Victimization and terrorism finally come full circle

I'm starting to wonder what the next evolution of American culture is going to be, since I would like to think the whole oppressed victim thing is beginning to grow beyond its practical limits. When everybody's a victim, maybe it finally looks stupid and counterproductive. It seems like a strange thing to aspire to, but every public figure who stumbles seems to dig their way out by attacking those who exploit their failures, or even just the people who point them out, which is somehow worse then screwing up in the first place. The real benefit of being a victim, though, is the relaxation of ethics.

Remember ten years ago when terrorism was a set of unethical methods of warfare, and BAD? Then everybody slowly started becoming a terrorist: first all our enemies, then everything harmful thing like child pornography became linked to terrorism, then any opposition to the administration's mandate became linked to terrorism. Finally there were logical inconsistencies in the definition, whereby Franklin Roosevelt, the Founding Fathers, and the Minutemen would all be caught up in the wave of terrorism spreading throughout history. Michael Collins and the IRB used to be invoked as an example of ambiguity of perspective, because they created urban guerrilla warfare and over the next 50 years the organization evolved into the Provisional IRA, who were indisputably a terrorist organization, but now there weren't any fine distinctions to be made.

And that's when the ethical lines needed to blur a bit more, and we all realized there's no moral judgment applied to the actions of terrorists, it's about their goals. FDR and Francis Marion may not have followed the rules of war, but it's okay because they were on the right side. "History is written by the winners" and "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" used to be about bias and distortion, but now they're quoted as proof that emotional perspective is not subject to logical observation. The KKK may have been terrorists, but a guy who bombs abortion clinics to spread fear is doing God's work, not terrorism. Then something even scarier happened, when method and ethics stopped mattering, the label stopped mattering so much, and now even the Good Guys are terrorists too. The Founding Fathers now were terrorists, just like the Iraqis, and we don't have to justify Dresden or Nagasaki.

Don't believe me? Christian kids are going to camps which justify themselves by invoking terrorism. The director of the bible camp Kids on Fire says, “I want to see them as radically laying down their lives for the gospel as they are in Palestine, Pakistan and all those different places because, excuse me, we have the truth.” I don't care if she thinks they have the truth, I just care that the fact that somebody is brainwashing boys into blowing themselves up on the West Bank somehow means we have to do it too? Their stated goal is to take back America for Christians, and they pop balloons that say "government" on them as part of some exercise to identify their enemies. Then they all pray in front of a cardboard cut-out of... the president. Here's the thing, they have to be victims of an oppressive wave of secular culture that's out to destroy them, and they have to be losing. Government is the enemy, but somehow President Bush is not part of that, because he's a victim too.

My favorite though for the special ethical status of victims is the way for instance, women apparently identified with Kathy Bates breaking a man's ankles in Misery because even if it was a psychotic act of violence, it was still empowering. And it's not so ridiculous, the pervasive sugar-and-spice myth does make life that much worse for everybody, and it can take an image like a psychotic female stalker to make us even aware of it. What's weird though is being able to be proud of it somehow, like only being able to respond emotionally to the politics, and again you have to put aside any ethical or moral response. Sure it's fun to threaten the ruling class, but it's not so much fun when everybody's a victim, because then you get things in the same vein like Sen. George Allen saying he had a Confederate flag, a picture of confederate soldiers, and a noose in his office because of his rebellious youth. Invoking slavery and lynchings while governor of a southern state is certainly rebellious to common decency. My favorite though are these t-shirts from Aryan Wear, modeled here by white supremacist folk singers Prussian Blue.

They claim they're all about pride, not hatred, but can invoke mass murder on a scale so large as to have permanently changed institutions throughout the western world, and it works, because now they really are the victims of hatred, mine. Seriously, the sight of them does make me angry, but fortunately, I'm not a terrorist, and I don't care what they wear or sing or where they do it, I just worry about who's dumb enough to listen.

Lian's Top 10 Complaints about adjusting to Chicago

10. Poor service at the Chilean consulate

9. Paul's mysterious insistence on wearing a fake mustache and sunglasses when eating at Penang

8. No heterosexual bars or diners in the greater Chicago area (that anybody will take her to, anyways)

7. Ruthless swarms of hornets staying in guest room until they find a place of their own

6. Inability to rent a boat on Lake Michigan

5. Calling police to complain about #@%$'ing fireworks going off in the neighborhood all night... and finding out they're going off inside the condo as well.

4. Denied entry to Bijou Theatre because of discriminatory policy against asians or something

3. Nobody says "Gruzei" or launders money for genocidal dictators

2. Sick of eating at Brasserie Jo every night while Paul disappears for 20-30 minutes to "wash his hands"

1. Constant threats about being taken down... to Chinatown.

Things that make me sad

1. Tara Reid is having breast reduction surgery. It's not that I liked Tara Reid any better with big breasts, actually she just reminded me of a prudish, whiskey-scarred version of Brittney Skye (except when Brittney drops her clothes and acts like a whore she's sober and on the clock). It's just that nobody liked her, so she got breast implants and nobody liked her either, so now she's going back to where she was only with scars and no sensation in her nipples. (Which allows her to be the only person not to notice the breeze going over them when her dress falls off.)

2. The large number of people on TV giving investment advice based on their prime position on the information curve, when they themselves clearly aren't benefiting from this information, is certainly tragic irony. Jim Cramer is a great showman, he has a TV show, a book, he's on Conan O'Brien, he's appearing at colleges with Tim Russert in front of packed halls, and he's living the dream when he orders up his never-ending pasta bowl down at the Olive Garden. The money from TV, public appearances, and royalties from his book is apparently siphoned off to prop up his poor investment positions, and he doesn't even have the coin to pick up a Zagat guide at Barnes&Noble. Ironically the guys on at 4am should be the wealthiest, since nobody's watching, preserving the value of their information about the market.

3. The Airbus transport plane known as the Beluga... actually that doesn't make me sad so much as it apparently does the Boeing tour guides. Just mention the thing and watch the tourguide wipe a tear from the corner of her eye and bravely announce, "Our plane is called the Big Green Pickle, some people like it, because they think it's cute and, and maybe they think it's funny-looking..." Ask if Boeing has ever had a successful water landing and bam, the tour's over right there, and you're hustled off to the gift shop.

4. Seafood restaurants in Seattle are full of vegetarians. I seriously don't think anybody in Seattle eats fish, which is really sad considering there's a whole big-ass bucket of tuna and crab next door called the pacific ocean. Actually now that I think about it the last time I had as much really questionable seafood it was in Massacheusetts, and the people I've met who never had high quality seafood (lobster, bluefin tuna, octopus, the stuff that you can't get by broiling something off a farm) all grew up near an ocean. And it all gets less fresh and more expensive the closer you get to the ocean... the clams are full of sand, the fish is tragically overcooked or wrapped in ham which is then charred (when they overcook the fish). Is it just that the midwestern customer knows fresh seafood is a rare treat and thus won't settle for $40 fish sticks? Anyways, it makes me sad, what with food and football being the only remaining pleasures in my life. Seriously, I expected the calamari appetizer at the Experience Music Project bar to be sub-par, but I didn't expect the worst preparation of squid I've ever had.

5. The Captain emigrating to China. It may not happen for a couple years, but I figure with the Olympics in Beijing, and the Republican Convention here, I figure it's only a matter of time. And if he goes to China, there's always the possibility Shing-Tung Yau will steal a Fields Medal for him. Pretty soon I expect to be getting emails from phil@peoplesdfl.cn saying "The Poincare Conjecture was clearly proved by the work of mathematicians in nnnnnnn-China!"

These things make me sad. But I try to remember it could be worse, after all, I had breakfast with my friend the Candyman this Sunday and he can't even sit down to a meal without being pursued by bees. And he's got a hook (but it ain't on his hand). I would also like to apologize to The Captain for the legions of dumb jokes about China I've been making for almost 8 years, I swear to god I'll stop after the 2008 Olympics.

Santana wins Triple Crown!

Johan Santana looks set to win the triple crown this year.   In the unlikely event that anybody reading this doesn't know what that means, Johan Santana is leading baseball in all three major statistical categories:  he has the most wins, the most strike-outs, and the lowest ERA.  To win an American League triple crown is enough of an accomplishment, but a Major League triple crown is almost unheard of.  The last guy to do it was Dwight Gooden in 1985, and before that the last guy was Sandy Koufax.  That's pretty elite company, and he'll be pitching in the play-offs the next time he starts.  If D-troit stumbles just once, the Twins can still win the division, Joe Mauer is on pace to be the first catcher to lead the majors in hitting since WWII, and Justin Morneau-for-4 has overcome having a rough start and being Canadian to be 5th in RBIs this season.  Everybody wrote the Twins off this spring, now nobody knows what they might do.  Very eeeeenteresting...

If you see only one quirky crime thriller this year..

If you only see one quirky crime thriller in which seemingly impenetrable plot developments and odd quirks only hint at the intricate underlying con in a multipolar conflict, see Inside Man. If you see two... well, Lucky Number Slevin is not without charm.

Inside Man is summarized by Clive Owen's opening narration in which he promises to pull off the perfect bank heist... he then makes hostages indistinguishable from robbers, while Denzel Washington must deal with the robbers, antsy SWAT teams, and the bank's own intrigue. Lucky Number Slevin is a story about mistaken identity forcing a man into deals with mobsters over assassination for hire and gambling debts, and neighbors who just need to borrow a cup of sugar at the wrong time.

Both are filmed in an interesting visual style, and both films absorbed me into the growing confusion of the unfolding story, although less so for Lucky Number Slevin, which really didn't hook me until maybe the last third of the film. The problem I felt was that L#S spends so much time introducing Slevin's problem through a series of meetings and punches to the stomach that, while I certainly enjoy seeing Josh Hartnett get punched in the stomach (he was in Pearl Harbor) the film didn't pull me in until I saw Slevin Kelevra actually do something.

Inside Man is captivating in large part because it features a tremendous cast that gives these characters a lot of implied depth. The main confrontation of this film is Denzel Washington facing on one side Clive Owen, and on the other Jodie Foster, any of whom is fascinating whenever they're allowed to get a little dirty, and the muddying waters of this film's moral perspective are perfect for that. Around them are Christopher Plummer, Willem Dafoe, and the ever fascinating Chiwetel Ejiofor, and when you add to that the richness of the diverse cast of hostages, Spike Lee has created an entire world full of real people whose existence extends far beyond the boundaries of the story he's chosen to tell, as do certain threads of the plot.

This contrasts with the real problem of Lucky Number Slevin. The supporting cast includes Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, and Stanley Tucci as Slevin's three antagonists, and a collection of amusing henchmen. Bruce Willis is effectively taciturn, and needs to be until the final unravelling of the plot, but everybody else spends the whole movie exchanging witty rapier thrusts and amusing musings, which shows a lot of promise, but sadly fails to entertain nearly as much as the cast thinks it does. The problem is the characters are all so thin, as well as intentionally mysterious, that it never has enough weight to make me believe it. Freeman, Tucci, and Kingsley manage to pull this off and their scenes with Hartnett are more interesting for it, but the real problem is the scenes with Lucy Liu and Josh Hartnett, since neither has the gravitas to pull off a script that's straining for self-conscious humor and noir at the same time. Every scene works briefly, but each goes too long to avoid turning into some writer's exercise on how long they can keep a technique going, especially Liu and Hartnett's scenes, which begin simultaneously guarded and flirtatious and end with a neon sign flashing "Witty Dialogue" so the audience knows when to chuckle appreciatively.

What's left in Lucky Number Slevin is the intricate underlying con, which Bruce Willis coyly refers to as the Kansas City Shuffle, defined differently everytime, but the characters can't fill it out. Inside Man is the opposite, as the film and the heist are a snapshot of a larger world and a larger time frame. I was intrigued by both, but Inside Man is the one I'd watch again, loose ends and all. One caveat, both struck me as films better enjoyed when you only put the clues together at the end with the benefit of hindsight, and just get pulled along with Kelevra (Hartnett) and Frazier (Washington), but more discerning viewers may piece this together a lot quicker than I did.

(This was a review I posted on my other blog at Rotten Tomatoes, along with reviews of almost every other 2006 release I've seen.)

Vikings 16-13 Panthers

This was certainly an interesting game to watch, good and bad. There's reason to believe the team may be pretty good after all, given a close win over a good team and some factors affecting the margin of victory in this game.

The offense was anemic, coming up with 6 points through three quarters of football. Most series followed a predictable pattern: on first down, run between the tackles, and since our running game sucks and the Panthers were cued to the run, little or no gain. Second and long, Johnson drops back to pass, somebody blows their assignment and Johnson gets sacked. Then it's on to third and very long, and the Vikings don't convert. The story really was the failure of what should be a good offensive line, other than during the Vikings' first drive of the game, to provide holes for the running game or protection for the passing game. Reinforcing my observation about the Panthers anticipating certain plays, whenever the Vikings broke the pattern, like a quick throw to a wide out on first down, running on second and long, they got some solid results. The other consideration is that the offense, while they didn't score, did come up with 400 yards of total offense, including 78 yards on the final scoring drive in OT, and held the ball longer than the Panthers, even though they didn't do a lot with it. Drives stalled in the Panthers half of the field, and the 50-yard blocked field goal seemed symbolic of the offense for most of the day.

Considering the narrow margin for error allowed by our lack of offensive output and the time the defense spent on the field I never thought they'd hold up through four quarters. They certainly got beat on a lot of plays, but they consistently came up with stops all day, and deserve the lion's share of the credit for this win, by holding the Panthers to 13 points. The offense deserves more credit than they'll get for gaining some yards, because the short field the special teams gave the Panthers every possession didn't help either unit too much either. The defense also had a lot of near interceptions and recovered fumbles only to have them taken away by the zebras... they were around the ball the whole game, and were getting to Delhomme, so they showed even more than what's on the stat sheet.

The only way to really win a game where you can't score is turnovers, and while both teams turned the ball over exactly once, the Vikings capitalized on theirs. The defense stopped the Panthers cold after Johnson threw his first interception of the year, but when the Panthers (following a 3-and-out, -9 yard drive by the Vikings) came up with the great idea to throw a lateral on a punt return and coughed up the ball, the Vikings took advantage of the possession in Panthers territory. Trailing 13-6 and setting up for a field goal, the holder Chris Kluwe flipped the ball up to Ryan Longwell who made what was described by fellow fans as a "not terribly masculine" pass to tight end Richard Owens who bulled in for a touchdown to tie the game. It's been a long time since I've seen a Vikings team successfully use misdirection, instead of just being stymied by it, but part of the fun of the record-setting '98 offense was the use of plays like the flea flicker, coming out of the huddle and having the QB line up as a receiver with the snap going directly to 3rd down back David Palmer, that kind of thing.

The other reason to take a lot of positives out of a close game is that hopefully we won't get this officiating crew again for a while. It was like playing Duke or something the sheer number of phantom penalties, inconsistent non-calls, and the bizarre rulings that came out of instant replay challenges, all of which served to kill Vikings drives and sustain Panthers drives. The refs aren't supposed to overturn on the field rulings except with clear, incontrovertible evidence of error, so whenever they do and still get it wrong, it really smacks of bias... three plays were reviewed, two rulings upheld and one overturned, all against the Vikings, all completely mysterious to anybody watching the same replay on the big screen. I don't think it's right to claim one bad decision by a ref determines the course of a game, but the consistent non-calls on face-mask violations by Panthers while calling an unusually high number on Vikings defenders, ignoring holding by Panthers players directly in front of officials, as well as the unusual number of calls where the official closest to the play saw nothing wrong only to have a flag thrown by a guy halfway down the field, really was atrocious. I don't mind watching my team losing at football, I mind watching them lose a popularity contest with referees, who weigh reputation more heavily than the game in front of them. Sure the Panthers can get the benefit of the doubt playing the Vikings based on the last few years, but there's no way Delhomme throws an incomplete pass while falling under a pile of linemen, and not only does the umpire think it's a fumble and calls it one, Delhomme thinks it's a fumble and doesn't argue the call, but the ref sees incontrovertible evidence beyond the shadow of a doubt they're both wrong when he watches the video tape and overturns the call on that basis.

I'm not sure about some of the current aesthetic trends in architecture. For instance, does this look more like something a woman would a) buy a luxury condo in, or b) masturbate with?

Das Vote

I voted in the DFL primary on Tuesday, and I have elected to make a statement of my own free will. I have been treated well by my cap, um... by The Party and am happy to remain in the People's 5th District. I regret the pain I have caused my friends and neighbors by voting Republican in previous elections, and I now see a better way. I have chosen my new political party without coercion or reward, and especially without coercion. I had a minor accident while alone in the booth in my polling place, when in my unsupervised state I put accidentally put my pen in the wrong place and in so doing accidentally pulled out one of my own fingernails, again by myself without any assistance or interference from any party election monitors. It was only then that I requested assistance in filling out my ballot due to the injury to my hand as well as several unrelated electrical burns. I am very grateful for the assistance provided by my friends from the DFL, and I am very pleased with the result of the election. I look forward to exercising my right to vote for the candidate of my choice in the general election, and while I may voluntarily seek guidance from the Party, I will cast my vote without fear of intimidation or coercion. Thank you for reading my voluntary statement.

(Actually I used the electronic touchscreen voting machine, which does what I've said they should do all along. You get a normal, optical scan ballot like everybody else gets, put it into the machine, which runs you through all the elections in this weird Stephen Hawking voice, then prints your votes onto the ballot, and you can verify it visually before feeding it into the electronically sealed ballot box yourself.)

Top five movies I'm looking forward to this fall

1. Oldtownboy

Hello Paul, I'd like to play a game... after being imprisoned for years in a small, mountainous country in central Europe, a man is released with money, a cellphone, and a decent selection of zegna shirts. He struggles to piece together the circumstances of his abduction by weaving his way through the dangerous interlocked worlds of the global hedge fund industry and the Chicago gay porn theater industry (especially that second one), only deviating from his relentless quest to eat the occasional live octopus. Eventually his securitized operating asset offers based on Peter North's dependable erections raise interest amongst the powerful and dangerous, disturbing the still waters of his past, this fall in... Oldtownboy.

2. All the Captain's Men

This political thriller tells of the rise and fall of fictitious east St. Paul politician Billy Beagle, his innocent beginnings and his eventual corruption at the hands of the Minnesota Butter lobby. Following a major scandal over a road bill provision to create 5 mph or less lanes next to the curbs on University Ave to improve traffic flow and stimulate local commerce, city council member Beagle must run an expensive campaign to restore his image as a conservative family values candidate, his usual campaign contributors the Ushers Union, Bubble-Up Carwash, and George Soros won't return his calls, and some $#@%'ing jackass keeps stealing his yard signs. In desperation, he turns to the Butter lobby and their money propels his meteoric rise to political
power broker in Minnesota politics. At first the compromises are easy, he pushes a bill to put more signs on Lexington Ave to help people find the Dairy Queen and avoid misunderstandings, but eventually, with a congressional investigation into tubs of Afghani goat butter used to smuggle heroin into the state through Lake of the Woods, Billy Beagle is found drowned in a bucket of movie theater artificial butter topping.

3. The Maltese Seahawk

Strangely evil college advisor Silke Spaten meets a colorful cast of characters who come to Seattle in pursuit of a black-lacquered statue of a black cock, believed to actually be covering over a priceless, jewel-encrusted mold of Sean Michaels created in 1187 by miscast European actors Orlando Bloom and Eva Green as a gift to Queen Elizabeth (who they figured could really use it) to apologize for losing Jerusalem. Silke must put aside those and many other painful anachronisms to sort through the stories told by homme mortel Bryan O'Shaughnessy, who may have lured Silke's roommate to her death, as well as the curious PJ Cairo, who comes into her office to discuss securitizing the statue but mostly just to fondle and admire his own cane, as well as the mysterious fat man D, who Cairo implies is pulling the strings. Murder, mayhem, and poorly constructed puns about porn star penises, in theaters this fall.

4. Nauru Vice

On an island in the south pacific with thirteen thousand people crammed into eight steamy square miles facing 90% unemployment, Nauru needed somebody to walk the beat. And after a near-death experience choking on a particularly thick cheese fondue, one man was ready for the job. Due to financial irregularities involving importation of fireworks into the European Union, he lives 24/7 under an assumed identity, known to the local underworld only as "Amstelboy". In a linen suit with a pastel wifebeater, and loafers with and no socks, Amstelboy cruises around the island's perimeter in his cigar boat waving his badge in circles making annoying siren noises. The movie centers around some tourists who arrive on the island with money that they earned legally and want to keep receipts so they can pay their taxes, and Amstelboy must avert the crisis by finding some way to charge them for money laundering... as in charge them for services rendered, the basis of the Nauru economy.

5. Kevin + Sky

In this foreign film, I put on a suit with a pink shirt and run around traffic circles tearing my clothes off while searching for a prostitute who bathes with goldfish, pausing only for waffles and shellfish, and to urinate in the locks of BMWs. If you don't think that can be stretched out to 90 minutes, you haven't watched enough Belgian cinema.

Vikings vs The Washington NFL Team... no, not the Seahawks, the one in Maryland

Early on here I'd have to say the the bobbled snap on the extra point was strangely reassuring.  I thought it was a nice drive with some nice 3rd down plays, and Taylor's first run for seven yards was a nice change what from what the Vikings running game had become in recent years.  Scoring quickly on the first drive was so great to see, but maybe a little too good.  This is the Vikings we're talking about, so you know they'll leave you speechless after some bizarre screw-up, and a quick scoring drive would have just made me nervous waiting for the pendulum to swing.  The holder juggling the snap like a hot potato and a kicker half my size trying to get out and lead block for him was enough of a goofy "Only the Vikings" moment, and now I'm just glad that the three linebackers who dropped Kluwe short of the end zone didn't bury him too deep in the rich earth of Landover, MD.  May this offering please the gods of Ragnarok, so they don't smite us in the 4th quarter.  Vikings 6-0 The Washington NFL Team (I know that doesn't sound right, but I forgot their nickname so I checked the Strib).

Just as an aside, there is one thing I still don't understand.  The issue just came up on TV about Dwight Smith being deactivated for this game as a disciplinary measure.  What I want to know is, how come if you get a blowjob from a subordinate on antique furniture the oval office you can still be president, but if you get a blowjob in a stairwell you can't play football just a few miles away in Landover?  Ironically, the aptly named Clinton Portis will play tonight.

Holding the WNT to a field goal in their first possession seems alright, since there were a few familiar areas of concern on that drive.  The first play, a screen pass to Santana Moss for 23 yards, the increasingly creaky Mark Brunell's ability to scramble for a first down, and the success throwing to Portis out of the backfield all indicate to me the usual problems at linebacker, leaving a lot of space underneath and reacting slowly.  What was nice to see was the WNT going back to a very successful play and getting stuffed, like the next screen, and the 3rd down pass to Portis that came up short and forced the field goal.  If the Vikings defense is more reactive and adaptive than in previous years, I may be a lot less of a gloomy fatalist.  And I'll have to find something else to complain about.

Wow, this second drive is a little goofy.  Wiggins attempt to hurdle the safety, only to run into a couple linebackers in the air, looked... awfully painful.  He also lost the ball and was lucky that it wasn't recovered, and that he was ruled down by contact.  Also the long, perfectly thrown pass to Troy Williamson really underlines what I've always thought, this guy's like Orlando Jones in The Replacements, he can get open deep but he doesn't know what to do with the ball when it gets there.  The special teams look a lot better on coverage, thankfully.

On the WNT's second drive, the Vikings are all over Brunell, this is a welcome sight, and the swing pass to Moss isn't catching anybody unawares.  And my Vikings bias requires me to note that he totally threw the ball away on 3rd down, that should have been intentional grounding.  Jesus Christ, Tom Cruise is in the owner's box, that's strangely unnerving.  It's weird how creepy that guy got in such a short time.  The Vikings respond with another 3-and-out featuring a penalty and a deflection at the line of scrimmage that nearly turned into an interception for a TD.  Randle El looked close to breaking the punt return open for a TD, and the WNT start out tat the 50 yard line, but instead of that drive, I think I'd rather see an interview with Jamie Foxx about how great Tom Cruise is.  Oh good, that's what ESPN is showing instead, and by the way, that was never a first down by Randle El on the drive they're ignoring.  A dangerous screen pass and a stupid penalty in between Jamie Foxx anecdotes about Tom Cruise have put the WNT at the 6 yard line, and Clinton Portis runs it in, which is frustrating, because I was really into hearing about how Tom Cruise helped Cuba Gooding Jr. win an oscar ten #@$*'ing years ago.  They couldn't figure out why people stopped watching Monday Night Football at the same time the popularity of the NFL was booming, how about just calling the fucking game and not thinking people tune in to hear a bunch of old sportscasters talk about nothing like they're in an ESPN Classic Seinfeld episode.  Seriously I don't know how much more I can hear about Tony Kornheiser's fantasy football roster.

Holy buckets how was Troy Williamson a #7 overall pick?  Two mysteriously dropped passes in the first half by our compensation for losing Randy Moss. He catches something and there's an illegal formation penalty, which is basically like the ref going over to your coach and saying "Your players don't know where to line up, dee-dee-dee!"  The field position the WNT is getting is phenomenal as our offense is stalling, Randle El's starting to screw with the special teams, and this is getting goofier.  Santana Moss left the field and came back to make a red zone catch, like the Seinfeld episode where Kramer leaves the subway car to get a gyro and runs back on.  And now on a routine hand-off Kevin Williams took down the QB and forced a fumble, to remind me to have faith in Thor.  That was actually pretty cool.  As was Darren Sharper nailing Santana Moss in the end zone so hard he forced an incompletion, leading to a field goal.  WNT 13-6 Vikings, even though ESPN just announced it's 13-7, since apparently they have bad seats and can't see the score board.

The Vikings came back with a late field goal in the first half, but several minutes into the second half on a Vikings drive into Washington NFL Team territory, there has been zero coverage of Tom Cruise.  Things are looking up.  Marcus Robinson hauls in a touchdown pass thrown up and over a d-back's shoulder, and the Vikings get the extra point procedure down to take a 16-13 lead.  The WNT tie it back up with the help of some boneheaded penalties like roughing the passer, which really makes me wonder why Childress' new era of harsh discipline doesn't extend to cutting down the number of penalties Vikings teams committed in the Green/Tice eras.  Speaking of coaching, Longwell missed a 54 yard field goal, which is really not unexpected but an odd choice to go for the field goal there, I wonder if he's just afraid Randle El will break open a punt return?

On the Vikings last drive, I have to give credit to Troy Williamson for one game-changing play.  On 3rd down, he made a catch right even with the 1st down marker, and was pushed back over the line, muddying the waters as to whether it was a first down, but he broke the tackle and scrambled forward to keep the drive alive.  He's still a shrimp with no hands, but that was a nice play.  The end of that drive, with the Vikings eating up the few remaining minutes on the clock before kicking the winning field goal, was such a welcome sight after years of Denny Green's total unconsciousness of clock management, and it forced the Washington NFL Team into a desperate final drive leading to a missed 47-yard field goal.  If this went to overtime I was going to lose my mind over the missed extra point, like I did that time the Bills beat the Vikings by one point after two missed Vikings PATs.

By the way, the only nicknames I commonly hear for tonight's opponent are the Deadskins and the Foreskins, and the paper calls them the Washington NFL team, so it's no wonder I can't remember their name.  I initially thought the Strib's queasiness over the franchise's name was amusing and transparently political, but eventually, I had to admit I couldn't come up with any straight-faced argument for keeping the moniker "Redskins", so screw it.  I'm still working out my position on which of Smith College's traditional mascots they should use, the Virgins or the Unicorns.

When Stereotypes Collide

Sometimes there's a strange positive interactive effect to national and ethnic stereotypes, which I just saw at work in the World Series of Poker. German student George Danzer, standing out in a dashing suit with a red shirt and a scarf that only a German could make masculine (so nobody sees him swallow hard when he's bluffing), was facing a puzzling pre-flop raise and re-raise from Dimitri Nobles. So he cracked a grin and asked with mock earnestness, "Are you from Scandinavia?", invoking the stereotype of Scandinavians as very loose with their chips. With at least $200,000 on the table, Danzer was holding aces so he went all in, upon which Nobles, bluff and bravado both exposed, sheepishly mucked his cards as Danzer assured him, "You are from Scandinavia, you re-raise with nothing and then have to fold."

Here's the thing... Dimitri Nobles is not from Scandinavia, he's from America. And he's black. I'm not saying George Danzer said anything wrong, but that really could have gone over badly, if Nobles thought Danzer was making an ironic comment on his skin color by asking if he was Scandinavian. The whole Nazi thing does add another twinge to racism by Germans, so that wouldn't help either. Fortunately, Nobles is American, so another stereotype came into play. Nobles' response, delivered with a broad American smile, was "Scandinavia? I don't even know where that is, man."

Bangs look good on nobody

Bangs look good on nobody. I didn't really realize this until I saw a movie where somebody had distracting bangs. Granted, it was V for Vendetta and the bangs were on a Guy Fawkes mask, but it was still distractingly stupid. Nobody needs to frame their face with a keratin helmet. Don't be afraid of the forehead, seriously. Cut the hair, don't cut the hair, it all works. From the buzz-cut to hair down to the small of her back, there are endless possibilities. Some people can pull it off (mainly girls under the age of 10) but even they're just treading water, and look better with real hair. My proof is this, meet Loco, the Angolan footballer who cut off all of his hair except the bangs... yikes.

Steve Irwin, requiescat in pace

Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, was just killed by a stingray.  Their venom isn't generally lethal, but they have long stingers, and it got him right in the heart, and the resulting wound killed him almost instantaneously.  He hadn't been so popular since he wrangled a crocodile while holding an infant, but I'm really going to miss his infectious enthusiasm.  The time he brought a giant python onto Conan O'Brien's set and this 30 foot snake was nearly overpowering its handlers, who couldn't get it offstage was certainly a memorable moment in television.  (Apparently reticulated pythons eat chicken.)

I really thought if a TV animal expert with proper respect for animals was going to get killed while filming, it would be Manny Puig from Wildboyz.  Actually I would definitely have expected Steve-O or Partyboy to be killed or maimed long before Steve Irwin or Siegfried and Roy.  Right before I read the news about Steve Irwin, I was watching an episode of Wildboyz where Steve-O has a wild black bear eat honey and marshmallows off of his chest, and Manny tries to wrestle a feeding blue shark (with David Hasselhoff looking on as lifeguard).  One of them has a rock python tattoo for god's sake, from letting a rock python bite him so he could pour ink into the wounds... how are these guys still alive?  Although Steve-O did go to clown college, where he must have learned a thing or two.

The guy in India who relocates king cobras that wander into populated areas would have been another likely candidate, since he's been bitten so many times he's allergic to the antivenin.  Although scientists have genetically engineered mice to be resistant to cobra venom, so someday, your pet store will be able to sell you a mouse that, like the mongoose, cannot be killed by cobras.  It's too bad biochemists haven't licked that whole AIDS vaccine problem yet, but at least their laboratory mice won't be killed by cobras.  Unless they get long, sharp fangs stuck through their necks somehow, that might actually still kill them.  Or murine AIDS, since obviously they won't be vaccinated against that either.

I actually spent more time than I took to write the rest of this finding an adjective "murine" that I thought would be analogous to feline, apian, or ovine so I could make that joke.  I'm building a catalog of adjective forms derived from Latin names, no man should know off the top of his head that apian flu and ovine spongiform encephalopathy are fictitious diseases spread by bees and sheep, I really need help.  Does the squalus really live in squalor, is that really fair?

Mike McMahon era officially over

Well, that's it. The Vikings have taken a couple more steps in building a new team, including trading C.J. Mosley and a draft pick to the New York Jets for Brooks Bollinger, who will replace McMahon at back-up QB. Losing Mosley could really suck, since he had potential as a pass rusher for the Vikings, (and I don't know what round the pick was). On the other hand, we needed a veteran QB to back up Johnson, because in football terms he's very old and injury prone. But this exposes a potential problem regarding personnel decisions.

Mike McMahon was a bust as a back-up QB, and totally stunk up the joint, so they had to cut him and make a trade for a replacement after the pre-season. The only reason he was signed in the first place was because he used to play for the Eagles and he "knew the system". Then we swapped receivers with the Eagles, they our guy and made him a starter and we got a guy we buried way down the depth chart who "knows the system". Now we've also signed a guy the Eagles cut because he was injured, but then of course, he "knows the system". 22 guys have to be cut today and now I'm wondering if having played for the Eagles is going to be the determining factor in determining the final roster. But then I don't "know the system".