The NFL

jets protest copy

I’ve been a football fan for as long as I can remember so even though there is nary a word left unsaid regarding yesterday’s NFL protests, here are eight hundred or so of mine: Black men and women disproportionately fill our prisons. “Black Americans are 2.5 times as likely as white Americans to be shot and killed by police officers,” according to census data available from 2016 (from the Washington Post). We do not yet live in a post-racial society. Former NFL quarterback Colin Kapaernick … [Read more...]

Super Bowl XLVIII (I love Roman numerals)

Super Bowl XLVIII

First, Philip Seymour Hoffman.  As my sister said, there was nothing he did, not on stage or screen, that wasn’t good.  Hoffman was a favorite actor of mine from the get-go, which for me was 1994's “When a Man Loves a Woman”, one of the better movies to deal honestly with alcoholism.  He played a fellow rehab patient to Meg Ryan’s and now, as we all know, Hoffman was sober himself for over 20 years.  That he apparently died of a drug overdose surprises no one who has fought addiction, even as it … [Read more...]

Today’s cup: gamers and HIV, Obama’s deficit proposal, the Emmys, the NFL, and the MLB

Recent news regarding the enormous tax breaks afforded to video game companies such as EA, maker of Mortal Kombat and Battlefield, had gamers anxious to come up with something big to prove that they were worthy.  The tax incentives, written in 1954 and expanded in 1969, were put in place to encourage technological innovation. With today’s news that gamers made a significant breakthrough in unlocking the code of a protein involved in the spread of HIV, a goal scientists have tried to reach for … [Read more...]

Today’s cup: the economy, jobs, the FAA, and other fun stuff

This may sound ignorant and unlike me, but I’m so burned out on the economic news of the last few weeks, I’ve stopped paying attention to the details.  When I hear about stocks and investors and interest rates, I realize the only question I feel personally interested in asking is, “Are people finding jobs?”  So yesterday’s stock market decline was icky, but July’s jobs report was less so.  In fact, the private sector’s 117,000 new jobs added last month beat expectations and helped lower the … [Read more...]

Today’s cup: idiots in Washington, and why they made it hard to care (and other bits of news)

Congress hasn’t voted on it yet, but President Obama, John Boehner, and a bunch of knuckleheads in Washington hammered out an agreement to raise the debt ceiling so we won’t default on any of our financial obligations this week.  I hate to be Debbie Downer, but our government sucks right now.  I won’t go so far as to say all of them.  There are some very bright, once-determined, once-idealistic, once-enthusiastic members of both the House and Senate who believed in trying to make a difference … [Read more...]

Today’s cup: the jokers in Washington, Winehouse’s memorial, the NFL is back, and McDonald’s

I was hoping by the time I shed my children for an hour – and by “shed”, I mean “ignore” – and got down to writing a post, the fools on the Hill would have come to their senses and worked out a plan for raising the debt ceiling.  No such luck.  On Monday night, President Obama took to the airwaves, essentially pleading for our help, urging us to write our representatives in Congress telling them that the “three ring circus” going on right now in Washington is unacceptable and the debt ceiling … [Read more...]