A little good news in the news

Good news in the news.

Wow, was this week just crappy.  Ebola, again.  Russia. Again.  Gaza. Again.  Even "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" couldn't take it so they brought in a drag queen and asked questions about happy topics.  Felt like a good time to revive the BLC (semi-)regular feature of missed items in the news with an eye for something good.

1. As reported in the NY Times and elsewhere, some religious leaders and churchgoers are working to take care of the young migrant children who have come to the US to escape the poverty (Guatemalan) and violence of their (Salvadoran and Nicaraguan) homelands in Central America.  And one thing that is interesting here is that two groups who tend to lean to the political right in this country - Catholic bishops and Baptists - are in the mix along with Quakers, progressive Jewish leaders, and Unitarian Universalists, among others.  Sure, you could be cynical and say that Catholic bishops are looking around at the hands that feed them, are seeing fewer (and fewer that are white), and are deciding to play the long game in enlightened self interest.  No matter.  Anyone who is stepping up and saying "These are children.  We are Americans.  They absolutely deserve compassion and love and support and we should know better and do better," is doing the right thing.  (Want to help?  Consider giving to these non-profits: Young Center for Immigrant's Children's Rights; Kids in Need of Defense.  Want to learn more about what's going behind the immigration?  Mother Jones has a good piece here.)

2.  Yeah, we're not doing a lot about global climate change - but how does one coal plant taking the equivalent of 250,000 cars off the road sound?  The Boundary Dam power station in Saskatchewan is going to do just that, through its carbon capture retrofit.  And so is a plant in Mississippi, of all places.  Should we still be strip mining coal?  Of course not.  But until we get renewables to the point where they can even think about replacing fossil fuels, these are great next steps.

3.  Speaking of climate change, there were some big wins for transit recently.  The Washington DC Metro began service on the Silver Line  to Northern Virginia. Yes the 15-mile long track took nearly $3 billion and 6 years, but it's up and running, and will extend out to Dulles by 2018.  And in north Texas, the DART rail system has been extended to DFW Airport - the world's third busiest - with service beginning next month.

4.  And another athlete has come out as an ally for queer folk - in an awesome way.  As reported in Outsports, for his weigh-in at his last fight MMA competitor Kyle Kingsbury stripped down to reveal pink undies with a pro-marriage-equality message.  I know nothing about the guy, but c'mon, that's kinda bad ass in its own way.

And that's all I got.  Really, I tried.  I checked online sources from Japan, Australia, Singapore, Canada, France, and South Africa to find some good news, and that's all I could find.  Hunker down, and here's hoping next week is better.
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Pre-gay memories

I’ve been thinking about the time before I came out, when I was still in denial about who I was despite ample evidence to the contrary.  How did I not know?  I mean, there was evidence there.  In fact, here are five "tells" that shoulda (but didn’t) let me know that I was queer before I “knew”.

#5 – Sam.  We didn’t have TV for a lot of years growing up, but when we did, Quincy, ME, was one of my ma’s favorite shows and one of the few we got to watch.  Sam Fujiyama, Quincy’s medical assistant, played by Canadian Robert Ito (right), was a very handsome man who brought an unlikely bit of color into our very white corner of 1970s America.  He was my first Asian crush.  Got me thinking. 

#4 – Mark Hammill.  Yes, I was a Luke Skywalker guy, not a Han Solo guy.  I liked blondes.  Well, blondes and Robert Ito.  I remember thinking that I liked him so much because he was a farm kid living in the ass-end of the universe and he got tapped for a mission to save the galaxy.  Maybe.  Maybe I just liked him because he was blond and I thought he was hot.  Got me thinking some more.  (I saw Star Wars over 15 times.)

#3 – Tim and Kelly.  No, not a couple, Tim and Kelly were two lifeguards at the town pool where I grew up.  There must have been female lifeguards – in fact I’m sure there were, because my brother was trying to impress one of them by seeing how big of a splash he could make from the high dive when he misjudged and landed partially on the concrete breaking three bones – but I don’t remember any of them.  Tim and Kelly, them I remember.  They were impossibly beautiful.  I couldn’t understand my fascination with them as I’d tread water under their chairs for as long as I could, looking up at them as they sat there in their red Speedos, twirling their whistles and trying not to be bored.  I realize now that they were 16 and 17, but since I was 8 they were fully grown men – beautiful, long limbed, unblemished, sunkissed, men – well, gods, really.  Both were over 6’3”, both had the 8% body fat that you’d expect from teenage lifeguards who were members of the swim team.  Both were nice to me whenever they saw me around the pool or at church or in town, and they’d say hi – Kelly, in spite of his stutter.  I was often dumbstruck in reply.  Tim now lives in San Diego with his partner, and Kelly moved back to Fowler after a few years in SoCal trying to make an entertainment career for himself.  How did I not know?  

# 2 – Is #44, actually.  That’s the number worn by Doug G-- , a blond, bow-legged hunk of a post-player (3-spot) on the high school basketball team.  He was in my sister’s class, four years older than me, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him.  He was a solid player on a good team, but he wasn’t the best player on the court, ever (probably 8 pts, 7 rebounds, 2 assists kinda guy), but I still would watch him every trip down the floor.  I think I told myself something like “I’m watching him to see what offense we’re running” but since we always ran the UCLA offense, I don’t think that was it – and I don’t think I believed it at the time. He was dreamy, with his floppy hair and his taciturn demeanor.  I’m sure if I’d ever met him I would have had a dork attack and been unable to speak.  (His teammate, Tige Smith, could also be on this list.  He was a guard, wore #10.  His name was “Tige”, so what was an admiring 7^th grader to do but have a crush on him?  But Tige seemed super urban with his feathered hair and his suede boots; Doug was all guy.)

 

George Michael (top?) and Andrew Ridgely, circa 1983.  

#1 – George Michael.  Yes, the first album I ever bought was “Vacation” by the Go-Go’s, and maybe that was its own tell if you buy the “queer culture” theory, but it was Wham!’s “Make it Big” that I went apeshit for.  I’d play the LP over and over and over, and then when I’d go over to a friend’s house who had cable and they’d play the “Wake Me Up (Before you Go-Go)” video I’d, literally, curl my toes as George crossed his hands and beckoned playfully – and let’s just say it, gay-ly – into the camera.  I had a little routine worked out to dance to it.  I am sure – 100% sure – that I was 100% fey when I took the dance floor to that song at the high school dances (which I never missed).  Why did no one tell me?  C’mon, that’s surely a tell.  I told myself that he was singing to women, so therefore I could love the song (and the whole album. To round out the catalog I backed up and bought “Music from the Edge of Heaven” and the extended cassette single of “Everything She Wants” and, and, and…) and it was fine.  It was fine, of course.  It just wasn’t particularly heterosexual. 

For a recent birthday my friends presented me with beer cozies that have my name and birthday on one side, and “Mo Established” on the other side with the year I came out.  I love them! But maybe if I’d been a little more self-aware the dates wouldn’a been so far apart.  Oh, well.  It makes for great memories, too.  

Valentine to a Friend

Note: this post originally appeared in a shorter form in the February, 2013 Valentine's issue of Kraven magazine. 

“I can’t make it tmrw night.  Haven’t said anything to ppl but have some health stuff and have tests at hosp tmrw. Rain check?”

That was the text on November 13.  I was in Seattle for business, hoping to grab a quick drink with my friend Cheryl, a woman I’d known since undergrad.  I texted her back that I wished her well, was sorry that I wouldn’t get to see her, and totally understood.  I was concerned, of course, but I didn’t push it.  I’d been planning to come back up and see her for a longer visit at some point over winter break, or if not then for sure in early January.  She had occasional work in SoCal, too.  I’d see her again soon.

In his book “Illusions” Richard Bach wrote: “Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.”  Cheryl, unquestionably, was a friend.  I don’t remember exactly when or how we met, we’ve always just “known each other better.”

Despite that, despite the way we knew we’d be – or that we’d hoped we’d be – lifelong friends, it takes effort to sustain a friendship over the years and the miles.  One night at the Gym Bar in Milwaukee, Cheryl turned away from the pool table, cue in hand, looked right at me, and sang along with the Damn Yankees on the jukebox: “Don’t say goodbye / Say you’re gonna stay forever…”  I had just accepted a job in Denver.  I don’t know if I really want to go, to take that job, but that’s what I had been taught that people did – they left and went and made their way in the world.  I left. 

I came back to Chicago two years later and reconnected with Cheryl and our group of friends, and she helped me move, twice; drove me back and forth between friends’ and families’ places for weekend barbecues and parties; and played Yahtzee at Hooligan’s bar on football Sundays, her with one eye on the Bears, me with one eye on the Colts. 

Finally we both ended up in the Bay Area – she first, so I called her to talk about San Francisco and where I should look for apartments when I learned I’d be transferred.  She immediately said, “I have a two bedroom – stay with me.”

If anyone else had offered, would I have said yes?  I’m not sure. I was a little reluctant, but I decided to take her up on it.  In part, I accepted because she had always been a strong proponent of "clear and direct communication" and I knew she wouldn't have offered if she hadn't meant it.  In part, I accepted because I missed her and it would be great to get time together like we hadn’t had in years. 

I ended up staying with her for two months.  She showed me the City, taught me lessons about driving around in it (“Never get behind a Zip Car, they always have terrible drivers” and “Valencia.  Always.  Nothing good ever happens from Mission.”), taught me from which bar and which bartender to get a good Bloody Mary, taught me where to go to watch the games.  She took me to the Pilsener, which she correctly predicted was “your kind of gay bar.”  She took me to museums on her passes and to movies with her friends. She introduced me to her San Francisco circle, who figured if I was a friend of Cheryl’s then they were going to take me in despite my professed love of LA and a lack of fashion sense.  We stayed up watching the Food Network and then woke up the next morning hours earlier than planned, starving, on a hunt for pancakes.  We went to Twin Peaks, both the bar and the scenic point.  We watched the fog roll into the Bay from her Noe apartment until the ports were covered, until the lights at AT&T park were occluded, until Oakland seemed a world away. 

Her hospitality and friendship meant the world to me.  I deeply resented that transfer; I felt like I was hitting my stride in San Diego, like I could have put down some roots, and I didn’t want to live in cold, expensive, pretentious San Francisco.  But without that transfer I wouldn’t have had that time with Cheryl.  I wouldn’t have learned about the City, or have grown to love it.  I wouldn’t have found the Valley Tavern, where she and I, even after I moved out, would sit for hours every Sunday, watching football at the end of the bar in front of our “lucky” TVs, passing parts of the Chronicle back and forth, talking about our boyfriends, our jobs, our families, our mutual and separate friends. 

We wouldn’t have renewed our friendship to the point that, on New Year’s Day a few years back as we sat around her apartment in recovery mode, contemplating and discussing the time behind us and in front of us, she was moved to say, “I’m really glad we reconnected while both of us were here in the Bay Area. It’s one of my favorite things from this past year.” 

Cheryl was never demonstrative – this was as effusive as she got.  I concurred, even as I was surprised that I choked up by how it caught me.  It was one of my favorite things, too.  It had given us momentum and reminded us of why we were friends, of how we “knew each other better.”  I got to learn again about her loyalty to me and to everyone important to her.  About her generosity as she took me in and as she always over-tipped.  About her sense of justice, as she would start to fume when reading the paper about someone who had been wronged, or as she fumed about the Prop 8 case.    

One Sunday at the Valley, sitting there, talking about the things we’d like to do together that we’d talked about before, I felt the need to plan.  I grabbed a bar receipt, turned it over, and made a list that I am looking at now on my bulletin board. 

 

We thought then that we had all the time in the world to cross off its items.  Why wouldn’t we?  A weekend here, a weekend there, we could knock out the list in 18 months, tops.  It wasn’t particularly ambitious – no international travel, for one thing – so we’d have time to accomplish them. 

But I guess that’s the paradox.  All each of us have is time, but we don’t know how much time we have.  We trade our time for money, for pleasure, for company, but we don’t know its cost when we spend it, because we don’t know its scarcity.    

That time I had with Cheryl – those two months I lived with her and the two years we overlapped in the Bay Area before she pursued a great new gig in Seattle – that was time that I hadn’t been looking for and that I hadn’t expressly wanted.  I didn’t want the transfer, Ididn’t want to leave SoCal, I didn’t want any of it.  But I got them, and I made the most of them – not through any Herculean effort, not because I knew that time was passing, but because I was with a “friend who knew me better,” and who knew how to make everything fun. 

Maybe some of that lesson, about how to spend time, inspired me to take a last minute trip to Seattle this New Year’s Day.  I wasn’t scheduled to go until the 11^th to see Cheryl in the hospital, but something told me to go up earlier, and on December 30^th I bought a ticket.  I landed on the 1^st, checked in to my hotel, and went to see her.  Cheryl looked rough but she was awake; she looked at me, recognized me, and made a face that was funny and knowing and all her.

The next night, the 2^nd, while her brother ran to the airport to get incoming relatives, it was just me, her sister Diane, and Cheryl. As Diane slept on the cot in the hospital room – the cot on which she’d been sleeping for weeks – I talked to Cheryl, and told her goodbye.  I thanked her for all of the lessons she had taught me – “Clear and direct communication, Brennan,” and how to be a good advocate and how to be a loyal friend and a good many others.  Some of those in our circle of friends who couldn’t make it had called me and asked me to kiss her goodbye for them, so I did.  I told her stories, unsure if she could hear me through the sedation and the pain, but I told them anyway – of how much she had meant to me, of how she had made me laugh, of all of the great conversations we’d had. I told her that I would work on our list, and that I’d think of her when I did.  I told her I’d miss her like hell.  And I softly sang her a line from the Damn Yankees song that she had sung to me twenty years earlier: “Don’t say goodbye / say you’re gonna stay forever…” 

The next morning, the 3^rd, she died. 

It had been six weeks since the night she texted me that she wasn’t going to make it to drinks.  Turns out she had a very rare, aggressive form of cancer, and that six weeks was all she had.

As I try to reorient my life without her, and face how precious the time is that I have to spend, I think about that.  Six weeks.  I think about the people in my life and how I now want to go live with each one of them for two months, to renew my friendships and loves with them.  I think about everything I want to say to them, how I love them, what I’ve learned from them, how I miss them when they aren’t around.  I think about what I remembered with Cheryl, and what made it special, and it was time – and I want to spend my time with the people in my life who I love. 

Time is all we have, and we don’t know how much we have.  It’s incredibly precious. 

Cheryl spent her time well, there’s no doubt.  She was incredibly talented, and smart and funny.  She lived well.  As one of her family members hugged me goodbye after the funeral dinner, and held on, he talked about how much Cheryl had taught him about life, but especially about people – how people come in all kinds, and how you take them where they are, and how you love them no matter what. 

I can’t think of a better way to spend what precious time we have than to try to teach and to try to live that lesson. 

So this month, this year, this day, I’m going to try and channel my inner Cheryl.  Clear and direct communication. Defend what and who needs defending. Use time well.  Remind myself that people come in all kinds and that I will still love them no matter what.  And I’m still gonna miss her like hell. 

And to my loved ones reading this, if I try to move in with some of you, well, don’t be alarmed.  If it’s not a good time for a visit, clear and direct communication.  If it is a good time, then just have some vodka in the freezer door.  We’ll toast to my friend Cheryl. 

Postscript: Cheryl Jakubik was an organ donor. Her family received notice that her corneas have been successfully transplanted, so now there are two more people with sight! Please consider being an organ donor – if you’re in the US, sign up today at www.organdonor.gov. 

Things I've learned with a broken foot

Click to enlarge. And if you're qualified to read it, diagnose away!  My doc is "busy"

I broke my foot while on O'ahu a few weeks back, and as I've been hobbling around my house and trying to drive and staring longingly up flights of stairs, I've had a few realizations.

1. Crutches suck.  The technology involved, if you can believe every production of a Christmas Carol ever, has not evolved since Dickens' time.  You need a lateral piece of something onto which you can put your hand so you can support your upper body, and you  need a lateral piece of something to jam into your armpit when your tris and delts give out from hauling your gimpy ass around.  Your tris and delts get sore.  You give in and drop onto the armpit body-weight-supporting bit.  Then your arm pit gets sore.  So you hoist yourself back up off the armpit bit and your arms and delts get sore.  And so it goes. 
2. Crutches suck, 2: You need a lot of lateral space to crutch with any efficiency at all.  Plant the crutches, bring your good leg as far forward as you dare, allow injured limb to hang loosely in the air because "you're not supposed to put any weight on it," swing the crutches in a half circle out and forward, and repeat.  You'll want to make sure the crutches move the same distance forward, or you'll be crutching yourself around in a circle before long.   
3. Crutches suck, 3:  How do you carry anything?  You can't - well, not in your hands, you can't.  Not the morning paper.  Not a CD of the Xrays of the injured limb.  Not a bottle of vicodin.  Nothing.  So wear cargo shorts. 
4. Despite 1, 2 and 3, getting around on crutches is almost always preferable to hopping unless it's over a very short distance.  Hopping... it's as efficient as it is elegant, which means: "in-".  You can get a decent head of steam, but if you're on hardwood floors, how do you stop?  You carom into walls, furniture, people, and doors is how.  You can't carry, well, anything, really.  Theoretically you have both hands free, but go ahead, try to hop - on one leg! - and move forward doing it, and see what your hands do.  And if you have something in both hands, how are you going to balance yourself when you arrive?  There are any number of engineering problems involved here.  So again, I assert that you can't carry anything.  Certainly not a beverage in a container that isn't sealed, for sure.  (I don't recommend trying this - take my word for it.)  Hopping does keep the muscles of the non-injured leg from atrophying, sure, but there are significant risks of new injury through collision, re-injury through missteps and panic, or both through humiliation.  Stick with the crutches unless it's a very short distance.  And there is no one at home with you.
5. Doorknobs are not load bearing.  Just... don't. When you're sick of using your crutches and you're hopping around the house, resist the urge to fling yourself toward the nearest door to use the doorknob as some sort of cane.  They aren't designed for it.  Best case?  You realize this in the half second you feel the doorknob sag southward and you pull up and put your hand on the door to steady yourself instead. Though in this case the door bangs backwards into the door stop (or the wall, in all probability, since the doorstop may not have been engineered to support the weight of a gimpy adult biped in addition to the door), makes a racket, and inspires your friends and family to holler in from the next room to see if you're okay. (You can holler back "Yup! Fine!" or "...ow..." or the always popular "I was never IN aisle 7!") And yes, that's the best case.  The worst case is when the damn doorknob snaps off in your hand, suddenly and unexpectedly, as your mind and your weight is still counting on something on that side of your body to support you, and you suddenly lurch forward and downward anyway, scraping your arm on the metal entrails of the doorknob's axle as you careen into the door, slamming it against the door stop (or, again, the wall), and you crumple to the ground, whimpering.  Why whimpering?  Well, the indignity of it, for one, but more for the now-bloody gash on your arm, the new bump on your head, and the fact that in all of the flail-age you've re-injured the limb you were trying to protect by hopping around in the first place because in your inglorious descent you put weight on it.  A lot of weight on it.  In roughly the same motion as how you broke it.  Again, see item 2, above: when you are crutching around, you don't need doorknobs. (And see item 4 - make sure no one else is home if you're going to insist on hopping.)
6. Stairs.  Bloody stairs.  Just... just don't.  Okay, you're going to want to try to do it.  If there is no one around, then maybe.  As you face the stair, do some geometry.  Put the foot of the crutch in the MIDDLE of the step, y axis, making sure you're away from both edges, x axis; put both crutches down at the same time; and slowly and consciously put your tris into it.  (If it helps, pretend it's the tri dip machine at the gym.)  And repeat, for the 17 times or so you need to get up the stairs.  If there are people around, forget about it.  Even if there are only three stairs, don't do it. Let them go first.  Pretend you left something in the car and turn around.  Suddenly grab your cell phone in your cargo shorts and stand and have a conversation.  Inevitably, people will try to help, you will want to encourage them in their well meaningness, and there will be flail-age.  Take the lift. Or, come back in 6-8 weeks.   
7. Backpacks are your friends.  Put everything in there - your chargers, your laptop, your checkbook, your Cup o Ramen, your flask, everything.  You don't want to have to hop back into the kitchen to retrieve something once you sit down.  You will learn that you really don't need anything in your life that you can't fit into your backpack. 
8. Drive thru's, misspelled though they are, are also your friends.  You don't have to get out of the car!  Oh my god, that's been a revelation.  Of course when you get wherever you're going you need to eat whatever it is you've just purchased, because, let's face it, you don't want the odor of that "food" in your backpack forever, and that 24 oz Diet Coke you just bought is not in a sealed container so you can't hop with it.  And it won't all fit in the bag that they served you in; and even it will, and you fold the top of the bag over so it will go over the crutch hand part, crutching is not a smooth action - the grease and / or the condensation from your 24 ounces of Diet Coke will, pretty rapidly, with the herky-jerky motion of your forward movement, destroy the structural integrity of the Arby's bag.  And then you'll have curly fries, Diet Coke and skin graft (a/k/a Arby's Roast Beef) sandwich all over the parking lot.  And you can't move quickly enough to flee or pretend that it's someone else's mess.  So just sit in the car and "dine."  It ain't worth it. 
9. You are going to get fat. You just are.  You are going to hate getting up for anything once you're ensconced wherever you settle; you wait til the last possible minute to go take a leak, for feck's sake, you sure as hell aren't doing cardio and burning up the calories.  And you're hungry because you're sitting around all the time watching TV with your foot elevated on a pillow on your coffee table and your backpack of snacks.  How are you supposed to burn off those calories?  You could crutch around the block, I guess.  But nah, not really. See item 1.   
10. That rotator cuff tear that's been bugging you since April?  Yeah.  You probably should have had that looked at before you needed to crutch around everywhere.  Because it's clearing right up now. 
11. Make up a cover story.  It's a great conversation starter, a bandaged foot and crutches, and people who have passed you in the hallway for months will stop and ask what happened.  Make up a story, because "Hungover, walking down stairs, rushing, carrying too much stuff, friends' dog, missed step..." kinda sucks as a story.  "Hiking on lava" is credible, short, tells people you were just in Hawai'i, and will move the conversation forward.  Especially if it's the guy at the end of the hall who always wears scent and fitted shirts and doesn't seem to do anything but a trap-and-lat workout - he doesn't need to know about the stairs. 

I'm sure I've learned more.  Like about two footed driving, for example.  And how jealous you can get of people who walk around without any seeming trouble, they just walk!  And how picking up a package at the Post Office turns into a 23 minute nightmare (thank god the meters go 24 minutes on a quarter). But that's it for now. I've waited to the last possible minute again...
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Belichick upset refs misapplied the rules? Too bad...

As reported in the LA Times and elsewhere, Bill Belichick, coach of the New England Patriots, grabbed a referee by the arm after the game to yell at him about what he felt was poor officiating - though he has now said it was to get "a clarification" which likely no one west of Amherst believes.  After the game, Belichick was quoted as saying "You saw the game. What did we have, 30 penalties called in that game?” Actually there were 24 penalties called, Bill, and more penalties for more yards were called on the opposing Baltimore Ravens (14 for 133 yards) than on your Patriots (10 for 83 yards). The whining sore loser inflated the total penalties called on him by three times (coincidentally roughly the ratio his talent is inflated by most of the media), and was so outraged that he felt the need to grab a ref - which is strictly verboten in the NFL, though of course Belichick plays by different rules that everyone else.

From LarryBrownSports.com

And that's the point: Belichick wants to have it both ways.  He can't.  He can't like rules when they work in his favor and blatantly disregard them when they don't.  You can't cheat - and get caught cheating, and get fined $500,000 for cheating in what was a gross display of contempt for the rules - and then complain when the rules are applied in a way that you feel is arbitrary.

First, the history.

Bill Belichick got caught cheating - in front of God (a/k/a the Commish, Roger Goodell) and everybody - and got away with it.  There are no asterisks on their "wins".  No coming clean. No reckoning to the rest of the league just what all they did despite a senior US Senator getting involved. Just a surrendering of six tapes that were immediately destroyed by the league, and a cool $500,000 fine on the Nixonian coach.  But unlike Nixon he's still coaching, and he's still complaining about the rules being applied unfairly. Sorry, Bill, you don't get to do that.

In the first game of the season in 2007, the Belichick-coached New England Patriots were caught filming the play calls of the opposing sideline.  What's the big deal?  Well, for one, this is explicitly prohibited by the NFL, and the Cheatriots KNEW it.  How do I know they knew it?  Because they had been caught doing it before, in Green Bay against the Packers, in 2006.  They were warned about doing it. They did it again. They did it AGAIN! 

Apologists will scoff and say things like "So what? It didn't really help." Despite the fact that such an attitude shows tremendous disregard for the game, it's patently untrue.  Yes, it did.  It's common sense: why would they continue to do it if after getting caught doing it when they didn't think there was advantage to be gained by doing it? It does give you an advantage.  If you know what the opposing coaches are calling, what formations the opposing players will be in, and where the ball is going to go, all in real time, then you can respond - in real time.  It's a tremendous advantage. 

Apologists for the franchise and for the coach bleat things like, "Well, everyone does it." Well, everyone doesn't do it. No other team has been caught filming. Ever. Except one: the Denver Broncos. Their coach at the time? Josh McDaniels. And where had he been before coming to Denver? Go on, guess. If you said "New England under Belichick" then you win. And again, why do it if it didn't give you an advantage? The answer is, you don't. It does give you an advantage. Just like Belichick's cheating on use of the Injured Reserve, explained by a former Patriot player here. The salient quote? "Belichick will do anything he can to get an advantage." Anything he can, and rules be damned.

To quote Jayson Braddock in his excellent and exhaustive post "New England Patriots Can't Seem to Win a Super Bowl Without Cheating," worth reading in its entirety, here:

Like I said, I think he (Belichick)’s a great coach but we can’t look past his flaws. His most effective decision was to video tape the defensive signals. It provided him with three Super Bowl wins and has people asking if he’s the best coach ever. If he knew he could cheat, get caught, and still be held in high opinion, why wouldn’t he cheat? He also knew that if he understood the divisional team’s signals, that he could take that path to the playoffs yearly. It was brilliant… cheating, but obviously no one cares, so it was brilliant.  

When did the Cheatriots win* their Super Bowls? In 2002, against the heavily favored Rams. In 2004 against the Carolina Panthers. And in 2005 against the Philadelphia Eagles.

When were they filming opposing sidelines? 2000 to 2007, according to an ESPN report (timeline here - see Feb 13, 2008)

When the cheating scandal went down, Bob Ryan, a sports writer for the Boston Globe, the hometown paper, wrote in his column titled "With Belichick, the coverup is most revealing":

Here is what Bill Belichick has done: He has placed Patriots fans on the defensive for the rest of their lives...  In fifty years... (the Patriots) will be, in the eyes of many, the reverse Black Sox. They will be the team that broke the rules. Their three Super Bowls will be regarded as ill-gotten gain.

Right there with you, Mr. Ryan. Except your fans have no shame.  Like much of the rest of Americans, their side won so who cares?  So what?  No big deal. 

Since 2007, how have the Patriots done?  Very, very well, over all - in the regular season.  But they play in a weak division.  And they haven't won a Super Bowl.  They've lost twice, to the Giants both times, who were underdogs both times.  The NFL is built for parity, and every advantage - no matter how small - is significant.

I am not going to pretend I'm unbiased here. Football unhinges me in ways that nothing else, not even politics, seems to do. And I hate the Patriots*. But the facts are there: Belichick is a cheater, consistently (IR lists, taping). And once you cheat - systematically, deliberately, to give yourself an unfair advantage outside of the rules against the other team and to do something that no one else in the league is doing - then you no longer get to whine like a three year old coming up out of nap time when the calls go against you. 

There is no active coach or franchise who has so disrespected the game, the rules and the league like Belichick and the Patriots*.  They are very, very good again this year.  Despite the two losses they may well still end up in the Super Bowl again this year thanks to a very soft schedule and unquestionable talent.

But they cheat.  In the past, they cheated consistently for a significant advantage.  They won* razor thin football games in the playoffs and in the Super Bowls, so every advantage helped. 
And once you cheat, Coach Belichick, it would be a good rule of thumb not to complain when the refs blow a call and one doesn't go your way.  Be a man.  Learn how to take defeat.  Learn to respect the game. 

And until that time, I guess you'll just have to keep trying to cheat to win. 
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Home stretch?

Look, I'm a sports fan.  Ain't nothing over til it's over.  You don't do things like buy a plane ticket to Indy for Super Bowl weekend and get a hotel on the Circle so you can celebrate with your people when your team wins because your team might not win.  (Yes, that game - and Reggie Wayne phoning it in on that awful, awful pick late in the 4th, and that inexplicable drop by Garcon in the 1st half - that's all on me.)

Ain't no one at BLC sayin' anything is over.  There are the debates.  There are many, many millionaires out there who have become millionaires by having deregulated industries, dirty air, and no tax burden to speak of who are giddily taking advantage of the Citizen's United Supreme Court decision and who are spending whatever the heck they want to drive down the President's numbers.  There is the Middle East. 

But trends are heading in the right direction.  Despite the deeply racist nature of the American electorate (more on that later), a sluggish economy and foreign policy being, uh, interesting, trends are headed in the right direction.  Mr. Romney seems to be short on cash (say it with me "Awwww..."), Mr. Obama seems to be doing okay in that regard, and it's looking like, with the modelling I've seen and played with and done myself (and in my context "modelling" means playing with interactive election maps, just to be clear), if - IF - the election were held today, then the President would win from 247 Electoral Votes if everything breaks against him to 347 Electoral Votes if everything breaks his way.   (You don't really need me to tell you the battleground states.  Early on election night look for how quickly they call Indiana, and how big the margin is in New Hampshire.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.)

Whether we do or we don't re-elect the black guy (and again, I'm not saying we will, I'm just saying that things are trending in the right direction), here are some other races and issues to watch.

1. The queers are here, finally? In 2004, GOP'ers put gay marriage on a number of state ballots in swing states to help deliver the vote to President Bush, the thinking being that anti-gay animus would get those most likely to be the President's supporters (Evangelical Christian white voters) off their couches and into the polling booths.  Well... this time, it's looking like, in three of the four states with gay marriage on the ballot statewide - Maryland, Maine, and Washington, but not Minnesota - that the gay marriage issue is driving Democratic and younger turnout.  Let's be clear - there might still be some Bradley effect going on with voters telling pollsters what they think is the socially acceptable response and thinking that they will get in the voting booth and prevent the damn queers from getting their nuptials - but the numbers look good.  To this point in our history on state wide ballots, gay marriage is a 1993-Colts-esque 0-32 loser.  No statewide electorate has ever chosen to affirm that separate isn't equal in favor of their gay and lesbian neighbors.  So it ain't over by any stretch.  But - in a great, thoughtful, analytical piece (like the kind you read and think "wish I could do that" and then you think "hold on, wish I could get paid to do that") by Harry Enten in the Guardian, here - things are looking good.

2.  The Senate just might stay blue - for this Congress, anyway.  Six months ago it was looking grim for the home team, but thanks to, well, incompetence, Romney's hoof-in-mouth disease, Missouri's challenger showing that he was from the 17th Century (though that race is distressingly competitive right now), and generally good economic news, it's looking like the Democrats will hold on to their majority, which is surprising considering that 23 of the 33 seats being contested are currently Democratic (we'll worry about 2014 later...).  The seven Senate races that are going to be most competitive are Massachusetts and Nevada (GOP held by incumbents Scott Brown and Dean Heller, respectively), and those held by Democratic incumbents in Missouri (Claire McCaskill), Montana (Jon Tester), Florida (Bill Nelson), Virginia (for the retiring Jim Webb), Wisconsin (for the retiring Herb Kohl) - and let's add Connecticut (surprisingly competitive, for the retiring Joe Lieberman). According to Richard Dunham in the Houston Chronicle blog here, Romney's drop in Virginia is helping Tim Kaine, the Democratic former governor, pull ahead.  Best case scenario for the Democrats?  The wheels really fall off the Romney Range Rover and candidates in striking distance but stuck behind in the polls in Nebraska and Indiana eke out a win.  For the Republicans, pickups that seemed safe in the summer - North Dakota, Nebraska, Montana - come through and they win control of the Senate.

3. Despite Rep. Pelosi's assertions to the contrary, the Dems do not win control of the House this election.  Roll Call lists 27 competitive races - watch NH-2 to see if the Democratic challenger, Ann McLane Custer, can unseat GOP incumbent Charlie Bass, and that will come in relatively early in the night.  Also, Indiana 2, where departing Democrat Joe Donnelly is running for Senate, is "Likely Republican" at this point but polls close early in Indiana and we if this one is tight that may be a good sign for Democrats nationally.  (If West Point alumnus Brendan Mullen gets the upset here over former Indiana House member Jackie Walorski, it could be a long night for the GOP.)  Of the 27 contested seats, 10 are in the Eastern Time Zone, so we'll know a lot pretty early this year.

4. If you wanted to make a donation to an election beyond that of our president, may I recommend a few (click on the link to be taken to the campaign page):

1. Tammy Baldwin for Senate in Wisconsin vs former Governor Tommy Thompson.  Tammy is an out and proud lesbian from Madison who is the hardest working woman in Washington and who will finally give Wisconsin the representation they deserve after Herb Kohl (D-WI)'s lackluster years of service. 
2. Mazie Hirono for Senate in Hawai`i vs. former GOP Governor Linda Lingle.  I gotta be honest, I don't love me some Mazie.  She's not a great candidate, she's not an intellectual power, but she's steady and reliable and she's likely to be a good Democratic vote for the next 20 years in the US Senate.  Voters in Hawai`i do not throw out incumbents.  She will be Hawai`i's Herb Kohl, but better that than voting in Hawai`i's Olympia Snowe and giving the GOP another Senate vote. 
3. Claire McCaskill for Senate vs. GOP State Representative Todd Akin.  Because no one should serve in the US Senate who uses the term "Legitimate Rape." 
4. Minnesotans for all Families, the group leading the way against the proposed ban of same sex marriage in that state and who are running ads like this featuring former Governor Jesse "the Body" Ventura and like this featuring "John and Kim. Catholics. Republicans." And because this is looking like the closest of the gay marriage votes.  And because Vikings Punter Chris Kluwe is freakin' awesome. 
5. Feel like a longshot?  Take a flier on unseating Jon Kyl (R-AZ) by donating to Richard Carmona's campaign; or keep another another Tea Party nutbar out of the Senate (because if Rand Paul isn't the worst thing to happen to that August body since they approved Clarence Thomas to the Court than I'll move to OH-8 and run against Boehner next time) and give a little to Joe Donnelly's campaign for Senate in his race against Mourdock.  (And I've never linked to the Kokomo newspaper before - red letter day for BLC.)

All for now.  Lots could change.  Six weeks until the election - register if you haven't and vote like you mean it!
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One of "those people"

First, two quotes:

All right, there are 47 percent who are with (the President), who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. ... My job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.
Governor Mitt Romney, GOP Candidate for President of the United States

And in response:

When you express an attitude that half the country considers itself victims, that somehow they want to be dependent on government, my thinking is, maybe you haven’t gotten around a lot.
President Obama

I have to agree with the President's assessment here. This week I did get around a lot, on the train in Los Angeles.  I saw a lot of people on the Blue Line and Green Line in LA and Long Beach and Compton and Willowbrook, including some LA County communities where likely (based on US Census data) more than "47%" do not pay Federal Income tax and certainly far more than 47% are "with the President" (as evidenced by the mural on Compton City Hall, right, found here).  And I saw a lot of people who sure looked like they were taking great personal responsibility and care for their lives. 

Including, from when I boarded at 5:50 AM:

1. African American male, mid twenties, bright orange vest, back weight belt open at the front, work gloves
2. African American female, pharmacy tech student, holder of two part time jobs (I know this because we talked a little.  She told me how to save 50 cents on the bus/ train fare combination)
3. Latino male, 50's; wheeled his bike into the corner and promptly fell asleep with his head on his cooler
4. Asian American male, over 60, sitting across from me, poring over a textbook
5. Cambodian woman (I recognized the script in the flyer in her hands that she started to read), mid 70's, walking with a pronounced roll to her gait
6. (It's now just after 6 AM) Outside the train, three 20-something Latino males squatting in a semi-circle near the carwash, waiting for it to open so they could go to work
7. The 50'ish African American woman walking in her maid uniform into the Long Beach Best Western on Long Beach Boulevard
8. Outside the train, the young Latino man with a tool box standing near a locked metal gate just north of the Iglesia Evangelica Rosa de Sharona (spelling? The Blue Line moves fast and they're not on the web)
9. The junior high and high school students of every shade in their uniforms, carrying their art projects, with their creatively gelled and coiffed hair
10. The parents walking with their children on the way to school

Unlike my usual head-down-headphones-in approach to mass transit, I really observed my fellow passengers yesterday and today. I cannot know what's going on in their lives without asking them, of course, and I didn't conduct rolling interviews during the morning commute.  But the demographics of the neighborhoods we rolled through are knowable. And what I saw were many, many people who struck me as incredibly hard working - people who work harder than I have ever worked my whole life with very brief exceptions. I would posit that they have worked a hell of a lot harder than Mr. Romney over the last twelve years, though that's not provable.  I would argue that they are taking great "personal responsibility and care" for their lives, though that is not provable. 

What is provable is that many, many working folks - including, inevitably, some of those around me - pay MORE in taxes than Mr. Romney. 

Ezra Klein in the Washington Post does the math. 

Among the Americans who paid no federal income taxes in 2011, 61 percent paid payroll taxes — which means they have jobs and, when you account for both sides of the payroll tax, they paid 15.3 percent of their income in taxes, which is higher than the 13.9 percent that Romney paid.

It's outrageous that Mr. Romney riffs off of the odious (but "Christian") Governor Perry (R-TX) who talks of a making class and a taking class when Romney himself is contributing less to the common good through his taxes than someone in that train car with me whom he is vilifying for "not paying Federal Income Tax." 

And what's more, if you look at who the "takers" are and how they vote, Mr. Romney will carry the "taker states."  As pointed out by Dylan Matthews in the Washington Post, here, "All told, Obama gets 50 electoral votes from the 'maker' states to Romney’s 9 — 17 are tossups — while Romney gets 96 electoral votes from the 'taker' states to Obama’s 5, with 29 as tossups."

Mr. Romney told a group of millionaires that he'll never be able to convince the 61% of the working poor, among others, that "They should take personal responsibility for their lives."  I'm sure they'd love to hear about it - maybe just after they get up in the 4:00's to get their kids ready for a before-school program and before they go work two jobs, they'd love to hear Mr. Romney talk about personal responsibility. Even though he pays less in taxes than they do, I'm sure they'd love to hear how they are "takers". 

Except Mr. Romney told the same group of millionaires that "my job is not to worry about those people." 

Perhaps Mr. Romney would like to read some of what's written on all of that money he's squirreled away in the Caymans - you know, the part where it reads "E Pluribus Unum." 

How dare he?  How can he get away with such dismissive, corrosive posturing?  How can he so brazenly lie about who contributes to the wealth in this country?   

I have some ideas, but that's for another post.
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