Fleeing Thoughts: Rockets, Pistols, and Secrets

-The Rocket sucks. Why does Roger Clemens suck, you ask? Well, let me tell you. And I will tell you as a baseball fan who certainly has admired the competitor that Roger Clemens has been these last twenty years or more. In sworn testimony before a Congressional committee, Clemens threw his former trainer, Brian McNamee, no angel and quite possibly a liar himself, under the bus by stating, under oath, that McNamee is lying when he says he injected Clemens with steroids. He's also threw his own wife under the bus when by saying that Andy Pettitte, widely respected and admired as an honest individual, was mistaken about a conversation the two had about human growth hormone. Pettitte says Clemens told him he took it; Clemens says the conversation he had with Pettitte was about Clemens' wife taking HGH. Nice, Roger. Class act all the way. Anything else you'd like to rat your wife out about? Roger also says the injections he got from McNamee were B-12, even though, if needed for medical purposes, the oral form of B-12 would be all that's needed. And why did Roger take B-12? Because his mother recommended he take it. Your mother, Roger? You're dragging your poor momma into this? If for no other reason, mentioning mom in the midst of his disgraceful testimony, Roger Clemens is no longer worthy of anyone's admiration.

-When did the Sex Pistols become fodder for mockery? Or were they always such? Ok, they probably were, but it was interesting and dare I say, nostalgic, to see the Pistols sent up in this past week's episode of "The Simpsons." It was sort of a riff on the "Sid and Nancy" movie, in which Lisa Simpson had the role of Nancy and local bully Nelson was Sid, and they become addicted to chocolate (who isn't?). I suppose it's only fair, since the show has parodied just about everything associated with '60s music from the Beatles to the Grateful Dead and their Deadhead fans, as well barbershop quartets, opera, country, Gilbert and Sullivan and...the list goes on. "The Simpsons" is a very musical program and I am always amazed the actors can sing while still retaining their characters voice. Still, it was a bit odd to see a cultural movement, if that's what punk and the Pistols were, that I was a small part of in my distant youth, get the comic treatment on America's favorite cartoon. Does the fact that it's been parodied on TV mean that I'm old? Shut up, it was a rhetorical question. You know, one that doesn't require an answer.

-The Supreme Court refused to hear a suit, thrown out by a lower court, challenging the Bush administrations practice of monitoring phone calls and e-mails between the US and overseas without first seeking a judges approval. Even in these times, in the midst of a war without end against terror, such secrecy, to the extent that a judge is not even sought out to weigh the arguments for or against a particular wiretap, is wrong. It is simply un-American.

-Hillary Clinton is falling into the same trap that George HW Bush fell into when running against Bill in 1992, that of mis-guided diversionary arguments. Bush focused on things that simply didn't matter to the voting public, such as Bill protesting the Viet Nam war while overseas in England as a Rhodes scholar. Bush kept criticizing Bill for protesting "against America" while on foreign soil. No one cared. They wanted to hear about the economy, stupid, not about what little Billy did on his European vacation. Now Hillary is criticizing Barack Obama for not giving credit to Duval Patrick, or to their mutual advisor, David Axelrod, for using parts of a speech about the effects of "words." Senator Clinton needs to focus on real issues, not silly diversions, or she will continue to be just that, Senator Clinton, and not President Clinton.