New Year, good. Another year older, bad.
Hope everyone had a happy/merry ChrismaChanuKwanzaka. Hope your 2009 is better than your 2008.
Not much happened this past week. Mostly football. (Sorry Gail). I blame this “transition period” business. No one wants to talk about bush because he’s yesterday’s news. Yet there’s nothing to say about Obama because he hasn’t had a chance to do anything. I almost find myself longing for the days of presidential primaries. Almost.
I guess the big news of the weekend and so far this week is the all-out Israeli air assault on Hamas fighters in Gaza. I‘ve tried to be interested in this situation – in what’s happening in the Middle East in general, really I have. But the fact is that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians remember exactly what it is they are fighting about, nor do they care. The reasons are no longer important. The only thing that matters now is retaliation. Retaliation for the last bombing as retaliation for the last air strike as retaliation for the previous bombing as retaliation for the previous air strike, blah blah blah. On and on it goes. There is no end to this war. Israel feels it has a divine right to occupy the land it occupies. Palestinians feel they have a divine right to be rid of Israelis on the land they occupy. It is what it is. We can only try to contain it.
Still Governor Rod Blagojevich decided to stick his thumb in the eye of his detractors today and appointed former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama. Fully aware that the leadership of the U.S. Senate already publicly stated that they will not seat any senator appointed by Blago, the still governor proved he still retains a shred of political savvy by ensuring that the man he appointed to replace the President-elect (formerly the only black U.S. Senator) is also a widely respected black man with by all initial accounts a spotless record of public service. In doing so he made the imminent rejection of his nomination just a little more complicated in that regardless of what Blagojevich may or may not have said on tape, it still looks bad for 83 white male and 16 white female senators to refuse admission to an otherwise competent, fully qualified black man. But, it is what it is. Mr. Burris will not be seated, someone will throw a hissy fit, Blagojevich will eventually be removed from office and the lieutenant governor will appoint a replacement to Obama, who will promptly be defeated in the 2010 election. Welcome to Illinois politics.
I thought about saving this one for the football section, but it’s so much bigger than football, it really deserves to be here. Last year the New York Giants robbed me (and the New England Patriots too, I guess) of the perfect 19-0 season. I felt cheated out of witnessing what would have arguably been the greatest achievement in team sports history. But on Sunday, the Detroit Lions delivered something almost as good – the perfect, winless season. That’s right, WINLESS. 0 for 16. They said it couldn’t be done. They said it was impossible to lose every single game. The league is set up to avoid that scenario. Yet somehow, the Lions found a way to make it happen. Believe it or not, I think this COULD be good for the Lions. I stress, “could” because – as we’ve seen all season – there’s nothing Detroit can’t screw up. But now everyone related to that franchise knows, it absolutely cannot get any worse. Finishing 1-15 would have allowed some in the organization to believe (falsely) that there might have been something positive to glean from that single victory. Well, now there is no doubt. Nothing that team did worked. Not a single thing. You now have the perfect excuse to blow that team up and start over from scratch. Nothing is sacred anymore. Completely rebuild that organization from the ground up. And for the love of Barry Sanders, learn SOMETHING from your mistakes. Because as bad as 0-16 is, 0-32 is worse.
My NFL Thoughts for Week 17.
The current playoff formula is bogus. Two 8-8 teams (one from each conference) made the playoffs as division winners. Five teams with better records than both the Arizona Cardinals and the San Diego Chargers failed to make the cut due to this ridiculous rule that the division winner is guaranteed a playoff spot. Let’s discard this moronic divisional formula and replace it with this one: the top six teams in each conference go to the playoffs. So simple it just might work.
Congratulations to the Miami Dolphins for transitioning from a 15-loss season last year to 11 wins and a division championship this season. Now if you could only do something about those uniforms.
Tony Romo will have to wait at least one more year to rid himself of the stigma of being big game choker. The Cowboys went down in flames Sunday afternoon to a Philadelphia team that started the day on life-support. After the game Terrell Owens pretended he had nothing to do with the implosion of the pre-season Superbowl favorite, talking about how the team this and we that and all of us the other. If he had maintained that attitude – even faked that attitude – for all sixteen games, Dallas might be heading to Minnesota next week to extend their season instead of the Eagles.
Helluva game in Buffalo. Sixty mile-per-hour wind gusts, 20-yard field goals missed waaaaay wide right and goalposts twisted to 15-degree angles. That’s football people. None of this dome garbage. When are we going to get to see a real Superbowl in a place like Buffalo, Green Bay or New England?
Bill Belichick must be sitting in his office laughing his butt off at the rest of the league. Three years ago all the talking heads thought the Patriots would fall apart when all three of his coordinators left for head coaching jobs of their own. The haters claimed his protégés were the brain of his operation and that he would be exposed as nothing more than the man behind the curtain. Turns out it was the haters that were exposed. Two of his disciples were fired from Cleveland and New York on Monday after very disappointing seasons (or three) and the third guy is Charlie Weis. And to top it all off, he guided his team to an 11-5 record after losing the Golden Boy Tom Brady seven minutes into the season and continuing with a seventh-round quarterback who hadn’t started a football game since high school. We all know who the real genius is now. And seriously, is Matt Cassel that good, or is it the system? And if it’s the system, is Tom Brady really that good? Are you sure?
Denver Broncos “coach for life” Mike Shanahan is, well, no longer coach for life. In fact, he’s no longer coach. Apparently two Superbowl victories just don’t buy the job security they used to anymore. Somehow I doubt he’ll be out of work long.
Goodbye Brett. I’ll miss you, even if no one else does.
Two teams nobody wants to play right now, Baltimore and Indianapolis. Ray Lewis and Ed Reed look like they are 25 years old again. Peyton manning looks like he’s only 30.
My Playoff Picks for Wildcard Weekend:
Eagles over Vikings
Falcons over Cardinals
Chargers over Colts
Ravens over Dolphins
My Superbowl Picks for Week 17: New York Giants vs. Pittsburgh Steelers
Apparently there are a rash of new 3-D movies scheduled for release in 2009. Didn’t we try this experiment in the 70s? Didn’t it fail miserably? People don’t want to wear stupid little glasses in the theater. Oh, and we have 3-D movies. They’re called stage plays. Go see one.
Finally, yet another “memoir” has been exposed as fiction. This time, it is the story of a boy held at a Nazi concentration camp during World War Two and a girl on the outside who tossed him apples over the fence to keep him alive, who eventually married and grew old together. Only it wasn’t true. Of course, all this could have been avoided if the author had simply labeled his book a work of fiction, instead of a memoir. But why bother telling the truth when lying can make you so much more money.
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2 comments:
This hoax is a tragedy. The Rosenblats have hurt Jews all over and given support to those who deny the holocaust. I don't understand why Atlantic Pictures is still proceeding to make a film based on a lie. I also don't understand how Oprah could have publicized this story, especially after James Frey and given that many bloggers like Deborah Lipstadt said in 2007 that the Rosenblat's story couldn't be true.
There are so many other worthwhile projects based on genuine love stories from the Holocaust. My favorite is the one about Dina Gottliebova Babbitt - the beautiful young art student who painted Snow White and the Seven Dwarves on the children's barracks at Auschwitz. This painting became the reason Dina and her Mother survived Auschwitz. After the end of the war, Dina applied for an art job in Paris. Unbeknownst to Dina, her interviewer was the lead animator on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. They fell in love and got married. Now that's a romantic love story! I also admire Dina for her tremendous courage to paint the mural in the first place. Painting the mural for the children caused her to be taken to Dr. Mengele, the Angel of Death. She thought she was going to be gassed, but bravely she stood up to Mengele and he made her his portrait painter, saving herself and her mother from the gas chamber.
Also, Dina's story has been verified as true. Some of the paintings she did for Mengele in Auschwitz survived the war and are at the Auschwitz Birkenau Museum. The story of her painting the mural of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on the children's barrack has been corroborated by many other Auschwitz prisoners, and of course her love and marriage to the animator of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs the Disney movie after the war in Paris is also documented.
Why wasn't the Rosenblatt's story checked out before it was published and picked up to have the movie made?? I would like to see true and wonderful stories like Dina's be publicized, not these hoax tales that destroy credibility and trust.
Who is this Timothy? Another commenter? Yay!
As far as I know, this story was publicized before James Frey's, but still, it is rather impressive that Oprah has been bilked twice.
I can't believe you didn't complain about Peyton being MVP. I guess my other two top candidates lost their playoff games (although, so did Peyton), but still. I claim shenanigans.
I've had difficulty working up angst about this whole Israel/Gaza thing, because it always seems like the same old story. Party A postures at Party B. Party B overreacts. Party A overreacts. Mayhem ensues.
Despite all prior evidence to the contrary, I am beginning to suspect that Paul Burris is stupid. Why else would he be planning to show up and force the Senate's hand? This can't end well for anyone. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I feel like I should make New Year's Resolutions. I have a lot of things I want to fix/change. But I just can't work up the energy. Sigh. This doesn't seem like a good sign.
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