Stateside With Rosalea: I Am Curious, Jaundiced

::The sound of both hands patting::

Thursday night's CBS News included a segment that had me hopping mad by the end of it, so you can imagine my surprise when it was repeated on Friday night because it had garnered such a lot of feedback--presumably positive--from the public.

The story was about an autistic kid who was basically his high school basketball team's slave, not considered fit to play for the past four years but on the last game of the season was given a chance to don the jersey and go on court a few minutes from the end. He shot basket after basket as the game continued.

I am curious, jaundiced: Why wasn't he playing for the team all along? To me, the story is just another example of prejudice excluding someone from using their skills and talents, and then when they're given the chance to do so, the credit goes not to them so much as the far-sighted and prejudice-defying authority figure that allowed the chance to happen.

Folks, patting yourself on the back for enabling someone to triumph over all the obstacles you've put in their way is NOT a good look, no matter how warm and fuzzy it makes you feel inside.

The clip is available at http://cbsnews.com. Search for "autistic teen's hoop dreams"

::The look of both eyes ogling::

Over on NBC this Sunday morning, we were treated to one man saying to another on a television show watched by millions around the world: "You look nice and trim... your abs look great."

I am curious, jaundiced: What if Arnold Schwarzenegger had said that to a female anchor instead of to Tim Russert on Meet the Press? No doubt that was the reason Arnold said it, just to highlight double standards. Or was he making a pitch for the gay vote?

He's a cunning rapscallion, is our Arnie. His image is being remade not so much as Governator but as a gentler kind of happy, cheery, Bob the Builder persona. He talks about "fixing things" all the time, and you can just see his big hands with a wrench in them doing a lefty-loosy/righty-tighty tweaking job on the California State Assembly.

He's confident enough to declare that being governor is on-the-job training, and to quote his wife saying to his children "there's no shame in losing; the shame is in not trying," and to turn a question about the number of Californians who've lost their lives in Iraq into an opportunity to offer condolences to the family of a California Highway Patrolman who was run over by a drunk driver yesterday while ticketing someone for speeding.

He uses all these old hippie words and phrases all the time too, like "hassles." His response to a question about the UAE ports company deal was: "We have villainized the Arab world so much... [having ports in UAE control] freaks everyone out."

Meet the Press is put up on-line at http://mtp.msnbc.com at 1pm Eastern time on Sundays.

::Sound and vision envy::

I spent part of the weekend playing around with the photo albums on my computer, trying to choose an interesting slide show for the screen saver. I had to laugh at my meager efforts to capture the aerial gymnastics over San Francisco a couple of years ago when the Canadian Snowbirds came for Fleet Week.

Despite knowing exactly where the planes would be coming from and despite them flying low, most of my photographs were of empty sky. Largely because I'd have a knee-jerk reaction to where I thought the sound was coming from and point my camera skyward accordingly.

I am curious, jaundiced: What camera school did this cameraman go to that he was able to not only resist the intuitive urge to point his camera skyward, but to anticipate where the plane would be by the time it got in his viewfinder?

It’s just a brief clip, worth watching: http://911foreknowledge.com/odorofgas.htm

rosalea.barker@gmail.com

--PEACE--

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