With the Final 4 matchups in the offing in Indianapolis, Kansas University basketball coach Bill Self has this to say in today’s Lawrence Journal-World: “There’s four good teams in Indy. The more I watch, the more disappointed I am in that I think that could easily be us, but in this crazy game it could easily not be us.”
It would be a most singular event if all four teams merged into one, and played ball just for the pure grammatical pleasure of it.
Sarah Palin is going to get $1 million for every episode of her proposed travelogue about the State of Alaska. The series will air, not on the Fox Channel, not on the Sci-Fi Channel, not even on the Cartoon Network, but on…THE LEARNING CHANNEL! Wanna go for a drive on the Bridge to Nowhere with Sarah? You betcha! Wanna see Russia from Sarah’s house? Only if you don’t wink. And such, I’m afraid, is the state of learning in America these days.
The April issue of Esquire magazine reports that a study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior indicates “women often do not know when they are sexually aroused, as opposed to men, who have a pretty good idea.” There is no mention as to whether or not the women in the study were aware that the men were up for grabs.
Today is the Feast of St. Joseph, the wood-working spouse of the Virgin Mary, who gave birth to You-Know-Who, who in His lifetime provided health care benefits to all the sick and uninsured who needed it. Two thousand and ten years later, it’s clear where standard-bearers like Joe Biden stand on the issue of Health Care Reform, but we continue to have doubting Thomases like Joe Lieberman, Joe Wilson, Joe Scarborough. And who even knows where Joe the Plumber is these days? St. Joseph, pray for us.
Legend has it that St. Patrick banished all the snakes from Ireland. If we pray hard enough, maybe the good saint will come back and rid us of all the snakes in Congress, the red ones as well as the blue ones. And then, if there’s time, because “sex addiction” seems to be rearing its head ever more frequently these days, maybe he can also tame the unruly snakes in the trousers of seminal celebrities like Tiger Woods, John Edwards, David Letterman, Eliot Spitzer, Mark Sanford, Mark Foley, Eric Massa, ad nauseam. Tennis, anyone? Snorkeling?
Former Representative Eric J. Massa of New York admits that he groped several male aides inappropriately in his office, grabbed another male staff member’s member at a wedding party, and tickled yet another male underling “until he couldn’t breathe,” but that there was “nothing sexual” about these close encounters of the gay kind. What surprises me is that Massa has not quoted Psalm 23 in his own defense: “Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”
First, New Orleans. Then Haiti. And now Chile. How much more can a modern-day Job take? How much more can a modern-day Job give? The spirit is willing, but our own economy is weak. It’s hard to turn off the news about disasters abroad, but what about ongoing daily disasters at home, if you’ve still got one? How do you spell Relief? Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.
According to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in a recent interview with Newsmax, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin lacks “the depth of understanding of the complexity of life that we’re living in today.” He also thinks that she has no political legs in 2012 because “public leaders need to have intellectual curiosity.” I beg to differ with the thoughtful Bush on the latter point. In my opinion, Sarah Palin is herself the biggest curiosity of all, intellectual or otherwise, that we’ve ever encountered in politics in this country. As to whether or not she has legs, not being into dismemberment issues, I must admit I’m stumped.
Not to be outdone by her erstwhile partner in sin, who has now been seen suavely clothed in TV talkshows and hirsutely unclothed in Playgirl magazine, Bristol Palin has agreed to appear as herself on the ABC Family drama series “The Secret Life of the American Teenager.” The 19-year-old daughter of Sarah Palin will be featured in an episode dealing with the consequences of condomless fornication and teen pregnancy. Since Bristol did not get famously pregnant all by her lonesome self, inquiring minds want to know if we’ll get to see her “Makin’ Whoopee” with Levi Johnston. To boost ratings, ABC Family should change the title of the show from “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” to “The Secretions of the American Teenager.” Reality TV doesn’t get better than this. It isn’t porno, it’s Sex Education.
If Sarah Palin wants to enrich herself further after all the lucrative book tours and speaking engagements run out, she can always set up shop as a folksy fortune teller. She doesn’t have to read the palms of her religious Republican followers, because she can just read her own. Her slogan can be, “With Sister Sarah, every day is Palm Sunday.” And for extra donations, she can also read the tea leaves of all the fervent and devout teabaggers. I’m surprised she didn’t do this last week in Nashville, when she was the keynote speaker at the first National Tea Party Convention. By the way, did anyone else but me notice that the convention was held at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, and that all the TV cameras showed the speakers preaching behind a Gaylord podium? Gay Lord? Really? Why weren’t all the people at the convention on their knees, worshipping their Gay Lord?