Bells are Chiming for Victory

At this point, we've all read the stories about the U.S.-launched missile that destroyed a National Reconnaissance Office satellite late Wednesday night, but in the words of George Oscar Bluth II (G.O.B. to his friends), "COME ON, U.S. military."

Aren't there other uses for the munitions of the United States, such as...

• Yankee Stadium
• The studios filming any one of the thousand "CSI: (Insert American City here)"
• Old Trafford
• The headquarters of the Blahg
• Jose Canseco's house, Roger Clemens's house, Barry Bonds's house, etc.
• The source of the immortal "Don't tase me, bro" catchphrase
• People still voting for Mitt Romney weeks after he dropped (excuse me, suspended) his Presidential campaign.
• Any supporters of the Philadelphia Eagles, New York Giants, or New England Patriots.
• The person that invented speed limits
• Charlie Finley and John Hedyler (the brain trust behind the designated hitter rule)

That's all the punishment I can dole out at this time, but feel free to add your own suggestions.

I Wish I Was the Pedal Brake That You Depended On

Just when my level of amazement for technology begins to wane, things like this happen. After my post last Saturday about the book Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of An Antihero, I received an interesting email from someone who knows a little something about that book.

Barry Bonds?

Not likely. This family -friendly blog is a steroid-free zone, my friends.

No, it was Jeff Pearlman. Yes, he of the infamous John Rocker interview in Sports Illustrated. Yes, the same guy who wrote The Bad Guys Won, the upcoming Boys Will Be Boys on the 90's Cowboys dynasty, and the aforementioned Love Me, Hate Me, and yes, the same guy who could pass for a brother of Radiohead's Thom Yorke. That Jeff Pearlman.

It was just a quick note thanking me for blogging about Love Me, Hate Me, but after that, I'm sold on Pearlman. He didn't have to send me that kind of message, even if it only took him a few seconds to type. That's not to say that he's automatically gained entrance to the Running Down a Dream author-writer-columnist Hall-of-Fame, but with gestures like that, he's making a very strong case for himself.

With that said, I must also tell you that the ol' interwebs are really starting to freak me out.

Seven For a Secret Never to Be Told

Congratulations to Mr. Andrew Tuegel for correctly naming "Is It Any Wonder?" by Keane as the Friday Song of the Day.

I'm only 71 pages into Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of Antihero, but the aforementioned Mr. Bonds has already denied his former membership in the Cub Scouts, denied knowing an Arizona State teammate whose wedding he was in, and openly disrespected former Texas Ranger Oddibe McDowell. I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but that looks like the "un-holy trinity" to me.

Current Reading

Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero by Jeff Pearlman

She Says You're Not There and I Should Take Care

A few Friday morning links to articles/editorials/columns that I thought everyone might enjoy:

• Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal on Mitt Romney's speech yesterday in College Station at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library: "Mormon in America"
• "The nation’s founders knew the answer to that question says nothing about a candidate’s fitness for office. It’s tragic to see it being asked at a time when Americans need a president who will tell the truth, lead with conviction and restore the nation’s moral standing, not one who happens to attend a particular church."--The NY Times editorial board in "The Crisis of Faith."
• "Religion can certainly be conducive to freedom. But does freedom require religion? Is religion always conducive to freedom? Does freedom not also thrive in far more secular societies than our own? Isn't the better course for our nation to seek solidarity among lovers of liberty, secular as well as religious? After all, as the Princeton scholar Jeffrey Stout has noted, it was a coalition of believers and secularists that sent a communist dictatorship tumbling down in Pope John Paul II's native Poland."-- E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post in "Boldness, Watered Down."
• "Romney’s job yesterday was to unite social conservatives behind him. If he succeeded, he did it in two ways. He asked people to rally around the best traditions of America’s civic religion. He also asked people to submerge their religious convictions for the sake of solidarity in a culture war without end."--David Brooks of the NY Times in "Faith v. the Faithless."
• "Hollywood is in somewhat the same position as Las Vegas these days. It went from being the capital of sin to Disneyland, and now it’s landed somewhere in between. It tries to keep the sins hidden away and outwardly present itself as a defender of American virtues: justice, individual freedom, and the power of one innocent soul to save the world. The Golden Compass should not offend, or be controversial at all, Weitz swears. It will certainly not, heaven forbid, offer any critique of religion. 'The movie’s first job is to beguile the audience for a couple of hours,' he says, and that much it can promise to do."--Hanna Rosin of The Atlantic Monthly in "How Hollywood Saved God."
• "When Barry Bonds walks into the Phillip Burton Federal Building in San Francisco on Friday, it will be only the beginning of an unpredictable legal odyssey. A few days after the fourth anniversary of his BALCO grand jury testimony, Bonds will surrender to U.S. marshals, go through the bureaucratic rigmarole of being arrested and later appear in court to enter a plea on four counts of perjury and one of obstructing justice."--Mark Fainaru-Wade and T.J. Quinn of ESPN.com in "Answers to Key Questions as Bonds Begins Legal Journey."
  
  
  
  

There's the Truth That They Can't See

Instead of writing about subjects where there is a shred of doubt as to their vitality, I will instead stick to those where a pulse is available for confirmation.

In case you didn't happen to watch television, read a newspaper, scour the internet, listen to the radio, or talk to another human being in the last 24 hours, it may be news to you that major-league home run king (it pains me to even write that) Barry Bonds was indicted yesterday in the Northern District of California on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice connected with his 2003 testimony to the grand jury investigating the operations of the infamous Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative or BALCO.

George Vecsey (Peter's brother) has a timely column contrasting the decisions and actions of Bonds and Jason Giambi in their testimony before the BALCO grand jury. Much like a child that continually states "You can't see me" when he is standing in plain view, it seems amazing that Bonds would somehow believe that his steadfast denials of impropriety and wrongdoing could shield him from the consequences of the BALCO investigation and former Senator George Mitchell's steroid inquiry, but I wasn't shocked by the news of the indictment yesterday, and perhaps that is the worst news of all.

As sports fans, after enduring years and years of damning revelations concerning the unwise, evasive, and downright illegal decisions of the athletes we shamefully elevate to positions of honor, nothing is a surprise anymore.

• Ben Johnson's gold medal in the 100 meters is stripped by the International Olympic Committee after a positive drug test following the Seoul Games?
• Floyd Landis wins the first post-Armstrong Tour de France in stunning fashion?
• Marion Jones dominates the Sydney Games?
• Barry Bonds goes from a slender, five-tool, first ballot Hall of Famer to a hulking behemoth that shatters the two most hallowed records in the game of baseball?

We have become so jaded as this point that each and every dominant performance that should be greeted with praise and admiration for the skill and dedication shown by the athlete is instead met with whispers and allegations of what must surely be looking beneath the surface.

Vecsey is dead-on when he voices his dislike of the fact that baseball fans everywhere must somehow begin rooting for a "clean" A-Rod to break Bonds' record in what will amount to a redemption of the record books from the grasp of the unclean to the property of those who accomplish their goals in a manner worthy of admiration. As much as I loath Bonds and everything that he represents, it's going to be difficult to support Rodriguez's quest to place himself at the summit of baseball's all-time homerun list.

Can we not just convince Hammerin' Hank to come back for eight more homers?