Friday Mad Science: Going Bulworth

Right up front, let me just say that the news this week is depressing as Hell.  You’ve got the President talking about going full-on “Bulworth”, sexual assaults apparently rampant in the military, and the mayor of Osaka defending Japan’s use of “comfort women” during World War II as “necessary at the time to maintain discipline in the army.”  Oh, and the CEO of Google wants to start his own country, so that he can beta-test his weird-ass social programs without the pesky oversight of people or government.  

Hello, Internet?  Meet your new overlord.

Hello?  From a company that was founded to “not do evil,” that comes off sounding megalomaniacal and creepy as Hell.  Like we need to send in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. just to make sure that Larry Page and company aren’t planning to take over the world and turn us all into Borg.

Truth is, I’m having trouble getting fired up about any of this stuff.  For all that President Obama’s political implosion is interesting--and even fascinating--from a guy who has heretofore been incredibly controlled publically and politically, it still spells trouble for the country.  Like it or not, he’s still the leader of the free world, still a guy who has the clout to use robots to assassinate anyone, even fellow American citizens, overseas without trial, and the fact is, we kind of need for him to hold it together.  

The word in the NYT is that Obama is frustrated with his liberal constituencies and/or with the realities of the complexity of the democratic legislative process.  Which is to say folks want him to accomplish stuff, put together some kind of liberal legislative legacy, but we live in a society where the government was intentionally designed to thwart massive legislative changes to the status quo, and where the country itself is deeply divided on what is the correct way forward.  So, bottom line, despite having had a liberal president for the last five years, all we’ve really got to show for it is a tepid health care reform that was mostly written by and for the insurance companies. Oh, and we’ve used robots to kill a lot of, er, terrorists.  And their friends and families.

So this is Obama’s legacy.  He may be a liberal, but he’s going to go down in history as the Assassination President, the guy who truly embraced the idea of whacking guys in the middle of the night with missiles from the sky--and to Hell with the collatoral damage.

I don’t know.  If it was me, maybe I’d be thinking of going full-on Bulworth, too.

***

Maybe the only piece of good news I saw this week was that NFL analyst Ron Jowarski is publicly trying to talk Tim Tebow into playing Arena League Football for the Philidelphia Soul.  Not as a starting quarterback, but in a role similar to what he was supposed to do with the Jets, playing a goal-line package and that sort of thing.

Must be tempting, right?  I’ll bet the Arena League would offer him all of $50K.

Go Beef!

Tebow’s other offer, at least the only other one that I know about, is with the Omaha Beef, another team in the Arena League.  They at least want Tebow to start--or, I think they do, anyway--but there’s no word really on what the specifics are.

All of this has me wondering if there’s not some kind of all-NFL busts league that we need in our public life.  I mean, I don’t follow Arena League Football, but if Tim Tebow and Vince Young were out there playing, I might.  

It would sure as shit make the League more interesting, anyway.  Maybe not from a pure football standpoint, but if they could get Vince MacMahon and the management team from the old XFL back together with those slutty cheerleaders they had and the weird-ass “He Hate Me” jerseys they were wearing, it would at least be a spectacle.  

And God knows I love a spectacle.  With Tebow no longer on the Jets, and Darrell Revis gone, the coming season is already starting to look a lot less interesting than the last season was.

***

Star Trek: Into Darkness opens today.  

Star Trek: Into Darkness.

I’m not as fired up about Into Darkness as I was about Iron Man 3, but it looks like it’s getting even better reviews that IM3 got, and that’s saying something.  On the other hand, I’ve seen more than one reviewer comment that the movie itself is more sci fi action adventure than actual Trek, and that’s fine with me, but in the long run, it isn’t gonna help that franchise much.

Well.  I’ll probably see Into Darkness eventually, but I know I’m not gonna have time this weekend.  Hopefully, I can avoid spoilers between now and when I do get out.

***

I'm not gonna lie... It's been tough sledding this year raising money for the American Diabetes Association. I don't know if it's the economy, or if folks just have their own concerns, but whatever the reason, it seems like diabetes research is struggling in 2013. And it's not just me; my whole team is struggling. 

But I still believe that diabetes research is important. So if you afford to give, I urge you to at least consider it: http://main.diabetes.org/goto/DanHead.

Thanks!

***

Finally, my editor over at Triathlon.About.Com quit this week, leaving me between freelance writing gigs.  I'm sad about it because that gig was a pretty nice deal, but I suppose it does leave room for some new opportunities.

If you know anybody looking for either a triathlon writer or a guy who reviews comics, let me know.

***

That’s all I’ve got this week.

And unfortunately, this weekend is already very tightly scheduled, and it hasn’t even started yet.  I’ve got to get up at 5 am tomorrow morning just to give myself time for a long run, and then it’s off to the DMV to renew my driver’s license before coming back home to...  

Well, Sally swears that it won't be that bad after that, but I know her well enough to know that if she truly believes that tomorrow afternoon is going to be relaxing, it's only because she hasn't really thought through how long it's going to take to do whatever it is that I'm going to wind up having to do.  I mean, I'm trying to stay positive about it, but any weekend that starts with me waking at 5:00 just so I have time to run has already got at least two strikes against it.  I don't drink or carouse at nights with my buddies, but that doesn't mean that I don't ever want to be allowed to get out of the house.  But this particular weekend, getting out looks to take some doing.

Anyway, tomorrow night we have our kids' gymnastics show, which is a big deal because Emma's getting a trophy, and then Sunday looks to be another full--and fully chaotic--day, filled with very early rising, so that I can get in a bike ride.  I have to be back and showered by 10:00, so we'll just have to see how it goes.