Byzantium's Shores: chronicling the misadventures of an overalls-clad hippie

Yesterday I got to listen to The Jim Rome Show for the first time since leaving Buffalo last fall. (Syracuse didn't air it; but then, Syracuse had an ESPN Station, which to my knowledge Buffalo doesn't have.) I'd forgotten how weird the Rome Show can get, what with the e-mails and the incredibly odd calls from "The Clones"....

One thing that Rome pointed out yesterday, which for some reason I found hysterically funny, is that in yesterday's edition of The LA Times, a story about the Lakers was on the front page of the Sports section -- despite the fact that the Lakers had not played the night before -- while, four pages in, the results of the other LA basketball team, the Clippers, was only covered in a wire report from the Associated Press. Thus, the Clippers are now so woeful that the biggest paper in LA doesn't even have a reporter assigned to cover them. I couldn't help but laugh at that.

[Political stuff ahead]

Rome also apparently discussed the flap surrounding the decision by the Baseball Hall of Fame to cancel a ceremony marking the 15th anniversary of one of the great sports films, Bull Durham, because actors Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon have both been vocal in their opposition to the war in Iraq. My take is pretty much exactly what Rome's is: this is colossally stupid, and I'm getting awfully tired of the whole "You have the right to think whatever you want, but you really shouldn't say it" meme that seems prevalent on the Right these days. A boycott is one thing; but I'm frankly sick to death of these veiled insinuations of treason on the part of anyone whose reaction to our President's actions is anything less than "Yes, sir, how high would you like me to jump, sir?"

I'm tired of being told that anti-war Americans are "America-haters" who "blame everything wrong in the world on America". I'm tired of the whole "Love it or leave it" crap; I'm tired of being told that "Supporting the troops while opposing the war" is somehow impossible (this despite the fact that when it was a Democratic President ordering American military action that Republicans opposed, "Support the troops but oppose the war" was the order of the day); and I'm tired of this business of informing protesters or people in the opposition that the mere act of opposition -- you know, that pesky free speech thang -- somehow gives aid to the enemy.

This is complete crap. Stealing technical specifications for an Apache helicopter and giving it to the Iraqi commanders is aiding the enemy. Hacking Donald Rumsfeld's laptop and handing over the plans for troop movements to the Iraqis is giving comfort to the enemy. Going to Iraq and giving anti-American speeches gives aid to the enemy. Protesting a war that a sizable portion of the American public has at some point considered questionable, and doing it peaceably and in the United States, is not treasonous, it is not anti-American, and to imply that it is is more insidiously anti-American than anything that has likely ever crossed the lips of Tim Robbins or Susan Sarandon.

Besides, Bull Durham is a classic film, dammit.