Controlled Chaos

Sorry just had to stick my two sense in here... First off Mauer didn't hit a rope, he hit a low and away fastball to the opposite field by poking the bat out there. I don't even think it was a hard swing. It was a good piece of hitting while protecting the plate. Second....Shingo mixes up speeds. I have seen him vary his pitches from as high as 89 and as low as 63 and the ball jumps all over. Even if a batter is waiting on that frisbee....they aren't used to waiting on something that is low to mid 60's. That isn't even batting practice speed. I also thinks Shingo reads the batters well....It's almost like he knows if the batter is waiting on it....and he won't give it to him. Right now he is just flat out dominating guys and has me geeked about winning the game everytime he comes in. We haven't been able to feel like that in the 9th in a long time... Domo Arigato Shingo Takatsu

It happens every where. Upper decks and Lower decks, at the Cell and EVEN at WRIGLEY..... In September 1995, a fan came out of the stands and went after Cubs reliever Randy Myers when he was on the mound, but the fan ended up getting the worst of it. Myers, the former Cincinnati Reds "Nasty Boy" and student of martial arts, smashed John Murray with a forearm, jumped on top of him and pinned him to the grass. A game against the Colorado Rockies last May was delayed when fans, upset over an umpire's call, pelted the field with baseballs, bottles, coins and cups of beer. Colorado center fielder Darryl Hamilton said one fan threw a Jack Daniels bottle onto the field. Seventy-five people were ejected, and the Cubs restricted beer sales and added security. Dodgers catcher Chad Kreuter was in the bullpen Tuesday night when a fan hit him in the back of the head and stole his cap. Kreuter gave chase, his teammates followed, and soon there were a half-dozen or so Dodgers in the stands, trading punches with fans. The rest of the team stood watching at the first-base wall, a chest-high brick barrier that separates the bullpen from the fans. The Cubs scored their lone run on Sammy Sosa's disputed homer in the bottom of the sixth. Unfortunately, the Pirates apparently answered with 2 runs of their own their half of the seventh frame. I say apparently, because I was too busy watching the drunken brawl in the row directly in front of me. The incident began innocently enough, with Drunk Guy head-butting all of his friends and spilling their beers. One of the friends took umbrage at the head-buttage (and, presumably, beer-spillage) and responded by shoving his inebriated companion down the stairs. After returning to his seat, Drunk Guy sat quietly for a minute before delivering his rejoinder -- in the form of a huge loogie hocked right in the middle of his buddy's face. The fist started flying at that point until the pugilists' pals broke things up and an usher arrived to eject Drunk Guy. By that time, Loogie-face had already made good his escape, not wanting to be carted off to the Wrigley Field pokey along with his co-combattant. Presumably, he also wanted to wash his face. The latest phone chucking came at Wrigley Field, where drunken Cubs fans have grown tired of tossing home run balls back onto the field. In the eighth inning Thursday, some imbecile winged a cell phone instead and hit San Diego Padre Sean Burroughs in the foot.

Yes it was a Wednesday game. It doesn't always take beer....just an asshole with an attitude.

My point is The Cubs have had their share and we don't hear about it....After searching for over an hour I finally found this..... Just what do you think the other 24 arrests for serious offenses are?? http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBCPXV5TVD.html

Yeah, My friend just PM'd me to tell me that he heard it on Moronotti. I hadn't even heard about it. Now my friend is a sox fan, but always listens to Moronotti and almost always agrees with him. I'm like same kind of s*** hapeens at Wrigley, but we don't hear about it. He is like what "a family of 4 getting beat up" I'm like ok now you're twisting s*** around. It was a cop opening his mouth to some drunk fans and he got in a fight...then his wife jumped in, but it was still just a fight. It wasn't a "family of four getting beat up"(which I'm sure he got this line from Moronotti). Either way it is sad that it happened and it makes us look like the big bad sox again, but fights happen at other parks. I know I have seen girls fight at bars and I know if I went to Cubs games I am sure they fight there too. I am sure guys fight over girls and other girls jump in. I mean the place is a big pickup bar and I'm sure the same s*** that goes on at those bars goes on in the bleachers. Anyway...can anybody find articles or links on some of the bad that has gone on at cubs games or outside of wrigley. I'm trying to make a point, but I can't find articles because nobody writes them.

I am so sick of this s***....A select group of assholes...making us look bad AGAIN... Couple beaten at Sox game after objecting to cursing June 29, 2004 BY FRANK MAIN Crime Reporter Burbank police officer Roberto Guerra was off-duty with his family at a White Sox game last week when the language in the stands went from PG to X-rated. As Guerra and his wife left U.S. Cellular Field with their boys after Wednesday night's game, they heard two men spewing profanities at Cleveland Indians fans. The couple objected and suddenly came under attack. They suffered broken noses and black eyes -- with Guerra requiring six stitches. And their sons, ages 6 and 8, are now having a hard time sleeping after witnessing their parents getting beaten up, Guerra said. "They're scared," he said. "I definitely think they [the defendants] should get the max. The court needs to set an example that you can't do this." Two brothers from west suburban Carol Stream -- Richard A. Vicario, 22, and Sam Joseph Vicario Jr., 23 -- were in Cook County Jail Monday on felony charges of aggravated battery. Each is being held in lieu of $60,000 bail. Richard Vicario also awaits trial next month in DuPage County on a misdemeanor charge of criminal damage to property, and he was convicted last year of driving on a suspended license. A woman took out a protection order against him last year, records show. His wife, Marianne E. Fricano, 19, was charged with misdemeanor battery in the Sox fracas, officials say. The Vicarios' mother, Joann Bussie, said she thinks Guerra started the fight. "Yeah, they used some language they shouldn't have," Bussie said of her sons. "But this gentleman [Guerra] came from two sections over. He did not have to pass them. He provoked it." Guerra said he was cutting through Section 122 near first base when his wife heard the foul language and told the Vicarios: "Do you mind? Our kids are here." Then Guerra reportedly told the brothers: "I am a cop. Watch your mouth." Richard Vicario grabbed his crotch and said, "Cop this!" a Chicago Police report said. He allegedly punched Guerra in his face. The Vicario brothers continued to attack Guerra after he fell between the seats, police said. When Guerra's wife tried to help, Fricano allegedly attacked her. At one point before the violence, a Sox usher told the Vicarios to stop cursing and called security, prosecutors said. Three White Sox security officers arrived and Richard Vicario cursed at them -- using racial epithets, prosecutors said. He also allegedly spat in their faces. After Sam Vicario was taken into custody, he punched a Sox security officer -- an off-duty Illinois State Police master sergeant -- in the face, officials said. Sam Vicario's head struck a bench while the officer tried to subdue him in a security room, prosecutors said. Sam Vicario, Guerra and his wife were treated at Mercy Hospital and Medical Center. Bussie believes her son Sam was beaten by security officers. "There is no way you are going to tell me they got into a locked room with security people and he starts swinging," she said. Guerra said the officers acted quickly, but wonders if the Vicarios were "overserved." They were holding beers when the fight began, he said. Sox spokesman Scott Reifert said the team removes intoxicated fans and empowers its security staff to cut off beer sales to any section of the park. Reifert did not have statistics on security problems Wednesday, but said the Cubs-Sox series over the weekend was "very calm." On Friday, there were only three arrests and none involved violence, he said. "We encourage any fan to report foul language or inappropriate behavior to a guest services rep or security," he said. Contributing: Dan Rozek http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-copbeaten29.html

He said it before the series even started. I could agree with ya, if he said it after, but he didn't. He kinda took the approach of the typical cub fan nonsense about it not being important. Which is bulls***...a win is a win...and they needed it as bad as we did. Maybe CWSGuy406/Bernstein is right and Dusty's approach is just to stay on an even keel. Well if that makes a great manager....Then ladies and gentlemen, I give you your next Hall of Fame Manager inductee........Jerry Manuel.

Will Este pitch Friday? it will be his 5th day?

"Our goal is to beat the Sox, but our goal is also to get to the playoffs. Our season isn't (based on) just beating the Sox. Hell, we don't want to lose, but our goal is the World Series. Didn't the Sox beat us last year? And what happened?" That sounds to me like he was prepared to lose the series ahead of time. Everyone's goal is to get to the playoffs and the world series. That's my fricken goal too, but it doesn't mean I'm not getting up for every series....especially a crosstown rivalary. Just cause they lost to the sox last year and made it to the NLCS, doesnt mean it's ok to lose this year. It's a dumb comment by a dumb ass manager. By us beating the Cubs the Sox are now only 1 game out of first and by the Cubs losing they are 5 games out of first. I'm quite sure they needed the wins. It was a stupid comment for Baker to make and his team played passionless becuase of it. Not that I'm complaining.... I don't get the big deal about that guy at all. I mean I didn't see a lot when he was with the Giants, but now that I hear and read about him on the news or in the paper...I'm not impressed with what he does. I don't know what makes him a great manager....

Has it come out that Garcia is pitching Thursday?? I thought I read in today's paper that he would start Wednesday?

"Wet Hot American Summer"

I was about 6 cars away....we were playing bean bags.... I tell ya what....Mac was a cooking fool...He had some Jumbo Cajun Shrimp...Some beatuiful looking filets. Jurko was just walkign around with a steak in his hand gnawing on it...Typical animal of a cub fan....haha

Friday I was tailgating pretty close to Mac Jurko and Harry. Was anyone else in the area?

I felt it in Lisle pretty good. It woke me up...cause a vase on my dresser was rattling. I am not too far from train tracks...so I was thinking maybe it was a big freight train, but a train never rattled anything in my house or made my house shake. It was very strange....

I was there Friday as well....and there is no way there were more flub fans. I mean they made their presence felt, but they didn't dominate the stands.

First off let me say I love the trade. I'm sad to see MO go, but we are a better team right now. We have a staff full of veterans that pretty much throw their own game. If we had a young staff that needed guidance with every pitch then I would see the need for a great game caller, but with our staff...they pretty much know which pitch they want to throw and when to throw it. I will defintely miss MO's passion behind the plate, but after reading some articles, as well as some posts on this board, I feel pretty good about Davis as well. Let's get Freddy some run support!!

SOX WIN!! SOX WIN!! 1-2-3 ninth for Adkins.... Politte came in the 6th after Rauch gave up a lead off double. And recorded a K and two Groundouts to starnd the runner at third. Marte Pitched the 7th and 8th with two K's and no hits..

Thougt I woud give you all a brief update,,since there isn't one... Adkins in the game right now....2 outs in the ninth. CWS 1st - Jose Valentin homers (14) on a fly ball to center field. Juan Uribe scores. Carlos Lee scores. CWS 3-0 CLE 5th - Matt Lawton singles on a ground ball to center fielder Aaron Rowand. Coco Crisp scores. CWS 3-1 CWS 8th - Ross Gload singles on a ground ball to right fielder Jody Gerut. Carlos Lee scores. Jose Valentin to 3rd. Timo Perez to 2nd. CWS 4-1 CWS 8th - Joe Crede singles on a fly ball to center fielder Coco Crisp. Jose Valentin scores. Timo Perez scores. Ross Gload to 2nd. CWS 6-1 CWS 8th - With Aaron Rowand batting, wild pitch by Rick White, Ross Gload scores. CWS 7-1

Sorry That's where you're wrong Reddy...Moore's radicalism isn't due to Bush ...He is what he is... Here's some of Moore's headlines from Bowling to Columbine....this has nothing to do with Bush....just the big bad America is at fault for everything. "1990: Iraq invades Kuwait with weapons from the U.S." (The footage here is of a Soviet armored personnel carrier) "1991 U. S. enters Iraq" "Bush reinstates dictator of Kuwait" "1991 to present: American planes bomb Iraq on a weekly basis" "UN estimates 500,000 Iraqi children die from bombing and sanctions" "2000-01: U.S. gives Taliban-ruled Afghanistan $245 million in 'aid'" (The truth is "aid" given to the Taliban came via the United Nations as food aid to overcome an impending famine.) The final headline says: Sept. 11, 2001: Osama bin Laden used expert CIA training to murder 3,000 people. Take some time to read about the man before you go defending him by saying his hatred only comes from Bush.... http://www.rense.com/general53/moorr.htm

I have thought about it....and where have you heard someone say "you can't disagree or dislike the president" Who said..if you hate bush you hate america?? I say if you hate America than you hate America. I would never say just cause someone hates bush that they hate America. Moore is referred to as hating America for his own comments..not because of his disdain for Bush. http://www.moorewatch.com/f911flyer.pdf He's a f***in scumbag

Took the day off!! We'll be tailgating in LOT E hopefully by 11:00. Come on Jon...we need a great one here!!!!

Unfairenheit 9/11 The lies of Michael Moore. By Christopher Hitchens One of the many problems with the American left, and indeed of the American left, has been its image and self-image as something rather too solemn, mirthless, herbivorous, dull, monochrome, righteous, and boring. How many times, in my old days at The Nation magazine, did I hear wistful and semienvious ruminations? Where was the radical Firing Line show? Who will be our Rush Limbaugh? I used privately to hope that the emphasis, if the comrades ever got around to it, would be on the first of those and not the second. But the meetings themselves were so mind-numbing and lugubrious that I thought the danger of success on either front was infinitely slight. Nonetheless, it seems that an answer to this long-felt need is finally beginning to emerge. I exempt Al Franken's unintentionally funny Air America network, to which I gave a couple of interviews in its early days. There, one could hear the reassuring noise of collapsing scenery and tripped-over wires and be reminded once again that correct politics and smooth media presentation are not even distant cousins. With Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, however, an entirely new note has been struck. Here we glimpse a possible fusion between the turgid routines of MoveOn.org and the filmic standards, if not exactly the filmic skills, of Sergei Eisenstein or Leni Riefenstahl. In late 2002, almost a year after the al-Qaida assault on American society, I had an onstage debate with Michael Moore at the Telluride Film Festival. In the course of this exchange, he stated his view that Osama Bin Laden should be considered innocent until proven guilty. This was, he said, the American way. The intervention in Afghanistan, he maintained, had been at least to that extent unjustified. Something—I cannot guess what, since we knew as much then as we do now—has since apparently persuaded Moore that Osama Bin Laden is as guilty as hell. Indeed, Osama is suddenly so guilty and so all-powerful that any other discussion of any other topic is a dangerous "distraction" from the fight against him. I believe that I understand the convenience of this late conversion. Recruiters in Michigan Fahrenheit 9/11 makes the following points about Bin Laden and about Afghanistan, and makes them in this order: 1) The Bin Laden family (if not exactly Osama himself) had a close if convoluted business relationship with the Bush family, through the Carlyle Group. 2) Saudi capital in general is a very large element of foreign investment in the United States. 3) The Unocal company in Texas had been willing to discuss a gas pipeline across Afghanistan with the Taliban, as had other vested interests. 4) The Bush administration sent far too few ground troops to Afghanistan and thus allowed far too many Taliban and al-Qaida members to escape. 5) The Afghan government, in supporting the coalition in Iraq, was purely risible in that its non-army was purely American. 6) The American lives lost in Afghanistan have been wasted. (This I divine from the fact that this supposedly "antiwar" film is dedicated ruefully to all those killed there, as well as in Iraq.) It must be evident to anyone, despite the rapid-fire way in which Moore's direction eases the audience hastily past the contradictions, that these discrepant scatter shots do not cohere at any point. Either the Saudis run U.S. policy (through family ties or overwhelming economic interest), or they do not. As allies and patrons of the Taliban regime, they either opposed Bush's removal of it, or they did not. (They opposed the removal, all right: They wouldn't even let Tony Blair land his own plane on their soil at the time of the operation.) Either we sent too many troops, or were wrong to send any at all—the latter was Moore's view as late as 2002—or we sent too few. If we were going to make sure no Taliban or al-Qaida forces survived or escaped, we would have had to be more ruthless than I suspect that Mr. Moore is really recommending. And these are simply observations on what is "in" the film. If we turn to the facts that are deliberately left out, we discover that there is an emerging Afghan army, that the country is now a joint NATO responsibility and thus under the protection of the broadest military alliance in history, that it has a new constitution and is preparing against hellish odds to hold a general election, and that at least a million and a half of its former refugees have opted to return. I don't think a pipeline is being constructed yet, not that Afghanistan couldn't do with a pipeline. But a highway from Kabul to Kandahar—an insurance against warlordism and a condition of nation-building—is nearing completion with infinite labor and risk. We also discover that the parties of the Afghan secular left—like the parties of the Iraqi secular left—are strongly in favor of the regime change. But this is not the sort of irony in which Moore chooses to deal. He prefers leaden sarcasm to irony and, indeed, may not appreciate the distinction. In a long and paranoid (and tedious) section at the opening of the film, he makes heavy innuendoes about the flights that took members of the Bin Laden family out of the country after Sept. 11. I banged on about this myself at the time and wrote a Nation column drawing attention to the groveling Larry King interview with the insufferable Prince Bandar, which Moore excerpts. However, recent developments have not been kind to our Mike. In the interval between Moore's triumph at Cannes and the release of the film in the United States, the 9/11 commission has found nothing to complain of in the timing or arrangement of the flights. And Richard Clarke, Bush's former chief of counterterrorism, has come forward to say that he, and he alone, took the responsibility for authorizing those Saudi departures. This might not matter so much to the ethos of Fahrenheit 9/11, except that—as you might expect—Clarke is presented throughout as the brow-furrowed ethical hero of the entire post-9/11 moment. And it does not seem very likely that, in his open admission about the Bin Laden family evacuation, Clarke is taking a fall, or a spear in the chest, for the Bush administration. So, that's another bust for this windy and bloated cinematic "key to all mythologies." A film that bases itself on a big lie and a big misrepresentation can only sustain itself by a dizzying succession of smaller falsehoods, beefed up by wilder and (if possible) yet more-contradictory claims. President Bush is accused of taking too many lazy vacations. (What is that about, by the way? Isn't he supposed to be an unceasing planner for future aggressive wars?) But the shot of him "relaxing at Camp David" shows him side by side with Tony Blair. I say "shows," even though this photograph is on-screen so briefly that if you sneeze or blink, you won't recognize the other figure. A meeting with the prime minister of the United Kingdom, or at least with this prime minister, is not a goof-off. The president is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, on a golf course, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then asking the reporters to watch his drive. Well, that's what you get if you catch the president on a golf course. If Eisenhower had done this, as he often did, it would have been presented as calm statesmanship. If Clinton had done it, as he often did, it would have shown his charm. More interesting is the moment where Bush is shown frozen on his chair at the infant school in Florida, looking stunned and useless for seven whole minutes after the news of the second plane on 9/11. Many are those who say that he should have leaped from his stool, adopted a Russell Crowe stance, and gone to work. I could even wish that myself. But if he had done any such thing then (as he did with his "Let's roll" and "dead or alive" remarks a month later), half the Michael Moore community would now be calling him a man who went to war on a hectic, crazed impulse. The other half would be saying what they already say—that he knew the attack was coming, was using it to cement himself in power, and couldn't wait to get on with his coup. This is the line taken by Gore Vidal and by a scandalous recent book that also revives the charge of FDR's collusion over Pearl Harbor. At least Moore's film should put the shameful purveyors of that last theory back in their paranoid box. But it won't because it encourages their half-baked fantasies in so many other ways. We are introduced to Iraq, "a sovereign nation." (In fact, Iraq's "sovereignty" was heavily qualified by international sanctions, however questionable, which reflected its noncompliance with important U.N. resolutions.) In this peaceable kingdom, according to Moore's flabbergasting choice of film shots, children are flying little kites, shoppers are smiling in the sunshine, and the gentle rhythms of life are undisturbed. Then—wham! From the night sky come the terror weapons of American imperialism. Watching the clips Moore uses, and recalling them well, I can recognize various Saddam palaces and military and police centers getting the treatment. But these sites are not identified as such. In fact, I don't think Al Jazeera would, on a bad day, have transmitted anything so utterly propagandistic. You would also be led to think that the term "civilian casualty" had not even been in the Iraqi vocabulary until March 2003. I remember asking Moore at Telluride if he was or was not a pacifist. He would not give a straight answer then, and he doesn't now, either. I'll just say that the "insurgent" side is presented in this film as justifiably outraged, whereas the 30-year record of Baathist war crimes and repression and aggression is not mentioned once. (Actually, that's not quite right. It is briefly mentioned but only, and smarmily, because of the bad period when Washington preferred Saddam to the likewise unmentioned Ayatollah Khomeini.) That this—his pro-American moment—was the worst Moore could possibly say of Saddam's depravity is further suggested by some astonishing falsifications. Moore asserts that Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American. I never quite know whether Moore is as ignorant as he looks, or even if that would be humanly possible. Baghdad was for years the official, undisguised home address of Abu Nidal, then the most-wanted gangster in the world, who had been sentenced to death even by the PLO and had blown up airports in Vienna* and Rome. Baghdad was the safe house for the man whose "operation" murdered Leon Klinghoffer. Saddam boasted publicly of his financial sponsorship of suicide bombers in Israel. (Quite a few Americans of all denominations walk the streets of Jerusalem.) In 1991, a large number of Western hostages were taken by the hideous Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and held in terrible conditions for a long time. After that same invasion was repelled—Saddam having killed quite a few Americans and Egyptians and Syrians and Brits in the meantime and having threatened to kill many more—the Iraqi secret police were caught trying to murder former President Bush during his visit to Kuwait. Never mind whether his son should take that personally. (Though why should he not?) Should you and I not resent any foreign dictatorship that attempts to kill one of our retired chief executives? (President Clinton certainly took it that way: He ordered the destruction by cruise missiles of the Baathist "security" headquarters.) Iraqi forces fired, every day, for 10 years, on the aircraft that patrolled the no-fly zones and staved off further genocide in the north and south of the country. In 1993, a certain Mr. Yasin helped mix the chemicals for the bomb at the World Trade Center and then skipped to Iraq, where he remained a guest of the state until the overthrow of Saddam. In 2001, Saddam's regime was the only one in the region that openly celebrated the attacks on New York and Washington and described them as just the beginning of a larger revenge. Its official media regularly spewed out a stream of anti-Semitic incitement. I think one might describe that as "threatening," even if one was narrow enough to think that anti-Semitism only menaces Jews. And it was after, and not before, the 9/11 attacks that Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi moved from Afghanistan to Baghdad and began to plan his now very open and lethal design for a holy and ethnic civil war. On Dec. 1, 2003, the New York Times reported—and the David Kay report had established—that Saddam had been secretly negotiating with the "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il in a series of secret meetings in Syria, as late as the spring of 2003, to buy a North Korean missile system, and missile-production system, right off the shelf. (This attempt was not uncovered until after the fall of Baghdad, the coalition's presence having meanwhile put an end to the negotiations.) Thus, in spite of the film's loaded bias against the work of the mind, you can grasp even while watching it that Michael Moore has just said, in so many words, the one thing that no reflective or informed person can possibly believe: that Saddam Hussein was no problem. No problem at all. Now look again at the facts I have cited above. If these things had been allowed to happen under any other administration, you can be sure that Moore and others would now glibly be accusing the president of ignoring, or of having ignored, some fairly unmistakable "warnings." The same "let's have it both ways" opportunism infects his treatment of another very serious subject, namely domestic counterterrorist policy. From being accused of overlooking too many warnings—not exactly an original point—the administration is now lavishly taunted for issuing too many. (Would there not have been "fear" if the harbingers of 9/11 had been taken seriously?) We are shown some American civilians who have had absurd encounters with idiotic "security" staff. (Have you ever met anyone who can't tell such a story?) Then we are immediately shown underfunded police departments that don't have the means or the manpower to do any stop-and-search: a power suddenly demanded by Moore on their behalf that we know by definition would at least lead to some ridiculous interrogations. Finally, Moore complains that there isn't enough intrusion and confiscation at airports and says that it is appalling that every air traveler is not forcibly relieved of all matches and lighters. (Cue mood music for sinister influence of Big Tobacco.) So—he wants even more pocket-rummaging by airport officials? Uh, no, not exactly. But by this stage, who's counting? Moore is having it three ways and asserting everything and nothing. Again—simply not serious. Circling back to where we began, why did Moore's evil Saudis not join "the Coalition of the Willing"? Why instead did they force the United States to switch its regional military headquarters to Qatar? If the Bush family and the al-Saud dynasty live in each other's pockets, as is alleged in a sort of vulgar sub-Brechtian scene with Arab headdresses replacing top hats, then how come the most reactionary regime in the region has been powerless to stop Bush from demolishing its clone in Kabul and its buffer regime in Baghdad? The Saudis hate, as they did in 1991, the idea that Iraq's recuperated oil industry might challenge their near-monopoly. They fear the liberation of the Shiite Muslims they so despise. To make these elementary points is to collapse the whole pathetic edifice of the film's "theory." Perhaps Moore prefers the pro-Saudi Kissinger/Scowcroft plan for the Middle East, where stability trumps every other consideration and where one dare not upset the local house of cards, or killing-field of Kurds? This would be a strange position for a purported radical. Then again, perhaps he does not take this conservative line because his real pitch is not to any audience member with a serious interest in foreign policy. It is to the provincial isolationist. I have already said that Moore's film has the staunch courage to mock Bush for his verbal infelicity. Yet it's much, much braver than that. From Fahrenheit 9/11 you can glean even more astounding and hidden disclosures, such as the capitalist nature of American society, the existence of Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex," and the use of "spin" in the presentation of our politicians. It's high time someone had the nerve to point this out. There's more. Poor people often volunteer to join the army, and some of them are duskier than others. Betcha didn't know that. Back in Flint, Mich., Moore feels on safe ground. There are no martyred rabbits this time. Instead, it's the poor and black who shoulder the packs and rifles and march away. I won't dwell on the fact that black Americans have fought for almost a century and a half, from insisting on their right to join the U.S. Army and fight in the Civil War to the right to have a desegregated Army that set the pace for post-1945 civil rights. I'll merely ask this: In the film, Moore says loudly and repeatedly that not enough troops were sent to garrison Afghanistan and Iraq. (This is now a favorite cleverness of those who were, in the first place, against sending any soldiers at all.) Well, where does he think those needful heroes and heroines would have come from? Does he favor a draft—the most statist and oppressive solution? Does he think that only hapless and gullible proles sign up for the Marines? Does he think—as he seems to suggest—that parents can "send" their children, as he stupidly asks elected members of Congress to do? Would he have abandoned Gettysburg because the Union allowed civilians to pay proxies to serve in their place? Would he have supported the antidraft (and very antiblack) riots against Lincoln in New York? After a point, one realizes that it's a waste of time asking him questions of this sort. It would be too much like taking him seriously. He'll just try anything once and see if it floats or flies or gets a cheer. Trying to talk congressmen into sending their sons to war Indeed, Moore's affected and ostentatious concern for black America is one of the most suspect ingredients of his pitch package. In a recent interview, he yelled that if the hijacked civilians of 9/11 had been black, they would have fought back, unlike the stupid and presumably cowardly white men and women (and children). Never mind for now how many black passengers were on those planes—we happen to know what Moore does not care to mention: that Todd Beamer and a few of his co-passengers, shouting "Let's roll," rammed the hijackers with a trolley, fought them tooth and nail, and helped bring down a United Airlines plane, in Pennsylvania, that was speeding toward either the White House or the Capitol. There are no words for real, impromptu bravery like that, which helped save our republic from worse than actually befell. The Pennsylvania drama also reminds one of the self-evident fact that this war is not fought only "overseas" or in uniform, but is being brought to our cities. Yet Moore is a silly and shady man who does not recognize courage of any sort even when he sees it because he cannot summon it in himself. To him, easy applause, in front of credulous audiences, is everything. Moore has announced that he won't even appear on TV shows where he might face hostile questioning. I notice from the New York Times of June 20 that he has pompously established a rapid response team, and a fact-checking staff, and some tough lawyers, to bulwark himself against attack. He'll sue, Moore says, if anyone insults him or his pet. Some right-wing hack groups, I gather, are planning to bring pressure on their local movie theaters to drop the film. How dumb or thuggish do you have to be in order to counter one form of stupidity and cowardice with another? By all means go and see this terrible film, and take your friends, and if the fools in the audience strike up one cry, in favor of surrender or defeat, feel free to join in the conversation. However, I think we can agree that the film is so flat-out phony that "fact-checking" is beside the point. And as for the scary lawyers—get a life, or maybe see me in court. But I offer this, to Moore and to his rapid response rabble. Any time, Michael my boy. Let's redo Telluride. Any show. Any place. Any platform. Let's see what you're made of. Some people soothingly say that one should relax about all this. It's only a movie. No biggie. It's no worse than the tomfoolery of Oliver Stone. It's kick-ass entertainment. It might even help get out "the youth vote." Yeah, well, I have myself written and presented about a dozen low-budget made-for-TV documentaries, on subjects as various as Mother Teresa and Bill Clinton and the Cyprus crisis, and I also helped produce a slightly more polished one on Henry Kissinger that was shown in movie theaters. So I know, thanks, before you tell me, that a documentary must have a "POV" or point of view and that it must also impose a narrative line. But if you leave out absolutely everything that might give your "narrative" a problem and throw in any old rubbish that might support it, and you don't even care that one bit of that rubbish flatly contradicts the next bit, and you give no chance to those who might differ, then you have betrayed your craft. If you flatter and fawn upon your potential audience, I might add, you are patronizing them and insulting them. By the same token, if I write an article and I quote somebody and for space reasons put in an ellipsis like this (…), I swear on my children that I am not leaving out anything that, if quoted in full, would alter the original meaning or its significance. Those who violate this pact with readers or viewers are to be despised. At no point does Michael Moore make the smallest effort to be objective. At no moment does he pass up the chance of a cheap sneer or a jeer. He pitilessly focuses his camera, for minutes after he should have turned it off, on a distraught and bereaved mother whose grief we have already shared. (But then, this is the guy who thought it so clever and amusing to catch Charlton Heston, in Bowling for Columbine, at the onset of his senile dementia.) Such courage. Perhaps vaguely aware that his movie so completely lacks gravitas, Moore concludes with a sonorous reading of some words from George Orwell. The words are taken from 1984 and consist of a third-person analysis of a hypothetical, endless, and contrived war between three superpowers. The clear intention, as clumsily excerpted like this (...) is to suggest that there is no moral distinction between the United States, the Taliban, and the Baath Party and that the war against jihad is about nothing. If Moore had studied a bit more, or at all, he could have read Orwell really saying, and in his own voice, the following: The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States … And that's just from Orwell's Notes on Nationalism in May 1945. A short word of advice: In general, it's highly unwise to quote Orwell if you are already way out of your depth on the question of moral equivalence. It's also incautious to remind people of Orwell if you are engaged in a sophomoric celluloid rewriting of recent history. If Michael Moore had had his way, Slobodan Milosevic would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and annexed. If Michael Moore had been listened to, Afghanistan would still be under Taliban rule, and Kuwait would have remained part of Iraq. And Iraq itself would still be the personal property of a psychopathic crime family, bargaining covertly with the slave state of North Korea for WMD. You might hope that a retrospective awareness of this kind would induce a little modesty. To the contrary, it is employed to pump air into one of the great sagging blimps of our sorry, mediocre, celeb-rotten culture. Rock the vote, indeed. http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723#ContinueArticle To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.

If some idiot throws back a homer, whichever player gets it should be allowed to call time and go and hand it to a kid.... 1) It would teach people what they should do with a ball and 2) The person that tossed the ball back would get the ever loving s*** heckled out of him for postponing the game.... I hope the sox have a graphic ready on the scoreboard that says THIS AIN'T WRIGLEY or something...

Absolutely not. It is a stupid f***in tradition and it ain't our tradition anyway. If ya don't want a homerun hit by another team then dont f***in catch it or go after it...make sense?? if you happen to get it...and you don't want it for whatever reason...then give it to a kid. I can't believe the idiots that are screaming "throw it back" at the cell...It makes me sick..... :puke

Coco and CC are Folks!!!