Common Man has been using to put an extra spring in his step for the last couple of days has been this video of Elizabeth Edwards calmly and politely dismantling Ann Coulter. Careful readers will remember Ms. Coulter as the Queen of the Harpies that quasi-called John Edwards a "faggot" back in March. Of course, if you don't read this blog regularly, you've probably heard of her as well. She kind of enjoys attention. The Common Man wants to know what's hiding behind Coulter's sunglasses in this clip, as she's forced to listen to Edwards kindly and politely asking her to not be such a horrible person (not asking her to stop writing or speaking, just asking her to stop being such a horrible person while she's doing it).

Anyway, all of this is a long introduction to say that The Common Man thinks John Edwards is currently in the catbird seat in the Democratic nomination fight. Sure, he is fighting with the non-running film-maker Al Gore (who just got embroiled in his own controversy; The Common Man didn't even know that a Prius could go 100 MPH) for third place in the most recent Gallup poll (at approximately 10% of Democratic voters, as of mid-June), roughly 10% behind Obama and 20% behind Clinton, but Edwards has significant advantages over the two front-runners.

He already has solid name-recognition, but his continued feud with Coulter (one of Democrats' least favorite people ever) will only increase his visibility in the news and make him easily the hero in a very one-sided battle for public sympathy. In addition, from the #3 spot, he can run quietly against the top two candidates while they fight between themselves. As the Obama/Clinton race becomes more heated and (presumably) less civil, Edwards can clean up whatever voters are turned off by their squabbles. And as Bill Clinton demonstrated in 1992, Edwards does not have to win in Iowa and New Hampshire, he simply has to present himself as a viable candidate and finish "in the money".

With the shorter nomination season this time around, it will be more difficult for Edwards to build on any momentum he gets from Iowa and New Hampshire, but if smart campaigning between now and February can cut into the Clinton/Obama lead (particularly by exploiting the additional media coverage he seems to be generating to create more opportunities for free advertising), he certainly can slide into the nomination after Super Tuesday. With Clinton's lack of personality and Obama's lack of specific proposals, The Common Man believes that it's far too early to write off the Democratic nomination as a two-horse race.

Boom Goes the Dynamite

2007-07-04T05:43:00.000-07:00

Reader Lt. Rob asks "have you lost your senses and moved to Canada?" No, Rob, The Common Man did not move to Canada; he got as far as St. Johnsbury, Vermont last weekend and turned around. The more he thought about it, the more The Common Man realized that the United States were indeed the place for him.

As we inched closer to today, the 4th of July, it became more and more apparent that fireworks fill a gigantic hole in our nation's self-concept. Though Americans may doubt their union and those leading it, having the freedom to set explosives off in the middle of their backyards allows these Americans to marvel and wonder at the glories of a nation that could create something so beautiful and stupid as a Roman Candle Fight (2 separate links, for those of you who are interested), as pointlessly destructive as the black cat, or just plain as pointless as the worm. As The Common Man oohs and ahhs with wide-eyed wonder at the colorful explosions over Beaver Stadium tonight, he can forget all about the elected officials who flaunt every 9th grade civics textbook ever written by claiming that they are not part of the executive branch, but that they exist in a quasi-governmental realm that hovers between reality and non-reality, forever caught between dimensions, having substance (being able to influence national debate and policy) without form and, in so doing, crap uncerimoniously over the Constitution and the people of the United States. The Common Man can forget that he is being treated like a 5 year old kid brother, playing Uno against an older sibling who keeps changing the rules of the game in increasingly ridiculous ways to maintain his advantage. Grrr. Fireworks, thankfully, help The Common Man to forget all that.

Canadian fireworks just wouldn't help The Common Man to make up for the fact that he was in Canada to begin with. They're not big, pretty, or explosion-y enough. And Canada Day is not a real holiday. They're just making that up.

Also, it's worth noting that Canadian money can be easily exchanged for Monopoly money at this point without anyone caring or even noticing. They look a lot alike, with their fun colors, and are worth virtually the same. So literally, had The Common Man absconded to Canada (and become The Common Man, Eh) he would have gotten less bang for his virtually worthless bucks.

So, The Common Man chooses to remain here, railing against the injustices he sees around him, like how his neighbors park a big RV in the middle of their lawn for the entire summer, or how his other neighbors shoot pellet guns toward his house, or how he continues to get treated with scorn and disdain by his own government, because the money is good and the explosions are pretty. And that, friends, is why The Common Man is proud to be an American. Happy 4th of July.

Scott Free

2007-07-03T09:23:00.000-07:00

The Common Man makes his triumphant return to blogging today. No posts at all in June is inexcusable. During the month he was away, The Common Man let things that were not important at all keep him from devoting his full attention to the things that matter most, his family and his writing, and he apologizes to both. He also apologizes to readers (something he has gotten very good at since starting this blog). But it's time to get back to work, and without further ado...

Yesterday, in a stunning (to The Common Man, at least) decision, President Bush decided to commute the sentence of convicted perjurer and all-around d-bag Scooter Libby, meaning that the Scootster will spend absolutely no time in jail because the President felt the punishment meted out by an impartial judge was "excessive" (despite the fact that Libby would have been eligible for release after two years and the average sentence for perjury (as of 2000) in U.S. District Court was 2 1/2 years (or, wait for it, 30 months. Instead, Libby will be forced to pay a $250,000 fine and may be subject to two years of probation (though the judge and prosecuting attorneys are still sorting that out).

In all fairness, The Uncommon Wife saw this coming ages ago when she turned to The Common Man and said, "Darling Dearest, it is assured that that man will spend absolutely no time in jail." "Pshaw," said The Common Man, "not even this President has the temerity nor the utter disdain for the American public to do that. Surely he knows that the people would see through such a transparently cynical and self-serving decision. He must let the sentence stand, at least until after the next election." She rolled her eyes, "My truest love, you underestimate the pressures upon the President, the influence of Darth Cheney, and the sheer arrogance of this administration. Verily, I say unto you again, the man will not see the inside of a jail cell."

Well, The Common Man was, for once, wrong. It pains him to say it, but not as much as it pains him to see how little respect this administration has for the justice system and the will of its electorate (a CNN poll found that 69% of respondents believed the President should not pardon Libby). Its consistent ability to ignore a sensible course of action and to undermine its own credibility is as baffling as it is admirable, for at least it is predictable.

That said, the Bush administration is not the first to thumb its nose at the justice system. The Presidential pardon, once a last resort to preserve national order or to prevent a miscarriage of justice, has become a political tool to reward administration supporters and ideological sympathizers. George Bush I pardoned four members of the Reagan Administration for their role in Iran-Contra. Bill Clinton (who makes up the difference between himself and Bush II in quality pardons with quantity) pardoned his brother for cocaine possession, Patty Hearst for the crimes she committed while with the SLA, billionaire fugitive and donor Marc Rich, family friend and business partner Susan McDougal, and Democratic congressman Mel Reynolds.

According to The Jurist, recent Presidents have been using the privilege to provide executive clemency less often than many of their predecessors, but to the casual The Common Man observing the process, it seems that grants of clemency have become markedly more controversial and less defensible in the past 20 years. It shakes The Common Man's faith in his elected officials and makes him wonder whether allowing the President to retain this power will serve the intended purpose or only encourage greater and greater levels of corruption at the highest levels of government.

You Get What You Pay For

2007-05-17T05:21:00.000-07:00

Well, The Common Man is in Minnesota now, watching The Uncommon Wife eat breakfast and The Boy play on the ground with Grandma. Despite the inability of the Minnesota Twins to actually hit a baseball, the trip has been incredibly relaxing thus far. It's nice to get away from the political pressure cooker that is State College.

You see, in their infinite wisdom, over the past year the State College School Board has proposed and begun the process of rebuilding State College Area High School, turning it into an architectural and technological wonderland. The proposed bill for the reconstruction effort was in excess of $100 million, and was initially approved with little input from the community at large.

Understandably, members of the State College community were concerned about a $100 million construction project in their town that they would be on the hook for. After several contentious and marathon-length school board meetings (more than 200 community members spoke at one meeting), the board decided to continue with its plans. In response, a large coalition of community members banded together to back a new slate of candidates for the board, resulting in a relatively massive media campaign that included major radio air time.

Anyway, to make a long story short (and overly simple), the school board was voted out on Tuesday, but will remain in office until December. The bids that have been submitted for their construction project total $17 million more than the board has budgeted. The current board (the one that got voted out) still can continue down this path, can revise their proposal, or can table the matter until the fall. Meanwhile, there is not a viable plan in place to replace the outdated and inadequate high school that exists right now. Pipe dreams of magical classrooms and cynical politics of not wanting to pay up for school construction have gotten in the way of meaningful school reform for students again, and the refusal of the two sides to come to any kind of consensus means that State College's high school students will still be working in crumbling schools for years to come. Given the relative wealth and educational background of the State College community at large, this is unacceptable.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh....They Could Be Watching

2007-05-15T03:54:00.000-07:00

A quick programming note: The Common Man, The Uncommon Wife, and The Boy are winging home to Heaven-on-Earth, aka Minnesota, until the end of the week. Expect light blogging between now and then, by which The Common Man means two or three short posts. Sorry, but The Boy needs to meet his great-grandmother.

Last week, The Common Man hinted at "The Atkins Conspiracy," and in the interest of getting himself sued for libel, he thinks it is important to relay it here. It is important to note that The Common Man has no evidence for his beliefs, and nothing aside from his own sparkling reputation to back it up. Nor does he really know if he believes in this conspiracy, or whether it's just fun to talk about and speculate over.

This story begins a little more than four years ago, in Maine, where The Common Man was more like The Common Fatass (not that The Common Man is The Common Skinnyass now). Recognizing that fat, drunk, and stupid was no way to go through life, The Common Man searched for a way to lose the weight while not giving up his carnivorous tendencies. At that time, Dr. Atkins and his diet were all the rage, and The Common Man and the then Uncommon Girlfriend decided to give it a shot. To The Common Man's surprise, he dropped almost 25 pounds in two months, it was a revelation. Ultimately, the diet was not sustainable (in part because The Common Man already has high colesterol and didn't want to know what he was doing to his poor poor arteries (which he swears he could hear screaming in the night)).

Shortly thereafter, Dr. Robert Atkins, the inventor of the Atkins diet, apparently slipped on some ice outside of his apartment, bumped his head, slipped into a coma, and never woke up. Before his death, Atkins had built up a personal fortune in excess of $600 million dollars based on his controversial, counter-intuitive diet plan. Here is where things get interesting.

Sure, the Atkins family tells the public that the good doctor "slipped on some ice," but let The Common Man ask you a question: What would have happened if Dr. Atkins had not slipped and fallen on the ice that day? A very real possibility is that the already elderly Atkins (73 years old) could have (eventually) died from one of many coronary or renal related causes (the two most common complaints about his diet). And how would that have looked, eh? The inventor of the world's most famous diet, dying from the effects of his own diet, a cash cow.

That's why The Common Man wonders whether Dr. Atkins was murdered by someone who feared the financial ruin that would accompany such an unfortunate and ironic demise. Indeed, given the timing of his death, the inheritors of the Atkins empire could reasonably have expected to go on making money for years.

Meanwhile, that bastion of responsible journalism, The New York Post has spent recent days covering the saga of Atkins' widow, apparently the sole beneficiary of the doctor's will. Allegedly, she is "living in fear," with her new husband (who has a reputation for marrying rich women and getting divorced), of the trustees she hired to manage her husband's estate. Apparently, when the trustees refused to release $100 million of the money to her (she's only supposed to get $1.2 million per month), she stopped paying them. In response, the three trustees have brought suit for their back wages ($1.2 million per year, each) and taken out a $15 million insurance policy on her life.

So, given the (thoroughly shaky) motive and cast of weasily characters, there is just enough to give The Common Man's Atkins conspiracy theory just the slightest whiff of plausibility. This is, of course, all that a conspiracy theory really needs to find legs. And now that so many 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists have been disappointed to learn that, indeed, steel can melt. The Common Man recommends The Atkins Conspiracy as the new theory-du-jour to give those idiots something to talk about.

A Change of Plans

2007-05-11T06:53:00.000-07:00

The Common Man planned to talk today about how he had officially exceeded the number of blog posts from April already this month. But scrapped that when the President decided that someone needed to blink in this whole Iraq funding issue and graciously did so, relenting to Congress's demand of benchmarks (a concept The Common Man is still not comfortable with when they are tied into continued funding). Then he scrapped that after read a headline in the New York Post and was going to talk about The Atkins Conspiracy (which he a) made up and b) will undoubtedly get to on Monday). Then, he returned home and found this article on Rob Neyer's blog at ESPN.com that linked to this article in the Village Voice.

The Village Voice article documents a perceived string of inappropriate gifts and perks given to Rudy Giuliani by the New York Yankees while he was Mayor of New York City. Between 1996 and 2001, the article alleges that Giuliani received four World Series rings from the team, as well as front-row box seats, memorabilia, and apparel. The article alleges that the gifts given by the Yankees to Giuliani add up to more than $300,000 (though their math can be disputed). Adding to the sordid picture of Giuliani's relationship with the Yankees are the mayor's final hours in office, in which he green lit a $400 million dollar, tax-payer financed ballpark plan for the team, an effort that was almost immediately canceled by Mayor Bloomberg. If true, Giuliani's actions are particularly egregious in light of his enthusiastic campaign against city corruption, in which several prominent city employees were forced to resign after accepting gifts from city vendors. Giuliani himself was highly critical of these employees.

The article is problematic, in that it is clearly written from a biased perspective and seems to revel in the muck it is raking up. Also, the author's decision to value the rings at $200,000 is based on what the rings would be worth on the open market, not what they cost to make or that the team paid for them (in a closed market). But Caesar's wife must be above reproach, and so should Caesar. So it seems as though an investigation into these gifts is warranted, an investigation that will undoubtedly hurt Giuliani's campaign, whether it uncovers any wrongdoing or not.

Up the Down Escalator

2007-05-10T05:34:00.000-07:00

The Common Man is finding it very difficult to sympathize with the Democratic Party these days. He finds this particularly frustrating, since the alternative is so distasteful and untrustworthy. Indeed, as more and morepolitical and more appointees are forced to resign for being thoroughly and utterly corrupt, and more and more and more stubbornly refuse to do so, it has become apparent that this administration is rotten to the core, even if, in some cases, it has become so through the best of intentions.

Yet, Democrats continue to play games with the Iraq war funding, refusing to send the President an acceptable bill, they have a detrimental affect on our soldiers' efforts. It's impossible to sympathize with a group (or a President) whose intransigence is delaying the delivery of properly armored vehicles. It's virtually criminal.

The Common Man is unsure if he's brought this up in this space or not, but he is fairly certain that, if you break something (as we seem to have done in Iraq), it is incumbent upon you to buy it. Any effort to leave the country, at this point, may be emotionally satisfying, but is immorral and will damage America's already shaky credibility with the people of the next country it invades (The Common Man is looking at you Iran!). Indeed, how can citizens of the countries that we "liberate" have any enthusiasm for our presence if our appearance is the harbinger of disaster, chaos, and destruction? The Common Man believes that the U.S. is obligated to stay and is frustrated that Dems are advocating the opposite in a cynical attempt to win votes.

Meanwhile, of course, George Bush is largely to blame for getting the country into this mess. Thanks, George. And now The Common Man is forced to agree with him, even if he shares neither his optimism nor his motivations. The Common Man thinks he may just have thrown up in his mouth a little.

Royal Pain in the...

2007-05-09T05:24:00.000-07:00

The Commmon Man forgot to extend a warm welcome to a visitor to this great nation while she was here, and regrets his lack of manners. As most of you know, the United States (and specifically the state of Virginia) has played host over the past week to real royalty, as Queen Elizabeth has graced her former colony to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. It's been an interesting visit for Her Majesty, as she's attended the Kentucky Derby, met with survivors of the VA Tech tragedy, toured Jamestown with Dick Cheney (perhaps the unlikeliest couple since Lyle Lovett hypnotized Julia Roberts with his smooth, mournful, baritone voice), and endured a state dinner with a more bumbling than usual President Bush (seriously, he winked at her!).

Throughout her trip, Americans have tripped all over themselves to get close, catch a glimpse, and prostrate themselves before her. According to USA Today, Virginia has "spent about $11 million on the queen's visit, [and] has been preparing for months." Despite this extravagance, it's not as though the commonwealth's efforts have been unappreciated by its people. The same article points out that "Nearly 20,000 people entered a lottery for 108 spots on Richmond's Capitol Square, where the queen strolled on her walkabout. Thousands more gathered on the lawn around the square to await her arrival and watch her on giant screens." Similar crowds awaited her at Churchill Downs (where there were long lines to get pictures with an Elizabeth impersonator). Statesmen and VIPs and commoners alike bowed before her.

This fascination with the Queen and her family is not terribly surprising (she is, after all, the ultimate celebrity), but the reason for her fame and attention at this point is puzzling. As The Uncommon Wife pointed out, "didn't we, like, fight a war so that we wouldn't have to fawn over royalty?" Yes, yes indeed we did. And it's not as though this woman has any social clout. Sure, the papers report what she says and she wears, but it's not as though 20 million 80-year olds are suddenly going to jump up and buy "a fine wool coat of lime green, with a matching silk dress in a small floral print and a lime green hat with a fuchsia trim." She's not a trend-setter. And, obviously, though the head of the (at this point) fictitious British Empire, the woman has no more political power than The Common Man does. Indeed, the first time she even tries to excercise any political muscle, The Common Man is certain that her people will kindly remind her that her ancestors used to imprison, torture, and execute them on a fairly consistent basis and that she has no real qualifications for her "job" aside from that ancestry.

So why does this country (and England, and Canada, and Australia, and New Zealand) care so much, particularly after casting off the British yolk 231 years ago? The Common Man doesn't get it. And that's saying a lot, considering how much The Common Man gets.

Picking and Choosing

2007-05-08T07:55:00.000-07:00

Observant readers may have noticed (not on this blog, but in the news) a few weeks ago that Nancy Pelosi was roundly criticized by the President, his administration, and Republicans of all shapes and sizes when she and a diplomatic envoy went to Syria and met with some high mucketymucks. Presumably, her trip was a response to the Iraq Study Group's recommendation to engage Mid-East actors in high level negotiations and encourage them to withdraw support from terrorist organizations and to close their borders to Iraq, effectively shutting off the pipeline of weapons and foreign-born Iraqi terrorists.

Still, White House spokesperson Dana Perino claimed, "We do not encourage and, in fact, we discourage members of Congress to make such visits to Syria. This is a country that is a state sponsor of terror.... I don't know what she is trying to accomplish, and I don't know if anyone in the administration has spoken to her about it. In general, we do discourage such trips.... I know that Assad probably really wants people to come and have a photo opportunity and have tea with him, and have discussions about where they're coming from, but we do think that's a really bad idea." A spokesperson for the State Department argued that "it's not the right time to have those high-profile visitors to Syria." Mitt Romney called her visit "outrageous," and said "It's a very bad idea to be carrying out a separate and independent foreign policy from the president of the United States. I just don't know what got into her head, to be completely honest with you. I think it was a huge, huge mistake." Indeed, silly woman, I don't know what got into you. You leave that there difficult diplomacy to the menfolk.

Anyway, most media outlets, and the whole of conservative pundits and politicians said nothing about the visits of Republican congressmen Wolf, Pitts, and Aderholf two days before Pelosi's trip. Indeed, they all met with President Assad, but Pelosi was the only one singled out.

Now, in a stunning reversal of policy, the White House has decided to engage Syria in diplomacy on its own. At a conference in Egypt, Rice had "constructive and transparent" talks with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem over securing its borders with Iraq. It was the first meeting on the ministerial-level in more than two years. On a related note, Major General William Caldwell pointed out that "There has been a reduction in the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq for more than a month." Of course, there has been no criticism of Rice's meeting.

The Common Man does not know whether Pelosi's trip has had any discernable effect on Syria's foreign policy. But both the White House and Ms. Pelosi should be commended for their efforts to encourage Syria, in a face-to-face manner, to change their policies regarding their support of Hezbollah, their interference in Lebanon's internal affairs, and their lax border security. Yet, the differing reactions to the two meetings points out the height of hypocrasy at work in this administration. Indeed, between alternately giving "Brownie" and George Tenets medals of freedom and using them as scapegoats at the first sign that they are breaking from the administration's line (not that they weren't, in reality, incompetant and blundersome), the marginalization of Colin Powell, and the singling out of Speaker Pelosi, it's a wonder that anyone trusts and supports this administration anymore.

Denying denial

2007-05-05T12:01:00.000-07:00

Indulge The Common Man as he discusses the baseball. He does it so rarely.

It will come as little shock to most of you that Major League Baseball has problems. Indeed, despite record-breaking revenue and ever-increasing attendance, between steroids, amphetamine abuse, rising ticket costs, and a declining popularity with young males, baseball has its share of issues it will need to resolve in order to remain competitive with other sports leagues (*ahem*NFL*ahem, *ahem*Mixed Martial Arts*ahem*) in the long term.

But the issue that The Common Man wants to address today has been far less visible in the public eye until the recent death of St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock. Hancock was killed in an car accident at about 12:30 AM on Sunday morning, slamming his rented SUV (his car was in the shop due to another accident a few days earlier) into the back end of a tow truck that was stopped in the middle of the highway. Hancock was killed almost instantly. Since his death, police have revealed that the pitcher's blood/alchohol level was .157, or nearly twice the legal limit in Maryland. In addition, he had eight grams of marijuana in the car and was talking on his cell phone at the time of the accident.

These facts, of course, do not mitigate the tragedy of Hancock's death, as the loss of any life is a tragedy. That said, the culture from which Hancock comes and the reaction to it should give us insight into how one young man could be so stupid. You see, baseball is a sport that likes its beer. Most clubhouse refrigerators are well stocked with complimentary bottles and players are well-known to go out after their games for a few pops. Some of the most famous baseball players in the game's history have been heavy drinkers/probable alcoholics: Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Pete Rose. During Spring Training, Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa, the man who was supposed to be responsible for setting the tone for his team and for maintaining discipline amongst his players was charged with DUI. Though LaRussa only blew a .93 (Florida's limit is .08), he was asleep at the wheel of his car, sitting at a red light with his foot on the brake. And he did not initially wake up when officers tap, tap, tapped on his car window. The problem is not confined to the Cardinals. Prominent players Esteban Loiza and Dontrelle Willis have also been popped for DUI in the last year, as has Washington Nationals GM Jim Bowden.

Perhaps this is not so bad. After all, there are more than a thousand major league players, coaches, and prominent front office people. Some of them will, undoubtedly fail their good citizenship exams. But, of course, it is likely that far more players are stopped by police and released because they are recognized. Indeed, The Common Man is fairly sure that Johan Santana, Jason Bay, or Ichiro have a better chance of getting off with a light warning and an autograph than he or you do.

And before accepting Hancock's death as an isolated incident, consider the statements of Hancock's teammates and fellow players in the aftermath of his death. According ESPN.com, Cardinal Jim Edmonds "believed that by eliminating one of several elements -- alcohol, talking on the cell phone, speeding, a tow truck parked in a traffic lane with somewhat limited visibility -- Hancock probably would have made it to his destination." Houston Astros manager called what happened to Hancock a "perfect storm" of events that led to his death.

Such rationalizations deflect attention from the central problem that Hancock was drunk and distracted. Of course, if one to remove, say, the truck in the middle of the road, Hancock would have likely made it to his destination (which, according to the woman he was talking to, was another bar). But thousands of drunks make it home every night without killing anyone. This does not mean that driving drunk is somehow a better idea than calling a cab in those instances. Instead, it simply demonstrates that stupidity does not guarantee that you'll be hurt or hurt others. It just makes it much more likely. Sometimes, it takes a while for Darwin to catch up to idiots. After all, there are so many of them to get to. Baseball players, macho guys that they are, tend to believe that they have a high tolerance and deny that alcohol influences them in any significant way.

Following Loiza's arrest, the Oakland A's became one of the first major league teams to ban alcohol from its clubhouse, citing concerns about legal liability and public safety. Since Hancock's death, the Cardinals have followed suit. For far too long, baseball's dirty secret has been that it has a drinking...if not "problem," then what? Habit? Enthusiasm? Perhaps that's unsurprising, given that the league is filled with young, macho men, many of whom have been drinking heavily since their teens. But it is now incumbent upon Major League Baseball and its Commissioner, Bud Selig, to ban all alcohol, save for celebratory champaign, from major league clubhouses. It's time to send the message that work time is work time, and play time is play time, and that it's not imperative to have beer on hand at all times. And trust The Common Man, he says this as a man who has a healthy enthusiasm for beer.

Sanctuary

2007-05-02T14:18:00.000-07:00

Recently, The Common Man has staked out a spot in beautiful Schlow Centre Region Library, located conveniently in downtown State College, to do some mid-day studying/work. The facility is less than a full year old and is a fine combination of sun-lit porticoes, cherry bookshelves, and grand vault ceilings. Friend of the blog, snarl, would love it, or at least appreciate the inviting practicality of the space that merges its books with its reading space. It has been, for the most part, a quiet and convenient place for him to study without having to worry about bumping into colleagues or students who will interrupt his work.

That said, The Common Man is more than a little interested in his fellow library-enthusiasts. Indeed, day after day, The Common Man sees the same people walking and sitting about the library, engaged in various combinations of sleeping, grunting, walking, and reading. Because it is free and quite and pleasant (warm in the winter, A/C'ed in the summer), it seems that the least fortunate and most harmless nutjobs in the State College area flock to it in droves.

Right now, I'm looking at a 60ish woman in a brown and red flowered jacket, who gives the appearance of total normality. Yet, two days ago, when she encountered a fellow library lover, she stood and talked to him (her talking, him listening) for at least 20 minutes with no pauses for breath. It was amazing. A true feat of endurance. Today, she appears to be wondering through the stacks with little direction, weaving through them, slalom-like, not even glancing at titles or authors. Earlier, there was a gentleman, balding and with a short beard and over-sized glasses, walking up and down the aisles of the adult section, mumbling to himself and swinging his arms back and forth. Oop, there he is again, grabbing a reference book, saying "there I'll get this one. (inaudible mumble)," and walking away. There was an elderly gentleman in the chair next to The Common Man until 5 minutes ago who simply grunted again and again, every 15 to 20 seconds. And The Common Man has not even begun to talk about the homeless gentleman with the long, unwashed hair and beard that has been using the library this week. These "clients" are here with no real discernible purpose (not that The Common Man has one, mind you, aside from finishing his work for the semester).

The Common Man does not wish to make fun of these people and, certainly, none of them are cause for alarm. After all, this is a public building and they are the public (indeed, they are the public who do not work during the day and can, therefore, afford to come to the library). They are not terribly disruptive and seem to keep to themselves. They are weird, but not weird-bad, just weird-noticeable. But The Common Man wonders who is looking after these people after the library closes and where their caretakers are during the day. The library seems to have become a kind of makeshift refuge for those who are normally unable to care for themselves. That, of course, is not the library's job, but it seems to be one that it has accepted willingly.

Anyway, it is far too easy for us to forget these people exist. Indeed, I assume they head home after 5:00 or so, this being their only public appearance of the day. It's also easy to assume that they like coming the library every day, rather than wonder if they are coming to the library every day because they have no other place they can go where the poor, old, and indigent can simply be without buying anything. This town needs more places like the Schlow Memorial Library. More parks. More museums. More public spaces.

What's in a name?

2007-05-01T04:12:00.000-07:00

The Common Man just found out. According to Stephen Colbert and astro-physicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, apparently the scientific community has chosen to ignore The Common Man's decree that the new planet be called The Common Mania. Instead, they've chosen to call it either Gliese 581-c (after the star it revolves around) or New Earth. Look, The Common Man loves Stephen Colbert and considers him the funniest man on television today. That said, he cannot help but be more than a little disappointed in Colbert, who he knows would support The Common Man's bold, decisive, and self-congratulatory move to name the planet after himself. It is a far grander idea than Colbert's recent push to get a bridge in Hungary named after him. As for those scientists, The Common Man calls on any and all readers to talk to any scientists that they know in order to lay the foundation for The Common Man's grassroots effort to undermine "New Earth" and Gliese 581-c.

Of course, all of this could be moot The Boy gets to this planet and finds out that someone is already living there and has named it. Obviously, any inhabitants will have to die in order to ensure the immortality of The Common Man and his name. Sorry. That's just the way things work in the real world(s).

Up Is the New Down

2007-04-29T17:43:00.000-07:00

The Common Man believes that Procrast is a wonderful nation in which to vacation at the end of a semester. In an age when there is so much out there to see and do, how can a person not willfully get distracted from mundane chores such as paper writing. Indeed, writing has been gleefully interupted by cleaning and the NFL draft and laundry and a Twins game, house guests and, now, a blog entry.

The Uncommon Wife's little cousin is attending Penn State as a freshman this coming school year and she and her mother are visiting for the evening in the anticipation of getting a tour and turning in paperwork in the morning. This is a perfect opportunity for more procrastination, as The Common Man is looking forward to remembering what hopeful, uncynical exuberance was like.

Anyway, there are certainties in this world. Things that are absolutely sure bets on which everyone can agree. The world is round. The sun will come up tomorrow. If you throw a ball into the air, it will eventually land. There are WMDs in Iraq (it's a slam dunk!) And Journey is way better than Styx.

Until today, The Common Man thought that roads were solid, permanent things that would be our most lasting legacy upon this earth, in the way that you can still see places where wagons passed along the Oregon Trail. That is why The Common Man finds this so disillusioning. That the road in front of The Common Man could buckle and crumble and melt is shocking and befuddling. The world is flat and "Come Sail Away" is stuck on repeat.

Oh well, it's up to you, dirty diapers and McDonalds styrofoam containers, to carry on after this society is gone and everyone moves to The Common Mania.

Forward and Back

2007-04-27T13:17:00.000-07:00

Only one more week to go until the end of the semester here, and The Common Man is looking forward to getting back to blogging four times a week. That said, The Common Man could not stay silent any longer, particularly in light of the recent news cycles.

Now, The Common Man often wonders about the nature of the universe. You know, why we're here? Where did here come from? What existed before there was "something?" These are common questions, of course, asked and answered by countless human beings since the dawn of consciousness and higher level thought. Once man moved beyond wondering where his next meal was going to come from, he turned to questions about his own existence and prayed that that existence had some kind of higher meaning, that we weren't all alone.

Recently, Bill O'Reilly tackled this difficult and complicated series of questions with his usual "bull in a china shop" style, completely oversimplifying the issue and his "throwin' in with Jesus" in his debate with noted atheist Richard Hawkins and it got The Common Man thinking about the possibility of God and the beginning of things.

The Common Man, for once, agrees with O'Reilly (almost as disturbing as the time, recently, when The Common Man agreed with Geraldo Rivera). Simply saying that science explains how the universe got the way it is doesn't explain where a big ball of matter and energy that exploded in a big bang came from in the first place.

Naturally, as The Common Man pondered on the beginning of the universe, he thought about the end. Indeed, as the world becomes increasingly violent and polluted, it's as though life on this planet is rushing toward some kind of windshield, on which we'll all be splattered.

Indeed, signs abound around us. For instance, theologians believe that, when the world ends, the dead will rise and walk among us (George Romero will be out of a job at that point, The Common Man is afraid). Lo and behold, on Wednesday night, this happened on American Idol.

For now, let's leave aside the fact that Celine Dion has the balls to think that she should be allowed to sing with Elvis. And let's put aside the lunacy of American Idol producers thinking their remaining Idol contestants should even be allowed on a stage that The King has graced. But what the video confirms is that the dead do walk again. They are among you. Indeed, one of them is even singing with a CGI hologram of Elvis Presley (hold for laughter).

Anyway, if this is indeed the End Times on this planet, it's nice to know that, now, humanity has some place to go. Though scientists don't yet know whether this new world already has life (don't worry, if it does have life, I'm sure someone will be able to kill it), or if it even has water, The Common Man remains confident that they will work out all the details before everyone needs to abandon ship. That said, the new planet, let's call it The Common Mania, is smaller than this one, so not everyone will get to go. Only the best and the brightest and the most necessary will be sent along to preserve the human species. And when that day comes, The Common Man (and The Uncommon Wife) will undoubtedly be too old to be of much use to anyone. So they will be left behind. But The Boy still has a chance. That's why it's time for him to stop chewing on his toes and start doing some calculus. The Common Man's legacy must live on!

Nothing Clever

2007-04-16T12:18:00.000-07:00

The Common Man's off today, banished to the corner of my mind. My heavy heart goes out today to students and parents of students, and employees of Virginia Tech University. What a senseless and horrible tragedy. What a mockery of everything that is good and decent in this world. It makes me want to go find my son at his "school" and hug him until tomorrow.

We seem to try to insulate themselves from tragedy in every way possible in this society: by moving out of bad neighborhoods, by procuring constant care for their children, by not leaving the house. Yet, tragedy strikes everywhere and everyone. I hope the lesson taken from this tragedy isn't just that people need to find new and better ways to shelter themselves, but also that people need to find new and better ways to connect with one another in the hopes that tragedies like this can be avoided as much as possible. I believe strongly (and so does The Common Man, by the way) that, in a world where we continue to find ways to distance ourselves from other people (because of email, telecommuting, IM, expansion of the reaches of popular culture, and suburban sprawl, that we are constantly encouraged to think of ourselves as alone in a narcissistic bubble. Other people become, not people, but two-dimensional characters in our own little personal play. It is only by breaking down those barriers and connecting with our fellow men and women that we are encouraged to consider the lives and needs of others.

I've been listening to the media talk extensively about this for an hour or so, pouring over the actions of the university and wondering why more wasn't done to stop this gunman and to limit the damage he could do. I think those are the wrong things to be focusing on. Instead, we should be asking ourselves how someone could come to believe that his own life and the pain that he was in was more important than the lives and pain of two or three dozen more people. I don't know the answer to that, but I hope somebody starts trying to think of the answer.

Hippity Hoppity

2007-04-07T04:11:00.000-07:00

Note: The Commmon Man wanted to post this over the weekend, but there was difficulty finding a computer on which to do it while he was celebrating Easter with his inlaws in Lancaster.

The Common Man promised a blog entry over the weekend, and so a blog entry you shall have:

This is the Easter weekend, a joyous time in the Christian church. As such, The Common Man, with The Uncommon Wife and The Boy in tow, will venture far and wide, first to Philadelphia then to just outside of Lancaster, PA to spend the Easter holiday with The Uncommon Inlaws. This will be The Boy's first opportunity to meet his maternal great-grandmother, so he is excited (though at this point, sucking on his fist and finding his toes also qualify as exciting).

The Common Man has often wondered why Easter gets relatively short shrift in our culture, among Christian holidays. Indeed, among all holidays. Christmas, of course, has blown up like the Olson Twins and is a force unto itself. Even non-religious families feel pressure to celebrate it. The Fourth of July has a drawing power that brings families together to grill and watch fireworks. Valentine's Day has become a massive financial industry. Veterans Day gets spread out over a full weekend.

Yet Easter, by most accounts, is the most important of the Christian holidays. Even more than the birth of Christ, this day celebrates the reason why Christianity exists. It is a day to remember why Christians are Christians in the first place. But Christians in this country treat it like a second-class holiday. Some roll it into Spring Break. Some do not celebrate it. Some think of it solely as a day of bunnies and colored eggs (by the way, if you haven't already, watch South Park's take on Easter from last week; hilarious). It should be exalted among holidays but it is not. Why?

The Common Man thinks that it's mostly because people like Baby Jesus more than Adult Jesus. Call this the Ricky Bobby effect. It seems like people are happiest with a cute little 8 lbs, 6 oz baby Jesus. Adult Jesus was, apparently, kind of scrawny and hairy. Also, once he gets arrested, Adult Jesus gets uglied and bloodied up pretty quick. Ever wonder why we don't see Adolescent Jesus? Because nobody wants to see a pimply, awkward, greasy Jesus with a cracking voice. People prefer their Jesi to be aesthetically pleasing.

Also, Baby Jesus is harmless and helpless, he must be cared for (by his surrogate family, the Christian community). Adult Jesus can take care of himself, thank you very much. Hungry? Here, let Adult Jesus rustle you up some loaves and fishes. Ow, adult Jesus fell off a roof during a filming of backyard wrestling with Simon-Peter? Don't worry, he's already healed his shattered fibula. Needing beverages for an expensive dinner party? Put Adult Jesus on the guest list and everybody gets wine! Just don't invite any money-lenders, pharisees, or tax collectors (Zaccheaus excepted).

Plus, Baby Jesus is quiet (Silent Night: "Little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes."). Adult Jesus has the temerity to tell people how they should live their lives. How annoying! There's nothing worse than a bossy, know-it-all savior.

Also, it's worth noting that Christmas comes at the beginning of winter, when snow and cold are relative novelties. It's easier to be excited about a time of year when you aren't cursing your decision to live north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Easter comes at the tail end of winter, when everyone's sick of the cold and wind. It's no fun anticipating yet another weekend that it's too cold to grill.

That's all I've got. Got more ideas, post them below.

By the way, according to the Religious Talk Radio The Common Man listened to on the way back from Lancaster, he is not crazy. Celebrating Easter has always been secondary to celebrating Christmas in this country, and celebrating the holiday did not become widespread until the late 19th century. Happy [belated] Easter.

programming note: because this didn't get posted until Monday (and because he doesn't have class tomorrow), The Common Man will be back tomorrow.

Slurring The King's English

2007-04-05T07:32:00.000-07:00

Before beginning, The Common Man would like to issue a public service announcement. If you have had too much to drink, it is unsafe to operate an automobile. The Common Man recommends that you take a zamboni instead. Zambonis, if would seem, are not motor vehicles because "they aren't usable on highways and can't carry passengers" according to New Jersey Judge Joseph Falcone (which, incidentally, is a terrific name). This decision denotes a certain lack of imagination on the judge's part, as The Common Man is certain that, were he so inclined and had sufficient access to one, he could get that zamboni out on the highway with The Uncommon Wife and The Boy riding on the hood. Anyway, while the point is that driving drunk on a zamboni will not get you busted in New Jersey, it also seems that the life of a zamboni driver is not as glamorous as it sounds, as the driver in question testified "he did drink beer and vodka, but not until after he had groomed the ice. However, he told police he had a shot of Sambuca with his breakfast coffee and two Valium-pills before work." Seriously? Sambuca with breakfast? That's sad. And funny. Sorry.

Anyway, it seems that former Speaker Newt Gingrich should have completely given up speaking once he lost his job. The former head of the Republican Party recently argued to National Federation of Republican Women that immersing Spanish-speaking students into English-only classrooms was important, "so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto." Let's take Gingrich's statement apart here.

First, let's dispense with the obvious. Gingrich intimates that Spanish is a language of poverty, of a "ghetto," a statement so oblivious to the success of bi-lingual Americans who have leveraged their knowledge of both Spanish and English into incredible success (people like President Bush, for instance, who used his knowledge of Spanish to appeal to Latinos in Texas when he was running for governor) and so ignorant that The Common Man doesn't feel the need to call any more attention to it, save to say that if Gingrich thinks he's going to run for President and win a general election without any support from Spanish-speaking voters, he's an idiot.

Second, Gingrich suggests that there is a common language for this country. Gingrich seems to think that English is a stable, uniform thing. In reality, there are multiple Englishes at work right now, differentiated by accent and dialect. Indeed, The Common Man's grandmother likes to tell the story that she used to call her cousin in Florida, and that she could not understand the operator, who was apparently from the Deep South. Is this inconvenient? Of course it is. Would it be nice if everyone spoke using a common vocabulary so as to discourage misunderstanding? Sure. But it's never been that way before, and, The Common Man would argue, that difference is part of what makes different communities unique and makes our country all the more interesting. Besides, in a country as large and as populous as this is, there is virtually no chance of establishing a uniform language.

And it's not as though English is a pure language in and of itself. Indeed, English is the bastard offspring of Anglo-Saxon, French, Latin, and German, among others. It has been in near-constant flux since William of Normandy invaded Britain in 1056. So if a little Spanish influences Gingrich's precious English, if through the tension between these languages, English grows and expands, that's not a bad thing. It's just a thing.

Of course, this isn't simply a question about language. It is also a question about education. Gingrich and his ilk would like students to be "immersed" in an English-only classroom, rather than have the option of bilingual education, arguing that only through immersion will students be able to get the education that will allow them to "succeed". Gingrich, in his non-apology apology, argues, "But my point was simply this -- in the United States, it is important to speak the English language well in order to advance and have success." Certainly, The Common Man agrees with that sentiment. However, Gingrich's education proposal is more related to an English-only ideology than by concern over what will allow bilingual students to learn best. After all, bilingual students will not succeed simply by knowing English. There are a multitude of other skills they will need to know in order to become successful outside of the classroom. The Common Man would argue that a bilingual education, for at least the first part of the child's education, would have allow them to learn those skills faster, so as to be able to compete with their native English-speaking classmates.

The Common Man becomes angry when politicians try to score political points by throwing out ideological notions about education that have little to nothing to do with what is best for the children and the communities in which those children live. Gingrich is appealing to his conservative base at the expense of Latino (and Asian, and African) school children. It's wrong.

New Link on the Right

2007-04-03T04:38:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post: somebody named Mike's Evil Twin has a new blog about baseball that The Common Man hears will be pretty good once he gets it running on a regular basis. It's listed on the side.

Running Into a Meandering Post

2007-04-02T10:07:00.000-07:00

As a general rule, The Common Man cares little about what others think of him. That said, good friend of the blog Mark Huffines mentioned the other day that The Common Man was something of a crack dealer, providing just enough content to get you hooked, but then to string you along with less and less stuff as your desperation grows for more of The Common Man. The Common Man understands this plight and certainly did not want any of his precious few readers to undergo withdrawal symptoms.

Because the semester is in its home stretch, The Common Man will have to cut back on his blogging, but does not want to drop off the face of the Earth. So, here is what The Common Man proposes, he will drop back to writing three entries a week. One on Monday, one on Thursday, and one over the weekend until the semester resolves itself. After that, how about we reassess?

The Common Man is multi-tasking this afternoon, writing a blog, putting away laundry, reading for class this week, and watching three different baseball games here on Opening Day. It's a busy time, obviously, that would be made less busy if The Common Man were able to avoid the festivities of Opening Day. But he can't do that. Opening day is a beautiful thing. For a moment, a brief moment, everyone is equal. Everyone has hope for a strong season, and can envision their team going all the way. Right now, the Yankees are tied with the Devil Rays and the Royals are tied with the Twins. By the end of the day, of course, this won't be the case, particularly because the Rays are playing the Yanks right now.

Unlike in years past, The Common Man can now watch every major league game thanks to MLB's Extra Innings package on his DirecTV. This is amazing. Fifty years ago, almost no one could even watch their own local team on TV, let alone watch them all. Hell, if The Common Man wanted to, he could watch them on his TV, his computer, or his telephone.

The pace at which this world is changing is both wonderful and scary to The Common Man. Sure, MLB's Extra Innings package is a wonderful advancement. But its a symbol for a society in which there is seemingly unlimited access to cultural productions. In the early 1980s, sociologist James S. Coleman argued that our social structure, in which parents were not around (because of longer, more demanding work and the expansion of the suburbs away from centers of work) and children were left to fend for themselves would leave the home "psychologically barren." Kids would increasingly pick up social and behavioral cues from other kids and from popular culture. Because the messages of other kids and pop culture are mixed, "the child has a less fully developed sense of what is right and what is wrong." The Common Man doesn't know that there is a crisis of childhood and that America's children are in some kind of psychological danger, but he does think that the decreasing role of parents in the lives of children and the greater access kids have to material that parents disapprove of (and that children are not ready to assess critically) is troubling. And how does a parent stop the flow of the river of information? Or, more importantly, how does a parent filter out the pollutants that somebody dumped in upstream?

Maybe The Common Man and The Uncommon Wife should just not teach The Boy any English. Spanish is an increasingly useful language, and Spanish-language programming sucks (so he'll be discouraged from watching it).

Incoherence at 5:00 AM

2007-03-19T02:24:00.000-07:00

It is very early and The Common Man has a long day ahead of him. Instead of a longer post, you get several short observations that are consistent with the scattered nature of The Common Man's brain at 5:00 in the morning.

Yesterday, after taking care of The Boy during an afternoon of clinginess, The Common Man was shown three videos on the YouTube by his Uncommon Wife. Let's call them Exhibit A, Exhibit B, and Exhibit C. She was amused by the first two and disturbed by the third. The Common Man finds them all relatively disturbing. It is amazing how some parents choose to scar their kids just for kicks, then decide it is a good idea to let the rest of the world see how they choose to scar their kids. Seriously, though I may talk about The Boy in this space, I don't really understand why anyone would put embarassing videos of their child online. It's exploitative and mean. And like those girls who go wild, their pictures will be around online forever. 20 years from now, what kind of complexes will the Sparkling Wiggles girl have? And how will the mentos boy ever learn to trust again? It is befuddling sometimes that The Common Man needs to purchase a liscense to fish but any idiot can have children. Anyway, the videos made The Common Man feel much better about his skills as a father.

The Common Man believes that the Kevin Durant of the Texas, which he blogged about last week, was a myth along the lines of bigfoot, unicorns, and sober Irishmen (happy belated St. Patty's Day). The Common Man watched roughly 3/4 of the NCAA tournament over the weekend, always trying to have it on in the background. Yet, he caught nary a glimpse of the elusive creature, as CBS decided that The Common Man didn't need to see the most exciting player in college hoops. The Kevin Durant, if he does in fact exist, was eliminated yesterday by USC. For now, blurry photos is all The Common Man has as proof of his existence, until the Durant joins the NBA and puts up 20 and 12 every night. In related news, The Common Man's bracket is shot to hell.

There is a series of comercials out right now for a cell phone where people in random places (in line at a coffee shop, at the gym, at dog park) accost the viewer (in first person camera mode) and make him listen to music on their phone. Since The Common Man doesn't remember what what company makes the phone (vcast?), he thinks it likely that this ad campaign is not terribly effective. Particularly because the individuals hawking the phones seem to be such d-bags. I mean, seriously, who leaves their spotter so that he can make you listen to Fall Out Boy? You're going to let your dog run wild while you make me listen to Justin Timberlake while you dance in front of me to music that you can't hear? These are reliable judges on what a good cell phone is (let alone good music)? Somebody's ad company deserves a firing.

Finally, The Common Man found this old clip on Friday and loved it. Oh, University of South Carolina! You provide such fodder for our amusement! From drunken, sexist, racist frat guys in a Winnebago (seriously, see Borat), to this guy, to The Simpsons ("I will not be a Gamecock!"), you have tickled this Common Man's funny bone in the way that no other college has before or since.

And God looked out over what He had created and said...

2007-03-15T04:39:00.000-07:00

"What a waste, they're just going to fuck it up."

The Common Man admits to finding Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, compelling. Gore presents a frightening case for what will become of this world as the polar ice melts rapidly and the temperature rises. Since his Oscar win, right-leaning blowhards with talk shows have essentially given up trying to discredit Gore's message and instead focused on attacking the (admittedly not ideal) messenger, digging through Gore's electric bill and flight history to attempt to discredit him as a hypocrit. Whatever. Gore's movie is essentially a personal narrative that synthesizes the work of others into an accessible and convenient form.

Anyway, one of the most interesting aspects of the film is the idea that environmentalism and combatting global warming is a moral issue. That unduly hurting God's creation and drastically altering the planet that the next generation will inherit is wrong, perhaps even sinful. The Common Man, in particular, thinks that this is an excellent point and that the scope of Christian morality needs to be extended beyond issues of life, reproduction, and family. Morality is not checked at the door when you leave your home.

Not everyone agrees with The Common Man. In fact, according to CNN, there is trouble brewing in the "evangelical community" (whatever that truly means) over whether global warming and environmentalism are important points to raise in lobbying efforts. Recently, a letter signed by 25 prominent evangelicals, including James Dobson and Gary Bauer, was sent to the National Association of Evangelicals (an organization of 45,000 churches of various Protestant denominations), asking it to rein in its Washington policy director, Rev. Richard Cizik, who has apparently been pushing hard for anti-warming agenda.

The letter observes "that Cizik and others are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time, notably the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children," and claims that evidence of global warming is not conclusive. Moreover, it suggests (quite ironically, given the "intelligent design" debate) that churches should let scientists settle the question. Finally, one of the signatories, Tony Perkins of The Family Research Council, has said that "global warming was part of a leftist agenda that threatened evangelical unity."

"We're not going to allow third parties to divide evangelicals, and I think that is what is happening in part with the global warming issue," Perkins said.

Of course, there are a lot of ridiculous statements here. First and foremost, that global warming is not real, or that evidence is not conclusive. Look, there are people who still believe that the Earth is flat and that the moon landing was faked. But it's still established science that the earth is round and that the moon is not made of cheese (and that golf balls travel really, really far out there). The overwhelming majority of scientific evidence suggests that global warming is real and that it is (at least partially) driven by man. Second, that somehow science and religion need to occupy separate spheres. While I'm sure Galileo is happy to hear about this, it ignores the fact that religious people can read good science and be convinced and that scientists can be religious (and can use that religion to inform their science).

Third and fourth, that broadening the focus of the "evangelical community"'s political influence will make it less effective and will "divide evangelicals." The Common Man believes that the narrow focus of this certain cadre of evangelical leaders will ultimately make them obsolete as Americans begin to see connections between various issues in the world today and their faith. Poverty, torture, nuclear proliferation, pollution. These are all moral issues that The Common Man believes must be addressed as such. Indeed, chuches and organizations of churches would be wise to broaden the issues that they address in order to be more effective influencing policy in a Democratically controled Congress. Who knows? Gaining traction on one issue may lead to the access and influence necessary to move forward on others. If Christianity's mission truly is to persuade others that Christ was our savior and to spread his message, it would do well to avoid insularity and to branch out, avoiding an "us vs. them" mentality and looking for ways to connect with others. This is an ideal way to do that (although The Common Man is not sure how comfortable he is with Tony Perkins, James Dobson, and Gary Bauer haveing more influence. In retrospect, forget that The Common Man has written anything in this space.).

Dancing, Dancing, Dancing

2007-03-14T03:28:00.000-07:00

First of all, The Common Man has to point you, gentle reader, in another direction, to the blog of the Uncommon Wife, for an excellent post about life as a graduate student. Second, he'd like to point out that he has ammended his essential links to include good friends of the blog, Lt. Rob and Markandsarah. For friends who want to keep up with their exploits, there you go.

Like most right=thinking Americans, The Common Man looks forward to the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament every year. It is an athletic oasis in a late-winter desert of no sports, where he can drink his fill before continuing to plod on toward Opening Day (which really should be a national holiday). The tourney begins tomorrow, and while The Common Man is unsure how much of it he'll get to watch, he'd like to share his insight with you. Here are The Common Man's Final Four (keeping in mind that The Common Man does not watch nearly enough college hoops to be considered an expert):

1) Florida: This is an incredibly deep team and the returning champs from last year. They did not graduate anyone significant from that year's team, so they are experienced and play well together. This is Joakim Noah (who looks a lot like a woman with that long poofy hair and plucked eyebrows)'s last chance to make an impression on NBA scouts before he goes pro. Aside from overconfidence and Noah looking like a tall Sanjaya (gotta start watching American Idol, people), there's nothing not to like here.

2) Kansas: Another really deep team. Kansas is the most versatile team in the tourney, able to win a defensive battle or running game. They can shoot from the outside or pound it inside. Aside from the fact that they're Kansas and Kansas always seems to shoot itself in the foot, there's nothing not to like here.

3) Ohio State: Wow, three number one seeds in the Final Four. How original, The Common Man! How bold! Well, these three just are head and shoulders above the rest of the teams in Division I. Ohio State's Greg Odin (who, seriously, looks 45 years old but is only a freshman) is one of the top two players in the country and has dominated this year despite breaking his hand at the start of the season. Aside from the fact that they're Ohio State, and The Common Man (as a PSU guy) despises all things OSU, there's nothing not to like here.

4) Texas: The Common Man makes this pick based on how freakishly good Kevin Durant is (the other player who is in the top two in the country). This is the point where Durant puts his team on his back (a la Kirby Puckett in 1991) and drags them and their befuddled coach almost to the top of the mountain before he runs out of oxygen and is left to die in the snow next to George Mallory (look it up). Sure, they're going to have to go up against UNC in the Sweet 16, but Durant will neutralize UNC's big men. Georgetown in the Elite Eight will be a very tough game. Aside from Texas coach Rick Barnes coaching like he has a blindfold on and has replaced his clipboard with a oujia board and is clasped tightly to Durant's ankle as he runs up and down the floor, desperate to do anything to hold him back, there's nothing not to like here.

In the final game, The Common Man has Kansas vs. Texas (probably a bad choice to beat OSU, but The Common Man will ride the hot hand), with Kansas winning it all.

A Place of Their Own

2007-03-13T04:37:00.000-07:00

One of the most interesting and useful developments that the internet has brought The Common Man in recent years is wikipedia, the on-line, community authored and regulated encyclopedia that is, apparently, just as reliable (and far more topical) than the vaunted Encyclopedia Britannnica. Now, wikipedia has its faults and no one should consider using it for, say, a graduate level research paper. But to do quick, dirty, and informal research, it's hard to imagine a more convenient source. Want to know more about the wackiness of Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard? Wikipedia's got you covered. Want to explore Kevin Federline's exploits as a professional wrestler? It's got that too. Burning to read more about Edward Said, Orientalism, and the West's romanticized portrayals of Asia and the Middle East? You're in luck. I mention all of this because wikipedia has a new competitor.

Now, the Common Man makes no secret of his own liberal bias. He does not wish to go into the intricasies of his beliefs here, but he feels the need to get this fact out of the way before he begins. For, you see, there are those in this world who would claim to be unbiased, to present their views before you as the literal, God's honest truth. In the spirit of these people, The Common Man presents The Conservapedia.

Claiming that Wikipedia was "6 times more liberal than the American public" (note: They base this claim on the rather spurious reasoning that "Polls show that about twice as many Americans identify themselves as 'conservative' compared with 'liberal', and that ratio has been increasing for two decades. But on Wikipedia, about three times as many editors identify themselves as 'liberal' compared with 'conservative'." Apparently somebody took 3rd grade math but skipped logic classes), the founders of Conservapedia have written off the Wiki as a lost cause and started their own site. And good for them. After all, they have every right to start their own site. But let's not pretend that theirs is some great storehouse of truth that is denied by the crazy liberals at Wikipedia, particularly as it "gives full credit to Christianity and America" and "concise, clean answers free of 'political correctness.'"

These concise and clean answers involve its entry on Fox News, which sarcasically notes that "The network has come under attacks from all sides of the political spectrum since its inception, largely for its uncritical and blatantly partisan support for the Bush administration and for the fact that it has consistantly failed to hand over Bill o'Reily to the Hague like all the other Fascists." Also, the site defends Ann Coulter as "a bestselling author of books that present conservative views in a direct and forceful manner" and is popular for for what many believe is her patriotic stances against liberals, her outspokenness against all those who wish to hurt America, and her strong defense of family values against abortion and same-sex marriage." It backs her up when she claims that her now infamous John Edwards comment "isn't offensive to gays. It has nothing to do with gays. It's a schoolyard taunt, meaning wuss," saying, "This explanation is consistent with the use of the term in American and British schools in the 20th century, and is supported by its etymology as a term applying to someone who does duties for others more senior. Edwards, whose public service consists of merely one term in the U.S. Senate, fits that meaning." Finally, the site reduces the career of Hillary Clinton, one of the most important and polarizing women of our era into health care failures, travelgate, Vince Foster, and running for President as a mom. Her legislative career? "No major legislation has been credited to Hillary Clinton."

Will Conservapedia make it in the long term? The Common Man doesn't know. He hopes not, but acknowledges that it's important for everyone to have a place to vent. After all, The Common Man has his blog in which a rather poorly written entry can get published about something that annoys him but may ultimately be of no consequence.

Gotta Keep the Devil

2007-03-12T04:21:00.000-07:00

The Common Man is back from an extended absence that could not be helped. He is back with a vengeance (blog free or blog hard).

Anyway, there is only so much room in The Common Man's week to watch television. Usually, The Common Man gets to watch one or two shows a day. Since Heroes has already claimed Monday nights, The Common Man was forced to Tivo and watch the new NBC show The Black Donnellys on tape delay. And he is glad that he did. The show follows four Irish brothers who often find themselves dodging the local mob and police while they hustle. It's good TV. The narrative structure is off-beat, the plots are suspenseful, and the producers have done a good job of fleshing out what could have been very two-dimensional characters. If you have time in your viewing schedule, it's worth it (though its subject matter through the first two episodes has been violent and (at one point) a little disturbing).

That said, the title of the show is a reference to the Donnelly brothers being "black" Irish, that somehow their blood makes them dangerous and malevolent. One character argues that, because of their blood, everything they touch will turn bad, no matter how good their intentions are. Despite this, the four brothers are the noble heroes of the show, and are lauded for putting family above petty things like morality and intelligence.

The Common Man is not surprised by this characterization; after all, for The Common Man to want to continue watching he must care about what happens to the characters. Yet, there always seems to be a double standard when gang and criminal lives are portrayed on screen. The Donnellys are celebrated for their descent into the New York City underworld. Meanwhile, almost any show about criminal activity that starred African-American "black" Donnellys would undoubtedly portray its characters very differently (though, let's be honest, no network has the balls to produce that show). African-American criminal activity would be a blight upon the city and a menace to its people. The characters would become caricatures, stereotypes of gangbangers and degenerates. Because no one seems to have the creative fortitude to tackle the issues of why African-Americans become criminals. Why they join gangs. To talk about the poverty and desperation that many of these young men and women come from would partially mitigate their choices, and our society could not condemn them with such vigor without also doing something to change the conditions that cause them.

Only one show does this: HBO's original series The Wire, a police drama that spends almost as much time being a crime drama. The crumbling neighborhoods of West Baltimore constantly remind viewers of the context in which these boys and girls choose their paths. And, while it does not excuse their behavior, the show humanizes them, making its characters into more than black skin with a gun and an attitude. It is, bar none, the best show on television today because of its deep character development, strong acting, excellent location scouting, and unflinching commitment to exposing seediness and the roots of that seediness. If you have not seen it, I recommend renting or buying the DVDs today. And if you can't, then watch The Black Donnellys and pine for what might have been.

Note: neither of these shows should, at any time, be watched by children. If you have children, The Common Man recommends locking them in the basement while you watch these shows. If you're watching The Wire on DVD, this could take up to three hours. And while The Common Man would be sorry for your kids, it would be time well spent. Kids heal.

Fine White Powder...and Snow

2007-03-07T03:56:00.000-08:00

Snow is falling steadily outside of The Common Man's window, silently dropping to the frozen ground. Everywhere he looks is covered with a thin layerof fine white powder. This pleases The Common Man.

The Common Man believes, you see, that weather should constantly be at its most logical extremes. Summer days should be warm and clear. If a day is not warm and clear, The Common Man should get to enjoy at least one thunderstorm for his trouble. For thunder does calm The Common Man, sometimes putting him to sleep, and always makes Ralph the Evil Dog cower in a way that is amusing. Likewise, in the winter, The Common Man demands that every day be either a) unusually warm, b) cold and crisp (with requisite blue sky), or snowing. Weather must make up its damn mind about what it is going to do so that The Common Man can plan out his day accordingly. This winter has been ideal for The Common Man, as it has either been unseasonably warm (until January) or snowing heavily (practically every day since). (Of course, as our globe warms, The Common Man can enjoy many unseasonably warm days as he swims to Colorado.)

Today also pleases The Common Man because his meetings at the local high school have been cancelled (as, apparently, has school). While The Common Man has no real desire to look a gift 5 extra hours in the mouth, he does feel the need to point out that the powers that be in Maine and Minnesota (where he lived prior to settling in Bellefonte, PA) would never allow 1-3 inches of snow to shut them down. The plows would be out working overtime, getting boys and girls to school and men and women to work. Time, after all, is money. Perhaps Minnesotans and Mainiacs are simply heartier than Pennsylvanians. Perhaps they are better and more careful drivers in the snow. Or maybe Centre County needs to buy some more snow plows and develop a better plan for using them. But The Common Man doesn't think there's a valid excuse for letting 1-3 inches of snow keep you away from school or work (unless a) you slide off the road and are upside-down in a ditch somewhere or b) you are using the snow as an excuse to skip a class that you really wanted to skip anyway). Cowboy up, Pennsylvania!

Queen of the Harpies

2007-03-04T03:51:00.000-08:00

The Common Man was all set to blog about how successful this weekend was. The Boy was successfully dunked for Christ. The service was at the same time informal but drenched with meaning and austerity. The exclusive afterparty was a rousing success with friends and family eating, drinking, and making merry into the night. The clean-up was relatively quick considering there were twenty-five people milling about the house. The Common Family has generally been a big help and has been terrific company for The Boy. And The Common Man ended up drinking a bunch of wine and not getting a headache (it's like he was back in college).

Then, however, Ann Coulter (Queen of the Harpies that she is) said this. Go ahead, look. It's only 34 seconds long (although many of you will have seen it by now). First and foremost, I feel the need to point out that Ann Coulter is not funny. And it's not just this joke. It seems that every joke she tells involves dropping some racial, ethnic, or sexual slur out there and getting her supporters to laugh (either uproariously or uncomfortably) along with her). She should stop trying to be funny. It is painful to watch. Pauley Shore is weeping right now.

Second, let's give it up for those people at the Conservative Political Action Conference who clapped, cheered and whistled for her. The Common Man appreciates how difficult it was for these poor, maligned conservatives (who, until a few short months ago, only had the majority of governorships, the majority of state legislatures, two houses of Congress, the Supreme Court, the President and all the President's (mostly) men, the vast majority of talk radio shows, and a national news network on which Ms. Coulter has appeared regularly, to represent their interests) to annonymously speak up in a crowd of similarly minded people and voice their approval with a position taken by another person. Not all of us have the kind of courage necessary to voice our opinion annonymously; indeed, many of us are forced to "out" ourselves and our opinions, coming out of the closet with them, as it were. These brave souls have found a way to escape public criticism and to be bigotted. So, way to go guys! In a world that treats conservatives so shabbily, The Common Man is pleased that you have found the strength to treat others shabbily right back.

As for Coulter, The Common Man finds her flippant, off-handed, snearing, smeering, and mean style repugnant. The Common Man knows nothing about her personally, except that her books such as Godless: The Church of Liberalism (actually, that would be the United Church of Christ, Ann), How to Speak to a Liberal (If you must) (frankly, there are enough people who consider themselves liberal that you should have to talk to at least one a week; it's not like, say, African-Americans, who most white Americans can literally go days without talking to), Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (no comment, letting the silence speak for itself) have been wildly popular and best-sellers. A large segment of the American population has made her very rich. Certainly, no one (except perhaps Ann herself) could claim that Ann Coulter has been disadvantaged or persecuted by anyone. She, by all accounts, has a pretty good life. All of which makes her celebratory meanness all the more offensive. The Common Man is sad that this person still carries enough political weight to a) speak in front of a group of leading conservatives, b) share the dais with Vice-President Burgess Meredith, Tom "the flacid hammer" Delay, Newt Gingrich, and Presidential hopefuls Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, and Mitt Romney, and c) has actually held The Common Man's attention for three paragraphs.

Anyway, here's paragraph 4, and then The Common Man vows to speak of this incident no more. Coulter finshed her time at the CPAC by taking questions and said, "I don't know why all gays aren't Republican. I think we have the pro-gay positions, which is anti-crime and for tax cuts. Gays make a lot of money and they're victims of crime. No, they are! They should be with us." She said this, of course, without a hint of irony, particularly since she had just disparaged both gayness and (presumably) John Edwards. The only possible reason, in light of her well-reasoned argument, that "gays" are not, for the most part, Republicans, Ms. Coulter, is probably that you are. Finally, if you think that Ann Coulter is repugnant (as The Common Man does), The Common Man urges you to go to The Human Rights Campaign and either make a donation or further educate yourself. The Common Man plans on doing one or the other after looking at his checkbook.

Thank you Jevus!

2007-03-02T04:57:00.000-08:00

The Common Man apologizes (not that The Common Man need ever apologize for anything) for the light blogging around here this week. As a special bonus, you can have an extra entry this weekend so that The Common Man can bring his total up to four for the week. It has been pretty busy in The Household this week, as The Uncommon Wife came up with bronchitis and The Boy got an ear infection. There has been a lot of work to do for school and, perhaps most importantly, The Common Family (which did spawn The Common Man, for he did not materialize out of the ether, you know) has come to visit for the weekend.

You don't care about excuses, of course. You just want a piece of The Common Man. Everyone wants a piece of The Common Man. While sometimes this demand grows tiresome, The Common Man understands how it can be so; he is, after all, pretty awesome. But since this is his blog, not yours, to get your The Common Man fix (you junkie, you), you will have to endure him talking about what's going on in his life at the moment.

Tomorrow, you see, The Boy will be dunked for Christ. This is a joyous occasion, for The Common Man loves the Lord (and the Lord loves The Common Man) and has been disappointed that The Boy has gone so long without the dunking (though not as disappointed as The Uncommon Wife). So, The Common Man's family, in-laws, and out-laws will be descending on him to celebrate immersing The Boy in water. Unlike the last mass family gathering (the nuptuals between The Common Man and The Uncommon Wife), there will be no dancing, no nervousness, and absolutely no drinking scotch from a vase. There has, however, been a great deal of practicing for the big day, as The Boy has been taking a lot of showers recently, practicing getting his face wet. He should be fine. At three months old, it's time for him to grow up a little. As Don Vito Corleone said to Johnny Fontane, "You can be a man!"

Next week, he's going to practice stifling his emotions and keeping a stiff upper lip.

Fox Out of the Henhouse

2007-02-27T03:55:00.000-08:00

A short post today from The Common Man, who is under the gun to produce a massive amount of work in a short amount of time (largely because he forgot he had a movie he had to watch by this evening):

The Onion's A.V. Club provides a daily ranking of the most popular online videos on the net. Sometimes these are amusing. Sometimes they suck (never underestimate the stupidity of 13 year olds with DSL). And sometimes they are just interesting. For instance, take this video about Fox's coverage of Barak Obama. Fox has worked itself into a frenzy as it has picked apart Obama's parentage (mixed-race, his dad was Muslim), his middle name (Hussein), his schooling (four years at a Indonesian day school that has been gleefully misrepresented as a madrasa), and his apparent smoking habit. Meanwhile, I don't think they've talked much about whether they can vote for a man who admits to cheating on his wife and who publicly ridiculed a man with Parkinson's Disease (though, in all honesty, he couldn't have known that the man had Parkinson's unless he let him actuall get a sentence out) on live radio (Giuliani). Anyway, as a result of Fox's irresponsible and malicious "journalism", the Obama campaign has "frozen out Fox News", refusing to grant access and interviews.

All of this has gotten The Common Man thinking about why Fox spends so much time on its attack journalism, and why they focus on who they focus on (I never hear a bad word from them about Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich (who Sean Hannity describes as "a nice guy."), or Tom Vilsack. However, Hilary and Obama get raked over the coals on a regular basis (to the point where, three times an hour, Hannity bills his radio program as the "Stop Hillary Express"). And I've decided that it comes down to this issue of access.

Over the past 6 years, Fox has gotten access to the President and his administration that no other network has gotten. Interviews, behind-the-scenes pieces, etc. This has helped allow Fox to become a leader in cable news, despite its snearing, pandering, and sycophantic approach to the news. Fox has created a niche for itself, and it is a profitable one. It is likely that, with another Republican win in 2008, this unfettered access and preferential treatment will continue. Without it, the station could be in danger of being (at least partially) frozen out. Indeed, even if a Democratic President refused to play favorites, Fox's lucrative access would slip.

As such, The Common Man expects Fox to go out of its way between now and November of '08 to tarnish the reps of both Hillary and Obama (as if you couldn't figure that out), who they think are the only Dems who have a chance to unseat a Republican nominee. And it will not so much about political ideology as it will be about economics and maintaining a tenuous position in a competitive market. After all, exclusive interviews with former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert just don't have the same marketability as hour-long exclusive interviews of Chris Wallace blowing Vice-President Cheney.

3 notes on this entry:
1) The Common Man is not, in any way, endorsing either Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton.
2) This does not mean, however, that CNN and CNBC do not do their share of crappy journalism. Thank God for NPR.
3) The Obama video does suffer from selective editing. Fox obviously had some of these talking heads on with someone "defending" Obama, and those parts have been conveniently removed to tell a better story. That said, c'mon, is Obama's middle name and smoking habit really news? Has he ever sued a tobacco company? No? OK, shut up then.

Shattered Illusions

2007-02-26T03:33:00.000-08:00

Hair is very important to The Common Man. He has a great deal of it, and is proud of that fact (not that he has done anything to be proud of, that honor must go to The Common Parents). And he looks forward to the day when, walking amongst his peers, they look at him with envy from under their chromed domes.

In a related note, The Common Man has always kind of had a common man-crush on Jack Nicholson. He's 70 years old and still an intimidating presence and the definition of coolness. His sly confidence projects from behind those sun glasses whether he's courtside at a Laker game, dating a 30-something actress, getting out of a speeding ticket, or smashing another driver's headlights with his golf clubs.

And through it all, Jack has had that awesome, slicked back, receding head of hair. It said, "Hey, I know I'm balding, but I'm getting older, what the hell do you want from me? I'll do whatever I want! I'm Jack Freaking Nicholson! Where the hell are my golf clubs?" More than anything else, it was honest.

So imagine my surprise when, while flipping past the Oscars (The Common Man is losing patience for awards shows and the obnoxious pageantry and self-congratulations there within), he saw this:

And now, The Common Man's illusions are shattered. Is that Jack Nicholson, or the over-the-hill bouncer from The Rathskeller in downtown State College? And if it is the over-the-hill bouncer, how did he get tickets for the Oscars? If Jack Nicholson has lost his mane and thus, like Sampson, lost his power of coolness, what hope is there for the rest of us? How can The Common Man, a dorky guy from Minnesota, hope to maintain what little coolness he has managed to hoard like a Floridian awaiting a hurricane? For some reason, this depresses The Common Man and makes him feel old more than actual birthdays.

An-ti-ci-pation

2007-02-22T12:54:00.000-08:00

One of the greatest of the great pleasures in life is the buffalo wing. The Common Man, if he thought his arteries would be able to handle the fried fatty goodness without causing his blood to ooze instead of flow, would probably have this delicacy 2-3 nights a week. Indeed, were the buffalo wings good wings (chain restaurants with the exception of Quaker Steak and Lube need not apply), The Common Man might risk heart failure and gorge himself.

When The Common Man and The Uncommon Wife moved to the State College area four years ago, they had a dilly of a time finding wings of the appropriate heat and flavor so as to satisfy The Common Man's craving. However, one day they were introduced to the nice people at Bonfatto's a local eatery in Bellefonte. Bonfatto's is a nice enough place. It's clean, the food is pretty good and the beer is cheap. But on Thursday nights at 7:00, like the aforementioned Optimus Prime, it transforms! The wings, they flow like the river. They come in groups of six. And their pallette, while as spicey as you would have them, are like a Conga line on your tongue. Oh, it is good! These are, indeed, the best wings that The Common Man has ever had, and he has had a lot of wings.

And The Common Man gets to go there tonight. Why, in less than three hours, no less! And considering that The Common Man has not eaten all day, he is looking forward to the fires of the buffalo in his mouth and in his belly. He will pack The Uncommon Wife and The Boy into the car, drive rapidly in the direction of Bonfatto's, and dine in splendor with good friends of the blog, Verna and Steele. He'll be at his corner booth, drinking cold ones and wiping the wing sauce from his face. And you shall be jealous. Oh, how envious you shall be. Indeed, your head might explode with all the jealousy and envy. That, of course, will make The Common Man sad, for he needs all the readers he can get. So, uh, try not to think too much about it.

Idol Hands Are the Devil's Playthings

2007-02-21T19:10:00.000-08:00

The Common Man is angry today, but more at himself than anything else. Last year, The Common Man got into American Idol for the first time. It damn near caused him to drop out of grad school. After all, it requires two nights a week (three this week) to follow properly, and it's essentially televised karaoke. That did not, however, stop him from rooting on a bi-weekly basis for Taylor and Chris.

The Common Man swore, after the season ended, that he would never get sucked in again. Yet, here he is, on Wednesday night, sitting in front of the TV with The Uncommon Wife and The Evil Dog, watching the women largely crash and burn. There are dog-walking, blonde, bland white girls trying to sing Aretha. There are pouty women butchering an Aerosmith song that really wasn't that good to begin with. There are proud parents who can't figure out how to clap in rhythm. There are posers and pretty boys and, worst of all, There are women who actually choose to sing Celine Dion.

Then there are the judges. Randy is the kind of guy who waxes and plucks his eye-brows and cowboy boots. Simon is perpetually crafting insults that are obtuse and essentially meaningless. And, as The Uncommon Wife points out, Paula would give a standing ovation to the guy who bagged her groceries. Their comments are contradictory and confusing and essentially meaningless (what the hell does "a bit caberet" mean?). Randy actually told a girl that a song was "too urban" for her. Essentially that her skin wasn't dark enough to sing that song. Granted, she was singing Erika Badu, but she sang it well. Meanwhile, nobody's told Randy Jackson that he's too black to play with Journey. And yes, The Common Man did earlier criticize a white girl for singing Aretha. But a) her voice couldn't carry it and b) The Common Man is a hypocrit. So there.

Anyway, The Common Man formally endorses these people for American Idol:

A Reflection on Holidays and Mediocracy

2007-02-20T04:35:00.000-08:00

Well, The Common Man sure did enjoy his Presidents' Day yesterday. Not because he got a break from work (Penn State, because they rightly now take MLK Day off has de-holidazed Prez's Day), mind you. No, he was still hard at work reading and writing for The Man (his advisor). And not because The Common Man spent all day with The Boy, who was home because his "school" was closed for a professional development day, though that was wonderful and The Boy was well behaved and he and The Common Man played with the red, rattley dog, listened to music, and slept (to be fair, The Common Man didn't participate much in the sleeping, only in the encouragement of sleeping).

But Presidents' Day did offer The Common Man a moment to be able to reflect. Annually, this country trots out the dog-eared stories of Washington and Lincoln; publishes a flurry of articles that list America's Greatest Presidents; and determines, through a poll of people on the street, that a plurality of Americans think that Ronald Reagan was our nation's greatest President. But what about those Presidents who get forgotten or swept under the rug around this time of year? What about those men who lift almost no footprint on the highest office in this here land? What about the bunglers, the wallflowers, the petty, and the corrupt? This holiday should be for them too. Therefore, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Common Man presents Our Ineffectual Presidents.

Here are the top 5, in true VH-1 countdown format:

#5 Franklin Pierce
This is going to be a common theme in The Common Man's top 5. Weak 19th century Presidents who kowtowed on the issue of slavery and race. It was a bad time. The Common Man thought about putting Warren Harding here, to even things out, but was moved by his call for a sophistication in the ways that Americans were looking at race, by his doe-eyed stupid innocence about the scandals going on around him, and by the economic success (though it was a prelude to a fall) that marked his time.

Pierce, on the other hand, had a hell of a time in office. His credibility was destroyed when his cabinet released a manifesto advocating that the U.S. invade Cuba. Then, Pierce supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act, a piece of legislation that nullified the Missouri Compromise (which kept slavery out of the plains states), allowing each territory to determine for itself what it would do. This led to a short but bloody conflict in Kansas in which 55 people died, and prompted the caning of Charles Sumner on the floor of the U.S. Senate by Preston Brooks. It also prompted the creation of the Republican Party and set up the split in his own party between Northern and Southern Democrats. Not a gifted leader, this Mr. Pierce. His party responded by refusing to renominate him at its convention in 1856.

#4 John Quincey Adams
The Common Man is unsure what, if anything, John Quincey Adams accomplished in his time as President, though it may not entirely be his fault. The election of 1824 pitted Adams against two other candidates, Speaker of the House Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson. After the voting, no candidate had received the sufficient number of electoral votes, and the election was thrown into the House of Representatives. Clay, who had received the fewest votes, was eliminated from the race and his voting block swung to Adams. In a remarkable coincidence, Clay was named Sec. of State. In response, Jackson's supporters opposed nearly every proposal he brought to them. Still, aside from building a few roads and canals, not much was done on Adams' watch. His middle name, Quincey, is one of the all-time wussiest names.

#3 James Buchanan
Legally, James Buchanan is known as "That guy who was President before Lincoln." He had his name changed just before his death in 1868, in order to spare his family the shame of having to live with an infamously ineffectual surname. It was nice of him. However, he never did have any children, being a life-long bachelor. So, like most of his Presidency, it was an empty gesture that accomplished very little.

Anyway, during his Presidency, Buchanan's administration faced financial crisis when Democrats lowered tariffs on incoming goods and instituted deficit spending for the first time in two decades. Meanwhile, there were a bunch of states that were not real happy about the direction that the country was headed and how its decisions were affecting them (although they were pretty ok with the 3/5 compromise), and under his watch the Democratic party split between Northern anti-slavery guys and Southern pro-slavery, pro-secession, pro-don't tread on me guys. And as his Presidency ended, seven states had seceded from the union in order to form their own more perfect union where they could do whatever the hell they wanted. Buchanan did nothing except to try to send a few reinforcements to Fort Sumpter. When the ship carrying them was fired upon and chased back to New York, Buchanan did not respond. Historians have characterized his inaction and his unwillingness to do anything about secession as the worst Presidential mistake ever.

To the good, Buchanan was the first President to write a memoir, eventually leading to Bill Clinton's 957 page tome. An excerpt from Buchanan's book, "I looked out the window and saw that Rome was burning. "That's interesting," I thought. "Hey, what's this in a corner? A fiddle? Well, I haven't played in a while, but I can give it a shot." Also, his ineffectual leadership of the Democratic party paved the way for Lincoln's election and, while Lincoln was no saint, he was like the guy who follows Carrot Top every night. You benefit from comparison.

#2 Rutherford B. Hayes
Hayes became President because of corrupt, back-room meetings that compromised the legitimacy of the American democracy. The election of 1876 was, by all accounts, one of the bitterest and most tightly contested in this country's history. At the end of the first count, Hayes was down 184 electoral votes to 166, with 185 needed for a win (hmmm...this sounds familiar). Three states were still in play. Essentially, in order to win the election, Hayes agreed to to remove the Union troops who were occupying the South and safeguarding the former slaves who were making tremendous strides toward equality (including electing black congressmen and mayors, starting successful businesses, voting, getting an education, etc.). This, according to Howard Zinn, in A People's History of the United States was "the last military obstacle to the reestablishment of white supremacy there." In his history of this compromise, Reunion and Reaction, C. Vann Woodward writes that while it "did not restore the old order in the South....It did assure the dominant white political autonomy and non-intervention in matters of race policy."

After that, he didn't do much. He backed our currency with gold and he ordered civil servants to stay out of politics. But other than the Compromise, the nation he had the greatest effect on was Paraguay, for whom he brokered a favorable peace treaty, who named a city after him (Villa Hayes). So, to sum up, Hayes totally screwed over black people with a decision that still has lingering effects to this day. However, he did have a kick-ass beard, kept your postman from running for mayor, and is greatly beloved in Paraguay, so maybe it all evens out. Dick.

#1 William Henry Harrison
C'mon. Who else could it be? The man served in office for only thirty days and was sick in bed for a bunch of them! His only official act was to call a special session of Congress that he didn't even want to call (damn you, Henry Clay!)! His most enduring contribution to Presidentness seems to be that he was the first President to die in office, creating the first opportunity to test the 25th Amendment. There's not much else to say about him, frankly, except "Way to go, William Henry Harrison! You're this nation's least effectual President."

Honorable Mention: George H.W. Bush
Unfortunately, while he's still alive, and while his son is in office, it is impossible to rank Bush the Elder with any kind of reliability. Sure, he won a war and Communism fell during his tenure. But seriously, on the 1-10 Scale of Emotional Satisfaction, beating the crap out of Iraq was a 3. Plus, it gets marked down because of its contribution to the situation in which we now find ourselves. And it's not like he did a lot as President to bring that Berlin Wall down. Those wheels were turning long before H-Dub took office. Finally, The Common Man would be remiss if he did not discuss the recession that occurred under his watch (though, let's face it, Reagan had a lot to do with that) and the high unemployment rate. Perhaps his two greatest contributions to Presidentiality were a) the ridiculously over the top and inaccurate attack ad (Willie Horton anybody? Boston Harbor?) and b) the political dynasty that he has founded, as he will eventually followed into office by his sons George W. and Jeb, his granddaughters Jenna and Barbara, and their eventual sons Skye, Colt, and Dakota.

Who are some of your favorite ineffectual Presidents?

More Than Meets the Eye

2007-02-19T07:33:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend, The Common Man became excited only to see his dreams crushed against the rocky shoals of reality. You see, when The Common Man was but The Common Boy, he loved his Transformers. He loved the toys. He loved the cartoon. He was traumatized by the movie (in which all his favorite Transformers, including Optimus Prime but not Bumblebee, were killed off in the first 20 minutes) but loved it anyway. The Common Man even loved the lean third season, suffering through the reign of Rodimus Prime, the new, totally wussy, leader of the Autobots. Somewhere, in his parents' basement, The Common Man still has his original Optimus Prime (even though one arm has fallen off),

his decomposing Megatron (a poorly-designed, fragile toy that, by the way, transforms into a realistic-looking pistol; not sure that toy would fly today), his crippled Soundwave(with a broken tape-deck and legs that no longer support his weight), and
Rodimus Prime (in mint-condition...damn it; seriously, this is the Transformer that's in perfect condition??? Is there no justice in this world?), along with dozens and dozens of other Transformers in various states of decay. Suffice to say, The Common Man loved him some Transformers.

Certainly, The Common Man realizes that the cartoons were poorly written with cheesy dialogue, that they often portrayed Muslims in a stereotypical manner (seriously, go back and watch them if you don't believe me), and that they were essentially half-hour commercials for the toy line (as more and more Transformer characters conveniently showed up on theshow just in time for their product release...I'm looking at you Constructicons, Aerialbots, Stunticons, Predicons, Protectobots, and Combaticons). But this does not diminish his affection for them; it only reminds him of how much he enjoyed playing with his toys. Indeed, maybe The Common Man can see how ridiculous crap like Pokemon, Digimon, Power Rangers, and Yu-gih-oh can have such an influence on kids today (or, I guess, 5-7 years ago). Of course, all of those suck and The Common Man's Transformers are awesome, so it's probably not a good comparison after all.

Anyway, as you may or may not know, there is a live-action version of Transformers coming to theaters near you this summer. This has The Common Man all atwitter, and for weeks he has been searching for ever more news, photos, and clips from the new film. The Common Man prays that this film will be good, for it holds the unfulfilled dreams of his childhood in its hands. Unfortunately, those hands are being controlled by Michael Bay, director of Armageddon and The Island. Bay has admitted that, prior to his involvement in this film, he knew nothing about the Transformers. Happily, his hands are being guided by this man, who has had a decent track record in putting together enjoyable films.

This is a lot of explanation to get to The Common Man's ultimate frustration this weekend when he read that various internet "media" outlets had been given a chance to view 25 from the upcoming film at the International Toy Convention. The Common Man thought that, surely, some clever individual had smuggled out some kind of bootlegged copy. So he looked and looked and looked. But none could be found. All these sites have are text descriptions of what they saw. And that's not good enough for The Common Man. He needs his fix. Or, he needs it to be July. Now.

The lesson, as always, is that The Common Man has the emotional maturity of a 10 year old.

Words That Are Weighty With Nothing But Trouble

2007-02-15T09:08:00.000-08:00

The Common Man does not want this space to become a space for him to obsess about sports, though that is what The Common Man usually does (particularly about his Minnesota Twins). Perhaps he will write another blog in which he can do that. For now he would like to reserve this space for topics that are more universally interesting. That said, today The Common Man just cannot help himself. Today The Common Man is excited. For today, you see, he has heard the four little words that seem to make every February (a virtual dead time in the sporting world) worth enduring: Pitchers and Catchers report.

Indeed, today, in Florida and Arizona, fresh-faced rookies and obscenely wealthy veterans are getting out of their Humvees and their Corvettes and their mom's old Chevy Cavalier, are unpacking their bags full of Under Armour T-shirts, baseball caps, and jock straps, and are beginning to loosen up their arms. That's right, baseball is back.

Now, one could argue that pitchers and catchers began reporting yesterday, which is true. Or that The Common Man's beloved Twins don't report for another 2 days, 23 hours, 43 minutes, and 20, 19, 18 seconds. That is also true. But today is the first day that The Common Man really realized what was going on (he's been in a snowed-in mental fog) and got excited.

It's hard for The Common Man to be rational about baseball, for it is his first true love. He found it one summer in 1987 as the underdog Minnesota Twins backed into the playoffs and ended up as the World Champions (note: the world, in this case, refers only to the United States and Canada). And every spring, it rides back into his life, reclaims its place in his heart, and makes him giggly as a little school girl until late October, when it cruelly leaves him for four long months.

But now it is back! And, oh! The fun they shall have together, long into the warm summer nights. He shall be captivated by its beauty for hours on end, and shall treasure every moment. He shall look into baseball's eyes and profess his undying devotion. Unless, that is, freaking Ron Gardenhire gives the 5th starter's spot in the rotation to Sidney Ponson or Ramon Ortiz! Then it's over. This time, it's really over.

Beast Wars

2007-02-14T04:15:00.000-08:00

There are certain, perhaps unanswerable, questions that leave The Common Man scratching his head. Last night, as he and The Uncommon Wife sat in bed watching The Daily Show, one of those questions came up. He hopes that you can help him answer it.

A commercial for the National Geographic Channel came on and intermittently showed film of a lion and a shark. This prompted The Common Man to ask the perfectly natural question, "If a lion and a shark had a fight, who would win?"

Of course, the answer is largely dependent on where the fight takes place. On land, the lion has the distinct advantage because he can move about more easily and can breath. Ditto for the shark in the water. To make sure that no advantage is given, The Common Man has decreed that it must take place in outer space.

The Common Man thinks it is important that a wussy shark is not chosen for this competition. So, no whale sharks and no, um, fuzzy...sharks. The Common Man also decrees that the shark must be a Great White Shark.

Finally, The Common Man wants to make sure that the fight is as aesthetically pleasing as possible. Male lions just look cooler than female lions. It's just true. The Common Man will brook no argument here. Therefore, only a male lion is allowed to participate.

So, loyal readers (of whom there are so few, and after rereading this post, I can see why), if a lion and a shark fought in outer space, who would win and why?

So Much To Live For

2007-02-13T13:23:00.000-08:00

This morning, as snow fell softly outside his window, The Common Man walked downstairs to the basement with The Boy to feed him and to watch Studio 60. The Common Man wants to like Studio 60, he really does. It is written by one of his favorite writers (Aaron Sorkin) and stars some of his favorite people (Bradley Whitford, Nate Corddry, Timothy Busfield). But it is a show that seems to amble. It has very little trajectory and no real sense that it is heading anywhere. And, for a show about late night sketch comedy, it's not terribly funny. The Common Man keeps watching and hoping that it will pull out of its nosedive, but it doesn't look good at this point.

But this is not a post about the show itself. Nor is this a post about The Boy, who is almost three months old and extremely sweet and cute as a button and very healthy thank you for asking. Rather, this is a post about Volkswagens.

Now, from what The Common Man has gleaned from the world around him, the average Volkswagen is a pretty decent little car. It's German. It's small (except for the bus). It gets good gas mileage. And it gets bonus points for the old school Beetle. But it doesn't seem to be anything terribly special. I mean, The Uncommon Wife and The Common Man just bought a car (Hyundai Sonata) and didn't even consider a VW.

Yet, The Common Man saw a Volkswagen commercial last night that has him questioning the very foundations of our society. It begins with a man on the roof of a building. He is white, bald and slightly disheveled, and he is about to jump to his certain death. A crowd has gathered to watch. He calls down to them, listing the worst things in the world: war, global warming, hyper-consumerism, reality TV. "I don't even know what my neighbors' names are," he calls out. On the street below, a man drives up and stops his little Volkswagen in the middle of the road and pulls out a megaphone. "Three V-dubs [VWs] for under 17,000," the man on the street calls out. The man on the rooftop looks puzzled for a moment, then begins to step back from the precipice. "I'll...I'll be right down," he calls back.

And.......scene.

OK, so this commercial purports that buying a Volkswagen for under $17K will make life worth living again in light of all the terrible things wrong in the world? Look, The Common Man is all for living and preventing suicide and solving all the terrible problems that are out there; but seriously, a Volkswagen makes all of those seem insignificant? These advertisers think that this ad will speak to Americans? That consumerism is the answer to the woes of the world?

Sigh. You know what, they're probably right. Not about consumerism being the answer (although The Common Man does enjoy consuming), but that the American public will be influenced by their heinous commercial (by the way, The Common Man thinks they've lost the "my friend killed himself by jumping off a bridge" demographic). That depresses The Common Man, who, on a beautiful, snowy day, hanging out with The Boy, wanted to believe in the best of America and humanity. If you'll excuse me, The Common Man is now going to go jump off his roof...unless somebody drives by in a Volvo or something.

The Band Played On

2007-02-12T03:00:00.000-08:00

The Common Man got up early this morning, hoping to get a jump on the day. As he sat checking email, he heard that The Dixie Chicks won five Grammys last night. The Common Man was too busy watching Battlestar Galactica (easily the best and most culturally relevant show on TV today) to see it live. And anyway, The Common Man doesn't usually watch awards shows. They are all very similar to one another and celebrate an ostentacious display of wealth, fashion, and jewelry that The Common Man finds distasteful, mostly because he cannot afford such things. Besides, he can just read the results the next day. Or the Common Man usually lets The Uncommon Wife watch them and report back.

Anyway, The Common Man is happy for The Dixie Chicks, whose 2003 comments at a London concert were blown wildly out of proportion by an hyper-sensitive minority of neo-con Country music fans and the corporate radio syndicates who can't afford not to cater to them. So, even Country music fans in L.A. and Maine were denied the opportunity to hear from the Chicks for four years because 1,000 idiots in Texas burned their CDs. Meanwhile, Toby Keith will put a boot in your ass (it's the American way!). I heard that somewhere.

And the Dixie Chicks' new album is pretty damn good. So good, in fact, that it became the only album The Common Man bought for himself in the last 3 years (the last was probably James Taylor's October Road (good, mellow wine-drinking music). Of course, you still won't hear any of the songs on Country radio, so The Common Man urges you to buy the disc or to legally download the tunes from your favorite on-line music emporium. Other artists who have fallen off the pop-culture map that are highly endorsed by The Common Man include John Hiatt, Guster, Lyle Lovett, and Chantal Kraviazuk. Any other suggestions?

Washing the Dirt Off

2007-02-09T09:32:00.000-08:00

The Common Man needed to take a shower. Not because The Common Man was dirty (although proper hygiene is important to The Common Man), but because he felt dirty. You see, a couple of years back I wished that Anna Nicole Smith would just die already so that I wouldn't have to think about her any more.

My wish did not necessarily put Ms. Smith in a unique category. The Common Man has wished many people dead over the course of his life. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson so that their messianic cults would whither. Barry Bonds so that I could stop hearing about him because, frankly, The Common Man just does not care. And, of course, The Common Man still wishes daily for the death of the guy who wrote the 1-800-SafeAuto song (go ahead, just try and get it out of your head now). But none of these wishes had come true.

Now, of course, Anna Nicole is dead. But The Common Man doesn't necessarily feel bad about her death. Of course, it's sad that she was only 39 and tragic that her 5 month old will grow up without her mother. But we're also talking about a person who was drunk on her own celebrity and who, unbelievably, leaves behind a fortune of somewhere between $88 million and $400 million. It's not like Ms. Smith didn't enjoy her time here.

No, the reason The Common Man feels dirty is that his wish has now caused his worst nightmare. The media coverage surrounding Ms. Smith's untimely demise is an eclipse that blots out the light from other stories that actually matter. For instance, while Anna Nicole dominates the coverage on CNN, FoxNews, and CNBC, Defense Secretary Gates has revealed that our government has recovered "some serial numbers, there may be some markings on some of the projectile fragments that we found" that indicate that Iran is supplying weapons to Iraqi insurgents. If true, this represents the first hard evidence of Iran's involvement in the actual fighting.

The coverage of Anna Nicole's death has also overshadowed the vindication of everyone's favorite grandmother/Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Yesterday, sad excuse for a newspaper The Washington Times, accused Pelosi of demanding a military plane that can take her non-stop from D.C. to her home district in San Francisco. Meanwhile, prominent Republicans have blasted her for having an "arrogance of office that just defies common sense." Rep. Pat McHenry, of North Carolina complained that "Pelosi's abuse of power continues...now she's exploiting America's armed forces and taxpayers for her own personal convenience." Today, we have learned that, in actuality, the House of Representatives' Sergeant at Arms requested the plane "for security reasons."

The Common Man is happy about this development for two reasons. 1) It makes pompous windbags look ridiculous, and that always makes The Common Man happy. 2) The Common Man is glad that the #2 person in the line of succession for the Presidency, on her way back to Washington, won't have to stop in Chicago, Denver, or Atlanta to refuel with the rest of us. The Common Man does not know what is in the luggage of Madame Speaker, but does not want sensitive documents pilfered while Madame Speaker runs from Terminal A to Terminal C to catch her really tight connection, as The Common Man's bags were stolen off the tarmac in Detroit in 2002. Anyway, the rancor and venom of the partisan politics of accusation anger The Common Man, and he hopes you hear it and are angered too.

But The Common Man feels sick because, with the death of Anna Nicole Smith, chances are that these stories will not get the coverage they deserve, for our media has decided (perhaps correctly) that we'd rather speculate about the death of a woman who leaves almost no mark upon the world (unless celeb-reality TV in which crazy celebrities get followed by camera crews who film them acting crazy constitutes a mark) and who really wasn't that famous anyway (or at least shouldn't have been) than look at the domestic and international political events that will continue to shape our country and our world for the forseeable future.

In the Beginning...

2007-02-08T07:19:00.000-08:00

And so, here we are again. You. Me. Here.

This is a space for the common man. The comman man is tired of being talked at by governments who substitute spin for the truth. The common man is angry that he has to explain to his son what Cialis and Erectile Disfunction are as they watch football together. The common man is in awe of the creativity of our culture, but frustrated by our refusal to use that creativity to actually solve the problems of poverty, prejudice, and inequality. The common man acknowledges the greatness of America and its people, but understands why our cultural expansion and foreign policy scares others.

By "man," I do not mean that his site is intended for men and men only. I can certainly see how you'd think so. After all, I'm writing this as a twenty-eight year old, white male who is a father and a husband. And I'm certain that my choice of topics that we take up here will sometimes reflect these identities. But not always. And certainly, the concerns of one man may be concerns shared by other men, women, children, and pets.

I think that the term "the common man" needs to be reappropriated. 24-hour news channels conduct sidewalk interview after sidewalk interview, asking questions designed to elicit a 10-second answer from "the common man" that is neither perceptive, nor news. No, the common man has thoughts that take longer than 10 seconds to unfold. Yet, these are tossed away on the editing room floor. The common man appears stupid and uninsightful in our culture, and is treated as such by a government and media that do not respect him.

So what will we talk about? Culture, politics, family, social justice, economics, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The common man has many interests and all of them are fair game.

And who is the common man? Well, of course, I am. After all, this is my site. Yet, you are the common man, too, if you would like to be. It's not that there's nothing special about us, but we don't consider ourselves to be any more special than anyone else. We recognize that we are products of our culture as much as we continue to shape it. We cannot help being part of this culture, but we are aware of how it affects us on an everyday basis.

I hope you care about the common man, and about what the common man has to say. The common man cannot promise to be good, but can promise to always be here. I hope you will be here too.