Villains and Heroes

I've been waiting many moons for tonight's season premiere of The Shield, which is on my short list of truly great TV (along with Deadwood, Six Feet Under, and Flight of the Conchords... oh, and Newhart). It is archetypal in its greatness -- the main characters are essentially dirty cops who do unspeakable things, but you root for them and grieve with them in their own demise.

There are surely two sides to every story.

The Sarah Palin thing is confusing me. The Washington Post ran an article they actually called "Governor Mom" that marveled at how one woman could have it all -- even the challenges of a 17 year-old pregnant daughter and special needs baby, bravely discreetly nursing her youngest during meetings with important people. One of her first moves as governor was to kick out the mansion's cook, saying that she would do the family's cooking and the kids were old enough to make their own sandwiches. She supports abstinence programs and is staunchly against abortion but is for executing convicted criminals. As mayor, she hired lobbyists to get earmarked money to the point that for each person in her little town there were $1000 federal dollars, then joined with McCain who is against such a practice. One blog I read today summed it up that because she was able to run for this esteemed position without being chastised by her own party or society at large, she seemed to be benefiting from all of the things that she has railed against. Not fair. Does the GOP think so little of women voters that they think we will be so "wow-ed" by her girly-walking-Jean Nate'-ad-from-the-70s that we will flock to the McCain ticket instead of voting for the man?

And the final straw -- on an ESPN "end of summer/year in sports" montage, after a long series of clips about Michael Phelps, Tiger falling to his knees, and Kevin Garnett screaming "Anything is possible" to show the greatness and goodness of competitive athletics, the series of bad guy clips of anyone who tried to get out of a contract this year was sprinkled with random clips of OSU, both the team and "the Vest", with random voice-overs saying "they just get on my nerves". Call 'em what you want based on their back-to-back championship embarrassments, but they are the good guys. Here's hoping Beanie's foot is on ice tonight.