chicagotribune.com
Loud, low-IQ year had a hopeful highlight
Generosity toward Garfield Gators a rare bright spot in dark, dumb 2010
By Rex W. Huppke, Tribune reporterDecember 30, 2010
As 2010 comes to a close, I'm reminded of a moment in the sophomoric Adam Sandler film "Billy Madison." Sandler's character provides an absurd answer to a question at an academic decathlon and the moderator notes, "Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it."
In much the same way, I think we may all be a bit dumber for 2010. That's thanks in large part to politicians and pundits who, at least in theory, should be intelligent.
Why should our politicians be intelligent? All they need to do is get re-elected.
How difficult is THAT for an incumbent? Thank you very much for the part about the dumbness of the pundits. That is criminal, but, then, I guess, good help is just SO hard to find.Christine O'Donnell was the best Republican candidate for Delaware's Senate seat. She misspoke one and was never permitted to forget it.
Consider, briefly, some of the lowlights:
•More or less everything Christine O'Donnell, the non-witch Republican candidate for Delaware's Senate seat, said, particularly, "You're telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?" That comment alone caused 53 civics teachers across the country to go into cardiac arrest.
WHICH f#cking 53 civics teachers when into cardiac arrest. TALK ABOUT F#CKING DUMB!
Well, we know from Farenheit 9-11 that legislators never read the legislation they pass. Why should Obama Scare be any different?
•Democratic Speaker of the House and expert at looking smug Nancy Pelosi telling a skeptical nation that Congress needed to pass Obama's health care reform bill in order to find out what's in it.
This is SO f#cking true, and yet, it is dump on Sarah Palin festival at so many of this nation's "newspapers of record." And the continuing and expanding range of teachers going into cardiac arrest. This alleged reporter is one sick f@cking puppy. Pay him no mind whatsoever.
• Sarah Palin — former governor, aspiring TV star, potential presidential candidate or whatever she is — taking to Twitter to unwittingly coin the term "refudiate," and then explaining the gaffe away by saying, "English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!" That caused several English literature professors to join the aforementioned civics teachers in the emergency room.
Well, not necessarily so. I guess it was just the "surreptitious" nature of the donations .. which he was trying to hide, because after all, all donations in amounts of over $200 are part of the public record. Nice play Olbermann.
• MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann getting suspended briefly for surreptitiously donating money to the campaigns of two Democratic candidates, making his frequent, self-righteous clamoring about the political leanings of the Fox News channel seem disingenuous at best.
You don't have to be a high-minded elitist to recognize that America didn't scare anyone with its intellect in 2010.
So .. THIS is America? Reporter Rex W. Huppke, you shrivel-dick limp prick sock stuffer, WHT are you doing as a Chicago Tribune reporter? Whose dick did you have to suck to get this gig?
WELL .. when the "fourth column" does not do its job, kindergarten might be what we'd expect. Although, a kindergarten where corruption is the rule. Just like the kindergarten I went to, right?
By year's end, Congress was so polarized that when President Barack Obama reached a deal with Republicans on tax cuts, it was at first applauded by the right as a victory and assailed on the left as a cowardly defeat. But within days, the right decided they'd given too much, and suddenly it was the left that had won. Rather than truly focusing on the country's needs, our "leaders" were engaged in a fierce debate that essentially went like this:
"You gave too much!"
"No, YOU did!"
"No, YOU!!"
Fabulous. We've officially made it to kindergarten.
What would really be nice is if we'd see you stop to get such asinine TRIPE published.
Let me contrast this sorrowful state of political affairs with something that happened here in Chicago, something that reveals the swift-acting, mature and intelligent side of society far removed from pundits and politicos, the part that provides us with a glint of hope that the bright shall prevail over the insipid.
In late July, I wrote a story about the Garfield Gators, a West Side youth football team that could barely afford jerseys. The players had desperately been trying to raise money for an out-of-state jamboree, but they weren't going to have enough. Most of the boys on the team came from broken homes — few had ever been out of the city — and the football team was about the only thing keeping them away from gangs and other forms of trouble.
The day the story ran, people from across the Chicago area started helping out, in ways big and small. Money poured in, and donors saw to it that the Gators would not only make their jamboree trip, they'd be outfitted in new shoes, pads and uniforms, and funded well into the future.
The kids on the Garfield Gators team were from poor, predominantly black families, but nobody cared about that. Nobody politicized the issue. Nobody played the race card. These were kids who were fighting for something, who wanted a fair shake, and there were people out there who could help them — and those people did just that.
It was the right thing to do. It was the smart thing to do.
And wouldn't it be nice if, in 2011, we start seeing a little more of that from the people who are supposed to be smart to begin with?
Copyright © 2010, Chicago Tribune
