Is a Simple Storybook Ending Too Much to Ask For?

At some point in the careers of many aspiring columnists and journalists, it happens. You have the column you had planned to write completely mapped out in your head, all set to go on the paper or computer, when suddenly, everything changes and you're forced to scramble for something else. This week's column was supposed to be about America's new sweethearts, two young women named Michelle who had captured the hearts of the people, one with a guitar, the other with her skating ability. In other words, I was hoping to be writing about the brilliant new singer-songwriter Michelle Branch and the presumed Olympic gold medalist Michelle Kwan.

Now I know how the guy who wrote "Dewey Defeats Truman" felt. Something happened on the way to a nice column: Michelle Kwan fell. She didn't get the gold medal. All this is just as well, as I also had plans to see Ms. Branch in concert tonight, but life (and work) intervened, so the column was already not going to be as good as I had hoped. Also, I don't think that in the grand scheme of things, Ms. Kwan really gives a rat's behind what she's done to an amateur internet columnist's work this week.

Nope, instead we exclusively return you to the Olympic Games, where what should have been the most awe-inspiring and touching night of the competition has been squelched by an entire country that has a lot of trouble getting over itself. That country, of course, would be Russia. You know the story by now, I chronicled the early stages of the pairs figure skating melee in this space last week... the Russian pair unexpectedly got better marks despite a bobble-laced program than the Canadian pair who skated nearly flawlessly. The Russians got the gold, the crowd booed, and thus began the biggest Olympic scandal since Tonya Harding discovered the conspiracy theory. Allegations of back-room deals with the French judge filled the air, while the Russian skaters maintained a petulant and almost condescending attitude toward the whole affair, saying that they had skated better, they won, so "nyah nyah".

Well, the Canadian pair got a gold medal of their own, and on the night of the presentation, it looked like four old friends on that podium as the Russians and Canadians hugged, shot the breeze, and smiled for the world's cameras. Then, the Russian delegation got involved. They claimed that the whole thing was orchestrated by an American media out to screw the Russians. Then, the French judge reversed her ground and said, "Ya know what, I really didn't make any kind of vote-swapping deal after all." Then, the Russians threatened to protest the 2000 gold medal of American wrestler Rulon Gardner, who at that moment just happened to be laying in an Idaho hospital near death with a case of frostbite after getting lost in the woods (brilliant PR move there). Then, other countries got involved. Two nights after a short-track speedskating race turned into I-690 during rush hour in an ice storm, with skaters crashing into each other all over the place, a South Korean skater almost practically hip-checked American Apollo Ohno out of yet another shot at a gold medal. He was caught (and rightly so), and Ohno got the gold, and once again we were treated to a shot of an arena full of booing spectators. The South Korean delegation got so incensed that they have threatened to file a lawsuit in U.S. District Court!!! This pretty much proves that no matter the event or situation, it's only a matter of time before the lawyers get involved and muck it up for everyone.

This all culminated the night of the ladies' free skate, the most-watched night of the Games. The Russians, now ticked off over a cross-country skier who got DQ'ed for alleged blood doping, threatened to take their athletes and go home. Is this kind of paranoia a leftover side effect of all those decades of Communist rule? Anyway, with that hanging over the judges' heads (almost an "our girl wins or we're outta here" threat), we got down to the business of watching what usually is the most beautiful spectacle in sport. And it was, and dramatic besides, as American Sarah Hughes, who was on absolutely NOBODY's radar screen when the night opened, started things off with an inspired program that blew the doors off the Olympic Ice Arena. Then, the other contenders started faltering... Sasha Cohen fell, knocking her out of contention. Then, Michelle Kwan, the early leader, the face we had seen all throughout these games, the story of patience and hard work rewarded if only she could skate a nice, solid, clean program. But she didn't. She fell on a jumping combination, and despite the supportive crowd urging her on, she badly damaged her chances at that elusive gold.

Which brought us to the last skater of the evening, the Russian (can you write a better script than this?), Irina Slutskaya. First off, I gotta apologize for referring to her as "that Russian 'Slut'" last week; pardon my jingoism, but her name is just too easy to make fun of. If she had won the gold medal, thank goodness that they only remember you by your FIRST name. Also, it should be noted that she kinda looks like Stevie Von, afternoon DJ at 94KX in Sunbury, a former co-worker of mine. Anyway, all she needed to do, once again, was skate a clean, solid program and she would win, and justice would prevail (or not). Well, she skated a very nice program, but much like Kwan did in Nagano, it was quite conservative. We kept hearing over and over how Irina was known for her speed and yet she wasn't using it. This left it all up to (surprise, surprise) the judges.

And Sarah Hughes won. And well she should have, because in a show of poetic justice, she reminded us what this is all about. It's the joy of competing, not a giant international pissing contest, it's about a 16-year old girl with Dorothy Hamill-like hair and big dreams, who did her homework on the bus in order to fit in with her skating and still became an honors student and a world-class skater. I for one can identify with the homework bit, although when I did my homework on the school bus, it was usually because I had put it off until the absolute last minute. It's about a Long Island native whose parents built a mini-rink in the back yard so little Sarah could start on her dream of Olympic gold, and then finally realizing it. It's about Sarah and her coach watching the final results come up on the dressing room monitor and then screaming and hugging like two girls at a slumber party who just found out they were going to get to meet 'N Sync. And finally, it's about a nervous, stunned American girl mouthing out the words to the national anthem from the top of the podium with gold around her neck, still shaking her head in utter disbelief at what she had achieved.

Now, this is where the fairy tale story would conclude, but as we are once again reminded, this year's Winter Olympics are no fairy tale, but in no uncertain terms, a nightmare. The Russians have protested the final decision and are demanding that Irina get her own gold medal or else. Or else what, we won't have to see you whining for the last weekend of the games? Or else we won't have to see you in Athens in '04 making a mountain out of a official's molehill then? If that's the choice, I have one word to say to you, Russians: BYE!!! We won't miss you, your delegation has turned this great moment for the world into a joke with your constant whining and complaining. You are way too full of yourselves, and it's about time somebody let you know that, even if it's just an amateur internet columnist. So take your attitude and your shifty judges and your holier-than-thou self-concepts, and get out!

All this has done, really, is get us to the point we seem to be at every time we reach the end of an Olympic games, where we shake our heads and wonder why we even bother putting this event on every 2-4 years. The simple truth is we need the Olympics, but right now I have a hard time trying to come up with a reason to justify saying that.

So I Like the Olympics!

If you asked 10 people before the Olympics whether or not they were going to watch, I will bet you 9 of them would have said no. The 10th one wouldn't have even responded; he or she would have just given you a look that said, "You're crazy." All we heard before this thing started was, "Nobody's going to watch the Olympics, it's all old-people stuff, they're just going to use it as an excuse to pump up patriotism and it's gonna be one big thing about 9-11" and on and on. Apparently, people had grown tired of tributes to the victims of September 11. This was shown when U2 performed at halftime of the Super Bowl, a moving tribute to the victims, very uplifting and heart warming, the message I got: "They didn't die in vain." The critics did not share my opinion; I saw days of vicious attacks saying that U2 was using the tragedy for their own gain, that they all went overboard, and best (or worst) of all, it was a disservice to the victims. So, I guess, we won't see any big memorial services or tributes come next September 11, as they would of course also be "a disservice to the victims". Anyway, I'm straying from the topic...

We all changed our minds when we saw the Opening Ceremonies last Friday night, or at least enough of us did that the thing got record high ratings. We saw the World Trade Center flag carried into the stadium, and we collectively held our tongues on whether or not it was appropriate, we just took it all in. And it was great, great spectacle, everything an opening ceremony usually is, we just need to be reminded of this every four years. Really, the cynicism of the Olympics came from the whole debacle from NBC's coverage of the Sydney Olympics two years earlier. The whole thing carried on tape delay because of the time difference, sports reporters (like me) gleefully giving out all the results long before the events landed on your TV set, the country as a whole just decided to watch something else, and it was as if the games never happened.

This time around, you know darn well they're going on. It's the Rock 'n Roll Olympics. Concerts every night with Barenaked Ladies, Dave Matthews, etc. All the new events added in recent years, many dealing with the "swifter" and "higher" part of the Olympic motto. We collectively turned on the freestyle moguls competition and felt all of our knees buckle as we said as one, "DAMN, that's gotta hurt!!!" It's no shock when practically every entry in the competition was introduced with their name, the country they represented, and the number of knee operations they've had. We heard all the stories about in addition to the luge, we now were treated to the skeleton, an event where you go 90 mph down an icy tunnel downhill, FACE FIRST. This was all capped by the ultimate for me: a pair of Olympic figure skaters performing their short program to, of all things, PINK FLOYD!!! THEY'RE SKATING TO PINK F---ING FLOYD!!! YESSSS!!! ROCK AND ROLL, DUDE!!!

However, this has not sat well with the older generation that was always satisfied with the simple majesty that is the Olympic Games. It was well known before the games started that NBC was going to try its best to sell the younger segment of the population on the Olympics, as Generation X pretty much looked at the event as a series of melodramatic stories about athletes overcoming horrible obstacles (like a hangnail or something) sandwiched around a lot of prissy figure skaters. Well, NBC has succeeded, the younger viewers love it, the ratings are up, the strategy has worked... which of course means the older viewers are PISSED. TV critics, who average in age a good 20 years or more older than NBC's target demo this time around, are furious, claiming that NBC has gone and made this a prime time version of ESPN's Winter X Games. Once again, this proves that any time something is changed to reflect a shift toward a younger audience (and with it, a bigger audience), older people are guaranteed to raise hell over it. Just look at, well, every programming move WSYR has made since, hell, probably since Curly Vadeboncouer was running the place.

And then there's the whole flap over the pairs figure skating. Just goes to show you we can't go more than a few years without a new skating controversy. This time, it's over the judging of the long program, where the Russian pair and the Canadian pair were the favorites for the gold. The viewing public, both in Salt Lake City, and across the country, had gone ga-ga over the Canadian couple; they're attractive, and pretty much from the moment they accidentally fell over bowing to the judges the other night and started cracking up laughing, they had our hearts. They skate a virtually flawless program, and they get... four 5.9s from the judges. Meanwhile, the Russians got seven 5.9s despite what commentators and analysts like Scott Hamilton (who, believe me, knows a mistake when he sees one) described as several small errors in their program. Well, the crowd reacted just like any sports crowd in these parts do whenever injustice arises. They booed like it was Philadelphia and Kobe Bryant just walked in the place (or Santa Claus, for that matter).

And what was the initial reaction of the international community? Nope, not that there may be something wrong with the judges, it's "HOW DARE THOSE BOORISH AMERICANS BOO!!! SOMEBODY OUGHTA KICK THOSE BEER-SWILLING HEATHENS OUT OF THERE!!! SEE IF WE EVER HAVE ANOTHER OLYMPICS IN YOUR BACKWATER COUNTRY AGAIN!!!" Then, they took a step back, collected their thoughts, and realized, "Oh wait, there may actually be a problem here." Call it the international version of the huge outcry that erupted after the Cleveland Browns fans did their thing a couple months back. The focus of this controversy pretty much lies on the French and Russian judges. The reasoning? Well, here is what I've deduced: the Russian judge is guilty for two reasons. First, the Russian judge ALWAYS scores funny. It's a running joke, whenever I go out with friends and they do something that we joke should be "scored", the line is always, "...but the Russian judge gave it a 5". Secondly, isn't it obvious... Russian judge, Russian skaters; doesn't take Boris and Natasha to figure that one out. And then there's the French judge. As far as I can tell on that one, that one is also because of two reasons. First, there's the whole Quebec thing. Second, the French hate us Americans, and since Canadians are practically Americans, they hate them too (call it guilt by association).

All I know is that when the ladies figure skating event comes, if that Russian skater, Slutovich or Slutski or whatever the "Slut"s name is, beats our darling Michelle Kwan, I'll be in front of my TV booing like you've never heard before. Hey, isn't it great that we're all rallying as a country for this? Isn't this what the Olympics is all about???

And Out Come the Wolves

We all knew it couldn't last. Oh sure, there were idealistic types out there that said this would last forever, or at least for a year or so, but eventually the same old things come back and rear their ugly heads and before you know it, everything's back to the way it was. But I think we can make it official: America has returned to its normal, pre-9-11 ways.

How do I know this? Because Democrats and Republicans are at each others throats again, just like the good old days of September 10. Oh sure, there were some extreme partisans who never went with the hand-in-hand solidarity and brotherhood thing we saw between the nation's two major political parties in recent months. These folks continued to assault the opinion pages of America's newspapers to remind everyone that (insert paper here) was still liberal, Al Gore still won the 2000 election, and George W. Bush is still an incompetent president, 80+ percent approval rating or not. For the most part, however, there was still the attitude of bipartisanship rampant on the Hill, as our lawmakers pledged to work together for the common good.

Until they saw how much it was going to cost.

Then came the blame game, and the bickering. Convinced that the nation's economy needed a stimulus, our lawmakers swore to fix what was ailing the country. And then, like they usually do, the conservatives screamed "More tax cuts!" and the liberals screamed "More spending, more handouts!" And it begins again.

Hey, I'm all for making sure the unemployed don't get thrown out in the streets due to some 9-11 related misfortune, but some pundits were pleading to reinstitute the "safety net as a hammock" idea of welfare that was thankfully done away with just a few years back. End result: stimulus bill doesn't pass. The irony here is that the money that now doesn't get spent on this package is just about the amount needed to balance the budget. And the economy seems to be recovering slowly on its own.

Unfortunately, this failure to pass the stimulus package stirred up the Democrat hornet's nest again, and from now until November, we'll be seeing a parade of Democrat lawmakers and candidates screaming to everyone who will listen that the recession that supposedly started in March was caused by the big tax cut that Bush signed in June, as if that makes any sense. That and they will try to downplay the effect 9-11 had on the recession, because when one thinks of 9-11, one of the first things they think of is how effective Bush has been at bolstering the nation's spirit in this time of tragedy, and that won't help Democrats at all. Unfortunately, for all my support for Bush, I do think he's kinda humping the war issue a bit much, and he may start to give the impression that he's keeping the focus on the war only to keep Congress in GOP hands come election time.

So now you have economic difficulties, agitated lawmakers looking to please voters and get re-elected, rumblings and grumblings and signs that all is not so "everybody get together, try to love one another right now" on Capitol Hill. All that was missing from the volatile mix was one thing to make it explode, to turn it all back into the way our government worked (or rather didn't work) before September 11. Enter Enron. A series of corporate blunders, misdeeds, fraudenlent things, etc. turn one of the nation's corporate giants into a bankrupt mess, with thousands of unemployed workers and many more with 401-K's as bone-dry as the Sahara. This Enron collapse made dot-com investors say "wow, that's pretty bad". And the corporate bigwigs who didn't pay the company's taxes and inflated profits and worked with a consulting firm that apparently had an obsession with shredding? They cashed out at the last second before the stock price plummeted, and they will retire multi-billionaires. Actually, no. They'll retire in prison, one can only hope.

However, that's not good enough for some Democrats, most notably one Congressman Henry Waxman, who has taken it upon himself to turn this into an excuse to "Whitewater" President Bush, if I may use "Whitewater" as a verb. In fact, this reeks of Whitewater comparisons. It's "Whitewater 2", starring George W. Bush as Bill Clinton, the popular president who had bad business associations that suddenly become reason for some to scream for impeachment. Also starring Henry Waxman as Al D'Amato, the lawmaker hell-bent on destroying a president he has ideological differences with, and in a special guest role, the Enron VP who killed himself the other day as Vince Foster.

Meanwhile, some say VP Dick Cheney should be impeached because there were Enron folks involved with the "super-secret" energy task force he had last summer, and Cheney won't divulge what happened in these meetings. My question: Wasn't a certain New York senator the head of a similarly "super-secret" health care task force some 8 years ago, and did she not stonewall when asked to give the info discussed in those meetings? Okay, then; doesn't make it right, but I'm saying this isn't the first example of such things happening, and if you want so badly to impeach Vice-President Cheney, then I guess we should investigate Senator Hillary as well. It's only fair. Also, they criticize the close ties Enron had with President Bush because of the large amount of money he got from them during the campaign. This all coming from Democrats who also got pretty substantial dollars from those "evil corporate lords" during their latest campaigns.

The good thing that will result from this is that campaign finance reform, one of my major causes, as well as the major cause of that great American, Senator John McCain, will finally pass and become law. Republicans are of course still crying "unconstitutional" because of their belief that money equals speech, but that's for the courts to decide, and if the judges have brains in their heads, they'll say this is indeed constitutional. Of course, if the Supreme Court rules otherwise, I may very well start to buy that crap about they handed Bush the election. Oh, sorry, wait, that's being divisive and mean-spirited, isn't it? Guess everything really IS back to normal.

Society for the Prevention of Media Cruelty to Groundhogs

Well, it's that time of the year again, as we come up on that one day that some people look forward to all winter, but one I think is completely unnecessary and way too overblown. In fact, I think we should stamp it out completely, before it gets completely out of hand; that is, if it hasn't already.

Whoa, no I'm not talking about the Super Bowl. I mean Groundhog Day.

Yup, you know the drill by now... every February 2, the eyes of the world descend on Punxsutawney, Pah, to see if a little woodland rodent by the name of "Phil" sees his shadow when he pops up out of his hole. Legend has it that if he does, he will essentially freak, dive back into his hole, and we get six more weeks of winter. Considering the weather we've had recently, this of course begs the obvious question: six MORE weeks of winter? We haven't even had six weeks of winter PERIOD this year! Not that I'm complaining, but mid-60s in late January just ain't right.

Now I may be taking a little of the so-called "mystique" away from this annual tradition, but when you do that, it pretty much exposes the day for what it is... a complete and total waste of time. I mean, I realize that the little backwater burg of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania has to have something to hang its hat on besides a name that is darn near impossible to spell, but this is kinda ridiculous. Sure enough, though, tradition will go on as planned tomorrow morning. If you've ever actually seen the video they show of this farce every year, essentially what happens is "Phil" pokes his head out of his hole, looks to see his shadow...

...then gets hoisted up by some dude in a top hat who looks like he just stepped out of the 1880s while flash bulbs galore go off. This begs another question: WHEN THE HELL DOES HE GET A CHANCE TO ACTUALLY SEE HIS SHADOW??? How do they know? They don't even give him a chance, and how the hell is he going to NOT see his shadow with TV lights and flash cameras all over the place? As gaudy an affair as this sounds, it gets worse, my friends, because this year, there's an added element to the festivities in Punxsutawney.

National Guard troops.

No, I'm not kidding. They are actually going to have troops and bomb-sniffing dogs patroling the area around "Phil's" humble subterranean abode. The mayor of the town actually went on record as saying they thought about canceling the ceremonies in light of the 9-11 attacks, but they went on, because as we all know, if Punxsutawney Phil can't see his shadow, (everybody all together now) then the terrorists win. Now I may be crazy (bite your tongue, dear reader), but if I'm Osama Bin Laden, well first of all I'm scared s---less hiding in my cave wherever I am, but secondly, I don't think I'm sitting there saying, "Well, we could swipe a nuclear warhead, we could hijack some more planes and crash them into skyscrapers... oh, hell, let's just send a sniper to Pennsylvania and pick off a groundhog!"

Now you know the potential for chaos (and great television) that could result from this. Let's just say tomorrow morning, one of those bomb-sniffing dogs gets within sight of "Phil" as he's being hoisted up out of his hole. The end result could be a stunned crowd of locals and media people watching the food chain in action. I can see the headlines now, "Famous Groundhog Eaten By National Guard K-9 Unit".

And on top of that insanity, they're also going to take advantage of the fact that with the delays caused by 9-11, the Super Bowl (see, I was going to get there eventually) will take place the following day, they're going to have "Punxsutawney Phil" pick the winner of the game. No, I'm not making that up either. How they're going to do this is beyond me, but apparently they can tell through grunts and squeaks who he's going to pick. The reasoning behind this was no doubt in anticipation of an all-Pennsylvania Super Bowl between the Eagles and Steelers, thus giving more attention to this state I currently call home than it would already get for the February 2nd festivities. However, that dream went up in smoke when Kordell Stewart and Donovan McNabb each developed an uncanny knack for throwing the ball to the other team in the closing minutes of a conference championship game. So, tomorrow, they're going to apparently listen for a grunt or squeak that sounds like either "Patriots" or "Rams", I guess; more likely, "Phil" will be saying the groundhog equivalent of "PUT ME DOWN, YOU TOP-HATTED BASTARD!!! WHY DO YOU HAVE TO DO THIS TO ME EVERY YEAR!!! I JUST WANT TO GO FORAGE FOR SOME FOOD!!!"

And of course, there's the obvious question: Is "Phil" taking the Rams with the 14 1/2 points, or just to win the game? As for me, you know I don't pick against the point spread (don't mess with things you do not understand). So, I just pick winners, which I am 8-6 in doing (again I remind you that the record is distorted by the fact that I took the Bills ALL FOUR TIMES). I have gotten the last three right, including Baltimore last year, so keeping that hot streak in mind, I'm going for the obvious pick this year: Rams 45, Patriots 13. Yet another in the fine tradition of Super Bowls that you'll be watching for the commercials rather than the game.

In the meantime, I shall be continuing my crusade to wipe out Groundhog Day forever... at least until Sunday morning, by which point I'll get bored with it and not think about it again until next year at this time.