Where The Hell Is Matt?

Many of you have probably already seen this video, which recently became such a phenomenon that the New York Times devoted an entire article to it. The most amazing thing about it for this particular viewer (i.e. me) was that I recognized people in it -- and so will anyone reading this who received our 2000 holiday card, complete with photos of our family with a group of tribal dancers in full makeup and feathers in Papua New Guinea. (If you prefer, higher def original version is here, and more about Matt Harding is here.)

The latest threat: tabloid spam

As if the real tabloids aren't bad enough, now we've got tabloid spam. No, it's not a subscription pitch from Weekly World News... it's a vicious Internet worm designed to hijack your computer, that's simply wrapped up in the tempting bow of a tabloid-headline subject line. I got one yesterday myself, some nonsense about Tom Cruise dying in a plane crash. I was of course briefly tempted to find out if poor Katie was finally free of her megalomaniacal spouse, but the better angels of my nature won out and I deleted with prejudice. Better luck next time, guys. "Giants trade seven veterans for one young slugger" -- that's how you'd get me.

Tim Lincecum: The Freak

The Giants haven't given this fan a whole lot to cheer for this season. Sure, they've done better than some expected and it's been great watching younger players like John Bowker and Fred Lewis and Jonathan Sanchez get the chance to develop. But the team has been so poorly managed that it's become actively painful for me to watch as Bruce Bochy and Brain Sabean have let half a season go to waste playing veterans and pretending they're in a pennant race instead of embracing the need to rebuild and playing the kids.

That's a rant for another day, though; today we're here to celebrate "The Freak," as some call him, or "The Franchise," as others have dubbed the most unlikely pitching hero you've ever seen throw a slashing 98 MPH heater across the outside corner. Tim Lincecum, all of 24 years old, 5' 11" and 172 pounds, is well on his way to being a national story, and Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci has given The Franchise just the sort of awestruck write-up that he deserves. The kid is for real, and it's going to be incredibly fun watching his legend grow.

Tyson Gay and the dangers of auto-replace

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford's rant of the day for today pointed me to one of the funniest things I've seen in weeks. It seems that the wing-nut Puritan cult that is the American Family Association (Hmm, my family is as American as they come... why don't I see my values represented there?) is so virulently homophobic that they installed an auto-replace filter on their "family-friendly" news feed that changes the word "gay" to "homosexual" wherever it appears in stories that post onto their site. This is merely pathetic until a major athletic figure with the last name of "Gay" starts appearing regularly in news stories, leading to headlines like the one below. Hilarity ensues.

The David Palmer Factor

I wrote back in January ("Where reality and fiction blur") about the possibility -- which even I regarded with some skepticism -- that Dennis Haysbert's four-year run on the television drama 24 playing a strong, courageous African-American president might have laid some of the cultural groundwork necessary for the success of Barack Obama's run for president. As it turns out, Haysbert agrees.

The part that's a little scary, though, is where Haysbert talks about all the people who still to this day come up to him -- the actor who played the president -- and urge him to run. Maybe on a ticket with Harrison Ford...?

The new national security threat: global warming

Here's a conundrum for the handful of far-right flat-earthers who are still trying to deny the existence and/or significance of global warming. What to do when that most rational and conservative group of institutions -- the Bush Administration's own intelligence agencies -- collectively comes to the conclusion that global warming poses a major threat to national security. It's the sort of news that makes you worry about certain peoples' heads exploding...

Of religion and sports bras

I suppose it's part of the nature of blogging that items sometimes catch my eye that might seem on the surface to have no logical relationship to one another. But sometimes they just call out to me, and at least my chosen title is more thoughtful than my second choice: Americans -- Smarter Than We Look.

• The more religious leaders try to narrow our minds to accept only their view of the universe, it seems, the more Americans cling to our tradition of stubborn individualism. MSNBC reports this afternoon that "a new survey finds most Americans don't feel their religion is the only way to eternal life — even if their faith tradition teaches otherwise." Maybe the most startling finding: "57 percent of evangelical church attendees said they believe many religions can lead to eternal life," in direct contradiction to the teaching of most of their church leaders. Thinking for yourself -- there's just no substitute.
  
  
• All this second one really needs is the headline: "Sports bra saves U.S. hiker trapped in Alps." But will she send a thank you note to Brandi Chastain?