As I sat there watching my Sunday morning news shows, I realized that more than once on the Democratic side of these discussions, the question of voter’s preferences when it came to a black male vs. a white woman came up.
The initial startle to me was that they were still talking about that aspect of it this late in the contest. I had been under the impression that we’d had gotten past this segment of the discussion after Super Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008.
But there it was still echoing around the dial by the supposed pundits and it left me a bit disappointed for I contrasted these round table media discussions with the images of yesterday afternoon.
You see, I was at a Pop Warner awards program that centered on the kids and their accomplishments. Boys and girls – black, white – Hispanic, Irish, Italian, etc- and their parents mixing it up, having a good time. I noticed that children who were getting a little rambunctious were mindful of the corrective orders of adults, related to them or not – neither group was concerned with heritage, skin color or gender. The elders spoke and the kids did as they were told.
With a few exceptions that will persist in some places, I believe that for the most part, the electorate, like this Pop Warner group, has moved on from wanting things to be filtered through gender, skin color or heritage. Rather, their focus is on each other’s commonality, whether its’ financial, health, family or any of a thousand other topics that affect our lives each day.
We’ll see.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
So, Where Is The Snow?
The snow blower has been sitting in the shed and, to borrow a line from the Rudy campaign, it is “Tested. Ready. Now.”
(Thanks to Rudy for spending $40 million, garnering his 1 delegate and coming up with that line.)
With a little over a month to go until it’s official end, winter has gone wimpy, giving only the occasional below 32 degree cold snaps to us. In doing so it has deprived many with the need to find the sleds, to watch our steps on the ice (“just walk like a duck” my mom would say and I would mumble something about not having webbed feet), to throw a snowball.
We have also been spared driving behind cars and trucks whose drivers failed to clear the tops of their vehicles and watch the snowy projectiles coming at us as the clearing process took place at 60+ miles an hour.
I know about the global warming process and the changes it has invoked upon us, but I wish, just once, we can be harmlessly stopped in our busy lives by nature for a day or two, with a good 8 to 10 inches of the white stuff. Things have a habit of becoming real local then, real intimate.
The family all watch the weather reports together or are asking about the storms progress, wanting to know what impact or restrictions Mother Nature might be imposing on their lives. The looks out the window become longer as the snow falls and at night, the streetlights are sought out to inform us of wind and density.
The planned activities first succumb to the "maybes" then fall by the wayside to "the can’t".
Winter has made its’ presence known in no uncertain terms.
But so far, not this year. It’s looking like we may have to settle on the outside chance of tulips and snow.
Then again, maybe I should just go out and make sure that the lawn mower is “Tested. Ready. Now.”
(Thanks to Rudy for spending $40 million, garnering his 1 delegate and coming up with that line.)
With a little over a month to go until it’s official end, winter has gone wimpy, giving only the occasional below 32 degree cold snaps to us. In doing so it has deprived many with the need to find the sleds, to watch our steps on the ice (“just walk like a duck” my mom would say and I would mumble something about not having webbed feet), to throw a snowball.
We have also been spared driving behind cars and trucks whose drivers failed to clear the tops of their vehicles and watch the snowy projectiles coming at us as the clearing process took place at 60+ miles an hour.
I know about the global warming process and the changes it has invoked upon us, but I wish, just once, we can be harmlessly stopped in our busy lives by nature for a day or two, with a good 8 to 10 inches of the white stuff. Things have a habit of becoming real local then, real intimate.
The family all watch the weather reports together or are asking about the storms progress, wanting to know what impact or restrictions Mother Nature might be imposing on their lives. The looks out the window become longer as the snow falls and at night, the streetlights are sought out to inform us of wind and density.
The planned activities first succumb to the "maybes" then fall by the wayside to "the can’t".
Winter has made its’ presence known in no uncertain terms.
But so far, not this year. It’s looking like we may have to settle on the outside chance of tulips and snow.
Then again, maybe I should just go out and make sure that the lawn mower is “Tested. Ready. Now.”
Thursday, February 14, 2008
The Clemens Congressional Fiasco
With his appearance before the Waxman Congressional panel investigating the use of steroids and Human Growth Hormones (HGH) in baseball, premier pitcher Roger Clemens accomplished one thing – no matter how many ballots his name appears on - he will not be going to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.
His willingness to play the stubborn fool in desperately trying to cling to his fantasy that America will accept his actions of throwing his wife under the bus for her usage of HGH for a Sports Illustrated swimsuit layout and trying to label his best friend Andy Pettitte as deaf (“he misheard –misremembered- me”) will not work.
As a Yankee fan since 1961, I have followed this team and it’s players through good and bad, ups and downs and the mediocre and never once, not once, have I ever heard a bad thing being said by anyone in baseball about Andy Pettitte. “Stand up”, “honest”, “hard worker”, “family man”, “Born Again Christian” are the words and descriptions that are most often heard when Petitte’s name is brought up.
Pettitte came right out and admitted using HGH twice and that he was told by Clemens that he (Clemens) too had used it. They even had some discussions about how Clemens would respond if asked by the media about whether he used these drugs or not.
Forget the trainer, Brian McNamee, and his statements. Forget the former Senator George Mitchell and his report’s findings; forget Clemens’ former teammate, Chuck Knobloch and his endorsement of the McNamee statements.
It comes down to who you believe – Andy Pettitte or Roger Clemens.
Andy does not necessarily have a place in the Hall of Fame waiting for him – a good pitcher, but not an automatic famer. In his written testimony to the committee, a deeply religious Pettitte mentioned how he had to tell the truth, that one day he would have to stand before God and account for all he had done.
I'll believe Andy.
Until he opened his mouth yesterday, Roger Clemens was a first round definite Hall of Famer.
Not anymore.
The best he can hope for now is maybe getting together with Mark McGuire for some batting practice and that the tests on the saved syringes from McNamee's injection sessions come up as a negative match to Roger's DNA.
His willingness to play the stubborn fool in desperately trying to cling to his fantasy that America will accept his actions of throwing his wife under the bus for her usage of HGH for a Sports Illustrated swimsuit layout and trying to label his best friend Andy Pettitte as deaf (“he misheard –misremembered- me”) will not work.
As a Yankee fan since 1961, I have followed this team and it’s players through good and bad, ups and downs and the mediocre and never once, not once, have I ever heard a bad thing being said by anyone in baseball about Andy Pettitte. “Stand up”, “honest”, “hard worker”, “family man”, “Born Again Christian” are the words and descriptions that are most often heard when Petitte’s name is brought up.
Pettitte came right out and admitted using HGH twice and that he was told by Clemens that he (Clemens) too had used it. They even had some discussions about how Clemens would respond if asked by the media about whether he used these drugs or not.
Forget the trainer, Brian McNamee, and his statements. Forget the former Senator George Mitchell and his report’s findings; forget Clemens’ former teammate, Chuck Knobloch and his endorsement of the McNamee statements.
It comes down to who you believe – Andy Pettitte or Roger Clemens.
Andy does not necessarily have a place in the Hall of Fame waiting for him – a good pitcher, but not an automatic famer. In his written testimony to the committee, a deeply religious Pettitte mentioned how he had to tell the truth, that one day he would have to stand before God and account for all he had done.
I'll believe Andy.
Until he opened his mouth yesterday, Roger Clemens was a first round definite Hall of Famer.
Not anymore.
The best he can hope for now is maybe getting together with Mark McGuire for some batting practice and that the tests on the saved syringes from McNamee's injection sessions come up as a negative match to Roger's DNA.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Merla's Going Away Interview
Role models cannot be repeatedly tempted with the option of wrongdoing. Eventually they will have to do the wrong thing.
Such was the explaination offered by John Merla, the former mayor, to the citizens of Keyport, on why he took the money offered by a surrogate of the FBI in it's Bid Rig undercover operation.
We learned that valuable lesson from a going away interview with a local weekly newspaper.
The former mayor likened himself to a ten year old faced with cookies - and the uncertain moral certitude associated with that age group when faced with a delicious offering.
However, the adult version of this senario replaced the cookies with envelopes of cash (ironically referred to by those on the take as "doughnuts") and their ethical standards having been filtered through such processes as asking for the voters trust, taking an oath of office and repeatedly stating your innocence in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary that you knew to be true.
If we use the former mayor's definition of the term "role model", then all of those fine people who, along with him, were named to the Keyport Hall of Fame will also be found to have the moral certitude of ten year olds and will have to do the wrong thing when faced with temptation.
Fortunately for Keyport, wiser thinking pervails in the community. The Keyport Board of Education voted to remove the former mayor's photo from the ranks of true role models.
He says he will use his prison time constructively, looking to educate himself about a new business venture he intends to take up upon his release.
Perhaps during his stay in prison he will get the fact that what he has done is wrong.Then again maybe not. We'll know for sure if, in two years, the former mayor is seen in the early morning hours walking down the streets of Keyport muttering to himself "time to make (or take) the doughnuts..."
Such was the explaination offered by John Merla, the former mayor, to the citizens of Keyport, on why he took the money offered by a surrogate of the FBI in it's Bid Rig undercover operation.
We learned that valuable lesson from a going away interview with a local weekly newspaper.
The former mayor likened himself to a ten year old faced with cookies - and the uncertain moral certitude associated with that age group when faced with a delicious offering.
However, the adult version of this senario replaced the cookies with envelopes of cash (ironically referred to by those on the take as "doughnuts") and their ethical standards having been filtered through such processes as asking for the voters trust, taking an oath of office and repeatedly stating your innocence in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary that you knew to be true.
If we use the former mayor's definition of the term "role model", then all of those fine people who, along with him, were named to the Keyport Hall of Fame will also be found to have the moral certitude of ten year olds and will have to do the wrong thing when faced with temptation.
Fortunately for Keyport, wiser thinking pervails in the community. The Keyport Board of Education voted to remove the former mayor's photo from the ranks of true role models.
He says he will use his prison time constructively, looking to educate himself about a new business venture he intends to take up upon his release.
Perhaps during his stay in prison he will get the fact that what he has done is wrong.Then again maybe not. We'll know for sure if, in two years, the former mayor is seen in the early morning hours walking down the streets of Keyport muttering to himself "time to make (or take) the doughnuts..."
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