How Sweet It Is
You can’t go home again, wrote Thomas Wolfe.  Let’s hope that when it refers to television, you can.  Today most of TV ties obscenity, pornography, an elbow in the rib, and lest we forget, attitude.  To be hip is king.  The media reeks of a tongue-in-cheek aesthetic.  Is there room for silly, even sweet, programming? At least in one case, yes.
If you have children, say, age 2 to 11, you know about the show SpongeBobSquarePants, seen nightly on Nickelodeon.  Even without kids, I invite you to tune in -- joining the nearly 5 million adults-turned-fanatics each week.
Talk about throwback.  No acerbity.  No reality-based V.  You won’t see Nasty are Us programming like “The Simpsons and “South Park.” This show flaunts a restaurant, SpongeBob, his boss, Mr.  Krabs, and an undersea universe of a yellow sponge.  For more, you’ll have to watch.
Dorian Gray was a literary character who negated time -- making children of us all.  SpongeBobSquarePants does the same.
How sweet home is sweet indeed. 

Baghdad or Bust
Horace Greeley said, “Go West Young Man, Go West.” The question: Do we now go east -- toward Iraq.  Eleven years ago U.N.  troops ousted Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.  President Bush won a smashing victory.  Many, though, urged him on to Baghdad.  Remove him, they said.  Kill the snake at its head.
Bush refused.  Like Wellington said of Waterloo, “[The decision] was a close run-thing.” Should George W.  Bush now finish the job? We know that Hussein has pursued arms of mass destruction -- not unique.  Other U.S.  enemies have chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons.  What makes Hussein different is that he’s already used them -- against his own people, and Iran.
For four years Hussein has banned U.N.  weapons inspectors.  What are his aims, and capabilities? How would he respond if we attack? Might it not lead to a broader war -- compromising our war on terrorism.  The truth: We don’t know.
In time, George W.  Bush will have to justify any military venture.  The time for questioning -- by us, and Congress -- is before he does.

For the Birds
Since 1928, Rochester baseball has been for the birds.  Our team is the Red Wings.  For 33 years, their parent club was the St.  Louis Cardinals.  In 1960, the Cards flew the coup.  Enter the Baltimore Orioles -- since then, forging the longest marriage in Triple-A ball.
For a long while wedsville worked.  The Orioles were a model bigs franchise.  The Wings benefited, on and off the field.  As recently as 1997, their first year at Frontier Field, they won a record 10th International League Governors Cup.  How quickly time flies when you’re not having fun.
This will mark the Wings’ fifth straight losing season.  The Orioles’ farm system is barren.  Free agents come to Rochester, then plucked by Daddy O.  Baltimore’s owner, Peter Angelos, is a man not even Dale Carnegie could like.  As bad as he is, his sons are worse.  When will the O’s go back to the future of Brooks and Bob and Frank Robinson and Earl Weaver? Who says they will?
This year the Wings’ contract with the Orioles expires.  Should they ditch that affiliation for another parent? Tomorrow we’ll talk about split, or stay.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Yesterday we discussed the baseball Red Wings’ working agreement with Baltimore, their parent club since 1961.  Last week COO Naomi Silver disclosed the Wings will file for free agency and begin talks with other clubs.  “If we don’t,” she said, “we’re basically just re-upping with the Orioles.”
The Wings will soon meet suitors -- among them Minnesota, Florida, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore.  Who should they choose? Forget Florida.  Their future rests on an unlikely-to-be built new park.  Add Baltimore.  It’s time to kiss them a long, sad, but long overdue good-bye.
That leaves the Twins and Pirates.  A year ago Commissioner Bud Selig wanted to kill Minnesota.  It’s dodged the bullet, but may still meet the hangman.  Pittsburgh is five hours away, with a young owner and a wondrous new park, PNC, flanking downtown’s Roberto Clemente Bridge and a dazzling skyline.  If you haven’t gone, you should.
So should Rochester Community Baseball.  The Pirates are easily the attractive of potential teams.  The Red Wings must decide by September 25.  With luck, by then wedding bells should chime.

How Hot Is It?
You gotta’ hand it to him.  Maybe Al Gore was right.  Perhaps global warming is here.  This July proved to the Rochester area’s second-hottest in 47 years.  The all-time high for average temperate was July 1955 -- 76 degrees -- when air conditioning meant a wet cloth and fan.  July 1999 came close with an average 74.3.  We’ve just endured, or enjoyed, depending on your view, a month whose average temperature was 74.  Normal is 70.7.
Usually July about four days hit 90.  This year, 8 did.  Last year eight days in August reached that level.  We’ll see ‘bout the next few weeks.  Global warming? For 43 years after 1955, no July hit 74.  Two of the last four have.  That Al -- just call him Nostradamus.
How you view this depends on your body.  If you have asthma, allergy, hate humidity, or have a respiratory condition, you’re already bolting toward Alaska.  If you can’t wait to beat a winter path out of town, you say of heat, “Here I am.  Bring it on.” For now, stay inside, grab a cool one, and do some reading.  Then drink a toast to the people who built this region before real air conditioning.
How, pray tell, did they survive?

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