It's All Right 2.0

I was confused about these two radical organizations, so I did some reading on http://en.wikipedia.org

The Taliban was the 1996-2001 governing party of Afghanistan that was unseated in the first gulf war.  They persist today as an alternative government (courts, militia) in parts of Afghanistan and are the
identity of the Afgan insurgents.

Al Queda is a stateless radical movement founded in the 1980s by Bin Laden.  Al Queda found refuge in Afghanistan under the Taliban when they were kicked out of Sudan in the late 90′s.   They now are mostly situated in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In 1995 Bin Laden/Al Queda took over terrorist operations in Bosnia and began organizing a global jihad.  Bin Laden declared Fatwa on America in 1996 and again in 1998.    The rest is history.

Bob Sr recently wrote a commentary regarding a recent excursion to a University of Central Florida football game. Fun was had by all.

At the time, his beloved Iowa Hawkeyes were 9-0. The day before the UCF game, the Hawks had just overcome a large 4th quarter deficit to defeat Indiana in a Halloween thriller. The magical season was still alive. In 110 years of Iowa college football, they have never had this much success. They have never played for the ‘National Championship’. Then . . .

On one play, Northwestern popped the balloon. They sacked the Hawk’s star quarterback, causing a fumble in the end zone. Touchdown Northwestern. In addition, Ricky Stanzi was knocked out of the game with a severely sprained ankle. The Hawks would lose the game and Stanzi will not play this week versus Ohio State.

The Sports Illustrated jinx lives. Ouch.

Here is a link to a (this week) Wall Street Journal article titled – WHY IOWA IS GOOD FOR COLLEGE FOOTBALL.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704402404574526090426644888.html

from brother Rick R, Alameda, CA.

Now that Orlando Opera is history, Robert Swedberg discards his gag order and shares his experience.  Lots of nitty gritty here about local fundraising, nonprofit board leadership, the local Arts (with a capital A), and the players.  Plus hope for the future.

From the Orlando Weekly.

This is pretty damn good.   It starts by saying its misnamed…its not really health care reform, its an insurance reform initiative. FB readers: go here http://www.slideshare.net/danroam/healthcare-napkins-all

In 1958, the University of Buffalo football team was invited to the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando.  It was their first ever bowl invitation, but the team players voted and declined the invitation.   They declined because the invitation game with racist strings attached: the two black members of the team would not be allowed to participate.  The story has been featured on ESPN.

Next month, the UB Bulls are facing off against UCF in our own Bright House Stadium, and Orlando  Mayor Crotty has spearheaded an initiative to apologize and honor those 1958 team members for the stand they took.   The team members are invited to the September 19th UCF game.  Crotty has rounded up donated airfare and lodging for the players, and UCF will honor their attendance at halftime.   This story should not be buried in the sports pages.   Orlando Sentinel details. UCF News story.

We watched the Michael Moore documentary the other night, and it is sticking with me.   I’m not a Moore fan, and I have all sorts of advice for him to improve his films (like, don’t appear on camera!), but this 2007 release is perhaps his most subdued and effective yet.

Its strong and memorable aspect is how it lays out the big picture arguments against our current health care system, and highlights the absurdity of perpetuating it.    Just about everyone agrees that it is a flawed system that is failing to provide minimal, not even adequate, health care for Americans.   But it is not being changed and the prognosis for change is poor indeed.   My take from the films POV is that the big giant reasons our system persists is  1) the entrenched financial interests that benefit from the system have way too much control over our political leadership, and 2) there is lingering national paranoia about the spectre of “socialized medicine”.

Neither I nor Michael Moore can offer any solutions to number 1 other than to somehow find the political will.  But Moore easily refutes obstacle number 2 by pointing out that Americans already benefit from a lot of socialized services.  Like for example, libraries, and schools, and firefighting and rescue, and postal service.  Why the f*ck not Health Care?    It is clearly working better than our system in the other countries profiled by Moore in the film.

To find the origin or our current mess, Moore singles out Nixon for endorsing the prototypical HMO in private and in public back in the 60′s, but I blame the red scare and the subsequent cold war as more culpable.

Last Friday local and state dignitaries descended onto our property in UCF’s research park to break ground on a new $20M building entirely funded by the state of Florida, and intended for military research, and UCF’s Institute for Simulation and Training. This is the third ‘partnership’ building, but the previous ones were built with both federal and state money. Curious. Is that why so many dignitaries showed up for the groundbreaking?

Here’s an article in the Central Florida Future, with a great photo by Caitlin Bush. Another curiosity: not a single mention of this event in the Orlando Sentinel.

Went fishing yesterday with a new acquaintance from Sebastian, FL.  He’s got a go-fast off shore boat, and we went about 25 miles out looking for dolphin and kingfish.   Didn’t find any, and while hightailing it back to the inlet, we were pulled over, boarded and searched by federal agents with the Dept. of Homeland Security.   I was totally on edge because I forgot to bring my fishing license, but these guys didn’t care.  They were looking for drugs or weapons.    After calling in our ID’s and finding smelly bait on board, they gave us a cursory lookover and bid us on our way.  We saw them later in the day checking other boats, so it wasn’t just us.

Their vessel was an incredibly hot chase boat with 4 large mercury outboards mounted on the stern.   I asked permission to take pictures, and they said ok to take photos of the boat, but not of the agents.

Here’s the agent who asked not to take photos of his face:

Here’s a photo-worthy shark we caught later in the inlet: