one of the oddest - and most depressing - things about my job is the fact that i am utterly and completely out of the loop on 'world' issues - world issues outside of baseball, anyway.

when at home, as we are this week, i'm generally at the ballpark from the time i wake up until about 10:30 p.m. this usually means a 12-hour day. i return home, read some blogs, watch some letterman, do some reading, and go to sleep. or perhaps i go get a beer or two. or perhaps i go play video games. i'm a pretty good employee, which is to say that i devote my time at work to my work, and not to issues of the world. i'll sometimes check email accounts or the flax greatest-song-ever pool or the front page of espn.com, but generally i'm devoted to work issues. [looking at baseball america's website counts as work, you know...]

that is why it's fringe-depressing that i know nothing about what happened this morning in london, save for the thoughtful comments from nemo and treem, and for the brief - and highly rewarding - "i'm cool" email from sumo.

that's all i've got on that issue.

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i hate the sentence "the war on terror escalates as the quad cities sends more soldiers to iraq." i just saw that sentence spoken on the local news rerun. of course, iraq and war on terror were at least, initially, unrelated.

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remember that toby keith song? "uncle sam put your name at the top of his list. and the statue of liberty started shaking her fist. ... boot in your ass - that's the american way." it doesn't strike me as an uplifting or happy or sappy or family-oriented song. that's why it was particularly surprising to me when, this past weekend, our opponents started their fourth of july fireworks show with that song every night... it's not really a song that makes you 'proud to be an american,' is it?

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benches cleared three times in our game on friday night. it was absolutely pathetic. it left me numb and upset at both teams. and the umps sucked.

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corey patterson has been sent down to triple-a. corey patterson has been sent down to triple-a. it's a pretty drastic move, and i hope he's back - and not sucking - soon.