I’ve finally gotten around to checking in on this thing. I arrived in LA about two weeks ago with my sanity and my car somewhat intact after an interesting 3,200+ mile trek across the country.
I don’t have phone or Internet service hooked up in my new apartment yet, so am currently limited to checking my email and reading papers and blogs at school computers. Once my computer is set up, it will be back to regular blogging.
Cheers…
After a frenzied weekend, I’m almost packed up and ready to go. The movers are coming for the furniture today and after that I’m going to relax before the long trip that begins tomorrow.
The current plan is to go to Denver and stay at my cousin’s place for a day or two, then continue on to LA to make it there in time for August 10th, which is when I’m going to move in to my new apartment. I’ve come up with four different routes to get to Denver through the Midwest or the South, I haven’t yet decided which one I’m going to take.
I don’t know what kind of Internet access I’ll have on the way, so my blogging (if any) will be very sporadic. I will be keeping a journal with detailed notes of the trip and am also bringing along a digital camera. I’ll refer back to the journal for writing the entries from each day of the trip and will upload photos as soon as I get the chance.
In the meantime, I will steal a line from Jack Bauer: “I’m going dark.”
“Would I lie to you?”
Photo from AP/Sports Illustrated.
The Washington Post is reporting that Major League Baseball is weighing possible courses of disciplinary action to take against San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds if he is indicted by a federal grand jury on potential tax evasion, money laundering, and/or perjury charges.
Anyone who knows the American legal system will tell you that Bonds is innocent until proven guilty, and an indictment in and of itself is not an admission or conviction of wrongdoing on Bonds’ part.
The Post cites an anonymous source saying that he believes MLB Commissioner Bud Selig “believes he may be empowered by baseball’s collective bargaining agreement to suspend him.” They also cite another anonymous source saying that because of a mechanism in the collective bargaining agreement where players can challenge a suspension, “Bonds, with the union’s backing, almost certainly would file a grievance in this case, according to a source familiar with the union’s discussions.”
The Post also points out “No precedent is known to exist for an athlete to be suspended successfully following an indictment.”
Regardless of whether Bonds is or is not indicted, or if he is conclusively proven innocent or guilty of any of the accusations, his personal and professional reputation might as well be flushed down the toilet. Even if he breaks Hank Aaron’s home run record, I think the fans, media, and his peers will either consciously or subconsciously view the accomplishment with a giant asterisk.
There will always be questions of whether or not he was on performance enhancing drugs while he was in his home run-hitting heyday, and those questions will continue to swirl around him for the rest of his career, if not his life. Want proof? Exhibit A: Mark McGwire.
As a witness during last spring’s baseball steroids abuse hearing by the House Government Reform Committee, McGwire destroyed his own reputation and legacy through comments like these in his opening statement:
“Asking me or any other player to answer questions about who took steroids in front of television cameras will not solve the problem. If a player answers no, he simply will not be believed. If a player answers yes, he risks public scorn and endless government investigations. My lawyers have advised me that I cannot answer these questions without jeopardizing my friends, my family and myself. I intend to follow their advice.”
His response to a question by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) on whether he would plead the Fifth Amendment to avoid self-incrimination:
“I’m not here to talk about the past. I’m here to be positive about this subject.”
His response to other questions from the Committee, as reported by CBS News:
Asked whether use of steroids was cheating, McGwire said: “That’s not for me to determine.”
To a couple of other questions, all he would say is: “I’m retired.”
Don’t forget about Rafael Palmeiro, whose Clinton-esque “I did not have sexual relations with that steroid” denial in his opening statement resulted in the Committee investigating him for possibly lying under oath.
As a final observation, I think it would be safe to say Bonds should consider himself lucky that he wasn’t subpoenaed to testify at the steroids hearing last year. Regardless of what does or does not happen, Bonds is undergoing a PR death by a thousand cuts, and unless he does something drastic to change public perception of him and try to improve his image, he’s screwed in the court of public opinion.
DeBloga is dead. Sorry Adam.
The new name for this blog will be Future Unwritten. I got the name from the liner notes of The Clash’s 1982 album “Combat Rock.” The graphic in this posting is the only image I could find of it on the web through Google image search, and unfortunately it’s small and you can’t really make out the writing if you don’t know what it is. On the left side of the page in the book is the phrase “The Future Is Unwritten.” Underneath it is a banner furling over the bottom two corners of the star which reads “Know Your Rights,” which is the name of the first song on the album.
The name has absolutely nothing to do with that damn song that keeps getting played to death on pop/adult top 40 radio.
In the interest of full disclosure: I’m a huge Clash fan. “London Calling” is one of my favorite albums of all time. If you look back at this post, I took the title from the Clash song of the same name on the “Combat Rock” album. While I’m at it, I might as well plug “Westway to the World,” an excellent documentary about the Clash that came out a few years ago.
What does it mean to me and why name the blog after it? To sum it up in a word, it means possibilities. That word also happens to adequately and concisely summarize the next two years of my life as a grad student at USC.
As a journalist, it also means to me that my and our collective responsibility as a profession is never done, that we have to continuously documenting what is happening in the world.
As a history major in my undergraduate years, it also means that you have to continuously look at and reevaluate the past to better understand your present and future, either to uncover things which were missed previously or to provide a greater understanding of the present situation by understanding the context and cause and effect of how you got to where you are at this present moment.
All of those things to me are what journalism and blogging should be about, and are embodied by that simple but memorable phrase from a 24-year old album by one of the greatest and most influential punk rock bands of all time.
So update your bookmarks, the new place to go is http://future-unwritten.blogspot.com
Photo from that other school in Los Angeles.
So with LA being the entertainment mecca of the world and all, I decided to take in some of the local scene the past few days. Last week, I saw two movies – Lost City, about a rich Cuban family in Havana during the times before, during, and after the revolution; and Charade, an old movie starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. Charade was playing at an art museum, which screens old/classic movies from time to time. I was checking their calendar and they recently did a screening of Gone with the Wind. I thought Lost City was quite good, especially the soundtrack which is a wide range of Cuban music. Speaking of Cuban music, if you haven’t heard it, pick up the soundtrack to Buena Vista Social Club.
While we’re on the subject of music, Pearl Jam played two consecutive nights at the Great Western Forum, formerly the home of the Los Angeles Lakers. I went to both shows, and they were excellent. The first night was an epic 30-song, two and a half hour set. An interesting note – on both nights, Tim Robbins joined them onstage as a guest vocalist during two covers: Phil Ochs’ “Here’s to the State of Mississippi” (which Eddie Vedder recently performed during a taping of VH1’s “Storytellers”) on Sunday and X’s “I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts” on Monday.
The venue itself was surprisingly small, I thought. It seemed to me more like the biggest high school gym in the world than the home court for one of the most famous franchises in professional sports. I haven’t had time to hit any of the clubs on Sunset Strip during this trip, but there will be plenty of time for that after I move here.
Mardi Gras and spring break are for amateurs…
Photo from La Gazzetta dello Sport.
Congratulations to the Italians for a masterful performance in the semifinals against Germany. Speaking from extensive personal experience, the Italians know how to celebrate a soccer victory like no one else.
One thing worth remembering is that in the first two minutes of the first overtime period, the Italians fired off two very close shots, one that went off the goalpost, the other off the top bar. If those two shots had gone in, in addition to the collapse by the German defense in the final two minutes of the second overtime period before the penalty kick shootout, it could potentially have been a 4-0 debacle for the Germans.
One final interesting historical observation, assuming the final two games this weekend go appropriately. During the 1990 World Cup, which was hosted in Italy, Germany won the tournament and Italy came in third place. This year, you could potentially have a reversal of what happened in 1990: the tournament hosted in Germany, with Italy winning the tournament and Germany finishing in third place.
You’d never see anybody doing this in DC…
Photo from the Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors
I’ve been in LA for just over 12 hours now. I’m not going to get a whole lot done today as far as apartment hunting since it’s the Fourth of July.
First on the agenda today is the Germany vs. Italy World Cup semifinal. Go azzurri! Will be hitting a bar to watch the game.
In the late afternoon I will be barbecuing. No plans for this yet, but I’m hoping to go to a decent spot on the beach or up in the hills to catch the fireworks later in the evening.
The back page of the C section of today’s New York Times contains a scan of the Declaration of Independence, which is still an amazing document to read so many generations later. There’s a lot of history, good and bad, to cover in the 230 years since the Founding Fathers told the Brits to get lost. To put it in perspective, take a look at this timeline from the National Museum of American History. For those of you in need of a refresher who may want to discuss the meaning of the day in between hamburgers and beers, here’s a crash course that might come in handy.
My personal favorite Fourth of July was in 2000, when I was visiting Edinburgh, Scotland and went out with a few other Americans at the hostel where I was staying to have drinks on the Royal Mile to celebrate and watch the fireworks over Princes Street Gardens.
Happy Fouth of July.
“I’m leaving, on a jet plane…”
Photo from Boeing Blog
“Welcome my son, welcome to the blogosphere…”
(My apologies to Pink Floyd)
I’m off to LA tomorrow, hopefully will find some time to do some blogging from out there over the next week or so when I’m not looking for an apartment or getting to know the town.
I’ve changed a few things since yesterday, and you can expect more in the days and weeks ahead once I’ve really thought this through and have a good idea of what I want for the look and feel of this blog.
In the meantime, I’ve added a few things off to the side to keep you the readers busy for a while, and changed the look of the site a bit from the original template that was set up by Adam, who also authored the piece of prose that precedes this posting, effectively launching this site before I even knew it existed. I’ve also changed the password, so Adam – no more impersonating me online! (Not that you would ever do such a thing, but as Ronald Reagan famously said, “Trust but verify.” I’ve seen enough “Security Watch” and identity theft stories by now to know what can happen when somebody successfully pretends to be you.)
Stay tuned…
PS – Is it wrong for me to quote a John Denver lyric less than 24 hours before I’m about to get on a plane? Or at least bad karma?
An old phrase stated again. I am venturing into two new worlds today. Heading west from the nation’s capital to start school and online to vex you all with my opinions and rants.
So look out Raw Data, DeBloga is in the race.
Icepicks and Nukes 