10.10.04
Badgers win it big yesterday against Ohio State. It was a big win in the sense that if they keep this momentum up for next week against Purdue, then they might even crack into the top 10 in both polls, improve their Rose Bowl bid, and who knows, maybe even sneak into a BSC bowl come Jan. The regional ABC scheduling meant that they were only playing a crappy game in DC that featured the closest two teams. I guess if I was just a couple states up north, then the UW-OSU game would’ve been televised. Ended up watching the game cast on ESPN.com and reading the recaps on the internet instead.
Meanwhile the Patriots are going for their 19th consecutive win, and UH beat Nevada around 3 AM this morning. Its kind of rare that all three of the teams I follow win. Usually they seem to do better when people aren’t watching, or when they are expected to do much less.
Its always interesting how much attention sports receives, commercial revenue, to the level of a cultural institution, or at least a popular culture icon. Watching the sportscasters reminds me a lot of watching political commentary on CNN or PBS. I think Thornton made the analogy between college sports stars and gladiators in Ancient Rome.
Watched the movie “Saved” which was both interesting, disturbing and frickin annoying all at the same time. Basically its about a teenage Christian girl who sees jesus in a swimming pool, interprets it as a sign to fuck her gay boyfriend to save his soul, and gets knocked up in the process. Of course she has to deal with all the funny looks from her classmates at her conservative Christian private school. The scary thing about it that I’m sure the characters in the movie weren’t that exaggerated in real life.
The second round of debates were this past friday, I think hands down Kerry won. He actually is saying things that actually resonate with people more, he’s not looking nearly as stiff, and with Dubya making smirks and winking at the camera now while giving half-baked responses I find it hard to understand how much of the right wing pundits and bloggers out there think that he won, let alone that it was a draw. Kerry said two things that stuck out of my mind that I think were important. First, on the topic of Abortion, he said that the issue is too gray and complicated to have a yes or no vote on it. He said that as a Catholic, he has reservations about it, but does not think it is right for him as an elected official dictate, or legislate his beliefs onto anyone else.
With the world so polarized along the line of faith and religion, I do think that the faith of our president does matter. I think the last thing we need right now is a president who is so narrow minded in his religion, or purported religion that he puts others lives on the line.
Secondly, Kerry nailed bush on the Patriot act, turning some of the rhetoric that the Republicans have been throwing about, that we should not be letting terrorists change the constitution. Dubya and his pals keep repeating that we should not change our resolve, and stay the course on this war on terror, and that by passing legislation that erodes our civil liberties is a way of staying strong in the face of the evil terrorists. They would obviously cut their nose off to spite their face.
Real Time with Bill Maher, David Cross had a good point. In responding to two very vocal and self-righteous sounding conservatives, he pointed out that they themselves do not see an end to this war on Terror. They in fact likened it to the war on poverty, which David pointed out rightfully so, that it illustrates that the arguement is in fact nothing more than rhetoric, and therefore, bullshit.