Boo, Bitter, and Beaver

Boo:
Some fans at Shea Stadium booed Mets pitcher Johan Santana during his home debut earlier this month. He had a bad game, giving up three homers to the Milwaukee Brewers, and wasn’t an ace that night. But he’d pitched well previously and the Brewers are a good team. A few days earlier, at the home opener, pitcher Scott Schoeneweis was booed during the pre-game ceremony. OK, so he had a bad first half of 2007. But that was last year! The boo birds generated a lot of discussion in the NYC papers and Mets’ fans blogs and forums. I was embarrassed to be a Mets fan when I heard about it. I’m so glad DP didn’t bring it up when he had former Mets pitcher Ron Darling on the show last week.

I’m not a booer. I don’t boo the opposition and I certainly don’t boo the home team. Some fans feel that with ticket prices so high they have the right to voice their displeasure when the team doesn’t perform well. Others feel that they are the “12th man,” the extra guy on the team, when they verbally harass the opposition. I guess I have an overdeveloped sense of decorum and sportsmanship. Sure it’s possible to rattle the opposition with boos. Maybe I don’t truly love my team because I don’t boo their foes. I don’t know. I’ll cheer my head off for my team. But booing is just not me. I wonder if boo birds are as harsh on themselves and their friends and family. Do they boo their children when the kids come home with bad report cards?

Boo, part deux:
Pope Benedict XVI sure got a lot of coverage during his recent trip to the U.S. It seemed like every time I looked at newyorktimes.com there was a photo of the Pope on the front page. I read that he had a meeting with President Bush in the Oval Office, which is appropriate as he is a major world figure. It’s too bad U.S. presidents haven’t treated the Dalai Lama with as much respect. Bill Clinton did a sneaky “drive-by” visit, dropping in when the Dalai Lama was meeting with Al Gore. And while President Bush met with the Dalai Lama last year there was an embargo on any photographic record of the event. What, too shy to be seen in the presence of a holy man?

Oh. Just the guy in the saffron robes.

Bitter:
rrgirl commented High Tech, Low Tech:

my personal definition of “bitter” runs along the lines of “angry, frustrated, resignation” instead of an elite sounding, overused and dismissive “self-pitying grumpiness.” Obama’s use of the term didn’t bother me at all - I think he gets it. to someone in the habit of throwing out the term to avoid engaging in heartfelt empathy for another’s striving against soul-crushing defeats, “bitter” might remind them of their own eagerness to escape to safer ground. I didn’t hear that in Obama’s speech - I don’t hear it in anything he says. the only elitism I hear is in what sounds like false piety of those trying to use “bitter” against him.

And CP added:

An un-artful comment by Obama to be sure, but it’s being played to the hilt by the media and Clinton. It’s something to fill the 24-hour news cycle until the next gaffe.

I find it interesting that Barack Obama asks America to try to understand the African American experience but flippantly dismisses small-town life.

OK, so maybe he didn’t mean it in a bad way, but using it in a speech to people on the Left Coast smacks of opportunism. Tailoring words to appeal to a particular audience is something I’d expect from a politician, so the incident just proved to me that Obama is not as different as he wants us to believe. This isn’t enough to make me run and vote for Clinton, though, for she is as good as anyone at speaking out of both sides of her mouth. And if you throw her husband into mix, that’s four sides of two mouths. That’s a lot of stuff coming at you from all directions. Like, quadriphonic.

Beaver:
Hawaii commented in I’m a sucker for animal stories …:

My favorite line of this (other than the “beleaguered beaver” expression)is “A state conservation official later said they might have been better off leaving it alone”. Heh. No good deed goes unpunished.

And rrgirl added:

this year was the first time I saw non-zoo beavers in a Cleveland Metro Park. I’ve seen girdled trees and dams as long as I can remember, but this was the first time I saw beavers hanging out along the shore, and they are HUGE! I guess I expected them to be a little bigger than woodchucks or raccoons. 40 lbs seems about right. I do hope all is well with the NYC beaver and they let it safely on it’s way.

The beaver died.

I was upset when I read the update in the City Room blog and discovered that the beaver had died.

What can I say? I don’t boo, and I always want a happy ending.

I’ve never seen a beaver in real life, but I have seen a beaver dam and beaver-gnawed tree stumps. I thought they were just the neatest things, evidence of nature in action.