–COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on the college football season. In the Big Ten both the Michigan-Maryland and the Northwestern-Minnesota games were among the 10 games canceled during the past weekend at this writing. So far this season more than a hundred games have been canceled or postponed because of the virus. I’ve watched several interviews with the athletics directors from colleges that had to cancel games, and they said the main thing they wanted to do was protect the health of the student athletes. Well, if that’s what they really want to do, I have some advice for them: DON’T PLAY THE DAMN GAMES AT ALL! HANG UP THE HELMETS AND PADS FOR THE SEASON AND WAIT FOR NEXT YEAR. I thought it was ridiculous when the Big Ten officials caved in from the pressure of fans, parents, and players and reversed the decision to cancel the season. Now some individual cancelations may affect the conference championship and the national playoff picture. Is the game really more important than the health of those who play it? I THINK NOT!
–Despite the CDC’s warning to the contrary, millions of people traveled during the Thanksgiving holiday, and some of those no doubt will contribute to the horrifying total of virus victims. Now the CDC is issuing a similar warning about traveling during the Christmas holidays, but I am sure that the same kind of people who travelled over Thanksgiving will once again throw caution to the wind and go wherever they want to for Christmas. And quite frankly as long as people refuse to abide by advice from the health professionals, the virus will continue to run amok.
–President-elect Joe Biden has asked Dr. Anthony Fauci to serve as his chief medical adviser and also to continue as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci said he accepted “on the spot.”) I’ll bet he did. Not only will he have a job for the foreseeable future, but he also will have the pleasure of working for someone who I am certain will treat him with the respect he deserves.
–In the meantime our monomanical president has turned his back to the pandemic and everything else going on while he continues to rant and rave about a “rigged” election and “signed affadavits” and “thousands upon thousands of missing ballots.” I really feel sorry for Biden because I think Trump will do everything in his power to make sure the president-elect’s term in office is a rocky one. Trump has elevated the term “sore loser” to an entirely new level.
–Well the first major “snow event” (That’s a meteorologist’s term for snowfall. And why do they call snow “the white stuff”?) has hit the Ohio Valley, and every year when the first snow hits, it reminds me of how much I loath, detest, abhor, despise, and all other forms of dislike winter. Of course there are always those who say, “It’s so beautiful.” Opinions vary, and when that “beauty” melts, we are left with black sludge and slush that splashes all over your car and that your feet carry inside the car so that when you move your feet, the car mats go “swish, glug, squish.” I really don’t care if I ever see “the white stuff” again!
–I’ve been a John Grisham fan ever since he published “A Time To Kill” all the way back in 1989. Grisham had been practicing law, and one day when he was outside the courtroom, he overheard a 12-year-old girl recounting how she had been beaten and raped. Her story was so emotional that members of the jury we’re crying, and Grisham decided to begin watching the trial. Later he would tell an interviewer that a story was born then, and that incident was the idea for “A Time To Kill.” Grisham spent three years writing the book, and 28 publishers rejected it before a small publishing company agreed to publish just 5000 copies. As soon as Grisham finished “A Time To Kill,” he began writing “The Firm,” the novel that made his career take off like a rocket, and he managed to write at least a book (sometimes two) every year since then. But of all the characters Grisham created in the plethora of books he’s writtten, my favorite has remained Jake Brigance, the main character in “A Time to Kill” and the character portrayed so brilliantly by Matthew McConaughey in the 1996 film based on the book. Grisham brought Jake back in “Sycamore Row” (2013) and again just a few weeks ago with “A Time for Mercy,” which in my humble opinion joins “A Time to Kill” as the two best books he’s ever written. If you enjoy reading legal thrillers, you can’t go wrong with those two novels as Grisham is in top form for both of them. In some of his books Grisham lapsed into writing formulaic stories, but “A Time for Mercy” is vintage Grisham, and it should make one hell of a film. But I can’t envision anyone except McConaughey playing the part of Jake, whose final case may be the most challenging in his career.
–Ponder this: Two windmills are standing in a wind farm. One asks, “What’s your favorite kind of music?” The other says, “I’m a big metal fan.” ~Anonymous
