Tiger Woods Makes Brief Return To Competition

Since Tiger Woods last competed in a golf tournament before his knee required surgery, a new President had been elected, the economy went into the tank, and someone named Padraig Harrington took over as the sport's new Golden Boy, having won the final two majors of the season. Oh yes, and Woods now has a son named Charlie.

Declaring himself fit and ready to go, Woods competed in the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship outside Tucson, Arizona. Suddenly, there was reason to watch a golf tournament in the middle of the week (or any other day). The Golf Channel was ready with hours of live coverage, also showing four ads featuring Woods pitching for his fine sponsors. So was NBC, with weekend coverage.

Woods responded in kind Wednesday, defeating Brendan Jones in the first round. Thursday was a different story, with Woods exiting the tournament with a loss to Tim Clark. Which is too bad for NBC, but at least Phil Mickelson is still in the running.

Golf, with sponsors dropping out of tournaments at record rates, needs Tiger Woods during these Tough Economic Times more than Woods needs golf. He delivers eyeballs to the tournaments he chooses to play in (usually a major like the Masters), and crickets to the ones he doesn't. People have run out of adjectives to describe how Woods has dominated his sport for over a decade.

You could tell Woods was a little rusty against Clark, doing things mere mortals would do such as doing over tee shots that landed in the desert, or missing crucial putts. But we know this was really a warmup for Woods. The real test comes at Augusta National in April, which is when he had intended to be back to begin with.

And the golf world awaits Tiger Woods' next move.

The State of the Union That Wasn't

In the State of the Union address that really wasn't a State of the Union address (No, CNN doesn't have exclusive rights to the name any more than it does "The Situation Room". It's just that presidents who have only been in office a few weeks don't have a firm grasp of the state of the union yet), President Barack Obama told a joint session of Congress Tuesday night that greed is no longer good, and that we will get over the Great Recession if we all sacrifice a little.

Like puppies trained to sit and stay, your elected representatives (and a few invited guests) stood up and applauded too many times to count as Obama ripped into tax cuts for the wealthy, bankers who lived it up on the public dole, and folks who couldn't afford the houses they lived in.

They also listened, then dutifully gave the President a Standing O every time he proposed something he wanted done, such as funding for renewable energy, education, health care, and a plan to halve the federal deficit by 2012. He also wanted to phase out military involvement in Iraq, and increase it in Afghanistan, just like he said he would on the campaign. All this on a trillion-dollar deficit.

After the applause died down, it's obvious to all that Obama faces an uphill battle to get any of his proposals past Congress, Democratic majority or not. The Rush-publicans, who seem to have visions of Hoovervilles dancing in their heads, will try and smack down anything that doesn't include tax cuts. What's that the President said about taking responsibility?

The latest polls show that people are still wild about President Obama, so there is enormous pressure for the economic stimulus package and everything else he has proposed to work. If not, and if the Great Recession continues into 2010, Obama might be giving a different message at the real State of the Union.

Eight Oscars Go To A Movie About Mumbai

The 81st edition of the Academy Awards Sunday night bestowed eight Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Danny Boyle, upon a film about a boy and a girl who meet and fall in love amidst the grinding poverty of Mumbai, India. We won't mention the title of the movie because we don't believe in racial stereotyping, and we probably won't go see it either.

Kate Winslet won for Best Actress in "The Reader", Sean Penn for Best Actor in "Milk", Penelope Cruz for Best Supporting Actress in "Vicki Cristina Barcelona", and--in the least surprising result of the night--Heath Ledger became the second dead person to posthumously win an Oscar, for Supporting Actor in "The Dark Knight". Ledger's family accepted on his behalf.

Jerry Lewis won the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his efforts to raise money to fight muscular dystrophy. You may be wondering why, after more than fifty years and millions of dollars, there's been little to show for his efforts. But we'll discuss that another day. Besides, Lewis didn't look too good onstage.

Hugh Jackman hosted the ABC telecast, which continued its long tradition of running overtime (three and a half hours) and setting the template for lousy awards shows. Jackman, whose last movie was the flop "Australia", was a pretty good song-and-dance man who got stuck with an opening number with sets that must have been designed by five-year-olds.

Whose idea was it to have five presenters (past Oscar winners all) deliver testimonials individually to this year's nominees in acting categories, instead of simply showing us the scenes from the films they were in? Don't do it again.

Ben Stiller did a great job impersonating Joaquin Phoenix's indifferent appearance on David Letterman's show, but he could just as well have been speaking for the viewers watching this jumbled mess. As long as the Motion Picture Academy insists on rewarding films that were made for critics instead of moviegoers, TV ratings will continue to go down.

The Clock Is Ticking On A Vikings' Stadium

While the Minnesota Vikings test the free agent market to see if they could do better than Tarvaris Jackson or Gus Frerotte at quarterback next season (Brett Favre is not an option, having allegedly retired), the franchise might be free agents themselves if the Minnesota Legislature won't help fund a new stadium--their latest plan puts it at the site of their current home, the Metrodome in Minneapolis, and costs nearly a billion dollars--before their lease ends in 2011.

The National Football League has made no secret of wanting to get back into the Los Angeles market since the Rams and Raiders left in 1995. The Vikings are one of several teams being mentioned to fill that void, if a stadium referendum in an LA suburb ever passes.

The Vikings have tried many times before to convince the powers-that-be that the Metrodome, their home since 1982, has become an outdated relic in today's NFL, which now boasts modern stadiums that include luxury boxes and other amenities for the well-to-do football fan. In fact, the franchise ranks at or near the bottom when it comes to league revenues.

But, as everyone knows, this is the worst possible time to ask the Legislature for money when Minnesota faces a budget deficit in the millions--even with the state getting funds from President Obama's economic stimulus package. Both the House and Senate could expect a massive turnover in the 2010 election if they so much as voted for a stadium.

The Vikings didn't exactly help their cause when an official publicly blasted Governor Tim Pawlenty for not showing some leadership on the stadium issue, but did lend a hand to get the Twins and the University of Minnesota football team new homes. Since then, a meeting between the Governor and Vikings owner Zygi Wilf has apparently smoothed things over.

This time around, the team is treading carefully, recasting the stadium bill as a jobs package benefitting construction workers. Then, crossing their fingers, the bill might get some kind of hearing before the Legislature wraps up its business for the year. Of course, getting some kind of outside financial support from a county or a city might help, too.

What the Legislature, and anyone else who still thinks the Metrodome is an adequate home for professional football, need to realize is that the Vikings are the number one sports franchise in the state. Without a major upgrade, being able to afford to be competitive on the field is going to be the least of the Vikings' problems. Losing the team to Los Angeles would strike a major blow to the quality of life in Minnesota, but at least we saved money in the process. Are you ready to trade in the horns and shield for a foam head of cheese?

Stimulating Enough For You?

The $787 billion economic stimulus package President Obama signed into law Tuesday in Denver isn't going to get the country out of the recession overnight. But it's a start.

The bill was passed Friday night with an overwhelmingly Democratic majority. All but three of the Rush-publicans, who took their orders from a certain radio talk jock, voted against it. They claimed the stimulus package was just another excuse for cramming in pet projects at taxpayers' expense, and that tax cuts are the only way out. So much for Obama's tilting at the windmills of partisanship.

Here's who is supposedly helped by the stimulus: $40 billion goes to the unemployed, $14 billion to Social Security recipients, $46 billion for public works projects, $21 billion for health care insurance, $54 billion for education, $2.8 billion for homeland security, and $4 billion for law enforcement.

Here's who it won't help: anyone who's been unemployed longer than a year (because there have been so many layoffs since), has a product to sell (because most of the money will go towards paying bills and other necessities), and who needs to pay off the mortgage on that dream home they couldn't afford.

States would also receive a nice chunk of change from the package to lower their deficits. Minnesota is getting $4 to $9 billion (depending on the source) out of it, as long as Governor Tim Pawlenty isn't too proud to accept the money.

Wall Street isn't too impressed with the stimulus (the Dow dropped nearly 300 points Tuesday) so far, because of their apparent lack of confidence in Obama's financial team--Treasury Secretary Michael Geithner, in particular. He had problems articulating the administration's new plan to bail out wayward financial institutions, after the first resulted in the bankers pocketing the money without much in the way of oversight. Also, how can you trust a person in charge of the nation's finances if he hasn't paid his own taxes (a problem that caused some of Obama's other Cabinet nominees to bow out)?

Count on this: You will be seeing another stimulus package go through Congress either this year or next, because the one that President Obama just signed may not be enough. Roads will be repaired and schools may be funded. But, as someone once said, the best social program you can get is a job. And there aren't enough of those out there for the stimulus package to matter.

Lincoln and Obama: 200 Years, But Not So Far Apart

Thursday was the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States. So revered was he that every President since then has tried to measure up, with mixed success. Barack Obama is just the latest to try his hand at it.

Both Lincoln and Obama made their name in Illinois, but weren't born there. They began their careers in state politics before moving up to Congress. Both were elected President in pivotal years in American history--Lincoln in 1860, Obama in 2008.

Both men excelled at words and oratory. Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address and two inaugural speeches, with words that are still remembered today. Obama wrote two best-selling books.

Lincoln was a Republican, attempting to undo the mess made by Southern states which vowed to secede the moment he was elected. Partisan newspapers criticized his every move.

Obama is a Democrat, attempting to undo the mess made by the previous Republican administration that had divided a nation. Partisan radio talk show hosts criticized his every move.

Lincoln's great crisis was a war within his country's borders. Obama has two wars a million miles away, but his crisis at home concerns an economic recession bordering on depression.

Lincoln's major accomplishment was the surrender of the Confederacy at Appomattox. Obama's major accomplishment so far is getting Congress to agree on a $789 billion economic stimulus package.

Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing African-American slaves. He could not have imagined that someone like Obama could be President back then.

Two hundred years have passed, and Lincoln still stands as one of the greatest American presidents. How will history judge Barack Obama?

Do We Need Another Hero?

The day has passed when those who made their living throwing and hitting a ball or shooting a puck were deified by an adoring public, and are used as examples to the Youth of America of what they could achieve in life.

We're a lot wiser than that now, having witnessed athletes who shoot themselves in the leg, drove while intoxicated, breed killer dogs, committed acts of domestic violence, fathered children without regard to birth control, and being Terrell Owens.

The latest examples of bad behavior involve an Olympic swimmer and a current New York Yankee.

Michael Phelps was presented to us as this clean-living dude who won eight gold medals in swimming at the Olympics in Beijing. The world was at his feet, with endorsement deals and TV appearances. Then somebody with a cellphone camera caught Phelps smoking weed at a party, and a tabloid website puts that picture up for the world to see. As a result, Phelps is no longer selling Corn Flakes for Kellogg's, while other advertisers are taking a wait-and-see approach. He has also been suspended by USA Swimming for three months.

Phelps apologized for his youthful indiscretion, having not said whether he would go for more gold in London in 2012. Criminal charges against him may or may not be filed. And the world has moved on to . . .

Alex Rodriguez, the Yankees superstar whose previous tabloid-worthy moment was when he split from his wife and allegedly started dating Madonna. "A-Rod", the player who makes more money than anyone else in baseball today, and the one who could have wiped the stain off of Barry Bonds' home run record by breaking it.

After Rodriguez admitted to ESPN that he used steroids in the years when he played for the Texas Rangers (2001-03), he is now known as "A-Fraud", "A-Roid", and worse. He joins Bonds, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens and others who have either confessed to, or have been accused of, being a part of baseball's version of the old DuPont ad slogan, "Better Living Through Chemistry".

We are often told that the Youth of America needs heroes, someone to look up to. Well, believe it or not, they're much smarter than we give them credit for. They know athletes and other supposed role models (soldiers, business leaders, law enforcement) are bound to screw up at one time or another. Heck, even President Obama has done it with Cabinet nominees who didn't pay their taxes. All they have to do is to watch their parents in action.

Just because athletes are caught getting high or getting juiced doesn't mean the fall of the republic is at hand. Oh no. You have to steal millions of dollars from unsuspecting people, close down stores and plants while asking Congress for a bailout, and take away civil liberties so you could hunt down suspected terrorists. That's the fall of the republic.

And The Grammy For Irrelevancy Goes To . . .

The Grammy Awards and the Academy Awards have a few things in common. Both bring out the stars (whether as performers or presenters), the telecasts are lengthy, and the winners turn out to be something or someone you never heard of in the first place.

And that was the case tonight at the 51st Grammy, held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and televised by CBS. Five of those golden gramophones went to bluegrass chanteuse Alison Krauss and rock legend Robert Plant, including album of the year for "Raising Sand", and record of the year for "Please Read the Letter".

Coldplay, whom many folks thought would take home more awards than they did for the oft-heard "Viva la Vida", got one for song of the year (which goes to the songwriter). It also creates more fodder for guitarist Joe Satriani's lawsuit, in which he claims copyright infringement on the song.

Someone named Adele was named best new artist. After listening to her perform "Chasing Pavements", I now understand why the award usually goes to the artist most likely to disappear into oblivion without anyone noticing.

Jennifer Hudson won for best R&B album, handed to her by none other than Whitney Houston (who needlessly delayed Hudson's moment by delivering a shout-out to record producer Clive Davis, who had won some kind of lifetime-achievement award). Considering what Hudson has gone through the past few months following the murders of her mother, brother and nephew, it's best not to comment any further.

I did not know until after the telecast that Rihanna and Chris Brown had been scheduled to perform on the show, but canceled at the last minute. CNN.com reported that authorities said Brown and another woman were allegedly involved in an argument early that morning in a vehicle. Brown later turned himself in to Los Angeles police. In a later dispatch from the Los Angeles Times (as seen on the Star Tribune's web site), Brown was charged with making felony criminal threats, and that the woman is Rihanna herself.

NARAS president Neil Portnow came out to remind us that President Barack Obama was a Grammy winner, having recorded a spoken-word CD based on one of his books while he was Senator. Portnow also repeated the phrase "yes we can" several times during his remarks. Can we please retire "yes we can"? The President doesn't use it much himself any more.

In three and a half hours, you saw several made-for-TV collaborations between Paul McCartney and members of the Foo Fighters, Stevie Wonder and the Jonas Brothers, and Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift. What you didn't see were mentions of the more than 100 Grammys (besides the major ones) that were awarded before the CBS telecast began. They now ask you to go to a website if you wanted to know the winners.

There's one more thing Grammy has in common with Oscar: They seem to have an allergic reaction to anything that's remotely considered relevant to the public that buys their music or goes to the multiplex. That's why, as long as albums by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant and films like "No Country For Old Men" win major awards, people will find other things to do besides watching show business people hand out statues to each other .

The Future Is Four Months Away

The House passed--and President Obama will sign--a bill delaying the switch from analog to digital TV. Instead of February 17, it will now be June 12.

Bad planning and lack of funding necessitated the change, which will give folks who aren't blessed with cable and satellite more time to get those $40 coupons to purchase converter boxes. It's part of the $900 billion-plus stimulus package aggressively touted by Obama and vigorously debated in Congress, which would include $650 million for the digital switch.

OK, now that you won't have to put up an outdoor antenna in the middle of winter, you're probably wondering what's going to happen to Twin Cities TV stations after (or even before) the switch. Some of them might be switching channels.

There's no information we could find on what WCCO (CBS) and KSTP (ABC) are going to do, except that they have separate UHF digital channels. If you watch enough of WCCO, you may have noticed that they deemphasized "Channel 4" in favor of the call letters. And will KSTP continue to bill its station "5 Eyewitness News" after the switch?

KMSP (Fox) and KARE (NBC), according to Wikipedia, will be on digital channels 9 and 11 (in that order) after the switch. So "Fox 9" and "KARE-11" are safe.

WUCW (The CW) will end analog broadcasting on February 17, as will the other stations that are owned by Sinclair Broadcasting, reports the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

Twin Cities Public Television (TPT), which like PBS stations across the country has the most to lose from the digital switch, has also been the most pro-active in promoting it.

The biggest change is the elimination of KTCI, Channel 17, a station best known for running radar weather during the day and PBS leftovers at night that big sister KTCA doesn't have room for. It will be replaced by TPT Life on subchannel 2.3, the new home for PBS leftovers. KTCA will continue as TPT 2, the main PBS station, at subchannel 2.1. TPT MN will carry regional programming, along with Minnesota Legislature coverage on 2.2. And weather radar will get its own channel on 2.4. Not all of these channels will be seen on cable or satellite, so check with your provider or tpt.org. The website also tells us that they still intend to make the switch on February 17, but the analog channels will continue until June.

So now you have four more months to get your TVs up to speed. If you somehow wake up on the morning of June 13 to find a snowy picture on your set, don't say you weren't warned.

2/3/59--The Day The Music Lived On

Fifty years ago Tuesday, three rock pioneers--Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper--perished in a plane crash on a cornfield in northern Iowa. The night before, they played what would be their final show at the Surf ballroom in nearby Clear Lake.

There wasn't much coverage of the tragedy back in 1959, other than the brief newspaper stories and bulletins on Top 40 music stations. Rock and roll was considered a teenage fad then. Adults tried to outlaw it, deeming it either too suggestive or dangerous. TV variety shows filmed performers from the waist up. Government put the clamps on deejays who allegedly took money in exchange for getting certain tunes played on the radio. While Elvis Presley was serving in the Army, American Bandstand was the top-rated show on daytime TV.

Most of the attention has focused on Buddy Holly. The geeky-looking guy with the glasses from Texas could not have known that the songs he wrote and recorded would have a major impact on the music we listen to today. The Beatles (Paul McCartney owns the Holly catalogue), Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and countless others have covered his material and considered him a major influence.

But what about the other two?

Ritchie Valens was 17 at the time of his death, but he had already made his mark as one of the first Hispanic-American rock stars with hits such as "Donna", "Come On Let's Go", and "La Bamba".

The Big Bopper (real name J.P. Richardson) was the only one of the three whose life was not made into a Hollywood movie. He was a DJ at a Beaumont, Texas radio station who recorded "Chantilly Lace", one of the biggest hits of 1958. The song must've frightened parents everywhere, because Richardson to them came across as an older man dating a teenage girl.

Don McLean, in his 1972 masterpiece "American Pie", immortalized what happened as "the day the music died". No, it didn't. Rock has been kept alive in various forms from the trailblazers who gave the music its sound and attitude, to today's practitioners who studied hard what they did and added their own touches. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper may be gone, but rock lives on.

Glory Days In Pittsburgh

Santonio Holmes caught a Ben Roethlisberger pass in the end zone on his tippy-toes with 35 seconds left to give the Pittsburgh Steelers a 27-23 win over the Arizona Cardinals in Tampa Sunday night. It was the Steelers' sixth Super Bowl championship, more than anyone else.

The 43rd edition of the National Football League's title game, played at Raymond James Stadium, was a penalty-filled game that came dangerously close to becoming another of those one-sided affairs that permeated most of the other tilts. That was when, with Pittsburgh holding a 10-7 lead and Arizona driving toward a score, the Steelers' James Harrison intercepted a Kurt Warner pass and took it 100 yards to the other end zone for a touchdown at the end of the first half, the longest such play in Super Bowl history.

Give the Cardinals credit. Any other team that got down by 10 points in that manner at halftime would have laid down and died. But they didn't. In the second half, they scored a safety off of a Steeler holding penalty in the end zone, and Larry Fitzgerald Jr. later scored on a 64-yard run to take the lead. (Let the record show that Larry Fitzgerald Sr., who was covering the game for an African-American newspaper in Minneapolis, was not cheering in the press box. But what was that green thing hanging down from his ear?) But then Pittsburgh came back to stake its claim to a sixth Vince Lombardi trophy.

As for the other trappings we've come to expect from the Super Bowl, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band gave an energetic performance at halftime. The way Springsteen managed to get through "Born To Run", however, might have been better titled "Born To Wheeze". And sliding crotch-first into an NBC camera might not have been a Janet Jackson moment. So please, Bruce, don't do it again.

The commercials weren't the greatest this year, but they did have their moments. Budweiser featured the Clydesdales. Danica Patrick took it all off for GoDaddy.com. And Ed McMahon and '90s rap star M.C. Hammer told us how easy it was to sell their bling to an outfit called Cash4Gold.com. But there were also a number of ads with violent images and plenty of destruction. Thanks, but we don't need to be reminded that the world is going to hell.

Nevertheless, this year's Super Bowl provided plenty of excitement and entertainment to a nation struggling to pay its bills. (Did we mention that President Barack Obama was at the game?) Tomorrow, as the song goes, it's back to life. Back to reality.