(Light-Up) Notes From a Friday Afternoon

(sparkling the season of my mind)

For your consideration: another curious collection of thoughts, reactions, and observations that didn’t make it into a full-length post this week...

• First, a Programming Note: Part 4 of the Let’s Talk About the Students So We Don’t Have to Talk About Our Own Budgets Money Series — this one digging even deeper into the billion-dollar war chests of two of our local, (ahem) not-for-profit universities — will appear here Tuesday. That way you’ll have at least two full days after reading it to regain your appetites in time for Thanksgiving dinner.   

• If you want to review or need to catch up, see Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

• Some interesting thoughts in the comment thread for yesterday’s post about political posturing on both sides of the aisle — or is that both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue? — over the upcoming Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial. More interesting thoughts arrived via email, including this one: We had friends over for dinner recently who live and die by the First Amendment. Talking to them really made me think about those freedoms and my interpretation of them in a new way. That is to say you can only define yourself as truly American when you accept the responsibility of the freedom to dedicate your entire life to screaming against and defeating [pick any side of an issue here], but when you allow your opponent the same dedication [and the same screaming] as his constitutional right.

• Though it would be nice if we could stop short of the screaming every once in a while, that last sentence absolutely nails it. And reminds us what a shame it is that so much of our time in America seems lately spent on attempts to silence, or marginalize, or demonize our political opponents, rather than to engage them head-on and, whether with a scream or even with a whisper, stick to the issues at stake.

• After Wednesday’s Ribbon Abuse Awareness Ribbon post, two different readers emailed to call my attention to this recent Onion item in which December is named National Awareness Month. It was kind of funny, I suppose. (The American Foundation for Paying Attention to Things made me smile.) But I thought it was even funnier when we made the same joke over at Carbolic Smoke Ball six months ago.

• Does anyone know what Sarah Palin is up to these days? I haven’t seen or heard anything about her in the news.

• Another day, another Swine Flu vaccine trouble/shortage/distribution failure story. I feel a full-length post on this subject coming on soon, but for now... We've had months' worth of lead time to prepare for this pandemic poseur of a Piggy Pox, and we still can't do anything right. If we ever get hit with a real, honest-to-goodness, spreads-like-wildfire strain of a deadly pandemic virus, we're toast.  

• This will surely be part of that future post too, but as long as we're on the subject... The Bush Administration had a couple of days to prepare, couldn't get ice to New Orleans, and was (rightly) crucified for its failures and incompetencies. The Obama Administration had months to prepare, still seems to have no adequate plan for distributing the H1N1 vaccine to people who do not work on Wall Street, and no one's making a peep. Where all the Katrina criers are now? If this failure had occurred under President Bush, we never would have heard the end of it. And rightly so.

• Though I was trying not to pay attention to the annual, inevitable stories about Light Up Night Preparations — KDKA News: You Could Set Your Watch, or Your Calendar, By Us! — I couldn’t help but look up from the laptop last night when one of the event’s organizers declared that people won’t want to miss Santa’s Fireballs. Which will be followed, no doubt, by Rudloph’s Tracer Fire and Mrs. Claus’s Mushroom Cloud.

• You know, because nothing quite says Christmas like flaming artillery fired at trees hung from downtown office buildings.

• If Osama bin Laden really wants to attack another U.S. city, he or one of his minions should sneak into the country and try to get the gig as next year’s Light Up Night Santa. They could rocket-launch at least two or three missiles at downtown buildings before anyone caught on.  

• While we’re on the subject of fireballs and Christmas trees... This week’s best bit of Useless Information: The bark of a redwood tree is fireproof. Fires that occur in a redwood forest take place inside the trees.

• Is there a more durable video game franchise — or any kind of franchise, for that matter — than Super Mario Bros.? The series that sold over 175 million games and helped sell more than 200 million game systems is back and (almost) as good as ever with New Super Mario Bros. Wii. The boys and I have been playing it for five days, were hooked after the first five minutes, and will likely still be playing it after five years. As Entertainment Weekly’s Adam Vary rightly observes: It’s a testimony to the Mario formula’s sturdy construction that after Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, Super Mario Land, Super Mario Land 2, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario 64 DS, New Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Galaxy, and now New Super Mario Bros. Wii, saving the princess and breaking bricks with your fist still hasn’t lost its charm.

• And that’s not even mentioning the Super Mario Kart series, which may be the most compulsively playable — or at least the most compulsively re-playable — video games ever.

• Lord knows I’ll be longing for a few of those power-ups, and at least a red shell or two, on the Pennsylvania Turnpike tomorrow. I’ll be heading East for a couple of days, but I’m taking my laptop with me. So if there’s anything interesting to report, I’ll be sure to post it here. Until then — keep an eye out for Santa’s Smart Bombs Tomahawks Fireballs...