Lessons From The GOP

Ten things I've learned from Republican leaders in 2009:

• Empathy is bad
• Leaving your job halfway through the term isn't quitting, even if you don't have a new job lined up yet
• Gays are ruining marriage, not heterosexual governors and senators who commit adultery
• It's better to whine and complain about the other guy's ideas than to come up with your own solutions
• Prove you're the Big Tent Party by celebrating when members leave (Arlen Spector) and urging others (Colin Powell) to get out, too
• We don't torture, but if we do, we call it "enhanced interrogation"
• States that don't like the federal government should secede, because it worked so well 150 years ago
• Always keep a short term perspective, particularly when it comes to recovering from an economic crisis
• If the Vice President did it, it wasn't illegal
• When all else fails, blame David Letterman

Morris Dees on Domestic Terrorism

Here's video of one of my heroes, Morris Dees, co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, speaking at the National Press Club last week. He discusses the recent hate crime at the Holocaust Museum, the increase in domestic terrorism chatter in the last few months, and how the SPLC monitors hate groups across the US and uses the courts to hold them accountable for the violent actions of their members.

Worth A Link

• Robert Reich says we can't just bounce back from the recession, because the old way of doing business is dead
• Mark Evanier wonders if a protestor has ever advanced their agenda by screaming at a Congressional hearing (I think they're even less successful than a baseball manager trying to get an umpire to reverse his call)
• Fred Jacobs on how the Google vs. Microsoft OS-and-search battle reminds him of some classic radio competition
• The Twitterverse wonders how Brian Dunkelman feels upon hearing that Ryan Seacrest just signed a new $45 million deal to keep hosting "American Idol"

Dennis' Remarkable Run Ends

Congratulations to my friend Dennis Phillips, who just ended his remarkable run at the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event, finishing in 45th place (out of 6,494 players). On the final hand, just minutes ago, it was Ace-King against Ace-King, and the other guy hit four to his flush on the board to knock Dennis out.

Here's how they described it on PokerNews.com:

Phillips raised preflop to 450,000 from the button after Antoine Saout opened for 165,000 and Francois Balmigere called. Phillips' re-raise folded Saout but got the opposite reaction from Balmigere, who moved all in. Phillips called all in for less. Hands please, gentlemen!

Balmigere:
Phillips:

Each player had suited Big Slick, which was a problem for Phillips on a flop of . The turn was a safe card; Phillips just needed to fade spades one more time to remain in the tournament. Alas, the river was the , filling Balmigere's spade flush and knocking Phillips out of the tournament in spectacularly cruel fashion.

Considering that Dennis was 3rd last year, he now has the best two-year span of any player in Main Event history, besting 13,290 entrants combined. He also made it further than any of the other members of the 2008 November Nine, or any of the other Team PokerStars Pros. He's sure to be spotlighted in ESPN's coverage of the Main Event, which kicks off in September.

All of us who are part of Team Dennis are very proud of him. He'll have lots of stories to share when we return to the Lumiere Place Final Table, our poker radio show, next Tuesday night.

No Final Table Tonight

With the All-Star Game in St. Louis tonight, Dennis Phillips and I are taking the night off from doing our Lumiere Place Final Table poker show. Of course, Dennis is also busy playing Day 7 of the WSOP Main Event!

We'll be back with a new one next Tuesday, but in the meantime, you can listen to our previous podcasts here.

A Soldier Remembered

Martha Gillis laments the loss of her 24-year-old nephew, First Lt. Brian Bradshaw, killed by an IED in Afghanistan two weeks ago -- a story that went uncovered by the news media, which was too busy with the death of a pop star...

[as seen on "Sunday Morning" on CBS]

Bob Greene, Late Edition

Bob Greene is one of America's best storytellers, as he has proved many times with his columns and books. His newest is "Late Edition: A Love Story," about his earliest years in the newspaper business.

When we talked about it recently on KTRS/St. Louis, Bob regaled me with how he wrote his first newspaper piece as a high school student on the day JFK was assassinated. While it went unpublished, it would eventually help land him a job at the Columbus Citizen-Journal as a copyboy and begin his lifelong career as a newspaperman.

We discussed not only Bob's past, but also the present state of the newspaper business and the advice he'd give to anyone thinking of applying for a job in an industry on the wane.

Listen, then buy Bob's book, then click here to subscribe to these podcasts via iTunes!


My favorite previous interviews with Bob Greene:

• August, 2008 for "When We Get To Surf City"
• May 2006 for "And You Know You Should Be Glad"
• November 2004 for "Fraternity: A Journey In Search of Five Presidents"
• November 1997 for "Chevrolet Summers, Dairy Queen Nights"

Homeopathic ER

As seen on the British comedy show, "That Mitchell and Webb Look," a nice slam at homeopathy and other new age non-medical nonsense -- with a great final gag...

[thanks to Robert Knotbob for the link]

Bathroom Break

Memo to the people who make auto-flush toilets: can you adjust your product so it doesn't flush while I'm still sitting there? I had this unpleasant experience at four different public venues in the last week. I don't know what you need to reset to make the toilet wait until I've finished my business, but if I wanted to use a bidet, I'd move to France. And thanks for the added bonus of having the toilet not flush once I've stood up. That's always a nice surprise for the next guy in the stall.

I'm guessing you've teamed up with the company that makes the toilet paper dispenser that holds onto the roll so tightly that when I pull at the paper, it tears immediately at the first perforation, allowing me only one square at a time. I also appreciate your third co-conspirator in public-bathroom annoyances, the ones who make the auto-faucet that won't spout water no matter where I place my hands under the spigot-sensor, so I look like I've just failed my final exam in mime class.

Before you entered our unsanitary lives, in the days when we were forced to operate the equipment manually, how did we ever manage the entire bathroom experience by ourselves? Oh, that's right, we had assistance from the men's room attendant, a profession that should never have been necessary in the first place.

Has there ever been a worse job than being forced to stand in a public bathroom and hand out paper towels all day, hoping you'll get a tip? You'd think the aromas alone would have been enough for the EPA to classify the facility as a hazmat site.

Some of these guys also ran a little flea market of related products, from cologne and cigarettes to gum and mints -- there's nothing I want more after emptying my bladder than a nice pack of Juicy Fruit that's been sitting on the sink all day. The attendants have been replaced in the last decade by a coin-operated box on the wall that dispenses pain relievers and condoms (seriously, I saw one at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas and wondered how many members of the Mile High Club bought their supplies there before boarding).

It almost makes me nostalgic for the ballpark bathroom trough.

Worth A Link

• Tom Vanderbilt wonders whatever happened to the Segway
• David Montgomery wonders whether celebrities really die in threes
• Richard Wiseman challenged the Twitterverse to summarize the first "Star Wars" in 140 characters or less
• Diane Holloway's appreciation of the great Dick Enberg

WLS Saturday

I'm on The Big 89 WLS/Chicago for my regular Saturday morning show from 5am to 7am CT. You can listen live here.