Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2008 is better to you than 2007 was. My resolution this year is to get myself a snow blower – just as soon as I can dig the car out from under the thirty inches of snow to get to the store.
Congratulations to the New England Patriots on the first undefeated NFL regular season since 1972. An average of 34 million people tuned in Saturday night to watch the Patriots make history and, surprisingly, were treated to one heck of a football game along the way. And kudos to the New York Giants for respecting the game of football enough to give New England a run for its money. In a game that meant absolutely nothing to the already playoff-bound Giants, and against the “expert” advice of nearly every single football talking head, each and every player came out and played like they were playing for the championship. The Patriots etched their names into football lore with the victory, but the Giants made them earn every minute of it. As true as this statement can be in a game where someone has to win and someone has to lose, there were no losers Saturday night.
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again, right? Well, for Pakistani militants the second time was a charm. Last Thursday they succeeded in assassinating former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto less than two weeks before the scheduled presidential elections in which she was to take part. Bhutto was leaving a political rally, waving to supporters through the sunroof of her bulletproof SUV when three shots were heard in the crowd, followed by the explosion of a suicide bomber. Witnesses report that one or more of the shots hit Bhutto in the head or neck and she slumped atop the vehicle before the explosion hit. Days of violent protests have followed and current president Musharraf has decided to delay the elections for at least a month. The moral of this story is, don’t stick your head out of the sunroof of a bulletproof SUV. If you happen to be riding in a bulletproof vehicle, there’s probably a reason for that – perhaps that someone is tying to SHOOT YOU! Leaving the safety of the vehicle makes their job real easy.
What is it about voting that makes people lose their minds? According to Kenyan government officials, 148 people have been murders and 75,000 have been forced to leave their homes due to post-election violence that began four days ago. International relief agencies put those numbers much higher. Like Rwanda and Sudan before, this violence appears to be ethnically motivated – the tribe of the election loser hacking it out with the tribe of the election winner. It’s hard to accept that this sort of thing still takes place in a more or less civilized world. But it should also help us realized how fortunate we are to live in a place where the worst thing that happens to you when you when your guy loses an election is that you get a little ribbing from the guy in the adjacent cubicle the next morning at work.
For the second time in two weeks the media seems to have been surprised by the appearance of Christian religious symbols and messages in the campaign ads of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. The first came in the form of a cross in an ad released just prior to Christmas, and the latest comes in the form of an ichthys on a background banner featured prominently in a pro-life commercial. I guess what baffles me is why everyone is so surprised. What part of conservative southern Baptist minister did you people not understand? Allow me to make this as simple as I possibly can. Mike Huckabee is a conservative Christian. Vote for him or don’t vote for him. But don’t feign surprise at who he is.
For those of you paying attention, the Iowa caucuses take place this coming Thursday. The most recent polling data indicates the leading
Democratic candidates are still locked in a statistical dead heat, while support for Republicans Romney and Huckabee is virtually even, with Thompson, McCain and Giuliani trail significantly. And, in a classic example of hope winning out over common sense, Ron Paul continues to poll at almost ten percent. While I am no fan of the current caucus/primary system, I am glad the process is finally underway. We can’t get it over with until we start it. So during the next couple weeks we will eliminate the jokers (sorry Paul, Kucinich), and by early February we will know if America is ready to watch a Mormon, or a Baptist, or a black man or a woman duke it out for the presidency. My money’s on the mayor and the woman, but I would LOVE to be wrong on this one.
Finally, with no end in site to the writer’s strike, the late night comedians will return to the air this Wednesday night. While this can’t be good news for the striking writers, it is great news for the NBC network due to the fact that aside from Sunday night football, Leno and O’Brien are the only shows making them any money. However, there is some question as to how good the shows will be without writers? My guess is that if they bomb, the studios will cave and the strike will be over sooner rather than later. But if people go back to watching them like nothing ever happened, we could be in for a spring filled with videos rebroadcast from YouTube and Dancing With the Stars knock-offs. Oh the humanity! If it gets to that point I’ll just stick needles in my eyes and throw bricks through my television. Oh wait, I have satellite. Never mind, I’ll be fine.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
much as it pains me to compliment the giants, they did play a pretty awesome game...one of the best of the year, actually, in terms of sheer footballness (love the made-up words!)
one word: popemobile. 'nuf said.
(although if you say it with an italian accent, you can get five syllables out of it).
it's a little funny how the media and the democrats are constantly surprised that people tend to be religious, those who are tend to be loud about it (what! voters go to church! inconceivable!).
Post a Comment