Ahhhhhhhhh Spring!

Twilight of my Career

About five months ago, my daughter decided she wanted to play basketball. So we signed her up with the local youth association for their 5th & 6th grade girls league. The problem was, about 60 girls signed up and there were only four coaches. The math (15 to a team) wouldn't work at that level, so the coordinate sent several begging, pleading, desperate e-mails asking for some more coaches. Finally, I wrote back to him -- saying, basically -- I ruptured my right achilles tendon last April, so I can't run, can't jump, and, beyond that, even with two healthy legs I was a terrible player, and I'd never coached before and had no idea how I'd relate to a bunch of 10-12 year olds, but, if he was that desperate, I'd do my best to help out. As I've often said, crisis forces people to do strange things, so he accepted my offer, such as it was.

I was then warned, by others, that I would have two more problems -- the kids wouldn't listen, and the parents would complain. For whatever reason, neither of those conditions ever came to fruition. The young ladies were of the highest quality character, and many of the parents helped out with coaching and other stuff. We lost our first four games, but came together at the end to win our first playoff game, finishing the season somewhat shorthanded in our final playoff game, but a good run nonetheless.

So I guess I have to do this again next year when my daughter is in Sixth grade. I can only hope that I'll be just as lucky (if luck was involved) with the quality of the players and parents on next year's team.

I let them choose their team name -- they almost unanimously chose "Twilight" -- one of those irritatingly inflexible singular sports franchise tags (ie "Minnesota Wild" -- "Utah Jazz" -- "Stanford Cardinal" -- how do you cheer for one player?). I think it had something to do with vampires, but whatever. It was fun.

Cavalier Attitude

Hard to believe that it was twenty years ago this month. One of the few bright spots during the darkest of years. And one of the few good pictures ever taken of me, here with my first car, purchased March 9, 1989, and departed this world May 9, 1997. Taken to his final resting place under his own power November 14, 1997. "Roger," my 1985 Chevrolet Cavalier -- dependable, durable, reliable, loyal. Like his namesake, he never missed a start. Unlike his namesake, he was faithful to the end, and our treasured companion through the changes of life. through 73,700 miles, 5 addresses, 4 insurance carriers, 3 states , 2 engines, and zero accidents. RIP old friend -- you earned it.

Paul Harvey (1918-2009)

My comments as posted on the official Paul Harvey website:

"Paul Harvey was, almost without question, the greatest radio broadcaster in history. Nobody did it better, or longer. And what a terrific voice! He instinctively knew how to blend solid reporting, great writing, broadcasting style, salesmanship and humor. Many have tried, and most have failed, to achieve even a portion of his success, relying instead on celebrity or pomposity as their foundation, neglecting those fundamentals that Paul Harvey mastered early in his career. There will never be another Paul Harvey. RIP."

Fair-Not Doctrine

The passing of Paul Harvey (official website here) marks the end of one of the greatest careers in broadcasting, lasting over 50 years and continuing almost to the end of life at the age of 90. Nobody did it better, or longer, than Paul Harvey.



The broadcasting industry -- specifically radio -- has been in the news recently with discussion of the "Fairness Doctrine" in the back rooms of the Nation's Capital, the purported goal of which is to give the left-wingers a stronger foothold on our radio waves, equal to or greater than the dominance they already have in the rest of the media.



Fair or otherwise, their ambition betrays the same lack of understanding of the free market that they have consistently displayed in the past 200 years or so. Their allegation that left-wing forays into radio have failed because of a lack of exposure is absolute nonsense, but it is akin to their equally inane postulate that people are unable to succeed on their own without help from a higher resource (ie the government re-distributing taxpayer money).



In other words, the reason left-wingers have failed is because they can't sell, and the reason they can't sell is because it runs against their deeply-held convictions. It has nothing to do with their political or social positions, their broadcasting talent (or lack thereof), or "exposure." As nouveau-socailists, they simply fail to understand that radio stations outside of NPR exist TO MAKE MONEY, and those stations and their owners will carry any program that can sell itself to the station's (and network's) advertisers.

That's why Paul Harvey, Rush Limbaugh and (to a lesser extent) G. Gordon Liddy and Sean Hannity have succeeded, and Mario Cuomo, Bill Press, Randi Rhodes, Alec Baldwin and the whole sorry cast of Air America failed. The first group could sell ice to the proverbial eskimo; the latter group doesn't understand the basic principles that drive the free market in the first place.

Maybe if they had listened to Paul Harvey over the years, they'd understand the rest of the story.