PJ20!

Game 7

If the Celtics get legitimately beaten tonight I will have no problem admitting that the Lakers were the better team and that they deserve their 16^th championship. At times during this series they have clearly been the better team.

My hope is that we will see a great game with few whistles, because I am tired of always worrying about and/or focusing on the referees. I really, really am. I like fast breaks, teams trading baskets, and tough, physical play. There have been too many whistles, too many stoppages, and not enough “play on” moments.

Do I think we’ll be able to watch tonight’s game and not focus on the referees? No, I don’t. Here is why:

Some combination of the following six officials will call tonight’s Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

Bennett Salvatore: Widely regarded as one of the worst officials in any professional sport.

Bill Kennedy: Was actually fined at the end of last season for an altercation with Doc Rivers.

Dan Crawford: Was absolutely terrible calling Game 3, a remarkable achievement given that Game 3 also featured Salvatore and Kennedy.

Scott Foster: Tim Donaghy’s unindicted co-conspirator.

Greg Willard: Um, I don’t know him.

Eddie F. Rush: Called the bogus 2^nd technical foul on Kendrick Perkins during the Orlando series.

This is the biggest game of the NBA season, and these are the men David Stern puts forth to call it? Salvatore and Foster should both be unemployed. Kennedy and Rush having any involvement in this game is an insult not just to Celtic fans but to NBA fans everywhere.

We’ll know shortly who the three are. Unfortunately, the reality is that given these six choices there are no good options.

EDIT: The NBA has announced Scott Foster, Dan Crawford, and...Joey Crawford, a shakeup to the rotation. Joey Crawford is certainly better than Kennedy or Rush, but he is also the guy who once challenged Tim Duncan to a fight during a moment that can best be described as a psychotic episode.

Why I'm Still Undecided

Because I cannot in good faith vote for a candidate who had the chance to put away the degenerate pederast Father John Geoghan in 1995 and did not, opting instead to cut a closed-door deal and allow Geoghan to hunt young boys for another seven years. You can excuse this away by saying these types of prosecutions just weren’t happening yet if you feel you must, but only if you acknowledge that these prosecutions weren’t happening because lawyers with lofty political ambitions, such as Martha Coakley, refused to prosecute.

Because after giving him every chance to win me over, the fact is that I want to like Scott Brown much more than I actually like Scott Brown.

Because saving the Democratic super-majority in the Senate is not a good enough reason when the Democrats served up a candidate who has proven so ineffective that she may very well lose what was once Ted Kennedy’s seat in what is one of the bluest states in the union. This campaign could have and should have been a cakewalk. That it is this close in its final days is madness. There are simply no good reasons to vote for Coakley the candidate – only semi-decent reasons to not vote against the party itself. The Democrats chose to make this bed and now they may be forced to die in it.

Because if elected, Scott Brown will take his marching orders and get his talking points from Limbaugh and Beck and Ailes the same way every other member of the GOP in Washington has since Barack Obama took office. Any Republican who can become a Senator from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will instantly be a rising star in the party. Scott Brown knows this. He will fall in line, say and do what he is told, and set his sights on the VP spot in 2012 or 2016.

Because the man who could have been a reasonable alternative, third-party candidate Joseph L. Kennedy, proudly boasts that he is “The Tea Party Candidate”. Where were the Tea Partiers during the spending sprees of George W. Bush? They were exactly where they will be if the GOP retakes the White House in two years: going along for the ride. If we had a “Birther” candidate in the race they wouldn’t seem any more or less ridiculous than this guy.

Because maybe, just maybe, somebody should kill this healthcare bill before it becomes the law of the land nationwide. As of January 1st I pay $160 a month in blood money to my insurance company because it already is the law of the land here in Massachusetts. That is a whopping 12% more than I paid in 2009. (Will that figure go up or down if Obama’s plan survives the Senate? I don’t really know, and I’m betting you don’t either.) If this race is going to be about healthcare alone in its final days, in a place that only a few years ago watched then-Governor Mitt Romney team up with the uber-liberal state legislature to force what became the blueprint for Obama’s plan down our throats, then Martha Coakley is in even more trouble than her latest poll numbers indicate.

Because no matter what we choose to call it, we are not now nor have we ever been talking about Universal Healthcare in this country. What we refer to as Universal Healthcare is simply health insurance that is mandated by law. It will be the law that you must kickback a percentage of your hard-earned wages to a massive conglomerate each and every week – and that conglomerate will do anything and everything its considerable power to not pay out should you or a family member get sick. The business model is the same one used by the mafia in shakedowns and explained by Henry Hill in the movie Goodfellas:

“Lost your job? Fuck you, pay me.”
“Car broke down? Fuck you, pay me.”
“Kids are sick? Fuck you, pay me – and oh by the way, your claim has been denied.”

(Socialized medicine this will not be.)

Because despite all of my feelings on healthcare and despite Scott Brown being dead set against supporting the bill, it does nothing to make him a more appealing option. Because even though Brown has vowed to kill Obama’s healthcare plan in 2010, he eagerly voted YES on Romney’s initiative in 2005. Why the change of heart? Because one was proposed by a Republican while the other was proposed by a Democrat. The consequences of neither bill mattered to Scott Brown. Party loyalty came first, while what was good for his constituents ran a distant second. Brown certainly was not alone in that on Beacon Hill and would not be alone in Washington. However, in Washington that loyalty would be to a party led largely by Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and the Christian right. Say what you will about John Kerry, but he doesn’t check in with Sean Hannity before casting a vote. Will Scott Brown, as a rising young star in the GOP, be able to say the same?

Because all of this is a just a long-winded way of saying that not a one of these choices is any damn good, that neither candidate will be anything more than a servant to the powers-that-be in their respective parties, and that we deserve better. Much better. But we aren’t going to get better. What we are going to get is either Coakley, Brown, or Bizarro Kennedy.

And we will all be worse off than we were a few months ago.

True Story 4: The Plan

(Be sure to check out part 1, part 2, and part 3 of the True Story saga.)

How had this day come unraveled so quickly? It seemed as if only a moment ago I had been home in bed. Now I was smack-dab in the middle of a raging fire-fight. For the moment, at least, it seemed like Tom Brady and Kojak were on my side. The two dead ninjas on the floor were proof enough of that.

“Hey, asshole,” shouted Tom. “We're not gonna do all the work. Wake up and stay alert.”

Right. I took a quick look around. The waitress and the trucker were both cowering behind the lunch counter, and the college kid was nowhere to be seen. Good, one less civilian to worry about. A shadow moved to my left...

...and Kojak impaled it with what looked to be a bat'leth. (Where the hell did he get that?) Tom was on his feet and seemed to be moving pretty good for a guy with one knee, so I helped myself to the only readily available weapon I could find—his crutch.

“EEEEEYAHHHEEEE,” came a screech from the kitchen. At least six more ninjas had appeared in that corner of the room, and I felt as if there were more lurking in every shadow.

“We can't stay here,” I shouted.

“Calm down”, said Tom. “This ain't no Doogie Howser cameo. You got the best in the business on your side today.”

“Don't worry kid,” answered Kojak. “Staying here was never part of the plan. Move towards the door...NOW!”

I broke towards the front door just as Tom unleashed a barrage of fire from his pistols. There were bullets and ninja stars flying everywhere, and when I crashed through the door and out into the parking lot with Tom and Kojak both still behind me (and both still alive) I knew we were lucky.

That is, until I looked around.

The parking lot was full of ninjas. Male ninjas, female ninjas, old ninjas, young ninjas, ninjas in red, ninjas in blue, ninjas in white, ninjas in black...Christ, it looked like all the different factions of the Hand Clan had come together for this assault on the Fillin' Station!

“Well, well, well...the gang all looks to be here,” said Kojak.

Brady had dropped down onto his one good knee and we did the same. He unbuttoned his coat and revealed three things: Two semi-automatic M16 rifles (one of he which he tossed to Kojak, the other to myself) and a chest that was covered by a larger-than-life image of Ronald Reagan.

“This is my lucky Gipper t-shirt. Fucking love him!” Not for the first time I found myself questioning his sanity.

Tom had moved on to yanking clips and grenades and knives and who-knows-what-else from the seemingly endless number of pockets on his jacket. Kojak was making sure his rifle was in good working order and I followed suit. We took aim at the closest crop of ninjas and fired away.

Now, you might expect that ninjas are good at dodging bullets and such. This is a popular misconception. Their great strength is stealth. If they can sneak up on you then you are most likely about to die. But, if you can engage them in open combat—as we were—then they are quickly reduced to being funny little people in funny little costumes. Kojak and I mowed them down and went to reload.

Only a few of our targets escaped the shots, and those who did went scurrying back behind a now-abandoned pickup truck. The truck was probably thirty yards away, in the far corner of the parking lot. Brady grabbed a grenade, measured the distance, pulled the plug, and fired a perfect throw that sent the grenade right through the pickup's open window.

BOOM! The truck exploded and sent debris and dead ninjas in every direction.

“Did you see that,” shouted Tom. “Peyton Manning would never have made that throw! On the football field, sure, maybe. But under fire from a hostile enemy? No way, no how. I am the best!” I had to admit it—he was probably right.

Tom's throw had opened up a portion of the parking lot, with those ninjas who hadn't been caught in the blast left scurrying for better cover. I started to suggest we head that way but Kojak cut me off.

“They're gonna gather their strength and come at us again right quick.”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth before our situation deteriorated. Three black vans came tear-assing into the parking lot...and from them emerged an even deadlier foe.

The Crazy 88's. They were world-class assassins conjured up by the twisted mind of Quentin Tarantino—and they had come for me.

“Shit,” I said. “I thought Uma Thurman took care of these guys.”

“She did,” replied Tom. “She just didn’t get all 88 of them.

“Wait, I thought there really weren’t 88 of them…”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Kojak. “These guys are punks. Where were they in Kill Bill 2? What a disappointment that film was.”

He was right. He was always right.

“We gotta move, now.” Kojak pointed towards the eighteen-wheeler we had passed on the way in. “You see that big red rig? That is where we are going. Ready, Tommy?”

Tom had reloaded both pistols and slammed them into the firing position. “On three,” he said

“One...”

I loaded a fresh magazine into my M16.

“Two...”

Deep breaths...

“THREE! Go, go, GO!”

We broke as one and sprinted towards the truck, firing back at the ninjas as we ran. They were sending stars and knives and strange Asian explosives back at us, and whatever serenity there had been at the beginning of this beautiful morning in New England was long gone. The local sheriff had to be awake by now. Hopefully he would be smart enough to know when events were unfolding beyond his control. This was a day to just go fishing.

Even with only one good knee Tom was able to match me step for step. I really did have to reassess my opinion of him. We reached the big truck first, with Kojak only a step behind. Once we were there, however, our next problem readily presented itself.

“We don't have a lot of cover here,” I said. “Maybe we should keep moving.”

“No,” said Brady. “Let them see how little cover we have. They'll come in and then we'll pounce. Are we ready?”

“We will be,” replied Kojak. “My guy is in place.”

I wondered who he was talking about, but only for the briefest of moments because right then a series of fireworks went off over our heads. Lots of color and lots of smoke, but lucky for us all there wasn't too much fire. Whatever they were throwing at us, it looked worse than it actually was.

“What, do these guys run a firework stand up in Nashua in their spare time? I'm beginning to think this ain't their A-Team, Tommy.”

Whoever they were, it was clear they were about to make their move. There would be three groups coming at us at once: a frontal assault from both the right and the left with the Crazy 88's circling around to come at us from behind. We could run, but there was almost no chance we would make it to what little cover there was across the street before they were on top of us.

“Here they come!” I didn't recognize the voice at first; it was so full of fear. Then I realized it was my own. Fortunately, there was a plan in place.

“Steady.” The confidence in Brady's voice was reassuring, but I wondered if he was seeing the same thing I was. There were at least forty, maybe fifty ninjas, and perhaps as many as 88 of the Crazy 88’s. And there were still only three of us.

Until...

I remember hearing Tom yell, “Now!” Then there was another sound, a very distinct sound, a sound anyone who ever watched cartoons in the 80's could identify. It came from behind me, and as it did I realized the cover of the truck was gone. I understood why, and I knew who would suddenly be standing in its place.

It was Optimus Prime.

The odds had just evened up.

To be continued...

True Story 3: The Meeting

Kojak through down his cigarette and started towards the door. “C'mon,” he said. “No time like the present.”

I was dumbstruck. A few short hours before I had been sound asleep in Boston. Now I was about to walk into an ambush on the other side of the state—and I still had no idea whether Kojak was on my side or somebody else's. You could say I'd had better mornings.

Suddenly I was aware of something else in the parking lot. A bright red 18-wheeler, one I was sure hadn't been there when we pulled in. Why did it look so familiar? Kojak caught my eye and again there was that faint trace of a smile.

“Move it. We've kept the little ball-breaker waiting long enough.”

We moved towards the door and I took one last look around. It was shaping up to be a beautiful day outside, but I knew that inside the Fillin' Station the atmosphere would be completely different. There were at least a dozen ninjas waiting for us somewhere close by and this diner was not the friendliest of confines to begin with. Have you ever seen Star Wars? Well, picture the Mos Eisley Cantina, just without all the aliens. (Well, maybe without half the aliens.) That was what waited for us inside.

Twenty steps, then ten, then five, and then Kojak was pulling open the door and ushering me inside. The air was smoke filled and the lighting was dark. It took my eyes a moment to adjust, and when they did I was greeted by the strangest of sights.

It wasn't the heavy-set trucker occupying the corner booth or the middle-aged lady dressed in a sleeveless flannel shirt to better show off her tattoo collection at the counter who caught my eye. It wasn't the kid reading the Valley Advocate, or the waitress whose best days were at least a decade gone by. No, it was the guy sitting alone at a table for four, with his back to the wall behind him and his eyes directly on me. It had been a while since I'd seen him, on TV or in person. He'd gone down with an injury moments into the first game of the season against Kansas City, and after that it was the paparazzi and not the sports writers who had been keeping us abreast of his movements.

Tom Brady, alive and well.

Kojak headed that way and I followed. We took up seats on either side, each of us wanting to keep an eye on the front door. Tom eyeballed the waitress for a moment before acknowledging us—his usual M.O. Here was a guy who could have (and often had) any woman he wanted, yet he couldn't take his eyes off the burnt-out shell who was pouring burnt coffee in this sorry excuse for a restaurant. She looked his way and he gave her the golden boy smile. I shook my head but stopped when I realized she had grabbed a fresh pot before coming our way. Being Tom Brady did have its privileges. She filled our mugs and moved away, and Kojak broke the silence.

“So, he's here. You called this meeting, must mean you have something to say.”

Brady stirred some sugar into his coffee before looking my way. “You really caused a headache with that business on the train.”

“I did what I had to do. That situation found me—not the other way around.” I didn't even bother trying to hide the contempt in my voice. It was funny. Now that we were inside and seated, now that I knew who it was who had set this all up, all the fear was gone. Now I was just annoyed. Who was Tom Brady to be calling me out? Yes, the business on the train was a mess but it had all been personal, not professional. Plus, the Patriots had gone 11-5 without him and there was a crutch on the floor behind his chair. His value had never been lower.

Tom noticed and didn't like it. “Hey, lower your voice when you talk to me. Don't play the victim. The report I saw said you had chances to get off that train before it all went south and didn't. And it seems to me it was the other guy who ended up dead, not you. You don't like getting woken up in the middle of the night? Too fucking bad. I don't like getting called away from Giselle and being sent to shitholes like this. It ruins my day. And I'm in rehab, fucker. I need my sleep.”

“Take it easy, ladies, take it easy. We're all on the same side here. I don't care which one of you has the bigger dick.” Kojak never had any patience for dominance displays. It came from always being the toughest guy in the room.

Brady was fired up. “Listen to the man. He may just save your life someday.”

I looked away and sipped at my coffee. There had been rumors about Brady taking over as Regional Director for New England after Paul Pierce had been stabbed in that nightclub, but I had always hoped they weren't true. Sure, there were the three Super Bowls and the 17 confirmed kills, but the guy was still such a cocky prick.

“So, why I am here? What have I done to deserve this audience with the great Tom Brady?”

Tom looked over at Kojak. “Jesus Christ, you had him the car for a fucking hour and didn't brief him?”

“Hey, Tommy, you got the one good knee still. Lets keep it that way, OK?”

“Don't threaten me, old man. You know who we work for, and you know who put me in charge and why. I specialize in making sure situations like this one do not get out of hand, and this situation is way fucking close to getting out of hand. Think of me as Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction and your boy here as John Travolta. I'm the Wolf, motherfucker.”

“With that one leg you might just be the gimp,” I said.

“Fuck you. I'm here to help you and make sure you don't end up like Zed, with your balls all shot to hell and some crazy sons of bitches going to work on you with two pieces of pipe and a blowtorch. Now I assume you saw those motorcycles outside, and that you know what we are up against here this morning.”

“I saw them.”

“Well, good. Those are friends of a certain one-time acquaintance of yours, and they have been making unpleasant inquiries about you all over town.”

“Inquiries?”

“Yes,” said Tom. “Questions about people and places and past events, none of which would be beneficial to us if it came to light. So it was decided there were two solutions. One, we could give you over to those savages and just be done with it.”

I shot Kojak a look, but Brady wasn't finished.

“Or two, we could make contact with them, convince them that was what we were doing, lure them to some out of the way spot where there would be few questions, and then wipe them off the face of this fucking planet.”

With that appeared two pearl-handled revolvers in Brady's hands, which he fired into the shadows behind us. Two dead ninjas slumped onto the floor at our feet.

“I voted for the first option,” said Brady. “Lucky for you I don't make every decision.”

And then all hell officially broke loose.

To be continued...

True Story 2: The Ride

(Be sure to check out the shockingly true first chapter in the aptly-titled True Story saga, available here.)

It wasn't even daylight yet and we had been on the road for more than an hour already. I didn't know quite where we were going, but given who was driving and how this little trip had started, it probably wasn't going to be anywhere I wanted to be.

Things had been quiet ever since I had been attacked on the train ride home from work. I still saw ninjas everywhere I went, always lurking in the shadows, watching, waiting for...something. For what I didn't know. There were plenty of times when they could have taken me out, plenty of times when I was alone, outnumbered, or outgunned. But they never made a move, never even really approached me. But I knew my luck wouldn't last forever.

As for this morning, when the phone rang shortly after 4am I knew my luck of another sort had just run out. Those first few days after the attack had been some of the longest of my life. You didn't kill a member of the Hand Clan without authorization and think headquarters wasn't going to be paying you a visit. Even still, as the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, I thought maybe, just maybe, I was going to slip the noose. After all, what had happened on that train had nothing at all to do with business. It was all about that woman, the one from Tangiers, and it was very, very personal.

The radio crackled and returned my focus to the inside of this jet-black Cadillac that was speeding westbound on the Mass Pike. Some blowhole from WEEI was cracking jokes about Alex Rodriguez and his now-infamous steroid test. The news that A-Rod had tested positive for the juice had been met with great pleasure in Boston. There was just something about the guy that rubbed us all the wrong way, and the fact that he wore pinstripes only made it worse. It made me uncomfortable to know that another hour or so in this direction would put us into a part of the country where the plight of a certain New York Yankee would not be met with such enjoyment.

There was a chuckle next to me and I glanced over in spite of myself. He didn't look back but did speak for the first time since we'd started driving.

“Don't worry, kid. We'll be there soon.”

That news did not reassure me, nor did the fact that he seemed able to read my mind. It could have been anybody on the other end of that phone when it rang. It could have been Hilldo. It could have been Reese. Hell, it could have even been Dave checking in from Colorado. But it wasn't any of them. No. It was him.

It was Kojak.

He was a legend. Some would argue he was a myth, but I knew every word you ever heard about the guy was probably true. Every crazy story about him was at least part of the truth—made all the crazier by the fact that they often didn't go far enough.

“I heard Kojak through a guy off the Mystic River Bridge for smacking his wife around.” Yep.

“I heard he shot a child rapist in the nuts out in Chicago and watched him bleed to death for three days.” Sure. Why not?

“Is it true he disappeared a casino owner down in Atlantic City because he thought the guy cheated him in a game of poker?” He disappeared him alright, but that wasn't the reason why. I'm not one to gossip, but it sounded to me like that guy got exactly what was coming to him.

We pulled off the Pike at exit 4 and were suddenly heading north up I-91. These were my old UMass stomping grounds, and for the first time I wondered if I had this entire episode all wrong. Was this about someone I had offended when I lived out here all those years ago? Was this about a score even older than the one the Hand wanted to settle with me? My mind raced through a list of possible suspects, a list I suddenly realized was shockingly long. But how many of them had any kind of pull with the company? Not many, and of those that did, not a one would have been able to send Kojak after me. He didn't take orders from very many people when he was young. Now that he was “semi-retired” there were even fewer people who could get him on the phone, let alone get him out on the job. And none of those characters would ever call Western Massachusetts home.

Soon enough we were pulling off the highway and racing down a farm road. The sun was finally up and it felt good to know that whatever happened next, it would be happening in the daylight. We passed a sign that read “Entering Whately, Incorporated 1771, Population 1573”. Now I knew where we were headed. There was only one destination for any traveler visiting the tiny town of Whately, Massachusetts.

The Fillin' Station Diner.

Open 24-hours in a part of the country where the sidewalks get rolled up at dusk, the Fillin' Station is a magnet for those who spend their waking hours plotting their next cheap score, scores that often involved shaking down the unsuspecting sophomores from Amherst or hippies from Hampshire whose only mistake had been heading to Whately after the bars closed for breakfast. It was one horror story after another, but the college kids kept on coming because the options were few and far between. (And, lets face it: Some of them just aren't that bright.)

But that was after dark, and this was the early morning. We pulled into a parking lot that was almost deserted. A few random tractor-trailers and scattered pickup trucks. Nothing as flashy as was the Cadillac, not for miles. Kojak parked us as far away from the door as he could, a good habit I had picked up myself somewhere along the way. The longer your walk to the door, the more time you had to take in the scene around you. Knowing what, and who, was around you would save your life more often than would easy-in, easy-out.

“OK,” said Kojak. “Let's do this thing.” He was out of the car in a flash. I took a deep breath and one last look around, and then I followed.

The morning air was brisk and refreshing. The car had been stuffy, closed up and with a faint odor of stale cigarette smoke. Kojak hadn't lit up at all while we drove but did so now.

“It'll be another minute or two, kid. Relax. Take a breather. You don't smoke anymore, right?”

I shook my head no.

“Good man,” he replied. “I've tried to quit a few times myself, even resorted to lollipops at one point. Nothing took. But, hey, we're all gonna go when we're gonna go, am I right?”

He chuckled and looked away, and I tried not to let on how petrified I actually was. Beating the ninja on the train had been all about adrenaline, but any adrenaline I had this morning had long left me. Not that it would have even mattered against Kojak.

It was then that I noticed the motorcycles. There were at least a dozen of them, mostly red Suzuki crotch-rockets, the vehicle of choice for a ninja on the move. I looked at Kojak and saw he was looking back at me with just the faintest trace of a smile. He'd known the bikes were there all along.

“Should we be here alone,” I asked?

“You know the life as well as I do, kid. We ain't never alone.”

To be continued...

Civil Unions and Utah

If you saw any of the estimates of how much Prop 8 money came out of Utah and the LDS, then you will understand why this is such an amazing story.

Here's hoping Nate Silver is right and that support for civil unions won't be an albatross around the neck of any politician, regardless of party, in 2012.

A(nabolic)-Rod

Now, if you want to get up in arms about an athlete abusing drugs then this is the story you should be paying attention to. The Yankees really do seem to be a magnet for these guys, don't they? It really could not happen to a nicer guy, a nicer team, or a nicer town.

(Yes, this is me laughing now, knowing full well that Manny Ramirez will sign with them in two weeks and destroy baseball for me. So let me enjoy this while I can, OK? Thanks.)

Puff, Puff, Pass

I really do hope Michael Phelps was at least smoking some good weed when the now famous cell phone picture was snapped. It would be a shame to think all of this trouble was caused by a few bong hits of shwag. If you are going to do the crime, do it for real. And if the crime is smoking pot, why not make sure it is the good stuff?

Can we all agree that this story is much ado about nothing? I'm very much excited to see what happens when this suspension ends and Phelps is still able to beat out every other swimmer in the world.

Puff, puff, pass...and take home the gold.

LOST

I know the current season of LOST—with all its time-traveling wackiness—is probably not to everyone's liking. But I LOVE it. Here are a few reasons why:

Fewer Flashbacks/Flashforwards: Honestly, they were getting old and getting in the way. The story on the island has long been more interesting than anything happening in these character's lives before they boarded Flight 815. As for the flashforwards, it was fun (at first) to see glimpses of the “Oceanic 6” once they made it home. That didn't last long, however. This season (at least so far) has split time between the survivors who got off the island and those who were left behind. No random side trips to Jack's previous life as a surgeon, or Kate's time on the run, or even to see Hurley as the goofy millionaire. Every episode this season, for the first time in a longtime, has felt like it was moving the story forward and will payoff in the end.

Sawyer and Locke: They have both been on screen a ton and that is always a very good thing. John Locke is slowly learning more and more about the island...and we are finally learning right along with him. After seeing how Ben left the island in last season's finale, we even might know more. No one wants to see Locke suffer the fate we know is coming, but since Christian Shepherd was dead when his coffin was boarded onto Flight 815 and now seems to be at least kinda-sorta-maybe-in-a-way alive, anything is possible.

As for Sawyer, we still don't know what he whispered to Kate just before he jumped from that helicopter, but we do know that he did jump to save her. That was clearly a man in love we saw in the jungle last night. Love, unfortunately, only goes so far. It is only a matter of time before Sawyer adds Juliette to his list (Ana Lucia, Kate) of island conquests. (If I had a Dharma beer, I'd toast him.)

Charles Widmore: Now we know why Widmore is so desperate to get control of the island—he was once an Other! That was a huge piece of the puzzle, as was the fact that he had overseen the care of the young girl who was so badly harmed by Daniel Faraday's experiments. That piece of information coupled with the fact that Faraday couldn't take his eyes off the female Other who led him to the bomb in that same episode (“You very much look like someone I used to know...) has led me to theorize that the stricken girl is actually another Widmore daughter. If that is true, it could change the meaning of Ben's threat from last year. (“You killed my daughter, Charles. Now I am going to kill yours.” Or not. Who knows?

Also, was that girl born on the island? Was Charlotte? Miles? Is that why they are showing signs of being harmed by the time-shifting faster than are Sawyer and Locke?

Here's hoping things keep on getting better. Now we know that Jin is still alive and that Sun is up to no good. And how cool was it to see the young and pregnant Danielle arrive on the island? But who did the two canoes belong to, and who was it who pursued Locke and Sawyer and the gang across the water? Be on the lookout for bad guys in canoes...

Going Green

I don't often write about what I do for work and am not about to go into any great detail now. (I work for a non-profit historical society based in Boston. I have close friends reading this right now and realizing they cannot come up with the name. So there.) But there is a little something I would like to share with you this afternoon, and it does involve my place of employment.

Recently, the decision was made to offer one of our publications in an electronic, rather than printed, format. This is beneficial because it allows us to reduce costs and help the environment at the same time. We contacted our member base and urged them to help us go “green” and opt out of receiving printed copies of a journal they could already read online in PDF format. The initiative, thus far, has been wildly successful and immensely popular. The reaction has been almost 100% positive.

Almost 100%...but not quite.

A few members responded that they wished to continue receiving printed copies, which was absolutely fine. (Our goal was always to reduce print runs, not to cease printing altogether.) Some others indicated that they preferred a printed copy but were willing to try the online version if it meant saving money. A handful of others...well...they had their own unique responses.

One lady accused us of being so politically-correct that we were bordering on radicalism.

A gentleman responded angrily that he was helping us to save money and definitely not helping us to go green, so we should stop thanking him for that.

My personal favorite was the phone message left by one member who suggested that if we were having such trouble raising adequate funds that we should work a little harder to find ourselves “another sugar mama.” Yes, that is a direct quote.

These are the people that remind me how lucky I am to be a purple voter living in a blue state. Climate change is very real, and something needs to be done. We can argue about what and how and when, but reacting with anger anytime anyone mentions “going green” isn't going to get it done. What does it say about anyone who views helping the environment as an outright assault on their politics?

This is (red) America in the early 21^st century. Good thing Jesus will be there to save them in the end.

Not A Good Day For Dems

One thing I can be (and have been) accused of is not being entirely honest in my claim of being an independent. The charge is usually that I am giving Democrat X a pass while piling onto Republican Y. I won't even bother to deny it because, after eight years of George W. Bush and his minions, there is probably some truth to be found there. But we're gonna fix all that today, baby!

A quick look at Boston.com reveals the following two headlines:

Daschle Withdraws Nomination

and

Massachusetts Chases Sales Taxes

This is not a banner day for Democrats.

Tom Daschle is an ass. It isn't bad enough that he could not even get re-elected while serving as the minority leader in the Senate. It now comes out (and only after President Obama has nominated him to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services, mind you) that he has been shirking almost $140,000 in back taxes and interest. Way to go, Tom! And to think, if you had never been nominated for the cabinet then you could have just kept on refusing to pay your debt! Now you aren't heading back to Washington AND you will soon be out 140-large. (Note to the IRS: Please be sure to keep the juice running on this debt. Please.)

Meanwhile, here in the Commonwealth, Governor Deval Patrick has ordered a company in New Hampshire to start charging 5% sales tax to all Massachusetts residents who make purchases there. Yes, you read that right. The Governor of Massachusetts is ordering businesses in other states to charge his constituents taxes that they are not currently required to pay. Think about that for a second.

I commented in the Inauguration Blog that Deval Patrick was all David Axelrod's fault, and I think now it is clear why I am no fan. I'm not opposed to taxes, and I do believe they are the price we pay to live in this society. But I am opposed to my freakin' governor ordering other states to charge me those same taxes he already is. That seems just a wee bit out o' line.

This, of course, is heading to court.

Super Bowl XLIII

If the Super Bowl party I attended was still going on, we would all still be staring at the TV in disbelief, waiting for that final turnover to be reviewed. The call may have stood up. It certainly was close, and you could make a case either way. But it needed to be reviewed!

The lasting image from that game will always be of referee Terry McCauley waving his arms above his head and walking towards the line of scrimmage, apparently waving off the Pittsburgh kneel down which had just occurred...and then the postgame festivities beginning anyway. Replay is a given in that situation. That it didn't happen in the biggest possible situation throws the whole system into doubt. Would it have been different had the call gone the other way and Arizona had retained possession? With five seconds on the clock and Larry “THE best receiver in football” Fitzgerald to throw to, it is more than plausible to think Kurt Warner could have heaved up a Hail Mary pass and changed the outcome of that game.

It's too bad they never got the chance. I still think it was an incompletion and not a fumble.

Controversy aside, that was one of the most exciting Super Bowls in history. Back and forth, big plays from both sides, and two of the best touchdown catches you will ever see. There was some griping where I was about the Patriots not being there, but even if they had been I do not believe it could have been any more enjoyable of a game. Plus, can anyone honestly say they believe the Pats would have dominated the Cardinals the same way they did in week 16 without a blizzard raging around them?

On another note, I was wrong about the idea of the silver lining. Knowing that Pittsburgh was passing Indianapolis did nothing to make another Super Bowl championship for the Steelers more palatable. Nothing at all. The only true silver lining is that we have seen the last of the “terrible towel” until next fall.

Final Thoughts

From there the afternoon became a flurry of phone calls and text messages, of conversations and observations, of good spirits and laughs. And, eventually, a celebratory cocktail.

I've never been big on parades, not even on an occasion such as this, and so it came as no surprise to me when my attention span was exceeded. I was in the car and on the way home when the news broke about Ted Kennedy. That it appears now to have been a false alarm prevents an ugly stain from being forever attached the day's events. Still, at the time it was a jolt, an unpleasant reminder that real life does go on.

We are almost two weeks removed from Inauguration Day as of this writing, and over that time I have come to realize that putting my thoughts about Barack Obama and the beginning of his administration down on paper was a much more difficult task than I ever believed it would be. I struggled with why that was, with why the end result I had advocated, hoped and voted for didn't inspire me more thoroughly than it has. And what I eventually realized was this:

What had the greatest impact on me that day was not the speeches or the pageantry or the crowds or the euphoria that seemed to grip almost this entire nation. What struck me most, and what has stayed with me most clearly, is the retreat from Washington in disgrace of George W. Bush. It is not the image of Barack Obama taking the oath of office but rather of the long, slow helicopter ride over and across the Mall, of the dramatic pause above the Jefferson Memorial, and of the final departure from Andrews Air Force Base. It was then that I understood that Bush was simply going to return to Texas and to the same cushy and pampered life he had led for 54 years before coming to power—and that it is the rest of us (not just Obama) who are tasked to clean up the mess he has left behind.

Some have said that electing Obama was the easy part, but it seems now that getting rid of Bush was pretty easy, too—even if it did take us eight years to do it. It is now when the real work begins, and in fact already had begun before the celebration was even complete.

Where will we be four years from now? No one can know for sure...but I, for one, do honestly believe we as a nation will be better off than we are today.

God help us all if I'm wrong.