by John Walters

Ida Evacuated Sooner

Well, blow me down. Hurricane Ida, a category-4 hurricane with winds approaching 155 m.p.h. strikes landfall almost squarely in New Orleans.

Hope everyone’s safe, but nature really does put on the best show.

Frost Bites

Nebraska at Illinois felt a little wrong more than one full week before Labor Day and in 96-degree heat… particularly if you’re a Cornhusker fan. Down 9-2 early, the Illini and backup quarterback Art Sitkowski reeled off four consecutive touchdowns and held on to win 30-22.

How poorly is Scott Frost doing in his return to his home state and alma mater after leading UCF to a 13-0 season? I didn’t quite believe this when I read on the Twitters, so I checked it out and it’s true: Frost would need to go 37-1 over his next 38 games simply to match the record Jim Harbaugh has had at Michigan, a record that by most accounts has been very disappointing for that former college QB who returned to coach his alma mater in the same conference.

Dunno if Frost can right the harvester in Lincoln, a school that has been synonymous with college football success for an entire century. But the Huskers have a pretty big game versus Oklahoma on Sept. 18. And that one’s in Norman. Good luck. Norman, or Waterloo (No, not the Iowa one)?

Oh, Mr. Graaaaant

Actor Ed Asner passed away Sunday at the age of 91. He had many roles in life, but none so career-defining as the gruff but lovable Lou Grant, head man of the WJM news team on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. There may have been a sitcom or two as good as MTM, but there’s never been a better ensemble cast on a sitcom. And Asner was the captain of that ship.

The line I remember, and it may have been from the premiere episode. Lou says to Mary, “You’ve got spunk… I hate spunk.”

That’s So Raven

The Baltimore Ravens defeated the Washington Football Team 37-3 in both teams’ final preseason game of the weekend. Here’s what’s nutty: it was Baltimore’s 20th consecutive victory… in preseason football games. That’s a streak that extends back five years. Has any NFL club ever been so dominant in so meaningless a facet of the sport?

And what, if anything, can we extrapolate from this? I don’t know. The NFL record for consecutive regular season wins is 23, held by the 2008-2009 Indianapolis Colts… who used to be the Baltimore Colts, I think.

During this same period, in case you were wondering, the Ravens are 52-28 with no Super Bowl appearances, all under John Harbaugh. A very good record. Just something less than 20-0.

The China Syndrome

China has issued an edict BANNING the playing of video games between Monday and Thursday and allowing just one hour per day on Friday through Sunday. Sometimes, repressive authoritarian regimes have their upside.

Now, sure, you may cry, “But my free-dumb!” and you’re correct, but China, the world’s second-largest economy and first-largest country by population, has smartly deduced that having so many of its children spend so much of their times with their faces in screens is not beneficial long-term (we’ll see on that… stay tuned). Of course, the irony in all of this is that China leads the world in companies that manufacture the games and the hardware that makes these games possible.

So, yes, let’s profit off it. But let’s not do it. Sure, I’ll own a whorehouse, but none of my daughters are going into that business….