Today has been uneventful, thankfully. No great emotional things to deal with, or bore you with.

My bank is extremely hard to deal with right now. My bank card was lost when I lost my wallet about a month ago, and my drivers license if waiting for me at home. I have my temporary license, which doesn't have a picture, and my work ID, which does, in terms of identification. I went to the TCF mini-branch at the Clark/Division Jewel in order to get my pin for my new card, so I can finally get the damn thing. They wouldn't let me, and then, wouldn't allow me to write a check to cash, so I can have some money to get gas with Friday on my way home. I will be headed down to the real branch at Madison and Wabash after work, they seem to be a bit more understanding about these things.

My propaganda class should be an interesting one. The six week format is actually closer to some of the classes I had at Albion, in terms of having two classes a week for 2 1/2 hours, and needing to keep up with the reading. The final project is longer than anything I've had at Roosevelt so far, but shorter than the usual Grossman 48 hour midterm is expected to be.

I checked out a Pro football preview magazine that I saw at Borders yesterday. I was shocked by the fact that it was there this early, obviously, but I was also surprised that they only had the lions finishing at 5-11, the same record as last year. Last year the team lost its only playmaking wide receiver, who had shown some flashes during those first few games, after week 5, and was essentially playing with a bunch of guys (Otis Smith and Doug Evans come to mind) who they signed off the street in the secondary. This year they will have a decent running game, no position, perhaps other than kicker, can be filled by a young player more effectively right away than running back. At wideout, where they will be young, they replaced Bill Schroeder with Roy Williams, about the most drastic upgrade I can imagine them making. The defense will be better as Dick Jauron simplifies it, and Bailey and Lehman give them speed at Linebacker. Bryant and Bly should be one of the better cornerback tandems in the league, if one of the shorter ones. Most importantly, and this comes from no less of an authority on the West Coast Offense than Bill Walsh, quarterbacks in the system make their biggest jump in year three. They become good, to very good, as they get used to the terminology and it becomes sort of second nature to them. Harrington, for the first time, will have explosive Wideouts on both sides, have Az Hakim in the slot, and a running game. I predicted 10-6 a while ago on John's site, I will temper that down to 9-7, but I really can't see them much worse than 7-9. They should be ahead of Chicago by the end of the season.

politically, the move John Kerry is considering, waiting an additional month after the convention in July to accept the nomination in order to continue fundraising seems to clever by half. The networks' only reason to cover conventions today is to see the acceptance speeches by the nominees, that's it. There is no intrigue any more. The question is whether John Kerry would lose out on the post-convention bump, usually about 14 points, that a candidate usually receives at the end of the four day pep rally. If the networks won't cover it, and they do cover the Republicans draping themselves with the flag and the World Trade Center in New York in September, Kerry loses the ability to negate Bush's bump with his own. Kerry has always been a strong closer, to use horse racing terminology, meaning he rises in the polls at the right time, the last few weeks before an election. He did it to beat William Weld for Senate in 1996, and obviously in Iowa, which propelled him from dead in the water to dead set nominee in a month. But he can't risk this. He really is only going to get something like $10-20 million in that month, the convention is worth twice that and its free. Accept the nomination, and you have to be content with what you, and your VP nominee, can raise in the next two months. But all you really need is to have enough to counter Bush, you don't need to raise the same, just enough. Just play it safe, get the bump, and go on from there. People will be too distracted by the NFL to notice the President anyway