The "Newt is Mean" Mantra

Being no fan of Newt Gingrich and having no desire to ever vote for him, I am nevertheless a little taken aback at how the media, on both the political left and right, has been recently coming down on him for being mean to opponent Mitt Romney. It seems that the much-more financially-powerful Romney campaign can barrage television with an endless string of ads disparaging Gingrich's past in a very distorted way. At the same time, whenever Gingrich puts out any ad criticizing Romney, a drove of media political pundits (or hacks, depending on your perspective) like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and Chris Matthews (strange bedfellows, right?) rush to attack Newt. This double standard reminds me of the 1980 Carter-Reagan campaign in which Jimmy Carter couldn't bring up anything in a critical manner about "nice guy" Ronald Reagan without being accused of being mean.

Newt Gingrich, no doubt, has a very aggressive, abrasive nature to his speech. He panders to the audience in these debates by verbally dressing down the moderator every chance he gets. In this way, he reminds me, in a very negative way, of the arrogance of an earlier candidate, Herman Cain. But after seeing the monolithic bloc of Republicans in Congress hell-bent on stymieing ANYTHING the Obama administration is trying to do in the country's interests, I appreciate the independent thinking of Mr. Gingrich on various issues.

For one, Newt Gingrich is the only candidate I know who has a vision about America's future in space. He wants bases on the moon. Somehow, that makes him a target for ridicule, but isn't that more in line with our earlier goals (including the previous president George W. Bush)? I like the way Gingrich defends Israel. I like the way he has demonstrated interest in a more reasonable policy toward undocumented immigrants that includes a timetable for eventual amnesty. I like the way he understood the need for both political parties to come together on the issue of climate change. In other words, I appreciate that this candidate seems to have a sense of vision, something that Mr. Romney, with his ledger sheet mentality, is sorely lacking.

But Newt Gingrich nevertheless still stands for the very wealthy over the rest of us when it comes to taxation. He is bellicose when it comes to nations with which we have problems. He is unsympathetic to the plight of the poor. He supports the government legislating morality and intruding on the very personal, private sexual and reproductive matters of its citizens. He is gung-ho about selectively interpreting the Second Amendment on gun rights, like others on this issue ignoring the part about "a well-regulated militia".

I don't want to grow old poor, nor do I want my children and their descendants to have a bleak economic future. I don't want another Republican war, and sadly, I see a distinct possibility of this if either Gingrich or Romney are elected. And I don't want to live in a country where one version of religion has co-opted our government to the point where I have to abide by a new set of laws promoting one narrow interpretation of morality.

So nix to Newt, as far as I'm concerned. But that being said, he deserves more respect and even-handed treatment than he is currently enjoying...

Dude, Where's My Winter?

This morning at 7:30, as I sit here writing this, the temperature outside is 60, about 30 degrees warmer than what I would have expected this time of year. Today's high here in Gainesville, Florida is forecast to reach 83, a near-record and not representing anything like winter conditions. And with the exception of a couple of cold days earlier this month, this has been typical of this year's edition of winter.

I have mixed feelings about this. I really, really deeply dislike it when we get around freezing (and below). And I even have a tendency to complain in the morning when it's only down into the 40's. But as the day progresses, I usually become accustomed to the cold and switch from "dislike" to "dig". Forget this year, though, at least so far...

Tomorrow it's supposed to rain a lot and then gradually get cooler. Yeah, I'll believe it when I feel it!

Philbin New Dolphins Head Coach

Joseph "Joe" Philbin, who has been a very successful offensive coordinator for the Green Bay Packers, has been hired as the new head coach of the Miami Dolphins. Since this is his first professional football head coaching job, who knows how he will do. But I see a lot of promise in this team and its current roster of players. I think the Dolphins are at a crucial turning point, much like they were when they finished 3-10-1 and in last place after the 1969 season. Then they hired Don Shula, made the playoffs the very next year at 10-4 and then went to the Super Bowl the following three years, winning two and enjoying the only perfect, undefeated season in NFL football in 1972. Not that they will do that well under Philbin: I just would like them to return to their old tradition of consistently enjoying winning seasons and occasional playoff appearances.

But just because Miami has a new head coach, that doesn't mean that he has control over which players the Dolphins draft or trade for. So he has to work with what he is dealt by others, although I certainly hope that this franchise's owner and general manager will take his expert opinions into account when they make these crucial decisions. And some of these decisions will come soon, with the looming April college draft and the prospect of possibly even getting the great Peyton Manning from the Colts...

A, B, C, and Facebook

There are three people, all of whom I personally know, who use Facebook (I have consistently tended to avoid it). To protect their identities, I will take a page out of the old sci-fi/spy TV series The Prisoner and simply refer to them as A, B, and C.

Each of A, B, and C has their own individual Facebook account. A is friends with B and B is friends with C, but A is not friends with C (I certainly wouldn't include C as a "friend" either, although we're on amiable terms). Still, the two know each other mainly from years gone by but are now primarily "connected" due to the fact that B is friends with both. A's social network wouldn't necessarily include B, but sometimes compromises have to be made and B became A's Facebook friend because they are bound together within the same family unit. Also, B's friends generally are not the kind of people that A would want as a Facebook friend...including C. Got all that?

The way Facebook is set up, unless a member takes draconian measures to greatly restrict others' access to their page, parties not considered to be their friends can nevertheless conveniently access their page due to a mutual third party friend, in this case B. This unfortunately allows for a bit of unwelcome snooping, which is probably an unspoken, secret source of appeal for a lot of Facebook users. The imperative "mind your own business" has very few adherents here in this neck of the "Webs".

The other day, A apparently wrote something on A's own Facebook page that C, viewing (or, to put it more accurately, snooping) via B, read and found to be offensive language. C then wrote on A's page a strongly worded, self-righteous rebuke for this. But A wasn't even remotely considering C to be a reader of that message, and C must have known that but decided to butt in anyway. And it's true that C could have accessed A on Facebook via their search engine, but the facts that A and B were family and B was C's friend probably emboldened C to make that post (and made it much more likely that C read A's page in the first place). Keeping up with me? Good, because then you can explain to me what I just said. So...

There are some clear conclusions to be drawn from this. One is that Facebook is a very flawed way to share one's thoughts with others, especially if those thoughts are of an emotional or intimate nature. For unless the user has put major restrictions on access, it must be assumed that, eventually, pretty much anybody will have access. So user beware!

Another pitfall is the use of the designation "friend" to describe someone allowed in another user's personal network. This puts pressure on the user to avoid hurting people's feelings and let them be "friends" when in truth such a title should be handed out with care and good judgement. Also, removing someone from a "friends" list is bound to ruffle some feelings as well, with the implication of personal rejection that it implies. Why not use something neutral, even maybe nonsensical, like "gizmo" or "node" instead of "friend"? After all, I'm not particularly interested in being anyone's "gizmo" to begin with, so ending that relationship wouldn't exactly send me into fits of despair...

Now with this blog of mine being nearly universally accessible on the Internet, you might wonder why I wouldn't want to just transfer it over to Facebook. And you know, I might just try that by deliberately offering links to articles certain to rankle the sensibilities, not necessarily of my small number of Facebook "friends", but rather of the uninvited closet Facebook voyeurs who would access me through others. As a matter of fact, having witnessed Newt Gingrich's feisty performance in that recent GOP debate in South Carolina, I have been inspired: after all, I can do better than some gingry anthropomorphized salamander, for crying out loud!

Wrapping all of this up (which is hard to do because I could keeping going on and on), Facebook itself has some pitfalls that can snare users who are not careful with what they put on it. The solution is two-fold: primarily, users need to grow up, grow some common sense, and start taking personal responsibility about how they express themselves. And Facebook either will change its structure or another competitor will eventually displace it as the primary Internet networking site. As it currently exists, I'm not all that keen on Facebook. But then again, I may have the opposite problem than does A: I haven't yet used it to express myself. Once I do, though, I expect a constant stream of rebukes, not just from C, but also from D, E, F, G, H, ...

Missed Ocala Half-Marathon But Still Running

Well, it was disappointing for this morning to go by without me down in Ocala running in their half-marathon race, for which I had already registered and paid the entry fee. Still, I'm doing all right, considering. Yesterday I drove down there anyway to pick up my racing packet, along with this year's Ocala Half-Marathon tee-shirt (which I plan to proudly wear during my future running, falsely giving the impression that I actually ran in it). Later today I went to run on my YMCA's treadmill, initially planning on around 4 miles but ending up running 9. I guess that's a consolation of sorts, and it was the longest run I have done since my January 1 DeLeon Springs Half-Marathon.

I don't plan to keep running this length, but rather keep the distance around 4 miles. I think that's a pretty reasonable balance, at least for the immediate future, between the various options that have been presented to me lately. Also, I may be resuming my swimming in the near future: that's almost a sure bet to cause the weather to turn cold in this very unseasonably warm winter!

The Firm, Mitt, Cayman, Synchronicity

I just finished reading John Grisham's excellent, gripping novel The Firm. Perhaps you have either read it or watched the film version starring Tom Cruise (or both). Or maybe you're going to get involved watching the spin-off TV series. But for me, a novel many years old is suddenly very, very timely.

Part of the story in The Firm involves how the tiny Caribbean island of Grand Cayman is used as a haven for wealthy American tax dodgers to legally avoid paying federal tax on their holdings by depositing their money in one or more of the hundreds of banks set up there just for that one purpose. Several important scenes in the novel take place there (even though it isn't the primary setting). But it is crucial to the story...

Call it coincidence or call it synchronicity (which I personally define, for all practical purposes, to be "useful coincidence"), but this decades-old novel I just happened to pick up recently and read suddenly has relevance in the news of today.

Enter now Mitt Romney and the very recent allegation that he also has large deposits on the Caymans in order to, well, you know...

In The Firm, those who used offshore tax havens like Grand Cayman to avoid paying taxes were depicted as being technically law-abiding, but still shady and slimy characters that perhaps a young, idealistic lawyer like the story's protagonist may not take too kindly to (no worry: he really was O.K. with it, in a fictional sort of way). So I wonder to myself whether our possibly next president fits the description of someone who would take every legal means possible to squirm his way out of paying his due share of taxes? I think that is a more relevant question to ask than for the intimate, personal details of a very private conversation that Newt Gingrich may (or may not) have had with a former wife, don't you? After all, isn't the president, by virtue of his position in office, heavily involved in determining how much tax you and I will be paying?

Running Cut Back for Health Reasons

After consulting on January 17 with the physician/specialist/surgeon tending to my particular ongoing medical condition, I decided to suspend further participation in half-marathon races until the issue is eventually resolved. Instead, I will cut back my running to my old 1970s level, which was about 3-4 miles per run. I respect my doctor's recent more cautionary input (than what he told me three months ago), although in fact the recent test procedure I underwent produced no sign that things were worsening. However, the fact that he has run a marathon himself gives his advice more credibility to me than had it come from someone with a more sedentary lifestyle.

I hate to sound so cryptic about what's going on with me medically, but for the time being that's all I'll say for now, except that it is congenital in origin and can be surgically corrected. I am not suffering at all and continue to go about my business as usual. Life goes on like before, and so does my running...except that I'm neither entering half-marathons nor training for them.

Wikipedia 24-Hour Protest Blackout

This morning I got on the Wikipedia site to look up something. Suddenly, a black screen came up with the notification that the site was blacked out for 24 hours in opposition to congressional legislation that they believe would greatly restrict and hamper the free flow of information on the Internet. While noting that today's Gainesville Sun carried nothing about the protest blackout being staged by various sites against anti-piracy Internet legislation in Congress, I was able to find an article about it in the Independent Florida Alligator. According to it, the SOPA and PIPA bills, under consideration in the House and Senate respectively, would allow entertainment companies to shut down domains that not only host material they deem to be pirated but even just offer a link. I had read earlier on that the Obama Administration opposed these bills for a different reason: the technical parameters included in the bills would inhibit our nation's security agencies from effectively combating cyber-terrorism and malicious hacking. Not being technically versed in the subject, I wonder about a few things...

How do I know for sure if some site I link to on this blog contains pirated material or not? So how would closing my site down in any way be justified? And I have surfed the blogosphere many, many times and discovered how much other bloggers make free use of obviously copyright-protected pictures to enhance the visual appeal of their own blogs. Since this is a pervasive phenomenon, would all of these blogs get shut down, too?

Entertainment companies do not own the Internet and should not have the right to cut the flow of free speech based on their desires for profit. I am sure that piracy and copyright infringement are big problems, but there has to be a better way to deal with them other then give big business even more power over individual people. There is already too much of that going on as it is!

Anyway, isn't there already a mechanism for dealing with piracy and copyright infringement? If you think that someone is messing with your proprietary rights in these ways, then take them to court and sue them if notifying them first doesn't do the trick! I'm not all that well versed in law either, but it seems that these bills are an attempt to criminalize activities that traditionally have belonged in civil, not criminal law courts. Not good.

NFL Conference Championship Games Next

After the first two rounds of the National Football League playoffs this season, we are finally approaching the weekend when the conference champions will be crowned and set against each other for the next Super Bowl. So far, I have been generally pleased as my favorite playoff teams from each conference have still survived: the Baltimore Ravens in the American Conference and the New York Giants in the National. Unfortunately, my most disliked team has made it as well: the New England Patriots. And another team I don't particularly care for (because of its very annoying coach), the San Francisco 49ers, finishes the field. Hopefully, Baltimore will take care of New England and New York will continue to shine in the post-season against San Fran. But for this to happen will entail two underdog victories, both on the road. Certainly possible, but not likely.

Regardless who wins the upcoming games, this year's Super Bowl matchups will be interesting, with the following possibilities:

New England vs. New York: A rematch of the great Super Bowl four years ago when the Giants scored a come-from-behind touchdown with 35 seconds left in the game to upset the undefeated Patriots.

Baltimore vs. New York: A rematch of the Super Bowl eleven years ago, won convincingly by the then-surging Ravens 34-7. I rooted for Baltimore back then, but if this scenario repeats I will pull for the Giants instead.

New England vs. San Francisco: This would be for bragging rights as the best team spanning many years as each has already won several titles and is looking to add to their totals. San Francisco has never lost a Super Bowl.

Baltimore vs. San Francisco: This game would pit brothers against each other as head coaches: Baltimore's John Harbaugh and San Francisco's Jim Harbaugh.

So we'll see how it all turns out. I have enjoyed this year's playoffs more than those in the past, it seems. And I see both of these games as promising a lot of excitement. Of course, I would rather have seen Miami or one of the other two Florida teams in the Super Bowl, but they were all pretty bad this year: all three of their head coaches were fired!

Tiring Training Run Today

Today I went on a more strenuous training run to prepare for the upcoming Ocala Half-Marathon next Sunday. I covered 6.76 miles today, a little over half the race's distance. But my main emphasis was to run some hills: the Ocala event is loaded with them. I managed the run O.K., but I felt more tired than usual. There was a very strong easterly wind hitting me for about two miles on the course, so that probably contributed a bit to the unpleasantness of this run.

I'll try a couple more of these runs on Wednesday and Friday with the other days either running around the block a couple of times or just not running at all. Hopefully, I will have more energy...

Gingrich Falters Against Romney

Recently I wrote an article decrying the smear TV ad campaign raging against Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich by shadow groups supporting Mitt Romney. The ads went out of their way to claim that they weren't affiliated with any specific candidate. No, they just happened to come out when Gingrich was riding high in the polls against the only other serious contender. However, I didn't hear any of the other candidates crying foul about the mud being anonymous slung at him and at great expense. But when the former Georgia representative and House Speaker began to run his own anti-Romney ads, it seemed that most of the Republican Party establishment as well as media blabbermouths like Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham vociferously chastised him for this. Gingrich's popularity in the polls plummeted, leaving only theocratic extremist Rick Santorum as the only real challenger left to Romney. And what do you know: now we are seeing stealth ads attacking him as well, of course again without mentioning Mitt Romney as their source.

No fan of Newt Gingrich, I nevertheless feel that I can listen to the guy and at least believe that he is telling me what he is thinking, as slanted and opposed to my values and priorities those opinions may sometimes be. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is a chameleon who sizes up whatever situation he is in and simply delivers what he thinks his audience wants to hear. Can anyone truly say what kind of president he would be if elected? At least, with Gingrich, you have a reasonable idea of what you are going to get.

In the final analysis, I believe Newt Gingrich’s biggest mistake was to direct his ad campaign against Romney based on the latter’s cutthroat business management techniques, when he took over a large corporation and proceeded to make a killing by chopping up companies and laying off workers. By criticizing him for this, Gingrich ran afoul of the true Republican base agenda, which when all of the emotional hot-button issues like guns, Muslims, abortion, and gay rights are factored out, consists of promoting the interests of the rich and powerful. He should have known better, but at least I respect him for this more than I do Mitt Romney.

Full Speed Ahead for Upcoming Ocala Half-Marathon

I am looking forward to returning to Ocala and points south for my second go at their annual race. This year, though, I am forsaking their marathon event for the half-marathon (actually, both races take place simultaneously) in line with my firm decision to pursue the 13.1 mile races (along with 15K races) as a regular, sustainable "hobby". Training for marathons is just too time-consuming and injury-producing for me, and I have other things to do in my life other than just run, run, run. Besides, since I switched my emphasis to the "short" race, I noticed that half-marathon races are much more common and available (and cheaper) than are the marathons. In fact, the two I have run in recently had no marathon component. Also, as is the case with the Ocala Marathon, the 26.2 mile version involves repeating a substantial portion of the course. Still, I prefer that to the "there and back along the same road" courses I've experienced recently on the Hawthorne Trail with November's Tom Walker Memorial race and (Volusia) County Road Three with New Year's De Leon Springs race.

The Ocala Half-Marathon has a non-repeating course, and I am pretty familiar with it from last year's marathon. In fact, I got to know parts of it TOO well as I slowly walked the race's last seven miles due to an IT-band leg injury that made it too painful to run the full distance. This year, although experiencing different health issues, I seem fit enough to handle the course, at least the half-marathon course, that is.

After the January 1 race, I had toned down my training distances, although I still maintained a daily running regimen. Yesterday I ran seven miles with plenty of energy and a good recovery, giving me much-needed confidence for the January 22 Ocala race. I needed that run when I did it, too, because this race's organizers require registration by this weekend in order to participate in it. Today I'll sign up...

The Ocala Half-Marathon will be the third straight race for me that takes place in a primarily rural setting. Personally, I prefer city races, which are more interesting with their landmarks and interesting sites. Next month, if all goes well in Ocala, I should be running in two such races: Tallahassee on February 5 and Gainesville (Five Points) on February 19. We'll see...

The Code

The NFL's New York Jets, for me, is a very interesting team. Be it not for the fact that they are divisional rivals to my Miami Dolphins, I would probably be rooting for them on a regular basis. For the previous two years, nevertheless, as soon as it became clear that the Dolphins wouldn't make the playoffs, I pulled for the Jets instead. They did well, coming within a game each time of making the Super Bowl. This year, however, they seemed to undergo an internal meltdown. I blame the coach, Rex Ryan, for this.

Ryan is a boisterous, larger than life (both literally and figuratively) person who initially whipped up a lot of enthusiasm, both among the players and the fans, with his loud, opinionated banter. But lately that banter has turned into rancor, with the Coach running down other teams' coaches and even opposing players in the media. Now we hear certain anonymous Jets players following their coach's example as they run down their own starting quarterback Mark Sanchez.

There is a unspoken code governing not just football teams but also just about any organized group that frowns very heavily upon members going public with their grievances. But when one of the leaders is an undisciplined motor-mouth, an example gets set that encourages this type of behavior among the ranks. How different it is in other organizations, say the Green Bay Packers, where respect and discretion prevail from top management to the lowest sub players on the roster!

Wow, I just wrote an entire article about NFL football without mentioning HIS name. At least I THINK I did...

Afflictions Again

Once again I am dealing with a small assortment of annoying afflictions that are causing some grief in my daily existence. Still, I am managing to function through it all, although without very much enjoyment. My running training has suffered somewhat, with my mileage taking a substantial dip. I still plan to enter the Ocala Half-Marathon, scheduled for Sunday, January 22. Hopefully, by that time things will have improved for me.

Cramped, Overcrowded Running Races

I am primarily a lone runner. I don't run in order to compete in races. Races to me are just a punctuation to my running hobby, nothing more, although I do tend to train up to an approaching event. So when I do compete in an occasional race, my reaction to it and how it is organized is bound to be different from others with a more competitive motive to their running. One of these differences is how I react to the number of participants in a race.

As such a solitary runner, I don't need that many accompanying runners to give myself the feeling of participating in a social, group event. For example, the two relatively low-key half-marathons I have recently run in had around 200 runners in each of them. But even with this small number, I found the races' starts to be overly cramped and constricting, even having to wait several seconds before even walking, then running very slowly (so as not to trip over anyone or be trampled), and then finally reaching the starting line. I ran my last half-marathon in well under 1 hour and 56 minutes, but left with the "official" time of 1:56:07, some of that time patiently spent just waiting to get to the starting line! And even after that was accomplished, I spent the first mile or two boxed in by slower runners. So who knows how fast I could have run had the field been much smaller. And the idea of lining up near the front at the race's beginning, which I had done before in earlier 5K races, doesn't work either: many slow runners seem to take a perverse pleasure in maneuvering themselves ahead of others at the beginning, even though they should well know that they are just impeding faster runners.

But having said all that, I still think that these races were worth running. And then I read about an upcoming March 15K (9.3 miles) race in Jacksonville: 10,000 runners are expected! Still, that's nowhere near the 24,000 who "raced" in the Walt Disney World marathon. Why run in such an overwhelmingly crowded event? I pondered about this a little while, and then it hit me...

It's the mob appeal phenomenon that one sees on Times Square at New Years Eve, rock concerts, major sporting events, mass protest demonstrations, etc. It is as if, after a certain threshold has been passed, the appeal of these events is not the nature of the event itself but rather in being in the midst of the gathering of a very large mass of people in close quarters pursuing the same agenda. That's why people will continue to sign up for overcrowded races that are a complete joke to run in.

The only reason I will ever participate in one of those mega-races with its thousands of runners is to play the role of tourist and engage in a lot of sight-seeing during my run. Otherwise, I think that I'll just stick to my more enjoyable (and much less expensive) jaunts around my neighborhood and vicinity...

Saban's Title Shallow to Me

The University of Alabama's head football coach Nick Saban is currently relishing his team's NCAA championship after they drubbed top-ranked and formerly unbeaten LSU 21-0 Monday night. They certainly looked like the best team in the country to me after they took total control over that game. But I still don't think they deserved to be in it.

You shouldn't see a season-ending title game scenario pitting two schools from the same conference, especially the same division within that conference. The teams within that division, in this case the SEC West, spend the entire season playing each other, along with a few teams from the East. That does not automatically establish the ultimate winner as the country's best team. LSU already defeated Alabama in the regular season. Alabama just won a rematch, and convincingly. So kudos to Alabama, the truly best team in the Southeastern Conference (although not its champion).

Oklahoma State, the top-ranked team elsewhere in the United States, should have been picked to play LSU for the national championship. So while Nick Saban added another title to his collection, I don't think it is truly merited. But...

If Mr. Saban, who wrote a book about character a few years ago, is satisfied with his victory, than I have a suggestion for him. He has truly reached the pinnacle of achievement in coaching college football. Why not now return to the pros and the Miami Dolphins, the team he completely abandoned after only two seasons in 2006, and restore his reputation to many as a man of character?

I know, I know, Nick, writing a book about character is one thing, as is demanding integrity and loyalty from everyone else around you. But yourself? Forget it!

Yesterday's NFL Playoff Games

This past weekend saw the first round of the NFL playoffs. Three of the four teams I was rooting for won, including both games yesterday. The outcomes of those contests were the most meaningful to me. The early game was between the Atlanta Falcons and the New York Giants, which is the team I am rooting for the hardest in the playoffs. After a slow offensive start, New York built up and expanded on its lead, winning the game 24-2. The later contest was between the Denver Broncos and the Pittsburgh Steelers, which is one of the teams I am rooting AGAINST the hardest. Once again, "my" team in this game got off to a slow offensive start. But then Tim Tebow began to throw bombs for long gains and touchdowns and, before anyone could catch their breath, Denver had amassed a 20-6 halftime lead over their heavily favored opponent. The Steelers did come back in the second half to send the game into overtime, but that went for naught when, in the first play from scrimmage, Tebow threw an 80-year touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas to seal the victory. The final score was 29-23.

Denver plays at most-reviled (by me) New England next week, while New York travels to good old Green Bay (my #2 favorite NFC playoff team after NY). The other upcoming games feature my AFC non-Florida favorite Baltimore at home against Houston and San Francisco at home against my preferred New Orleans. More offensive fireworks are in store, I'm sure...

...Just one post-scripted comment here about Tebow and his detractors. I am thoroughly beside myself with wonder at the expressed ignorance of the so-called "expert" analysts (especially on ESPN Radio) who continue to run him down because of his relatively low percentage of pass completions. I saw yesterday's performance, in which Tim completed less than half of his passes. But many of those incompletions were thrown away as an deliberate offensive strategy, not at all a reflection on the quarterback's accuracy. I never hear anyone bringing this fact up. But at least some sports media talking heads are finally realizing the value of Tim Tebow's versatility in the pros: you don't know if he's going to pass, pitch back, hand off, run around the end, or run straight ahead. This confusing of the defense went a long, long way toward enabling what was almost universally considered to be a weaker Denver team to pull off the big upset yesterday over last year's conference champions.

Negative Presidential Political Rant

I don't like any of the Republican candidates for president. On the other hand, I am not very happy with our current president either. Barack Obama, in my opinion, broke his promise to the Florida people when he assured them late in the 2008 campaign that he would support NASA's proposed mission to the moon and later Mars. Instead, a few months after he took office, he thoroughly scrapped it. With Democratic control of Congress for two years, he could have done something to rescue the U.S. Postal Service from its financial problems, caused largely by an unfunded mandate passed by a lame-duck Republican Congress and signed by President Bush in December 2006. But instead he did nothing. He wasted too much time trying to reach compromise agreements with the opposition Republicans who clearly expressed that their primary objective was not to pass responsible legislation, but rather to make Obama's presidency a failure. When revolt broke out in Libya and dictator Gadhafi was hemmed in around Tripoli by advancing rebel forces, Obama kept our naval fleet, stationed just off the coast in the Mediterranean, from taking out the dictator's air force while he hemmed and hawed for two weeks trying to amass an international coalition. The result was thousands of lives lost as Gadhafi regained the upper hand and nearly retook the country; the bloody conflict then dragged on for several needless months. Obama displayed shortsightedness and naivete by trying to pressure Israel into concessions in order to resume peace negotiations with a Palestinian government that had NO EFFECTIVE AUTHORITY to carry out any resulting agreement. And I take issue with our president's extremism on the environment in the face of the urgent national need to develop our own, domestically-produced sources of energy.

There, I said it: I am not a happy camper regarding our president's record. I think the dude-in-chief has screwed up quite a bit, in fact.

But with all that having been said, I still think that Barack Obama is on the right track in general with both our domestic economic policy and with our foreign policy. Some of the problems he has had in office have come from the absolute refusal of the Republicans to even present an appearance of working with him to achieve a reasonable policy.

I don't think I have ever been so dismayed by the deteriorating level of politics within our government. Of those currently running for president on the GOP side (as well as the couple who have recently dropped out), I would say that they are all pathetic, lame jokes, except for the possibility that one of them may actually end up as our next president!

Scary stuff, scary stuff...

Blog Thoughts

Although I have more or less kept up with this blog on a daily basis, it has been many months, possibly even more than a year, since I actually surfed the blogosphere for interesting sites and articles. There is no doubt that the twin plagues on humanity known as Facebook and Twitter have drawn away many former bloggers, who see in these sites a more ready-made means of networking and sharing ideas. Truth be told, I have accounts in each of them, but never make any entries for others to read. Why?

It is a sad fact of human nature that people in general often invest too much emotion into preciously held notions and prejudices. Many of these people I personally know and would like to maintain a modicum of goodwill with them. And since I write about sensitive topics like religion, politics, and social issues, expressing in no uncertain terms how I really feel about these topics, I am sure to deeply offend some, if not many of these small-minded folks. So I avoid Facebook. If any of them happen to stumble across this blog, well, let the reader beware!

I follow Twitter not because of its reading value, but rather because the terse notes expressed on it often serve as quick flashes of interesting items that I can then research further. As far as Facebook is concerned, I have "friends" whom I have rarely or even never met putting up messages about their personal lives that I really don't care to read. Would they consider me rude if I were to "break" our "face" friendship? And for those I do know, I am put off very often by the degree with which some of them express their personal goings-on and sentiments.

I have been rather selective in revealing to various people I personally know about the existence of this blog, which will be five years old in April. Yet of the ones I have told about it, very few have taken even a few short minutes to read it. You might think that they would at least have the courtesy to read something from it every now and then, especially since I obviously put much of myself into writing it and made an issue of telling them about it. Instead, my readers tend to be strangers who come up on my "WMI Blog" through searches of topics that I discuss in articles therein. I like their readership, but I would also like for there to be a larger number of regular readers scattered around the U.S. and the world: people who check up on my blog from time to time just to see how I'm doing and what I'm thinking...

I suppose, though, that the most likely regular readers of this blog would be bloggers themselves. If I value others reading my articles, then I should read theirs as well, leaving constructive and pertinent comments on them.

I sincerely hope that the concept of a free, widely available blogosphere will always be with us. Having a blog like this has done much to increase my confidence with writing, and it has further enhanced my ability to effectively express my thoughts to others in spoken form. In fact, I often find myself, in the midst of conversations, almost verbatim repeating sections of articles I've written.

I plan to keep this blog going on as long as possible. (Non-spam) comments are always welcome!

Underhanded Smear Ad Against Gingrich

I am noticing something with Mitt Romney that happened with George W. Bush. The candidate himself comes across as a congenial nice guy, while he apparently has a shadow crew of very nasty people behind-the-scenes taking care of his opponents with smear ads. On the other hand, I expect that both sides in the general election will be hard at work to personally vilify whoever is finally running for the presidency.

I already knew of Newt Gingrich's tarnished past, but apparently many Republican voters needed to be reminded of it in a widely-shown ad claiming that Obama wants Gingrich to be the GOP nominee because he'll be easy to beat. The ad's disclaimer at the end states that no candidate authorized it. Just some concerned citizens wanting to spend a "bucket"-load of money to enlighten the electorate with altruistic zeal, right? And smiling, sparkling "Max Headroom" Mitt had absolutely NOTHING to do with it. Yeah, sure. Here we go again...

I am already pretty sure as to how I will be voting for president this November, regardless which Republican candidate survives the absurd TV reality show titled "The GOP Campaign", with its cast of deeply flawed characters taking turns being in the lead and then falling back because, well, they are discovered to be human after all, apparently a disqualifying trait for a Republican nominee. The truth is that I have become very deeply disillusioned with how the political opposition has dealt with Barack Obama ever since he stepped into the White House in January, 2009. It is one thing to carry on a spirited public debate with your political opposite; it is another thing entirely to treat that opposite as an enemy to the nation who must be countered at every turn with no room for the necessary give and take on that our political process in Washington traditionally functions with. In spite of the fact, though, that the Republican Party leadership decided to stonewall practically everything that the duly elected Democratic president has proposed, the fickle and memory-impaired American electorate will quite possibly reward them this November for such callous irresponsibility with both the Presidency and control of both houses of Congress. Unbelievable.