indignation

I love my ridiculous home state of Texas. Sometimes it’s hard living here, what with the state being so solidly red (LBJ is not resting peacefully), which leads to some crazy debates in our state agencies.

Like this week, the State Board of Education debated whether or not schools should teach the weaknesses in the theory of evolution.

Now before I go any further, it’s time for some disclosure. I grew up Catholic and I’m still a practicing Catholic (though probably a little more cafeteria Catholic than the Pope might like). Still, I’m a lector, my kids are altar servers and my wife teaches cathecism. I even have a brother who is a deacon in Dallas.

All that being said, I don’t cotton with creationism. On top of that, it was never taught in my nearly 12 years of Catholic eduction. Nor was it taught at the Methodist university I attended.

So it was very refreshing to read a column in the local paper that pointed out that parochial schools are better about dealing with the evolution vs. creation debate than most politicians.

The board came close, but it didn’t change language in the science curriculum. But there’s always another year, and this ridiculousness is far from done.

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This inauguration cover of The New Yorker made conservative heads explode. As one Facebook friend put it, “Another example of the media setting unbelievably high expectations.”

First of all, the cover is only drawing a comparison between President Barack Obama and President George Washington because both were firsts. (Pssst. Barack Obama is a black man and no black person has ever been president.)

But on to the expectations. Granted, some people have ridiculous expectations of our new president. FOX News (of course) had video of some woman saying an Obama administration would mean that she can buy a house and afford groceries and have affordable health care. Those may be unreasonable expecations.

But what are those expectations born from? Could it be that eight years of a dismal administration, compromised values, ballooning government, warrantless wiretapping, war, opaque governing, mishandled disaster relief, culminating with our economy in the toilet, have led us to some pie-in-the-sky dreams?

I think a lot of folks are hoping an Obama administration just gets us back where we were before the Bush administration. It was a time of prosperous peace. People had jobs. Government was more open. We weren’t being spied upon. We did not torture people. Are those expectations so unrealistic?

Think about it this way: It’s the starving person that dreams of a four-course meal, but will be more than happy with a bowl of soup. Soup is on!

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I am a sucker for lists and I saw a beautiful one yesterday. The master of the business list, Fortune magazine, published its list of the 21 dumbest business moments in 2008.

Considering what a huge story business was last year, it’s amazing they were able to pare it down to 21. And these are beauts.

You’ve got the auto industry executives begging for money after arriving in their private jets. You’ve got the economic bailout. And you’ve got a GM executive calling global warming a “crock of s*#t.” (A former boss of mine was as the closed-door event where that was uttered and broke the story.)

It would be nice to think that dumb things won’t happen in 2009. But I’ll do them, you’ll do them and the people in power will do them. Will anyone be able to learn from them? Let’s hope so.

I was trying like hell to stay away from the death of Jett Travolta for the simple fact that I loathe celebrity news. And this story has the “Insidertainment Tonightedition” hyenas scavenging for any scrap they can get.

But then I found something on iReport. Parents who have lost children are posting their stories. That really touched me.

It’s so easy to see celebrities like John Travolta as being above the fray. They live in a different world from the rest of us so we may have a tendency not to look at their problems as being our problems.

Yet there is no one alive who should ever have to consider burying their own children. I have three and they are each knuckleheads in their own sweet, wonderful and amazing way. I love them dearly and could never imagine life without them.

My wife and I have been blessed with healthy children, and for that we thank God. We also realize that they could be taken from us within the blink of an eye. It’s something I used to panic about. I hated to let them out of my sight for fear that I wouldn’t be there to save them from “whatever.”

Now I spend my time making sure that I love them and they know they are loved. So I don’t have any doubts or regrets should the unthinkable ever happen.

It must have been optimism of the New Year that led to a 250-point jump in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Maybe it was Liza Minelli (shiver) ringing the closing bell.

Whatever the reason, don’t start spending you’re rediscovered retirement wealth. The climb out of this bear market is going to take a lot longer than the slide into it.

Pundits are so eager to find some shred of good economic news. We need it. We’ve been bombarded with how horrible the economy is.

Unfortunately, nothing is going to happen until banks loosen their purse strings and people start spending money again. But don’t look at me. I’m just as nervous as everyone else.

We may not get to see real recovery until a large capital spending program goes into effect. You small-government fans may not want to hear that, but the federal government is the only one with any cash to spend. As long as they don’t give it all away in loan guarantees and bailouts.

We’ll stay tuned.

This might have floated under your radar screen, but Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt beat Michael Phelps for the title of male athlete of the year in a poll of international journalists.

This makes me a little bit crazy, as I’m a floundering swimmer. But we’re talking about a guy, in Phelps, who won eight gold medals. Forget that some of them came in relays. He still won eight gold medals. Bolt won three including one in a relay. Each athlete set world records during their incredible time in
Beijing.

But this, to me, smells more like American backlash and unfortunately it has affected an individual, who seems like a really decent guy. I think the world was expecting great things from Phelps and the U.S. was definitely expecting great things. Needless to say, the U.S. and NBC hyped the hell out of Phelps and some of the media probably got tired of the Phelpsteria.

The shame of it is, the world is pretty tired of us. And they have some right to be. As a nation, we don’t always present ourselves well, history be damned. It’s recent history that has left the indelible mark that we can hopefully erase in the coming years.

I got into the news business long enough ago that I can remember when news was news. There wasn’t such a need to entertain the public because the public came to you for information.

Now, it’s about grabbing a piece of our limited attention span that our video gaming, channel surfing, instant gratificating society has developed. So you end up with Kathy Griffin on the air with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, hosting a New Year’s Eve countdown. (At least it’s a departure from Ryan Seacrest.)

Griffin, however, seems to have a polarizing effect on people. You love her or you hate her. And some people who hate her made a point of letting her know last night. So she responded like someone who is used to dealing with hecklers in her own manner. That’s not necessarily how the television censors would have liked her to respond.

That’s the risk you take when you take someone who is used to performing in one medium and put them somewhere else. It’s probably what you should expect when you add a “performer” to your roster for a quasi-news event.

Hopefully this won’t cause a backlash against Griffin (whom I love). But it’s the risk networks are willing to take to tap into our shrinking attention span.

This is Sean Wood, driver of this word bus I call “indignation.”

I’ve recently left the world of print journalism after 20 years. Some of that time was spent with my toe in the world of Web writing. I hope you come back often to see my takes on what’s happening in the world and why it’s all so damn silly.