Tuesday morning housecleaning

Let's see, where to start on a beautiful Tuesday morning?

Item 1: Poking around on the Odell Thurman story, his suspension is without pay. The Bengals have him under contract through the 2009 season. He signed an unusual five-year contract as a rookie, which prevents him from getting into unrestricted free agent for one more season than normal. He would be eligible after four seasons.

The Bengals invested a $1.7 million signing bonus in Thurman, and because they don't have to pay him when he can't play, they'll maintain his rights. There's little question that Thurman is looking at a one-year banishment from the NFL. The only question is when it will start.

Item 2: Fan mail, from a reader named Rob:

"If Mr. Curnutte wants to be a man and own up to why he picked the Steelers tell him to call me. Nobody in our own local paper should pick anyone but the Bengals. Get rid of him or at least give him a written warning , he doesn’t know crap about football. You are a sorry paper for printing it. Let’s edit the paper when you are picking the Steelers to beat the Bengals. Why is Pittsburgh ahead of the Bengals in your power ratings. You print that? Come on man this is Cincinnati not Pittsburgh.(copied and sent to Mark also)"

Well, I just got off the phone with Rob and explained why I picked the Steelers to win. He had a few more questions about the Bengals; we had a nice discussion. He and I parted on friendly terms. I thanked him for buying the paper and told him I am accessible and accountable for every word I write.

Item 3: A reader has posted a comment that he/she doesn't like the Bengals blog being used for my "social platform." I didn't know I had one. I mean, I vote. I am a practicing Catholic, and the Church's magnificent teaching of social justice (which, by the way, cannot be claimed by either the right or left) is what guides me politically.

Actually, I'm just a music fan with a thing for song lyrics; must be all those years studying literature and loving the written word, standing alone or set to music.

Which leads me to ...

Item 4: Two lyrics of the day and a piece of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Ulysses:"

From the Irish traditional "Mrs. McGrath," written in 1815 from the point of view of a mother whose son loses a leg in an overseas war, and adapted and arranged by Springsteen on his "Seeger Sessions" record:

"All foreign wars I do proclaim
Live on blood and
a mother's pain
I'd rather have my son
as he used to be
Than the King of America
And his whole Navy."

Bonus lyric of the day, from Son Volt's 2005 "Okemah and the Melody of Riot." This is the song "Jet Pilot," a tribute to a major world leader:

"Jet pilot for the day washed his sins away
Loves to see the Rangers play
His daddy has a job in Washington
Wants to raise a Harvard son

"Junior liked to let his hair down
Only trouble is word gets around

"The revolution will be televised
Across living rooms of the great divide
Robber baron ghettoes before us now
Everybody needs a hunting pal

"Jet pilot found a way got a passing grade
Made it to the world stage
A hemisphere away death is on display
The sins that never wash away"

Now, from Tennyson's "Ulysses:"

(OK, here's a football tie in, and the Bengals are a football team. I first heard this poem quoted when defensive lineman Alan Page, now a Minnesota Supreme Court Justice, retired from the NFL as a member of the Chicago Bears. He had spent the vast majority of his career with the Vikings. I was in high school, I believe, and saw and heard Page honored before the start of a Bears game.

He quoted "Ulysses," saying, "I am a part of all that I have met."

The whole poem soars. It's the story of Ulysses, who has returned home to Ithaca and settled down to rule his island, yet, in old age, he is restless and wants to explore the West.)

"Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are --
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yeld."