Monday Newsbreak: 10/20

--I couldn’t write this feature without mentioning the presidential campaign, which still seems to be solidly tilting in favor of Barack Obama. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed him, which may be a problem for John McCain, since the Republicans are trying to make Obama seem to be a dangerous pick because of his relative inexperience in foreign policy (which McCain claims as one of his own strong points). I’ve always felt that it was Powell who was chiefly responsible for keeping the U.S. from getting stuck in Iraq back in 1991, when he counseled then-President George H.W. Bush against launching an all-out invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein. The current President Bush appointed Powell to his cabinet post and then ignored him, putting him in the position of having to express support for policies (especially the invasion of Iraq in 2003) that he personally had misgivings about. If this endorsement wins votes for Obama, then great! But since Colin Powell is only human, I wouldn’t be surprised if his support of the Democratic nominee is a form of payback for the offenses he may have suffered serving in a Republican administration that only seemed to be interested in using him as a public relations device.

--The financial crisis, according to the talking heads on television, appears to be stabilizing, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Is this the kind of “stabilizing” that a critical patient demonstrates in the intensive care unit? If so, we’ve got a long, long way to go before our economy gets “wheeled out” to the “general floor”, much less “discharged” from the hospital.

--This week is Homecoming Week in Gainesville for the University of Florida. Friday and Saturday will carry the main events. The parade, “Gator Gallop” (a running race down University Avenue), and Gator Growl (a huge pep rally/show with fireworks) happen on Friday, while the Homecoming football game against Kentucky is scheduled for Saturday. Although I am a long-time resident of Gainesville as well as being a University of Florida alumnus, I tend to avoid UF’s campus and its activities. I know that it’s going to be a monumental pain getting home from work Friday night due to the even-more-monumental traffic jam caused by festivities. In the slightly altered words of Charlie Daniels:

“I think I'm gonna reroute my trip
I wonder if anybody'd think I'd flipped
If I went [home] via Omaha”

--The Tampa Bay Rays gave a great demonstration to the New York Yankees of how NOT to choke during a playoff series to the Boston Red Sox by winning their close seventh game 3-1 to take the series 4-3. In the fifth game, the Rays had a 7-0 lead over Boston after six innings, with only nine outs left to win their series four games to one. Instead, the Red Sox came back and won the game 8-7. But, unlike the Yankees of 2004 (which was the only team ever in baseball to blow a 3-0 series game lead and lose), Tampa Bay showed its gutsiness and played with determination and poise. So now the World Series is set: Tampa Bay Rays vs. the Philadelphia Phillies. It probably won’t get very high television ratings, but so what!

--In the “Its Only a Game” department, I heard a sports talk radio host bemoaning the fact that Barack Obama bought some television prime time space, pushing the beginning of one of the upcoming World Series games back a little in the evening. To this announcer, you would have thought that sports is supreme and that anything else is of secondary importance at best. And yes, there is this phenomenon of making popular sports into a kind of “bubble” that people can get inside and insulate themselves from all of the stresses and anxiety caused by both the news going on in the outside world as well as from personal problems. This insulation from reality gets really weird when you include Fantasy Football, whose participants carry out their own imaginary leagues and games!