Another year begins with a yawn (I was up late) and hum and a ho... not much accomplished, the College games were pretty lopsided and since I don't follow College Football very closely I had no idea who was supposed to be playing for what so I got bored early. I was rooting for the underdogs but, for today at least, the underdogs were underdogs because they weren't very good at playing football.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it -- and stop there -- lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again, and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one either.

Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

Watched Monica and Calie play, Monica seems unsure of herself and needs to be a bit more aggressive and pass harder, I saw her make a lay-up... first time I have seen her make a point... she is fast but rarely takes advantage of her speed and quickness.

Calie played a half on the JV and did well she was knocked out of the game when she got an elbow in the solar plexus and had the wind knocked out of her. She didn't play in the first half of the Varsity game but played a bit in the 3rd quarter and almost all of the last quarter... she was deadly on the long shots and made two lay-up's, I lost track of how much she scored, they went from a 12 point deficit at the half to win 38 - 34... a wonderful game.

 Iowa was interesting, Huckabee is pretty scary to me, as much as I enjoy watching Chuck Norris try to pretend he’s an actor I don’t think his endorsement of Mike is going to sway many people.

 I am not a big fan of Hillary either but I wouldn’t rule her out just yet, she is a wily, hardcore politician and her husband has a lot of clout and charisma. There have been two dynasty’s here, if she did get elected, by 2012, it would be 24 years with either a Bush or a Clinton in the Whitehouse.

 In my opinion, Obama is probably the most civilized of the bunch. The fact that Iowa, a notoriously religious and WHITE state chose him over all the rich and pampered white men [and woman] is really pretty amazing and says that the country has not completely sold out to superficiality, bigotry and apathy. I believe that the single most important determining factor, at least in Iowa, was the war, Obama is the only one of the bunch who didn’t support it and the fella who came in second [Edwards] is the only one to admit he made a mistake and apologized for his initial support and has not voted to for it since. Obama has integrity  and grace, Edwards has integrity, the rest are whores trying to please their customers.

Bottom line, Barack Obama is one hell of a smart guy, he didn’t just materialize out of thin air, he has been around long enough to get elected to the senate from Illinois, home of Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party. I like that he can convey a complicated idea with ease and he can think on his feet when he is being attacked by the media or his peers. My money is still on Edwards though.  I think Edwards has a good chance if he can stay above the fray long enough to get himself organized. He has to build a better relationship with the media though… I think that they don’t like him because he won’t give them anything sensational to print. They beat him up for getting an expensive haircut so I don’t think he likes them much either. The media wants controversy because as far as they are concerned it is all about selling advertizing, and it’s difficult for a southern white politician to out sensationalize the woman and the black man, they have way more built in sex appeal on the front page. If there is no controversy, sex, racism, graft or greed or… they will put Brittany Spears on the cover. Same problem with TV, they want to be able to sum up complex political agendas in a 20 second sound byte. They want the contenders to be one dimensional and uncomplicated. The talking heads are so primed for superficiality and confrontation that the idea of sitting down and talking about the Economy or Foreigh Policy or Health Care in any meaningful way just exasperates the hell out of them.

 It’s going to be a long year…

Still no Cell phone... I will have to call Unicell...