31 October 2006, Tuesday
30 October 2006, Monday
Keith Olbermann is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life
Thanks for saying that Bill Clinton was a “pretty good president.” (The Big Show, 30 October. It’s in the “Keith Olbermann” segment.)
He was a pretty good president. I get tired of hearing people talk about him like he was Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, and Mother Teresa all rolled up into one. (OK, compared to the current president he is Abraham Lincoln ….) It’s kind of disconcerting to hear people go fan-crazy over a politician like he/she was a movie star or a rock star. Democrats, Republicans … They’re politicians, for crying out loud. Not Brad Pitt. Not Madonna. Not the kind, brave, and warm Raymond Shaw.
For me right now, Clinton comes under the category “Pretty Good.” We’ll see how his status evolves as history adds perspective to his presidency.
You’re a good man, Olbermann. I’m beginning to think you really are a No Poodle Zone.
(Except when it comes to the Yankees. But I’ll cut you some slack there because they’ve been your team since you were a kid.)
(And Czech this out: It’s Václav HaVel).
29 October 2006, Sunday
Rove Man of Genius
CP comments on Thank You, Keith Olbermann:
Heard the pod cast and couldn’t believe my ears. He practically choked on the words! “Rove is a genius” not mentioned on other Keith fansites or even on Olbermann Watch. The fans can’t handle Keith saying that and the haters won’t admit to him being fair. Big homer bell for you, Evil writer.
Thanks. Just don’t call me Evil Genius.
(And don’t call me Shirley, either.)
We want our Good Guys to be 100% Heaven and our Bad Guys to be 100% Hell.
It’s the Derek Jeter Syndrome. Derek is perfect and wonderful, and when he makes a mistake it’s Alex Rodriguez’s fault.
I just don’t see it as a bad thing for Olbermann to acknowledge what Rove has done for the GOP. Rove took a candidate with very little political experience (and none on the national level) and got him into the White House. Is that a good trick, or what? It’s like Joe Girardi taking the Florida Marlins almost into the playoffs this season. (Rove has gotten better mileage out of his record than Girardi did with his.)
In football, a team playing against the Atlanta Falcons has to account for Michael Vick; if you don’t keep track of him, he’ll burn you. (Heck, he can burn you even if you do keep track of him.) Against the Steelers, your offense has to know where Troy Polamalu is; he is a defensive player who can dictate your offense. You have to account for the best player on the other side of the ball.
So what I want to know is who the heck on the Democratic side is supposed to be watching Karl Rove? And what did he/she do between 2000 and 2004? Blink?
(And who on the Broncos was supposed to be watching Reggie Wayne today? I saw the last several minutes of the Indianapolis-Denver game, and every time I looked up Wayne was catching another pass.)
Olbermann calling Rove a genius is OK by me. I’d like to hear him call out the Democrats sometimes, too; it’s not like they haven’t made any mistakes. Show me you’re not Howard Dean’s poodle, K.O.
27 October 2006, Friday
25 October 2006, Wednesday
It was 20 Years Ago Today
Buckner: ‘I try to look at it in a positive way’
Friends of distinction: Mookie, Buckner
I used this once before, but it’s good to read every now and again to remind yourself about those old-fashioned virtues of sportsmanship, civility, and honor: Learning from Bill Buckner.
24 October 2006, Tuesday
Napalm Keith Olbermann
(OK, I know this post title is the moral equivalent of “I have emails from him and I’m going to print them!” or running another Britney-and-Kevin story on Countdown to attract viewers and pump up the ratings. But I know a lot of people are surfing the Web looking for dirt on K.O., so I thought I’d throw them a bone.)
One thing I really like about Keith Olbermann is the historical perspective he brings to his commentary. Politics, baseball, other sports …. He knows a lot. (I believe this would come under the categories “Ivy League graduate” and “Smarty Pants”). He brings a lot to the table. I’m OK with someone having an opinion. I’m even more OK with it when the person brings a good argument along in support of his or her opinion: examples, historical comparisons, statistics (although I fully realize that it is easy to lie with stats), whatever. Anything beyond the “That’s the way I feel about it, so there!” kind of argument that passes for reasoning these days.
So I am hoping that Mr. Olbermann and others with some sense of history are as appalled as I am at the Dow Chemical ads being run during the World Series broadcasts. These commercials are fairly short — at least the ones that I have seen. They’re not the long version which aired during the U.S. Open tennis tournament back in late August and early September. When I first saw the ad during the Open I was, like a lot of viewers, completely entranced. It’s a beautiful ad — beautifully composed and shot, lyrical with a beautiful sentiment. When I saw the Dow Chemical logo appear on the screen at the end of the ad my eyeballs just about fell out of my head.
Perhaps it’s because I grew up during the Vietnam War and perhaps it’s because I was a chemistry major, but to me Dow Chemical means one thing.
Napalm.
This isn’t really fair, I guess, as Dow has invented and manufactured a lot of other products, some good and some bad.
But some things stick with you, especially when you’re young, and for me “Dow = Napalm” is one of those things.
After I finished being appalled with the ad I went and looked for it on YouTube. I guess I was in the throes of “I cannot believe what I just saw!” and I had to check to see if I had been dreaming — or hallucinating. This is the video I found back then:
The comments posted to this video (which went online in June 2006) absolutely stunned me. Everyone loved it. None of them had ever heard of napalm. (Or Agent Orange, or dioxins.)
After seeing the shorter version of the ad during the World Series broadcasts this past weekend I decided to check YouTube again to see if there were any new comments. I found a different post of the same video. The comments posted to this one are much more diverse.
If you’ve seen the ads on tv and/or viewed it on YouTube, before you surrender your hearts and minds to Dow Chemical give equal time to the subject of napalm:
- Overview in globalsecurity.org
- Wikipedia entry on napalm
- Medical effects
- Notes from a PBS program
- The Flaming Sword: Napalm and Its Effects – a very interesting article (.pdf format).
- Wikipedia entry on Huynh Cong Ut, the AP photographer who took the famous photo
I can’t tell you that I’m a Dow Chemical virgin: I took their money and went for an interview to their labs in the Bay area in the spring quarter of my senior year. I knew their history, but I wanted to see what it was like at a big corporate lab. I got a free trip, a few free meals, a night at the San Francisco Ballet, and also squeezed in a visit with one of my cousins. If I had worked there I wouldn’t have been making anything evil; the research group was working on synthetic pyrethrins — the stuff marigolds and chrysanthemums make as a natural insect repellant. I was already pretty sure that I wanted to move back to New York City after I graduated, and I wrote the people at Dow and told them this before they made a job offer. So it’s not like I made a big moral stand and turned down a pile of money.
I can’t fault Dow for trying to make themselves look good. It’s part of the game, actually, like pine tar in baseball and one president telling you that he’s “kinder and gentler” when you know he’s not and another president telling you about a “vast right-wing conspiracy” while his paramour has that blue dress stashed in her closet. (What’s she going to do with that thing, anyway? Auction it off on eBay?)
It is kind of disappointing, though, that some people are so pliant in regard to messages as obvious as television commercials and political statements. And blogs, even. We have an awful lot of information and disinformation to sift through every day. And the sifting takes time and energy. And some historical perspective doesn’t hurt, either. It’s easier for some to just believe what they hear and see.
At any rate, if you watch Game 3 tonight and that Dow Chemical ad comes on think about the worst burn you ever experienced in your life. (My worst one was from reaching into a hot oven and burning my right wrist on one of the oven racks.) Then imagine your whole body burning like that.
That’s napalm. That’s part of the Human Element, too.
Kenny Rogers is Evil
rrgirl bolsters my Tiger Balm Theory with a photo of the Detroit Tigers’ ballboy and ballgirl.
She also admits to a duplicate post:
Mi dispiace.
“My bad” in Italian?
Babel Fish translates “my bad” into the Italian “il mio male” which, translated back into English, is “my evil.”
Quello è perfetto!
23 October 2006, Monday
Baseball Apologist
Cheating is baseball’s oldest profession. No other game is so rich in skullduggery, so suited to it or so proud of it.
Keith Olbermann?
No. Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Balm
Just kidding, Tiger fans.
He’s in the St. Louis Cardinals’ collective head.
(In La Russa’s head. That’s a scary thought.)
Rogers could pitch the next 5 games in a row, and he would own St. Louis.
