Delicious Desparation

Barack Obama has claimed another victim.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger announced Tuesday she will not renew her radio contract that is up at the end of the year. Schlessinger, who has helmed a successful radio show for decades, lit a firestorm by using the word nigger 11 times during a call on August 10. She apologized the next day and now has decided to end her radio show as of the end of the year.

What does this have to do with Obama? Ever since January 20, 2009, there have been a small but vocal percentage of Americans who just can’t stand the fact the leader of the free world is, well, you know… And every day he stand before the country as the political leader, every day he is seen making a speech to crowds of cheering supporters, every day the realization that this small minority of people are just that, a small minority, they get a little crazier until they burst like a pipe under pressure.

Whether is the Birthers, swearing Obama just can’t be President irrelevant of any facts, or people screaming at town meetings they want their country back (from whom I’d like to ask), to Dr. Laura doing her best Katt Williams impersonation, people are going crazy from the heat.

And I couldn’t be happier.

I call it the delicious desperation. The realization that the world has changed under the feet of this small minority; that their borderline overt racism has been rejected by the majority of voters on November 4, 2008 (happy birthday to me, by the way) and there is not much they can do about it. The thought of them raging against forces totally out of their control gives me a warm feeling. The mental image of this small minority yelling ‘who’s with me?’ and seeing the remainder of the country slowly step back as if they just dropped a turd fills me with delight.

As for Dr. Laura, two other comments. First, in announcing the end of her radio show, she mentioned she wants to “regain my First Amendment rights”. That is a lie. What she wants is to be able to avoid consequences:

Now, what makes me sad...what pains my heart deeply...is that, beyond the reasoned letters which I continue to get, I have heard comments from some broadcasters and letters from some people that cannot be described as anything other than hate-filled diatribes. Hate-filled. This does not make me angry, but it hurts my heart.

My hope with my apology, which was true and immediate and uncoerced, was that the silver lining might be that a dialogue be started to stop hate and bigotry. I still hold out some hope... but I am a realist and I fear that there are those who frankly want to encourage hate and anger.

Dr. Laura insulted people by using the word nigger. She angered people. It would be nice for everyone to forgive her for her transgressions, but some won’t, which is their right. This is the bed you made Dr. Laura, and as uncomfortable as it is to lay in, whining about how uncomfortable it is doesn’t change the fact that it was all your creation.

Second if someone is paying you to talk, the speech is not free. Dr. Laura would be hustled off the air if she decided to insult her syndication company or her sponsors. I can say Comcast sucks (ask me about that company if you have an hour to kill), but I sure can’t say it if I have a radio show and Comcast is buying time. If you want pure free speech (to her, um, credit, Dr. Laura is doing this) get a soapbox, go out to a corner of your local municipality, and free speech away.

Stevie Wonder - Superstition live on Sesame Street

It is Stevie. On Sesame Street. Singing Superstition.

Stevie should be taught in the schools.

Why Golf Is Fine and the Chicken Littles Are Wrong

Golf is an appropriate pursuit for someone as bourgeois as I. Writing about golf may cross the bourgeois line into stuffy. Nevertheless, I've done such a thing at Waggle Room, a blog dedicated to professional golf. I'm pretty proud of it so I will link to it here.

A Fire-able Offense

Shooting 106 at Poolesville this morning gave me a lot of time to think about Shirley Sherrod.

For those who don't know who she is or what is the issue, here is my attempt to explain:

Shirley Sherrod was the USDA's rural development director for the state of Georgia. A couple of days ago a video was released, championed by conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart and aired initially on Fox News, showing Sherrod, a black woman, stating she found it hard to help white farmers. The NAACP and the Obama administration (through Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture) immediately denounced her comments and she was forced to resign.

Soon after the resignation, video of the entire speech became public. While Sherrod did say she initially found it hard to help the white farmer (in fact, steering him towards an white lawyer), she quickly determined the error of her ways, helped the farmer keep his farm and now she and the farmer are friends. In fact, the farmer in question has come out repudiating any bias against him and his family and called for Sherrod to be reinstated.

Now, everyone involved is scrambling for the lifeboats. Pundits on the left and right are clamoring for Sherrod's reinstatement. The NAACP has apologized for Sherrod. In an embarrassingly tone deaf statement, the Obama administration attempted to lay all blame on on the Dept. of Agriculture (as if it isn't a part of the Obama administration). Even Andrew Breitbart, who is pugnacious by nature (I'm trying to be nice and not call him a asshole) said the video was not released to get Sherrod fired, but to show the NAACP is the real racist organization and not the Tea Party movement, which the NAACP suggested a week ago.

I couldn't care less what Andrew Breitbart does. I care slightly what Fox News does. but they are grown men and women and can run their network as they see fit. My ire is pointed right at the Obama administration and the NAACP. Someone should be fired from both organizations.

The fact that no one in either organization thought to check out the whole tape before running to the closest microphone they could to denounce this woman is as close to dereliction of duty as you can get without leaving your post in Kandahar. The remarks were made an an NAACP function for crying out loud. Here, I'll write your comments for you:

The Federal Government takes raced-based bias seriously. We will fully investigate the charges brought against Mrs. Sherrod and take appropriate action.

Please give me the $200K job of the person who should have done the above.

Not only is it a fire-able offense on its face, it speaks to the lack of readiness the two political organizations have against political opponents. If someone had done a bit of research before rebuking an innocent woman, we would be talking about how irresponsible Breitbart and Fox News are. Instead, we are talking about how reactionary and cowardly the Obama administration is.

Someone messed up bad here, costing a low level civil servant her job. Whomever that someone was shouldn't get another chance to mess up. And those around that someone need to know that screw-ups on such a grand scale have consequences. This is the big leagues. Start acting like it.

Wondering if the DeLorean can take us back to 1983

This will be impolite, but when did Rev. Jesse Jackson regain national credibility?

Jackson, commenting on Cleveland Cavaliers' majority owner Dan Gilbert somewhat unhinged complaints about LeBron James signing with the Miami Heat instead of James' home state based Cavaliers, went with what he knows; it's a black thing:

He speaks as an owner of LeBron and not the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
His feelings of betrayal personify a slave master mentality. He sees LeBron as a
runaway slave. This is an owner employee relationship--between business
partners--and LeBron honored his contract.

Jackson is getting smacked around pretty good thanks to the above. And he deserves it. What I find lazy is the mainstream media is treating Jackson as if it is 1983 and he just got the pilot out of Syria. If Jackson had a sliver of juice left, didn't his 'cut his balls off' comment finish that off?

Obama is Failing the Gays

“Doc, I sure hope you know what you’re doing.”

I don’t know if Marty McFly said those exact words to Doc Brown in Back To The Future, but the idea of the hero trusting the eccentric inventor/doctor/risk taker when no one else does is a staple of dramas far and wide. In that vein, I say this to the Obama administration when it comes to gay rights:

“Barack, I sure hope you know what you’re doing.”

The gay community ranges from concerned but hopeful (Andrew Sullivan) to ready to go to the mattresses (Dan Savage) over the actions and inactions of the Obama administration. Since Obama has been in office he has allowed members of the armed forces to be court-martialed under the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell statute. His administration has filed a brief in California in support of the Defense of Marriage Act; a law that decrees the Federal Government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states. This is in sharp contrast to promises made on the campaign trail to the gay community.

Until today, I was fully confident that Team Obama was working behind the scenes, making sure when policies and laws were changed; they were changed for good and not subject to crippling opposition. For example, he had to learn from President Clinton’s failure of fulfilling his campaign pledge of allowing gay to serve openly which lead to DADT in the first place.

Now, I’m only partially confident. You can make the argument Obama has made more positive overtures to Iran than gay Americans; he surely has made more public overtures. If you want to be really cynical, you could say Obama is treating gay Americans like the Democratic party has been accused of treating African-Americans; giving them noting but lip service with the knowledge they have no where else to go politically.

I still believe there can be a happy ending to this. It isn’t as hard as the Middle East peace processes and the Americans who would rally against DADT and DOMA were probably not voting for Obama in the first place. I just hope the happy ending happens soon, before I have to join the proverbial group that gives up on the Doctor.

Robert Powell = Sista Souljah

You can almost set your watch to it. At some point during election night coverage on an 24 hour news network, a Republican operative will respond to a media exit poll stating African-Americans vote Democratic by a wide margin by stating the party has to do a better job getting their message out to African-Americans. I don’t believe it Republicans really mean it. Maybe not all Republicans (Gov. Chralie Crist comes to mind) but as a party, it doesn’t seem they want to do the heavy lifting (or any lifting for that matter) to repair this void in their electoral maps.

Which brings me to Robert Powell.

Officer (as of 11pm 3/26) Powell is now infamous for pulling over NFL running back Ryan Moats and his family as they rushed to the hospital to say goodbye to a terminally ill family member. Video from the police car’s on board camera recorded Powell threatening to arrest Moats for running a traffic light as he and others in the car tried to explain their rush to the hospital and methodically holding the occupants there as hospital security guard confirmed the story to write a ticket. The family did not make it into the hospital in time to say goodbye. Because Moats is a football player in football crazy Texas, this has become news. The Dallas police chief has apologized to the family and Powell is on paid administrative leave.

If Republicans were serious about the African-American vote for a moment, they would be tripping over each other setting up press conferences (with the Moats family in attendance) decrying this abuse of power and calling for the termination of the officer (which will probably happen anyway). They don’t even have to mention race, black people will get it. And this case is so egregious, only the most unrepentant racist would dare call this racial politics. Texas governor Rick Perry should be all over this, it is perfect.

But that would mean Republicans actually care enough about the African-American vote to make their own version Sista Souljah. Sure worked well enough for Bill Clinton in 1992.

Don't buy those Michael Steele commerative plates just yet

I guess Michael Steele winning the Republican National Committee Chairmanship is historic, in the way Pumpsie Green being the first African American player to play for the Boston Red Sox (The Sox being the last MLB team to integrate) is historic.

Frankly, if Steele didn’t win the post, it would have been a bigger story. Steele’s last opponent for the post (five other gentleman were up for the position, dropping out when it became evident victory was out of reach) was South Carolina GOP chief Katon Dawson, who dropped a membership of a all-white golf club in 2008. Other candidates were Mike Duncan, the then incumbent chairman (when your party get the national drubbing it did in 2008, the guy in charge of the party doesn’t really have a lot to base reelection on) and former Tennessee GOP chairman Chip Saltsman (who thought it was a good idea to send his associates a mix CD with the “Barack The Magic Negro” parody song for Christmas). If Steele, who is as bland as Oatmeal made with water, couldn’t beat these guys, it would signify the GOP is doubling down on the Real America/Not Real America that worked so well in November.

And Steele loves puppies!

Not to mention Chairman of the Republican National Committee barely gives him the prestige to ensure his regular table at the Mrs. K's Toll House Sunday brunch. Current Virginia governor Tim Kaine is doing the job on the Democratic side on a part time basis until his current term ends in 2010). He moves up the list of people the 24 hour news networks call for punditry, but that is about it.

What is more interesting to me is some conservatives consider his victory an ode to identity politics, as if Steele was any less qualified (he was the chairman for the Maryland GOP before becoming Lt. Governor) than anyone else for the post. While I am sure some of this was bitterness that their respective candidates didn’t win (PUMA’s anyone?), some of it has to be the idea the main reason an African-American candidate for anything wins is because of his or her race. Of course, this did not stop the GOP from giving Steele a speaking part at their national convention; it seems for the GOP, identity politics are okay as long as the identity in question doesn’t actually have any power.

Damn

Barack Obama wins the Democratic Caucus; Huckabee wins the Republican Caucus.

He may be the next President.

Somebody got some 'plaining to do

A victim of circumstance. Sean Taylor was a victim of circumstance.

It is becoming evident that the murder of Sean Taylor was due to nothing more than criminals wanting to rob his house while he was (unbeknown to said criminals) there. These criminals didn’t know Taylor; they seem to be friends of the boyfriend of Taylor’s half-sister, which is akin to being the guy who details Taylor’s barber’s neighbor’s car if you are looking for a connection between Taylor and his assailants.

What will the ‘the past came back to haunt him’ crowd have to say now? If the only reason his house was targeted was it had valuables, what is the difference between the attack on Taylor that cost him his life and the attack on New York Times journalist David Rosenbaum, who died due to brain injuries stemming from a mugging in Washington DC in 2006? Will there be a mea culpa from Leonard Shapiro (Taylor's Death Is Tragic but Not Surprising) for assuming Taylor somehow contributed to his demise due to anything more than owning a nice home?

And what of people like Mike Wilbon (Dying Young, Black) and Jason Whitlock (Taylor’s Death A Grim Reminder For Us All) who speed past the tragedy of Taylor’s murder to get their somewhat connected point across, as if the loss of live wasn't enough. Whitlock in particular wins the ‘How can I connect this to my worldview?’ award for putting his disdain for the lyrics to a Soulja Boy song in his article as an example of the current black culture that killed Taylor, as if Taylor’s killers yelled ‘ youuuuuu!’ and did a nifty choreographed dance step after shooting.

There was a rush to judgment about this tragedy. And it was unnecessary. The tragedy of a 24 year old being gunned down in his home was enough to hold off on the speculation until at least Sean Taylor was put in the ground.

An Open Letter to Isiah Thomas

Dear Isiah Thomas:

I have been in your corner for a while. When you traded for Stephon Marbury, I was down with it. When you traded for Eddy Curry, I was down with it. When you signed Larry Brown, I was down with it. When you signed Jared Jeffries, I was down with it (in fact, I was thrilled). When you signed Jerome James,….okay, my allegiance wasn’t blind.

When people bashed you as a GM, I reminded them how irrelevant the team was under the Scott Layden/Howard Eisley/Clarence Weatherspoon era was. When people wanted to throw you over the side for Larry Brown, I reminded them of his insubordination (going behind the GM’s back with trade proposals) and asked what exactly Brown did so great in his first year to deserve more power.

I’ve had your back for a while, but I can’t ride with you anymore. Not (and I know you have heard this phrase before) if you are going to go out like a punk.

The same man who escaped the Chicago streets, who thrived under legendary coach/bully Bob Knight, who was the toughest man on the Bad Boys is now scared of Marbury?

You were doing the right things early. You told Marbury, Curry and Jamal Crawford their defense was not acceptable in the preseason. You gave it a couple of games, saw that playing the Knicks was Christmas for opposing point guards, and decided to bring Marbury off the bench. He loses his shit, bolts the team at a time where Zach Randolph and Renaldo Balkman were out, leaving your team woefully shorthanded against Phoenix. If the reports are right, you went to the remainder of the team and asked them if Marbury should play in the next game, they unanimously voted no. And you played him.

You took the path of less resistance. Sitting Marbury may have added to the circus atmosphere surrounding your club, but it would show Marbury in particular and the rest of your team in general that failure to meet the coach’s standards has consequences.

Instead, you went out like a punk. And you probably lost the remainder of your team in the process.

Fast forward to today. The day after your team suffered an historic blowout on national television against the Celtics, the day after you say the team’s performance was the most selfish you have ever seen, you run the same starting five out on the court to start against the Bucks. Once again, no consequences for failure.

What does Marbury have on you? Did you and he double team and kill a hooker during the summer? Does he know you ATM card code? Are you a financial backer of his sneakers? What hold does them man have on you that you seem to be willing to throw everything away just to avoid conflict with a player who you would smash into a million pieces when you were playing?

The Knicks becoming an embarrassment isn’t all your fault. But enough of it is your fault that I don’t want you as my coach, my GM or my President anymore.

Now, all I have to do is work out

My current workout Playlist:

Daytona 500 – Ghostface Killah
Put Them In Their Place – Mobb Deep
Spit Your Game – Twasta feat. Notorious B.I.G.
Switch – Ashanti feat. Nelly
Bullet With Butterfly Wings – Smashing Pumpkins
Go Getta – Young Jeezy feat. R. Kelly
Badman – Ghostface Killah feat. Elephant Man
Ice Box (rmx) – Omarion feat. Usher & Fabolous
What You Know About That – T.I.
When I See You (rmx) – Fantasia
Since U Been Gone – Kelly Clarkson
I’m Just Getting Warm – Busta Rhymes
Triumph – Wu-Tang Clan
SOS – Rihanna
Push It – Rick Ross
Connected – Stereo MCs
Toxic - Britney Spears

Come On Bill

Bill Cosby and Alvin F. Poussaint were on Meet The Press this morning in support of their book Come On People: On the Path from Victims to Victors. In the book, they decry the current state of black America and urge black people to be better parents and citizens. Cosby has been touring the country in the last few years, spreading this message.

While I agree with the major points he makes (the lack of fathers has been devastating to black America, especially to young black males/the fact that there is institutionalized racism in this country does not mean black people can throw their hands up and not try/the value of an education needs to be higher in the black community), there are two issues that bother me:

• Hip-Hop as a sickness instead of a symptom. Cosby (for expediency, I am critiquing Cosby; both authors can be painted with the same brush) rightly holds some Hip-Hop music to task for their language, glorification of violence and (most importantly) their negative portrayal of women.The problem with making Hip-Hip a significant bullet point in their thesis is this: I listen to Hip-Hop and know the difference between what T.I. or Jay-Z says in a song and real life. I know no matter how many time Jay-Z says he runs through more chicks than Colonel Sanders, he may be holding Beyonce’s purse on a shopping spree right now. I know this because of the education and parental guidance I have received, which are much more important than anything The Game or Lil’ Wayne can say.
• Why are they on Meet The Press? When asked why he robbed banks, notorious criminal Willie Sutton replied ‘because that’s where the money is.’ While I do understand Meet The Press is a prestigious program, the target audience for his book isn’t watching Meet The Press. They are watching BET. That is where he should be. I would find it hard to believe that BET would not give Bill Cosby however much time he wanted to talk, and if they didn’t the fact that they refused him would be a powerful way to generate publicity. He is going to be on Oprah this week, which is a little better, but he needs to go where the money is.

Hopefully, back on the grind

Miss me?

Work and family responsibilities (hi Bean!) have kept me away from the blog for a while. I’m going to try to come back and post something every day, even if it is a sentence or two.

What spurned this return? My high school had their 20th anniversary last week. While I couldn’t go, I did get to see a number of posts from classmates, some of which had blogs. Reading them reminded me how much I enjoyed writing, even if it is just for myself.

Hopefully I do better than my plan to exercise regularly. I actually brought a gym bag to work Thursday with hopes of working out there (we have a small gym with free weights and an ellipse machine to protect my balky knee from treadmill pounding). I went down to the gym around 4:30p, changed into my workout clothes, only to discover there were no sneakers in the bag. I’m smart.

So, here we go again. Blackpot 2.0.

The links baby, the links

Haven't been here lately and I don't know when I'll be here next. I've added The Golfing Negro to my blogging empire, where I talk about my pitiful golf game as well as other golf things that catch my eye.

I've added that link to the page, along with Soccer By Ives, a professional soccer blog by my friend Ives, who writes for The Jersey Herald and ESPN.com. He doesn't need my help but why not.

Jason Whitlock:

L’affaire Imus caused a lot of people to lose; Don Imus, CBS Radio, MSNBC, free speech (if you believe certain radio personalities who believe they could be next). Only two people can thank the firestorm for improving his or her professional status; Rutgers coach Vivian Stringer (who indirectly got a book deal out of it) and sportswriter Jason Whitlock.

Well before Imus blew himself up, Whitlock has used his status as a columnist at the Kansas City Star and AOL Sports to state the biggest problem in the African-American community is, as he puts it, the ‘Black KKK’. Whitlock believes African-American culture in general and hip-hop in particular celebrates a prison mentality (Bill Cosby also feels this way, and has been speaking out over the past few years). In the aftermath of Imus’ comments, Whitlock wrote an article reiterating his point:

While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s or Young Jeezy’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos. I ain’t saying
Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.

It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.

Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.

This contrary position propelled Whitlock to numerous spots on news networks, Oprah (twice!) and Harvard.

While I don’t agree with Whitlock’s ranking of problems in the African-American community (I believe the lack of male role models is more important than anything else) I do agree with a lot he has to say. I share his point that black folk don't have to jump to attack when obvoiusly baited (Read: Rush Limbaugh). My main critique of Whitlock is, and excuse the pun, he sees things too much in black and white.

Whitlock seems to live in a zero sum world. Because 50 cent uses bad words and black people don’t protest, Don Imus can’t be criticized for using bad words. Because Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton don’t challenge The Game for the words they use (by the way, they have) they can’t challenge Don Imus. Why can’t both be wrong?

And his attack on Vivian Stringer was beyond the pale:

I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.

Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer rambled on for 30 minutes about the amazing season her team had. Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers’ wonderful season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.

But an hourlong press conference over a man who has already apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.

So Stringer’s crime against black folk is bad public speaking? And as for opportunism, where does one press conference weigh against appearing on Orpah (twice!)? When Whitlock comes out with his book (and if doesn’t have book out by the end of 2008, I’ll be shocked) will that be opportunism? Or is it that since you are fighting the good fight against Snoop Dogg and Dave Chappelle, you get a pass?

Whitlock seems so hyper-focused on this issue, nothing else can penetrate his universe and no one that doesn’t share his views exactly can be painted with the same brush as the people who he believes actively advance the ‘prison culture’.

His attitude is not going to help his cause.

Standing up for big brother

Monica Turner is Michael Steele's sister.



She is starring in Steele's latest political ad, combating the ad by Ben Cardin, his opponent for the U.S. Senate seat in Maryland, featuring Michael J. Fox.

In Cardin's ad, Fox urges Marylanders to vote against Steele because he is against stem cell research, research that could help find a cure for the Parkinson's disease Fox currently suffers with. Turner responds that Steele is for stem cell research and he must care about sick people because she has Multiple Scherosis.

First of all, it appears Steele is for stem cell research that would not destroy human embryos, but it against research that would cause the destruction of them. I don't agree with that stance, but I put that in the 'reasonable people can disagree' category.

More importantly, MONICA TURNER MARRIED MIKE TYSON!!!


How can anyone take anything she says seriously with that lapse of judgement on her docket?

Speaking of Iron Mike, he 'endorsed' Steele, his former brother-in-law for the Senate seat, even though

• He isn't a Maryland resident
• He can't vote, due to that pesky rape conviction thing
• The sister of the man he is endorsing cleaned his clock in divorce proceedings

While I don't think Tyson is working on his Mensa application in his spare time, I think he is smarter than people believe and has a keen sense of self awareness. The endorsement is payback for the divorce in general and Steele's alleged involvement in the negotiations in particular.

Then again, Steele may just be a fan of felons in the boxing world. He also has the endorsement of Don King.

Always a good look

Giants 36
Cowboys 22

Roger Clemens doesn't want to talk about the past

So Pedro is basically done. Between rotator cuff surgery mileage on his arm and the fact other parts of his body are failing like the warranty just expired, the days of Pedro as the bulletproof ace are over.

But that is not important to me right now. The most important baseball story to me is that Roger Clemens name has been mentioned in an affidavit as using performance enhancing drugs.

If you gave me a choice between a New York Mets World Series win and the Clements drug rumors to be true, the Mets wouldn’t get out of the NLDS. I want this to be true so much, I may go to church and pray for it.

I want to find out Rog was on the gas back in the mid 90s, when he went from a sub .500 pitcher with the Red Sox (10-13; 3.64 era) to a Cy Young award winner in Toronto the next year (21-7; 2.05 era). By the way, he was in is mid 30s then.

I want to buy a Roger-centric Game Of Shadows like book, giving the time frame and his drug of choice. I want to put money in the pocket of the writer that puts it all together.

I want the mainstream sports media to take Roger’s (most likely shriveled) testicles out of their respective mouths and hound Clemens like they hound Barry Bonds.

I want people to see all the crazy shit he has done (brushback pitches at his wife, tossing various baseball equipment at various Mike Piazza body parts) as a side effect of the drug he was taking.

I want a blowhard congressman to interrupt his pornographic IM chat with a teenager to say Roger Clemens is a bad role model for kids.

I just want what Roger deserves.

Landscaping is completed 9/23

Finished. Azaleas, Blue Juniper (for ground cover) and pine mulch have been planted.

Here is a root that had to be pulled out with rope and the truck of my neighbor.