Literally

So Barack Obama announced his running mate Joe "Bubba" Biden (Obama said that's what people called him as a kid, so I assume it's an accepted nickname).

Biden gave a speech, which wasn't bad at all, but I particularly noticed that he used the word literally a lot. Things are literally worse than they were eight years ago. The American Dream is literally falling off a cliff. Those may not be actual quotes from Bubba, but he definitely overused literally during his speech.

Well, literally has made its first noticeable appearance in the Obama fundraising emails, the latest of which features this line:

But make no mistake about what we're up against. John McCain has embraced the same old politics of fear, division, and Karl Rove-style attacks -- which makes sense coming from someone who's voted with George Bush literally 95% of the time.

Is it literal, though? I mean, George Bush doesn't even have a vote in the Senate. But I guess I know what they mean.

I'm going to be keeping my eye on this use of literally, in literally everything I hear and read from the Obama campaign over the next ten weeks.

There Is No Streak

New York's abuzz with Mets/Yankees games. In their previous meeting this season, the Mets took two from the Yanks at Yankee Stadium and had one rain-out. The rain-out was made up yesterday afternoon, and with the drubbing of nine RBI from aging slugger and occasional fan scapegoat Carlos Delgado, the Mets swept the Yankees at Yankee Stadium for the first time ever. Good times.

Naturally, I attended the night game at Shea, where the Yankees returned the favor and clobbered the Mets 9-0. Ouch.

So whatever mojo I may have had as a fan influencing Mets victories at Shea... Yeah, that's gone.

A side note, relating to Gay Pride Week. Trash-talking is a popular pastime between Yankees and Mets fans, often all in good fun, although as last night's blowout continued, we saw more and more security guards running around to break up fights and kick people out.

So what does this have to do with Gay Pride Week? Well, gay slurs are a frequent trash-talking approach taken by the less imaginative fan. So when, for example, a Yankees fan suggested loudly that Pedro Martinez get his ass off the mound and become a bullpen coach instead (perhaps a decent idea, actually), the inebriated Mets numbnut sitting nearby taunted, in return, "Only when Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez start going out, fucking faggots!"

It didn't really make sense as a reply to the Yankees fan's comment. But "fucking faggot" is really a classic. I mean, it works on so many levels. "Fucking faggot" is to sports taunting what a banana peel, pie in the face, or groin kick is to slapstick. You just don't fix what's not broken. You don't reinvent the wheel of trash-talk.

Oh, did I say "classic"? I meant "classless." When you take the discourse as low as "fucking faggot," you really present yourself as a douchebag, dickhead, cock-knocker, fartmunch, and pigfucker.

In defense of the homophobic Mets fan, he had also bragged loudly that over the course of the doubleheader, he'd downed no less than seventeen beers. The beer man suggested he not tell the beer man that. And the beer man served him number eighteen anyway.

Shea Stadium: All class.

Dude, You Went to Yale

Some of you may remember the Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, a man by the name of John Kerry. His campaign was forgetful, so if that doesn't ring any bells, just hang in there. The rest of this posting will make sense anyway.

I'm still on John Kerry's email list. His emails tend to be as long-winded and dull as his speeches, appearances, debates, etc. during the 2004 contest. So I usually read the first sentence just to see if I really need to read the rest. Oftentimes, I don't.

Yesterday's email was a minor exception. I read the first two paragraphs. He was discussing the Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton rally in New Hampshire yesterday. He wrote this:

The unity of our Party is on hand for all to see today - in - ironically -- Unity, New Hampshire.

Really, John Kerry? Ironically? I think you mean quite the opposite of ironic. Appropriately, perhaps. Heavy-handedly, probably. But not ironic.

His use of hyphens in this sentence is also confusing.

John Kerry got the best education money can buy. But I guess I shouldn't be that surprised that the concept of irony is lost on him. You can't go through the rituals of Skull and Bones with any sense of irony. If you stripped and howled and fucked a goat with a sense of irony, you might realize how silly your secret society is.

On a separate but related matter, I'm convinced that if John Kerry had managed to win the 2004 election, John McCain would be elected in 2008.