Bumpy roads ahead in Auburn Hills

"Just when I thought I was out...they pull me back in.."  -Al Pacino, "The Godfather: Part III."

There was a time in the past few years where I had just fell out of sync with the NBA.  Moving to Mount Pleasant, less free time, a full-time relationship (now engagement), boring and uninspired regular season basketball by players who mostly didn't care; I was just about out.

Not to mention the complete decimation of the core of 2004 Championship Piston teams (starting with Ben Wallace leaving for Chicago in 2006) and Joe Dumars' inability to flip any of those starting five for anything of value.

Now, I would still watch in the playoffs and would catch "Inside the NBA" on TNT whenever I could, but the days of me being devoted to the Pistons, were mostly gone.  Maybe it just happens to most of us when we get older, maybe Ben Wallace leaving took some of love for the game as Grant Hill leaving did, whatever it was, the passion just wasn't there.

A Few Thoughts on Virginia Tech...

There just are not words to describe what's going on in Blacksburg, Va., right now.

It would be like a second Columbine or if there was a terrorist attack on the newly opened 9/11 World Trade Center memorial in New York City.  Your first thought is, "how did this happen again?"

From early reports, it seems that this tragedy today has little, if any similairities with the 2007 massacre, where 32 people were murdered by a crazed gunmam.  That was planned, strategic attack by a mentally ill person. 

A Va. Tech university official is quoted in the Washington Post says today's incident appears to be a traffic stop gone wrong.

I met some Virgina Tech students in April 2009 at my fraternity's formal event.  They had been in Michigan volunteering in Flint and I spoke to a few of them.

Even after a night of drinking, bonding and the lowered inhibitions caused by alcohol, none of them would even speak about the 2007 incident.  Its not as if it was some secret that they were keeping from us because we couldn't understand it, it wasthat they simply could not put that tragedy into words or want to re-visit it in their minds.

That makes sense, because from that point on, no longer will Virginia Tech only be associated with Michael Vick or Beamer Ball, but that tragedy.

Now, that community has to go through that again.  A college town is a community where a tragedy or major event affects everybody, whether you were indirectly involved or not.  Just ask the Penn State or Syracuse communities about that theory right now.  It just hangs a dark cloud over the town.

Now, the students who were freshmen and sophomores at the time have to relive that hell again and I feel for them.  There is nothing witty, clever or profound I can say to them or the police officer who gave his life performing a routine part of his job other than...I'm so sorry and may God comfort you.

Here's a little something for the Hokies and it will be an honor, as Michigan fan, to play your school in the Sugar Bowl.

Time for MIGOP to step up

The Michigan Republican Party is having a crisis of confidence and needs somebody to step up and take the reins.

To think that statement would be made just a little over seven months ago when the state GOP had a monumental election day last November, when it regained the governor’s mansion, the state House, state Supreme Court, a majority in the party’s congressional delegation and retained the state Senate and the secretary of state and attorney general offices would have been preposterous.

But here we are in June and as Yogi Berra once said, “It’s Déjà vu all over again.”

Sen. Stabenow, with a sign describing her tenure in the Senate

Michigan Republicans are faced with an all too familiar problem, they just cannot find a viable candidate for the United States Senate to run against two-term incumbent Sen. Debbie Stabenow.

If this were Sen. Carl Levin, I could understand. Levin has been elected six times to the Senate by the people of Michigan, is the current chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and is the longest serving Senator in Michigan history. The Levin family is an institution in Michigan politics.

But c’mon, we’re talking about Debbie Stabenow.

Grandma Debbie.

Stabenow, who upset former Sen. Spencer Abraham in 2000 is about to complete her second term in the Senate and has accomplished nothing of note, besides being appointed chairwoman of the Agriculture Committee.

No major legislation authored or co-sponsored.

No watershed moments.

The biggest news she’s made in her time in the Senate is when her then-husband was caught in a prostitution sting in 2008.

Yet when trying to defeat her, Grandma Debbie turns the Michigan GOP into RepubliCANTS.

One by one, top potential recruits have bowed out of a race that could easily be won and help propel that GOP back into the majority in the United States Senate.

First it was former Attorney General Mike Cox, then former Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land. Then, the real blue chip recruit, former Gov. John Engler decided this race wasn’t for him.  He was followed by the runner up in last year’s gubernatorial primary, former U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Holland in passing.

That’s coupled with U.S. Rep. Thad McCotter of Livonia, a relatively unknown on the national stage, pondering a possible presidential bid over an easily attainable Senate seat.

Looks an awful lot like Mr. Burns,
doesn't he?

Yup, President McCotter. That’ll be the day.

With all the top line candidates and now even the back benchers are passing, such as former Michigan GOP Chairman Saul Anuzis today’s news that radio personality Frank Beckmann has taken a pass.

Yeah, the voice of Michigan football, whose political expertise extends to hosting a call-in talk show on WJR was considered the best bet at this point for the party.

Is Big Al Muskavito not available? Alan Almond didn’t return any calls?

Somebody in this party needs to step up and take the bull by the horns so we don’t get another Jack Hoogendyk or Mike Bouchard as a Senatorial nominee.

Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, U.S. Reps. Candice Miller or Mike Rogers, former state Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, I’m talking to you. Heck, I’d even take Jim Leyland or Brandon Inge at this point.

I’d hope for Gov. Rick Snyder, but he seems to be the only politician who doesn’t care about his electoral future, which obviously makes him the perfect candidate.

It is time for somebody to step or face conceding this state to the President Obama in 2012 and ultimately cost the national party the Senate majority and the White House.

Grantland: Day One

Sports and pop culture.

If I had to make a rough estimate, I would say that about 98 percent of all aspiring writers consider themselves experts in those two subjects. Hell, both those topics are in the flag of this blog.

Every writer tries to blend both of them and Bill Simmons has been the best at that, being the biggest attraction at ESPN.com for the past decade.

Wednesday, Simmons began his quest for a utopian website blending sports and pop culture with Grantland.com.

Weiner must resign...

If Jim Tressell knew when to go, then so should Anthony Weiner.

After months and months of dealing with his lies, Ohio State finally got fed up when the news of an incredibly incriminating Sports Illustrated piece was about to be released and forced Tressell to resign last Monday.

Not only Tressell fell (or was forced) onto his sword, but news broke last night that starting QB Terrelle Pryor, one of five Ohio State starters facing a five-game suspension for the 2011 season for their role in the “Tat Five” scandal, announced he was leaving Ohio State immediately.

On the other hand, we have Congressman Anthony Weiner. The seven-term Democrat from New York has admitted that he has been engaging in various degrees of sexting and phone sex relationships with random women he met on the internet.