The Great Falls Wind Sox?

The City of Great Falls (my hometown) can be a frustrating little beast. This all derives from a conversation I had with a couple friends the other day.

I grew up a fan of the Great Falls Dodgers. Great Falls being about 800 miles from any large city with a baseball team, the Los Angeles Dodgers naturally became the target of my pro baseball loyalties as the parent club of our home team. The players were never around for very long--one season, maybe two--as is the nature of A-level ball, but it gave me a thrill to know that I was seeing future Major League ballplayers: Mike Devereaux, Eric Karros, Pedro Martinez, Jose Offerman, and Raul Mondesi to name a few. I got to see players from right behind home plate that would later attract fans by the tens of thousands. Some of these players were good at the time, but it was watching them and wondering that made things exciting. I remember thinking Jose Offerman was the greatest player I'd ever seen...

But that's all beside the point. Pro baseball has been in Great Falls since 1911 and has held rookie teams for MLB clubs since the early 1960s, when the Great Falls Electrics formed. They were followed by the Giants for fourteen seasons before the Dodgers placed a club there in 1984. I was pretty ticked when they pulled out a few years ago, but fortunately they were replaced by the Great Falls White Sox.

But here's what gets me. The Great Falls Electrics was a great team name. It reflected Great Falls itself: a city surrounded by waterfalls, serving as the Diehard for the rest of the Northwest. After that, the Great Falls Giants? The Great Falls Dodgers? When the Dodgers left, I was upset, but with the advent of a new ball club I figured it was a great opportunity to choose a team name that would again be a tribute to a unique Montana city. Some friends and I tossed around plenty of names that would have been great:

The Minutemen (GF holds a large Air Force base and more ICBMs than you could shake a stick at)
The Peacemakers (Old west Montana town)
The Electrics (Old school throwback)
The Corps (as in Corps of Discovery--we name everything else after Lewis & Clark, why not the ball club?)
The Chargers
The Power

So what do they name the team? The Great Falls White Sox. Same colors, same unies...Eventually they at least changed the logo. It has the word "Sox" with a baseball blowing really hard...because Great Falls happens to be America's windiest city, yet another potential source for a good name ignored by my fellow G Funk denizens.

Here's my point. I understand that Great Falls appreciated the Chicago White Sox establishing a team immediately after LA left and that they gave the team its name as a tribute to the Chicago organization, but they could still spice it up a bit. I've been living out of the city for a number of years now, but here's my suggestion: The Great Falls Wind Sox. Think about it: Windiest city in the country as a minor league affiliate of the Windy City. It keeps the "Sox" in the name and yet is unique to Great Falls. They could change the name with practically no impact--they wouldn't have the change the uniforms or even the logo. The more I think about this idea, the more I like it. Might have to write a letter or two about this...

Day 5 is done.

Ok, I gotta lay down a few thoughts on 24. The season finale was on Monday and now that I've had a few days to mull it over, I'm a little disappointed...But a good disappointed, not a bad disappointed. After Jack saves the day by taking down President Logan and everything's all hunky dory at the airfield where President Palmer is being flown from, Jack is told by a Secret Service agent that his daughter is on the phone on a landline inside. He walks in and picks up the phone, but the line is dead. A group of masked men grab him from behind and hold an ether-soaked rag over his face, knocking him out. Soon after, the show finds Jack in a dark room, beaten to hell, insisting that his captors kill him. The Chinese ambassador from last season tells him that China has not forgotten his incursion into the Chinese embassy and the death of their envoy. You then see that Jack is actually on a cargo ship bounding across the Pacific.

It's an awesome way to end the season. I was wondering the entire season what would happen when the Chinese found out that Jack was still alive. I guess now we know. That's what's disappointing. This wasn't the like the end of a season, where Jack prevails and there's a nice, satisfying twist at the end (ala season 1). This was a cliff hanger. Now we have to wait until January to find out what the hell is going to happen to him.

And here's what's good about the China twist. This wasn't a bad season, but it was starting to get a little stale at times. Terrorists attempting to attack the greater Los Angeles area with a weapon of mass destruction. Oh, and there's a mole. That's every season. I always thought it was a little short-sighted to have the setting in SoCal all of the time and to revolve around CTU. After last season when Jack went into hiding, you'd have thought that something new was in the mix, but it turned out not to be the case.

The China factor presents an opportunity to inject a bit of adrenaline into the show. I'm hoping that it has to do with Jack's escape from China and takes place there as well. Time to get out of LA for a bit. The only downside of a "big trouble in little China" season would be the lack of stock characters. It's tough to envision how Jack in China would involve the rest of CTU. The 24 nerdery would have to do without Chloe, Curtis, etc. The political perspective would be huge though. I'm interested to see how they handle Logan's departure. Buchanan speculated at the end that he would probably resign quietly in exchange for clemency, so as to spare the nation the added shock of having a traitor President on top of everything else that had happened. Naturally the Vice President would come in, but the writers have shown before that they're fully willing to ditch a Prez, like Keeler in the Air Force One crash. I'm really hoping that the next season maybe takes place post-election so we can have a Heller Administration. He'd be a kick ass President. And maybe they'll have him in a wheel chair or something as a result of the car wreck. Certainly he'd put a lot more passion into saving Jack from China than a Vice President who lacks the same background that Heller has.

Anyway, the ending was truly redeeming. This franchise is only going to get bigger as time goes on. Word is that they'll start filming as soon as Season 6 is finished. Here's to hoping it's a prequel--maybe Operation Nightfall?

Feeling under appreciated.

Lea informed me that today is Oncology Nurse Appreciation Day. I had no idea that there was such a thing, which led me to wonder aloud when Lawyer Appreciation Day is. I looked it up on the internet. Google's first hit was a post on a site called Random Yak, entitled:

"For the last time...there is no lawyer appreciation day."

Oh well. Guess I have to settle for "Shark Awareness Day" (July 15) or "International Wealth Mentality Month" (January).

Dick Cheney on why invading Iraq would be a bad idea.

I was having a conversation with a more conservative friend of mine the other night about why I opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq. I think Dick Cheney himself very eloquently stated the reasons why toppling Saddam would be a bad idea while defending his decision not to at a Seattle conference in 1992:

I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home.

And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don't think you could have done all of that without significant additional U.S. casualties. And while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the (1991) conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war.

And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him
from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.

Spooky how well he called his own quagmire, isn't it?

Juris what? Juris who?

This last Saturday was graduation. The fam all arrived in shifts, as it were. Mom had been in Dallas doing her Western Regional Examining Board deal in Dallas beforehand, so rather than heading back to Great Falls for one day before flying out to Minnesota, she just came out Tuesday, which also happened to be the day of my last final for all of time. Definite potential for a conundrum. Fortunately, she understood that I would be spending most of the day imbibing massive amounts of alcohol in celebration of our new found freedom. I told her it was a good thing, since I probably wouldn't even know my own name by 10 p.m. Meanwhile, Dad was flying in from Seattle on Thursday about two hours before Kendra and Kirsten would arrive from Montana. Then Grandma Cislo would arrive on Friday evening. Lea and I definitely put some time in at the airport.

The week was busy, but we all had a great time. Graduation went off without a hitch. The one thing that gets me is the outfits. They aren't your traditional square cardboard cap and polyester gown. They're all velvety with lots of purple. And see that hat? It's pretty sweet, but very old school. We came out of there looking like we'd gotten kicked out of a renaissance festival.

Anyway, this is me doing a quick grip-'n-grab on the stage with Dean Thomas "Tomkat" Mengler. That's actually not a diploma there (apparently they only give us those once they know we all actually graduated) but a nice double-frame with a picture of the law school on the right and the school's mission printed on the left. V. touching.

So now.....The Bar. That will be my ultimate nemesis for the next two and a half months. Then the waiting. It'll probably take until late October before we find out the results. These people take longer than law profs to grade this stuff. BarBri classes start on Monday...Which, by the way makes zero sense to me. I'm not even sure most people know this, but when you go to law school, you don't just graduate, study for awhile, and then take The Bar. You have to (if you're wise, anyway) take classes during the summer to teach you how to take The Bar. I tried explaining to Dad earlier in the semester that during the summer I would have to pay to take Bar classes. His response: "I was under the impression that was what I sent you to law school for." Yeah, me too. But you have to take the classes, right? How crappy would that be if you go to three years of law school, self-study all summer, and then FAIL The Bar? Having to endure the shame of waiting until February to take the sucker all over again? And wait until May or so for the second results? No thank you. We all want every advantage we can get going into the most important exam in our lives. So sure enough, businesses like BarBri set roots in our fear. Bastards.

Alright. Things to do...

I have attained the degree of jurisdoctor.

This blog is no longer about the trials and tribulations that stand between a 3L and his JD.

Post and pics to come. Kinda busy. :o)

Going medieval on communication

So let me get this straight. The government keeps records of all of my telephone calls through the NSA. It searches through all of our e-mail looking for bad words through the FBI's Raptor program (is that still out there?). Any document I send through the mail is obviously going into their hands. If I truly want to keep Uncle Sam out of my personal communications, then my options are becoming pretty narrow. A few alternatives:

Carrier pigeons. Advantage: Dependable as an age-old resource for sending messages long distance. Disadvantage: Not as quick as a text message and they like to crap on my car.

Two paper cups and a string. Advantage: Relays a message just as quickly as a telephone. Also, more environmentally friendly than a similar model that uses styrofoam cups. Disadvantage: Not as effective over distances greater than about twenty feet. Besides, there's a lot of string in between for General Hayden to tap into.

Yelling. Advantage: Direct and immediate. Your message can travel to its recipient at the speed of sound. Disadvantage: Doesn't do much for me in the way of privacy, which is my primary concern with phone and computer communications in the first place. That, and it tends to be somewhat disruptive and distracting in an office setting.

This entire charade is utterly rediculous. Come 2008, I'll take Hillary over more of this. And I shutter to think I just wrote that.

Final Final Mix

Dre got me thinking on this one. My mix of music going into the last two finals I will ever take:

Citizen Cope and Robert Randolph - Son's Gonna Rise
TV on the Radio - Staring at the Sun
Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy
Clem Snide - Beautiful
!!! Chk Chik Chick - Me and Giuliani Down by the School Yard
Elliott Smith - Somebody That I Used to Know
Hank Williams, Jr. - Two Dot, Montana
Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue
Richard Wagner - Siegfried Idyll
The Crystal Method - Keep Hope Alive
The Arcade Fire - No Cars Go
Portishead - Sour Times
Interpol - Say Hello to the Angels
Queensryche - Silent Lucidity
Johnny Cash - We'll Meet Again

Somewhere, a Brazilian is laughing...

Bruce Arena announces the final roster for the U.S. World Cup team.

Shut up, Michelle.

Michelle Malkin got her britches in a twist over an assertion by a local LA reporter to the effect that the U.S. stole the Southwest from Mexico:

“You took this country. You killed people in order to take this country for yourselves.”

Before anyone gets pissed about this statement, they should ask themselves a question. Is the guy wrong? Did we not fight the Mexican War in 1846 and take most of the Southwest as a prize? Did we not overwhelm a substantially weaker country to attain that end? And for what? Texas?? Hell, I'm ready to give that back anyway.

I don't exactly buy the whole Reconquista bit by any means. After a century and a half or so, the whole question really becomes moot. The Californians have settled and they're quite comfy staying there. But hey, let's not get all uppity and offended when people try to add a little historical context to the immigration debate, alright?

Swarzenegger wants a double dose of fütball in LA.

Some cajones on this Ostereicher. Governor Swarzenegger tells the NFL that he not only wants one new team in the LA area, but two.

"That's why I came. Why limit it?"

A few reasons. Los Angeles has been without a football team for twelve years since 1994 when both the Rams and Raiders left the dance with competing suitors. The city did attempt to bring an expansion team in, but was outbid by Houston. Since then, LA's pretty well adapted. And you know what? LA doesn't really seem to need or want a new team.

Couple of problems. First, the stadium. LA's current proposal is to renovate the Coliseum, which holds about 65,000 and has been sitting around since the 1930s. They'll spend $25 million to add 15,000 seats and expect that to be sufficient. I can't imagine that the end result of this will be any different. Every other city in the country that is serious about football has kept their teams through a willingness to seriously update old stadiums or build completely new ones. The deal being pursued by the Vikings involves a one billion dollar complex in Anoka, MN. Houston's Bob McNair and his crew shelled out $1.1 billion ($700 million for the franchise and $310 million for the stadium) for the Texans. Both the Rams and Raiders ultimately left Los Angeles for better stadium deals being offered by St. Louis and Oakland. And LA is talking about a $25 million renovation? It might be enough to bring an expansion team to LA since Tagliabue seems to want a team there, but I sincerely doubt it will be enough to keep a team around for long. Ten to fifteen years later, they'll scoot off to Charlotte or Orlando.

Now Anaheim is another story. They've also thrown their hat in the ring for a stadium in the Angels' parking lot. Granted, Anaheim has severe metropolitan short-man syndrome, but they at least understand that hooking a new professional sports franchise takes some cash and are willing to pony up. That deal may actually have some viability. But recall the whole Angels fiasco a few months ago: if Anaheim is to land a team, it will not be named for Los Angeles in any way, shape or form. Expect that to be expressly stated in the contract. Will Los Angeles football fans root for a team located in and named after Anaheim? Arte Moreno sure doesn't think so. That's why he screwed the City of Anaheim by billing his team "The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim" in the first place.

So that leaves the second problem. LA isn't a football city and never really has been. Football fans in the LA area have grown accustomed to not having a team, not paying $100 a ticket, and not having TV blackouts during games. If you actually like football, then having the Raiders and Rams leave might have been the best thing to happen to you. The only people who really would want a new team are the people who can afford it. Besides, I shudder when I consider what Los Angeles might name such a team...

Anyway, football in LA is a pipe dream. The prospects of bringing a new team or even an existing team to the area are dubious at best, let alone two teams. Everyone would be best served to sit back and watch Jack Nicholson watch Kobe. Leave the real sports to the real cities.