God Bless America is the lion out of the cage, and it's going to be tough to put it back in. I went to a Braves game last year, and was in conversation with a friend when GBA came on (Ethel Merman over the loudspeaker) during the stretch. We remained seated and continued to talk quietly, only to be informed by the people behind us that we "needed to stand for God Bless America".

I told them I stood for the anthem, but GBA has no official standing -- it's just an old pop song. Well, that just didn't fly with them -- nor, I imagine, would it have flown with the 97% of the crowd who also stood.

I used to enjoy the seventh inning stretch -- it was a goofy, low-key, communal thing, and the best kind of reminder that you were at the ballgame to relax and have a good time. Now it's an intrusive reminder that we must not be merely Americans, but self-serious exceptionalists waging perpetual war.

Maybe she should have used McCain's staff make-up artist to make the whole thing more realistic.

I don't think that would have worked. She just wanted to look like she'd been beaten, not like she was dead.

Line of the day! clap clap clap

Bringing up the Falwell case takes me back to my Journalism Law class several years ago. The professor passed the offending Hustler document around the table for everyone (about a dozen students at a round table) to read while he spoke about it. I was the first to look at it. I couldn't believe what I was reading, it was so over-the-top offensive. My unfortunate reaction to sitting at a grad school round table and reading about Jerry Falwell buggering his own mother in an outhouse was to laugh out loud at the absurdity of it all.

The professor stopped what he was saying, gave me a withering glare, and hissed, "it's not supposed to be funny!"

I tried to stammer out that I wasn't laughing because it was funny, but because it was so shocking (this was before the days of the internets, where such things are de rigueur in some corners). Still, as the next three students (all women, FWIW) read it to themselves, the disgust for me in that room only continued to grow.

Finally, a guy halfway around the table got his hands on it, and laughed so hard he had to put his head in his hands. He looked over at me and I gave him a silent "I know, right?!" gesture.

After class, he came up to me and said the tension had gotten so thick by the time it came around to him that he knew before he even started reading that he was going to lose it. I thanked him for saving me just a little bit, we agreed that the professor hung me out to dry, and I went on to a career in something else entirely....

Obama has now been in the public eye for so long that attempts to paint him as untrustworthy due to his "otherness" are falling on deaf ears -- even many of those previously open to such smears. The shadow conspiracies don't resonate against someone so even-keeled.

Last thing anybody needs to do is lecture a convert about what went before -- converts are some of our strongest allies, as their disgust with the current circumstances can't be painted as a predisposition. This guy is in the strongest possible position to bring others around -- it's human nature to resist "I told you so"'s, but he won't be doing that. Welcome to the pro-American fold, sir!

The Red Sox were the last team to integrate. Pumpsie Green in 1959, 12 years after Jackie.

Just saw a headline saying the Phillies have punched their ticket to the WS. I haven't had a ticket punched in quite a while. Shouldn't that be "the Phillies, after lifting their cap to reveal no concealed weapons, scanned their ticket"? No?

...enough times to be able to speak his mind. He was recruited to run for Senate fairly late in the process by some state Dems who were aghast at the prospect of putting up the unworthy and unelectable Vernon Jones. Martin seemed to me to be a reluctant candidate, which concerned me at first. But perhaps, as this anecdote would illustrate, he's more concerned with duty than personal ambitiousness, and as such might prove refreshingly resistant to capitulation. I'm looking forward to voting for him.

Chuck Lamar was a lieutenant of John Schuerholz in Atlanta in the early- to mid-90's, and I'll bet Caray knew him through his dad Skip. Their official tenures with the team are separated by several years.

As he signed off, Chip threw it to the studio team of Ernie Johnson, Cal Ripken, Dennis Eckersley, "and Harold Baines".

I think Chip's gaffes are more irritating because of that authoritative, stentorian put-on of a voice he employs. As a Braves fan, I'm subjected to him far too often. He never (I mean NEVER) gets through a broadcast without saying the end of the steroid era will result in a game that relies more on bunting.

It's been said that every generation of young people thinks they invented sex. But really, there's just not much that's new under the sun. If it isn't sufficiently cast in some larger context, other people having sex is a bore to read about. And if it is cast in a larger context, it's the context that's interesting, not the sex. And then you're not really a sex writer anyway....

I skipped to the end of your overlong cut-and-paste job and read the last line. While I applaud your fervency, I find DO NOT ASK -- JUST DO IT to be somewhat lacking in the slogan department. A tad heavy-handed, don't you think? I mean, now I'm gonna have to really try not to feel like a robot on Election Day....

crush...kill...destroy

crush...kill...destroy