The Papers
July 26, 2007
Why the NBA Gambling Scandal Isn't Actually A Big Deal
As a season-ticket holder/ paying customer, I feel entitled to an opinion on this So all the sports blathermonkeys have climbed atop their respective high-horsies to tell us that the NBA referee scandal is really really bad. Terrible. The league won't recover. All that. David Stern held a press conference as serious and grave as anything Boosh has mustered up since he decided to explode Iraq. The polls on ESPN reflect the will and whims of the people -- and the people seem to think that the point-shaving by an NBA ref is more damaging to the NBA than the Michael Vick situation is to the NFL. Or something like that. Mostly people are all screechy and uptight about this. I gottatellya: as an NBA season-ticket holder, I actually don't think it's such a big deal. Three reasons why: (1) The NBA is more show that sport: so some ref...
Posted by thatkid at 8:46 AM | Comments (0)
April 28, 2007
Donovan McNabb's Mom Is So Totally Going To Be Pissed
Allow me to be among the first to overreact to the Eagles' first selection in today's NFL draft So this is what I get for feeling fat and happy about the Eagles' decision to trade down out of the first round of the NFL Draft. They took a what? A quarterback? With their first pick? At #36? The third QB taken in the entire draft? Seriously? I did not see this coming. Yikes. I thought the Birds would go DB (safety or corner) or DE (since they have mostly stiffs at that position right now). Instead, that take a QB, a position at which they already have three (3) veterans. WIP is already going nuts. G-Cobb is horrified. Sal Paolantonio called in and completely spazzed. Even Eagles Live! on the Birds' site was screwy; Dave Spadaro was "shocked" by the move. And suddenly, controversy in re: the Eagles and, more...
Posted by thatkid at 6:54 PM | Comments (0)
February 4, 2007
Everything But The Game (And Also The Game)
It's not like I'm not going to make a Super Bowl pick; also, a lot of stuff actually went down in and around the Birds this week And here I thought football season was over. Generally speaking, once the Eagles are done, my interest in the rest of football tends to flag a bit. Sure, I'll watch the other playoff game/ Super Bowl (I might even have multi-paragraph opinions about some of said games), but it's not exactly the same. Consuming all the NFL-related media just doesn't have the same juice when your team isn't in it. This year, though, was completely different, thanks to the NFL Network. As if the consistently outstanding America's Game (according to their site: "The most ambitious and all-encompassing project in NFL Films history") series wasn't enough (there was a new one every day this week as they counted down to the best Super Bowl...
Posted by thatkid at 12:54 PM | Comments (0)
January 13, 2007
I Preferred 4th-and-26 to 4th-and-15
The 2006 season is now officially subtitled "4th-and-15" Ugh. This is me making my peace with nine months of questioning Andy Reid's game management skills and/ or his ability to handle pressure from the sports blathermonkeys. 4th-and-15 will enter the Negadelphian Philly Hater Hall Of Fame. Aw man. File under "For who? For what?" and "Talkin Bout Practice." On the bright side, the Sheldon Brown hit on Reggie Bush made the all-time "Why I'm Glad There's Such A Thing As A DVR" list. I'm at three times and counting. At the end of the day/ where the rubber hits the road/ when push comes to shove, the Eagles are who we thought they were. In case you want to follow the story live: 610 WIP Live Stream Who will be first to slag Andy Reid in the Philly press? The Big Hurt Andy Reid? Andy Reid's post-game press conference Also,...
Posted by thatkid at 9:08 PM | Comments (0)
December 26, 2006
T.O.: Double-Agent!
Turns out T.O. was working for the Eagles all along! My my my. I really can't imagine how the Eagles - Cowboys game on Christmas Day could have gone any better. The Eagles didn't just win -- they methodically humiliated the Cowboys, in Texas Stadium, on national television, and T.O. was mostly inconsequential. I expected some sort of high-scoring back-and-forth affair of the 31-28 variety that the Eagles had at least a fighting chance to win. I didn't expect that the Birds would hog the ball and shove the Cowboys down the field four yards at a time, essentially ending the game midway through the second half. It's like the Eagles have turned into the Steelers and are just going to use their dumpster-sized offensive line to shove people down the field. And I really can't say enough about how pleasant that is to watch. On the other side of...
Posted by thatkid at 9:23 PM | Comments (0)
December 20, 2006
If The Playoffs Started Today
Outstanding implications abound for both the Eagles and the Sixers Big week for the sports blathermonkeys in Philly. Not only do we have a suddenly resurgent Eagles team poised to make the playoffs in the NFC, but the biggest superstar playing in Philly (possibly ever) has just been traded to the Denver Nuggets. My oh my. Those two stories plus the release of the new Rocky movie and Invincible on DVD add up to a lot of sports-related media content flowing out of the Illadelph. I will be the first to admit that I thought that the Birds were done when Donovan went down. And, in a larger sense, they're still sort of done, since I don't see them challenging for anything more than a second-round playoff exit, but hey, a month ago -- having lost their most expensive offensive and defensive players, respectively -- they looked like 7-9 would...
Posted by thatkid at 3:42 PM | Comments (1)
November 28, 2006
Snow Day in C@L
Did they really just cancel Tuesday in C@L due to an inch of snow that fell early last night? Woo-hoo! Was I ever fired up about my commute into the office this morning! Twenty-two minutes door-to-door (a weekday rush hour record) plus an absolutely primo parking spot (the likes of which one usually has to arrive by 6:30 am to secure -- not that I would actually know this, but I just assume). Instead of racing to make my 9 am, I'd have a solid 40 minutes to sip my coffee, fire off the day's opening salvo of electric mail, and peruse the sports sections of Philly.com. The reason for my surprisingly mellow morning? C@L is having a Snow Day! Yup. We had a little snow last night, the temperature dropped below freezing, and the city just completely shut down. No school for the kids, and lots of offices closed...
Posted by thatkid at 12:25 PM | Comments (0)
November 20, 2006
Weirdest Philly Sports Day Since T.O.
McNabb's knee, Andre Waters' passing, Ryan Howard's MVP I had the honor and pleasure of being in some good friends' wedding this past weekend outside New York City. Amazing night, good times had by all -- it was a blast. As is something of a tradition, prior to the wedding ceremony, the groom gave each of his groomsmen a little gift. Typically these gifts are themed, and the chosen theme this time around was throwback football jerseys. The groom went to great lengths to select (and customize) shirts that fit with each of our particular sports personalities: Tony Dorsett for the Cowboys fan, a Mark Bavaro throwback for the Giants fan, even a #6 "R. Howard" Eagles jersey for one of the Birds fans (which, it must be said, will serve as a companion piece to this gentleman's #3 "Iverson" Eagles shirt). So you can imagine the thrill I felt...
Posted by thatkid at 4:42 PM | Comments (1)
November 13, 2006
Andy Reid Fires Himself! And Reporters In Philly Swarm!
I had no idea the playcalling would be the story of today's game; the Philly sports media turns into a caricature of itself So I was going to write a post about how much I needed the Eagles bye week. For anyone who's spoken to me about the Birds for the past two weeks, I've been deep in breakup metaphors. Lots of talk of "taking some time apart" from the Eagles and "needing my space." And also the horrifying experience I had at the sports bar two weeks ago comma alone. Then I realized that I had essentially written that post a year ago. And then I toweled off and really did take a break. My one action item from the bye week is that I've decided that I'm no longer at the point in my life where I need to wear one of my Eagles jerseys on game day....
Posted by thatkid at 12:26 AM | Comments (0)
October 22, 2006
Ronde Barber And A Mouthful Of Puke
After another horrifying loss by the Birds, the only question is whether it's my puke or 5's; also, class angst in the high school sports section? So that makes three (3) times this season that the Eagles have managed to lose on the final play of the game. I've really been struggling to decide how to take it; that is, I'm puzzled by the fact that this team is actually playing a ton better than their record indicates. Of course, I have to balance the "playing well" part with the fact that "playing well" is only a leading indicator of playoff participation, and that actual wins (rather than games that you mostly won but screwed up at the end) are what define entry to the postseason. Sure, the Eagles might be sitting pretty in the Football Outsiders rankings (#3 overall, #1 in offense, #9 in defense), but they're 4-3, and...
Posted by thatkid at 11:35 PM | Comments (1)
October 7, 2006
Food Porn Goes Highbrow
Did I just see the term "Food Porn" on the cover of the New Yorker? In case you missed it, last week's New Yorker featured a piece on the rising popularity of the Food Network and, more generally, the marketing of food and celebrity chefs. The byline was Bill Buford, who has been increasingly writing about food for the magazine (he had a great piece a couple months back about his apprenticeship in a Tuiscan butcher shop and his subsequent efforts butchering a pig in his New York apartment). Of course, despite his long and reputable career as a journalist (and butcher), most folks I know will recognize the name Bill Buford for pioneering the football hooliganism genre in America with his 1993 book Among The Thugs. Buford taught us to gawk at the disreputable behavior(s) of British soccer fans, offering some details on a then-nascent set of stereotypes (the...
Posted by thatkid at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2006
I Kiss You, Borat
I guess this should have been obvious for a while? Also, I hate it when Wikipedia can't answer all my questions So can we assume that major-motion-picture-star-and-Central-Asian-diplomatic-incident Borat is an intentional knockoff of 1999 internet celebrity Mahir Cagri? You remember Mahir, right? The "I Kiss You" guy? From back when Internet fads weren't just about celebrity sex tapes and amateur porn dressed up as "social networking"? See here for a link to a copy of the original "I Kiss You" page. In case Mahir isn't ringing a bell, he was famous because he posted broken English on his web site with lots of exclamation points. He also later released a music video (see below) based on his signature catchphrase, "I Kiss You." According to the Wikipedia entry for "I Kiss You," Mahir's "picture-laden personal homepage, which exclaimed in broken English his love of the accordion and travel, was visited by...
Posted by thatkid at 4:59 PM | Comments (0)
August 8, 2006
Or We Can Just Call It Beer Pong
Reconsidering Drinking Game Nomenclature In Light Of The Recent Unpleasantness As lovely as the summer in C@L has been (and it really is pretty spectacular), I must report that I remain somewhat wistful in re: missing the East Coast summer party circuit, a circuit which traditionally kicks off with the Meetings and continues throughout the summer, typically with stops in Jersey, the Belmont, the beach on Long Island, and sometimes even a mission to Boston. This past weekend was the annual mission to Bay Shore, Long Island, certainly one of the traditional highlights of the summer. As I was cogitating and ruminating in re: the Bay Shore mission, I couldn't help but take a moment to reflect on one of the weekend's core activities (and I'm not even talking about the booze luge): Beirut (click here for the wikipedia entry on Beirut the drinking game). And that's really what got...
Posted by thatkid at 7:53 PM | Comments (5)
February 19, 2006
I Don’t Know, Sir, Y’all Are The Ones With The Largest Military In Human History
This is what I get for actually watching C-SPAN 2 February 18, 2006 Dear Representative _____________, I watched last week’s hearings of the House subcommittee on International Human Rights on C-SPAN 2 with great interest, and not just because I wrote my undergraduate these on the political impact of the Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network. Rather, given the recent media focus on the actions of certain leading U.S.-based Internet firms operating in the People’s Republic of China, I was eager to hear from both the representatives of those companies as well as from the interested members of Congress on this highly charged issue. The members of the House subcommittee were eager to learn more about the role of Google, Yahoo, Cisco, and Microsoft in helping the government of the People’s Republic of China to control Internet access with that nation’s borders. Specifically, the subcommittee members wanted to discuss how these...
Posted by thatkid at 9:30 AM | Comments (0)
February 1, 2006
The Middle Kingdom And Internet Search
What China And Verizon Have In Common Just a couple weeks after the good folks at Google dazzled the (adoring) press by refusing to comply with a U.S. government order to hand over their users' search history (unlike their weak-kneed rivals Yahoo! and MSN), Google this week (finally) managed to disappoint even their fanboy journos by agreeing to help the Chinese government to censor Internet access in China. As all seven loyal readers are well aware, the Internet in China is a little screwy. That is, it isn't the same Internet you're playing with right now. Large parts of it are missing. The reason they're missing is that the Chinese government would prefer that its citizens don't see the entire Internet, since then they might get crazy ideas about "human rights" and "the rule of law." So the Chinese government makes sure that the pipes (high level metaphor here) that...
Posted by thatkid at 11:31 PM | Comments (0)
December 4, 2005
Charlie Wilson's War: This Is Almost A Book Review
Just in time for the holidays -- a new attempt at a semi-regular feature! So my big plan for this week was that I was going to debut a new feature on ThatKid -- book reviews. I tend to churn through books pretty regularly, said books tend to set me a-thinkin', references to said books tend to turn up in these pages anyway, so why not be a bit more disciplined about sharing what I'm reading? I didn't think I needed to come up with elaborate analyses -- just some top-level stuff on what I'd read, what I liked, what I didn't like, and whether I'd recommend it. Of course, in the course of writing this up, I mostly ended up formulating ridiculous conspiracy theories. But hey, that shouldn't prevent me from releasing the beta of ThatKid Book Reviews: Title: Charlie Wilson's War Author: George Crile Tags: Non-fiction, Cold War,...
Posted by thatkid at 10:26 AM | Comments (0)
August 16, 2005
New York City: Northern Bucks County
In which I defend the city where I grew up from the city I just left, or at least from its paper of record's Sunday Styles section As per my previous posting, I now live a solid 3,000 miles from the East Coast. One might imagine that said distance would lead me to forfeit my right to comment on Northeast Corridor rivalries, perhaps in favor of a more general East-Coast-versus-West-Coast conversation (of which many of my West Coast friends, specifically the transplants from the Deep South living in, COUGH, AHEM, COUGH, L.A., are so fond). And then I read the piece in the Sunday Styles section of the Times describing Philadelphia as "The Next Borough." Ummm, yo? I mean, I understand the Sunday Style section has a certain audience, with a certain set of expectations (by this I mean the sort of status-and-money-obsessed folks who enjoy waiting on long brunch...
Posted by thatkid at 1:23 AM | Comments (1)
July 5, 2005
Who G8 All The Pies?
In which I share some thoughts on proper decorum and etiquette at the Gleneagles Hotel Over the next few days, eight of the most powerful people in the world (go ahead, call them the "G8") will gather at a resort in Scotland to parley on the great geopolitical and economic issues facing the world today. What began in the 1970s as a set of informal meetings between the leaders of the Western World has developed into one of the most highly anticipated and closely watched political events on the planet. The protestors have been in Scotland since before the weekend, looking for ways to "clash" with police and security personnel whilst alerting the world (or at least the TV cameras poised to cover said clashes) to the importance of their chosen causes. Meanwhile, our brothers and sisters in the entertainment community organized a bunch of concerts to try to cure...
Posted by thatkid at 4:28 PM | Comments (0)
April 20, 2005
Habemvs Papem!
He likes it when you call him "Big Papa" And we have a new Pope! If 12 years of Catholic school taught me anything, it's that it is definitely not my place to comment on the larger questions of spirituality and religion. There are plenty of REALLY smart folks who, over the course of the past few thousand years, have devoted considerable time, energy, and effort to the task of discerning the presence and role of a spiritual element in the human experience. Unless you've got your act pretty together (and are exquisitely careful with your language and word choice), you shouldn't be too vocal in re: God. All that said, I do feel more than empowered to comment on the media coverage of religion, as well as the general proceedings from Rome as presented on television the past few days, especially since this is my religion (just me and...
Posted by thatkid at 6:16 PM | Comments (0)
March 4, 2005
I'd Like To Thank The ATM Machine, The Guy Who Works At Starbucks....
Trying to figure out why twenty-year-old basketball players are more articulate and appropriate than Oscar-winning actors I didn't catch much of the Oscars on Sunday night. Beyond some curiosity about what Chris Rock would say (because Chris Rock tends to be a pretty funny and insightful guy), the show didn't hold so much sway over me. I hadn't really seen very many of the nominated movies, and more generally find "awards programs" to be pretty boring as entertainments. Said programs tend to be good at "Letting you see lots of celebrities in the same place -- even the ones from slightly different parts of the entertainment business!" and not much else. Still, the few minutes of the broadcast which I did see (the presentation of the awards to Hillary Swank and Charlie Kaufmann) brought up a question that's baffled me for years: how is it that entertainment people are SO...
Posted by thatkid at 5:00 PM | Comments (0)
March 2, 2005
That Last Paper of Record Stole My Thunder
Curses! That's one of the best parts of my "Why I Really Like New York" speech Good for the New York Times for hitting it out of the park with their special section on food delivery in Manhattan. Guess what? I also think the scale of food delivery here is fantastic! Who would have thought? I mean, I only schlepped buffalo wings and chinese food for four years in college, and then later worked for an ill-fated online delivery service. Also, I order food all the time. Other than that, I couldn't care less. The Times does a nice job with the coverage, but they failed to include my favorite quip in re: the food delivery in Manhattan, which I will present here, completely out of context and purely as an add-on to the excellent work of the real reporters. That is, you might pay a little more for real...
Posted by thatkid at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2005
Some Kind of Electric Snake...Coming Straight At Us
Hunter S. Thompson taught a generation of fratboys to glamorize their gluttony! Like me! For the hundreds of snippets of dialogue which I've committed to memory from sundry television programs and films (some good, some, ahem, not so good), it's somewhat shameful that I can't recall more than a handful of lines from books. This is not for a lack of reading; I churn through books pretty aggressively. But, for whatever reason (probably something to do with hearing the words spoken versus just reading them), there are only a few passages from books that are in heavy rotation in my Quotables playlist. Thinking it through, the qualifiers are a pretty eclectic bunch: Scott Fitzgerald, Douglas Adams, Orson Scott Card (oh do I tip my hand!), David Foster Wallace, Neal Stephenson, and, of course, Hunter S. Thompson. That is, to this day and for the 12 years since I first read...
Posted by thatkid at 9:07 PM | Comments (0)
February 21, 2005
Something About An Art Project?
My admittedly superfluous and/ or obligatory two cents in re: The Gates In the swirling debate between "Yeah, I'm pretty down with the Gates" and "I'm not actually that into the Gates," I've been leaning pretty-down-with-the-Gates-ward from the start. In general, the idea of a giant public art project in Central Park seemed like the sort of stunt I could get behind. A big, bold, accessible piece of public art that would light up the park in the middle of winter. I mean, what else am I really doing with Central Park in February anyway? Go for it, funny-looking Euro-art-dudes! (And it was orange! Just like FC Camena! And like FC Camena, perhaps The Gates would be hard-nosed and gritty, with a penchant for physical play and passion in re: questionable refereeing decisions!) Anyhoo, I took a couple walks through the park last week, you know, to check it out....
Posted by thatkid at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2005
Where Else Would I Learn About Broad Social Trends?
Time does what it does best: come up with a silly name for a loosely defined trend! Today's mail included the most recent (dated January 24, 2005) issue of Time. Beneath the double-sided cover-wrap hawking the latest edition of the Time Almanac and adjacent to a promise to reveal "The Truth About SOCIAL SECURITY" was the cover splash: "Meet The Twixters, young adults who live off their parents....They're not lazy...THEY JUST WON'T GROW UP." Twixters. Right. They're not Tweens...they're not Hipsters...they're the Twixters! Ignoring for a moment the mystery of exactly how these issues of Time continue to find their way to my mailbox (as I have never actually paid them for a subscription...I think it has something to do with some sort of credit-card come-on from a few years back), the cover story did lead me to pause for a moment in admiration. Say what we will about the...
Posted by thatkid at 4:27 PM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2005
Their Library Beats Your National Parliament Building
In Which I Return to Seattle for the Second Time in Five Months Right. So over my first 28 years I had been to Seattle exactly 1.2 times (where the vaguely defined 0.2 of a visit will refer to an ill-fated business trip that involved hopping into a rental car at SEATAC and high-tailing it to Portland). Then, over the past five months, I go to Seattle twice, once on leisure and once as part of a legitimate business jaunt. Good stuff both times through -- I really can't say enough about the land of lattes. My highlights: Pro Sports For The People: Got a chance to check out the Sonics take on the Clip Show at Key Arena. Very solid experience. The tickets were reasonably priced, refreshments were ample and creative (lots of tricky microbrews available at the arena -- more on the microbrew thing later), we were officially...
Posted by thatkid at 6:25 PM | Comments (0)
November 3, 2004
Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kodos
Surprise, surprise, the losers won't concede! So Election Day has come and gone. Every sign and indicator seems to indicate that the President has secured a second term. Of course, if the 2000 election taught us anything, the Democrats will holler for a do-over until Bush starts threatening them with cruise missiles. Argh. It doesn't look good for Mr. Kerry. Last time I checked, his brother was not governor of Ohio. Perhaps he could threaten a large-scale ketchup embargo. Damn you, Internet rumors: oh, Internet, you tease me so! All day you told me that the exit poll results favored Kerry, especially in FL-OH-PA, or as Beltway insiders like to call it, "Flopa." All the signs pointed towards the election tilting the Democrats way in Flopa. And then the actual results began to arrive...very...very...slowly. Let me be the 6,143th person to say that whomever is doing the exit polling is...
Posted by thatkid at 9:03 AM | Comments (0)
November 2, 2004
Come On, Liberal Media, Admit Kerry Is Winning
No lines on the Upper Left Side Election Day is here! Hopefully, at this time tomorrow, we can all move on and begin to give the Scott Peterson trial the attention and respect it so surely deserves. It smells like Kerry is ahead in all of the key places (Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania), but none of the TV networks want to talk about it. Fine. You want me to watch Champions League soccer (cracker of a match this afternoon!) and PTI, I will. Also, I'll indulge every Internet rumor I hear. Quick and Easy: despite the reports from Democracy Plaza, or wherever, I had no lines at my polling location in the heart of Manhattan's Arch Liberal Upper West Side. In all honesty, I waited longer to buy a cupcake at the PTA Bake Sale outside than I did at the voting booth. The Only Remaining Drama: Who will have the...
Posted by thatkid at 6:16 PM | Comments (0)
October 28, 2004
Douches and Turds Aren't The Issue
Why South Park Missed The Point with their "Don't Vote" gambit In case you missed it a few weeks back, Sean Penn very publicly took exception to the message of the most recent film from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Penn was not amused by the South Park guys' suggestion that it was okay to skip voting in the upcoming election. Specifically, Penn politely argued, It's all well to joke about me or whomever you choose. Not so well, to encourage irresponsibility that will ultimately lead to the disembowelment, mutilation, exploitation, and death of innocent people throughout the world. The vote matters to them. No one's ignorance, including a couple of hip cross-dressers, is an excuse. All best, and a sincere fuck you, Sean Penn Of course, one might imagine that this is exactly the sort of thing that leads the South Park guys to feel extremely...
Posted by thatkid at 7:28 PM | Comments (0)
October 14, 2004
Tivo(tm)-Proof TV, Times Three
Was Wednesday, October 13th the best night of live TV in 2004? Holy Macaroni! For a guy who's usually fired up about an EPL replay from the previous weekend on FSW or non-rerun Daily Shows, last night, Wednesday, October 13 2004 might have been the most overwhelming night of TV I've encountered in a while. Usually I'm taken aback if there's one show on in a day that I will plan around (things typically found in this category: Philadelphia Eagles games and HBO's The Wire), but to have THREE in one day -- A Wednesday no less -- is pretty noteworthy. I'm speaking, of course, of the unlikely Must-See trifecta of (1) US Soccer vs. Panama at 7:30 pm on ESPN2, (2) Yankees-Sox on FOX at 8 pm, and then (3) the final presidential debate at 9 pm on all the other channels (most of them, at least). The killer...
Posted by thatkid at 7:14 PM | Comments (0)
October 9, 2004
I Read It On One Of The Internets
When in doubt, raise your voice! Despite the negative poll results and the general feeling amongst the punditocracy, I didn't think that the first debate went exceptionally poorly for President Bush. It didn't go well, but it also didn't go as badly as it could have, given that (and I have to say that I love this description, courtesy of an unnamed but very astute journalist friend of mine) "the factual environment is very anti-Bush." (Factual environment! Phenomenal!) The second debate? This one I will unabashedly say went HORRIFICALLY for President Bush. Bear with me a moment as I drop some extensive sports metaphors/ cliches: Bush came out really tight and forced a few balls on his first series. Threw pick that got returned for a touchdown. Then he fumbled the subsequent kickoff and Kerry scored three plays later. Suddenly he's down 14-0. And he has to start throwing. Only...
Posted by thatkid at 2:11 PM | Comments (0)
October 3, 2004
Go Look It Up At The Liberry
strong>I mean, who are we to tell him how to pronounce "Nuclear" For all the grief that President Bush takes for his malapropisms and other assorted mumbles and stumbles, I think that the criticisms of his routine mangling of the word "nuclear" need to stop. Not because President Bush is pronouncing the word correctly -- he's definitely not. But as the man is currently in ultimate command of more nuclear weapons than any single person in the entire world, who are we to tell him he's pronouncing the word incorrectly? Maybe once I have my own nuclear weapons I can start telling other people how to pronounce it. I'm just sayin' is all....
Posted by thatkid at 11:24 AM | Comments (0)
October 1, 2004
Killing Him on Topicality; Close on Speaker Points
That's how you debate! For all the hours and effort that I put into the speech and debate team in high school, I really should have a more complex and nuanced set of opinions in re: last night's presidential debate. In my defense, I'll argue that said encounter was really only occasionally a debate, and was more an exercise in two people taking turns giving speeches. And that's fine. This is the paradigm, and it's not a bad paradigm -- the American people get to hear both candidates articulate their positions on a number of topics, and the electorate walks away more informed. Apologies aside, here were my big takeaways from the debate: Red Is Blue And Blue Is Red: how cool was it that Dubya wore a BLUE tie while Kerry wore a RED tie. That is, the RED-state dude wore BLUE, and the BLUE-state dude wore RED! (Or...
Posted by thatkid at 11:58 AM | Comments (0)
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