Dan McCarney might be my new hero. The 58-year-old UNT football coach had a stroke Sunday and was rushed by helicopter to a hospital, where he remains. An alert FrontBurnervian points us to a Des Moines Register story, which quotes him thusly:
“I’ve got too much Irish in me to stay down very long. … I’ve got a little tingling feeling, but hey, if that’s the worst of it, I’d say I’m a pretty lucky guy. Nothing wrong with me that a little Grey Goose won’t cure.”
Only thing I’d tell McCarney is that he might want to go the Jameson or Bushmills route if he wants to play that Irish card.
Alan Murray thinks America’s big problems are fixable, but not anytime soon because of “the total failure of our political system.” In a talk today to the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth, the Wall Street Journal online editor said that to bring down its deficits, the U.S. should lower the corporate tax rate and bolster its skilled labor force in order to sell a whole lot more goods internationally. “We are not Greece; Greece can’t pay its debts,” Murray said. “We can, pretty easily.”
The biggest stumbling block is that “common-sense solutions” to get there are stymied by a political system that doesn’t work, Murray added. For this he blamed three decades of redistricting — which protects incumbents in safe “political ghettos” — and the rise of ideologically driven media choices, where there’s no longer a common set of facts. Getting the house in order will take either a crisis or an “act of extraordinary leadership,” Murray said, but, these days, that sort of leadership is in very short supply.
The Los Angeles Clippers finally came to town last night, which meant Caron Butler finally got his ring. Here’s something I didn’t know: when Caron hurt his knee, he PUSHED HIS KNEECAP BACK INTO PLACE BEFORE WALKING OFF THE COURT. Tim won’t wear shoes if his foot hurts. Just to put things in perspective. That’s why they call him Tuff Juice. (Hit the theme.) Not Tim. I don’t know what his nickname is, but it’s certainly not Tuff or Tough anything. I think “Scumbag” has been bandied about in the comments, but I don’t think that’s official.
Simmons ($100,000), Crain ($25,000), and Troutt ($50,000) put money into a California-based independent Super PAC, Americans for Rick Perry, that was supposed to help him win Iowa. He came in fifth.
The Super PAC concept is golden for out-of-work political operatives. Say I’m sitting on the beach in La Jolla wondering how to pay my bills this year. By filing a piece of paper with the Federal Elections Commission, I can set up a Super PAC for the candidate with the biggest gush of money pouring into his campaign. I call a few friends and tap into the spigot. Then the fund hires my company to run it. Brilliant! I pay my company $90,000 for the last six months of 2011, plus expenses, plus commissions on media buys. All in all, I run $408,000 of other people’s money through the PAC. Genius!
The play works so well that when Perry collapses, I change the name of the PAC to Restoring Prosperity Fund with a new purpose of “defeating the liberal agenda.” Excellent!
Robert Schuman of San Diego, my congratulations. Well played, sir.
Before brunch at Dream Cafe on Sunday, I helped a sweet couple find their way to Theatre 3, where I can only assume they were seeing a matinee of that Valentine’s Day play everyone loves so much. My friend found the whole exchange hilarious, to which I said something like, “Look, contrary to popular belief, I don’t actually go out of my way to be an unhelpful jerk.” And with that, I bid you all a happy Hallmark holiday. If you’re one of those idiots romantic fools in my Twitter feed who retweeted this inane Esquire post about how to write a love letter, I would also add that proper grammar and spelling go a long way all 365 days of the year.
Speaking of the play, tickets are in short supply for tonight’s performance of I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change down there in Theatre Too, so you’ll need to call the box office. Theatre Three revives this musical revue of suburban courtship and romance every year around this time, and it’s always insanely popular. According to the show’s Off-Broadway producers (way back when it was winding down an impressive 12 year run), ILYPNC inspired at least 60 marriage proposals, all of which resulted in “yes.” So there’s that. Otherwise, I would head to the Lakewood Theater for live music and a screening of Casablanca. Bogey and Bergman never get old.
Patrick the Gorilla Can’t Get Laid. You’ll remember that awhile back the Dallas Zoo shipped in two female gorillas for Patrick, who severely bit the previous female who was offered to him. Well, one of the new females, Shanta, has been exhibiting what I like to call “solicitation behavior.” Patrick? He isn’t tapping that (sub. req.), perhaps because Shanta is only 15, and Patrick doesn’t want to do two to 20 for statutory rape. Just a guess. I’m not a trained gorilla scientist.
Omni Hotel Guests Unwittingly Strut Their Stuff. Speaking of watching animals do their dirty business, ABC Channel 8 aired a report last night revealing that, due to the curvilinear design of the Omni, naked hotel guests using their bathrooms can be seen from the Convention Center. That’s how you attract conventions. If Tom Leppert had told us about this feature back when we voted for the hotel, I don’t think the election would have been so contentious.
Woman’s Broken Heart Heals Itself. Ashley Reynolds was 17 when doctors told her she’d need a heart transplant. Except then her heart fixed itself. Which provides us a happy ending (not that kind of happy ending) for Leading Off.