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massive blog
middle east blogs
sharp minds and useful idiots |
Michigan: Bloggin from a Battleground State
Sept2k4
28-16 ; 2-0
Roy Williams has made three sick catches in two weeks; two of them for touchdowns. His 31 yard td snag half deep into the third quarter brought me to my feet, screaming. Dude yanked the ball in from converging double coverage...with attitude. Damn. I made some sounds that scared the neighborhood, of course the neighborhood was making the same sounds. It's Mr. Williams' second game as a pro.
Joey Harrington, after an abysmal one-point-five quarters, turned into Chad Pennington (18-25 overall, 114 rating)...which is like answering one of my prayers, right up there with the Lions having an explosive playmaking physical receiver, a solid ground game, and a predatory defense.
Holy shit, the Lions have something going.
Now before someone thinks I'm getting carried away, fret not, for I understand that this is but a couple steps in a long journey. Two generations of crap football can not be flushed away in the course of two or three events. The Lions will experience some painful losses this year, maybe this weekend against the Eagles, and they may even find themselves blown out a time or two...Minnesota and Green Bay are no joke.
But the thing is, I've been a Lions fan for almost thirty years. During that stretch, I've seen some inspiring performances, topped by the 1991 playoff victory against the rising Cowboys. I've also seen a brutal continuum of botched plays, poor coaching, and an overall doom-aura that said, basically, 'there are things more important in football than trying to win a Super Bowl.' Read the last line again and ask any Lions fan if it held true for the last 30 years. I'm not sure if it was something in the water or a general malaise (to bite Jimmy Carter), but the results were maddening. The Detroit Lions have sent many good people to the spiritual gutter...because if you love something long enough in this town, your faith will, for sure, be questioned, by both yourself and your peers, and on many levels.
The Lions have something going not because they're 2 and 0 but because on occasion they have looked dominating, and when they don't look dominating it's because they make stupid mistakes...like young talented teams do. They've got to tighten up their secondary till Dre Bly returns, and cut down on penalties. These things are doable. The most important thing, exemplified most by the defensive line and Roy Williams, is that the Lions are hungry, nay starving, and pissed off. Detroit is beating on people, and in football, that's vital to success. If a team comes to your yard and knows without a doubt that you are going to smack the shit out of them on every play, no matter the score or the stakes, well, it helps.
Steve Mariucci never had the 49ers playing this way, meaning with that kind of ass-kicking anger. I never saw San Francisco's D-line of the late 90s maul people, even though they were, on occasion, pretty good. Shaun Rogers and Big Daddy Wilkerson got penetration on the inside, while James Hall sacked Texan QB Dave Carr twice, even though he was playing with a broken thumb...hungry. Mooch, who was treated like a leper televangelist his last couple years in SF, has more of an edge to him now, and it's spread to his team. When people call you out and talk poo, all you can do is either respond or wither.
The Lions are responding, and this is only the beginning. In six days, Detroit squares off against Philly. It's looking like a yardstick game.
Wonder if Mooch and T.O. remember one another?
-k
Bad Interpretation Pt xxx
Many of you who follow centrist or hawkish foreign policy thought have heard the following:
"Bin Laden logically thought that the toppling of the World Trade Center would be followed by another Black Hawk Down American pullback." Victor Davis Hanson
Wrong, so wrong. It worries me that our neo-Conservative establishment really thinks this. The Jihadists knew that a massive attack on our home shores would stir the beast, much as Pearl Harbor did. The Jihadists did what they did because they want to stir the pot, they want strong country against strong country, and thus disorder on a very marco scale. Their wet dream is nuclear nations against one another...cause the more you feed it, the more it needs to consume. Think about how Russia is handling their terrorism issues, for example.
Anyway, Islamofacists, though I despise them, have planned out this war of civilizations quite nicely, and we are helping them out. When the entire globe is xenophobic and fully armed (just watch...Europe will soon start arming itself like it's 1913), the Jihadists will have done what they've sought to do...which is to make us otherwise occupied and leave the Middle East to be reborn as an 11th Century Caliphate.
Once again, for emphasis, Bin Laden fully expected us to react to 9-11 the way we did...it's important that our Pentagon strategists are always mindful of that. I'd hate to think that we're being out-maneuvered by a pack of women-hating assholes with bad shaving habits.
A Flint Observation:
Mullets and bandannas rule here, like it's still 1984. I've seen mull-dannas at grocery stores, banks, coming out from the county courthouse building, and even picking up your mom at the dollar store. However, unlike 1984 Flint, I don't see much in the way of Vans sneakers with the mull-dannas, but that prolly has to do with the rise of country culture than anything else. Back in the day, redneck kids who blasted small game on the weekends still wore vans sneaks and listened to punk at school. Around here, the punkers and metalheads always got along quite nicely, unified by their mutual love of drugs and explosions. So, it's logical that the two cultures blended in and around Flint moreso than most other places. In southern Cali, 20 years ago, metalheads and punkers couldn't stand to be within a mile of each other. If Jello Biafra sneaks into the Whiskey at any point during 1982, he's probably coming out in a bag. Even Van Halen made sure that their 'look' didn't betray their punk influences. Flint...a bastion of inclusiveness, who wudda thunk?
- k
More WTF! moments provided by my Detroit Lions
Okay, first off, we won! The Lions pried the monkey off their backs and now they're no longer 0 for the millenium on the road. That's pretty cool.
Never mind that for Charles Rogers, the 2004 season was one series and one dropped pass long.
Never mind that our best defensive playmaker, Dre Bly, is out with a bum knee for 2-4 weeks.
Never mind that the offense converted 3rd down opportunities (2 for 14) with all the swerve of Jeff Spicoli trying to mug Ricky Williams for his herb.
Never mind that on one ugly snap in the forth quarter three Lions were called for three penalties...one play.
One. I can't think of a better way to sum up Detroit Lions road-football during the past three campaigns. But, that was then.
Lions 20 Bears 16
It was one of the ugliest wins I've ever seen, and when you're trying to climb out of a crater, the technique doesn't matter as much as the results are there.
On the plus side, anyone who saw that game knows that drafting Roy Williams with the 7th pick was a pretty goddamned smart move. That one-handed snag he made in the second quarter will be on highlight reels for awhile. Your typical rookie, nay, your typical starting vetran reciever does not have that kind of concentration. For example, T.O. would not have made that play, even though he's a bull moose like Roy W. That's a good omen for the Big Cats. Would've loved to see the one-two punch of Williams and Rogers, but we're talking about the Lions, which means its got to be done the hard way.
Joey Harrington was serviceable, no Chad Pennington or Tom Brady, but Joey's climbing. He had some opportunities to totally blow the game, instead he drove his team for the winning touchdown when the heat was on in the 4th. That's an important step. He threw one interception, which was as much a bad route as a bad throw, and really, I've said this all along, this team, on offense, is going to look half-ass for a good portion of the year...getting better with time, and maybe even scaring folks in December. Anyway, it's coming.
Now, some words about Detroit's D.
Man! I can't remember the last time I saw Detroit's D-line look menacing. Sean Rogers was an absolute beast, and the rest of the line, from the mid-second quarter on, fed off that.
Teddy Lehman and Earl Holmes stood tall for the linebacking crew. Yesterday was Lehman's first regular season NFL game, and looks like a bonafide playmaker. Maybe Millen was affected by the Morningwig albatross (yes, even though Matt picked Marty, anyway) but Detroit has gathered good talent for two seasons straight. I can't help but imagine what things would be looking like if Charles Rogers was in one piece...makes me want to throw a shoulder-block into the wall.
Anyway...exhausting as it was...it's still 1 and 0.
Yeah.
- k
Detroit Lions 2k4
War, hurricanes, dipshit politicos...fooey! Y'all don't exist today. In fact, the real world isn't so real.
Cause football season has been sprung upon us.
As a terminally loyal and thus often brutalized Detroit Lions fan, I'm ecstatic. Why? Hope, baby! I'm actually going into the 2k4 NFL campaign with a sense of hope. We're not going to win the title this year, but by God we'll be interesting, though not in the way Marty Morningwig made us interesting. Sheesh, I still shake and feel nauseous when I think about those two years.
Speaking of which, I'll still never understand why Matt Millen wasn't shown the door the same day Marty M. was bounced. I mean, Millen hired this guy, picked him out from the blue, and said that he was the CURE to what ailed the Lions. Folks, going from 9-7 to 2-14 in today's NFL is not a cure, it's infliction. You can't lose 14 games in today's NFL unless, at some level, you like losing, for either monetary or otherwise ethical reasons.
But enough of all that looking back in anger crap. One thing about being a Lions fan is that you have to have a short memory, otherwise you'll go stone crazy from depression and anger...Chuck Long, Eric Hipple, Gary Danielson, Andre Ware (make it stop), Monte Clark, Darryl Rogers, Wayne Fontes (please, no more) Rodney Peete, Scott Mitchell (ka-blamm! another ball of lead to the temple of a Lions fan)
None of that, so it's best to let sleeping dogs lie and drink hourly to prune away your brain's recall ability.
Marty Morningwig!?
But, we've learned from our mistakes, after fifty years of regular ass beatings and wholesale embarrassments the tide is turning in a big way.
ESPN writer and Patriots suck-face Bill Simmons has basically said, for the permanent record, that Joey Harrington is a boob and a loser.
Wrong! And this year will prove it.
Harrington has the skills, is not afraid of pain, and though no one is saying point blank that Harrington is the dream QB the Lions have always wanted, he does have that something about him. I think he's going to show, in his third NFL campaign that he is an upper-tier QB. More importantly, the kid has a good offensive line and solid weapons at the skill positions.
Now, just remember, when Harrington started playing ball in Motown, his coach was Marty Mega-dipshit and his biggest most powerful weapon was James Stewart. James effing Stewart...who runs a little faster than I do, but then again my knees are half shot, otherwise it's prolly even.
And that's the difference. Anyone who has spent considerable time watching new back Kevin Jones and wide-outs Charles Rogers and Roy Williams do their things knows, with all the certainty comprehensible, that, as Biggie once said, Things Done Changed. Steve Mariucci is very good at rebuilding and mentoring, and believe me, with the pressure he's under and after his hellish last year or so at SF, if he didn't think the organization was going in the right direction in a big way, we would all know about it.
The offense will score a fair number points this year. We won't be the greatest show on turf, but we won't be Tampa Bay either.
Which brings us to the other side of the ball...a place where the Lions will be quite respectable as well. For the first time in living memory, we have two blue-chippers (Dre Bly and Fernando Bryant) in Detroit's defensive backfield, which is good, since our pass rush is shaping up to be pathetic unless Kalimba Edwards was totally dogging it in pre-season. You never know. Anyway, we all know now about Dre Bly, just sick skills and no reason to think he won't have another all-pro season.
Fernando Bryant has been a bit of a surprise. Drafted outta 'Bama by Jacksonville with, I think, the 6th pick of the draft in 98, Fernando made Tom Coughlin look like a bumbling moron by playing like a confused speed freak in an a video arcade full of cops. It was tough to watch. Fernando's had something like 5 interceptions in five years, although he was injured last year...not that it would have made a difference.
But, but! And here is where sometimes the preseason tells you something, Bryant came into camp this year and was suddenly picking balls, covering wide-outs like hookers to sailor ships. During the Cleveland and Baltimore pre-season games, he was everywhere...and now, as the regular season launches, Bryant will have his own side of the field to cover. Intersting. If you're a Detroit Lions fan, you need to believe in things like 'conversions' --- you know, like Paul in Damascus.
Beyond that, the Lions' D-line and linebacking crew are better than serviceable. Boss Baily is a stud but he's gone till Christmas, but watch out for Teddy Lehman in the ILB spot...making folks see the next Zack Thomas. The D-coaching should be better this year by far. Dick Jauron had a nasty adventure in Chicago, but he's a very good defensive coach, believes in covering the field and playing aggressively without blitzes. We'll see how it works.
The 2k4 Detroit Lions are fast, young, and talented. The Lions have a good head coach, a good quarterback, excellent receivers, and in Kevin Jones, a running back who is going to surprise a few people.
Remember Dallas in the early nineties? They were 1-15 during Troy Aikman's first year. Hmmm, but I'm trying to remember how they did during Aikman's third year.
Yeah baby...fifty years of abject futility will soon be but a bad dream.
9-7...and picking up steam towards the end.
- k
How Quickly It Happens
Disappointment comes in many shades, from the light grayish tint of watching your team fumble a kickoff in the 1st quarter of a meaningless game to the black-hole hell of seeing your troubled child led away in cuffs after cops discover his basement meth lab.
There's the disappointment of not performing to your own standards, and the disappointment of misjudging the competence of others.
In that rough context, Kerry's slide is definitely a mid-level, charcoal gray disappointment here. He is not responsible, I'd bet, for either Kitty Kelly's tripe about Bush snorting coke at Camp David when his daddy was president ...obviously bullshit, since Bush Jr. was deep into Jesus at that time. Nor is Kerry directly responsible for Bush's National Guard papers, which may or may not be doctored. But Kerry's is in deepest poo for this, because we (re: I!) wanted dirt, and his boys didn't vet the dirt properly. So, I guess a little of it, a grain or three, falls on me.
What the American public is seeing in Kerry is a campaign with a lack of discipline, versus a Bush campaign with amazing discipline. Since most Americans really think we're in a major war, the discipline thing, getting stuff right, and not disappointing expectations, is very important. As a person, I actually think that Kerry has lived his life in a more disciplined manner than Bush, but that seems to account for little in the eyes of the general populace. The perception is shifting to a point where Kerry's being perceived as a bumbler, and if the forgery accusation sticks, the bumbler tag will be impossible to rip away.
We've seen a version of this in circles of friends. A talented but foolish cat slowly marginalized from college onward from his more responsible peers, because the foolish one becomes more of a liability than a contributor. His domestic troubles, binge-drinking, and assorted tantrums blaming the world for personality defects eventually wear thin. You can take the axiom 'no one likes a freeloader' to a millions places, but the nut of it has to do with contribution and execution.
When folks see non-stop mistakes, even if they are somewhat trivial compared to the established policy of others, the intention becomes irrelevant, and people flee. A bad ideology lets you make mountainous mistakes as a matter of policy and not pay a price, since it fits, you know, into that ideology. Bush is a master here. History will not look kindly on his backward views on religion, biological research, worldview, and government infrastructure. But, since Dubbya's mean-spirited policy all fits inside his ideology, few seem to care that his very Presidency is a mistake.
I told my friends, back when Howard Dean was riding high, that this 2k4 Election was going to be an ugly repeat of 1972. I had hoped then that I'd be terribly wrong, and maybe I will be terribly wrong, but these last two faux-scandals, on the heels of a robotically precise convention, have moved a large inertial mass of swing voters towards Bush.
Finally, let's not forget that sloppy nation-building, I think, is far worse than sloppy dirt-digging. Those forged National Guard papers shouldn't erase the fact that Bush has helped to make the world a much more dangerous place. Hunter S. Thompson, writing on the 1972 election, said it best:
McGovern made some stupid mistakes, but in context they seem almost frivolous compared to the things Richard Nixon does every day of his life, on purpose, as a matter of policy and the perfect expression of everything he stands for. Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be president?
- k
Oh, So it's Like That
Still clearing my head from the duplicitous hatefest also known as GOP Convention 2k4. Aside from the bilious Zell Miller, who I'll get to in a moment, the convention was non-stop polite Republicans insisting that Dubbya was the tried and tested leaded-leader we all need to get our other arm around them radical Islamopunks. The other salient point of their preening exercise was to convince swing voters that a Kerry administration would spell doom on more levels than Helen Keller's ghost signing Dante's Inferno. Man, talk about ream jobs. Kerry's asshole must be on fire...still, five days after Dubbya's acceptance speech.
That speech was some fine fiction too. Dubbya didn't talk about his pork barrel spending, let alone his position supporting free trade unless tariffs will snag important votes, but he talked about simplifying a tax code that he helped to warp...actually, warp further.
Kerry thinks clearly when his shorthairs are in the crosshairs. This will be no exception. After what Zell Miller and his adopted crew did last week there is no alternative. It's man against man, cause you can't be calling a fellow some spitball flinging wussy here and now in War On Terror without risking a duel. And for the record, I'd love to see Miller and Kerry duel to the death...it'd mean one less bigoted southern redneck in our fauna soup. Senator Miller's attacks were personal, not business. Of the many cheap shots he tossed at Kerry, let me pick one at random for a little scrutiny.
Kerry was rhetorically stoned to death for supposedly withdrawing support for the Patriot Act. That piece of legislation, on top of strengthening wiretap probable cause statutes was packed full of GOP pork (i.e. a nod to drug maker Eli Lilly to protect it against lawsuits from parents of autistic children...possibly made so by high mercury levels used in Lilly's childhood vaccines), and various riders that had nothing to do with protecting America, but boosting favored defense and law-enforcement companies. Kerry was pissed because at a time of supposed national unity, the GOP decided to play games and stick a ton of partisan bullshit into one of the most important bills of our lifetimes...and then these bastards damn anyone who questions it. Balls.
Contrary to Bush's cronies, I really think that John Kerry is an optimist and is very interested in making our nation work better and for more people. One thing about Kerry that I often come back to is his talent, and how he chooses to use it in comparison to Dubbya. Kerry is very smart, multilingual, a jock, learned or curious in many disciplines, and, as we all know, aware of nuance. None of the aforementioned are sins per se, unless you're going against the black and white Bush crew. My little point here is that John Kerry, who comes from an upper middle class diplomat family, could have taken his education and connections to make tons (i.e. friggin 100s of millions) of money, under the radar, no harm no foul.
Instead he has always believed that he has a special gift for governing, that he can steer the great inertial mass known as America ever so slightly towards a more progressive path. Kerry wants to help, and I think in relation to Dubbya, he can help.
The laughter and smiles part of this campaign is over, and now the fear is settling in, the fear of Kerry not having what it takes to climb a tall hill and slay a dynastic dragon surrounded by wealthy and heavily armed enablers.
There's some dirty laundry in Dubbya's closet that hasn't yet seen the light of day. Let's change that.
Kerry and Edwards are on it, and though I still think Kerry is a douchebag, I'll support this ticket to the hilt.
Let's get some.
- k
Hearing morons bleat cliche's about the base evil of W. is almost as enervating as hearing Bill O'Riley talk trash about said morons. Noxious gasbags like O'Rielly and Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are sign-posts for me, regarding the average republican, not the wonks and think-tankers, but the Joe-in-the-street gang, who drive used cars and live hand to mouth and vote republican so no one will ever fuck with their guns. Word.
I prefer Al Franken and Michael Moore to Limbaugh and Hannity. See, this partisan thing is cake. Anyway, there is one MASSIVE blind spot that the GOP still doesn't address:
Equality of opportunity does not yet exist, sorry GOP. When Dubbya and Dubbya's acolytes prance around the podium talking inclusiveness and opportunity and all that, they choose to dismiss out of mind some realities about the nation. Since I'm typing this from Flint, MI, and since I was raised about 5 miles away from where I'm typing, I know for goddamned sure that many many worthy people never have a solid opportunity for success.
Republicans have two answers, one for the public and one they usually keep to themselves. The hush-hush answer is simple, the GOP thinks that poor people need to stop reproducing...which if carried out would make them live-in maids awfully damn expensive. The public response to unequal opportunities is to leave it all to charity and religious organizations, which I support on its face, but this is something that begs for regulation, which the GOP sometimes has issues with. For, as we've learned in the last few years, there are some real religious wackos out there.
Por ejemplo: Jack Van Impe makes Pat Robertson seem normal. Van Impe talks about the apocalypse on public access channels, web included, he and his ho (who looks like a half-wrecked wax casting of Nancy Reagan) are not aging well, plastic surgery be damned.
Jack does have something to say about values:
"I have no respect for these pedophiles." Jack says, "Jesus says put'em away, into the ocean with a millstone around the neck." What comedy...Van Impe had an Eric Cartman childhood...guarenteed. He'd be a fun to drink with, for an hour or two, just to be reminded of the sometimes stunted nature of humanity.
This guy is worth serious multi-millions. Who do you think his flock will vote for?
Or Pat Robertson's flock
Or Benny Hinn's
Exactly. See, public education is in large part a ruse to keep people just smart enough to build widgets, but too stupid to write blueprints for new widgets. The system can tolerate a university liberal elite and all its manifestations, because there are tens of millions of people out there who love Wal-Mart, McDonalds, and Tim Yee Haw McGraw, and I'm in the middle of such a place, and it ain't funny bro.
An Extrapolation:
I've heard some otherwise sane people fret about folks like Van Impe and the notion that maybe the old loon and his buddies are right, maybe this is the end, better buy some God insurance, attend service daily, tithe, the whole sha-lang. Well, if that's what'll make you a better human, go ahead. But, know this, that Revelations stuff being the word of God is bullshit, no more real than Mary being a virgin mother. If the last part of that last sentence presents too high a hurdle for you mind, may I suggest this site for your entertainment instead.
Revelations seems prescient only because mankind is woefully predictable. Since the dawn of time, or at least our awareness of it, we've been on a quest to make better weapons and smite ever more dangerous enemies. How hard would it be for an educated scribe-- and remember if you could write well during the first couple centuries after Christ, then you were a member of an elite class of scholars-- to take a doomsday folkstale, hitherto told all around the Mediterranean watershed orally, and apply it the way he did? There will always be strong empires and tremendous friction. There will, until our nature changes, always be war. If you could go back in time and describe the 100 most ghastly happenings of World War II to Boston pilgrim fresh off the Mayflower, you'd be boiled for being a witch, or hailed for being a prophet...either way, folks would freak....50-million dead is an apocalypse, and it has already happened once. How much worse does it need to be before these dickhead parasite quasi-preacher fellas hang up their bag and buy a titty bar?
Mankind may become obsolete and thus irrelevant, but we are not going poof in some God-sent ball of freaking flame...potential spacerock / earthrock collisions aside. How can Dubbya, buy the way, call himself such an optimist when he panders to people like this, seriously?
- k