Tickets, Please

Today, in reaction to comments made by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., his pastor of 20 years, Barack Obama said:

“They offend me, they rightly offend all Americans and they should be denounced.”

Later, at the same news conference, Obama also announced definitively that:

"Snow is cold, but looks pretty at Christmas time."

"George W. Bush, at times, has difficulty with the spoken word."

"Arizona is hot, but it's a dry heat."

"Hillary Clinton just won't quit."

"John McCain isn't young."

"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is a really long word."

And,

"These pretzels are making me thirsty."

Get on board, folks. The Change Train is leaving the station and Engineer Obama is driving... from the caboose.

Yes we can... Yes we can... Yes we can... Yes we can.

WoooHoooooooooo

Wow

I don't know who Amy Holmes is, but this is pretty amazing, given this statement today.

That'll Be $7 For Total Incompetence, Please

There are many things that I will experience... well, probably throughout the rest of my life... where my perspective will be different because I am a parent. I'm understanding this more and more each day, and really, this realization was one of the reasons why I started Life with Mr. O.

A lot in the news will annoy me each day, but almost nothing recently has made me so mad as this.

Read it... Now, read it again.

It's true and in my mind, it's criminal. Not Mr. Ratte. The State of Michigan. People in government, who like to claim they are working each day in public service, wonder why other people call them bureaucrats.

Read this... Now, read it again. Here's your answer, bureaucrats.

Some people will say Mr. Ratte should have known Mike's Lemonade had alcohol in it. Other people might mock him for being out of touch because he missed those stupid TV commercials where the bottles of lemonade wear sombreros and dance in the alcohol aisle. All those people would be wrong.

Let's put aside for a minute the fact that Michigan's Child Protective Service Department has sentenced children to death recently with their criminally incompetent placement of children with certain foster "parents." Let's put aside for a minute that Michigan's governor only last week - three years after Ricky Holland and more than a year after Issac Lethbridge - courageously called for a review of the state's CPS system that will take... ONE YEAR!

Mr. Ratte and his son were banking on a system that is missing something fundamental... a single solitary ounce of common sense. And really, the term "common sense" doesn't really hit the point. The system is missing someone who will stand up and scream, "This whole thing is a freaking disaster."

No one was willing to do that the other night at Comerica Park, the hospital, the police department, or the Child Protective Service Department, and as a result, a 7 year-old boy and his parents were tortured. And no, tortured isn't too strong a term for stripping a child from his parents and placing him in an unknown Detroit foster home.

And then there's this. From Mr. Ratte: "I have apologized to Leo from the bottom of my heart for the silly mistake that got him into this mess."

Mr. Ratte, the line is long of people who owe your son an apology, and you're no where near the front.

UPDATE: Welcome Right Michigan readers and appreciation to Nick for including this post in his morning update.

The story of Mr. Ratte and his son is getting more attention and an interview with him is posted here.

Still, there seems to be a baffling commentary that I've seen in more than a couple places that, "Ha, ha, this silly man. He doesn't know what Mike's Hard Lemonade is? Bet he knows now."

Could anything be further from the point of this episode?

And, one more thing. The fact that this man can remain this calm about this is nothing short of remarkable.

Hoo, Hoo, Hoosiers

Here, a few weeks back, I mentioned how unusual it must be to be a Hoosier these days with the eyes of American politics turn in your direction.

Now, with the Clinton victory in Pennsylvania, even more attention is headed back home again in Indiana.

Prediction: Hillary wins in a close race after Obama claims that Indiana residents, bitter after years of living in... Indiana, cling to nicknames no one knows the meaning of.

My Friends

So... I joined Facebook the other day. It's an odd thing.

I have found and corresponded with a couple people who I probably never again in my life would have even thought of. That's been fun.

I've also found myself checking often to see if I have "New Friends." I have 32... in just three days. If only I could have made 32 friends that quickly in high school.

I've also thought about posting this picture just to see what kind of friends it might elicit.

Facebook is a pretty amazing program. I wrote on "My Wall" that in joining forces, Facebook and my computer know more about me and who my friends are than I do, and I look forward to finding more people who I may have let slip my mind over the years.

That said, I've also discovered that Facebook may be the biggest contributor to the dumbing-down of the term "friends" since John McCain's stump speech.

But, as with most things, my friends, I guess you take the good with the bad and I will look foward to becoming friends with faces I remember passing in the hallway of Concordia High School in 1992.

This Is Dedicated To The Ones I Love

For the members of my family who read "Life with Mr. O" more for the pictures than the articles, I post this.

As The Corner notes, some cold water on the GOP's hopes in November.

Dang!

UPDATE: This, with a little more optimistic view.

For You Cubs Fans

A very good new link in "Good Reading" for everything you ever wanted to know about our 14-6, first place Cubs.

Just the picture on the site makes me wish I had their day job.

Just One Problem

Rocky doesn't win. It's a draw. Which is kind of where we are right now, isn't it?

Still, this is pretty dang funny.

Knock Please

"Again with the Joplin! I've got to get some peace."



"Oh, and I'm gonna be a while."

The Late Show With Mitt Romney

Having observed many political campaigns and having worked on a few - mostly losing ones - I've noticed a trend. Following a candidate's concession speech, you always seem to hear people say, "If only he had been more like that during the campaign, he would have won."

Sometimes you'll hear this because in the moments following the realization that one has lost, all the tension, stress and pretensions are gone and a candidate can be himself once again.

In other cases, you hear this said by people who really haven't paid all that much attention, but want others to think that they have. Usually, these are reporters who think they know a candidate inside and out from a couple short interviews, but realize after seeing a more full example of the person that their analysis was a pretty shallow one.

I mention this now - when it looks like a "loser" won't be named in the Democratic race for a while still - because I heard that statement made in regard to Mitt Romney when he withdrew from the race for the Republican nomination. I also mention it because his very funny performance this week before the audience at the annual Radio Television Correspondents Association Dinner certainly gives the impression that the stress is gone and the good humor is shining through.

How ironic that it's before a room full of reporters who claim to have known him inside and out and spent a lot of time trying to convince their readers, viewers and listeners that they in fact really did.

Really, this is worth watching.

That's About Right

From the Detroit News' very funny cartoonist, Henry Payne.

Pundit Time Again

Here.

Like The Cubs Don't Have Enough to Contend With

It's An Honor, Mr. Buckner

On Tuesday of this week, the Boston Red Sox invited Bill Buckner to throw out the first pitch at this season's home opener against the Tigers.

It was a therapeutic moment for Red Sox fans, welcoming back into the fold the man unfairly pegged with having let the 86' World Series dribble through his legs and down the right field line.

Note: Calvin Schiraldi owes Buckner BIG!

Buckner was greeted with a standing-O at Fenway, threw a strike across the plate, and was understandably choked up at the entire experience.

Good for him, for in my mind, his Red Sox days were just the epilogue of a career spent with me as the Cubs' first baseman... certainly a much more damning sentence than his Red Sox World Series experience.

Still, on Saturday, the generosity of spirit that started in Fenway Park spread to our garage and to a second generation.

Mr. O met Bill Buckner for the first time.

They hit it off, and Mr. O told Mr. Buckner, "I let things dribble between my legs all the time. No biggee."

If only Red Sox fans had been so understanding 20 years ago.

To Your Left

A new Slidesh-O.

A weekend with Mr. O.

Well Said, Interesting and Well Said Once Again

Here.

Here.

and

Here.

On A Lighter Note

"You know, I'm not sure I get those people who are constantly talking about thinking-outside-the-box.

"I think just fine in here."

The Tale of Two Hate Crimes

I saw this article the other day.

The Lansing State Journal reported:

Ten buildings in Old Town Lansing were vandalized overnight Tuesday with orange graffiti, some of it with slurs against homosexuals.

Much of the graffiti said "KG," but in two instances, the phrase "Kill Gays" was spelled out.

Lansing police have made one arrest in connection with the incident and say they are looking for another suspect.

This is incredibly sad and unfortunate. Old Town is an up-and-coming area of a city where almost everything else is up and doing nothing. I have friends who live there, and I have visited there often to shop, go to festivals and have lunch.

Still, after reading the article, I couldn't help but think of this:

This is the garage door of an old woman who lives across the alley from us. Her door was vandalized not once, but twice a few months ago. To date, the Lansing police have done about as much as I have to find the people responsible: we both visited the woman to see if she was ok, and we both took a picture.

Normally, this kind of thing wouldn't drive me to think about it over the course of days. But now, Mr. O is set to play in a backyard just about 15 feet from where someone, on some day and for some reason thought they could do what they did to our elderly neighbor. That, and my wife has blonde hair, so the idea this message could be meant for her in some deranged and unlikely way makes me angry.

I'm not looking to quibble over the definition of what a "hate crime" is, but I feel pretty confident the person who sprayed "B#@*%" on my neighbor's door either hated her, the idea of her, or the simple notion that you just don't do such things to people.

Our neighbor is a normal old lady. She has no advocacy group to send a press release on her behalf or put pressure on the police to find the people responsible... unless of course there is an association I'm not aware of that represents elderly women who grow amazing hostas, smoke cigarettes, and still mow their lawns with those electric mowers you plug in with a 30-foot industrial extension cord.

She got no news coverage. She still has a garage door covered with obscenities. And she and her neighbors still wish they had the peace-of-mind of knowing an effort was made to find those responsible.

Help Is On The Way

News Flash: The City of Detroit has a bit of an image problem.

And that was before the mayor was indicted, the taxpayers were put on the hook to bail him out, and the city council erupted into this.


I don't know if this picture is fake or if a Transportation Dept. employee was having a good time. Either way, help for Detroit's PR problem is on the way.

The Detroit Free Press reports that Barack Obama's controversial minister Jeremiah Wright has been invited to speak at the Detroit branch of the NAACP 53rd Annual Fight for Freedom Fund dinner.

Maybe the Olympic torch could take a spin around town, too.

Feel the Warmth

The Masters golf tournament starts Thursday, and a very wise and optimistic friend of mine is known to say each year, very authoritatively, "It never gets cold after The Masters."

He is almost never right, and it's supposed to snow here on Saturday.

Still, I choose to believe him.

Well-Deserved

What do you get when you combine a violin, someone who can play it and a D.C. subway station?

Not a joke, but a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize for the Washington Post and writer Gene Weingarten for this terrific article.

It's well worth the time to read.

VRRROOOOOMMMMMM

Before Mr. O was born, we talked quite a bit about how we were going to work hard to keep our house from becoming a three bedroom, one bath playroom.

"I don't want to have one of those houses that look like the kids are in charge and the parents' things are just arranged by accident," I used to say. "The boy will have his space, but the rest of the house will stay the same."

We broached the subject with Mr. O tonight, but he asked that we talk later. Something about needing to run his new birthday dump truck through the dining room and crashing into the leg of the table.

IRE or IRS?

The Clintons have been pretty politically calculating over the years, but this ridiculous Bloomberg News headline takes such calculations to a new degree.

Clintons Get Rich, Avoid Ire By Paying Taxes, Giving

So, that's why they paid their taxes. Something tells me they were a little more concerned with the IRS than they were the IRE.

I Can Name That Speaker In One Sentence

"I would like somebody who knows about a bunch of stuff that I'm not as expert on. I think a lot of people assume that might be some sort of military thing to make me look more Commander-in-Chief-like. Ironically, this is an area--foreign policy is the area where I am probably most confident that I know more...."

That wacky President Bu - ooops.

Hold Me Closer Tony Danza

There are many things that I'm looking forward to teaching Mr. O. Can't wait to play catch with him, or shoot hoops. But, it looks like some things, like dancing, are just skills naturally inherited.

Curtain, please.



I'm sure there is surveillance video of me in any number of bars in my life looking very much like this. Except I never fell down (I don't think) and never danced to Scott Joplin.

The boy has a gift.

Everyone Sing Along Now

I know this is a lot of baseball-themed posts for a site dedicated to the boy, but the Cubs' winning streak ended at one today and I'm preparing Mr. O for what's ahead.

Now We're Rolling!

Cubs win! Cubs win!

Cubs 6, Brewers 3

One down, a bunch left, and I feel a streak.

She Could Pitch for the Cubs

Baseball pitchers, especially not very good ones, sometimes breeze through an opposing line-up once, only to get drilled the second time through. Usually, it's because they come back with the exact same pitches that worked once, thinking they will work again. Good hitters, though, know what's coming and are ready.

Hillary Clinton just hit the second time through the order with her new ad.



The first time she put this up it was on foreign policy. It was directed at Barack Obama's inexperience, and it worked. She won in Ohio and in Texas.

Now, she pulls it out again. It's focus is the economy and the target is John McCain.

But, it's like he'd seen the pitch once already and was ready to groove it when he saw it again.

McCain responded with this within hours.



It's not the kind of home run that sails out of the park and into the street, but it certainly clears the fences.

Spring Fever

"I'm tellin' ya, Dad. It really looks like we could take that new stroller out for a walk tonight."

And so we did. The first walk of the season.

Played Pundit Today

This, from a Capitol daily newsletter (their website is subscription only, so the article is posted over at the Sterling Corp.).

Happy Day in Hoosierville

Mr. O goes to bed happy tonight. Indiana Univ. announces the hiring of Tom Crean as its new head basketball coach.

This Tom Crean:

Not this one:

















UPDATE:

"It's Indiana. It's Indiana," Crean repeated. "It's the absolute pinnacle, and that's to be the head basketball coach of Indiana University."

Tuesday's Headlines

Hillary Drops Out of Race; Says She was "Wrong" to Stay In.

Scientists Discover Direct Ancestral Link Between Obama and Jesus.

McCain to Run Boston Marathon.

Cubs Win!

Izzo Accepts Hoosiers Offer; MSU Coach Headed to Indiana.

Michigan Unemployment Rate Drops.

Michigan Weather Forecast: Sunny, 68.

Feds Set Aside Millions for Research of Boxer's Fractures.

HAPPY APRIL FOOL'S DAY