Mishmash Musings

I don’t care all that much about politics, so I haven’t been watching the RNC, just getting highlights from the news and the Internet. Everyone’s buzzing today about Sarah Palin’s speech at the RNC, with most analysts and experts saying she acquitted herself rather well and did what she had to do in terms of combating some of the negative press already swirling around her selection as the VP candidate.

Anyway, because of all this buzz, I decided to watch the entire Sarah Palin speech video on YouTube. She actually was pretty good, maybe not the same kind of orator that Obama is, but good in her own way. However, I don’t think that’s going to be enough to stop the media hounds from doing their thing, going after her family, her past, and her record (all fair game for a national candidate, IMO). Still, maybe there’s a lot more to Palin than I initially thought….

Here’s part one of the Sarah Palin speech video. For the rest, just go to YouTube!

What is it about NFL players that seems to attract nothing but trouble? At about 2:45 local time this morning, offensive tackle Richard Collier of the Jacksonville Jaguars was “critically wounded” after being shot while waiting for two women outside an apartment.

Details of the shooting are still sketchy, but apparently Collier and a former Jaguars teammate met these women at a nightclub and were waiting for them to come back out from their apartment when a gunman sprayed bullets at Collier’s Escalade. Collier was hit several times, but so far reports have not specified where he was hit. All of the reports, however, say that his injuries are critical.

Collier’s passenger was unhurt.

Collier underwent surgery at Shands Jacksonville Medical Center, and remains in stable but critical condition according to a Jaguars press release. The medical center has declined to provide further updates about Collier’s health, which could be the result of a request from family members.

Because of the lack of details, the online community is left speculating about what might have happened. Some people think Collier was set up to be robbed by the two women after they found out he was an NFL player or whatever, while others think this was just a random event.

To me, it doesn’t seem all that random, especially since an early report indicated that the shooting occurred in an upper middle-class neighborhood. It’s not like Collier was hanging out in a shady or dangerous area of town where things like this happen all the time.

At any rate, I hope Collier pulls through this one. I can’t believe the number of NFL players who get into trouble off the field. It definitely seems to be a higher proportion than in other sports. Maybe it’s because the actual NFL season is shorter than other sports, giving the players more free time to mess around.

I just read that Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is 5 months pregnant. The girl is unmarried and still in high school (presumably). Palin insists that her daughter and the baby’s father are going to keep the baby and get married, but even so, that hardly seems like something the conservatives want hanging over their head during the campaign.

The thing I don’t get is that McCain’s people had to have uncovered this during the vetting process, which means they were perfectly willing to roll the dice on Palin despite her inexperience, her unknown name, and her pregnant teenage daughter. Wow, how desperate are things in the McCain camp anyway?

According to the article I read, the Palins decided to come forward with news of their daughter’s pregnancy to dispel online rumors that their 5-month-old son was actually the daughter’s. Yep, there are people out there who believe that Palin faked her pregnancy to cover up for her daughter.

Wait, wasn’t this an entire storyline last year on Desperate Housewives? I can’t believe a national campaign would even bother taking the time to address this stupid rumor.

Either way, it doesn’t seem like the Palin selection was very smart. She might bring in a few extra voters for McCain, but something tells me he would have done much better going with a traditional selection.

I usually don’t care much about the weather or hurricane warnings, but this whole Gustav situation has me positively riveted. I can’t believe that another massive storm is bearing down on New Orleans just a few years after Katrina devastated the city.

This time around, people seem to be taking the government warnings more seriously. There’s a mandatory evacuation in effect, all highway lanes have been rerouted to lead out of The Big Easy, and everyone’s acting with a sense of urgency.

I really hope Gustav doesn’t do major damage to New Orleans and that all these precautions turn out to err on the safe side. The region just wouldn’t be able to stand another massive natural disaster.

Wow, the celeb gossip sites are buzzing with reports that Mackenzie Phillips, former star of the late ’70s/early ’80s sitcom One Day at a Time, was arrested while going through security at LAX after guards found a “small amount” of heroin and cocaine. One site is reporting that she actually had crack on her person, but most other sites are simply saying cocaine.

Anyway, Phillips has had drug problems ever since she was on One Day at a Time, and in fact it was her drug problems that caused her to leave the show to begin with. I can’t believe that nearly 30 years later, she’s still dealing with the same issues! What the hell is wrong with her? Why can’t she get clean? Her system must be an absolute mess after being ravaged by drugs for decades….

I guess some people never learn and are destined to meet their end in a certain way. I’m surprised that Mackenzie Phillips hasn’t overdosed yet. Could that be the next time she makes headlines?

So which country do you think is doing the best at the Olympics? I guess that depends on whether you live in the United States or in the rest of the world. Apparently, when viewing American-based news sources, the table listing Olympic medals shows the U.S. at the top because of the total number of medals won (i.e. gold, silver, and bronze).

News sources from most other countries, however, show China at the top of the medals chart because they base the count on gold medals only. All of the European and Asian news sources that I’ve checked list the Olympic results this way. Here’s a medal table from the Guardian newspaper in the UK:

And then there are some places that prefer to list the top countries based on medals per capita, which at this year’s event, would put Jamaica in the lead. After all, these people argue, of course China and the U.S. are going to get a ton of medals when they each send nearly 700 athletes to the games!

I personally don’t care how people rank countries in the Olympics because I hate almost all the events. But I just thought it was interesting that there are so many different kinds of tallies out there.

I’m not that interested in the Olympics, but softball is one event that I don’t mind — probably because I played it while growing up. So I kind of follow the Olympic softball team every now and then, especially since they usually have no trouble beating their opponents. In fact, they were something like 21-0 in Olympic play heading into yesterday’s gold medal game against Japan.

But then the unthinkable happened: The U.S. lost when it counted most. Just like the New England Patriots, being undefeated meant nothing when it came down to the championship game. The Pats lost the Super Bowl, and will forever be remembered as the team that couldn’t close the deal. The 2008 Olympic softball team lost the gold medal game, a disheartening way to end their time in Beijing. The fact that softball will not be back as an Olympic event for at least 8 years (and quite probably more), doesn’t help matters either.

Anyway, Japan ended up beating the U.S. 3-1 to secure gold on Thursday night. Some people are pointing to this game as a reason that softball should continue to be an Olympic event, saying that there is “parity” throughout the world after all. Um, yeah… Did they forget the part where the U.S. team had outscored opponents 57-2 in this Olympics prior to the medal round? Does that sound like parity?

Well, we’ll see what happens to softball eight years from now.

I don’t get it. I’ve been hearing a lot about how this is the last time softball will be an official Olympic event, and I simply don’t understand why it’s being dropped. Is it not exciting enough? Are some teams too dominant? Is the sport not mainstream enough? I have no clue what the official reason is, but I have a feeling it’s bogus anyway.

Why would I say that? Because I was just perusing a list of other Olympic events and came across the following: Synchronized swimming, Canoeing, Equestrian, Fencing, Field Hockey, and Handball. Do you really mean to tell me that any of these events are more mainstream or draw more of a crowd than softball??? Are you freakin’ kidding me? What a complete joke. No wonder I stopped watching the Olympics back in the ’80s.

I just read that Anthony Hart, younger brother of former freestyle motocrosser Carey Hart, died last week from injuries sustained in a Supermoto crash. Anthony was going through qualifiers at the New England Grand Prix, which is a benefit race for former MX racer Doug Henry, when he crashed on one of the asphalt portions of the track (Supermoto combines both asphalt and dirt racing). The worst part is that Anthony was just 21 years old, with his whole life in front of him.

Motorcycle deaths strike particularly close to home, since my husband races motocross. He’s been doing it since he was 18, so even though I worry about him, it’s not as though I can ask him to stop. After all, he had this hobby long before he met me.

Still, I wish I didn’t feel like I should phone around for term life insurance quotes every time Jerry goes out to ride. There must be something that can be done — either to the tracks or the bikes — to make the sport safer. It really seems as though there have been far more accidents since those big 4-strokes came on the scene. Maybe it’s time to go back to the 2-smokers.

(I couldn’t find a picture of Tony, so that’s Carey up there.)

Monday was supposed to be the first day of school in Broward County, but Tropical Storm Fay has interfered with that plan. Broward County school district officials announced that parents and students should check www.browardschools.com for updated information as it becomes available.

Also, as Tropical Storm Fay bears down on Florida, tourists have been warned to leave the area. Though still designated a tropical storm at this point, meteorologists believe Fay could turn into a hurricane before it reaches Florida’s shores. The storm is currently over Cuba, and has reportedly left five dead in its wake after passing through Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

This sounds like it could be a bad one, so here’s hoping Florida residents are prepared and manage to get out of this one unscathed.

Okay, the hype about two men who claim to have found irrefutable proof that Bigfoot-like creatures exist has been inescapable. It’s on every blog I read and every news site I check, including reputable ones like CNN.

At first, I simply ignored all the stories, contenting myself with glancing at headlines only. But since these articles just won’t go away, I decided to start reading some today.

Apparently, two men named Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer have announced that they’ve found the body of a 7-foot tall half-man, half-ape creature that corresponds to the Bigfoot legends. They won’t reveal the precise location of their find because they say that there are several more of these creatures still living and they don’t want to turn set a bunch of hunters on them.

The men have released two photos of the alleged Bigfoot carcass, and say that the body is currently undergoing extensive DNA testing in California.

Well, I have my doubts about this “finding”, but then again, I’m not sure why anyone would go to the trouble of perpetrating a hoax of this magnitude. Plus, in this day and age, it would be impossible to put one over on the whole world, wouldn’t it? I guess the only thing to do is sit back and wait for the results of the tests and a more comprehensive press conference.

I just read that Julia Child and a bunch of other famous people were actually recruited to be spies for the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) during World War II. The OSS was a precursor to the CIA, and attempted to create propaganda, infiltrate enemy troops, etc.

The information comes after the release of 750,000 pages of formerly classified documents detailing the activities of the OSS spy network. Some other famous people whose name can be found in those pages are John Hemingway (son of Ernest), Teddy Roosevelt’s children, Arthur Schlessinger, Jr., former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, and former Major League catcher Moe Berg.

Kind of interesting that all of these people, some 24,000 total, were part of the OSS. No wonder spy novels and movies were big at that time!