A shout out of big-time thanks from the John McCain campaign to our friends in Tbilisi, Gori, South Ossetia, and any other spots in Georgia that are being mercilessly bombed by the Russian military after provoking Big Bad Vlad Putin! What a great chance for Johnny the Dubya to put his war experience on display for American voters, and to show up that effete peace-monger Obama.
The timing is perfect, and if the Ruskies were to keep hammering away through the conventions, the next terrorist attack on the US can be put back to late October, just before vot-ing day.
McCain advisors say, Da!, that’s the ticket.
Beijing’s five-ring circus
Had enough of the Olympics yet?
While Casa Diablo has been adorned with dictator-sized blow-up images of Elizabeth Beisel, Boo-Boo Andrade, Michael Parkhurst, and Alicia Sacramone, with P+J and our in-ternational stable of houseboys glued to the HD TV, the only thing raising hackles is the commentators who force their way onto the air between the inspiring and exciting events.
The foremost offender is the mouthy midget Bob Costas, who is more overexposed than Will Ferrell, with about the same amount of skin-crawling involved in viewing him. When it comes to being off-putting, Costas’s overblown rhetoric is matched only by his ridiculous rug, which is so bad that you couldn’t get Burt Reynolds or ace witness John “My Sharona” Celona to wear it.
Costas did a preposterous faux journalistic interview with President Dubya, our former high school cheerleader and present Olympic pom-pom wielder, sucking up by mention-ing how Boy George had ridden his Pee-wee Herman bike (with the little bell and streamers on the handlebars) around the Olympic course. On the plus side, with all the testoster-one floating around the pollution in Beijing, Dubya’s true Nancy-boy idiot persona was fully exposed.
Little Bobby managed to let NBC’s obsequious Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw, who must be told to get over himself and go home, settle for the silver medal in the decathlon of ways on behalf of their corporate owner, General Electric, to kiss Chinese government ass.
The talking hairdo Williams threw bouquets for China’s carefully staged “charm offensive,” and Brokaw reminisced about Mao without mentioning any of the current government’s repressive tactics. While talking about the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square (which he ever-so-cutely rode through on a bike), Tom failed to mention how George H.W. Bush disgraced the US by throwing the Tiananmen protestors under the bus — excuse us, tank — siding with the aging tyrants who beat and killed the courageous dissidents who had rolled a replica Statue of Liberty into the square. It wouldn’t surprise us if business lunches between GE honchos and Chinese President Hu Jintao are on tap.
On a less exalted level, we get the usual preposterous cheerleading from the second tier of announcers, in which only American athletes are allowed to shine on the interna-tional stage.
P+J are almost willing to ignore the blatant conflict of interest in hiring Bela Karolyi as the color man for the gymnastics while his wife coaches the US women’s team, simply because we get a kick out of him when he speaks, reminding us what it would have been like had Rip Taylor ever played Dracula. And could anyone covering the gymnastics point out that the Chinese female athletes are no closer to being 16 than Roman Polanski’s dates?
Prayers for Enright
Your superior correspondents would like to encourage everyone out there to consider the power of prayer and positive energy. We say this because, right now, a very dear friend and Casa Diablo regular, not to mention one of the finest people and artists we know, needs of all that positive energy.
We’re sure that many of you know who Thom Enright is. One of the most talented and popular musicians in the region for more than three decades, Thom has been a dazzling presence and powerful force in the Rhode Island music scene, a mentor and inspiration to generations of artists.
Thom was recently operated on for a brain tumor. It came out of nowhere and he may need more surgery in the near future. If you ever considered the power of prayer or posi-tive energy, now is the time to focus your thoughts for a rapid and full recovery for Thom Enright.
If only a small portion of the positive energy, joy, and happiness that Thom has provided for tens of thousands of music lovers over the years can be unleashed, the situation just might change. Please join us in keeping Thom in your thoughts and prayers.
Lying John Edwards
The scandal of living Ken doll John Edwards is just plain sad. It goes to show how no politician can ever be taken at face value.
If there’s any silver lining to this all-too-recognizable cloud, it was the discomfort of newspapers like the haughty New York Times, whose high-and-mighty editors refused to pick up on the story because it was first reported by the National Enquirer, and the self-important toffs at the Gray Lady didn’t want to be associated with such riff-raff.
