Right Wing Nut House

PABLO OZUNA (38) IS WALKING ON AIR AS THE WHITE SOX CELEBRATE WINNING THE AMERICAN LEAGUE PENNANT FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 1959

It was the bottom of the eighth inning of last night’s pennant clinching White Sox win when the camera found him, the oldest living member of baseball’s storied Hall of Fame. The Sox had gone ahead in the top of that inning thanks to another intervention conducted by the Gods of Baseball whose interest in this year’s Chicago southside baseballers rivals that of of a mother bear for her cubs (small “c”). But when millions of fans watched as the lens focused on 97 year old Al Lopez, I’m sure there was more than one old timer who gave in to the urge to allow a wave of nostalgia claim their emotions and shed a tear for all of the empty, fruitless years of living in Chicago and being a fan of the Chicago White Sox.

For you see, Al Lopez was the 50 year old manager of the 1959 “Go-Go” White Sox who captured the hearts of the city along with the American League pennant, the last time a Chicago baseball team represented the city in the World Series. Lopez also had the distinction of managing the 1954 Cleveland Indians team that won an astonishing 111 games in a 154 game schedule, a record not broken until the Yankees won 114 games in 1998.

He managed the Sox during a golden era in the history of the franchise. The nine year period between 1957-65, saw the White Sox finish 2nd five times in addition to the 1959 pennant. He had the utter misfortune of first, managing during an astounding run by the New York Yankees where, under their mercurial manager Casey Stengel, the Bronx Bombers represented the American League in the World Series no less than 13 times in the 15 year period encompassing 1949-64. Secondly, he managed before the advent of the playoff system so that despite tremendously successful 90+ win seasons (98 wins in 1964 finishing 2nd to the 99 wins of the Yanks), only the winners of the American League and National League races ended up in post-season play.

Lopez managed in what most people consider to be the apogee of baseball’s popularity in America. It was also an era of virtual slavery for Major League players who, thanks to the “reserve clause” in every player’s contract, were bound to their team as surely as a slave was to his owner. And while this was very bad for the players of that era, it was very good for baseball fans. Teams were remarkably stable personnel wise so that fans knew year to year who was on the team, even what the daily lineup was going to be.

For the Sox of that era there was the flashy Venezuelan shortstop Louis Aparicio who perennially led the league in stolen bases. Then there was the workmanlike #2 hitter Nellie Fox. A great second baseman, Fox was nevertheless remembered for the great, bulging chaw of tobacco in his cheek that inspired tens of thousands of Chicago area children to imitate with a half dozen or so pieces of “Joe Palooka” bubble gum. Happy-go-lucky Minnie Minosa was a sheer joy to watch play the game as his infectious enthusiasm and broad, toothy smile lit up even the black and white TV’s of that era. And Ted Kluszewski - “Big Klu” - whose upper arms were so massive, he had to cut the sleeves off his jersey just so that he could swing the bat properly. There was Roy Seivers, “Jungle” Jim Rivera, Sherman Lollar, Jim Landis, and Ed Torborg. Not a real power hitter among them - at least none who could compete with anyone on the hated Yankees.

For pitching, Lopez brought with him an aging star from Cleveland, a hard nosed no-nonsense southpaw named Early Wynn. It was thought that Wynn’s best years were behind him. But in that magical year of 1959, the 39 year old Wynn picked up 22 wins. Bob Shaw (18 wins) Billy Pierce (14 wins), and Dick Donovan (9 wins) rounded out a starting staff that helped the team to a 94 win season.

But it was Lopez himself who set the tone for the team. With a quiet confidence, he set the league on fire with a speed game not seen since the depression era. The team played at old Comiskey park, a roomy, pitcher-friendly park with a centerfield and power alleys in the outfield where home runs went to die. He loaded up the team with a line up of quality defensive players who were willing to play together and sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Playing what is called a “situational game,” - bunting, putting baserunners in motion, stealing - the White Sox of 1959 may have been something of a joke offensively, but their pitching and defense along with excellent clutch hitting allowed them to beat out the Indians for the title.

Their World Series appearance turned out to be anti-climactic as they lost in 6 games to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the first World Series played west of Missouri. But Chicago never forgot that team. And in the ensuing years as the Sox would come oh-so-close only to fade in the stretch or worse, the hated Yankees would catch fire and surpass them, both the young and the old could only look forward to the coming spring when hope would be reborn and the possibilities of the season were measured not in blooming flora and fauna but in whether or not the new kid called up from the minors could get the curve ball over for a strike.

Then came divisional play and for the first decade and a half, the Sox were shut out of the playoffs as the team’s fortunes plummeted along with the talent level of its once rightly respected farm teams. In a time when teams were spending tens of millions of dollars on talent at both the major and minor league level, Sox old-fashioned owner Bill Veeck tried to run the club on a shoestring. Finally, with the team in danger of being sold to a group in the Tampa-St.Petersburg area (now home of the Devil Rays), an ownership group headed up by real estate tycoon Jerry Reinsdorf bought the team and by 1983, had built a winner. The team that year made it into the playoffs, losing to eventual world champion Baltimore and their lights-out pitching staff.

In the next two decades, the White Sox were competitive but only managed two other playoff appearances. Neither team had much of a chance in the playoffs although the 1993 team competed well against eventual world champion Toronto.

The Bears won a Super Bowl in 1985. Then came the Bulls run of 6 championships in 8 years. Those championships won by the Reinsdorf-owned Bulls only whetted the appetite of the city for what the people really craved; a World Series winner.

Then came the hiring of the manic Venezuelan Ozzie Guillen and the oddly matched General Manager Ken Williams. Guillen was like a phosphorus grenade, ready to explode and burn at a moment’s notice while Williams was a pool of cool water, hardly a ripple visible to the public. Somehow, the two forged a prosperous relationship and built the current American League champs. How that relationship will play out when things get a little bumpier in the future may be entertaining to watch; something akin to a NASCAR race where many wait for the inevitable crash in turn #3.

For now however, all that counts is history and legends in the making. The White Sox have made believers out of the American League. But making converts of White Sox fans will take a little more work. After 46 years of disappointment, we can be excused if we tend to be a bit skeptical.

As Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald readies his indictments against probable targets Lewis I. “Scooter” Libby and Karl Rove, the unfortunate truth is that any criminal proceedings against these or other current and former White House officials will validate the partisan political tactics used by the CIA to undermine the Bush Administration’s case for war.

This was not a case of a faction at the CIA resisting White House blame shifting. It was not a case of “setting the record straight” or “protecting the integrity” of the CIA. It was a case of naked, power politics played out at the highest levels of government as a small, partisan group of CIA analysts and operatives sought, through the use of selected leaking of cherry-picked information to friendly reporters, to influence the Presidential election of 2004.

As this Daily Telegraph article points out, the succession of leaks by CIA officials (or surrogates like Joe Wilson) had one goal in mind; to bring down the Bush Administration:

A powerful “old guard” faction in the Central Intelligence Agency has launched an unprecedented campaign to undermine the Bush administration with a battery of damaging leaks and briefings about Iraq.

The White House is incensed by the increasingly public sniping from some senior intelligence officers who, it believes, are conducting a partisan operation to swing the election on November 2 in favour of John Kerry, the Democratic candidate, and against George W Bush.

Jim Pavitt, a 31-year CIA veteran who retired as a departmental chief in August, said that he cannot recall a time of such “viciousness and vindictiveness” in a battle between the White House and the agency.

Whether Valerie Plame was an “analyst” or an “operative” in the CIA may be relevant to any criminal indictments regarding the leaking of her name. But in the CIA’s war against the Bush Administration, the fact that she worked for a division of the Agency that was doing most of the leaking of cherry-picked reports and analyses showing Saddam not to be a threat should be the focus of the “why” in the scandal.

Joe Wilson was sent by his wife’s superiors to Niger supposedly at the behest of Vice President Cheney, to discover whether or not the Iraqis were trying to buy yellowcake uranium in order to reconstitute their nuclear program. It was the most curious “fact-finding” trip in history. Wilson sat in a hotel while a succession of current and former Niger government officials were paraded before him each solemnly telling him that the charges were false, that the Iraqis had never asked the Niger government to circumvent international restrictions and sell them the uranium.

It was never explained why a group of Iraqi “businessmen” had met with former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki in 1999:

The intelligence report indicated that former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki was unaware of any contracts that had been signed between Niger and any rogue states for the sale of yellowcake while he was Prime Minister (1997-1999) or Foreign Minister (1996-1997). Mayaki said that if there had been any such contract during his tenure, he would have been aware of it. Mayaki said, however, that in June 1999, [redacted] businessman, approached him and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss “expanding commercial relations” between Niger and Iraq. The intelligence report said that Mayaki interpreted “expanding commercial relations” to mean that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales. The intelligence report also said that “although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to the UN sanctions on Iraq.” [page 43]

Maybe the Iraqis were interested in importing cowpeas.?

The Wilson trip stinks to high heaven of a set up. Talk about predetermining the outcome of intelligence! It seems incontestable that the group in the Agency working for the ouster of President Bush knew full well what the result of Joe Wilson’s trip to Niger would be. One pertinent question might be to ask why did they choose to send a retired, minor diplomat to do a job that could have been done by any number of other current State Department or even Agency people whose contacts were as good or better than Mr. Wilson’s?

The answer is that the cabal would have been unable to control someone else’s reporting on the matter of Iraqi attempts to buy uranium. Wilson was the perfect errand boy. He was also to prove over the next several months to be something of a loose cannon and a self-aggrandizing, vainglorious blabbermouth. In this interview with LA Weekly, Wilson admits he was shopping the story of his trip long before either the Nicholas Kristoff piece of May 6, 2003 where the Niger trip is first mentioned in print or Wilson’s own OpEd in the New York Times that led to the outing of his wife:

So I spoke to a number of reporters over the ensuing months. Each time they asked the White House or the State Department about it, they would feign ignorance. I became even more convinced that I was going to have to tell the story myself.

That was probably part of the set-up all along. As we know now, no one at the White House or State Department knew of Mr. Wilson’s trip to Niger or what he found out there.

There are numerous questions associated with the entire Niger caper that will probably never be answered satisfactorily: Who forged the documents used by the British and passed along to the US that indicated Saddam was attempting to purchase the yellowcake in the first place? Why wasn’t Wilson’s report passed on to the Vice President, the man who Wilson ostensibly went to Niger for in the first place? Did Wilson use his contacts with the media to pass along other classified information given to him by his wife that were damaging to the President’s campaign?

When it comes to the CIA and its numerous leakers, it appears that Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald has a blind spot. And because of that, the cabal that worked to defeat the President last November will probably be toasting their success later this week when indictments are handed down.

WHITE SOX PITCHER JOHN GARLAND STRIDES OFF THE MOUND AFTER STRIKING OUT LAST YEAR’S MOST VALUABLE PLAYER VLAD GUERRERO IN THE 6TH INNING OF LAST NIGHT’S GAME

There was a time when playing catch with one’s father was part of growing up, as natural and common place as running water.

I’m not sure the same holds true today. Families are different. Many families are without fathers and those that are so blessed either aren’t that interested in baseball or are limited by other factors such as work or alternative activities.

But most of the fathers I knew when I was growing up played catch or “Running Bases” with both their kids and other children in the neighborhood. And what I can recall about playing catch with my own father is that the man had what in baseball parlance is known as “a live arm.”

Even as a six or seven year old kid I knew my dad could pitch. A rather rotund figure, his delivery was effortless and the ball would steam into my mitt stinging my hand. It gave me a wonderful “grown up” feeling that he would throw the hard one to me. He had a curve ball that had a beautiful dip to it and his slider would shoot by my glove more often than not. The guy even threw a knuckle ball that was no fun to try and catch I can assure you.

I was probably ten years old when I realized with a shock that my dad had what baseball insiders call “good stuff.” This is something that a pitcher is born with. Either one has a live arm that leads to having good stuff or one doesn’t. While it is true that much of the art of pitching is learned including the mechanics of throwing the ball, the gift of a live arm is bestowed on precious few. It is something in the way the ball is released from a pitcher’s hand, or the snap of his wrist, or the way his shoulder rotates, or any one of a number of other mysterious reasons why some pitchers can make the ball move like a Mexican jumping bean.

Some pitchers with live arms never make it to the big leagues. Many pitchers blessed with good stuff have a devil of a time trying to throw strikes. The ball moves so precipitously and in so many ways that it sometimes takes years of hard work to learn how to control the flight of the ball. A good example would be Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax.

Koufax could throw the ball 100 MPH but it was his curve ball and slider that were devastating to hitters. Sandy’s problem was that he could not control how much those particular pitches would break. Major League hitters figured out early on to be very patient with the young southpaw because Koufax more often than not would walk a hitter due to this chronic wildness.

After about 5 years, Sandy figured it out and was unhittable for the last few years of his career. The same exact thing could be said of Yankee hurler Randy Johnson who, once he conquered his wildness, was a reliable 20 game winner.

White Sox pitcher John Garland is such a pitcher. His smooth, effortless delivery masks the travail that hitters much go through to bat successfully against him. Last night, Garland’s pitching was so deceptive that the LA Angels broke their bats with regularity swinging at the moving, darting, hopping ball.

When a pitcher throws 95 MPH, the batter doesn’t have a whole hell of a lot of time to decide whether or not to swing. And when the ball has “late movement” - it darts inward or outward from the plate - the batsman doesn’t have a chance.

American League hitters have known this for years about Yankees closer Mariano Rivera. The chucker has such a live arm that hitters are swinging at pitches that almost hit them in the shoulder. Rivera’s pitchers start off right over the heart of the plate. But by the time the batter has committed to his swing, if he’s a right handed hitter the ball is digging toward his wrists. And by the time he makes contact (if he can catch up with the 93 MPH pitch) the ball is taking off his fingernails as the hitter’s bat meets the ball down near the handle of the bat.

Garland uses his “cut fastball” to get this effect. A cut fastball is thrown across the seams with the ball a little farther back in the hand (rather than gripped on the seams and thrown with the forefinger and index finger). While this means the ball is thrown with less vel0city, it also means the ball has a nasty, late break that can continuously fool hitters. This is what the Angels ran into last night; a man with a live arm and tremendous stuff so that it became almost impossible for them to “center” the ball on the bat and make good contact.

John Garland has finally lived up to his potential and on the national stage of the playoffs, proved he is one of the top 10 pitchers in baseball. At age 25, the sky is the limit for the righthander.

White Sox starters in general continue to impress. Through three games - 27 innings - Sox starters have pitched an incredible 26 1/3 innings with the last two starts complete game victories. Such an accomplishment has not been seen in the playoffs since 1997.

And the flummoxed Angles hitters are starting to press. They are swinging at bad pitches and are not patient at all as evidenced by the fact that those same Sox starters have pitched all those innings and allowed only one walk.

White Sox hitters on the other hand looked much more relaxed last night as they executed much better at the plate and on the bases. Jermaine Dye got caught when Aaron Rowand pumped a vicious line drive that looked ticketed for left field but was snared by Angles shortstop Orlando Cabrera who made an easy toss to second to double off Dye. Cabrera also hit a two-run homer for the Angels only runs.

That blemish on Garland’s game was not the result of a mistake but rather Cabrera’s excellent at bat in the sixth inning. Garland had been pitching the diminutive shortstop inside, crowding him successfully until the kid guessed right on a Garland fastball and sent a screaming line drive into the left field seats.

But that was all Garland allowed. He set down the Angels in order in the 9th to earn the 5-2 victory. Taking the loss was John Lackey whose performance was disappointing to say the least. Back in July when Lackey throttled the White Sox on 4 hits, his lively fastball was finding its target and his curve dropped like a stone. But last night, his curve ball hung like ripe fruit over the middle of the plate and Sox players took immediate advantage. Konerko’s two-run homer in the first started the Pale Hose off on the right foot while Sox bats banged out 11 hits.

Lackey just didn’t have it last night. He wasn’t spotting his fastball well and his breaking balls were rolling up to the plate with the words “hit me” written all over them. And while the Angels bullpen has been spectacular, getting them the lead has been a problem lately.

Tonight, a kid with one of the livest arms imaginable goes for the Halos. Ervin Sanatana may be a rookie but he already has a shutout of the White Sox in July and gets the nod over the ailing Bartolo Colon.

It should be interesting to see if White Sox hitters are patient with this kid and make him throw strikes. This will be the key tonight. I predict If the Sox hitters get more than 4 walks, they win the ballgame.

For the Angles, they almost have to win this game or face elimination on Monday. That said, it looks like October baseball will continue in Chicago for at least one more game.

This week’s Carnival features all sorts of cluebats for your reading pleasure. But by far and away, the award for Cluebat of the Week must go the Nobel Peace Prize Committee for their selection of Mohamed ElBaradei as recipient of this year’s Peace Prize.

It’s not enough that the selection committee has exhibited this kind of cluelessness in years passed. I actually thought they had reached a low point in 2001 when they nominated the most cynical and corrupt UN Secretary General in history Kofi Anan. Unfortunately, they followed that bit of idiocy with the nomination in 2002 of Cluebat Hall of Famer James Earl Carter. A former US President and current best friends with terrorists and thuggish dictators worldwide, Carter has become the planet’s number one busybody as he flits from hot spot to hot spot to sternly lecture pro-democratic forces about upsetting sensitive dictators like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela or Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe by challenging the results of their rigged elections.

Other “peace activists” who received the selection committee’s blessing have been baby killer Yassar Arafat and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbechev who received the peace prize the same year (1990) that 10,000 Soviet citizens languished in lunatic asylums not because they were mentally ill but because they disagreed with him.

Not content to nominate thugs and their apologists for the prize, the committee also has a website that has a children’s game called “The Peace Doves Game” where children are encouraged to disarm the world of nuclear weapons. In one of those chillingly surreal images that only liberals can come up with, the “peace doves” have rockets strapped to their backs (along with an olive branch in their beaks) and look more like eagles as they swoop down from space and disarm the 8 “so-called” nuclear powers.

IAEA doesn’t have a children’s game on their website but they do have a page called “The DG’s Corner” where the praises of nuclear enabler ElBaradei are sung. This is the same fella that turned a blind eye while A.Q. Khan and his Traveling Black Market Nuclear Technology Medicine Show made the circuit of terrorist states like Libya, Iran, and North Korea selling sensitive knowledge and hardware to the likes of Ghaddafi and Kim Jong Il. And would someone please explain to me why more than 10 years after Saddam was supposed to be disarmed he was allowed to keep - under the auspices of the IAEA - 500 tons of yellowcake uranium that the Iraqis were just waiting for ElBeradei and his clueless crew to turn their backs for five minutes so that they could reconstitute their nuclear program?

So…for cluelessness above and beyond the call of nature, the Nobel Peace Prize selection committee gets the nod as Cluebat of the Week.

So why not browse through the selections below of other clueless nincompoops? You won’t be disappointed!

“The bite of conscience, like the bite of a dog into a stone, is a stupidity.”
(Friedrich Nietzsche)

Hey Freddie! Any ideas why anyone takes anything you say seriously?
(Me)
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Those prattling pachyderms at Academic Elephants have a marvelous post up about the Department of Defense v Academia when it comes to military recruitment. Turns out the liberals can’t have their cake and eat it too.

Go ahead and read The Maryhunter’s hilarious take on the ElBaradei Peace Prize. Afterwards, see an old Buster Keaton flick that features the Keystone Cops for a more serious discussion of the selection.

A.J. from The Strata-Sphere writes about Governor Blanco’s continued cluelessness in the aftermath of Katrina. Can’t those poor people in Louisiana recall her before there’s nothing left to save?

Thank God for Orac! I read the piece by Deepak Chopra and didn’t quite have the inclination to fisk its many idiocies. Orac saves us all the trouble by doing a first class hose job on the clueless doctor.

Blogbud Jay at the ever popular Stop The ACLU has an interesting take on an Oregon law outlawing live sex acts that was declared unconstitutional. Good news for flashers…bad news for constitutionalists.

Ferdy the Cat snarls and hisses at Nicholas Hoffman whose post at HuffPo was a mish mash of lies, half truths and out and out falsehoods on the reproductive right. Serious stuff from a seriously talented cat.

Thomas Bowler has a thoughtful take on the what some are saying the Democrats have to do to win at the polls. I doubt whether they can afford to get rid of the moonbats - too much money at stake.

Raven has a crackerjack article about the UN wanting to take over management of the internets. I can just see my email ending up in Katmandu.

More ElBaradei nonsense from The Slayer. Van Helsing doesn’t pull any punches in the title: “Nobel Prize Awarded for Helping Terrorists Get Nukes.” Uh-yup.

Kender is back! The blogosphere’s most petulant scold is on to Kos and his clueless cohorts who wanted to destroy the moderate Democrat Leadership Council. The only problem is that Kos & Co. have no ideas of their own. And the DLC’s plan for “victory” in Iraq is a joke.

Pat Curley is tracking George Monbiot’s (moonbat?) fatally flawed study of how religion is bad for society. First rate analysis along with some devastating responses by Pat to one of the more curious efforts by the left to discredit religiosity.

Mark Coffey has a well written take on the Harold Pinter Nobel Prize. I happen to disagree with Mark’s conclusion that Pinter doesn’t deserve the prize but I heartily agree with his sentiments about the man.

Don Surber bemoans the fading of Senator Robert Byrd who has recently had some “senior” moments. That said, make sure you vote for Don as he is in the running for King of the Cotillion. I’ll send you a bouquet if you win, Don.

Tony B. from More than Loans points out some real stupidity on the part of Frank Lautenberg who continues to beat the dead horse of Dick Cheney’s Haliburton stock involvement.

Here’s a little satire for your enjoyment from two of our Carnival regulars. First, The Nose on your Face gives us an update on “Doogie Howser, IED.” Then Mr. Right gives us the scoop on George Bush’s newest war - the War against the Smurfs.

And to round out your satirical serenade, how about a little Howard Dean with your coffee? Conservathink has him dead to rights.

Cao of Cao’s Blog (pronounced “key”) rushes to the defense of Laura Bush who was criticized this past week for her remarks about opponents of the Miers nomination. One classy lady defending another…

The lovely Pamela at Atlas Shrugs (check out her profile at PJ Media) writes about God, man, natural disasters, and the clueless mullahs who think they know Him.

Neil Phines at the interesting site Et Tu Bloge (wonder how he got the Latin translation for “blog?”) has some very good analysis on the recent German elections as well as France and Germany as economic models. Did Schroeder really say that?

New Blog Alert! Ruy Diaz of Western Resistance has some words of wisdom from the hemisphere’s second most charming murderous thug, Hugo (The Laughing Goat) Chavez. With Castro getting older, looks like Chavez is about to move up in the “Dictators American Lefty’s Fawn Over” sweepstakes.

Angry in the Great White North shows us why Wesley Clark should go back to whatever he was doing and leave politics and policy to the grown ups.

Kurt at Fly at Night has a little local cluelessnss for us as he relates the adventures of County Supervisor who had a meltdown in front of his constituents. Whenever a an agent for confiscatory entity like government starts comparing people to the KKK, I can’t help but giggle a little.

Ezzie of Serendez Blog fisks the Guardian article that quoted a Palestinian saying that George Bush told him that God requested he free the Iraqis. Even when reporting the correction from BBC, the Guardian can’t quite restrain itself from sticking their knife into the President.

Will Franklin is blogging social security. Now before your eyes glaze over consider the excellent points Mr. Franklin makes in this post and then come back and tell me that all of the political nonsense going on in DC is more important than this one single issue.

I love it when politicians get caught being hypocrites. Alex C. of Pstupidonymous has the skinny on Speaker of the Pennsylvania House and his trip to the schoolhouse to read to the kiddies.

Jimmie K takes the MSM to task for their failure to call a spade a spade in the war against terror. It is just mind boggling that the media has so much of a problem acknowledging Islamic terrorists. One wonders if they were Christian would they have a similar unease.

Finally, guess who was in Sweden making viscously anti-American remarks? I take down Al Gore here.

Conservatives are outraged once again that the Nobel Prize for Literature has gone to a stark, raving, drooling moonbat. British playwright Harold Pinter is the latest old time socialist to receive the prestigious award and righty web sites are full of examples of Pinter’s outrageous and unreasoning hatred of the US.

Yes, the Nobel Committee is made up of a bunch of Anti-American jackasses who apparently live for sticking it to the United States with their selections - especially in the arts and the over-hyped “Peace Prize.” The poorly named award has gone recently to some of the most clueless denizens of the fever swamps as well as some of the most anti-peace thugs around. In the last 15 years, the prize has gone to Yassar Arafat (baby killer), Kofi Anan (corrupt, cynical exploiter), Jimmy Carter (No. Words. Necessary), and Mikhail Gorbechev who received the prize the same year that 10,000 Russian citizens were incarcerated in lunatic asylums not because they were mentally ill but because they disagreed with him.

But I would say to my righty friends that when it comes to awarding a prize to Harold Pinter, the Nobellers have hit the jackpot for once.

Pinter’s politics have nothing to do with the way the man revolutionized the English speaking stage. His sparse use of dialog and frequent pauses as well as the sheer ordinariness of his characters which sometimes masked a degeneracy of unfathomable depth, shocked audiences in the 1950’s. Here is critic Martin Eslin:

“Every syllable, every inflection, the succession of long and short sounds, words and sentences, is calculated to nicety. And precisely the repetitiousness, the discontinuity, the circularity of ordinary vernacular speech are here used as formal elements with which the poet can compose his linguistic ballet.”

Pinter achieved this effect by doing some unusual first hand research. As a young, struggling playwright in the 1950’s, he would spend countless hours in the park just sitting on a bench and listening - really listening to the way people talk. He was especially fascinated with the wordplay between older couples whose monosyllabic questions and responses held much deeper meaning than just the words themselves. The result was sheer brilliance, a combination of free verse and dialog so bitingly ordinary that the incongruity between the situations the characters found themselves in - usually something dark, menacing, and unknowable - and the spare, barest of bones language made for a sometimes shocking, sometimes sublime night of theater.

More than most, Pinter’s plays are best judged when performed rather than simply read. This is because of the playwright’s deliberate use of “the pause.” In many plays where stage directions are written into the script by the author, the results are desultory or, more likely logical outgrowths of dialog between characters (ex.: “Mary looks at paper, frowns, then looks at Mark”).

Pinter’s frequent and planned use of pauses - actually writing into the script “short pause” or “long pause” - establishes a rhythm for the actor that allows the unnatural dialog to flow. The pauses are as much a part of character development as anything else in the script and, at the time, was truly innovative.

His characters are simple, lower middle class Brits usually with family “issues” - some of them bizarre or surreal. In The Homecoming (1963) we find a long lost son coming home to a father and two brothers ( a boxer and a shadowy low life). He brings his enigmatic wife with him and by the end of the play, the father and the low life are negotiating with the woman to become a quasi-prostitute/mother to the dysfunctional group. When performed well, the play is both laugh out loud funny and shocking in its implications.

Critics at first were universally negative. But theatergoers both in Britain and the United States were starved for something different than the relentlessly up-beat musical comedy and the boilerplate dramas and melodramas of the post war period. As a result, Pinter’s plays were like a splash of ice cold water on a hot day - a bracing and sometimes exhilarating experience. As the years went by, Pinter dramas have gone Hollywood (with uneven results) and the playwright himself has written some screenplays such as The French Lieutenant’s Woman. But in the end, Pinter’s brilliant originality and revolutionary use of language established the playwright as one of the most dynamic forces of the English speaking theater in the 20th century.

Is Pinter worthy of a Nobel Prize? For the totality of his work, yes. In the last 20 years however, Pinter has become something of a caricature of himself and his plays and other writing output (he has published an anthology of rather insipid and obscure poetry) have degenerated into political screeds against capitalism, the west, and especially the United States. But I can’t imagine what the theater would be like today without his contributions from the 1950’s to the 1970’s.

The question arises should we condemn authors and artists for their politics even if their work is a cut above brilliant? I find such a construct puzzling. Just because John Updike is a loony lefty that doesn’t make Rabbit Run any less of a joy to read. And Joan Didion’s essays are achingly well written despite a political content that runs to the left of Marshall Tito. Can we accept talent and beauty in art despite disagreeing with the artists personal politics?

I would think that this would be the essence of artistic expression and criticism. Although a good case can be made that the more conservative authors and artists - or at least artistic endeavors that express conservative themes - are deliberately censored and given short shrift in a world dominated by liberal purveyors and critics of many artistic forms, should this lessen our enjoyment and appreciation of artistic expression even by people whose extremist views are totally at odds with ours?

Personally, I would find such a world very limiting and boring. Consequently, we should pity liberals who refuse to see the brilliance of a Tom Wolfe or even Ayn Rand, whose books have inspired several generations of conservative thinkers and writers. By rejecting art based on the artist’s politics, we are only hurting ourselves.

And so, I congratulate the Noble Committee for recognizing the brilliance of Harold Pinter. However, I wonder if for next year’s peace prize, we couldn’t actually get someone who, you know, actually works for “peace” and not “surrender” or the “peace of the grave” like Yassar Arafat. Maybe they should consider a liberator, someone who has freed 25 million people from the clutches of two of the most bloodthirsty and oppressive regimes in history. Do you think it’s possible…

Maybe when hell freezes over.

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin rounds up reaction to Pinter’s Nobel Prize on the right with a link to an interesting Roger Kimball piece in The New Criterion. I think Roger speaks for a lot of conservatives who are simply sick and tired of the relentless anti-Americanism, especially in international organizations.

Joe Gandleman agrees with the award although his support is more tepid and more the result of resignation that the prize was in fact awarded for Pinter’s virulent anti-Americanism.

Roger Simon also believes the award is “well deserved” and makes the same point I did about the body of Pinter’s best work decades behind him.

Calling all bloggers!

You have until tonight 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 33 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.

My blog is broke. It sounds like a good blues riff, doesn’t it…

Well I woke up this mornin’
My woman she done gone
Jes’ drinkin’ bad whiskey
Bein’ bad to the bone

And my blog is broke
Yeah my blog is broke
Gotta hurry up an’ fix it
And that ain’t no joke

I want to apologize to many of you who are having a horrendous time commenting and tracking back to this site. I wish I could tell you what the hell the problem is but I really don’t have a clue.

If you’ve had problems tracking back or commenting for whatever reason, please email me at elvenstar522-at-AOL dot Com (ampersand for “at” and a period for “dot”). Please tell me the following:

1. What post you tried to comment on
2. What browser you are using
3. How many if any links you tried to put into the comment
4. What the error message says
5. If you are having trouble with my trackbacks, please tell me what publishing software you are using and the URL of your site.

I will send this info to someone who will examine my site and fix this problem.

And you can email me with your comments at any time and I’ll be glad to post them. Readers of this site know that about the only thing I can’t abide in a commenter is profanity so even those who disagree will have their comment appear on the appropriate post.

WHITE SOX CATCHER A.J. PIERZYNSKI SWINGS AND MISSES AT STRIKE THREE AND THE THIRD OUT OF THE NINTH INNING IN LAST NIGHT’S 2-1 WHITE SOX VICTORY…OR WAS IT?

Rule 6.05(b) in the Official Rules of Baseball state “A batter will be out if…A third strike is legally caught by the catcher; “Legally caught” means in the catcher’s glove before the ball touches the ground. It is not legal if the ball lodges in his clothing or paraphernalia; or if it touches the umpire and is caught by the catcher on the rebound. If a foul tip first strikes the catcher’s glove and then goes on through and is caught by both hands against his body or protector, before the ball touches the ground, it is a strike, and if third strike, batter is out. If smothered against his body or protector, it is a catch provided the ball struck the catcher’s glove or hand first.

And most importantly, in Rule 6.05 (j): After a third strike or after he hits a fair ball, he or first base is tagged before he touches first base;

I don’t know whether Angels catcher Josh Paul cleanly caught that third strike after A.J. Pierzynski swung and missed. That was never really the basis of the Angels argument. Rather, it was home plate umpire Doug Eddings clear and unmistakable hand signal that A.J. was out and that the inning was over that has both Angels players and fans in such an uproar.

Eddings raised his right arm and cocked his thumb in the traditional “out” signal that umpires make to indicate an out has been officially recorded. At that point, the Angels contend the inning was over, which is why they ran off the field. Angels classy manager Mike Scioscia explains:

“It was a swing; our catcher caught it,” Scioscia said. “Doug Eddings called him out and somewhere along the line, because the guy ran to first base, he altered the call and that’s disappointing.”

Mr. Scioscia has it exactly right: White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski faked out the umpires and was able to make it stick as a result of stubbornness and tradition in the brotherhood of umpires.

As legendary umpire Nester Shylock once said “Umpires are expected to be perfect on opening day and improve as the season wears on.” Umps are under enormous pressure and this has bred a kind of insularity that has fostered a rock hard wall of solidarity with other umpires on their crew. Baseball managers are like little children seeking a parent’s permission for some adventure or other; if mommy says no maybe daddy will say yes. So they sometimes go from umpire to umpire seeking to overturn the obvious mistake of one of their brethren.

They may as well be talking to a baseball bat. It isn’t going to happen.

This is part of the tradition of the game, as much as the argument or “rhubarb” that takes place on the field as a result of such a poor decision.

The origin of the term “rhubarb” to describe a dust-up with umpires goes back to the 1940’s and is one of those fascinating little tidbits of info you can find on the web:

It may come from radio jargon. During early radio dramas, when the noise of an angry crowd was needed, actors in the studio would repeatedly utter the word rhubarb, which provided the appropriate effect. The hubbub and din of a radio crowd was somehow transferred over to the noise of a fight or argument. This use is documented as early as 1934.

The use in baseball dates to about 1943. Red Barber, the famed baseball broadcaster for the Brooklyn Dodgers, is often cited as the one who introduced the term to baseball, but while Barber is largely responsible for popularizing the term, he never claimed credit for originating it. Instead, Barber says he learned the term from fellow reporter Garry Schumacher, who got it from another sportswriter, Tom Meany, who learned it from an unnamed Brooklyn bartender. The bartender used it to describe a bar room altercation where a Brooklyn fan shot a Giants fan. (They used to take their baseball very seriously in New York.)

I thought that the Angels showed a lot of class by not making too much of the blown call. Scioscia even went so far as to say that his team didn’t play well enough to win anyway. That said, White Sox fans know damn well that they got a lucky break. And as is also tradition in baseball, look for the umpires to find a way to “even things out” when the series moves to California on Friday night.

Pierzynski’s deke of home plate umpire Eddings was the catalyst that propelled the White Sox to their series tying victory. But only after a game that witnessed some of the most beautiful pitching seen in any post season series in quite a while.

First, Jarold Washburn who two days ago was suffering from strep throat and running a fever of 105 degrees, gave a gutty effort. He pitched extremely well, understandably tiring in the 5th inning at which point he gave way to a succession of Angels relievers who stopped the White Sox cold.

On the other side, Sox hurler Mark Buehrle pitched one of his best games of the season as he shut down the Angels on 5 hits. His only mistake - a home run to reserve infielder Robb Quinlan. Quinlan’s blast knotted up the score at 1-1 in the fourth and there it stayed until the eventful 9th inning.

Something that should be extremely troubling to White Sox fans is the teams lack of execution on the base paths and the dearth of big hits with runners in scoring position. The former is probably a case of nerves and may get better away from home. After all, the Sox have the best road record in the major leagues. As for the latter, give the Angels pitching staff - especially their bullpen - a lot of the credit for choking off the White Sox offense. Last night, that bullpen was unhittable as they allowed only one hit prior to the 9th inning.

And in the ninth, Ozzie Guillen made his first really inspired move of the playoffs by sending in Pablo Ozuna to pinch run for Pierzynski following A.J.’s little deception. Ozuna, a true liability in the field but an excellent hitter and base runner, promptly stole second. And then big time clutch hitter Joe Crede came through with a shot over the head of left fielder Garret Anderson that scored Ozuna and ended the game.

The Sox should consider themselves extremely fortunate to be tied at this point in the series as they have not played well at all. They appear tentative at the plate and in the field and are trying to force things rather than have the game come to them. They have made 4 outs in two games on the basepaths. Aaron Rowand getting thrown out at home plate in the second inning last night with no outs was just plain stupid. And Crede’s double made up for his baserunning gaffe in the 6th inning where he was doubled off second after a liner to left. Coupled with the Sox not able to steal off Angels pitching and catching, getting thrown out twice in Game 1, and you have a recipe for defeat for the Sox.

Unless they can find a way to settle down and play their game, Sox fans may have seen the last their boys at home this year. The Angels are perfectly capable of sweeping the Sox in California which would end the series and the dreams of the Pale Hose to make it back to the Fall Classic for the first time since 1959.

I can’t decide whether Al Gore is a certifiable loon or certifiably insane. Not that it matters. The former Vice President, current owner of a TV station absolutely no one watches, and erstwhile inventor of the internet has had a very tough time of it since his close loss in the Presidential election of 2000. The trauma seems to have initiated delusional episodes that every once in a while manifest themselves in drooling, spittle-flying tirades against America before a bevy foreigners, global warming advocates, and jihadi appeasers around the world.

I suppose everyone has to make a living - even former Vice Presidents who almost have to purchase air time on TV to get noticed. Oh for the good old days when the world press hung on almost every word he uttered, breathlessly waiting for the next nugget of wisdom to flow from his usually confused and illogical mind. Nowadays, he’s got to compete for attention with a slew of other anti-American zealots. Even Europeans and B-List celebrities receive more ink for their incoherent rants against the United States than the man Bill Clinton called “The most effective Vice President in history.” Given that FDR’s Vice President John Nance Garner once compared his office to a “warm bucket of sh*t,” I guess that makes Al Gore the biggest overflowing commode to ever serve as second bananna . (Is that what Gore means when he talks about the left as ” a movement?”)

Be that as it may, Mr. Tidy Bowl was in Stockholm, Sweden yesterday to give a speech before an economic forum. Now a Democratic politician speaking at a European economic conference is like a jackass giving a speech at a convention of mules; something akin to the ignorant lecturing the emasculated. And what the Dishonorable Mr. Gore had to say about his own country on foreign soil only proves that when it comes to showing off one’s anti-American bona fides, never let it be said that a homegrown leftist loon was ever outdone in exhibiting hatred of the US by a bunch of European socialist lickspittles. Here, in the best tradition of Orson Scott Card and other counterfactual history novelists, is America ruled by Algore I:

When asked how the United States would have been different if he had become president, though, he had harsh criticism for Bush’s policies.

“We would not have invaded a country that didn’t attack us,” he said, referring to Iraq. “We would not have taken money from the working families and given it to the most wealthy families.”

“We would not be trying to control and intimidate the news media. We would not be routinely torturing people,” Gore said. “We would be a different country.”

Gore did not elaborate. But last year, he blamed Bush administration policies for the inmate abuse scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

About the only thing I agree with in that snippet is that last part about America being “a different country” if Mr. Snooze Alarm had been able to convince a few more Floridians that handing him the keys to the White House wouldn’t have been an absolute catastrophe. Given the rather indifferent way in which the Clinton-Gore crew treated Osama Bin Laden and the poor, misunderstood jihadis and other enemies of the United States (how many times did Yassar Arafat stay overnight at the White House?) it seems certain that by this time in a Gore presidency, there would have been some kind of feel-good sit-down with al Qaeda and their apologists from around the world. This would have resulted in some kind of retreat by the US from the Middle East and other areas where the holy warriors want to establish a 21st century version of What’s my Caliphate?

Actually, I think that it might be interesting to play a little counterfactual game ourselves and fantasize about President Al Gore addressing the very same group of European dummypuppens:

Thank you for your kind welcome. I’m glad to be here in Sweden where that famous army knife was invented. After I became the very first Eagle Scout in American history, I have many fond memories of using the corkscrew on that wonderful tool to carve the faces on Mount Rushmore.

In closing, I’d like to thank the entire European community for serving as a model for my Administration. In short, we couldn’t have done it without you.

Authorities in New York who responded to the threat of a terrorist attack against the city’s subway system are being widely criticized as a result of a report that the Iraqi informant who originally gave the information was probably lying through his teeth:

The alleged threat that led to heightened security on New York subways last week may have been a hoax on the part of an Iraqi informant attempting to get money in exchange for information, U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials said yesterday.

The informant has since disappeared in Iraq, and the Defense Department has not been able to locate him, city and federal officials said.

U.S. troops in Iraq captured three suspects south of Baghdad who the informant said were involved in the alleged plot.

But none of the suspects, including two who were given polygraph examinations, corroborated the informant’s allegations or appeared to have any connection to a terrorist plot, according to intelligence officials.

The city lifted the alert Monday after the time period identified by the informant passed without incident

Not only was the report probably bogus, but city officials - including Mayor Bloomberg - evidently took the report much more seriously than the federal government:

Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke, who called the threat “noncredible” last week, declined to elaborate yesterday.

“The intelligence community has not found any evidence to substantiate the threat information,” Knocke said. The FBI also declined to comment in detail.

The question we should be asking is did the New York authorities act correctly by putting the city on a high state of alert even though the people whose job it is to keep us secure thought there was no reason to be alarmed?

To my mind, this question goes to the very heart of what homeland security should be: How safe can we afford to be?

On the one hand, you have the loony left who believes that every threat is actually part of a deep, dark plot by George Bush to divert attention from one thing or another so that he and his pals can impose a dictatorship on the rest of us. According to this school of thought, the War on Terror is always placed in quotation marks because it actually never existed, that in fact al Qaeda and its offshoots are figments of the Bush Administration’s imagination and that the terrorist fanatics who flew planes into buildings aren’t really a threat.

This September 10 mindset may be emotionally satisfying in that it comforts one to know that since in their heart of hearts the moonbats know George Bush will never line them up against a wall and shoot them, they can live their lives the way we all did prior to 9/11; without the fear of a sudden and horrible death overtaking them on a bright, cloudless day.

The rest of us, on the other hand, must live in the real world. And that is what makes the response by New York City authorities to this threat - even though it was pooh-poohed by Homeland Security bigshots in Washington - illustrative of how all of us are still learning to live with the threat of terror in the homeland.

It’s important to remember when trying to judge officials in New York that this particular threat did not occur in a vacuum. One need only be reminded of the London subway bombings to realize that prudence in the face of threats of this nature can be the only course for elected officials who take their responsibility seriously to keep the citizens of their city safe . It is also well to remember that the level of confidence we all have in federal authorities to judge the relative merits of any terrorist threat is colored by the fact that most of this same crew missed the “big one” on 9/11.

The result is that we are being whipsawed back and forth between overcautiousness and an almost sublime forgetfulness about the consequences of being wrong only once. Thus, homeland security can become a politicized outgrowth of our own projected fears; either government is lying for some ulterior motive or, more ominously, they aren’t telling us the whole story so as not to upset us.

The latter attitude can be found this week especially on conservative blogs as the unfolding story of (depending on your point of view) a troubled young Joel Hinrichs who committed suicide outside the University of Oklahoma stadium while 80,000 fans were enjoying that most American pastimes of watching a college football game or, if you prefer, a jihadist convert looking to become a martyr and take hundreds of infidels with him on his journey to see Allah.

It may in fact turn out that Mr. Hinrichs was simply a depressed college student with delusions of martyrdom. Or, his death may in fact reveal a a terrorist cell in the heartland of America. The fact that the discussion on blogs relates more to why the story isn’t being covered by the MSM says volumes about this Soviet-style mindset that posits the notion that things are being withheld from us because the truth would be too uncomfortable or would reflect badly on Muslims, or even that any revelations regarding Mr. Hinrich’s associations would prove what a lousy job the Homeland Security Department is doing to protect us.

Other incidents in California recently - both at UCLA where a bomb was discovered in the courtyard of an apartment building and the suicide of a student in San Diego are also being bandied about the blogs as something suspiciously like terrorists screwing up before they can hurt the general populace. Again, it is wise and prudent to approach these incidents with that thought uppermost in our minds while at the same time not jumping to conclusions that, in retrospect, would prove alarmist.

The fact is, we’re still feeling our way in this new country. And being the adaptable race we are, I’m sure that a majority of us will eventually find that common sense balance between panic and ennui. But until that day comes, I would hope that we not criticize the authorities for doing the right thing and acting to protect us from threats that could turn out to be acts of terror.