Perhaps I should have oohed and aahed over the New York Jet’s 30-27 comeback in the last 10 seconds to beat the Houston Texans yesterday. But I just can’t. The Texans looked as if they were going to have this one in the last two minutes. Even the announcers talked as if better days were ahead. But, of course, what is 55 seconds in the NFL? Apparently long enough for the Texans to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory!
Then, the 42-yard bomb down the sidelines from Jets’ QB Mark Sanchez to Braylon Edwards which led to another pass from Sanchez to Santonio Holmes for the score. I’ll say this for Sanchez, on that pass which led to the miraculous comeback, he looked worth all the hype everyone heard in pre-season. At lest for that pass.
Houston, heavens to Murgatroyd! The Texans fall to 4-6 after even the big sports media started believing that this might be the year they are real. Houston still has a chance albeit very slight to prove to their fans that they are real. Why to hear Dallas Cowboys fanstalk about their new energy from interim coach Jason Garrett, the ‘Boys now at 3-7 after beating Detroit yesterday might just end up hosting and playing in the Super Bowl after all. That would really drive me over the edge.
It seems you can’t escape Sarah Palin these days. The former Alaska governor and failed Republican vice presidential candidate is everywhere: making a book tour, hosting a family travelogue on cable television. It seems the media is just fascinated with her. Yes, I said the media. With her stardom she is fast becoming a media darling and it is in turn driving up her popularity. The media push must certainly be the reason for her star rising as high because otherwise she has appeared to be dumb as a post. Her shrill, whiny voice is enough to make a groundhog burrow into the Earth’s inner core. Now, it seems she is thinking about a presidential run in 2012. Big surprise there.
Trump was on the national and international scene while Palin was changing colleges like Jeff Gordon’s NASCAR pit crew changes tires. The Donald has long been known for his shrewd business acumen and collecting trophy wives. Media darling would perhaps not be the most accurate description for Trump but he has logged many hours on various TV shows. He almost seems synonymous with Larry King. Of course, The Donald too has had a TV show and a quite popular one in “The Apprentice.” He has even given birth to a catch-phrase “You’re fired.”
Photo attributed to "Bosstweed" via Wikipedia
It seems like there are no shortage of folks willing to become 2012 GOP standard bearer. The one who does must carefully walk the rolling log down the river of political treachery. The base of the Republican Party has become those of the right, the evangelicals, the Tea Party, and all manner of social conservative. But that sector alone will not beat the Democratic nominee who will — unless he is found out to really be Kenyan — Barack Obama.
A successful Republican presidential candidate will likely require someone else other than the GOP’s time-honored “good party man” pick for nominee. It will, as my Daddy used to say, “take a different breed of dog,” to bring in enough of the disparate GOP factions, indpendents and disillusioned Democrats to beat Obama. Oh, and when I say disillusioned Dems I don’t mean the far left wing because if they don’t vote for Obama or not vote at all, they might vote for the left-leaning flavor of the presidential campaign such as another Ralph Nader run.
I don’t think Sarah Palin has a snowball’s chance in Hell of winning. A poll result I heard today said a match between Palin and Obama would put the incumbent back in office by something like a 55-45 margin. That’s today though. We still have a ways from November 2012. Two years is geological time in presidential races. If she does win the presidency I might just have to head for deep in the Sabine River bottoms, somewhere that hasn’t been cut out by development. I will definitely have to, as that great singer/philosopher John Prine says: “Blow up your TV.” And probably my radio and most likely avoid all contact with the first woman president on any kind of medium because that screechy, whiny voice might just make me follow the ground hog into the Earth’s innermost bowels.
Trump, flake that he is, has proved himself to be one hell of a bidness man, as we Texans are wont to say. And we Texans know from personal experience that only good business sense does a good elected official make.
A race between the two for the GOP nominee for president might just be a good thing for their party.
Pitting Trump against Palin for the presidential contest might finally make the Republican Party define who it is and what it is they really are. Is this the party of Ronald Reagan, Bill Buckley, Richard Nixon, and others who saw the GOP as a conduit for capitalism above all else? Or will the end result be a Republicanism that is more like a Carrie Nations-led Women’s Christian Temperance Union when it comes to social issues with hardly a footprint left of a federal government?
It will depend. I thought the GOP would be split apart by now but the Tea Party helped it survive another election cycle. Now if what has been wrought and whether the candidates of the next election cycle can continue to hold the Republican Party together remain the big political questions.
At the moment I am a bit occupied with a new camera. I didn’t find photography in college using film very stimulating. Some people think it’s the cat’s meow. I have to admit I like digital photography and it doesn’t matter the firepower of the camera as long as it takes shots that turn out decent. Photo editing programs can do wonders.
My new camera is about the same length as my cell phone and about a half-inch wider. Most of my pics are for Internet use, so the small point-and-shoot is what I decided I need. If a photo comes about which a newspaper might want or I shoot a video suitable for the local TV stations, this camera will do the job. That sounds kind of presumptuous, I know, but I am a journalist by trade and know that it would have to be an out-of-the-ordinary circumstance for a photo or video that I took.
The compactness of a camera is both a gift and a curse, as my favorite defective detective Monk, would say. All kinds of little buttons and screen menus and this and that abound. I started seeing how difficult tiny consumer goods could be years ago when I bought my first Japanese cars. Things have only become smaller.
Well, I just heard a transformer blow outside and my place has about half power, which is weird, the lights usually just go out so I better see what’s up. I will be sure to take my camera along.
I say “apparently” because I have not followed, nor do I care to follow the entire controversy that perhaps now is moot. I say “moot” because McNabb said he and Redskins coach Mike Shanahan put the issue behind them. Also, McNabb has signed a contract for $9 billion million plus change (just s**ting you) and was back on the field just in time for the Redskins to, in the words of some rural Texas high school coach, be “beat like a rented mule” last night by McNabb’s former Philadelphia Eagles (I s**t you not.)
That was fun to write. It was long too. I know. I did that on purpose porpoise.
McNabb is not really my point. No? What is pray tell?
Lying. Lying is my point. This has to do with a lie or series of lies Shanahan allegedly perpetrated regarding McNabb’s benching.
Out of all this soap-opera-ish nightmare of epic proportions (lie) comes a truth.
The truth I detected today came from ESPN radio host Colin Cowherd. I listen to his show when I am out driving in the mornings going to and fro. He can be annoying but he is entertaining and today made one of the most profound statements I have ever heard coming out of a sports talk-type guy.
Cowherd said of Shanahan, of course he lied. Everybody lies. Your kids lie. You lie to your kids. You lie to your wife. You lie to the IRS. You lie to your neighbor. You even lie to yourself. Cowherd didn’t say all that, I just made some of it up, but that was the gist of his thought line. That wasn’t what was so profound though.
Imagine a UFO with aliens landing on Earth. Would the government lie to the public about that? Probably. Cowherd said the reasoning was that there are “too many low-hanging fruit” living among us and they would not be able to handle the truth. He cites the people who e-mail him every day with just incredibly out-there missives. We all know the people of whom he speaks. You might even be one of them. I paraphrase but that is basically what this sports talk radio guy said and I love it. I just love it.
Low-hanging fruit. You can just see a big, yellow diamond-shaped sign with representations of bananas and grapes hanging from a tree all the way to the ground. “Beware Low-Hanging Fruit,” being the text equivalent. Perhaps some kind of space ship bearing such a sign, could be sent up in the Exosphere over each pole to warn travelers from outer space. Okay, there are probably holes in my idea — like holes in the ozone layer — but it is the thought that counts.
