AND ANOTHER THING …

In most cities, the home team wins the Super Bowl and fans pour into the streets to celebrate that particular happy event. In Boston, the New England Patriots defeat the St. Louis Rams in a football game and fans pour into the streets to curse the baseball success of the New York Yankees. As the Pats’ selfless play proved, there is no “I” in team, but you will find one in spoilsport.

.

The Salt Lake City Winter Olympics are barely under way, yet already gold medal performances in greed have been turned in by local merchants – restaurant prices have tripled, a pint of beer goes for $6.25, the day rate for parking has jumped from $5 to $30. Apparently oblivious to the $1.5 billion taxpayer subsidy that makes it all possible, Chamber of Commerce President Larry Mankin makes no apology for the fleecing: “Free enterprise is a wonderful thing. You can charge what the market will pay. Isn’t this a great country?” And Olympic organizers were worried that displaying the tattered American flag pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Center might offend other countries.

.

The Acadia Advisory Commission has voted to recommend banning hang gliders and four-wheeled cycles from the national park, despite virtually no sightings of hang gliders ever and no reports of actual problems with quadricycles. The commission did not hold a public hearing on the issue, saying it would have been unnecessary; the park superintendent says the recommendations will be taken seriously because the commission “is our official method of getting public input.”

.

Bath Iron Works has announced another round of layoffs, continuing a trend that has cost the state several hundred of its best jobs since the state gave the General Dynamics subsidiary a $60 million tax break back in 1997. BIW spokesperson Susan Pierter says the latest cuts – as many as 70 jobs – are merely the result of “more peaks and valleys in the shipbuilding industry.” We’ve seen enough valleys – how about a peek at the peaks?

.

After arguing with no success at a bail hearing for John Walker Lindh, attorney James Brosnahan charged that the U.S. government is trying to stir up unwarranted American rage against his hapless client to divert attention from its failure to locate the real evildoers, Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mohammed Omar. “They have brought up the cannon to shoot the mouse,” said Mr. Brosnahan. Right weapon, wrong rodent.