One of my goals for 2013 is to make use of my blog space more often as a place to slow down and reflect. Between my family and my professional projects, there often is little time for anything else, but it's imperative to get off the carousel at regular intervals to catch my breath and then keep going. Last year I managed to get at least one blog in every month. This year I'm going for one post a week, which I'm going to call my Class Notes, a quick spin through the things that resonate in my world: Domestic Politics, Sports, and Entertainment. I'll also throw in a note about my family as they are the center of my universe. So without further introduction, here they go...
POLITICS: Newton, CT. Aurora, CO (again). Taft, CA. The shootings continue and guns are still finding the wrong hands. We have to be more serious about gun control. I'm not saying ban gun ownership, but I also don't think folk need to be rolling around like Antonio Banderas in Desperado. Even more important is the screening of those who seek to purchase guns and ammo. If I have to go through every background screen known to man to work with kids, then so should those who seek to own instruments capable of snuffing out human life. That's an argument that should resonate with even the most staunch gun advocate.
SPORTS: The Baseball Writers of America (BWA) decided to take the easy way out and not elect anyone to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Instead of voting in a crop of athletes both suspected and acknowledged as performance-enhancing drug (PED) users, the writers chose to uphold some kind of faux-purity standard. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa all got less than forty percent of the vote despite being transcendent figures throughout their careers who made baseball relevant again after the 1994-95 strike season. Equally egregious in my eyes is the denial of players like Don Mattingly, Jack Morris, Dale Murphy who were never associated with PEDs yet, they don't appear to be HOFers in a numbers sense when compared with the likes of Bonds, McGwire, Canseco and others. This stinks even more of a planned boycott when you consider that sure HOFers like Randy Johnson, Frank Thomas, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz, players who were never associated with PEDs, will be eligible for induction in the next two years. The moral high ground that the BWA tries to claim is laughable and contributes to why Baseball has long been surpassed by Football as America's favorite sport.
ENTERTAINMENT: If you can write a movie that is approximately twenty minutes too long so that the script can showcase the entire range of the lead character's abilities, then you have a chance at being nominated for an Oscar. Zero Dark Thirty put me to sleep as did the The Hurt Locker and the drama about a bomb disposal team won six golden statues. I'm rooting for Silver Linings Playbook this awards season since its centered in my hometown, the Iladelph and stars a hometown dude in Bradley Cooper. The movie had an indie feel to it, but didn't feature the drawn-out screenplay of many Oscar-nominated films.
TEAM CARROLL: The Mrs. first episode as a BONES writer airs on Monday, Jan 14, so we'll all be taking phone pics when her name flashes on the screen. It has been announced that BONES will be back for a 10th season, so it looks like I'll be a trophy husband for another year.
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