So, how about that Manny Ramirez? I sometimes go back and forth on my feelings on steroids, because on the one hand, these are “performance enhancers,” meaning the guys taking them were already talented (the drugs didn’t magically grant them the ability to hit a baseball), but on the other, it still feels like cheating. I thought A-Rod was the great hope for a while, as he’d be the next person to break the career home run record, and he’d be untainted, but so much for that. Blah.

Babe Ruth was one of the greatest players of all time. His performance enhancers? Booze and women. Can we go back to that?

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Manhattan: 1609 vs. 2009. Some very cool photos and renderings; it’s pretty surreal.

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I’m watching Rachel Maddow, and she’s doing a segment on Lieutenant Dan Choi, a West Point grad and Arabic translator who lost his job because he is gay. You can guess how I feel about this, but just on a practical level, doesn’t it seem silly to you to kick people who want to serve out of the military, especially when the military has a recruitment problem?

President Obama says he’s going to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. So… can he get on that?

Also, similarly, go Maine!

Wrote this one last week, but it mysteriously didn’t post. Sorry about that.

I’ve got a backlog of things to write about. So, in brief:

+ Interview with Tony Morrison in which she talks about her new novel and also President Obama.

+ Cats who Twitter.

+ I thought it was a truth universally acknowledged that baseball was not actually invented by Abner Doubleday and that it was based on a British game, but some dude is using a mention of “base-ball” in Northanger Abbey to prove that the Brits invented America’s pastime. Well, whatever, the first organized baseball game happened at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken. We can argue about the relative American-ness of New Jersey at a later time.

+ Fun fact: the Department of Homeland Security thinks that a 100-mile-think border around the US shall be a zone in which you can be searched. The ACLU is calling this the Constitution-Free Zone. This is, sadly, not as surprising as it should be. What is amazing? Two-thirds of the American population lives in this zone. Think about that for a moment.

I suck at this blogging thing, eh?

Well, some news and notes:

1. Uma Thurman and Jesse L. Martin have joined the cast of the new Muppet Christmas movie, which is especially notable as it’s been filming in my corner of Brooklyn. I, in fact, walked through the set last week when they were filming on 8th Ave in Park Slope conveniently between work and my apartment.

2. Gawker had an interesting round-up on Friday of scientific explanations for why people vote Republican.

Speaking of politics, I am going to try my darnedest to liveblog or at least write extensive commentary on the debates.

3. Did you know that the very first baseball park to charge admission was right here in Brooklyn? And now, thanks to the new Yankee and Shea Stadiums (or “Citifield,” whatevs) we New Yorkers get to pay through our noses for baseball. So much for America’s pastime.

more animals

+ Hollywood’s 5 saddest attempts at feminism.

+ Related: Masculinity and Disney movies.

+ Fashion at my alma mater. I’m sure glad I graduated before that words-on-the-ass-of-your-sweatpants trend started. Or, maybe what I really need are some of these. Hot, right?

+ I’m kidding.

+ McCain Shenanigans Watch: McCain pulled out of an interview on CNN because Campbell Brown actually, you know, did her job by asking some tough questions.

+ Cool skyscraper photography.

+ Some baseball card fun: The 23rd card in a set of 22.

+ Grease in Lego.

Just listen to the rhythm of my typing.

I’ve been out of town 8 out of the last 14 days. In other words, it’s time for some quickies:

+ John McCain on the captors who held him as a POW: “A lot of them were homosexual.”

+ Baseball pitcher Dottie Collins dies at 84. Quoth Dottie “I pitched and won both games of a doubleheader once pitching underhand. I think I could have pitched a doubleheader overhand, too. I don’t think it would be that hard. Nowadays, the men can’t do it, but hell, they can’t do nothin’.” Ha!

+ Julia Child was a spy!

+ Today’s internet oddity. Cats swimming.

+ I’ll admit that I’ve been watching as much Olympics coverage as my schedule allows, and part of it’s for the eye candy. (Call me, Michael Phelps!) Turns out I don’t have to feel shame because that’s what the Greeks intended.

+ Polygamy watch: courts say a few of the kids taken from Yearning for Zion should go into foster care.

Here’s a good rundown of the Mitchell Report and what it means. Roger Clemens is the big loser here, being the biggest name named. Andy Pettite is the biggest disappointment to me, assuming the allegations are true.

I wonder what it really means, though: will Baseball be better about policing its players when it comes to performance enhancing drugs? Should we be more vehement in our public outcry, to discourage boys from causing harm to themselves by using steroids? Will Baseball lose credibility in the wake of this scandal? Guess we’ll find out next season.