Beer Day at the White House

Obama will host a beer summit today Thursday to hopefully reconcile differences between Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge, Mass., Police Department. Kickin’ it “man-style,” Obama! I can hear his signature cadence now:

“You guys are fighting? Why don’t we have a beer and hug it out, fellas?”

What’s more, the two combatees might be related, according to ABC news. (That link is in the first story if you already checked it out)

Now to daydream what could possibly be on tap at the White House? Kona Brewing from Obama’s birth state Hawaii? Goose Island from Chicago? That’s a subject that deserves some investigative reporting. It’s got to be something good. Although Obama did stop at the Raleigh Times bar on the campaign trail and order a PBR. He also stopped at Bethlehem Brew Works in Pennsylvania.

What exactly is your stance on craft beer, Mr. President?

**This post was changed to reference the correct date of the beer summit**

Coach K to Obama: Fast break

Couple of more quotes in the link below from K on his whirlwind publicity tour for his book. He was asked on the radio about his comments concerning Obama’s picking UNC to win it all this year. 

“I get in trouble whenever I say anything.”

Cry me a royal blue river, weasel. 

Courtesy of “Under the Dome” from the Raleigh News and Observer, of which I am a former intern. Yeah, Dome!

Coach K to Obama: Fast break | newsobserver.com projects.

Barack Obama Inauguration Post #2

Some pictures from the weekend. More here.

big kid on the Hill

You ever play that game when you were a kid, “king of the hill?” The one where someone gets on a trampoline or a small hill or something and they just try to stay on top without another kid coming along, who might have fine intentions of being on top of the hill himself, and knocking them to doom at the bottom of the hill. It never lasts long and usually the kid who wins isn’t necessarily stronger, they just have the high ground, literally and pun intended. They just push down the other kids. It’s about strategy. That’s what the UNC game last night reminded me of. It wasn’t that the Tar Heels were just that much better, though they were. It seemed like Kentucky was just being a little bitch and letting themselves get pushed down the hill. UNC’s rebounding was hideous, though Deon Thompson did show up to play my brotha. I would say my nigga, but I don’t think I’m allowed to. That’s because I am a white person. I was also intoxicated for much of game, so I don’t recall many specifics, other than I wanted to say “my nigga!!!” so many times for Deon Thompson, but of course I didn’t actually say it. I have also wanted to say it for Obama, and I doubt Obama knows what it means, so maybe I could be that one white guy who immediately makes all other white folks feel uncomfortable when I scream it in the middle of his inauguration speech. In one deft swoop I could possibly erase months and months of progress made in racial equality. That’s a powerful word. Say word.

Mo’ People Mo’ Problems

The Washington Post reported today that possibly 4 million people will descend on D.C. for the inauguration of Barack Obama. Barack Obama is the President-elect of a country called the United States. This country has never had a black president before. Dats alotta people! Apparently the most that they’ve handled in the past was about a million. That means four times as many will be there. I’ve probably only conveyed about three actual ideas that aren’t redundant to the average reader. I can’t help it, I’ve been reading Vonnegut’s “Breakfast of Champions” and he describes everything in the book as if the reader had never heard of it. He says things like: Kilgore went to New York City, which was the biggest city in the country! It’s quite hilarious sometimes, which means that it it really funny. I highly recommend reading anything by Vonnegut, which means all of his books are good. I’m getting extremely giddy because tonight I will get to see UNC play for the first time this season. A good portion of my life is spent thinking about and watching this team play basketball, which is a sport in which players throw a ball through a hoop that has a net attached to it. They are playing Kentucky, a hillbilly state, in Chapel Hill, the southern part of Heaven. Expect to see copious objective notes on the game on the wom, which means expect to see notes very favorable to the Tar Heels on the wom.

Blind Ambition

I was reading the washingtonpost.com today and came across this little gem about Obama’s first visit to the White House:

“Both couples were all smiles during their brief appearances before the cameras, but there was likely to be some underlying tension between Bush and Barack Obama. The president-elect won last Tuesday by campaigning against Bush as much as he did against the Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). Obama repeatedly condemned Bush’s “failed policies” and charged that McCain would continue them. He urged voters during the campaign to reject “another four years” of a Bush presidency. …

Both Bush and Obama, however, have gone out of their way since Election Day to be gracious and play down the past criticism. Bush advisers said the president is an old political hand who is used to sharp rhetoric on the campaign trail. Experts and officials also said the two sides appear to be working with exceptional cooperation to prepare for the impending transition. …

Obama said Friday that he would not “anticipate problems” before today’s meeting, while Bush said he was “looking forward to welcoming” Obama and his wife.White House press secretary Dana Perino said this morning that the meeting would be “very private,” adding that “I’m sure that this won’t be the only time that they speak.” …

Asked about Obama’s campaign-trail criticism of Bush, Perino said, “It’s always amazed me how President Bush is able to let heated rhetoric like that just slide off his back.”"

Wow. For the last four years we’ve had a president indifferent to what is being said about him. It’s quite hard to get such a low approval rating, especially if for the most part you stick to hardcore party priorities, but I guess if you just don’t pay attention to popular opinion at all, you can get there.