and moved to Sunday at 6 p.m. Because of the change, the game will not be televised.

This is really good stuff. Thank you, Jimmy, for pointing out that Leno is remarkbly unfunny.

This is really cool.  I hope that the guy who is doing this can add some Hogs in Junction City, AR and Olive Branch, MS, soon. There has never been a year with so few Arkansas recruits, and I would imagine there won’t be another one anytime, soon.

preseason Top 25 poll.  I suspect they are wary of Arkansas’ pitching, or this would be a little bit higher.  Look out for true freshman D.J. Baxendale of Sylvan Hills. He reportedly has filthy stuff and could be the closer.

Jim Gooch sent me this and asked that I post it as an addendum to his now much-criticized Movie List regarding the Teabaggers, and his reply to PapaJ. Apparently, it is a ridiculious Teabagger Rally poster.

“Arkansas, will you make the Final Four in those whacky uniforms with the pigs with horns…………..yeah, those pigs may be Hogs but they’re kosher to me.”

(if report regarding its content are true) regardless of which side you are on in the never-ending abortion debate.

Really….. *I* am a Jerk for Calling Tim Tebow College Football Baby Jesus, but the anti-abortion Super Bowl commercial he is starring in is going to center around his “miraculious” birth?  Here is a particularly interesting portion of this article in the Gainesville Sun :

Focus on the Family announced last week that the commercial will share a personal story from the Tebows centered on the theme of “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life.” The group has declined to provide specific details about the ad, but speculation has centered on the story of Tebow’s birth.

After getting seriously ill during a mission trip to the Philippines, Pam Tebow ignored a recommendation by doctors to have an abortion and ended up giving birth. Tim Tebow himself said the story was the reason that he decided to participate in the ad.

“That’s the reason I’m here, because my mom is a really courageous woman,” he said Monday.

Tom Krattenmaker, author of the book “Onward Christian Athletes,” questioned whether the ad’s focus on the “miraculous birth narrative” might turn off even Christians for being idolatrous. Krattenmaker, whose book is critical of mixing religion and sports, said Tebow is moving beyond simply espousing his faith to being a flash point in the culture wars.

“He’s either naive or incredibly gutsy and principled,” Krattenmaker said. “I expect there’s some of both.”

The controversy is growing regarding this, and, if the ad contains such a focus, I can understand why.  It’s one thing to be anti-abortion.  It’s another to tell people faced with a Hobson’s choice regarding the most excruciating of life (and death) experiences that they did the wrong thing.

Let me explain.  In 2005, Amber, my wife, was pregnant with what would have been our first child.  Unfortunately, at about the 3-4 month mark, there were extreme complications.  We were advised by the doctors, that under no scenario would the baby live to term, be born, and survive. 

The doctors said it was highly likely the baby would be stillborn in the womb, and possibly present some serious risks for Amber’s health, but that even if the baby survived to term, she would then die.  The doctors strongly suggested we induce labor. We did.

To the staunchest Pro-Life people, this was, I am sure, an abortion, even though I cannot imagine how bringing a baby into the world with extreme birth defects, to live for a second, and then die could ever be considered a Pro-Life decision (not to mention the further toll it would have added to an already devastating experience).

Nevertheless, that’s essentially the message Tebow is sending.  Not that we should find a loving home for “unwanted” babies and avoid abortion at all cost.  But, that everything is black and white, and no matter the circumstances an abortion is an abortion is an abortion…..and you just never know…..that baby you didn’t want may grow up to win the Heisman Trophy and, at 22, tell the rest of the World how it should live it’s life.

by author Rus Bradburn is to be released soon.  In this book review/ interview on Slam Online, Bradburd talks about the book, and essentially promises to paint a lot of folks with a pretty broad brush–ironic, considering the book appears to be about the injustice that is created by such actions.

I think the book will be entertaining, but one also has to worry about its accuracy when the opening line of the review has it set in the wrong state (AL instead of AR).  And, in the book, the author credits Ed Beshara, a man whom Richardson did not know until he took the Tulsa job and arrived in OK, with convincing him to take the Golden Hurrican job (Beshara convinced Nolan to head to Arkansas years later).

I am a staunch supporter of Richardson, and I think his meltdown started years before his firing–more like in 1997-98-99 when he (rightly) felt then Arkansas Athletic Director Frank Broyles  was a). Treating him much differently than the startlingly less accomplished UA football coach, Houston Nutt and b.) making behind-the-scenes maneuvers to remove him just a few years after a National Championship, a National Runner up, and Sweet 16 with mostly freshmen, 3-year run from 1994-1996.

That said, this review seems to suggest the book may be tilted a little too far to Nolan’s side, in terms of fairness, even for my taste.  We’ll see, I guess.

I do agree with the author’s points about Richardson thriving in the “me against the World” role and that Nolan wouldn’t have been Nolan if he had done things any other way.  And, I cringed, but nodded (if the quote was accurate) when he fired these salvos in the interview:

There’s no good way for me to say Frank Broyles stood up at a faculty meeting and said: “I’ll go home to Georgia before I have n*ggers on my team.” There’s no way for me to tell that story other than the way it is.

To me meanness is meanness and kindness is kindness. I think that Frank Broyles has a meanness and pettiness and I think it’s what happens when people have unchecked power. Here’s a guy who has never had to answer to anybody and is controlling who the president of the university is.

I think more than a backlash from Frank Broyles, I fear backlash from the Arkansas media who have bowed down to this guy for years and years.

The disappointment for me, though, is that for many years, he let his understandable hatred for 2 men (Broyles and the former UA Chancellor and Prevaricator-in-Chief, John White) override his love for the program he (re)built and thousands and thousands of fans who respected and loved him much more than he could have ever imagined.

In the end, I think many like myself still do, but a once-proud program has been brought to its knees by a confluence of the fiasco, and many other events. 

In a perfect world, Nolan would have orchestrated an amicble parting, handed over the reins to Mike Anderson, and written a tell-all that accurately represented the fury and passion that defined the construction and completion of the college basketball landscape-changing phenomenon that was 40 Minutes of Hell.

It could never happened, but it would be phenomenal if the President sat for jury after being summoned in Illinois.

Pillhead Limbaugh’s Oxycontin-ravaged melon might LITERALLY explode, giving Glenn Beck a contact-high that Beck would blame on Obama…and Jews.

Walk Away, Brett....PLEASE

Anyone else just over this?

The Scene: Bud Walton Arena….still a virtual infant….Super Bowl Sunday, Defending National Champs versus Kentucky, in indefensible uniforms…..it was the first game my 15-year old brother attended in person.  I swung the ticket for him in the student section. Safe to say it was a good day.

gets some job security…..sort of.  Too bad his team owner is the real HC and his QB is more worried about what neato hat he is gonna wear in the postgame presser than he is about the game.

is USC-W (The Trojans in L.A.) or USC-E (The Gamecocks in Columbia) the real USC? Find out here.  I think, just to be  a contrarian, I will still call them USC-W and USC-E.