I'm Truly Truly Sorry

Have you ever noticed that no matter how irrational, offensive or downright mean an utterance might be when made by a politician it's readily "cured" by the perpetrator offering an effusive apology, sort of like saying "I'm truly truly sorry". How heartfelt or genuine the apology is, or for that matter whether it's been drafted by some hack spinmeister or not is irrelevant. As long as the media reports how sorry the person is, everyone quickly moves on. Well, not everyone--TNB is watching! He doesn't accept "I'm sorry" that easily. Consider:

• Right-wing idiot Glenn Beck had some tall explaining to do after he likened the political activism of Reform rabbis to Islamic extremism. When last seen, Beck was at his dentist having a portion of his foot extracted from his mouth.
• Redneck Georgia GOP Congressman Paul Broun "deeply regretted" not confronting a man (later investigated by the Secret Service) at one of his rallies who asked Broun "who's going to shoot Obama?" Broun, who for several years has compared the President to a Gestapo officer and worse, said that he was too stunned to react. Maybe he's a closet Ku Kluxer [that could be an oxymoron].
• Former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun belatedly and grudgingly apologized for falsely accusing one of her minor Chicago mayoralty opponents of being strung out on crack for the past 20 years. In this case "I'm sorry" didn't suffice and Braun sank to a dismal 4th place finish, with more members of her African-American community (deeply embarrassed by her remarks) voting for winner Rahm Emanuel rather than her. BTW-- Rahm's election is the first (maybe the last) of TNB's New Year's predictions to come true. But, as forecast, he might still move Chicago's City Hall to Manny's Deli.

Non-politicians, who don't have to face the voters aren't always so quick to offer their mea culpas. Troubled (to say the least) Charlie Sheen has not and probably never will take back the rant against his producer that caused Two and a Half Men to be cancelled by CBS. His rant included some barely veiled anti-semitic cracks about the producer. But apparently being a total sleaze in the entertainment world can be part of someone's "charm". Of course, do you remember Mel Gibson?

A Sucker is Born

A famous saying, rightly or wrongly attributed to master 19th century showman P.T. Barnum is of course "There's a sucker born every minute". Extrapolating that to today's population would more accurately state "There's a sucker born every few seconds" or whatever. But the pithy observation is probably even more valid 100+ years later. Consider the following recent high profile examples.

The debacle at Sunday's Dallas Super Bowl, whereby at least 400 patrons whose temporary seating (planned so that the total attendance might set an alltime record--it didn't) wasn't ready and who had to watch on television from an inside club room, resulted in these individuals being promised by the NFL a refund of triple their ticket's face value plus a free ticket to next year's Super Bowl. Nothing so unremarkable until you consider that such face value was $800 or $900 [some paid a lot more to legitimate ticket scalpers, or"brokers"] and counting the cost of travel, etc. many of these people might still not come out even. But the "sucker" element is in the face value itself. For marginal seating and views in a 100,000 seat stadium, people (i.e. suckers) were willing to shell out such sums! We're really in a recession? Maybe for the unlucky bottom 10-20% but apparently there are myriad thousands who whether they can really afford to or not, are caught up in the Super Bowl hype. Suckers indeed.

BTW, wasn't the perfect epitome of Texas size braggadocio gone amok with all the problems Dallas had in putting on the event, seeing George W. ("Mission Accomplished") Bush smugly sitting in a VIP seat?

Anyway, another sucker magnet has been the troubled $65 million Broadway extravaganza Spider- Man Turn Off the Dark. After months beset with mechanical issues, injuries to actors during performances and innumerable delays, the nation's theatre critics finally decided to review the show, although its official opening has been postponed yet again to March 15. The reviews ranged from "incoherent" to "a mess" to "a candidate for the worst musical in history" and you get the picture. But will this sink the show? Probably not--despite generally poor word of mouth to date and extremely high ticket prices up to $270, the show has been selling out and TNB wouldn't bet that this won't continue. One could argue that's it's the intellectually snotty critics vs. the comic strip loving "real Americans" such as TNB's "hero" Glenn Beck who has allegedly seen and loved the show 4 times [maybe he's an investor]. However, isn't this just a perfect instance of another several hundred thousand suckers being ripped off?

Make that a sucker born every millisecond.

News of the Day

As most of us in the Midwest and Northeast settle in for an oncoming vicious winter storm, thus causing airports, schools and businesses to declare a snow day for Wednesday, February 2, readers of this blog need to make sure that they're totally up to date on all of the news of the day, with of course TNB's accompanying analysis which is required to really understand what's going on:

• STATE OF THE UNION-- In addition to the "odd couples" caused by Senators and Representatives seated not by political parties but by the new rules of civility (McCain next to Kerry, etc.) we were treated to the Tea Party response. Rep. Michelle Bachmann sort of delivered her incoherent remarks while gazing to her right. No matter, she appears to have been tutored by Sarah Palin, in a classic example of dumb and dumber.
• TURMOIL IN EGYPT-- In another case of "but he's OUR dictator" (see Saddam Hussein with whom we sided in Iran/Iraq war in 1980's) it appears that the U.S. is going to let Hosni Mubarak float in space while hoping that his successors will be gracious enough to continue to accept $1.3 billion in aid from us.
• CHICAGO MAYORAL RACE -- At the end of an eventful week in which a bogus residency issue concerning frontrunner Rahm Emanuel saw him kicked off, then restored to the ballot, he was upstaged (sort of) by fellow mayoral candidate and former Senator Carol Moseley Braun, who falsely accused a minor opponent with "being strung out on crack for the past 20 years" and then took two days to apologize, thus further tarnishing her already shaky credibility.
• OSCARS-- After nominations were announced and all the pundits weighed in, it appears that the race for Best Picture will come down to an old fashioned historical drama The King's Speech and a new fashioned historical drama The Social Network. Probably will depend on who's doing the voting--admirers of the British royal family or admirers of the Internet. [TNB actually liked best the hallucinatory ballet movie Black Swan which has no historical significance].
• SUPER BOWL -- For Chicagoans the upcoming game is anticlimatic. The controversy over QB Jay Cutler's knee injury and toughness totally overshadowed how poorly the Bears played but it's way more fun watching Jay's knockout girlfriend going to dinner or shopping in LA with him anyway. Besides Chicago is getting Obama confidante David Axelrod back; soon to be seen at Manny's Deli. Life is good.