When I moved to Detroit Proper a very few years ago, Downtown Motown looked like Falujah, because they were renovating, getting ready to host the All-Star Game, and then the Super Bowl.

By the time the Super Bowl rolled around, very few homeless guys were left on the streets. Maybe zero homeless guys. I noticed. I had gotten to know some of them.

We had local reports in the big Detroit papers that the city had set up special shelters with big-screen TVs, and that the city had rounded up all the homeless, and sent them there.

Now, it is a year and a half later, but only a few of them are back. I ask, "What happened to Darcy?" And people say they do not know.

I believe the All-Star Game and the Super Bowl had a very good effect. Maybe these poor guys got rounded up, but it appears that many of them got help as a result.

I hope so. I hope they are not all down in Guantanamo now.

Not long ago, American employers handled their employees' pensions. Many Americans still believe their employers, somehow, are taking care of them, but it is not so anymore.

Even people who do not contribute to their own 401Ks often misbelieve that their bosses have established pension plans, and that, somehow, they themselves will be taken-care-of, just as their own union-member parents were.

Same with mortgages: Many Americans believe that "financial institutions" have strict regulation, high expertise, and an obligation to decency. Not true anymore.

Finally, many Americans still believe in the idea that if you work hard, you will be okay (at least okay!) with a little wiggle-room for playing golf and drinking and maybe owning a speedboat. But, it no longer is true, even though it used to be true, pretty much, for a short, glorious period in American history (circa 1955 - 1970).

None of these dear Americans who are caught in the mortgage squeeze deserve to lose their homes. They believed in the normal American myths, and they got killed. They just would have kept on renting if they had not been suckered into their crazy mortgages.

And teach him to laugh at himself. You either laugh or you cry. About many things, not just hair.

If this guy cannot see how funny this is, he is not worth you devoting yourself. Go out and find a balder guy who laughs at his shiny head. That will teach him.

1. Aisha Brown, Barry Sanders of Women's Football

The Detroit Demolition has a 5' 1'' extremely fast running back named Aisha Brown. Detroit went 9 wins - 1 loss without her in the regular season this year, because she was injured (broken right wrist), but she came back for the playoffs.

She scored four touchdowns, and had 162 yards on eleven carries in the semi-finals. She is about to kick the same sort of toosh against the Atlanta Xplosion in the championship game tomorrow.

I wish we could watch her on TV.

2. Okay, baseball fans, we watch games on TV, and they often show us stats about "batting average with runners in scoring position." And, often, the guy has a significantly better average "with runners in scoring position," compared to his regular batting average. But I believe it is a bogus statistic.

Here's my reasoning: When somebody comes to bat with runners in scoring position, he often is batting against pitchers who already have put those runners into scoring position. That means he is batting against pitchers who are not having good days. Already. Before he even comes to the plate.

Let's look more carefully. Let's compare times when these batters bat against the same pitchers who put the runners on base, versus times when the batters face new pitchers, relief pitchers who have come in after the runners got there.

See what I mean? If not, and if you care, please read over what I've written, and you will see a new level of baseball stat pickiness.

The info on Aisha Brown in my prvious post came from Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press.

Oh-oh say can you say

How we beat Zimbabway?

What so proudly we bragged

Back before Ne-o-con-dom...

World opinion's red glare

When we torture, they care...

Will we last through this night?

Bush and Dick, such a pair!....

(and so on)

(Star-Spangled Banner at half mast)

(suggestion for new national anthem: "Taps")

Brandon plays great third base for the Tigers, and he used to be their catcher. You see his fantastic cather's arm when you watch him play third.

Brandon Inge changed positions, and never went down to the minors. Last year, he did not show his skill in the World Series, because he had too long a layoff between end of Playoffs and World Series.

But this year, please watch him. Brandon Inge is better than your third baseman. And he isn't even a third baseman.

Many Americans said such things: "He couldn't be so stupid... He went to Yale... and so on." And some of us noticed that his mom and dad were supposed to be Yankee patricians, while W. supposedly was the Yellow Rose of Midland, Texas...

But W. Bush had that fatal, tragic combination. He has all that background, but he is dumb as cat litter. to boot. And Yellow as in Deserter, AWOL.

I have read that Rove picked W. Bush because W. Bush had an endearing round worn-out patch on the the back of his blue jeans, that worn-out patch from carrying around a round tin of snuff in his back pocket. Barf!

Texans! You should have put W. Bush in prison long ago, and saved the rest of the world from him.

Some Democrat, please pick up on this phrase. Please push it for a few days.

The problem is that Rove is deniable among Republican voters. If Rove jumps over to Giuliani, they will say (to us and to themselves) that Rove is just a hired gun, rather than admitting that he is a criminal.