Things that were happening while Rick Santorum was taken up in the Rapture:
Can anyone in America spell false equivalency? How about singing "one of these things is not like the other..."
Normally the all-time leader of the false equivalency tripefest is Fox News. In the world of Fox, there has never been a sin committed against poor people, black people, immigrants, women or any minority that doesn't immediately call to mind an equally heinous act perpetrated on a white, rich, native born, male. It usually sounds like "So how come the Left was silent when so-and-so did whatever." This is always followed by a condemnation of the media and its dark army of conspiratorial editors and producers. Lost of course, is the original story. Fox-o-philes never get tired of being told that all news (but theirs) is biased.
However, in the case of Miami Marlins Manager Ozzie Guillen it appears that all media have been bitten by the Fox bug. In an interview last weekend Ozzie, who was born in the Venezuela, was dumb enough to opine how he "loves and respects Fidel Castro". Think about that. Of all the towns in all the world to praise Fidel, Ozzie picks Miami. Cuban-Americans finish tied with Muslims every year for the Prickliest Ethnic Group Award. These people refuse to sleep on a Castro convertible sofa. They've been chilling the champagne for the "Fidel is Dead" celebration since 1959. Needless to say, Ozzie has since spent every waking moment backtracking. He has groveled to every Cuban from Marco Rubio to Tony Montana.
Actually, Ozzie has had a lot of practice apologizing. He is ever-so-slightly misogynistic, homophobic, racist and possessed of a vocabulary charitably described as colorful. Every other sentence is followed closely by an apology for offending some social or ethnic group. So why would image-conscious baseball tolerate such a loose cannon? Well, he took the Chicago White Sox to their first World Series victory in 100 years in 2005. Chicago's last championship occurred in the year Abe Lincoln threw out the ceremonial first pitch. His players love him and...his teams win. Think Billy Martin with a Spanish accent.
Circling back to false equivalency (you thought I forgot my point) the news outlets are alive with statements like "loving Castro in Miami is like loving Hitler in Crown Heights" (That's a Jewish neighborhood in New York. Try to keep up.) You might as well kiss a poster of Mao in Taipei. Both wrong. Hitler was Hitler. There are no equivalencies. Castro caused a lot of suffering in Cuba but on the evil meter he wouldn't even be in the top ten. Hitler is an evil mythology. Castro is just an old geezer who at 86 refuses to die.
Castro is still alive (as of this writing) and lots of people, including the baseball commissioner have visited Cuba and talked to him without turning to stone. Ozzie Guillen has also met him which explains his unfortunate compliment. Still, Ozzie's opinions are hardly significant. While it's true that no one can decide what offends someone else, I would humbly suggest that the Cuban American community get over it. The revolution was 53 years ago. You're Americans now. After all, it's not like Ozzie said he loved George Zimmerman.
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Tampa, FL officials have released a list of things that constitute a security threat during the Republican National Convention. Among the items not permitted on the convention floor: masks, pieces of string (I don't know why. Ask them.) and water pistols. Not on the list: firearms. In their infinite wisdom Florida legislators have prohibited local restrictions on gun possession. Is this a great country or what?
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A 46 year old hairdresser, Mickey Bolek, is attempting to fulfill his dream of becoming an Olympic figure skater, thereby combining for the first time, two well-worn stereotypes into one career.
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Rick Santorum abandoned his campaign to become mother superior to 300 million Americans when he announced that his effort to save us from ourselves was over. Santorum chose the Gettysburg Hotel as his Appomattox which was a fitting spot. Like the South, Rick was out-manned and out-financed. Santorum was also the victim of the worse beating in Pennsylvania since Bobby Lee got chased out in 1863. However, unlike the South, Santorum is destined to rise again, if not in 2016, then certainly in 2020. It will take that long for him to restock his supply of sackcloth and ashes.
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