WHAT DIDN'T_SUCK ABOUT 2012 (Part IV of IV)

Note: I am tardy in completing this four-part series, and I've got other things I want to speak out about. So I'm posting this final part with a few things left to include. I reserve the right to update it further.

3. POLITICS:

• 2012 Democratic Convention delegates' voice vote rejects re-inserting "God" and support for Jerusalem as Israel's capital in its platform, and even MSM can't pretend it didn't happen.  On the first day of the convention, Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan made mention of the specific deletions of the words "God-given potential" and a declaration that the disputed city of Jerusalem is recognized by both Dems and the GOP as Israel's capital city.  Both were in the Dem platform in 2008.

In this opening-day interview with Fox News' Bret Baier, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-MI) tripped all over himself insisting that the exclusion was not deliberate, and fumbled through strawman talking points alleging that Fox News was casting aspersions on the party:

Ironically, as this contentious interview was conducted, Newark, NJ mayor Cory Booker was shouting on stage extolling the virtues of the Dems' platform. 

To put an end to the issue, the first order of business the second day of the convention was to formally insert "God" and "Jerusalem" back into the platform.  Here is the scene as captured by C-SPAN, featuring Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the scourge of the John & Ken Show::

Democrat hacks had to use their strongest powers of denial in making believe you didn't see what you just saw. Enter DNC Chairperson Debbie Wasserman-("I know nothing!") Schultz (D-FL):

It's a scene almost as blatant as this one from the 1967 motion picture A Guide For The Married Man, in which philanderer Robert Morse (Mad Men) is giving advice on two-timing to faithful husband Walter Matthau:

• Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker defeats recall attempt after signing bill limiting collective bargaining for public employee unions, leading one sad-sack progressive to whine "Democracy's dead." After November, I'm sure his faith was renewed.

• Tea Party Republican Tim Scott selected to be first African-American Senator from South Carolina and only black Senator in D.C. after the resignation of Jim DeMint.  Mind you, he was appointed by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, the nation's first female Indian-American Governor.  This, of course, didn't stop people from suggesting that Republicans are racist (more about that in the Internet section).

• Arizona Republican Congressman David Schweikert won election to a newly drawn district after first defeating Rep. Ben Quayle, son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, in the GOP primary.  I expressed my skepticism about the seriousness of Quayle fils in this 2010 post outlining his involvement in the creation of TheDirty.com, a salacious website that solicits revealing photos of ex-girlfriends.

• Michele Bachmann survives the 2012 election despite financial abandonment by GOP establishment, which Mark Levin predicted even after earlier badgering Reince Priebus into saying that Bachmann would receive the help she didn't receive two years ago. It was fun to see the disappointment of Twitter haters who jumped the gun and thought she had been defeated.

• Fortney "Pete" Stark is finally defeated after 20 years. The biggest Congressional tool from the Bay Area (yes, that includes Nancy Pelosi) is beaten by fellow Democrat Eric Smalwell (aka "Who?") .  What made the difference? Due to the new "top two" system in place in California, voters had a choice between Stark and someone who wasn't a Republican. Baa, baa, baa.

• The San Francisco Board of Supervisors didn't cave to the city's nuttiest elements (for once) and banned total nudity in public (except in the cases of events that traditionally allow it).

2. SPORTS: 

• My San Francisco Giants won the World Series for the second time in three years.  This is an incredible and unprobable turn of events for the Giants, a franchise that before 2010 hadn't won a single World Championship since 1954.  There is no feeling like being a fan the very first time a team wins a world championship, and I've experienced that three times with the Giants, the Warriors (1974-75), and the 49ers (1981-82).  But this win was special because nobody (even me) really thought it was possible.  The rotation was missing a decent Tim Lincecum, who was the worst starting pitcher in the National League for most of the season, and the team's best offensive player (Melky Cabrera, 2012 All-Star Game MVP) was suspended for the entire second half of the regular season after testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug.  Left for dead by fair-weather fans as the Dodgers surged, the team gelled despite the circumstances.   Facing two elimination games, the was team rallied into a frenzy by newly-acquired Hunter Pence.   They swept the last three games of both the National League Division Series (over Cincinnati) and the National League Championship Series (over defending Champion St. Louis).  There was no such drama in the World Series, which they swept from Detroit in four games.

• Buster Posey, the team's first-round draft pick in 2008, won the National League batting title in only his second full season in the Major Leagues. Posey also was named NL MVP.  Regardless of whether young Buster turns out to be a Hall-of-Fame inductee like all other Giants with retired numbers, I say that he ought to be the last Giant to wear #28.  Posey is the undisputed team leader of a Giants club that has won two World Championships.  The last Giant who could make such a claim is Hall-of-Famer Frankie Frisch (1921 & 1922).

• Giants pitcher Matt Cain threw the first perfect game in the 129-year history of the team (dating back to its roots in Troy, New York). Think of it: Giants Hall of Fame pitchers Christy Mathewson, Carl Hubbell, Juan Marichal, and Gaylord Perry didn't do what Cain did last June; retire all 27 batters without allowing one to reach first base safely.  After the Giants didn't get to the postseason in 2011 and as they trailed the resurgent Dodgers for the two months into the 2012 season, I thought Cain's perfecto would be the highlight of the year. As it turned out, the best was yet to come!  Here are all 27 outs, and the celebration afterward:

• Petaluma, CA's Little League Team, champions of the United States' West region, made it to the U.S. Championship game in Williamsport, PA.  They fell to the Southeast region champions from Goodlettsville, TN by a score of 22-16 in extra innings (and yes, this is baseball, not football).  Down 16-6 in the bottom of the sixth (and final) inning, the boys from the West region refused to quit, scoring a Little League World Series record ten runs to tie the game.  The Tennessee boys had plenty of offense left to finally put California away, but the comeback strained their pitchers.  The length of the U.S. final probably sealed the fate of whichever team emerged to play in the next day's World Championship game; a fresh Japanese team that qualified earlier in the day won all the marbles.  Remember the name Lorenzo Butler, though; he hit three jacks in the game for Tennessee, and looks like he knows what he's doing. Below is a local S.F. station's coverage of one of many tributes to the Petaluma boys, and how it took a Buttermakerish turn.

• Hockey returned to San Francisco (technically, Daly City) in the form of a ECHL (AA) team, the San Francisco Bulls, playing at the archaic Cow Palace. The team is not as good as the IHL (AAA) San Francisco Spiders that played the Palace for one season (1995-96), but Bulls' founder/co-owner/GM/head coach Pat Curcio gifted the 70-year-old white elephant with an amenity commonly found in some high school stadiums nowadays: Video replay screens. 

• Uganda's Little League World Series team, the first from Africa to play in Williamsport. The team from Lugazi, Uganda first qualified to attend the Little League World Series in 2011 after defeating the powerhouse Dhahran, Saudi Arabia team (made up greatly of the sons of American oil industry contractors), but they couldn't enter the United States due to lack of proper documentation.  This year, with the papers they needed to make it across the Atlantic,  they squeaked out a win over an squad of boys from Oregon in their final consolation game.  Ringing in their ears was the support of a large contingent of other LLWS parents who served as surrogates for their own, who couldn't make the 7,000 mile trip.  It is a classic Cinderella story starring potential Shoeless Joe Jacksons that are actually shoeless. 

Notable anecdote about the Ugandan boys' first stay in an American hotel: They were really excited to see running water that was clean.  

• The USA Olympic Team took the most medals in the London Games (C'mon, admit it -- you forgot the Olympics even happened this year, didn't you?  It's all everyone thinks about for two weeks, and after a week or two of withdrawal, it's forgotten until the next one two years later). 

• Lance Armstrong, finally exposed. After giving MLB all-time home run leader Barry Bonds the benefit of the doubt until I could no longer (Giants' 50 years+ clubhouse manager Mike Murphy testified under oath that he needed to get bigger shoes and a bigger helmet to fit Bonds' growing feet and head), it was the last nail in the coffin of any notion that such superhuman athletic feats could be accomplished past the natural prime of an elite athlete.  Even after Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez and other award-winning jocks had been tainted with a silent and invisible asterisk, somehow Armstrong -- who incredibly survived testicular cancer and then won a record seven Tour de France cycling titles -- maintained his reputation as a miracle man.  On top of that, he became a worldwide symbol of victory over cancer with the creation of rubber "Livestrong" bracelets raising millions for his foundation.  Armstrong would point out that he was the most-tested athlete in history, and he had never tested positive; the same thing was said about Bonds at one time, as well, and turned out not to be true.

Other highly-ranked cyclists were subsequently exposed as engaging in blood doping, making it all the more unlikely that Armstrong could have conquered the grueling Tour au naturale, but he dismissed accusers of either telling tales for tabloid cash or out of their envy at his accomplishment.   Even when members of his own racing team couldn't withstand the pressure of keeping up the illusion, Armstrong lashed out, claiming personal grudges and money issues were the reason they turned on him.  Finally, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency put together a labyrinthian detailed document showing what was really incredible about Armstrong was his dogged determination to his false legend. As a last-ditch effort, he tried to end discussion of the entire issue by admitting nothing, but voluntarily giving up his titles before they were taken away after an investigation.  Later, he resigned from the Livestrong Foundation, saying he didn't want controversy surrounding him personally to affect the fight against cancer.

As I complete this part of this post, Armstrong is in the headlines for what is being advertised as a "confession," and the Baseball Hall of Fame is about to announce whether or not Bonds or Roger Clemens -- the two biggest figures in the steroid scandals -- has been voted into the pantheon of legends on the first year of their eligibility.  I hope Armstrong totally comes clean, and I hope Bonds and Clemens fall short of induction.  The only reward for cheating your way to unbreakable records ought to be just deserts.

• Death of the BCS. The dam finally broke after cracks in the flawed concept of the Bowl Championship System were jackhammered by a comprehensive examination of its history: The book Death To The BCS, written by Yahoo! Sports writers Dan Wetzel, Josh Peter, and Jeff Passan.  

Laid to waste were the lies that the bowl system makes more money for schools than a playoff would, that it is for the benefit of charitable organizations, that bowl games financially benefit smaller schools, that a playoff system would be detrimental to the academic goals of student-athletes, that the balloting for the major bowls is conducted fairly, and that the large conferences don't conspire to avoid defeat on the field by less prestigious schools.  But the blockbuster charge was the massive amount of graft going on for years in the Fiesta Bowl organization.

Largely due to reaction to revelations in the book (which was studiously ignored by ESPN, which relies heavily on college football TV coverage for its bottom line), the BCS in June announced its member schools presidents had agreed on a four-team playoff. It's a start.

• My average bowling score has risen by almost 30 since last year.

And now, the very best thing about 2012:

 

1. PERSONAL: 

My remaining family is intact.  After having my heart stabbed with a corkscrew three times last year by the passing of my father, a longtime family friend and neighbor, and another close relative all within two months, everyone else is doing fine.  My wounds are healing.