good program

Today I attended Mitzvah Day, as part of MenschWorks, a division of the Jewish Federation of Seattle's YLD (Young Leadership Division). We met at the JCC at 10:30 am, and at 11 am headed down to Camp Solomon Schechter. We spent a couple of hours cleaning up the camp, whether weeding the lawn or cleaning the boating/water equipment, as camp is scheduled to start this week. This is a good program and good organization and I was glad to be a part of it.

Shooting at Holocaust Museum

Obviously, I was horrified to hear about the shooting at the Holocaust Museum in DC. I hope that the gunman will be brought to justice. I hope that we as a people are on guard against terror and more specifically anti-Semitism.

A couple of months ago, the Department of Homeland Security put out a list of profiles of people who might be prone to terror attacks. Some conservatives were upset, because it slandered veterans. I don't think that all veterans would fall into this category. This guy had a history of anti-Semitism and racially bigoted behavior, if we are to believe reports.

Crime doesn't pay, at least for Baltimore

Yesterday, I came across an article that I saw on Rush Limbaugh's website, how a big East Coast city lost a Venture Capital firm to the suburbs. Here is the link.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.mountvernon06jun06,0,6437748.story

This story is very sad, but illustrative of what happens when a city is run by people who don't make law and order a priority. It drives away capital from the city and into the suburbs, where the investors feel safer and more secure, physically and emotionally. By the way, this can happen in other cities as well, so I am NOT picking on Baltimore. I like Baltimore, actually.

Let's start a discussion about quality of life and civil society with this article.

Interesting mentality

Well, I notice that a lot of the sports fans here are just thrilled to have a team in whatever league we're in. I don't think that winning a title is the primary motivation. It's almost like the league puts a team in Seattle for marketing purposes and to advertise its product to people in the Northwest and that's good enough for 85-90% of the fans here. In my former cities, that wouldn't be good enough.

Anyway, after seeing Game 2 of the NBA Finals, I came to the conclusion that while the Lakers will win, they won't sweep the Magic simply because they're not as dominant as they used to be. I fully expect Orlando to win tomorrow and even on Thursday. Expect to see a game 5 and probably game 6, but a Lakers win.

While I dislike Yuniesky and Adrian Beltre, I think that Cedeno isn't the answer. He's hitting about .150 and got caught stealing yesterday by Joe Mauer.

Tomorrow is the MLB Draft. The Mariners are supposed to take this kid from North Carolina who's a power-hitting first baseman. We need sticks, not pitchers, if we're to improve on our 29th rank in runs scored.

300 Wins

Well, a former Mariner reached 300 wins this afternoon in Washington, DC.
http://http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/04/SPQK181507.DTL&tsp=1

Better than hearing about the Yankees and Red Sox and Mets travails or Zambrano's latest temper tantrum.

Safeco and Softball

Last night, I had the good fortune of attending my first Mariner game of the 2009 season with my family. We had a good time and the Mariners won 8-2 over the Baltimore Orioles.

Some thoughts: Neither the Mariners nor the Orioles are going to be playing in October. Baltimore didn't look like a good offensive team. Adam Jones is having a nice year for them, Aubrey Huff and Nick Markakis can produce runs, maybe 20-80-25-100 (HR-RBI) but that's it.
Melvin Mora, their third baseman, needs to be freed from the captivity of playing for a perennial loser. I think he needs an ACLU Lawyer to make the case that playing for Peter Angelos and the Baltimore Orioles is cruel and unusual punishment. Maybe the Libs and civil rights advocates can take up his case after they're done with the Water boarding business.

Anyway, sorry for my political aside. Erik Bedard, who doesn't remind one of Jack Morris or Steve Carlton, pitched 6.1 quality innings. He struck out seven and walked three, two of which were in the seventh inning, when it was obvious to me, a non-baseball professional, that he was laboring and his time was up. Adrian Beltre got a couple of hits and Russell Branyan and Ken Griffey Jr. homered in the eighth inning off of Jamie Walker, who belongs in Norfolk, the Orioles AAA affiliate.

Some of the fans at the game were nice, but clearly Northwest natives. I feel funny saying this, but my approach to sports is more Northeastern, because of all of my time spent in New York and Chicago. Northwest Natives aren't the type to call and yell and scream about an overpaid infielder hitting .230 like Adrian Beltre is. If we were in NYC or Washington, DC or Boston, there would be a Jerome from Manhattan type demanding that the manager bench Adrian Beltre and or trade him for a better alternative.

A shout-out to the Washington Huskies Women's Softball team for winning the 2009 Softball title last night 3-2 over Florida in Oklahoma City. For all of the Steve Kelleys and Ian Furnesses who hate OKC because of the Sonics move there, I hope that last night provided a little redemption of Oklahoma City. Besides, it's not too far from where Carrie Underwood, the second prettiest Carrie, grew up.

Washington State college sports

While the Mariners stumble and bumble and the Seahawks have no one at the skill positions, that anyone east of Boise would know or care about, the Huskies women's softball team has reached the NCAA Women's Softball title game. Good luck to these ladies.

Also Gonzaga and Washington State's baseball teams reached the first round of the Baseball playoffs. While they both lost, they gave their schools something other than hoops to cheer about.