Ernie Barnes 1938-2009

Ernie Barnes, who died at 70 of complications from a rare blood disorder, was a professional football player turned successful artist, whose work so vividly captured the tenor of African American life and culture.

The First 100 Days

The first 100 days as a benchmark for a presidency is nothing more than a meaningless journalistic and media conceit, having more to do with circulation and audience share.

The Washington Natinals

Last season the Washington Nationals lost 102 games and would seem to be on pace to replicate that dubious distinction winning just once in their first eleven games this season. And their ineptitude isn't confined to the baseball diamond. Yesterday two of their players, Ryan Zimmerman and Adam Dunn, wore jerseys emblazoned with the word NATINALS.

Mark "The Bird" Fidrych

Mark "The Bird" Fidrych, who died earlier today of an apparent accident, was a colorful, talented pitcher for the Detroit Tigers in the seventies whose career was unfortunately cut short by injuries. He was 54 years old.

The Grand Old Party

Paul Krugman, in Tea Parties Forever, writes about an increasingly marginalized Republican Party:

Today’s G.O.P. is, after all, very much a minority party. It retains some limited ability to obstruct the Democrats, but has no ability to make or even significantly shape policy.

Beyond that, Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats.

Apoplexy

Charles Blow, in Pitchforks and Pistols, writes about the right wing driven into apoplexy over Obama's election:

Lately I’ve been consuming as much conservative media as possible (interspersed with shots of Pepto-Bismol) to get a better sense of the mind and mood of the right. My read: They’re apocalyptic. They feel isolated, angry, betrayed and besieged. And some of their “leaders” seem to be trying to mold them into militias.

At first, it was entertaining — just harmless, hotheaded expostulation. Of course, there were the garbled facts, twisted logic and veiled hate speech. But what did I expect, fair and balanced? It was like walking through an ideological house of mirrors. The distortions can be mildly amusing at first, but if I stay too long it makes me sick.
But, it’s not all just harmless talk. For some, their disaffection has hardened into something more dark and dangerous. They’re talking about a revolution.

A Period of Transformation?

Eugene Robinson, in What We're Not Talking About, writes of Barack Obama:

In the cacophonous commentary about the president -- he's a breath of fresh air, he's too liberal, he's too moderate, he's being far too generous to the banks, he's some kind of closet socialist, he's restoring the nation to greatness, he's leading us to perdition -- it's striking how seldom race is mentioned as an issue or even an attribute. That's only natural, since race could hardly be more irrelevant to the multitude of urgent problems Obama wrestles with every day. Watching him in action, as he shoves out the chief executive of General Motors or exchanges small talk with Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace, we witness a daily demonstration of the irrelevance of race. And that, potentially, is nothing short of transformative.

Unforgivable Blackness

Sen. John McCain has introduced legislation to posthumously pardon Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion, for violation of the Mann Act, i.e., the transportation of white women across state lines for immoral purposes.

Lucky Thompson

Of the previously unreleased live recordings of the vastly underrated and under appreciated saxophonist Eli Lucky Thompson, the New York Times Nate Chinen writes:

The great saxophonist Lucky Thompson died in 2005, at 81. In musical terms his silence began much earlier: he gave his last known performances in the 1970s, after which he more or less disappeared, leading an itinerant life. (His outspoken disdain for the music business is often cited as motivation.) “New York City, 1964-65” (Uptown) captures him a decade before his self-exile, around the time of his landmark album “Lucky Strikes.” The newly unearthed material, from two distinct engagements, compounds our sense of what was lost when he withdrew from the scene.

Triple Threat

Excellent piece by Michael Wilbon speculating on LeBron James's chances of equally the incomparable Oscar Robertson's achievement of averaging a triple double over the course of a season.

We see all-court brilliance like this every 25 years or so, when a player is extraordinary in basketball's primary skills: scoring, rebounding and passing. Only Oscar Robertson, in 1962, has averaged double digits in those three categories over an entire season. Only Magic Johnson, in 1982, has come truly close since. It has been such an unreachable mark, like hitting .400 for an entire season or scoring 100 points in a single game, that it's now presumed to be unthinkable that a player would average a triple-double over a full NBA season.