Dear Google:

You have been over here for a while now and it's been a good arrangement for us both. You have 74,000,000,000 users (maybe more, maybe less—it changes every week) and we have dedicated insights into the People's internet uses and habits.

It has allowed you to make a lot of money and we've been able to squelch the annoying human need for individuality and dignity. We not only lead the world by making our People bar-coded seriads, but we are the envy of Corporate Persons the world over. Our favorite American client, the Bush family, weeps openly in admiration of our progress.

But you insist on leaving if we don't stop "censoring" you, what we call "data mining." (Tip of the cap to that same Bush family.) This after you let it pass only a few years ago, because we were making so much money together. I guess that irritating "world reaction" got to you, eh?

Wussy!

Here's the deal: You stay here long enough for us to nationalize you. Then you can go whenever and wherever you want. And if DC wants to get involved, tell them they owe us several trillion dollars. (Maybe more, maybe less—it changes every week.) WE'LL call the shots, thank you.

Sincerely,

McCloughan Out

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that 49ers have bagged General Manager Scott McCloughan.

McCloughan, along with Mike Nolan, led the 49ers from the woeful years under Dennis Erickson to a brave new woe with themselves in charge. The difference was that everyone knows Erickson is a bad coach and it was that 2-and-never mind year that convinced owner John York that he was as bad an owner as Erickson was a coach.

So he went out and hired 49ers legacy Nolan to coach and make bad decisions, then hired Raiders legacy McCloughan to follow suit. With York on "I didn't do it" auto pilot, McCloughan over his head in the front office and crisply-suited, iron-jawed Nolan asleep at the wheel every Sunday, the 49ers efficiently destroyed the bodies of three high-priced quarterbacks in only two years.

York, to his minimal credit, installed his twelve-year-old son as President. To his great credit, young Jed found himself under the spell of assistant coach Mike Singletary, whose defense was the only happiness for the patient 49er Faithful. As soon as was convenient, Jed York axed handsome coach / butt-ugly record'ed Nolan. Singletary was made Head Coach.

The 49ers are now pushing forward, like a guy paralyzed from the waist down because he was a quarterback under Nolan, but making real progress with physical therapy and a Hanes-ful of courage. But one more thing was needed.

That's right—a good football mind on draft day. So the 'Niners, looking to recapture a shred of dignity (let alone the glory of the 80s), sent Scott McLoser down the line. And it's telling why—
"longstanding personal issues." I'm guessing it's a longstanding personal issue between the profoundly ineffective GM and the I'm-in-charge-now Kid down the hall in the big chair.

Time will tell if Jed York is the stuff of NFL executive excellence. (Leading Opinion is betting on him.) But for McCloughan, it's a simple "good riddance."

Stupid Giants

The San Francisco Giants took another step deeper in their relentless quest to become the New Cubs. The team has extended the contracts of sleepwalking General Manager Brian Sabean, and career sub-.500 manager Bruce Bochy.

The last time the Giants won a World Series was 1954, while still in New York. The Giants have lost three World Series in San Francisco—to an Act of God in 1962, in utter disgrace in 1989, and a historic choke in 2002. The Giants are the third most long suffering team in baseball, trailing only the Cubs and the Indians. Keeping Sabean and Bochy reflects the club's determination to stay in this charmless circle.

Now, Bochy is not at all contemptible. Indeed, he's funny. He talks about nothing, really, in response to questions about something. And I'm pretty sure he thinks he's answering the question, too. He says "step up," and "get a few in there for us," and stuff like that. His voice is gravelly and deep and he sounds like Hoss on "Bonanza." And he manages like Hoss would, too.

Bochy is the kind of guy who works on your transmission, and you think him an all-around good guy. Then your car dies in the fast lane on a bridge in rush hour because your transmission was put together wrong. When you confront him about it, he keeps his cool and looks off in the distance and rambles on about U-joints and bad fit for your model and the weather and the high property taxes.... He's not evading the question, he just doesn't understand your problem. If the transmission needed to be functional, well, it woulda been that.

He doesn't really care because he doesn't really have that depth people have when they really care. Bobby Cox has that depth, Terry Francona has it. Tony LaRussa has that depth. (And more—LaRussa has the uber-depth of care that will kill you in your sleep if you're not careful.) But most managers learn to act the part and baseball people are usually happy enough with the actor. A fella like Bochy is unique, though. He doesn't seem to notice the lack of depth or the need to act. He is not manager material, either genuine or fake. He's a security guard, whose job is to monitor the playing of baseball games by experienced men whose experience needs monitoring, not direction.

Even if those experienced men hit .240.

The last manager of this caliber, that I remember anyway, was Ralph Houk. Houk took over the Yankees from Casey Stengel and led that juggernaut to three consecutive World Series. He became General Manager the next year and the Yankees began a 14-year post season drought. The Bombers transformed from Mantle-Maris-Ford to Pepitone-Cater-Kekich and Houk slunk away after '73. He was immediately snapped up by the aging Detroit Tigers—does this sound familiar, Giants fans?—and he presided over the disarticulation of talent in Tiger Town. When he left the team after 5 years, the transformation from annual contenders to nameless patsies was one for the books. (Does this sound familiar, Giants fans?)

Houk was a favorite of veteran players. He let them play when they wanted and only benched them in favor of youth when they decided to rest their aching stiff legs and aching batting average. Indeed Houk, like Bochy does now, had some genetic code that made him physically ill if his pen wrote a young player's name on the lineup card. I mean, you could look it up.

This kind of guy—a Houk guy, the guy Bochy is— is the guy a daydreamer like Sabean would make a multi-year mistake with. And he did.

Sabean himself built the Giants into a formidable National League power after becoming GM in 1997; but it was a power that managed to lose whenever it mattered most. Especially after after the colossal loss in 2002: Sabean lost any skills he had: He acquired Sidney Ponson, Barry Zito, Ray Durham, Michael Tucker and Armando Benitez; and turned up his nose at Joe Nathan, Adam Dunn, Manny Ramirez and Vladimir Guerrero.

Now don't get me wrong. Sabean is not a hack. He's just not competent. Maybe it's age, or maybe the temptations of the Bay Area. Whatever the reason, he's through. Unless you count the two year extension, which you have to. Which hurts real bad.

When Sabean speaks with Bay Area media, incidentally, he treats them with absolute contempt. Problem is, reporters there don't treat him like a chump—they ask boring, money-based, business-oriented questions. You know, the kind of stuff GMs handle. Sabean's hatred is a total contradiction to his frowsy performance since 2002. Maybe if his dealings with players, agents and other GMs was as tough, the Giants would be worth a poo.

But that's just my opinion.

A final thought: Bochy is a Padre, been one all his adult life. He came to the Giants when Sabean went looking for a bargain to manage a bunch of underachievers and make it all seem OK for the players, and hope that fans and press would be duped. Well, Bochy wears Giants colors, but he's a Padre first and last. They have Tim Flannery on the club, for chrissakes. They get old Padres to make month-long cameos. The Giants play like the Padres, and win (or not!) like the Padres. And now fans are talking about getting Adrian Gonzalez! It's creepy.

Sabean's a failure and Bochy is a loser. Both just got re-hired. If you're looking for total disservice to baseball, to fans and to the gods themselves, look no further.

Raccoons: In Your Wildest Dreams!

Don't Laugh.

I had a dream last night and I'm calling all interpreters to tell me what it means. No funny business—jokes, wisecracks, Freudian slips. If this has something to do with the stealth raid on the US dollar, you have my attention. But if you insist it's about male self-doubt, well.... I'll kick your butt, that's what!

Here goes: I'm in a house in everyone's hometown. It's dusk, autumn—meaning, it's dark outside and early. The neighborhood has a low covering of old trees, gnarly, sturdy oaks whose branches form a ceiling over the narrow street. I am home for some event—holiday, birthday, reunion, what have you. I haven't been home for some time, at least to see people outside the family. There are flashes, moments inside the event where I meet people I haven't seen in years. My personality is like the one you have at a work event: pretend friendly, not having a bad time but not having a genuinely good time. You know, making nice.

Then, I view the scene outside from several feet away, as the event in the house disbands. Along with other people outside, leaving other houses, everyone inside my house disbands and heads into the street. They all go to the right, up the street as if to some common destination. But I leave and go straight, along the cross street.

As always with dreams, pertinent questions are always left to waking hours. In this case, the question is why I go away from the event and the people I am visiting?


Next, I am in an unlit room, hunched on the floor. I am between the underside of a large table and a big piece of furniture against the wall. Suddenly, I am face to face with a creature I know to be a raccoon, by virtue of black accents on the tail. However, the face is of "Bill the weasel" from a Foghorn Leghorn cartoon. Incredibly, the animal's outstanding feature is its brilliant turquoise color. I notice this feature most, but there are no specific feelings.

The creature means no harm, but I become unnerved nevertheless. I am determined to defend myself, because I feel vulnerable in my position as "prey." The raccoon insists he is no danger: His voice is gravelly and slow, sort of.....uh, well—slow, bumbling, country guy-ish. But I grab the can of Lysol at my disposal and begin spraying the beast.



I am surprised at the ineffectiveness of my defense. I expected the shower of disinfectant would scare away the turquoise raccoon, but he stays his ground and howls in pain. His eyes won't close and the spray coats the bulging orbs with a waterfall of cell-killing anti-bacterial chemicals. The poor thing yells as I spray and spray and spray....

Question: Why, if I felt no overwhelming fear, did I attack the animal, even after it told me it was no threat, and its mien revealed a harmless, slow-witted hayseed?

The turquoise raccoon moved away to my left as I sprayed the can of Lysol on it. I sprayed madly, my safety at stake. I felt the imprint of the nozzle in my index finger and the dampness of the Lysol that drizzled on my hand. The animal slunk away—probably to die, thanks to me!—and I folded up against the wall, under a window, where the raccoon had stood my onslaught. I looked at the place where I hunched only moments before. I looked up and saw something that made my blood run cold.

There, above me, were about a dozen turquoise raccoons with faces set coldly in anger. They had seen the whole episode and were ready to dispense raccoon justice.

I awoke in an attitude of total.... "Uh oh..." So what am I to make of all this? What does all this mean ?

Don't Laugh.

South Carolina Speaks

From our wire service and critical review in Los Angeles, Leading Opinion receives this item:

South Carolina criminal defense attorney Irby Walker was arrested for trying to hire a hit man to kill Doug Thornton, an attorney with whom he had once shared a law office. Walker repeatedly talked with the purported hit man, who recorded the conversations—he also met with the fellow, established a price for the hit and put a deposit on the job, with the balance due upon completion.

While speechless, Thornton apparently wasn’t that shocked by the news—the police had already been investigating Walker after Thornton reported that his colleague had made threats on his life. Thornton told a local paper: “I know a few things that may have contributed to it."

This all took place in South Carolina. My source sent it, responding to my piece about South Carolina Congressman and American Bozo Joe Wilson, whose catcalls in Congress last month sullied American governmental process. Leading Opinion pointed out, however, that such is the participatory mise en scene of guys like Wilson. As I looked more into South Carolina politics to see if there was something that explained it, I found lots of answers:

Governor Mark Sanford had an e-ffair with an Argentinian woman. In a fit of uncontrollable passion—maybe some mad, mad romantic and poetic derring-do?—Sanford disappeared without notice or trace to consort with his beloved in the third world. He denied it, was nailed at it, and stays defiantly in office.


"Pitchfork Ben" Tillman was Governor of the state from 1890-94, then served in the US Senate till his death in 1918. His political career was about open espousal of violence against the wealthy, President Grover Cleveland and of course, African Americans.

Preston Brooks, Representative from South Carolina, had the historically greatest moment of Congressional disruption and Government by Low Life. Brooks was offended in 1856 by a speech delivered by Senator Charles Sumner, in which Sumner berated slavery sympathisers, including Brooks's relative. Three days later, Brooks coolly approached Sumner in the Senate and beat him to a pulp with his gold-knobbed wooden cane. Brooks was later challenged to a duel with rifles by another anti-slavery man; he declined, giving his fear of death as his excuse.

Strom Thurmond was King of All Bigots during his years in National Government, 1947-2003. He bravely planted himself between Civil War and Civil Rights, as the last best hope for White Manhood. After death finally rid America of his cantankerous stand against basic human values (as outlined in the Constitution of the United States), Thurmond's family revealed his secret, the truth at the very core of slavery and slavers like Thurmond. At 22, the horticulturist (!) from Clemson had fathered a child with his African American servant. Thurmond loved the child dearly throughout his life, supported her financially, and kept her absolutely secret until relieved of the effort by the grave.

Caitlin Upton was Miss South Carolina Teen USA in 2006 and competed for the title of Miss Teen USA. During the pageant, Upton struggled to answer a question about geography and education; the response was widely and popularly viewed on the web. While Upton's intelligence is not at issue here, Leading Opinion feels it it far and away the finest demonstration of national political culture from the Palmetto State.

Crouching Beauty, Hidden Meaning

First things first: When you board an elevator that smells funny—even a little—get off and take the next one. Someone always gets on and thinks it's you that wears too much perfume, or had a burrito for lunch, or smokes Salem. Trust me on this one.

I watched the epic "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" again. I do this sort of thing, where I go genre on the innocent clerks at the neighborhood flick-torium. Last time was the whole Batman franchise in order, the week before the Heath Ledger version was released.



(In case you're wondering, I liked the George Clooney one best. It was closest to the TV series and I liked its light heartedness. Everyone disagrees, so don't think you're special.)

I got to thinking about the (somewhat) recent spate of movies in homage to martial arts legend and fantasy—"Crouching Tiger," "Iron Monkey," "Hero," "Fearless," "House of Flying Daggers," "Bulletproof Monk." "Crouching Tiger" is an Ang Lee film and has his artful, soft touch. But all that film critic stuff aside, what I liked best about the movie—besides the wondrous fight scenes—was one interesting difference.

Martial arts movies are geared to 12-year old boys who are ready to burst out of their boy bodies and do some serious damage to those ninth-graders who keep messing with them after school. The plots are about a just man being pinned in a situation where he has no choice but to fight. He does, he wipes out the evil crime boss / local warlord and reminds us that one just man with moves so quick you see through them like helicopter blades, is the last, best hope for our lame species.

But "Crouching Tiger" is centrally about women. While the plot largely sticks with that I detailed above, it is women who are provoked, women who are god and bad (and good-and-bad). It is women who react to external forces and who are the only hope for, um, mankind.

Women inhabit the chief spaces in "Crouching Tiger." Yu Shu-lien is the stealthy, intelligent practitioner of Wudang, the kung fu a small group of heroes uses to legendary effect. She sits quietly sewing, until she springs to use her art to re-direct events, not just to clash steel. Jade Fox hoped to study Wudang; frustrated by her failure, she proceeded down the path of murder, evil magic and vengeance. Her lethal skill impelled hunters to track her and meet her in combat—always to their detriment.



But it is Jen who has the most dynamic presence. She leads a triple life—yes, you read it right—that moves events from intrigue to crime to justice to emotion to reason. Jen is compelled by love, anger, ambition and duty, seperate and all at once. She is both male and female. Every man but one falls easily before her prowess, and all women are unable to corral her. She is the only one who can determine her fate, and the fate of every other character. Jen is about 15 years old, for what it's worth.

Men, meanwhile, are generally one-dimensional in "Crouching Tiger." Li Mu-bai is the greatest warrior, but he is secondary to Yu Shu-lien in events. It is she who combats Jen in the film's best fight scene; Li Mu-bai only spars with Jen to woo her to Wudang and a righteous path. In the end, Li Mu-bai's myopia is his downfall, while Yu Shu-lien and Jen are deepened by the movie's climactic moment.

All in all, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is one of those films we are the better for seeing. It's artful, dramatic and the kung fu is really good. There is a slight qualification to that: Lee directs the action sequences fantasy-like, with flying and running up walls and such. But it's not hokey, fortunately. It's fantasy, and good tales are "Once upon a time..." with a solid foundation of real humanity.

Fantasy, like myth and fable and other imaginitive invention, takes us into a dream so we can better understand our reality. Or maybe, it takes our sordid realities and casts them dreamlike, that we can better manage our world. Whatever your personal emphasis, it's about that core human challenge of trying to guide our senses with our minds.

"You LIE!!"

President Obama spoke to the nation the other night about his plan to re-do health care. During his speech, the American Right had its latest display of its true colors. Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina hollered out, "You Lie!" (according to most reports) as the President made one of his points. Wilson apologized immediately, which President Obama graciously accepted, keeping with his determination to change political culture from division to debate.

Like the President, I am inclined to forgive Wilson. Representative government is actually that when low-end crackers have a seat in Congress. And honest debate over emotional issues sometimes evokes hot headed, Klan-ish outbursts by morons whose blood is angried by a lifetime of fried foods. This not only makes our nation great—because it's real—it also makes us improve. No pain, as they say, no gain.

For our literary, superior purposes here, however (as you expect and demand), I wish to point out that Wilson is but the frontal image of that destructive animal energy from the Right. It does not hope to mend what is seen as broken, as Ronald Reagan expressed. Conservatives have little interest in returning America to some cherished past, where individuals hewed respectability from a stubborn land. They want nothing more than to marginalize the mass of people with their simple vision of local tyrants.

You know, the small town King who owns the Mercury Outboard dealership, key real estate and has political control by means of cash dispensed to political lackeys. It's no more than that, because they are no more than that.

Here's how you get that: You disarticulate any large-scale social improvements because it requires big, thoughtful and intelligent contribution. Big is bad because it's not local and it's not them; thoughtful is against church teachings ("at least that's what Pastor Don says and I believe!"); "intelligent" is just a word that New York Jews have for themselves—plain old common sense will do just fine for good, local men. And contribution means it's not local and it's not them.

Next, you convince your neighbors that what you say is true because any other point of view is lies and anti-American. Flog this notion constantly, like a commercial for Olive Garden between 5 p.m. and prime time: Soon enough, lots of people will consume it enough to become obese with misinformation. Sick with it. Clomping around the mall with it pasted in their bodies. Dying from it as they declare its righteousness, resisting every remedy for it.

Guys like Joe Wilson are the next generation of guys like George Wallace and Rush Limbaugh. They have been snookered by the bad guys and now are the bad guys. They have consumed the smack produced by the previous generation and are moved to take their hollerin' fight to the very halls of perdition.

They are mean, small, silly people who cannot perceive anything more modern than internet porn. They are the same sad children who they disdain to help with basic nutrition, clean water, adequate health care. They are lunkheads we must navigate as we push toward the possibility of a just society.

They are fools.