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commentary on the passing parade Agree? Disagree? Tell me
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Friday, October 14, 2005
BASEBALL OUTCOME MEANT TO BE I don’t know why there’s all this fuss about how A.J. Pierzynski got on base and how the White Sox evened the playoff series with the L.A. Angels. The ball looked like it was aimed at his shoes for heaven’s sake. It was about as obvious a BALL FOUR call as you could wish for. AJ’s mind must have been somewhere else for a split second when he swung - and naturally missed - at the gift that was being offered up to him and his fellow Sox. He would have needed a cricket bat and a cricket stance to have been able to hit such a ball and everyone in Comiskey Park (I just can’t bring myself to calling it US Cellular Field) knew it. It was Ball Four. Take your base. That’s what should have happened. And when AJ regained his senses - I’m not sure that the Angels hadn’t somehow caused him to be in that momentary state of somnambulance - did anyone check to see if Josh Paul was hiding a syringe in his mitt ? - he instinctively knew that he should be on first and dutifully trotted down there, clearly oblivious to the fact that he had swung and missed the unhittable ball. And you have to give the guy credit. In the brouhaha that followed, he went along with the notion that the ball had bounced into the catcher’s mitt and that he wasn’t out if he hadn’t been tagged or the ball thrown to first base. The guy’s an actor. HE could have been drafted to be the next James Bond instead of this Daniel Craig person. A blonde Bond?? What’s next? Green Hot Dogs at the ball park? The game ended at it should have.. The Gods of baseball had determined how the home team was to win - and when the annoyance of human free will temporarily disrupted that which had been ordained, they simply improvised and made their desires known through the voice of the rookie umpire behind the plate. The dudes of La La Land need to get over it and accept the inevitable The White Sox are destined to go to and win the World Series. So Na Na Na Na , Hey Hey and Goodbye and quit complaining. Go suck on an orange. _______________________________________ Our Relaxed, Confident, Honest and Open President - Master of the Art of Rehearsed Spontaneity I’m as surprised as anyone else over the 39% approval rating that the President was able to garner in the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll. But maybe that was because the poll was released on Wednesday and was obviously taken before the entire nation was exposed to the latest example of the bullshit, smoke and mirrors through which this administration and this President has conducted itself for the last five years. If Mr. Bush has any credibility left after the nature of his "spontaneous" exchange with troops in Iraq was revealed, it would have to be confined to the visually, hearing and mentally impaired . And blinkered Republicans of course. Members of the latter group are the ones who write to newspapers to protest that Mr. Bush is being unfairly blamed for everything that goes wrong and that those on the left - and in particular liberals- are simply filled with hatred for the man. And they would probably classify these remarks as a prime example. But there’s no hatred involved in this expression of sadness that we are burdened with the kind of leadership that we have and that there are still people in this country who look upon that "leadership" as decisive and genuine and honest when he and one member after another of his entourage are being exposed as cheats and liars and manipulators. Even as the utter phoniness of this "spontaneous" exchange between troops in Iraq and their Commanding Officer was being exposed, his henchmen were insisting that it wasn’t so. How Scott McClellan can live with himself is beyond me. That he didn’t resign with expressions of public indignation when the involvement of Karl Rove and Lewis Libby with the Valerie Plame leak was confirmed after he had stood on the White House podium to say that both had assured him of their total non-involvement speaks volumes all by itself. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when he keeps insisting that the truth is a lie with all kinds of silly excuses about what was being rehearsed for this "spontaneous" exchange - and why. These people have no shame. Before you Bush defenders descend upon me like a horde of locusts - I know that all Presidents have many "staged" events, but I don’t know that any have used the military as backdrops for speeches and appearances the way this President has - and for sure I’ve never heard of a Presidential "town meeting" - which I guess is what you could call this meeting between Mr. Bush and the troops in Iraq - being rehearsed in advance with the questions and answers all carefully scripted and the participants pre-selected. The far right is fond of criticizing Hollywood as a hotbed of anti-war, virtually anti-American liberals churning out anti- main stream America propaganda. They could take lessons from the Bush production company. ____________________________ Can Blogging be Dangerous For Your Career? Well certainly not for mine!! I’m forcibly retired and have no further career - unless some major corporation offers to pay me big bucks to record a commercial or anything else on their behalf. At a local studio so I don’t have travel and mess with parking hassles. Among other things, I am still a professional narrator if you stick a mike in front of me. But otherwise, I’m not trying to pursue a career, so I don’t much care what anyone might think about what I write in this blog. But it’s possible that some people might have had some negative thoughts about the writings of a fellow blogger that might have hurt his career. Daniel Drezner, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, and a known blogger - a full fledged member of the blogosphere - has been denied tenure at the U of C. No one is saying that it was because of his blogging - but no other good reason has been put forth either. And looking over his self congratulatory blog, I think I can understand why it might have left a negative taste with some of his colleagues. I have a small passing interest in the news item only because I once sent Drezner an e-mail as a fellow blogger in which I made some comments about something he had written and asked him a question. It was a very courteous, very polite e-mail calling for little more than a one sentence reply. He never responded and I felt somewhat slighted. He has a long piece on his blog about how busy he is and how the popularity of his wonderful blog draws so much e-mail and how he reads all of his e-mails but just can’t respond to them all. It struck a discordant note with me. Maybe he impressed a colleague or two the same way. |