I have to say, my cynicism is a little less at this exact moment than it usually is, but on the other hand, my non-cynicism is being completely overwhelmed by, like, meta-cynicism so there's that. I'm not talking about the Republican side, obviously, but watching Barack Obama give his victory speech, there are two overwhelming immediate reactions that I can't do anything to change. I tried to soften one or both with some Rogue Chocolate Stout, but it doesn't taste as it did when I opened it 4 days ago. But a sort of aged, rotting taste is kind of appropriate for my feelings so I'll keep knocking it back.
First, this is really genuinely moving stuff. It feels a little bit like watching an old history tape, and that is because I don't think I've ever seen anyone I really believed in before. What I mean is, I used to wonder when our icon was going to come along and this is really exciting, and fun, like Robert F. Kennedy or something. I'm confused because my temperment is usually so much more muted in terms of enthusiasm. I mean, yeah, these are obvious political platitudes but jesucristo, he just really seems like he means them. I mean, this could be a simple gift of his ability to speak and convince me that he's genuine, but I'm totally buying it. All my thoughts about Richardson being more qualified or Edwards being more angry don't really matter. This is, like, a movement. Hop on the train and roll on.
Second, I am overcome with dread. This not only looks like a historical video, it looks like the part right before the candidate gets shot. I cannot seem to shake this instinct that Obama is going to get killed somewhere on the campaign trail. So, I am pretty much writing this whole thing now to try and talk myself out of this shocking sense of impending doom, but it isn't working.
Oh well. Good luck, man, but the revolutionairies never make it.
Showing posts with label 2008 Election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2008 Election. Show all posts
1.03.2008
1.01.2008
The Year Of The Favorite
You've got no fear of the underdog. That's why you will not survive.
Well, Britt, to this point in 2008 anyone who doesn't fear the underdog has been surviving at an alarming rate. USC thrashed the "Fighting" Illini, racking up the highest total yards in Rose Bowl History and some horrible death machine called the Georgia Bulldogs is ripping everybody's favorite accused-rapist-turned-golden-boy Colt Brennan and his once-proud Hawaii Warriors to shreds. It is, clearly, not reasonable to blame this on 2008 entirely, because it continues a horrible trend from 2007 that involved the Patriots going 16-0, the Red Sox sweeping the World Series, Real Madrid beating Barcelona and Manchester United overtaking Arsenal for the lead in the English Premier League. With the only shining example of the non-survival of the favorite in recent memory being England's horrible collapse in EURO 2008 qualifying, I think things were well on track to set us up for what must be known in the future as the New Year's Day Massacre, 2008.
I know that years changing are pretty arbitrary ideas especially in regards to trends and superstition, but I think we can all admit this is not a good omen for an election year. If Brennan and company can't manage a significant comeback in the second half down in New Orleans, I'd say we might as well put all our money in the pot that says we will be faced with a Clinton/Giuliani election. This is especially bad for me because I have been betting heavily on the Green Bay Packers. I would like to believe that this horrible trend cannot continue for very long, and there would be no better time for such a humiliating fall from grace than the Super Bowl for those hulking, cheating pricks from New England. But today's slate of college football action has got me feeling despondent and depressed.
Yes, things are shaping up to be ugly. And we have a continuous onslaught in the next week, which seems almost criminally unfair. We need time to recover from the bloodbath that was 2007, and nobody has the energy for a National Championship Game just yet, and certainly not an Iowa Caucus. Good Christ, there are meant to be two Iowa Caucuses, aren't there? This is worse than I thought. No rest for the weary, on one hand, but I will be soaking up whatever there is to soak up in Central America very soon and that's the only hope I have. I will be missing the NFL's Conference Championship games and I'm hoping not to see the scores until I come home. Actually, now that Georgia added another touchdown to make their lead 31-3, I might not even want to know after that. Fuck all if it's New England-Dallas. And fuck-all if Roger Clemens wriggles out of this steroid mess, and Hillary Clinton gets elected President. Ahhhhh, hell, why don't we just give the Oscar to Steven Spielberg right now?
I hope it's just paranoia or a horrible ignorance of sample size concerns, but I have a genuine fear that 2008 will be the Year Of The Favorite. I think it might be best to try and stack the odds in your favor as soon as possible. No need to worry about the Hawaii Warriors, compadre. Our posts are safe.
Well, Britt, to this point in 2008 anyone who doesn't fear the underdog has been surviving at an alarming rate. USC thrashed the "Fighting" Illini, racking up the highest total yards in Rose Bowl History and some horrible death machine called the Georgia Bulldogs is ripping everybody's favorite accused-rapist-turned-golden-boy Colt Brennan and his once-proud Hawaii Warriors to shreds. It is, clearly, not reasonable to blame this on 2008 entirely, because it continues a horrible trend from 2007 that involved the Patriots going 16-0, the Red Sox sweeping the World Series, Real Madrid beating Barcelona and Manchester United overtaking Arsenal for the lead in the English Premier League. With the only shining example of the non-survival of the favorite in recent memory being England's horrible collapse in EURO 2008 qualifying, I think things were well on track to set us up for what must be known in the future as the New Year's Day Massacre, 2008.
I know that years changing are pretty arbitrary ideas especially in regards to trends and superstition, but I think we can all admit this is not a good omen for an election year. If Brennan and company can't manage a significant comeback in the second half down in New Orleans, I'd say we might as well put all our money in the pot that says we will be faced with a Clinton/Giuliani election. This is especially bad for me because I have been betting heavily on the Green Bay Packers. I would like to believe that this horrible trend cannot continue for very long, and there would be no better time for such a humiliating fall from grace than the Super Bowl for those hulking, cheating pricks from New England. But today's slate of college football action has got me feeling despondent and depressed.
Yes, things are shaping up to be ugly. And we have a continuous onslaught in the next week, which seems almost criminally unfair. We need time to recover from the bloodbath that was 2007, and nobody has the energy for a National Championship Game just yet, and certainly not an Iowa Caucus. Good Christ, there are meant to be two Iowa Caucuses, aren't there? This is worse than I thought. No rest for the weary, on one hand, but I will be soaking up whatever there is to soak up in Central America very soon and that's the only hope I have. I will be missing the NFL's Conference Championship games and I'm hoping not to see the scores until I come home. Actually, now that Georgia added another touchdown to make their lead 31-3, I might not even want to know after that. Fuck all if it's New England-Dallas. And fuck-all if Roger Clemens wriggles out of this steroid mess, and Hillary Clinton gets elected President. Ahhhhh, hell, why don't we just give the Oscar to Steven Spielberg right now?
I hope it's just paranoia or a horrible ignorance of sample size concerns, but I have a genuine fear that 2008 will be the Year Of The Favorite. I think it might be best to try and stack the odds in your favor as soon as possible. No need to worry about the Hawaii Warriors, compadre. Our posts are safe.
11.08.2007
Baseball & Politics, for Real This Time
Okay. Now that evil Rangers have been dispatched into the wilderness by the mighty goodness of Barcelona, we can get back on track. And that is, as promised, some thoughts on baseball and politics.
The big news, obviously, is steroids steroids steroids but let's be clear that none of that shit matters. Athletes have been taking drugs since there have been athletes and any self-righteous old-timer who thinks he did it the right way because he didn't inject HGH in his ass between series when he was, instead, hopped up on amphetamines to get by on those awful, cruel day games right after night games is as delusional as he is hypocritical. And, I'm not saying I'm talking about Hank Aaron, but who else could it be? At least Willie Mays, maybe the biggest speedfreak this side of Abby Hoffman, has the balls to stand by Barry Bonds, swollen head and all, while he shatters the record of the aforementioned Hammerin' Hank. If anything, I'd say, these old players might have the right to be disappointed that their drugs weren't as potent or useful as the ones Bonds, Giambi, et al have been ingesting. But any kind of moral outrage is obscenely hollow and short-sighted. These people are Liars or, worse, Naive. Someone should do something.
The real weirdness in the whole steroid thing is that humans are willing to risk everything for something as arbitrary as the home run record. If someone had found copious amounts of horse growth chemicals swimming around the coked-out skull of Ken Caminiti's carcass and said to themselves, "This would definitely be an appropriate price to pay to win the 1996 NL MVP," then I would have to disagree. But there are loads of folks who evidently do think that the lesson from Mark McGwire is less "It is a bad thing to embarrass yourself and your family in front of Congress" and more "Man, wasn't 1998 awesome?!" The Mitchell Investigation is about to name names, and there will be 11 current free agents on the list. No word on whether that includes Mike Cameron, who is already suspended for the first 25 games of next year for abusing some banned substances, or at least not knowing how to use a Whizzinator. We can run down the list of people who've actually been busted for steroids and think that they were all pretty likely targets. Troy Glaus? Obvious. McGwire, Canseco, et al, very obvious. But what about Wally Joyner and Lenny Dykstra and Jorge Piedra and Marvin Benard and Bobby Estalella? I think those are pretty good counterpoints, myself, but what the hell? The world needs a good witch hunt now and again, and since commies are all eradicated and all the Terrorists are being swung up on hooks and beaten like piñatas at Gitmo and Siberia or wherever, who better than Major League Baseball players? Do you hear that, Julio Lugo? We're coming for you, and we're pissed!
The freakshow of the primary candidates for the Presidential Election is another reasonable topic, although I'm a little worried I have nothing to say about them. The Republicans have sent out a whole host of folks who sounded like good candidates in 2004, but this is karmic revenge for selling their souls and probably asses to Karl Rove and BushCo for the last 8 years. You could have Big Bird and Mr. Rogers run on a platform of "Smile, everybody!" and they'd still lose if they ran as Republicans. Even if they promised to make Gandhi the Sec. of State and Orville Redenbacher the Sec. of Yummy. They're doomed.
Well, they should be. The Democrats aren't as good as they look, and if that's not a thought that sums up the Democratic party as a whole, I don't know what is. Clinton is a weird, fiendish matriarch, like an old schoolmaster out of a Dickens novel, only with a little bit better haircut. She said in a debate that Washington lobbyists represent ordinary Americans, and this was a good hint that she's been eating too many mushrooms out of the Capitol's staffer stash or, I fear, maybe she is just very very stupid. She doesn't seem too stupid, though, does she?, so mushrooms is the only logical conclusion. Nevertheless, a bunch of howling idiots support her candidacy, maybe because they're anxious to have a little more estrogen on the evening news. Ah, who the fuck am I kidding? No one watches the evening news. And Hillary would add about as much estrogen to the party as Bill did. To her credit, though, that's far more than has been emitted from Corazón Aquino, Margaret Thatcher, Andrea Merkel, et al. So, good luck with that. After she and Obama (possibly a decent man?), the crowd gets thin. Any liberal who's all pumped about the field of candidates this year would do well to remind himself that Joe Biden is the one that makes the most sense in the debates and then would do well to downgrade the tequila and rum he drinks to things a little more like rubbing alcohol in both flavor and lethal tendencies.
What freaks. The best possible scenario is a Clinton/Giuliani match-up where Bloomberg runs as an independent and Ron Paul carries his internet support to get his 5% for matching funds in 2012, even though it won't matter by then because nobody will win a majority, it will go to congress, who will fight it out for several years before turning it over to the Supreme Court. Then it will get ugly. I suspect Nancy Pelosi will take Clarence Thomas and Anton Scalia hostage and torture them in her horrible basement dungeon every night until they swear under oath that the Constitution is a living, breathing document. Just as they emerge, though, they'll all be killed in a hail of gunfire by a resurgent Tom DeLay, who will then install a grotesque and grisly Dick Cheney, since wounded heavily in the chariot races that Sitting President Charlton Heston instituted on the Mall (reflecting pool paved over and made a kind of luxury box for Mel Gibson and a raving mob of anti-semites to bet wildly and shout "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" whenever a Jewish rider or even a circumcised horse runs by) as Emperor For Life. No, of course, I am not wishing Dick Cheney to be instituted as Emperor For Life but it'd be a hell of a lot more fun than what's going to happen, a stupid frontrunner election that comes down to who wins Ohio or, worse, New Mexico.
In closing, Vegas seems to be offering stupid odds on the NBA Championship this year. Hint: a 7 game series is a hell of a lot more fluky than an 82 game season. So, even if San Antonio and Phoenix are the most likely to win it all, and surely the most likely to win the Western Conference, if you can get good odds on decent teams from the Eastern Conference, take them. Figure the 7th best team in the Eastern Conference is more likely to make the Finals than the 3rd best team in the Western Conference since the West is so top heavy. And you can get Washington at 80-1 right now. You're welcome in advance.
The big news, obviously, is steroids steroids steroids but let's be clear that none of that shit matters. Athletes have been taking drugs since there have been athletes and any self-righteous old-timer who thinks he did it the right way because he didn't inject HGH in his ass between series when he was, instead, hopped up on amphetamines to get by on those awful, cruel day games right after night games is as delusional as he is hypocritical. And, I'm not saying I'm talking about Hank Aaron, but who else could it be? At least Willie Mays, maybe the biggest speedfreak this side of Abby Hoffman, has the balls to stand by Barry Bonds, swollen head and all, while he shatters the record of the aforementioned Hammerin' Hank. If anything, I'd say, these old players might have the right to be disappointed that their drugs weren't as potent or useful as the ones Bonds, Giambi, et al have been ingesting. But any kind of moral outrage is obscenely hollow and short-sighted. These people are Liars or, worse, Naive. Someone should do something.
The real weirdness in the whole steroid thing is that humans are willing to risk everything for something as arbitrary as the home run record. If someone had found copious amounts of horse growth chemicals swimming around the coked-out skull of Ken Caminiti's carcass and said to themselves, "This would definitely be an appropriate price to pay to win the 1996 NL MVP," then I would have to disagree. But there are loads of folks who evidently do think that the lesson from Mark McGwire is less "It is a bad thing to embarrass yourself and your family in front of Congress" and more "Man, wasn't 1998 awesome?!" The Mitchell Investigation is about to name names, and there will be 11 current free agents on the list. No word on whether that includes Mike Cameron, who is already suspended for the first 25 games of next year for abusing some banned substances, or at least not knowing how to use a Whizzinator. We can run down the list of people who've actually been busted for steroids and think that they were all pretty likely targets. Troy Glaus? Obvious. McGwire, Canseco, et al, very obvious. But what about Wally Joyner and Lenny Dykstra and Jorge Piedra and Marvin Benard and Bobby Estalella? I think those are pretty good counterpoints, myself, but what the hell? The world needs a good witch hunt now and again, and since commies are all eradicated and all the Terrorists are being swung up on hooks and beaten like piñatas at Gitmo and Siberia or wherever, who better than Major League Baseball players? Do you hear that, Julio Lugo? We're coming for you, and we're pissed!
The freakshow of the primary candidates for the Presidential Election is another reasonable topic, although I'm a little worried I have nothing to say about them. The Republicans have sent out a whole host of folks who sounded like good candidates in 2004, but this is karmic revenge for selling their souls and probably asses to Karl Rove and BushCo for the last 8 years. You could have Big Bird and Mr. Rogers run on a platform of "Smile, everybody!" and they'd still lose if they ran as Republicans. Even if they promised to make Gandhi the Sec. of State and Orville Redenbacher the Sec. of Yummy. They're doomed.
Well, they should be. The Democrats aren't as good as they look, and if that's not a thought that sums up the Democratic party as a whole, I don't know what is. Clinton is a weird, fiendish matriarch, like an old schoolmaster out of a Dickens novel, only with a little bit better haircut. She said in a debate that Washington lobbyists represent ordinary Americans, and this was a good hint that she's been eating too many mushrooms out of the Capitol's staffer stash or, I fear, maybe she is just very very stupid. She doesn't seem too stupid, though, does she?, so mushrooms is the only logical conclusion. Nevertheless, a bunch of howling idiots support her candidacy, maybe because they're anxious to have a little more estrogen on the evening news. Ah, who the fuck am I kidding? No one watches the evening news. And Hillary would add about as much estrogen to the party as Bill did. To her credit, though, that's far more than has been emitted from Corazón Aquino, Margaret Thatcher, Andrea Merkel, et al. So, good luck with that. After she and Obama (possibly a decent man?), the crowd gets thin. Any liberal who's all pumped about the field of candidates this year would do well to remind himself that Joe Biden is the one that makes the most sense in the debates and then would do well to downgrade the tequila and rum he drinks to things a little more like rubbing alcohol in both flavor and lethal tendencies.
What freaks. The best possible scenario is a Clinton/Giuliani match-up where Bloomberg runs as an independent and Ron Paul carries his internet support to get his 5% for matching funds in 2012, even though it won't matter by then because nobody will win a majority, it will go to congress, who will fight it out for several years before turning it over to the Supreme Court. Then it will get ugly. I suspect Nancy Pelosi will take Clarence Thomas and Anton Scalia hostage and torture them in her horrible basement dungeon every night until they swear under oath that the Constitution is a living, breathing document. Just as they emerge, though, they'll all be killed in a hail of gunfire by a resurgent Tom DeLay, who will then install a grotesque and grisly Dick Cheney, since wounded heavily in the chariot races that Sitting President Charlton Heston instituted on the Mall (reflecting pool paved over and made a kind of luxury box for Mel Gibson and a raving mob of anti-semites to bet wildly and shout "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" whenever a Jewish rider or even a circumcised horse runs by) as Emperor For Life. No, of course, I am not wishing Dick Cheney to be instituted as Emperor For Life but it'd be a hell of a lot more fun than what's going to happen, a stupid frontrunner election that comes down to who wins Ohio or, worse, New Mexico.
In closing, Vegas seems to be offering stupid odds on the NBA Championship this year. Hint: a 7 game series is a hell of a lot more fluky than an 82 game season. So, even if San Antonio and Phoenix are the most likely to win it all, and surely the most likely to win the Western Conference, if you can get good odds on decent teams from the Eastern Conference, take them. Figure the 7th best team in the Eastern Conference is more likely to make the Finals than the 3rd best team in the Western Conference since the West is so top heavy. And you can get Washington at 80-1 right now. You're welcome in advance.
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