I'm trying to understand why we are on the verge of war with Iraq, I really am. I understand that Saddam Hussein is a bad man and that the country would be better off without him. But why is he any worse of a threat today than he was at any point in the past several years since the first Gulf War?

I read the article by Condoleeza Rice in the New York Times the other day (1/23/03) hoping it would shed some light for me. The article was titled "Why We Know Iraq Is Lying." Unfortunately, the article told me next to nothing about why we are on this war path. She makes the point that other countries that voluntarily disarmed were more cooperative and less deceptive than Iraq - including South Africa, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. But we were never on the verge of invading those countries and there are still many regimes out there than have not disarmed in this manner. What has Iraq done lately to make it stick out as such a serious threat to world peace? We have never linked Hussein to the 9-11 terrorist attacks and as best I can tell this whole emphasis on vilifying Hussein is not getting us any closer to catching Osama Bin Laden and his band of Al-Quada terrorists.

So my biggest question is still Why Now? Most of the weapons of mass destruction that we believe Iraq has is stuff it acquired during and before the first Gulf War, when the odds are good that we were the ones who gave it to them. Remember that back in the 80s we saw Iraq as a countercheck to the religious radicals in Iran. Hussein's secularity, which the administration today criticizes (even going so far at to deem him an atheist) was seen as a positive aspect back in the early 80s when the biggest bugaboo of the time was the Ayatollah Khomeihni. If Iraq was such a dangerous regime back in the mid-90s, what was Dick Cheney doing over there as the head of Halliburton making millions of dollars by rebuilding the Iraqui infrastructure that was destroyed during the first Gulf War?
What is it about Iraq today that makes it more of a threat than Iran or Libya or Syria or Lebanon or Yemen or Indonesia or Malaysia or Pakistan or Somalia or Sudan? And so on. Not to mention North Korea and China.

Good news on the Pete Rose front today....
According to a report from the New York Newsday (www.newsday.com), Rose is ready to make all the necessary concessions to get reinstated to baseball. The long, dark blemish on the Hall of Fame may finally be coming to an end when Rose is finally admitted. I'll just keep holding my breath.

I'm finally figuring out how to make some improvements to my new blog and make it slightly more interactive. I've begun adding web links in the column on the left side of the page and I figured out how to add my e-mail address when you click on my name at the bottom of each post.

A big welcome to Michael Gaffney, a fellow journalist from Lubbock, who has just started his own blog site called The Blogaffinator. I look forward to reading Michael's astute observations on a daily basis.

One of my daily routines is to read the comics section in the newspaper. The local daily here has a decent comics section, but it doesn't compare to what the Houston Chronicle does on its web site at www.chon.com. There you can create your own web page with your favorite comics which are automatically updated everyday. I can't believe the service is still free, but it is. Here is a quick rundown of the best comics available there:

9 Chickweed Lane
Baby Blues
Baldo
Boondocks
Cathy
Cleats
Crankshaft
Curtis
Dilbert
Doonesbury
Drabble
For Better For Worse
Fox Trot
Funky Winkerbean
Garfield
Geech
Get Fuzzy
Heart of the City
Luann
Monty
Mutts
Non Sequitur
One Big Happy
Peanuts
Piranha Club
Preteena
Rose is Rose
Sally Forth
Sherman's Lagoon
Shirley and Son
Tank
The Norm
Tumbleweeds
Zits

There are also a few strips worth reading everyday that are not on the Chron.com site and for those I go to www.comics.com. They include:

Big Nate
Rudy's Park
Pibgorn
Alley Oop
Lil Abner

More on these later....

The Golden Globes were a real disappointment, but not a surprise. I'm looking forward to seeing Chicago, although I think showering it with all those acting awards may have been a bit much. But as for The Hours, which took the top Drama award over my favorite The Two Towers, I can only shake my head in amazement. Here is a movie that will delight people for ages up against a film that while I'm sure it has great acting is not something I look forward to sitting through even once, much less multiple screenings.
I'm sure this all bodes ill for The Two Towers' Oscar chances, although the film had better at least get a nomination. I hear a lot of people saying they are going to wait until next year and give the big prize to Lord of the Rings at the end of the trilogy, but I don't buy it. I'm sure that by next year they will have found another lame, sappy, flash-in-the-pan movie to shower with critical praise in spite of everything.

I was upset to read today that more Hall of Famers are coming out against Pete Rose's reinstatement so that he can take his place in the Hall. It almost makes one want to give up their passion for the game. But I will keep the faith and continue to believe that a great wrong will be corrected in the near future. Pete Rose is undeniably one of the greatest ball players of all time and his banishment from the Hall of Fame is one of those really sad examples of our country's inability to forgive and forget. I think it is left over from our long ago Puritan heritage - this uppity, self-righteousness and moral hypocricy. For crying out loud, I don't care if Pete Rose gambled on baseball!! He lost his managerial job, had to pay a stiff fine and even spent time in jail. Now it is done, so get over it! But no, we have to make the man grovel and beg our forgiveness. He must publicly admit his sins - not unlike the main character in George Orwell's 1984 - or else we will throw his entire baseball career down the memory hole and pretend it did not happen.

I am particularly upset about the Pete Rose situation because the Big Red Machine was my team during my youth and Johnny Bench and Pete Rose were my baseball idols.
Most recently, beginning in 1998, I have been a Yankee fan, but like so many great teams today, they don't stick together for long. The Yankees I began rooting for had the following lineup when they started their three and almost four-year dominance of the World Series:
Jorge Posada and Joe Girardi sharing catching duties;
Tino Martinez at 1B;
Chuck Knoblauch at 2B;
Derek Jeter at SS;
Scott Brosius at 3B;
Paul O'Neill in RF;
Bernie Williams in CF;
and Shane Spencer, Ricky Ledee and Chad Curtis in LF;
Also, there was Darryl Strawberry, Chili Davis and David Justice at DH;
And pitching we had Andy Pettite; David Cone; David Wells; Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez; and Roger Clemens.
Today of course, that team has been mostly disassembled by trades and forced retirements.
Gone are Tino, Chuck, Paul, Scott, Cone, El Duque, Strawberry, Jutice, Chili and many others.
There have been a few good additions since then like Alfonso Soriano, Jason Giambi and now this guy from Japan. But it is almost like trying to root for a different team every two or three years.

My picks for Best Films of 2001 - based on the films that I have actually seen as listed in the post below:

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
Monster's Inc.
Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone
A Beautiful Mind
Moulin Rouge
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Gosford Park
Ocean's Eleven
The Shipping News
Shrek
Jimmie Neutron: Boy Genius
Amelie

I place a lot of emphasis on picking films that I would be willing to watch again and again. Films that I would want to own copies of. I already own copies of the top 3 on this list and 2 of the top 4 on the 2002 list.

Just for good measure, here is a list of the movies I have seen from 2000 followed by my pics for the Year's Best. (Note: I have seen 23 movies released in 2002; 39 released in 2001 and 49 released in 2000.)

The Whole Nine Yards
Wonder Boys
Reindeer Games
Mission To Mars
The Ninth Gate
Erin Brockovich
The Road to El Dorado
High Fidelity
Rules of Engagement
U-571
Frequency
Gladiator
Center Stage
Small Time Crooks
Dinosaur
Mission Impossible II
Shanghai Noon
Gone In 60 Seconds
Sunshine
Titan A.E.
Shaft
Chicken Run
Me, Myself & Irene
The Patriot
X-Men
What Lies Beneath
Space Cowboys
Autumn In New York
Godzilla 2000
Almost Famous
Dr. T and the Women
Billy Elliot
The Legend of Baggar Vance
Charlie's Angels
Red Planet
The Sixth Day
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Unbreakable
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Proof of Life
The Emperor's New Groove
Chocolat
What Women Want
Finding Forrester
Miss Congeniality
O Brother Where Art Thou
Cast Away
The Family Man
Thirteen Days

And the Best of 2000 are:

The Emperor's New Groove
Mission Impossible 2
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
O Brother Where Art Thou
Gladiator
The Patriot
Chicken Run
High Fidelity
Almost Famous
Thirteen Days
Erin Brockovich
Unbreakable
Cast Away

Based on the films that I have seen so far (see previous post), here is my list of the Best Films of 2002:

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Minority Report
Spiderman
Star Wars: Attack of the Clones
Signs
Panic Room
We Were Soldiers
The Rookie
Dragonfly
Men In Black II

I expect that list will change with the exception of the top slot as I catch up on my movie watching during the coming year.

It would probably be more accurate to make a list of the Best Movies of 2001 since I have at least had a chance to see most of the films that I wanted to. Here is the complete list of 2001 films that I have seen:

The Wedding Planner
Sweet November
The Mexican
Memento
Enemy At The Gates
Tailor of Panama
Spy Kids
Bridget Jones' Diary
The Mummy Returns
A Knight's Tale
Moulin Rouge
Shrek
Pearl Harbor
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Swordfish
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Final Fantasy: Spirits Within
Legally Blonde
Planet of the Apes
Rush Hour 2
The Princess Diaries
Zoolander
Training Day
Serendipity
Iron Monkey
Amelie
The One
Monster's Inc.
Harry Potter and the Sorcer's Stone
Spy Game
Ocean's Eleven
Vanilla Sky
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
A Beautiful Mind
The Majestic
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
The Shipping News
Kate and Leopold
Gosford Park

Making "Best of ..." lists for movies is complicated by the fact that I don't see a lot of movies the same year that they come out. In 2002, I only saw six movies in the theater. They were:

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Spiderman
Star Wars: Attack of the Clones
Minority Report
Men In Black II
Bowling For Columbine

I saw a few more 2002 movies on video and DVD:

Mothman Prophecies
Count of Monte Cristo
Collateral Damage
Dragonfly
We Were Soldiers
The Time Machine
Ice Age
Blade 2
Clockstoppers
Panic Room
The Rookie
The Scorpion King
Importance of Being Earnest
Sum of All Fears
Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood
The Sweetest Thing
Signs

A Lot of movies that I saw earlier this year were left overs from 2001:

The Shipping News
Gosford Park
Kate & Leopold
Jimmie Neutron Boy Genius
The Majestic
Vanilla Sky
Ocean's Eleven
Spy Game
Amelie
Iron Monkey
Serendipity
Training Day
Zoolander
Princess Diaries
Moulin Rouge

There are still a lot of movies I would like to see in the theaters:

Star Trek Nemesis
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Die Another Day
Catch Me If You Can
Gangs of New York
Chicago

And a long list of movies I plan to see on DVD when they are available:
First up are the ones coming out this month and next:

About A Boy
Bourne Identity
Sweet Home Alabama
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Spy Kids 2
Road To Perdition
Veggie Tales - Jonah

And whenever they come available here is my DVD rental wish list:

Punch Drunk Love
Adaptation
About Schmidt
The Pianist
Frida
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
Solaris
The Hours
Far From Heaven
The Quiet American
Narc
Spirited Away
Santa Clause 2
8 Mile
Standing In the Shadow of Motown
Treasure Planet
Drumline
Maid in Manhattan
Antwone Fisher
Two Weeks Notice
Nicholas Nickleby

We did our part to prop up the national economy this weekend by purchasing a new automobile. It's a 2002 Chrysler Sebring with about 17,000 miles. Nice color - onyx green - kind of a metallic greenish grey. I love the keyless entry feature. First car I've ever had with power locks and power windows. Now if I can get it to last as long as our last vehicle - a 1990 Chevy Corsica with almost 200,000 miles - then I will be very happy.

Rented the DVD of Signs over the weekend. Thought it was an excellent thriller in the tradition of Alfred Hitchcock with some X-Files stuff mixed in.
A lot of good movies that I missed will be coming out on DVD this month and next. Looks like about one a week through the first of March....
First up is About a Boy out tomorrow.
Bourne Identity is out next week
In March, there is Sweet Home Alabama; Big Fat Greek Wedding: Spy Kids 2; and Road To Perdition...

Joe Lieberman has announed his candidacy for president in the absence of Al Gore. I think I'm leaning towards John Kerry at this point. The list so far is...
Sen. John Kerry
Sen. John Edwards
Sen. Joe Lieberman
Rep. Dick Gephardt
Gov. Howard Dean
Rev. Al Sharpton
and maybe Sen. Bob Graham

Looking back on 2002...
Aggies had a miserable season with the exception of the Oklahoma game. The Dallas Cowboys were no better. The San Antonio Spurs fizzled and then traded away good players for mediocre ones. The mid-term elections were scary! Paul Wellstone died. President Bush remains enormously popular despite running the economy into the ground. Primetime television continues to fill up with unwatchable reality shows.
On the bright side, I should have more free time in the evenings when there is no longer anything worth watching on TV. As it is, these are the only shows I am willing to waste my time in front of the boob tube for...
Enterprise (The Pre-Star Trek);
24;
Judging Amy;
ER;
Frasier;
Providence (now canceled);


I've been trying to watch the new Twilight Zone episodes, but don't know how long that will last. Some of them are pretty bad and the rest are just average.


My wife figured out how to hook our phonograph to the computer last year and copy records onto CDs. Now I have a huge pile of records dug out from my closet that are waiting to be revived.