While they're at it, 49ers should unveil new logo

From the noted bank robber, numbers runner and charity quilter Mike Hlas of the Des Moines Register, a poll from Public Policy Polling that shows the following things:

Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz is more popular than U.S. Senator Joni Ernst.
Governor Terry Branstad is more popular than Ferentz.
Iowa State football coach Paul Rhoads is more popular than Branstad.
U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley is more popular than Rhoads.
Iowa basketball coach Fran McCaffery is more popular than Grassley.
Corn is more popular than McCaffery.
Iowa State basketball coach Fred Hoiberg is more popular than corn.

In other words, with the important Iowa caucuses coming next year, a Hoiberg-Corn ticket would kick the butts of either Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton.

I, sadly, am a registered Whig and non-Iowan, so I cannot help the HoiCob ticket reach its rightful place atop the national political landscape.

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ESPN reporter and cancer crusher Shelley Smith returned to work and did so without benefit of wig, choosing instead to radiate her considerable charm, brilliance and bravery au naturelle. This is a very good thing, and if you disagree, then you have chosen to be demonstrably, comprehensively and unutterably wrong.

And we hate you.

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The highlight of the White Sox-Orioles game played in front of three scouts and no fans was Baltimore first baseman Chris Davis throwing a ball into the stands at the end of a half-inning, followed closely by being able to overhear the Orioles’ TV announcer Gary Thorne during quiet moments in the White Sox’ TV broadcast (where, because of Ken Harrelson, it is rarely quiet).

The lowlight: All the people on Twitter who marveled ceaselessly about a game being played in front of upholstery. Great, but it’s not the aurora borealis after a particularly massive solar flare. It’s an Ikea at midnight, so you could have stopped pestering us in the second inning. We get it.

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Rajon Rondo was denied a playoff share by the Dallas Mavericks for being aggressively and persistently Rajon Rondo. This, of course, raises the number of suspects who inflicted Rondo’s back injury upon him by 12. Other suspects include Mark Cuban, Don Nelson, Rick Carlisle, Josh Hamilton, Lindy Ruff, Jerry Jones, Jason Garrett, Tony Romo, Governor Rick Perry, radio host Randy Galloway, TV sports guy Dale Hansen, the ghosts of Tom Landry, reporter Molly Ivins and Boston general manager Danny Ainge in absentia.

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The heart-wrenching erotic novella “A Gronking To Remember,” which is now being taught in schools, is now in court for the most preposterous reason. Except, of course, to the plaintiffs.

It seems while the Patriots were unhappy about the visible memorial patch of Bob Kraft’s widow Myra (“MHK”) of their uniform on the cover, and the NFL was a little jumpy about the shield logo on the uniform, the people suing author Lacey Noonan, Apple, Amazon and Barnes & Noble are the engaged couple on the cover who either didn’t get their taste of the massive windfall the book raked in (sarcasm) or felt shamed by being included on the cover of such a Bronte-ian classic.

So, yeah.

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And finally, if this isn’t a prominent feature of the 49ers’ alternate uniform, they shouldn’t bother at all. The team needs all the positive PR it can get, and if this is a failure, you can shutter the new stadium and stick them back at Kezar (the thing before Candlestick, for you callow thickheaded children out there) for all the good it’ll do them.