Just when we all thought that Tina Fey was going to get a bit of a break ...
... when we all thought that perhaps Governor Palin's Warhol-ian "15 minutes of fame" had already gone into overtime ...
... she reappears to endorse none other than Governor Rick Perry of Texas in his run for re-election in 2010.
First questions first: why do the media continue to attend to her? Is anyone seriously listening to any of this?
I never thought I would say that phrase ... "Football Bracketology". Sounds good. A college football national championship - football bracketology - ahhh gives me the warm fuzzies, just like I get when we're looking at the college basketball brackets in March.
A few posts ago, I proposed a structure for a college football national championship. Let's call it "December Delirium" after college basketball's "March Madness". College football, a great thing as it is now, would only improve for the better. Better for the fans, better for the coaches, better for the student-athletes, and better for TV and the sponsors.
So what would December Delirium have looked like for the 2008-2009 season?
What a great film. And what a bygone era.
Kodachrome. If you've ever shot 35 mm slide film, you've probably used it. In all of my days as a photographer, I have gone through plenty of rolls of it. As Simon and Garfunkel noted, it has beautiful colors ... "just don't take my Kodachrome away ".
As of December 20, 2007, there is but one remaining location in the world that develops the slide film - that being Dwayne's Photo in metropolitan Parsons, Kansas. The last stock of Kodachrome 64 was produced in March, 2007. At this point in time, fresh Kodachrome no longer exists. It's hard to believe, and sad but true.
So what would cause a company like Kodak to drop one of it's most popular products?
Here's an assignment similar to what I would have received in a high school History class:
Compare and contrast the following, with special relevance to foreign policy in the United States.
- The reminder by former President Bush (in his last national address) that we haven't had a terrorist attack on U.S. soil in the seven years post-9/11 ... and ...
- President Obama signing-off on the official closure of Guantanamo Bay within the next year.
Let's start with the first item. Simple question: how many attacks had we had on U.S. soil PRIOR to 9/11? The largest one in recent times was by a home-grown American in Oklahoma City ... but I think we'd be hard-pressed to find many entries on this list in the first place. So, let's all thank former President Bush for his attention to Homeland Security (otherwise known as civilians detained for indeterminate durations ... and wiretapping). We survived seven years ... much like we'd done before 9/11.
[Note 1/24/09: specifc statistics have been brought to my attention - see below. Please note the underlying "big picture" concept related to this]
This was all part of what was termed the "Bush Doctrine" .
That's about the only way I can describe today's events: Simply Moving.
There was no way that I was going to miss it. Sure, some of it was simply looking forward to the end of the eight years of the Bush administration. We all know people that were counting down the minutes once Obama won the election.
But it was about far more than that. This was a day for the ages. Put aside the cliches - it truly was a historic moment. Within it, there were many shades of bygone eras. There was the uplifting singing of Aretha Franklin, and the elegant John Williams composition performed by Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Gabriela Montero, and Anthony McGill. Pure emotion through music - at it's finest. And simply watching Yo-Yo Ma, playing and smiling all the while, was a sight and sound to behold.
Then, the moment we'd all waited for ... the swearing-in of the 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama. There was a little stumble on the oath of office - the political prognosticators on TV were reporting that Chief Justice John Roberts had in fact jumbled the order of the wording (funny how Obama had not voted for him - coincidence?) - but that was the only slight to the day.
When we look back in time at Obama's rise to the Presidency, I have no doubt we will remember his tremendous oratory skills. Today's inaugural address was no different. The focus wasn't on him - it was placed squarely on the citizens of the United States. It was placed on renewing our place in the global village. And, better yet, it was focused on a reminder to all of us - that this country has the roots of greatness firmly entrenched in the Constitution and in the hard work and inventive nature of our citizens, in good times and in bad.
Reverend Joseph Lowery's benediction was another work of art.
This morning I awoke to thoughts of time. Time is an amazing continuum. Moment by moment, we see the effects of this. We all get older, but hopefully we all get wiser as well. Unlike anything else we experience, time (and the passing of it) is simply hard to describe. It is very definitive, yet surreal.
This continuum is all the more apparent today - in many ways, a monumental day in the history of the United States.
Why so?
Let's look at "yesterday" - or eight years of yesterdays that will soon come to an end. Today is no better day to write about the legacy of President George W. Bush as he comes to the end of his second term in office. Front and center, we are left with the "Bush Doctrine". We are told that the country has not seen any terrorist attacks since 9/11 (under Bush's watch) yet how many did we see on U.S. soil before 9/11?
But it would not be appropriate to dive into "legacy" today. No sir ... there are more important issues at hand.
Our world is inundated with digital media. In an era of television (and now the Internet), we are readily exposed
to a barage of media, be it live footage, on-site reports, and images of just about any newsworthy (and not-so-newsworthy) event. There are days when it all becomes simply overwhelming and you just want to turn it all off.
But there are times when you witness something that is simply hard to believe or imagine. Landing an Airbus A320 in the Hudson River is definitely one of those moments.
When you first hear mention of an airplane crash, you think the worst thoughts. They don't happen very often, but when they do, they generally conjure up thoughts of the worst.
But on January 15, we were presented with a story that was, quite frankly, hard to imagine. It was a story in which truth was stranger than fiction. This is one time in which the media presented us with an amazing real-life story - which had a great ending.
Up to 60% of runners will sustain an injury within any given year. Poor running mechanics, in conjunction with poor, ineffective and outdated training methods, can pose a significant injury risk. "RunSmart" was written to address these issues in the running community.
"Running Injuries: Etiology And Recovery- Based Treatment" (co-author Bridget Clark, PT) appears in the third edition and fourth editions of "Clinical Orthopaedic Rehabilitation: A Team Approach" by Charles Giangarra, MD and Robert C. Manske, PT.
Allan Besselink, PT, DPT, Ph.D., Dip.MDT has a unique voice in the world of sports, education, and health care. Read more about Allan here.
Top 5 finalist in three categories: "Best Overall Blog", "Best PT Blog" and "Best Advocacy Blog".
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