My Take

Been some folks having bad PR weeks lately.  Also been a few with some good PR.  Am feeling the need to comment on a few of both.  So, if you’re ready, proceed at the risk of your own intellect:

Some of the folks gettin’ some bad PR lately:

• President Obama – Between recent losses by his political allies, a couple of candidates saying he basically tried to bribe them to drop out of the races and the whole BP mess, he’s had some rough weeks here lately.  Some of it’s not his fault.  Ruling parties traditionally lose seats with each progressive election after they take the White House.  Promising people jobs if they’ll drop out of races, if he did have anything to do with them, is something he could have totally avoided.  Not sure what I think about the whole BP situation.  On the one hand, people talk about how government is getting too involved in things.  Then, folks complain when they don’t.  Have said before think this fell under federal jurisdiction so maybe they should have done something earlier.  At the very least, Mr. President shouldn’t have waited 40+ days to say this whole thing makes him mad.  Not sure what else he could have done differently, but, sometimes a leader has to look like he’s doing something even if he ain’t or it won’t do any good.  I have a bigger beef with the folks who keep blaming everything on W. Bush.  Nancy Pelosi even tried to blame this whole mess on Bush being cozy with the oil companies.  Guess she didn’t know they are one of Obama’s biggest contributors, too.  Bush has been gone for almost 2 years now.  Time to stop blaming him for all your shortfalls;
• BP – Now, they’ve had some real bad PR for the last 40+ days and deservedly so.  What happened to that rig and the resulting spill have been real tragedies.  Eleven men were killed and lots of sea life is either dying or will be.  Think some of the bad stuff being said about them is going a little overboard, though.  People talking about how BP don’t care about cleaning things up, saving the environment, won’t pay for anything, etc.  That’s just a bunch of hooey!  They’ve been trying everything they can since Day 1 to solve this mess and keep the oil from leaking out.  Ain’t a company in the world that would intentionally want this kind of PR.  They haven’t tried to shirk any of their responsibility in this.  In fact, they are already handing out money to folks on the Gulf Coast who’ve lost jobs cuz of this whole mess.  And, to all of you thinking about boycotting BP cuz of this, how bout waiting until the clean-up is over.  If you stop buying from ‘em now, they might run out of money to take care of all this.  Contrary to what some folks may think, only the government can create money out of nothing.  Businesses can only get it from their customers.  Can’t blame you for being mad at BP.  Just want to give you something to think about.  And, no, don’t own any BP stock that I know of;
• Israel – Not really sure what they were thinking raiding that flotilla.  Obama’s getting some flak over this, too, cuz he won’t make a strong statement against Israel on this.  Actually think he’s doing the smart thing and waiting until more information comes out.  The natural knee-jerk reaction would be to say the Israelis are completely in the wrong on this one.  Have something telling me there’s more than meets the eye to this story.  They either had some bad intelligence or the whole story ain’t been told, yet.  Maybe they were in the wrong.  Don’t know.  Reckon there’ll be a lot more coming out on this before it’s all said and done;
• Helen Thomas – Case you don’t know who she is, she’s a reporter who’s been in the White House press corps since Washington was president.  She was asked what she thought about Israel and she said they should all go back to “Poland…or Germany…or wherever they came from.”  Saw the You Tube clip myself on Twitter.  Maybe she should read the Bible a every now and then to learn where the Israelites come from.  Anyway, conservative pundits have jumped all over this saying it shows how daft the liberal media is.  Personally, not sure why this is even a story.  She may be a role model for a lot of reporters, but imagine most regular folks could care less what she says or thinks.  Besides, thought she retired several years ago.  Reckon it’s time for her to go back to the old hack reporters’ home;
• Baseball Commissioner/Umpires – There was already some nyah-nyahing going on cuz some of the umps have had hair-triggers on ejecting people this year.  Then, the whole mess with the perfect game that wasn’t cuz of a bad call by the umpire came along.  Have to give the ump credit for admitting he made a bad call after he watched it on replay.  Even went over to the Tiger locker room to apologize.  Not many people would have done that.  Think the worst thing in this whole mess is Commissioner Selig still insisting baseball won’t join the 21st Century and have instant replay apply to something other than questionable home runs.  Was agin it myself for a long time but am slowly coming around to they need to get it right.  Come on, Baseball, get in the game!

Now for some folks who’ve had some good PR here lately:

• Armando Galarraga – In case you don’t know, he’s the pitcher who lost the perfect game cuz of the bad call.  He’s handled this whole situation with a level of class that you wish more people would.  He didn’t argue at all with the umpire about the call, not even in the heat of the moment.  Just smiled, shook his head, and walked back to the mound.  He accepted the ump’s apology by giving him a hug and telling him it’s OK.  You should use him as an example to your kids how people should react to adversity.  Like my wife said on Facebook, people are going to remember him more cuz of the way he reacted to not getting the perfect game than they would have if the call had been correct.  Keep up the great work, Armando!;
• NHL – The Stanley Cup finals have been great this year!  In fact, the entire playoff season has been great.  If you want to see exciting games between two evenly-matched teams with players who go all out on every play, this series is for you.  Been lots of scoring and even more hard hitting.  Glad the refs let them play in the finals.  NBC and Vs. have done a great job covering them, too.
• Dennis Hopper – Hard to say someone who just died is having a good week.  But, there’s been lots of nice things said about him since his passing.  He was one of my all-time favorite actors.  He played a lot of roles, but my favorite was the photographer in Apocalypse Now.  The most surprising thing I read was that he considered himself a Republican.  This is the man who wrote Easy Rider, one of the ultimate anti-establishment movies.  Go figure.  Him doing those retirement fund ads makes a lot more sense to me after reading that.  Rest in peace, Mr. Hopper! 

All I got this time.  Made it to 47 miles running last month.  Not quite to my goal of 50 but I’ll take it.  Hit my 2,000th tweet over the weekend.  Didn’t take as long as I thought it would.  My Twitter name is @scotps23.  Approaching 150 followers now and always looking for more.

And that’s the news that is the news the way I see it.  Y’all have a good one!