Wow...

Just a follow-up to this morning's post.

I'm absolutely stunned Chicago lost in the first round. I had this sinking feeling, but I thought it was going to be a heartbreaker in the final round.

Yet another chapter in our familiar story. We get dressed up in our best, but someone else gets asked to dance. Instead of a party at Daley Plaza, it's stunned silence.

An unbelievable day. And naysayers, you got your way. So you can thump your chests until it's time to voice your opposition to some other visionary idea. Congratulations, y0u got what you wanted.

It sucks, it really sucks.

An Olympian Set-Up???

I hope I'm wrong, I really do. I would like to see the Olympics in my hometown. I chalk the naysayers up to those folks who always have to be against everything. The folks who can find the one cloud on a clear and sunny day.

But I have a bad feeling about this vote in Copenhagen. I've heard all the reports and been actively following the web updates that say Chicago seems to have the edge, that it's down to us and Rio and there are a lot of questions about our South American neighbors ability to pull the Olympics off. All hopeful news.

And that's why I'm fearful. I'm a Chicago sports fan and I cannot shake the feeling that we're being set up for another epic Chicago sports letdown, another time where ultimate victory is pulled away from us at the very last minute -- like fumbling away the Super Bowl in the warm Florida rain, or being 5 outs from the World Series and watching the world unravel so quickly that we didn't know what to do, so we blamed the inconsequential fan with the headphones who reached for a foul ball, or countless other lamentable moments. Yes, the Bears won the Super Bowl and yes the Bulls won 6 titles. But all of that seems like a long, long time ago. Even the White Sox title seems longer than four years ago. And for every triumph, there seem to have been 100 indignities.

I'm hoping against hope that this isn't another big tease, that the party at Daley Plaza this afternoon is indeed a party and not a televised uncomfortable moment for all of us.

I hope I'm wrong, I really, really do. But I can't shake the feeling that we're being set up...again.

Liar, Liar...pants on fire

Let's get something straight here, once and for all. No one was a bigger liar than George W. Bush. Period. There were no WMDs. There can be no debate about semantics or language. They weren't there. That was a lie. And Americans died because of it (and still are).

Read the legislation. President Obama never lied. You're idiots. And you have every right to be idiots. Loud idiots. That's fine.

But you're still idiots.

Oh, and one more thing. The flag and patriotism and love of country? Yeah, they don't BELONG to you. They're all of ours. And I'm tired of you wrapping yourselves in MY flag and telling me that I'm unpatriotic or immoral because I don't agree with you. If I'm going to hell, well then I guess I'll see you there.

Again, you're idiots. Have a nice weekend. Go burn some books.

It's not racism. It's because you suck...

Hey, Milton! It's not racism. It has nothing to do with you being black, white, green or blue.

You suck. The team sucks. And we're tired of it. We're tired of false-promises, of free agents who walk around in a funk for half the season and finally start hitting the ball when the race is over. Who can't count to 3 but can count their $30 million.

Go ahead and pad your stats now that the games are meaningless. Maybe you'll convince another gullible GM to think that his organization can get you to play to your potential and be a valuable teammate. Fine with me, just as long as you go.

But it's not because of race, it's because you're all underachievers and we don't want to wait another 100 years.

You're not the only one. The window of opportunity for this team has slammed shut. Time to blow it all up and start over.

Big Z -- We're all really tired of the act. Grow up. To paraphrase Bull Durham, "You've got a million dollar arm and a five cent head." If you're ever going to realize the vast potential you have, you need to leave the coddling country club that is Wrigley Field and go somewhere where they'll make you work or ship your behind to Triple A. Enough. Bye.

Fukodome -- One of the largest disappointments ever. That great batting eye that Sports Illustrated featured early last year, where did that go? No power, low average, poor defense. But that contract? How do you say "laughing all the way to the bank" in Japanese?

Kevin Gregg -- this guy couldn't close a door...

Derrek Lee, Ted Lilly and Aramis Ramirez -- it's a shame, but we need prospects and you guys are tradable commodities. Besides, you're not going to win the Series here in the time left in your careers, so you'd be better off somewhere else.

Alfonso Soriano -- It only took a couple of years for us to finally figure out you cannot hit leadoff. And you're the worst leftfielder we've had since Dave Kingman. And that's saying something when you're patrolling the same patch of grass as guys like Steve Henderson and Glenallen Hill.

Keep Theriot, Fontenot and Soto, although Geo, maybe you could pass up seconds at the dinner table this off-season, OK? Keep Samardzija, but make up your damn minds on what role you want him to play.

I can’t help my allegiance to the team, they’re my team. But I really, REALLY despise all the rest of it -- Sammy Nation, Cubby Blue, Ronnie Woo-Woo, Bleacher Bums, Lovable Losers, Santo’s legs, “Let’s play two”, the ivy, baseball in sunshine, “who cares if the Cubs lose, we just love coming out to the ballpark,” all the crap. They come with so much goddamn baggage. I don’t even enjoy going to the ballpark anymore, because it’s a freaking circus. I won’t just swallow what they put out there, and that puts me in the minority. I guess I’m a Cub fan with a Southside Sox fan’s mentality. Hell, Sox fans don't go to the games even when their team's winning.

The last few years just have killed me. Five outs from the fucking World Series, and they blow it. 2004, best damn team they’ve had in my entire lifetime, the first time I could REALLY talk about them and a World Series with a straight face, and they piss the whole thing away bitching and moaning about Steve Stone and Chip Caray. Not to mention playing like complete jackasses the last week and a half of the season when they STILL could have made the playoffs if they could have just taken their head out of their asses. And the last two years? Swept out of the playoffs completely. Last year's team made the choke of 1969 seem like a hiccup.

Win me a pennant goddammit, I deserve it.

But I'm not a racist. I boo you because you didn't do what you were brought here to do - help win the World Series. Don't like it? Make you feel bad? Tough.

RIP (again) Cubs baseball for 2009. It wasn't fun and I'm glad it's over. Enjoy playing out the string and hopefully we won't see some of you at Wrigley Field next season.

Tougher than I Thought...

My oldest, Mike, starts high school next Tuesday.

I'm having a much tougher time with this than I thought I would.

For the past few months, I've been giving his mom a ribbing about her not being ready for her "baby" to grow up and go to high school. I've been asking her if she needs me to stay home from work that day to supply her with tissues and support for her tears as Mike embarks on his high school years. And Jen's been a very good sport about it. Maybe because she knows me too well and knows that I've been, well, full of it.

I'm the one who's having the tough go of it.

Last night was freshman orientation for the students and parents. It was time to pick up his schedule, help him find his locker and take a walk around and find his classrooms before he starts next Tuesday. And I as struck that I was a lot more nervous than he seemed. He was cool and collected, like none of this is a very big deal at all. After all, with sports practices and other functions, he's been in the high school dozens and dozens of times, it's not like it's an unfamiliar place. And we live in a relatively small town. Most of the students in his freshman class are the same ones who were in middle school with him. There won't be that many new faces.

Still, I remember starting high school myself and I was scared to death. I went from public school to a parochial high school. Most of my friends were headed off to Alan B. Shepard HS as I boarded the bus for Marist HS. I knew about 5 or 6 guys who were going to my school. And, at that time, Marist was an all boys high school. So the experience was going to be very different than what I had been used to. And as I've written here before, I was kind of an outsider in HS. Never completely isolated on an island, but never really part of one specific group or another. For the most part, I was OK with that. But, it did make for a lonely existence sometimes. I would never look back like some others and say that my high school years were the best of my life.

So maybe I'm simply projecting my worry onto Mike, hoping that his high school years are more fulfilling than my own. But Mike is so much more confident and popular than I ever was. He's an excellent student. He's a really good athlete. And he has a wide circle of friends. He tends to get along with everyone and everyone tends to like him. He seems destined to have a wonderful high school experience.

I guess my worry is more that I know we've entered the home stretch. From the day he was born, his mother and I have worked hard to raise him to be the best person he could be. I did my best to raise him to be a man of virtue, respect, intelligence, compassion and honor. And I see him turning into just that person. I couldn't be more proud of him (can you tell). And that's what scares me.

Michael is my son. He's my first-born. He's brought more joy to my life than he could ever possibly understand. But he's more than my kid. He's my very best friend. He's the guy I watch sports with and talk Bears and Cubs and Blackhawks and Irish. He's the guy I go to Wal-Mart with at midnight to get our copy of Madden 10 for Xbox and then stay up all night playing with. When I'm down, he almost always finds a way to pick my spirits up. He's one of the best people I know.

And he's growing up. And in the next four years, he'll begin to grow away. He'll become his own man, with his own interests. And we'll do battle, as he begins to carve out a life of his own making, as he begins to test the boundaries of his own independence. We're going to knock heads because that's what fathers and sons do. He's going to try and break away while I attempt to hold onto him with all my might. And I will lose.

I know that Mike will become a man and we'll have a different and perhaps even deeper relationship. But right now, I don't want to let go of playing catch in the yard or video games or of just kissing him goodbye on the forehead as he sleeps as I leave for work every morning. I don't want to give my little boy away to the world, because I know the world, and it's going to be cold and mean to him. And I hate the world for that.

I guess, most of all, I don't want him to grow up, because I don't want to either.

There's a poem by General Douglas MacArthur that hangs on a plaque my father gave to me and I gave to Mike that hangs in his room and reads:

Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak; and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee -- and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge.

Lead him, I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spur of difficulties and challenge. Here let him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those who fail.

Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high, a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men, one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.

And after all these thing are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humour, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom and the meekness of true strength.

Then I, his father, will dare to whisper, "I have not lived in vain!"

Thank you for everything, Michael. And good luck, my son, as you begin the next part of your journey.

A world without hope...

I had an interesting exchange with my younger brother last night on the health care reform issue. He voiced his opposition to Obama's plan and I, admittedly somewhat condescendingly, challenged whether he had reviewed the plan before forming an opinion about it. His response was that his opposition was based on a mistrust of government and their political motivations rather than their desire to actually do something for the common American. He referred to politics as "an insane man's game." (Gotta give it to him, I love the quote).

Well, I believe we need to do better than that. If you base a position solely on your cynicism then that unfortunately lumps you in then with so many others with a lack of mental fortitude to examine the problem and identify solutions, to LEAD. They take the easy way out. Be against something simply because the government's behind it, so it must be bad. Just poke holes but offer no solutions of their own. That's the "insane man's game." Incidentally, it's also the coward's.

There's no such thing as perfection as we all well know. But that doesn't mean you don't try, that you throw your hands in the air and just give up. You make compromises, and try to work together toward solutions. Do we do it especially well right now? No, I'll give you that. But the President is taking a leadership role, he's attempting to tackle a problem that has gone unchecked for far too long. And he's expending a lot of political capital to do it. It might cost him re-election. It's certainly gonna hit his approval ratings. But that's not important. It needs to be done and that's why he's trying. THAT'S real leadership and that's why I believe in him.

If we give up trying, we give up hope. And I don't want, nor do I want my kids, to live in a world without hope. Do you?

We just decided to go...

"That's one small step for man...one giant leap for mankind."
- Neil Armstrong

Forty years ago Monday night, man first walked on the moon. Unless you were alive to witness it, that sentence is one whose magnificence is somewhat lost on many as just another historical fact, just another piece of trivia or bullet point in a Wikipedia entry when you type in "Neil Armstrong."

So just consider it for a moment.

Man walked on the moon.

Human beings found a way to traverse the lifeless vacuum of space to our dusty celestial companion and return home again. For all the science fiction about space travel and whatnot, we actually did it. When you look up in the sky tonight, think about it. Look at the moon and think about the fact that Americans were actually there.

To me, when I consider America's greatest achievement in our 230-plus years, it's the night of June 20, 1969. Neil Armstrong's sojourn down the steps of the Eagle to the surface of the moon, the culmination of the work and sacrifice of thousands, was a truly -- without any hint of irony or cynicism -- unifying moment in the history of our planet. For a few fleeting moments in time, human beings the world over watched in wonder as one of their own stepped foot on a different world.

My favorite quote about the Apollo 11 landing comes from the movie Apollo 13, as Jim Lovell contemplates the achievement.

"We now live in a world where man has walked on the moon. It's not a miracle. We just decided to go."

And that sums it up. "We just decided to go." The dream realized when Armstrong and Aldrin descended those steps shows how we really can do ANYTHING that we set our minds to. No objective is beyond our grasp if we have the desire and drive to work together and sacrifice and face the challenges along the way. If we truly want it, we can do it. President Kennedy issued a challenge in 1961 to do something that at that moment in time, we were not capable of doing. The technology and know-how didn't even EXIST yet. But in nine years of collective effort, we did the impossible when our astronauts not only set foot on the moon, but more importantly, returned home and set foot again on the Earth.

Argue the political realities about the moon landing being a product of Cold War politics another time, that sure, we can go to the moon if all those resources are thrown behind it. It doesn't change the fact that we accomplished the feat. And because of it, no dream is beyond us.

And that's my most important point. That landing is an affirmation for me of American ingenuity, ambition, cooperation and spirit. It's one of the things I point out to my kids about our potential as a nation. War, poverty, education, health care, the failing economy -- none of it is indomitable if we decide it's not.

If we just decide to go...