Kalamazoo is not a sports town

Graham Couch writes about the lack of fan support for Kalamazoo Outrage professional soccer in today’s Kalamazoo Gazette:
Here’s the truth: This is just another of many youth-soccer devoted communities in a country that cares relatively little about the actual sport.
In weather that only the perfect Michigan summer evening can offer, with tickets costing $3 a [...]

… and burning and burning

Read the banner closely.  Then read here about what it represented.
Oy.

More proof Rome is burning

I’m at Biggby (have not gotten a free refill).
Fox News dances on a flat screen that hangs over a fireplace and, predictably, Michael Jackson coverage is at full, toe-curling climax.
Shaky video of the red ambulance constantly loops; guest after guest after guest joins analyst after analyst after analyst; the bottom line wigs out — all [...]

Everyone needs good protection

There are more important events going on in the world — Iran, Mark Sanford and which continent he was on when he stuck himself in his mistress on Father’s Day — but today was about shopping for air conditioners and shorts.
Pictured above is a sign that hangs in one of the fitting rooms at Macy’s, [...]

Perspective

Late local news last Friday:
Story about the State of Michigan furloughing tens of thousands of its workers.  Shots of darkened Secretary of State offices.  Interview with frustrated man who wants to renew motorcycle license.  Staged shot of tire-middled woman pulling on locked door, followed by interview, then wrap-up.
Commercial.
Story about massive storms and flooding in Holland, [...]

Free refills

You’re a steakhouse.
Do you leave piles of 12-oz. sizzlers on the counter for people to take?
You’re a bar.
Is the second and third and fourth and twelfth round on the house?
No.
So why do coffee shops offer free refills?
I helped run a coffeehouse.  We did 50-cent refills. We were out of business in two years. Now, there [...]

Channeling Kay Whitmore

I’m living with my friends, Bob and Kara, for the summer.
I feel like a kid again.
I have my room, my dinner on the table every night (big ups, Kara), my laundry sometimes done for me (although I certainly contribute around the house.  Just ask the sparkling toilets).  Of course, I’m an adult: I come and [...]

It’s official: Everything is online

This isn’t the first time such a video has been a mouse click away, but I just watched a woman die on YouTube, courtesy of the New York Times.
She was an Iranian protester, shot to death on a Tehran street, her murder now available to the entire world.  NYT quickly buried the link on its [...]

My dad, the sporting event con artist

My dad is afraid of heights.
Like, won’t-go-up-a-ladder afraid.  The look he gets when faced with such peril is part six year-old with a bloody leg, part bitter beer face.  He stiffens, wobbles.
I don’t recall him ever cleaning gutters or painting anything above seven feet.  I’ve only been on a plane with him twice: to Arizona [...]

A final word about Crosby

I received some thought-provoking feedback on my Facebook page about Sidney Crosby’s perceived snub after the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup:
Wayne Gretzky won the Stanley Cup and he never missed the handshake.
Although we don’t really know this for sure (is there YouTube video somewhere?), I’m betting it’s true.  And it’s a good point.
The rest [...]