I have been wondering and wondering why the fox baseball coverage was so awful: why they insist on keeping Mccarver and Buck with their lame comments, as well as all that awful woman with the screechy voice that makes my dog cringe and cover his ears with his paws. It all became clear when I read your post: Fox hates baseball. How could it have taken me so long to see it?

on this bus, or any bus, as Lear said to the Fool on the moor in the storm. Nowhere to hide. Even from ourselves.

Just last night I was dreaming of an option on my remote that would let me cut off the announcers and just hear the sounds of the crowd and the game: it was like a vision of an oasis in the desert. I am constantly torn between wanting to hear the ambient sound and the torture of the chattering announcers: to mute or not to mute? I would so miss the crack of the bat, but the blessed relief from hearing the chucklheads talk and talk and talk is so tempting as well. Why won't the evil *&^%$^$^& just shut up and let us enjoy the game???

and I'm feeling torn between two sides: those who want change but think Floyd's language is high-flown and useless and those who feel energized by it. I was caught by Floyd's point about civil disobedience in high places: I have myself wondered--before it became clear to me that Democrats are really mostly a kind of Republican variant (or rather they are both, democrats and republicans, coporatists, or whatever you want to call them)--anyway, wondered why senators and congressmen didn't do some kind of sit down strike for the sake of conscience: since people are dying, both Americans and Iraqis, for no good reason; that--not to get all impassioned and high-flown, but to state something I think to be a reality--that the one thing I want to be sure of is that when I come to die that I do not feel ashamed of how I have lived. I can't imagine anything worse than living my last moments feeling like my life was a lie. Now maybe that means I need to be with the anti-Floyds in the thread or maybe with Floyd or maybe somewhere in between--but surely the anti-Floyds and pro-Floyds in this thread (leaving out the insane trolls, who I just skip over these days and ignore like dust in the wind blowing in my eyes as best as I can)--anyway, all of us here seem to agree something is terribly wrong and we need to think of how to work on it. Do those of you writing so passionately against Floyd's rhetoric really think it is so misplaced? I agree that marches and monkey wrenching don't make sense to me as plans of political action, but individual acts of conscience do make sense to me, and each of us surely must determine those as best with can with reason as our guide. I see what Floyd is saying and I see what the anti-Floyds are saying and I am just not quite sure what to do. Except to know that there are some lines that I could never cross, and I think if I was a democratic congressman or senator I would be embarassed as hell to vote along with Bush like so many of them are doing (so that in all reason I cannot see them as true democrats). Is it that the anti-Floyds are just too hopeful? Too unwilling to see how bad it is? That all is left is individual acts of conscience? Or is that too gloomy a view? Perhaps its best to act as if there was hope until it becomes clear to each individual that there is none: and then we are each left with our conscience to decide what to do. But I don't feel angry with the Floyd's or the anti-Floyds in the thread, because it seems to me anyway that we are all in a really bad spot.

Reading your post and Queer Nationl's together gives rise to this question: can it be considered inclusive to associate with those who deny inclusivity? i.e. if his singer guy really holds the views Queer National attributes to him, then how can it be a move of inclusivity to include his voice? Would it no be akin to allowing anti-semitic or kkk entertainers a voice? I am trying to comprehend the position of those defending the decision to appear with this gospel singer antgay fellow. Is it on the grounds of respecting his religous beliefs? That seems so ridiculous, since every bigot on earth claims religous sanction of some sort, or so it seems? I was in fact planning to vote for Obama until all this came up, but it just makes me feel astonished and unsure. How is what Obama is doing different from a Republican having some crypto-racist appear with them? And I ask this, not as a polemic, but those defending Obama: can you show me the reasoning that would negate what Queer National has written? It seems fairly clear. Sometimes how you do things is important, isn't it? So that to win by the wrong means simply twists you into something that negates the end you hoped to reach? (if you think that Obama is "reaching out" to get the homophobe vote so that when in office he can act againt homophobes, or something like that? Does that even make sense? Ethically?)

And I read Greenwald all the time and appreciate your guest column, too, Pam: thanks.