Friday Ramblings with Robert

The Fall of Chip Pickering

Chip Pickering had it all in front of him only to see it blow up in his face so fast.  The news this week that former Rep. Chip Pickering got into a fight at his son’s soccer game with the other teams head coach has carried all the headlines.  It is just another chapter in the great fall of a man who could have had it all politically in Mississippi.  He was a very popular congressman who was seen as a shoe in to replace either Trent Lott or Thad Cochran when they called it quits.  Then he surprisingly decided to step aside at the end of his last term and ultimately was not a candidate to replace Trent Lott.  At the time I know a lot of people thought it was odd, but little did we know the damage had already been done.  Pickering cheated on his wife and lost a lot of credibility here and his promising political career was over.  Now with this whole soccer melee he seems to have fallen further down in public sentiment.  It is a bit sad to see someone who could have been a political star in his home state fall so far so fast because of a couple poor decisions.

Mississippian Fights off Neighborhood Association

I’m sure some heard of the story the last couple of weeks about a decorated war veteran battling his neighborhood association over his flagpole in his front yard where he proudly flew the American flag in Virginia.  Well that decorated veteran happens to be one of Mississippi’s finest to serve his country in 3 different wars.  Col. Van T. Barfoot is a native of Edinburg, MS and a proud American who fought for years for this country only to have his neighborhood association tell him he couldn’t fly the flag he fought so many years under, in his front yard.  WLBT did a 2 part series on Col. Barfoot last year as a part of their Veteran’s History Project and it is worth a read.  The good part of his story is that his neighborhood has backed off their complaint at the urging of 2 Virginia Senators and the public in general.

Secret Heisman Winner

The football fans out there know that this Saturday the Heisman Trophy will be awarded supposedly to the nations most popular not necessarily best player.  There are a lot of top candidates, but watch out for the dark horse candidate from DC by the name of Barack Obama.  He is fresh off a huge Nobel Peace Prize win for nothing and frankly I wouldn’t be surprised to see him show up in New York tomorrow to take home the Heisman for nothing as well.  Remember anything is possible in this day and age, but hopefully sportswriters will take actual accomplishments in to account when voting as opposed to the potential gauge that Nobel voters used.