LEAVE IT TO PEEVER

The Olympics and the world

-Bumper sticker of the week: Neoconservatism-like regular conservatism, only fascist.

-Quotes of the week: “Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.” Karl Marx

“If a man who cannot count finds a four-leaf clover, is he lucky.”

-The Olympics: I always have mixed emotions about the Olympics. I like to see the athletes, who have devoted a good portion of their lives in the pursuit of becoming the bast that they can be. Some of the events seem a bit unusual and mundane to me, but than, who am I to judge. Each country, and in some cases, locality, has its own, prized sorting event. (For instance, in my back yard, a good bags thrower or blongoball player gets a lot of praise). At any rate, eight gold metals for a swimmer who has struggled with ADHD all his life I quite a feat. And that opening ceremony. As Harry Carey would have put it, “Holy cow!” That was a glimpse of what China is going to become. They will surpass us in every category imaginable over the next ten years, with the exception of, perhaps, beer drinking. And where the hell are some of those countries? The opening parade of athletes is a geography lesson. I never heard of half of them. But all the pomp and circumstance does not hide the tension and nationality lurking just beneath the surface. During the opening ceremony, approximately 25-30 armed conflicts are going on around the world, with a new one emerging almost in sync with the opening parade, Georgia and Russia. The announcers do their best to glorify and transform the event into peaceful cohabitation and cooperation among the athletes, but reality seeps out every so often. Just beneath the surface of the water, right underneath the gym floor, hiding under the sand, is the reality that not all is well. That we still fight over territory, oil, religious differences, ethnic differences, pride, greed, arrogance. The most compelling reason I watch the Olympics is to come away with the hope that perhaps our leaders will bring the same degree of excellence to politics and leadership as I am seeing on the TV screen. As I watch Michael Phelps win his eighth gold metal, overcoming enormous pressure, and his lifetime problem of ADHD, I can only hope that the leaders of the world are seeing the same thing that I am: An invitation to be our best.

-More Republican bull----: More of the same. The Republican Party knows that they cannot win the election with McCain, so they resort to lies and deception. They did it with Gore, the did it with Kerry, and you knew damn good and well they would do it with a minority candidate. The head honcho of the Swift Boat Submarine Sailors launched a book entitled, “The Obama Nation.” (I’m assuming he listed it as fiction, or he should be sued). At any rate, the book comes out of Karl Roves play book for waging sleazy politics, and continues to be financed by T. Boone Pickens, the billionaire Texan recently on TV seeking redemption for his capitalistic ways. But the Swift Boat Sailors have two things working against them this go-around: We’re on to their lies, and Barack is not going to roll over and take it, like our last three candidates did. This time the good-old-boys will have to deal with all of us, including old T. Boone. He’s a bag of wind that has long been used up. If I were Barack Obama, I would stay as far away from old T. Boone as I could get. Pickens has no intention of doing him any favors.

-In the scheme of things, there are some things I just wouldn’t do:

* I wouldn’t vote for John McCain under any circumstances that I can think of. Perhaps at gun point, put I would have to really think about it.

* I wouldn’t drink a whole bottle of tequila.

* No more nude swimming.

* I would play golf every day, but I wouldn’t want to explain it to my wife.

* I wouldn’t want to own property in Florida.

* I’m not interested in sky diving, race car driving, or living in Chicago.

* And I still would not bet on the Cubs.