Doh! Huh? Ummm... Monday Thoughts

Even when I try to ignore it, the news manages to outrage, irk, or perplex me. So here are a few observations of recent coverage that falls into the categories of Doh! Huh? and Hmmm…

 

Doh! (as in, 'Well, yeah.')

·      The release of the long awaited report on the failed bid for a Boston Olympics contained the non-shocking news that boosters underreported the realistic costs of the games by at least three billion dollars. Well, who could have predicted that? Only the living.

·      President Obama recently approved drilling for oil in the Arctic. Yet liberals still think he's one of them. That would be cute were it not so tragic.

·      The Boston Globe reported reactions of "shock" and "surprise" to the in-house coup that toppled Ben Cherington as Red Sox general manager. Did anyone really think he'd be back?

·      A big doh! to anyone who thought that Garry Trudeau had lost his edge. His recent takedown of the new Texas history guidelines is an incisive as any satire he's ever done. Moreover, it's gutsier than anything you'll hear from the lamestream media.

·      You can safely ignore 95% of what happens on the primary campaign trail. There are really only four or five serious candidates out there (Clinton, Sanders, Bush, Christie, maybe Walker) and the rest of the reportage is tales told by idiots that signifies nothing--just a con game played by lazy reporters who have created a faux horse race whose 'progress' they can write about because they're too lazy to do investigative reporting.

·      It's back… dress code battles. School boards and other self-styled guardians of public morality have returned to their censorious ways. One 15-year-old girl was recently sent home because some prudes deemed her exposed collarbones too provocative. Good grief! Baby Boomers fought and won those battles years ago by calling the ACLU and taking these clowns to court. Message to Millennials: You're not entitled; each generation has to reinforce the rights won earlier or they slip away like buttered eels. 

Huh? (As in 'Beats me')

·      Does anyone have the slightest idea what Jim Webb is doing on the campaign trail? Is he actually "running" for anything? Is he angling for a Secretary of Defense posting in a future Democratic administration? Who would pick him? He has virtues, but did anyone ever use his name and "team" in the same sentence?

·      Can you imagine signing a treaty with Operation Rescue? The Tea Party? ISIS? Of course not, because theocracies are not rational bodies. Enter Obama's Iran treaty folly. There is no Iranian government; it's a mere front for the mullahs whose logic system is based on what they see as Allah's will. You don't make deals with people who don't believe in deals. Chuck Schumer often infuriates, but he's right to oppose a treaty that the mullahs have no intention of honoring. Is the Democratic Party trying to drive Jews to the GOP? 

·      Why do people: (a) complain there are no choices in politics, and (b) shy away from candidates like Bernie Sanders (or even Rand Paul) who really are different? Isn't the very logic of 'they can't win' the very reason they don't? Eugene Debs once quipped, "I'd rather vote for what I want and not get it than vote for what I don't want and get it." Yep.

·      Some Democrats want Joe Biden to run for president to derail Hillary Clinton. Huh? He's the Spiro Agnew of Democrats. And before you tell me there's a difference because Agnew was corrupt, be careful: Biden's Delaware is the Cayman Islands for insurance companies.

·      Speaking of needing choices, anyone in education who supports the GOP is sleeping with the enemy, pure and simple. Message to Chris Christie: Until you give up your $175k governor's chair and spend a year in a public classroom at $50k, maybe you should stop talking out of your big fat ass.

Ummm… (As in: Why isn't this happening….')

·      Sick of endless political campaigns? Good grief, it's still six months to the New Hampshire primary. The fix is simple: follow Canada's lead and restrict the campaign season. Canada's longest election cycle in history lasted just 78 days.

·      Is 'young Democrat' an oxymoron? Shouldn't the party start thinking about 2020 as much as 2016? By then, Hillary would be 73, Biden 78, Nancy Pelosi 80,Gerry Brown 82, and Liz Warren 71.

·      Why is there a statute of limitations for art theft? Let's eliminate it and simultaneously ratchet penalties for buying stolen works. I could envision Interpol nabbing an art thief and delivering an ultimatum: finger the buyer or we throw away the key. Now imagine a Japanese businessman or an American celebrity being thrown in the clinker for 40 years for receiving stolen goods.

·      Does a corporate name on a ballpark make you want to support that company? Can't we go back to things like Tiger Stadium? At least name venues after sports figures. A T & T Park doesn't thrill me, but Willie Mays Park does. I' be happy to see a game at Tony Gwynn Field, but I'm sorry—if I go to Petco Field I expect to see a dog show.

·      Why the hell are there sports teams in Oakland? Do they not know the way to San Jose? Going to the Oakland Coliseum—sorry O.co Coliseum--reminds me of seeing a childhood game I saw at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. I couldn't even tell it was a ballpark until I went in because, like Oakland, the neighborhood looked more like a place where mobsters dump bodies than a sports venue.