Call of the Day: USMNT, Egypt & The Lesson That Sports Isn’t As Important As Life or Politics

I wanted the headline to read: Call of the Day: USMNT, Egypt & The Lesson That Sports Isn’t Always As Important As Life but opted to take out the word “always” because when faced with actual life and death situations, sports is never as important as that. I’ve long said that sports, ultimately, is a distraction from real life, but there is no distraction from this:

The U.N. human rights chief said on Tuesday she had unconfirmed reports that up to 300 people may have been killed in Egypt’s unrest and called for calm during the day’s protests which could be a “pivotal moment”.

“Casualties have been mounting on a daily basis, with unconfirmed reports suggesting as many as 300 people may have been killed so far, more than 3,000 injured and hundreds arrested,” [United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi] Pillay said in a statement. Her spokesman said that the unconfirmed toll came from non-governmental organisations.

The statement also noted that Tuesday is likely to be a pivotal moment for the conflict-ridden nation, which includes a seriesREAD MORE

DL511: Turn Into The Skid (Oh, Plus, SOTU, Bleacher Report Reboot & Andy Gray)

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Nick and I talk about the State of the Union, Bleacher Report hiring King Kaufman to unsully their name (note: not a word, don’t care) and a brief rant on Andy Gray and Richard Keys being dumb enough to say how they feel in front of microphones.

On a day like today, this is certainly a ‘steer into the skid’ kind of show.

We talk more about the nature of the State of the Union than anything Obama actually said. How different is the instant connection to the people than in year’s past? Heck, we’re pretty sure Biden was even reading tweets (or, as someone said on Twitter, playing Angry Birds) during the speech.

The State of the Union, ultimately, means nothing. It’s an annual pep rally, but with the change in how our politics are covered, is the President on TV so much (read: every single day) that the State of the Union has totally lost it’s luster?

Great speech, expertly read, but what does it mean?

Well, for starters it means that whoever had to followREAD MORE

Podcast Blast From The Past: Governor Ed Rendell on Politics and Football

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This interview was originally posted on January 15, 2009, but the full conversation actually never appeared on our main site at it was part of the series of shows I did for Philadelphia Weekly.

With Ed Rendell being all over the news the last few weeks, why not take a look back (or take a listen back) to our conversation from early 2009, when I got the chance to sit across from the sitting Governor. Here’s the original write up:

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Ed Rendell, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, joins the show to talk about his two careers – one in public office and one talking sports. Seriously, is there a more perfect guest for this show than Governor Rendell. We love sports. We love politics. And in this case, we get the chance to talk a lot about both.

The interview was done in his Philadelphia office, so we start there: Philadelphia. The city of champions. We discuss the genius that is the miniature William Penn statue atop the Comcast Building. Gov.READ MORE

DL508: A Show About Nothing, Or Everything, But Probably Nothing

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How is your week going? If you read today’s Call of the Day you can get a sense that my day yesterday was awful, though not as bad as it was for my son. We talk about that, and life, and parenting and being selfish at a time when you need to be selfless.

That spins perfectly into a conversation about sports and life and politics and perspective and Arizona and speeches and a whole lot more.

I got this email today:

This is Floyd from El Paso. I’m your biggest non media fan. I’m the retired Soldier guy originally from New Orleans (as a Saints fan I feel your Eagle pain). Having said all of that. There is two things I would love for you and Nick to chew on.

1. Please expound on “blood libel” comment by half term Gov

2. Recoil and turn the channel when you see or hear from Matt Millen. He was on NFL live and he was commenting on one of his million first round WR picks MikeREAD MORE

Call of the Day: Sports, Politics, Silliness, Perspective

My brother told me a long time ago that we, as people, need to go into every conversation with the understanding that you don’t know what’s going on in the lives of the others involved. You don’t know what yesterday and this morning was like for me and I don’t know what that same time period was like for you. Yet our actions, and our reactions to events acted upon us — by other people or nature or God or an other worldly force — shape not just our own daily lives, but the lives of those around us.

In an odd way, that lesson relates to sports. Life is why sports are great. To most folks, sports isn’t real life. Sports is an irrational hatred of Tom Brady because you like a team that wears green not blue. Sports is the distraction from life. It’s the distraction from having to drive in rush-hour traffic or fight with your kids about bedtime or shovel six inches of snow. Without sports (or celebrity gossip or cooking showsREAD MORE

DL475: The Show Where I Land On the DL. Plus: BCS, Cam Newton, Racism, Pacquiao & Olbermann’s Ego

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Who wants to see my knee grow another knee?

So that happened.

Nick and I talk about the BCS which spins into a conversation about chaos in college football. That spins into a conversation about whether or not we’re rooting for Auburn to run the table and what that will mean if reporters have a month to investigate a team playing in the national championship game. Can you imagine the chaos if the team in the national title game is ruled ineligible DURING the lead-up to the game. Amazing.

Speaking of reporters salivating over a story, Nick and I follow up on Friday’s conversation with Josh Levin about the nature of anonymous sourcing which leads to a conversation about  Jason Whitlock Tweeting this:

It’s a corrupt system and u have these slave-catcher reporters upholding the bullshat so they can get a pay raise. Period.

You may think college athletes should be paid (more than they are). You may think the system is unfair. But to equate a Division I football player — or any athlete —READ MORE

Call of the Day: Jon Runyan Is A United States Congressman

As much as politics are covered from a national perspective, and the GOP regaining control of Congress is a country-wide narrative, each individual vote still comes down to which candidate is best for me, or you, or our town, city, district, region, state or…sometimes…country.

Voting is a uniquely personal decision where our beliefs on pressing issues that impact our daily lives — and our future — can help us make a choice of who we think can best represent our interests and lead us into (hopefully) better days ahead.

Or we just go vote for the guy who was good at blocking and tackling.

Or, which was also the case in the New Jersey congressional race between Jon Runyan and incumbent John Adler, we get the career politician who seems about as shady as any career politician out of office, even if his opponent is a former Philadelphia Eagle with no experience.

“I probably will be the largest human being on the Hill, but we’re going to take that largeness and actually shrink the size of government,” [Runyan] said.

Zing!

I’mREAD MORE

Got An Email From Lou Holtz, Subject: Onward to Victory. It’s Not About Football

I got an email yesterday from Hall of Fame coach, and ESPN personality, Lou Holtz. The subject was “Onward to Victory.” It’s about Notre Dame’s upcoming game against Pittsburgh. According to this email, the stakes are a little higher than Touchdown Jesus:

“And the other team is fierce. They will say or spend anything to get another four downs to spend our money and strip away our freedoms that have made America a beacon of hope for 234 years.” During the 2004 election cycle I decided to sign up for the newsletters of both George W. Bush’s campaign and John Kerry’s campaign to see how both parties were starting to use email — the first wave of “new media” — to their political advantage. In the last six years, I’ve received thousands of emails through the DNC and RNC on everything from local New Jersey elections to helping to pay for Hillary Clinton’s campaign debt. There were a lot of those emails.

Seriously, they send a ton of emails. If I have to see another email withREAD MORE

Either Tony LaRussa Thinks We Are This Fucking Stupid, Or He Is

The St. Louis Cardinals are in Washington this weekend and it seems manager Tony LaRussa is looking for a little something to do on Saturday morning. Maybe check in at Stephen Strasburg’s wake? (What’s that…he’s not dead, just his elbow is?)

Perhaps a walk around the National Mall for LaRussa? Perhaps a stroll past the reflecting pool and up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial? Perhaps he’ll bring Albert Pujols with him too? Just a manager and his superstar player, taking a leisurely stroll in the park…TO A GLENN BECK RALLY.

But don’t worry, baseball fans, LaRussa would NEVER go to a political rally and would CERTAINLY NEVER bring Pujols with him if he was going to a political rally, which he’s not. Yes, Tony LaRussa thinks we are all this fucking stupid. See, he told reporters that he was promised this GLENN BECK RALLY is not political at all. St. Louis Today has the absolute fucking tripe LaRussa is trying to sell:

“I made it clear when we were approached: I said, ‘If it’s political, I wouldn’tREAD MORE

DL421: Shoals on Whitlock. Plus: From Tiger to Mad Men to Mosques (Oh My)

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Nick and I spent a lot of time talking about Jason Whitlock’s “Explanation” yesterday. Well, we talked around it more than talked about it, considering neither of us actually listened to the three hour tour. Bethlehem Shoals of Free Darko and Fanhouse did, in fact, look into the sun last Friday afternoon. He lived to tell about it.

We talk about the particulars of Whitlock’s comments, vacillating from poignant media commentary to rampantly-mongering gossip. Shoals called it, for lack of a better term, schizophrenic. We also discuss the “fallout” (if there is any) and what this means for the newspaper industry (if anything.) I also manage to soap box about people who leave newspapers lamenting the death of the industry.

We also have a rather advanced plug of Shoals’ new book, coming out in October.

CULTURE POP:

Nick and I manage to talk about Tiger Woods, Mad Men and the Ground Zero Mosque all in one conversation. At some point, maybe, I’ll put my thoughts about the latter in print, but you can hearREAD MORE