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May 31, 2005
Summer Reading
A conservative think tank (inasmuch as that term can be used without giggling) has released a list of the 10 Most Harmful Books of the last century and a half. Let's look at some snippets:
1. The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels.
Engels was the original limousine leftist: A wealthy textile heir, he financed Marx for much of his life.
Whereas, as we know, the only acceptable thing for a wealthy heir to do with his loot is hoard it jealously. Like Jesus would have done.
The Manifesto envisions history as a class struggle between oppressed workers and oppressive owners, calling for a workers’ revolution so property, family and nation-states can be abolished and a proletarian Utopia established.
How these guys were able to foretell the NHL strike, I'll never know.
2. Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler.
[Hitler] envisioned...a war against France to precede a war against Russia to carve out "lebensraum" ("living room") for Germans in Eastern Europe. The book was originally ignored. But not after Hitler rose to power.
If I didn't want to meet some FBI agents, I'd point out that one man's "lebensraum" is another man's "spreading peace around the globe". But I don't really think that. This may be the one book that deserves to be on the list.
3. Quotations From Chairman Mao.
In 1966, [Mao] published...The Little Red Book, as a tool in the "Cultural Revolution" he launched to push the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese society back in his ideological direction. Aided by compulsory distribution in China, billions were printed.
You know, if [Certain World Leaders] were able to put together a coherent sentence, I could see crowds marching down the street waving copies of [C.W.L.]'s quotations. But as a slogan to live by, I think "We must make a distinction between the enemy and ourselves, and we must not adopt an antagonistic stand towards comrades and treat them as we would the enemy." beats "You're either with us or against us", hands down, any day of the week.
4. The Kinsey Report.
The reports were designed to give a scientific gloss to the normalization of promiscuity and deviancy.
Because the normalization of Victorian-era prudery and shame worked oh so well. And how dare anyone take a controversial idea and slap a "scientific gloss" over it to make a point? Not in the 6,000 years of the history of Earth has anyone been that audacious.
5. Democracy and Education, John Dewey.
In Democracy and Education, in pompous and opaque prose,
Um.
he disparaged schooling that focused on traditional character development and endowing children with hard knowledge, and encouraged the teaching of thinking "skills" instead.
For myself, I know I'd have never gotten anywhere if I hadn't memorized the periodic table.
His views had great influence on the direction of American education--particularly in public schools--and helped nurture the Clinton generation.
Clinton and GWB were born the same year. Presumably, the compilers of the list feel that Bush learned hard knowledge and Clinton learned thinking "skills". Which man got more out of his education? It's a subject that reasonable people will debate Republicans about for generations to come.
6. Das Kapital, Karl Marx.
Forces the round peg of capitalism into the square hole of Marx’s materialistic theory of history, portraying capitalism as an ugly phase in the development of human society in which capitalists inevitably and amorally exploit labor by paying the cheapest possible wages to earn the greatest possible profits.
Yeah, what a nutball.
Marx theorized that the inevitable eventual outcome would be global proletarian revolution. He could not have predicted 21st Century America: a free, affluent society based on capitalism and representative government that people the world over envy and seek to emulate.
Kook. It's like he pictured 21st Century America as a fractured place teetering on the brink of third-world economic disparity, with an out-of-control government that people the world over treat with the respect and fear you'd give an armed junkie. Again...nutball.
7. The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan.
Friedan, born in 1921, disparaged traditional stay-at-home motherhood as life in "a comfortable concentration camp",
So long as it's comfortable, what are those dames so worked up about?
...a role that degraded women and denied them true fulfillment in life.
Some women got true fulfillment from being traditional stay-at-home moms. A lot more got true fulfillment from balancing a family and a career. And in extremely rare cases, even today, a few women don't even get to choose -- because their no-good husbands don't earn enough money to support a stay-at-home lifestyle! I've even heard of a woman in New Jersey who doesn't even have a husband! But when it comes to defining a woman's role in society...you can believe the founding president of the N.O.W. But I trust the findings of my local conservative think tank, thank you very much. Particularly since their blue-ribbon panel consisted of fourteen men and Phyllis Schlafly.
8. The Course of Positive Philosophy, Auguste Comte.
Comte, the product of a royalist Catholic family that survived the French Revolution, turned his back on his political and cultural heritage...
Too bad. It looked like such a winning propisition, what with spawning the French Revolution and all. He developed the idea of
"positivism," in which man alone, through scientific observation, could determine the way things ought to be.
NEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRDDDDD! What has scientific observation ever done for anyone, anyhow?
9. Beyond Good And Evil, Freidrich Nietzsche.
Nietzsche argued that men are driven by an amoral "Will to Power," and that superior men will sweep aside religiously inspired moral rules, which he deemed as artificial as any other moral rules, to craft whatever rules would help them dominate the world around them.
Change "superior men" to "power-hungry hobgobllins" and change "sweep aside religiously inspired moral rules" to "selectively interpret and cite religiously inspired moral rules". Then read that passage again.
10. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, John Maynard Keynes.
Keynes was a member of the British elite--educated at Eton and Cambridge...
NEEEEERRRRRRDDDDDD!
FDR adopted the idea as U.S. policy, and the U.S. government now has a $2.6-trillion annual budget and an $8-trillion dollar debt.
It's important here to remember that FDR was President until last Tuesday.
Among those just missing out on the Top Ten were Charles Darwin, Ralph Nader, Margaret Mead, Frantz Fanon and Rachel Carson. Would you want to have lived in a world where any of their ideas were taken seriously? Me neither.
Other takes on this list from Pandagon and Boston Dreams. And Brad DeLong and Down With Absolutes and Mark in Mexico and A Beautiful Soul and Schrodinger's Cat.
Posted by Michael at 11:31 PM | Comments (5)
May 28, 2005
The Show Must Go On
The first rule of show biz, of course, is that the show must go on. Technical difficulties, chaos, what have you - if you're a performer, you simply must deliver the goods every time or you lose all your credibility.
So with that in mind, picture your intrepid correspondent, nervous as all hell, with a voice creaky from a couple of beers and the remnants of a head cold, facing the crowd during karaoke night at the Courtside Bar. The music starts, the crowd leans forward...and the lyrics don't show up on the monitor. Nothin'. Blue screen of death-on-stage. A quick glance at the DJ, who shrugged helplessly.
But I'm proud to say (obviously; I don't post about my failures) the flop sweat never hit my forehead. I reached back into the 63% of my brain devoted to memorizing song lyrics, found the file located "Classic Rock -- Doors, The -- Hello, I Love You"...and brought the house down.
Yeah, that's right. I plucked that dusky jewel. I am the Lizard King. I can do anything.
Posted by Michael at 01:13 AM | Comments (1)
May 26, 2005
Slap Away The Fear
On one hand, it's nice to hear that a famous professional athlete is openly admitting that he's in therapy. And it's really impressive for him to go public, and recommend it for troubled kids before their problems become too much to deal with.
On the other hand, it's A-Rod. So the only joke I'll make is in the headline.
Posted by Michael at 04:31 PM | Comments (1)
May 23, 2005
Pearls For Swine
Over at World O'Crap, they've posted a "Revised Revised Version of the Declaration of Independence", which they advise we surreptitiously disseminate among the type of people who send ridiculous chain emails to each other, then sit back and wait for it to become an Internet Phenomenon.
I think it's awesome, though I think it might backfire; some of the crowd out there might not see the parody (and by "might not", I really mean "don't have a snowball's chance in hell to"). I'm afraid they'll eat up seeing their views laid out in such plain English.
I can, in fact, see this being read verbatim on the Hannity Show.
Posted by Michael at 12:03 AM | Comments (0)
May 21, 2005
In Which I Give Backhanded Praise to Mitt Romney
I've taken some shots here at our handsome Republican Governor. And I totally reserve my rights to do so again. But, for all his rhetoric and puffery, Mitt really hasn't been able to cause real panic in the Commonwealth. Stem cell research is continuing, the wingnuts are displeased, and the sky has still failed to rip open and rain down brimstone since gay marriages started last year.
So we'll continue to watch Mitt, but you have to concede he's been Mostly Harmless as governor. Not so in Maryland, where Gov. Robert Ehrlich just waved a scythe through a whole bunch of recent legislation. He vetoed a bill that would make certain employers (read: Walmart) spend more on health benefits, then vetoed a raise in the minimum wage (Walmart health plan: don't get sick!)
And then the topper: he vetoed a bill that would allow -- not gay marriage, not civil unions -- but just a few basic rights to gay couples that registered with the state. In his veto message, Bob the Impaler said he is
sympathetic to the needs of mutually dependent couples and [wants] to support compassionate efforts to expedite health-related decisions for Marylanders in need
The bill he killed would have
granted nearly a dozen rights to unmarried partners who register with the state. Among those: the right to be treated as an immediate family member during hospital visits, to make health care decisions for incapacitated partners and to have private visits in nursing homes
I guess I just don't see how prohibiting those things resembles in ANY FREAKING WAY AT ALL "sympathy to the needs of mutually dependent couples".
So Mitt, thanks for lacking the power, if not the resolve, to be as bad as this guy.
Posted by Michael at 09:36 PM | Comments (0)
Heh. Indeed.
Universal Hub has a nice quote from David Weinberger rebutting the Globe's editorial about blogging.
Update: Here's David's post in its entirety.
Posted by Michael at 07:50 PM | Comments (1)
Bleeeeeeccccch
You'd think one of the few benefits to "no spring" would be "no spring allergies". You'd be horribly, horribly wrong.
Posted by Michael at 06:24 PM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2005
The Force Is Strong In This One
I hadn't been paying all that much attention to the "Star-Wars-as-political-parable" meme that's been lurking on the Internets. But then I read Greg's take on it. It's a real interesting read.
Posted by Michael at 11:49 AM | Comments (0)
May 17, 2005
History Lesson
I hadn't realized this: The time from the bombing of Pearl Harbor to the surrender of Japan was 1,346 days. This Thursday is the 1,346th day since 9/11.
For those of you not up on your WW2 history, here's how it went down. Right after Pearl Harbor was attacked, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a speech where he coined the term "Axis of Evil", saying Japan, Romania and Italy were the gravest threats to world peace. Then he went on to say that intelligence had learned that Italy was making powerful weapons of mass destruction, and called Benito Mussolini the most terrifying dictator on the planet.
FDR made a couple of controversial moves: he decided to hold the 1944 Democratic Convention right beside the watery grave of the U.S.S. Arizona. And immediately after D-Day, just before Allied troops began a long slog into the heart of Europe, FDR posed for his infamous "Mission Accomplished" photo.
While keeping a skeleton force in Japan, occassionally knocking on a door to see if anyone was hiding Emperor Hirohito, the US made triumph after triumph in Italy: the Leaning Tower of Pisa was toppled, Mussolini was captured, put on trial and forgotten about, and a school in Sorrento got a fresh coat of paint. Although Italian militants controlled much of the countryside, the road between Ravenna and Bologna was pretty much secure in Allied hands.
On the homefront, the nation was divided over whether devoting so much effort and manpower into occupying Italy was worth it. (Although there was no direct evidence tying Mussolini to Pearl Harbor, FDR's stern warning - "you're either with us or against us" - made it clear that the occupation of Italy would continue until the perpetrators of the 1941 attack were subdued.) And while much of the nation's economy shifted into wartime production, a good living could still be made by printing magnetic ribbons with patriotic slogans such as "God Bless FDR" and "Benito, Hirohito - Finito!"
Some stateside wondered whether FDR had forgotten about Germany -- Japan's chief ally and the nation that was causing untold grief in Europe. Suprisingly, FDR never even mentioned the Third Reich as an enemy, and was even photographed holding hands with foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. This was widely criticized in the alternative press (which were known as Benevolent Ledgers/Observant Gazettes, or B.L.O.G.s), but none of the mainstream press (the New York Times, LIFE, the Saturday Evening Post) was able or willing to question the President's financial and social ties with the Germans.
When Japan finally surrendered in 1945, it was assumed that it was because the U.S. Congress had brought pressure to bear on the situation by threatening to ram through every one of Harry Truman's judicial nominees without debate or filibuster. This was known by Truman as the "nuclear option", and Tokyo quickly bowed to the pressure.
I hope history is as kind to our modern era.
Posted by Michael at 12:15 AM | Comments (2)
May 16, 2005
Everybody Loves Top-Ten Lists
With the passing of Everybody Loves Raymond into that great void of "TV Shows Which Will Apparently Be Widely Missed Even Though Virtually No One I Know Admitted To Ever Watching One Or Two Episodes" (the genre spearheaded by Friends), it's time to rank BunkoSquad's Top Ten Sitcoms Of All Time:
(bonus challenge points, no animated shows, like there was any doubt which was #1)
(extra bonus challenge points: I have to name my favorite episode)
1. Seinfeld. Best episode: the two-parter where Jerry befriends Keith Hernandez.
2. Cheers. Best: Hourlong episode with Woody and Kelly's wedding.
3. Newhart. (I maintain that when it comes out on DVD, I'm taking a day off) Best: When Dick hires Larry, Darryl and Darryl to exhume a witch buried in the inn's basement.
4. Black Adder. Shame there are only 24 episodes. Best: Prince George agrees to patronize Samuel Johnson's Dictionary.
5. The John Laroquette Show. Possibly the most underrated sitcom ever. Best: John wins an electric car and finds himself leading a radical Basque separarist group.
6. The Bob Newhart Show. Best: Bob and the guys get drunk and order Chinese takeout.
7. Taxi. Best: The gang encourages ex-hippie Reverend Jim to apply for a cabbie job. Hands down, the funniest half-hour in TV history.
8. Green Acres. Say what you want; this show consistently delivered the goods. Best episode: Arnold Ziffel Drobney the Duck swims to France.
9. Police Squad! A total shame it only lasted 6 episodes (but spawned 3 movies). Best: Frank poses as a locksmith to bust up a protection racket.
10. Mr. Belvedere. Best: George takes over as anchorman at the TV station.
As always, your mileage may vary.
Posted by Michael at 08:17 PM | Comments (3)
Irony: Dead, Buried, Dug Up, Strung Up, Left to the Crows, Hauled Down, Hacked To Bits, Burned
The White House has condemned a Newsweek story that alleged that US interrogators used Koran-desecration as part of their badgering of inmates at Guantanamo. Some violent protest across the Muslim world erupted upon publication of the story. The story was based partly on an anonymous source, who later retracted the Koran-desecration from his story.
In condemning the Newsweek story, press secretary Scott McClellan nailed the final nail into the coffin of the much-abused corpse of irony:
"The report has had serious consequences," he said. "People have lost their lives. The image of the United States abroad has been damaged."
So let's review. Someone made up a BS story, found a willing dupe to spread the BS to the masses, violence erupted in the Middle East. And the White House is against this?
UPDATE: He said it better.
Posted by Michael at 04:06 PM | Comments (0)
May 13, 2005
Stoooooooo-Pid
Another note on the Huffing-The-Vapors-Of-Our-Own-Fabulousness-ton Post. Someday blogging may be considered as passe as disco or the grunge look. And someday your kids may ask, "What led to the downfall of blogging, and perhaps the whole Internet? Was there an exact moment when the pseudocelebrity-blog revolution collapsed under the weight of its own vapidity?"
$10.00 says the words Greg Gutfeld will appear somewhere in your answer.
Posted by Michael at 03:18 PM | Comments (1)
May 12, 2005
I'm In A Select Group
To see what all the fuss is about, I went over to check out the group blog on Arianna Huffington's new website. Because what I've always thought is this: "I like the fact that everyone has a voice on the Internet, but I really feel there's an underrepresentation of B-to-C list celebrities -- the kind of people who if you said 'I saw _____ at the airport', I'd go 'Hmmm', unsure of what I'm supposed to think."
I scanned a little bit, and found it's about the same ratio of thought-provoking stuff versus narcissistic preening as you'll find here on BunkoSquad. About 30/70, in other words.
But I was delighted to find I'm in a very small and select group - I am one of the 15 blogs in America not listed on their blogroll! My "too-hip-for-you" cred is gaining traction by the hour.
UPDATE! Greg at The Talent Show crunches some numbers about the Huffington Post.
Posted by Michael at 02:04 PM | Comments (2)
May 11, 2005
Six States Vying to Take Reagan's Name
HELENA, MT - With the first anniversary of the death of former President Ronald Reagan approaching, BunkoSquad has learned that at least six states have quietly begun the process of renaming themselves to honor the Gipper.
Perhaps the most concentrated effort is here in the Treasure State, where Congressman Max Blaing (R) says support for the late Reagan has never been higher. "If Ronnie ran again, God rest his soul," Blaing told an enthusiastic crowd, "he'd take all of Montana's four electoral votes, dead or no. That's why we owe him our name...the name of the great state of Reagana!"
Sources from coast to coast also indicate that, if all six efforts are successful, get ready for the new states of Reaglahoma, North Gipperkota, Reagansas, Reaganland (formerly Oregon) and Rhonnie Island.
The driving force to rename Arkansas to Reagansas is State Senator Orville "Butterball" Clutterbuck. "A high school tour group from Forsyth told me that there's only one US state named after a President, and it's George Washington. And I was outraged. George Washington was a war hero, true, but he did nothing about Communism. Nothing! It's time we honored a true American patriot."
The movement has high hopes for renaming at least four of the potential six states, since Reagan's name has recently been appended to such diverse landmarks as Washington, D.C.'s airport, the Grand Canyon, the new bridge over I-670 in Saint Louis, and Saskatchewan. In a stunning show of support for the late President, a group of students in Greensville, Ohio, chanted "Tear down this wall!" for hours as they systematically demolished every structure in the town.
A spokesman for the Reagan family said, "We appreciate it, really, but the family would like people to focus on curing the Alzheimer's disease that ravaged poor Ronald for his last years." Legislation was immediately proposed in the U.S. Congress to change the name of the disease to "America's Sorrow".
No state has changed its name since 1977, when the state of Prairiana redubbed itself Kansas, to honor the band that hit the charts with "Carry On, My Wayward Son" and "Dust in the Wind".
Posted by Michael at 09:59 PM | Comments (0)
Eugene Mirman vs. Idiot Fundamenalist Phone Company
The great Eugene Mirman reaches out and touches a phone company that's trying to differentiate itself from all those other telecom companies, who are guilty of hosting child pornography and promoting gay lifestyles. He's in good form here; here's the mp3.
Posted by Michael at 09:50 PM | Comments (0)
May 10, 2005
Yep, These Are My Countrymen
The Smoking Gun has compiled a selection of emails received in the wake of the Jennifer Wilbanks boondoggle (you remember: the white girl who wandered off before her wedding and became the subject of a national fianceehunt). I especially love numbers 7,15,22,23 and 24; I'd love to play Clue with the people who wrote those.
I link to this because it's interesting to me what exercises my fellow Americans' interest and anger. (And when I say "interesting", I mean "top-of-the-water-cooler-with-a-machine-gun-infuriating.") But is Americans' fascination with the stupid the effect of the pathetic American media, or the cause?
If the media had blared out (or, frankly, even hinted at) the Iraq memo, would people have gotten fired up about that? At stuff like this line?
Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
Is it just that the media are keeping people in a sheeplike daze, so they don't have to actually break a sweat investigating something? Or do people really care more about runaway brides, Michael Jackson, and American Idol?
And do I really want to know the answer to that?
Posted by Michael at 01:00 PM | Comments (0)
May 07, 2005
Two Out of Three Ain't Bad
Well, it's over.
I guess I shouldn't complain too much...we still do have two defending champs in town. And, let's face it, no playoff team in history deserved to have their ticket punched than the 2004-05 Celtics. There was little to no cohesion, no discernible offensive strategy, and shaky-at-best coaching.
So with that said (and I reserve the right to do a 180 after some reflection), I want Danny Ainge to watch Logan's Run, the movie where everyone over the age of 30 is terminated. Right now (and I stress, I may not feel this way next week) we could trade Antoine, Paul, Gary and (please?) Blount and I wouldn't mind. The future of this team is in place; what they need is to grow together and learn together from awful performances like this. Al, Tony, Delonte...these are the links to the comeback. Saddling them with low minutes and a spastic gameplan isn't a longterm option. Now we've got four months to stew. Thanks a lot, guys.
Posted by Michael at 10:14 PM | Comments (1)
May 06, 2005
Schadenfreude
Take a look, kids:
Baltimore 18-9 .667 -
Boston 16-12 .571 2.5
Toronto 16-13 .552 3
Tampa Bay 11-18 .379
NY Yankees 11-18 .379
At least something's going right for George Steinbrenner: His horse, Bellamy Road, is a favorite to win the Kentucky Derby. I thought long and hard about what direction to take my joke (of course, my first instinct when looking for a horse joke is to swing it to Laura Bush, but she's stopped returning my calls). Juxtaposing the Yankees' failures with Bellamy Road's potential, I came up with the two candidates:
Joke A: Steinbrenner is really befuddled. Last night, he reaffirmed his belief that Joe Torre is the best jockey in the world, and mistakenly ordered Bernie Williams sent to the glue factory.
Joke B: Tough times at the Yankee practice today. A ground ball took a bad bounce and Jason Giambi sprained his ankle trying to field it. Giambi had to be destroyed.
For context, I should mention that I had a really vivid dream last night (odd, 'cuz I rarely remember dreams) that I was a talk-show host. And if I may say so myself, I think I'm already ahead of Leno.
Posted by Michael at 01:32 AM | Comments (3)
May 05, 2005
And Then There Were 34
When I first started my 100 Movie Countdown back in 1985, I was expecting to see some that I'd like more than I thought, but I was also hoping to see some that I unexpectedly loved. That happened with Network, and it happened again. I flat-out loved It Happened One Night.
Posted by Michael at 12:54 AM | Comments (5)
May 04, 2005
Technology Is Cool
I hadn't been aware of this - there's a site now that will actually let you look in at a live picture of the Yankees bandwagon!
Posted by Michael at 12:06 AM | Comments (2)
May 03, 2005
Shame On You, Gwen
One of the truths we learned in our recent road trip, along with "pick up and use those free hotel coupon books you get at Interstate rest areas" is "never turn off your CD player and check the radio".
Because the radio is, to be blunt, horrible. We heard 50's "Candy Shop" a couple of times (bad enough), but also a song so bad - so awfully, awfully bad - that we were just captivated by the sheer horror, and actually thought that it was a joke. Maybe some latter-day Weird Al had come along and recorded a tune so preposterously ludicrous as to skewer the entire crap-hop genre.
Sadly, no. The song is "Holla Back Girl" by Gwen Stefani. And it has zoomed past "Macarthur Park" and "Jenny From the Block" to claim the coveted Worst Song Ever Recorded honor from this space.
You knew Gwen's career was going to crash and burn eventually. Her cover of "It's My Life" was writing on the wall, writing large enough to see from three counties over. But there was always the assumption that her downward spiral into total irrelevance would be slow and gentle, and might include the phrase "appearing in next month's Playboy" somewhere along the line. But this is jump-the-shark-and-into-a-damn-brick-wall time. And if it's real then I don't want to knooooooow.....
Posted by Michael at 10:52 PM | Comments (0)
May 01, 2005
Ah, Massachusetts
An open letter to the Globe:
Recently I went on a two week driving tour down and back up the East Coast. And the whole time I was gone, I thought something might be wrong with my car, and couldn't figure out what it was.
Then I got back to Massachusetts, and my car started behaving like itself again. I guess my car just got used to the potholes and torn-up, horribly maintained roads, and couldn't handle straight, flat pavement. It's good to be home.
And I'm not even going into the fact that we all deserve our reputations as the worst drivers out there. Luckily it took me about 6 seconds to readjust.
Posted by Michael at 12:58 AM | Comments (1)
I Take It Back
Obviously, the standard for Boston sports turnarounds was set back in October. But the Celtics' performance in Game 4 was almost as dramatic. A simultaneously solid and spectacular performance. A team, which was floundering, took the Pacers to school. It was amazing. Where do we begin?
How about the starting lineup? Without Antoine, Doc was forced to improvise, and he did, brilliantly. Starting Delonte and Ricky in place of Walker and Tony Allen, he forced the point-guard-less Pacers into a wretched offense, and with West and Ricky pressing, it freed up Gary Payton to concentrate defensively on stuffing Reggie Miller. I implore you, Doc, leave this starting five in place. I suddenly love the idea of Antoine coming in to thunderous Garden applause as the sixth man on Tuesday.
How about the teamwork? Everyone contributed. Everyone. Al Jefferson played some monstrous defense. Raef Lafrentz kept Jermaine O'Neal bottled up. Tony had some amazing followups on misses. Even Justin Reed hit a coffin-nail-driving shot.
How about The Man? The first two points of the game were scored by Paul Pierce, and I muttered something like, "Time to make this a career-defining game, Paul." It may not have been as great as his role in the comeback against Jersey three years ago, but it was close. Paul hit shots from everywhere. He had 5 (five!) (!) blocks. He led two of the best fast breaks of the year, nailing first GP, then Big Al, with pinpoint downcourt passes. He buried a backbreaking 3 over the shove of the loathsome Austin Croshere. If it does turn out to be a career-defining game, look for #34 to be raised to the rafters in a few year.
Musn't get too high now. Indiana looked flat, their nitwit fans were taken totally out of the game, and the refs were a non-factor(!). But the C's get 'em back in our house Tuesday. And this series is on, baby.
Posted by Michael at 12:47 AM | Comments (3)