Thursday, November 04, 2004
Culture Matters, Kids
So the newspaper folks didn't tinker with my article too much. They did, however, eliminate my only quote from a player, of which I should have had more anyway. The trouble with that was that all four players I spoke to said the same thing, and nearly word for word. I guess I should have asked better questions of each or been more prepared. Whatever. Time for a rebound on Friday when I cover the team's intra-squad scrimmage. I'm doing the women's team's scrimmage as well. Should be a fun-filled four hours in a basketball arena. My back should be in enough pain to warrant lying down by the end of the girls' game, then I will endure the guys' game as well. (I'm not a fat ass who can't sit up; I just have issues back there) Not exactly my ideal way of kicking off Friday night activities, but I want to write and you have to start somewhere. But happy hour sounds like a better somewhere. I like watching these teams play; I've been at nearly every guy's game over the last two seasons, but an intra-squad scrimmage is a fun event to go to intoxicated so you can hoot and holler at your friends on the team and not give a shit. Instead, I will scribble notes. It will be fun, I have no reason to bitch.
So, a few more election thoughts. I heard today that there are 300,000 Serbs in Ohio and 90% of them voted for Bush. Interestingly enough, Gore won most of their votes in 2000. Why the change? Well, rumors of Kerry naming Wes Clark the Secretary of Defense had surfaced and convenient for Bush was the fact that Clark was the general who blew to hell most of the Serbs' home land during the Clinton administration. When a Serb from Ohio wrote Senator Kerry about this, he received a standard form letter in return: "Thank you for contacting us blah, blah, blah..." Ouch. There's a 300,000 vote swing that cost you the election, John. Culture matters, might not want to blow 'em off next time. Just a thought.
I got a paper back in my PolySci class today. Prof gave me an 85, solid B. I love B's on tests, hate B's on papers. I want A's on all my papers. I wrote about why the phrase "under God" should be eliminated from the Pledge of Allegiance. The reason I didn't get an A, as noted by the Prof, was that I didn't refer to the textbook at all, as I was instructed to. Well, I had yet to open the textbook at the time I wrote the paper. Oh well. Also, I made a small joke in the paper, which he didn't catch. I wrote that to be fair to all religions, the phrase should read, "under G*d," since Orthodox Jews don't believe that the name of God should be written or spoken. I'm pretty sure I'm right about that. He circled it with a question mark. Most people don't know that in the original version of the pledge, which was written by a Baptist Monk in the late 1800's, "under God" was not included. It wasn't added until 1954 when Congress, the Senate and President Eisenhower thought they would shove it to the "Atheist Communists" and add the phrase. How petty, how irresponsible. I'm pissed. One man took this case to the Supreme Court last year and they shut him down. He had previously won the case in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, but the blessed souls of the Supreme Court overturned it. Shit. Maybe next time, the Court did leave openings from someone to bring it back.
Abruptly changing topics, I had a weird nightmare yesterday when I was napping that the article I had submitted had been read and re-written by Ken Jennings, the Jeopardy! guy, who was an English Lit major in college. The article gave the both of us co-writing credits. Odd. Paranoid.
After raving about Ray Liotta last night, I had to watch one of his movies. I watched Identity, since I bought it a few weeks ago, but haven't watched it yet. It's a good movie, a solid 7 out of 10. (I always use 10 as a scale instead of 5; 5 is too limiting.) It's not a perfect movie. Not many movies come to close to being the perfect movie. There are criteria for this, which I will write about later. But for now, I nap, read, eat, and hit up the picture box.
So, a few more election thoughts. I heard today that there are 300,000 Serbs in Ohio and 90% of them voted for Bush. Interestingly enough, Gore won most of their votes in 2000. Why the change? Well, rumors of Kerry naming Wes Clark the Secretary of Defense had surfaced and convenient for Bush was the fact that Clark was the general who blew to hell most of the Serbs' home land during the Clinton administration. When a Serb from Ohio wrote Senator Kerry about this, he received a standard form letter in return: "Thank you for contacting us blah, blah, blah..." Ouch. There's a 300,000 vote swing that cost you the election, John. Culture matters, might not want to blow 'em off next time. Just a thought.
I got a paper back in my PolySci class today. Prof gave me an 85, solid B. I love B's on tests, hate B's on papers. I want A's on all my papers. I wrote about why the phrase "under God" should be eliminated from the Pledge of Allegiance. The reason I didn't get an A, as noted by the Prof, was that I didn't refer to the textbook at all, as I was instructed to. Well, I had yet to open the textbook at the time I wrote the paper. Oh well. Also, I made a small joke in the paper, which he didn't catch. I wrote that to be fair to all religions, the phrase should read, "under G*d," since Orthodox Jews don't believe that the name of God should be written or spoken. I'm pretty sure I'm right about that. He circled it with a question mark. Most people don't know that in the original version of the pledge, which was written by a Baptist Monk in the late 1800's, "under God" was not included. It wasn't added until 1954 when Congress, the Senate and President Eisenhower thought they would shove it to the "Atheist Communists" and add the phrase. How petty, how irresponsible. I'm pissed. One man took this case to the Supreme Court last year and they shut him down. He had previously won the case in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, but the blessed souls of the Supreme Court overturned it. Shit. Maybe next time, the Court did leave openings from someone to bring it back.
Abruptly changing topics, I had a weird nightmare yesterday when I was napping that the article I had submitted had been read and re-written by Ken Jennings, the Jeopardy! guy, who was an English Lit major in college. The article gave the both of us co-writing credits. Odd. Paranoid.
After raving about Ray Liotta last night, I had to watch one of his movies. I watched Identity, since I bought it a few weeks ago, but haven't watched it yet. It's a good movie, a solid 7 out of 10. (I always use 10 as a scale instead of 5; 5 is too limiting.) It's not a perfect movie. Not many movies come to close to being the perfect movie. There are criteria for this, which I will write about later. But for now, I nap, read, eat, and hit up the picture box.
