Tracy Allen Parks 1.0

the space shuttle mission has been scrubbed due to some malfunction. although i would rather have mission to be safe for those carrying it out, it is still a pity. they say it is a minor delay and the mission will go on at a later date. let us hope that it is not as long as the nhl player lock out of 2004.
i just heard some good news today, the players of nhl and the league have all agreed and there will be a 2005 season. can i just hear a wup! wup! for the canucks! the players agreed to a salary cap that the owners proposed. to me its not about the money. nhl players are the hardest working athletes out there and they make the least amount. also the nhl hasn’t be subjected to the “larger than life” dramas that the other sport industries have become. it seems that the mlb, nfl, and nba are a bunch of whining, camera hogging, hams with a huge case of the “look at me”. sports went from “hi mom” to high drama only ever seen before in the wwe. look at the kobe v. shaq drama. and whatever happened to “mr primetime” there was a big bag of nothing waiting to happen. it’s these types of things that never happen – so far – in the nhl. the nhl is all about hockey. the players are out there to play, not try and make money off of their image with sponsor contracts. lets face it, it’s not the shoe that makes you faster, it’s you.

today is july the 14th. bastille day. it was on this day back in 1789 when french citizens stormed the bastille, a political prison at the time, and freed the prisoners. this marked the beginning of a series of unfortunate events that lead to the whole of europe being consumed by a short corsican with delusions of grandeur. europeans call this the napoleonic wars. here in america, we saw a small portion of action during this era during the war of 1812. many americans all too often forget that the napoleonic wars were mostly to be blamed on us and our own revolution. it was our revolution that bankrupted the french economy and showed the french and the whole world that ordinary people could overthrow their tradionanal feudal lord and masters. (granted it was the english in 1649 that showed us, but i leave that for another post). how often we forget the fact that if it wasn’t for the french, the usa would not have survived the american revolution. we owe our country to the french. many times i hear “if it wasn’t for us, they (the french) would be speaking german.” for shame on anyone who has said that.
if it wasn’t for the french there would not be any united states. we forget the louisiana purchase, the statue of liberty, and all the ships and arms for the revolution. we forget the first country to recognize the united states as a legitimate country was france.
sure france has made some poor choices as a country, but the united states has also made some poor choices.

so for all i say

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité Toujours!

~adieu