Quick Hits
Nikki Haley's short-lived New Hampshire lead, taking a swing at a hackneyed phrase, blowing the whistle on whining & recalling my wife's nationally televised birthing moment
Quick hits this Saturday…
#1 Stop Counting!
If I were Nikki Haley’s campaign manager, I’d have declared the New Hampshire Republican Primary over immediately after that tiny precinct cast votes before anyone else in the Granite State this past Tuesday:
After all, isn’t that what Donald Trump tried to do in 2020 when he lost to Joe Biden?
With all of the Big Lie rhetoric of a supposedly stolen Presidential election persisting to this day, isn’t that what Trump’s still trying to do?
#2 Punching Above Our Weight
“Punching above our weight” is a cute phrase employed by underdogs—or those seeking to cast themselves as the underdog.
My search for the phrases on Newspapers.com turns up nothing until the 1990s, when it starts popping up with national government leaders in places like Canada using the phrase to describe their international relations efforts.
And this comment, by an upstart company leader, captures the flavor of the sentiment pretty well:
Sometimes, the phrase is warranted. At times, though, it strikes me as a thinly veiled disguise for incompetence. Try being better.
#3 Time for a Technical (or Two)
For a basketball referee, it’s one of the toughest calls: charge or block?
Did the offensive player charge into the defender who’d already established legal position? Or did the defensive player fail to set his body in time?
At least nine times out of 10, officials blow the whistle and render a decision. On the rest, for any variety of reasons known only to those refs, there’s no call and it’s “play on.”
Last Saturday morning, as a pair of 13-year-old boys went down in a heap and the layup dropped into the hoop, I opted for “play on.” In referee parlance, it’s called “swallowing your whistle.”
The offensive player jumped to his feet and strenuously whined—the latest in a string of mouthy mutterings that already had him on thin ice.
I’d had enough. After officiating nearly 40 games this past year without assessing a single technical foul—from college club teams to kids as young as 8—my streak of self-restraint was over.
Not long thereafter, I issued a technical to the opposing team’s coach for overzealously disputing a charge call I’d made on one of his players.
Funny how, thereafter, the frequency and volume of complaining from both sides declined markedly.
#4 My Wife Had a Baby 30 Years Ago
Well, she played a character in the short-lived ABC show Missing Persons who had a baby…and a missing boyfriend (with no clue that a baby was on the way).
Back in January 1994, Bridgett’s dad did a terrific job as her unofficial publicist, judging by these two Gettysburg, Pa.-area newspaper accounts.
For the record, our real-life babies came along nine-and-a-half years later. And there was no need for a manhunt—I was present and accounted for, all the way through the 77-minute hiatus between Baby #1 and Baby #2.