Combining minor wonders

Two things I've always found moderarely wonderful--nifty but not at the level that I obsess about them--are herein combined:

A realplayer animation of Jim Woodring's Frank exploring the Burgess Shale.

Go check it out.

Tom Boswell on Charlie Hustler

Tom Boswell is one of the best baseball writers around. His essays capture the joy, mystery, and social context of the sport better than any other writer I've ever read.

He's got a piece in the Washington Post about Pete "the felonious liar" Rose that should not be missed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57332-2004Jan5?language=printer

In part, and not even the best part, it reads:

Only a man who has lived by his own version of the law, or no laws at all, could make as hollow an attempt at confession and restitution as Rose has. One book excerpt, to appear in Sports Illustrated this week, should be enough to make any person of conscience -- which has never included Rose -- see red. Once you send something like this to the printer, you have to live with it. No rewrites next week, Pete. If a ghost wrote it, it's still yours.

"I'm sure that I'm supposed to act all sorry or sad or guilty now that I've accepted that I've done something wrong. But you see, I'm just not built that way," wrote Rose. "So let's leave it like this: I'm sorry it happened and I'm sorry for all the people, fans and family it hurt. Let's move on."

No, let's stay right here.

Let's do a little exegesis of the text as the old-time hellfire preachers used to say. Rose says he's "not built" to "act all sorry or sad or guilty." Well, if he can't even act that way, with his whole future hanging in the balance, we can be sure he's incapable of actually feeling that way. Our prisons are full of people who aren't "built" to feel remorse or guilt or sorrow at the damage they have done. This attitude is a pathology, Pete, not a bragging point.

Even more chilling is Rose's using the word "it" twice, instead of "I." The truly contrite person would instinctively say, "I'm sorry I did it and that I hurt people." Instead, Rose says that "it" did the damage. And what is "it"? Well, "it" is the investigation, the exposure of his gambling, the scandal. In other words, like any unrepentant scoundrel, he's mostly sorry that he got caught. He still hasn't come to terms with the deed itself.

The more Rose talks, the more he exposes rather than redeems himself. "During the times I gambled as a manager, I never took an unfair advantage. I never bet more or less based on injuries or inside information. I never allowed my wagers to influence my baseball decisions," writes Rose. "So in my mind I wasn't corrupt."

Bud Selig is a complete whore, so I don't expect that any actual sense of justice will enter into his decision; he'll figure out what's likely to make the most money for MLB and do that. But Rose has, to my mind, just used up his last chance to be forgiven.