Is It Game Over for Don Imus?

Six months have passed since radio shock jock Don Imus began work at his new station, WABC-AM in New York, with a promise to heal the wounds caused by his remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team that got him fired at his previous station. He even hired two African-Americans to join his on-air family.

Well, how's that promise working out? Imus is in hot water again over his reaction to the news that Adam Jones of the Dallas Cowboys (the football player formerly known as "Pacman") had another run-in with the law. In conversation with sportscaster Warner Wolf on Monday morning's broadcast, it went something like this, according to Associated Press:

IMUS; What color is he?

WOLF: African-American.

IMUS; There you go. Now we know.

On Tuesday's broadcast, Imus said he was trying to "make a sarcastic point" about African-Americans and how the criminal justice system treats them. He said he had been misunderstood, and called the criticism about his comments "ridiculous".

In this case, what Imus said about Jones initially was more sloppy than racist. Imus didn't do his homework on Jones, who is under suspension by the National Football League for his alleged involvement in a nightclub shooting. Does Imus even follow football?

Imus will not have any action taken against him by WABC, or its parent company Citadel Broadcasting. Jones told a Dallas newspaper that he is upset by the comments, and is praying for Imus.

Even though ABC and its parent company Disney have taken great pains to remind folks that they no longer have anything to do with WABC radio, having sold its stations and the ABC Radio Network to Citadel last year, they should bear some of the responsibility for what Imus says on the air. After all, isn't ABC's name still on the building?

And are we ever going to get to a point where we no longer care what Imus is saying?

George Carlin (1937-2008): More Than Dirty Words

George Carlin, who died of heart failure at 71 on Sunday, wasn't the first comedian to rant about politics, religion and life in general in his act in a profane manner. But he was responsible for a lot of the comedy you see today, reflecting changes in American society for better or worse.

Yes, Carlin's best known routine was about the seven dirty words you (still) can't say on TV, which was the subject of a 1978 U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing government regulation of speech over the so-called "public airwaves". (Thanks to Janet Jackson baring her breast at the Super Bowl, freedom of speech on TV has been curtailed even further.)

Carlin made many things possible. Comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock and Sarah Silverman. Radio shock jocks Howard Stern and Don Imus. Fake newscasters Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Saturday Night Live (Carlin was the first guest host). Rap artists. Bloggers. You name it, Carlin probably influenced it.

Carlin was a challenging comedian, pushing the envelope (as the cliche goes) constantly in his musings about the absurdities of everyday life, and in his own, which included bouts with drug addiction and health problems. In his comedy, he exhorted the country to grow up out of its 1950s mentality along with him. At the time of his death, he was still waiting.

The MPR "Membership Drive" Survival Guide (Sort of)

Minnesota Public Radio is presently involved in its membership drive, also known as its latest attempt to separate money from people's bank accounts. That means normally serious hosts are forced to rattle the tin cup for good ol' MPR during Morning Edition or All Things Considered, threatening to whack beloved programs if listeners don't pay up. At least we're not inundated with classic rock and doo-wop specials, with Celtic Woman thrown in.

MPR has cornered the market on public radio in the state of Minnesota, gobbling up all but a few non-commercial FM signals. They also own stations in Los Angeles, Miami, Sun Valley, Idaho and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. They also do business as American Public Media, which syndicates such programs as A Prairie Home Companion and The Splendid Table (which, they keep telling people, are NOT National Public Radio programs). And they're also in the process of moving from one shiny building in St. Paul to another. So . . . tell us again why MPR wants our money?

If you'd rather not listen to all that shilling, which can seem longer than commercial breaks after an extended block of music, the pickings on the radio dial are slim.

There's Tom Barnard on KQRS-FM 92.5, the local version of Howard Stern. After listening to Barnard and company, you might need to take a shower.

There's WCCO-AM 830. However, they take great pains to sound as bland as possible, so as not to offend the assisted living residents who make up the majority of its audience. It's been that way for decades.

There's KFAN-AM 1130. Unless you like "jock around the clock" and the conservative political philosophy that goes along with it, don't bother.

There's the conservative talk stations (KSTP-AM 1500, KTLK-FM 100.3 and WWTC-AM 1280). If you have a clean bill of health and don't mind liberal-bashing, then these stations are for you.

There's KTNF-AM 950, until recently known as "Air America Minnesota". If you have a clean bill of health and don't mind Bush-and Cheney-bashing, then this station is also for you.

Or you can always turn on the music stations. Some of you, we understand, don't care for corporate-dictated playlists, which are the same songs you've heard a billion times. And the latest on Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears are what passes for news and information on those stations.

Short of exhausting your CD or MP3 collection over a temporary situation, may we make a suggestion? Would it be possible to take up a collection to satisfy MPR's budget for an entire year, in exchange for NEVER bugging us about how financially desperate they are ever again?

Tiger Woods Needs Surgery. Again.

Tiger Woods' 19-hole playoff victory at the U.S. Open over Rocco Mediate turned out to be even more dramatic than we knew, not to mention painful. Today Woods announced on his website that he is having season-ending surgery to repair a torn ligament in his left knee, which he injured 10 months ago.

This means that Woods will be out of the British Open, the PGA Championship, and the Ryder Cup, along with any other tournament he deems important enough to play in. Since Woods is the straw that stirs the PGA Tour's drink, so to speak, TV ratings for tournaments will now be rivaling curling.

But there are those who believe Woods had an ulterior motive for taking the rest of the year off. Listening to an afternoon host (who shall remain nameless) on a conservative sports talk station in the Twin Cities, one has to wonder if he was serious when he said that Woods was unpatriotic for not participating in the Ryder Cup as a member of the United States team.

For the record, the American team (with or without Woods) has not won the Ryder Cup since 1999.

These are the same idiots who claim that presidential candidate Barack Obama is really a Muslim, and that fist bump he and his wife Michelle did at the rally in St. Paul was a signal to the terrorists. We've had to listen to this BS ever since 9/11/01 from President Bush and Vice President Cheney on down to their acolytes on Fox News and in talk radio, scaring the country to death and taking away constitutional freedoms.

Tiger Woods' father was a Marine who served in the Vietnam war. His mother came from Thailand. His wife is Scandinavian. In other words, folks, Woods is living the new American dream. And when his knee is healed enough to let him tee off again, even the flag-waving nitwits will be cheering.

The Legend Lives On in Boston

Once again, a professional sports team from Boston has won the world championship. This time, it's the Celtics winning the NBA title, a 131-92 blowout over the Los Angeles Lakers to take the series in six games.

The Celtics are no strangers to NBA supremacy, having won 17 championships (nine against the Lakers). But this is their first since 1986. They also managed to stop Lakers coach Phil Jackson from surpassing Red Auerbach's record for most championships.

At what point did the Celtics win the series? It was Game 4, when they rallied from a 24-point deficit in the final quarter on the Lakers' Staples Center court.

Kevin Garnett, who scored 26 points in the final game, deserves this title more than anyone else after what he's been through in Minnesota. As it is, he'll share the prize with teammates Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, both of whom also came from mediocre teams.

While this was going on, the NBA was rocked by a former referee who alleged that officials manipulated the outcomes of two playoff series in 2002 and 2005 to get certain (read: more marketable) teams to advance to the next round. That former referee, Tim Donaghy, pleaded guilty to felony gambling charges and is awaiting sentencing. He has admitted to betting on NBA games.

But that's for another day. Right now, Garnett, Allen and Pierce join Bill Russell, John Havlicek and Larry Bird in the category of Celtics who have won championships. Kobe Bryant? He's already had his.

Wounded Tiger Survives U.S. Open

For those of you who weren't busy and had access to a TV Monday afternoon, you saw a golf match for the ages.

Tiger Woods, who has won just about everything in professional men's golf, defeated Rocco
Mediate, a 45-year old journeyman who hadn't won a tournament in years, in a playoff that ended on the first sudden-death hole at the U.S. Open in Torrey Pines near San Diego.

Neither man played flawless golf, but they both made the shots when they had to. Especially Woods, who had to birdie the 18th hole on Sunday just to get into the playoff.

Most competitors turn into simpering pretenders when Woods has the lead late in the tournament. Not Mediate. He matched the most dominant player in golf toe-to-toe until he finally ran out of gas on the sudden-death 7th hole. If Mediate had won, it would have ranked as the greatest upset in sports this century.

Usually, the antiquated 18-hole playoff results in anti-climactic finishes. The USGA got lucky this time, but it really should consider altering the format in the future.

Woods, who won his 14th major tournament on his way to perhaps surpassing Jack Nicklaus' 18 victories, played competitively for the first time since he had his knee surgically repaired following The Masters. He played as if he shouldn't have been there, the pain compounded by five days of walking through an 18-hole course, having to step in awkward positions every once in awhile. But it turned out all right for him.

How much longer can we continue to watch Tiger Woods make history? A few weeks ago, Annika Sorenstam--who has dominated the LPGA the way Woods has conquered the PGA Tour--announced her retirement at the end of this season. She said she no longer had the desire to compete. With Woods' increasingly erratic playing schedule, it might not be too far-fetched to ask if Tiger Woods might follow Sorenstam's lead and enjoy the fruits of his labors.

Tim Russert (1950-2008): If It's Sunday . . .

Meet The Press began on the Mutual radio network just after World War II ended in 1945. It was co-founded by producer Martha Rountree and magazine editor Lawrence Spivak. The format was simple: Invite the people making news that week to face a panel of journalists (of which Spivak was a permanent member), then watch 'em squirm under relentless questioning.

The program moved to NBC television in 1947, and continues to this day. It is the longest-running network program of any kind in the history of the medium. Nearly every American political figure and world dignitary have been guests at one time or another.

Tim Russert took over as moderator of Meet The Press in 1991, a job he held in addition to being Washington bureau chief of NBC News. Through the years, he gained a reputation for being a tough, well-prepared interviewer. It was like listening to an old-time journalist with a law degree, bearing down on his witness in a courtroom to get at the truth. However, since Russert used to work for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Governor Mario Cuomo (both Democrats), he was accused of softening the blows if he wanted return visits by the heavy-hitters.

As a fixture on NBC's political coverage, Russert was decidedly low-tech. While others were using touch screens to tell us which candidate was outpolling the other, Russert used a whiteboard to make his calculations. He could also be blunt in his observations, declaring Senator Barack Obama as the Democratic presidential nominee weeks before Senator Hillary Clinton made it official.

On Sunday's broadcast of Meet The Press, the moderator's chair was left empty in honor of the man who had hosted the program longer than anyone else. Tim Russert died suddenly on Friday of a heart attack in his office. He was 58.

In a most unfortunate bit of circumstance, Russert's passing happened to occur during a presidential campaign, where he was in his element. In the past few days, we learned that Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, held one of his town hall meetings in front of a friendly audience, and was televised exclusively by Fox News. And the Obama campaign had started a website to counter what they believe were rumors and lies being spread about the presumptive Democratic nominee and his wife.

In terms of what he meant to journalism and to political discourse in this country, Tim Russert didn't just leave a hole. He left a crater.

Thanks For Noticing, But Let's Move On

It turns out I'm not the only one who reads The Bludog Chronicle. In the commentary section of Thursday's Minneapolis Star Tribune, you will find a column devoted to a wrapup of the big stories of the week as interpreted by local and national bloggers. And there we are, sharing space with the likes of Alec Baldwin and Nihilist In Golf Pants. Isn't that wonderful?

Although it was never my life's ambition to take up valuable newspaper space that could have gone to George Will or Maureen Dowd, or somebody like that, the inclusion is much appreciated. But there is one quibble. The word "chronicle", for our purposes, does not end with the letter "s". If this were Jeopardy!, Alex Trebek would have deducted points from your score. Did they eliminate proofreaders in the last budget cutbacks?

But we digress. If you want to read the column, go to startribune,com. If you want to see the post that contains (as Paul Harvey would put it) the rest of the story, please scroll down.

For the benefit of curiosity seekers who found this blog, we are not totally fixated on politics here, and we're not in the business of endorsing candidates. We also cover whatever we find interesting in media, sports and pop culture.

I'm flattered by all the attention this website is receiving (cue crickets). But it's a fast-moving world. We must not rest on our laurels. If a politician says or does something stupid, we'll be there. If a local or national media outlet does something out of the ordinary, we'll be there. If a young Hollywood actress is too inebriated to realize that she was just photographed without her panties, we'll be there. Or not.

Show's over, folks. Let's get back to work.

Baggage-O-Rama

On the same day Senator Hillary Clinton suspended her presidential campaign, urging her 18 million supporters to suck it up and vote for Barack Obama in November (though not always convincingly), Minnesota's Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) party were having their convention in Rochester.

On the first ballot, they chose to endorse satirist and radio talk show host Al Franken as their U.S. Senate candidate. He easily defeated (to the surprise of many) Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, a college professor attempting to emulate Paul Wellstone, minus the charisma and the rundown bus. Guess all that Hollywood money Franken racked up couldn't be ignored.

Franken wants to make his campaign about Republican Senator Norm Coleman's ties to President George W. Bush, and his lack of empathy toward the common man and woman. Unfortunately for Franken, he left behind a paper trail of tax problems, sexually explicit magazine articles and tasteless jokes about women from his years at Saturday Night Live for the GOP to drive a truck through. Even some DFLers held their noses as they were voting for him. That's why Franken was compelled to apologize to the delegates for those past misdeeds in his acceptance speech.

Meanwhile, Senator Coleman has been positioning himself as a uniter, aligning with Democrats on some issues, though he voted with his own party most of the time. He's also astute enough to figure out that Bush's approval ratings have tanked in Minnesota (and most everywhere else), so he's pushing himself away from the President for that reason.

Franken also has a problem with his stand on the war in Iraq. One reason Clinton did not win the Democratic nomination is because of her early support of the war, then reversing herself when it became politically expedient to do so. Franken did much the same thing. Coleman, on the other hand, has supported the war from the beginning.

Al Franken, after a lifetime of making jokes for a living, now wants to be taken seriously in his bid for the Senate. Norm Coleman, after a lifetime of being a political chameleon, wants another six years to prove he can be something other than a party hack. Threatening to upset the apple cart is former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, who could announce his candidacy on Larry King Live if he felt like it. If he did, he could win over two uninspiring candidates.

Jim McKay (1921-2008): Spanning The Globe

Long before ESPN and its imitators, there was a program on Saturday afternoons that told us it was going to "span the globe" and bring us the "constant variety of sports". It would show us "the thrill of victory" and "the agony of defeat". And for the next ninety minutes (or longer, depending on the event), that's exactly what we'd get, whether it was Muhammad Ali boxing or Evel Knievel jumping over the Snake River Canyon.

The program was Wide World of Sports, which ran on ABC from 1961 to 1997. Its host for the first quarter-century was Jim McKay. He covered just about everything on the show, whether it was the significant (track and field, figure skating) or the sublime (barrel jumping, skydiving). He was our guide to the world through athletics, visiting China when the doors were ready to open and interviewing world leaders such as Cuba's Fidel Castro.

McKay also hosted 12 Olympic Games, most of them for ABC. His most significant work came during the 1972 Summer Games in Munich, on a day when Arab terrorists invaded the Olympic Village and took nine Israeli athletes as hostages. McKay was on the air live for several hours before word came that there had been a shootout at the airport, and the athletes were killed in the crossfire.

McKay was one of the most honored sports broadcasters, having won 13 Emmys, a Peabody and a George Polk Memorial Award not just for his on-air work, but for his writing skills. He had been a newspaper reporter prior to his TV career.

McKay represented an era when we trusted that the person inside the box would tell us what was going on in the world, and tell it to us straight. He belonged in the same category as Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, and in a more recent era, Peter Jennings and Bob Costas.

Jim McKay, at the age of 86, died on the same day Big Brown attempted to win horse racing's Triple Crown--another event he covered in his long career. Big Brown finished last at the Belmont Stakes--which, as it happened, was telecast by ABC.

Now you can watch the constant variety of sports any time of day on any medium you choose. NBC's coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games will take up more hours than all the other televised Olympics combined. But there will never be another Wide World of Sports. You don't know what you're missing.

The Cup Wings Back to Detroit

The Detroit Red Wings have been in the National Hockey League since 1927. In that time, they have won 10 Stanley Cup championships, more than any other American-based franchise (the Montreal Canadiens have done it 22 times). Wednesday, the Wings made it 11, defeating the Pittsburgh Penguins in six games.

When the series began at Detroit's Joe Louis Arena, the Red Wings' goaltender Chris Osgood held the Penguins scoreless during the first two games. Once they got to Pittsburgh for Game 3, however, the big guns of Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby started scoring, and the Pens finally won a game. But the Wings took game four, and they were ready to clinch the Cup back in Detroit.

As proved at other times in the playoffs, the Red Wings couldn't put away an opponent in Game 5. They came within 30 seconds of doing so, until Pittsburgh spoiled the celebration with the tying goal, and then the winner in the third overtime period.

The Penguins would have sent Game 6 into overtime had it not been for (A) goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury "rear-ended" the puck into his goal, and (B) a last-second reach-in in the Detroit goal crease which would not have counted, anyhow. And the Red Wings held the Stanley Cup aloft on the Mellon Arena ice.

The TV ratings on NBC for the Stanley Cup finals were the best in years (though they were beaten out by CBS' controversial mixed martial arts show in a few places), since the last time the Red Wings played here. Maybe that's the solution to the NHL's problem with showing puck in the late spring-early summer. Promote the Red Wings as hockey's version of the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Yankees. Except for one thing: Red Wing fans already do show up at every NHL arena.

Next fall, when the latest championship banner hangs from the rafters of Joe Louis Arena, the Red Wings will know what it's like to be the hunted. And the cycle continues.

History Made, History Denied

History was made Tuesday night when Senator Barack Obama of Illinois earned enough delegates to qualify as the Democratic presidential nominee, the first African-American to do so. He will make it official in Denver this August.

History will be made this weekend, according to news reports, when Senator Hillary Clinton of New York ends her campaign to become the first female president and supports Obama.

The primary season has been one long, strange trip. Debates nearly every week. Appearances on late-night comedy shows. Pastors who talk too much. Charisma versus competency. A former president stumping for his wife. Disputes over delegates in states that held their primaries too early. Gaffes the size of bomb craters in Kosovo. And others too numerous to mention.

But it's all over now. The time has come to praise both Clinton and Obama for running excellent, if not always perfect, campaigns. They have brought a new excitement to a moribund political scene, bringing in more voters than any campaign in recent memory.

The race for the White House has reached the next phase, with Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Senator John McCain of Arizona mulling over which running mate they should pick.

For Obama, the choice should be anyone but Hillary Clinton, no matter how much pressure he is getting from other Democrats. Clinton is too strong a personality to ever want to play second fiddle to a man whose office she covets. And, of course, there's her husband to contend with. Let her go back to her day job.

For McCain, he should pick someone who has better conservative credentials than he does. Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is one possibility. But he needs to focus on running his state instead of dreaming about what it would be like, sharing the podium at the Republican National Convention in his home base of St. Paul with nominee McCain. Besides, if Pawlenty does become vice-president, that means disgraced Lieutenant Governor Carol Molnau takes over.

The road to Denver and the Twin Cities has just begun, with Obama and McCain taking potshots at each other on various issues and raising even more money for the fall campaign.

Come November, one of these men will be making history once again.

Lakers vs. Celtics: The Reboot

The national Basketball Association, after years of deadly dull finals mostly involving the San Antonio Spurs, is going back to its storied past for this matchup: Los Angeles Lakers vs, Boston Celtics.

Think of it. In the 1960s, it was Jerry West and Elgin Baylor vs. Bill Russell and Bob Cousy. In the 1980s, it was Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar vs. Larry Bird and Kevin McHale. In all but two occasions, the Celtics and Red Auerbach smoked their victory cigars at the old Boston Garden.

Today? The Gahden has been replaced by TD Banknorth Garden (originally called the Fleet Center), and the Forum in Los Angeles by the Staples Center. The Celtics, who have won more NBA titles than anyone else (16), fell on hard times since they last won in 1986. The Lakers have won five championships since then, the last coming in 2002.

The Lakers, with Phil Jackson currently tied with Auerbach (now deceased) for the most NBA titles won by a coach (9), have become Kobe Bryant and Four Other Guys. Bryant, who didn't get along with Shaquille O'Neal during the championship years before he was traded to Miami (and later Phoenix), and was making noises about leaving himself, is now attempting to win a title all by himself.

The Celtics, on the other hand, had been lousy for years until they got rid of their deadwood to acquire star players Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett, to go along with their own star Paul Pierce. The result? The best record in the NBA during the regular season.

So everybody is happy that the Lakers and Celtics are playing for the NBA title, Commissioner David Stern is happy. ESPN on ABC is happy. Boomers who remember the earlier series are happy. Junior is listening to his iPod and wondering what all the fuss is about. That said, Lakers in six games.

Wolves Radio Out of the Shadows

Who says you can't go home again? After two seasons on obscure country station Bob 106 (KLCI-FM 106.1), the Minnesota Timberwolves have moved their radio broadcasts back to KFAN-AM 1130, where they were since the franchise began.

This is a surprise because the front-runner was fellow Clear Channel station KTLK-FM 100.3, which has a stronger signal than KFAN does. What happened? First, KTLK is rumored to be one of the Twin Cities stations about to be sold in the wake of Clear Channel's ownership shakeup. Second, the conservative talk station presumably didn't want to pre-empt Jason Lewis' or Sean Hannity's shows.

With the Twins on KSTP-AM 1500 and the Wild on WCCO-AM 830, sports talk station KFAN must've figured they needed another professional sports franchise to go along with the Vikings. (Dan Barreiro wouldn't mind being pre-empted every once in awhile, would he?) Now all the Timberwolves have to do is to provide a team worth listening to.

Split Decisions

Those of us who watched all or part of the Democratic National Committee meeting on TV Saturday, which was held to essentially determine Senator Hillary Clinton's immediate political future, must have been wondering the same things:

• Are those people in the audience really this passionate about their candidates? Do Republicans get like this too?
• Why was this on TV? Aren't things like this usually decided behind closed doors?
• The GOP must be licking their chops right now.

At stake for the DNC (besides Clinton) were the fates of delegates from Florida and Michigan, whose primaries were held earlier than the party wanted. Clinton, who unofficially won both primaries with little opposition, needed those delegates to be seated with full voting rights as a last-ditch attempt to unseat front-runner Barack Obama--even though both candidates initially agreed not to campaign in both states.

What Clinton got was a compromise worked out behind closed doors, in which the Florida and Michigan delegates were seated, but only got half a vote. This doesn't change the math much in her favor. With Clinton's victory in the Puerto Rico primary earlier today, the new formula (according to MSNBC) reads like this, with 2,118 needed to nominate:

OBAMA 2,072 delegates, needing 46 more.

CLINTON 1,915 delegates, needing 203 more.

Which means that, after the primaries in Montana and South Dakota--and with enough superdelegates in his pocket, Obama can claim victory Tuesday night at the site of this year's GOP convention, the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. That is, if Clinton doesn't spoil the party by carrying out her threat to take this matter to the Democratic Convention in Denver.

While all this was going on, Obama and his wife Michelle have left the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where they had been members for decades. The Illinois senator must have decided enough was enough after videos of a visiting Catholic priest named Michael Pfleger (who happens to be white) made an idiot of himself, mocking Clinton in a racially insensitive manner.

One controversial preacher was bad enough, but two is just too much for Obama. And you wonder why religion gets a bad name.