Embrace The Cold

An early-season cold snap has gripped Reno for the last few days. High temperatures are only creeping up into the thirties this week, giving the end of November the feel of mid Winter rather than late Fall. Today is one of those crisp, dazzling days we get around here sometimes, with fresh snow on the mountains and nary a cloud in the sky. And cold. Very, very cold.

As in most cold-climate regions, complaining about the chilly weather is a common pass time in Reno from, say, November through March. When I arrived for work early this morning I must have overheard half a dozen conversations about how tired people are of this weather (even though the weather for most of this Autumn has been fantastic), how troublesome winter clothes are, how it's time to move to Yuma, etc., etc.

I understand the dislike that most people have for cold weather--we are, by nature, warm weather creatures and couldn't even live in colder climates without the intelligence to develop strategies that help us cope with harsh winter weather. That being said, I get more aggravated at the constant complaining about the cold than I do at the cold itself.

Reno is cold for much of the year (although not nearly as cold as, say, the upper Midwest or the northern Rockies). That's just a fact of life. I'm not saying you can't grumble a little on a chilly day now and then, but I am saying that at some point you either accept the circumstances for what they are, or you move and leave more room here in God's Country for the rest of us.

Personally, I like Winter. I like the way the pace of life slows down. I like hiking in the snow. I like having a beer and a bowl of chili at Timbers on Mount Rose after snowboarding all morning. I like a warm fire or an outdoor hot tub at the end of the day. Basically, I feel like you have two choices if you live around here; you either embrace the cold during the Wintertime, or you stay miserable until April. I choose the former. Trust me, it's a lot more fun than complaining for five straight months.

Oh, by the way, Melissa and I have decided that we're going to Costa Rica for our honeymoon. What can I say, even people who embrace the cold need a little variety now and then.

Breaking News That No One But Me Cares About

I'm probably the only person in Reno today who really cares about this, but then again what am I going to do, talk about Nevada getting punked by Boise State?

Alabama will fire head football coach Mike Shula today. I suppose it was inevitable, but it's still disappointing when you consider that last year things seemed to be going so well. In 2005 a huge win against Florida (one that earned 'Bama the cover of Sports Illustrated and the inevitable curse that follows that distinction, thank you very much SI), a heart-stopping win against Tennessee, and an oh-so-close loss to LSU had me and a lot of other people thinking that the turbulence of the early '00's (side note: when are we going to decide what we're calling this decade? The aughts? The zeros? Anything is better than not knowing) with its NCAA sanctions and carousel of coaching changes was behind us.

The 2006 season dawned with a real sense of hope, and three straight wins over mediocre opponents propelled a cautious sense of optimism. Then came a painful double-overtime loss at Arkansas. Then Florida avenged last year's humiliating loss by beating 'Bama in Gainsville. Then Tennessee handed Alabama a close loss in Knoxville. Then Mississippi State (Mississippi State!) surprised the Tide in Tuscaloosa. Then another loss to LSU. Then, most painful of all, another loss to despised Auburn, the fifth in a row to the cow college across the state. With the exception of Miss. State, none of those game results were particularly surprising in and of themselves. But when you add it up the results for the 2006 season--barring a bowl game, for which the Tide is actually eligible--is a record of 6-6, with only two conference wins. That, coupled with disastrous records against Alabama's primary rivals during Shula's tenure (1-3 against Tennessee, 0-4 against LSU and the cow college) made today's announcement a virtual certainty.

Everyone liked Mike Shula personally, but making him the head coach at Alabama always did seem a little bit like giving a 16-year-old who just got his license the keys to a new Porsche. Instead of contending for National Championships, it seems clear now that the Tide has slipped into a morass of mediocrity. The past year has made it painfully obvious; the Tide today is a middle-of-the-pack SEC team, capable of beating the top tier schools, but usually doing so only when overlooked.

Like all Alabama fans, I'm sick to death of losing to our biggest rivals over and over while struggling to beat cellar-dwellers like Vanderbilt, but I also know that better days are coming. All the tools are there for someone who knows how to use them, and college football's great powerhouses rarely stay dormant for long. In the meantime, it's hard to be too broken up about football when you live in God's Country. Did you hear? The first big snowstorm of the season is moving through the area right now, dumping perhaps 18 inches of fresh powder up in the high country, and ski resorts all over the Tahoe area are opening up. Looks like it's going to be another great season here in paradise. When you get down to it watching college football is watching a bunch of 20-year-old guys you never met chasing a funny-shaped ball around a field. Snowboarding--now there's something to get excited about.

Goodbye To A Giant

Everyone who loves movies suffered a loss yesterday. Robert Altman, one of the men who revolutionized American cinema in the boundary-pushing 1970's, died at the age of 81. Along with men like Scorsese, Coppola, DePalma, Spielberg and Lucas, he changed the way we thought about art, ourselves, and the world we live in.

Altman's best films, including his masterpiece Nashville and his best-known film M*A*S*H, were completed many years ago. But Altman always seemed to be working, always turning out something new. The Internet Movie Database lists 87 TV or movie projects that he directed going back to 1951, and he wrote or produced many more. Not every film he made was bold and daring, or even in some cases particularly good, but even late in his career he could still turn out a great one now and then, like 2001's Gosford Park.

I won't go into a long tribute here, but I do want to mention a scene that sticks out in my mind from what turned out to be his last movie, A Prairie Home Companion. Stop reading here if you don't want the ending spoiled. The film is based on the NPR radio program of the same name. Although the movie is ostensibly a tribute to Garrison Keillor's long-running variety show (a show I happen to like, although I admit it's an acquired taste), it's really a movie about loss and the wispy, ephemeral nature of all the things we cling to. Most of the story takes place during the fictional final broadcast of Keillor's weekly program. During the movie Virginia Madsen flits in and out as the Angel of Death, who we ultimately learn has come to claim one or possibly more of the movie's characters before the night is out. In the end the final show is completed and the program comes to an end so that a Texas corporation (subtle, eh?) can demolish the theater.

The last scene is particularly haunting. A year after the final broadcast a group of regular cast members is sitting around a table in a diner, reminiscing about the old days, enjoying each other's company and batting around the idea of trying to revive the show in a new form. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the Angel appears in the doorway. They see her but say nothing, and she stand quietly and looks at them for a few seconds, then silently walks toward the table as the screen goes dark. We are left to ponder which of the characters she had come for.

How fitting that this was the great director's last scene. Who exactly was the Angel of Death coming for? In the commentary track on the DVD Altman says he thinks (although he doesn't seem sure) that she's coming for Kevin Kline's detective Guy Noir. But now, upon further recollection, it is clear to me. Obviously, she was coming for everyone at that table. And Altman himself. And us. Like all great artists Altman ultimately didn't offer instructions or answers, only truth. He will be missed.

Que Lastima

I don't know how many people saw this, but the distant Vegas suburb of Pahrump, Nevada passed an ordinance last week which not only made English the town's official language--a move that by itself reflects a disturbingly high level of paranoia--but also makes it illegal to fly a foreign nation's flag without also flying the flag of the United States. And the American flag must not be lower than the foreign flag or you can be fined and/or forced to do 30 hours of community service. I am totally not making this up. I can't find the actual statute itself online, but although it probably isn't directly stated in the language this is obviously a move by frightened people lashing out at the marchers who filled American streets with Mexican flags during large demonstrations a few months ago. From the Reuters news story about the new law:

Supporters said they passed the measure to hit back at Hispanic demonstrators who carried Mexican flags when they marched in U.S. cities earlier this year to press for rights for 10 million to 12 million illegal immigrants living in the shadows.

"All of the illegal alien protesters are waving Mexican flags, and we just got tired of it," town board clerk Paul Willis told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"This is the United States, and the Stars and Stripes should fly supreme," he added.

Do I even have to point out how obviously Unconstitutional this is? No matter what you feel about the issue of what to do about this nation's broken immigration system (a complex question that I'm conflicted on myself), and no matter how intimidated you are at the thought of thousands of foreign-born men and women and children marching in the streets of this country and demanding some sort of recognition, any rational person must see that the authoritarian mindset that leads to laws like this is the complete antithesis of everything this great country stands for. Thankfully we have no such law up here in Northern Nevada, but even if we did I would still proudly fly my flag of the Republic of Ireland on St. Patrick's Day, and frankly I'd love to see some frightened, reactionary tin-pot dictator try to make me do otherwise. And if you think that somehow makes me less patriotic, you obviously don't understand the meaning of the word.

Man, Who Saw THAT Coming?

After this week I don't think anyone's ever going to look at Kramer quite the same way again.



Perhaps we're giving Michael Richard's ugly, hateful meltdown (which everyone's probably seen by now so I won't directly link to it) more attention than it deserves, but like the Mel Gibson "Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world" rant, it's the sort of thing that makes you wonder: Just what kind of frightening, supposedly antiquated beliefs and attitudes still percolate just beneath the surface of our culture, a culture that some of us want to see grow more tolerant of our innate differences?

At least we can take consolation in the fact that after a little nervous laughter at the beginning of his tirade, the audience seemed to uniformally turn on Richards. Fifty years ago, a lot more people would have felt perfectly comfortable agreeing with him in public. Today, most people react with horror and revulsion. I guess that's some progress.

UPDATE: I've heard from a couple of sources now that an interesting theory is floating around. Apparently some people are starting to suspect that Richard's tirade, so obviously offensive and over the top, was probably an Andy Kaufman-esque stunt that achieved it's intended result, and that the real joke is on all of us for believing it was real. Proponents of this theory point to the historical oddity that Michael Richards was once involved on one of Andy Kaufman's great put-ons (or was it?!?!), the famous foiled-sketch brawl from the otherwise-forgotten TV show Fridays.

I don't give a lot of credence to this theory, clever though it may be. First of all, I don't think they could have planned the viral spread of the video. But more importantly, Andy Kaufman may have mocked wrestling fans, but I can't see him using the N-word in a context like this. Kaufman's fight with Jerry "The King" Lawler on Letterman may have shocked people at the time, but looking back on it now it seems pretty funny. What Richards said will never, ever seem funny.

I, Douche-bag

I have to apologize for my behavior Saturday. I was on the wine walk but also trying to keep an eye on Alabama-Auburn (still a sore subject) and the big game of the day, Ohio State-Michigan, at every place we went into that had a TV. One of the guys I was doing the walk with was Tivo-ing the big game and everywhere from Silver Peak to Seven he was doing the fingers-in-the-ears, "don't tell me the score" dance. Funny and sort of sad as it was, it's just one of those unspoken Guy rules--you can taunt a friend who's Tivo-ing the game all you want, you can dance right up to the edge and fake as if you are right about to reveal the score, but if you actually give away the real outcome of the game, you are a complete douche-bag.

Well, to make a long story short, we were in the Sierra Tap House toward the end of the walk and some strange guy comes running in and says "who won the game?" Well, I had had a few wine samples at that point, but that's no excuse. Without thinking I blurted out "Ohio State by three." And from behind, in my blind spot, came up a loud, plaintive "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" There's no getting around it; in a moment of carelessness I had committed one of the worst offenses known to guys.

So my sincerest apologies, anonymous friend. I only hope that my cautionary tale can serve as an example to those who will come after me. And I'm sure I've got a big comeuppance coming from Karma.

This Time It's For More Than A Cheap Buzz

If you're still looking for a way to help victims of the Mizpah fire, try this weekend's Wine Walk downtown. The monthly event is always a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon, but this weekend half the proceeds will go to benefit the people who lost so much in what is now the deadliest fire in Reno's history. If you've never done the Wine Walk before, it's easy; just show up at any of these places at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 18, pay your $15 (it's been a while since I've done it but I think that's still the price) and start walking around downtown Reno and sampling wine. As a bonus, the walk will end with the lighting of the City of Reno's truly gigantic Christmas tree next to the ice rink in the Virginia Street Plaza. So dress warmly and please come out, because this time it's for a really good cause.

Katy's Video

Do me a favor if you have a few minutes. Click here. The link will take you to a short video about my little sister Katy and her quest to run in the 2008 Paralympics in Bejing. She's an inspiration.

Rummy, We Hardly Knew Ye

I've spent the last couple of days getting over the double-whammy of a stomach virus and the breakup of Brit and K-Fed. I really thought those two kids were gonna make it. But life goes on I suppose. So here are a few thoughts on the recent national elections:

* Boy, was I pleased to have been wrong about the size of the Democratic "wave" that has now apparently take back both houses of Congress, along with a majority of governor's chairs and state legislatures. What a huge win (and don't buy that bogus "six year itch" excuse that the talking heads are jabbering about--Clinton actually gained house seats in his sixth year, and Reagan lost only a handful). I predicted that Dems would only win a narrow majority in the House and fall a couple seats short in the Senate. Although the reasons behind such a large Democratic victory are numerous, I think that above all I seriously underestimated the frustration that people are feeling over the Iraq war. So, apparently, did the Republicans.

* Can we please finally retire the notion that Karl Rove is some sort of super-human genius of unspeakable power? He's just a fairly smart political operative who's willing to sink to just about any level to see that his candidate wins. His strategy of dividing the country and playing primarily to the mega-church and talk-radio base (which, by the way, he didn't invent) worked a couple times, but motivating one half of the population by demonizing the other half is not a recipe for long-term success. Oh, and trying to turn the final week of the campaign into a referendum on a botched joke by John Kerry? Not so brilliant.

* Speaking of dividing the country, it's becoming apparent (to me, anyway) that the convenient shorthand of splitting the nation into a giant red middle sandwiched between two blue coastlines is losing whatever analytical value it may have ever had. Yes, the Northeast and sizeable portions of the West Coast are more apt to vote for Democrats, and the South and the Great Plains have a tendency to elect Cultural Conservatives. But I don't see either the Populist Midwest or the Libertarian Mountain West (and of course these categorizations are overly simplistic, too) as fitting neatly into the blue/red dynamic. Maybe it's time to move past such overbroad ways of classifying people and regions of the country.

* For the suddenly triumphant Democrats: Keep the proper perspective. Yes, when Bill Clinton was in office the Republican Congress wasted gobs of time and money investigating every paper clip that went missing from the White House. And yes, I think a primary motivation for those who voted you back into power was the desire to see some sort of oversight and (God forbid) accountability for this administration. But focusing on getting things done in the here-and-now will be the best way to distinguish yourself from the current House and Senate. Meaningful healthcare reform is probably too much to ask so long as Bush still wields the veto pen, but a step-up in the minimum wage would be a great move, as would some kind of immigration reform.

* Brit: Please, please give K-Fed another chance. If you kids can't make it, I don't know if there's hope for any of us.

You Can Help Mizpah Victims

The death toll in the Mizpah fire has reached 11. Dozens are hurt or left homeless. Click here for some ways you can help.

Back In Reno

I'm back from Pittsburgh. Congratulations to my cousin Claire and her new husband Joe. They had a gorgeous wedding.


The trip was one of those 48 hour in-and-out jobs that I'm so famous for in my family circles. It's unfortunate, but it's sort of the nature of the beast when you live on way out west and most of your family is back east. But at least my own fiancee Melissa finally got to meet the extended members of the giant Irish horde she's marrying in to.

One thing I can definitely say about Pittsburgh: Man, do they love their local football franchise. When we got off the plane and exited our concourse at the airport we were greeted by two lifesize, full-color statues of that were put there (I guess) to give the incoming visitor a sense of Pittsburgh's place in history. One statute was of a young George Washington, who as a young man distinguished himself just south of the site of the modern city at the Battle of the Monongahela during the French and Indian War. The other statute? Franco Harris, frozen in the act of making the Immaculate Reception. I sh** you not.

The other thing I'll say about the 'Burgh is that if anyone ever had the necessary capitol and wanted a sure-fire way make a lot of money on an investment, move to Pittsburgh and start a taxi service. The two notable cab companies in Pittsburgh appear to be completely incompetent. In the middle of the day on Saturday (Saturday! Not a busy weekday, mind you, but Saturday!) I called one of these cab companies only to be put on hold for about ten minutes, then told that they were too busy and I should call their competition. I called the competition, and was on hold for half an hour--this is not an exaggeration--before giving up. All I was trying to do was get from the Children's Museum, where Melissa and I were spending time with my niece, to our hotel which was barely a mile away. In the end, I was forced to call my dad and have him contact the hotel concierge, then get in a cab himself (for some reason they wouldn't do it if he didn't come along for the ride) and come get us. When I got back and complained to the hotel staff, I was told this is pretty much par for the course in Pittsburgh.

Oh well. It's still a pretty nice place, lousy cab service notwithstanding.

Off To The 'Burgh

I'm headed to Pittsburgh this weekend to see my cousin Claire get married. I'll be back here in God's Country on Sunday.

So...who can actually name the three rivers?

Contrary To Popular Opinion, I DO Know Jack

Or at least I met him. Okay, I shook his hand and told him my name as he handed me a flyer. But that's something, at least.

I'm not into name-dropping (nor could I be even if I wanted to, since I don't know very many people), but I got to meet Jack Carter, son of the former President, when he stopped by my office a few days ago. He's running for Senate against Republican John Ensign, and anyone who knows my political leanings knows I wish him well in that endeavor. If recent polling means anything then he probably won't be able to unseat Ensign, but I appreciate the effort nonetheless.

There was one thing that really struck me, though. As I came out into the lobby he was introducing himself to a co-worker of mine and he said "I'm Jack Carter, I'm running for Senate and I'M A DEMOCRAT!" He really strongly emphasized the "I'M A DEMOCRAT" part. Odd, I thought, to hear someone proclaiming that so proudly. In the past, people haven't been so exuberant in claiming that party affiliation. Right-wingers have managed to turn the word "Democrat" into something of a pejorative in much of the country, just as they have done with the word "Liberal." Many of them, even the President himself, usually won't even refer to the Democratic Party by it's proper name. Instead they call it "the Democrat Party", as though to allow even the common courtesy of the use of a proper name would somehow bestow on the Democratic Party a dignity it didn't deserve.

I could be reading too much in to Jack's bold declaration. I'm sure most Democratic candidates would, if asked, tell you that they are proud of their party affiliation even if they haven't always been overly enthusiastic in trumpeting it. But I wonder if what I heard from Jack Carter could be an indication of where things are going this year, if not in the Ensign-Carter race itself then perhaps in the country as a whole. I get the unmistakable feeling that for the first time in at least twelve years, this is not a good time to be a Republican running for office.

The Iraq war becomes more of an albatross around the necks of the ruling party every day. The Republican President's approval ratings continue to hover in the 30's, and the Republican-controlled congress is even less popular. And although Republicans and their media outlets endlessly gush about the economy, the fact is that record highs on Wall Street are not making people feel more secure: one recent poll found that a majority of likely voters in eight key states are "very" or "somewhat" worried about the direction of the economy, perhaps because despite all the alleged good news in recent weeks about a third of those in each state polled feels that they have "fallen behind" in their finances. I guess that knowing that the already-well-off are doing better than ever doesn't mean much to people struggling to live paycheck to paycheck.

Will this be a tidal wave year for the Democratic Party like 1994 was for Republicans? I doubt it. True, right now Democrats are a lot more popular than Republicans in a broad, national sense. But national mood is one thing, individual races something else entirely. Normally when people say "throw the bums out", they mean everyone else's bums, not their own bum who regularly brings home the pork. Over the years district gerrymandering and political polarization have made incumbents virtually unbeatable in most House districts. So even though the R's have left a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths after six years of unchecked rule, there probably isn't going to be a rout this year as there might have been in years past.

My fearless prognostication is that Democrats will pick up the 15 seats necessary to take control of the lower chamber of Congress, but just barely. Even thought the political middle seems to have abandoned the GOP, there's always that hard-core 30 percent or so (that's just my own ham-fisted estimate, but I think it's pretty accurate) of the population that has become much too personally identified with pseudo-populist Conservatives--and in particular with GWB himself--to even consider other alternatives. These super culture-warriors are, in their own minds, always under siege (despite having controlled the federal government for the better part of a decade) and highly motivated. Their all-encompassing focus on wedge issues, along with the Republicans' legendary get-out-the-vote apparatus, will probably be enough to turn what in past years would be a complete House massacre into a mere narrow win for Dems.

The Senate is another matter. Here the Democrats need a net gain of six seats to take control. Chances look good in four states--Montana, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania--for Democrats to unseat Republicans, and other states in which Republicans once threatened to take seats from Dems--most notably New Jersey--now seem to be leaning more solidly Blue. That would mean that Democrats need to take two of three toss-up races in Tennessee, Virginia and Missouri. All three of those races are in statistical dead heats, but I've lived in the South most of my life, and knowing the region as well as I do I just don't see Virginia and Tennessee abandoning the GOP when the chips are down (even if Harold Ford Jr. is just to the right of Joe Lieberman). That would mean that Democrats will come up one or two Senators short of a complete take-back of Congress. Still, these results would make me very happy. It would mean the significant weakening of an administration that has encountered no real opposition over the last six years as they have weakened our civil liberties, run up record deficits, made a handful of people very rich while simultaneously helping drive up the numbers of poor and uninsured, continued squeezing out the middle class, and expended vast amounts of blood and treasure in a futile attempt at what they themselves used to deride as "nation-building." President Bush and his ideology would not be gone, but he would be the walking definition of a lame duck.

A lot can happen in five days, of course. If they've proven nothing else in the last ten or twenty years, it's that no one can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory quite like the Democratic Party. Plus, don't look for the avalanche of attack ads to let up any time soon; the Republicans have been playing that game since W's father won the 1988 Presidential election on an anti-Willie Horton/pro-Pledge of Allegiance platform, and they aren't about to stop drawing water from that well until it dries up. Never (mis)underestimate the power of fear and manipulation.

Still, for the first time in I honestly can't remember how long, I feel pretty positive going into an election. And if the Republicans do manage to keep control, hey, I'm a Cub fan; crushing defeat is nothing new to me.

So It's Come To This: I'm Ripping Off Bill Maher

Last night was our first Halloween in our new house. Now that it's over with, I'd like to suggest a new rule for next year's Halloween: If you are over the age of eight, you must actually wear a costume if you're going to go trick-or-treating. Please don't show up at my house wearing blue jeans and a hoodie, holding out a pillowcase and expecting me to give you something. And putting on your Vans sweatshirt and saying you're "a skater" doesn't count.

And I hate to be a spoil-sport, but some of you (and you know who you are) have left me no choice. I'm afraid that I'm going to have to declare that if you have facial hair or are old enough to drive yourself from house to house, it's time for you to let trick-or-treating go, at least until you have kids of your own. By the time you hit high school, what you are doing isn't so much "trick-or-treating" as it is "panhandling". Anyway, this is time that you should be spending trying to get your hands on a believable fake I.D.

Fire at the Mizpah

I found Lake Street closed to traffic and barricaded when I got to work this morning. Just up the block from my office the Mizpah Hotel, a building that dates to the 1920's, suffered tremendous damage in a late-night fire. Details are still sketchy, but six people were killed and about 30 injured. The hotel is (or was) a beautiful old red-brick residential hotel, serving as home to over 80 people. One person has been arrested and charged with murder and arson--it looks like the suspicion at this point is that the fire was intentionally set, although few details are available. It's feared the more victims might yet be discovered in a portion of the hotel where the roof collapsed. I'll have more information on this when I get it, but for more check out the RGJ's website, where they're doing regular updates.