Baseball and cancer.

(Taxes are all but done, every deal I think I'm going to close ahead of the 15th is probably closed, shoulder's feeling better ... back to the blog. I never got around to writing anything about the NCAA tournament; my bracket had North Carolina over Texas anyway. I didn't think Kansas could beat Memphis either. So ... there's a new baseball season underway. Here's a great story about Doug Davis, the Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher currently undergoing treatment for thyroid cancer.)

Doug Davis arrived Tuesday afternoon with his cap on backward and sunglasses clamped to the back of his neck, saying a couple hellos to the boys in the lockers nearby, the usual routine.

Just before game time, he walked the length of the dugout, a white towel draped over his left shoulder, touching hands with every teammate, the usual routine.

He loped across the field – one long hop over the foul line – to the mound, the usual routine.

He looped a curveball for a strike to Rafael Furcal, the usual routine.

He struck out a couple in the first, got a bunt down in the second, drove in a run in the third, singled again in the fifth, and took a shutout into the sixth.

All routine (except for the hits). All, just baseball.

And now Doug Davis will go try to rid his body of the cancer.

Davis, who will undergo surgery to remove his cancerous thyroid Thursday, said good-bye for a month or more with six strong innings, a pump of his fist, a tight-lipped nod of his head and a wave of his cap.

The people here wished him luck with a standing ovation and a request for a curtain call, which Davis – appreciative of the gesture, regretting the circumstances – granted.

He is 32 years old. A family history of thyroid cancer found him a couple weeks ago. And in the seventh inning, his baseball done for a while and the rigors of surgery and extended treatment and some yet unanswered questions waiting, Davis sat on the bench and massaged his throat right about where they found the lump, and where the surgeon will cut.

More.

The Weekly Wrangle

Be sure and vote in tomorrow's run-off election (if you haven't voted early already).

Matt Glazer of Burnt Orange Report writes about how the TexBlog PAC shattered expectations to raise $3782.09 from 106 donors over the past week, putting the PAC in position to make a $5,000 donation to a Texas House candidate before the end of summer.

Refinish69 of Doing My Part For The Left gets election fever and decides to throw his hat in the ring in Elections 2008- Yet Another One.

Off the Kuff takes a look at where the early vote came from in the GOP runoff and hazarded a guess about what it might mean for the candidates.

The civil rights movement effected us all and continues to do so today. Over at Texas Kaos they're remembering the impact of Dr. Martin Luther King -- in ways both large and small.

Corn? Soy beans? Those are for eatin'! The Texas Cloverleaf looks at the next best Texas biodiesel crop-- algae!

XicanoPwr reports on Texas' Child Protective Services (CPS) removal of 183 young women, girls and boys, ages 6 months to 17 years, from the Fundamentalist LDS Church's compound near Eldorado.

Pete Olson, a Texas CD 22 candidate has elevated Hal's blog to that of a "prominent local Democrat blogger" In That's MISTER Half Empty, Bub, we get Hal's take on that.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson has the latest on a new GOP scheme to finance toll roads around the state in Sen. Ogden Wants To Gamble With Your Money.

John Coby of Bay Area Houston comments on the high cost of being a Republican.

McBlogger takes a look at a certain court case involving some SoftSoap and a naughty child.

Stace Medellin of DosCentavos writes about Harry Reid's statement on Cesar Chavez's birthday. Reid gave the strongest response among Democrats and pointed to GOP obstructionist tactics regarding various issues affecting Latino Americans.

The Seventh Congressional District of Texas draws national attention and PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has the linkage in Skelly Goes National.

Vince at Capitol Annex tells us that the recent uproar involving a criminal complaint filed over a blog is a wake-up call for bloggers' rights.

CouldBeTrue over at South Texas Chisme wants to be shocked that Michael Chertoff decided to bypass all laws to build that d*mn fence! Republican arrogance and incompetence knows no bounds!

Sunday Evening Funnies

Conservative presidential political developments

Bob Barr, Libertarian:

Former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr eased into presidential politics Saturday with an announcement that he has formed an exploratory committee to gauge voter interest in his candidacy as Libertarian.

If there are "sufficient numbers" of people behind a Bob Barr presidential race, he's running, the former Republican said.

His announcement brought whoops and applause from the audience of 130 Libertarians, mostly from Midwestern states.

"We are at a tipping point," Barr said, "in terms of the willingness of voters, in significant numbers, to consider alternatives to the major [political] parties."

Barr conceded it was unlikely he could win, but he said his potential candidacy would be an opportunity to preach the Libertarian philosophy.

"I don't think any past performance by a Libertarian candidate is any benchmark," he said. "Are my expectations that the Libertarian candidate will win [the White House]? No. But with a credible candidate, anything is possible."

Barr does McCain considerably more damage than Nader could possibly be to Obama. Word also today of KindaSleazy Rice's interest in "running" for vice-president:

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has exhibited interest in becoming John McCain's vice presidential running mate, a Republican strategist says.

Dan Senor revealed during Sunday's edition of ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" that Rice has been seeking support to be considered for the No. 2 spot on the Republican ticket this fall.

"Condi Rice has been actively, actually in recent weeks, campaigning for this," Senor said.

Absolutely fantastic news if he picks her. There would be no escaping the "four more years of Bush" label. And since McSame is so absurdly wrong on the three most important November issues -- Iraq, health care and the economy -- the Republicans' electoral disaster looms larger each passing day.

Now if we can just get Mrs. Clinton to hurry up and take a hint ...

Sunday Funnies (liar, liar, sniper fire)

Charlton Heston 1924 - 2008

Once a progressive:

Heston was always able to channel some energies into the public arena. He was an active supporter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., calling him "a 20th-century Moses for his people," and participated in the historic march on Washington in 1963. (Right), he joined civil rights protesters picketing a whites-only restaurant in Oklahoma City in 1961.

Ben-Hur was released fifty years ago and won eleven Oscars (a record, now tied by Titanic and and the third film in the LOTR trilogy, The Return of the King). Heston also won the heart of every woman of my mother's generation. My mother-in-law in particular occasionally mentioned his name in a tone approaching lust.

He had many script lines chiseled into popular culture but for my generation his signature will be "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape".

His evolution into a conservative nearly overshadowed his considerable body of cinematic work, and his virulent gun-rights activism toward the end of his life -- as well as his creeping Alzheimer's -- was laid bare by Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine.

Heston was a stellar actor and and an enthusiastic political activist on both sides of the political spectrum. He will always be a mythic figure, and to some a reverential one.

In the name of love

Early morning, April 4

Shot rings out in the Memphis sky

Free at last, they took your life

They could not take your pride

In the name of love

What more in the name of love



Forty years ago, Dr. King was assassinated by a sniper named James Earl Ray* while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was there to support a strike by the garbage workers in that city. You may hear that in the stories of remembrance told today in the media.

However you will probably not hear what started the strike. It was not started over wages, vacation pay, work hours, or anything resembling benefits. The strike resulted from the deaths of two sanitation workers.

In February of 1968 two men named Echol Cole and Robert Walker were crushed to death in the back of a garbage truck. They had taken refuge in the compactor section, the gaping mouth in the back that eats the garbage poured into it, and via a hydraulic ram compacts the trash into the truck. On that day, as they collected the refuse of Memphis, there came a heavy rain storm.

Which is why they crawled into the loader/compactor section. While they were there, the ram was activated by electronic malfunction and the two men were crushed to death. The city paid the families one month's pay plus $500. Not one official from the city attended either of the men's funerals.

Cole and Walker were black, like nearly everyone else working in sanitation -- except the white bosses. Memphis assigned garbage collection to blacks only and relied on cheap wages and the dictatorial rule of white supervisors to win its awards as one of the nation’s cleanest cities.

The strike among the black sanitation workers of Memphis arose out of their attempts to organize a labor union, which the mayor and the city council fiercely resisted. Unionization, they feared, would open up the floodgates of demands by African-Americans, who comprised nearly 40 percent of the local population of 500,000 in the mid-1960s.

In fact, no one needed unions more than black workers in Memphis. The constant threat of getting fired forced them to take what the white man dished out. Segregation denied them adequate education, training, and promotions. They routinely endured police brutality and unjust incarceration. The strike of black sanitation workers in 1968 thus embodied a larger struggle for the human rights of all black workers in their community.

That is why King was in Memphis. Yes there was a strike, but it was the result of the utter disregard for the dignity of human beings, either in life or in death.

That was segregation in this country. It was vicious, it was vile, and it was obscene. It cost many people their self-respect. And it cost some their lives.

Let's not whitewash that fact, today or any other.

In other news, 76% of Americans believe it is time for a black President. Personally, I think it's long overdue.

*Allegedly.