"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do, I stare out the window and wait for spring." - Rogers Hornsby

:: Saturday, February 22, 2003 ::

The Staten Island Oil Tanker Explosion



Remember I told you I was flying to NYC on Friday?

Well, I witnessed, as it happened, the oil tanker explosion off Staten Island in New York City, on Friday just after 10 am, when our plane was about 30 minutes from landing at LaGuardia Airport.

Naturally, the first thing that went through my mind was "terrorism", and a few minutes later the pilot, who also must have been worried, told us already that he had contacted the ground and they told him it was a tanker explosion. He also said it was the largest fire he'd ever seen in 30 years of flying. It was clearly visible all around the New York metro area, at least 50 miles away.

People there were naturally jittery, and apparently part of the NYC emergency plan for something like this, is to start sending people to other places where attacks could occur, in case an explosion like this was set as a diversion for other terrorist activity. Of course, that turned out not to be the case here, but you can see how the mindset of the people in New York, at least, has changed forever since 9/11.

Such is life in the 21st Century.

:: posted by Al at 7:36 PM [+] ::
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Your intrepid correspondent...

... is off to New York City today, for a meeting of the Eastern Directors Council of the Directors Guild of America. I'll return to Chicago late tomorrow.

Have a great weekend!

:: posted by Al at 5:54 AM [+] ::
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End Of A Television Era

Jane Pauley, who made waves in Chicago when she was hired to co-anchor with the venerable newsman Floyd Kalber in 1976 at the age of 25, resigned today from NBC to, as they say in the biz, "explore other opportunities".

Click here to see some photos of Pauley that I'll bet she'd rather see burned.

Incidentally, when I started working with Floyd Kalber at WLS-TV in 1984, I had an image of him as an imperious old man who would tyrannize everyone around him. Instead I found a classy gentleman with a wickedly dry sense of humor; working with this legend was one of my great privileges.

:: posted by Al at 2:27 PM [+] ::
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Duck And Cover, Part Deux

Yesterday, Tom Ridge, the "Homeland Security" secretary (and couldn't they come up with a better name than that for this new government agency?), announced that they were introducing a website, ready.gov, where people could go to find out all kinds of useful stuff to prepare for terrorist attacks.

If you're really that much into duct tape, I think these guys have some better ideas.

:: posted by Al at 9:16 AM [+] ::
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Oh No, She Really Did It

Former Illinois Senator Carol Moseley-Braun formally announced today she's running for President.

OK, I'm going to take this at least somewhat seriously, though my first instinct is to snicker.

One thing she said is correct, which is, that we do need to take the "men only" sign off the White House. However, what she failed to mention is that there are millions of women better qualified than she is to hold that office.

She's a failed senator. If she really wanted to redeem herself, she'd have run again against the man who defeated her in 1998, Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, who is eminently beatable, and perhaps help return the Senate to the Democrats. But no, her ego took over, and her candidacy, since it's little more than a joke, may make things harder for future female candidates.

But Carol's given us a new entry into the English language. From now on, whenever someone does something that seems like their mind has taken leave of this planet, we can say they "Moseley-Brauned" it. Oh, and she'll probably decide to wear that "lucky" white suit she seems to love so much, on TV appearances, where it wreaks havoc with the TV cameras and makes her look ridiculous.

Thanks, Carol. I think.

:: posted by Al at 3:27 PM [+] ::
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The Postman Doesn't Ring, Even Once

Bet you didn't know that anytime there's a federal holiday, as there was on Monday, that the USPS can use that as an official excuse as to why they don't show up at someone's house with a mail delivery the next day.

That is, however, exactly what they did on Tuesday, when they failed to show up at my house, despite three phone calls to the local postal station -- and the only reason I can even do that is because years ago, a neighbor gave me the direct line phone number there, which I can't reveal for obvious reasons. If you call the alleged customer service number in the phone book, you get routed to some "customer service center" in Texas or somewhere, where your complaint gets listened to, then laughed at and flushed down the toilet.

Today, I was told that my route has too much volume and as of March 3, they will be "reconfiguring" it, with new carriers. Yeah, right.

The USPS does have a complaint page on their website, but I figure why bother, it'll go to the same place as the phone center phone calls, although it's much harder to flush a computer down the toilet. Nevertheless, if there's a way to do it, the USPS will find it.

I won't even start here on the story of how I sent an envelope with merchandise via insured mail last Friday, yet when I went back the next day with an identical envelope, I was told by the surly clerk that I couldn't do that.

Prediction: the USPS as we know it, will cease to exist by the year 2050.

:: posted by Al at 9:06 AM [+] ::
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"These people were intent on breaking the law.”

So said Mara Georges, city of Chicago corporation counsel, in reference to the tragic deaths of 21 people at the E2 nightclub in Chicago early Monday morning.

That raises many issues, including why Mayor Daley's administration is so focused on shutting down restaurants when they find a rat or two, yet neither they nor the courts could seem to enforce an order to keep this building closed.

There's a tremendous amount of lawbreaking involved in this tragic incident, and there are a lot of people who have to look themselves in the mirror, not only with the city, but those involved with the owners of the building and the club, and ask themselves just how far they're willing to go to make a few dollars.

And the lawyers for the owners ought to just shut up, instead of saying that they had a "deal" to stay open. There was no deal; the court order was quite clear about that.

The city of Chicago and state of Illinois ought to come down hard on whoever was responsible.

:: posted by Al at 3:26 PM [+] ::
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It's Not Worth Your Life

As noted in my post from yesterday below, Baltimore Orioles rookie pitcher Steve Bechler, died yesterday after a workout in high heat and humidity. It turns out now that he may have had some of the dieting herb ephedra in his locker. This is a dangerous substance; at least 20 members of the military have died after using it.

The MLB players' union has steadfastly refused to let MLB ban substances like this and androstenedione, the bulk-up amino acid supposedly used by Mark McGwire and others. I shouldn't totally blame the MLBPA; MLB's owners and Czar-for-Life Bud Selig have similarly had their heads in the sand about this issue too.

So although it's dangerous, players like Steve Bechler who wanted to lose weight, do it fast, and make the majors -- Bechler was a rookie who was probably going to start 2003 in Triple-A -- did this, rather than work out and do it right. The results are devastating, even more so since Bechler's wife is seven months pregnant.

I should say that the reports of ephedra in Bechler's locker are not confirmed yet, but if so, he was asking for trouble.

This story, unfortunately, has no happy ending for Steve Bechler or his family. But MLB and its players could prevent something like this from happening again, by banning ephedra and substances like it.

And I can recommend, from personal experience, a better way to lose weight fast, by using the ideas and recipes in my friend Dana Carpender's book. It's worked for me -- 35 pounds lost in the last three months, safely.

Let's hope there are no more Steve Bechler-like tragedies.

:: posted by Al at 9:12 AM [+] ::
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Baltimore Orioles Pitcher Dies

Steve Bechler, a 23-year-old Orioles rookie, died suddenly today after complaining of not feeling well during a weekend workout -- see photo below.



Condolences to his family and teammates.

:: posted by Al at 12:57 PM [+] ::
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War. What Is It Good For? Absolutely Nothing

Those words, from the 1970 Edwin Starr song "War", originally written as a Vietnam protest song, have new meaning today.

In the recent past, I have advocated here and elsewhere, the necessity of removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and the elimination of the weapons of mass destruction that he almost certainly has. He's murdered thousands of his own people; read these letters from exiled Iraqis in Britain, written to Prime Minister Tony Blair, as examples of the atrocities that Saddam has put on his own people.

But I have, in recent days, come to the conclusion that immediate war is neither necessary nor the way to go.

I'm still unimpressed by the actions of countries who are supposed to be our allies, particularly the French, who were memorably tagged with the "Simpsons" line, "cheese-eating surrender monkeys", recently.

There are a number of reasons, though, that immediate war is not the answer. First among those is the attitude of GW Bush, who seems like a child playing cowboys and Indians. Well, it's not the fifties any more, and little Georgie needs to grow up, and stop feeling like he has to avenge his father's election defeat.

And let's consider what would happen if Iraq did indeed have WMD. If the US were to attack, they'd undoubtedly unleash them, against the US, Israel or any other convenient target, which would make what the US military planners think is going to be an easy task, into possibly a worldwide conflagration. Does the US, which has never started a war, want this? Especially with almost the entire rest of the world against us? It's been said that the only certainty of war is its uncertainty. Why tempt fate? Why tempt al Qaeda to put any of its remaining terrorist plans into action? And why squander what's left of any goodwill we had after the 9/11 attacks, most of which is gone now, thrown away by the war drums of the Bush administration.

And, if Iraq does have WMD, which I am almost certain they do, they know that they must keep them hidden at this time, for if they do anything with them, they know they'll face certain and immediate incineration. While Saddam Hussein is a loose cannon, I'd bet he'd like to keep his little fiefdom.

If we'd stop beating the war drums so loudly, maybe we'd get the rest of the world on our side, and be able to go in with some moral authority, and kick him out the right way.

Patience, Mr. Shrub. Patience.

:: posted by Al at 9:26 AM [+] ::
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Movie Review: "The Quiet American"

I don't mean to turn this blog totally into a movie review site, but I do love movies, and there happen to be quite a few good ones out right now -- in fact, I think 2002 was one of the best years in recent times for movies, and it is the award season, so there have been screenings available recently. So, keeping in mind that soon, this will become a more baseball-related blog, bear with me, and in fact, the three movies reviewed here in the last three days are all Oscar-worthy contenders.

It's a rare film that begins with the murder of one of the main characters, and I'm a bit puzzled by this, because it both clears up and creates mystery. Obviously, you're going to know the ending (or part of it, at least), but you also want to know why this happened, and therein lies the setup to this film, much of the rest of which is told in flashback.

Brendan Fraser's character, Alden Pyle, is the murder victim as the film opens. He's obviously got some kind of relationship with Thomas Foster, played by Michael Caine, nominated for best actor for this role of a London Times reporter, because Foster is being questioned by a French detective. The movie is set in Vietnam, in 1952 known as French Indo-China, and Pyle is supposedly working for an import-export outfit. We later learn that this isn't quite the case, as both Pyle and Foster are drawn into the coming war which finally booted the French out of there and got the U.S. involved, to our eternal regret.

There's more to this story, of course -- there's also a love interest, played enchantingly by Do Thi Hai Yen. Problem is, both Pyle and Foster are in love with her. There are complications in all of this beyond even that, but I won't spoil them, because that's what leads to the final climax of the film.

This has been portrayed as a very anti-American film, because of how it shows the shady way in which the CIA tried to push American interests in the region. I didn't see that much of that, but this is indeed a "quiet" film in the way in which it shows you how the culture and politics of Vietnam managed to culminate in US involvement over there, and makes the point that we didn't really understand what makes Vietnam tick, even though at one point it's stated that "you can understand Saigon in ten minutes".

This year's Best Actor category is a tough call, with Caine being nominated along with Adrien Brody and Daniel Day-Lewis from the movies reviewed here the last two days, along with Nicolas Cage in "Adaptation", and Jack Nicholson for "About Schmidt". All of these actors were wonderful, and the films worth seeing.

My opinion is that Brody deserves the award, Day-Lewis put together the most dynamic performance, but the Academy may honor Jack Nicholson, both for his body of work and for the fact that "About Schmidt" didn't get any other major nominations.

But I digress.

"The Quiet American" is, indeed, quiet. But it sneaks up on you and makes important points, is beautifully photographed (on location in Ho Chi Minh City), and well acted all around, including by Fraser, who ought to do more of this kind of script, and not the silly stuff he's been in like "Encino Man" and "Bedazzled".

AYRating: *** 1/2

:: posted by Al at 11:48 AM [+] ::
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