LibertySoul

GONZOBALL...and fare thee well...

It's been almost two years since my unceremonious resignation from political blogging. It's not that I've lost interest, but a combination of burnout, and an interest in preserving my own sanity has made me lose all interest in political rant grandstanding.

Thus, I now bust balls about sports. You can read my new column, Gonzoball, here.

Check in often, and be sure to add me to your favorites.

Fare thee well.

DR. OF SPORTS JOURNALISM

Where've I been? Working like a Japanese beaver, writing bar reviews, playing softball, and now indulging one of my lifelong "things to do"; writing a sports column.

Check me out at the newly relaunched New York Opinion (www.nyopinion.com).

Spread the word and comment at will.

DOES THE FACT THAT BONO MAKES ME VIOLENTLY ILL DISQUALIFY HIM FOR A PEACE PRIZE?

Bono, douchebag lead singer for sublimely mediocre supergroup U2, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, possibly joining such historic luminaries as Jimmy Carter and Yasser Arafat. Presumably, he's beening nominated for his efforts to get Western nations to forgive the debt of third-world nations, which would more likely bolster the credit ratings of the dictators who starve their own people than help any of Africa's impoverished. This from the guy who charges 150 bucks a ticket to hear the same song performed under 18 different titles (also known as a concert), and the same guy who sued to get his self-described "iconic" hat and pants back. Worse still, he inspired Coldplay. Shudder.

NOW THAT'S CONTROLLING THE MEDIA!

A Danish paper publishes a cartoon that mocks Muslims.
An Iranian paper responds with a Holocaust cartoons contest -
- Now a group of Israelis announce their own anti-Semitic cartoons contest!

PITCHERS AND CATCHERS REPORT TODAY

I promise I'll grow up soon, and since Vic is one of the unlucky stalwart readers who commented this week, I couldn't resist.

NY PRESS EDITORIAL STAFF QUITS...

...en masse, after their publisher balks at printing the Mohammed CARTOONS.

We have no desire to be free speech martyrs, but it would have been nakedly hypocritical to avoid the same cartoons we'd criticized others for not running, cartoons that however absurdly have inspired arson, kidnapping and murder and forced cartoonists in at least two continents to go into hiding. Editors have already been forced to leave papers in Jordan and France for having run these cartoons. We have no illusions about the power of the Press (NY Press, we mean), but even on the far margins of the world-historical stage, we are not willing to side with the enemies of the values we hold dear, a free press not least among them.

NO JOY IN MUDVILLE

Wow, not even 3 Super Bowl Championships and a historic World Series championship can erase the loser mentality/delusions of persecution of the New England sports fan. If the humorless outrage directed at the prospect of the FleetCenter being named the "Derek Jeter Center" for a single day wasn't hilarious enough in it's own right, now the Class A Lowell Spinners have a plan to protect the children of Red Sox Nation from the "devastation" of playing for the Yankees in Little League.

I'm just about over the humiliation of the 2004 ALCS, if only because what I predicted is slowly taking place. One, the ONLY thing special about the legacy of the Boston Red Sox was their long ignomious history of gruesome choke defeats and chasing any beloved or Hall of Fame-caliber player out of town on a rail (see: Babe Ruth, Roger Clemens, Wade Boggs, Mike Greenwell, Mo Vaughn, Nomar Garciaparra, Pedro Martinez, Johnny Damon...). Winning, particularly following their 2004 comeback, has totally ruined that. No longer can the Red Sox fan wave their hang-dog loser flag, no longer can their misery be blamed on a 110 year old dead guy, no longer is their anything to "BELIEVE" in.

They are the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Anaheim Angels...the Philadelphia Phillies. All winners of one World Series in a century. And if there ever is another one, there won't be enough hype for another Queer Eye cameo, much less a "poor me" memoir from every Red Sox fan sportswriter or hack horror novelist.

LOOK MA, NO RIOTS PART TWO

Andrew Sullivan reports:

So we now discover that the hideously offensive and blasphemous cartoons - so blasphemous that CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, won't publish them ... were reprinted last October. In Egypt. On the front frigging page. No one rioted. No editor at Al Fager was threatened. So it's official: the Egyptian state media is less deferential to Islamists than the New York Times. So where were the riots in Cairo? This whole affair is a contrived, manufactured attempt by extremist Muslims to move the goal-posts on Western freedom. They're saying: we determine what you can and cannot print; and there's a difference between what Muslims can print and what infidels can print. And, so far, much of the West has gone along. In this, well-meaning American editors have been played for fools and cowards. Maybe if they'd covered the murders of von Gogh and Fortuyn more aggressively they'd have a better idea of what's going on; and stared down this intimidation. The whole business reminds me of the NYT's coverage of the Nazis in the 1930s. They didn't get the threat then. They don't get it now.