President Obama took his “Do as I say, not as I do” routine to dizzying international heights today, demanding that Iran cease its “foot-dragging” over whether or not to comply with demands to halt development of its nuclear program.

Obama’s warning came after Iran rejected a compromise proposal to ship its low-enriched uranium abroad so that it could not be further enriched to make weapons. Talk of fresh sanctions also showed that Obama is preparing for the next phase should Iran fail to meet his year-end deadline for progress in negotiations.

He made the demand while continuing to drag his own feet on whether or not to provide more troops in Afghanistan, something he’s been mulling over since last summer. Expect B-list “actress” Janeane Garofalo to be a featured guest on Bill Maher’s show soon to remind us, once again that if the world criticizes Mahmood Ahmadinejad for taking his time, it’s righteous indignation. If one criticizes “the chosen one” for dragging his feet, however,  it’s simply a case of racism.  

Meanwhile, American soldiers in Afghanistan are waking up each morning with the knowledge that their government is solidly behind them… oh, who are we kidding?  

Mr. President… Crap or get off the pot!

Gerry Ashley

So, when he goes home in 2012, is he going to blame his defeat on George Bush?

One year on, Obama cites struggle with Bush legacy

Thu Nov 5, 2009 4:04am IST

By Ross Colvin

MADISON, Wis. (Reuters) – A year after his historic election, President Barack Obama sought to remind Americans on Wednesday the biggest problems he is grappling with — from the economy to the war in Afghanistan — are the legacy of his predecessor, George W. Bush.

With his approval ratings down from once-lofty levels and Tuesday’s Democratic election losses raising questions about his political clout, Obama held no special ceremony to mark the anniversary of his election as America’s first black president.

He instead traveled to Wisconsin to appear before a friendly audience in a school gymnasium and promote education as a pillar of his economic recovery efforts.

Obama was elected on a promise of sweeping change after eight years under Bush, but many Americans are increasingly expressing impatience that his pledge has yet to bear fruit.

He used the preamble of his speech to insist his administration had indeed had important successes and also to remind Americans of the litany of daunting challenges he inherited when he took office in January.

“One year ago, Americans all across this country went to the polls and cast ballots for the future they wanted to see,” Obama said.

But he said his administration was also confronted with a “financial crisis that threatened to plunge our economy into a Great Depression, the worst that we’ve seen in generations.”

“We had record deficits, two wars, frayed alliances around the world,” Obama added.

He said his administration had acted swiftly to save the economy from “imminent collapse.”

“While we still have a long way to go, we have made meaningful progress toward achieving that goal,” he said.

Nine months into his term, Obama’s Republican critics have accused him of overplaying the “blame card” against Bush, a Republican who left office with one of the lowest poll ratings of any modern president.

Obama has seen his own approval numbers fall to the 50 percent range from above 70 percent as he struggles to push through a healthcare overhaul, reverse massive job losses and decide whether to send more troops to an increasingly unpopular war in Afghanistan.

He took another hit to his political standing on Tuesday when voters elected Republicans in state governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey despite his personal campaigning for the Democratic candidates. The White House denied the election losses were in any way a referendum on the president.

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Obama is like someone who has inherited great wealth (read political power) only to squander it in senseless profligate excesses. He appeased the Russians, as I predicted he would, with the withdrawal of the missiles installation from Czechoslovakia and Poland at the expense of close allies; he tried to browbeat Israel with his no settlement pronunciamento to no avail, as he and his close advisers, including Clinton, astonishingly misread the position of the majority of Israelis on the issue and paying the high price of increasing Palestinian expectations and inadvertently making it a condition for its leadership, that never existed before, for direct talks with Israel; he tried in his Cairo speech to reach a rapprochement with Muslims by praising with intellectual blindness the great achievements of Islam prior to the Renaissance while sweeping under the carpet the great failure of Islam with unprecedented wealth in its hands in our era, without receiving any conciliatory gestures from those who were so gloriously exalted; and presently he is opening negotiations with the illegitimate government of Iran with no explicit and clear restrictions on its nuclear program at the expense of the democratic forces of the country with their great potential to oust the Khamenei-Ahmadinejad regime, if the Obama administration had taken the prudent stand of not accepting its legitimacy and isolating it from the international community.

In short, Obama, the tyro in foreign affairs and the weakling that I said he was a year ago, is squandering America’s power and prestige in his doltish idiotic diplomacy and he is transforming, slowly but surely, the strength of America into weakness at a time when only the power of the U.S. wisely expended can protect Western civilization from the suicidal and deadly sallies of irreconcilable implacable enemies. Who was it in the Bush administration who said that “weakness is provocative?” Former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.      

    So I saw Apple yesterday after the Deadmau5 concert and I wasn’t expecting it at all. If you’ve ever been to a concert like that, then you know you get drunk off your ass (and/or high off some other drugs of choice), wear glow sticks and dance like a rabbit on speed. And usually, a lot of sweating is involved, which for girls, can be devastating. Imagine mascara that is smeared across your face, and all other make-up has already been sweat off.

Obama is like someone who has inherited great wealth (read political power) only to squander it in senseless profligate excesses. He appeased the Russians, as I predicted he would, with the withdrawal of the missiles installation from Czechoslovakia and Poland at the expense of close allies; he tried to browbeat Israel with his no settlement pronunciamento to no avail, as he and his close advisers, including Clinton, astonishingly misread the position of the majority of Israelis on the issue and paying the high price of increasing Palestinian expectations and inadvertently making it a condition for its leadership, that never existed before, for direct talks with Israel; he tried in his Cairo speech to reach a rapprochement with Muslims by praising with intellectual blindness the great achievements of Islam prior to the Renaissance while sweeping under the carpet the great failure of Islam with unprecedented wealth in its hands in our era, without receiving any conciliatory gestures from those who were so gloriously exalted; and presently he is opening negotiations with the illegitimate government of Iran with no explicit and clear restrictions on its nuclear program at the expense of the democratic forces of the country with their great potential to oust the Khamenei-Ahmadinejad regime, if the Obama administration had taken the prudent stand of not accepting its legitimacy and isolating it from the international community.

In short, Obama, the tyro in foreign affairs and the weakling that I said he was a year ago, is squandering America’s power and prestige in his doltish idiotic diplomacy and he is transforming, slowly but surely, the strength of America into weakness at a time when only the power of the U.S. wisely expended can protect Western civilization from the suicidal and deadly sallies of irreconcilable implacable enemies. Who was it in the Bush administration who said that “weakness is provocative?” Former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.

I’ve been driving for some time now and when I started out, there was respect among drivers. Now I find nothing but a lack there of. Is it because most truckers are not really truckers at all? I won’t use the “steering wheel holder” bit, but I wonder if the drivers are out here because they think it’s a quick buck. Some moron from Swift (Slow wagon in Fast Traffic or CRST (Cedar Rapids Stunt Team) told them it was going to be the best thing to happen to them… And that it didn’t matter that they don’t know shit about a truck. Or even like trucks. Or give a shit about other people… Just see the country. That’s all you have to do…. B.S!!

Here’s a few quick suggestions:

THERE IS NO TIME LIMIT AS TO BEING IN THE HAMMER LANE!!! These days if your passed, drivers come over into your lane as quick as they can; like it’s a race. Do you mind not throwing shit on my truck?? Oh, and please leave my hood where it belongs. On my truck! Were you not taught the bit about having a tractor trailer length in between you and another truck? Use it!

I KNOW WHERE MY WAGON IS!!! At night when I pass someone I get high beamed. Now here’s a thought: If your too lazy to reach over and shut lights off why not go all the way out and not do a thing???  Really, I don’t mind. And if I stay out in the hammer lane for a quarter of a mile or more, that’s giving you room so I’m not throwing shit on you and your truck… If nobody is waiting to get by me, what’s the biggie?? AGAIN, I KNOW I HAVE PASSED YOU AND I KNOW WHERE MY WAGON IS!!! Quit flashing your lights at me.

Lastly. Ask for help, use common sense, and be respectful. You never know when your going to need an experienced driver to help you out. And being a dip shit could come back to bite you!

The CAMERA reading group had a fascinating and occasionally fiery discussion based around two short stories by Mikhail Bulgakov from his book A Country Doctor’s Notebook. We also looked at a short piece called “Grin and Bear it” by Tilda Shalof, from the anthology Reflections on Doctors: Nurses’ stories about physicians and surgeons, edited by Terry Ratner.

“Baptism by Rotation” is a loosely autobiographical account of the author’s first encounter with a transverse lie labour during his first year as a qualified doctor in isolated rural Russia, 1916. He writes of his inexperience, his feeling of ignorance and his sheer panic when faced with the responsibility of taking control of an emergency he’d never before encountered.

A key issue we discussed was that the midwife Anna Nikolaevna had seen such things before and evidently knew all about it – yet the doctor felt unable to reveal his own ignorance and ask the more experienced practitioner for her advice. This emerged as a controversial issue – theoretically it seems unfair, unnecessarily hierarchical, even dangerous. But what about the context? If Bulgakov, the only qualified doctor in a large and remote area, was to admit to ignorance, what would happen to the trust placed in him by the community and the midwives themselves? And if he lost their trust, what would happen to the community’s healthcare?

A similar issue can be found in the entry by Tilda Shalof, RN, written about 90 years later. Here, Shalof finds a patient on the wards having a heart attack, at a time when the doctor is unavailable. She takes it into her own hands to administer medication and perform an ECG. Despite having probably saved the patient’s life, Shalof is severely reprimanded and in danger of losing her nursing licence. Why is it such a scary thing for nurses to know how to act in an emergency? How much of the restriction placed on nurses is more about hierarchy and power balance than about medical safety? These questions delve deep into the shades of grey, but should not be ignored.

The final story, Bulgakov’s “The Steel Windpipe”, created the most heated discussion in the group. Here, again in remote Russia, the doctor, inexperienced, 24 years old and newly qualified, is presented with a small child in the last stages of diphtheria and choking to death. The doctor, terrified and panicking, proceeds to accuse the family of causing this little girl’s imminent death by delaying taking her to see him:

“The little girl is suffocating, her throat is already blocked up. For five days you kept her ten miles away from me. Now what do you want me to do?”

“Why have you left it so long?”

He is brutal to the family in other ways too:

“Quiet woman, you’re only in the way.”

“Get this woman out!… You’re the stupid one!”

This, a doctor talking to the distressed family of a dying patient. On reading this myself, I was shocked. This doctor, in a fit of panic, is laying the guilt of a daughter’s death on her mother’s shoulders, to bear for the rest of her life, and he is dismissive and bullying besides. It was therefore unexpected and interesting to find that the experienced ex-GP in our group defended the doctor and proclaimed that in his place she would possibly do the same. The doctor’s accusations, though awful in themselves, are understandable in the situation – after having left the diphtheria case so long that it’s now at the point of death, the family has brought the child to the doctor, whose fault it now will be perceived to be if she dies. His sheer helplessness in this situation, the child’s distress, her looming death, and his resulting failure, all make his outburst understandable, perhaps even forgivable.

His bullying behaviour also results in the family reluctantly agreeing to allow the doctor to perform a tracheotomy (of which he is terrified). By performing this operation, the child’s life is saved.

So, by accusation and brutality, a life is saved. Is the doctor a hero? Did the end justify the means?

References

Ratner, Terry (ed.) Reflections on doctors: Nurses’ stories about physicians and surgeons. New York: Kaplan; 2008
- Shalof, Tilda “Grin and Bear It”, p.95

Bulgakov, Mikhail (trans. Michael Glenny) A country doctor’s notebook. UK: William Collins & Sons; 1975

You know, it’s funny how people claim to be best friends. It’s even funnier when they are more than two individuals.  The meaning of a best friend varies by person but what does the word best mean? To me it’s the greatest. Someone you can rely on regardless of anything. Someone you can tell anything to; your scarring memories, your humiliating mistakes, your capricious choices.  A best friend would be someone who does not hurt you.  I’ve witnessed countless “best friends” hurt one another.  I’m sure you have too. Over boys, over other friends, over disagreements.  The whole scene seems cliche to me.  The whole concept.

I do believe in a best friend but my chances of finding one are rather slim.  The more you understand, the more knowledge you bare, the more experiences you’ve had, the harder it is to find a best friend. There’s hardly anyone to relate to, hardly anyone worthy of my trust.  But maybe, just maybe these people who have two or more best friends are shallow in experience, in knowledge . . . just naive. Maybe it’s just me who makes simple things complicated but that doesn’t make sense. A best friend is different than a regular friend.  A person can have more than one friend, it’s possible.  A friend is someone to hang out with and be part of yourself with.   But a best friend . . . what makes them the best?  Not hurting you, that’s what.  People who have more than one best friend are setting themselves up to be hurt.  I don’t believe three or more people can co-exist without hurting at least one person, once.  You feel favoritism; sometimes it’s towards you, sometimes it’s towards your other best friend. 

I believed to have had best friends in my past but looking back, I know they were only friends.  They’ve all envied me some time, they’ve all hurt me, they’ve all made me feel envious.  I remember one person though, and he was close enough to be considered a best friend, but again, a fucking disappointment.  Maybe a best friend exists but maybe not.  I couldn’t tell you from experience.  But it annoys me when people who are friends call one another best friends.  The terms are not interchangeable.  The same way the term I love you has been torn to shit, the term best friend seems to have the same fate.  If you think three or more people can call each other best friends and actually mean it, it’s impossible.  Favouritism exists.  Period.  You can’t get passed it.  Time shows a person’s true personality and true disappointment.  Over time you will realise that best friends exist in two, no more.  Because anything more contributes to hurt.  And a best friend does not hurt their friend.

Source: American Thinker

As I noted four weeks ago, Scott Rasmussen’s daily presidential tracking poll has shown a very steady increase in the number of Americans who have a “very unfavorable” view of Obama’s presidency and a corresponding, though less dramatic, decline in the number of Americans who have a “very favorable” view of his presidency.  As of July 27, the negative gap between these two groups of highly motivated voters was ten percentage points.  Polls which focus only on softer “favorable” and unfavorable” opinion still appear to keep the Obama Presidency in safe political water, but that is misleading for several reasons.

First, while Republicans were playing dead and the Leftist media were presenting Barack and Michelle on every magazine cover, buying a pet, and all the other oh-so-loveable things that a young family with cute children moving into a new home, no one had given Americans a reason to doubt that the president was a pleasant, well spoken, sensible man.  He followed the script well.  His conscious attempt to enact an FDR style “One Hundred Days” of change simply overwhelmed all political opposition by a combination of political muscle, timid voices of opposition, and the perception of dramatic popular support.

Now following his umpteenth address to the nation and his frequent press conferences, his pretense of bipartisanship is gone.  In short, Obama has descended rapidly from the Magnificent to the Monotonous.  He says the same sorts of things over and over again, but there is really nothing new in Obama at all.  Throwing vast amounts of tax dollars into the economy, more or less willy-nilly, in an effort to “stimulate” growth is an old, failed policy.  His solemn assurances that reforms will not take away, for example, a patient’s right to choose his physician, when there are several conflicting versions of health care reform floating around which seem to indicate otherwise, increasingly look like political grease to slide legislation through Congress.

Second, no presidency can be completely scripted.   When Iranian people revolt against a truly revolting government, one that lies to its own Moslem voters about election results and shoots women protesters in the streets, what can a man like Obama do?  Americans expect leadership, but Obama is in no sense of the word a leader.  When a police force that is probably as politically correct and racially sensitive as any in the nation arrests a black professor, Obama makes a sincere, and profoundly silly and dangerous, comment.  Inviting the policeman and the professor to the White House for a beer stops the bleeding but does not hide the scar.  The more helpless and hopeless Obama appears, the more unhappy Americans will be with him as a leader (his personal popularity, though, will probably remain high much longer.)

Third, as I have noted often in the past, Americans are conservative.  The Battleground Poll has put the percentage of Americans who are conservative at around sixty percent.  Pointedly, when Ed Goeas after the last Battleground Poll, last November, broke the numbers down even more precisely –What percentage are social conservatives? What percentage are “fiscal conservatives?  What percentages of Republicans or independents or Democrats were conservative? — nothing changed.  However the data are examined, Americans are, overwhelmingly, conservative:  not moderate, not liberal, not unsure, but conservative.  See page 12 and page 13 of the post-election survey.

Fourth, Barack Obama is simply not very knowledgeable, and it increasingly shows.  This is not a rap on his intelligence or his efforts in school.  Prestigious schools have become, in areas like law and social sciences, little more than re-education camps.   His gaffes were ignored by the Leftist media during the campaign.  If Dan Quayle had talked about our fifty-seven states, it would have been fodder for late night jokes forever.  But the more Obama talks, the more obvious it becomes that he simply knows very little.  As an example, he recently said that winning the war on terrorism would not be like World War Two, when Emperor Hirohito signed articles of surrender.  Yet as even an amateur student of history knows, Hirohito did not sign the articles of surrender. The famous event on the Battleship Missouri was watched by the whole world.  It was recorded on film.  The Emperor was conspicuous by his absence.  It was rather like last year when Obama talked about “the bomb” that fell on Pearl Harbor or his May 2009 comment about his uncle who helped liberate Auschwitz.

The more Americans see of Obama as president, the more they see a plastic ideologue who is utterly out of step with their vision of America and who lacks the basic knowledge to govern a nation.  Republicans have won nothing yet (they must first decide to stand for something and then articulate that position clearly.)  It is encouraging that a number of Republican senators have announced they will vote against Judge Sotomayor, taking a principled stand in a losing battle.

It is vital to keep the lines between the parties bright and clear.  Our champion, our leader, will come if conservatives show gumption.  Few, if any, presidents have been as truly vulnerable as the man in the White House now.

Bruce Walker is the author of two books:  Sinisterism: Secular Religion of the Lie, and his recently published book, The Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity.

She was barefoot when i first saw her…
for once i was staring at the feet of the opposite..
“Divine” was the first word that i was to utter…
She heard it right , and her eyebrows knit…

Simple and austere , pretty and innocent..
her face glowed with unmatched radiance..
It seemed as though a fairy had made a descent..
I smiled to myself at my own Ignorance…

She stopped abruptly and looked back in my eyes..
Or was it just an act to ward me off…
i decided against the latter , it made me feel nice..
she was majestic as she walked ,to her i longed to doff..

The triangular blood filled part of mine…
hit me repeatedly from inside my chest…
as from dawn six till dusk nine…
i dreamt about the girl i met….

“Love” is what they called this feeling..
but..being the male of the species , for sure of this i was unsure!!
here’s where women weigh a pound n v men less than a shilling..
starting off a sequence of events hard to endure..

how do i speak up i thought night and day..
being benign in such matters never helps one’s cause..
how do i say,oh how DO i say…
when my gaze falls on her, my dynamic brain does a pause..

Am i shy…I asked myself aloud…
Its “inexperience” came the voice from within…
As my sweetheart merged into the burly crowd..
my woeful voice got muffled in the din…

Well there you go. I did it woke up at 1:30am 2:00am and then 2:40am just in time for the game. Although I turned the tell on and it was already 2 mins in. Gotta fix my phone clock. Here as it is the big dissapointment, that was so hyped up…

Seven mins of the first half showed we wanted it and were going to get it with some scintillating passing and speed to the game. Fabregas had a shot which came of both Vidic and Ferdinand to creep by the post, albeit on the wrong side. Eight mins in Ronaldo cut back an Anderson from the edge of the of the area near the byline, and what would have been a standard clearance from Gibbs was not to be, he slipped. Park the surprise selection (for many – but me) still had the keeper to beat and did it well.  Gibbs slipping could have  happened to anyone, but as  it did it happened to the  most inexperienced  player on the pitch.

 He looked absolutely gutted  afterwards and RVP shared  a  few words of consolation  with  him.  Was it to do with     inexperience that he  slipped, I don’t think so, but it should still have been cleared straight out.

 Those words of consolation  from RVP offered turned out to be superficial. RVP brought  down that total mother c**t  of a player C.Ronaldo and he  hit a near 40 yard free kick  that perhaps should have been saved  by Almunia. Ok, yes it was  moving fast, but Almunia or most keepers would have probably dealt with that. Two mistakes two goals and our seven mins of great football turned into a half where even keeping possession was hard. United kept the ball better, passed it better, even had a couple more shots, with Rooney nearly curling it into the bottom right corner, and Ronaldo having another dipping freekick right at Almunia. Overall we didn’t really threaten in the first half after those 7 mins. I think the shots stats were three to us and eight to United. Walcott was absolutely non-existent again against Evra.

Wenger had a mammoth task coming up in the changing room to restore the belief he instilled before the game. It seemed as though it was another fantasy as it didn’t materialise.

The second half brought on Eboue for Gibbs most probably because of confidence and belief lost in the young fella. He really did look gutted and was probably shaky cause of it. The size of that game, he really felt the pain, and I did for him too.

A few minutes into the game, Ronaldo cut in from the right and hit a decent shot low to Almunias’ near post. He dealt with it well, so well that you wonder what happened for the second goal. Ten minutes in and we still didn’t threaten. RVP had a freekick whipped into the far post, but was high and wide.  United were killing the game and killing our tempo well. Not that our tempo after those seven mins was anything to write home about. 

From a corner approaching sixty minutes, Nasri ad a shot blocked when we had a couple corners, but otherwise not much. And as we had some possession United broke on the counter-attack with Ronaldo starting it to Park who gave it to Rooney, and pack into Ronaldos path in the area, and three nil United. Giggs came on for Anderson, as Bendtner came on for the ineffective Walcott. Straight after, RVP had a rsping shot outside the area that VDS dealt with as it was straight at him. Its what we needed some shots, to liven things up a little. Time to save a little pride as to not lose three nil at home to our biggest rivals and biggest  c**ts out there on the night. Rooney and Evra were taken off too, expectedly to save them from getting yellows that would rule them out of the final. Berbatov and Rafael replaced them.

By this point I’m thinking would Arshavin make a difference that we needed in that final third again ? Yes. But something we’ll never know. Nice to know we’ll have him next year. Bendtner managed to pull one of his little tricks off and beat a couple players to get inside the area and put a hlf chance into the side netting. Not long after, we got some respite when Fletcher took down Fabregas from a lovely RVP ball. Infact Fletcher touchd the ball ever so lightly but I don’t care if he got it 100%. RVP hit the penalty, and it was brilliantly taken. A true RVP penalty, keeper absolutely had no chance, top corner, the only thing missing was it didn’t go in off the post. One goal for us, and Vela came on for our goal scorer, and probably our most important player on the pitch tonight. As he was just back from injury, Wenger didn’t want to get the full 90 from him.  Eboue earned us a freekick in a dangerous area, which came to nothing and then gave one away whici Ronaldo flashed over the bar. Overall not much else happened other than a late Vela and Adebayor scramble, and our season ended on May 5th 2009 with nothing left to play for.

People/Wenger will say that Gibbs will learn from that slip and so forth, but I for one don’t want to hear that our player will learn from a mistake every single year, to find that the following year another young player comes in and will have to learn from their mistake. We set ourselves up every year for youngsters to make mistakes, and unfortunately it was Gibbs this time, I like Gibbs alot, I really do, and it was massively unfortunate for it to happen to him. But you don’t see these things happening when Chelsea and Man Utd play, and even Liverpool recently.

Ref was shite. Stopped and started the game as if he was a traffic light,  and even Wenger came out and said it. Not that it would have made any difference. Maybe we would have lost 3-0 instead. Either way a painful day for us all.

Almunia – Recovered well after making a mistake for the second goal, but was already too late as an impact was near impossible.

Gibbs – Feel massively sorry for the bugger, hes been doing well recently. His slip will hurt him big time, and hopefully he recovers quickly from it cause hes got real potential. Came off at half time for Eboue.

Sagna – Again I was proved right, his ability to get forward is quite bog standard. He doesn’t offer much up there as his final ball is massively lacking, especially those poor poor crosses. But hes a dam good defender, and better that than a better attacker and bad defender. Didn’t link well with Walcott.

Djourou – Played alright, nothing special. Part of a defence that let three goals in. So not an amazing game.

Kolo – Again was ok, made a couple good interceptions in dangerous areas. No surging runs really, and again was part of a defence that let three past them.

Walcott – Largely disappointing again. Evra, didn’t give him a sniff. 

Nasri – Looked lively in the first few minutes, but had few options to make his runs count for anything. 

Fabregas – Also was relatively disappointing. Didn’t have much feed for the forward players. Retained possession well at times but no real effect.

Song – Again was average. Stuffing knocked out of him and rest of players after second goal went it. 

RVP – Showed as our best player on the night in my opinion. Twisted and turned, to not much avail mind you. Put a good ball in for the penalty to be won, hit a great penalty and got subbed on 78 mins.

Adebayor – I’d be happy if he left us this summer. His performances are one off’s and I’d like to replace him with a stand out striker. Villa would be nice but unlikely. Ade’ wasn’t the Ade’ of old. More getting beaten by Vidic and Ferdinand too often. There was effort at times, he just wasn’t good enough though.

Bendnter – Caused United a few problems, and had a decent shot / chance put in the side netting. Other than that one flicked header that Fabregas failed to score from and not much else.

Vela – Towards the end bundled through to nearly have a go. Otherwise nothing.

Eboue – Won a good freekick outside the area, unfortunately RVP just came off. Played ok, but no real surging runs, which I expected from him. But then again, need 4 goals in 45 mins against United. Enough to take the belief from most people.

Wenger says:

“The most difficult thing is that we do not have a feeling that we played a semi-final of the Champions League,”

“We are on a consistent run of 21 league games unbeaten but recently in games where it mattered like Chelsea and Manchester United we couldn’t win and that, of course, needs thinking about.”

“If you look at the average age of the team it is still very young and to reach the level we have deserves a lot of credit.

It did feel like a semi final for the first 7 mins. The crowd were great till then. Really Great, so well done to them, but understandably when the impossible came, the belief was taken from the fans too.  A 21 game unbeaten run is all great, nothing wrong with that. But the crunch games are what win trophies, and we haven’t got the crunch players to deal with that at the moment. Ade’ has let himself down this year, let alone the club and fans. He’s the first I’d be happy to replace. Take the 30mill and lets go to the supermarket, bypass the Value section and straight into the deepend. Its hard to think that Vela will be as good as we want him to be next year. Hopefully Eduardo will make the difference though. 

We give the team credit year on year, and I’m happy to do that, very happy. But its coming to that time when these young players, majority of whom ware not that young anymore, want to win something with Arsenal. Fabregas and RVP being major candidates in that bunch. Credit is given, but we should have been better. We call ourselves a top four team, but reality says that there is no such thing as the ‘top four’ its more like the ‘top three’ and then us and then Villa and Everton, who are catching up with us.

Obviously massively dissapointed, although United desreved to go through, blatantly the better team. They are the champions. We’ll have to look ahead to next year now, and hopefully one or two changes will be made this summer. 

I still want to bounce back and thump them in the league. If we could do that and make it be that they somehow lost the league because of it. That would provide some, not alot, but some consolation. Lets thump Chelsea first !

Last night, I hung out with a former co-worker for a few hours. We started off just talking about sports and different things going on at Murray State, but as we continued to talk we began to reminisce about last year. I don’t think you could’ve found a college newspaper with a closer, crazier, more outgoing sports section. We were all best friends, brothers and sisters. Now, last year’s editor has graduated and moved back to Ohio, our assistant sports editor has been deployed overseas with the U. S. Air Force and another writer is now employed by the athletic department as the radio voice for women’s basketball. This left me with two writers with whom I was close. And although, we could manage the section, I think it’s important for all those who are interested in journalism to be given a chance.

As of now, I have two contributors. One has great potential, the other, I’m not too impressed. As sports editors, we are in charge of our writers. It is our job to teach them what needs to be taught and help them in whatever way we can. Sometimes, however, our jobs can be extremely stressful. But one thing that has really helped me is that I’m only a sophomore. I look at my new writers, both who are older than me and think ‘I was as clueless this time last year as they are now.’ We have to be patient and remember that although the love of journalism is a gift, there’s also a technique to it which is acquired over time.

I got discouraged at the beginning of the year when applications were pouring into the news and features desks and I had nothing. But there are SO many people who would love the opportunity to write sports and meet the coaches and athletes that can’t imagine a seat in press row could have their name it. It’s so important to reach out to students of all ages, especially those interested in journalism. Many people don’t know how much fun being a sports reporter can be. If you want great writers, you have to take them under your wing, show them the fun and teach them what they need to know.

I want to show my staff the fun and excitement I experienced with last year’s staff. If your writers are comfortable with you and with their coworkers, they will be develop as better reporters and be less intimidated the first time they walk up to the head basketball coach or the big defensive end to get quotes for a story.

Checkers

I believe it’s your move pumpkin.

Oh good Lord it is, isn’t it?
Ok then let’s see where was I…. Hmmmmmmmmmm?
Rook to king’s bishop takes knight’s pawn something or other whatever.
Yes. Oh my stars look at that. I say to you kind sir…
King me!

Muahahahahahah…. Checkmate.
…
Gimme the blouse.

© Charles Coakley Simpson 2005