I can start thinking about the White Sox again, but I will continue to just ignore what my eyes are telling me about the Bears offense. By the way, regardless of what anyone might have thought of him at USC, Nick Lachey’s wingman Matt Leinart (or maybe it’s the other way around) looked incredible for the Arizona Cardinals while playing against the first team Bears defensive unit on Friday night. I know I’ve said before that the NFL preseason is worthless, yet it’s still pretty impressive when a rookie is able to more than hold his own against one of the league’s supposed top defenses. Of course, how great can the Bears defense be if they can’t stop a rookie, no matter how great he was in college? At least I can take solace in that the Packers look worse than ever. Here are today’s links:
1) Big Ten Preview (Views From Life on a Bench) (from Deadspin) – An entertaining look at the upcoming Big Ten football season, but I was curious as to the hateration for our Illini uniforms. Then, I found out that we are getting new uniforms this season, which include some Miami Hurricanes-style piping for our standard jerseys and then a special orange incarnation (a variety of which has appeared before). Let’s just say that my eyes haven’t burned this badly since K-Fed’s “performance” last week. Look, I love our orange basketball uniforms, but we really need to shelve the monochromatic orange football unis. Teams such as Penn State, Michigan, and Notre Dame are dressed to play football. Our Illini, however, are straight out of a Charlie Brown Halloween special.
2) Watch What You Snap (Chicagoist) – Don’t let the terrorists win. Be alert of those people taking pictures of, uh, Metra trains.
3) Do Not Draft Domanick Davis, People (Deadspin) – I cannot tell you how close I was to drafting Domanick Davis in my first fantasy football draft of the season this past Saturday – it was between him and Reuben Droughns for my #2 running back. On a split second decision, I went with Reuben because, well, that’s a damn fine sandwich. Plus, I’ve had Davis on at least one of my teams for the past two years and he has provided diminishing returns since David Carr’s passer rating has hovered in the low teens (the football equivalent of the Mendoza Line should heretofore be called the “Carr Line”), which gave opposing defenses the opportunity to stack 11 teams in the box against the Texans. Still, until I saw this, I had a little bit of buyer’s remorse since Davis historically has put up decent receiving numbers in addition to his running stats. For once, the fantasy football gods might have thrown me a bone. In the real football world, it’s a good thing for Houston that they took Reggie Bush with the biggest no-brainer #1 draft pick since Peyton Manning. Oh, hold on a second…
4) Web Guitar Wizard Revealed at Last (New York Times) – The identity of funtwo has been uncovered. If you haven’t seen this kid’s technically astounding rock rendition of Pachelbel’s Canon on YouTube, here you go.
5) NBC Expresses Regret for Air-Crash Skit (Washington Post) – The P.C. brigade marches on. By this logic, ABC will need to apologize for airing “Lost” in the first place.
And finally…
6) Hip-Hop Infused Poker Show Coming to Television (AllHipHop.com) – Something tells me that this is going to be a cross between the World Series of Poker and Wilmer Valderrama’s latest MTV vehicle “Yo Momma”, which means that this is a virtual lock to be the greatest program in the history of television.
(UPDATE: Speaking of Matt Leinart, it looks like he’s going to be a daddy.)
FRANK THE TANK'S SLANT 
Regarding #2: I am not a lawyer (but you are), but I believe the metra platforms can be considered a public place, and as such you can take pictures wherever you damn well want as long as you aren’t infringing on anyone’s rights, aren’t trespassing, etc. I carry a photographer’s rights document around with my camera when I am shooting pictures (put together by a lawyer, found here: http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm), but thankfully haven’t been confronted yet. It’s only a matter of time, I suppose.
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Marc,
This brings up an interesting conundrum as to what exactly is a public place and what is a private place. For a Metra train station, there are a number of different forces in play. The train station itself is most likely owned by the municipality in which it is located, which makes it public property. However, the train lines themselves are usually owned by a private corporation, such as Union Pacific in the linked story. As you can see, Union Pacific is the party that is making the photo restriction as opposed to Metra. (On a tangential note, Metra really doesn’t own much of anything in terms of real estate – it is the equivalent of a lessee for both the train station and the train line. In the municipally-owned train station, Metra only controls the ticket counter space, while the train lines, as stated before, are usually owned by private corporations.)
So, at what point does the public property end and the private property begin? How would we classify the train platforms which abut both the public train station and the private train line? Even if a train station and the adjoining platform are considered public property, would a restriction on taking pictures for “security reasons” be any different than restricting taking pictures in a government building such as the White House? I don’t have the answers here, but they are all relevant issues.
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If the municipality owns the platform, then I would argue that it is public property, and UP has no right to enforce rules on that property, so shoot away. If UP owns the platform, then step off the platform and take pictures of their trains from the sidewalk or street (obviously public property). There is nothing preventing you of taking pictures of their property from a public area, nor do I believe that they have the right to enforce any rules that may suggest this.
Regarding the Whtie House, I think it probably falls into the realm of a “military installation” more than a public place. That being said, I don’t know what restrictions, if any, they have put on the white house post 9/11. I know that prior to all the anti-rights laws, you could take pictures if you wanted to.
I think the “security reason” card is overused and really doesn’t hold a whole lot of weight when administered by a private entity–and questionable weight even with the government.
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