Archive for April, 2007
It was inevitable that they would beat us at some point. Once again, Sox batters do nothing to support Wakefield. They were not helped by a Yankees pitcher who had been banished to the bullpen for poor performance but who today showed no signs of that. Any game in which Ortiz hits into two double plays? Likely not a good day. For the Yankees, not so much a game to strut and swagger about, and more a game just to be thankful for — although maybe the sort of game that snaps a team out of a slump. For the Red Sox, the loss today makes tomorrow a day for which one might wish all the more that Jon Lester already was back in the rotation.
Today my mail brought me something of a trifectca. Not only did my ballot arrive, but so did the mailers from both sides of the Curiously-Strong Mayor campaign. In honor of this event, and in the interest in truth-in-advertising, see my remix of the mailer from Team Potter.
So the place at which I will watch tomorrow’s series finale out of the Bronx specifically advertises in the Merc that you can “watch every Red Sox game” there, and that it imports Fenway Franks “straight from Bean Town”.
David Kurtz explains how the so-called “surge” now can be seen to be right on schedule. If you consider the schedule as intended to delay any decisions on how to undo the mess the GOPresident has made in Iraq into the term of his eventual replacement in the White House.
I’m not sure when this went up, but the Portland Business Journal has a poll on switching to Curiously-Strong Mayor. At the moment, the vote is 51% to 40% in favor, with 9% undecided, and there are three pages of reader comments. I’m passing this along only because I’m not sure most people would stumble across it, and I only did so by accident.
Amongst the arguments in favor of Curiously-Strong Mayor is one which attempts to dismiss various criticisms of the proposal as little more than Chicken Little Syndrome. The third of these criticisms is stated as follows: “The Mayor can sell or lease public property without council oversight”. I’ve beaten this one to death already, but since voters now are receiving the Voters’ Pamphlet, many people are being exposed to Team Potter’s lies on this point for the first time.
Out of the four games so far this season between Boston and New York, the Red Sox have won all four. As far as today’s game, I have only two comments. The fourth inning was simply and positively awful. But the ninth inning was tremendously amusing. Tomorrow is Rivalry Game Five, which will be on broadcast television. Sunday is Rivalry Game Six, for which I will be at a new (to me) place over in Northwest Portland.
Ryan Frank says that the claim by opponents that Curiously-Strong Mayor would “allow the mayor to sell parkland and other public property without a vote of the city council” is “not factually wrong but it is in fact highly misleading”. And he’s certainly right. But then he goes on to provide a description of the proposal’s changes that itself isn’t quite as clear as it could be.
Time for yet another installment of Who Wants To Buy A Curiously-Strong Mayor? The latest round of campaign contributions reported by Team Potter includes manufacturer The Greenbrier Companies ($5,000), Portland General Electric ($2,500), and corporate attorneys Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt, PC ($1,000).