Is it over yet?

Haitian born musician and former Fugees front man Wyclef Jean is not giving up on his desire to become Haiti’s president, even though he was considered ineligible to run because he hasn’t lived in the country over the past five years (lucky for him).  I was thinking this week how much Obama wanted to be president of the U.S. at a time when the country was falling apart economically, we were fighting two wars, and there was a general feeling of malaise and disenchantment among the natives.  He got his wish.  To Wyclef Jean, looking to lead one of the poorest countries on the planet, a year after a devastating earthquake, I say be careful what you wish for.  I wonder if Jean read James Dobbins’ recent article, “A to-do list for shoring up Haiti“?

Thirty-three miners were found alive after seventeen days following a cave-in August 5th in Chile.  Trapped in an area about 540 square feet and over 2000 feet into the earth, it was originally thought the miners could be rescued sometime near Christmas.  What the heck?!  Christmas?  Four inch diameter bore holes have been used to pass the miners supplies through a “tunnel”, including food, letters and clean clothes, but Christmas?!  It sounds like a new reality show, “Extreme Big Brother”.  Today, however, mine engineers believe they’ve come up with a Plan B that may halve the amount of time the miners will be trapped.  So maybe Halloween?  Oh, the stories that will come out of this…

China this week reportedly has decided to revisit their death penalty policies.  Considering the country puts more people to death each year (around 5000 in 2009) than the rest of the world’s governments combined, the reevaluation sounds a bit overdue.  Caught cheating on your taxes in China?  Stealing fossils, damaging public property?  You’re dead.  Seriously.

Former president Jimmy Carter helped secure the release of American Aijalon Mahli Gomes from North Korea and was bringing him home to Boston on Friday.  Gomes was arrested in January after illegally entering the country from China for unknown reasons and sentenced to eight years hard labor.  After Euna Lee and Laura Ling obtained their release via Bill Clinton a year ago from North Korea, shouldn’t we more strongly discourage our citizens from getting anywhere near there?  In terms of ex-presidents able to come to the rescue now, we’ve got George H.W. and his son.  I wouldn’t take my chances.

Former Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman has come out as a homosexual, after “arriving at this conclusion…fairly recently”.  Mehlman, who headed the RNC from 2005-2007, just after  George Bush and his administration pushed an anti-gay marriage amendment, still believes there’s a place in the Republic party for homosexuals.  I disagree.  I don’t get the Log Cabin Republicans.

Glenn Beck was at the Lincoln Memorial today with friend Sarah Palin, on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech delivered at the same location 47 years ago, addressing thousands upon thousands of tea partiers eager to “restore honor” to this great country and deliver us from “wandering in darkness”.  Glenn Beck, you are no Martin Luther King Jr., not by a million miles.

A judge in Washington D.C. on Monday stopped federal funding for President Obama’s expanded stem cell research policies, effectively reverting to the intent and language of the 1995 Dickey-Wicker amendment.  Read my post about it from Tuesday and don’t be ashamed for smiling after reading “Dickey-Wicker”.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan jumped into the fray caused by the Los Angeles Times release two weeks ago of teacher evaluations as they pertained to student test scores and achievement.  It should come as no surprise to anyone in the state of California, specifically the LAUSD, that the teachers’ union doesn’t want any part of a teacher’s “grade” to be tied in with a student’s “grade” (my quotation marks).  The discussion isn’t about making a test score the definitive indicator of whether or not a teacher is effective but rather one of several factors indicating an instructor’s success.  United Teachers Union Los Angeles president, A.J. Duffy (sounds like an NFL quarterback), says the union is willing to sit down with the LAUSD and talk but won’t make any commitment about what he’ll talk about.  So again, the children suffer and on Tuesday, California lost out on federal funds from the Race to the Top initiative.  All is well.

I heard a rumor some Muslims are thinking about building an Islamic community center near ground zero.  Have you heard about that?

“Avatar” was released again this past weekend with an additional eight minutes of footage.  Is it just me, or wasn’t the original version long enough?  Too long?  I will say though that of the seven-thousand movies released in 2010 using 3D technology, “Avatar” was the only one worth the trouble, and the extra price.

Tiger Woods finally did well golfing, shooting a 6-under 65 on Thursday at The Barclays in Jersey.  Today, however, he hit a triple bogey, among other bogeys.  Oh, and his divorce was final this week.

Twelve days to the season opener of the NFL, Thursday September 9^th, the Minnesota Vikings vs. the New Orleans Saints on NBC.  And yes, before then there’s a lot of baseball going on.  I like baseball.

And I think I like all of you, although I’m not sure.

This is NOT what the Islamic Center will look like.

I don’t know.  I wasn’t excited about the news this week, good or bad.  There was news, sure.  Levi Johnston is seeking public office in Wasilla, so I’m not claiming it was a quiet week.  Not at all.  Primary elections continue to add color to the picture in November.  A flight attendant named Steven Slater gave new meaning to the phrase “You can’t fire me, I quit!” with his profanity laced tirade against a rude JetBlue passenger.  Stuff happened but like congress, a vacation mentality has set in.  Regardless…

There’s a bit of a “my dick is bigger than yours” charade going on near the Korean peninsula.  If you recall, back in March, North Korea torpedoed a South Korean warship that killed 46 soldiers.  They won’t claim responsibility but the facts are the facts.  In retaliation, sanctions were put in place and military exercises in the Sea of Japan commenced in July, involving the U.S. and South Korea.  Then last Sunday, North Korea seized a South Korean fishing boat that may have accidentally drifted into their exclusive economic zone.  The following day, the North followed up by firing 100 rounds of artillery into the waters off North Korea’s west coast.  It would be silly if it weren’t so scary.  North Korea has nuclear weapons that they’ve threatened to use should they be properly provoked, and their leader is no less frighteningly ridiculous than Iran’s Ahmadinejad.  Why doesn’t Kim Jong Il get as much press?  North Korea for that matter?  When Bush claimed, after no WMD were ever found in Iraq, that our real goal there was to get rid of Saddam Hussein because of what he was doing to his people, many wondered why we weren’t as benevolently concerned about the North Koreans.  I still wonder, even if I suspect what the reason might be.

Mia Farrow could’ve called Naomi Campbell a big, fat liar while testifying in the war crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor except that Campbell is a model and has probably never weighed much more than I did at birth.  Campbell claims she didn’t know where certain rough, “blood” diamonds came from when they were delivered to her hotel room in Pretoria after a dinner with Nelson Mandela, which Taylor and Farrow also attended.  Regardless, the trial continues in The Hague and will hopefully come to a conclusion that puts Taylor away for life.  I’m going to go out on a limb and say Taylor is a bad, bad man.

The World Health Organization has claimed this week that the H1N1 virus, better known as the swine flu (oink), is officially quiescent.  Good news for all of us, and an easy opportunity for me to use the word “quiescent”.

Many on the losing side of Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision overturning Prop. 8 still have their panties in a bunch over the idea of gays getting married.  One of their latest arguments is that Walker should have recused himself before trial because he’s homosexual.  I can’t write a better case about how wrong this approach is than the one Jon W. Davidson wrote in the Los Angeles Times on Friday.  Read it.

In business, the nation’s top five for-profit health insurers compensated their top executives a lot of money last year – to the tune of $200 million.  All but one received raises.  The poor guy at Aetna, Ron Williams, went from a paycheck of $24.4 million in ’08 to a mere $18.2 million in ’09.  This, while trying to hit customers with double-digit premium increases because of the rising cost of health care.  Ugh.

Looks like the smog in Moscow is letting up and temperatures have fallen one or two degrees.  Rain has helped clear the air and extinguish the wildfires near the capital as Muscovites toss their face masks in the air, a la Mary Tyler Moore.  You’re gonna make it after all.

President Obama said today that he supports the right of Muslims to build a mosque and Islamic Center two blocks from Ground Zero.  The right is up in arms, naturally, but they have absolutely no argument to stand behind.  I mentioned last week in my weekly wrap-up that I, too, supported their rights but thought further away might be a better idea.  In my mind, as I’m sure in the minds of so many others, was a gold-domed symbol of a religion I don’t understand, in the shadow of the Twin Towers site.  Intellectually, I know it is only a radical, extreme form of Islam that was involved on 9/11 and so I was hardly righteous in my feelings about the subject.  God bless Jon Stewart and his gang who put me to shame.  The Islamic Center will be built in a non-descript storefront and denizens of Manhattan don’t care.  Obama absolutely must support the right of religious freedom in this country, period.  End of story.

Actress Patricia Neal died Sunday from lung cancer at the age of 84.  My fond memory of her was from the Walton’s introduction in a 1971 television movie “The Homecoming: A Christmas Story.”  G’night John-Boy.  G’night Patricia.

Producer David L. Wolper, of “Roots” fame, died Tuesday at the age of 82.  Where were you when Kunta Kinte changed the course of television and riveted us for twelve hours over consecutive nights?

Former Alaska senator Ted Stevens died Monday in a plane crash near Bristol Bay, Alaska.  He was 86.  Though controversy surrounded the end of his political career, he was known as a man who thought of Alaska first and everything else second.  He was a leading advocate for Alaska statehood in what year?  Right.  1959.  His first wife, Ann, also died in a plane crash, in 1978.

Let’s see what the coming week brings.

It’s still news, whether I give it to you all on Friday or Sunday.  And it’s all still pretty interesting.  Thanks for your patience.

In California, where everyone is gay, Judge Vaughn Walker made his decision and believes that Prop 8 is unconstitutional.  (See for yourself.  Download “..the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law in Perry“.)   Motions for an appeal will begin quickly.  Forget the fact that tons of people agree with his decision.  Here’s my question.  How is it that we got to vote on this in the first place?  Seriously, I’m in need of enlightenment.  51% of voters in the Golden State decided the state constitution should revert back to the earlier definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.  Yet one of the huge reasons this state is in such a bad way is because of the two-thirds requirement of votes in our legislature, with our elected representatives, to pass a budget or raise taxes.  So we’ll gladly discriminate in our little voting booths with a simple majority but when it comes to the budget and taxes, we want a whole lot more than that.  (To that end, vote YES on Prop. 25 come November 2^nd).  It’s not my best argument, but it’s one that resonated with me.

Vaughn’s decision was based on compelling evidence presented in court by attorneys Theodore Olsen and David Bois against Prop 8 and an uninspired defense for Prop 8.  Turns out all the witnesses, from both sides, helped Walker come to the conclusion on a judicial basis that homosexuality is not a choice and that children reared in same-sex households present to the world the same complicated selves as children raised with a mom and a dad.  So there.  It looks as if the majority of experts on legal decisions such as this believe, if it goes all the way to the Supreme Court, Walker’s ruling will stand.

Elena Kagan was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday and was sworn in yesterday as the 112^th justice and the fourth woman on the Supreme Court.  We now have three women sitting among six men on the nation’s highest court and I’m thrilled, period.

August 6^th marked the 65^th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.  Japanese commemorate the day at exactly 8:15am when the atomic bomb “Little Boy” hit, killing 70,000 people immediately and 70,000 from radiation in the years following, and signaled the beginning of the end of the war with Japan.  No American representative has ever attended the event, nor been invited (duh), but that changed this year when U.S. Ambassador John Roos was welcomed on Friday.

In Kenya, 71% of registered voters came out to effectively change the course of how their country is governed.  Approving a new constitution to replace the old one written up after Kenya’s independence from Britain in 1963, this one hopes to eliminate corruption and provide checks on presidential power, while addressing land grabs and tribalism.  71% of voters turned out, peacefully. For a new constitution.  Worth noting, don’t you think?

First it was tweeted as an assassination attempt, then a simple crude bomb, and finally a harmless firecracker set off near Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s motorcade Wednesday.  Any way you look at it, Ahmadinejad was unharmed which means the world still has to deal with the crazy man.

A lot of people who make their living fishing in Alaska’s Bristol Bay don’t want the Pebble Mine Company constructing their enormous mine near their waters filled with sockeye salmon.  Honestly, what grabbed me about the story, other than the idea that those poor little salmon that I love to eat might be hurt or worse, was the picture the LA Times included of Katherine Carscallen, a third generation Alaskan fisherwoman.  She’s adorable!  Maybe Janine Turner in “Northern Exposure” wasn’t such an unrealistic casting decision.  I see a calendar in the future: “The Fisherwomen of Bristol Bay”.

And, of course, speaking of Alaskan Bristols: Levi and Bristol have called off their engagement again because Levi may have fathered a child with another girl.  I’m bothered that I don’t even have to use their last names.

A New York City commission on Tuesday cleared the way for construction of an Islamic Center two blocks from Ground Zero.  While I wholly support and agree with the commission’s decision based on the laws this country provides regarding freedom of religion and all that, I do wish they would have chosen a site further away.  Just saying.

In the Gulf, we’re hearing there’s no evidence from the FDA that chemical dispersants used by BP to break up the oil spilled from Deepwater Horizon have contaminated seafood.  Gut reaction: how do they know so quickly?  Shouldn’t they wait awhile, conduct more tests and observe before they go making statements like that?  The static kill using mud and cement to stop the damn leak looks good (it’s been three weeks now since oil crept out of the well) and the catastrophe is moving further and further off the front page.  I’m still going to want to know where the shrimp comes from the next time I make my jambalaya.

Massive flooding in Pakistan has killed close to two thousand and affected millions.  Reprisal killings in Islamabad continue, as does the war with Afghanistan.  Pakistan is competing with Haiti right now as one of the worst places to live on the planet.  Unfortunately, the competition is fierce.

On a lighter note, 16-year-old Justin Beiber is writing a memoir and 14-year-old Dutch girl Laura Dekker set sail this week on a trip around the world.  When I was their age, I was popping pimples and trying to understand how Algebra II Trig could possibly become applicable to my life as a future Broadway star.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have pledged to give half of their billion dollar fortunes to philanthropic causes and are asking other billionaires to do the same.  So far, Ted Turner, Microsoft’s Paul Allen, George Lucas and NYC mayor Michael R. Bloomberg have signed on.  Good, good, good.  But it brings up something I’ve been wondering lately.  Travie McCoy’s song “I Want To Be a Billionaire” has been playing on the radio incessantly.  The first line: “I want to be a billionaire so frickin’ bad” makes me ask when it became not enough to simply want to be a millionaire.  How much money do these kids need?  (I just said “these kids”.  Ugh.)

Tonight, 5pm PST, Dallas plays Cincinnati in the Hall of Fame game, marking the beginning of the pre-season in the NFL.  I know it’s unimportant to watch, but I’m turning it on anyway just to hear the sound.

Look for Monday Motherhood tomorrow.  It’s going to be gripping.

I’d say the news is all over the place this week, but it’s really not.  All things considered, the sky did not fall as some expected.  Arizona is still messed up, but I optimistically believe Judge Susan Bolton’s ruling will stand and immigrants will not fear being deported as soon as they venture out their front door looking for a better life.

Bolton at the 11^th hour issued a temporary injunction to prevent the most egregious aspects of SB 1070 from being implemented.  Among them, legal Arizona residents will not be accused of a state crime for failing to carry their “papers” with them at all times.  Protesters from both sides of the debate were out in force Thursday, when the law went into effect.  Arizona Governor Jan Brewer will appeal Bolton’s ruling.

Again, it’s good news from the Gulf but it’s good news that’s mysteriously hard to find, like the oil slicks once ghoulishly fouling the waters off Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida.  Microbes or bacteria or something equally tiny are assumed to be eating up the oil, which is a pleasant turn of events for bigger creatures who make their home there.  Brit Tony Hayward (Michael Sheen) is out and American Bob Dudley is in and wow is he dull.  He just might kill the whole Deepwater Horizon movie project.

Admit it.  You’d never heard of WikiLeaks until this past week when they published close to ninety-thousand documents pertaining to secret information from the Afghan war over the past six years.  It’s a pretty interesting site if you have hours and hours of free time to look over their troves of classified info.  Frightening about the Afghanistan leak is that few seem concerned with what might result from the bombshell.  Apparently, the “secret” info wasn’t the best kept and nothing new was exposed, including the realization that our relationship with Pakistan is a damned-if-we-do-damned-if-we-don’t one.  Under suspicion for giving the documents to WikiLeaks?  Bradley E. Manning, a rosy-cheeked 22-year-old soldier who allegedly thought he was doing the right thing.  When it comes to Afghanistan, it looks as if no one is doing the right thing.

Charles Rangel, the Democratic congressman from New York, will be facing trial for ethics violations.  There’s nothing sexy about the charges against him.  Rangel is accused of not reporting hundreds of thousands of dollars in income/assets and failing to pay taxes on his rental home in the Dominican Republic.  While this may all end in his resignation from the House after 40 years, Dems and the GOP are being suspiciously quiet about the matter.  Let’s just hope it’s because they have more important fish to fry, rather than a situation of “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Chelsea Clinton is getting married tomorrow!  Obama wasn’t invited and neither was I.  The nuptials will take place in Rhinebeck, New York and her soon-to-be-husband is Marc Mezvinsky, a Goldman Sachs guy.  They’re registered at Target.

Ellen DeGeneres has decided to quit “American Idol” and that’s okay.  I love her, but I don’t think the show really fit into what makes her Ellen.  Rumored replacements are Jennifer Lopez (good) and Steven Tyler (bad).  I just couldn’t imagine having to look at Tyler’s face and mouth week after week.

Cute news out of Georgia.  A zebra and a donkey walk into a bar.  Months later, a zedonk is born.  Yeah, that’s right, zedonk.  Striped legs, killer ass.  Bun Bun wants one for her birthday.

Zac Efron is a dreamy dreamboat.  He’s also turned into a nicely understated actor with the potential for a very long career.  His “Charlie St. Cloud” opens today and in it, he doesn’t play basketball!  He can, however, throw a mean sinker which he promises to do with his younger brother every night at sunset until he leaves for college.  Plans change in horrible ways involving a drunk driver and Charlie never makes it to Stanford.  He sees dead people, namely his younger brother, but eventually learns how to move on through the love a good woman and wise words from the paramedic who saved Charlie’s life.  It’s a sentimental movie, not trying to be more than it is.  It’s unfussy, somewhat ethereal.  Other than an odd dental situation regarding the leading lady, I liked this movie and I have a big crush on Efron.

Moscow is having a freaky hot heat wave that makes deniers of global warming sound downright stupid.  Sure, odd weather patterns have happened over the past forty years, but none so often as the past ten.  Honestly, we have got to pay attention.  No more aerosol sunscreen in this family.

I’m gone.

Facebook topped 500 million users this past week.  Twelve-year-old founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to shoot for the stars and get that number to a billion by the end of next week.  Maybe he said next year, I can’t remember.  Are you a friend?  Will you be mine?

Agricultural Department employee Shirley Sherrod was caught saying some pretty racist stuff at a NAACP banquet and got herself fired.  Oh wait.  No, no.  That’s not right.  Actually, she was sharing an enlightened moment about looking beyond race in service to others.  Woops.  Guess some people shouldn’t jump to conclusions, especially when it’s a conclusion reached by a conservative website and then jumped upon by Fox News.  What the hell?!  What is wrong with these people?  Fox News!  Might’ve been a good idea to delve further into the video from which Sherrod’s “racist” comments were taken.  Duh.

President Obama signed into law on Wednesday the sweeping financial reform bill.  Now begins the search for the right person to head the consumer watchdog agency included within.  Harvard law professor and head of the congressional oversight panel for TARP, Elizabeth Warren, appears to be a favorite.  Business leaders are wary however.  They’re concerned about Warren’s “consumer activism” and “lack of bureaucratic experience”.  I’m sorry, but aren’t those the exact qualities we should be looking at for the position?

How come as soon as the news in the Gulf turns encouraging, the story gets bumped off the front page?  Honestly.  That cap on the well seems to be doing its thing and there were entire days this past week when no additional oil was being spilled into the waters.  Officials have even decided to keep the cap in place despite some impending inclement weather.  Of course everything leading up to this point has been catastrophic, and the wells being built to stop the leak permanently aren’t finished yet, but doesn’t this news deserve more coverage than being buried on page nine?

Speaking of good news, it looks like Lindsay Lohan will only have to spend about thirteen days in jail instead of ninety.  Phew.

Afghanistan is a friggin’ nightmare.  Some experts believe the imminent fight for the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar province will be the deciding factor in whether we eventually leave as victors or losers.  Any way you look at it, this long war’s cost has been tragic, both in lives lost and money squandered.  GOP Senator Richard Luger, of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said this: “Arguably, we could make progress for decades – on security, on employment, good governance, women’s rights, other goals – expending billions of dollars each year without ever reaching a satisfying conclusion.”  He’s right.  How awful.  Now what?

Major flooding in China appears to have killed close to a thousand people over the last several days.  Ten years ago, over four thousand perished after heavy rains.  Lu Ning, general secretary of China’s flood prevention agency believes, since the country knows the summer months bring the greatest percentage of their rainfall, they should be able to prevent and prepare for such disasters.  Shoulda, woulda, coulda.  We learned the hard way with Katrina.

Twitter was atwitter when Sarah Palin made up the word “refudiate” in discussion about a mosque possibly being built near Ground Zero.  My question is: what took her so long?  Bushie came up with “misunderestimate” shortly after taking office.

The greatest news of the week?  DirecTV has reached an agreement to produce not one BUT TWO new seasons of the FX drama “Damages” starring Glenn Close, probably one of the best television shows ever to grace the airwaves.  FX dropped the show because of low ratings and therefore low return on their money.  I have a DirecTV dish up on my roof and I will never say a bad word about them ever again.  “Damages”.  It’s back.

There’s quite a political and social conundrum taking place in France as the French consider banning the wearing of the burqa, the head to toe covering of women who practice an extreme form of Islam.  Correction.  The women don’t “practice” anything.  They’re forced to wear the garment by their men, who get overexcited by the sight of even a woman’s ankle.  I’ve got broken blood vessels around my ankles.  How quaint to think even mine would arouse these men.  Anyhow, yes, ban the burqa.  Religious freedom, my ass.  Who’s free?  Of course, prostitution is legal in France, so they may be a little messed up when it comes to what women want for their lives, but still.  Ban the burqa.

They’re still pedaling away in the Tour de France, which Alberto Contador of Spain has all but wrapped up for his third Tour victory.  The race officially ends tomorrow in Paris.  More importantly, the NFL has started training camp and the sights and sounds of my favorite season (football season) will be on full display August 8^th in the Hall of Fame game.

Later.