September

The 1st of September gives me an excuse to blog about time, or at least this time of year.

I miss the passing of August. Congress is gone, we spend a week in the Outer Banks, the kids are still out of school and generally much less scheduled, and football season has not yet started.

All that ends in September. Congress will be slammed trying to pass health care and get an energy and climate bill through the Senate in the next two months - where I get to redebate off shore drilling for the umpteenth time since 1985 - and Ariadne will start a new school, Burke, on September 8th.

Those are significant.

One insignificant thing that bothers me is how the Post's sports page goes from being a section devoted to all sports to one that exclusively belongs to our local, offensively-named football team. I've never liked the 'redskins' and like them even less having moved here. And the Post makes that worse but devoted articles to Daniel Snyder's temper tantrums, Clinton Portis' costumes, and every other mundane detail in between.

But this is a 'redskins' town, something even Obama can't change.

A few more sports notes

• Perhaps undercutting my previous rant, the Post also devoted a substantial column to a wrap up of the English Premier (football) League in Sunday's paper. That same space only had three paragraphs devoted to Major League Soccer, our domestic league. I wonder how much that kind of coverage hurts the development of the MLS. It's easy to catch their games on basic cable, a situation that will get worse - at least from MLS' perspective - now that ESPN as opposed to the Fox Soccer Channel has the US broadcast rights to the EPL. I imagine quite a few serious soccer fans eschew the MLS since it's easy to follow the world's best soccer league via cable, the web and now papers like the Post.
• One other note from Sunday's papers. The front page of the NY Times carried a story on Florida losing population for the first time since World War II. The mortgage and housing crisis is cited, but I also wonder if Florida is finally choking on it's own vomit. That crisis was simply the cherry on top of a state full of sprawl, crowded schools, and way too many t-shirt shops. And as Jon Stewart has noted - and Carl Hiassen has made a living chronicling - thanks to Terry Chiavo, Burmese python attacks, etc. Florida has surpassed California as the state most full of crazy people and bizarre stories. FInally, the politics there have gotten terrible, with evangelicals and suburbanites dominating state-level politics, slashing services and trying to carry out a gun-centric, anti-gays/women/choice/environmental agenda from Tallahassee. All those chickens seem to be coming home to roost (though in fairness I doubt many have moved out due to the politics, though I bet a few did in the wake of the Chiavo thing).

I Hope This Run Continues

If Carolina wins their fifth NCAA championship this weekend it will conclude a great great week. Passing the lands bill, visiting the White House, Ariadne getting admitted and deciding to attend Burke next year, her performance in the Phantom Tollbooth where she was fantastic as Tock - she has a real gift for acting, and has great timing, facial expressions, can ad lib, and is funny and charismatic, but I'm biased -  Evan already hitting the cover off the ball and doing a good job in the play too, AND Carolina in the Final Four is almost too much for me to handle.

Villanova will be a tough game but one I expect Carolina to win in the same way they handled Gonzaga or Duke this year, especially the game at Cameron.  Don't be surprised if Carolina leads early, Villanova goes on a run to make it close or take the lead at half before Lawson and Ellington assert themselves in the second half and Carolina ends up winning by 12 to 16 points.  The Heels will end up wearing out the Wildcats, and Carolina's talent will eventually overwhelm Nova.

Not too much else to say about that game, but that won't stop me from making two more points.   One, Villanova has more scorers than Oklahoma did but I expect Carolina's defense to replicate what they did against the Sooners.  The Heels did a great job moving on defense and playing the passing lanes in the regional final win. 

And two, their improved defense is one reason the Heels should prevail but the most important factor is their resolve. I like the way everyone from Roy to the walk-ons has reference last year's flop in the first half against Kansas.  That memory has produced a very focused North Carolina squad, one that should handle Villanova tonight.

FINAL FOUR FULMINATIONS

•  I'm sentimentally picking Michigan State to defeat Ed and Jim's Huskies.  A state school representing an economically-battered state playing in Detroit is too sentimental of a story for me to pick against (at least in the semi-final).  Plus, everyone who plays for Michigan State is from Sparta so it's the only Greek squad in the tournament.
  
• Greece picked up 4 points this week in tying then defeating Israel in World Cup 2010 qualifying.  Greece leads their group but is essentially tied with Switzerland.  Mark you calendars for the first week of September when Ellas plays their home and home series against the inventors of the kookoo clock!
• I follow Greek soccer fairly close, and would like to do the same for MLS.  We usually go to a few United games, and the women's league is back this season so I bet we'll go to the two or three United-Freedom doubleheaders planned for RFK.  I think MLS would be better served if they moved their season up or back a few weeks.   Instead, they launch their season during March Madness and around opening day for baseball and no one, least of all ESPN or sports TV, seems to pay much attention.  I'd start earlier, in February if possible when the sports scene has a lull between the Super Bowl and March Madness/MLB opening day.
• Finally, congrats to Run-DMC for being admitted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  The trio made their mark rapping over rock records, and their songs featured hip-hop beats and lots of guitar and became a bridge between hip-hop and rock and roll.  Their song and video for 'King of Rock' is a punk rockish kiss off to mainstream rock and roll, complete with a great anti-Beatles lyric that makes fun of John Lennon's death ('there's three of us but we're not the Beatles;" the Meatmen had a similar song called "One Down Three To Go").   Lots of punks/scenesters listened to Run-DMC, Public Enemy, etc. back then.  Ironic that their greatest 'hit' - their cover of Aerosmith's 'Walk this Way' ended their career. Covering a classic rock song cost them their street cred with hip-hop fans and with punk rockers, and both groups of fans stopped buying Run-DMC records after that album came out.