What Caught My Eye Today

Fred's Note: I wish I could say that I was taking a well deserved break last week, but sadly I cannot. Tragically--and believe me when I say this got me where it really hurts--work got in the way of me not working very hard. It's not something I'm proud of, but there it is. And now, back to that crazy world we call home.

2008 Presidential Race - Don't look now, but we have another presidential primary tomorrow. Hillary Clinton invoked Pearl Harbor, the Berlin Wall and Osama bin Laden as she reached for a victory in Pennsylvania's Democratic presidential primary to recharge her comeback effort. Barack Obama said she would probably win but he hoped to keep it close in Tuesday's voting. Clinton made her closing arguments for the biggest primary left on the election schedule, running an ad with historic images to ask voters whom they would trust most in the White House during a time of trouble. It's the same tactic she used successfully in the "3 a.m." ad she aired in the closing days of the Ohio and Texas contests last month. I'm not so sure you can go to the same well too many times, but you never know. I suppose if anyone can get away with it, Hillary can. Clinton aides tried to keep expectations down, insisting they would be grateful for a win no matter how close. Yeah, right. A month ago, she had a 20-point lead. Still, I'm sure the spin doctors for both Clinton and Obama will come up with something positive for both candidates and the race for the nomination will go on to the next state. Lucky us, huh?

Oil - That sound that you hear every time to go to the gas station is your nest egg being sucked into your gas tank. Rising gasoline prices tightened the squeeze on drivers jumping for the first time to an average $3.50 a gallon at filling stations across the country with no sign of relief. Crude oil set a record for the sixth day in a row — this time closing above $117 a barrel — after an attack on a Japanese oil tanker in the Middle East rattled investors. Great. Like we needed this. Diesel prices at the pump also struck a record high of $4.20 a gallon. That's sure to add to truckers' costs and drive up the price of food, clothing and other goods shipped by truck. This next bit can only be described as sign that the end of the world might be closer than we think. Energy Department data show Americans used about 1% less gas in the four weeks ended April 11 than they did a year earlier. 1 whole percent? Stop the presses, this is huge! Good grief, people. Get a grip. Now if this trend continues and gas consumption goes down by like 10%, then I'll be impressed.

Hamas - Former President Carter said that the Islamic group Hamas was willing to accept the Jewish state as a "neighbor next door," but the militants did not match their upbeat words with concrete steps to halt violence. You don't say. Well golly, I'm stunned. Hamas, which advocates Israel's destruction, instead recycled previous offers, including a 10-year truce if Israel takes the unlikely step of withdrawing from the West Bank and Jerusalem first. Actions on the ground — seven rockets were fired on Israel from Hamas-ruled Gaza — contradicted the Islamic militant group's positive words about coexistence and a truce. Oh,sure there is some collateral damage and loss of innocent life, but we're talking about the peace process here. There's bound to be some speed bumps along the way. The salvo of rockets came despite a last-minute phone call from Carter, urging a one-month halt to attacks on Israel, to gain some international goodwill and defuse tensions. Carter said top Hamas leaders told him during seven hours of talks in Damascus over the weekend that they are willing to live next to Israel. The Bush administration and Israel, which shun Hamas as a terrorist group, have criticized the Carter mission as misguided. In Washington, a State Department official said that it does not appear Hamas has changed its positions. Yeah, so like I know Carter was a Democrat (probably still is) and Bush is a Republican, but don't we all play for the same team? A little solidarity couldn't hurt. And in defense of Carter, it's not like the Bush administration's current policy for dealing with Hamas is a resounding success.

Olympic Torch - Believe it or not, the torch relay is still trudging along. The Olympic torch arrived in Jakarta amid tight security as authorities prepared for a relay in a sports stadium in the Indonesian capital. Indonesian authorities have deployed about 2,500 policemen and about 1,000 members of the military to guard the torch relay, which has drawn a wave of anti-China protests during stopovers in Europe and the Americas following Beijing's crackdown last month on protests in Tibet. The relay had originally been due to pass through large stretches of the bustling city, but sports officials announced earlier this month the route would be restricted to the vicinity of the Bung Karno Sports Complex in central Jakarta. So basically, the torch relay is going to consist of a few laps around a track in a sports stadium. That sounds nice. Just how the torch relay organizers planned it, I'm sure.

Pope - Pope Benedict XVI is safely back in the security and serenity of the Vatican now, and all of those souls who prayed for him and protected him during his six-day stay in the U.S. can offer a sigh of relief. He spoke up in the most forceful terms against the Roman Catholic Church's performance in dealing with sexual abusers. He admitted that some elements in the church had not acted nearly strongly enough to weed out the sinners and to punish them. He expressed deep shame. Everywhere the pope went, he appeared to make friends, whether it was President Bush traveling out of the White House to the airport for the first time to greet up a foreign leader, or New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg saying of the pope that they were buddies now. I'll confess, that as a self-described disenfranchised Catholic, I didn't have high expectations for the pope's visit accomplishing very much. I was very much mistaken. I caught portion's of the pope's mass at St. Patrick Cathedral in New York and the prayer service at ground zero. You couldn't help but notice how moved the pope was by the reception he received and the consolation that he offered to those that lost family and friends on September 11. My hats off to Benedict XVI. You gave us something that we were in desperate need of--hope and faith.