First Annual Labor Day Awards

In case you didn't already know it, today is Labor Day in the U.S. Here's a couple of interpretations of Labor Day's origins; one from the U.S. Dept. of Labor, and one from Wikipedia. One source is from the government, while the other one is from a website encyclopedia in which anyone with Internet access can edit. In other words, both sources are suspect. ;-)

Back in the day when I wrote columns for my college newspaper, I tried to have an annual Labor Day Awards for Summer News Events to time with the return to school in the fall. I came across the attached artwork recently, and it gave me the idea of restarting my Labor Day Awards here on my blog. The attached artwork is actually a preliminary sketch of the finished work that I used in the newspaper, but I liked it anyway, so I decided to use it here - after I cleaned it up and "Photoshopped" it, first.

Although my Labor Day Awards (LDAs from here on) while in college were for "Summer News Events", I've decided that - on my blog - to not just limit my awards to summer news events. I decided to expand who or what gets one of my "Cookies". "Cookie" is the name of my award, because it has a cook in it. I wish I had thought of that name back in college, but perhaps this is a good way of inaugurating my LDAs here. So with that, let's go ahead and start with some Cookies for summer news events.

My first Cookie goes to Mel Gibson, who gets the "Drunken Sailor Award" for the stupid anti-Semitic remarks that he made during a pull-over. Mel, Mel, Mel... Just give your critics some ammo, whydontcha? Mel suffers from what many overly weathly individuals suffer from, which is a belief that they're immune from contacts with reality that the rest of us poor slobs have to deal with. Thus, when "reality meets the road" for them (and as it did literally for Mel), then they're shocked that reality really exists for them as well. Michael Jackson is another example of this, but I really don't want to talk about him, other than to present him as a stark example of my point above.

Another Cookie goes to Mel's critics who, for some reason, felt more outrage over one person's drunken, anti-Semitic ramblings than for another prominent personality who also made anti-Semitic remarks - but not while under the influence: Andrew Young. Mel's critics get the "Like, Total Hypocrisy Award" for like, cluelessly not realizing how like, totally hypocritical they looked in critizing Mel Gibson, but not Andrew Young. With such slanted actions as this, it's no wonder that the charges of a "liberal bias" in the media often seems to stick.

The next Cookie goes to the Texas Rangers baseball team, who get the "Same-o, same-o Award" for once again fading in the second half of the season, leaving us loyal fans with another disappointing season. Sigh. I'm gonna stop here.

A Cookie goes to Terrell "Enormous Ego Man" Owens, who gets the "Yeah, Right Award" for his alleged hamstring injury during the Dallas Cowboys' training camp. But he miraculously recovered once coach Bill Parcells laid down the law that anyone who doesn't play in the final preseason game won't be in the first game of the season. Boy, that got TO back on the field. The longer that Parcells lets him get away with stuff like this, the more he'll keep doing it. That's what the Enormous Ego Man tends to do. If Parcells doesn't get TO straightened out, then he'll have Cookie waiting for him this time next year.

A posthumous Cookie goes to Steve Irwin, who gets the "Crikey! Award" for all his good work and entertaining shows that he put out while educating us about animal life and the environment. Irwin died from a stingray barb to the chest while diving. Irwin often got very close to dangerous animals during his shows, and I always imagined him going out while wrestling a crocodile. That would have been a more fitting and poetic end, but we would have all preferred that he would have been doing this for many, many years. May he rest in peace.

A "Watch the Hands! Award" goes to President George Bush, who startled German Chancellor Angela Merkel with an impromptu shoulder rub, for which Merkel didn't seem too pleased with. Bush isn't known for his diplomatic skills, but he should have known better than to do that - at least in public and when Merkel wasn't expecting it. It's a good thing he didn't grab her butt!

My last Cookie is for the news media, and it's the "Journalism 101 Award". I was on Wikipedia looking up the name of the New York Times reporter who got into hot water over some of his stories (it was Jayson Blair), because I wanted to write a blog entry about the importance of the media getting its facts straight when reporting on their stories. I did a search using "journalism scandals", and look how many scandals turned up in this article! Not only that, scroll down and see how many have happened just in recent years! What the heck is wrong with those people? It sounds like a variation of the "no need to be in touch with reality" condition that overly weathly people suffer from. Back to Journalism 101 for those folks! Anyway, now I'm researching some of those stories that are mentioned in that article so that I can work it into my blog entry for that topic.

Well, that's it for this year's LDAs! All the Cookies are well deserved! Have a great Labor Day, folks!