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In William Shakespeare, Hope for a Better Decade to Come
Tweet Share on Facebook December 31, 2009 Comment (31)By John A. Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
A Happy New Year to you all.
Here's a favorite quote from Hamlet.
Some say that ever 'against that season comes
Wherein our Savior's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.Let's hope the next decade is more gracious than the one we are ringing out tonight.
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Washington Remains a Sports Loser Town
Tweet Share on Facebook December 30, 2009 Comment (2)By John A. Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
I caused no small stir last year when, on behalf of the town's long-suffering sports fans—and making a clear exception for the Capitals hockey team—I called Washington, D.C., a loser town.
The city's sports barons were great at building stadiums, I said—and equally bad at building winning teams.
Well, the Washington Post admitted the obvious today, with a list of the top 10 local sports stories of the decade.
Can any city in America show so meager a collection of highlights?
(OK, OK, maybe Cleveland.)
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Attacking Yemen Would Only Help al Qaeda Terrorists
Tweet Share on Facebook December 29, 2009 Comment (11)By John A. Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
In the frenzied overreaction to the attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253, this morning's rant by Frances Fragos Townsend stands out. Townsend is a former assistant to President George W. Bush, who chaired the Homeland Security Council from 2004 to 2008. She should know better. But in today's Washington Post, she opines that "the American people are understandably fed up" with Yemen, which harbors the terrorists that equipped dim Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and she suggests that we go to war in yet another Muslim nation.
That would make three: Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan. Four if you count our aerial strikes in Pakistan. Five if, as some suggest, we bomb Iran.
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10 Good Books From the Decade
Tweet Share on Facebook December 28, 2009 Comment (2)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The world is alive with top 10 lists. Best of the year. End of the decade. Tops of the century. Too often, they come from critics whose tastes are jaded (and whose selections are then biased toward the strange and nuanced), whose lists are as much designed to demonstrate how cool the list-maker is, as to help the movie-goer, music-listener or reader. So here is a compilation of "Good Books Of The Decade" from someone who is not a professional critic, but reads a lot on the job:
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5 Reasons Even Republicans Can Love Health Reform
Tweet Share on Facebook December 24, 2009 Comment (118)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
In the spirit of the holidays, I offer these condolences to conservatives and Republicans (for if the GOP's recent defense of wasteful Medicare spending proved anything, it's that these two terms are no longer synonymous) who may otherwise have a hard time digesting Senate passage of the healthcare bill with their Christmas goose.
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Why Polls Are Wrong on Health Reform's Future Popularity
Tweet Share on Facebook December 23, 2009 Comment (22)By John A. Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Marty Nolan is one of the smarter guys to ever cover American politics for a newspaper, and so I pass along his thoughts on the political impact of the Democratic healthcare plan.
Marty's advice: Forget what the public opinion polls are showing now. And to a considerable extent, I agree.
The best features of the health bill—the security it gives to working families and the way it protects the rest of us from the terrible economic risks of catastrophic illness—were settled long ago. For months, they've been largely ignored in the 24-hour news cycle, and Americans have instead been fed a steady stream of stories about minor flaps like the abortion coverage.
I'll wager that some of the discontent measured by the polls reflects peoples' reaction to the news coverage, their traditional distaste for the lawmaking process, and their suspicion that Congress was never going to get the thing done at all.
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The Health Reform Bill is a Win for the Middle Class
Tweet Share on Facebook December 22, 2009 Comment (30)By John A. Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The Democratic Party (God-willing, the creek don't rise and Robert Byrd avoids a fatal cold) is about to give millions of hard-working American families a holiday gift of historic proportion. With all its imperfections, the Democratic healthcare bill is a triumph of political perseverance, and a sturdy foundation on which future generations can continue to build an efficient, modern, universal American healthcare system. But in the near term the legislation is, most of all, a godsend for the "little guys" and gals that the Democratic Party has, throughout our history, claimed to champion. Working class families that play by the rules and slave and sweat to make ends meet are about to receive $900 billion in aid from the rest of us.
No one deserves it more.
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Tareq and Michaele Salahis Have Nothing on the ‘Yellow Kid’
Tweet Share on Facebook December 21, 2009 Comment (3)By John A. Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Clarence Darrow would have enjoyed representing Tareq and Michaele Salahi, the alleged White House gate-crashers. Darrow enjoyed the bravado and guile of those who played the confidence game. He had a hard time saying no when they asked for help. "If they weren't so agreeable to associate with, and slicker than a regular fellow, they wouldn't be so successful fooling boobs," Darrow explained. According to a long article in today's Washington Post, the "boobs" victimized by the charming Salahis included several unfortunate Secret Service agents, a television production crew, and Desiree Rogers, the White House social secretary who, in contrast to her predecessors, is accused of favoring the limelight at the expense of the dreary details.
Darrow knew better than to invest much time or hope in the proposition that one of Chicago's legendary con men would ever keep a vow made to a judge that "This time, your Honor, I'm going straight."
It was a laughable assertion, Darrow said, for a true con man is incorrigible. Like the Yellow Kid.
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Washington Post's Politically Correct 'Avatar' Review: Liberal Movie Critic Mush
Tweet Share on Facebook December 18, 2009 Comment (210)What were they thinking? Further evidence of the decline of newspapers arrives with this morning's Washington Post, in which some doofus editor decided that film critic Ann Hornaday should tell us about the eagerly-awaited, gazillion-dollar science fiction spectacular Avatar in the same review in which she dissects the modest little period drama, The Young Victoria. We get not a review—of either movie—just a bunch of lame and left-wing middlebrow movie critic mush.
I like the Post's new Friday format, in which the opening of a big movie gets a ton of space and a nifty full-color graphic on the front page of the Style section. When I saw Avatar's space ships and monsters and catlike blue aliens splashed across the page, I was intrigued, and settled in with my morning coffee to read the review.
Silly me. Here is what I found:
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How to Fix Sports: A BCS Playoff, the Designated Hitter, Overtime, and More
Tweet Share on Facebook December 17, 2009 Comment (4)By John A. Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The University of Virginia soccer team won the national title last weekend which, given the school's performance in football and basketball these days, was a welcome gift for the Wahoos and their long-suffering alumni, of which I am one.
The way that UVA beat Akron, however, leaves something to be desired. The game for the national championship ended in a 0-0 tie, and was decided by that worst of all inventions, a shoot-out. Even when my team wins, it has always bugged me that a national or world championship should be rewarded, after a masterfully played game, through such a fluky contrivance.
I have a better solution: Enlarge the soccer goals, and allow more substitutions, in a sudden-death overtime. I call it Super Sudden Death. With a bigger net to defend, and more fresh legs running around, the goalies will allow more scores and the games can be decided properly.
All our sports need tending to. Wisely, the baseball commissioner has appointed a special committee to fix what ails the national pastime. The BCS system is an obvious failure that the lords of collegiate football need to correct with proper playoffs. In the spirit of the season, here are my suggestions:
