This “Better Late than Never” edition of the Carnival was truly a joy to put together this week. After all, every major institution in the United States of America – the government, the press, religious leaders – all proved that they have the collective I.Q. of a marmoset. Rarely has so much stupidity been evinced by so many in so short amount of time. This is reflected in the fact that we have a very few repeat posts from our cluebashing bloggers so that the entire panoply of cluelessness can be presented for your reading pleasure.

It’s very hard to pick the #1 Cluebat of the Week given the range and diversity of our clueless candidates. If I were forced to choose, however, it would have to be a collective award, given to the nearly 100,000 of our fellow citizens who came to Washington this week, all to get in line to be cannon fodder for terrorists. At least, that would be the practical effect of their policy prescriptions if we were to listen to them. Thankfully, they are only moonbats so we can safely ignore them. But they certainly were a colorful lot, weren’t they? For a moment, it took me back to my youthful days as a Viet Nam War protester.

The big difference I suppose is that while my friends and I really did hate the war, we had other perfectly legitimate reasons to protest; not the least of which were the protest babes who usually made up more than 50% of any anti-war crowd back in those days. Crudely put, there simply was no better place to get laid than at a protest march. And the primo drugs that were available also made marching with the moonbats a very attractive activity.

So for both nostalgic and aesthetic reasons, the “Moonbats on Parade” in Washington will be named Cluebat of the Week. And if you take a few minutes to read just a few of the posts below, maybe you’ll find something or someone that brings a tear to your eye and a lump in your throat like this past weekend’s demonstration did for me.

“Stupidity is an elemental force for which no earthquake is a match”
(Karl Kraus, Austrian poet and playwright)

“Yeah, right Karl. But what about a hurricane?”
(Me)

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Mark Coffey’s Weekly Jackass is noted cartoonist and ignoramus Ted Rall, who has called charity givers “suckers.” Rall certainly knows how to highlight the compassionate side of liberalism.

Fred Fry is mad at President Clinton and has a few choice words on what the former Molester-in-Chief can do with his unwanted tax cuts. It’s tax deductible too!

The Headmistress at the Common Room doesn’t believe in corporal punishment for her homeschoolers I’m sure. But she’s mad enough to cane news reporters whose reporting from New Orleans was a travesty of journalism.

Giacomo at Joust the Facts tells us about some breathtaking cluelessness evinced by of all people, the Dalai Lama. We have just GOT to get the Lama and Osama together in the same room!

Below the Beltway goes dumpster diving to find European reaction to Hurricane Katrina to be just a little too hysterical.

Those personable pachyderms from Academic Elephants shake their trunk at Cluebat Hall of Famer John Kerry whose comments at Brown University about the Bush Administration are fisked right smartly.

Angry in the Great White North comes down hard on Mother Sheehan for her complaint that she has to share TV time with unimportant things like hurricanes and such.

Two Dogs rips into a few of his commenters who need some remedial civics instruction as well as more than half a brain.

More on Kerry from our bud The Maryhunter who reminds us that John Kerry was in Viet Nam. You didn’t know that?

Pat Curley shows Mother Sheehan to be even more of a hypocrite than we knew as he’s got a photo of her body guards carrying guns. I wonder who she’s blowing kisses to?

Cao at Cao’s Blog exorcises her own personal islamofascist demon who has been tormenting her for a while. And after reading this, if you’re still prone to the siren song of tolerance when it comes to these thugs, I suggest you adopt one yourself. Just make sure to keep sharp objects away from them.

Here’s some satire to go with your afternoon tea. Mr. Right has “Angry Protesters Demand US out of US Now!”

Mike Huckabee for President sends us a link to this Alan Dershowitz piece in HuffPo on why President Bush is so dangerous. Can you believe it’s because humans are living longer, more productive lives today?

Jimmie K at But that’s Just my Opinion throws the words about the global warming hoax of Tony Blair right into the faces of the clueless greenies who should be in anguish at this point.

Our satirical friends at The Nose on your Face have done it again with their take on the “Stuck on Stupid” quote from General Honore. Like Mr. Gump says “Stupid is as stupid does.”

Speaking of stupid, the folks at ROFA Six blog present us with this piece of flummoxry from a nursing home employee who wants $9 million for…well, read it and weep.

Van Helsing fires a silver bullet at Ted Turner - “The Mouth from the South” – for his clueless pronouncements about the benevolent and peace loving North Koreans.

Beth at MVRWC has a few choice words about the controversy over a 14 year old girl being expelled from a Christian School because her parents were lesbians. Beth is begging for a membership in the NAACP.

Please go to Atlas Shrugs and see Carnival Golden Girl Pamela’s post on Ted Kennedy volunteering to plug the levees in New Orleans all by himself. The picture of Kennedy being airlifted underneath a Huey is priceless…as is the picture of Pamela in a Supergirl outfit. Woot!

Rachel at the new (to me) blog Tinkerty Tonk has a jaw-dropping post about Katie Couric and her shameless exploitation of tragedy. Good writing and a nice looking site!

B-Right and Early quotes Senator Chuck Shumer about how independent minded Democrats are when compared to Republicans. Wha? Who? WTF? Jim does a good job making Chuckie look totally clueless.

Josh Cohen at Multiple Mentality shows how Georgia Governor Perdue singlehandedly created a gas crisis in his home state. Like Kevin Bacon’s character in Animal House during the Homecoming parade riot; “Remain Calm! All is well!”

Tom Bowler from the excellent blog Libertarian Leanings highlights some head scratching comments from moonbat extraordinaire Cynthia McKinney.

Wonder Woman at North American Patriot has an eye-opener about Google searches and George Bush. This from the folks that think that Neo Nazi websites are news aggregators but that Little Green Footballs is not.

My blogbud Jay at Stop theACLU has some recent perfidy by the “rights” organization regarding the Boy Scouts and homosexuals.

How about the Ferris Buehler of the Congresss, the Sausage King of Washington, that log rolling, pork barrelling Alaskan King Crab Don Young and his comments about critics of government spending? Here are the Reaganites Unite with the forearm shiver that leaves him bloody and bleeding.

Bullwinkle at Random Numbers has some thoughts on “Hillary Clinton look-alike” Joan Baez and the aging troubador’s pronouncements on the nature of war.

Finally, here’s my post on Katrina coverage “When ‘That’s the way it is’ Isn’t.”

Got this in the snail mail yesterday. Don’t quite know what to make of it except to say I’m not surprised given how much people are complaining about the response of the federal government to the recent hurricanes.

Greetings from the President:

Daryl

A thousand pardons to all of you who are wondering where the Carnival is this week.

The Carnival has fallen victim to events ocurring in my real life…which is to say the time necessary to devote to doing it and doing it well has vanished during the middle of the week. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday will be very, very busy for the forseeable future. This is why…

THE CARNIVAL IS MOVING!

That’s right. As of tomorrow, the Carnival’s permanent home will move to Fridays of every week. Since I have Friday’s off, it will make it possible for me to devote the time necessary to make the Carnival a worthwhile read. This also means that the deadline for submissions will change as well to Thursday at 10:00 PM Eastern.

Again, my apologies for the confusion this week but I can promise that this move will work out for the best in the end.

SSSSHHHH…Be Vewy Quiet. I’m huntin’ Repubwicans…heheheheheheh!

The indictment of Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay is one of the least surprising developments in politics since the Democrats’ efforts to buy votes with crack cocaine in Ohio last November. Given the level of scrutiny directed toward the Texas Republican regarding everything but his bathroom habits, the laughably partisan Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, like his counterpart Elmer Fudd, was destined to succeed in finding the rabbit but will be hard pressed to ultimately catch the critter and make a stew out of him.

Instead, all Earle has succeeded in doing is making hash out of his investigation, something a federal judge will not find amusing – federal judges having a much narrower sense of humor than your average Texas pol. For in order to understand the indictment of DeLay, one must understand the wild, wild, west nature of Texas politics and how being “colorful” and “larger than life” is the best way to get ahead in the rough and tumble mud wrestling of Texas political culture.

Unlike in some of the more staid environs out east and in the Midwest, politics in Texas is a spectator sport, albeit one that requires the spectators to come equipped with a scrub brush and an extra-strength bar of soap. Both DeLay and Earle have come up through the ranks of their respective parties by successfully playing as close to the edge of the law that ethics and decency will allow, all the while “Aw Shucks”-ing and backslapping their way through successful election campaigns. It is the campaigns themselves with the ungodly amounts of money raised and spent that grease the skids of law and politics at the statehouse level.

An example would be your typical campaign for an obscure public office like State Railroad Commissioner. Through some quirk in the law, the Commission controls the oil industry in Texas which may have something to do with the fact that on average, candidates spend well over half a million dollars to get elected and most candidates spend much more than that. A run for the Texas Senate is similarly expensive. Contrast those figures in my own state of Illinois where the average amount spent on a state Senate seat is around $50,000 – figures skewed upward by races run in Chicago and its suburbs – and you have an idea of how really, really, important it is to raise money in Texas if you want to get anywhere in politics.

If money is the mother’s milk of politics, Texas has a corner on motherhood. And down through the years, well meaning reformers from both parties have attempted to change the political landscape by trying to put a stop to some of the more outrageous examples of campaign finance shenanigans, mostly to no avail. Like reformers of federal campaign laws have discovered to their utter dismay, the more strictures you put into place, the more loopholes wide enough you can drive a Texas sized 18 wheeler through are created.

Hence, we have the laughable spectacle of DeLay being indicted for a campaign finance tactic carried out gleefully by both sides. Texas law stipulates that corporate contributions to candidates are illegal. No problem, say both parties. They simply channel the money to the national parties who then churn the money back to candidates for state office through “local party building” efforts that allow the national party organs to donate money for that purpose.

Simple, elegant, legal…and unethical. Here’s a tally of what the Democrats have done with the law recently:

In fact, on October 31, 2002, the Texas Democratic Party sent the Democratic National Committee (DNC) $75,000, and on the same day, the DNC sent the Texas Democratic Party $75,000. On July 19, 2001, the Texas Democratic Party sent the DNC $50,000 and, again on the same day, the DNC sent the Texas Democratic Party $60,000. On June 8, 2001, the Texas Democratic Party sent the DNC $50,000. That very same day, the DNC sent the Texas Democratic Party $60,000.

As the Captain points out in his article, DA Earle has a problem separating his duties as a prosecutor representing the people and a partisan representing the interests of his party. This is not unusual in Texas as I’m positive you can find similar examples of Republican DA’s in Texas acting in a manner not in keeping with the ethical requirements of their office. It is the nature of the system. And that system lives and breathes money. Doing the Texas Two-Step with the campaign finance laws is a dance done by both political parties. To pretend otherwise is hypocritical. And having DeLay indicted for violating campaign finance laws in Texas is like indicting a politician for kissing babies; it may be true but given the nature of the beast and the fact that everyone does it, how can you do it in good conscience?

The funniest observer of Texas politics, Molly Ivins, has said “Good thing we’ve still got politics in Texas—finest form of free entertainment ever invented…. ” The Loony Toons moment of indicting Tom DeLay will probably be good for a few laughs but I suspect Ronnie Earle will share the fate of Elmer Fudd and other Bugs Bunny nemeses and will end up in the stew pot himself instead of the “wascally wabbit.”

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin has an outstanding round-up of both blogger and media reaction to the indictment. Press react this morning has been predictable with a New York Times editorial calling for DeLay’s permanent removal from his leadership position and having a disguised editorial on the front page gleefully listing what they consider to be Republican baggage going into the midterms next year.

Also, the Captain weighs in with WaPo’s surprising skepticism regarding the indictment.

The late, great ABC newsman Frank Reynolds was angry.

The date was March 30, 1981 and President Ronald Reagan victim of an assassination attempt, was at that moment being operated on to remove a bullet in his chest. Three other people had been wounded in the hail of shots from John Hinckley’s gun including White House Press Secretary James Brady.

Reynolds, an old-school newsman had been his usual calm, unflappable self despite the chaos in the newsroom around him. He had two producers talking to him in his ear piece as well as several reporters updating him every few minutes. But anchoring a live newscast had its own set of problems, not the least of which was that rumors were swirling about any number of things. Unconfirmed reports had Reagan slightly injured. Others had him at death’s door. Still other rumors dwelt with the condition of James Brady who was struck in the head by one of Hinckley’s bullets. One of Reynold’s producers reporting from George Washington University Hospital said that he had just talked to a doctor who confirmed that James Brady was dead.

Of course, James Brady was not dead, although he was in critical condition. According to his account, even after being told that Brady was gone, Reynold’s hesitated. Some reporter’s instinct told him in his gut that the information just wasn’t solid enough. Despite his misgivings, Reynolds went ahead and announced it with appropriate solemnity.

Within minutes, the ABC reporter on the scene at the hospital was frantically telling Reynolds that Brady was still alive. Reynold’s, angry and embarrassed, lost his composure on air for a moment and said “Let’s nail it down, let’s get it right.”

Critics rightly took ABC and Reynolds to task for reporting what turned out to be a rumor. In those days, it was considered bad journalism to pass along speculation and gossip. These days, as Dan Rather put it, sensationalizing the news by reporting wild rumors and unconfirmed, unsubstantiated, 2nd hand accounts of events, the press is “speaking truth to power.”

Rather isn’t the only media apologist who is excusing the MSM’s shockingly bad performance during coverage of Hurricane Katrina. Matthew Felling of the Center for Media and Public Affairs is pleading for understanding because of “conditions:”

Media analysts noted that conditions in New Orleans were chaotic and that reporters relied on fragmentary accounts, collected from often unverifiable sources.

“The fog of war and the gusts of a hurricane both cloud and obscure vital truths,” said Matthew Felling of the Center for Media and Public Affairs.

“What we’re seeing here is no different than the reports of museum looting right after U.S. troops entered Baghdad. It’s not that different from election night 2000 when some journalists prematurely declared a winner. In all three cases, the public would have been served by a bit more patience and less feigned certainty.”

Note that Mr. Felling excuses the numerous factual errors and rumormongering by reporters as he pleads that journalism is too difficult to get right when things are confusing and besides, it’s happened before so it’s okay.

Contrast this attitude with the attitude of Mr. Reynolds following his faux paux and you get a perfect summary of what is wrong with journalism. News today is about “the story” not “the truth.” Part of the story of Katrina was the chaotic and violent conditions at the Superdome and Convention Center. Any information that contributed to that storyline was run without first being filtered through any kind of fact checking or confirmation process. Television producers and executives today want “flow” to the news, as if events unfold in a nice, tidy sequence. The broadcast should “march” at a swift pace. This contributes to the “drama” of the news. In short, the more entertaining we can make the news, the more viewers we will attract.

What happens to the truth in all this show-biz is predictable. When a bystander comes up to a reporter and tells a story of a 7 year old girl being raped and murdered in the bathroom of the Convention Center, since it fits into the storyline of the narrative, it is passed along and becomes part of “the first draft of history.” Except this draft is of a TV drama script, not a history book.

But other accusations that have gained wide currency are more demonstrably false. For instance, no one found the body of a girl – whose age was estimated at anywhere from 7 to 13 – who, according to multiple reports, was raped and killed with a knife to the throat at the Convention Center.

Many evacuees at the Convention Center the morning of Sept. 3 treated the story as gospel, and ticked off further atrocities: a baby trampled to death, multiple child rapes.

Salvatore Hall, standing on the corner of Julia Street and Convention Center Boulevard that day, just before the evacuation, said, “They raped and killed a 10-year-old in the bathroom.”

Neither he nor the many people around him who corroborated the killing had seen it themselves.

This widely reported story was a rumor. Part of the problem was the irresponsible behavior of Mayor Nagin and Police Chief Compass who continuously passed along rumors of the most spectacular atrocities including the rape of babies:

Compass told Winfrey on Sept. 6 that “some of the little babies (are) getting raped” in the Dome. Nagin backed it with his own tale of horrors: ‘’They have people standing out there, have been in that frickin’ Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people.’’

But both men have since pulled back to a degree.

“The information I had at the time, I thought it was credible,” Compass said, conceding his earlier statements were false. Asked for the source of the information, Compass said he didn’t remember.

Nagin was also the originator of the “10,000 dead” speculation, a figure that the Mayor still refuses to say who gave him.

These sins are more venal in nature in that when an authority figure like the Chief of Police or the Mayor says something – even if it’s off the wall – it must be reported as news. However, to take these accounts at face value without a hint of caution or skepticism and then fail to make any but the most cursory attempts at correcting the record later illustrates how far television news has fallen. During coverage of the Reagan assassination attempt, reporters, producers, and anchors were not overly concerned with the slow pace at which new information was coming in. The good journalists like John Chancellor and Frank Reynolds reminded the audience constantly that since this was a live news event – still something of a novelty in 1981 – that reporting on events was necessarily difficult. I distinctly remember Frank Reynolds ruefully pointing out that coverage of the event was not like a story on the nightly newscast; that the confusing and conflicting stories coming out of the the assassination attempt was an illustration of just how hard a job gathering the news was.

Unfortunately, the reporters on scene in New Orleans during coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina didn’t seem to have the same problem.

The votes are in from this week’s Watcher’s Council and the winner in the Council category is yours truly for my post “The Wild, Wild, Wild, Wild, and Wacky World of Cindy Sheehan.” Only a tie breaking vote by the Watcher himself prevented Dr. Sanity from finishing on top with her cogent post “The Lunatic Fringe.” Instead, the good Doc finished a close second.

The winning Non-Council post was Junkyard Blog’s “A Knife in the Back.”

If you’d like to participate in the Watcher’s vote, go here and follow instructions.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

There is a school of thought that believes the idea of loyalty to one’s country is a crass, outmoded concept not worthy of consideration by thinking people. Rather, loyalty if given at all, should be reserved for nebulous and ethereal entities like “humanity” or “the family of man.” International socialism has long advocated this global view of loyalty – except, of course, when the old Soviet Union was in trouble for one of its frequent deviations from civilized behavior. It was at this point that Moscow would crack the whip and leftists from Berlin, to London, to Los Angeles would dutifully parrot the party line, excusing the brutes in the Kremlin for all sorts of very unsocialist and inhuman atrocities.

Thankfully, this view of loyalty is not shared by the vast majority of citizens in the United States. Most Americans recognize the importance of loyalty to the government during a time of war when America’s sons and daughters are in harm’s way. This has never been more evident than when looking at how we view the war in Iraq.

According to the latest polls, barely 40% of the country approves of the way that President Bush is conducting the war in Iraq. But when asked if we should pull our troops out before the job of securing the country and helping the Iraqis achieve a stable, democratic government is complete fully two thirds of Americans say no. This slap in the face to the leftist narrative of how the American people see the war in Iraq seems to have been lost on this past weekend’s partygoers in Washington whose speakers continued to insist that the majority of the people opposed the war and wished the troops to come home.

Leave it to the left to never let the truth stand in the way of a good old fashioned Soviet-style propaganda campaign.

True, there are permutations within permutations in the poll numbers. One of the more remarkable tidbits to be found in these figures is the fact that the belief that the war was a “mistake” because no mass stockpiles of WMD were found has hovered near the 50% mark for more than a year. What makes it remarkable is that even though roughly half the nation thinks going into Iraq was an error, a sizable portion of those people also believe we should stay until the job is done.

The left would point to these Americans and call them confused. I think they should be congratulated for their loyalty. What the left sees as stupidity, I see typical American common sense. Most Americans – even those who opposed going to war in the first place – realize the dire consequences of a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq. The destabilization and possible collapse of the Iraqi government would place America in great danger and would be inimical to our national interest. This fact is so obvious that it calls into question why almost all of the speakers at the anti-war rally in Washington on Saturday called for the immediate withdrawal of American troops.

To understand why one need only look a little closer at the motley collection of socialists, anarchists, anti-globalists, pan-Arabists, post modern deconstructionists, one worlders, and racialists who descended on Washington for their moment in the media spotlight. If there’s one thing the tatterdemalion left has become over these last lost years since the fall of the Soviet Union it is publicity deprived. They are absolutely starved for media attention. Even the anarchists can’t have a decent riot that hardly rates a blurb in The Guardian. Part of the problem is the fractured nature of their “coalition.” The only way they could get the kind of numbers necessary to get anyone to pay any attention to them was by inviting everyone in the world who has a grudge against America.

Hence, most of the podium speakers at the rally were not there to solely promote an anti-war agenda but rather each had their own particular anti-American ax to grind. The racialists called for an end to racism. The tribalists called for an end to capitalism. The primitives called for an end to industrialized civilization. The greenies called for an end to everything else. Yes, they all paid lip service to the anti-war message that brought them together in the first place. But their real reason for bringing their followers to Washington was to garner support from the hard-left moneymen like George Soros and leftist PR gurus like David Fenton who is currently managing Cindy Sheehan’s race toward obscurity. A few dollars here and there gleaned from the Smart Set in Washington will at least keep the mimeograph machines going and pay the rent for a few more months.

Not surprisingly, there was very little talk of loyalty. When “patriotism” was brought up, we were continually assured that yes, these were indeed patriotic Americans who only wanted to exercise their right to dissent from government. Of that, I have little doubt. The question isn’t whether they are patriotic Americans, the questions is are they loyal Americans?

The two terms are related but not mutually exclusive. Patriotism is a feeling, a “love or devotion to one’s country.” Loyalty, by definition, is an action word. It is “allegiance to one’s country” or “faithfulness to one’s government.” Many a traitor has come and gone calling themselves “patriots.” Few would agree that they were being loyal.

How does the left get around this little non-sequitur? They huffily point out that they are being loyal to the “idea” of America or “American ideals.” Since these ideals were present at the founding of the nation, it is perhaps gratifying that so many on the left have finally embraced the idea of strict constructionism – at least when it becomes a convenient explanation for their perfidy in giving aid and comfort to an enemy that is shooting at American soldiers overseas.

For that is what the demonstrators in Washington forgot to mention in all their sloganeering and speechifying; the fact that the insurgents and terrorists in Iraq have only one chance to achieve their goal of overthrowing the Iraqi government and gaining power. And that is only if America walks away before the job is done.

They are hoping that history repeats itself and America abandons an ally to its fate as a result of both timid policy makers and domestic opposition to the war. And since this hope is all that the insurgents have to go on (for they can never defeat the US military on the field of battle), leftist opposition to the war can only be judged as disloyalty. They can call themselves patriots if they want. There is no way we can look into their souls and judge their love or hate for the United States. But we can certainly judge their loyalty based on their actions – actions that have the practical affect of encouraging the insurgents in Iraq to up the body count of Americans to test the mettle of our citizenry to stay the course until the job is well and truly done.

As the democratic process in Iraq moves forward in fits and starts and the Iraqi people slowly and cautiously march toward an uncertain future that may yet include sectarian violence and other setbacks in achieving national unity, the need for our troops to stay and assist them in this historic task will remain great. And to sustain our elected leaders in this hard, slogging task with our loyalty will become more and more critical as time goes by. It no doubt is the greatest test of our fealty to the United States government that many of us will ever have. But it will be absolutely necessary for us to win through to total victory and bring our sons and daughters home in triumph.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, the 15th edition of the Carnival of the Clueless will be delayed until tomorrow.

I was unexpectedly called into work this morning and rather than trying to finish when I get home later this evening, I’ll just publish first thing in the morning on Wednesday.

I can promise a a passel of cluelessness so make sure you stop in and visit first thing in the morning.

Calling all bloggers!

You have until Monday night at 11:00 PM to get your entries in for this week’s Carnival of the Clueless.

Last week’s Carnival was the best yet with 34 entries from both the right and left side of the political spectrum hammering those individuals and groups among us who are truly clueless.

Here’s what we’re looking for:

Each week, I’ll be calling for posts that highlight the total stupidity of a public figure or organization – either left or right – that demonstrates that special kind of cluelessness that only someone’s mother could defend…and maybe not even their mothers!

Everyone knows what I’m talking about. Whether it’s the latest from Bill Maher or the Reverend Dobson, it doesn’t matter. I will post ALL ENTRIES REGARDLESS OF WHETHER I AGREE WITH THE SENTIMENTS EXPRESSED OR NOT..

You can enter by emailing me, leaving a link in the comments section, or by using the handy, easy to use form at Conservative Cat.

WHITE SOX SLUGGER PAUL KONERKO (L) CONGRATULATES PITCHER MARK BUEHRLE (R) FOLLOWING THE CLUB’S 4-1 VICTORY OVER MINNESOTA ON SUNDAY

There’s a hint of fall in the air here in Chicago. The leaves on the few elm trees that remain following the Dutch Elm blight that took so many of the beautiful giants in my youth are beginning to turn as are the gangly sycamores and noble hickory whose easy to reach lower branches have given dozens of generations of Midwestern boys both the thrill of accomplishment in climbing their first tree and the misery of their first broken bone as they would occasionally plunge willy-nilly from those same inviting limbs landing awkwardly on the ground.

One other tree also has begun its seasonal transition; the beloved Green Ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica), a friend to early settlers due to its ramrod straight trunk which was used extensively in the construction of log cabins. More recently, Midwesterners discovered another use for the tree’s wood: It makes wonderful weapons for baseball batsmen.

There is no more difficult feat in sports than a baseball batter’s attempt to hit a round ball careening toward him from a little more than 60 feet away, inches from his person, at more than 90 miles per hour with a rounded stick of wood weighing on average 34 ounces. The 5 ounce ball of tightly wound horsehide around a plug of cork can be made by the pitcher when thrown to dip, to shoot left or right, to slide, to flutter, or to hop like a scared rabbit.

It can also be made to curve so that when leaving the pitcher’s hand, the ball appears to be making a bee line straight for the batter’s head only to fall harmlessly, knee high, over the outside corner of the diamond shaped home plate. The 18 inch sideways break of the ball while dropping 10 inches causes the knees of the best major league hitters to turn to jelly as their rear end obeys the natural law of self preservation and attempts to flee even while the highly developed mammalian brain of the batter fashioned over 50 million years of evolution is screaming at the rump to stay put so the player can swing the bat. All to no avail. The pitcher tries not to smile too broadly because he knows the next one he throws may not be as perfectly delivered. It may in fact hang like a ripe plum, low and inviting over the middle of the plate, at which point the batter swings and connects and sends the ball flying into the next zip code.

This is the essence of baseball; the eternal struggle between pitcher and batter. The one-on-one face off in baseball is the most lovely of human competitive endeavors as it reveals all of the characteristics of sport that captures us and demands our attention. There’s courage, guile, physical prowess, and a will to win at stake on every pitch. It is what makes baseball such a sublime and elevating experience for those of us who love the game and hold it so close to our hearts.

Those of us with a passion for the game are now a distinct minority in America. It wasn’t always so. The fact that there are dozens of reasons why this is true tells us more about America than it does about the popularity of baseball. While there are many that bemoan the fall of baseball from its preeminent position as the number one sport in America, one cannot escape the fact that the game has fallen victim to what is the essence of America itself; an unalterable and inexorable fact of life in this country that things do not remain the same, that society and culture are in a constant state of motion.

America has changed. Baseball hasn’t.

Baseball couldn’t change. The game itself is draped in tradition, in memory. There is no other game seen through the prism of remembrance quite like baseball. Whether sitting on the back porch in 1950’s and 60’s suburbia listening to the hissing, static filled play-by-play on radio while the fireflies blinked to announce their presence and the sweet smell of Jasmine filled the nostrils with the scent of summer, of family, of a shared passion. Or perhaps in the city you sat on the front stoop with every other house on the block blaring out the call of the game, a broadcast legend conducting a city wide symphony of sound, mothers with babies, fathers with sons, and the young, the old, laughing, talking, arguing, loving. A neighborhood, a community united around a passion so intense that enmities were temporarily forgotten as “the boys” or “the bums” performed extraordinary feats of effortless athleticism with both the workmanlike attitude of the blue collar hero and the pizazz of a circus performer.

Yes, that America existed at one time. And while memory may skew some of the details and gloss over much of the unseemly realities from those times, there is no doubt that baseball for much of the country occupied a privileged position in the hearts and minds of the people. In a time before the total saturation of sports, before ubiquitous replays, before free agency made players into hobos, before steroids turned the players into Frankenstein monsters, before rape trials and murder trials and divorces and scandal after scandal there was the pitcher, the batter, and the lovely dance of strategy and possibility. To bunt or not to bunt. To swing away or hit and run. To pitch out, or put the rotation” play on, or simply to play “straight up.” This was actually part of the national conversation when baseball was king.

But America stands still for no one. Certainly not for a game that used to be known as “The National Pastime.” For that is what one did when a game was in progress; pass the time in other pursuits while the game itself functioned as the background to daily life. While we sat on the porch listening to the game, as a family we would be laughing, joking, carrying on, reading, knitting – all the things that families do together that cements the bonds of love and affection we hold so dear and make life itself fill up with joy and satisfaction. Of course, utter silence would reign when some pivotal point in the game was occurring. But otherwise, baseball was important for what it meant as a shared experience for the family, for the neighborhood, and for the larger community in which we lived.

But those things have faded in significance. The reason why is not really important. It’s not like one can get in a time machine and take America back and deposit her in some other reality. Some refer to that period as a simpler time, a misnomer if there ever was one. It’s never been “simple” being an American. The ability to change, to adapt has always been the most highly prized attribute in American society. “It’s good to be shifty in a new country” was actually an adage taught in grammar school in the 19th century. The unbridled pace of change that makes America such a hugely vibrant and vital place also makes it a scary, even depressing milieu to live. For many, the psychic cost of change is too much to bear and broken lives and shattered families litter the seascape of our society like the flotsam and jetsam of a shipwreck following a huge storm.

Change is neither good nor bad; it simply exists. And the changes in American society that have caused the game of baseball to lose its luster and hasten its fall from grace say more about us as a people and how we interact with each other than it does about the game itself. It is ironic that while sports – all sports – currently occupy such a lofty position in the national psyche that the essence of the games and their original purpose as a uniting expedient for American communities has been lost. Now the games are shared experiences nationally. There is not quite the same feeling of intimate association with a particular team and its players. Sports is very big business. The franchises are owned by giant corporations rather than the gentleman sportsmen of the past. The Yawkeys, the Comiskeys, the Wrigleys and other former owners used to take a personal interest in seeing that their teams were competitive. This is not necessarily true today as the relentless rise in salaries has necessitated that the bean counters dictate how competitive a team might be in a given year. Can’t afford that extra $15 million a year for a front line pitcher? Oh well, maybe one of the kids we drafted last year will come through and allow us to be competitive until September.

This is what passes for strategy in today’s game.

But even the machinations of heartless corporations can’t dim my love and affection for baseball. Try as they might, neither the players nor their hated nemeses the owners can destroy the game. Even if some mighty wind arose and swept away every major league club, their high priced players, their greedy owners, their luxury boxes, their cookie-cutter stadiums, and especially their grasping, conniving, insufferable sports agents, the world would go on. In fact, it doesn’t take a soothsayer to know that even if such a calamity were to occur, the very next day, somewhere in America, whether on a farm or in a back yard or city park, young boys would gather to play the game. Which also says a lot about America. Some things will never change. And I suspect that despite the popularity of other sports, there will always be just enough of us who love baseball to keep it alive.

Not everything in America changes. And that is a good thing.