Good Games, Bad Games

Well, it's finally over...50+ years of great players on good teams, a few great teams, who just couldn't get over that last little hump. The San Francisco Giants are finally...the very best team in baseball. Bar none. A cast of incredible characters; good solid defensemen, some timely bats (NO Lazyboy recliners in the clubhouse), and a baby-face anchor behind the dish leading one of the very best top-to-bottom pitching staffs in the last 40 years (ALL under contract for at least another four years!) left no doubt. These boys are the real deal and will be around for many years to come...The Championship Parade begins at Washington and Montgomery at 11AM tomorrow, heads south to Market, then turns up towards City Hall, where Mayor Gavin Newsome will present the team with a key to the City. I'll be leaving for the festivities from the Pleasanton BART station around 9ish, so if you want to join me, meet me there...

Whiners beware...I have a few friends who simply refuse to give any teams other than their own the credit they deserve. At the end of the baseball season, one in particular provided constant FB posts were all about how the Braves were going to crush the Giants. Then after they manhandled the Braves and headed for Philly, it was "now you're going to face a real team", forgetting to acknowledge that his Cincinnati Reds were now couch-bound, having been swept three straight in the first round. During the entire NLCS, everytime a Philly passed gass, he was posting..."Yeah, now watch the Giants fold" and other such nonsense. Even last night, when a mutual friend posted "Now we've got a ring!", he posted "Yeah...1", as if to say, ONLY one, but look how many my team has. You just have to feel sorry for people who can't acknowledge accomplishment. Well, right now, and for the next year, MY San Francisco Giants ARE the best team going. Period...

From The 'Oh Yeah" Dept: In case it got lost among all the Championship hubub, today is Election Day. And those of you who visit the Lounge would probably call the paramedics if I didn't address this fact, so here are a few thoughts...

Ears Are Important Too...like many, I am so very tired of the staunch bickering, nay-saying, "I'm absolutely right / you're absolutely wrong" arguing. Debate is fine, disagreement is expected, even a little snarkiness every so often can be understood. But I believe the one biggest problem all of us, from the elected elites in D.C. to the milk men and accountants and everyday folk have is that we, almost by habit, refuse to listen to anyone who has a differing viewpoint. This continues, and we're all doomed...

Nostradamus Redux: It looks like Brown, Boxer, and McNerney will win. Porbably Pelosi too, although I'm holding out hope she gets rightfully bounced. I long ago accepted that most politicians are out for themselves, but she doesn't even hide it well and she wouldn't know well constructed law if it sucked all the Botox out of her forehead. Fortunately, if she does lose, she'll probably resign all-together, as her predecessors Hastert and Gingrich did, so that's an extra added bonus for voting against her. The Reid/Angle contest in Nevada is truly the hardest to call; not because it's close but because both candidates are so pitifully unqualified for the job, which is saying something since Hotel Harry has been the Senate Majority Leader for several years now. But while Reid is a straight partisan guy, which is exactly what every congressional district needs to get rid of, his opponent, Tea Party jack-wagon Sharron Angle is so woefully incompetent and unknowledgeable about anything past her soundbite talking points, she makes Sarah Palin look like a Stanfoo professor. God help us, every one...

The Final Countdown...there aer a couple of old, dear friends I have ben politically sparring with for the better part of six months, mostly through that nemesis of time management, Facebook. They are good Americans, who love their country and truly believe that their "just right of Atilla the Hun", Tea Party, anti-Government, hell-bent-for-leather political posturing is exactly what this country needs. And while I fully and vehemently support their rights to hold and express these opinions and would be the first person to stand beside them should anyone try to keep them from excercising these rights, the fact of the matter is that, people from either side of the political spectrum who, as they do, refuse to accept anything other than the complete annihilation of opposing viewpoints and policies, render themselves irrelevent and so, after long, arduous debate, I have decided to leave them to their dillusions.

That said, I would like to offer them a final note of reality, in the hope that it makes the inevitable a little easier to swallow...

The political game, be it in Sacratomato or Washington D.C., is past the point of no return. The job of the elected official in our country has de-evolved from one purpose (representing their constituents) to two (Getting elected and getting re-elected). The rest is all just window dressing. I do not offer this sad mea culpa as anything other than a precursor to what you will someday realize yourselves: Regardless of which party holds office, no matter what percentage of "professional politicians" get bounced to the curb today, even if the Dems were to lose control of both houses of Congress (not likely), nothing significant will change. For today's politicans are no longer made up with the intestinal fortitude of Washington, the "country before party" determination of Lincoln, or the "ask what you can do for your country" enthusiasm of Kennedy. Today, they are almost all born of the cloth of P.T. Barnum, believing there is a sucker born every minute.

And to follow blindly behind the rhetoric and chutzpah of the Karl Rovians of the Tea Party, just as those on the left drank every drop of the Obama kool-aid two years ago and let the solutions to the massive problems left us by the previous administration go unchecked, it will only further prove Mr. Barnum's point, and drive our nation further and further from where it began, all those many years ago.

Now...what's on YOUR mind?

Monday Morning Quarterback

LET'S START THE DAY by wishing the happiest of birthday celebrations to three of the most interesting people I know: Lori Anderson Schmucker, Stacy Beintema and Dharma Barsotti. Lori, a long time "secret pal" from my high school days at Pleasanton's Amador Valley High who is involved in everything from School Security and Muni Services to Mary Kay Cosmetics (in addition to being a full-time wife and mother); Stacy, a close friend and the former warden at Stockton, CA's Willow Glen, who now is a key supporter of other people's birthdays through her work with the American Cancer Society; and Dharma, a once scrawny kid running around backstage at concerts during my BGP days, who has now, among his other artistic endeavors, has built for himself a reputation as the master of creative environments and decorative splendor. The world is constantly changing and not always for the better, but of these two facts I will always be certain - the world as we know it is certainly a richer and more colorfull place because of these three individuals, and I will always be grateful that each of them crossed my path. Happy Birthday, gang...

MORNING BEVERAGE: Finally someone has come up with an answer to the supersillious waste of time the national political arena has become. In response largely to the well intentioned but calamitously mismanaged Tea Party circus, a group of folks from around the US have joined together to form The Coffee Party. No joke, this. In an attempt to keep the focus of radical, often incoherent mouthpiece organizations like Tea Party and MoveOn.org on topic, The Coffee Party asserts to keep the national debate on the issues instead of ten word answers and catchy slogans; the thought being to engage a conversation with the sensible 80% of citizens in the middle of the political spectrum and leave the 10% on either end to themselves, wasting time on talk radio and cable tv. And it looks like this puppy's got some legs. After just a few weeks, The Coffee Party boasts more than 160,000 members on FaceBook and has had premiere coverage in both Newsweek and The Nation, while with almost a year in existence, The Tea Party boasts just over 110,000, and the majority of the press has passed them by; not because there is a bias but because their Convention flopped and now even the untre-Conservative wing of the 'Pubs are using them for fodder at cocktailparties (no pun intended). For the first time in almost two years, since the passing of former Meet the Press host Tim Russert, it feels that someone has the backs of common sense Americans and not just the yahoo wackos on the far right and left. I am sure Timmy is smiling...

SPREADING THE WORD: My thanks to friend Colleen Costello-Kreidler, another dish from the "Don" days, who quite unintentionally, I'm sure, hooked me up with the NING Network, an "immersion-based" social network of passions, interests and vocations. Take a look at NING.com, what I believe to be the future of the Internet. There will certainly be more on this in the days to come. Colleen, a fine writer at SDSU and now in Davis, CA., who is still putting pen to paper (I hope!), is married to award winning scribe (Six Good Innings* was selected as Top 10 Sports Books of the Year by Booklist) / morning talk show host (The Rise Guys Show, Sports 1140 AM KHTK) Mark Kreidler. I am wondering if young Patrick and Ryan have their futures mapped out, as ink does seem to be in the genes. Though the word is Ryan swims like a fish and Patrick swings from the right side of the plate in a way NoCal hasn't seen since Matty Williams was guarding the hotbox for the Gnats two decades ago. Where does the time fly?...

SPREADING PT. II: Many thanks for those of you who leave comments about The Lounge on my FB page, but I'd really love it if you'd leave them here at The3Dot and maybe we can build a group of regulars and get a discussion going. More heads are always better than one. And yeah, in the historic words of Alan Whatshisname...Tell a Friend!...