Larry Michael

Hard to get off the Redskins these days.

Sitting here watching Larry Michael on Redskins Report.  Is there a bigger joker than this guy? He's answering fan mail right now.  Some points he's addressed:

1. Fan writes in and says he's "had enough" because the Redskins lost to one of the worst teams of all time.  Michael expresses utter shock and disgust that you could call the Lions one of the worst teams of all time.  His proof? "Who did the Lions have at quarterback last year?  And who do they have this year?  Ok then, I rest my case."  

2. Complimenting the 'Skins fans from the retirement home near Ashburn who put up some balloons and signs to encourage the team.  'Course, they have no photos of these decorations.  Second, they're in a retirement home.  Third, he calls them "real fans" and suggests the naysayers just "pretend" to be fans.

3. Mentions multiple times that there are still 13 games left on the schedule.  

Larry Michael is filled with the type of blind faith in the organization that comes when broadcasting that blind faith is the sole requirement of a job that nets you a sweet little six-figure salary each year.  Any real fan knows he can't be trusted, but lest the rest of you see him or hear him and get the wrong idea, I wanted to make things clear.  This man is not a journalist.  He is a highly paid employee of the Washington Redskins, who these days rival the Muammar al-Gaddafi regime for absurd propaganda.  

I'm curious to hear if people think they can beat the previously-woeful Bucs at home on Sunday.

On the State of the Washington Redskins

I got started on my "Sunday Evening Notebook" but realized the only things I cared to discuss dealt with the Redskins. So here are a few notes on the state of the team, and on this week's lost to Detroit Lions:

- Jim Zorn is getting appropriately ripped for being a bad coach. The man is a bad head coach. Most are pointing to his two key decisions on the Lions' first scoring drive, when he went for it on 4th and goal at the 1 (but called a stretch running play with the washed up Portis that now even Portis questions) and when he accepted the penalty on third down to try and push the Lions out of field goal range (when rookie QB Matt Stafford ran for about 25 yards on 3rd and 13). First, I think it's reasonable to expect your players -- and your franchise back -- to gain a single yard on 4th down against the worst team in the league. Second, it's reasonable to expect your defense to stop the worst team in the league on 3rd and 13. Each decision is essentially 50-50; Brian Billick, who presided over plenty of such decisions in a fairly successful career, seemed to agree with both of them. But good coaches get these 50-50 calls right. More often than not, Zorn's been wrong.

- All that said, you can't fire Zorn yet. Here's why: you need to seem halfway, just a little sane for the next guy who comes in. Dan Snyder already has a reputation as a highly blemished, deeply flawed decision maker. He ran Marty out of town after an 8-3 finish to a season that started 0-5 -- a team that was starting to really look strong and confident. Despite personnel and scouting issues being theee main reason this team hasn't consistently competed for the division title, Snyder has refused to sign a capable G.M. There is literally nothing in his past that says he would be a good man to work for, save his handling of Sean Taylor's death two years ago. If the Redskins want Shanahan, Cowher, or Holmgren (or Gruden, Dungy, et al), they need to show that they can avoid a rash decision, just this once. That, and they have no one on the staff right now who I'd like to take over this team. Greg Blache? No thanks.

- As Redskins Insider alluded to this morning, there are so many things wrong with this team, I have no idea where you'd start overhauling:

1) The offensive line is patchwork. Great guys, all of them, and they've given us a number of quality years. It will be a sad day when Randy Thomas and Casey Rabach are no longer on the team. But they are an old unit, and I fear for Jason's life when they face the Cowboys or the Giants later in the season.
2) The secondary is far weaker than we thought. They are allowing huge cushions to the opposing receivers. The safeties are adequate in run support but not much for covering. One fears we overpaid considerably for Hall.
3) Clinton Portis looks like he may be done. Last year, he went to town on the weak teams at the beginning of the schedule. Yeah, the O-line was different and better, but he's not cutting very sharply, he's not riding through tackles or hitting holes quickly.
4) The receiving corps experiment hasn't exactly panned out. Santana was great yesterday, which is one game out of three. Randle-El was largely absent and, despite throwing to them early to get them involved, Kelly and Thomas offered nothing. Even Cooley was quiet.

Let's just say Jason Campbell is a big part of the problem (Though I don't think he is). Then just think for a second about all the parts that look like they ought to be scrapped too, and try and think about the "young talent" waiting in the wings to take over. There's literally none.

Redskins - Lions Preview

As some of you know, I write somewhat regularly for DCist.com.  This season I'm doing a weekly preview of the Redskins game, with predictions, each Sunday morning.  

I went back and forth this week, and initially really believed the Lions would win.  My wife convinced me otherwise.  Unlike most 'Skins fans, I still kinda like Jason Campbell.  Great QB?  Of course not.  But he's a decent one, and the team's shortcomings this year are not all on him.  So Judy likes us to beat the spread and win by 9.  I think it's going to be clooooose.  Check out my preview here.

PS - Watching a short interview on Comcast with former 'Skin, current Lion John Jansen.  A true Redskin and was a key part of some very good running teams.  I was sad to see him go and I'd love to see him have a good year with his new squad.  

All You Damn Fascists

Courtesy of Laila Lalami (a very good Moroccan writer who also keeps an interesting blog on many things Maghribi and literary, though not always both at once), the American Library Association is, uh, "celebrating" Banned Book Week right now.  It's designed to raise awareness of book banning -- and burning -- that's gone on in the course of world and American history.  

Here's the list of previously banned books.  It's -- how to put this -- pretty shocking.  Can you conceive of a world where Huckleberry Finn or The Color Purple were not essential high school reading but rather banned?  How about Catcher in the Rye?  As recent as 2007, these books were on the top ten most frequently banned books list.  

Billy Bragg and Wilco - "All You Damn Fascists"

Little Pearls of Wisdom

Bruce Pearl, the University of Tennessee's basketball coach, made headlines this week with some off-color comments about race and his recruits.  I'll let you see for yourself here.  Impressive.

Searching for Hal Mumme

Every Kentuckian's most beloved sportswriter (his "journalist" credentials being subject to debate these days), Pat Forde, put out an APB for former Cats football coach Hal Mumme in his weekly Dash column this week:

A pair of former SEC coaches gone obscure, Hal Mumme (38) and Joe Lee Dunn (39). The Dash found the former offensive gimmick master at Kentucky and the former defensive gimmick master at Mississippi and Mississippi State at McMurry (Texas) University -- where they got their clocks cleaned on Saturday by Mississippi College. Mississippi College walloped winless McMurry 61-14, scoring three unanswered touchdowns to open the game and leading 31-7 at halftime. And so two cocky guys who always thought they were too smart to play it by the book are now 0-3 in Division III.

Really kicked a man when he was down, didn't he? The McMurry webpage flatters Mumme's career, making him look like a redeemer who just so happens to have "saved" about half-a-dozen lost causes that have literally nothing in common (division, size, geography, academics) beyond their legacy of futility prior to his arrival.  After all, this is the man that plunged the Wildcats into scandal and probation that set any progress he may have made back several years. On a related note, I always thought it odd that Lexington renamed a street "Hal Mumme Way" (the signs are all long gone, obviously) before Tubby Smith, who won a national championship, got his own honorary street in town. But I still have a small place in my heart for the man who tried to throw the football like it was going out of style and got us to a New Year's Day bowl game for the first time in...well... my lifetime. And also, during his reign, my dad was always getting stopped and asked if he was Hal Mumme (the resemblance has faded as Mumme's gone gray and gained a little poundage), so that was good laughs all around.

Earlier in the column, Forde also mentioned this year Wildcats, if only to label them a "Pretender" at 2-0 and about to take 4 losses in the next four games against Florida, 'Bama, Auburn, and South Carolina. I'm not sure what Kentucky would be "pretending" to be... an SEC contender? A BCS contender? No one in their right mind has those kinds of delusions. The only thing I think the Cats would claim to be, at this point, is the best football team in the state.

Bunch of tunes

I'm trying to post regularly but today I got nothing. So here's a bunch of songs for yer hump day.

Handsome Furs - "Radio Kaliningrad"
Wilco - "The Long Cut" (live)
Wilco - "Someone Else's Song" (live)
The Avett Brothers - "Glory Days" (Springsteen cover...Happy Birthday, Boss)
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - "Come Saturday"
M. Ward - "Big Boat"
Teenage Fanclub - "Star Sign"

Boo-birds

This whole mess about Robert Henson (who? exactly...) is ridiculous. I saw an interview with him after his tweet about how 'Skins fans were "dimwits" for booing the team during Sunday's 9-7 squeaker against the lowly Rams. Seemed like a nice guy who genuinely liked fans, but just thought they should be positive all the time. I'm not too concerned with his statements about this, mostly because the guy a) doesn't play a lot and b) seems not terribly savvy when it comes to these sorts of things. I am, however, very concerned with the comments from Chris Cooley and Antwan Randle-El that basically said the same thing. From the D.C. Sports Bog, I'll quote Cooley for you:

I think Washington prides themselves on being the best fans, and I think that they should try to be the best fans. We won. I understand they wanted us to beat the Rams by 40, but we still won, and we if we continue to win games, that's great. Booing's unnecessary.

Chris, I love this team just about as much as anyone around, but here's the deal. The people in the stadium, they just spent an average of probably $75-80 to get in the door. They spent another $40-50 to park. They pay $8 a beer...hell, they pay $5 just to buy their kid a coke. They do all these things because they love the team and they love the game. I think there are plenty of poorly-adjusted, no-perspective fans out there starting premature boos for no real good reason, and I imagine that's the root of this. But fans have a right to expect a couple things from their professional team: effort and competence. Talent's on the G.M. and the owner (no comment there), and luck gets left to a higher power. I don't doubt the Redskins effort at all (though I will say that Jason Campbell's interception against the Giants was at least in part due to a lack of effort from Santana Moss, whose stock has seriously plummeted in these first two games), but I do doubt their competence. Particularly that of the coaching staff, and I bet that if you polled the boo-birds at FedEx on Sunday, that's who most of them would blame.

The common tagline is that the players don't come to our "9-to-5" jobs and heckle us, so we shouldn't do the same. A better comparison is with another public persona very common to our town -- the politician. His or her competence is subject to public debate and derision on a near daily basis. It's part of the job that they very willingly entered into. The equivalent of boo-ing -- protesting, writing heated op-eds, starting a blog, etc. -- is fair game in the political arena.

I understand the Redskins asking for a little patience. And yes, if they continue to win games, even if it's 6-3 or 9-7, fans should probably keep a lid on it. But does Cooley really believe they even have a chance to win many more games if they keep playing like this? If not, then the fans are just expressing their dissatisfaction with an unacceptable performance. If so, well...that would be the most shocking thing coming out of all this.

Sunday Evening Notebook

Read some Hegel, watched some football. That was Saturday. Read some more Hegel, watched some more football, fried perhaps the last green tomatoes of summer. That's been Sunday so far. But good ones, both of them. Thoughts from what I watched:

- Kentucky took home the coveted Governor's Cup for a third straight year with a sloppy, but still edge-of-the-seat win over the Loo-eee-vill (watched with five Kentuckians who couldn't stand hearing him butcher the pronunciation. As one of them said, "It's like pronouncing Versailles "Ver-sigh", for all of you who know better). The team really let the clock malfunction at the end of the half get to them and the third quarter was just abysmal. Worse, though, was our tackling, particularly that of Winston Guy, who somehow bumbled his way into 7.5 tackles. But special teams made enough big plays (lucky or otherwise) to get us the 31-27 win. With that, the Cats move to 2-0 with #1 Florida coming to Commonwealth Stadium next Saturday. Do I like our chances? Not at all, especially after Lane Kiffin's boys frustrated the hell out of them at the Swamp yesterday...

-...and speaking of the UT-Florida game, Florida looked fine. Tennessee gave them their absolute best shot but the Gators were never really stretched. Not spectacular at all, but who cares? It doesn't really matter who Texas beats by how much -- no one is going to vote them out of #1 if they keep rolling in the SEC.

- Oregon deserves credit for the way they scheduled this year. Opening AT Boise State, getting Purdue at home, and then Utah. Purdue may not be great, but those are three decent games when most schools are busy shaming Charleston Southern or Saint Scholastica or something. And Virginia Tech taking on Bama and Nebraska -- in this day and age, that's bold and deserves a lot of credit. As a fan who doesn't really care about either of those teams, I certainly appreciate the effort.

- That said, V.P.I. (as my uncles still call their alma mater) are not that great. Miami looks good, FSU got a nice win at BYU (since when does Florida State travel to play Brigham Young?), but man...the ACC is a terrible conference. The bottom of that league is about as bottom as it gets. What's the worst part about living in DC? Having to watch Maryland and Virginia play on a regular basis.

- Wow, the Redskins know how to frustrate. I'll give it up for the defense -- those guys look good and are hitting hard and seem to be developing good chemistry. I'm very happy with Haynesworth so far. I'm going to ask Judy tomorrow if London Fletcher can be our first born child's godfather. Even my boy J. Jarmon got a few snaps today. On the other side of the ball, Chris Cooley came to play. The let-downs? Santana Moss, who has been worse than awful so far this year; Clinton Portis, who looks tired and sluggish; Jim Zorn, who should never, ever, under any circumstances, gone for it with 2 minutes remaining on the 3 yard line with a 2 point lead against a team that had no timeouts left; Dan Snyder, who is the worst owner in professional sports. I guess we'll take the win though. I do NOT like heading to Detroit with them on a 19 game losing streak. Smells like a trap.

- I need some consultation here, rules-wise: on Santana's fumble at the end of the first half, the whistle CLEARLY blew before a Rams player had possession of the ball. Yes, he definitely fumbled, but the play is DEAD when the whistle blows, right? This is the Jay Cutler-San Diego play from last year. The ref blew it dead, but the review showed he had fumbled. Shouldn't matter -- play's over as soon as he makes that call. Someone please confirm.

- Ravens seem like the team to beat after two weeks. Steelers can't run the ball to save their lives, the Giants (despite last week's domination of the Skins) look worse than last year and not better, the Pats look a little flawed, and I'm not rushing to judgement on Brett Favre yet.

- I heard Jerry Jones has a really bad cold. Yeah... try not to let him sleaze on you.

Ravi Kabob (II)

My wife and I just ate at Ravi Kabob II in Ballston. For those not in the know, there are two Ravi Kabobs, and they are right across the street from each other. We'd been to Ravi I about a year ago and found it to be nothing short of spectacular. Warm, bustling vibe inside, and just really really terrific food. The ground meat kabobs (go chapli) are better than at most joints, and the lamb is very tasty. For sides, can't go wrong with the chick peas but I'd highly encourage trying whatever else they've got. It's one of the best ten places I've been to around D.C. and if it were remotely close to Capitol Hill I guarantee Judy and I would be speaking pretty decent Pashto. Tonight's the night before Eid al-Fitr, the holiday to celebrate the end of Ramadan, so between that and the time we went (about 8:30, being a while after the fast is broken and a while longer until the next meal), the place was dead. We somehow waited nearly a half hour for the food, which had me gnashing my teeth and trying to read all the Arabic calligraphy I could around the place. But it came soon enough and was every bit as tasty as its big brother across the street. If you haven't been, make a point of doing so soon. It's right near the corner of Glebe Road and Route 50, next door to the CVS.

The meal was so good, in fact, that it got me wondering how picky eaters do it. I've got plenty of friends who I'd call varying degrees of picky, and this is meant as no offense to them, but I do find it difficult to imagine never having the desire to taste something completely new, something that you really couldn't guess how it might taste before you actually put it in your mouth. Now, I've had kabobs and particularly Pakistani-style kabobs before, so this wasn't exactly an adventure. But at some point in my life it was, and the sensation of trying something new and great then simply led me to wonder what else might be out there that I might not yet know about. I don't cook with particularly challenging flavors or spices most of the time, and my all-time favorite foods are probably still pork barbecue (for another day), country ham, and steamed crabs. I think I understand the appeal of the familiar and the comforting pretty well. But I think I like those things all the more because they're part of a wide range of tastes and flavors. I'd love to hear more from a self-proclaimed "picky eater", if there are any out there reading this.

Revisiting: Grandaddy

Grandaddy were one of my quintessential listens during college -- I picked up their penultimate LP, the remarkably consistent Sumday, on my drive down to Bonnaroo in Tennessee the summer after my sophomore year. There's not a bad cut in the bunch, and after losing my copy for a few years I bought it again at a yard sale some GW frat was having (kids these days...no respect for the classics). One great thing about them was that their we're-all-automatons-paranoia suited itself pretty well to the music video, and they put out a couple that are well worth a view if you've never seen them. In ten years, maybe splitting the difference between the Flaming Lips and Radiohead means they age rather less well (though can you really say the Lips are ageing well these days?), but I think they'll still have half a dozen tunes that merit revisiting.

Check 'em out:

"Now It's On"


"The Crystal Lake", dedicated to Ben and Claire Phillips

Welcome, folks

This is my third -- fourth? -- stab at a blog. The first one kinda fizzled and later morphed into the far more successful and, at least amongst my group of friends, moderately appreciated Rockist Society blog. Is the Rockist Society still together you ask? Only time will tell.

Whereas that blog focused solely on music -- and sports, and politics, when we could tie them to music -- I'm going back to the basics here. I'm hoping to create an outlet to continue on with the music stuff when something comes my way, talk a little sports, talk a little food. And as many of you know, I've sorta switched careers (or at least career paths) and am pretty much full-time engulfed studying the Middle East and international affairs. I'll be bringing plenty of that to the table, as it seems fit, trying my best to shed some light on the less-well-lit corners of those two fields.

Please feel free to comment, to email me with comments, to suggest topics for a post, whatever. I'm just glad you're here.

Until I get some more content up here, check out the other stuff I've been working on: The DCist, for all you Washington-area folks, and AnthropologyWorks, a blog through the GW Culture in Global Affairs program that deals with the role of anthropology in international relations. It's interesting, I swear.