A Few Damn Things

I’m feeling especially snarky this morning (I know, this is a high bar) so I thought I’d just pop off about a few random things.

Making lawyers look bad. Two liberal lawyers have filed a 100-page complaint with the Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation charging former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman with, “a shambolic, dishonest, and destructive campaign against Wisconsin’s democracy at taxpayer expense and in the guise of a public official.” They’re referring to Gableman’s “investigation” into unfounded charges of voter fraud in the November, 2020 election. The job of the Office of Lawyer Regulation is to receive complaints like this and ignore them. We’ll never hear from them. The lawyers might have more luck with the Office of Clown Regulation, as Gableman has given Bozo a bad name.

Didn’t see that coming. Congressman Glenn Grothman is going to run for another term, breaking his promise not to serve more than a decade in Congress. Turns out he’s discovered that he’s just got to stay on for at least a couple more terms so that he can complete his conservative agenda with a new president. Good thing because the nation is on edge, wondering when the sweeping Grothman Agenda will finally come to fruition. Also, of course, only Grothman can advance conservative causes from a district that’s something like 99% Republican. Wouldn’t want him to step down and be replaced by the Wisconsin version of AOC.

Badgers lose another close one. I don’t know why I watch these guys. The Wisconsin men’s basketball team did what they’ve been doing since January: they went ice cold in the closing minutes and lost another close game on Thursday night, this time to Purdue. Wisconsin fans are deeply loyal to their coaches. People were shocked when Paul Chryst was fired and then shocked again when Jim Leonhard didn’t get his job. When I wrote this week that they should part ways with Greg Gard I got all kinds of push back from readers. But my point isn’t about one game or even one season. They’ll improve next year and they’ll make the tournament again. But they’ll never be better than a Sweet 16 team under Gard, and that rarely. His formula will consistently achieve a high level of mediocrity. We settle for that here at YSDA, but the Badgers can do better.

Please stop. This week Aaron Rodgers emerged from the darkness to… drum roll… say he’ll decide about his future very soon. I thought that maybe all that time alone with the man he loves would give him clarity on the beautiful mystery that is his (and Packer fans’) future. But nope. He’s still got some ponderin’ to do. Are you like me? Have you stopped caring if he’s got any more MVP juice left in him? Have you been ready to move on to the not-annoying (yet) Jordon Love for at least a year now? Do you want Rodgers to just make his darn decision and shut the heck up about it? I’ve been to Las Vegas. I don’t like Las Vegas. I hope he goes to Las Vegas.

What is time? One of the beautiful things about baseball is that it has always been the only team sport without a clock. Life is full of clocks, buzzers, deadlines, alarms. But baseball just kind of went on and on. It was the very fact that it was such a counter-point to modern life that made it so wonderful. Now, baseball is like every other damn thing. It has a pitch clock. Only the pitch clock comes with all kinds of related complicated rules. Turns out the batter needs to be in the box eight seconds before or after something or other and if he’s not in there on time he’s out even if the pitcher misses his own deadline, which is based on Greenwich Mean Time adjusted for the angle of the sun at that hour. Or something. I don’t like it. In fact, I believe all games should be played in the day time, the players should have mitts the size of oven gloves and they should wear scratchy wool uniforms in the height of summer.

So there. Have a nice weekend.