Fleeing Thoughts: Three Complaints and a Cheer

-Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama for president. The man who appeared before the UN to sell the Iraq war to the world, the man who never spoke out against war publicly while part of the Bush administration, the man who hasn't said much against the war since leaving the Bush White House, this man now endorses the Empty Suit who runs a campaign with a platform that says the Iraq war was wrong. Way to cement the tarnish on your reputation. Too bad. I once had respect for Colin Powell, now I have none.

-What makes Cubs GM Jim Hendry the genius all the baseball columnists say he is? Got me. He has Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Zambrano locked into deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars with a no-trade clauses, so essentially there's no way to get rid of these guys who, to put it mildly, underachieved in the playoffs two years in a row. He is also responsible for bringing Kosuke Fukudome here at great expense. I liked K-Dome at the start, when he was actually playing baseball the way it should be played, but something soured within him, he stopped trying, and he turned out to be a big bust. Dusty Baker was Hendry's idea. That alone should earn Hendry the enmity of Cubs fans everywhere. So what do the Cubs do? Extend his contract. Swell.

-Am I hearing correctly? The government is pondering another round of economic stimulus checks? Let me get this straight. The first round barely had any effect on the economy before things went really bad. So, the Feds think, okay, let's give away more money we don't have. Isn't doing the same thing over and over, even though it doesn't work, one of the definitions of insanity?

-I like the city of Boston. Lots of history there, and the place just seems so darn quaint. And don't get me started on the accents those people have out there. Listening to Bostonians puts me in the mind of chowduh, and I like chowduh. I also like Sam Adams beer and New Balance running shoes, both made in Boston. And let's add that I'm a Red Sox fan. Have been ever since the great Carlton Fisk played there before coming to the South Side. But I'm glad the Tampa Bay Rays won the ALCS and are going to their first World Series. The Sox won the Series in 2004 and again last year. They have been blessed. Now it's someone else's turn. And you gotta love the Rays, going from last place in 2007 to the World Series in 2008. (Note to the Cubs: the Rays have only been in existence 10 years and they're going to the World Series. Is there a reason, a really good reason, the Cubs haven't gotten to the Big Show since 1945?)