Awwwww

I try to keep the "my kid is so cute" stories to a minimum here, because everybody's kids are cute and I could waste a lot of space here chronicling the cute things they do and say, but I couldn't resist passing this one along.

The Littlest Gopher is 4 years old and has begun joining us inside the main church on Sunday mornings, rather than spending an hour in the nursery. She's noticed that the other three members of her family receive Holy Communion each week, a gift that she's thus far been denied because of her age.

So out of the blue the other day, the Littlest Gopher says to Mrs. G, "Mommy, you know those little turkey circles that you get to eat at halftime in church? I think I'm ready to have them, too."

I'm not sure if it was her notion of the wafer as turkey or her concept of "halftime" at church, but regardless, that killed me.

And on a related note, the Bigger Little Gopher scored her first goal of the season in Game No. 3 for the U11 Fusion of the Henderson United Youth Soccer League on Saturday. And it was a thing of beauty.

BLG (that's her, far right, with her friend Taylor) isn't a big scorer -- she's outstanding at setting up her teammates, but doesn't look to shoot that much. But on Saturday, she put a Pele-esque move on a defender to get open, then ripped a shot through the goalie's fingers and into the net from about 20 feet out. It tied the game at 2 early in the second half, and a late tally lifted the undefeated Fusion to their third straight win.

Afterwards, we had juice boxes and mini Oreos and wished we'd bought that damn video camera.

MMM: Shut up and pay your taxes

This week's meltdown was triggered by an op-ed column I read over the weekend in the Las Vegas Sun. It was a syndicated deal, penned by some guy named Walter Rodgers (apparently he's a former international correspondent at CNN), and it struck a nerve.

Usually when that happens, it stems from an opinion that ruffles my feathers, that gets my knickers in a proverbial twist. But this time, my ire was raised because I agreed with this guy 100 percent.

The topic of the column is taxes, which of course is timely given the month we've just entered. And the gist of the column was this: "Shut up and pay your taxes."

Like anybody who pays attention to political punditry, I've been inundated over the last decade or so with anti-tax opinions. From right-wing radio to reactionary newspaper columnists to conservative think tanks, the drumbeat has been consistent -- we're all shelling out too much of our income to fund a government that doesn't fulfill its obligations to society.

OK, that's probably putting to fine of a shine on it. The more common reaction has actually been more like, "I've got mine -- get your grubby hands out of my pockets and get your own!" And it's been successful, because as a basic, gut-level, common-sense response, it passes the smell test -- you know, the whole American dream, pull yourself up by your bootstraps thing.

But Rodgers put a different spin on taxes, one I hadn't heard much before, and one that makes perfect sense to me. As he says, "I'm happy to pay my fair share to the government. It's part of my patriotic duty – and it's a heckuva bargain."

What a novel approach -- viewing taxes as your contribution to society, your share of the costs of the services that you can't provide for yourself. If you don't want to pay taxes, fine -- just don't drive on the roads, don't use any electricity, don't use your plumbing, don't watch TV, don't send your kids to public schools, etc.

Of course, the comeback from right-wing types would be something along the lines of, "I'm more than happy to pay for those services I use. I just don't want to pay for anything that doesn't help me, and I don't want anybody to get away with not carrying their own water. There's just too much fat in the government, and we need to slash their budgets before it gets any further out of hand."

Which is fine -- up to a point. But here's another way of looking at it. Let's say you pay your 16-year-old son an allowance of $20 a week. And let's say you find out the kid is using this money, along with other funds he has available, to purchase crystal meth. If you're following the starve-the-government logic, you'd say to the kid, "That's it -- no more allowance for you. If you want to buy crystal meth, you'll have to get a paper route or to flip burgers to pay for it."

But wouldn't it make more sense to try and get the kid some help and solve the problem? Instead of cutting off funds, get him into rehab and keep him away from his friends who use meth. Don't just kick and scream and cut his allowance -- get active and solve the problem.

So to further stretch this analogy, don't just kick and scream and whine about paying your taxes -- if you truly believe that your tax dollars are going to fund plasma TVs and Gucci handbags for Ronald Reagan's legendary "welfare queens," then get active, try to address specific problems. Get off your butt and investigate the circumstances, rather than just believing what you hear on the radio or read on PowerLine. Get some first-hand experience, then go to work for a political candidate who shares your views. Or better yet, run for office yourself.

Otherwise, shut up and pay your taxes.

National Felons League strikes again

After a woeful 2007 offseason that featured the Michael Vick dogfighting scandal, Pacman Jones' strip club antics, and the ongoing shenanigans of the Cincinnati Bengals, NFL officials had to be hoping that the league's players would steer clear of the police blotter a year later.

And to some extent, they have to be happy with the results. At least nothing involving an NFL player has risen to the level of a star quarterback electrocuting dogs or a posse member leaving a strip club employee paralyzed for life.

But today, I was checking out the NFL news widget on my My Yahoo! page, and lo and behold, three of the top four headlines focused on players in legal trouble. You've got troubled receiver Chris Henry back on the streets, albeit without a contract from the Bengals; domestic violence charges against Steelers linebacker James Harrison being dropped, because, you know, I'm sure he was an innocent bystander in the incident; and the coup de grace, former Viking defensive back Kenny Wright, now playing for the Cleveland Browns, arrested after a quarter-mile chase on foot, which began in the police station parking lot.

Wright was charged with resisting arrest, unlawful restraint and possession of marijuana. And one look at his mug shot should tell you that the last charge might be tough to beat.

Ladies and gentlemen, your National Football League!

Book review: Now I Can Die in Peace

We're back from the dirty south, where Mrs. Gopher finished the half-marathon with a personal best time of 2:13:10. That shaves more than nine minutes off her previous PB. Of course, two races is an admittedly small sample size, but she was thrilled with the result, and I remain inspired by her ability and willingness to push herself beyond what she ever thought she could accomplish. May some of that drive rub off on me.

While in Atlanta, I finished reading "Now I Can Die in Peace: How ESPN's Sports Guy Found Salvation, With A Little Help From Nomar, Pedro, Shawshank, And The 2004 Red Sox." I was a little hesitant to dive into the book because I feared that 370 pages of Red Sox-centric writing might just drive me to the brink of mass homicide. But I trusted Bill Simmons. I like his writing on ESPN.com, and I figured he'd find a way to make this tome interesting to all baseball fans, not just those raised on Yaz, Fisk, and Freddy Lynn.

(An aside: I realize that Simmons-bashing has become something of a sport on a variety of popular blogs these days. Whether it's the Deadspin crowd (mostly their commenters, not Leitch himself), Awful Announcing or the various knockoffs of those sites, there's a lot of anti-Simmons angst out there on the net. Curiously, it echoes the backlash against Chuck Klosterman, who's been the target of an insane amount of vitriol from the hipsters at Gawker. Both crowds come across as wannabe journalists/celebrities who are taking out their frustrations on a couple of successful writers whose considerable talents are often masked by their "regular-guy" schtick, leading to criticism that -- when reading between the lines -- basically says, "I wish I'd thought of that first, but since I didn't, I'm gonna knock them down a peg or two so I won't be so lonely down here." But I digress...)

The Simmons book is about what you'd think -- a collection of columns you've probably already read, if you're a fan, but with footnotes added to further explore salient points and digressions. He does a nice job of capturing the pathos of Red Sox Nation pre-2004, which I can particularly relate to as a lifelong fan of the Minnesota Vikings. From what I could glean, 1986 was to Simmons what 1998 was to me, so I could relate to a lot of what he was going through.

My only complaint, and it's a light one at that, is that in the afterword (written in the summer of 2006) he didn't really touch on the much-deserved backlash against Red Sox fans, who quickly became as insufferable as Yankees fans thanks to the East Coast focus of ESPN and the rest of the national sports media. He's acknowledged it in columns, but to make this book stand up against the ravages of time, it's a point he could have explored in just a bit more depth.

Otherwise, a solid read for all fans of baseball, pop culture and breezy sportswriting, and a great way to kick off the 2008 MLB season.

Everything is for sale

Just heard a spot on the radio today -- apparently, Werner Ladders are the official ladder of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. That's right, when the boys are cutting down the nets on Monday night (and please, let it be UCLA!), they'll only climb up to the rim on a Werner ladder!

Actually, now that I think about it, that's not such a bad endorsement. Any ladder that can hold Kevin Love's fat ass is probably sturdy enough even for me.