Thursday PM

I had an early morning meeting so I didn't get through the papers as thoroughly as normal. So my handle on current events is a little off from normal.

There is a game 7 tonight. All you Grey's addicts will tune in, I'm sure.

2's mis-connect last night was understandable. I actually felt pretty good. The TT is 5 weeks from today.

My pal Roy is flying up to the Iowa-Michigan game on Saturday. Then back here Saturday night, and then to San Francisco Sunday, coming back Tuesday. Busy life. The deal in SF is the charity golf outing that was the site of the auction where he got my Lance Armstrong photo.

The Dow closed above 12,000 for the first time today. That means that the market may be a little over-bought and a correction may not be far away as things sort out. Earnings are good. But we're spending way too much money that we don't have on a doomed effort in the mid-East.

The US population hit 300,000,ooo yesterday. The best political cartoon I saw on that topic was one depicting a guard welcoming with open arms an illegal alien exiting a tunnel from under the border. That may be more truth than fiction, or the math may be a little off on our totals. I haven't audited the calculation at this point for inclusions and exclusions in the equation. The Seinfeld crew could make this the topic of a double episode.

Lots of stuff in the press about the melee at the Miami-Florida International game last weekend. (Why is Miami even playing Florida International Who, I mean U?) Miami's administration is coming off as apologists given their lack of punative action against the thugs participating in the brawl. Hard to reconcile their rationalizations. Most players received one game suspensions for this week's tussle with Duke. Let's see. Name a school with a weaker football team in the ACC than Duke. Name a team in DI or D2 that Duke might be able to beat. Miami is really punishing themselves. They are certainly doing nothing to counter their dark reputation. And to this problem add this side-bar: I think I heard that they drew only 29,000 to one game this year.

ND terminated the rivalry with Miami several years ago. It was just to intense. Actually, I would probably not call it a rivalry. Certainly not in the same vein as USC, Michigan State or Purdue. Miami has taken pride in being a bandit-type of program. No goody-two-shoes need apply here. We'll eat the pretty boys in their coats and ties from South Bend for lunch. They embraced an urban hip-hop culture, always testing propriety, brashly wearing their attitudes on their sleeve. It has played well with the edgier athletes. So I suppose that culture clash is more discriptive than rivalry.

The last Lou Holtz ND team played Miami in a bowl game and it got ugly. That may have been the year that Miami showed up for Bowl Week in army fatigues. Vinnie Testaverde was the QB. Holtz recruited some of the same types of players as Miami and there were lots of unsportsmanlike penalties, scirmishes among players, etc. I never liked Holtz. I thought that he was dirty when he came from Minnesota, and I didn't like the way his teams handled themselves.

I have meandered to a place where I have no glib segue to another topic. But it is time to go.

Be careful out there.