More congressional shenanigans, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" renewed and Boston Marathon thoughts

- Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but Congress appears headed for a major partisan showdown over a major issue facing America. This time around, the topic of the battle royale along party lines is financial regulation reform, with Senate Republicans digging in their heels against a bill that Democrats say will prevent another Wall Street meltdown. While some hold out hope for a quick, painless agreement, the reality is that another pitched battle with over-the-top rhetoric that drags on for weeks and weeks is likely to ensue. Campaign season is nearing for mid-term congressional elections in November and those with their seats in Congress up for grabs don’t want to do anything (else) to run afoul of voters. Even though the House has passed its version of a finance reform bill and now Democrats intend to bring a Senate version up for chamber debate this week, that debate isn’t likely to lead to legislation being passed any time soon. The Senate Banking Committee approved the bill largely due to the support of its Democratic members, with the admirable goal of implementing new regulatory oversight of financial industry practices. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the chamber's top-ranking Republican, called for renegotiating the measure instead of bringing it to the Senate floor. "I think we need to get back to the table and get it fixed," McConnell said. "We want to make sure that we don't set up a system whereby we empower the government to continue doing what they've been doing." Actually Mitch, I think they key is preventing the banking and financial industries from doing what they’ve been doing, but maybe that’s just me. My focus isn’t so much on the government, but rather on the douche bags in the financal industry who fleeced America, operated in bad faith and screwed our economy over greatly with sub-prime mortgages and shady lending practices, then accepted government bailout money and attempted to use it to pay exorbitant executive bonuses instead of keep themselves afloat financially. Republicans have vowed to filibuster the bill as it is written now and prominent voices in the Senate like Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona are openly condemning it. As you’d expect, Democrats are disavowing the Republican interpretation of the bill and claiming that those views are colored by misinformation. McConnell "made the cynical and deceptive assertion that reform would somehow enable future bailouts -- when he knows that it would do just the opposite," Obama said Saturday. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is also busy lobbying for the bill, insisting he is confident a "strong package of financial reforms" will win congressional approval. One of the main issues of contention seems to be how to regulate complex trading products called derivatives -- a form of trade in which investors seek to protect themselves by offsetting their risk or speculating on the future value of assets. The underlying motive - coming up with "rules with teeth" to protect against another financial crisis - seems to be universally agreeable, but as usual the means to accomplish the goal are not so easily agreed upon. Republicans are going to their old standbys in any major political dispute, arguing that the bill would "perpetuate government intervention" in industries similar to the bailouts or takeover of some aspects of the banking, automobile and other industries. Way to stick to your guns, Republicans. If you don’t have anything of substance to add to a debate, merely scream as loudly as possible that a bill will perpetuate government expansion and intervention in sectors of American life where you think the government need not be. Nice to know that some things never change………..

- Maybe it’s just my thing because I am a marathon runner, but I always enjoy following events like the Boston Marathon that often register little more than a blip on the sports radar. Unless you have spent three or four hours out on the road, running 26.2 miles and battling past pain, fatigue, doubt and discouragement to do something that less than 1 percent of the world’s population has dared to do, you cannot begin to understand how amazing the experience is. People use the expression that “____________ is a marathon, not a sprint,” but so few people have any clue what that really means. That’s what makes it so amazing to see the elite runners like Kenyan Robert K. Cheruiyot do what they do best. Cheruiyot, known in Boston as "Robert the Younger," became the second man of his name to win the Boston Marathon and the first person ever to run the legendary course in under 2 hours, 6 minutes. He won the 114th Boston race Monday, finishing in 2:05:52 to shatter by 82 seconds the course record set by four-time winner Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot, who's (amazingly) not related. The top American finisher was Ryan Hall, who finished third last year, but missed another spot on the podium by 2 seconds. Still, his time of 2:08:41 was the fastest ever for U.S. runner in Boston. "Today was a breakthrough day," said Hall. "Guys are paving new territory, and that's good for us, too." On the women’s side, Ethiopia's Teyba Erkesso took the women's title in 2:26:11. What’s cool about Cheruiyot’s victory is that he is a farmer back home and by winning and earning the $150,000 prize and the $25,000 bonus for breaking the court record, he has pulled down more for two hours of work than he probably would the rest of his life as a Kenyan farmer. Oh, and don’t miss the significance of his 2:05:52. That means he freaking ran the entire race in a pace of 4 minutes, 48 seconds per mile! Just try running one mile at that pace and you’ll understand how amazing that is. So what will Cheruiyot do with his influx of wealth? "I am going to buy some cows," Cheruiyot said. His win meant that American Meb Keflezighi was unsuccessful in his quest to be the first American to win in New York (which I ran along with Keflezighi and 43,000 others) and Boston back-to-back. "We are training hard, but that doesn't mean we're going to hit a home run every time," said Keflezighi. "We take big pride in being among the favorites. We put it on the line. We don't go for second. I think the crowd appreciated it, because they were shouting 'U-S-A! U-S-A!" The race was run at a chilly temperature of 49 degrees and with a 13 mph headwind greeting more than 26,000 runners at the start in Hopkinton. All in all, it was just a great scene and a day when the best athletes in all of sports got a chance to have a brief moment in the sun……….

- Larry David fans, here’s some good news for you. HBO announced Tuesday that Curb Your Enthusiasm has been renewed for an eighth season.
"After much soul searching — and by the way, it was nowhere to be found — I have decided to do another season of Curb," David said in a statement. "I look forward to the end of shooting, when I can once again resume the hunt for my elusive soul. I know it's here somewhere or perhaps in the rugged mountainous regions of Pakistan.” Typical Larry David humor and precisely the reason so many people love Curb. Coming on the heels of a long-awaited seventh season that featured the first reunion of the cast of Seinfeld, an eighth season should generate quite a bit of hype of its own. After a season finale that brought in the show's biggest ratings in five years, making the argument for the show to return isn’t all that difficult. "Larry always loves to paint himself into a corner, and after the incredibly wonderful seventh season of Curb, you have to ask, 'How does he ever top this?'" said Michael Lombardo, HBO's president of programming West Coast operation. "But he always finds a way. We can't wait to see what he does in Season 8."
David hinted at the possibility of an eighth season in March when he said he was “leaning toward" it. The season will consist of 10 episodes and production will begin in the summer with a target for a 2011 premiere. Curb Your Enthusiasm will also make its basic cable debut on TV Guide Network on Wednesday, June 2 at 10/9c and the network has already stated that it will not edit the show for time, allowing episodes to run in full…………

- Where is Bookman, the infamous library cop from Seinfeld, when you need him? In the episode of the legendary sitcom he appeared in, Bookman chased down Jerry for the four-figure fine he owed on a book borrowed in high school that was never returned. Maybe if Bookman were real, he could chase down noted library defier and former President George Washington. Hallowed as he may be for being the first president in our nation’s history, dude is a freaking lout when it comes to returning library books and paying fines on overdue items. Washington checked out two books from a New York City library -- lengthy discourses on international relations and parliamentary debates -- on October 5, 1789 and they were due on November 2, 1789, but weren't brought back. Why dude didn’t just go online and renew them, I don’t know. But they were never brought back and ever since, the books have been collecting a fine of a few cents each day, adding up to more than $4,000 by the New York Society Library's informal estimate. "I'm sorry, math is not my thing at all," said Jane Goldstein, the assistant head librarian. Back then, the fine at the time was 2 pence a day. Now, it's 15 cents and one of the librarians, Matthew Haugen, guessed the fine to be in the vicinity of $4,577. The library wasn’t even aware of the missing books until earlier this year, when it discovered a yellowed ledger in its basement, listing all the people who had checked out books from the city's oldest library between July 1789 and April 1792. Scrawled next to the entries for "Law of Nations" and the 12th volume of "Common Debates" was the word "President." At the time, New York was the capital of the United States and the library was the only one in town, meaning there is little doubt as to who checked the books out. The capital was soon relocated to Philadelphia and then Washington D.C. No word on whether Washington also swiped books from libraries in those cities and failed to return them, but I wouldn’t be surprised. The New York library opened as a subscription library but became the city's first library open to the public. Washington’s welch-ery became known because the library is capturing the ledgers in digital form to preserve the records. Officials have attempted to locate the books but as of yet, haven’t had any success. Now, on to collecting that fine……………

- If ever you needed reinforcement of how different basic societal issues are viewed in distant parts of the globe, look no further than Saudi Arabia for that reinforcement. Hear the tale of Saudi religious official Ahmed bin Qassim al-Ghamidi, the now-former chief of the Mecca branch of the country’s powerful religious police and you’ll realize how varied the beliefs about concepts like interaction between men and women can be. The head of the organization, Abdul-Aziz bin Humain, fired al-Ghamidi after the latter suggested in an interview this week that men and women should be left to mingle freely. Those comments directly contradict the Islam-centric nation’s policy that prohibits men and women who are not immediate relatives from mingling. "Mixing is just natural and there is no good reason to ban it," al-Ghamidi said in the interview. It’s a truth most in non-14th century cultures have long since come to embrace and the idea of not being able to associate with people of the opposite sex outside of your immediate family would be unfathomable for Americans, Canadians, etc. The Saudi religious police, under the control of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, enforce Saudi Arabia's strict interpretation of Islam and clearly have no tolerance for dissenting views among their members. The fact that al-Ghamidi occupied such a senior position within the police force didn’t help his cause, nor did the fact that he is a top cleric. Having said that, his comments raise some interesting questions, namely to what extent Saudi views on the gender segregation ban have shifted. Yes, more militant officers routinely jail unrelated men and women found sitting together in public places. These same policemen patrol those public places to ensure that women are covered and not wearing makeup. However, King Abdullah has been encouraging change in the kingdom since becoming crown prince in 1982 and has intensified his efforts since assuming the throne in 2005. Today, male and female students are permitted to study together at the newly opened King Abdullah Science and Technology University, founded by the king last year and Abdullah axed a prominent hard-line cleric who spoke out against the university and its gender relations policy. As of now, the culture is an amalgam of sorts, a contradiction wrapped up in a conundrum. And based on the progress of changes on societal issues in world history, this isn’t a debate I would look for to wrap up any time soon…………