Baby, It's Cold Outside
            

            Tim--

            I don't know what it's like outside your midtown-New York hotel room, but in
downtown New York it's cold. As in 11 degrees cold. As in
so-much-for-global-warming cold. As in

                  Slate
               -doesn't-pay-me-nearly-enough-to-go-outside-and-freeze-my-private-parts-off-to-get-the-newspaper
cold.

            So that leaves me without much in the way of research as I try to comment on
the day's events. But fortunately, I have a copy of yesterday's New York
Daily News crumpled up in my gym bag. Let's see ... the front page story is
... it's cold outside. OK, well, I covered that in the paragraph above. Hmmmm
... not much else on the news front so let's see what my horoscope says: "Quiet
time between you and your mate is very important. ... A new flame may break a
date, but try to be forgiving." Well, that's no problem, because if my new
flame stands me up, I'll have more time to spend with my mate instead of
running off and cheating on her. See, this is the problem with reading
yesterday's horoscope--it never makes any sense.

            OK, maybe I should try the Internet ...

            A USA Today /CNN Gallup poll finds that with no dominant issue amid an
economic boom, this year's election could turn on candidates' personal
qualities, as more than half the likely voters say a candidate's leadership
skills and vision are what counts. The story goes on to say that if the
election turns on personal characteristics, the Republicans should get a boost
in the wake of the Clinton scandal.

            Huh? Wasn't that what they said in 1996 when, let's see, there were no
issues amid an economic boom and the nation had supposedly grown tired of all
the scandals surrounding Clinton? Yeah, we got so tired of him and his
philandering ways we put him right back into office, and we knew what we were
getting into. (OK, I didn't predict the whole impeachment thing, but Clinton
getting caught in a second-term sex scandal had about all the shock value of
your typical episode of Scooby Doo .) The article then quotes a retired
banker in Amherst who said he was angry at the poor example Clinton has set for
children, and that since he is making character his top priority, he's voting
for George W. Bush. Um, since George W. Bush is at best a reformed party
boy/cokehead who didn't work very hard in school, wouldn't a super-nerdy
overachiever like Bill Bradley or Al Gore fulfill the whole "character"
requirement a little better?

            OK, now I'm off to the "Fray" to be the first to note that this entry is
just another example of the "Breakfast Table" 's pseudo, misinformed political
commentary masquerading as humor, but before I go, I would like to leave you
with this quote from Charlize Theron on filming in Canadian in this week's
Entertainment Weekly : "Vancouver is very clean and very lovely. You have
to use Canadian money there, though. It's very strange." I'm not sure, but I
think the rest of the quote was: "I mean, just look at it. [points to picture
of Queen Elizabeth] Who's this lady? How come Canadites don't worship George
Washington like we do? Weird. Very weird."