Fun Facts From Zach's Almanac: Anna's story...Support our Olympians...and DOH! Why the system is breaking down.

Having resurfaced from my previous dark, political postings and after cleansing my outlook/palate by catching up on some reading…(Vonnegut's Galapagos, actually, and just now digging into some Robert Anton Wilson, neither of which are likely to improve my jaundiced view of our species or our shared human condition…) I opened the news to find that our nation's highest court, having obviously vanquished and resolved the backlogged myriad of questions on justice for all which lay like a wasteland before it, posed to impact our nation of 270 million souls has turned it's focus on property law and whether or not one, lone person in the celebrity of Anna Nicole Smith is entitled to her 1.6 billion dollar inheritance. You go girl! So how many people really do you figure will be effected by this decision by the Supreme Court, anyway? Well there's Anna and her council…and the opposition and their council…and that's pretty much it if you don't count the staff at Elaine's or where ever Ms. Smith goes to celebrate her victory and inclusion into our history books as a precedent, afterwards…Well, there's me too. Because Anna and I go way back…Oh yeah…A little known bit of history that must have fell below the radar of the popparazzi…but that's a long story…and I'd really have to dream it …er, remember it first. As I recall "it was a dark and stormy night…"

The Winter Games are over…Well certainly not all of them as the press can attest to each day, but the ones that involve skiing and skating and curling. What the hell is curling about anyway? I can't remember the last time a bunch of kids waited anxiously for a car to pass so they could get back to continuing their game of curling on any side street of America. While no one could possibly doubt that our Olympians gave all these contests their best effort, we didn't fare as well as the media would have liked. Well, not everybody ever does. The disgust was obvious by the raspberries that immediately followed the games because our entrants didn't snarf up all the gold that was available. And let's face it. The same entities that generate profits from this volunteer sporting event stood to gain even more if we had swept the events. Bode, who was turned into the poster boy for down hill (and whose stock went like-wise after coming up short) was particularly dismissed after he failed to do what the hype had led everyone to expect from him. And Gawd forbid, our best figure skaters walked the thin ice of public admonishment after missing the opportunity for an international shut out. It would have been nice, if in the course of slamming these athletes representing the best in us after the fact, someone, anyone had taken a little front page ink to simply say "Thank you for your efforts." instead of dismissing them en mass and portraying them as a bunch of failures. If being able to compete with the world's very best and giving them a run for their money is failure…how many million of us, journalists included, fail to meet even that level of failure by miles? A fickle bunch we can appear to be when someone doesn't manage to bring home the gold in America. Or win a series or a Superbowl. Hell, from the press I've seen, even silver and bronze are worthless recyclable scrap unless they are awarded to some other country. Then just because we escaped it, it's value increases. It doesn't matter that the people who earned them are like up there with the very best in the world at what they do…And so much for teaching the kids that giving one's best is best and remains noble and appreciated. Careful folks our culture is once again showing. And in our culture, if you ain't first, you may as well be last because that's how you're going to be painted…and then of course, quickly forgotten.
Makes you wonder why our Olympians bother to try at all sometimes, doesn't it?

And finally…"DOH!"

CHICAGO Mar 1, 2006 (AP)—
The McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that 22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just one in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms. Americans apparently know more about "The Simpsons" than they do about the First Amendment.
Only one in four Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances.) But more than half can name at least two members of the cartoon family, according to a survey.

Quick! Get me in touch with the Saint in charge of the Eternal Silver Lining!