The Vig

That’s the monument Illinois Senator-designate Roland Burris has constructed for himself at a cemetary in Chicago.  It’s where he plans to spend eternity after departing this mortal coil.

Geez.

The irony, of course, is the rest of the Senate is totally jealous.  They only get airports and courthouses named after them.  I think he’ll fit right in.

Seat Roland Burris!!!

Hat tip and all praises to Josh Marshall.

It’s a big deal when you win a bowl.  Unless you lose a bowl, then it doesn’t matter at all.

-D. Jaynes

You can easily remove the Holiday Bowl from that quote, insert tonight’s Blazers-Celtics game in its place, and the meaning would stay exactly the same.  Listening to The Game today, you would think the Blazers and their fans had already chalked this one up to the loss column.  The list of lame pre-game excuses was deep.

• Oh!  Brandon Roy was hurt, he couldn’t go.
• Oh! the Celtics are just too good.
• Oh! this season isn’t about winning, it’s about improving.
• Oh! it doesn’t even matter if the Blazers make the playoffs this season.

This game meant nothing.

Except now it does.  There’s going to be a little extra pep in Blazer fans tomorrow as they dissect this game.  Spare me.  It was a fun victory to be sure, but it doesn’t mean anything.  Beat Utah next month, then we’ll have something to crow about.

One more thing.  It’s time for Brandon Roy to man up.  These “nagging” injuries seem to keep popping up right around this point of the season.  Last year it was his ankle.  The season before that it was his heel.  If he wants to be an star in this league, he needs to figure out how to play through “tweaks”.

Word out of Toronto is the Phoenix Coyotes, despite having a brand new arena, are in a heap of trouble financially.  It serves them right for building the thing in a cotton field in the middle of freaking nowhere.  When I lived down there, the talk was they were going to build the new arena at the old Los Arcos Mall, which would have been ideal given it’s proximity to the money in the 480 area code.  I can’t remember all the ins and outs of why the thing never got built.  As I recall, they wanted to build an aquarium next door and, of course, condos.  Ultimately it got torpedoed.

What does this mean for Portland?  Well, the Winter Hawks have a new moneybags owner and, as Dwight pointed out a few months back, he may have his eye on bringing the NHL to town.  It’s a pretty smart move.  Come to town, get to know the local who’s who, and see if it’s feasible.  Well, there may be no better time.  If the ‘Yotes file bankruptcy, they’ll be out of their lease and free agents.  Who’s to say someone can’t come in and swoop them up for a low nine-figure price.

The only obstacle, I would think, would be the price of oil.  Gallacher’s wealth is mostly in energy and banking.  It’s a lot easier to write that cheque when a barrel costs $140 US than it is when it’s only $35.  And don’t get me started on the financial markets.

There are quite a few teams out there besides Phoenix that are in trouble, and it could turn into a race to see who relocates first.  I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find an NHL team dropping the puck in the Rose Quarter within 2 years.

Give it up for the Portland State Vikings!  If you missed it, the game replays on Fox Sports Network (Comcast channel 34) tonight at midnight.

The Viks have a ways to go yet before they can hope for anything beyond a 16-seed this March.  Their real opportunity to make some RPI hay will be this Monday night at Baylor, and then it’s on to conference play.

Either way, if Portland State makes the big dance again this season, we can kiss Ken Bone goodbye.

I’m going to unplug for a few weeks.  I’ve got some catching up to do in real life.

Thanks for making The Vig a regular stop this year.  I’ve got some thoughts on what I’d like to do in the new year.  I’m pretty excited.  But for now, I’m going to stop and enjoy the season.  See you in 2009.

Balloon Juice:

US Senators are openly colluding with foreign auto companies to drive down the wages of American workers. Something to think about the next time you hear “You’re either with us or against us.”

And as a side note, as someone who has never really cared much for unions, I am as shocked as anyone to see myself defending the UAW this vigorously. I guess I am just taken aback by how brazen the efforts are to blame this on the workers and to let the economy explode just to destroy unions. It is pretty mind-boggling, and that is even after a pretty amazingly awful eight years of suck.

He goes on to quote extensively from Ben Stein’s appearance on Larry King.

Well I think what happened was that the Republicans were sick of the bailout and they were also sick of the idea that the autoworkers had voted Democrat so many times and turned Michigan into an entirely Democratic state and they’re also a little envious on behalf of the constituents of the way—the imaginary super wage benefit legacy cause.But I think they made a terrible and unpatriotic mistake. We’re teetering on the brink of a depression. We can ship money to Iraqi warlords and giant cargo planes. We ship money all over the world. We can’t ship it to help our own people? We can ship it to Goldman Sachs and rescue people that get $100 million a year but we can’t rescue an autoworker and his family? That’s crazy.

Bingo.  Republicans fiddled while New Orleans drowned and now they’re doing the same thing with the entire national economy.  Hate the unions and their $50k jobs all you want, but that’s what a middle class looks like.  That’s what the middle class looked like in 1955, the year Limbaugh, Hannity, Larson, and all those damned senators wish we could go back to.

It’s not the UAW’s fault GM has failed to design a car the American consumer wants.  And it’s not the UAW’s fault healthcare costs in this nation have rocketed out of control.

When we look back on this week five years from now, it’s going to seem absolutely asenine that we didn’t spend the equivelent of two-weeks in Iraq in order to tide these companies over until the adults came back to power.

It’s not hyperbole to suggest the Republicans may have just kissed the next twenty years goodbye.  Think I’m kidding?  Read what they’re saying in Detroit.  Republicans haven’t won Michigan in two decades and have only won the White House by the skin of their teeth without that state.  They’re done there.

“I think I might be a loser,” I told Dylan during the first intermission last night.

“Really?” he said, “why do you say that?”

“Well, here I am on a Friday night.  There’s maybe a thousand people here.  There are tons of other things to do in this town.  Yet here I am in this empty building watching two bad teams gum at each other.”

“No, it’s not like that at all,” he countered, “you’re getting in on the ground floor!  Better days are ahead!”

He was only half-kidding.

“This isn’t the ground floor,” I replied, “this is the basement.  No one knows we’re down here.  And no one will remember we were even here in five years.”

There’s just so much arm crossing and head shaking in the stands these days.  And it’s beyond a habit.  It’s routine.  People come to the games now out of obligation.  At least the regulars around me do.  There’s no joy.  Just the same people in their lucky jerseys yelling at Travis Bobbee to quit turning the GD puck over.  A friend of mine likened the crowds last year to old-time Portland Wrestling crowds.  Even that’s gone.  it’s just the hard-cores now.

It finally dawned on me this morning why I still come to the games.  I still want that rush I had when I fell in love with the game in 1998.  Or hell, even five years ago.  It was fun.  There were decent crowds.  There was a little bit of a buzz.  That’s all gone.  Yet I still show up thinking maybe tonight will be different.  It’s not.  And it won’t be.  Not for a long time.

The Hawks got beat last night by an awful team.  How awful is PG?  They gave up a 2-on-1 break while on a 5-on-3 power-play.  Even in the darkest days of last season, I don’t think that ever happened.  Despite the fact they were getting badly outshot, I thought the Hawks put in a pretty decent effort.

I missed the first PG goal.  Dylan thought it was bad.  I hear Andy did too.  I saw Savage have a long conversation with Ehrhardt before the second period.  I’m guessing he admitted he screwed it up.  It was fun listening to Dylan recount his top-five “Chris Savage screwed us” moments.  This one had to go right up there.

Sometime mid-way through the second period, the Hawks turned from aggressors to dump-and-chasers.  It would have made Don Cherry tear his hair out.  The team still needs to find that killer instinct and, as I said a few weeks back, figure out how to beat the teams it can beat.  PG is one of those teams.  Why you wouldn’t keep your foot on their throat for a full sixty minutes is beyond me.  Everyone on that bench deserved what happened.

Even with all that doom and gloom last night, there was one moment that really struck me.  As I was walking through the Commons toward the MAX station, a girl next to me began squealing with excitement.

“I’m a hockey fan now,” she exclaimed to her friend.

Despite everything that happened last night, the Hawks made a new fan.  She’ll be back tonight and no doubt has already circled December 28 on her calendar.  I remember those days.  I hope they come again.

Earl the Pearl, Pete DeFazio, and David Wu all voted no on the bank bailout, but yes on the auto bailout.  Darlene Hooley voted the opposite, yes to the banks, no to the auto companies.  Something’s not right here.

Also, Pete and the Bowtie are both big mass transit guys.  They couldn’t hold out for some sort of additional train funding?  Seriously, what am I missing?

I’m upgrading to Wordpress 2.7 tonight.  If I don’t come back, call Aaron Hockley.

Update: I survived!  I feel like I’m in an alternate universe now, however.  Too many new buttons.  This thing is crazy.

The nation watched firsthand as Obama dismantled the Clinton machine in six months earlier this year.  Blagojevich is a lightweight compared with Hillary.  What made him believe he would outfox the Great One?  I don’t get it.  And listening to Victoria Taft flail around while trying to connect the dots tonight was an absolute riot.

Yes, Obama is steeped in Chicago machine politics.  He plays them better than anyone.  No one inside or outside Illinois has beat him yet.  That includes talk radio and the National Review, both of whom he’s left muttering.  And now there are five Chicagoans who’s names are going to get tied to this at some point, including possibly Jesse Jackson Jr.  It’s a Grade-A take down, most likely called by Emanuel himself.

For whatever reason, the Hannity-right believe they have an opening with this corruption thing.  They’re going to love throwing around the names of the five unnamed candidates.  Especially Jesse Jr.  Obama’s going to have them chasing their tails just like the Illinois governor.

Man, the next four years are going to be awesome.