Economics and the NFL

A fantastic and illuminating column by Phil Sheridan on the plight of Brian Westbrook and how circumstance and NFL economics can combine to cheat a player:

Westbrook really has been shortchanged by the NFL's system. Because he was a third-round pick, he didn't get a big signing bonus in his rookie contract. Because he played for the minimum salaries in his first three years, he truly "outperformed" his contract, to borrow a phrase from Drew Rosenhaus. And because the Eagles still have the right to slap a franchise tag on him next winter, Westbrook may not get to unrestricted free agency until 2007 or even 2008.

You can see why the man is frustrated. He could go his entire career without getting the big guaranteed bonus that establishes his financial security. And it's all because of where he was drafted and the position he plays.

Consider his fellow members of the Eagles' 2002 draft class. Lito Sheppard was a first-round pick, so he got nearly $4 million in his rookie year, even though he barely played behind Troy Vincent and Bobby Taylor. Last year, Sheppard signed an extension that featured an $8.7 million signing bonus and $15.1 million in salary through 2011.

So Sheppard has already banked nearly $12 million. For a first-round cornerback, life is sweet.

Second-round pick Sheldon Brown got paid $2.25 million from his rookie contract before getting a $7.5 million signing bonus on an extension last year. That means he has banked roughly $10 million.

Westbrook, taken one round later, has made a total of about $1.3 million in bonus and salary. He is scheduled to make $1.43 million on his restricted free agent tender this season.

That sounds like a lot of money to the average person, and it is. But for a guy who has been the second-most important offensive player on a championship-caliber team, behind only the quarterback, it's a pittance.

If ever there was a time to side with a player over management, this is it.

Industry Criticism from Brendon Donnelly?

If I was the editor of Movieline or GQ or Foreign Affairs, I'd hire Brendon Donnelly to do Hollywood industry analysis. Today's defense of Scarlett Johansson is pretty excellent:

"The actress was too good" might be the laziest excuse for a movies failure ever. It's like saying "I could have won Daytona if only my car had been slower."

Volcanic Coffee?

Has anyone out there tried a Bodum vacuum coffee maker?

I'm a sucker for kitchen gadgets and while, strictly speaking, I don't need a new coffee maker, I'm always open to new things.

"Tell Me Are You a Christian Child?"

Sad, disturbing news: The great Marc Cohn was shot over the weekend after a concert in Denver. Poor guy. Not only does he have to endure watching his best songs turn into hits only when they're covered by more famous acts, but now he gets carjacked and shot.

Pour one for him tonight.

Ferguson on the Mall

Andy Ferguson's long piece on the many problems afflicting the National Mall is smart, sad--and funny! To wit:

The Park Service's ultimate desire was made public, indiscreetly, by John Parsons, associate regional park director for the mall. In 2000 Parsons told the Washington Post he hoped that eventually all unauthorized traffic, whether by foot or private car, would be moved off the mall. Visitors could park in distant satellite lots and be bused to nodal points, where they would be watered and fed, allowed to tour a monument, and then reboard a bus and head for another monument. "Just like at Disneyland," Parsons told the Post. "Nobody drives through Disneyland. They're not allowed. And we've got the better theme park."

Anyone who has tried to visit the Mall recently will experience a shudder of recognition at these words. But then Ferguson moves onto a cultural problem:

When the [Vietnam] memorial was finished, the interest groups only metastasized. The sculpture, once installed, faced charges of sexism. Why, among the three soldiers, were there no women? The memorial's sponsors pointed to the granite inscription, which dedicates the structure to the "men and women" who served in Vietnam. Some nervy officials even dared to mention that of the 58,000 military dead in the war, only 8 were women, and that the 10,000 women who served in Vietnam constituted 33/100 of 1percent of the total American force. Needless to say, there is now a Vietnam Women's Memorial too, in a stand of trees thirty yards off to the side.

Place this profusion next to the Iconic Law of Longevity and you've got real problems:

These things are eternal. A memorial placed on the mall nowadays, no matter how initially offensive or widely criticized, can never be undone. Before too long it takes on the neutrality of the familiar. Then it becomes popular, then beloved, and then, inevitably, beyond criticism; the unavoidable word is "iconic." In time, the original criticism will even be used as proof that any criticism of a new project must be misbegotten, too. (Hard to believe, but even the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was controversial when it was first proposed . . . ) Both the World War II and Vietnam memorials are fully as obtrusive and tasteless as their early critics feared. But they're here to stay.

It's a wonderful piece of work when a writer can educate you, paint a picture of unavoidable catastrophe, and still give you laughs along the way.

That's Ferguson for you. God bless the mainstream media.

The Quiet Dignity of Britney

From my blog crush:

Oh, I know, I hadn't heard about it either, but these pics lead me to believe that Britney might be expecting. She's a bit of a recluse who prefers to live her life with a quiet dignity rarely seen today, so I'm not surprised news on her has been hard to come by. These pictures perfectly illustrate her famous understated humility. I can only imagine what brilliant witticism she's regaling her party with here. Although, if I know Britney - and I like to think I do - they probably chartered this 100 foot yacht to find a quiet spot and share their feelings about the passing of Peter Jennings.

Follow the link to see the pictures to experience the full funny.

Media Matters

I'm just saying that the headline "MONROE DISAPPOINTED BY SEXUAL ENCOUNTER WITH CRAWFORD" really misses the newsiness of the story, which is:

Monroe said, "We went to Joan's bedroom... Crawford had a gigantic orgasm and shrieked like a maniac.

"Next time I saw Crawford she wanted another round. I told her straight I didn't much enjoy doing it with a woman."

I mention all of this not out of prurience, or a desire to point out that the Babe of the Century tried out the hot girl-on-girl action, but simply because I'm shocked at the poor of news judgment you see today out there in the MSM. It's called burying the lede.

Where's CJR when you need them?

TV Newser is suggesting that Peter Jennings has taken a turn for the worse. Keep him and his family in your prayers.

Bobby Knight to host reality show

No, really. Galley Friend R.S. sends us this link:

Bob Knight will give one Texas Tech student the chance to play on his team in a reality show hosted by the Hall of Fame coach.

Sixteen students will attend “Knight School,” the name of the show set to air on ESPN in February, and Knight will whittle the class to one during six one-hour episodes. Filming will begin in late September.

What could possibly go wrong!

The New Left, Dumbledore, and the Reichstag

Galley Freidn B.W. sends along this link which is clearly too good to be true. But still:

So saturday, Matt, Erin, myself and a few others went to DC to crash a rally held by those loonies that think that 9/11 was caused by the US Gov't in order to steal our freedom. Yeah.

So I covered my hat in tinfoil and drove off to matt's place where he'd constructed two large signs. Mine said "The CIA killed Dumbledore!" and had a picture of a wizard, while his said "Dick Cheney is a Giant Communist Robot!" and had a picture of some sort of crazy queen of france arm'd robot.

Certainly, we thought, we'll be yelled at - people will get angry at us very quickly. Not the case...

They took us seriously... They asked to have their pictures taken with our signs. They invited us to the day's events. They gave us a large sign they'd made too! Oy... Here are a couple of exchanges we had while there. . . .

I'll let you read the rest yourself because, like I said, I just can't believe this is for real. Even the pictures can't convince me.

Family Values on ABC

The other night I noticed that Cruel Intentions starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillipe, and Reese Witherspoon was on cable. Of course all sorts of movies appear on cable television, though I happen to notice the station logo in the bottom right corner said ABC Family. Of course, Cruel Intentions is a family movie. Gellar plays step-sister to Phillipe, whom she also teases with the promise of anal sex should he do as she tells him to. And there's nothing un-family about Gellar's saliva-string kiss with Selma Blair, who plays the dumb innocent in this teen remake of Dangeorous Liaisons. ABC Family Values ... for the post-family era.

Now this email has been spreading like wildfire: It is a voicemail apparently left by a Burger King superviser somewhere in the South (he seems to be headed to Dallas). He happens to witness a fender bender involving another man and four elderly women. There's also something heart-warmingly genuine about his laugh (and the way he says "umbrella"). Just listen for yourself and enjoy.

Scopes

Galley Hoss Chris Levenick has an outstanding piece in the Wall Street Journal on how the Scopes trial reshaped the relationship between science and religion:

At the time of the trial, the nascent progressive movement drew much of its strength from the perfectionist impulses of evangelical Protestantism. That alliance began to dissolve at the trial, when two lions of the American left turned on one another.

Leading Scopes's defense was Clarence Darrow, a champion of progressive causes and an outspoken agnostic. Among the prosecutors was William Jennings Bryan, a three-time Democratic presidential candidate and a stalwart defender of traditional Christianity. The two had long worked together for social reform, but in Dayton Darrow treated Bryan with contempt. In the trial's climactic scene, Darrow called Bryan to the stand, where he sneered at the witness for "insult[ing] every man of science and learning in the world because he does not believe in your fool religion."

And so the culture war came. For the first time, coastal elites descended on small-town America, calling its citizens stupid and their beliefs backward. And though fundamentalism may have looked worse at the time, the longer-term damage was to progressivism; it was at Dayton that the movement began to lose its popular appeal.

Bryan, after all, was to the left of most Democrats today, but his followers found that they could not keep company with those who so disdained their faith. Nowadays, when liberalism's leading strategists wonder what's the matter with Kansas, they could do worse than to look back to Tennessee--and to their own caustic dismissive of serious Christians.

Good stuff.

Next up, million-dollar trailer lots

Now I’m convinced the housing market is insane. Have you seen the $640K "mobile home" in Arlington, VA?

Treehouse of Dreams

Galley Brother B.J. sends along this link about Jack Barnhart's treehouse:

An accomplished woodworker, Barnhart dreamed of building a treehouse - but not one of the scrapped-together versions the word conjures up in most people's minds.

The cozy little cottage he was envisioning would put the Swiss Family Robinson to shame, with two staircases, built-in closets and cabinets, a wet bar, high-quality insulated windows, water and electricity, cable TV and a rooftop patio - not to mention table service for six.

And instead of climbing a ladder from the ground, his treehouse would be accessible by a soaring footbridge, connected to the deck of his home some 65 feet away across a ravine.

Scroll down to see a great picture of the finished product.

Sixers Notes

I don't really dig on Anchorman, but Bill Simmons does, and he's funnier than me. He has an excellent NBS offseason wrap-up, and has this to say about the '76ers:

To Philly GM Billy King, who continues to hemorrhage money like a drunken stockbroker in the champagne room at Scores. Over the past four summers, King spent $68 million on an aging Dikembe Mutombo; $40 million on Kenny Thomas; $35.5 million on Aaron McKie; $29 million on Eric Snow; $20.7 million on Brian Skinner; $18 million on Greg Buckner; and an astonishing $15 million for Kevin Ollie (which was especially memorable because, at the time, I spent 15 minutes on the phone with my buddy House trying to get him to guess how much money Ollie had signed for, before House came up with the exact figure). And don't forget, King traded for C-Webb's bum knee and the $66 million remaining on C-Webb's contract last February.

So if you're Billy King, what do you do for an encore? You spend $45 million for the next six years on ... (drumroll please) ... Kyle Korver and Willie Green! Are you kidding me? It's amazing that King didn't get in on the Brian Scalabrine bidding. Anyway, I think King is clearly preparing for his next job -- Hollywood movie executive. Couldn't you see him spending $18 million to lock up Rob Schneider for "Deuce Bigalow 2?" He'd be perfect out here.

Eagles Play Hardball

The national media is obsessed with TO, but Eagles fans are more worried about Brian Westbrook, who has yet to show up at training camp.

How tough is the Eagles management when it comes to handling personnel issue? This tough:

Just yesterday, quarterback Donovan McNabb called Westbrook "our ultimate weapon." You had to be there to hear it, though, because the complimentary quote from McNabb's news conference was the only one not included in the transcript handed out by the team's media services and posted on the official Web site for thoughtful digestion by you, the fans.

The Greatest Film of All Time?

You be the judge.

Wonderfalls on TV! Right Now!

Reader CC writes in with great news: Tim Minear's Wonderfalls--the best TV show in recent memory--is airing on the LOGO channel right now (11:00 a.m., est). Set your TiVos accordingly.

Hunting Horcruxes

The incomparable Janet Batchler has a long, excellent post on Horcruxes.