Recently I was e-mailed, via Match.com, by an attractive woman (to the extent that profile pictures can be trusted, anyway) named Kathleen. I love that name, and her profile made her sound like someone I’d be interested in talking to a bit more, so I replied. We exchanged a couple of e-mails and I was thinking that maybe I’d like to meet her in person.

Then she asked me if I liked skiing. I answered honestly. I love skiing, although I’m not great at it and I haven’t been on the hill since I annihilated my knees a few years back. I’d love to get back into it, though, but haven’t so far because I hate doing things alone.

I knew as I hit the send button that I’d never hear from her again. Full story »

Corporate sponsorship is important for a great many of America’s non-profits, and that’s certainly true of the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Of course, any time you strike an alliance with another entity, you can’t help assuming some of their risk. Your partner jumps the tracks, all of a sudden people are looking at you even though you didn’t do anything wrong.

I tend to believe that Komen’s sponsors had nothing but the best intentions in donating their time and money to supporting a worthy cause. However, I also can’t help noticing that I haven’t heard a peep out of any of them regarding the foundation’s appalling decision to de-fund Planned Parenthood, an entity that doesn’t harness its public health mission to partisan prerequisites. Full story »

The Komen Foundation VP at the center of the Planned Parenthood firestorm, Karen Handel, has resigned.

A few days ago I predicted on Facebook that she’d be gone within a week, but  then retracted the prediction when I learned more about the heavy-Right political leanings of the rest of the board (and the involvement of Ari Fleischer in their strategy development).

On Friday, just before America took its collective brain offline for Super Bowl Weekend, Komen offered up a fake apology that encouraged the public to believe that it had changed its mind and was going to continue funding Planned Parenthood after all, even though its release actually said nothing of the sort. It isn’t clear how many average citizens the ploy fooled, but as I explained on Saturday, it sure as hell clowned the copy desk editors of just about every major news outlet in the country. Full story »

Yesterday I attempted to shed a little light on the PR crisis strategy behind the Komen Foundation’s sudden Planned Parenthood “backtracking.”

Contrary to what Komen’s highly-paid PR crisis hacks and gullible headline writers at newsdesks around the nation would ask you to believe, The Susan G. Komen Foundation does NOT promise to fund Planned Parenthood in the future. They promise to let PP APPLY for grants in the future. Applying and receiving are different things, as anyone who ever applied and got rejected for a job ought to know. Full story »

I can’t tell you how many times this week, in listening to radio, watching TV or reading print “analyses” on the upcoming Super Bowl, I have heard “Bill Belichick” and “Hall of Fame” used in sequence. It’s been a lot. The working assumption is that the Patriots’ head coach, who has been to four Super Bowls and won three of them (pending Sunday’s showdown with the New York Giants) is a lock first-ballot HoFer. After all, he has several rings and is widely regarded as the premier genius of the contemporary game.

Fair enough. But before this particular runaway bandwagon crashes the gates of Canton, I’d like to ask a question: is Belichick really a Hall of Famer?

Let’s consider a few brief facts.

• He cheated. Yes he did. Stone cold busted. (Apologists can argue that what he was doing was no big deal if they like. But as bad as I detest the guy, I respect the hell out of his ability. Full story »

Read. The language. Closely.

Contrary to what Komen’s highly-paid PR crisis hacks and gullible headline writers at newsdesks around the nation would ask you to believe, The Susan G. Komen Foundation does NOT promise to fund Planned Parenthood in the future. They promise to let PP APPLY for grants in the future. Applying and receiving are different things, as anyone who ever applied and got rejected for a job ought to know. Full story »

Previously: I hope you took a few minutes to explore the outstanding recipients of this year’s Gold and Platinum LP awards. Honorable Mentions, too.

I don’t think many readers will find much controversy in the assertion that things have been hard over the past few years, and 2010 and 2011 were especially hellish in my neck of the woods. So it’s no surprise to find artists focusing on the difficulties they see (and often live themselves). It’s rare, though, to find someone who’s singing about the bad times with as much depth and empathy as we find in Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit’s Here We Rest, my 2011 CD of the Year. Full story »

I looked at my counter this morning and saw a secret message.

Previously: the 2011 Gold LPs and the Honorable Mentions.

The Platinum LPs, awarded for exceptional artistic merit, are always the point where this process begins to wear on me. I want to make sure I have included all the worthy bands and that my words do those acknowledged justice. I never feel like I have succeeded on either count, and this year seems even worse than usual. So my apologies to the artists here: my remarks are in no way up to the standards of the music you produced last year.

[sigh] So here we go.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: Belong
It seems like each year there’s that one band, sort of an accessible, trendy indie outfit that pegs everybody’s hip meters and makes it okay to like intelligent guitar pop. Full story »

Joe Paterno is dead. Lots has been written and more will be added to the pile in the coming days and weeks. So let me add my two cents while the thoughts are fresh in my mind.

Had the last few months not happened we’d now be anointing JoePa for sainthood. As you’ve been told so many times before, and are now hearing all over again, he was all that was good and true in collegiate athletics, a man who did things the right way, etc. The thing is, that’s a woefully simplistic commentary on Paterno and how he did business. Also, the last few months did happen. So we now find ourselves needing to address Paterno’s legacy in two parts. Let’s do the ugly bit first. Full story »

“I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong… No Viet Cong ever called me nigger.” Full story »

I mentioned that 2011 was a great year for music in part 1, right? Well, the sheer number of Gold LPs (awarded for outstanding merit) should serve to illustrate the point a bit. So let’s get to it.

First, let me disqualify a CD.

Paul Lewis: Bag Of Rain
If my objectivity is clouded by close personal relationships, it’s absolutely obliterated by great self-interest. And since I was fortunate enough to contribute lyrics for two of the tracks on Bag of Rain, I’m not even going to pretend that I’m being critical. I can say, however, that Paul is an outstanding tunesmith and an even better singer – I’ve been saying he has one of the best voices in the business since the first time I saw him perform in the late 1980s. These qualities have only improved with time. “Platform of Our Lives,” for instance, displays a rare emotional vulnerability, and Paul the singer understands when to coat a tune in velvet and when to stomp the accelerator. Full story »

I feel like a broken record, but man, what a great year. I just saw a comment on a Facebook thread this morning where somebody said that there hasn’t been any good music since 1990 and I can’t help feeling sorry for people who think that way. I know, radio has abandoned us. And I know it’s hard to put as much time into finding the good stuff as maybe we’d like. But trust me, there’s fantastic music being made and in this series (this post will be followed by the Gold LP, Platinum LP and CD of the Year awards) I’ll do what I can to point readers at the best of what I heard last year.

One caveat, based on something I’m becoming more aware of lately. I’m not a record reviewer. I’ve done that from time to time, but I never liked the nuts and bolts of being a pure critic and I never thought I was very good at it. Still, this list, through the years, has worked to be as critically honest as possible. Full story »

This morning I took a few minutes to watch the vid for the new Van Halen single, “Tattoo.” I was a little startled, in the final verse, to encounter these lyrics:

Uncle Danny, had a coal tattoo.
He fought for the unions,
Some of us still do.
On my shoulder is the number
of the chapter he was in.
That number is forever
like the struggle here to win.

I had never thought of VH as a political band, so I did some snooping. Full story »

I love microbrew. Ask any of my friends and they’ll tell you that I’m a proud beer snob and have been since first moving to Boulder in 1993. Colorado, along with states like Oregon and California, led the micro revolution in the ’90s and when I landed here I was absolutely staggered by the number and quality of local beers available to me. The state continues to be one of the the nation’s brewing leaders, with Denver/Boulder (as you’d expect) being at the epicenter. Some interesting facts:

• Denver ranks first in the nation in per capita beer production.
• Denver is second in the nation in number of total breweries in a city. Full story »

It goes like this:

Reporter asks question that he/she knows will not get an answer.

Player/coach doesn’t answer question.

Reporter pretends that player/coach answered question, thanks player/coach, kicks it back to the guys in the studio/booth.

Can we just stop with the charade already? Just now, on the Giants/Falcons halftime show, they cut to John Lynch in Denver, where he asked Broncos head coach John Fox about the rumors that backup quarterback Brady Quinn was getting reps in practice this week. How short a leash will Tim Tebow be on, coach? Full story »

Toronto GM Brian Burke misses the good old days. And just the other day, he got all misty about having to send his enforcer down the minors because, well, he couldn’t find a dance partner. Or something.

“If you want a game where guys can cheap-shot people and not face retribution, I’m not sure that’s a healthy evolution,” he said Thursday. “The speed of the game, I love how the game’s evolved in terms of how it’s played. But you’re seeing where there is no accountability.”

According to numbers provided by the NHL, fighting is down significantly this season. Through play Wednesday, there was an average of 0.8 fighting majors per game compared with 1.2 at the same point last year. Full story »

Have you seen the vid on Youtube called “Iowa Nice”? If not, let’s start there.

The producer of the video, Scott Siepker, is an Iowa State University grad and host of Iowa Outdoors on Iowa Public Television. Full story »

Scholars & Rogues wants to thank our music-loving readership for making this the most successful Tournament of Rock yet, and we’d especially like to say a huge thanks to all the bands who participated. ToR3 featured a number of surprises and upsets, but in the end we hope that everybody found a new band to love.

So, the Finals represented our biggest turnout ever and the margin was incredibly close. The Blueflowers and The Lost Patrol asked their fans to vote and they did. When the last chad was unhung, the winner by a 52-48% margin was… Full story »