Here are four blogs I read – well, religiously! Two for pro football, and two for more honest political discourse.
Peter King is a Sports Illustrated senior writer, and one of the best in the business at going deeper into the world of pro football. He usually has five or six pages on more than you wanted to know about the NFL on the Monday after every Sunday during the NFL season and post-season, and another few pages during the week. Somehow he manages to write entertaining and enlightening “thumb-suckers” for SI print as well. If you like beer and the search for a good cup of coffee, you will love Peter King. Type www.si.com, go to “NFL” and find him on the cover.
I first read Gregg Easterbrook’s quirky political pieces back in the 1980s in the Washington Monthly, a small-circulation magazine founded by curmudgeon Charlie Peters as a “neo-liberal” alternative to the far right and far left (to which I still subscribe). Author of six books (none of which I have read), he somehow manages to turn out a great blog on pro football called “Tuesday Morning Quarterback.” For years he blogged on his own. Two years ago he was swallowed up in the ESPN embrace. But the buttoned up corporate style of the Sports Empire of Bristol, Connecticut, hasn’t curbed Easterbrook one bit.
You have to learn the TMQ lingo, however. He’s renamed most of the NFL teams: the Blue Man Group (Seattle Seahawks), Jersey/A (New York Giants), Jersey/B (New York Jets), the Cactus Wrens (Arizona Cardinals), the Flying Elvii (New England Patriots), the Potomac Drainage Basin Indigenous Persons (Washington Redskins), and our beloved Hypocycloids (yes, the Pittsburgh Steelers). You never know what will come up in his weekly column, whether it be the Sweet Play of the Week or Sour Play of the Week, Cheerleader of the Week (cheesy, I know), the Unified Field Theory of Creep, or The Football Gods Chortled. And in the midst of very insightful, and cutting, football insight, you’ll also find stories on high-energy particle accelerators, why Fox sci-fi TV show “Terra Nova” is stupid (and it’s not the dumb acting), and exploring if there is a connection between the 20% increase in boys playing high school football, concussions, and the increase of women in colleges. Find him at www.search.espn.go.com.gregg-easerbrook , or type “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” into your friendly search engine.
When I was a failure as a baseball player in Little League, I wondered if I could become an umpire. I felt I could be fair and impartial in the face of conflicting opinions (like my Dad, manager of the Tigers, screaming at the ump for his wrong call). I still wonder if anyone out there ever tries to “play fair” and “call ‘em as he sees ‘em.”
Two recent blog/columns do just that on our friends in the political world. The older of the two is PolitiFact, a creation of the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times. Several writers take yesterday’s statements by current office holders, or those running for high office, grind them through their own fair thought process, and end up judging them on their Truth-O-Meter , whether the statements are True, Mostly True, False, or Pants On Fire. This original contribution to honest political discourse hasn’t stopped brain-addled candidates and politicians from making some real laughers, but it did win the newspaper a 2009 Pulitzer Prize. Easy to find and bookmark at www.politifact.com .
The Washington Post must have noticed the success of Politifact, and created The Fact Checker. Veteran political writer Glenn Kessler does the same thing with current statements in the media, and makes his judgment by awarding zero to four Pinocchios. He can be found at www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker . If you do nothing else, read his reasoned and sensible explanation of what Social Security is and is not, and why it is definitely not a Ponzi scheme.
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