Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
On The Way
Thursday
December 4, 2003
"So I try to be hip and think like the crowd
But even the crowd can’t help me now..."
-The Chi-Lites "Oh Girl"
I was just listening to the above-quoted song, which was used masterfully in an episode of The Sopranos (where Tony is driving around after an argument with his wife and the song comes on WCBS-FM -- one of the little touches that helps make the show so great). Licensing costs can make it a bear to use commercial music in television programs, but when it's feasible it can be very effective.
|  | | Chris Benoit's matches are definitely worth watching. |
Tonight I made it a point to watch the Chris Benoit/Brock Lesnar match on UPN's WWE Smackdown. As you might imagine with those two, it was an excellent performance. Benoit is just awesome in the ring, and the storytelling elements on the match were great as well. If every WWE TV main event was that good, the promotion wouldn't be having the problems it does today.
Also tonight, I tuned in for Survivor on CBS. That show is still the best put together of the "reality based" genre. After getting burned out on it for awhile, I'm really enjoying this latest season (there's nothing like some time in between to bring the freshness back). Plus casting players who don't mind playing mind games helps add to the fun. If I'm going to give you an hour of my life, I want some backstabbing, dammit!
A story that has received surprisingly little mainstream media run are the accusations by the heads of two large unions in Missouri against Joyce Aboussie, the national vice chairwoman of Democratic presidential hopeful Dick Gephardt. The unions in question both endorsed Howard Dean, and Aboussie allegedly threatened to lobby against collective bargaining rights in Missouri if members of the unions campaigned there for Dean. Yet another lesson that even within party ranks, politics is a dirty game.
|  | | Howard Dean is fired up about the 2004 election. |
I'll say this about Howard Dean: I don't agree with most of his political views, but I do appreciate the intensity and fire that he brings to the stage. He gets fired up in a way that most politicians don't (at least not in public), which is interesting to see. One rumor I've heard is that if Dean gets the Democratic nomination, outgoing Florida Senator Bob Graham may be chosen as his running mate (anything to secure the Sunshine State for the Democrats in '04, I suppose). Though I strongly suspect that Dean stands a stronger chance of securing his own home state (Vermont) than Al Gore did in 2000. People forget that had Gore won Tennessee (which he didn't), he would've won the election. Oops. Even Walter Mondale managed to win Minnesota (his home state) in his 1984 landslide loss to Ronald Reagan.
A friend of mine (who I won't name here) offered to bet me that President George W. Bush would win re-election in 2004 (as in, if Bush lost I'd win the bet). I politely declined. While I haven't agreed with everything President Bush has done, such as him signing the so-called Patriot Act, keeping John Ashcroft in power and recently suggesting that we "return" to the moon (if the original moon landing wasn't actually staged), I still strongly support him. Until a Libertarian becomes president, I doubt there will be any politician who I'll support more in our nation's highest office. So I'm pulling for him, and betting against him would be like betting on the Gators to beat the Vols when I expect the Vols to win (actually, now that I think about it, the same friend in question bet me on this year's Gators/Vols game, ha ha). Plus if I vote for Bush and bet against him, I'm an idiot (and I would say "one vote doesn't matter", but I do live in Florida after all...) Bush is a fundraising machine, and he seems to have learned from his father's postwar problems in 1991-1992 in how he is handling the current climate. Something tells me that Saddam Hussein will turn up dead in 2004 at some point before the voters take to the polls in November. Maybe Osama Bin Laden, too. A nice megapush into Election Tuesday, no?
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