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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
...out of the blowhards and their moral outrage at steroids. Usually you will find the same crew speaking longingly and lovingly of Babe Ruth. An era when blacks were banned from competing. Evidently that does not hold the moral equivalency of a pill or an injection that adds to a home run total.
I can't, for the life of me, understand why Joe and Pat would get agitated at your "serial adulterer" comment. Why would they think it's ok for "Newt" to generalize an entire city, but get their feathers ruffled over a well known fact about Gingrich, that he himself has admitted? It just doesn't make sense.
I'm from San Francisco, as well (although currently I'm giving L.A. a shot) and I can add that Speaker Pelosi's 'San Francisco' values are ones that embody family, fidelity, diversity and freedom.
Newt Gingrich's values embody hypocrisy and cheating on your wife while she's dying from cancer.
The fact that Scarborough and Buchanan would attempt to protect Newt Gingrich speaks volumes about themselves...
At a time, I would have agreed with you about the racism behind the Bonds hatred. But I don't think that's the case anymore - I think people just don't like Barry Bonds. My main source of changing my mind was seeing how Mark McGwire has been treated since his Congressional testimony. This guy was the sports media's darling in 1998 and could do no wrong. Eight years later he's a pariah. And there's less evidence that he doped than that Bonds did.
Take away the possible cheating, and you may not see people excited that Bonds is going to break the record, but I really doubt you'd see too many people hostile about it.
I want to say it isn't racism but, even in my declining years, I continue to be amazed by where and when I find racism. And I am new to this baseball thing, where it shouldn't surprise me but sometimes it does (and sometimes it can be the one place where people are colorblind, but will let you know in no uncertain terms that you suck).
I think Bonds breaks down into the following:
--people who don't like people who achieve more than they do
--people who just don't like bonds
--people who are racist
--people who are racist but are in denial that they're racist
--people who don't care
--people who are genuinely happy about it.
no real feel on percentages.
btw, as a woman new to writing about baseball, I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your own writing on the subject. Thank you for your inspiration.
I thought Joan was terrific on Scarborough Country last night. I'm proud of her and Nancy Pelosi.
BTW The Dodgers suck. GO GIANTS!
Ms. Walsh: Your reply to Newt's statement was right on the money. The only way to counter these right-wing-nuts is to expose them for what they are. Rudy and his three wives! The Newt, cheating on his wife while making moralistic speeches on Clinton's behavior. My mother always claimed there was a special place in hell for hypocrites. I sure hope the old girl was right. Robert David Clark.
Barry Bonds is being exploited, yes exploited by a press that's hated him for years. Not because he's black but because he's Baseballs Bill Russell who honestly could not give a fuck what the press said or how they said it and who actively went after them calling them the metaphor challenged assholes that most of them are. In other words he's been a dick. Now that they have something on him they'll beat him to death with it. It's not racism, it's high school and never let it be said that sportswriters aren't angry petty martinets who hate the sports they cover as much as they love to hear themselves blather on about them. Which is fine, that's their job. Barry Bond's job is to hit the long ball.
BTW why is it no one cares about extra base hits, or juiced hitters hitting juiced pitchers? And why is it we've forgotten Ball Four's claims that just about every player in the 60's was wired on amphetamines? Oh well if you want purity go to convent.
...they just get re-signed by, well, the Giants.
As frustrating as it is to watch the franchise's gradual slide away from grace post-2002 (and Joan, I loved Dusty too, but giving Ortiz the game ball was the kind of thing that just screamed "bad mojo." It's all a little less ugly if you consider him as having been released on metaphysical grounds), I still like the "last legs" Giants. If this team should happen to go all the way, there's something very satisfying and cinematic about it being a final grasp at glory for a lot of our guys.
Joan:
When pompous windbags spew the sort of malicious and deceitful nonsense one routinely hears from Gingrich, someone has to say what you said. Someone must be there to tell Gingrigh he is full of umm... horse dung.
If not you, who?
always take a shot at Newt when you are given a chance. But you should have let Scar explain what SF Liberal meant in the context Newt was using it?
WOW! What an insult to Bill Russell. To paraphrase Phil Hartman as Sinatra, Russell has chunks of guys like Barry Bonds in his stool.
Bonds has always been a miserable SOB. If any members of the media hate him, it's because he's earned it. He treats them like complete and utter crap, and it's not this ridiculous "he doesn't kiss the press's ass" nonsense. It's because for years he's looked them in the face and lied.
In fact, he'd be a great fit for the Bush White House - a lying cheater who abdicates responsibility for anything he does and blames the press and anyone else he can for his self-inflicted problems and controversies.
It's too bad that he's going to pass Aaron, but at least his record won't stand very long. And, of course, it's fitting that Barry will have to quit the game having never won a World Series.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
