If Hugo Chavez Played Football...

Before I get into my political/sports commentary, I found this interesting site that I think some of you may enjoy. Freerice.com donates 10 grains of rice for every vocabulary word you get correct. In addition to donating a small bowl's worth of rice in the five minutes prior to writing this, I also found out that I'm really good at guessing the meaning of words I've never seen before by root words and weeding out the ridiculous answers. But then, I already knew I was really good at guessing right answers. The rice is paid for by the advertisers at the bottom of the screen. They all seem to be big name companies like Apple and it's not really ads. Just sponsorship logos. While I'm a bit skeptical as to the value of our tendency to give food and money as charity while neglecting education and infrastructure initiatives, this really can't hurt. If you've got time and a vocabulary worth using (and all of the readers of this blog probably have a relatively sound grasp of the more obscure corners of the English lexicon) you've got a way to actually do charitable work without really sacrificing anything.

Now on to the frivolity that seems to dominate this site (along with the depressing ruminations.)

While I was standing at break duty this morning I got to thinking about Hugo Chavez. Before you start wondering why exactly I was ruminating on the democratically elected leader of Venezuela (or Peru, if you're a Dick), I had actually been reading an article about Chavez just before the tone sounded for break to begin. The guy is the biggest trash talker in modern international affairs, or at least the biggest one I can think of. During my morning musings, I realized that if old Oogo was in the NFL, he'd probably be the Chad Johnson of the portly set. Why do I think this? Well, Chad Johnson is always running his mouth, but he's harmless. He talks trash like no other and absolutely loves the spotlight. If you watch any of the Bengals games, his mouth doesn't stop, but the other players seem to actually be enjoying whatever it is that he's running on about. Chavez is a little more mean spirited in his jabbering, kind of like Deangelo Hall. But, unlike Hall, Chavez doesn't do anything to back it up. He can't really. Unlike Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he doesn't seem to have any nuclear abilities, and unlike Kim Jong-il, he doesn't have the nuclear potential, the fourth-largest standing army in the world, or a populous so destitute that they'd probably attack invading just to boil their shoes for soup or to gnaw on a finger or two.

This line of thought took me to the next logical conclusion: Muammar al-Gaddafi would be Terrell Owens. Both were hellions in their day, Gaddafi financing terrorism and condemning the western world, and Terrell Owens destroying team chemistry with his mouth and venomous personality. However, both seem to have turned a corner. Owens hasn't been anywhere near the turd in Dallas that he was in Philly. He did show hints of his old self when Dallas started losing games last year, but he's been near saintly this year. Gaddafi seems to have largely renounced terrorism and has taken active steps to change his reputation and that of Libya.

My next thought was that Clinton would be Tom Brady. After all, Brady knocked up his actress girlfriend and then left her for a supermodel and Clinton misunderstood the proper usage of a cigar. The only problem with that is that Monica Lewinski really just isn't the same as Brady's women. The better comparison was John F. Kennedy. Besides, Kennedy much dreamier than Clinton even if the middle aged ladies seemed to dig on Slick Willie. This comparison really has nothing to do with how well either president did their job. It's true they all lead the most powerful collaborative efforts in their classification (the Patriots to football and the US to countries), but then so did Richard Nixon, the 9th-worst president.

My final comparison is Michael Vick and good ole GW Bush. It's not all that intuitive of a comparison. After all, I don't think Bush is all that fleet of foot, but when you think about it they have a lot in common. Vick was overrated coming out of college. He had questionable passing ability, especially behind the taller linemen in the NFL. He was just too short to get good vision down field. The problem was we were blinded by his speed and play-making ability to notice that he just didn't do the basics of the position all that well. Vick had many enthusiastic fans even when it became obvious to the more sophisticated fan that he was never going to be a good quarterback. Bush is similar in that he was really hyped by his fans and is a polarizing figure. Like Vick, he seems to have many of his mistakes and misdeeds overlooked or quickly forgotten, although knowingly pushing a war using bad information is a bit more than minor. After 9/11 Bush had all of the potential in the war. He came out of the virtual bunker he'd entered after his constant public speaking screw ups at the very beginning of his presidency and had political clout and international goodwill out of the wazoo kind of like the sense of infinite potential Vick brought with him the first time he took the field in a Falcons uniform. Both men eventually turned out to be duds

Now, when do we get to find Shrub's emaciated pit bulls?