Sometimes a Fantasy

I finished fourth, it turned out, in fantasy baseball this year-which is not bad, out of 20, and the highest I've ever finished. But I'm not sure if it was worth the $40 or so in books or magazines I bought to help me prepare.

I am 2-3 in fantasy football, but there's not too much I can do about that. I traded away Vernon Davis in the preseason to my brother, but other than that, I have just stayed with the hand I've been dealt. I don't care nearly as much about fantasy football as I do fantasy baseball, though, and I feel similarly about real baseball and real football.

The Red Sox play Friday, of course, in Game One of the American League Championship Series. It's hard to get over how odd that final inning was-the blown squeeze and then the ground rule double and the single and the headlong dive into the plate.

Jedders!

I watched an episode and a half of The West Wing. I used to love this show, but I kind of fell away from it, and I've been catching up, somewhat, on Bravo. Bravo is an interesting network for me-sometimes their programming is right in my wheelhouse(JFK, The West Wing, The American President, Law and Order). Other times, it is something I would rather undergo dental surgery than watch(The Real Wives of Whatever, and The Rachel Zoe Project(which I don't believe is related to the Alan Parsons Project, but I can't be sure), and Project Runway, and Top Chef, and virtually everything else they broadcast.

They sure promote the holy heck out if that Rachel Zoe Project, though. I don't know who she is, but she appears to be a woman who wears high heels and evening gowns and complains a lot. That doesn't seem to be a basis for a television program.

But anyway, back to the West Wing. I forgot how much I absolutely love that show. Even dropped midway into a season, it isn't hard to pick up on the storylines and get right into it. For those who have never seen it, Martin Sheen is the President of the United States, and basically is a highly idealized version of Bill Clinton. They wrote in elements from real life, of course, fictionalizing them, and it is a television program-but it's hard not to ache with the knowledge that it IS a TV show, and that you can't vote for him.

That brings me back to the election. My son told me that his best friend that his family are McCain supporters, but he didn't appear to be upset about that fact. My son asks a lot of questions, as if he isn't sure how he's supposed to feel about things.

Watching the West Wing, first, made me wish Jeb Bartlett was running for president, but second, makes me think about why I support Obama. I guess to sum everything up in a single factor, that would have to be judgement. Palin is a joke, of course, the grinning parakeet parroting lies in fashionable shoes. But McCain himself, based on his actions and the opinions of others, is rash and thoughtless. I don't know what he thinks, first of all, because he has turned his back on his beliefs from the 2000 campaign, and second of all, he doesn't appear to deliberate about things. I don't like his attitude, and I question his judgement, and I disagree with his policies.

Obama seems the opposite-calm, rational, thoughtful, deliberative. Statesmanlike.

I support Obama because, inserted into any situation, I trust his judgement, whatever he decides.