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After a January and February that were spring-like here in Washington state, March and April have been decidedly winter-like, which has caused my mind to go completely discombobulated. Since on Tuesday I posted my observations on the men’s NCAA basketball finals, for free-for-all Friday I want to comment on the women’s final. I have to confess that I find women’s basketball excruciating to watch, and since I didn’t feel like going to the grocery store to buy a whole bottle of aspirin, I refused to put myself through that experience. However, yesterday I came across Wednesday’s sports page, and in it contained the box score of the Connecticut-Stanford game. The final score made it seem like an interesting game, 53-47; however, despite the fact that Stanford had an eight-point lead at the half, once the second half started Connecticut had an eleven point lead before you could say “Jack Daniels,” and it was never a contest after that. The fact that Connecticut out-scored its opponents by an average of 47 points per game entering the women’s final four says less about how good they are, but how thinly spread is the talent pool in the women’s game. Just how “bad” can bad be? Consider: These were supposed to be the two best teams in the women’s college game this year, with a combined record of 74-1 going into the championship game (Stanford’s only loss was in an earlier meeting with Connecticut). Combined, they shot 37 of 126 from the field, an anemic .294 field goal percentage. There were 98 total rebounds—nearly three times the number of field goals made. This is what you might expect from a bunch of out-of-shape guys playing a pick-up game in a driveway. Now, some might say that this game was an example of a defensive "struggle"--rather than just a struggle-- but these are just people playing politics. The numbers don’t lie—I know that if I had that bottle of aspirin, I probably wouldn’t be conscious now to talk about it.
Mark K: Newsweek’s cover story is about “What Would Mary Do?” to save the Catholic Church. The author of the article inside, Lisa Miller, naturally misses the salient issue. Instead of making the expected political points, it should be pointed out that in a world that is less spiritual than commercialized pap--and where people prefer that church dogma adhere to their own personal "morality"--the priesthood has become a less attractive occupation to men, especially for those who cannot contain their nautral (especially heterosexual) impulses. So long as celibacy is the rule, the priesthood will continue to attract a certain small percentage of men who find it an occupation in which to conceal what they don’t want to reveal (and we may well ask what kind of women would be attracted to the priesthood if it were allowed). But eventually they do, as we have seen. Although bishops in the Eastern Orthodox Church are required to be celibate (most are drawn from the monastic orders), priests are allowed to be married, and we are not hearing about the eastern churches having the same abuse issues that the Latin church is having. It is probably time for the Catholic Church to stop denying nature and enter the adult world.
DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER DANGER!!!!
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/vote-Suppression_guru_spakovsky_is_back_at_it.php
@mstaggerlee, keep yer head in the middle, thats where it is.
@Quark, it would also be wise to break up the media monopolies (I fantasize about taxing the opinion shows out of existence)
I remember the days when right wing kooks like Wally George were on late at night on the public channels. Such shows had more of a cult status back then, more like watching a train wreck in slow motion then actually taking the host seriously.
Maxrot,
Those are good suggestions. We can do a lot locally (in our states)...
Now for something completely different:
For no particular reason, here's one of my favorite bits from The Young Ones: "University Challenge:"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxA0a5G6ccg
The "L" ain't no big deal . . . I've been living in the middle for years and answering to "Yo! Jack_Hole!!!" for decades . .
@quark, How do we stop the trajectory? I think the fist step is clean up the voting standards, start using instant run-off voting, and perhaps this should go first, tough finance campaign reforms. We may never be able to get all the corruption out of politics, but it would be wise to remove the most pervasive and identifiable whenever confronted by it.
@rladlof ,
I've been overlooking the "L", too. I'm sorry, too.
@Nels - you may need to go back to page 2 to see the post where Richard referred to me as Ms. Tagger Lee. :-(
@Harry - GWB? - yeah, I guess that was kinda obvious. Where has MY head been?
Has Jeopardy ever ended with the winner having the least NEGATIVE score? :-D
We have gotta work from ground up. ACT LOCALLY, first. Use local enterprise as a default . . . Avoid the chain and MNE if possible. Protect Unions and Union Jobs. Restore the teaching of Humanities in High School and College/Universities. BUY AMERICAN.
Join groups like Drinking Literately & the Coffee Party. Use free public media like Facebook MySpace et al. Pressure on the Liberal/Progressives to stay the course. Go after Corporate money being spent on policy.
Go after funding of pro-corporatists politicians. PUBLIC funding of elections.
@mstagger; loooks more like a "love brush" than a goatee. but good one!
@rladlof - Hmmm - apparently I've been overlooking the "L". - I'm sorry about that, as well.
Sincerely,
Marc Alan Lee
:-{)>
The above, btw, is supposed to be a smiley w/ moustache & goatee.
@Staggerlee: what else do you find in the middle?...bush!
@mstaggerlee... said what?
@Harry Ashburn -
Picture this if you can ... Dan Quayle and Sarah Palin as contestants on "Celebrity Jeopardy"! :-D
The only problem with the above ... where do we find someone dumb enough to occupy the 3rd contestant's chair? ;-)
@mstaggerlee: Sorry . . . I was shackled to RADlof for years so in the 80s, I inserted my middle initial "L".
Respectfully,
Richard Lawrence Adlof
radlof,
How do we stop this trajectory in U.S. politics?
re: palin: "Joe's biden his time but Sarah's palin' in comparison." -harry ashburn
"Sarah Palin?...well...she's no Dan Quayle!" -harry ashburn
In short, President Obama is a good Reagan Republican . . .
radlof,
Thanks so much for the reference info. I really appreciate it! :-)
I think what the caller named Hamad or something was trying to imply was that the U.S.-Russian pact was just a smokescreen to provide political cover to deny Muslim countries like Iran the right to build nuclear weapons. Obviously, this caller is not completely "Americanized," given his lack of insight into the natives' fear of a nuclear-armed Iran--or any other fundamentalist Islamic nation that regards the U.S. as the "great Satan."
cmoore68,
Re: Maybe its just me, but every time I read Sarah's last name I can't help but see "Pain".
Everytime I hear her voice, I experience "Pain." She has a voice that could break glass!