Be as informed as your listeners: Hosts should know at least as much about current events as those who are on the other end of the radio. And it doesn't take that much work.

Former Blues defenseman Tony Twist was a casualty of changes at radio station KSLG.

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:48 PM   0 comments

• It's named Smash Mouth, which describes a style of speaking that's sort of, um, colorful.
  
  
• Its first hit album was entitled Fush Yu Mang, alternately entitled on Amazon.com as Fush Yu Mang [EXPLICIT LYRICS]. Fush yu mang is a slurred pronunciation of a Nuyorican spoken unwritten mandate, if you get my drift. If you don't, you should read this blog more frequently.
  
  
• The first line of their first hit ("Walkin' on the Sun") is It ain't no joke I'd like to buy the world a toke. You know, a marijuana cigaret.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:52 PM   0 comments

The guns used by the Red Army and assorted guerrillas around the world are indeed automatic weapons, firing up to 100 rounds a minute with a single squeeze of the trigger. But the so-called AK-47s allowed before the ban were semiautomatics, which fire only once each time the trigger is pulled. They are to authentic military weapons what a beer-league softball player is to Barry Bonds.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:04 PM   0 comments

A $2 million gift isn't tempting enough to get Marquette University to change its nickname back to Warriors, but the fact that an important alumnus asked for the change during a public event is forcing the university to think about it.

Wayne Sanders, the vice chairman of the university's Board of Trustees, said at the end of the commencement address to Marquette graduates Sunday that he and another, unnamed trustee each would give $1 million to Marquette for the switch from Golden Eagles to Warriors.

School officials declined the money Monday, but they said that in coming weeks, the board will consider formally revisiting the decade-long debate.

Through These Eyes #6: The Great Mascot Controversy

In the interest of saving the university some money, I would like to make my contribution to the "Name the Mascot" competition. There's no need for them to go throwing away money to a private consultant, even though I realize they just stuck us for ten percent more for just such academic emergencies. Let that much-needed cash go to making some dean's office more competitively decorated like that of other schools.

Okay, the Native Americans got a little bent out of shape that the university used an image of a Native American for a while there. I know what great strain and emotional upset some of them must have gone through attending basketball games and seeing the mascot, even if it was a descendent of the original Native Americans. This great debate is not limited strictly to the campus. All over the country, groups of Native American are protesting the use of their heritage on athletic teams. I mean, I can understand. I abhor the New York Yankees. How dare they? So now the university needs a new, non-offensive mascot. Something that can be identified with the Warrior. I humbly submit the following.

How about a white man dressed in skins carrying a club? Think about it, a nice barbarian figure for our sporting events. No, wait. That might be deemed too something-ist for our school if we featured a White European Male mascot like that. Besides, it is not a sort of figure easily identifiable with a Warrior. We'd hate to be mistaken for the Marquette Neanderthals.

Okay, idea two. A nice knight figure. In armor. A chivalrous warrior. No, wait. That's still a European figure. Besides, some Arabic or Islamic groups might get angry because every few years a bunch of these guys would get together and try to take over the Middle East, or select parts thereof.

Okay, check this out. An African tribesman. With a spear and paint. No, can't do that. The African Americans would have the same objections as the Native Americans.

Well, how about a samurai in his battle robe and armor, helmet adorned with ox horns, quiver, gold-studded sword, his ancestral crest, the whole bit? Maybe a neat little pseudo-seppuku when the sports team is down? Oh, there's that blasted heritage argument again.

How about that lone American warrior, the cowboy? Why not, Rick Fields classifies that historical figure as a warrior in his book The Code of the Warrior. Since I'm running low on ideas, why not? A six-gun and ten gallon hat, idealizing the American spirit of independence and swift justice. Uh-oh, wait a minute. Cowboys tended to shoot Native Americans, didn't they? Maybe this version of our mascot wouldn't placate them so well....

I have to admit, I'm getting a little frustrated here. When I think of a Warrior from history, I tend to think in terms of different heritages like that, and that's already proven to be taboo. Either the Warrior was the member of a distinct ethnic group that can and will be offended, and/or they killed people of an offendable group.

I mean, that's the way I see it. Of course, that is ignoring the common denominator among all Warriors, which is some sort of hardiness and bravery, a willingness to risk their very lives in pursuit of what they thought was right, the skills of life and death intertwined into a person who would kill or die for honor and justice. The Native American Warrior did this. Maybe having a brave as our mascot is not so much a way of spitting on a race of man and saying "Nyah nyah, you injun," as it is a way of showing respect for a gallant breed of our species and the finest their culture produced.

Or, I guess we could have Patty Smythe mousse up her hair and paint her face up and start singing, "Shooting out the walls of heartache, bang-bang..." But that might get a bit expensive.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:55 PM   0 comments

A man has been charged with child abuse for not applying enough sunblock to his 12-year-old son before a day at the beach.

The boy was severely burned as a result, authorities said.

Walter McKelvie Jr., 43, of Vineland, was indicted Tuesday and charged with one count of child abuse and neglect in the July 20 incident, in which he took his mentally disabled son to the beach in Wildwood.

The son, identified only as R.M., suffered large, bleeding blisters on his back and face. Authorities were alerted by the boy's mother, who has custody of him but was not with him at the beach, according to Assistant Cape May County Prosecutor Meghan Hoerner.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:40 PM   0 comments

Democrats are playing politics with the weather reports.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:29 PM   0 comments

George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility. Instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world.

He promised to "restore honor and integrity to the White House." Instead, he has brought deep dishonor to our country and built a durable reputation as the most dishonest President since Richard Nixon.

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:55 PM   0 comments

In Elm Grove and Brookfield, so much rain fell in an eight-hour period in 1997 that it was labeled a "300-year-storm" - just about the worst thing to happen, we were led to believe, since the invention of the loincloth.

That's definitely bad - though not nearly as bad as the "500-year storm" that reportedly hit the exact same area the very next year.

Not nearly as cursed, either, as what transpired in the late-1990s in New Berlin.

Here's a real paragraph from a story about New Berlin that ran in this paper three years ago:

"Storm water management efforts were under way in New Berlin long before 100-year storms hit the city in 1997, 1998 and 2000..."

That's right. The only year between 1996 and 2001 that there was not a so-called 100-year storm in New Berlin was 1999.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:59 AM   0 comments

If, by some quirk of fate, you run into your favorite celebrity/supermodel fantasy object, and, by some other quirk of fate, they [sic] come onto you, what would you do? What if you were in a committed relationship? Do you ask for an autograph afterwards?

When you're in the shower and you see a little hair on the tile wall, do you fill your hands with water and try to splash it off, or [sic] try to pluck it off with your fingers? Why are we so predictable?

If you ate your own foot, would you lose weight?

Do you think that the first time corn ever popped [sic] it scared the hell out of the Indians?

Why do people who use "correct grammar" sound like such dorks?

If they can make a "black box" that is so indestructible that it survives a plane crash, why don't they just make the airplane out of the same material?

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:38 PM   0 comments

Back in the 1970s, younger Americans might be surprised to learn, government bureaucrats controlled all prices in the economy. I'm not talking about the economy of the Soviet Union or Cuba--I'm talking about the economy of the United States. If a company wanted to raise its prices, it had to ask for permission from a federal agency, which didn't always agree.

The experiment was a disaster, and it cured most politicians of the urge to meddle in such matters. They learned they weren't qualified to decide the correct price of any commodity. Except one: gasoline.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:49 PM   0 comments

"I saw no weapons being used," wrote Harrison, the wife of a retired cop whose husband was in the hospital, leaving her alone that night when it happened.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:43 PM   0 comments

A BILL

To allow Congress to reverse the judgments of the United States Supreme Court.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Congressional Accountability for Judicial Activism Act of 2004'.

SEC. 2. CONGRESSIONAL REVERSAL OF SUPREME COURT JUDGMENTS.

The Congress may, if two thirds of each House agree, reverse a judgment of the United States Supreme Court--
(1) if that judgment is handed down after the date of the enactment of this Act; and
(2) to the extent that judgment concerns the constitutionality of an Act of Congress.

SEC. 3. PROCEDURE.

The procedure for reversing a judgment under section 2 shall be, as near as may be and consistent with the authority of each House of Congress to adopt its own rules of proceeding, the same as that used for considering whether or not to override a veto of legislation by the President.

SEC. 4. BASIS FOR ENACTMENT.

This Act is enacted pursuant to the power of Congress under article III, section 2, of the Constitution of the United States.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:27 PM   0 comments