Jimmy Dugan: Evelyn, could you come here for a second? Which team do you play for?

Evelyn Gardner: Well, I’m a Peach.

Jimmy Dugan: Well I was just wonderin’ why you would throw home when we got a two-run lead. You let the tying run get on second base and we lost the lead because of you. Start using your head. That’s the lump that’s three feet above your ass.

[Evelyn starts to cry]

Jimmy Dugan: Are you crying? Are you crying? ARE YOU CRYING? There’s no crying, there’s no crying in baseball. Rogers Hornsby was my manager, and he called me a talking pile of pig$#;+. And that was when my parents drove all the way down from Michigan to see me play the game. And did I cry? NO. NO. And do you know why?

Evelyn Gardner: No, no, no.

Jimmy Dugan: Because there’s no crying in baseball.

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

Cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel so bad

Link

It is far superior to the 2008 election in my view.

This whole campaign season has just started way too early, even for a minor politics junkie like me. Fred Thompson had the right idea by waiting, but even he lost his nerve and entered in September.

The early campaigning is driven, of course, by the move to earlier primaries. I’m only made hopeful that the tide is turning, because the move has stalled and maybe even started to reverse itself.

But after the ump-teenth “debate” (is that a misuse of the term?) I long for the days of smoke-filled rooms. The national conventions were certainly more entertaining when the results weren’t preordained.

As for “tired of war,” I can’t imagine why, Laura. One might be tired of hearing about it, but it hasn’t made much of a change in people’s lives. We still go shopping, watch sporting events, attend movies, and all the rest–not very different from before September 11, 2001. The “war” doesn’t really touch us very much, but being self-indulgent whiners, some of us like to kvetch about it.

I have begun to realize every time she uses the phrase “we must bring EVERYONE to the table” with regard to problem solving on an issue, what she really means is “private enterprise”. I recently have heard her say this or something similar when talking about resolving Education, Social Security, and of course, Health Care.

My fear is she is a wolf in sheep’s clothing and will sell out the left to her Corporatist and Globalist masters and privatize all of it. To a progressive, that is a nightmare.

Anyway, that is my whine for the day. Now, onto my wine for the evening.

You know, in that famous documentary The World At War series, there was this interview with an elderly German man who was fought on the German front lines. He said he was relieved when they finally drafted him to the front because of the incessant propaganda.

It blared at him in the streets, in his home, on the radio, on poster, everywhere his eyes turned, so that when he was forced into the front lines, he was relieved.

Now think of this, and think of your fatigue for a moment. There are TV screens at the airport, at the bars, at the restaurants, on billboards, everywhere you turn, and you know that the journalist profession has collapsed utterly. (For example, there is not one single person vetting the campaign adds in the Midwest. Not one! in a region that has decided the past 5 or 6 presidential elections.) What you are left with is spin, or to use an old fashion term, propaganda.

You and I are going to be much more “tired” before the curtain falls.