By now, the debate is at full throat. And it has nothing to do with Iraq, or presidential ambitions for 2008, or the BCS, or anything of that nature.
Ballots have been sent out to the Baseball Writers Association of America, otherwise known as the self-appointed guardians of the Hall of Fame gate in Cooperstown. The name Mark McGwire is on it. Let the cacophony begin.
Just don’t expect a fair assessment of all the issues at hand...

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Christmas Eve is one of the special nights in our family. Traditions, begun without formal protocol many years ago, are now counted on, as sure as the snow that is likely to be falling outside our house – sometimes in high quantity.
Our church service falls early in the evening, and it’s a beautiful affair, culminating with the lighting of candles and “Silent Night” echoing through the pews. It’s a moment of extreme goosebumps – even tearful, in some cases.
Then, it’s back to the house for refreshments, conversation, and good times with friends and those we love, the kind of holiday magic read and sung about so often.
Yet there’s no question that, this year, things will be quite different – and a lot emptier...

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Okay, folks, it’s time to take your perceptions of college basketball and toss them out, for they’re obsolete.
Just as we aren’t going back to the days of Chuck Taylors, short shorts and two-handed set shots, we ought to purge the term “mid-major” from the hoops lexicon. Now, either you’re good, or you’re not.
Don’t believe this? Just cast an idle glance at the Top 25. Now rankings in basketball are preposterous, and become even more so once the calendar turns to March.
Still, even if polls are a misleading snapshot of the current scene, there’s still at least a few grains of truth to be found...

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Some rich kids, they never get it.
If you’re 27, and a scion of the richest oil man in all of Texas, you’re supposed to be loud and grandiose – wear the finest suits, don the most garish of Stetsons, and spend with abandon, for there’s plenty more cash in those fields of black gold.
You certainly should not be flying (coach, not first class) to NFL owner’s meetings, groveling to put an expansion franchise in your hometown of Dallas, and finding nothing but deaf ears from an old guard that likes things just the way they are, thank you very much.
Yet this was exactly what young Lamar Hunt was doing...

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As the record starts, Bobby Byrd asks the question: “What you gonna play now?”
The answer from James Brown is quick and definitive: “Bobby, I don’t know, but whatever I play, it’s got to be funky!”
He counts it off, and “Make It Funky” begins, one of the dozens of classic cuts offered by Mr. Dynamite, Hardest Working Man In Show Business, Godfather of Soul and other nicknames that don’t immediately come to mind.
In his 73-year life, JB practically wrote the modern template of black music. No one in the last half-century, other than (maybe) Elvis or Dylan, casts a larger shadow. Funk, disco and hip-hop are genres that are unthinkable without JB.
That’s the technical part...

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