TigerHawk

I don't know whether to laugh hysterically or to run.

The Ryan Howard Garden Gnome, the R-Phils' featured giveaway Aug. 3, depicts our slugger in pinstripes, sporting a waist-length gray beard and a pointy little R-Phils elf cap.

Face all Vaselined up, grinning from ear to ear, kneeling on one knee, and, as he is prone to do, holding a bat like a billy club - all ready to beat back those menacing garden snails.

Say what?

"He's there to protect your garden," affirms Kevin Sklenarik, the team's director of operations. Fans are sure to "enjoy them and display them in their gardens."

Well, OK. I can laugh with the best of them.

But, hmm. This is all starting to veer dangerously close to lawn-ornament territory, and we all know that history.

The original jockey statue, standing proud and usually carrying a lantern, shepherded runaway slaves to safety during the days of the Underground Railroad, explained Charles Blockson, curator of the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection at Temple.

But as time went on, lawn jockeys were often caricatured as a stooped-over black man with dark skin and painted-in white eyes and big red lips. They were usually displayed on lawns of homes in the South and served no real purpose other than to diminish African Americans.

So you can understand why this Howard gnome thing creeps me out, even if the team's intentions were to tout its former star.

A concert by Elton John has tested the limits of Morocco's drive for modernity, probing this Muslim nation's complex and ambiguous attitudes toward homosexuality like rarely before.

Islamists in the North African kingdom were outraged by the gay pop star's visit, while the royal palace, government and his many fans backed his appearance Wednesday night.

• Earlier in the year, long before the allegations had been made public, Massa had called me with a potentially huge story: Four retired generals — three four-stars and one three-star — had informed him, he said, that General David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, had met twice in secret with former vice president Dick Cheney. In those meetings, the generals said, Cheney had attempted to recruit Petraeus to run for president as a Republican in 2012.

• The generals had told him, and Massa had agreed, that if someone didn't act immediately to reveal this plot, American constitutional democracy itself was at risk. Massa and I had had several conversation on the topic, each more urgent than the last. He had gone to the Pentagon, he told me, demanding answers. He knew the powerful forces that he was dealing with, he told me. They'd stop at nothing to prevent the truth from coming out, he said, including destroying him. "I told the official, 'If I have to get up at a committee hearing and go public with this, it will cause the mother of all shitstorms and your life will be hell. So I need a meeting. Now.'"

• Massa eventually came to the Esquire offices in New York to tell us the Petraeus story. He spoke with the bluster and hyperbole I had seen in him at stump speeches, but he had credibility on this matter — twenty-four years of active service in the Navy, a seat on the House Armed Services Committee, and an increasing voice in the media as a Democrat who would speak with authority about military issues. Still, when he called the possibility that Petraeus could beat Obama in an election a "coup" and "treason," the characterization seemed odd. "If what I've been told is true — and I believe it is," he told myself and two colleagues, "General David Petraeus, a commander with soldiers deployed in two theaters of war, has had multiple meetings with Dick Cheney, the former vice-president of the United States, to discuss Petraeus's candidacy for the Republican nomination for the presidency. And in fact, that's more than a constitutional crisis. That's treason."

If unions are the Democratic Party’s base, then teachers’ unions are the base of the base. The two national teachers’ unions — the American Federation of Teachers and the larger National Education Association — together have more than 4.6 million members. That is roughly a quarter of all the union members in the country. Teachers are the best field troops in local elections. Ten percent of the delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention were teachers’ union members. In the last 30 years, the teachers’ unions have contributed nearly $57.4 million to federal campaigns, an amount that is about 30 percent higher than any single corporation or other union. And they have typically contributed many times more to state and local candidates. About 95 percent of it has gone to Democrats.

If elected, Cuomo would almost certainly be viewed as a potential presidential contender in the future. Mario Cuomo also considered and ultimately rejected several entreaties to run during his years in office.

In his early days in the public eye, Andrew Cuomo was the ruthless 20-something "Prince of Darkness" campaign commando from his father's three runs for governor. He went on to run a nonprofit organization to combat homelessness, and his work won the notice of President Bill Clinton, who named him an assistant secretary and later secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In that role, critics have accused him of pushing questionable mortgages that some say contributed to the recent subprime mortgage crisis.

Andrew Cuomo, the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history, made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country's current crisis. He took actions that—in combination with many other factors—helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the subprime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments. He turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down, and he legalized what a federal judge has branded "kickbacks" to brokers that have fueled the sale of overpriced and unsupportable loans. Three to four million families are now facing foreclosure, and Cuomo is one of the reasons why.

Republicans believe they are on the cusp of taking control of a congressional seat in President Barack Obama's hometown in a special election Saturday that represents the latest battleground in the fight for control of Congress in the midterm races.

Republican Charles Djou is favored to win the seat, and a victory would be an embarrassment to Democrats locally and nationally given that Obama was born in the district and spent most of his childhood here. It also is in a state that gave Obama 72 percent of the vote two years ago and where he remains quite popular.

As a historian who has read widely in socialist and communist history, and written about the topic, I found her thesis to be academically first rate, based on a wide-ranging use of primary and secondary source material, with a thoughtful analysis and sound conclusions that derive from the evidence.

Her thesis — written from the perspective of an anti-communist scholar who was not in sync with the pro-communist leftism of what by then was a declining New Left — does not reveal that she was an advocate of radical social change. It does reveal an individual who, like the socialists and unionists she was writing about, also wanted to “change America.” It is clear that she found their struggles inspirational and that she empathized with their fight. If she has not changed her views on these issues, it puts her right in the mainstream of what is today’s left-of -center Democratic Party. Her views, however, were far removed from those Obama appointments like the short-lived one of Van Jones, who openly espoused communist and revolutionary ideas, which once exposed, forced him to offer his resignation.

Some may disagree with the political sympathies that led her to write on this topic, but I believe the thesis itself should serve as no grounds to deny her appointment to the Supreme Court.

Last Sunday, on a peaceful, sun-crisp afternoon, our toddler finally napping upstairs, my front yard exploded with 500 screaming, placard-waving strangers on a mission to intimidate my neighbor, Greg Baer. Baer is deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), a senior executive based in Washington, D.C. And that -- in the minds of the organizers at the politically influential Service Employees International Union and a Chicago outfit called National Political Action -- makes his family fair game.

GEORGE: You know what you oughta do. You should go to her office and heckle her.

JERRY: Yeah, right.

GEORGE: You know, like all the comedians always say, 'How would you like it if I came to where you work and heckled you?'

JERRY: Yeah, that'd be something.

GEORGE: I'm not kidding, you should do it.

JERRY: But wouldn't that be the ultimate comedian's revenge? I've always had a fantasy about doing that.

GEORGE: Well, go ahead! Do it!

JERRY: Why can't I?

GEORGE: No reason!

JERRY: You know what? I think I'm gonna do that! She came down to where I work, I'll go down to where she works!

GEORGE: This is unprecedented!

JERRY: There's no precedent, baby!

GEORGE: What...are you using my babies now?

New scene - Toby in her office at Pendant. Jerry pokes his head in the door.

JERRY: Hey, nice shoes. What, you wear sandals to work? It's always nice to walk into a room and get the aroma of feet. That's real conducive to the work atmosphere. I'm sure your co-workers really appreciate it. 'Hey, let's go eat in Toby's office. Great idea! We can check on her bunions!'

TOBY: You know, I have work to do here! I'm very busy!

JERRY: Oh, is this disruptive? You find it hard to work with someone...interrupting?

TOBY: Well, how would you like it if I called security?

JERRY: Security? Well, I don't know how you're gonna make it in this business if you can't take it! Ya gotta be tough! Booo! Boooo!

Kramer arrives just as Toby gets upset and storms out.

KRAMER: Wait a second, what's happenin' here? Toby! Toby!

Investigators from the five-nation team said detailed scientific analysis of the wreckage, as well as fragments recovered from the waters where the Cheonan went down, point to North Korean involvement.

Torpedo fragments found on the seabed "perfectly match" the schematics of a North Korean-made torpedo Pyongyang has tried to sell abroad, chief investigator Yoon Duk-yong said. A serial number on one piece is consistent with markings from a North Korean torpedo that Seoul obtained years earlier, he said.

"The evidence points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that the torpedo was fired by a North Korean submarine," he said. "There is no other plausible explanation."

Pak, the North Korean military official, dismissed it as faked evidence.

No magic bullet
Switching parties didn't help
Arlen lost his job

-In the past twenty years, Dick has attended literally hundreds of vets events, debates, news conferences where he was clear, honest, and proud about his service in the Marine Corps Reserve. In fact, as recently as the US Senate debate on March 1, 2010, Blumenthal clearly stated "serving in the United States military gave me a perspective as well, even in the reserves. Although I did not serve in Vietnam, I have seen first-hand the affects of military action, and no one wants it to be the first resort, nor do we want to mortgage the countries future...."

-Dick has been a constant champion of veterans and of the military. Today Connecticut veterans will come together to show they have his back, just like he has had theirs.

-On a few occasions out of hundreds, Dick misspoke and he'll be the first to admit that those were mistakes. That doesn't take anything away from Dick's service or his long record of standing up for veterans - he is known throughout the state as a strong advocate for vets services and benefits.

-His opponent's campaign admits they are the ones who cherry-picked the quotes and are behind the hit piece. It is no surprise Linda McMahon would want to smear the Attorney General, considering all of the debauchery at the WWF under her watch, including her attempt to interfere with an investigation into widespread drug abuse.

Among American Jews today, there are a great many Zionists, especially in the Orthodox world, people deeply devoted to the State of Israel. And there are a great many liberals, especially in the secular Jewish world, people deeply devoted to human rights for all people, Palestinians included. But the two groups are increasingly distinct. Particularly in the younger generations, fewer and fewer American Jewish liberals are Zionists; fewer and fewer American Jewish Zionists are liberal. One reason is that the leading institutions of American Jewry have refused to foster—indeed, have actively opposed—a Zionism that challenges Israel’s behavior in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and toward its own Arab citizens. For several decades, the Jewish establishment has asked American Jews to check their liberalism at Zionism’s door, and now, to their horror, they are finding that many young Jews have checked their Zionism instead.

Morally, American Zionism is in a downward spiral. If the leaders of groups like AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations do not change course, they will wake up one day to find a younger, Orthodox-dominated, Zionist leadership whose naked hostility to Arabs and Palestinians scares even them, and a mass of secular American Jews who range from apathetic to appalled. Saving liberal Zionism in the United States—so that American Jews can help save liberal Zionism in Israel—is the great American Jewish challenge of our age. And it starts where Luntz’s students wanted it to start: by talking frankly about Israel’s current government, by no longer averting our eyes.

In the past, I've remarked to friends that the difference between a Jewish liberal and a Jewish conservative is that when a Jewish liberal walks out of the Holocaust Museum, he feels, "This shows why we need to have more tolerance and multiculturalism." The Jewish conservative feels, "We should have killed a lot more Nazis, and sooner."

The problem, however, isn't with leading Jewish organizations that defend Israel, but with liberalism. As sickening as it sounds, Jewish liberals see their fellow Jews as noble when they are victims being led helplessly into the gas chambers, but recoil at the thought of Jews who refuse to be victims, and actually take actions to defend themselves. It isn't too different from American liberal attitudes toward criminal justice or terrorism, where morality is turned upside down and the lines between criminals and victims become blurred, and in certain cases, even reversed.

Iraqi security forces have detained an al-Qaida militant suspected of planning an attack targeting the World Cup in South Africa next month, an official said Monday.

Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, a spokesman for Baghdad security services, said Abdullah Azam Saleh al-Qahtani was an officer in the Saudi army. He is suspected of planning a "terrorist act" in South Africa during the World Cup beginning June 11, al-Moussawi told a news conference in Baghdad.

A 16-year-old Australian who braved boat knockdowns and seven months of solitude on a sail around the world set foot on dry land outside the Sydney Opera House on Saturday and quickly set an earthier goal - getting her driver's license.

Jessica Watson became the youngest person to sail around the globe solo, nonstop, and unassisted when she cruised into Sydney Harbour in her pink, 34-foot yacht to a rock-star welcome. She successfully maneuvered her boat through raging storms, 40-foot waves, and seven knockdowns during the 23,000-nautical-mile journey that critics thought she would not survive.

If you watched the candidates' sole debate May 1 - and most likely you didn't because it was a beautiful Saturday night and the Mets were in town and you surely had better things to do - let me tell you, this was a battle between ick and ugh.

Sestak was strident and tone deaf and kept on message instead of listening to Specter, who was strident and petulant and kept demanding an apology from Sestak for calling him a liar. Schoolyard garbage. It was the battle of the ego monsters, dinner with your least appealing relatives, and, if you were leaning toward one or the other, the exercise nulled any affection for either...

...We get it. They're both yucky. Almost a third of all Democratic voters remain undecided. It may come down to who bothers you less. Come Tuesday, go to the polls, hold your nose, and vote.

People want Democrats to control Congress after this fall's elections, a shift from April, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll released Saturday. But the margin is thin and there's a flashing yellow light for incumbents of both parties: Only about one-third want their own lawmakers re-elected.

The tenuous 45 percent to 40 percent preference for a Democratic Congress reverses the finding a month ago on the same question: 44 percent for Republicans and 41 percent for Democrats.

The taxman is about to lay a finger on your Butterfinger, but he’ll give you a break on that Kit Kat bar.

Candy, like other food, is exempt from sales tax. That changes June 1, when a tax on candy and gum approved this year by the Legislature takes effect.

But not all sweet treats are considered candy, in the eyes of the state Department of Revenue.

In a letter dated Tuesday and going out in the mail later this month, the department will tell retailers how to figure out which products are subject to Washington’s 6.5 percent sales tax and local add-ons. It’s a process many other states have gone through, but it has some sellers and shoppers here scratching their heads.

“If it’s got chocolate around it, it’s candy,” Ruth Ann Behunin of Lakewood protested as she bought gifts for family at Johnson Candy Co.

Not according to the new law.

Here’s a rule of thumb: If it contains flour or requires refrigeration, you probably won’t pay tax on it.

Snickers is candy, but a Snickers Cruncher is tax-free.

Shoppers may know candy when they see it, but defining it legally is harder. The definition used by Washington was crafted nearly a decade ago by the Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board, which is trying to make state tax codes more uniform.

Previously, each state had its own definition. “We had states that looked at Twix bars as a chocolate-covered cookie, and the state right next door … looked at that as a candy bar with a cookie center,” said Scott Peterson, executive director of the governing board.

Based on conversations with Republican sources in the Senate, there will be no filibuster, and such an effort would almost certainly fail if the GOP tried it. Based on my current count, at least three Republicans, and maybe one or two more, will end up voting for her, and likely all of the Democrats will.

But that doesn’t mean there won’t be a fight over her nomination.

In fact, there is going to be a nasty one; far nastier than the relatively polite treatment accorded Sonia Sotomayor last year. Here’s why:

The political situation in the country is far different — and far more likely to push Senate Republicans into confrontational mode — than it's been in recent history. President Barack Obama is much less popular than he was when Sotomayor was nominated.

In May 2009, his job-approval rating stood at 66 percent in the Gallup Poll. Now, it's barely cresting 50 percent. He never had much GOP support, and now he’s now lost most independent backing, which is one reason why Republicans are likely to make major gains in the midterms.

JOINT STATEMENT FROM MILITARY BLOGGERS 12 MAY 2010

We consider the US military the greatest institution for good that has ever existed. No other organization has freed more people from oppression, done more humanitarian work or rescued more from natural disasters. We want that to continue.

Today, it appears inevitable to us that the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy and law restricting those displaying open homosexual behavior from serving will be changed. And yet, very little will actually change. Homosexuals have always served in the US Military, and there have been no real problems caused by that.

The service chiefs are currently studying the impact and consequences of changing the DADT policy, and how to implement it without compromising the morale, order and discipline necessary for the military to function. The study is due to be completed on Dec. 1st. We ask Congress to withhold action until this is finished, but no longer. We urge Congress to listen to the service chiefs and act in accordance with the recommendations of that study.

The US Military is professional and ready to adapt to the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell without compromising its mission. Echoing Sec. Def. Gates and ADM Mullen, we welcome open and honorable service, regardless of sexual orientation.

"If I am lying by the road bleeding, I don't care if the medic coming to save me is gay. I just hope he is one of those buff gay guys who are always in the gym so he can throw me over his shoulder and get me out of there."