Climbing the Walls Beats Out Super Pac!

If you're anything like me, I'm a bit fatigued by the daily jabs, gaffes and sometimes sheer lunacy of the Republican Primaries. However,  like a nasty car wreck on the highway, you can't help but look over to see what's going on.

President of the Moon too?

Within the last week alone, I've seen Mitt serenading a crowd of seniors in Florida with, "America the Beautiful." Not to be outdone, Newt has promised that his goal will be to make the moon our 51st state during his second term! Of course, a barrage of questions ran through my mind and the top three were: 1) What legal/illegal narcotic is he addicted to? 2) Is it actually legal to claim an orbital sphere as a state? 3) And finally, how did the moon jump ahead of Puerto Rico on the statehood line?

A terrific head of hair!

Another fascinating aspect of these primaries have been the millions of dollars the Super Pacs have been raising for their candidates. In short, Super Pacs are groups created by individuals or companies, in support of a candidate and they can raise limitless amounts of funds. However, one caveat is that it is illegal for the candidate to supervise or coordinate any of these group's  activities. As you might imagine, these groups are able to use their funds to pay for a vast array of campaign related expenses, as well as bombarding radio and television airwaves with ads, either lambasting or supporting a candidate. If you've been keeping up with the results of the primaries so far, the amounts of money have made an impact on the outcomes. Even though I was totally aware of the large sums of money, I had no idea about the actual dollar amounts until this morning. Therefore, I've attached a link to a neat little graphic featured in this morning's  New York Times called, "Who's Financing the 'Super Pacs.'" Besides specifying the amounts of money each group has raised for their respective candidate, you'll also discover the group (s) and individuals supporting all of the Super Pacs.

Super Pac Man!

If you're a Colbert Report fan, you'll want to pay particular attention to the monies his Super Pac group has raised! The fact that he's created his own Super Pac and has been focussing his comedy routines on the bizarre and obscure rules surrounding Super Pacs have shed a light on the obvious need for reform!

Finally, Trampoline's New Frontier is a beautiful and amazing feature on making trampoline wall climbing an olympic sport. After seeing this video, I truly agreed with the notion that these individuals are incredible and disciplined athletes.

Enjoy and be good!

The Bark Side

I hate sounding like a cynic but sometimes I just can't help myself.

The crux of my cynicism is centered on the fact that the extremely private George Lucas, has been featured just about everywhere you go. Could it be that all of the Lucas revelations, coverage and Star Wars teasers are related to the release of his upcoming movie, Red Tails?

The first hint I knew something was up was a while back during the year, when the folks at Volkswagen came out with the wonderful commercial, featuring a young Darth Vader trying to conjure up the powers of the force. In the end, his father gives him a little help. Since then, an extremely in-depth analysis was written in The New York Times Magazine.  This past Friday, he was interviewed by Charlie Rose on CBS This Morning. He will also share his home and thoughts with Oprah on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Again, what tickles me is how much we get to find out about someone who is notoriously private as Lucas. We learn how much he thinks Hollywood sucks, how tough a time he had financing his new movie about the Tuskegee Airmen, how much he wants to make "artsy" movies, his emergence as a behind the scenes political powerhouse and we even get to learn about his new girlfriend!

Regardless of how the publicity apparatus rolls, George Lucas seems like a good guy, just the same. I also hope that a movie like Red Tails does well and I do plan on seeing it some time in the near future.

Finally, one of the added benefits we get from the Lucas / Star Wars wave of publicity is another great Super Bowl commercial teaser from Volkswagen called the Bark Side! I'll enjoy the commercial even more if the Giants have a rematch with the Patriots....and with the same outcome!

Enjoy and be good!

The Umbrella Man

I can hardly believe it's been close to three months, since my last blog.

I want to be completely honest and say that I am not apologizing for not writing. One reason for not wanting to is I don't want to associate any sense of guilt with not blogging. After all, the agreement I made with myself back in August was that I was doing this blog thing just for me. In short, if I don't feel like blogging for three months, then so be it. And should my two loyal followers have any problem with my decision, they have every right to call me at home and / or leave cold, icy messages on my voice mail (Although, I'm a bit crushed they haven't).

Another reason for dropping the writing has been that I've been teaching,  as well as searching for "greener pastures." Finally, I was also caught up in the preparations for Thanksgiving and of course, Christmas and New Years. I've also been 'subbing" for absent teachers at the Welcome Center, and squeezing in as much cycling as I could, during this unusually warm winter. I also have to add that for some odd reason, I've been watching a whole lot more football (Let's go Giants?). I've also been reading books at a an unusually intense pace! Since November, I've been catching up with my reading and hopefully, I'll give my reactions or reviews about these books a bit later (The Life of Pi, Lance and Steve Jobs).

In the meantime, I wanted to comment about something I had read about in the New York Times a few months ago and I was again reminded about him, while driving earlier this morning - The Umbrella Man.

For those of us who were around or who have read about the JFK assassination, there was a time when people didn't walk around with video cameras in their cell phones (Cell phones/smart phones hadn't even been invented, actually!) and the only visual testimony we had of what happened on this earth shattering day in history was the Zapruder film.

Well as we all know, the theories behind the assassination are endless and everyone has their own idea about whether there was a conspiracy involved in the death of JFK or if Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. The pure irony of this event is that the most powerful man on the earth is murdered and close to fifty years later, there isn't a definitive answer about what really happened!  Furthermore, the more time we take to examine these events, the less we know about what actually happened.

Case in point, the Umbrella Man! For many of those who have examined the film, as the President's motorcade is approaching, there is the strange and eery appearance of a man walking with a black umbrella on that fateful but beautiful day in Dallas. Conspiracy theorists have conjectured that this man was part of the plot and perhaps was there to signal the shooter (s) or perhaps he was a shooter himself.

In this particular video, Josiah "Tink" Thompson offers an explanation and further understanding of the mysterious Umbrella Man. While his reasoning is not as juicy or provocative as what the Conspiracy Theorists might want to hear, what  he has to say seems to explain a lot about those random occurrences in our lives that often defy explanation.

Enjoy and be good!