The Living Room Times – Page 64 – Mile High Brendan's Blog

This blog post is brought to you by the number 3 and the letters OMG

Brendan January 19, 2011 9 Comments

For those without the time or patience to listen to today’s podcast episode to learn our “news,” I suppose I’ll come out and say it:

Becky and I are expecting Baby Loy #3 in July!!! Specifically, on July 8 — the very same date that Loyacita was due back in 2009 (though she was born five days late).

We don’t know the sex yet, but we intend to find out when we can, likely in a month-and-a-half or so. We’ll let y’all know when we know.

For those keeping score, this means we’ll have a 3 1/2-year-old, a 2-year-old, and a newborn. Donations to our college fund can be sent to brendan@brendanloy.com via PayPal. 🙂 No, but seriously: call us crazy, but we wanted to have them this close together. If we’d waited a few months longer, we would have ended up with a big, exaggerated gap between #2 and #3, school-wise: we’d have had a fourth-grader, a third-grader, and a kindergartner. Instead, it’ll be 3rd, 2nd, and K. (And senior, junior & freshman… #PANIC!)

As for whether we hope Baby Loy #3 is a boy or girl, we’re both torn. For my part, notwithstanding Becky’s statement in the podcast that I “want a girl,” I can really see the pros and cons of both. I guess my heart leans toward a girl, my head toward a boy, but both are only very slight leans. I’ll be genuinely delighted with either; I just want a healthy baby. We’ve been so blessed thus far, in terms of health, happiness and cuteness. 🙂

Anyway, stay tuned for an eventual Baby Pool, discussion of a blog nickname (once we know the gender), etc. Oh — and there’s a new countdown in the left-hand sidebar. 🙂 170 days and counting!!

Sully throws down the gauntlet

Brendan January 19, 2011 32 Comments

Andrew Sullivan:

I backed Obama because he promised to resist the easy political calculus and do the right thing to grapple with our serious problems. If he ducks the debt test in his SOTU, if he fails to offer substantive measures to bring the debt and deficit and spending down now, then, to my mind, he fails a core test of his seriousness as a candidate and his integrity as a president.

Embrace [the] Bowles-Simpson [deficit commission’s recommendations], Mr. President. It was your commission. It would drastically change the economic climate, reassure international markets, and save the next generation from a debt burden that is simply immoral. Yes, tax reform can be part of this package, as Bowles-Simpson argued. But if Obama simply grabs tax reform and ignores spending, he will have bungled the key moment for his long-term success.

And the nation’s. Because, as all serious, grown-up participants in the conversation about our nation’s long-term fiscal health know (yes, I’m looking at you, Tea Party), you can’t fix this problem if you look at increased revenue and decreased spending as an either/or proposition. It’s a both/and. Nor, of course, can you fix the problem if you declare two-thirds of all federal spending — i.e., Medicare, Social Security and the military (and of course debt service) — off-limits.

Anyway, I generally agree with Sullivan, and I’m very interested and anxious to see what will happen Tuesday (as I mention in the podcast). This is very likely the most important speech of Obama’s presidency, both for his political fortunes and for the nation’s, well, national fortunes. It is a moment of great opportunity fraught with extreme peril. Rise to it, Mr. President.

The Living Room Times Podcast, Ep. 6: We’re Baaaack!

Brendan January 19, 2011 3 Comments

A lot has happened since the last Living Room Times Podcast. Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives, and picked up a bunch of Senate seats. Notre Dame beat USC for the first time since I became an “Irish Trojan.” Boise State lost at Nevada, just as I predicted before the season. TCU won the Rose Bowl. Auburn won the national championship. College basketball season started, and got to roughly its halfway point. The UConn women surpassed the UCLA men, then lost to the Lady Drunken Trees. There was an eclipse. “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” was repealed. “Don’t touch my junk” was uttered. Ireland was bailed out. Tragedy struck our neighborhood, and later Arizona and the nation. Winter began, Thanksgiving came and went, as did Christmas and the New Year — complete with balloons and a Bally dropping. Urban Meyer re-resigned, and Brett Favre re-retired. The NCAA made a bunch of dumb decisions. The seventh Harry Potter movie debuted, and was awesome. I finally published my #2 and #1 “Defining Days” of the (Previous) Decade. Loyacita started walking and talking. Loyette turned 3. Oh, and there was this one other thing… but you’ll have to listen to the podcast to hear about that.

Anyway, Becky and I are back after a two-and-a-half month hiatus. Our topics in this week’s podcast — recorded on Monday, Martin Luther King Day — include our hopes, fears and expectations for the new Congress (from roughly the 7:30 mark to 26:30), our thoughts on the Tucson memorial service (26:30-34:00), Christmas at the Loys’ (34:30-37:30), and University of Denver basketball (37:30-52:30), among other things. Oh, and we’re interrupted a couple of times by Loyette, which is kind of entertaining. Enjoy…

As always, you can subscribe with iTunes here. Here’s the official episode page on Pod-O-Matic, and here’s the official podcast page, which gives you a range of subscription options. You can also directly download this episode as an MP3 file, if you like. And you can subscribe to this blog’s LRT Podcast category as an RSS feed, or subscribe to the official RSS feed of the podcast, again from Pod-O-Matic.

Previous episodes, if you missed ’em: Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4 and Episode 5.

Oh, and that John Gasaway article I mention in the podcast, about Belmont? Here it is.

And here’s a picture of Loyette at Saturday’s DU game, utterly fascinated by the cheerleaders:

JOEMENTUM HALTED: Lieberman reportedly will not seek re-election

Brendan January 18, 2011 8 Comments

Joe Lieberman will announce Wednesday whether he intends to seek re-election as Connecticut’s senior U.S. Senator in 2012, and reports say he has decided not to run. [UPDATE: It’s official.]

As long-time readers know, this blog and its predecessors have a long and complicated history with Senator Joementum. I am, of course, a Nutmegger by birth, and thus have followed Lieberman’s career more closely than most. I enthusiastically supported his 2004 presidential bid, quit the Democratic Party in support of him in 2006, and generally made an ass of myself stoking enmity with Ned Lamont supporters that autumn. But before long, Joe and I had our differences, which caused me to sour on him and his sometimes dumb ideas in recent years. Ultimately, though, I still think Lieberman is a good and decent man, if not the political saint I once painted him as, and I still think he’s right about a lot of things… like, for instance, the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which he almost single-handedly shepherded through Congress last month by sheer force of will.

Having said all that, this is clearly the right decision by Lieberman. I have long felt that he had no evident path to victory in 2012, and fighting a bitter, losing campaign would have simply diminished him and caused him to go out with the whimper. Instead, he gets two years of lame-duck status to cement his legacy — whatever he wants it to be — and decide what to do next. I can’t imagine he’s done with public life.

I just hope the Dogs for Joe don’t take the news too hard.

Anyway, here are my initial reactions to the news, via Twitter. The first tweet was auto-posted by CNN, not actually by me.

CNN Breaking News — Joe Lieberman, the Democrat-turned-independent senator, plans to announce he won’t seek re-election, sources say.

#JoementumPANIC #JoementumPANIC #JoementumPANIC #JoementumPANIC #JoementumPANIC #JoementumPANIC #JoementumPANIC #JoementumPANIC

PARTY AT KOS’S HOUSE! RT @cnnbrk: Sources: Sen Joe Lieberman not seeking re-election http://on.cnn.com/hJ8XK9

In all seriousness, I’m not remotely surprised by Lieberman’s decision. It wasn’t at all clear what his path to victory was going to be.

I just wonder what he’ll do next. I can’t believe he’s done with politics. #joementum

Hello and welcome, Senator Bysiewicz.

FACT: I was about to tweet my prediction that Bysiewicz would run, then I googled the spelling of her name & learned she announced yesterday [actually earlier today -ed.]

That’s how obvious Susan Bysiewicz’s careerist ambitions are. I knew she was running without even knowing she was running. 🙂

So, two years hence, it’ll be Blumenthal & Bysiewicz. Amazing seismic shift after 22 years of Dodd & Lieberman. #LandOfSteadyHabitsPANIC

I guess Bysiewicz will face primary & she’s not the most appealing personality, but I suspect CT Dem establishment will anoint her. #HerTurn

RT @capitolwatch: @brendanloy Not so fast…Chris Murphy, Linda McMahon, Joe Courtney, Tom Foley and Rob Simmons may have something to say about that!

@capitolwatch I don’t think GOP will win an open seat in CT-SEN, barring an even worse political cycle than 2010. Murphy/Courtney, maybe.

Re: Bysiewicz & “her turn,” I’m talking thru my hat… if a serious Dem challenger emerges quickly, all bets are off. #Courtney #Murphy

My “seismic shift” point stands whether it’s Bysiewicz or not. After 22 yrs of same 2 guys, CT will have 2 new senators in ’13 #SteadyHabits

RT @dmataconis: So you think tomorrow we’ll see the end of Joementum? | Not unless Ned Lamont throws the One Ring into the Charter Oak.

@dmataconis: Joementum will not end, it will merely take on a new form.

RT @dmataconis: @brendanloy Much like Rock & Roll, JoeMentum will never die

So, Lieberman’s going to be a lame duck for the next 2 years. Freed of electoral constraints, he might start pissing off liberals sometimes.

Marade

Brendan January 17, 2011 10 Comments

I headed down to the Denver "Marade" for lunch. Lots of people honoring Dr. King. Also some miscellaneous protest causes, like these "Yes, Tunisia Can" folks. Love it. More pics at www.twitter.com/brendanloy.

“The moral leader of our nation”

Brendan January 17, 2011 2 Comments

As regular readers know, it’s my own personal annual tradition to take 17 minutes every Martin Luther King Day and listen to the “I Have a Dream” speech in its entirety. I never know which part(s) will give me goosebumps, but I always get them at some point.

I haven’t listened yet this year — will probably do so via iPhone on my commute home from work — but here’s the video clip:

Dr. King would have been 82 years old this week.

P.S. At some point, I’ll sit down with Loyette (and, later, Loyacita) and watch the speech with them. But explaining its significance requires so much ugly context — and Loyette, even at 3, would be asking a million questions. She obviously needs to know the history at some point, but it seems like such an invasion of her innocence to explain it all now. She’s blissfully unaware of racial and ethnic differences at this point, and surely couldn’t begin to conceive of the concept of discrimination. I wonder what is the appropriate age to broach the topic and start teaching one’s children this crucial but complicated piece of our history as Americans?

Bart Scott is somewhat angry & excited

Brendan January 16, 2011 Comments Off

And the Jets linebacker would like to tell you about it:

Like MJD, “I just hope he doesn’t stay up tonight, calling Sal Palantonio’s home phone at all hours of the night, just screaming into the receiver about disrespect. It seems like he wants to.”

P.S. The New York and Boston tabloids didn’t disappoint in their coverage of the game:

More after the jump.

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Record home crowd watches Denver improve to 5-0 in Sun Belt, .500 overall

Brendan Loy DU January 15, 2011 9 Comments

Last month, desperate for any spark amid a dismal 2-8 start, Denver coach Joe Scott tried to light a fire under sophomore forward Chase Hallam by referring to the Pioneers as “Chase’s team.” On Saturday, in front of the largest home crowd to watch a DU game during Scott’s four-year tenure, Hallam had an chance to dramatically seal Denver’s seventh straight win with a buzzer-beating layup. “I don’t think you can get a better shot” than the one Hallam had, Scott would say later. “We had a wide-open drive there.”

The shot missed.

Instead of a wild celebration at the end of regulation, the game went to overtime, all tied at 65-65. And Hallam resolved not to squander another opportunity.

“I thought I had the game-winner, and since I didn’t hit that, I had to make up for it,” he said of his 10 points in overtime — the bulk of the team’s 14 total in the extra period, and nearly half of his 22 points in the game.

Led by its two players with double-doubles on the night, Hallam (22 points, 10 rebounds) and freshman Chris Udofia (21 points, 12 rebounds), Denver outscored Florida International 14-5 in overtime — Udofia had the 4 Pioneer points in OT not scored by Hallam — to beat FIU, 79-70.

“Two double-doubles at the University of Denver,” said Scott. “Doesn’t happen too often.” Indeed, Hallam and Udofia are the first pair of Denver players to get double-doubles in the same game since Yemi Nicholson and DaShawn Walker did it against Troy in 2006, according to the DU SID.

The win boosted the Pioneers to 5-0 in the Sun Belt and 9-9 overall, with a seven-game winning streak since starting the season 2-9. Moreover, thanks to a North Texas loss Saturday to Troy, Denver now leads the Sun Belt West Division by two games. That is to say, every other team in the division has at least two losses, while DU remains undefeated.

Continue reading →

Hey, the WAC may actually survive!

Brendan Loy DU January 14, 2011 6 Comments

Denver’s planned future home, the WAC, may not be a zombie conference after all.

On Thursday, the NCAA’s Legislative Council approved and adopted “Proposal 2010-100,” abolishing the “continuity clause” that required conferences to have at least six schools that have been together in the conference for at least five years. The WAC was scheduled to lose that status in 2012 and had no hope of regaining it until 2017 at the earliest, which would have meant no automatic bids for the league till then, which would almost certainly have led to further defections and the eventual dissolution of the conference.

Instead, conferences now must simply have at least “seven active Division I members,” all of which sponsor men’s basketball, and six that sponsor at least five other sports (including football). And if a conference falls below those numbers, there’s a two-year grace period to pull themselves back up.

That gives the WAC, which is scheduled to have eight basketball members (three of them newbies) and seven football members starting in 2012-13, a bit of much-needed breathing room.

Continue reading →

DU gets some Mid-Majority love

Brendan Loy DU January 13, 2011 2 Comments

From Kyle Whelliston’s Conference Shootaround today:

Sun Belt: While the local and national media fixates on Carmelo Anthony’s latest spoiled-bitch tantrum, there’s a basketball team in Denver that’s undefeated! In conference play, at least. After racking up nine losses in non-conference, the Princeton-inspired Pioneers have the Belt’s most efficient offense (1.11 points per trip), are shooting almost 61 percent from the inside the arc despite topping out at 6-foot-9, and they’ve passed the first Central Time Zone test (Western Kentucky and Monroe) with a flying color or two. It’s their best league start since the Yemi Nicholson days. The league’s power center has moved to Florida, though. The Isiah Lord Thomases at FIU and Mike Jarvises at FAU are both unbeaten in the East division. International will likely get that designation snatched tonight out at North Texas, though. The Mean Green (13-2, 2-1) haven’t played a conference game since last Wednesday’s loss at MTSU, and they’re, well, angry.

North Texas hosts FIU at 6:30 PM MST tonight. Then, FIU heads out to Denver for Saturday’s date with the Pioneers, set for 4:30 PM (part two of a men’s-women’s doubleheader that starts at 1:30). I’ll be there for the men’s game, but not in my usual spot on press row — I’ve bought tickets, and am going with a friend.

Front row, behind the home bench! Mid-major basketball rocks.