Odds and Ends commentary

Odds and Ends Commentary

I’m trying to find a good spot in the week for the Odds and Ends commentary (O&EC), which I find useful for introducing new topics in brief (and that I may bring up later in a separate post), or to bring up goofy topics just for the heck of it.. There are two possible ways to use O&EC:

One idea is to start the week off with Odds and Ends commentary. That way, if one of those topics happens to become a bigger story later in the week, I can make further commentary on it.

The other idea is to have a sort of “Weekend Wrap-up” on Fridays, where I comment on stories that took place during the week.

For the next few weeks, I’ll explore both ways and see which one seems to work better for me. I might end up doing both. :-D

Holy Week Challenge

Today starts my fast for all this week through Saturday. I am going to fast all this week in the usual Catholic way for Lent; that is, I shall have one full meal, plus two smaller meals, but those two smaller meals combined can’t equal another meal. Plus, NO snacking! Snacking is a habit that I’ve been slowly breaking over the past couple of months, which will help me this week so that it won’t be such a shock to my system to suddenly be deprived of so much food that I was used to eating. I’ve never done this before, so I don’t know how I’ll do. I had only a small bowl of oatmeal this morning, so when lunchtime rolled around, I was so HUNGRY that I almost ate the table that I was eating on! Actually, I didn’t wolf down my sandwich as quickly as I thought I would. Halfway through Day 1 now, folks. :-)

Immigration law protests

I’ve been surprised by the comments of the more liberal folks I know. They think as I do on this issue, that illegal immigrants need to settle their legal status first before they can talk about getting rights that citizens of this country enjoy. I guess I was expecting them to make this another issue to “rage against Bush”, but they don’t seem to have taken this issue in that way. I thought that they might use some kind of argument along the lines of calling illegals “legally challenged immigrants” or some such politically correct phrase. It could also be that they recognize that commenting on this issue too soon may blow up in their face later. This is an election year, after all.

As for the protests themselves, I am glad to see that they’ve been orderly and peaceful so far –especially since the number of participants can sometimes be very high. For that, the marchers should be commended, and most importantly, it makes it more likely that their messages will be heard. It doesn’t mean that their desires will be met, but peaceful protests are more effective in communicating their messages than rioting and looting would be. Kudos to all those who have organized these marches, that they haven’t incited their listeners to violence and mayhem. Another, larger protest is planned for today, and I shall be commenting on that later this week.

Tom Cruise in this Sunday’s Parade magazine

In Parade’s article about Tom Cruise, I found one of his comments particularly funny when he asked: “Who’s to say what’s normal?” Usually, people who ask that question are virtually admitting that they aren’t normal. Tom has been acting a bit bizarre as of late, especially his antics on Oprah. Yep, that’s normal behavior, alright. ;-)

Sports

The Dallas Mavericks had an excellent game against the Spurs, and they didn’t suffer a letdown on the game of the next day. Both are good signs as to how the team stands going into the playoffs. Now if they can only overtake the Spurs in the standings before the season’s over with….

The Texas Rangers, on the other hand, are not doing well at all. They finally won their second game last night. This might be a matter of redeveloping team chemistry, because when you think about it, the Rangers lost Alfonso Soriano and David Delucci, both whom were starters last season. Now the team has to get used to two new starters. But the sooner they “gel” as a team, the better, because the Rangers don’t want to get into a position where they start the season out in a huge hole. In other words, they need to start stringing some victories together RIGHT now.

And speaking of baseball, Fort Worth’s team, the Cats, won their league championship last season, and Fort Worth’s basketball team, the Flyers has a chance to give the city two champions. The Flyers ended their season at the top of their league. Not bad for a team that’s still in its first season! If the Flyers can win their championship, then it’s up to the Fort Worth Brahmas hockey team to try to give the city a “three-fer”. The Brahmas won’t do it this season, but there’s always next season. Go Flyers!

http://www.nba.com/dleague/news/2006_Development_League_Champ_060410.html