Vacated

I used to spend a lot of time wishing I was a sportswriter. I don’t so much anymore- observing that sportswriters are some of the most miserable bastards alive did the trick- but part of me wishes I was covering the Final Four this year, and I could interview John Calipari, who has been to the Final Four twice in recent years but had both appearances expunged due to NCAA violations.
I really wish some reporter at the Final Four would go up to Calipari and ask him questions, repeatedly, about how he’s enjoying his first Final Four, how it feels to get there for the first time, why he thinks he didn’t make it with any of his previous schools, etc. Then he could write a snarky, totally deadpan column built around the notion of “John Calipari, wide-eyed first-time Final Four coach.”
Then, after Kentucky’s appearance this year gets vacated, they could do it all again when Coach Cal takes his next school to the Final Four…

Giffords for Senate?

This New York Times story– about Democrats in Arizona wishing that Gabrielle Giffords can run for a Senate seat next year, really rubbed me the wrong way:

Representative Gabrielle Giffords is still in the hospital, but some of her most ardent backers are so enamored of the idea of her running for the Senate that they describe the inevitable campaign commercials: the deep-voiced narrator recounting what happened to her, the images of her wounded, then recovering and speaking into the camera alongside her astronaut husband to call on Arizonans to unite.

This is just an icky story on many fronts- how about we let her recover first? Maybe, learn how to master all basic brain functions, before we start speculating about her political future?
Sure, I’d love to see Rep. Giffords return to Congress and possibly even run for higher office someday. But next year? When we really don’t know how she’s doing? Come on now.
Then again, of all the vile political stories to come out of Arizona in the last year, this probably doesn’t crack the top ten.

25 Years of Pixar

If that didn’t make you smile and/or cry, there’s something wrong with you.

Total Bullshit All Along, Part I

The Obama administration “conspiracy” to hinder the New Black Panther Party case? Not real. Neither, for that matter, is the New Black Panther Party.

Total Bullshit All Along, Part II

That “Facebook Depression” Story? Not real. But you knew that, didn’t you?

Click, Click and Santorum

This Tumblr is a great idea and manages to stay funny for two or three minutes.

Inverted Pyramid Fail

From George Washington University (via Deadspin), alma mater of my sister and brother-in-law:

Will Roberts of UVA threw a perfect game yesterday, only the 19th in D1 history and the first since 2002. But you wouldn’t know it if you read the recap from George Washington University, which came out on the losing end of the feat.

Yes, the opposing pitcher having thrown a perfect game was mentioned in paragraph 7 or an eight-paragraph story. Ah, the days of college newspapering…

Headline of the Year Nominee

AP: Bonds Judge Reconsidering Testicle Testimony

Another Angelo

This morning on 21st Street I saw a car with the Pennsylvania license plate “CATALDI.” It couldn’t have been Angelo himself; he was on the air at the time, plus I saw the driver and it wasn’t him.
Maybe it was a relative. Or some unfortunate soul with the same last name who’s unrelated. Or maybe it was a superfan, eager to spread the message to everyone who sees him on the road, that “I enjoy perpetually ignorant, ill-informed, hostile, and very loud sports radio.”
I’ll be sure to mention if I see an ESKIN.

Quote of the Day

Matt Yglesias vs. Newt:

I think it�s important to actually understand what Gingrich is saying here and not just make fun of him for contradicting himself. This speaks, I think, quite accurately to what the conservative movement in the United States is about�the identity politics of middle aged white suburban conformists. Note that Jesus Christ was not an American patriot. Indeed, there was no United States of America at the time the Gospels were written down. Nor were the early Christians some kind of Roman nationalists. But American conservatives are both Christians and Americans and it�s important to them to affirm these identities simultaneously, even though it makes a bit of a hash of things. This is also why in the United States loud proclamations of Christian faith are typically associated with enormous belief in the beneficent possibilities of organized violence, but only among Christians who are also white people.