The Shack: The Reader's Digest Da Vinci Code

So as I understand it, Amazon buggered up my neighbors book delivery, something about a botched address, so after a little song and dance from the squeaky wheel, he ended up getting the same delivery of books twice, the second of which he kindly passed along my way in the form of a literary care package.  I scored Steven King's new encyclopedia, a Vonnegut novel and The Shack by William P. Young.    

Thanks buddy!

I was anxious to read the latter right away, because my stolidly agnostic friend was ranting and raving about how his whole perception changed  thanks to the book, and how he wanted to start going to church (Still waiting...).  

I polished it off in about 3 days of casual reading when I should have been minding my children.  It was.... okay....

Here's the thing.  The Shack is not written particularly well.  Not really... It's not much good at all, except that it is, kinda.  It's written with a cadence Toronto Sun readers would probably find familiar, and while that might out me as a special kind of snob, that is shitty writing.  The whole time I couldn't help but think how better served the story itself and the themes it tackles (the nature of love, of the Holy trinity, of forgiveness) would have been in the hands of a gifted scribe who used words as more than a means to an end.  A great deal of fuss has been made over this book, and it pokes a few holes in the sensitive underbelly of religious dogma in plain down-to-earth english your reader's digest reading, Stephan Harper loving grandparents would probably find enlightening (not my grandparents though, they're sharp as all hell).   

That is not to say the book is not without it's strong points.  Alright, the guy's daughter gets murdered, and it just so happens I have a daughter, so if a fella gets sort of teary eyed when he's reading about it, that doesn't mean he's soft.  That point needs to be established.  The book tugs pretty hard at the heart strings but in terms of theology its nothing I haven't heard before.  I would have a harder time recommending this book if it wasn't such an easy read.  As it stands, it was a pretty bizarre change of pace after reading the Fountainhead, but if you've got the luxury of a cozy Christmas day to read Chicken soup for the lackadaisical Christian soul, this will do the trick.

2009 in Books

I went on a pretty good tear this year and knocked a few off the "You should have already read these" list.  I've harbored a pretty serious bias for dead writers my entire reading career.  I guess it's because you only get so many books to read, and  I want to get in all the classics I can, but that's dumb.  I want to appreciate contemporary literature and I pledge that in 2010 I will patronize writers above ground.  I'm going to try and read the Giller nominees and lots of small press numbers, when I do, you'll know about it.

Jeremy's 2009 Reading List

The Canada Reads 5
CBC darlings pitch their pet books and through a ridiculous "kick off the island" round table, systematically erase my favourites in order of preference two years running.  It's fun to follow what CBC radio is talking about and I love getting these for Christmas every year (Thanks Hunny!) but I always feel a little snotty afterwards.

The Fat Lady Next door is Pregnant by Michel Tremblay
Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richards
The Outlander by Gil Adamson
Fruit by Brian Francis
The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

Birthday Books
I got a few Chapters Giftcards for me birthday, much obliged Mom and Dad!

Down and out in Paris and London by George Orwell
Harlot's Ghost by Norman Mailer
Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Call Me Ted by Ted Turner

The Paper Backs

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Les Enfant Terribles by Jean Cocteau
After Many Summer by Aldous Huxley
Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
The Gospel According to the Son by Norman Mailer
Faust 2 by Gothe
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Centaur by John Updike
The Shack by William P. Young








    

Week 13: WTF

As published on www.ongameday.ca

Week Thirteen had more twists than a Lost/Dr. Who crossover, and I’m thanking providence I never got around to calling the Vikings a sure thing before the weekend. 

It is absolutely killing me, but I’m going to finally have to start paying Arizona some respect.  The Bridesmaids of the NFC butted heads in Sunday Night and the Cardinals dusted off their loss last week to the Titans by kicking the shit out of a Vikings Team that never saw it coming.  It may not have been the upset of the season, but it’s a huge statement for a team that’s been on again off again all season despite being uncontested in their division.  The Cardinals secondary came up with some looks that were straight out of Vaudeville, nobody knew what to make of them, least of all Favre who threw two picks, and got sacked three times, Osteoporosis be damned.  The Arizona O-Line deserves medals of honor for the pass protection they pulled off against the meanest front four in the game.  Warner had enough time to check his investments via Blackberry before finding and hitting his receivers.  The Cardinals are the first team this season to consistently double team Jared Allen.  They did it and it worked, so you can bet number 69 is going to have to make friends with two Offensive Lineman for the rest of the year.  It must be flattering.  I’m looking for these two teams to renew hostilities somewhere in the playoffs and prove once and for all that not all old people are completely useless.

If that wasn’t enough to throw my Sunday in a loop, the Dolphins beat up a Patriots team that have now dropped three of their last four.  Anyway you slice it Boston’s finest sure ain’t what they used to be, but you can bet whoever’s lined up against them in the playoffs isn’t going to feel lucky.  The Dolphins meanwhile have four games to take over first place, and if Ricky Williams keeps playing the way he has, they are going to walk all over Jacksonville and finally take hold of the AFC East.

All this stuff is weird, but nothing could have prepared me for flicking the channel over to the Saints game to see them squeaking a win out in overtime thanks to a bum kick by one Shaun Suisham, a terrible person who should just fall on his sword and get it over with.  Regardless, that a consistently hopeless Redskins squad beat the spread like an enemy combatant and only lost on a last minute fuckup has to mean the Saints have a little more paper to their tiger than anybody thought.

It had to be a crazy weekend indeed for a Stars/Giants matchup to fly under the radar, but it might have been one of the better games of the year.  Romo was scoring with Witten like he was a skinny Jessica Simpson and still they couldn’t beat a Giants team that was making hungry touchdowns.  That NFC East is the tightest division in Football, and next Sunday’s meeting between the Giants and the Eagles is going to be the game for the ages.

In My Defense...

I set out to make this blog my Literary Soap Box, but for a reason unbeknownst to my waking conscious I've been thumbing through The Scarlet Letter for two months now and I just couldn't pull the goddamn thing to bed.  This hasn't happen more than twice before in my entire reading life, but a book mark is still sitting 200 pages in, creeping ever so slowly towards completion.

In the interim, I have broken another habit and begun another novel in in order to slip out of the funk.  I found the Fountainhead in a 50 cent bin at the library, and having read and enjoyed Dear Ms. Rand's hyper contentious "Atlas Shrugged" this spring, I went in with guns blazing.


This blog was started ostensibly because I read Atlas Shrugged, but I never wrapped my head completely around the book itself and the recent hoopla around it.  Even if I still haven't entirely, I wanted to address  the growing trend amongst otherwise clever writers of simply dismissing it out of hand as being fascist.  I think this book has received the popularity, not of Glenn Beck and his ilk, but of an impressive set young readers, because of a vision of the individual that is in keeping with the mantras they're inundated with about the virtue of hard work, character and discipline, without all the moral loopholes and caveats that render those same codes spineless.  Our culture, particularly but not exclusively, men of my generation, is besodden on all sides by Lotus Eaters, and it has become entirely too easy for men, educated or otherwise, to become comfortable both economically and socially without ever having been forced to excel at anything.  There is a wealth the likes of which the world has never experienced of smart, inspired energy evaporating into the ether with either monotony or complacency.  Atlas Shrugged for me was a call to arms against atrophy, an inspiration and instruction to pursue excellence and to flatly ignore the impulse to compromise.  It is the bible of ambition, and while you could lead a herd of elephants through the holes in her logic, there aren't any examples in literature with a more compelling argument for hard work that I'm come across.  

Rand's heroes are pitted against their world, which may only be a shaky mirror image of ours, but if you can't recognize a piece of her frustrations with elements of bureaucracy, elected government and our most artificial and hypocritical social script, then you simply do not pay attention.

Her Philosophy, though harsh, does not condone half truths any more than Christianity does on the other end of the Spiritual spectrum. It is a strict atheism, and has genuinely fair guidelines in terms of integrity, both social and economical. Hank Reardon doesn't ship his plants overseas to increase profits any more than Dagny Taggart hires scabs. To truly worship at the alter of objectivism requires personal standards a great many of her recent boosters do not in good faith possess. That is in large part, I think, the reason for the dismissal and intense dislike amongst her critics. A great many of her fans happen to be assholes.

Rand's style is entirely void of modern stylistic apparati and thusly is more in tune with Romanticism (thank you paperback preamble). I'm not at all adverse to that convention so I didn't have the hard time ploughing through Atlas as some of my peers confessed to. The author uses every word, every character, every symbol and every circumstance in her novel to promote her ideology and makes no bones about it. It is as focused a writing as you're liable to read, while still leaving room for excitement and heart-pumping page turning.
The stories I think are compelling, but that the characters are 100% archetypical is an adjustment; there are villians, heros, the unredeemably corrupted, the born again Objectivists and the sheep. Period. In my lifetime I have never met anyone who was just one of theses things, and the author herself certainly didn't walk the walk (pass the Amphetamines would you darling...). At any rate, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead are books you should read regardless of your political leanings. If you start freaking out and plotting to take over the world, just take a cold shower. You got through the Grapes of Wrath without ever helping any poor people and reading Ayn Rand won't turn you into Ralph Klein.

Saints Go Marching, Colts Limp Towards Perfection

As first Published at www.ongameday.ca

It seems to me that between the NFL’s last two undefeated teams, there isn’t a lot in common.  The Colts, for the last handful of games, have had straight up barn burners, notably against the Pats and the Fourth and Short heard round the world, and now with the Texans, their division rivals. 

This Sunday Indy looked like a team that had finally underestimated an opponent.  Texans were hitting fast and hard, and even if they were down at the half, the Colts looked worried an the Texans were taking charge.  Half way through the third, a ridiculous interception by Matt Schaus set the stage for the Colts offense to put the entire affair to bed courtesy of One Mr. Manning.  The Texans D didn’t get the memo and shut them down to set up the touchdown in the early fourth.  But eventually the Texans succumbed to death from a thousand cuts.  Offside, False Start, one huge pass interference, and another interception and finally a blown onside kick all amounted to the white and blue rally from which Huston could not recover.  The Colts with a little help from their friends in the black and white stripes, squeeze by a team that had no real business making it so close.

 

On the other end of the world, the Big Easy got to watch their home squad beat New England and the point spread like a three-legged dog in a Toronto pound.  Brees and his merry band of receivers made a monkey out of Billichek’s revered defense and made sure everybody knows the Patriots aren’t the team they used to be.  Monday night was touchdown night.  Brees gave one to everybody who wanted one, he was throwing everywhere, five different receivers, two cheerleaders, his mom, the hot dog guy, people walking by the stadium, everybody.  Especially strange was watching Bilicheck say over and over to the press what a better team New Orleans was.  I wonder if you can smell a stroke coming on? 

 

The Colts are playing a tough Titans squad next week, Vince Young’s star power and Chris Johnson’s heroics might be the toughest thing left on the Indianapolis regular season to-do list.  The proline is paying really well for anybody bold enough to take the underdogs, and I’m checking the V just because I don’t think we’re going to see two perfect seasons. 

If New Orleans can be stopped this year, it’s not by the Redskins (it’s by the Vikings).  I’m looking for the momentum from Monday to carry over and for some scoring records to be smashed this Sunday.

There’s something to be said about the grit it takes to come form behind for the win constantly.  It means a team that takes “Never say Die” seriously, a team can play the clutch and laugh in the face of defeat.  There has to be something tangibly beneficial to hard fought battles that at the very least make for better games. 

But really, how can you compare a team that squeaked by the Pats on a bizzaro gamble vs a team that dominated them, start to finish, in every aspect of the game.  Maybe we’ll all get to see on February 7^th.  

Canadian Buffalo and the Hype that Wasn't

as first published at www.ongameday.ca

Time will tell whether canning Jauron will make a positive difference in Bill’s long term health, but winning one at home two weeks later sure helps makes the decision look smarter.  Even though their playoff hopes were all but scuttled in the last minutes of the first regular season game, the Bills have given a few cheery moments to their bedeviled fans, and none as thoroughly pleasing as playing spoiler in this Sunday’s whipping of their aquatic arch-rivals. Any die-hards who put their mark on H+ are looking pretty smart today.  The chemistry between Owens and Fitzpatrick keeps on rolling out tasty tasty goodness with 96 yards and a TD late when it really mattered.  The only way this revelation could make Trent Edwards look worse would be actually having him play some more.

All in all it was a great team effort in front of a home crowd that deserves that sort of win a lot more than they get it.  Miami was eyeballing a coup d’etat on their perpetual NFC leaders in two weeks, but thanks to Buffalo the Pats breath a little easier this Monday as they hold their grocery bags in front of the tank named New Orleans. 

And now, Ontario proper can look forward to hosting the most important game of the year as two teams with no prayer of playoff contention coming to Toronto this Thursday. After the buzz blared through the thousand-headed Roger’s Hydra failed to drum up the excitement.  TO in TO they cried, as if Terrell was going to perform ninety minutes of standup during the day-long festival of lead up.  Well, the big day is four nights away and tickets are still on sale, as of this writing 100 level seats are still going for around a “reduced” two hundred clams a pop.  I think Canada as a whole, being immersed in the NFL at no less a clip than our neighbors to the South, would appreciate a game more if it didn’t feature the bottom feeders of the AFC East duking it out for honour and draft picks.  After all, ninety percent of Canada is a good road trip away from a stadium and we aren’t losing our collective minds about the game because nobody is losing their minds about the game, but that’s just the cynic in me talking. 

 

Talk of the Bills migrating North to the Roger’s center for good had reached a fever pitch this summer, but it seems to have died down in the quiet way disappointment tends to.  Now good old At-Least-We’re-Not-Baghdad Buffalo is talking big, Bill Cower big, and I’ll be damned if the hope that runs eternal doesn’t actually feels less ridiculous from my Bill-fan acquaintances.

Cheering for the Bills this coming Sunday in Toronto should come pretty easy to a city full of underachieving teams that are ceremoniously fed to the lions in every professional sport thay participate in.  To be fair though, having two teams each coming off big wins might just make this one enjoyable and there are a host of reasons to expect an good performance.  After all, both teams have explosive elements, Buffalo has a wide receiver core that can stand against any, while the Jets’ defense is still ridiculously talented despite their salty record.  Now that Sanchez got the monkey off his back he might even swagger into Toronto and throw like he did the first 4 games.  Regardless, it should be every loyal Proline playing Canadian’s duty to have an opinion on this game and put their mark where it counts.  Maybe even shell out a hundred bucks on nosebleeds, they’ll close the dome and you can always PVR Private Practice
.

Now or Never for the Titans

As published at www.ongameday.ca

It never sat right with me watching Tennessee locking themselves into the basement of the AFC South for the first six games of the season.  Not after the crazy tear they went on in 2008.  These guys should have been building on the season prior and giving the Colts a run for their money, instead they were running out of steam half way through games and playing collectively like they spent the summer watching Detroit Lions motivational videos.

 

Jeff Fisher, for all his football savvy and mustachioed wisdom, was stuck firmly on “Team Collins” no matter how many losses, incomplete passes (89 but who’s counting) and general embarrassing Sundays his team had to wander through.  To his credit, Fisher must have been properly shaken after Young’s suicide debacle a year prior and is forever inclined to go with the fella with a proven track record of not-crazy, but this is the NFL and crazy shit is going to happen.  At some point you have to put it down as dark chapter in an otherwise amazing biography and run that one-in-a-million risk of a “Last Boyscout” incident.

 

After the Peyton Manning Jersey Mia Culpa Fisher finally caved to a murderous Bud Adams (who was reportedly angry enough to start bleeding from the eyes) and gave Young the nod after a long and ugly bi-week.  He more or less admitted he didn’t want to, but an 0-6 coach more or less forfeits his right to ignore the man with the big wallet.  The rest is a four game history.

So all of the sudden the Titans have a storyline, and the football gods just loooooooove a storyline.  Four wins in a row and two of them against division rivals.  Teams that are a joke don’t go 4-0 in the middle of a season.  It’s an uphill tooth and nail battle to the 6^th spot in the AFC, but every season has a Cinderella story, and my gut tells me the Titans are gonna crash the party or at least put on a good show at the door.

This Sunday night is where we find out of the Titans are serious about their comeback.  Arizona is a solid team that puts up big numbers and the Warner Fitzgerald one-two puts on as good a show as there is in the league.  Of course all that aside, this game means a hell of a lot more to the home squad, and Superbowl appearance aside, they still aren’t that good.  Being kings of NFC West this year is like beating up on children.  Look for the Titans to fire off a cannonball named Chris Johnson and ruin Thanksgiving for the Cardinal’s linebackers.

The Over/Under is 47.5 and I’m thinking that’s pretty conservative, this is going to be a highlight-rich slobber knocker and if I’m lucky enough the Cardinals D is going to spend a lot of time on the field.

The Hall of Fame makes me want to be a better man

The Hockey Hall of Fame swelled both in membership and prestige this week with some of the more worthier inductees to have ever laced up skates, that is, Steve Yzerman and some other dudes. Judging from the coverage and the noticeably amped up production value, the shrine on Front Street and the ceremony surrounding it’s big night has upped it’s game to the credit of the game and everybody in it.

Even though the scrum might have followed Gretzky’s entrance like he was drunk Mylie Cyrus falling out of a dress, the coverage was sharp overall and to the point the way you would never expect to see on TSN (this might bode well for the Olympic coverage, cautious optimism is the order of the day). They should be commended for keeping the strobe light graphics and passive-aggressive banter to a minimum. The ceremony was more of the same. The highlight reel for #19 was demonstrative of his abilities (especially so against the Blackhawks) without being sappy or otherwise ridiculous. James Duthie did the introduction with the classy sort of prodding that played for chuckles while never letting anyone forget that he was Duthie and the inductee was an immeasurably better human being.

Steve Yzerman stole the show and for good reason, as qualified as Hull and Robitaille may be Yzerman is exactly the sort of player the NHL has been built on.

Yzerman’s career was a study in competence becoming excellence, while he wasn’t without a spectacular highlight reel, his steady consistence, a mastery of fundamentals and work ethic that stands second to none were what set him apart and made him what he was. He represented the very best character of the NHL; his dignity and hardwork were what elevated him above every other run-of-the-mill 1755 career point hockey player. He may have produced like a superstar but he never acted like one. The NHL is full of Yzerman’s sort of player. Small town kids overjoyed to be playing hockey for a living and finding it all a little hard to believe. For every Shawn Avery there are ten genuinely good men slugging it out every game knowing full well their moms are probably watching and behaving accordingly. One couldn’t suggest he played like a saint, he took up enough lumber in the penalty box to build a fort, but on camera he was every bit the composed role model he will be remembered as.

If they awarded Lady Byngs for induction speeches they wouldn’t ever have to give it away again. He hit all the notes with the humility and straightforwardness he had employed every time he stepped on the ice. He’s no Tony Robbins on the microphone and looked more than a little embarrassed over all the brouhaha. The kind of modesty you can’t fake did him all the more credit. He thanked the wife and kids, talked up his fellow inductees, coaches and everybody else there was to thank, it was a speech by the numbers from a fella whose actions always speak for him. It is no surprise he got recruited as masthead for Team Canada and if the Red Wings front office is ever dumb enough to let him go he’ll fit into a GM chair somewhere in the League very nicely.

One of the NHL’s biggest assets is the years and years of history behind it. You have Maurice Richard riots, Paul Henderson defeating communism, Gordie Howe hat tricks, Theo Fleury after-parties and a trophy older than Hugh Hefner hoisted by all the biggest names in the game. The Hall itself, its archives and its reach into the wider cultural landscape should be used over and over again to promote the game worldwide. Inducting Stevie Y to the big club may be a no-brainer, but selling him as exactly the sort of guy that belongs there makes the Hall, the league and the sport better.

Is Belichick ready for Shady Pines? No.

Now everybody and their mom knows America and it’s National Football League love hyperbole as much as apple pie, cheep ammunition and jail bait, but all this fallout is two degrees South of ridiculous.  Does going for it on a fourth and two mean your coach is a lunatic in charge a nuclear submarine? Does it mean he’s blinded by hubris?  Does it mean he’s secretly in cahoots with the Governor of Indiana? NO, what it means is your coach has balls.  He has a quarterback that has done the impossible over and over again, he has an offense he feels better about than his defense, and he has balls.  He didn’t make the easy decision, and taking a risk ended up biting him in the ass big time, the risk didn’t pan out.  Oh well, there’s next Sunday to worry about, back to the drawing board.  If football fans in Massachusetts start pining for a coach who calls the game according to Hoyle, then they should have to give their last three championships back because you don’t get the sort of dynasty they’ve enjoyed this decade when your team is run by a bunch of pansies.  

I feel their pain, losing to the Colts is a hard thing for Pats fans to do, but losing a big game midseason does not constitute grounds for a mutiny.  First place in the AFC east is a lock unless Miami recruits God for the second half of the season, and everybody knows God is backing New Orleans this year.  Life as you know it is not over and baring some sort of 2012 disaster canceling the season these two teams have a rematch on the dance card in two months.  Stand by your man for Pete’s sake.   There, I’m finished.

The future tastes easy for the victors, and after the confidence boost that was Sunday Night they would have to set the spread at triple digits to keep the Colts from beating it against the on-again off-again Ravens.  If there’s any defense in the entire league that can solve Manning for 4 quarters of football, Baltimore ain’t it.

The Patriots meanwhile can lick their wounds and think about taking out all their embarrassment on their next opponent.  I expect Mr. Sanchez and his Jets are going to get to know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of a sixty minute, bitter, no nonsense shitkicking.  

A Long Hard Road Out of Suck

As first Published at www.hockeyinsight.com

With the Tuesday’s overtime loss against the Lightning, the Leafs have declared their residence in an upper level of purgatory, where four consecutive overtime losses represent the slow climb from running joke to bona fide hockey club. As bizarre a trend as it is, it does mean Toronto has been an over five hundred team in the last five games, and while that’s not quite worthy of a round of high fives, it’s something and something is unequivocally better than nothing.

It means that in four games, if the Leafs can snap out of letting in the first goal, they win. It means if they can sharpen up their late night four on four, they win. It means if something on the bench clicks and they can do one better shift of offense or defense, they win. That may be a lot of “ifs” but the biggest one yet is Kessel. He played well and managed to get himself open enough for a bunch of shots, none of which looked too convincing but judging from last year’s highlight reel if he gets any part of his groove back they’ll be turning into bullets and real productivity.

As of this writing the season is creeping up on a quarter finished and the Buds are sharing last place with the Hurricanes, which though hardly enviable is only seven points out of a place in the postseason. While there’s nobody out there writing off the latter, just about everybody assumes the former are set to make their customary early exit come April 10th.

The case has been made that the new team is being built from the ground up, and will without doubt be a while finding their feet. As they’ve immediately established, should it actually occur, the nature of the Maple Leaf turnaround is going to be slow. The best anybody can hope for at this point is that it’s steady. Of course an eighty game season is an awfully long time, and word has it those in the employ of MLSE, along with the Flames, have jumped the line for those special H1N1 meds all the rest of the suckers are going to have to wait for. If any of the other teams in the league are dumb enough to behave like gentlemen and actually wait their turn behind infants, asthmatics and pregnant ladies, a nice fat bout of swine flu could throw more than a few games their way (Please excuse a digression the writer thinks he should be permitted as he just had his children vaccinated).

So what happens next? Friday has Toronto up against the aforementioned Carolina team full of long-established talent and a Cup in recent memory that has so far Staal-ed (ahhhhh) out of the gate. Friday means the same thing for both teams. A team in last place that means to rise above has to win games like these, to put itself on the proper trajectory by stepping on the heads of the real losers. Whatever the outcome, expect a game with playoff intensity, more than a little rough housing and enough dirty to make late-nineties Christina Aguilera go three shades pink. In short, a proper hockey game.

If the Leafs come out on top it would make 6 games with a point, a notch up in the standings and the biggest momentum push of the season, which is a fancy way of saying nothing much. A loss means just about the same, but those two points have to come from somewhere and it doesn’t look like it’ll be any easier with the Wings, the Hawks and the freshly inoculated Flames all on the immediate horizon.

So the recipe for success is…The Monster stays good or better, Kessel makes friends with the back of the net, the young guys skate fast, the tough guys get tough and the Southern partisan crowd keeps daydreaming about NASCAR. Sounds simple right? Right? Right.

As a postscript, all this stuff about baby steps aside, would it have really killed them to beat the Habs in the Waldo jerseys? Would it have been that hard? No one deserves two points dressed like that.

Tom Cable Ruined My Sunday

The kids were fed, the dog was walked and I had settled my brain for it's customarily fulfilling eight hours of Sunday football.  I started as I always start with Berman and the gang over at ESPN Sunday NFL Countdown, and cousin, it made me squirm.  Not on account of the jokes, those crumby jokes warm that “warm peanut butter cookie and playoff sex” part of my heart like a glass of Crown Royal.  No, what made me cringe was the piece of investigative journalism concerning Tom Cable’s bringing the pain to his assistant coach’s jaw two weeks prior. 

After the police decided the case didn’t warrant the laying of charges, ESPN’s Colleen Dominguez did a little digging and put together a regular “This is your Life” featuring a train of ex-wives and girlfriends Coach Cable had kicked the shit out of.  They made a pretty good case for old Tom being the biggest asshole in all of football today and even suggested that though all the incidents were investigated,  his position on the team was what really kept him out of trouble.        

This shocked me on two counts;

Firstly, that ESPN has the capacity for investigative journalism.  CNN doesn’t have the budget for investigative  journalism.  Have we have reached the point where sports writing is the only arm of the profession with license to challenge men in authority?  ESPN is actually armed to tackle issues as serious as domestic abuse and they can do it without fear of being called fascists on the left and terrorist sympathizers on the right.  Furthermore, they can do it on a Sunday morning, surely the most effective place to distress the comfortable.

  Second,  ESPN aired a piece that shone a bright light on the NFL’s dirty laundry.  They bit the hand that feeds them, lays golden egg after golden egg, and puts their kids through college handily.  Without all due respect, and there is a great deal offered up, this is fishy as all hell. 

The National Football League loves women.  Every year more and more are tuning in on Sundays, and beyond that, they are the mothers, sisters and wives of the God fearing athletes that butter their bread.  If you hadn’t noticed, this year they’re sporting pink like it was going out of style, and it sure doesn’t become a league that talks up curing breast cancer on one hand to be coddling serial woman beaters on the other.  Furthermore, the league genuinely strives to frame a narrative that shows them taking the higher ground on issues of ethics.  Point in case, the Michael Vick Eagles press conference, where Tony Dungee and Jeffery Lurie evoked American redemption and Christian forgiveness to explain their decision.  In the case of Tom Cable however,  the only option besides hoping it blows over, is to throw him to the dogs.

 

Officially the NFL had no comment on the matter, but it really is giving ESPN a lot of credit to to think they have gone independently and clearly shamed the league,  ostensibly prodding them into action. 

A hypothesis then:  The league has a scumbag coach they know is as guilty as the day is long, but they have a police department clearing him of all charges.  That’s the last thing they want to contradict,  but at the same time they need to protect their image and get rid of an obviously destructive  influence.  So the NFL sanctions the ESPN piece that introduces the new evidence of Tommy Boy’s previously silent victims, waits for the outcry from the usual suspects, and placates by canning Cable, saving face and appearing proactive.  These guys should be running the Whitehouse, if they aren’t already.  

Playtime For the Leaf Nation

*As first published at www.hockeyinsight.com *


The powers that be in Toronto have decided to take the odd and mixed blessing of a week’s downtime in an Olympics-compressed schedule and have a little fun with it. The Buds spent the week jumping from brooding high-paced practices where Ron Wilson mused about fights breaking out amongst frustrated teammates, to games of dodgeball and a cavalier three-on-three tournament where the first goal was to have fun.

If cheering up the sullen troops was the aim, then he certainly hit the mark. When the young team left the ice everybody to the man had that “can you believe they pay us to do this” grin pasted all over their mugs. The talking heads have smelled blood in the water all this short season and in the scrum they had to do a double take at this new devil-may-care coach preaching the gospel of serendipity.

Wilson can’t really get anymore red-faced at the troops than he has at this point; they’re all in the same boat wearing dunce caps and big red targets. There’s a real bad taste to the Toronto air and if this streak doesn’t turn itself around soon everybody in the club from the top to the bottom is liable to be found hanging from the ACC rafters beside that ’67 Stanley Cup banner. In a city that sways on the poles of hyperbole, a couple of practices spent maxin’ and relaxin’ is either going to look like a stroke of genius or a declaration of war. A win or two on the upcoming road trip could see the Leafs a transformed team come back from the edge of dead with a good head of steam, but with Phil Kessel still weeks away and both starting (though uninspiring) goalies banged up but good, the team will have to do it with heart where talent is waning. A loss on Saturday will make this the worst opening season in Maple Leaf history and you can bet more than a few fans would remember the week-long lock in at the rec center as a centerpiece of the failure.



Win or lose, a good chunk of Southern Ontario is looking at the 6 – 2 Coyotes (who as of this writing just popped an overtime winner against the Red Wings) and wondering about what could have been.