November 22, 1963

I was in the fifth grade. We’d just had art class, and the kid sitting next to me must have eaten his crayons rather than drawn with them, because he vomited all over the floor.

We’d just gotten him squared away – the janitor had to come in and clean, and disinfect the area – with me still sitting right next to it – and we tried to get on with what was left of the afternoon.

It was somewhere around 2 o’clock – maybe even earlier -- when another knock came on the door … the same janitor … Pop Geary, we called him … probably to come back with Round 2 of disinfectant, since, truth be told, the area still smelled pretty bad.

Instead, he whispered something to Sister Waltrude, the fifth-grade nun at Sacred Heart School in Lynn. She let out a shriek, and came back into the classroom holding her head in her hands, with an awfully stricken look on her face.

My GOD, she cried (blasphemous, really, for a nun teaching fifth grade. The President has been shot in Dallas.

I was slow on the uptake. I thought she said “battle,” and asked the kid on the other side of me why a president fights in a battle and dies. He didn’t know. I don’t think he even heard the question. He was just stunned. We were all stunned.

In 1963, every class at Sacred Heart School was equipped with its own TV set … mostly so we could watch PBS broadcasts of Mme. Slack’s French lessons, or some other current events programming on Channel 2. All I remember about any of THAT is that the Channel 2 test pattern song was the Radezky March, by Johan Strauss (well, I didn’t know that at the TIME, but I heard it properly introduced much later and put it together).

Sister Waltrude immediately turned on the TV to Channel 5, which was the CBS affiliate at the time, so we could listen to Walter Cronkite broadcast.

News – even now – can be frustrating to follow, and we have 24/7 cable outlets that can give us instantaneous information from the far corners of the world. Things in 1963 weren’t anywhere near as sophisticated, and the news came at its own pace … and was reported that way as well.

I don’t remember the exact time Walter gave his now-legendary “from Dallas Texas, the flash apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time, 2 p.m. Eastern Standard time … some 38 minutes ago.”

Now, I was 10 years old. I knew nothing of the geopolitical ramifications of the president’s assassination. I did not know, for example, of the fears that we’d be invaded by the evil Communists, or that Lee Harvey Oswald was a Marxist sympathizer … it took me years to delve into it and read up on all the conspiracy theories. All I knew is that the president was dead. That was scary enough.

Boys don’t cry … although Lord knows I wanted to. And I didn’t even know why. I didn’t know JFK. I didn’t cry a year earlier when my grandmother died, so why should I want to cry NOW?

But girls cry … at least, that’s what kids my age were always told. Boys don’t … girls do. And they did. I went into the cloakroom to get my jacket (it was unseasonably warm that day in New England) and Jan Jenerlavitch was sitting on the floor, crying her eyes out.

I lived far enough from the school so that I had to take the bus home. That bus came from downtown Lynn, MA, and included Lynn Classical High school, Cobbet Junior High School, and St. Mary’s catholic high school students on it. These were all people older than me, and some of them scared the HELL out of me on most days. Not today. The bus was somber, and there were a LOT of people crying. Especially black high school kids.

Again, at age 10, I had only a dim, and very superficial, understanding of the civil rights movement. I knew what I saw on TV, and it made sense to me that all people should have access to the same things, regardless of color. In the mind of a 10-year-old, that makes perfect sense, and you wondered why anyone in the world would think differently. But apparently, people did.

Studying history does fill in the cracks. And since the assassination has haunted me for 45 years, just about everything I ever learned about the history in and around that era has been seen, though my eyes, in the context of JFK’s death. A couple of years later, when I began to understand the struggles in the south (and the north too; let’s be fair), I understood why these kids were crying. It may have come a little later in the game than people would have liked, but John F. Kennedy (and his brother) took a stand at the University of Alabama and other places. And, after all, it was only the previous August – just three months earlier – that Martin Luther King Jr. led the march on Washington.

The after-school hours were a blur. Naturally, the entire family (mother, father, my sister Jayne and I) sat and watched all evening and well into the night. I learned for the first time that JFK was one of nine children, that his brother Joe had been killed during World War II and that his sister Kathleen had died in a plane crash. I learned that his father couldn’t talk because he’d had a stroke; and even found out that his grandmother was still alive at the age of 98.

I knew there was a Ted Kennedy because his senatorial campaign was only a year earlier (that’s when his opponent, Ed McCormack, said “if your name was Edward Moore instead of Edward Moore Kennedy, your candidacy would be a joke). But I never knew there had been a Robert F. Kennedy, or that he was the attorney general.

I grew up in a heavily Irish Catholic neighborhood, in an Irish Catholic parish, and couldn’t understand the significance of JFK being the nation’s first CATHOLIC president. I thought everybody was Catholic. It just never occurred to me that anyone would admit to being anything else, since the nuns always taught us that the Catholic Church was the one true church.

I know there was a real fear that this was some kind of a larger plot to take over the country, and I suppose that scared me a little. But mainly, I just sat, motionless, taking it all in. I watched the plane land in Washington, I saw Lyndon Johnson make his short speech on the tarmac, saw Jackie Kennedy’s blood-stained dress, saw grown men crying (something I’d never seen before), and, well, it was all just too much to take.

I couldn’t sleep that night. I kept going over and over it. I had this image of JFK riding in that car, top down, looking like the world was his … and BANG! Dead. It didn’t help that our evening newspaper – the one I work for now – printed a special edition with a big, bold, oversized headline that simply said “Kennedy dead.” It didn’t just add to the drama; it added to the overall sense of fright, doom and grief that was just pervasive.

I suppose the next morning I was on sensory overload, because I don’t recall much about the morning broadcasts. I was still 10 years old, it was still Saturday, and that meant “go out and play.” So I’d imagine that’s what I did. I know that we played endless games of touch football in the next door neighbor’s yard (not because of the Kennedys, but because that’s just what we did), and perhaps spent a good deal of Saturday doing that.

All I know is that the next time I got in front of the TV; everybody was talking about Oswald, and the death of Officer J.D. Tippett, and was re-running footage of his arrest and booking the previous day.

I’m not sure when, exactly, this took place, but at some point, Kennedy’s body was taken from the White House to the U.S. Capitol so it could lie in state under the rotunda. That’s the first time I heard those muffled drums … boom, boom, boom, tadadada, boom boom boom, tadadada, boom, boom, boom, tadadada, boom boom-boo-boom.

I don’t know what possessed me to do it, but I started marching around the den in cadence to the drums, and my mother just SNAPPED at me, “Stop that!”

Sunday proved to be almost equally as momentous as Friday was, because that’s the day this country – in its unfathomable grief and fear – witnessed a vigilante killing on national television. I mean, what was next??

Today, with all of the paranoia that comes with security, security and more security, Lee Harvey Oswald would have never seen the light of day … or the light of anything. The Dallas Police Station would have whisked him away under the cover of darkness, at an unannounced time. He’d have been held in some isolation unit somewhere out in the boondocks of El Paso, or someplace like that … far, far, FAR away from the madness in Dallas.

But not in 1963. Somebody thought it would be a good idea to parade Oswald in front of the TV cameras as they escorted him from the police station to the county jail. I guess they thought they had it covered. It was just a short walk, after all, from the station to the car that was to take him to the jail, but not short enough.

Out of the crowd came Jack Ruby with a snub-nosed revolver. He shot Oswald in the abdomen, and the most notorious murder suspect since John Wilkes Booth in 1865 met the same end as did Mr. Booth … shot dead in his tracks. Odd that these two assassinations were almost 100 years apart.

I wasn’t watching when all this happened. We were playing touch football in Bobby Kaminski’s back yard – blowing off the pent-up steam that all kids my age were probably blowing off. Mrs. Kaminski – Eleanor – opened up the back door and shouted, “they just shot Oswald!”

We all ran inside to watch, me wondering why everybody was so stunned.

“Well, he shot the president,” I kept saying. I COULDN’T understand why Jack Ruby was being led away, COULDN’T understand why everybody thought this was so horrible.

But Oswald SHOT THE PRESIDENT,” I’d say. “Isn’t he a hero?”

My father had to sit me down when I got home – still tremendously upset that Jack Ruby was being treated as a criminal for killing the man who killed the president – and explain due process, and the American judicial system to me. It was just one of many lessons, civics and otherwise, I learned that weekend.

From the moment JFK’s death was confirmed, rumors started circulating that Charles DeGaulle would fly over to attend the funeral. Big Deal, I thought. Who’s Charles DeGaulle?

Again, my fifth grade brain couldn’t wrap itself around the notion that there was anyone in the world close to being as important as the president of the United States, or that Charles DeGaulle was one of the heroes of the French resistance in World War II … OR that he was extremely important, maybe even more so than JFK; OR that he was one of the most prickly men ALIVE.

It was a very big deal that Charles DeGaulle came to the U.S. to attend John F. Kennedy’s funeral. Earlier that year, JFK had gone to France – at a time when relations between the two men weren’t exactly tremendous – and Jackie Kennedy went with him. And she charmed the socks right OFF Mr. DeGaulle.

You see, to me, the world was the globe that sat in the corner of our living room. Spin it around, and point to a country, and say “here, this is France.” I had no concept of what that meant … that there were French people who swore by their country, and their leaders, the same way we did. It was all just one big ball with a bunch of colors on it. I knew about the evil Communists (who didn’t?) but that’s how the world was presented to me in 1963: The Russians … and us … and faceless people who occupied other lands, and who weren’t nearly as important as either us or the Soviets. Or the Cubans (I remembered just enough of the Cuban Missile Crisis to know who they were).

Sunday, November 24, was just a lot of day. Period. I don’t know if I, or anyone, really, had any energy or emotion left to endure the funeral Monday. But it was heart-wrenching … and this time not so much because of what it put the country through, but for what it put the Kennedy FAMILY through. The rider less horse … the incessant muffled drums … the dirges … and Jackie Kennedy, her two children, and Robert and Teddy.

I remember Cardinal Cushing, of Boston, a good friend of the family’s, delivering an impassioned sermon. I remember Jackie Kennedy lifting the flag off the coffin as it sat in the capitol rotunda, so she could kiss the casket. But most of all, I remember JFK junior saluting his father one last time. He was only three. In fact, his birthday was on the day of the funeral. Sure, the moment was choreographed somewhat. Jackie Kennedy heavily choreographed that entire funeral to mirror the great state funerals of Europe.

But staged or not, how could you not cry for this kid? Even at the age of 10, I knew that while the country would have other presidents, he’d never have his father back. I thought of what would ever happen if my father just up and died when I was 10. The thought chilled me. My dad only died last year, when I was 53, and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss him at some point and grieve for him. Imagine going through all of that when you’re three?

I think we were all relieved when taps were played at Arlington National Cemetery. Somehow, the bugler hitting a wrong note lent not only authenticity to the occasion, but –in a perverse way – a very fitting end to it. The entire four days had been a bad nightmare, and that just put the period on the end of the sentence.

Today, I’ve come full circle on whether there was a conspiracy. When I was in college, which was right around the time the Abraham Zapruder film was made public, I was convinced there was one. Life was just an endless series of grassy knolls, magic bullets, intricate plots … I read books upon books, all of them advocating for some mammoth plot, and just ate up all of it.

The Zapruder film itself was unsettling. I’d never known the extend of JFK’s head wounds and as time went on, completely shut that aspect of the assassination out of my head, preferring to contemplate the socio- and geo-political ramifications instead. By the time I got into college, it was 1971, and the entire decade of the sixties had passed. Malcolm X was killed. So was Martin Luther King. And Bobby Kennedy. The fissures caused by these cataclysmic social events, along with the Vietnam War, and the growing rift between young and old – the so-called “generation gap” -- all of that could be traced back to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

And it wasn’t just social and political either. You could make a very strong case that John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr never would have made it out of England had the American psyche not been so damaged by JFK’s death. The Beatles came along in early 1964, and they were certainly a sweeping breath of fresh air, youthful exuberance, and optimism for a country that had just been overwrought with grief and gloom.

And since we all have the benefit of knowing what the Beatles brought forth, both musically and culturally, it could be further argued that JFK’s death opened the Pandora’s box for the rampant use of recreational drugs, as well as the deepening cynicism, that just about ensured the demise of what had once become such a promising, optimistic decade.

Through the 70s and 80s, I was all for ripping the masks off the FBI, CIA, the Warren Commission, and anyone who had been a party to pulling the wool over our eyes by claiming that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

Then, I saw JFK, the Oliver Stone movie … and I just thought it was the biggest crock of bull ever. I know … I know … it wasn’t supposed to be historical. But come on! This is a guy who saw a bogeyman jumping out of every corner. And it just made me think that fertile imaginations were at play here … and that maybe, after all, that was just a random act of violence by a social misfit who was tired of being marginalized for his Marxist sympathies.

Because when you come right down to it, history rarely turns on conspiracies. It turns on random events that RESULT in people banding together. The Boston Massacre wasn’t planned. But it was certainly a tipping point toward arousing anger among the Boston colonists … without which there would have been no American Revolution.

There’s also this: It’s been 45 years since JFK was shot. Most, if not all, of the principal players on that day has long since died. There is no reason anymore for anyone who may have been inclined to keep a secret or two regarding a conspiracy to do so. Yet nobody’s said a word. Maybe there aren’t any words to say.

I used to be a bonafide Kennedy-phile. Worshiped the ground they walked on. I knew everything about all of them … the family histories, the unspeakable tragedies, the words of wisdom … but that died when Willie Smith was accused of rape and it came out that Ted Kennedy had rousted his son and his nephew out of BED so they could all go drinking. I’m no prude, but dammit all if I’d ever want to go out and get drunk with my son. I don’t care how old he is. A kid should always be able to look up to his dad without reservations. I looked up to mine every day he was alive … and I still do. One of the enduring American tragedies, if you ask me, is that there are so many kids who either don’t have dads in their lives to whom they CAN look up; or that their dads consistently fall short. And while nobody’s perfect, I just don’t see how a father can be so sloppy and undisciplined that he needs to go out and get hammered with his son.

For the longest time, I even tried to wish away the most damaging aspects of Chappaquiddick in my mind. I tried to justify the whole thing, believing that Teddy was just too stressed, too overwrought, too burdened by tragedies and responsibility, to have a clear head about much of anything.

And while I’ll always have tremendous sympathy for what the family has gone through, it’s just as true that at some point, your pass expires. At some point, you have to take accountability for the mistakes you’ve made. And I just don’t believe that Teddy ever has … at least not with regards to Chappaquiddick. He never admitted what most of the world seems to accept as universal fact: that he was drunk, horny and too consumed with alcohol and hormones to pay attention to where he was going … and too much of a coward to stick around after the accident to make sure every effort was made to remove Mary Jo Kopechne from that car.

And there were just so many eyebrow-raising details. This is a man who, only five years earlier, had severely broken his back in a plane crash. He had to walk around with a back brace, the pain permanently etched on his face. Yet he can crawl out the window of a car submerged in a lagoon and swim to safety? He can swim across the channel that separates Martha’s Vineyard from Chappaquiddick Island?

To me, the Kennedy dream began its slow, painful demise with Bobby’s death. In many ways, I think he was Jack times 10. Maybe not in the beginning, but by the time he died. John Kennedy was a cold warrior when he took office in 1960. In fact, if you go back and study that campaign, JFK was even scarier than Richard Nixon.

But he grew in the short time he was in office … grew past the bellicosity that marked his formative years in politics. He died before he could ever complete this transformation, but Bobby took it and ran with it. I think that if Bobby had lived, he’d have been one of the best presidents this country ever had. He seemed to have the right amount of ruthlessness mixed with genuine compassion for the downtrodden that either things would have improved or he’d go down in flames trying to improve them.

Alas, none of this ever came to pass. Instead of the Kennedy family dynastic that Old Joe pined for so deeply, we got the Bush dynasty.

Today, 45 years later, JFK’s death haunts me more than any single historical event in my lifetime. You look at all the potential that he brought to the White House … and you look at all the wreckage from strewn throughout history.

And that’s when you see the things that are … and ask why.

My case for Barack

Election day is a week from Tuesday and according to some polls released today (October 26) the race is tightening.

I suppose I should have expected it, but it has taken me somewhat by surprise. The Republicans -- or, should I say, the McCain campaign -- is out of ideas and has BEEN out of ideas since forever. While some of the minutae of the current GOP platform may vary slightly from what the current administration has offered us, what McCain and Co. are proposing is more of the same.

I find myself in kind of a strange position. Back in February, I -- an independent -- registered as a Republican on Super Tuesday for the specific purpose of voting against our former governor -- Mitt Romney.

This meant voting for McCain, even though I went into this campaign season liking Rudy Guiliani very much, partly because I love New York and love the way he helped clean it up; and partly because I thought he handled himself magnificently on Sept. 11, 2001. But I soured on him rather quickly once I started listening to him, and by February figured the best of a bad lot was McCain.

John S. McCain, I figured, was the one Republican I could stomach in the White House if my guy -- Obama -- couldn't survive the primaries. So, logic dictated I throw a little support his way just in case.

That was in February. Hillary took Massachusetts (which I figured would happen) and Romney won the GOP side. But that was bascially his last, and maybe even only, hurrah. He flamed out soon afterward, and by March McCain's nomination was a foregone conclusion ... pretty remarkable for someone who'd been so dismissively written off only six months earlier.

So there's my reasoning ... and I'm sad to admit it now. I have been proven wrong. McCain's election would not be in the best interests of the United States of America. His ideas are old, terribly shopwarn, and they're proven failures based on what has happened, both over the the last eight years and the last eight weeks. Worse, McCain seems to be the same type of angry reactionary who ruled the White House for the previous eight years ... shoot first, ask questions later. Though hee likes to say he's a maverick, McCain -- just by his termperment -- would have fit in very well with the angry reactionaries in the Bush administration.

Then, there's the matter of Sarah Palin, who -- I'm sure -- is a nice woman who could, someday, command quite a presence on the national stage. But not now. Not even close. And McCain took what is already a ridiculously politically expedient process and multiplied it Times Ten with this selection.

Not that Joe Biden is any prize. And unscripted Biden is a terrifying thing. As someone on Bill Maher's show said last Friday, "he's on the 10-yard line. All he needs to do from hereon out is show up." Instead, he plants this SEED in people about the bogeyman terrorists launching some kind of horrendous attack on the country to "test" Obama.

Of course, that's exactly what the bogeymen did with George W. Bush. And maybe Biden's biggest mistake here was to remind people what an abject failure Bush's response to the test was ... how he completely fouled things up beyond repair with his response. His type of hot-headed, incendiary response was exactly what Osama Bin Laden wanted, and Bush was either too stupid or too stubborn (or both) to see it.

But at least Biden had something tangible -- both in terms of politics and experience -- to offer the Obama ticket. I'm still trying to figure out what it is Palin offered -- unless it's an infusion of youthful vigor to detract from the rapidly-aging McCain.

This is a roundabout way of talking about Barack, because right off the bat, Obama gets points for at least being sober and rational in judgment. His reasons behind selecting Biden were sound and mature. He understood the politics of Biden's campaign ... and he understood that good leadership involves surrounding yourself with people whose opinions and expertise you respect, even if you're not the best of friends.

On the other hand, McCain's apparent reasons for picking Palin -- she's a woman (and could sway disaffected Hillary voters), she's young ... and evangelical to boot -- seem a bit more reckless.

Let's examine the "experience" factor. Experience in presidential politics is overrated -- unless it's YOU who are running ... and YOU have the glittering resume. George H.W. Bush had a glowing resume, both in diplomatic, executive and intelligence circles. You name it, 41 did it. He was head of the CIA, head of the GOP National Committee (a position he held at the time of Watergate), a U.S. Representative ... and vice president. I'd imagine he knew where every lever of power was, and how to push it when he had to.

Yet, he was a one-term president who couldn't parlay a legitimate accomplishment (the 1990 Desert Storm war) into four more years. And why not? Because for all his experience, he couldn't control the lunatic fringe of his own party. He tried. He came into office -- despite the brutally dirty campaign against Michael Dukakis -- with a reputation of being a genial country club Republican. But it did seem that George I lacked the backbone to stand up to the nut jobs in his party ... and by trying (and failing) to accommodate them, he not only lost THEM, he lost the middle, too.

I have no love for Ronald Reagan, but one thing I'll give him: He kept those nut jobs at arm's length. And for all his bluster, he actually governed from the center a lot more than people think.

With few exceptions (Ed Meese, Casper Weinberger), he employed pragmatic people who understood that to actually get things DONE you had to throw a few bones to the opposing party. He lost it late in his second administration when the combination of being a lame duck and -- just a personal opinion -- the beginnings of the Alzeimers reduced his effectiveness. But for all I didn't like about him ideologically, he knew how to communicate with people AND understood how to work with people with whom he had political disagreements.

He also understood the prudence of cutting your losses. When those Marines were blown up in Beirut, he didn't allow the rest of them to stick around so they could get killed too. He got the hell OUT of there and didn't worry about this "saving face" nonsense that has us still in Iraq now.

I thought George H.W. would be something like that, and while he wasn't my guy, I wasn't depressed for a month when he got elected (partially because I wasn't all that fond of Michael Dukakis either). But H.W. couldn't take the heat when the nut jobs started in on him -- even with a 90 percent approval rating (after Desert Storm). He tried to win these people over, and on election day, they couldn't get to the polls fast enough to vote for H. Ross Perot. That's gratitude for you.

It's important to understandn this, because when it was George W's turn, he learned his lessons. There was no way he was going to get outflanked by the Republican right. So he invited them all to the table, where they controlled him instead of the other way around. I seriously doubt George W. Bush ever HAD a policy he could call his own. Anything he got, he got from the wignuts with whom he surrounded himself ... Henry Kissinger refugees like Cheney and Rumsfeld, who itched to be back in power after eight years of Bill Clinton.

These are the people to whom McCain -- the so-called "maverick" -- sold his soul to get the nomination.

But as I say, experience ONLY counts when it's YOUR GUY who has the experience. In 2000, George Bush's only real military experience was in finding ways to avoid showing up for his Army Reserve commitments. So you never heard the Republicans talk about it. In 2004, John Kerry -- recipient of multiple medals in Vietnam -- was reduced to defending himself against scurrilous charges that he'd fabricated his record.

But all of a sudden, in 2008, we have a genuine war hero on the ticket ... and all of a sudden the ONLY criteria for holding the Oval Office is ... you guessed it ... experience. I have a tremendous amount of respect for what McCain endured in Vietnam. I can't imagine how he got through it, and I'm sure that in many ways it hardened him. But at the same time, I know lots of Vietnam vets who came back from the war permanently scarred. Some of them have overcome those scars; others, sadly, did not ... and sunk into lives of drug addiction and mental illness, and, in a few cases, died tragically prematurely as a result.

I'm not suggesting John McCain is afflicted with either the diseases of addiction OR mental illness. But the pendulum does swing so wildly on these issues that the experiences of being a POW, or having been wounded in battle, make up no more than a portion of your overall resume. The Republicans proved this in 2004 when the voters rejected John Kerry. So it's disingenuous for them to use it now as a reason to vote FOR McCain.

The next item to examine is McCain's record as a U.S. Senator, which, on average, would appear to be ... well ... average. He's done some good things. But he's also managed to get his name associated with one of the bigger scandals in modern Senate history ... the Keating Five.

The Republicans love to run against big government. Bush campaigned in 2000 as being an outsider ... a stranger to the Beltway. McCain's been a U.S. Senator for more than 20 years. His name has appeared on one of the biggest scandals the senate has seen in that time ... the Keating Five.

While his record as a senator doesn't DISQUALIFY him from being president,it, in and of itself, doesn't uniquely QUALIFY him either. Like his military service, it's certainly a FACTOR in the overall judgment of him, but there's nothing there the jumps up and says "Damn, we HAVE to vote for this man."

Again, going back to George W. Bush ... he campaign on being anti-Washington ... NOT part of the Beltway crowd. Why? Because he argued -- and not incorrectly, either -- that to be a part of the solution, you cannot be a part of the problem.

If the legislature is bogged down in petty partisanship, then the only logical thing to do is get new people in there who aren't so married to the old ways of doing things that they've become obstructionist. Right?"

Shouldn't logic, then, dictate that the most qualified person to be president is the LEAST qualified in terms of legislative tenure? Wouldn't a person not so thoroughly entrenched in the legislative morass that has affected politics since the first Clinton administration be more prone to see things differently than one who's been part of the problem for over 20 years?

Obama has been a senator for only four years -- hardly enough time to be an entrenched member of the club. So in a curious way, his LACK of experience actually plays to his favor.

But there are other reasons to support him. Unlike Al Gore and Kerry before him, Obama has a pulse. He has passion. He has ideals. He has noble goals. And he's black.

Wait. Stop. You're reading this, and you're saying "Ahhhh, that's it. he's voting for Obama because he's black." And you're right. I am. But please, let me explain.

You can thank Robert Wohl for what's about to come next. Wohl has a couple of HBO specials called "Assume the Position," that are both hilarious and illuminating. In the second one, his opening bit talks about the presidents, and the total lack of diversity that runsn through all 43 of them. As he says, "for such a diverse country ... not a whole lot of it up there, is there?"

Yes, that's a funny observation ... but it's also a very sad reality. This country grew to be the giant it is on the backs of ethnic immigrants who came over here and did all the heavy lifting that made us kings of the Industrial Age. And they have been poorly represented in the White House. With the exception of Dwight D. Eisenhower (German-American) and John F. Kennedy (Roman Catholic) the overwhelming preponderance of presidents have been White Anglo Saxon Protestants (including the current one).

Barack Obama represents the HOPE, at least, that the next president will have the ability -- and curiosity -- to see the whole picture from a different template. I'm confident, given Obama's basically sober, measured and moderate nature, that this is NOT a man who's going to give away the store, open up the borders and let ALL the illegals in carte blanche (even if his distant aunt lives here illegally), or strip off his mask someday and become the modern-day Karl Marx.

But I AM confident that Barack Obama will see situations differently, see them from a fresh set of eyes, and perhaps react accordingly. I hope he does. We need to at least CONSIDER the possibility of taking a different road to get where we want to go. The one we're on is leading nowhere.

I also think Barack Obama, as person who has spent considerable time overseas, and in lands not always friendly to the United States, will bring a sensitivity about our place in the modern world that this administration simply does not possess. And not only does the Bush administration not possess this sensitivity, it don't WANT to. The Bush people don't care.

In fact, one of the gripes I HAVE with George W. Bush is his complete LACK of sensitivity about how we're perceived abroad. He -- and his followers -- think this a non-issue. I beg to differ. Countries act, and react, toward us based on what they SEE, and PERCEIVE ... not by what we TELL them. And they SEE what we do from a much different perspective than we do, and that has as much to do with the propaganda OUR government disseminates as it does the usual mistrust that exists between the U.S. and its enemies.

There's no better example of how destructive that mistrust can be than the sight of airplanes loaded with innocent people careening into buildings loaded with MORE innocent people. It takes an awful lot of hatred and resentment to whip yourself into the type of frenzy that would allow you to even CONSIDER doing something like that ... let alone carry it out. You don't just wake up one morning and decide to kill 3,000 people who have done absolutely nothing to you. You have to be so blind with hatred and zealotry that you'll kill ANYBODY for the advancement of your cause.

I'll grant you some of that is because of the indocrination that the radical muslems who pulled this off received in their native countries. But the Bush administration never seemed interested in identifying the catalyst ... what set these people OFF? Simple chemistry. You can mix up a bunch of chemicals in a test tube, but ONE of them has to act as a catalyst for there to be a reaction.

What was the catalyst? And what did our insistance on starting a war in the middle of that cauldron do to the cauldron ... both in the short and long term?

I'm hoping Barack Obama will be more of a soothing, sobering element on the world stage than George W. Bush was ... and I'm afraid I see John McCain as being cut out of much the same cloth as the current president.

We have also had the bonus -- sad though it may have been -- of seeing how both men would react to a crisis. Witness McCain's reaction to the Wall Street meltdown vs. Obama's.

McCain tried to inject himself into the process and ended up being party to making the situation worse. Obama -- who had no power beyond his seat in the U.S. Senate (same as McCain) stepped back and let the people in charge do their jobs. I don't think it's a coincidence that Obama's position in the polls took a huge leap after that. People saw that Obama has a cool head while they saw McCain as a glowering, angry man willing to elbow his way into the spotlight, even if he doesn't belong there.

Obama also came up with one of the better lines when he said "people expect their presidents to be able to do more than one thing at a time." It wasn't as good as "I can see Russa from my house," perhaps, but good enough.

I don't think Obama is perfect. I don't see him as being "the messiah," and nothing aggravates me more than the GOP taunting that Obama's supporters are hero worshipping of that they've had the wool pulled over their eyes.

I admit the country is taking a big risk in turning to him ... but I think the same thing about McCain too ... except I think it's a bigger risk. He's come across as angry, bitter, and caustic on the stump this fall, and I think this country has been run from anger now for eight years ... and all you have to do is look around to see how corrosive that anger has become. I look forward to someone a bit more dispassionate and introspective ... and less ready to come out swinging without examing the situation first.

Some of the anti-Obama swill has been nothing more than coded racism -- especially the efforts to hang Rev. Jeremiah Wright around his neck. I certainly don't AGREE with the reverend, and it would probably be a cold day in hill for me to get up and say "God DAMN America" in front of a church full of people. But if I did, I'd be appalled if someone tried to indict every OTHER person in the church because of what I said. That's dangerously close to McCarthyism, only there's the extra-added tinge of racism in there because of the anger --unique, in many ways, to African-Americans -- that Wright was expressing.

Similarly, the whole ACORN nonsense is just that ... nonsense. This was just a case of the loser pulling out all the stops. McCain took out all the guns, and started firing into the crowd, hoping that one of the bullets hits a vein or an artery. Again, even if ACORN's methods completely lacked ethics, there's no evidence that Obama, or any of his staff, put ACORN up to commiting voter fraud. And I doubt there will eve BE proof. However, there IS the fear that this is a Rovian Republican attempt to lay the groundwork for enough challenges to REALLY gum up this election ... perhaps as payback for the Florida challenge of 2000.

I have my concerns about the issue of Bill Ayers, however. I don't think Obama's a terrorist, and I don't think he condones, or ever condoned, blowing up buildings as a way of airing political grievances.

But at the same time, either he should have known, or someone should have told him pretty damn quick, that Bill Ayers would be a good guy to steer clear of, especially if he had political aspirations down the line.

I can also certainly understand McCain's desire to hammer away at this, too. I'm sure his reasons are aren't merely political. I'd image they're bitterly personal -- and I have no problem with that. While Ayers was blowing up buildings, McCain was a guest at the Hanoi Hilton. And if I were him, it would gall me, too, that Ayers had anything at all to do --however minor -- with springboarding Obama's political career.

But honestly, similar to the Rev. Wright issue, this doesn't mean Obama is sympathetic to terrorists -- either domestic or foreign. You DO run across a lot of people over the course of a political career. You're often forced to rub elbows with some unsavory people (I'm sure McCain has too), and seeing as Obama was eight years old when the Weathermen were blowing up buildings, perhaps he really DIDN'T grasp the full significance of what Ayers and his cohorts did in the 60s.

It's the same thing with the SDS. I know what the group DID ... but beyond the usual suspects, I couldn't name five other people associated with the group. So someone with an SDS past could come up to me and wine me and dine me, and get me to intercede on their behalf, and unless I have the presence of mind to vett them on the spot, I wouldn't know .

I'm comfortable that Bill Ayers, today, is nowhere near Obama's campaign. I am confident Barack Obama has more brains than that ... even if he might not have known the full extent of Ayer' radicalism back when he was looking for people to help him get his state senate campaign off the ground in Chicago.

McCain's run a weak campaign. It's been rightly ridiculed as ineffectual, especially when someone such as Sarah Palin can go into a militantly red area of the country and talk about being with "real Americans," as if the rest of us are impostors. In response to Obama's position on taxes, McCain could do no better than to concoct a senario unique to him ... meaning he constructed a hypothetical containing ONLY that which he desired to include. He called this hypothetical "Joe te Plumber," even though the person in question was neither a Joe nor a licensed plumber.

It's difficult to disprove hypotheticals because to do so you have to inject "facts" into the scenario that -- as they used to say on Perry Mason -- are not not in evidence.

This is eerily similar to Reagan's much-ballyhood "Welfare Queen" (whom he also pulled out of thin air).

These anecdotal figures are nothing but condescending and insulting, and the fact that McCain actually scored some points with this pathetic attempt at distortion says more about us, as an informed electorate, than it does about him.

Barack Obama brings a breath of fresh air to a political system that is growing so polluted that it's bordering on toxic. He brings intelligence into a White House that hasn't had any in the past eight years. And of the two candidates, let it also be known that while McCain talks a good game when it comes to old-fashioned American values, HE'S the one who left his wife for another woman while Obama's the one who -- as far as anyone knows -- has a solid, loving marriage.

I don't mean to sound as if that's the only criteria for being president, but since the Republicans would like you to think they've cornered the market on morality, we DO need to bring this up.

Please. Cast your vote for Barack Obama tomorrow and let's turn the page and move on from these last very ugly, divisive, eight years.

Music, Music, Music

Today, I was listening to "I'm No Angel" by Gregg Allman and immediately I thought of July 3, 1991, at the Great Woods Center for the Performing Arts in Norton, MA. My friend Mike called and asked if I'd like to go see the Allman Brothers with him. Free tickets. How on earth could I refuse.

So, I passed up the annual fireworks display at Lynn Beach and went to see the Allmans with Mickey. I'd see the AB's before. They're one of my favorite groups. But there was something about July 4 and Americana and the Allman Brothers that just seemed too surreal. Here we were, in the middle of a sea of bikers (nothing like the Allmans to bring out the inner Hog in us all), with firecrackers and cherry bombs exploding all around us. Talk about the rockets' red glare!!

What a great show! They played for so long -- and jammed so freely -- that the went way past the curfew and never got around to playing "Ramblin' Man," (which was to be their ultimate encore). You'd think that would be disappointing, but it wasn't. The discerning Allman Brothers aficionado knows that while "Ramblin' Man" is certainly a great song (indeed, their signature tune), there are so many other great songs in their repertoire that you could listen to three hours worth of music (which we did, bascially) and always come away wanting more.

Anyway, I bring this all up because "I'm No Angel" was one of that concert's real highlights. The group just come out of a mid-set intermission with "In Memory of Elizabeth Reid," a very cool jazz-oriented instrumental piece (inspired by the fact that when the Allmans used to go drinking in a nearby cemetery, they always gathered at the headstone of one Elizabeth Reid), and it served as an introduction to a more mellow point in the show (they also did a wonderful acoustic version of "Midnight Rider" -- another Allman solo piece).

Not that the mellow portion was bad ... but if you went there to see kickass rock 'n' roll, this was probably your cue to go to the bathroom, or get up and get something to eat ... of fidget. Me? I loved it.

However, "I'm No Angel" was the first song they played after this mellow interlude, and it just jerked the audience back into the spirit of the evening. It's a great song anyway, all about a roughhouse biker-type ("come on, baby, let me show you my tattoos") who promises that despite his savage appearance and reputation, he'll treat the girl of his dreams gently ("I'll never lift a hand to hurt you and I'll always leave you glad."). It's full of vivid images.

And it rocks! Especially when you get into it. And besides, who among us hasn't wished, once in a while, to explore his dark side? Even the ever-romantic Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues wrote "The Other Side of Life," about the desire to explore his dark side.

That song kicked the concert into overdrive, and paved the way for a parade of sizzling classics, from "Jessica" to "Revival" to "Statesboro Blues" to a lengthy first encore of "Tied to the Whipping Post" that had to last 15 minutes, with not a second of it wasted.

I've seen the Allmans several times, yet this concert stood out as special (though it would have been more special had we not got caught in a massive traffic jam leaving the stadium; I think we finally got home on July 5!).

So listening to the song brought back memories ... not only of that concerts but of others as well. I cannot count the number of rock concerts I've seen. Some of them have been perfectly dreadful (there was the Bob Dylan show a few years ago that was so bad that all I could think of was that line from Positively 4th Street, "I wish that for just one time, you could stand inside my shoes; then you'd know what a drag it is to see you!"), and I remember seeing the Cars once and wishing someone would steal them and dismantle them in a chop shop (RIP, Ben Orr).

Then there was Duran Duran (don't ask how that came about). Horrible.

But the great ones more than make up for the lemons. If you can go through life with even a handful of experiences like that July 3 Allman Brothers show (which was one of the most perfectly laid out shows Ive ever seen; if I were a rock star, and were planning a show, I'd have done it the same way), you're doing OK.

I think the absolute best rock show I've ever seen, barring none, was the October 1973 Jethro Tull concert at the Boston Garden. Well, first of all, even if you didn't intend to get stoned going INTO the show, you were totally wrecked coming out. That's how much cannibus swirled around unfettered. I remember wondering how in the world any cop could let THAT go! Probably because it was a hopeless battle.

This was right after "Passion Play" came out, and Tull performed the entire album in the first set. I can remember not really liking the album all that much when I heard it the first time (It's still one of the least played CDs in my collection even today). "Thick as a Brick" was so good that "Passion Play" seemed like a poor facsimile. It was as if Ian Anderson said "I'm going to do 'Thick as a Brick' all over again, but call it something else."

Now, it always helps when you get a guy like Ian Anderson, who understands theater, and understands that just getting up there and playing isn't enough. Rock 'n' roll was never MERELY about the music ... and that's what people my parents' age never understood (and it's probably what people of my generation and culture fail to grasp about rap). Rock 'n' roll was about the attitude ... the excitement ... the rawness and edginess that all the Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin fans from the 40s and 50s never quite got because they'd never experienced it (though I suspect that if you appreciated the sophisticated jazz and blues of the 1920s and 30s you might have had a better chance of getting it).

"Passion Play" came to life that night. It helped that Ian Anderson made it an audio-visual show, with animated beginning that featured the contorted ballerina that adorns the album's cover. it was bizarre ... actually disturbing. But it was effective. It left you with your mouth agape, and just when it climaxed (like any good sexual encounter), out burst Ian Anderson (he almost ejaculated onto the stage, if that's possible!) to perform the album. It was probably the only time I ever found that album enjoyable.

It didn't stop with "Passion Play" either. They went onto do a good chunk of "Thick as a Brick" and a lot of "Aqualung," including an immensely enjoyable (and out-and-out kickass) version of "Locomotive Breath."

Thing is, though, I'm more of a fan of Tull's quieter, chamber music-like material, and really have a problem with Anderson if he forgets about that stuff when he performs shows. Usually, he's good about including it (though not always; I've come away from several shows of his extremely disappointed about the material he's chosen to perform). On this night, he represented his softer side more than adequately.

There was the obligatory "Bouree," of course ... Anderson does Bach. But there was also "Sossity, You're a Woman," from "Benefit," and one that he put on "Living in the Past" called "Life's a Long Song," which is one of the most beautiful pieces I've ever heard. It still remains a Krause staple on the iPod today.

I was just 20 years old in 1973, and went to the Tull concert with Mickey as well (we both had dates; he had some girl, forget whom) and I had Donna "Boobs" Bertazzoni from Quincy, who went to school with me at Northeastern University. We were just friends (although I'd have perferred it to be more than that). She was actually dating a guy named Sterling W. Honeywell (imaging dating a guy named Sterling??). The "W" stood for William, and, much to his credit, he preferred to be called Bill. But I always referring to him as Sterling, much to Donna's irritation.

For some reason, unrequited love and music go hand-in-hand with me, and it has a lot to do with why I like the Moody Blues ... who own another chapter in my "favorite concert" book.

First, the history. My freshman year of college, I fell madly for this girl Melinda Marchi, a stunning Italian from Cromwell, Connecticut. She had long, straight, jet-black hair and similarly dark, Mediterranean features. We took economics together, and hit it off, and I thought I had a chance.

Boy, was I wrong. I found out, through talking to her, that she liked opera, so I went out and got two tickets to "Tosca" by Puccini (hey, I wasn't proud; I'd have done anything back in those days!!). I'd never heard of it, but she'd mentioned she wanted to see it. Except, apparently, not with me. Because when I summoned up enough nerve to ask her if she'd go with me, she said she had other plans ... I guess sorting her socks or something.

I was crushed. First, the tickets weren't CHEAP! And second, abject rejection, especially if you've invested that much time and energy into cultivating that type of a crush, is like free falling off the Empire State Building.

As it so happens, though, life went on. Later that day, I discovered that the Northeastern bookstore didn't have a piece of reading material on my political science syllibus, so I had to truck on up to the Harvard Coop to find it.

Now, I LOVE Harvard Square. Some people go to Disneyland for fun and excitement. I go to Harvard Square and look at the freaks. And there are plenty of them! Brattle Street, which, to me, is the capital of the Eastern Elitism that conservatives always love to hate, is like a freak Mecca. It always energizes me, too, to walk into the Coop, as I did recently, and see stacks of books staring at me villifying the latest conservative du jour. In 1972, it was Nixon. the last time I went, it was 56 different books basically saying that George W. Bush sucked.

I always feel home at Harvard (and by the way, just to clear something up, you cannot pahhk your cahhh at Hahhhvahhhd Yahhhd because you cahhhn't DRIVE in Hahhhvahhhd Yahhhd).

Even on that day, after having had my balls summarily chopped off by Melinda Marchi, I kind of felt a little rejuvenated (though not a lot) by getting off the subway at Harvard and drinking in the atmosphere.

I found the book at the Coop (short for cooperative) and stood in line for what had to be a good 20-25 minutes to pay for it. I noticed this exotic music playing from a really nice set of speakers that just seemed to surround the room. It sounded familar, but I couldn't place it. It was mournful yet uplifting at the same time. The music ended with an orchestral flourish, a poem, and a loud gong.

Remember, this was 1972. There were no CDs. Just long-playing albums and record players that went back and repeated the same records. And on this one, the needle arm reset itself to the beginning of the album and all of a sudden I'm hearing "Tuesday Afternoon" by the Moody Blues.

What I HAD been hearing, of course, was the conclusion to "Days of Future Passed." Now, having heard it a few hundred thousand times, I picked it up around the song "The Sunset" and rode it through to the end, including "Nights in White Satin," and "Late Lament."

I'd probably heard NIWS a few times in my life (though not many) and had never heard the album. Nor had I heard much of anything else by the Moodies (just the singles they made famous).

Well, I ran right out and bought the album, and it nursed me through my own blues over being rejected. And through the rest of that year, I resolved to educate myself about the Moody Blues. I snatched up every album I could find (by then, there were six of the original upon release).

By October of 1972, I was thorougly Moodied. My sister thought I was possessed. So did my friends. It was Moodies, Moodies, and more Moodies. So it happened that I stood in line outside the Boston Garden the day tickets went on sale for their 1972 show for three hours with a bunch hof buddies from school and scored some. They sold out in no time, as this when they were REALLY at their peak.

By October, I'd stopped obsessing over Melinda and had gone back to enjoying life. So my friends and I simply went to the Boston Garden to enjoy a good show.

The show was all right. What made the concert memorable were the three guys sitting in front of us who were dressed like characters from King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Seriously. I just remember one guy was dressed in black, with this pointy hat, and half-moons drawn all over him. He had a long beard and he was tanked before he even got inside. He was Merlin the Magician, or so he said.

They were primed, obviously -- and, just as obviously, they thought "Are You Sitting Comfortably" was about THEM!!!

Now, THIS was funny. Demented and funny. The only thing I'll always regret about the experience was that I was with a bunch of guys, and not with a girl, because that's the type of thing -- that kind of ambiance -- that can REALLY serve as an ice breaker if you want to end up getting laid. I looked around at the five guys sitting with me and just sighed. AWFUL timing.

As I said, the show wasn't memorable for the music. In those days, the Moodies were not a good live band ... at least I didn't think so. Their music was very sophisticated, a lot like the type the Beatles produced toward the end of their careers. Great on vinyl; difficult to reproduce in all of its technical wizardry on stage. Not to mention that they were probably just as stoned playing it as we were watching it. I understand there were a lot of drugs flying around the Moodies' entourage in those days!

All of this made for very sloppy musicianship, which -- musical fuss budget that I am -- annoyed me. I was kind of disappointed, to be honest.

But the show in the audience more than made up for it. These three guys were great to watch. They were SOOOOOOOO stoned that they couldn't keep themselves sitting up. They flopped all over each other (they were probably gay!!) and just swooned in RAPTURE every time a new song began. The ironic part, though, is that by the time the Moodies finally got around to playing the end of "Threshhold of a Dream," which they almost ALWAYS did as a whole block toward the end of the show in those days, these three guys were catatonic from having smoked so much weed. They couldn't even enjoy it!

I have two more shows to discuss before calling it a day. The first was in February 1990 ... Paul McCartney at the Worcester Centrum. Macca went out plugging his tour as a journey through the past, and boy, was it ever. Beatles songs, Beatles songs and more Beatles songs, and some of them really raised that lump right to the base of your throat. The first of this absolute melange of Fab music was "Got To Get You Into My Life," which is my absolute most favorite song of theirs, and it just got better after that. Old stuff ("I Saw Her Standing There" and "Things We Said Today"), solo stuff ("Live and Let Die"), trippy stuff ("Fool on the Hill") and classic stuff ("Hey Jude," which audience participating at the end that almost made it seem like a religious experience).

You watched the show, and you were keenly aware that this was history unfolding before your eyes. A lot of those songs had never been performed in public before, and there was just such an outpouring of gratitude on the part of the fans that, after all these years, Paul McCartney toured and played them.

Finally, but certainly not least, there was the Brian Wilson show in 2005 in which he performed the entire "Smile" album. In a lot of ways, this was one of the most extraordinary shows I've ever seen. Wilson toured with an 18-piece band, and you got the idea that maybe he was able to perform his old Beach Boys songs in a manner in which he'd envisioned them when he wrote them. He turned "Help Me Rhonda" into a symphony, almost, and I remember thinking to myself, "is this cool, or what!

"Smile" is also an extraordinary piece of music. Had it been released in 1967, the way it was intended, no one would have understood it. At least "Sergeant Pepper" had elements of the ritualistic rock album (and even at that, Pepper stood out as singularly bizarre that year). This had none, really. It was a collection of little songs strung together in a way to tell a story (perhaps a drug-hazed story, but a story nonetheless). If it reminds me of anything at all, it reminds me of the second side of "Abbey Road", with unfinished bits of songs strung together to create a definite aural effect, if nothing else; the songs themselves weren't that cohesive on "Abbey Road" and aren't on "Smile").

What separates the two records, of course, is the placement of the songs. Where "Abbey Road" was divided by sides (the first side being a collection of normal songs while the second side kind of wanders off into the realm of the bizarre), "Smile" interspersed both freely. Hence, you get these moments of brilliance that just seem to crop up out of nowhere.

For example, from "Heros and Villains" to "Surf's Up" you get a collection of melodious songs that -- as I've said earlier -- aren't really complete; yet create, by their sequencing, a definite mood. But in the middle of it all, there's "Surf's Up," one of the most complicated, perplexing, wonderful, beautiful, confusing, exasperating, uplifting, almost ethereal, songs in the rock repertoire. It is said to be the song that caused all the friction in the Beach Boys (Mike Love didn't understand it and wanted nothing to do with singing it), and it led, not-too-indirectly, to all of Brian Wilson's subsequent mental health problems.

It's not as if I'd never heard it before. It came out on other albums, and though you never heard it much, even on FM radio, once in a while someone would play it late at night ... and you could almost see the marijuana smoke swirling around the room when you heard it.

But hearing it live, sung by Brian Wilson, with all that history ... that was almost too much to take. The audience grew quiet, almost reverential, as the song unfolded. There was literally no noise. I thought I might be in church.

Then (another relic from the past) the matches and lighters came out and there was a sea of flames as Wilson wrapped up the song. And when he finished, the ovation was deafening. And it lasted for a good five or six minutes ... people standing, screaming, some of them even crying. What a moment!

This was not the first stop on the tour. Yet, Brian Wilson sat there ... and I don't think he knew what to do. He's not the most stable person ANYWAY, and I think he just wished it would end so that he could just go back to playing music. He looked extremely uncomfortable, but he accepted it graciously as it waned, and went back to playing music!

The ovation was almost as long, and as long, when he finished "Good Vibrations," too.

But the bonus was after the intermission, he and his band came out and played some real old, vintage Beach Boys material, ending the night with "Surfin' USA" and "Fun, Fun, Fun," with everyone up and dancing in the aisles.

The concert was also noteworthy because it was in July of 2005 ... and Wilson played "Ol' St. Nick." THAT was funny!

So there you have it. Five classic concerts I'll never forget.

Idle Chatter

Idle chatter while waiting for this goddamned winter to finally go away:

* Are people who constantly complain about taxes similarly outraged when they get raises in their jobs, and -- as a result -- the price of their product increases? Something tells me that when the shoe's on the other foot, these people will defend their raises to the death and argue that "if you want good service, you have to pay."

Yet when anyone gets a raise in the public sector, or if the cost of plowing streets, or collecting trash, or heating and maintaining schools goes up due to circumstances beyond anybody's control (have you checked the price for a barrel of oil these days?), the first thing these people worry about is their taxes ... as if that's the ONLY thing that matters. Your school system's books are so archaic that some of them might say "someday, man will land on the moon," yet don't raise MY taxes to update the curriculum.

Silly.

* I do not like Hillary Clinton. To me, she's about as phony as they come. Beyond any of her issues, the reason I don't like her is because when she ran for U.S. Senate in 2000, she went around wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap and declaring to everyone that she was always a Yankee fan. Right. Let's see. Born in Illinois, educated at Yale (where, I guarantee you, she didn't know the difference between a New York Yankee and a Minnesota Twin), lived in Arkansas. Spent eight years as the First Lady and -- as far as I or anyonen else can see -- never used the perks of her position to become a fixture at Yankee Stadium, the way her initial opponent, Rudy Giuliani, was.

Sadly, this seems to be 100 percent representative of her. If you look up the word "politically expedient," there's her picture.

Having said all that, I really hate it when people start bringing up how "shrill" she is. There are plenty of other things on which to roast her. Why bring up something she can't help? And if it's not "shrill" it's the "cackle." Here's how answers.com defines "cackle:" To make the shrill cry characteristic of a hen after laying an egg. To laugh or talk in a shrill manner."

In other words, a "cackle" is a sound unique to the female ... not the male.

This is what you call "code." It's the same thing as saying Katie Couric lacks "gravitas." Well, if "gravitas" means having a deep, authoritative voice, then of COURSE she lacks "gravitas." So what? For Chrissakes Ted Baxter had "gravitas" if you want to go by that definition!! It's not politically correct to hate on someone merely because of her gender, so you have to find other reasons that don't sound so politically incorrect -- yet deliver the same subtle message.

This is why someone thought it would be hilarious to post a picture of Barack Obama wearing native Somali attire. You won't get any mileage anymore by comparing "Obama" to "Osama," but if you can show him dressed like a Somali warlord, you get your point across without saying a WORD!!

Look, there are plenty of legitimate reasons not to like Hillary Clinton. I just gave you one of mine, and while it's certainly lame, it's not nearly as lame as saying she lacks "Gravitas" or that she sounds "shrill." And people -- especially women -- who insist on using these code words to describe them you're just playing into the hands of the sexists who resent BOTH of them invading their playing field.

* I was going through a toll booth in Boston Saturday night and -- as always -- I thought of The Godfather and James Caan. Some images are just too indelibly ingrained to escape. I'll always think of Sonny Corleone whenever I go through a toll booth. I'm always expecting the collector to drop my money, bend down to pick it up, only to find an army of machine gun-wielding thugs popping up to blow me away. And there I'll be ... lying in the middle of the street, with blood and glass oozing out of me.

But isn't it funny how you can't avoid certain images. I love piano bars, yet I can't go to a club with a piano players without going up to the piano player and saying "you played it for her, you can play it for me," in my most ridiculous Humphrey Bogart voice.

I can't see anyone hit a ground ball to first base -- at any level -- without AUTOMATICALLY knowing that it's going to go right through the kid's legs. I have Bill Buckner to thank for that.

Whenever I see Bill Belichick, I see him in a captain's uniform on the USS Caine, rattling those ball bearings with his fingers, just like Captain Queeg.

I can't even THINK of Wade Boggs anymore without thinking of Roger Dorn in "Major Leagues."

If I see a picture of anyone in a soldier's uniform, no matter what they're doing, all I see is Mike Dukakis in that damn tank.

I'm sure there are many more of these, but that's all for now.

* I always had a fascination for the Wild West, ever since I was a little kid. I wasn't obsessed with it, and I certainly wan't much for watching westerns on TV (or movies), but the legends themselves always fascinated me. I couldn't have cared less about the latest John Wayne movie. Never saw "True Grit." But the true historic stuff, or the more intelligent movies like "The Oxbow Incident?" Loved those.

I bring this up because during my Super Bowl weekend, I spent a day in Tombstone, Arizona, which -- for those who don't know -- was the site of the famous "Shootout at the O.K. Corral." What amazed me was that the gunfight itself lasted all of about two minutes (if that), with the Earp brothers (Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan), along with Doc Holliday, scoring a decisive rout over Ike Clanton's game. But the fallout from the fight lasted years, with Virgil being wounded and Morgan being killed.

I suppose this particularly skirmish stood out, among all the rest of the lawlessness of the old west, because of the characters involved. Who hasn't heard of Wyatt Earp? or Doc Holliday?

Wyatt Earp is a fascinating study. I guess the best way to describe him was "morally ambiguous." He certainly never let the expediency of the moment bother his conscience. He spurned all offers to become a marshal in Tombstone (after having performed the duties elsewhere) and wasn't happy when his brother, Virgil, became one and outlawed guns in the main part of town as one of his first official acts.

But when the Clanton gang -- with whom the brothers were already feuding -- decided to cause trouble, Wyatt got talked into going down to the area of the corral (along with a very willing Doc Holliday) to disarm the men. Instead, a gunfight ensued and the Clanton gang very much got the worst of it.

I've read about this gunfight for years, been fascinated with it, seen movies about it ... but never really got the FEEL for it until I stood where the shootout actually occurred.

Great stuff.

* And speaking of Arizona, it's a nice state ... when it's not cold (which is was, when I was there in February). There's some beautiful scenery, and Scottsdale is a very trendy city.

But the Valley of the Sun is also rather strange in that its subdivisions are all basically the same. They're all cut out of nothingness. It's as if someone threw a dart at a zone and said "here! Here is where I'm going to build my subdivision," and then went in there, put up a bunch of cookie-cutter houses, and left. In some of these places, you can actually visualize how they looked before they were developed ... because all you have to do is go down the street and see the vast nothingness -- even in built-up places such as Mesa.

What a difference between that and Boston, where there's no rhyme or reason to where houses are built, and no homeowners' associations to govern how uniform they must look. I don't know. Houses are bought and sold up here, too. It would seem to me that if you're going to put down a half million dollars for the house of your dreams, you should have the right to paint it whatever color you want.

That's all for today.

"He's Not the Kind You Have To Wind Up on Sundays"

If you've never heard this fine tune, it's the final song on Jethro Tull's "Aqualung," and it deals with the hypocrisy of people who wear their religion on their sleeves on Sunday ... but basically ignore it every other day of the week.

If you're looking one of the great social shifts in the United States of America in the 21st century, look no further than religion ... or, to be more specific, Christianity.

In 1966, John Lennon said the following: "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right, and I will be proved right. We are more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first -- rock'n'roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."

Now, it's quite possible that Lennon, since he was only 25 years old when he said these words, uttered them in a haze of human hubris. It's doubtful that Lennon had anywhere near the insight, at his age, and regardless of HOW much acid he'd ingested by then, to have been able to predict the controversy that religion has caused in this last decade.

In 1966, the western world was still predominantly, and smugly, Christian. People questioned it, sure. Time Magazine even had a cover story asking if God was dead. There have always been agnostics, athiests, and -- perhaps more important -- people who subscribed to other religions, and other forms of spirituality. But there is no doubt that, back in 1966, that people who argued against school prayer, for example, were clearly in the minority (and by school prayer, I think we can all agree that we were talking about Christian/Catholic school prayer).

I use 1966 is a point of demarkation here because that's the year Time asked if God was dead, and the year that Lennon said the Beatles were bigger than Jesus. Like most everything else about the '60s, attitudes about religion were being re-examined under a different microscope. Maybe, the examinations revealed, it wasn't such a good thing to marry government and religion as freely as we had in the precedingn decades. Maybe, the examination revealed, the first amendment that prohibited the establishment of a national religion REALLY meant that government couldn't coerce its citizens, either overtly or covertly, to subscribe to a specific religion ... and that MAYBE the umbrella under which the amendment protected religious freedom included the banning of school prayer in public schools.

Now, the more introspective Christians (and let's include Catholics here so we don't have to keep saying two words instead of one; Catholics often don't want to be associated with a lot of these right-wing nut Christian sects, even though they're not really bastions of liberalism themselves) among us understand this, and they're all right with it. They see that public schools in the United States, especially in the inner cities, are melting pots whose religions affiliations go in a thousand and one different directions.

The less introspective Christians (and thre are a TON of them!!!!) see this as an example of "Godless Communism."

Now, let's digress for a few minutes and discuss Godless Communism. And let me preface by saying that in no WAY to I think that came out of the Soviet Union after the Russian Revolution was in any way desirable, moral, or even workable (as history has ultimately proven). But I do understand the Soviet Unionn's feeling about religion. Christians don't like hearing this, but religion has been the cause of a lot of pain in this world, from the time of Christ all the way up to now. It causes divisions and rifts among people for no other reason than their chosen paths toward spiritual fulfillment, which is perhaps the WORST reason to divide people. At different times in world history, people have been slaughtered en masse because of religious differences, and the Christians are no less guilty of this -- over the long, long haul -- than the most radical Muslem.

So if the Soviets, in their effort to create a more balanced society, felt that religion unnecessarily divided people -- not to mention got them killed -- then it's certainly understandable. But all the Soviets really did, however, was create a state and it treated like a God, and that's really not much of a difference at all. You'd better not worship God, but you'd better worship the state. That's the worst kind of nationalism there is, and you can see where this system didn't even last through the end of the 20th century.

Back to the subject at hand. The Constitution prohibits the establishment of a national religion, but it doesn't say people cannot practice their religions -- either in their own homes or right out there in public. And while I can see the logic that causes citizens to complain about using public money to put a Christmas creche up in the town square, I cannot see the logic that allows them to complain, and picket, if a private enterprise wants to foot the bill for said creche. We still have religious freedom in this country, not to mention freedom of expression, and if the owner of a department store wants to pay to put a plastic Baby Jesus in a manger, and put it on the town common, well, don't be telling him he can't do it. That's going too far.

On the other hand, when some judge in Alabama, or Mississippi, wants to carve the 10 Commandments on a slate outside his courthouse, that's a not-so-tacit crossing of the line between church and state ... and CLEARLY must be prohibited. Whatever laws we deem to follow on this country, we follow because they're ethically inspired, not religiously inspired. And even if, oftentimes, they're one and the same, that's not the point.

Most of these arguments were in place, and very much in the field of play, when George W. Bush was elected president (well, to be more accurate, was handed the presidency by the U.S. Supreme Court), and brought his born-again philosophy to the White House. Under ordinary circumstances, the excessive tendencies of zealots were to be watched, for sure, but there were all probably deemed harmless in comparison to other issues that greeded the president in 2001.

But then came September 11, 2001. Everything changed. And among the great changes that swept across the country were attitudes toward religion. There were people who dug in, and saw this as the resurrection of an ancient battle between the Moslems and Christians (if you go to Wiki and look up Muhammad, it'll tell you that the Moslems consider themselves the purest form of God's teaching, and that all the rest of the religions are infidels). The more radical Moslems consider it their duty to weed out the infidels (a polite way, I suppose of saying "kill them,") so that the purity of Islam can flourish once again.

This is one attitude.

Others, and I kind of put myself in this boat, suggest that the purity of Islam has very little to do with what's happening, and that all of this terrorism is purely political, borne of the Moslem world's raging resentment over how it's been occupied and exploited by western powers for centuries. There's one thing about religious people that rings true again and again: the most zealous of them are gullible to ridiculous degrees. Tell them if they do this, or that, that they'll be saved for all eternity, and they're on board. Tell someone you're asking to martyr himself for a cause (that -- as any sensible person can see -- is more political and spiritual) that he'll be greeted by seven virgins in paradise, and if that's their ONLY formal education, they may buy into it.

I don't think the people who lead these terrorist cells are as devoutly religious as they are devoutly political. They use religion to twist people into doing their bidding for them the exact same way David Korech and Jim Jones did.

This is no big secret ... at least not to me. So when these hysterical people want to frame this debate as some monolithic religious struggle, I want to scream.

But there's been a curious backlash ... I think, anyway. And it's being borne out by reports, that just came out this week, that people are changing their religions more now than at any other time in U.S. history.

Why is this?

I think it's because for the first time in American history, we see the damaged, up close and personal, that radical religion can cause. There haven't been many times, in the history of this country, where religion has caused serious, historic tragedies. There have been the Jonestowns, and Wacos, and all of that, but these people have always been dismissed as the lunatic fringe. And while it's true ... they ARE the lunatic fringe ... we've always been able to smugly disassociate ourselves from the worst of it. That's not US. No WAY the local Episcopalian church at the corner would ever be on board for THAT. We need not worry. That'll never happen in Smalltown America.

Even after 9/11, as horrible as that was, we could at least say "that's those crazy Moslems. We should just carpet bomb every country over there and exterminate them. Then everything would be OK."

But would it?

I remember a few years ago when a soldier from Marblehead, Massachusetts was killed in Afghanistan, and this small sect called the Westboro Baptist Church, from Kansas, picketed his funeral because, to them, his death was God's way of punishing America for being tolerant of homosexuality.

It didn't surprise me that they picketed. it's America, and Lord knows there are crazies all over the place -- even in America. What bothered me was the stunning silence of more mainstream Christian groups who DIDN'T consider it their duty to set the record straight and say "hey, whoa! They don't represent ME, my CHURCH, or ANYTHING that I think and believe."

As they say, the silence was deafening.

Now, I thought it was every Christian's duty to set the record straight. And that really, really opened my eyes. There are times in this life when you have to set yourself apart from the thundering herd of Rhinoseri careening down the street (a tip of the cap to Eugene Ionnesco). And if there's that much hatred in this world, then if you consider yourself anywhere near a MORAL person, you have to stand up and be counted.

But fringe groups notwithstanding, there was the Roman Catholic pedophilia scandal in which the church was very slow to see what was happening, and even slower to respond. If one of the stated purposes of religion is to set the moral bar high, then how is that possible when your priests (or some of them, anyway) are molesting young boys and your organizational structure will not respond?

Finally, there's the 2004 election, in which the Republican party absolutely co-opted evangelicals all across America. It's one thing to be religious, and it's one thing to apply your religious beliefs to the way YOU live. But for a group of generally extremely right wing religious zealots is allowed to hold that much sway over a national election? That's downright scary.

So I think Americans now see religion with a much more cynical eye. I think people really, and finally, see why it's so important to keep religion out of government, and government out of religion.

Don't forget: the framers of the constitution were only a century and a half removed from persecuting "witches" in Salem, Massachusetts. They were only a century and a half of stockades, and other forms of public humiliation, for religious transgressions. They were only a century and a half of a puritan heritage that actually survives, in many quarters, TO THIS DAY.

There are all kinds of reasons to be concerned about the growing influence of the religious right in American politics, beginning with a general rush to judgment about how we live our lives up to, and including, hijacking Roe vs. Wade.

This examination is long overdue, as this is the single most unsettling development in this country's political history, probably, since the runup to the Civil War.

Make the break ... Bill Belichick must go

This is difficult. Bill Belichick is the author of perhaps the great run of success in Boston sports since Red Auerbach coached the Celtics to eight straight NBA championiships (and nine out of 10).

He's almost universally acknowledged, and rightfully so, as the National Football League's pre-eminent coach. The problem is, he's also almost universally acknowledged as the NFL's pre-eminent jerk.

Now, it's no big sin to be a jerk ... as long as you win. Red Auerbach wasn't exactly the most gracious winner in history either. Jeeezus, Red used to light up a cigar -- right there on the floor of the Boston Garden -- when he determined the game was over ... even if there was time left on the clock. Just that alone makes Belichick's one-second-early exit from the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., in Super Bowl XLII seem almost like a good will gesture by comparison.

Jerks abound in professional sports, and most of the time, the jerks coming out on the winning end of the final score. Just go through the list: Jimmy Johnson, Barry Switzer, Billy Martin, the aforementioned Auerbach, George Steinbrenner ... and that's just a small sampling. Until Herb Brooks coached the U.S. Olympic hockey team to a gold medal in 1980, he was a monumental jerk who, once, kept his team on the ice, skating up and down the ice, until everyone one of those kids was ready to vomit. And that was just after they'd played a game.

It's not such a good thing to be a jerk when you lose, however. Around here John McNamara springs to mind. Johnny Mac may have managed the Boston Red Sox to the 1986 pennant, but then Rich Gedman let the ball get past him, the next ball when through Bill Buckner's legs, and Sox suddenly became an international symbol for having a foreign object lodged in one's throat.

Johnny Mac never stopped being a jerk ... and he was fired a year and a half later. Good guy Joe Morgan took over and probably lasted a few seasons longer than he had a right to expect ... because he was the anti-jerk.

But name me a jerk ... from any era, any city, any sports, and I say Bill Belichick laps the field. Let's start with the obvious: Spygate. This is starting to sound like Roger Clemens (speaking of jerks) and steroids. Everything you hear is worse than the last thing you heard. I doubt Clemens has ever heard of Sir Walter Scott, but perhaps if he'd read a little bit by him he'd know the adage, "oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive."

Ditto Belichick. Way back in September, when this broke, Belichick -- if he had any sense of decency -- would have told NFL commissioner Roger Goodall "ok, you've got me," and taken his medicine. And that medicine should have been a suspension AND a fine.

If either Belichick or Goodall had acted with anything other sweeping this whole thing under the rug in their minds, we wouldn't be listening U.S. Senator Arlen Spector (what DO these people do all day long anyway??) treating this thing as if it's the Nuremberg Trials Redux.

(For that matter, had Clemens been equally forthcoming, he wouldn't have been dragged before Congress so that his stupidity could become an indelible entry into the Congressional record).

Now, if you believe the myriad of anonymous sources and apparent sleazeballs like Matt Walsh, there's so much illicit footage in the Patriots vaults they could make a miniseries out of it. By the time all this "spygate" drama truly unfolds, it's possible that all three Super Bowl victories could be irreparably tainted.

And while I couldn't care less about Belichick's reputation, I do care about Tom Brady's ... and Tedy Bruschi's ... and Adam Vinatieri's ... and Richard Seymour's ... and Mike Vrabel's ... and Rodney Harrison's (even if he DID use HGH ... at least he admitted it). They stand to get swept up in all of this too ... just by association.

"Spygate" is not my only grievance with Belichick (though it's certainly enough of one). He's also, quite simply, an embarrassment ... to himself and the organization he represents. The real tragedy here is that, apparently, he's a very intelligent, and very engaging person when he's among friends, and among people he trusts.

And that just makes his conduct in competitive moments even more puzzling.

I think we can all understand competition. I think we all understand that competitive people get into this "zone," where they're so totally focused that they allow nothing, or no one, to stand in their way.

And I admire that. I think it's great, for example, that David Ortiz can zone out 35,000 people screaming for him to get a hit and concentrate on his battle with the pitcher enough to be one of the best clutch hitters I've ever seen. I love the fact that Larry Bird could go into a hostile arena, with upwards to 18,000 people screaming at him, and sink the two game-winning free throws. And how can you not tip your hat to Brady et al. when they can go into a place like Pittsburgh, or Indianapolis, with all those crazy fans, and win.

But do you know what's greater about David Ortiz? When the Red Sox lose, and the game's over, he acts like a gentlemen. Larry Bird may not have enjoyed dissecting a game after the Celtics lost, but he did it ... and intelligently, too (this business about him being the hick from French Lick was so phony). Win or lose, Brady, Bruschi, and Harrison stand up and answer questionsn intelligently and civilly.

Even when the Patriots win, Belichick acts like you're trying to extract valuable information out of him. When they lose, he acts like Captain Queeg. You can almost see the ball bearings.

Well, you say, who cares about how he treats the news media? They're all out to rip him anyway, so why should he be civil to them? It's a point well taken. The media are frustrated when it comes to dealing with Belichick. It's not a very pleasant task. The media's job is to relay information to the fans who pay for tickets, buy merchandise, and whose interest in the team makes it worth what it is today.

There's no other way to get information. And while it's understandable that the Belichick doesn't want to give away the store, with regards to injuries, some of the questions he dodges, and the lengths to which he goes to dodge them, is absurd. And this was never more evident than it was last September when he flat-out refused to discuss the developing Spygate story.

Excuse me, Coach, but you don't get to make that decision. If you don't want to discuss the severity of Brady's ankle sprain (which was probably way worse than anyone let on, judging by the way he played in the Super Bowl), that's fine. But when you violate the rules and get caught -- especially by the guy who used to work for you (and, for all any of us know, did the dirty work himself back in the day) -- then you don't get to decide when the story's run its course. That's just arrogant.

But arrogant, thy name is Belichick. Let's talk about Eric Mangini. Apparently, Belichick didn't think Mangini was ready to coach in the NFL when the Jets approached him about taking the job. Well, isn't this just every office conflict that's ever come down the pipe? Isn't there always a boss, somewhere, who stands between you and advancement ... and for some ridiculous reason (such as "you're too valuable and I can't afford to lose you").

Right.

The difference between you and Mangini, though, is that Mangini got an offer he couldn't refuse. And he took it. The problem is that while all this was going on, the Patriots were getting ready for the 2005 playoffs -- where they lost in the second round to the Denver Broncos. Mangini, or so the rumors say, tried to talk to potential Patriots free agents on his way out the door ... another thing that chapped Bill's buttocks.

So now it's 2006, and you have to drag Mangini's name out of Belichick as if saying it will mean instant death. He refers to Mangini as "the Jets' coach." THEN, the Jets beat the Patriots in Foxborough and Belichick doesn't even shake Mangini's hand.

Now Lord knows, this is not a requirement. It's not in the list of "thou shalts and thou shalt nots" governing the conduct of NFL coaches (the way filming defensive signals from the sidelines is). But it is accepted protocol, and it's widely practiced. Allowing yourself to be seen as a churl, on national TV, indicates a remarkable lack of respect for your owner ... the guy who's paying you all this money (we'll get to Bob Kraft in a minute).

The coda to this story, of course, is that the Patriots beat the Jets in the playoffs, and Belichick, so anxious was he to be seen as the ultimate gracious winner, bowled over a photographer (shoved him out of the way, actually) so he could offer Mangini a hearty handshake.

If that's not irony, I don't know what is!

Let's cut to San Diego, where some of the Patriots players displayed an uncharacteristic lack of class and stomped on the Chargers' logo after upsetting them in the divisional round of the playoffs.

Afterward, LaDanian Tomlinson -- clearly upset and stunned by the loss -- said that the Patriots players probably got their lack of class from their coach. I can't see how he could have POSSIBLY made that connection, can you?

Let's talk about this season.

After Spygate broke, Belichick apparently saw as his mission to humiliate the entire NFL as a means of payback. Week after week, the team went out and bludgeoned a series of hapless opponents (well not all of them were hapless; the Redskins, 52-7 losers, actually made the playoffs; and the Browns came close). The only close game was the 24-20 come-from-behind win over the Colts.

And you have to ask: Was all that bludgeoning really necessary? Did it serve any useful purposes, other than to make the Patriots the most hated franchise in the NFL? Did it help establish them as a superior team? Or did it result in having a bull's eye painted on their backs?

Whatever the psychological ramifications of those bludgeonings were, the PR effect was disastrous. The Patriots were seen as bullies, and Belichick came across as Dr. Evil with a hoodie. Except that Dr. Evil was funny, and Belichick isn't.

By the time the season ended, and the Patriots finally got roughed up a little, there was an air of vulnerability to them. They absolutely limped to their 16-0 regular season record, seemingly getting worse instead of better ... as is the usual formula for success in the NFL. If there was ever a team ripe to being upset by a hungry, nasty and motivated team like the Giants, it was the Patriots.

This of course brings up another absolutely unlikeable Bill Belichick trait: Hubris. This man wrote the book (or, at least, he co-authored it with George W. Bush, who seems to have an overabundance of it himself).

Hubris is basically an unjustified belief in yourself. It is not hubris, for example, to say "I'm a good enough coach, or a good enough player, that I'm capable of going out there on any given Sunday and winning the game." Why play at all if you think you're going to lose?

It is hubris, on the other hand, to say "I can strip mine my team yearly, let go of valuable free agents, bring in lesser players and teach them MY system ... but it's MY system, and not the athletes, who have won these three Super Bowls."

After all Adam Vinatieri did for the franchise, why is he playing for the Indianapolis Colts? After all Deion Branch did for this franchise, why is he with the Seattle Seahawks?

If Adam Vinatieri was so expendable, why is that Belichick was afraid to have Stephen Gostkowski kick a field goal on a fourth-and-13, from the 31-yard line -- IN A DOMED STADIUM, no less -- that would have given the Patriots a 10-3 lead in a game where points had been non-existant since the first quarter? Do you think he'd have snubbed Vinatieri in that situation?

When Belichick allowed BOTH starting receivers to walk after the 2005 season, that spoke volumes about how he treats loyal players. I'm not talking about either Branch or Givens. I'm talking about Tom Brady, who gave money BACK to the team when he signed his last contract so it could sign talented players and stay within the salary cap.

Belichick rewarded him by taking away his two best receivers and then replacing them with the likes of Reche Caldwell. I can still see Caldwell dropping a pass that would have been a sure touchdown in the AFC championship game in Indianapolis. Just about everyone else on the field was in Ohio. That's how wide-open Caldwell was.

These are small transgressions, and, taken separately, they're certainly not grounds for dismissal. Coaches have to make personnel decisions every day, and they're not all going to be strokes of genius.

And there probably isn't a coach out there who hasn't acted like an ass at least once ... unless it's St. Tony Dungy (let's everyone pause for a minute and genuflect).

But Belichick's hubris, arrogance, blatant disregard for even common civility, and -- of course -- his spectacular disregard for the rules of the NFL -- add up to a man who has overstayed his welcome here. If I were Bob Kraft, I'd be embarrassed beyond words by this guy. Sure, he's won Kraft three Super Bowls, but he's also left a ton of wreckage in his wake. If we were talking economics here, he's reached the point of diminishing returns.

Because Belichick was much more interested in stonewalling, and since Goodall was equally interested in doing the same thing, this Spygate issue is not going to go away. It'll be like the drip, drip, drip of some bizarre water tortue drill (waterboarding in super-slow motion?).

And by the time it really explodes, Kraft may have no choice but to rid himself of the problem's head: Bill Belichick.

They all said Bobby Knight would ever get fired ... he did. The New York Yankees fired Billy Martin after he won a World Series. Woody Hayes was enabled by Ohio State so much that he apparently thought it was OK to punch an opposing player out after he'd intercepted a pass. That one got him canned.

Jerks whose surly behavior ultimately haunt their teams like a hulking ghost DO get shown the door. And perhaps it's time to point Bill Belichick in that general direction.

Let's hear it for February!

The conventional wisdom in New England is that February is the worst month of the year. It's cold, stormy, and even though it's the shortest month of the year, it seems to take the longest to complete.

I would disagree with that. For whatever reason, March seems longer; and January is much colder, and much darker. Actually, as months go, December is probably the toughest one on me emotionally because the days get inexorably darker, whereas once you hit January, and especially February, things lighten up.

But this essay is on February. And while everything everybody says is true ... it's cold, it's stormy, and all that ... there are also aspects about it that -- to me -- make it go by faster.

Some of these things are local; some are national, and some, believe it or not, are meteorological. But put them together, and you have a month with plenty to look forward to.

First, the local. The first two Mondays of February feature the Beanpot Hockey Tournament. This is one of those parochial, local events that pits Boston's four Division 1 colleges -- Boston College, Boston University, Harvard and Northeastern -- against each other for the city championiship.

On one hand, the Beanpot has been a constant bane of my existance. I went to Northeastern (graduated in 1976) and while I was there, we never won it. In fact, we didn't win it for the first time since 1980 when Wayne Turner scored an overtime goal to beat BC. We won it three more times in the 80s (the last championship being in 1988) and haven't won it since.

Usually, Boston College or Boston University (mostly BU) win it. Now, before I go one, what -- you may ask -- is the difference between BC and BU? One's Catholic and one's not. That would appear to be it. They're both private institutions, both cost a fortune, and both award doctorates.

BC is, at the moment, the largest Catholic institution of higher learning in the United States. That is correct. It even has Notre Dame beat. There are two very large, and very prestigious, Catholic colleges in Massachusetts: BC and Holy Cross, which is in Worcester. Holy Cross is older, and at the time BC was established, Holy Cross was considered a school for elites while BC catered to the sons and daughters of Irish immigrants.

That's certainly not the case today. BC is every bit as elitist as Holy Cross. They're both extremely difficult to get into, and if you graduate from either institute, you're set for life unless you're the world's biggest moron. As with Harvard, you reap the benefits of at BC or Holy Cross education for the networking that results from it, if not the actual LEARNING.

Boston College is also an athletic factory -- at least in comparison to the other three. Actually, in comparison to other, REAL athletic factories in the United States, BC is probably a lot more responsible about its connection between athletics and academics. It has rigid standards for acceptance, and that includes athletes. Naturally, coaches complain about that, but I'm on the side of the school. If you've paid close to $200,000 -- by the time it's all said and done -- for a BC degree, you certainly don't want it cheapened by some idiot who can't spell Boston getting a scholarship.

BC borders Boston's suburbs of Brookline and Newton. It's on a nice piece of land, with a beautiful campus. On a picturesque autumn day, it's postcard perfect.

Boston University is a city school, as is Northeastern. Acutally, they're not that far apart, nestled in the bowels of Boston's Back Bay (on either side of Fenway Park). BU, in its own right, is a very prestigious university -- every bit as academically challenging as BC. Tuition at the two schools is comparitively similar. The only thing it really lacks is the sports pedigree BC has. The two schools are rivals only in hockey, where BU has poured virtually ALL of its athletic money. When the U.S. Olympic hockey team won the Gold Medal in 1980, four of its players -- including captain Mike Eruzione -- were BU graduates (so was goalie Jim Craig, as well as Dave Silk and Jack O'Callaghan).

BU and BC are the only schools that, year in and year out, can compete with the Minnesotas, Wisconsins and North Dakota States of the country.

Northeastern has worked awfully hard to re-establish itself as an institute of serious learning, and seems to be getting there. For a while, it was definitely No. 4 out of 4, with a huge gap between itself and No. 3. When I went there, it as old, bloated, and -- I think -- out of touch with the city and academia in general. To give you an example, three of these four schools had extensive plans on how to celebrate the country's bicentennial in 1976. Northeastern had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing something.

Now, there's less of a gap academically. NU and BU contain two of the best journalism schools in the Northeast (right up there with Syracuse and Columbia Universities). BC and Harvard are more business and law oriented.

Of course, there's Harvard. It's not REALLY a Boston school, per se, as most of it is in Cambridge (with parts of it that spill over). Like BC and Holy Cross, the biggest advantage in going to Harvard is the opportunity to network. Graduate from Harvard and you've got it made. It is also one of the better schools athletically ... not so much for the power rankings of its teams, but for the fact that Harvard treats athletics as something to do to round out your education. The school does not award scholarships based solely on athletic ability (though if it finds a kid who can play quarterback, it'll certainly HELP him). All of its teams compete in the Ivy League, which will never be compared favorably to the Big Ten.

As it so happens, there is only one sport in which these four schools are equally competitive, and that's hockey. BC surpassed the rest in football and basketball years ago, and BU doesn't have football or baseball programs. Hockey is the only sport that unites these four schools.

So each year, on the first two Mondays of February, we have the Beanpot Hockey Tournament ... and every year, Northeastern loses (which it did this past Monday -- one day after the Big Super Bowl El Foldo by the You-Know-Whos).

February is especially interesting this year because it's a presidential election season. Ordinarily that means nothing in Massachusetts, but this year it actually did. First, Mitt Romney is not wildly popular in Massachusetts, even if he was our governor for about a minute and a half. A lot of Massholes (like me) took out Republican ballots at last Tuesday's primary and voted for McCain just so we could case one FINAL vote against Mitt).

That's the Republicans. As for the Democrats, Hillary Clinton won our state and it's significant because both she and Obama need every vote they can get to stay afloat. Rarely in this political culture is Massachusetts ever a player in the elections because a) it almost always goes Democrat (remember "Don't Blame Me, I'm From Massachusetts?); and b) by the time our primary takes place, there's usually a clearly-established front-runner and we just hop on board.

That wasn't the case this time. There is no Democratic front runner, and perhaps there will not be one until the summer. All of which makes every primary from hereon out crucial to both Clinton and Obama. So it was refreshing, for a change, to be in a political atmosphere that radiated excitement instead of resignation.

Valentine's Day falls right in the middle of February. Now don't look at ME if you're trying to find some hopeless and helpless romantic who sees Valentine's Day and gets all kinds of lumps in his throat. It's definitely a Hallmark Holiday.

But it falls RIGHT SMACK in the middle of the month, and in my mind, anyway, once Valentine's Day passes, I consider it the turning point of winter. It's all downhill from here, baby.

This doesn't necessarily mean winter's over. But in most years, the worst of it is over. Not always. But usually. Besides, by February 14, the sun's higher in the sky, the days are longer, and whatever snow you DO get melts faster.

Which brings me to another thing about February that people tend to forget. Unless it's snowing, or unusually cold, you get spectacular weather in February. It's great month of you're an outdoors person of any kind. You get crisp, clear days, all the fresh air you could ever want, and they last right on through the work day (as opposed to December and January, where it's dark by 4 p.m.). And this is going to sound absolutely perverse, but there are years (and many of them, too) where the weather's better in February than it is in April.

Finally, and this is strictly local, the high school winter sports tournaments begin in February. If you do what I do, this is the most fun you have all year. Throw a pro sports event at me, and the tournament has it beat. It's three weeks of absolute madness, and by the time it's over, we're on the threshold of spring.

I don't know whether it's because these games are indoors, which rachets up the intensity, or what it is. But all I know is that there's nothing quite as exciting as seeing a bunch of boys and girls playing for the honor of their school. In many ways it's a throwback to a (perhaps) more innocent time in this country. It certainly has a small-town America feel to it. And you know? Sometimes, especially in this day and age, that's pretty cool.

And, on top of everything else ... the truck left Fenway Park today for Ft. Myers, Florida. It's time for baseball!!

So that's my hymn to February.