Well…one of my favorite times of the year is upon us and I thought I’d talk about it a little bit….damn….I keep burying the lead in all of these and I don’t know why right now..it is the Stanley Cup Playoffs starting Wednesday night and I thought I’d share a few thoughts on the journey to get where we are with our team. It has been a season of inconsistent play that has left us faithful frustrated and confused at times, excited at others, and with the hope that our team will drive on to the cup finals and win it….that was the rabid fan in me talking and it really does mask the uncertainty that shrouds these playoffs…what team is going to show up? The dominant one that uses power, speed, and skill to amaze us, or the one that leaves us scratching our head and looking at the ice to see if it is really mud they look so slow. That type of performance has made me hold my breath during almost every game, to wonder when the self-destruction will come….but still always hoping it won’t.
That said, let’s take a look at some of the particulars that I think are necessary for us to get out of the first round….it’s one of the things that M and I were talking about this aft; that we just don’t have the goaltending that will steal us a game or two when we are not playing as we can. I just don’t think Jimmy Howard is that type of a goaltender but we don’t have anyone else with Osgood being hurt. That leaves us with another great big unknown…when will Hank Zetterberg be back? I know, no one player is essential for the success of a team, but with how Hank has played this year with all of the injuries, I think he is the one we can least afford to lose. One last thing, we need to start to play like we want it, there has been too many games where we have phoned it in and if anyone does that, Babcock should sit them and let one of the youngsters give it a try…after all, it was a couple of years ago the the unknown Darren Helm came into the playoffs and won a starting job for himself by outplaying everyone on the ice. So, I think you are going to see a few of these as the playoffs progress….Let’s Go Red Wings!!
Well..one of the most striking things that I have taken away from the budget battles that have been going on for the last couple of years is the utter lack of vision that the dems have laid out to support their version of America….and I fault Obama for a large part of it…his tiptoeing around to not anger the repubs have gotten him what? Nothing but an emboldened opposition whose crazy ideas have gotten a huge voice without the counterpoint of rationality that the president could bring to the discussion, and his almost unfathomable reliance on bipartisanship, or the appearance of bipartisanship, is making him look so disengaged that those of us in the middle and on the left are sitting here shaking our heads. I hope that the budget plan that is coming out from the dem leadership later in the week will help to flesh out what they think America should look like and I think they have a golden opportunity to contrast with the Ryan proposal; one that gives more and more to the rich while taking the majority of the savings from programs that are designed to help the middle class and poor.
It was a good start when Obama said that the plan will include increased revenue from letting the bush tax cuts expire on the richest, and I think it is a reasonable request since those tax cuts never produced one new job or made America a better place to live; except for those super rich who benefited from the cuts. I also understand that there can be cuts and streamlining to major government programs to make them more efficient, but let’s make sure that the cuts are made to the inefficiencies, and maintain those few things that can help the American dream live on….
Well…it was kind of fun day yesterday with a nice SF with K and the Wings winning their last game…I really thought we had put Chicago out of the playoffs but Dallas couldn’t win their last game so that put Chicago in…oh, well…I was a little disappointed that I watched the radar all day yesterday waiting for the big storms but they kept forming to the north and south of us…I don’t think we even got a drop of rain and now the front has moved on to the east with nothing left behind it….at least I should be able to get a ride in later in the dry but if the wind id blowing like it did yesterday, I think I’ll skip it since it is really no fun to go out into a 40 mph blast. Not much to do today….resumes, of course, and I have to put the golf clubs back in the car for the summer….probably won’t go out and hit some until later in the week but I need to soon just to see where the pain will be this year…my elbow is starting to hurt again and I hope it’s not all summer like last year….maybe some of those padded bike gloves will help…who knows? More later…
Well…I had forgotten how wonderful it is out on the bike on a Sunday morning unencumbered by either sweatshirts or biting cold…just a t-shirt this morning and it feels good to sweat….I think the caffeine helped, too, since I had much more energy today than yesterday. I am going to cheat a little today and put out a second one of these instead of, or maybe in addition to, a political one since I have some stuff to share about the ride today….the swans were back in the pond this morning and I am in awe of how they get their huge bodies out of the water with just a couple of beats…almost stopped to watch but they were gone too fast…I do have to remember to look up when I’m out and riding, sometimes I get too focused on the tiny little world of the bike and and keeping the pace up that I forget that there are other reasons to be out and about….
There was one phenomenon that I wanted to share from today, I had the weirdest thing happen at about the 9 1/2 mile mark…it was like my brain was flying above the pavement and I reached this zen-like state that I couldn’t feel my body at all….geez, I hope it’s not a stroke….hey, you know I’m kind of weird….
Well…an okay night last night but a little disappointing with Michigan losing the hockey championship in OT…great game, though. There was a race on, too and it was good to see Matt Kenseth win one finally but 500 miles is a long time to watch and I got bored…that seems to be a theme lately and I really need to do something today to cut through it…might have a SF with K today but it looks like not much else…it is warm out already, almost 60 at 7:30 and it looks like some storms are coming so I’m not sure if I’ll get the bike out today…the coffee is sputtering and calling my name so I need to get a cup and read the paper…there will be topics later since I am falling behind for the month….more later…
Well…I have to call a spider alert for today….I have killed at least a dozen of the big black ones in here today and it is starting to creep me out a little….I just hope that they don’t crawl on me when I’m sleeping…one did last spring and it was weirder than heck…I just realized how light I sleep if a spider crawling on me wakes me up. Oh, well….it was a nice ride today but I think they’re dreaming if they think it’s getting up to 65 today….it is still COLD out there and my hands are still a little numb…one cool thing did happen, though…riding on the part of the trail that runs by a little pond, the frogs were so loud that I could hear them over “Dark Side of the Moon” that I had playing on the walkman….I am glad I’m back here…the wind was just cruel out of the East and the last uphill into the 20 mph blast was a gut killer….and I am sore so I’m going to retire to the couch for a few minutes…Oh, I did watch “The Social Network” this morning and I do not know why it was nominated for an Oscar….maybe because Facebook is so popular?….
Well…late again this morning…just got out of bed and can’t remember getting up so late…didn’t sleep well but had to keep at it to see if maybe I could….but, now I’m up and trying to clear my head and get the day started….need to get the coffee started and go out for the papers so I’ll be back in a few minutes…okay, it will be longer than a few minutes but I promise I’ll be back…
I’m back….took longer than I expected…had some work that needed to be done and thought I’d get it out of the way before I got back to this…it was an okay day yesterday but the Wings look so bad I don’t know if I can watch them in the playoffs….I did get a long bike ride in but it was still so damn cold…today should be better and I think I’m going to wait until it gets warm enough for no sweatshirt to ride….it has been kind of a chore to get out on the bike and I don’t want it to get to be a task instead of fun but I’m not sure how to do that yet….maybe today’s leisure ride will help…I’ll put Dark Side of the Moon on and take it easy, trying to smile a little might help, too, but life as it is has not given me much to smile about lately….not much to do today…Michigan is playing in the NCAA hockey championship and there is a race on so that is something to look forward to…along with cooking a pork loin for lunch…and I know I have to clean this place up some and get the summer clothes out….I did switch into shorts yesterday but I’m not sure I can sustain it…might be a false start this year…but I’m going to try to make until December….I should have a topic or two for later…I did find that Keith has a website and he is doing little videos of the worst people of the day so that made me smile a little….
Well….with all of the praise that Paul Ryan is getting for his budget proposals, you would think he was on to something new, since his plan has been deified in the right wing press as the heaven sent solution to all of our problems…okay, I made that last part up but I really think that has been the gist of the reaction from even mainstream media. To get a full explanation that is done better than I could do, check out Paul Krugman’s column in the NY times this morning…yeah, I know, I have been trying to not go there but it is hard to give up something that has been a part of my life for so many years. Now, back to the Ryan proposal, the cornerstone of this monstrosity is the re-invention of the voodoo economics of the Reagan administration; that is, that as you cut taxes, revenue to the government will rise…a theory that has been proven wrong every time it has been tried since the 80′s….if this stupid theory worked, the government would be awash in money and there would be no deficit problem since overall taxes are lower now that they have been on over 50 years. The only question that comes to my mind is prove it; where are all of these dollars they talk about?
The second thing that all of us should be quite concerned about is the inclusion in Ryan’s proposal to turn Medicare into a private insurance scam that would give insurance companies the ability to make trillions more profit off people that have no place else to go. How can he stand there with a straight face and say that it will save money to change a program that has a 9% overhead to one a private one whose overheard ranges from 20-30%. Just another plan to reward the rich insurance companies at the expense of you and me. Aren’t you tired of this crap yet? Geez….
Well…a really fun night last night…out with T for happy hour and had so many laughs and a great conversation….just what I needed to get out of the funk I’ve been in lately…and I don’t know why I’ve been in it…I guess it just is and I’ll have to just ride it out and try to smile a little while the process happens….I did get a nice bike ride in yesterday and remembered to take the ibuprofen before I went which helped my wrists..or it could have been that it was not mind numbingly cold for the first time this year. Looks like we are getting a huge break in the weather over the weekend with it being almost 80 Sunday and some huge thunderstorms coming with it…going to be out in just shorts and a t-shirt for the first time this year….might even get into shorts permanently but I’ll have to look at the long-term forecast first…not much to do today…have to go out for groceries this morning but I am having problems getting the menu together so I’m just going to get staples and use my imagination…what little of it there is left…more later…
Well…I missed this one and I can barely believe it myself…didn’t really miss it but my brain has been on alert overload for so long that this easy, simple, target was missed. It is a day of rejoicing for America and for us progressives…but not only that, for any thinking, rational human being….damn, buried the lead again…let’s back up…Glenn Beck’s show on the fake news network has been canceled and I can’t be happier. Before you think that I am a proponent of censorship of even extreme ideas, if you’ve been here before you know that I always want an interpretation of the constitution that leans toward individual freedom that is almost absolute, and would want even Glenn Beck’s views to be protected by the first amendment. That said, I also think that the public discourse in our society has become way too coarse and is a factor in the polarization of our country….something I think is the root cause of the looming government shutdown. As I’ve said before, crazies like Glenn would have been unwashed, and standing on a street corner spewing his hate when I was growing up…but in these cynical times organizations like Fox will do anything to further their cause and that has meant giving people like Beck a mouthpiece, but I think it was more than that…I think it was a ploy to make the rest of the extremists at Fox look less far-right than they are….providing a convenient but still false comparison. So, goodbye Glenn….and good riddance….