Growing up in Indiana, I learned that Memorial Day weekend meant one thing:  The Indianapolis 500.  Not to sound too Abe Simpson-ish, but during my formative years, when the big three television networks were all we had, there was a television broadcast blackout of the race and it was showed later in the day.  The theory was that somehow they wouldn’t get 500,000 fans at the race if people could stay home and watch it on tv.

Our family was never obsessed with the 500, but it was still the big sports story in the newspapers the entire month of May.  So even living 3+ hours north of Indy, and not making a habit of watching the race religiously, I learned over the years about the Unsers, A.J. Foyt, Johnny Rutherford, Mario Andretti and others who raced in the 70s and early 80s.

After college I worked in Indy and even went to 2 or 3 races.  I didn’t know what to expect, but I have to admit it was a great spectator sport and a lot of fun, even with a half million drunks surrounding you for miles.

But somewhere in the last 20 years, Indy style racing fell out of favor as sanctioning bodies split and tried to compete with one another.  The 500 doesn’t seem to have the glamor and cache it once did.  News coming out of Florida this morning is that the sanctioning bodies have reconciled, and they hope to see their fortunes with open wheel racing rise:

HOMESTEAD, Fla. — The Indy Racing League might have a new problem on its hands: too many competitors.

The first look at unified open-wheel racing came Wednesday in a news conference at Homestead-Miami Speedway featuring IRL founder Tony George and Champ Car World Series co-owner Kevin Kalkhoven. Also on hand were team owners and potential team owners from both sides of the sport — making for a crowded room.

In fact, if every possible team participates this season, the IRL could be looking at 37 cars.

"I just realized that myself," said Brian Barnhart, president of the IRL's competition division. "I think I'd be more comfortable with something more along the lines of 28 to 30."

The two series officially were unified Friday after 12 years as rivals. All future events will be sanctioned by the IRL under the banner of the IndyCar Series.

I wish them well and will probably tune in to watch the 500 this year if it works out with possible travel, or family and friends that weekend.  They’ll certainly have their work cut out for them as far as increasing awareness of their sport.  This evening, we attended a reading night at my daughter’s elementary school.  A dozen or so teachers opened their rooms to read stories for the kids for about 45 minutes, and then there was a stage performance by a balloon artist/puppeteer/story teller.

The two young female teachers in the room my daughter wanted to visit read a selection of books from The Teacher from the Black Lagoon series.  One book was titled The School Bus Driver from the Black Lagoon, and in it the author referred to the driver driving like he was in the Indianapolis 500.

The teachers asked the kids if they knew what that was, and while I wasn’t surprised that only one of the pre-school through third graders in attendance at least knew it's a race, it was the brief conversation between the teachers that made me think of the USA Today story on the Indy Car unification story and how far from prominence the sport has fallen.

While the teachers knew that the Indy 500 was a race, they thought it might be a NASCAR race, but weren’t really sure.  I was tempted to try to let them know that it’s not NASCAR but open wheel, as opposed to stock car, racing, which they also do at Indy but later in the summer and it’s only a 400 mile race, but figured my lovely wife and kids would just roll their eyes and wonder why I was bothering with stuff no one cares about.

My guess is neither of the teachers would have any clue about drivers or races on the NASCAR circuit either.  But they at least knew it existed and probably have a vague idea what it is.  I’ll be surprised if they ever learn what Indy Car racing is.

The sad history of former heavyweight champions who are unable or unwilling to let it go continues:

Evander Holyfield said he and Mike Tyson are discussing the possibility of fighting each other for a third time, the Guardian newspaper reported, citing an interview with the four-time heavyweight boxing champion.

As the story notes, Holyfield is 45 and Tyson is 41.  Tyson last fought in June, 2005, when he had to quit in the 7th round against Kevin McBride.  Who?!  I’d bet I could ask the first 1,000 people I meet on the ESPN campus in Connecticut to tell me who Kevin McBride is and they couldn’t do it.  And Tyson quit against him.  Almost 3 years ago.

Holyfield is 4 years older, and first fought professionally in 1984.  That’s during Reagan’s first term.  In looking up the information, I see that Holyfield actually had 3 fights in 2007, against Vinny Maddalone, Lou Savarese, and Sultan Ibragimo.  The fights against Ibragimo was for the WBO heavyweight title, and Holyfield lost.  Savarese was 41 when Holyfield stopped him in 10 rounds.  Maddalone was apparently 33 when he failed to get out of the third round against Holyfield.

For all the talk of boxing being a dying sport, where is the crazy money coming from to put up purses and try to market fights like Holyfield-Tyson III?  No way that fight generates any interest as a pay-per-view event.  So where’s the money coming from?

I listened to a conversation between talk radio host Dennis Praeger and Dorothy Rabinowitz of the Wall Street Journal.  You can hear this portion of the radio program here.  The program was broadcast on January 16, so before many of the people seeking party presidential nominations dropped out of the race.  Praeger had Ms. Rabinowitz on because she support John McCain’s candidacy, and Praeger sought to have her convince him of why he should support McCain in the event McCain is the Republican nominee.

Ms. Rabinowitz has written fine columns for the WSJ, and I’ve admired her columns for many years.  My recollection of her work is that she is thorough, sober and persuasive in her writing.  So I was surprisingly disappointed that she had nothing of substance to say to try to convince Mr. Praeger why she thinks John McCain is the best candidate in the Republican presidential field.

What I took from the conversation was that Ms. Rabinowitz supports McCain because, while she disagrees with him on almost every domestic policy issue, at least McCain wants to win the war against the Islamists.  As far as distinguishing McCain from any of the other Republican candidates, Ms. Rabinowitz seems to have succumbed to the flip side of the Cult of Obama.  McCain’s unrelenting and unyielding will and belief in his own correctness appears to be all Ms. Rabinowitz can say in his favor.

So after telling Praeger that she believes even the Democrat candidates would do the right thing and defend the country if they really thought we were losing to, or in danger from, the Islamofascists, for the life of me I can’t figure out how Ms. Rabinowitz supports McCain rather than any Democrat candidate.  She already doesn’t agree with McCain’s domestic policy positions.  She doesn’t think a Democrat candidate would fail to defend the American people.  What am I missing?

Following up on yesterday's news on the potential sale of Wrigley Field so that it would be owned by a separate entity than the team ownership, we get this AP story on ESPN's web site.  Looks like my fears about the end of Wrigley were well founded:

CHICAGO -- The chief executive officer of the Tribune Company said Wednesday he won't hesitate to sell the naming rights to Wrigley Field -- even if baseball purists don't like the idea.

During an interview on CNBC, Sam Zell said despite Wrigley Field being known worldwide, he didn't get a discount because he wasn't going to use the naming rights that the field represents.

Zell said he plans to sell the Cubs and Wrigley separately and in his own time frame. He also disclosed that Major League Baseball has approved "four or six" potential ownership groups and that any one of them would be fine.

The sale of the team has been delayed by Zell's plan to sell the team and the stadium separately, and to have a state agency acquire and renovate Wrigley.

 

I hated it when they put in lights.  I hated it when the team started putting the players names on their home jerseys (and I'd still take them off the road unis).  I hated it when they put on-field advertising on the bricks behind the batters.  And I hate the prospect of renaming Wrigley Field or coming up with some bastardized name as was done with Soldier Field (and which I obviously still have never bothered, and never will bother, to learn).  With a century's worth of futility now in the books, it seems like a bad time to give the fans something else not to like about their baseball team.

From Bloomberg News:

Sam Zell, chairman of Equity Group Investments LLC, told CNBC he plans to sell the Chicago Cubs Major League Baseball team on his ``time frame.''

The real estate billionaire told the financial news network he's worked on a structure in which Wrigley Field stadium would be separated from the team.

``We think that's best for us, we think that's best for any owner, and most important of all, we think it's best for the city of Chicago,'' Zell said.

 

First, a very minor nit, I don't think I've ever seen reference to "Wrigley Field stadium," but I could be wrong.  My understanding is that it's "Wrigley Field" period, full stop.  Or, in the parlance of the faithful, just "Wrigley."

More substantively, I think what this will mean is that at some point in my lifetime the Cubs will either leave Wrigley, tear it down to make a new facility, or perform some hideous "renovation" as was done to Soldier Field.

Once you have the ownership of the baseball team itself separated from the ownership of Wrigley, the tensions between their competing interests will see to it that disaster will result in the worst possible outcome for Cub fans.

Granted, the Tribune Company already took a huge step in ruining the place when they put in permanent lights, giving us another Day that Lives in Infamy, 8/8/88, so combined ownership interests are not a guarantee that problems won't arise.  Look at New York and the upheaval of tearing down the renovated Yankee Stadium to build a new park across the street.

But a complete separation of team and stadium ownership will only lead to battles over leases, amenities, rights, etc. that will eventually end up ruining everything.  I better make plans to get my kids there this summer so they'll be able to say they saw it when...

From Foxnews.com:

A 9-year-old girl has been banned from playing tennis by her local club because she grunts too loudly.

Lauryn Edwards was told at the weekend that she could no longer play her favorite sport after a complaint by an opposition player.

The Mt. Carmel Tennis Club, in Sunbury, Australia, told Lauryn's stunned parents, Duncan and Ruth, that the grunting had become too much.

 

I've been no fan of all the grunting and shrieking that many of the top women tennis players on the professional tour have been engaging in for quite a while.  Monica Seles, the Williams Sister, Sharapova, etc. have all been pretty ridiculous in their noise making on the court.  I would have been in agreement with efforts by the grandees in professional tennis to have the players tone it down or face penalties in the way of forfeited points, games, etc. in a graduated punishment system.  There's no reason for making very loud noises when hitting tennis ball, other than trying to psych out your opponent.  It's cheesy gamesmanship that should have been slapped down at the start.  Unfortunately, no one tried seriously to stop it, and so it has only continued and encouraged young players like Ms. Edwards to follow in the footsteps of the pros.

That said, I have no idea how egregious Ms. Edwards' grunting may be.  Part of me is suspicious that the player whose complaint appears to have started the ball rolling in this matter is also trying to just get an edge, or has parents who have better connections than Ms. Edwards' parents.  I guess what I'm wondering is whether the player who complained has had a history of trying to get Ms. Edwards to tone it down, and just what the history and timeline show about the history of these two players at the very least.

In any event, I hope Ms. Edwards continues to play tennis, and continues to enjoy it.  I just hope she also plays it more quietly and that her parents somehow find a way to help her stop with the grunts and shrieks that have no place in the normal course of play.

Here's the link text from the Pajamas Media homepage:

Geldof Praises Bush's Africa Achievements

Clicking through to the story itself, we get this:

Mr. Geldof praised Mr. Bush for his work in delivering billions to fight disease and poverty in Africa, and blasted the U.S. press for ignoring the achievement.

Sounds like the achievement is largely cutting checks, albeit with good intentions.  It would have been nice to have either Mr. Geldof or the reporter cite some kind of actual data that shows progress or good results coming from all those billions, but it's certainly reasonable to assume that at least SOME of the money has done SOME good over the years.

But still, it made me think of the article on foreign aid to Africa I read on City Journal's website.  Here's the intro:

Paternalism was supposed to be finished. The belief that grown men and women are childlike creatures who can thrive in the world only if they submit to the guardianship of benevolent mandarins underlay more than a century’s worth of welfare-state social policy, beginning with Otto von Bismarck’s first Wohlfahrtsstaat experiments in nineteenth-century Germany. But paternalism’s centrally directed systems of subsidies failed to raise up submerged classes, and by the end of the twentieth century even many liberals, surveying the cultural wreckage left behind by the Great Society, had abandoned their faith in the welfare state.

Yet in one area, foreign aid, the paternalist spirit is far from dead. A new generation of economists and activists is calling for a “big push” in Africa to expand programs that in practice institutionalize poverty rather than end it. The Africrats’ enthusiasm for the failed policies of the past threatens to turn a struggling continent into a permanent ghetto—and to block the progress of ideas that really can liberate Africa’s oppressed populations.

I don't doubt that President Bush has good intentions in directing lots of foreign aid to African nations to try to fight disease, poverty, famine, etc.  Still, one has to wonder how and when true political and social reform can ever make enough progress to truly make those massive foreign aid checks more meaningful.

Again via The Corner at National Review Online:

Michelle Obama's Thesis   [Jonah Goldberg]

Derb - A reader in the know informs me that Michelle Obama's thesis, "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community," is unavailable until November 5, 2008 at the Princeton library. I wonder why.

I suppose if I really feel industrious, I can trek the 3 miles up the road to Princeton to verify this, and if the thesis really is available, see what Mrs. Obama had to say as an undergraduate.  We'll see how the week progresses, and whether some other NRO reader in the Princeton area is perhaps more motivated than I am to pursue this.

A couple of interesting stories on Google and censorship caught my attention this morning.  Before going into the specifics, let me make clear that I understand Google is not the U.S. Government and so I'm not saying anything about the government trying to silence opposition, free speech, or anything else.  Google is a publicly owned company and a private business.  That said, my understanding is that when someone chooses to reveal some information and consciously decides not to reveal other information, that is properly viewed as censorship.  And censorship is not always and everywhere a bad thing.  Parents practice censorship all the time in monitoring and choosing what their children are exposed to on television, radio, etc.  Conversely, there may be times when censorship, especially as practiced by a government or an information organization that purports to provide as complete access as possible to information instead works to hide things from view.

Which brings us to the story I saw at Commentary's blog, involving Google censorship at the behest of the ChiComs:

Even though it has been repeatedly exposed, American cooperation with and assistance to the Chinese police state continues.

Former Nanjing University professor Guo Quan is suing Google for excising his name from its local search results. On December 26 of last year Guo announced the creation of the New Democracy Party, dedicated to ending China’s “one party dictatorship” [his words] and introducing multi-party elections. “We must join the global trend,” Mr. Guo said. “China must move toward a democratic system.”

This brave act was ignored by the foreign press—with the honorable exception of the London Financial Times which put the story on the front page. No western politicians spoke out. But western internet corporations took note and expunged any reference. Baidu, a Chinese search company (NASDAQ listed), has deleted Mr. Guo and the New Democracy Party, as has the Chinese subsidiary of Yahoo!.

In the past, Google has stated that it would inform users when searches were censored, using the message that material has been removed “in accordance with local laws, rules, and policies.” But when a reporter searched Chinese Google for Professor Guo yesterday, the message was “The information you searched for cannot be accessed.”

Well, I certainly expect the Chinese government to practice as much censorship as they can.  And it's been no secret for a long time now that Google has thrown in its lot with the ChiComs in helping to limit information that is accessible to Chinese citizens on the internet.

I generally am very skeptical of the role played by the U.N. as well, and thus was not really surprised at the possibility that U.N. bureaucrats are trying to do quietly the same thing the ChiComs do more openly.  Via a link from The Corner at National Review Online, I saw this story on FoxNews.com:

 NEW YORK  —  How big do you have to be to earn the wrath of the United Nations and Internet giant Google?

If you're journalist Matthew Lee, all it takes are some critical articles and a scrappy little Web site.

Lee is the editor-in-chief, Webmaster and pretty much the only reporter for Inner City Press, a pint-sized Internet news operation that's taken on Goliath-sized entities like Citigroup since 1987.

Since 2005, he's been focusing almost entirely on stories that deal with internal corruption inside the U.N., posting several stores online almost daily.

He's been especially interested in the inner workings of what could be called the practical-applications arm of the international organization, the United Nations Development Programme.

Many of Lee's stories were featured prominently whenever Web users looked for news about the U.N. using the powerful Google News search engine, a vital way for media outlets both large and small to get their articles read.

But beginning Feb. 13, Google News users could no longer find new stories from the Inner City Press.

"I think they said, 'If we can't get this guy out of the U.N., let's disappear him from the Internet,'" Lee said.

It began with an innocuous-sounding yet chilling form letter from Google to Lee, e-mailed on Feb. 8:

"We periodically review news sources, particularly following user complaints, to ensure Google News offers a high quality experience for our users," it said. "When we reviewed your site we've found that we can no longer include it in Google News."

As soon as he read it, Lee immediately suspected one thing: That someone at the UNDP had pressured Google into "de-listing" him from Google News — essentially preventing Inner City Press from being classified on Google News as a legitimate news source and from having its stories pop up when someone conducts a Google News search.

The U.N., and Google of course, at least still try to talk a good game.  Predictably, it's all chalked up to some kind of technical glitch.  And amazingly in this world of high tech wizardry, it's one that can't possibly be resolved for WEEKS.  Yeah, right:

When Lee received the e-mail from Google, he responded immediately, noting that Inner City Press had been accredited by the U.N. and was mentioned frequently in other media as an important U.N. watchdog.

A Google representative answered that Inner City Press would be restored to the Google News service as usual, but that the process might take "a couple weeks," according to Lee. Still, from Feb. 13 on, Inner City Press stories stopped showing up on Google News, something Google attributes to a technical error.

"We acknowledged our misunderstanding ... but it takes time for the restoration to occur," Stricker said. "The glitch will be resolved as soon as possible. We're working on it."

Sure, the check's in the mail, my dog ate my homework, etc., etc.

From Sports Illustrated's Truth and Rumors page:

Look for Scott Skiles to become the next Indiana men's basketball coach, with assistant Dan Dakich the interim coach for the rest of the season if Kelvin Sampson is replaced this week, as expected.

St. Paul Pioneer Press

My prediction is that if this move comes to pass, my dad will be thrilled that he didn't switch to DirecTV in order to get full Big Te(leve)n coverage to see IU games in-state, and that his good friends who did make such a move will be cursing their decision before the next season is complete.

While the beautiful people in Hollywood and Malibu are no doubt greatly comforted by knowing that "the situation" in Darfur is finally going to be solved now that Steven Spielberg has ended his association with the upcoming Olympic Games to be held in China in order to protest China's failure to help end the ongoing civil war and genocide in Darfur, and even more importantly he has pledged that the hours he would have spent on the Olympics project he will instead devote to solving the crisis in Darfur, it looks like the ChiComs have ignored Steve's noble efforts.  To wit:

As the temperatures begin to climb and the fireworks ringing in the New Year quiet down, noise was made this week when Steven Spielberg announced his decision to split with the Beijing Olympics as an artistic director, due to his concern over China’s role with the government of Sudan and its handling of the situation in Darfur. While in the west, many news agencies were reporting the news as a moral stand against tyranny, here in China, it was barely reported at all. Herein lies the problem for Mr. Spielberg and the cause of those pushing the Darfur situation on to the Chinese government.

I enjoy many of the articles I read at Pajamas Media's site, but when I see stories like this I have to wonder what the author is thinking.  Can he really be under the impression that Spielberg's goal is to influence the ChiComs rather than make sure he's still in the good graces, and on the good party lists, with all his Hollywood pals?  This is a classic poseur move that I would have expected anyone who is kind of a journalist to understand.  After all, the geniuses at the U.N. and their wunderkinds, Angelina Jolie and George Clooney, are already doing everything they can to make things better in Darfur, so I'm sure any day now the whole thing will be "fixed" and we'll hear reports of everyone living in perfect harmony, sharing a Coke, etc.  It's not like they need to devote redundant resources like having the director of Jaws also turn his attention to the problem, is it?