Weekend Update

Two posts in one morning. That's got to be a record for dial up!

Tony Delk has a nephew and he plays basketball as well.

Reginald's dad, Rickey, was a star for Lambuth, while uncle Tony is an NBA veteran and Kentucky Wildcats god. Sister Genevieve and cousin Leslie Delk play at the University of South Alabama.

"Yeah, I think I was pretty much born to play this game," Reginald said with a grin. "I've worked pretty hard to get to this point, but a lot of it is just natural."

Of course, there's also twin brother Richard, who's no slouch in his own right. Both are headed to Mississippi State in a few months where they're likely to terrorize Southeastern Conference opponents for years.

Now why are they not going to Kentucky to play for one Orlando "Tubby" Smith.

Former Kentucky basketball star Dan Issel has endorsed Jim Newberry for Mayor of Lexington.

"I hope he doesn't come back here and establish residency and run for mayor himself," Newberry said of Issel. "Then I've got a problem."

What's up with that?

"I had a great run in the motion picture field, but basically, everything has to take a back seat to House of Blues now," says Aykroyd. "It's taking up a lot of my time as we push to open new venues and properly manage the ones we've already got open. I'm extensively involved in the day-to-day oversight of the operation. This is really a vital time. While the economy improves, we have to ride the crest of the wave of this momentum and get the company to where it can really start to perform and be something that may be palatable to earner-investors either privately or in another fashion."

No! That's impossible! Aykroyd cannot quit! Open a House of Blues in Louisville! Make a 3rd Blues Brothers film!

Jewish input in politics will be discussed some time next week.

Jay K. Footlik, a principal in RSLB Partners, a Washington, D.C. consulting firm, will speak on "American Jews: Players in the Political Process in the United States and in the Middle East," at the Jewish Endowment Foundation's Young Family Lecture and Award program.

The event will be held May 17 at 7:30 p.m. at the Wyndham Hotel Canal Place, 100 Iberville Place.

Footlik was director of community outreach for Sen. Joe Lieberman's presidential campaign and was a special adviser to President Clinton.

I've met Jay Footlik. He's a nice guy!

Of course, he is! Impressive. Most impressive. Darn it! You'll have to forgive me as the Star Wars fan in me will be active over the next few weeks.

Bayh is offering all the clues of someone who wants to ensure he has those resources if he wants to call upon them. He’s making prudent, campaign-building steps:

•Since entering the Senate, Bayh has been raising money with far more aggression than his Indiana races warrant and now has $6.8 million in his campaign account.

•He has worked on raising his national profile, using his role in the Democratic Leadership Council to travel all over the country. Of the $206,000 he’s raised in checks of $200 or more from individuals since the beginning of the year, just $1,000 is from Indiana.

•He created a campaign fund that allows him to make donations to other candidates, always a friend-making gesture. In the 2004 election, he made $209,000 in donations to other candidates from this political action committee.

•He’s been making speeches to Democratic audiences outside Indiana. This gives him practice with non-Hoosier crowds, introduces him to Democratic audiences around the country, and puts his name in local newspapers. In March, he was the keynoter at Colorado’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner. Last week he addressed a Butler County, Ohio, Truman Kennedy Holcomb Dinner. (This was the county Karl Rove made a speech in, the county that gave President Bush a 53,000-vote plurality, his largest in the state.)

•He has been courting the national media for years, and he has hired staff members with skills a presidential contender needs.

Someone who is not contemplating the 2008 – or 2012 – presidential race might do some of these things, but not all.

So when Bayh says, as he has all last week while touring Indiana during the Senate’s May break, that he’s just got his nose to the grindstone and will think about presidential politics later, well, we all know it’s a little white fib.

Anyone who is even vaguely weighing the odds of his or her chances would be a fool to not do the necessary prep work. More than a fool: a lazy, careless, political idiot. Evan Bayh is not lazy, not careless and not an idiot.

And even if Bayh ends up not getting into the 2008 nomination race, the carefully calibrated steps he is taking – the image he is creating of himself as A Player – enhance his position for 2012 (when he would be 56 on Election Day) or as a more potent factor in the Senate.

In fact, aside from taking time away from his twin little boys, there’s no downside for Bayh to create the impression that he’s running even if he is not, or for going up to the edge and then backing away as he did for the 2004 nomination race.

At least Bayh’s I’m-just-focusing-on-my-job schtick avoids the quintuple qualifier Sen. Chuck Hagel offered a New Hampshire (where else?) audience. Newspapers there have heard some variation of this since from every pol who visits the state three years before the next presidential election, but Hagel’s might have been the best:

"I hope to be in position to have the option of entertaining the possibility of running for president."

Let’s hope never to hear such a contorted statement from Bayh.

Jewish mothers in History
MONA LISA'S JEWISH MOTHER:
" Nu, After all that money your father and I spent for you on braces, that's the biggest smile you can give us?"

COLUMBUS' JEWISH MOTHER:
"So Mister Big Sailor Boy, I don't care what you discovered, how come you didn't once even write a postcard!"

MICHELANGELO'S JEWISH MOTHER:
"Can't you paint on walls like all the other kids? You maybe no idea how hard it is to get that stuff off the ceiling?"

NAPOLEON'S JEWISH MOTHER:
"Hokay, so if you ain't hiding your report card inside your jacket, take your hand out of there and show me."

ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S JEWISH MOTHER:
"Again with the stovepipe hat? Can't you maybe wear a baseball cap like the other kids?"

MARY'S JEWISH MOTHER:
"I'm not upset that your lamb followed you to school, but I would like to know how he got a better! grade than you."

ALBERT EINSTEIN'S JEWISH MOTHER:
"Listen to me Please Abie, for your own good I'm telling you: it's your senior picture. Couldn't you do maybe something about your hair? Something. Ah comb, maybe?

GEORGE WASHINGTON'S JEWISH MOTHER:
"The next time I catch you throwing good money across the Potomac, you can kiss your allowance good-bye!"

JONAH'S JEWISH MOTHER:
"A nice story. A wonderful story. A writer you should be. Now tell me where you've really been for the last forty years."

THOMAS EDISON'S JEWISH MOTHER:
"Of course I'm proud that you invented the electric light bulb. Now turn it off and get to bed!"