Sports and Conspiracies

I know that normally, when one poll ends, another begins. However, I'm contemplating doing away with the polls altogether, and instead just concentrating on writing short posts to let all "my fans" know what I'm up to.

Although technically, isn't that what Twitter and Facebook is for? (Speaking of which, I should probably update those sometime soon...but what will I say?)

Anyways, since I'm here, I might as well write something, right? I'm starting composing this post while watching the Blue Jays - White Sox game, but will soon be switching over to back-to-back episodes of 30 Rock.

Onwe of the problem with sitting in front of the TV but using my aptop is that I tend to get more interested in what I'm reading or writing on than the ballgame. In fact, I forgot it was 1-0 Jays (Travis Snider homered) until I looked up, and by that time, another Jay (I forget who) just hit an RBI double to make it 2-0.

And speaking of sports, Hell has truly frozen over. What covering local hockey couldn't do and what watching the Olympics couldn't do, the possibility of winning a Stanley Cup pool in my office has: I am now following the Stanley Cup playoffs. The only problem is that, on the first night of the playoffs, all the teams I picked (and who played) lost. I did try and get at least one Canadian team (Vancouver) past the first round.

I still believe it will be a Red Wing-Penquin Stanley Cup. Check back in a few weeks to see if I'm right.

But while I'm semi-paying attention to sports, I find myself reading quite a bit more lately. When I returned from my trip to Baltimore, I found that Jesse Ventura's new book "American Conspiracies" had arrived from Amazon, so I've been reading that.

As someone as conspiracy-minded as me, the fact that a former wrestling personality has written a book talking about conspiracies behind everything from the assassination of Abraham Lincoln to 9/11 to the Stock Market Crash is right up my alley.

If I was reviewing this for Shelf Life, I'd probably give it 3 1/2 or 4 stars. When I described it to Kelly in my most recent e-mail, I described it as "a mixed bag as there are some chapters where he goes into great detail about the subject he's talking about, while for others (the assassination of Lincoln and Martin Luther King), he just kinda talks about what happened. I definitely think where the book kinda suffers is that for many chapters, a book could have been written, with all the different facts and theories. I would have liked to have read Jesse write a lot more about each of his subjects. However, with the space he has he writes about a lot of things I had never heard of before (there being two Oswalds, Sirhan perhaps being under hypnosis, MLK's son believing Ray wasn't the assassin)."

The cool thing is that for every subject you expect to be in there (JFK, RFK) there's two or three you don't (Watergate, Jonestown, a plot to overthrow FDR). And Jesse doesn't stop with conspiracies from decades gone by. He even talks about 9/11, the 2004 and 2008 elections, the Stock Market Crash (of 2008) and even a plot to end democracy in America. Your usual suspects (big business, Big Brother and the CIA) are here, and I wonder if Jesse should be concerned.

While he doesn't always make his point as clear as he should, Jesse never comes off as a crackpot. Instead, he presents his arguements, backs them up thoroughly and even talks about what he believes should happen next.

American Conspiracies is a scary book when you realize what people have done in the name of money and power, and what they've done to cover things up.