Halloween has been declared dead… or at least it is in France.  Many of us don’t think about how holidays here in the US are not celebrated the world over.  The fourth of July is an obvious one, but Thanksgiving is only celebrated in the US and Canada (and not at the same time). 

According to Wikipedia, Halloween is celebrated in the United States, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Puerto Rico, as well as Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines. 

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If you haven’t been around SP for long, you’ll learn quick that I’m obsessed with the news.  Mostly internet news though.  I haven’t watched network news in over a decade.  Some people are obsessed with the weather channel, some are obsessed with YouTube; but me, I’ll take the news.

So let’s jump in with this first one: Stranger breezed in, blew the whistle.  I love this story.  If I worked in Hollywood I’d start working on a pilot with the premise of this guy named ‘Doc’.  Wouldn’t this make a great show?  And when the plot line starts to get stale, ‘Doc’ pulls up his stakes, the cops swarm in, and he’s off to a new city.  If you put this on HBO or Showtime and filled it full of sex and violence I bet it wins 3 emmy’s in its first year.

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This article caught my intention. if you’re click-challenged, espn.com is reporting that former cy young winner orel hershiser is interviewing for the oakland a’s manager gig. while this isn’t necessarily earth-shattering news (hershiser spent a couple of seasons as the rangers’ pitching coach), it does have the following impact: i feel old.

of the 30 active managers in 2006, i have distinct memories of watching nine of them play (bell, francona, garner, girardi, guillen, melvin, randolph, scioscia, wedge). this, friends, is not right. baseball managers should always be old, crochety men like jim leyland and tom kelly and bobby cox, guys who had a cup of coffee at the major league level back in 1974 but never made much of a name for themselves in the bigs, and never played after 1987. that’s almost as messed up as some dude younger than me being named the general manager for the rangers. here’s where i’d like to say that i’d do such a better job than he ever could, but i’m afraid my record in fantasy baseball last year betrays that thought. bugger.

all of this to (sorta) say: go cardinals.

An interesting article I read today can be found here:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061024/ap_on_re_us/katrina_insurance

After reading it, I’m still not sure what my thoughts are.  At first I thought it was going to bash the government for not helping blacks as much as whites post-Katrina… but that really isn’t the point of the article.  So instead of editorializing I’ll let you read for yourself and type your reaction into the comments section below.

i was about to thank sparklegirl for sharing this.  but when someone shares something that negatively affects you for the rest of your life, is “thanks” appropriate?