Today's Random Musings

Here's how it works in America where stardom, earned or accidental, is the coin of the realm: Bristol Palin, 20, the Quarter-baked Alaska, earned more than a quarter of a million dollars last year from a foundation that promotes teenage abstinence about which the unwed teenage mother would apparently know very little. So, you can be a teacher in Wisconsin, an auto worker in Detroit, or even a pediatrician in Iowa with thirty years of experience and you won't make close to that. But get knocked up by some knucklehead hockey player from Wasilla and have the senile John McCain pick your incompetent mother to be his running mate and the money flows in like oil in the Gulf. It's as American as apple pie.

America's sweetheart and unwed mother, Bristol Palin: abstinence advocate.

That giant sucking sound you hear in New England over the gnashing of teeth is the despair of Red Sox Nation just four games into the regular season in which the Red Sox, with the second highest payroll in Major League Baseball, have mustered an 0-4 record. Now, it's still early; the season is very, very long. But this team is, as all the pundits say, built to win a World Series. Red Sox fans have long forgotten the Japanese tsunami and will probably be unaffected by the government shutdown the Tea Party and its hostages in Congress have planned because those are trivial matters compared with the sorry start the Red Sox have managed. Yup, we have our priorities straight in Red Sox Nation. And you think Bristol Palin makes a lot of money?

Isn't it time for Southwest Airlines to pull those ads that talk about how other airlines have frequent flyer "restrictions through the roof?" At least those airlines fly planes that have a roof.

The trial of Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on sex charges opened yesterday in Milan and was immediately adjourned until May 31. Talk about the wheels of justice turning slowly! Watching this trial get underway is like waiting for Spiderman to open on Broadway.

Finally, this. What exactly does Newt Gingrich do for a living?