Keeping Up With The Jenningses

When do Cold War spies ever get a day off? When they're not planting recording devices, seducing government middle-men (and women), or assassinating turncoats, they have to be tortured by their own? That's a pretty tough existence for a suburban couple.

That's our week-in, week-out investment in Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings on The Americans. They are so integral in how the Soviet-US relations play out that it wouldn't surprise me if the show ultimately didn't put them at the center of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

But that's still 8 years ahead of 1981, when our favorite spies went to great length to lift encryption codes from the trunk of a CIA sedan. When the FBI's counter-intelligence smells a rat, the KGB goes mole-hunting, starting with their most valuable agents who just seem too Americanized.

As viewers we were onto it, because the Jennings' neighbor FBI Agent Beeman was in deep machinations with the real mole. But Phillip Jennings should have been on to it as well when his enhanced interrogation involved repeated phone book slams to the gut and nothing to disfigure his face.

If they messed up his face, there would be too many questions in case they were wrong (which of course they were), and jeopardize his cover.

Now they gave Elizabeth a black eye, but only out of self-preservation. She has proven to be the most kick-ass spy woman on TV since La Femme Nikita or Alias. She got quick and fierce retribution on the point person for their torture, and wanted to send a picture to Moscow as a message.

Meanwhile a residual effect of the Jennings' abduction was the kids being left at the mall. Paige and Henry had to hitchhike and wound up having to fight off a "creep."

The younger Jenningses obviously have no idea what their parents do, but seem to have the family resourcefulness in their DNA. There's also a co-dependency with them, a spirit of partnership, and a constantly shifting role of who's-in-charge, also transferred from their parents.

It's an all-American family dynamic.

Back For A Limited Time Only

We haven't completed the first full week of March yet, and I'm already posting back-to-back days on the Yankees. Probably a signal of things to come in Spring 2013.

It looks like Mariano Rivera will call it a career at this season's conclusion. It isn't that big a surprise, #42 is now 43 years of age. He may have done it after last season, but last season was never completed after a freak injury during pregame warm-ups in Kansas City in May 2012.

Rivera wasn't going out like that. The sport's greatest specialist needed to lace 'em up for one more year, and the Yankees will need every bit of him. But also, whether this arrangement was initiated by the Rivera or the team, it solves an unprecedented riddle going forward. What do you do with the games best closer when he can no longer close?

A superstar everyday player can be eased out in a DH role, platoon, or as a pinch-hitter. A former ace starting pitcher can still soldier on from the bullpen or be a ticket draw for a lesser team. But a closer? There's nowhere to go from being the guy protecting a 1-2 run lead for 3+ outs, 45 times a season.

Exit Light, Enter Night...Off To Never-Neverland.

Mariano Rivera will have the 2013 season as a victory lap around the American League. Hopefully he'll have a season worthy of his incredible career, and look back from Never-Neverland with no regrets. And the Yankees will have a year to plan for the succession, without worrying about muddying the reputation of a descending icon. We hope.

And as been brought up many times, Rivera will be the last MLB player ever to wear #42, the year that the motion picture 42 is released. Maybe his final season will be cinematic as well.

Infield Out

What's wrong with this picture? It was 2009, when the Yankees got huge contributions from Jorge Posada, Melky Cabrera, Hideki Matsui, and AJ Burnett on the way to a World Series Championship. It wasn't that long ago was it?

And it featured arguably the greatest infield of all-time. Now three-fourths of them are out, and you have to wonder if they will ever be on the field at the same time again.

After a gruesome injury in last year's ALCS, Derek Jeter has been on lockdown rehab and appears ready to rejoin the lineup before opening day.

Alex Rodriguez had a gruesome injury to his pride with his miserable performance in last year's ALCS, but then it was compounded with offseason hip surgery that will sideline him indefinitely. Initial reports were that he'd be gone half the season, but as has been said on many different occasions, he may have played his last game in pinstripes.

Now Mark Teixeira is sidelined with a wrist injury suffered while practicing with the Team USA World Baseball Classic team. Speculation is that he'll be gone 8-10 weeks.

That leaves the steady guy who mans second base. Robinson Cano is one of the most valuable properties in baseball, and will be requiring the Yankees or someone else to pay him as such at season's end. He does it offensively and defensively, with a swing like Bonds and an arm like Trillo.

But Cano's shaking off cobwebs too after going three-for-forty in the 2012 postseason. If A-Rod hadn't drawn all the fire, Cano would have been some easy target practice.

With the Yankees lineup in shambles, is it possible they could let Cano go at or before season's end? Anything is possible.

The four-man unit had their moment in the sun with the 2009 title, but for all their hype as a prolific quartet they only won the one. Now it looks like their time is done.

SWM, 40+, Seeks Long Term Relationship

I didn't go to Match.com or even Cars.com to look for a soulmate. I made the rounds, had a few first dates, kissed some frogs, and even dated out of my league. But ultimately I found something safe and built to last, a Honda Pilot.

Like any relationship, you don't know what the future holds. You take a leap of faith. And most of all, you need to find a car that fits your personality.

Are you in a mid-life crisis, looking for something slick and sporty to impress a significantly younger significant other?

Or are you resigned to your position in life as a bald, middle-aged Dad who uses the car to shuttle the kids to and from school, their activities, and on occasional family adventures?

I realize that no matter how much rap music I listen to, how often I work out, or how many video games I play, I know who I am. Just Joe Sixpack tryin' to pick up a spare. The new family roadster completes me.

Trickle Down Sequestration

The news outlets had been promoting the Sequester with a capital "S" for months. We had heard all about the draconian drama that was about to unfold before our eyes: Cuts, furloughs, closings, and more cuts. Yes, I was sure it was just another fire drill - until it affects you. And by "you" I mean me of course.

The FAA has been hacksawed into, which means fewer air traffic controllers, which means less air traffic control, which means less air traffic.

Homeland Security has been slashed as well. And while nobody is writing love songs about TSA agents, if their overtime gets cut and if they can't hire new personnel for a fairly high-turnover position, the process of airport security will be slowed down to a crawl.

If you make your living flying from place to place, this is very ominous. If you make your living connecting through a hub like Atlanta, O'Hare, or DFW, expect things to be a lot worse. Not only is the population exponentially higher than other airports, but double the headaches with the comings and goings of connecting flights.

So when I'm in ATL this coming Friday, on my 8th drink at Cafe Intermezzo, waiting and wondering how this all started, I thought I'd be sure what to tell my fellow refugees about why we're in this soup.

This is initially the Republicans' fault by ignorance, then the Democrats' fault for stupidity. The two are not the same.

In 2011, when the GOPs in Congress stubbornly blocked a perfunctory raise of the debt ceiling, all hell broke loose. Many of them did not know (or at least their constituents didn't) that the debt ceiling was there to pay off the country's standing debt, not raising the debt limit a la credit cards.

So a deal had to be brokered to keep the US in good financial standing. The Dems caved on a "sequestration" deal, which is what you see today with the massive cuts to essential programs. They never thought the Republicans would let it go into effect, which was a colossal miscalculation.

They thought this because the deal included major cuts in defense spending, a sacred cow on the right, while not cutting Social Security and Medicare, the equivalent on the left.

The problem is that hard-line military spending was the GOP platform of the neo-cons a decade ago, post 9/11. It's not the same in this decade, post-Tea Party. The party has transformed - now they'll cut anything and call it a win.

In the meantime hundreds of thousands of Americans will feel direct pain, and then so many more of us, like the business travelers will feel the residual effects. That's when this will reach a tipping point and Congress will have to act.

Something To Do List: Repticon

When you've got a 42-degree Sunday in Savannah, you don't want to be cooped up in the house with the kids watching TV and playing video games all day. So we found a good diversion: Repticon.

It's probably cheaper than a movie, somewhat educational, and entertaining - if you can brush off your annoyance when your son asks for your phone to take pictures of every snake in the place.

Repticon bills itself as a "Reptile and Exotic Pet Show." In addition to the countless snakes, there were turtles, geckos, bullfrogs, and alligators, just to name a few. It was a mini-zoo in a hotel conference center. And where else can your kids hold a tarantula?

And while these creepy, crawly creatures aren't things you want to see working their way across your living room floor, they are pretty cool when in their cages, handled by professionals.

And this is also a retail market for collectors. There was a pricetag on almost every one of these guys (or androgynous things) except for those "headliners" that were featured. It just so happens I'm in the market for a Komodo dragon, but couldn't find one.

Ole Missed Again?

It was a horrible, terrible, exceptionally bad day for SEC teams with NCAA Tournament hopes. Kentucky lost. Tennessee lost. Alabama lost. But Ole Miss may have sank.

The Rebels were a 12-point favorite at Mississippi State, who had lost 13 in a row. The Bulldogs' season had been marred by suspensions and injuries, and looked to be just playing out the string - except when it came to spoiling the hopes of their hated in-state rivals.

The ragtag Bulldogs held on behind a gutty effort and a boisterous crowd, and may have finished an Ole Miss season that once looked so promising.

As of this evening, esteemed ESPN Bracketologist Joe Lunardi had only 2 SEC teams in. Florida still has a shot at a very high seed despite the performance of their conference as a whole. And Missouri (where I was today) solidified their position with a thorough win over surging LSU.

Lunardi has Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee, and Ole Miss on the outside looking in. There's still time to play their ways in, but time is running out. If they hadn't noticed the calendar has already flipped to March. And the Ole Miss campus may not be experiencing the madness...again. They'll just be plain mad.