Polinaut: May 9, 2006 Archive

If I were Polinaut, I'd....

Posted at 7:55 AM on May 9, 2006 by Bob Collins

Posting may be relatively light today, as I'm out sick. Talk among yourselves for a bit.

It's stadium day

Posted at 12:27 PM on May 9, 2006 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)

Update 2:04pm The Senate has just passed the Twins and Vikings bill (the one with light rail and transportation projects in it and a metro-wide sales tax referendum) 34-32.

SF2460, the Gophers stadium bill, just passed the Senate on a 34-32 vote. Here's the roll call. I'll have the roll call on Votetracker in a few minutes.(It's a very high-tech process, I take a picture of the TV screen showing the Senate tote board and then load it up into Photoshop and squint my way to figuring out the vote. Hi tech, eh?)

There does not appear to be any taxing mechanism attached to it, but I admit I turned on the debate late so I'll have to sort it out later.

The Senate is now taking up the Twins and Vikings stadium bill with gubernatorial candidate Sen. Steve Kelly leading the charge.

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Some things are too painful to watch

Posted at 12:45 PM on May 9, 2006 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)

Every once in a while, I see a clip on ESPN with some kid, plucked from the obscurity of Kidville, trying to sing the National Anthem and forgetting the words. Usually there's a warm moment, however, when some big NBA superstar (I think in this case it was Maurice Cheeks but don't quote me) will put his arm around the kid and help him/her through it, usually to the large applause of the crowd, appreciative of the effort and embarrassed for the kid from Kidville.

Apparently there were no big NBA stars around Washington this week when ABC News -- at the height of this controversy over whether the National Anthem should be sung in English -- cold-cocked a bunch of lawmakers and asked them the words to the anthem.

One of the ones who misfired was Rep. Mark Kennedy. It was only a moment; but it was a moment of pain.

First of all, they gave them a line in the middle of the anthem and asked them for the next line. Quick: what's the last four digits of your Social Security number? Most folks can't do it without ripping off the full number and then loudly proclaiming the last four.

That, my friends, is rote, and it's how the brain works for a lot of people. OK, sure, it's fun to chortle at somebody's embarrassment, but, seriously, is it indicative of one's love for the country? Is it indicative of one's opinion of the value of the National Anthem? Nahhhh. The value is what's in your heart while you're singing it -- start to finish.

Believe me, I know the sensitivity around the National Anthem. When I ran a small radio station (the greatest small town radio station in America, by the way) in Great Barrington, Massachusetts in the '80s, I torpedoed the U.S. Marine Corps band version that we played at sign-on and sign-off each day. I replaced the morning edition version (sign-on) with Marvin Gaye's version at the NBA All Star game (a fascinating rhythm-and-blues version that people actually paid attention to) and the late-night(sign-off) version with Whitney Houston's Superbowl version (I was going to rotate various versions).

The phones lit up, with the majority wondering how we could disrespect the national anthem so. Near as I could tell, both versions were sung in English. What do you suppose the real problem people had was? I probably should've asked the callers what the words were.

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Dribs and drabs

Posted at 4:36 PM on May 9, 2006 by Bob Collins (16 Comments)

The you've-got-to-pay-for-it-now Rasmussen poll this month on the Senate race and governor's race is coming out in dribs and drabs.

On the governor's race, it looks like someone over at the DFL dusted off the credit card, because they have issued a release that claims to have the Rasmussen numbers. (I'm not on the DFL mailing list so thanks to Tom Scheck for passing this along).

From the poll:

Hatch over Pawlenty 49% to 39%
Lourey over Pawlenty 43% to 40%
Kelley over Pawlenty 43% to 38%

"Some other candidate" registers between 6 and 8%.

The DFL doesn't mention the Senate race. For good reason.

Over at Kennedy vs. the Machine, they're quoting something called G2 (no idea, I don't know the secret handshake), saying Klobuchar is at 45% with Kennedy at 43%. I presume that's within the margin of error.

By the way, back to the governor's race for a moment. Think Becky Lourey's "no" votes vs. Steve Kelley's "yes" votes in today's stadium votes in the Senate further define their campaigns? I sure do.

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