Welcome to Bizarro World, the Republican National Convention

The last few days in GOP Land have run the gamut from bizarre to downright scary strange.

Not much of a gamut actually, merely puzzling.

Where to begin? How about Friday. OK, it's disgusting how the GOP Karl Roverite types and such always play politics and spin like tops rather than address serious issues in a forthright manner.

That's politics. Not that it's right. Not that it helps anybody. But that's the game they play and we're victims when we don't, or won't, or don't know, or can't deal with it. That's life. We've been screwed for eight years by this game.

So it was "great politics" or whatever Fox News Channel calls it for McCain to step on Barack OBama's stirring 30 million-plus viewers, 84,000 in attendance, free event tickets being sold for $300 to $400, thousands outside the stadium epochal Denver speech.

For McCain to try to "win the news cycle" with his insipidly lame Veep choice of Sally No Vetting with the typical GOP hypocrisy and lies, as in her saying she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere when she supported it, saying she opposed benchmarks when she took them constantly, and all this other personal hypocrisy -- the ambiguous child, the no sex before marriage, oops daughter preggers by self-proclaimed redneck kid guess we don't have that "talk" -- nonsense from the destroying the environment, killing polar bears, fake Iraq gun sound bites to the having no passport until two years ago, no foreign policy experience to....

Ah, whatever. They're the same scum who stole the 2000  election, lied Kerry into defeat --Swiftboat pigs anybody --  lied us into the -- look ma, no WMD's, no Iraq-Al Qaeda connection -- Iraq War, blew Afghanistan and Katrina, ruined the economy, allowed credit card company predators to run wild, allowed the companies to make $40 billion quarterly profits while regular people starve to pay for gasoline so they can get to work, and....

Whatever. As I said, back to the RNC: BIZARRO WORLD. The entire flip-flopping on the McCain so-called message whenever it suits his campaign.

So, this is McCain's judgment. As a 72-year-old guy who has had melaoma four times, sure it makes sense to have a woman with five kids, questionable ethics, NO experience beyond being a mayor of a 6,000-person city, followed by goveror of a state with the population of Austin, Tx, to be veep.

What, Dan Quayle wasn't available?

Yeah, that's good judgment.

Bizarro World personified. Up is down etc. Nice touch putting Bush on before prime time. Nice touch having that limp mind Lieberman who was tossed out of the Democratic Party -- primary loser -- giving a lame speech. Especially liked his no-applause iines where the funny hat delegates couldn't figure out whether to applaud or hiss.

Then, we got that CSI actor or whatever he is who put up that faux presidential campaign for a few months and then had to shut up...Until now.

This convention might be called a train wreck, except it would give a bad name to train wrecks.

Thanks for nothing?

Close. although I'll give them this much. As Roseanne Rosannadanna once said: It's always something.

And in the case of the rapidly sinking Repuboship, it's sort of great theater, except the consequences are always bad for real people.

I'll give them this much. I'll be tuned in for a few moments tomorrow. You never know what kind of crazy off-the-wall stuff this "fun"? bunch will "think" of next.

.Always surprising, apparently, and always insane.

Yet another "'Dream Exacta' come true"

Yet another "'Dream Exacta' come true"

The "Dream Exacta" refers to a practice many years ago where I would dream, or visualize, about a horse race at The Fairgrounds in New Orleans and bet whatever I saw, impressions, colors, names, jockeys.

That went pretty well for a while. Then, a panel of so-called "psychics" on the Geraldo show ruined it. They said anybody who tried to use "psychic" powers for greed would find them rendered useless.

They were correct.

What does this have to do with 1989 Loma Prieto earthquake around San Francisco?

One morning, I woke up and had a clear vision of a city in flames. That day I went around telling everybody a major earthquake would strike San Francisco.

The dream exacta was running wild again.

Nothing happened that day. Nothing at all. I was extremely confused and embarrassed, believing the powers had gone south.

As the world turns however, I quickly forgot the whole sad scene. Life moved along without further incident.

To supplement my meager, meager income as associate curator of the Tulane University Jazz Archive -- a long story --  and against my better judgment, I took an investigative job.

The guy talked me into tailing some guy in Houma who might be meeting a girlfriend, or so his wife surmised. I would have to miss my first TV World Series game EVER.

What the heck. I'd tape it. I watched the motel from my car for a couple of hours listening to the World Series pre-game on radio.

Then, fate intervened.

Earthquake.

I couldn't believe it. The game was cancelled, so I kept the streak alive. Eventually, I left Blue Bayou and headed east toward home. Clicked on the television set.

Flaming groovy pictures alright. Earthquake. The Loma Prieto kind. Pictures of the city in flames.

The very same pictures I had seen before. But when? I thought and considered, contemplated, went to a calendar and retraced my steps.

When? Exactly one year to the day from when I had the vision. Even at the same minute and hour I watched the flaming TV pictures.

Flash forward to Saturday, Aug. 23. I had another dream. I saw the No. 5 horse in green colors winning a race and running around the track, related details as well.

Vivid. Oh yeah. the Dream Exacta had returned for another score.

During the big Pacific Handicap day, guaranteed millions yada yada yada at the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, I put together three Pick 4's; two $30 tickets, one based on the TVG analyst and a safety ticket.

The analyst singled a horse in the third leg I thought would be beaten by another horse, a mistake he always makes by the way. I added that horse but only had enough money to cover the top five in a wide open 12-horse get-out race concluding the Pick 4. 

The analyst ticket had them all, a move I would if I could. I had to leave off the No. 5 horse running at 30-1 odds and two others I wanted.

On with the show.

Three times, my horses devastated the fields at good prices. It set up for the 11th, and final, race on the Del Mar card. Payoffs were $600 to $9,000 for my picks.

That's why they run horse races.

One of the horses I wanted t cover and would have covered beat two of my horses by a length. The five finished fourth.

Sitting there all pissed off, I glared at the television feed as it switched to Los Alamitos where they were about to start the second race.

Big and covered in kelly shamrock green, the No. 5 horse pranced about the track. He ran a great race.

There it was again. Exactly as in my dream, the five won the race and ran around the track in triumph. They showed the picture a half dozen times. And then another five showed up for the next race and won, too.

Yet again the "Dream Exacta" had come in...But in a totally unexpected manner.

Great.

That darn Olympic 11th inning thing

Good job Olympic breaths.

Olympics all hyped up and going nowhere...although fast

Olympic fever? Hardly.

Not all that hot. Too bad for NBC, the Olympics have been interesting, a bit exotic and a showcase, just not for them and not so much for people here, you know, the U S of A.

The Olympics have had world class moments, sure. The opening ceremonies were fantastic. Michael Phelps, swimming, gymnastics have had top-rate story lines.

But the hype is louder than the bang.

For all that hype, Phelps is still a swimmer, a sport that has zero interest for most people throughout the preceding and following three years, 11 months, 21 days. Opening ceremonies, too, it was more like a super Super Bowl thing or great Las Vegas show that was super-duper-sized. Olympics de'soleil anyone?

But the NBC talking heads led by Bob Costas fall all over themselves proclaiming how this is the greatest event EVER.

It's all a bit too frantic, a bit too forced. Especially since we all can see for ourselves it's more like an expanded version of the old ABC Wide World of Sports with a lot of Saturday afternoon second-tier sporting events before the real deal in the form of baseball, football, basketball etc. resumes daily play.

They got basketball in Beijing, of course, with the Redeem Team, and baseball in its final appearance for a while due to the worldwide disgust with Bush's War in Iraq extending to voting out events perceived as too American.

For the most part, however, the competitions are backyard barbecue fare such as badminton, ping pong and two-person volleyball, and elite events such as dressage mixing and matching with the likes of handball, men's field hockey, water polo. Again, interesting but come on, it were so hot there would be professional leagues on prime team TV and all. And what, no croquet, ballroom dancing or volleywallball?

The Olympics has other sore points. There's a very unhealthy dose of propaganda of various types marching shoulder-to-shoulder with the hype. Many events don't have scores per se but judges and very loose standards, like this guy didn't tie his shoes, two points off type of stuff.

And then, there's a very tenuous relationship between many athletes and the countries they "represent." Chinese playing for the U.S. in ping-pong. Americans playing basketball and baseball for Italy. Hey, ate some goulash once; welcome to the Hungarian trampoline squad.

NBC paid a gazillion dollars for this Chinese elephant. As an investment, no doubt, it pays off since no matter how much money these media conglommerations pay, they seem to get back more in return.

As a "super event" and TV programming, however, these Olympic games have been a big fat dud. People watch a little so ratings are good for summer TV although that's not saying much since the big competition is Big Brother X.

Coverage has been uneven, even joyless except for Bela Karolyi doing his best Jim Cramer send-up. Features have been boring and, again, overblown. NBC Today's coverage has been sick, and sick in a sick, not good way. Matt Lauer, Meredith Viera, Ann Curry, Al Roker: TIRED AND OVEREXPOSED. Nobody cares.

Prime time coverage is just OK, a C+, although if you throw out the billions in technology and account for possibilities, the grade goes down to C-. The worst offenders have been the MSNBC team of Tiki Barber and Jenna Wolfe. Tiki: Maybe you should forget about retirement and go back to playing football. Jenna: We don't care about your hair.

Track and Field? I like some of it, even a little bit. But I will not comment on these matters again. The Olympics will have come and gone in two weeks. As they said with Hamlet, all that sound and fury signifying what...

A whole bunch of hype and see you again in four years.

As for these Olympics, they're stone cold, turn them over and let's be done with them.

Barry Bonds and why not the Rays? (Also, an Olympic moment).

Let's put the devil back into the rays.

Two television news failures and an annoyance

Television news pretty much has become pure entertainment (and not all that entertaining either).

That's a given. And television news is pretty much on the way out just like its earlier incarnation of print journalism. People don't sit around watching TV news as they did maybe 20 years ago since information is available from everywhere else via computers, phones, whatever platforms.

However, some people watch TV news -- live or on digital video -- and I'm speaking out for them and to them on the following two perversions of journalism routinely practiced by these fake journalists sashaying around TV.

1. Story Commentary

When did it start? Why does it continue? What are they thinking when they do this?

Here is the deal. After every story by a field reporter or even after reading a news story, the TV "anchors" or newsreaders feel compelled to comment on the story.

Huh? In journalism, stories traditionally and professionally have been presented as fairly and accurately without bias as possible. This is so people can feel confidence in the veracity of the story.

But now, these talking heads comment on each story. These comments are never useful or even interesting. We don't care what they think about the story or whatever. Nor can we consider the story unbiased if they immediately comment pro- or con- which they do seemingly each time.

We need to do something on an individual and market-to-market basis to let them know how insidious this comment crap is; then again, screw them. I'll call them out in the future.

2. Fake news questions from anchors

A reporter does a live field report. Or a fake live report from the newsroom. Then, the anchor -- after much fake posturing -- asks them a couple of questions to which the reporter rattles off a reply.

Come on! These prepared querstions and answers aren't fooling anybody. No, the anchor could care less, the questions don't make the anchor look any smarter -- sorry -- and the whole staged fake give-and-take scene is ridiculous.

You're not fooling anybody and its stupid. Usually, the reporters already have addressed the issue. If they haven't it's because of the staged Q&A crap format.

I'm not even going to argue with that faux format. It merely reveals the vacuousness of the TV news "personalities".

3. Annoyance--news teasers

News tease. End of the world coming? Check the we suck news team at 10, or after the next five minutes of drug company commercials for expensive (bogus) pharmaceuticals later found to be more harmful than helpful.

Good grief. If it's important, and you tease it, you're a pig. I'll watch the other newscast for the story then thanks. Or if its BS, why bother.

News teases piss off people. They DO NOT cause people to set their clocks to the "reveal". Plus, lots of times the news tease doesn't even get played properly during the "reveal" or if it turns out to be stupid beyond belief -- geez, how surprising -- thanks for nothing.

News tease? You who practice it are news sleaze.

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[Please check out my Rancho Santa Fe Web site at www.92067freepress.com for general stories of interest or my baseball blog at http://danweisman.mlblogs.com/ ]

Olympic Moments--Not

Swimming medals, gymnastics, basketball, etc., all on the main NBC station. But the ancillary stations, MSNBC, CNBC, NBCNBC et al. It's a conspiracy.

Badminton. I'm not smitten. That's all they show. I've watched gazillion badminton sets between places like East Nowehere and the People's Republlic of Bush sucks but I digress.

Badminton. Or I could go to your neighbor's backyard for a game with Uncle Junior. What, no croquet. What about Capture the Flag?

Wake me up when the shuttlecock set ends. I'll even take archery. Just no more bad mittens.

John Edwards: Stop already

We get it, John Edwards. You're a liar and can't stop yourself because, tsk. yeech, you're a narcissist and anything else you can think of as a poor excuse. What, can't bring alcoholism into it? Guess that means you like pot. Nothing wrong with that nor with your (pretending, it seems to be indicated) adoption of social issues and "trying to help people". But your ridiculous behavior. The running away from tabloids, set up or not and all the other stuff that comes out daily.

It's sad. And sad not only for a scumfish like you, but for media in general. Suddenly, the National Enquirer -- The National Enquirer for God's sake -- is somehow a "news" organization relying on "sources" yada yada yada and even a CNN fake investigatve reporter is talking about how they outdid CNN. Can't be too hard though.

Come on. media, John Edwards. Stop wasting our time. From now on, I'm switching channels almost immediately if Edwards is on the air or your talking heads are blathering nonsense about him.

Bernie Mac. Isaac Hayes, we cared.

John Edwards. just go away and/or die.

What, me election worry?

Considering Our Times

Stats, baby!