KICKOFF!

College football starts tonight and rolls through the weekend. Get a good butt groove going on the couch and get watchin'. Here's the games that I'm tracking:

--THURSDAY--

Jacksonville State @ Georgia Tech

JState is the new home of QB Ryan Perriloux, whose exemplary behavior got him booted from LSU. My prediction isn't on the game, it's on Perriloux: he won't see a second year, may not even finish this one.

Vanderbilt @ Miami Ohio -3

Vandy will be dandy.

NC State @ South Carolina Gamecocks -12

Lay the points, take the 'Cocks

Oregon State Beavers -3 @ Stanford

Coach Jim Harbaugh's Cardinal will cover..

--SATURDAY--

Syracuse @ Northwestern -12

The 'Cats are going to score, but can they play "D"? 'Cats will win... by 6.

Utah @ Michigan -4

The Wolverines are supposed to have a down year, but they'll win the home opener and cover.

Akron Zips @ Wisconsin -27

Here's the numerical challenge of the day: lay the points, the Zips aren't in this class..

Northern Illinois @ Minnesota -8.5

This spread has been steadily shrinking. NIU thinking says they can win straight up. I say MN.

Illinois @ Missouri -8.5

MO covers, sorry Illini.

USC -20 @ Virginia

Another big number, a little more than the Trojans can cover.

The Whole World Was Watching

As the Democrats have convened in Denver to anoint Barack and Joe B. (Bill Clinton deserves an Emmy), there is a notorious anniversary at hand. Forty years ago, beginning on August 25, 1968, the Democratic Party threw its quadrennial soiree in Chicago and a whole bunch of uninvited guests crashed the party to voice their displeasure with war in VietNam. There were YIPPIES (Youth International Party), the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), the Weathermen, the Chicago police, the Illinois National Guard and more, thrown together in a roiling stew of violence, arrogance, brutality and fear.

In the months prior to the convention, we had already been stunned by the murders of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. Huge riots followed King's killing in April, while there was intense sadness after Kennedy was shot to death in June. The war in VietNam was raging at full throttle and fatalities were mounting. An offshoot of the SDS, the Weathermen, had begun to punctuate the anti-war message with their own acts of violence.

The Democratic party and the TV networks, sensing trouble, wanted the convention moved to Miami, where the Republicans had held their convention. Richard J. Daley would have none of it. He promised to "enforce peace". Such a curious phrasing; it foreshadowed the events that would unfold, on television, in Chicago's front yard. The messengers of peace would include 11,900 policemen, 7,500 Army troops, 7,500 National Guard troops and 1,000 Secret Service agents.

The convention was being held at the Chicago Amphitheater (a dump even back then) at 41st Street and Halsted. The Democrats were headquartered 4 miles north at the Hilton. The protesters were trying to camp in Lincoln Park, 4 more miles further to the north. The protesters held an anti-war rally Sunday night with a bonfire (fueled by some park benches) in Lincoln Park. The park closing time was 11 p.m., and the messengers of peace marched in to assure that the park was vacated in a timely fashion. Violence was widespread. Battles would recur nightly in Lincoln Park and Grant Park.

On Wednesday, the protesters began to march to the Amphitheater. The police and soldiers stopped them. A riot that came to be known as "the Battle of Michigan Avenue" ensued, with plenty of media coverage to record the events. These actions would later be pronounced by a government inquiry to have been "a police riot". Richard J. Daley would reject the finding and give his policemen a raise.

Inside the convention, the Democrats argued and protested as a minority attempted to fashion a peace platform for the party. Senator Abraham Ribicoff of Massachusets denounced the "Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago". The Hubert H. Humphrey/Edmund Muskie ticket was officially slated and went on to lose the general election to Richard Nixon.

President Nixon continued to bomb the hell out of VietNam while negotiating for peace.

On March 20, 1969, a grand jury indicted 8 policeman and 8 civilians. The eight civilians were charged with crossing a state line to incite a riot. They were the first people to be charged under a law that had been passed the previous year.

The law was the 1968 Civil Rights Act.

Peace in VietNam would officially come in January of 1973.

The whole world was watching. Still.

Today, Meet Joe South

Yesterday, Joe B.

Today: Joe South.

Joe South is a musician and song writer who is one of the finest talents that you probably don't know about. If you're on the younger side, you've probably never heard of him. If you're of the more, um, experienced perspective, well, you've still probably never heard of him. You have heard his work, though.

Joe was born in Atlanta in 1940. He had a hit at 18 with a gimmick song, but made his reputation in the music business as a session guitarist for some really big names. Joe recorded with an eclectic constellation that includes Aretha Franklin, Tommy Roe, Bob Dylan, Eddy Arnold, Wilson Pickett, Marty Robbins and Simon & Garfunkel. Joe South is probably the only thing those stars have in common.

He wrote a lot of hit songs. The biggest commercial success was "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden". Joe also wrote hits for Freddie Weller, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Deep Purple, the Osmonds and Billy Joe Royal. Again, probably the only thing they had in common was Joe.

Joe South hit it big as a performer in 1969, winning a Grammy for "Games People Play". He also had hits with "Don't It Make You Wanna Go Home" and "Walk a Mile in My Shoes". Joe is credited with creating the music genre called "Country Soul". Performing wasn't his thing and he had his demons to deal with, so Joe's performing career was brief, but there was some gold left for us to listen to.

You feel Joe South's music as you listen. So, if you have a few minutes of private time, courtesy of YouTube, you can meet (or reacquaint yourself with) the incredible music of Joe South. Sit back and let it roll over you. Here's his three big hits as a performer and one he wrote that was a big hit for Deep Purple. The visuals are crappy (I try not to even watch!), but the music is sweet!

Games People Play http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5znh58WITU8

Don't It Make You Want to Go Home http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AirBbS4R7Z0&feature=related

Walk a Mile in My Shoes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM9Es4N4oGU&feature=related

Hush, from Deep Purple http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ilz5SxrHA3E

I hope that you'll enjoy them.

Meet Joe B.

Barack announced in the middle of Friday night that Joe Biden would be his running mate. I realized I didn't know Jack about Joe. Here's what I found.

Joe Biden is:

• a Senator from Delaware since 1973 (he was 30 when first elected)
• Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee
• Irish and Catholic and will turn 66 shortly after the election
• a graduate of the University of Delaware ( a "C" student) and Syracuse U. College of Law (76th in a class of 85)
• had 2 brain aneurisms 20 years ago
• has a son, Beau, who is the Attorney General of Delaware. Beau is in the Delaware National Guard and is scheduled to be deployed to Iraq in October.
• voted to support the war in Iraq
• is responsible for the Violence Against Women Act, legislation that addresses domestic violence
• failed in Presidential campaigns in '88 and this year
• voted against limiting product liability damage awards

Here's a link to a site that tracks Joe B's congressional voting record and public position on numerous issues: http://www.ontheissues.org/Joe_Biden.htm The list is much too long to print, and I'm not going to pick and choose to present to you my hot button issues, but spending a few minutes on this list is well worth your time. It will give you an idea of what the man is about.

BTW, Joe B. resembles the late Phil Hartman.

Informed people make better decisions.

Miners, Commodores and Cardinal

Who are the

• Miners?
• Commodores?
• Cardinal?

The Miners are the University of Texas - El Paso, frequently just UTEP. The name comes from the naissance of the school; it was founded in 1914 as the Texas State School of Mines and Metallurgy. Enrollment is around 20,000 and is 73% of Mexican descent.

The school is part of Conference USA.

The UTEP mascot (dedicated to my investment partner) is Paydirt Pete.

The Commodores, in addition to being the band that was the starting point for Lionel Richie in the 70's and 80's (which is better: Three Times a Lady or Brick House?) are Vanderbilt University.

The school and the teams are named for Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, who founded the school in 1873 with a million dollar grant. Today, there are around 12,000 students.

Vanderbilt is a member of the SEC. Vandy is frequently referred to as the Harvard of the South.

UIC, the University of Illinois-Chicago, formerly "Circle Campus", is known as Harvard on Halsted. Just sayin'...and Brick House is far and away the better song.

Finally, the Cardinal is Stanford University, established 1891, 15,000 students today. Leland Stanford was the governor of and later a US Senator from California.

The Cardinal refers to the school's color, cardinal red. The teams were known as the Indians until 1972, when they became the Cardinals, not the bird cardinals but the color, which didn't make a lot of sense. They became the Cardinal, singular form, in 1981.

It's noteworthy that the school moved to be politically correct nearly 40 years ago with respect to the team name. On the other side of the coin, the team mascot is a tree.