A kinder, gentler post...

I was happy to see that this blog has crept up to the fourth slot for the generic Google search on "bergenham." I gleefully clicked the link and was confronted with the "YOU SUCK" graphic from the previous post.

Now, that's no way to welcome people to my blog. No, that will not due. I'm not nearly that abrasive in real life. I'm only mildly irritating in real life.

Thusly, I thought I should add this post with a kinder dis on the Lions. My thanks to the anonymous Photoshop artist who created it.

A History of Sucking

Here’s the List of all-time worst sports franchises as voted by the ESPN.com Page 2 readers:

1. Kansas City Royals
2. Tampa Bay Devil Rays
3. Detroit Lions
4. Arizona Cardinals
5. Atlanta Hawks
6. New Orleans Saints
7. Pittsburgh Pirates
8. Golden State Warriors
9. New York Knicks
10. Detroit Tigers
11. Chicago Blackhawks
12. Toronto Raptors
13. Houston Texans
14. Portland Trail Blazers
15. Cleveland Browns
16. Pittsburgh Penguins
17. Chicago Cubs
18. Boston Bruins
19. San Francisco 49ers
20. Baltimore Orioles
21. New York Jets

I’ll give you my bottom 5 at the end of this post. I considered several criteria when I cast my votes.

1) A long history of suckiness outweighs recent, intense suckiness.
2) It’s easier to compete in some leagues than in others.
3) A championship goes a long way.

In the spirit of the first criteria, I disregarded all the new teams who haven’t been around for a full decade yet. The Devil Rays, Raptors, Texans and Browns are too young to get stuck with the label worst franchise. By the way, if you are about to say something akin to, “Hey, the Browns have been around forever,” then you’re an idiot. The NAME has been around forever, but the current team has only been around since 1999. When your team pulls up stakes and leaves, you get a reprieve.

The second criterion is an attempt to consider the differences in the structure of the leagues. It’s simply easier to be competitive in some leagues than in others. The NFL, for example, is fixated on the idea parity, and it is structured to keep player talent evenly distributed across all the teams. Any management team who knows what they are doing should be able to at least make a realistic run at a Super Bowl every decade or so. Any owner who allows a management team to stay in place after not winning for over a decade is clueless.

The opposite of parity is Major League Baseball. Every year it boils down to the Yankees versus the rest of league, and one out of every four years the Yankees win. If you’re stuck in a market with limited money and limited appeal, you’re going to have a hard time gathering together enough talent to be competitive. The NBA and the NHL are in the middle of these two extremes.

Almost all the sins of incompetent ownership can be forgiven if a team can make it to the championship game/series. Depending on the league, a championship appearance can buy you a 10 to 25 year pardon for even the most blatant stupidity. NFL teams get the shortest pardon and MLB teams get the longest. As a Tiger fan I can attest to the fact that the chill of current Tiger funk is still mitigated by the warming glow of the 1984 World Series victory, but the 25 year clock runs out in 2009. Are you listening Mike Ilitch?

Who’s on my list? I’m glad you asked:

1. tie: Detroit Lions and Arizona Cardinals
3. New Orleans Saints
4. Golden State Warriors
5. Chicago Cubs

Okay, my bitter, Midwest bias is showing, but I don’t see how you can complain about any of these clearly incompetent franchises landing in the top slots. The top three are NFL teams because I feel their league offers them the easiest path to competence: a path they have all failed to take. Golden State is a deeply dysfunctional franchise, and the Cubs flirt with being intentionally bad.

The Lions, Cardinals, and Saints all have achieved unprecedented incompetence in a league where only marginal competence is necessary for some measure of success. The only hope these teams have to make the playoff is if the NFL adopts the NHL’s every-one-but-last-place playoff structure. I let the Saints slide down one slot because New Orleans has been through enough recently. As Ah-nold would (not) say, “You have to have the right Suck-ti-tude,” and these teams have it.

Up until the past couple years when the NBA finally ended the stupidity of illegal defense, all you needed to be competitive in that league was one or two top shelf players. A single player could transform a loser into a (marginal) winner in that world of man-to-man defense and super-star calls. The Warriors somehow failed to notice that reality. Their upper management could somehow never seem to get even one or two great players on the court at the same time. Considering they had an endless stream of high draft choices that failure is unforgivable. Y’all suck!

The Chicago Cubs franchise wallows in the excrement of its own wretched incompetence. The Cubs cultivate the persona of the lovable losers, and commit the unforgivable sin of striving for mediocrity. I’m sorry, but when fans are paying more and more of their hard earned money to support a team the ownership has a DUTY to do its best to win more than one championship per century. A lovable loser is still just a loser, and the Cub fans should wise up. Stop going to games. Stop buying the merchandise. Hit these jokers in the executive suites in the only place they understand: the bottom line. If they threaten to leave, pull a Cleveland on them: have Chicago claim the name ‘Cubs’ and let the business move elsewhere. They can be the Oklahoma City Cowboys, but the Cubs will always play in Chicago.

Tigers Plus Five

The Tigers swept the Seattle Mariners for the first time in six years, and they have hit an utterly arbitrary benchmark of five games over .500. At the risk of dooming the Motor City Kitties to a protracted losing streak I have to make the following observations. The last time the Tigers were +5 in the win column: 1993. Sparky was still the manager. The American League still only had two divisions. The Tiger roster included: Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker, Cecil Fielder, Travis Fryman, Kirk Gibson, Tony Phillips, Mickey Tettleton, David Wells, Skeeter Barnes, Dan Gladden, Rob Deer, Eric Davis, Danny Bautista, Mike Henneman, and Storm Davis.

In 1993 I had not yet even applied to the University of Oregon for grad school, weighed about 40 pounds less, could easily touch my forehead to my knees without bending them, and was still emotionally reeling from my parents' divorce and a broken heart (how could she spurn me for HIM?!?).

Also in 1993 Jurrasic Park, Sleepless in Seattle, Nightmare Before Christmas, and Schindler's List are released. Bill Clinton is inaugurated, and nobody has heard of Monica Lewinksi. The World Trade Center is bombed. MLK Day is officially observed in all 50 states. David Koresh and the Branch Davidians run afoul of the US government in Waco, TX. The term 'spam' is first applied to unwanted e-mail. The Tomsk 7 nuclear accident occurrs. The US scandal rags introduce Heidi Fleiss to the rest of the country. Yasir Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin shake hands after signing the last meaningful peace accord between Palestine and Isreal. US gets involved in a mess in Mogadishu, Somalia. Jean Chrétien becomes Canada's 20th PM. Tanks bombard the Russian parliament building. The Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins play their inaugural seasons. Lee Smith breaks the all-time save record. The Blue Jays beat the Phillies in the World Series. North Carolina beat Michigan in the NCAA men's basketball final. The Chicago Bulls complete a three-peat. The Cowboys beat the Bills in the Super Bowl. Florida State beat Nebraska in the Orange Bowl to claim the national championship. Notre Dame fans whine about not getting more consideration (but that happens EVERY year).

Suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked...

Homer Simpson's famous quote has run through my mind more than once in water cooler discussions of the sports teams I follow. Having grown up in Michigan I am required to pathologically follow the exploits of the Detroit area teams. As you may know, it's 50-50 in Detroit these days. The Pistons and Red Wings have been dominating their respective leagues over the past few years. Meanwhile, the Tigers and the Lions have been down so long that most fans think its time to stop attempts at CPR. As a blindly loyal Tiger fan I am still burning a candle of hope that my long, baseball nightmare is about to end. I have no such delusions, however, about the Lions. In a rare, almost historic, circumstance, I actually agree with my father about something: the Lions will continue to suck as long as William C. Ford owns them.

Franchises in all professional sports have their ups and downs, but to STAY down really requires a commitment to ineptitude from the top. You really need a bonehead owner to throttle the hopes and dreams of a team's fans in the long term. The Lions have a world class idiot at the helm. The parity obsessed NFL shines a klieg light on incompetent management and ownership, and only the ever-hapless New Orleans Saints and Arizona/St. Louis Cardinals can compete with the Lions in sheer managerial stupidity. Ford runs the Lions only slightly more ineptly than he runs the Ford Motor Company, and you need look no further than the boarded up houses in the Detroit metro area to get a feel for how jaw-droppingly bad he does that.

The other hapless Detroit team, the Tigers, is owned by pizza mogul Mike Ilitch. To be fair to Ilitch, he purchased the Tigers as damaged goods from a TRULY horrible owner, Domino's Pizza dullard Tom Monaghan. (My personal Domino's boycott is now entering it's 20th year.) Ilitch, who also owns the Red Wings, seemingly purchased the Tigers to keep the historic franchise in Detroit and not out of any great love for the game of baseball. His first sports love is clearly hockey, and the Red Wings have reaped the rewards of an owner committed to winning. Luckily for the Tigers, the NHL's self-destructive lockout left Ilitch with nothing better to do than pay attention to his other team, and the long Tiger death spiral seems to be turning around.

In the spirit of suckiness, ESPN.com's page 2 is conducting a survey to determine who the fans think are the worst sports franchises in professional sports. Go ahead and take the quiz. I've looked at the results already and will be commenting on them in my next post.

You say Iraq. I say Iran. Let's call the whole thing off.

From the desk of Dr. Charles A. Meconis, Senior Research Fellow (Ret.) at the Institute of Global and Regional Security Studies, Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington. The following is his recent submission to Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility.


What is all this fuss about Iran?

Reports of US planning for war with Iran, allegedly to stop that country from acquiring nuclear weapons, have dominated the news recently. Most notably, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh, writing in the April 17 issue of New Yorker, quotes many sources close to the Bush Administration, most of them anonymous, indicating that the plans for attacking Iran go beyond rhetoric, and are intensifying. According to Hersh's sources, one option “on the table” is a massive pre-emptive air strike at Iran's nuclear facilities using so-called “tactical” nuclear weapons such as the B-61-11 bomb.

In reaction, President Bush and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, have both described the article and other news reports as "wild speculation" and “fantasyland”.

But Mr. Hersh is standing by his story. Read the full New Yorker article: The Iran Plans

Are these report true? Is war with Iran imminent or inevitable ? What can and should we do?

The best “reality check” on these reports and denials thus far can be found in this week’s Washington Post blog by military intelligence expert William M. Arkin at http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/ Arkin once worked as Hersh’s researcher.

Arkin concludes that the reports are basically accurate: since May 2003, the U.S. military’s many planning agencies have indeed been engaged in intense “contingency” planning for an air attack on Iran, including covert operations. He finds that use of tactical nukes is indeed among the options being considered, but he also confirms Hersh’s reports about deep opposition to the use of nuclear weapons at the highest levels of the U.S. Military—the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But Arkin has furthermore uncovered the extent of planning for a major ground campaign against Iran as well.

Is war with Iran imminent?

No, says Arkin, but he also points out that an air attack could be mounted in as little as 12 hours.

Is war with Iran inevitable?

Not yet. Arkin does not believe we have yet reached a “tipping point” equivalent to the late summer of 2002 when the decision to go to war with Iraq was a done deal. But he agrees with Hersh that the inner circle of the Bush Administration is committed to “regime change” and time is running out for this Administration to accomplish that.

What can and should we do?

Hersh notes that at present there is little opposition in Congress to the plans for attacking Iran.

CONTACT YOUR CONGRESS PEOPLE NOW AND SAY “NO IRAN WAR!. USE DIPLOMACY TO STOP IRAN’S NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM.”
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"If we make no effort to change direction, we will end up where we are headed." -- Chinese Proverb

Using Your 'Action Words'

My office is currently undertaking a salary survey. Step one requires everyone to write up a job description. We were given a list of 'action words' and were asked to start each sentence in our job description with one of them. I couldn't resist. I used them all.

1. Accumulate dust in your inbox.
2. Achieve plausible deniability.
3. Acquire excessive amounts of office supplies.
4. Act inappropriately in front of coworkers.
5. Activate the coffee maker.
6. Administer the annual NCAA basketball tournament pool.
7. Advise new employees on whom to avoid.
8. Allocate enough time for breaks and lunch.
9. Analyze contents of the fridge.
10. Archive all the best spam e-mails.
11. Assemble a group of coconspirators.
12. Assist in a discussion that has nothing to do with your job.
13. Calculate who shorted you on the bill at lunch.
14. Call your out-of-state family and friends.
15. Clean your desk as only a last resort.
16. Collect the best pens from the store room.
17. Communicate your dissatisfaction with your coworker’s lack of effort.
18. Compare cubicle size.
19. Compile a list of complaints.
20. Complete your tasks when you have to.
21. Compose your excuses ahead of time.
22. Conduct yourself with confidence. (Appearance is everything.)
23. Construct an elaborate fantasy world as a retreat from tedious meetings.
24. Control the urge to kill.
25. Convert sick time to vacation time.
26. Coordinate your wardrobe with computer wallpaper.
27. Copy the complete works of Shakespeare on the office Nokia.
28. Correlate productivity to the amount of time off offered.
29. Counsel fellow workers on best places for lunch.
30. Delete the porn off your work hard drive before anyone audits your computer.
31. Deliver engaging narratives about your weekend activities.
32. Design your new kitchen on the office CAD software.
33. Develop and unnatural ability to detect donuts.
34. Direct coworkers in how to do their work.
35. Distribute voluminous humorous e-mails.
36. Drive your projects straight into the ground.
37. Embark on meaningless escapades only tangentially related to your actual tasks.
38. Enclose enormous attachments to your voluminous humorous e-mails.
39. Encourage other to not concern themselves with arbitrary deadlines.
40. Enforce the arbitrary deadlines.
41. Ensure you have the best chair in the office.
42. Enter: It’s the big key with a little arrow under it on the right side of the keyboard.
43. Establish close friendships with other managers who will defend you.
44. Evaluate your résumé with frequency.
45. Execute a perfect 180º turn when your manager approaches you in the hall.
46. Extend each and every deadline.
47. Facilitate the procrastination of others.
48. Fill your outlook calendar with fictitious meetings and appointments.
49. Fix it so you can always be off on Monday and/or Friday.
50. Form close ties to those in power.
51. Function anonymously whenever possible.
52. Handle stress with frequent coffee breaks.
53. Help in visible ways to impress those who will defend you.
54. Hold grudges against those who question your work ethic.
55. Implement impenetrable defenses against blame.
56. Influence others to see it your way.
57. Inform management of your Herculean efforts.
58. Initiate a three martini lunch.
59. Install games on your work computer.
60. Instruct coworkers in how they should do their jobs.
61. Interview practice is a necessary part of any job hunt.
62. Investigate all possible job openings.
63. Invoice clients randomly to keep them on their toes.
64. Label everything in your cube as yours.
65. Lead everyone to believe you are swamped with work.
66. Lift nothing heavier than a ream of paper.
67. Locate the best happy hour spots within walking distance of the office.
68. Maintain the illusion of competence.
69. Monitor all the sports scores on the internet
70. Negotiate extensions to all deadlines.
71. Operate the photocopier with an air of authority.
72. Order more donuts and coffee.
73. Participate in all conversations regardless of topic.
74. Perform a song and dance when confronted with unfinished tasks.
75. Phone your significant other at least four times a day.
76. Plan your next vacation.
77. Post entries on your blog.
78. Prepare back-up excuses in case your primary excuses don’t work.
79. Print humorous Photoshop pictures on the color printer.
80. Process tasks in order of importance of the person who requested them.
81. Promote the notion that you should get a raise.
82. Read your personal e-mail.
83. Recommend the best lunch spots.
84. Recruit help in perpetrating office pranks.
85. Register your displeasure with office pranks.
86. Regulate your coffee intake to less than 15 cups per morning.
87. Reimburse petty cash only after six reminders.
88. Render complaints meaningless with your absence.
89. Renew your library books online.
90. Repair the printer yourself. No need to involve the IT department.
91. Report attempts by coworkers to repair the printer to the IT department.
92. Request extra personal days off.
93. Resolve conflicts by siding with whoever most directly affects your salary.
94. Review documentation over and over and over and over again.
95. Schedule a regular nap time.
96. Seek out and devour unattended food.
97. Sell extra office supplies on eBay.
98. Serve notice that your position is indispensable.
99. Service: What customers want and what your coworkers provide.
100. Suggest tasks that can be taken on by your coworkers.
101. Supervise the brewing of a fresh pot of coffee.
102. Teach the art of bringing snacks to the office.
103. Tend to your work when everything else is done.
104. Train your supervisor to not bother you during your ‘me time.’
105. Transfer your work onto unsuspecting coworkers.
106. Type memos in ALL CAPS just for emphasis.
107. Update your calendar to reflect your time off.
108. Vacate the office promptly at 5:00pm.
109. Verify your accumulated sick and vacation time.
110. Weigh the virtues of work against the virtues of another coffee break.
111. Write an endless stream of confusing and meaningless e-mails.

More Karl Pictures...

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