The Games

So that’s it.  If you are living in the United States, NBC has shown how the world has come together as one, once more in the spirit beauty and peace of the Olympic Games. They have shown us how we’ve been able to compete with one another and against one another and we have come out with a few scars and some heartache, but also with the ability to celebrate the memories and the heroes and the ideals of what makes life worth living. We’ve seen threats to security largely dismissed or at least controlled, but then what did you expect, 007 was there.

You know, I bet Betty Windsor, who has now become the ultimate Bond Girl, must have waited almost 50 years to say, “Good evening Mr. Bond,” on film. That’s probably a decade or 2 longer than I’ve been waiting to say, "I expect you to die Mr. Bond," in my best Goldfinger accent while looking like Yaphet Kotto wished he had  looked like when he did Live And Let Die….sorry but you can’t be humble when you’re doing or talking about being a Bond villain. But I’m starting to digress.

Apart from the usual corporate prostitution that our friend Mitt perfected in Salt Lake City, there was very little scandal this time out at the events. In fact the only thing I can think of was the guy from St Kitts or somewhere who got sent home for sleeping with his wife or the 4 badminton teams that were dismissed from the Games for deliberately not playing at their best. Actually the badminton thing was almost unforgivable. I would have been highly pissed as a spectator to have gotten tickets to one Olympic event that I could probably get into for the rest of my life and see a team play with less athletic skill and ability than my 60 year old Aunt Sally with her rheumatoid arthritis. Instead I’m just highly pissed because I remember the absolute joy of playing badminton as a child. I remember hitting the shuttlecock into the air as fast and as hard as I could and just watching how it would hover as it cleared the net giving me time to figure out who on the over side would lob it back and where I would have to be for that rapid gut wrenching volley to begin in earnest. It was like chess with a racket and a net; you always had to think at least 3 or 4 moves ahead.

The thing with the Olympic Games is that I end up watching things that I would never ever do or watch in real life.  Not the running or the swimming or anything with a stopwatch, but gymnastics. I’m not talking about the regular gymnastics where I know I could rip out my shoulder from its socket in say the rings or snap my neck from doing the vault, but like the floor exercises where you see the little girls run jump and leap…and then you see them run jump and leap… and then they run jump and…you get the picture. At least I hope you do because I don’t. But worse still is the competition with the little girls with the ribbon and the hoops. What the Hell is that and what does it mean? But I watched it. I watched it all. All being provided by our good friends at NBC for my, our, viewing entertainment even though it was 5 hours after the fact.

I won't mention the inane droning on by the NBC correspondents about things people already know about or their apparent lack of interest in non-US athletes other than those with the initials UB or even their failure to even grasp the significance of Isambard Kingdom Brunel or Tim Berners-Lee to the worlds of design engineering and information exchange; but I will say that they have an uncanny ability to turn any world event into just another version of Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve and that must be an achievement in and of itself.

But you know, if I’m still around 4 years from now….well.

Pomp and Circumstance

I promise I will write something worth writing about soon, but since Congress will no longer be giving the Congressional Gold Medal or whatever it was to Tiger Woods I thoroughly and without reservation endorse these commemorative collectible plates in its stead.

Here they go Again

I had a fair idea of what Sen. McCain meant during his campaign when he said, “I don’t need lessons about telling the truth to the American people… and were I ever to need any improvement in that regard I probably would not seek advice from a Chicago politician.” I thought it was a cheap and sleazy remark at the time and something not worth remembering. But as life often turns to irony, those are the kind of lines that will time and again return to us in some shape or form.

Apparently crime, corruption and politics seem to a go hand in hand like ham and eggs at breakfast and in Illinois, they seem to go way back. Presently former Governor George Ryan is serving time for steering state contracts the way of his friends. Former Governor Daniel Walker was convicted in the 80’s of taking and using funds from a Savings and Loans bank that left it insolvent. Former Governor Otto Kerner was convicted in 1974 of bribery, conspiracy, income-tax evasion, mail fraud and perjury in connection with money he earned from racetrack stock while governor. Governor Len Small was indicted for embezzling $600,000 and running a money-laundering scheme when he was state treasurer.

This morning Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested Tuesday on federal corruption charges, including that he conspired “to sell or trade” an appointment to the US Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Obama. Weird huh? They do things so differently in the Midwest from how they do it over here in the Northeast. Is New Jersey really in the Northeast? I've never really thought of it as such. Or is it more a Mid-Atlantic state?

Anyway, here they won’t arrest a Governor. They will just tell him to give the money back or whatever is missing, resign and go away. Give the reason as ill health or something equally ubiquitous like being gay or otherwise sexually depraved. It keeps things so very centered and so very short lived. It makes things so very civilized and with a nice speech with tears to round it all off so very personal. Kind of like our own Jim McGreevey.

Sex, Children & Politics

Sex and the politician has always been a big story. The latest being the governor of New York and his 4 or 5 thousand dollar hooker and the earliest, well you would have to go a lot further back than Bubba from Arkansas, JFK and FDR. Even President Mckinley and his out of wedlock child would be too recent to qualify as the earliest political sexual escapades in the US. No, the earliest scandal would have to be dropped at the door steps of the founding of the country by Jefferson and his slave child concubine Sally Hemings. These are the types of legends that people have and will write stories about. They are the type of narratives that film companies will make TV shows and movies to satisfy the public’s need for gossip and tales of shame.

Unfortunately, the scandal that will not be written about or filmed will be the results of the report handed out yesterday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on 838 girls ranging from 14 to 19 years of age on sexually transmitted disease (STD)

As quoted from the BBC News, “The CDC says the study is the first in its kind to examine the prevalence of common sexually transmitted diseases among adolescent girls.

It found that nearly half of the African-American girls surveyed had at least one STD, while the rate was 20% among white and Mexican-American teenagers…

The CDC's Devin Fenton said it was a serious issue because the diseases could lead to infertility and cervical cancer. “ - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7290088.stm

The news article did not mention teenage pregnancies or rise in HIV/Aids in our youth. It did not say how the CDC got its sample or even if the sample was a true reflection of the greater population. But if it is then the question should be, why is prevalence of STDs twice as much in the black group than any other and what needs to be done to shorten the gap?

Are African Americans more promiscuous than others? Are they just not good at choosing a healthy partner or partners to be intimate with? Are black people less likely to care for themselves than whites or any other race?

I think it would be short-sighted to say yes to any of those questions, but I also think it would be almost criminal to say no and let things stay as they are. Young people, especially girls need to be taught that sometimes there are disadvantages to having sex when you are not prepared for it. The pill, or an Intrauterine Device (IUD), or the rhythm method may or may not prevent pregnancies but they definitely won’t prevent viruses from being transmitted from one person to another. Abstinence is fine, but if that were happening we would not be in the position that we are in now.

If young people are not going to be taught at home then someone else must tell them that if they are going to engage in sexual activities, they must protect themselves by using a condom. If they are unable to afford the purchase of a condom, then the schools should be forced to provide them without question or embarrassment to the children if the parents won’t.

There will be an argument that schools are not in the business of promoting sex amongst the students, or the other one is who should pay for it. But the way I see it, we have already proven that children are having sex and the money spent trying to cure them of disease or burying them, will be far more than cost of some rubber.

The true sex scandal is that there are few politicians who have the balls or the tits to stand up and see what is going on and even fewer who are willing to try and protect our young.