There is fire falling from the sky, the timbered ceilings are barely holding, the low-pile carpet is soggy with rising bile, the white boards are weeping away the month’s strategy, the troops are rebelling, the dogs are snarling, the elevator alarms are bawling. No, but the new issue of the magazine is due to the … Read more
‘The question at stake,’ said Epictetus, ‘is no common one; it is this: Are we in our senses, or are we not?’ —The Golden Sayings of Epictetus We cannot truly know whether we are not at this moment sitting in a madhouse. —Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Aphorisms There are those to whom one must advise madness. … Read more
I stopped over to visit my old friend Rich last night. Rich is having a bit of a tough time, or so he had told me on the phone. I go way back with this guy, and on a certain level I’ve always gotten a kick out of him. That said, he is, like many … Read more
I love Baseball Prospectus as much as the next guy, and since Bill James’ regrettable vanishing act it’s probably the single most reliable annual. That said, these guys do occasionally spout some real nonsense. I don’t know, for instance, who wrote this year’s entry for the Twins, but this item on Matthew LeCroy got me … Read more
Good field, no hit. But, he did have to face Steve Carlton Every little boy I grew up with wanted to be a Major League baseball player. When you are young, you think you can do anything, and you give no thought to being a teacher, or fireman, or, for god’s sake, a journalist. Nobody … Read more
We’ve never been huge fans of Steve Sack’s work, but that’s probably more to do with his medium than himself. Editorial cartooning is one of those dusty old traditions of publishing that we’re glad to see persist, without feeling terribly interested. Come to think of it, that’s true of newspapers as a whole—glad they’re around, … Read more
Too busy to say anything of any substance today, so sounding a little like a broken record, but look here: As I’ve mentioned before, there seems to be some panic abroad that the disinformation spread by hardcore partisan bloggers is somehow shaping reality for the nonpartisan centrists who seem to be in hiding. I have … Read more
I recall reading somewhere about a party of British adventurers who were mucking about in some primitive, forsaken place. This was, if I’m not mistaken, some time in the 19th century. According to a handful of sketchy journals they left behind they’d had an arduous expedition and had lost several members of their party to … Read more
Either Western Canada’s a harsh breeding ground for all manner of ailments and afflictions –a sort of jerkwater petri dish blooming with pestilence– or the Twins need to find out what the hell Justin Morneau’s putting in his body and/or what he’s done to offend Zeus. Because Morneau’s rapidly becoming the Molehill Job, a man … Read more
I have, for several weeks now, been saying that it is immoral to give certain highly intelligent, totally unaccountable liars any more exposure than they already get, but this morring I suddenly had two countervening epiphanies. First, I am no better nor more important than they are (considerably less so, actually), so for the moment … Read more