Month: September 2005

Roberts was confirmed and sworn in as Chief Justice today. He definately had the credentials, a lot of things broke his way, and I’m pretty convinced that he is not going to be a Scalia. However, Senator Richard Burr’s statement during the floor debate that I caught on the PBS NewsHour describes my worry about the political process:

If we’re not careful, the best and the brightest legal minds in this country that would serve on the bench and serve with distinction, regardless of what party they’re from, when they get that call, they will say, ‘Mr. President, I want to pass. I can’t put my family through it. I can’t put myself through it. The risk of going through with it is too great to everything around me to serve my country.’

I ask all of us – what message are we sending to our children when the best and the brightest pass, when they elect not to go through the process that we in this body have control of?

I know that it what is happening right now and America is the worst for it.

I should have mentioned this previously, but I’ll post this now — the passing of Don Adams, a.k.a. Maxwell Smart of the “Get Smart” tv show. Check out the NY Times obit, or the Associated Press article. I didn’t realize that he did the voice of Inspector Gadget, although that makes sense, since that was his voice all right. (yeah, I watched Inspector Gadget when I was a kid).

The Museum of the Chinese in the Americas is going to expand. Cool.

“Veronica Mars” Season 2 starts tonight. The question is, when Veronica opens her door, already anticipating who it is, who will be it? Hmm.

I was out cold today because I caught P-‘s cold. Woke up with a splitting headache, so I took the day off and spent most of the day couched out and watching random things on TV, which turned out to be Discovery Channel.

On to the recaps… Amazing Race: Family Edition looks like it’s a very different Amazing Race. It looks like they are going to spend a lot of time in the U.S. That’s perfectly fine — many parts of the U.S. might as well be another country. They could barely figure how to get onto the Brooklyn Bridge, and they started the race under its shadow. Then, they were sent to the Delaware River in New Jersey, and then Amish country. I also think that 4 person teams allow for interesting activities that require more musclepower than 2 person teams. The buggy task was one clever task where a 2 adult, 2 child team had an advantage over a 4 adult team.

That brings up the continual gripe about the lack of minority participants in the Amazing Race. The only minority team, the Black family (that’s their last name, I’m not making it up) was eliminated by a very small margin. Where’s the Hispanic team? Where’s the Asian team?

On the other tuner, I watched Commander in Chief, ABC’s new series about a woman U.S. Vice President that assumes the presidency unexpectantly. A number of opinion writers in Slate and the Washington Post have mentioned, and I agree — why are our TV presidents so much better than our real ones? This is a series to watch.