Sam's Notes

paydirt....

...The Golden Boy..

Note the square toe on the right shoe. it wasn't enough that he scored the touchdown. He kicked the extra point, too.

Hell on earth

N&R editor Allen Johnson bemoans the hell on earth that is West Wendover and I-40:

"Go west, if you dare, into a bumper-to-bumper jungle where fat, gas-frothing SUVs lurch from one big box to another.....

"Begun as a model of foresight, the western stretch of Wendover has become twisted and gnarled into a terminally clogged artery — and a paved monument to missed opportunities and afterthoughts.

"Afterthoughts about traffic volume.

"Afterthoughts about pedestrians, who might actually want to get out of their cars and walk somewhere without being killed.

"Afterthoughts about development and prudent planning.

"Wendover, especially West Wendover, was clearly engineered for automobiles, not human beings."

OK, I've never seen an automobile pushing a shopping cart down the aisles at Costco, but that's a minor point.

I realize many of the restaurants and big-box retailers have been along the Wendover stretch long before the Costco shopping center, which has only added to the number of cars heading west. Still, it helps to remember what was on site before Costco: The abandoned Guilford Mills building.

Are we not lucky that local developers were able to move quickly on the site? and transform the site from a crumbling memorial to our region's economic past to a bustling retail center? The way I see it, if the city had put too many obstacles in the developers' path, then the Guilford Mills building might still be sitting there, a crumbling memorial to our region's ecoomic past. To paraphrase the economist Randal O'Toole, communities can overplan, holding onto a utopian version of the way Americans should live instead of the way Americans really want to live. Does it not stand to reason that if our fellow citizens did not want Wal-Mart, Costco et al. where they are, then the area wouldn't be such a popular destination?

In fairness I, like Johnson, avoid West Wendover and I-40. But last Friday, I was out running some errands and there no avoiding it. To my surprise, I passed right on through. And it was Friday at lunchtime. So it's not hell on earth round the clock.

Johnson finishes up:

"The new I-73 interchange could give West Wendover two interstate connections within spitting distance of one another. Developers already are rubbing their palms in anticipation.

"I'm putting my hands together, too. To pray."

As any good Christian will tell you, praying keeps you out of hell.

Times select?

I reckon NYT's Selena Roberts has a right to judge Floyd Landis before the results of his 'B' sample are revealed:

"Now Landis is asking people to stretch their oath of fairness — once more as he engages in the Whiskey Defense. Now he has slipped into the role of a bar-scene braggart as he talks one day of his naturally high testosterone levels, then blaming his A sample spike on a Jack Daniels — or was it beer? —binge a night before the Alps in Stage 17....

"Whatever the bar tab, he revealed no cotton mouth, no bloodshot eyes, no hangover at all in Stage 17. Just pure-grain adrenaline for the greatest ride since Apollo 11."

But the shot at Landis' Mennonite upbrining was unnecessary:

"Deception fatigue has its limits. If Landis's whiskey defense turns into another dark mark against athlete credibility, the cyclist from the piety and purity of Amish country will be labeled a fraud."

Sure sounds like Roberts hopes so. It would be a good day if piety and purity were taken down with the doper. But the two don't have anything to do with each other in this case. Landis' cycling career is a rebellion against his Mennonite upbringing, not a direct product of that upbringing.

Landis is living in world very different from the one in which he grew up. Guilty or not, he seems comfortable with that.

That's what I'm talking about

So I'm over at Floyd Stuart's, retrieving my spray can and my container of industrial strength RoundUp. We're watching the Braves-Mets game in third inning when Tim Hudson hits Carlos Delgado in the knee with a pitch. Delgado limps down to first base, the trainer checks him out, and they decide to remove him from the game.

Who comes in to run for Delgado? Julio Franco.

A logical choice, since Franco would stay in the game and play first base. We're surpised that Willie Randolph would pull Franco off the bench cold, since he's like 50 years old. But it was the third inning, too early to waste a pinch-runner.

On the second pitch to David Wright, Franco takes off for second base. He beats the throw, and when the ball skips into center field, he easily takes third.

Did I mention the guy's like 50 years old?

Well said

Rantingprofs:

"There are few people who can explain the nature of the war we're engaged in better than Tony Blair."

I agree.

Blair on terrorism:

"Now, it's a global movement, it's a global ideology. And if there's any mistake that's ever made in these circumstances, it's if people are surprised that it's tough to fight, because you're up against an ideology that's prepared to use any means at all, including killing any number of wholly innocent people."

sane but guilty

Mona Charen has no kind words for Rusty Yates:

"Two juries have had to decide to what degree Andrea Yates was responsible for her behavior. But no juries have ever been asked to consider Rusty's guilt. The word negligent doesn't even begin to describe his malfeasance. How is it possible that a man who knows his wife's sanity has been compromised by childbirth can nonetheless impregnate her five more times (she miscarried once)?

"How could he leave her alone when he knew she was, at the very least, suicidal -- and when her failure to care for the children (and feeding is pretty elemental) revealed a clear case of endangering the welfare of a child? What was he thinking when he urged Andrea to home school all four of their children (the fifth came later) in the converted school bus they were living in?

"Who is more guilty here: the sane one or the insane one?"

I saw Rusty Yates on Larry King Live last night. While I go against the grain and believe that King is a effective interviewer, last night's segment with Yates was pure softball. It was short, though, only about 15 minutes. My guess is Yates was scheduled for the first half of the program when King found out he could get Landis. Perhaps if King had more time, he could have asked more serious questions.

Again, I can't figure how Yates can claim to be ex-wife's biggest advocate while he's moved on with his life. He told King he often visits with his ex-wife and they reminisce about their children. I wonder if that reminiscing includes the sheer horror that was those poor children's last moments on earth.

Charen:

"Noah was 7. He screamed as his mother dragged him to the tub.

"I later learned from court testimony that the boy struggled for his life while his mother held him under water and twice broke through the surface to sputter an apology for anything he had done wrong to merit such a punishment. Another of the children, it might have been John (6) or Paul (3), was found with strands of his mother's hair in his fist."

Like I said....

...I'm working on my road rage problem.

Road rage

I have a road rage problem. I'm working on it. But then I'm coming around the curve where West Market and Friendly split and notice the Jeep Cherokee in front of me weave into my lane and back over. I keep an eye on her as I start to pass ans, sure enough, she weaves into my lane. I lay on my horn and cuss the driver as I pass. The driver was a rather sweet-looking lady in her early 50s.

Oh well. I think reading this made me somewhat hypersensitive to careless driving.

Daylight

training camps are open

Plan B

I'll reserve judgment on Floyd Landis until the results of his 'B' sample are confirmed.

Greg LeMond's reaction to Landis' positive test for testosterone are, needless to say, interesting. On this morning's Today Show, LeMond reiterated these comments he made in the NYT article:

“If there’s any positive outcome on this, I hope, for the sport’s sake, that Floyd has the courage to come clean on everything. He needs to say everything about the sport, what’s happened in the past, what’s happening right now. We need to be transparent about it, so we can look at the sport and say, how do we fix it?”

A presumption of guilt?