The Bush Legacy

Things are not looking good for Bush. His poll numbers are at an absolute low. You got a mess in Iraq which shows no signs of getting any better. Republicans are fighting him and themselves over just about everything. Not much good news to be had.

Bush has a couple of years to go. His legacy, over all other things, is going to be Iraq. I am not sure that we'll be able to judge that legacy for a while. If the situation stays as it is currently, then it will go down as one of the biggest debacles in presidential decision-making history. Right now, that's what it looks like.

However, we'll have to wait this one out. If things DO change, and democracy does indeed take hold, then this will go down as one of the most influential presidential decisions in history. If things do turn and Iraq stabilizes, you are going to have a full-fledged chorus of lawmakers trying to posture themselves how they were for the war all along.

I don't know if this will happen or not, but for those that are already passing judgment based on the current situation, it's too soon. At this point, it would be easy to say that history is going to be extremely unkind to Bush. That could still be the case, but time will tell.

The Mark of a Good Performance

Last night Anna had her first piano recital. She is only 7 but she already gets very, very nervous when having to perform in front of others. At our church several months ago, she froze when doing a vocal solo and this has bothered her ever since. Neither Dorene or I were convinced she'd follow through with the recital. Nor did we push it. We let her know it didn't matter to us if she did (and it really didn't, we're not little league parents).
But, the night came, and nervous as she was, she went up there and performed splendidly. My little girl looked so poised and did a great job. Her parents were both proud. Afterward, I was telling her how great she did. Told her how she was so poised, didn't move around on the piano bench, and how it sounded so good. This was a moment of parental nirvana. Anna's response, "Yeah, and I didn't fart."

El Fidel de Underdog

Hmm, this World Baseball Classic is interesting. I've been watching it a little bit and the Cubans have been the real underdogs. Yeah, the country that we Americans use to vehemently root against, along with the other communist-bloc countries, are the team people are drawn to. Kinda weird how things change. They lost the final last night to Japan. But here's the real kicker. The combined rosters of both teams contained only two major league baseball players. All the other major league stars were on teams eliminated earlier. This is like having a world basketball championship and the final game only having two NBA players. Come October, when some team is celebrating their World Series victory, should it maybe just be called an "American" Series victory? How about a true World Series against our team and the winner of the World Baseball classic? The New York Yankees traveling to Havana or Tokyo. I'd watch that.

NCAA Predictions

I filled out an NCAA bracket for our pool here at work. My bold prediction? A final four of Iowa, Indiana, Florida and Connecticut, with Connecticut defeating Iowa in the final. After this past weekend, it's quite clear that's not going to happen. We have schools like Bradley and George Mason in the Sweet 16? What is up with that? All the Big Ten is gone. Arizona is gone from the PAC 10. Still have UCLA left, we'll go with them. I just don't want to see Duke/Connecticut in the final.

A Screw-Up by Any Other Name

The folks in charge of the SAT exam are having a rough time. It came out that a bunch of scores were incorrectly calculated, meaning that some had higher scores than they should have had and some were lower than they should have been. For a school like IU South Bend, it's not going to make much of a difference (which our Admissions director confirmed). But getting into a prestigious school, a 40-50 point differential could be significant. I'm wondering now if everyone that took the SAT and was unhappy with their score could now say, "Hey, if you messed up their score, how can I trust mine?"

The official line from SAT? It was indicated that "a complex confluence of events" led to the errors in scoring. Oh, now that's the ultimate company line. Now I know we in higher education sometimes like the lofty language (pay your bill, not at the cashier, but the "bursar") but come on now, y'all just simply screwed up. So to the folks at SAT, enjoy the next few months as colleges make admissions decisions and the lawsuits begin.

David vs. Goliath

A friend of mine who has long been interested in politics is entering the race for Indiana State Representative, 6th District. He is up against B. Patrick Bauer, who was first elected to the State House during Nixon's first term. In other words, this is an uphill battle. I helped this friend, Kevin Mitschelen, several years ago in an unsuccessful bid for city council, so he's certainly raised his sights here. Can he win? Hey, why not? It will be interesting. Yeah, we could get hammered, because Bauer is firmly entrenched here in South Bend and the district skews Democrat big time. But we'll give it a go.

This is grass-roots campaigning at its finest. We had our first meeting last night in Kevin's living room, snacking on cookies baked by his wife Rhonda. About 7 of us gathered together beginning to plot out strategy. We have about $0.00 in campaign funds right now. We are truly starting from scratch. Like I said, an uphill climb. One of two things will happen. Either we will lose, like we are expected to, or we will be part of one of the biggest upsets in Indiana political history.

Oscar Debriefing

Last night, as I've done for the past 12 years, I gathered at the home of a co-worker to watch the Oscars. Also in attendance were a school counselor, an accountant, and a couple other higher education professionals. This is always one of my favorite events of the year. This party is for the true movie-buff. In other words, there were actual discussions as to why Memories of a Geisha deserved it's award for best art direction over Good Night and Good Luck. Yes, we like our movies. I took my wife one year and she says she will never, ever go back. You gotta really, really like the movies to enjoy this. We all chip in $5.00 for the Oscar pool and make our picks prior to the show beginning. In 12 years, I've won the pool all of once. Last night I thought I had a pretty good chance. I tend to always go with a pick that no one else does. Sometimes this works, most often it doesn't. This time, I went with Amy Adams for best supporting actress in Junebug (a so-so movie but her performance was great). Denied. Also went with Murderball for best documentary. Denied again. Oh well, we'll try again next year. The individual that won did not see any of the best picture nominees. So while the rest of us are debating the merits of each and every movie, we lose out to someone who didn't see any of them.

As for Jon Stewart, I thought he did a pretty good job, although his sense of humor may not be suited for this kind of show. I'm one of the handful that thought Letterman did a great job. I imagine we'll be back to Steve Martin or Billy Crystal next year.

The major nominations were not a surprise. Phillip Seymour Hoffman certainly deserved his award, as did Reese Witherspoon and Rachel Weisz. I didn't see George Clooney in Syriana so I don't know about that. For Best Picture, I expected Brokeback Mountain to win, and was certainly surprised when Crash emerged victorious. I did not see Brokeback Mountain but I absolutely despised Crash. I thought it was a bunch of overwrought, pretentious, self-righteous crapola. I didn't believe anything for a second, was not moved by a single scene, and thought the dialogue was downright ludicrous (or shall I say, Ludicris). It was a movie that seemed to cry out, LOOK, WE'RE SAYING SOMETHING IMPORTANT! Y'ALL A BUNCH OF RACISTS, YOU JUST DON'T KNOW IT!! But at the end of the day, all was well. The rich white woman hugged her minority housekeeper and said she was her best friend. Uh, sorry, already had that scene in Driving Miss Daisy. Then, you have the racist cop who saves the black woman he groped earlier. Uh, okay. Then, in the single most ridiculous scene, the Arab storeowner's gun didn't go off when he tried to shoot the Mexican. Why didn't it go off? because (sob, sob), his daughter put a protective shield around him. This was the most manufactured non-emotional moment since Wilson the Volleyball drifted away from Tom Hanks.

Ah, but as the movie told us, there are still problems. Everything is simmering under the surface ready to EXPLODE. Why? Because we are all RACISTS, ready to explode at ANY MOMENT with a racial TIRADE. You know you're racist, YOU JUST WON'T ADMIT IT!!!! Is all this capitalization getting annoying? SO WAS THE MOVIE! I just didn't GET IT! By far the worst movie to win Best Picture since American Beauty.