Stoops in November during what turned out to be a loss against Oregon State.
Editor’s note: Judy Carlock reviews the week in news, with her own personal twist.
Good to know President-elect Barack Obama is a “Star Trek” fan. Reading this week that he flashed the live-long-and-prosper sign at Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) reminded me that Spock was a mutt too. His parents weren’t even the same species.
The United Federation of Planets deals diplomatically with rogue regimes, but the starship guns don’t fire blanks. It values liberty, peace, courage and having the coolest toys in the universe.
Obama seems to share Spock’s cerebral side, and has figured out 60-40 is not a landslide. It’s changing one person’s mind out of 10.
Evangelical minister the Rev. Rick Warren will deliver the inauguration invocation, despite his tepid support of California’s gay marriage ban. That upsets the right, who don’t like the tepidity, and the left, who don’t like the support.
Obama’s cool-headed choices will serve him well. He’s not the Dr. McCoy type – that would be President Bush. And he won’t quite cut it as the dashing Capt. Kirk.
That was Bill Clinton’s job.
Inauguration pastor gets slammed from right
HOT BUTTON: Apparently a lot of people think public schools are spewing out propaganda, because Teen Columnist Ashlee Maez touched a nerve with her perception of liberal bias at Tucson High School.
Certainly I can imagine a teacher letting a snarky Bush comment slip. Though that could just be anti-Bush bias.
One thing: Isn’t public education already socialistic? Virtually mandatory attendance, paid for with taxes, on the premise that the public good trumps individual choice?
Seems pretty Marxist to me.
Yeah, there probably is liberal bias at Tucson High. But why teach propaganda? It sounds more interesting to have the debate.
Teachers’ liberal bias permeates Tucson High
NOT ON THE STOOP: What a difference a year makes. If you’re a sportswriter you get to say stuff like that all the time.
After hiring a dud in John Mackovic, the University of Arizona must have been praying that Mike Stoops was building a program, not playing tic-tack-toe. Press speculation (we’re shameless) had him hovering in the vicinity of the doorway, waiting for a kick to the curb.
That started changing with a .500 overall win record in 2006 and now, with Saturday’s bowl victory over BYU and the Iowa State rumors wafting away, he has definitely come in from the cold. It’s a game of inches.
So pull up a chair, Mike. Set a spell.
Stoops excited about three-year contract extension
HORROR: I should have kept my mouth shut. I thought my mother had read the paper. So on Christmas Day, in Phoenix, I mentioned the most gut-twisting story of the week:
Guy walks up to two cousins in west Phoenix Tuesday and slams them with an aluminum baseball bat. Massive head injuries. Jesse Ramirez, 7, and Edwin Pellecier, 10, clearly took hard blows.
In 18 years in the newspaper business I don’t know if anything quite knocked the wind out of me as abruptly as this story. I’ve sure never heard law officers flatly stating the wounds were fatal before the patient actually died.
The alleged assailant may be mentally ill, but he had the wits to ask for an attorney.
At least he’s in custody. I don’t want him dead. Just locked away. As away as it gets.
2 boys brutally beaten in West Phoenix park die
2nd boy beaten in Phoenix park dies
IT’S A MIRACLE: Here’s a story to warm the heart: Jews and Muslims getting together, working cooperatively to separate Christians from their cash.
Bethlehem booms this time of year, as visitors to the Holy Land fill hotels, eager to be where Jesus was born.
It’s win-win-win. Better than mortar fire any day. And no one gets hurt.
So there is hope.
Shalom. Salaam. Peace.
Bethlehem marks joyous Christmas
Contact Judy Carlock at 573-4608 or at jcarlock@tucsoncitizen.com.