Carli Lloyd-3; Japan-2

Oh, by the way, the rest of the U.S. women’s national soccer team also managed to score a pair of goals, which gave us the end result of the United States taking its first World Cup soccer championship in 16 years by a 5-2 final score.

The new sporting hero

I have to admit that Sunday’s championship game between the United States and Japan was one of the most remarkable soccer games I ever have seen.

PARTICULARLY FOR THE play of Lloyd, a New Jersey native and midfielder for the Houston Dash of the National Women’s Soccer League when she’s not playing for the United States.

She managed to score three goals within the first 16 minutes of the match, particularly that third goal that she kicked from the middle of the field – carrying roughly 180 feet right into the goal in large part because the Japanese goal tender managed to lose her footing while trying to block the ball.

That probably will be the moment that lives on in televised sports footage for years to come.

Admittedly, this match would have been more competitive if the Team Japan of the second half had been on the pitch for the entire match. But the U.S. team was able to get overly aggressive (jumping out to a 2-0 lead within the first five minutes) early on, making it difficult for Japan to seriously come back.

ALTHOUGH I HAVE to admit they didn’t quit. There was one point when the score became 4-2 that created a feeling in the gut that perhaps some sort of miraculous comeback was in store.

So now there is a serious sporting moment that took place Sunday – with the women’s team getting its third championship (the others came in 1991 and 1999, the latter at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.) ever. Which is better than men’s squads from the United States have done – no championship ever, even though that tourney has been played since 1930.

 

Will Renee Wronecki (Miss Ill.) get her moment?

Perhaps this could give a jolt to the men’s national squads to do better when they take to the pitch in 2018 in Russia.

And you have to wonder, will anything that happens at the Miss USA pageant next Sunday short of a “wardrobe malfunction” by some unfortunate contestant come close to matching the drama of what took place today in Vancouver?

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Will we have a state government ‘shutdown’ where nothing shuts down?

Illinois government employees got paid their salaries on Wednesday knowing it might be a long, long time before they see another paycheck, or direct deposit, made in their names.

RAUNER: Wants workers paid to keep them quiet

People who work on the state payroll get paid twice a month – the 1^st and 15^th. Wednesday was also the first day of Illinois’ 2016 fiscal year.

THAT MAKES THE money state workers received on Wednesday for work done the second half of June, or the end of Fiscal 2015.

Because that is off the old state budget, they can be paid without conflict. The next pay check will be for work done during Fiscal 2016 – which is a problem because the budget for that fiscal period has yet to be set.

In accordance with the Illinois Constitution, government cannot spend money if it hasn’t been specifically appropriated. Which is why things are a mess this year – Gov. Bruce Rauner and the General Assembly’s leaders are stuck in a disagreement over the budget that has little to do with financial matters.

It’s all about partisan politics and ideology and the desire by each to make the other squirm and whimper like a little school girl.

ALTHOUGH I HONESTLY suspect that analogy is gross because the average little school girl probably shows more maturity and sense than our state’s political people these days.

On this issue, state officials argued in Cook County Circuit Court earlier this week, and a judge is expected to rule come Tuesday on what exactly can, and cannot, be paid by state government during this interlude when there is no set budget.

MADIGAN: No signs of compromise

Rauner and his legal advisers want to believe they can keep making the state payroll in full on the grounds that money still comes into state government. It’s there – it just hasn’t been appropriated yet.

Although the traditional interpretation of needing an appropriation before money can be spent would also impact the payroll – just as it has in past years when there has been a budgetary stalemate. Long-time state employees know to keep a little extra money in the bank come the beginning of summer; on the off-chance that they’d miss a pay-day or two.

BUT RAUNER KNOWS that if state workers miss a paycheck come July 15, they’re going to be fickle enough to shift blame for this whole mess to him. They’ll turn on him so quickly – and he’ll be the one who winds up at the mercy of Mike Madigan & Co.

MADIGAN: Acts could benefit her dad

Because the reason we have a stalemate is because Rauner is refusing to consider figuring out how to fill the financial shortfall that exists in the budget UNTIL some of his ideologically-motivated desires get enacted into law.

Which is a tactic I wouldn’t object to so much (I’d be bothered by his issues, but he has a right to tout them) if it were still April or May and we had the General Assembly and governor trying to reach a deal.

But that time has passed. We’re now at the point where officials need to concoct a budget agreement so that government can operate and fulfill its obligations to the people of Illinois. As for what those obligations can be, that’s a debate for another day.

SO WE’LL HAVE to see if the Cook County courts wind up issuing the ruling that restricts the amount of payroll that can be met while the political people engage in their equivalent of a street fight over who controls state government.

I’d compare it to “West Side Story,” except I suspect that neither Rauner nor Madigan nor Illinois state Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, can dance worth squat. Nor do I think Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is comparable to Maria (nor Natalie Wood).

Will Rauner have to squirm this holiday weekend (while marching in that parade  Saturday in suburban Arlington Heights), wondering if the courts hold him to the letter of the law concerning state spending, rather than let him pay off some people to buy their political good will with state funds?

I kind of hope they do. Because ultimately, this problem won’t get resolved until our state officials quit thinking in terms of how they “win” and instead focus on how to balance the budget – which is how we, the people of Illinois, will “win.”

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EXTRA: What would Paul Reuschel hot dog be? Biittner or Jose Cardenal?

It seems that Doug Sohn is a 1970s-era Chicago Cubs fan. How else to explain the fact that the one-time operator of the Hot Doug’s hot dog stand is now serving up products at Wrigley Field named for Cubs ballplayers of that era.

The Carmen Fanzone? A Vienna Beef polish sausage with brown mustard and carmelized onions. Personally, I think there should be a trumpet riff played whenever anyone buys one.



Yes, Paul and Rick were transposed

THE RICK REUSCHEL? Pork sausage with chipotle mustard and pepper jack cheese. Which makes me wonder what a hot dog named for his brother, Paul, would be; perhaps a foot-long with double the same ingredients to acknowledge the girth.

The Dave Kingman? Bacon cheeseburger sausage with cola-barbecue sauce and sharp cheddar cheese. Of course, you’d have to put something unexpected in it to give it a sharp, off-beat and nasty taste – just like Kingman’s personality!

Considering that hot dogs at Wrigley Field have never been anything special (the polish sausage served up to Chicago White Sox fans at U.S. Cellular Field tops anything the Cubs have ever offered to go along with all that Old Style Beer consumed throughout the years), it’s interesting to see something different offered up.

Although I don't know much about these new products, other than that they were first offered Friday and were probably the most interesting aspect of the Cubs' loss to the Miami Marlins. Better later than never, I suppose. Because it seems that the 21st Century sports stadium has become more about the concessions it offers, rather than the activity that takes place on the playing field.

AT $9 APIECE, these hot dogs aren't exactly something we can indulge in too many of. Back in the 1970s, that $9 would have paid for a ticket AND concessions for a person to attend a ballgame.  For the record, Sohn says he plans to rotate the offerings – there will be other variations of sausages on a bun that will be named for other Cubs players of that era.

Which means there had better be a Jose Cardenal (although the idea of the traditional Cuban hot dog that includes ham, Swiss cheese, dill pickles, prosciutto and mayonnaise -- a variation of the famed Cuban sandwich -- isn’t that appealing) included in the very near future.

Although if they really want to get off-beat, they’d offer up a Larry Biittner. I'm not sure what kind of sausage it would be, but it ought to come with some sort of a discount for any fan who can actually spell the one-time outfielder’s name correctly!
 

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What should we think if World Cup final gets better ratings than Miss USA?

That’s a very real possibility, what with the fact that the Women’s World Cup championship match scheduled for this Sunday will be on the Fox television network, whereas the Donald Trump-owned pageant has been relegated to Reelz (channel 507 on my local line-up).

The show will come to an end Sunday for another four years

I wonder how many people don’t have a clue where to find the channel (I didn’t until I looked it up, and figured out it was one of those channels I usually fly right by while trying to find something worthwhile to watch).

BUT THAT IS the reality, where the women’s national teams from the United States and Japan will play against each other this Sunday, and Trump will give us a girlie show (in the name of scholarship) on July 12.

The Miss USA pageant lost its spot on the NBC network because of the fact that Trump engaged in stupid comments about Mexico – as though someone as gauche as he has any right thinking himself superior to anything on Planet Earth!

That caused NBC, whose holdings also include the Spanish-language Telemundo network, to drop the program, and also for the Univision network that would have carried the pageant into Latin American countries to drop it as well.

There also are a lot of business entities, including the one-time Marshal Field’s now known as Macy’s, who are refusing to be connected to Trump anymore. No more “Trump, the Cologne,” or any other products with his brand name.

HIS GARISH BEHAVIOR for all these decades has always been embarrassing. But now, his tacky mouth may wind up harming him.

Miss USA winds up on a channel people will have to hunt for

Which makes me think, “It’s about time!” The reason I haven’t felt compelled to write anything trashing Trump for his latest Mexico rant is that it doesn’t strike me as being any more stupid than anything else he has ever said or done. I never paid any attention to him, then or now.

So Trump’s program (he owns the pageant) will not draw the kind of television attention it usually gets. Although I suspect enough people will hunt for the program next weekend that it will be rhetorically spun into some sort of “historic” event – for the Reelz network, at least.

Instead, the big event may turn out to be the Women’s World Cup – which has been ongoing for the past month and comes to its conclusion this weekend.

Mexico won't participate this year

THAT GERMANY VS. England matchup that I’m sure some people were desperately hoping would be the championship final will wind up being the consolation match on Saturday.

Instead, we’re going to get that rematch of the 2011 Women’s World Cup, when a 2-2 tie turned into a Japan victory on a shootout. The U.S. revenge comes Sunday? Or will the ideologues be ranting on Monday about the “shame” of losing to Japan in anything?

This may wind up getting decent television ratings because it reflects the reality of the U.S. sporting mentality – U.S. fans will watch soccer if they feel the U.S. team has a good chance of winning the whole thing and dominating everyone they play.

Anything else is considered downright dull. As though the U.S. men’s basketball Olympic Team is the way all sports are intended to be. They’ll watch if they think the United States will get its first Women’s World Cup victory since 1999.

IF ANYTHING, IT will be interesting to see just how much better soccer does than the pageant in the ratings. Although I can already hear the rants claiming that any ratings won’t reflect the reality that some people want to perceive.

What really is more intriguing:  90-plus minutes of the “beautiful game” or learning who will represent the United States at the Miss Universe pageant come early next year?

Considering how Mexico and other Latin American nations are considering not even participating (and the number of pageant winners that usually come from Latin America), could this become the Miss Universe equivalent of the 1984 Summer Olympics – remember all the Soviet bloc nations that dropped out; weakening the overall competition level?

Chastain's moment lives on

Why do I suspect that the upcoming star or personality of Sunday’s Women's World Cup match (remember Brandi Chastain from 1999?) will have longer staying power in our society’s collective memory than whichever bathing suit-clad woman wins the Miss USA pageant the following week?

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EXTRA: Will ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ become the new ‘Song of the South?’

The ongoing flap over the Confederate battle flag may have taken down a television show from my childhood – the TV Land channel that shows many old sitcoms and dramas has cut out its twice-a-day showings of the “Dukes of Hazzard.”

BACH: Puts Jessica Simpson to shame

You show, the show about a pair of good ol’ boys who run illegal liquor and are constantly being chased about by a batch of bungling boobs of local cops who make Barney Fife look like a dedicated law enforcement official.

OF COURSE, THE car they used in their chases was a bright red Dodge Charger with a battle flag painted on its roof. The merchandising done off the show included toy car replicas of that vehicle.

So with many people amongst official southerndom deciding they now will do what should have been done a half-century ago (do away with the battle flag in any official context), the channel apparently didn’t like that flag appearing repeatedly each and every day.

Personally, I don’t miss the show. I thought it was nit-witish when I was a kid, and other than checking out actress Catherine Bach’s long legs and tight tush I’d have no interest in ever seeing it again.

But I’m wondering if the show is going to wind up becoming glorified in the public eye for something it never was – some symbol of southern culture. If anything, if I were a southerner I’d want to sue someone for portraying the “land of cotton” as being so buffoonish.

WILL PEOPLE START missing the show and attributing to it cultural traits that it doesn’t deserve? Such as what has become of the old Disney film “Song of the South,” which tells the tales of Brer Rabbit and has Uncle Remus singin’ and shufflin’ along like a “good little negro.”

Just try finding it somewhere to watch these days

Sort of how actor Carroll O’Connor’s “Archie Bunker” character would describe all black people, only to be mocked right to his face by his “little goil Gloria” for talking so stupid!

The old racial line of thinking has caused theaters to quit reviving “Song of the South,” and even trying to buy a copy on video isn’t easy. Which causes some people to think the film is more deserving of praise than it actually is.

Bo and Luke and arch-nemesis Boss Hogg probably aren’t even worth the words I’m writing here. I’d hope it doesn’t get elevated to something it’s not worthy of.

Could this place 'Hillbillies' on blacklist?

BESIDES, I WONDER if this means people are going to start reviewing all the programs of the past to see which ones meet a modern sensibility.

Take “The Beverly Hillbillies,” where I specifically remember an episode where Max Baer’s “Jethro” character considers enlisting in the army, only to back away when he learns it’s the “Yankee army” and not the Confederate that he’d be joining.

I also found reference to an episode where Irene Ryan’s “Granny” character (who often touts the political abilities of Jefferson Davis) mistakes a Civil War film scene being shot for actual battle, and totes her shotgun along to get a few Yankees for herself.

Do we wipe out that one-time major hit show? Or maybe the “Andy Griffith Show,” where I recall an episode where someone tries to cash in a war bond that would financially bust Mayberry, only to find out the bond is worthless because it was issued by the Confederate government.

THERE WAS THAT whole 1960s era when CBS’ weekly lineup was filled with southern-themed shows. Do we scour “Green Acres” or “Petticoat Junction” to see which ones are bothersome?

Delightful? Or highly unsanitary?

Although I think the bigger question that rises from the latter show is one that was brought up in an episode some three decades later from “That 70’s Show” – How can they let those women swim naked in the town’s drinking water supply?

Then again, maybe if Bach’s “Daisy Duke” character had done the same in a few scenes, TV Land would be willing to keep that show on the air – regardless of what was painted on that car’s roof?

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Having to flee one’s home ought to be a disgrace on an Independence Day

I recall a day from back when I was a kid and my brother and I went with our mother for a day-long visit to grandma’s house.

Putting in overtime this coming weekend

What provoked this visit wasn’t any real desire to see the relatives. It was that there was talk of white supremacists feeling the need to come to our neighborhood in suburban Lansing and hold a rally of sorts, just a couple of blocks from where we lived.

NOW I DON’T remember the specifics of this particular rally, which would have been back in the late 1970s. I seem to recall a local radio personality (and by local, I mean someone on a suburban-based radio station whom most of Chicago would never have heard of) who got all worked up over “Roots” being shown on television.

So perhaps it was a batch of crackpots showing unity in their outrage over having some of the horrors of slavery in this country being illustrated on national television – and living on to this day on DVD.

Or maybe it was some other outrage the bigots felt. Quite frankly, those people rarely have any sense of logic about the way they perceive anything. So who knows what bothered them?

All I remember is that my mother didn’t want to be around. So off to grandma’s we went.

IF MY MEMORY is correct, that rally didn’t amount to much. I was told by people who didn’t leave that day that it turned into a few people yelling and shouting and screaming and pretty much making fools of themselves.

I do recall that when we came back home, there was quite a bit of trash strewn around the streets on the block where we lived. Much more than would be if it were just a neighbor’s dog running loose and getting into the neighbor’s trash cans.

But that was the extent. A fairly minor incident, and not one whose details have really clung into the crevasses of my mind.

Not everybody will view Independence Day in this way

Although that feeling of having to leave our home for the day because we didn’t want to get caught up as collateral damage, of sorts, popped into my mind Wednesday when I stumbled across a Chicago Tribune report about how some Chicagoans are planning weekend trips this weekend because they don’t want to get struck by stray gunfire.

I FEEL GRATEFUL that I have never lived in a South Side neighborhood where such an approach to life during the holidays is commonplace.

Although it strikes me as particularly odd that on a holiday meant to celebrate the ideals upon which this nation was founded (“life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and all that jazz), some people feel the way to protect their lives, liberty and pursuit of happiness is to skip town.

Because there are those individuals who view Independence Day solely in the context of explosives and the chance to set off rounds of gunfire.

As a reporter-type person, I have seen the many holiday weekends in which people wind up getting picked off by stray bullets. I remember one incident where a bullet fired into the air wound up coming back to Earth about a mile away before someone got shot (although the oddest incident I recall from my police reporter days was the naked woman being chased around 95^th Street and Western Avenue on a New Year’s Eve some three decades ago).

THE NEWSPAPER REPORTED about how there also will be extra police on duty this holiday weekend. Hospitals also are working to ensure they won’t be short-staffed if they get a sudden flood of gunshot wound victims.

It makes my one-time incident of having to see grandma for a full day seem kind of minor by comparison, because it wasn’t an annual tradition of a trip that we planned to make just to survive.

So while some people may think the quintessential Chicago holiday weekend is attending the Grateful Dead (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) concert or festivities at Navy Pier, keep in mind that some people think a successful holiday involves just staying alive.

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Is U.S. of A. ready for a socialist prez? Or, can Hillary be thwarted again?

We’ve been hearing the rhetoric about how Hillary R. Clinton is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president for so long that it feels like it already has happened.

SANDERS: The next Obama? Or Bill Richardson?

Which is probably why there are some Democrats who are eager to find someone else, anybody else, to nominate for the 2016 election cycle.

IT SEEMS SIMILAR to 2008, when the then-former first lady and senator from New York tried running for president by creating the sense of inevitability. She was going to happen. Resisting was a waste of time.

Except that we got the whole Barack Obama phenomenon and a long, drawn-out primary that resulted in Hillary having to settle for Secretary of State (which actually was the best move in that it gave her a legitimate legacy of her own).

This time, Clinton is once again pushing that sense of inevitability – to the point where people are pushing the theme of the general election being between Clinton and whichever of the 15-or-so nitwits running on the Republican side manages to get that nomination.

But then we’re getting Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont who has put himself into the mix for the Democratic Party nomination – even though he’s technically NOT a Democrat.

SANDERS, FOR THOSE who haven’t paid much attention, is the guy who actually ran initially as a socialist. Although he now goes out of his way to declare himself to be a political independent – even though he usually falls into the Democratic caucus for practicality’s sake.

CLINTON: Is it finally her turn? Will it ever be?

I’m sure there are those people who are now thinking to themselves, “There’s no way this country elects a socialist as president.”

Then again, I’m sure they were arguing seven years ago that, “There’s no way this country elects a black man as president.” Besides, there are those people who like to use the “independent” label politically that they may give Bernie a second glance.

The times (to quote Bob Dylan), they are a changin’. Just look at last week, where the people who rant about the merits of the Confederate battle flag got reduced publicly to the level of the crackpots that many of us always knew they were.

POLLS SHOW THAT Sanders may not totally get his butt whomped against Clinton. A poll by WMUR-TV in Manchester, N.H., had Clinton leading Sanders by 8 percentage points. Also, it had 45 percent of those surveyed saying Sanders “cares the most about people like you,” compared to 24 percent who thinks Hillary is more like them.

WALKER: His turf's being invaded Wednesday

Of course, you can argue that with Sanders being from New Hampshire’s neighboring state, he ought to be competitive against Hillary.

Similar to how back in 2008, the campaign started up with an Obama victory over Clinton in the Iowa caucus in large part because Iowans had heard of the senator from neighboring Illinois.

Perhaps he ought to be running neck and neck with Clinton. Then again, there is still eight months before people have to start actually casting ballots. Who knows who will change their minds between now and then? Voters can be so fickle!

SO WHAT SHOULD we think of Sanders – who on Wednesday will be the focus of a rally in Madison, Wis., where he’ll also be able to get on the nerves of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker – who on Tuesday put out his latest fundraising plea for his own presidential fantasies. Sanders won’t be alone.

There will be members of the Chicago Southland for Bernie Sanders on hand, people from those Far South Side neighborhoods and surrounding suburban communities who will deem it worthy of their time to get on a bus bound for Wisconsin.

They’re even talking about sending people to Iowa to do the legwork of campaigning for Sanders. Who does have a gap to fill – one national voter poll had 59 percent backing Clinton to 15 percent for Sanders.

Then again, I recall back in ’07 when Obama’s name recognition nationally was nil (“Wasn’t he the guy who gave a speech at the Democratic Convention?,” was probably the way most people thought of him). That’s probably the same fantasy the Sanders backers are having now.

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