"And they said: Come, let us make a city and a tower, the top whereof may reach to heaven: and let us make our name famous, before we be scattered abroad into all lands."
--Genesis, 11:4

Pat Philbin, the Federal Emergency Management Administration public relations flak who allegedly staged a press conference with softball questions from FEMA employees, won't be getting a promotion. I say allegedly not to question whether or not the press conference was real--it wasn't--but to question whether Philbin's boss, Admiral Harvey Johnson, who called on his empoyees acting as faux reporters by name at the "press" conference, might have had more to do with this Orwellian stunt than his underling. When asked about his career options by CBS News, Philbin remarked: "I have lots of experience, I know how the government works." He knows too well.

So much of the liberal program involves bribery. Politicians make promises to the poor and middle class that carry a substantial monetary value. In exchange, politicians want votes. This seems to be the extent of John Edwards' platform for his presidential run. Of course, the multimillionaire lawyer won't use his own money to bribe anyone. He uses the taxpayers' money. Since the bottom half of earners pay four percent of federal taxes, this means he wants wealthier people to work for people poorer than themselves. In addition to more Section Eight housing, governmental coverage for health care, and universal federally-funded preschool, John Edwards promises free college educations for everyone should he become president. The best part about that is that John Edwards will never be president.

Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox, the winners of the 2007 World Series. Full disclosure: I am a lifelong Red Sox fan who worked at Fenway for seven seasons. I am pretty happy right now. A few thoughts.... The Red Sox are the first team to win multiple World Series in the oughts.... With his home run the difference maker, Bobby Kielty is a hero to gingers everywhere.... I don't think this is a better Red Sox team than version 2004, but it certainly seems to have a brighter future. Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia, Jonathan Papelbon, Jon Lester, and Kevin Youkillis are all strong young players who should be with the club for years to come.... Colorado's late-season/playoff run was incredible, but ultimately they were outmatched by a superior club who never trailed in the entire series. Some thoughts of your own?

Liberals politicize the movies they make, the athletes they lionize, and, increasingly, the weather they get. On his HBO program this weekend, politicomedian Bill Maher wondered if the fires in Southern California will be "a Rock-Hudson-has-AIDS moment" for global warming. "One reason why we have the fires in California is global warming," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters last week. "The rest of us can't be in there fighting fires, you know?," noted environmentalist Bill McKibben. "We're thousands of miles away. What we can be doing is trying to put out, or at least damp down, the big fire that's causing all these other effects, and that's global warming. And that can only be done with federal action soon." Forest fires predate SUVs, styrofoam cups, and unrecycled cans. Don't tell that to liberals. Political explanations, rather than natural explanations, are better for their business.

Has there been a better place and time to be a sports fan than Boston right now? The Patriots are not only undefeated, they have blown out every team they have faced. The Red Sox are in the World Series. Boston College is the number two team in the nation, facing its toughest challenge in Virginia Tech Thursday night. The Celtics are on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Even the Bruins have a winning record. When I was a kid, Basketball Jesus regularly posted triple doubles, Marvin Hagler put dudes to sleep, and Roger Clemens dusted off the Gorman Thomases of the world with high heat. Still, even for nostalgiaists, that mythologized past does not compare with the incredibly real present.

President Bush has presided over the greatest increases in federal spending since the Great Society. "He's a big government guy," notes Stephen Slivinski, the director of budget studies at Cato Institute, who has been one of the few voices on the Right to faithfully hold Bush accountable for liberal spending. Bush spends like Lyndon Johnson. He conducts foreign affairs like Woodrow Wilson. What's there to like?

Congratulations to Ralph, whose 10-4 record makes him week seven champion. All picks are against the spread. Home teams are in CAPS, including Miami playing at home in London. Here are my selections. Browns -3 over RAMS, BEARS -5 over Lions, Colts -7 over PANTHERS, Giants -9.5 over DOLPHINS, TITANS -7.5 over Raiders, VIKINGS +1 over Eagles, Steelers -3.5 over BENGALS, Bills +3 over JETS, CHARGERS -9.5 over Texans, BUCS -4 Jaguars, Saints -3 over NINERS, PATRIOTS -16.5 over Redskins, and, on Monday Night Football Packers +3 over BRONCOS. Make your picks in the comments section.

"What else can happen if art is a weapon as a leaflet is a weapon? If a work, however thin or inept as a piece of literary fabric, expresses ideas that seem to fit the correct political tactics of the time, it is a foregone conclusion that it will be reviewed warmly, if not enthusiastically. But if the work, no matter how rich in human insight, character portrayal and imagination, seems to imply 'wrong' political conclusions, then it will be indicted, severely mauled or beheaded--as the case may be."
--Albert Maltz, "What Shall We Ask of Writers?," 1946

Scientist James Lovelock believes global warming will winnow the earth's population of 6.6 billion people down to 500 million by the end of the twenty-first century. Every cloud has its silver lining apparently. "You could quite seriously look at climate change as a response of the system intended to get rid of an irritating species: us humans," Lovelock told Rolling Stone. "Or at least cut them back to size." Rolling Stone notes that "as a scientist, [Lovelock] introduced the revolutionary theory known as Gaia--the idea that our entire planet is a kind of superorganism that is, in a sense, 'alive.' Once dismissed as New Age quackery, Lovelock's vision of a self-regulating Earth now underlies virtually all climate science." That last part explains quite a lot. Lovelock offers the idea of a giant solar shade as possible protection against global warming, believes Europe will soon resemble the Sahara, and thinks climate change will make war between Russia and China inevitable. In a moment of humility, he admits: "I could be wrong about all this." And if the eighty-four-year old crank/"scientist" is wrong, he won't be around to issue a mea culpa. But perhaps Lovelock's giant solar shade will be the memorial to his foolishness.

Should anyone ever decide to title a book "Profiles in Cowardice," the Democrat-controlled Congress would make for appropriate subject matter. When an election approached in 2002, such Democrats as Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and John Edwards voted to authorize the president to wage war in Iraq. They shirked their Constitutionally-mandated authority regarding war. Should things go bad, this distinction of "authorizing" rather than "declaring" war would serve to get them off the hook politically. Now that the Democrats control the federal government's purse, they could end the war any time they please. But that would mean taking responsibility. Instead, while soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines die, they act as the rubber stamp on President Bush's frequent and gargantuan budgetary requests. Earlier this week the president demanded $46 billion, on top of the $147 billion he already requested from them, to wage war (with almost all of that money going to wage war in Iraq). Congressmen have the power to stop the war when they choose. Don't count on this. They had the exclusive power to declare war, and they punted on that too. It's safer for them to boo from the sidelines.

I ventured outside of my house this weekend. Bad move. After 21 months of cigar sobriety, I jonesed to get back on the smoke wagon. Unbeknownst to me, the rappers/wrestlers/actors called the Insane Clown Posse were scheduled to play my town Friday night. Worse still, they brought their fans with them. I would have to carefully navigate a labyrinth of hooligans if I wanted the cigars. How badly did I want them?

Everywhere I turned, the Juggalos! The scene was something out of Day of the Dead or Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Long-haired, unkempt teenagers and directionless twentysomethings, tatooed and bedecked in Insane Clown Posse make-up, a la Kiss fans in the late seventies--but menacing rather than campy--roamed the streets in anticipation of the concert eight hours later that evening. Aside cell-phoning businessmen and mothers strolling newborns, young men and women made up as evil clowns conspicuoulsy wandered. Halloween came early.

The Juggalos are ominous, intimidating, and evil--as much as clowns can be evil (and they can!). So tempted was I to shout, "Insane Clown Pu----s" or "Makeup Is for Girls." I thought the better of it. The concert was not for another eight hours, and the Juggalos seemed bored. Bored people create their own excitement, and not always of the fun variety. Had they a constructive destructive habit, like fortified wine or crack, they would be better citizens. But the Juggalos just struck me as people who like to smash windows or one-punch people in the back of the head. Indeed, sensing their hoodlum ways, a cigar shop proprietor I observed--utilizing his command voice--said to two Juggalos: "You guys are all set, right?" The tone if not the words said: get out of my store you nogoodniks.

Think of the Juggaloes as DeadHeads with GEDs. They may not have been dealt as many brain cells, but they too have wasted them--not from smoking pot or dropping acid, but from smashing their heads against concrete. Whereas the Deadheads are lethargic, the Juggaloes are violent--one their heroes, after all, is called Violent J.

The Insane Clown Posse first came on my radar screen in the mid 1990s. I caught one of their videos, Another Love Song, which prompted me to buy their album. The version I caught was very good, but it was a different song next to the unedited version that appeared on the album--a sonic advertisement for restraining orders. I had a habit of playing it late, late night to scare guests. One track was simply called "I Stab People." Another accused Gene Simmons of stealing the idea on wearing make-up onstage from the Insane Clown Posse (Kiss antedated ICP by a couple of decades). My cigar habit is certainly better for my health than listening to the Insane Clown Posse.

Like a giant crazy magnet, the Insane Clown Posse attracts (inspires?) various psychos and dropouts. One Juggalo attacked gay bar patrons with an ax before leading authorities on a national manhunt that resulted in several deaths. In suburban Seattle, several Juggalos were arrested for attacking people while shouting "woo, Juggalo." In Colorado earlier this year, police arrested several Juggalos for murdering their compatriot's mother.

I witnessed no acts of vandalism or violence by the Juggalos. But I didn't stick around too long to investigate. I was wise to refrain from insulting them for entertainment's sake. Who knows how they would have responded for entertainment's sake? One or two men in makeup? Easy. A horde of them? No thank you. I hastily got my cigars and retreated to the ICP-free zone that is my porch.

Individuals acting alone occasionally do stupid things. But they're no match for de-individualized individuals acting in a mob, in a group, in a gang, or in an insane clown posse.

Terrorism is a much larger problem for predominately Muslim states than it is for any nation in the West. The "welcome home" bombings that killed more than 100 Pakistanis near Benazir Bhutto's motorcade is evidence of this. On all dates before and after 9/11 the number of Americans killed by terrorists is relatively small--particularly when you focus on Americans killed by terrorists in America. In Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the Islamic world, the threat of terrorism is real, immediate, and invasive. For the war on terrorism to be successful--as far as wars on nouns (drugs, poverty, obesity) can be successful--heads of state in Islamic nations, rather than just heads of state far from terrorism's epicenter, must work boldly to root out the problem. The terrorism that some Muslim leaders privately applaud when aimed at the West can just as easily be aimed at them. Pervez Musharraf, are you listening? It is better to fight bad guys than it is to coddle them.

"So I've told people that, if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," President Bush reports that he told world leaders regarding Iran's nuclear aspirations. A nuclear Iran would make the world a worse place. But might the president's words have carried more weight had he not previously offered ridiculous scare scenarios about Iraqi mushroom clouds over U.S. cities? Crying wolf has its consequences.

Congratulate week six champions Ben T and ASDF. They posted 7-5-2 records. Home teams are in caps. All picks are against the spread. Here are my superselections: REDSKINS -8 over Cards, SAINTS -8.5 over Falcons, BILLS +3 over Ravens, COWBOYS -9.5 over Vikings, DOLPHINS +17 over Patriots, Niners +9.5 over GIANTS, Bucs +2.5 over LIONS, TEXANS +1.5 over Titans, Chiefs +3 over RAIDERS, BENGALS -6 over Jets, Bears +5 over EAGLES, SEAHAWKS -8.5 over Rams, Steelers -3.5 over BRONCOS, and, on Monday Night Football, JAGUARS +3 over Colts. Make your picks and talk smack in the comments section.

"There is evidently a kind of thinking that rejoices in setting up a social objective which has no relation to the individual. Men are prepared to sacrifice their private dignity and happiness to an abstract social ideal, and without asking whether the social ideal produces the welfare of any individual man whatsoever. But this is absurd. The responsibility of men is for their own welfare and that of their neighbors; not for the hypothetical welfare of some fabulous creature called society."
--Twelve Southerners, I'll Take My Stand, 1930

"Is this an attempt by the right-wing, hate machine to silence one of our own?," asked Jon Elliot of fellow Air America host Randi Rhodes reported "mugging." "Are we threatening them? Are they afraid that we’re winning? Are they trying to silence intimidate us?" Well, no. Contrary to these insinuations on Air America, gangs of conservatives aren't roaming the streets of New York in search of Air America hosts to pummel. The ratings do that job for us. Randi Rhodes' dog, not heretofore known as a reactionary, apparently caused her fall. But the neanderthals make a better culprit than the canine. Perhaps if they make a Warriors II, the Angry White Men--bedecked in Barry Goldwater glasses and impersonating the mannerisms of William F. Buckley--might appear at Central Park gang conventions alongside the Baseball Furies and the Lizzies. Back in real life, such marauders don't exist. If Air America can't get the basic facts right when one of their own is in the news, how can anyone trust them to report the news outside of their own world in an accurate manner? Alas, some people prefer fantasy to reality.

In the 1960s, surreptitiously filming people made for a good laugh on prime time television. Now it's serious business. The New York Post noted that one of its reporters was recorded by fifty-four cameras in a mere eight-block walk in the Big Apple. "Hidden cameras enhance people's safety," opined Brian Cury, founder of something called EarthCam. "It's a way to share information and make people's lives better." Says who?

I recently caught the powerful German-language film, The Lives of Others. It's about the Stasi, East Germany's intrusive domestic spying agency that was said to be the world's best (or worst). Enemies of the state, or even friends of the state, were never out of the Stasi's far-seeing eye. With the advance of technology, and the growing fear of terrorism, I wonder if the spying apparatus in this country--which often involves private cameras and is not coordinated under a single government agency--is more extensive, even if more benevolent, than the Stasi's.

Sure, unlike the Stasi, the surveillance the Post discusses does not occur within our homes. It's in public spaces. But is it healthy to know that someone is always watching? That's one of the subthemes of The Lives of Others--how the fear of running afoul of the watchers alters private behavior. It dehumanizes. I'd much prefer 54 New York City cops on those eight blocks than those 54 cameras. Alas, Michael Jackson's backing vocal from 1984--"I always feel like somebody's watching me"--has proven prophetic. Life imitates art.

The world is a safer place with hidden cameras. The world was a better place prior to star 69, airport guards paid to confiscate tooth paste, hidden cameras, and other invasions.

"We'll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realise how foolish it was," famed meteorologist William Gray explained to a University of North Carolina audience. He was speaking of global warming and the mania surrounding the issue that inspired the Nobel committee to award Al Gore its peace prize.

Do we look back upon acid rain Jeremiahs and think "wisemen" rather than "saps"? Do we think Paul Ehrlich's wild predictions of mass starvation and disease as a result of overpopulation prescient or preposterous? The ozone hole kill the planet? The shrinking rain forests? DDT? The fact is we don't think of such issues much at all anymore. The proponents of such issues aren't mocked, just forgotten. Or, like so many exponents of the idea of man-generated climate change, they reinvent themselves when the next world-saving environmentalist notion comes along.

Leaving aside the science of global warming, the track record of environmentalist scare stories is abysmal. It doesn't promote confidence in their theory-of-the-moment. Every few years they unleash a fresh doomsday scenario toward the same ends. Whatever the "problem," the solution always seems greater state controls, an erosion of private property rights, international institutions gaining power, and companies feeling the wrath of the big green boot. It would be nice, as Dr. Gray suggests, that in a decade or so we'll all get a laugh at the expense of Gore and company. But the public's propensity to quickly forget past Chicken Littles makes one doubt that they will hold current Chicken Littles accountable.

Here's what I've been listening to lately. I hope you enjoy. And if you don't, don't despair. I know a few cool people who have bad taste in music.

Eddie Vedder--Hard Sun
Bruce Springsteen--Radio Nowhere
J. Geils Band--Musta Got Lost
The Shins--Phantom Limb
Rolling Stones--Moonlight Mile

Bow down to Billiam, whose 10-4 record makes him week five's AYRFSF champion. Home teams are in caps. All picks are against the spread. Here are my selections: Bengals -3 over CHEIFS, Texans +6.5 over JAGS, BROWNS -4.5 over Dolphins, BEARS -5 over Vikings, Eagles -3.5 over JETS, RAVENS -9.5 over Rams, Titans +3 BUCS, PACKERS -3 over Redskins, CARDS -5 over Panthers, Patriots -6 over COWBOYS, CHARGERS -10 over Raiders, SEAHAWKS -6.5 over Saints, and, on Monday Night Football, FALCONS +3.5 over Giants. Make your picks in the comments section.

The Norwegian parliament appoints the committee members responsible for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize. This is why such people as Yasser Arafat, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Rigoberta Menchu have received the accolade. It is why, consulting my Magic 8-Ball, the Nobel committee will likely award Al Gore its Peace Prize today.

Might the award hold less prestige, if, instead of the Norwegian parliament, the Alabama state legislature selected those deciding who gets the peace prize and who doesn't? My point is that the prize is held in esteem because the people who give the award and the people who get the award generally come from the Left. Leftists in the media play along and act as though some objective process results in a deserving person to come away with the award. But it's often a person who has nothing to do with world peace, but rather someone who has been the most successful at ingratiating himself to the Left over the past year.

Enter Al Gore. He made leftists happy by bringing global-warming theory to mainstream audiences through his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. Nevermind that it is overflowing with errors, the politics it preaches is right (Or should I say Left?). That his film, and his activism, is not connected to world peace in any sense will just affirm, should he win, that this is a politicized prize, not necessarily a peace prize.

The competition is, in a sense, rigged before it begins. This is because Norway is a socialist nation, and the award reflects its political sensibilities. That's fine. Just don't expect people who reject the political sensibilities prevalent in Norway to give any weight to the prizes its politicians give out. If you think that's unfair, would you think highly of a peace prize awarded by people contemptuous of your politics, say, the Alabama state legislature? My Magic 8-Ball says, "Outlook not so good."

"Upon what authority would a president use the armed forces of the United States to attack nations that did not attack us? The men and women of the U.S. military volunteer to defend America--its honor, citizens, and vital interests--not to serve as Hessians of a New World Order. What criteria would our global bounty hunters use to decide which tyrants were to be destroyed? This thinking is sophomoric. The declaration of such a policy would instantly isolate America by convincing any remaining allies that America had taken terminal leave of its senses and further association with us was dangerous folly. Not every beast needs to be hunted down and killed; some are best left alone to live and die in their part of the forest."
--Pat Buchanan, A Republic, Not an Empire, 1999

At around 2 a.m. Tuesday morning, I finished writing A Conservative History of the American Left. This follows four years of work, which included reading almost 400 books, interviewing scores of activists and a dozen or so celebrity activists, researching archived material at Harvard, Wellesley, UMass, Syracuse, Catholic, UVA, Michigan, NYU, and the Library of Congress, and pouring through such forgotten journals as The Harbinger, Appeal to Reason, The New Masses, and Liberation. The books I read and own, which occupy a dozen or so shelves in my new attic library, include my first cover-to-cover reading of Big Black, otherwise known as the Bible. When you read the book, you will understand why it was so important for me to read The Book.

In addition to copious reading, there has been, unsurprisingly, writing and more writing. I wrote in Prague, in Krakow, in Salzburg; on trains and on planes; on my old condo's porch in Washington, DC; in my attic in the company of a bat; and, finally, on Monday evening, in a bar in College Park, Maryland along historic and ugly, and historically ugly, Route 1. My hand hurts worse than Bart Simpson's does after school. Before edits, I probably wrote 200,000 words or so. The final version is more book than Why the Left Hates America and Intellectual Morons combined.

The actual book will be shorter than that, but its scope necessarily makes it the longest of my three books. I hope readers will think it the best, too. What it has going for it, methinks, are the amazing characters that make up the history of the American Left and the American Left's penchant for forgetting the past, which makes so many of these characters fresh to readers--even if they lived more than a century ago. It's very much a biography-driven book, whose stories interweave and intersect. I'm fortunate to have such a gripping subject matter.

Writing has finished, but that doesn't mean the book will come out next week. Seven months from now is more like it. Copy edits, galley proofs, reviewer copies, printing, dust-jacket blurbs, indexing, and layout are among the tasks ahead. I get my name on the book as the author. But there's a good reason, as the aforementioned list indicates, that the publisher--in my case Crown Forum--gets its name on there too. It's been a sizable chunk of my life, but for the payoff--seeing, feeling, and even smelling (on old friend always smelled new books) an actual hardcover--I'll have to wait a little longer.

After four years of obsessing over the history of the American Left, including the last two years of doing so without a day job to distract my monomania for a few hours, and after one day to exhale, I am left with the question: What now?

Tell a liberal that you believe in heaven and you might get laughed at. Tell a liberal that you believe that earth can be made into a heaven and you might get ecstatic cheers of the type found at revival meetings. "I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth," Barack Obama told a South Carolina megachurch this weekend. Immanentizing the eschaton, as more intelligent but less savvy conservatives pf the past used to call it, is the worst of the liberal delusions. It is so because any lie, any crime, any murder can be justified in its service. If you really believed you could usher in heaven on Earth, what wouldn't you do to make it happen? The Communists, the Nazis, the Islamic fanatics believed they were making heaven on earth, creating a perfect race of men, and instituting Allah's kingdom in the temporal world, respectively. Understanding this makes it easier to understand the gulags, gas chambers, and beheadings. They rationalized evil means by hoping for glorious ends. Any of this, quite clearly, was not the intent and will not be the effect of Obama's foolish rhetoric. But it's worth noting that once the Democrats finally recognized Americans as a religious people, they did so by introducing the most dangerous aspect of the potent religion/politics mix into the national dialogue.

With a speech at Ohio University Wednesday night, a trip to DC today, and a hard, absolute, cruel, unwavering deadline for the last chapter of my book approaching in days, it's been a tough week. I got my requisite eight hours sleep, but unfortunately it occurred over the last three nights instead of just one. This can only mean one thing: it's open-thread Friday. I'm incoherent so you be coherent. Air your conspiracy theories and off-topic discussions here, (and not in regular posts, please). Speak up ballers and shot callers. The world awaits your wisdom.

It's only week five, and the survival pool is over. Wayne Gro, you survived! Take a bow. You can keep picking if you care to. Congratulations to Ben T, DocMcG, and Ralph. They are, at 8-6, tri-champs of a tough week four. for All picks are against the spread. Home teams are in caps. Here are my selections: SAINTS -3 over Panthers, Jaguars -2.5 over CHEIFS, Lions +3.5 over REDSKINS, TITANS -8 over Falcons, TEXANS -5.5 over Dolphins, Seahawks -6 over STEELERS, PATRIOTS -16.5 over Browns, Cards -3.5 over RAMS, JETS +3.5 over GIANTS, COLTS -10 over Bucs, Chargers +1 over BRONCOS, NINERS +3.5 over Ravens, Bears +3.5 over PACKERS, and, on Monday Night Football, BILLS +10 over Cowboys. Make your selections in the comments section.

"Every one of the popular modern phrases and ideals is a dodge in order to shirk the problem of what is good. We are fond of talking about 'liberty'; that, as we talk of it, is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about 'progress'; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about 'education'; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good."
--G.K. Chesterton, Heretics, 1905

To schedule Dan Flynn for an interview or media appearance, email Dan at this site's name--at--gmail--dot--com.

Dan Flynn has lectured at more than 100 colleges and universities. To schedule a campus lecture, contact Young America's Foundation's Patrick Coyle at 1-703-318-9608 or pcoyle--at--yaf--dot--org.

A relative used to live in the projects in South Boston. I can still smell the urine. Why do people piss in the halls of the housing project where they live? Because when you give something to people for free, they don't treat it as well as they would have had they earned it. Four-hundred miles south of Old Colony, denizens of public housing abuse the system in ways far more beneficial to themselves than transforming stairwells into urinals.

In Fairfax, Virginia, an expensive county where I lived off-and-on for several years in the mid-1990s when traffic lights, strip malls, and housing developments sprung up every time I turned my head, numerous families raking in six-figure incomes live in public housing. Note: I got all of the drawbacks and none of the perks of Section 8/Project living during my time in Fairfax County. Intergender fistfights, overly gregarious cockroaches, and a one-month sojourn in a townhouse packed with an extended non-English speaking family that had all the comforts of a rush-hour train are among my memories. Neither Uncle Sam nor Uncle Fairfax subsidized me, but I never paid more than $400 rent a month. You get what you pay for--unless you live in Section 8 or the projects, in which case you get what you don't pay for.

Do you like to pay rent for people earning more money than you do? Come to think of it, paying rent for people who earn less money than you do is a drag, too, isn't it? The Washington Post points out that one family's annual income living in Fairfax County's public housing is $216,000! Amazingly, this is not against the rules. Fairfax County board of supervisors chairman Gerald E. Connolly nevertheless explains, "Clearly this housing was not designed for that." And that's just it--government programs rarely pan out as designed.

Did you catch Kelly Pavlik's upset knockout of middleweight champion Jermain Taylor on HBO Saturday night? I'm glad that I did, but not because of the result--at least the immediate result. I'm a Taylor fan. Old-school FlynnFiles readers may recall the site tooting Taylor's horn back in '04 (or, they may not, given that I'm the only one here who seems to care about boxing). He's probably the most athletic of all the elite boxers. But he has a habit of dropping his hands. His amazing hand speed does not, as it does with other fighters, translate into elusive quickness necessary for good defense. And, given that he's gone several years without a knockout, the fans and boxing writers have really gotten on Taylor to let his hands go. All of this played into Kelly Pavlik's very powerful hands on Saturday night in Atlantic City.

From the opening bell, Taylor responded to his critics by letting those hands go. In round two, he sent Pavlik down. But by round seven, Taylor's sloppy defense and inopportune aggression gave Pavlik the opportunity to send Taylor to the canvass for the first time in his pro career. And on the canvass Taylor remained. A rematch clause should ensure these two battle again. This is good for boxing. Both fighters are class acts. And hailing from Little Rock, Arkansas and Youngstown, Ohio, respectively, each is the largest professional sports franchise in his hometown. In other words, they put bodies into all the seats. Taylor hails from a hard-knocks background, doesn't show-up or taunt opponents, and didn't whine or complain after his draw with Winky Wright or his loss to Pavlik. He's a man in a sport filled with brats. What is most conspicuous about Pavlik is a). he fights; b). he knocks boxers out; and, especially, c). he is white and speaks without a foreign accent. This is a curiosity in boxing, and, given that most American fans are white and speak bad but not broken English, opens up marketing opportunities.

I would say that highlighting a fighter's race is taboo, but for the fact that the mythical Great White Hope is one of the most widely discussed topics in boxing. American whites, for the most part, lead too comfortable lives to participate in as uncomfortable a sport as boxing. But by virtue of those confortable lives, they have the money to participate, vicariously, as spectators. But the people they watch don't look like them. And when they do, they don't speak like them. Thus, through some subconscious form of racism, they tune out, or anoint Oscar De la Hoya an honorary white dude, or watch Rocky for the 261st time. The lack of a credible Great White Hope, I think, is one of the reasons boxing has declined so presipitously during the last half century or so. I prefer my boxing exciting, but the reality is that some people prefer their boxing white.

From Gerry Cooney to Tommy Morrison to Joe Mesi, fight fans, and, especially, promoters have been searching for that All-American white guy to place before television audiences. They find the Great White Hope every few years, only to discover, before long, that they have found the Great White Hype instead. Pavlik, by knocking out one of the most highly touted boxers on Saturday, and by winning a thrilling eliminator fight against Edison Miranda earlier in the year, has demonstrated neither hope nor hype, but here--as in, "The wait is over. I am right here, right now."