Sports, Palin, Dieting, Avatar and Voodoo

Mark McGuire said that he took steroids. Ooh. Didn’t see that coming.
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Now that Sarah Palin is a newscaster, will she take back all those unkind things she said about the news media?

Doesn’t matter, she’ll quit in a year and a half (or less).
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No one wants to hear about how I want to lose weight. I get no empathy. Weight is a big deal when you’re trying to run. I’m not looking for a lot of empathy, losing weight is easy for me. I hear that it is hard for other people, though. I have empathized for years, but I’m losing patience. I diet. I train. I generally succeed. Yes, it sucks. Yes, I do it. How can you diet for 2 years and not lose any weight? Either your plan stinks or you don’t follow it.
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Two stories on why you should think twice before going to the doctor:

Ignoring everyone’s advice to see a doctor, I got through my back sprain without anything more than a bottle of ibuprophen. Since I’ve been doing runs over 20 miles, I’m going to call it “100%”. I may relapse, but I might do that even with a doctor’s advice.

Story #2: A few months ago, my kindergartener was having these episodes where she wouldn’t behave. I was worried that she would have to go to a child psychologist. He’d set up regular therapy sessions and 5 years later she’d be either still on square 1 or stoned on Ritalin. Anyway, it let up a little before Christmas. Her teacher had a stuffed Santa’s helper “watch” the kids. The Elf on the Shelf did the trick. Yay! So much for the $140 per hour kid’s shrink.
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That James Cameron. One of these days, someone in Hollywood is going to give him a big budget to work with. Then he’ll knock out some real box office gold.

For those who look to the Pope for their movie reviews, he was pretty lukewarm on Avatar. (get it? Luke-warm? The Bible guy? No?) The Vatican said that it was visually stunning, but they didn’t care for its celebration of paganism. But hold your picket signs, they also said it was “harmless”.

I decided to attack any successful pop culture in order to grab the spotlight. I will start with protesting Star Wars for its incestuous overtones between Luke & Leia.
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Bush left office with essentially no new jobs in eight years. The S&P dropped about 4.25% per year, too. Great job, buddy. I want to have a beer with you. And dump it on your smirky head. Even Jimmy "Malaise/Stagfaltion" Carter managed to grow 2.6 million jobs per year and eek out a positive return in the market.
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There’s an earthquake in Haiti, and there is a great, worldwide effort to save the survivors. Except, of course, the extreme Right Wing. They dedicate their efforts to blaming someone. Pat Robertson blames a deal with the Devil, and Rush Limbaugh blames Obama, which means that they both agree in lockstep.

Robertson’s blame fixing doesn’t make any sense. He cites some voodoo ceremony in 1791 that supposedly started the slave revolt in Haiti. God is on the side of slave owners? The French were notoriously evil slave owners. They made the slave owners in the American south seem downright generous. Life in Haiti has never been idyllic, but who would choose a life of slavery and near-starvation over freedom (and near-starvation)? God dealing retribution nine generations after a sin is unhelpful, anyway.

You know what else Pat Robertson’s comments made me think: Voodoo ceremonies work! I’m going to sacrifice a chicken tonight. I don’t have the time or the stomach for the whole thing. I’ll just order McNuggets and inflict pain on my enemies by poking the Avatar action figure with my soda straw. Beware!