Cindy Sheehan’s Coming to Town

I’m very happy that Camp Casey has pricked the conscience of a lot of folks this summer. I’m happy that Cindy Sheehan will be in Albany on Wednesday, and I expect I’ll see her at some point.

And yet – I still get the feeling that it won’t matter. Colin Powell was interviewed on 20/20 last Friday, admitted that he was suckered into believing the WMD info, acknowledged that it was a stain on his career that will be with him the rest of his life. Yet, he still believes in “staying the course.”

Someone: please give me some encouraging words that will help me believe that this war will end sooner rather than later.

Thhe schedule, for those who might care:
10 a.m.- set up Camp Casey on the Capitol Park West
12 noon-rally in front of the Capitol
7 p.m.- forum in Chancellor’s Hall, State Education Bldg., Washington Avenue

This is Constitution week. Friday and Saturday are Constitution Days. I would have totally missed this except that my wife asked me to find material so that she can prepare a lesson plan dealing with the Bill of Rights on Friday.

I do think the irony is palpable that this President, who signed the so-called USA PATRIOT Act, has put his signature on a law plugging the Constitution.
Meanwhile, this conversation is taking place in the Letters to the Editor in the local newspapers, and other papers, I gather; the “logic” is this: the soldiers are in Iraq “protecting American freedom and our way of life” ; one of those freedoms is the right to dissent; but that we ought not to use that right because we’ll undermine the troops and provide succor to the enemy. I’m sure that the opposition to the American occupation, or the Iraqi liberation, depending on how you view these things, is sitting around waiting for Cindy Sheehan to plot her next vigil so that they can strike.

My JEOPARDY! desire


I believe the new season of the aforementioned game show’s new season starts today.

When Merv Griffin, inspired by his wife, came up with the concept of JEOPARDY! four decades ago, it was a stroke of genius. Three players who thought they knew a thing or two get to compete in a game where they give you the answer and you have to come up with the question. If you win five games, you go away, but you come back for the Tournament of Champions.

After a champion has retired, through the luck of the draw, there would be three new players; one of them would be able to go back to their hometown and say that he or she was a JEOPARDY! Champion.

What the rule change a couple seasons ago has meant has been the creation of scarcity. Under the old rules, Ken Jennings would have been gone after day five; under the new rules, and Ken’s 74th victory, about 15 people won’t even make it onto the show. The Tournament of Champions of 2004, in order to fill the fifteen slots allotted, needed to go to more four-time and even three-time champions.

This really isn’t about Ken Jennings, though I admit that I had tired of him in the same way some people root for anybody except the Yankees; it’s about the game. This is the designated hitter in baseball, the shot clock in basketball. And while those changes in other sports have produced MORE offense for SEVERAL, the new JEOPARDY! rule change has been beneficial for only a few, and as detrimental to the game as Astroturf is on the knees of a football running back.

I wish they would change the rule, if not to five appearances, then certainly 10. I want MORE JEOPARDY! champions, not fewer. But with the spike in ratings during Jennings’ run, I don’t anticipate any change. Sigh.

(Oh, yeah, for those joining me recently, I was on the show. I discussed it at length in this blog for 11 Saturdays starting May 28.)
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I was flicking through the channels Saturday afternoon, and I saw Alex Trebek on one of those celebrity poker matches. Usually tight-fisted, according to the announcer, he won about $10K on a bluff (6 and 7 of hearts, I believe, with no pair). Tom the Dog can tell you more about celebrity poker in this column than I choose to know. And if you want to see the episode in question, I believe it’s airing again on Bravo this Thursday at 7 p.m., just before a new episode.

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