Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Modern Culture

Rich Galen

Monday March 26, 2012

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The Hunger Games. The film did about $155 million in its opening weekend. I had never heard of it, or the trilogy of novels by Suzanne Collins of which the first formed the basis of this film.

It is not a particular surprise that something this big is going on completely out of my ken. The Mullings Director of Standards & Practices planned her entire evening last night around the season opener of "Mad Men" on the AMC network. I have yet to watch a single frame of this award-winning series' first four seasons.

On the other hand, I spent most of yesterday watching an NCIS marathon. That series stars Mark Harmon as Special Agent LeRoy Jethro Gibbs and the USA network termed the day-long marathon "Mark Madness" which got points from me for marketing cleverness.

SIDEBAR

In one of the 15-or-so episodes that were on yesterday one of the characters said he was late for a meeting because there had been an accident on the "Mason Bridge." I have lived in Your Nation's Capital for the better part of 35 years and had never heard of this particular span.
I looked it up and it turns out that the southbound span of the bridge that carries traffic across the Potomac on I-395 is officially named the George Mason Memorial Bridge.
Some Hollywood writer looked at a map and saw the George Mason Memorial Bridge and assumed it was colloquially known as the "Mason Bridge." It is not. It is known by one and all as the 14th Street Bridge.
This is how I spend my Sundays.

END SIDEBAR

According to the Associated Press,

"The Hunger Games" stars Jennifer Lawrence as a teen who is one of 24 youths forced to compete in a televised death match in a post-apocalyptic North American society.

This is a completely different storyline from the televised death match currently being conducted and known as the Republican Presidential nominating process.

In the real March Madness the four college men's basketball teams that will meet in New Orleans next weekend in the Final Four of the NCAA basketball tournament are all from the mid-west - if you consider Kentucky part of the mid-west. Louisville and the University of Kentucky will face off in one national semifinal game; Ohio State and Kansas will meet in the other.

Staying with sports, Tiger Woods won his first PGA tournament in 30 months yesterday coming in first in the Arnold Palmer Invitational. It will be interesting to see if Woods being the leader coming into the final round had a dramatic impact on the ratings.

In Politics, Rick Santorum won Louisiana easily but, according to CNN, gained only five delegates on front-runner Mitt Romney. Newt Gingrich came in third with only 16 percent of the vote - another Southern state in which Gingrich was unable to break through.

According to the AP the current delegate standings are:

Romney - 568
Santorum - 273
Gingrich - 135
Paul - 50

The nominating process is likely to continue through at least April 24 when Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island hold their primaries. And, it might go all the way through June.

The Supreme Court begins hearing arguments on the Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida in which it will consider - it is widely believed - the Constitutionality of the individual mandate requirements of the Affordable Healthcare Act - Obamacare.

There will be three days of oral arguments but a ruling is not expected until the end of the Court's term this summer.

Finally, for your planning purposes, I am scheduled to appear on Bill Maher's HBO show Friday night. This my second trip into the belly of the beast, but the first since (a) Maher gave $1 million to Barack Obama's superPAC and (b) said what he said about Sarah Palin.

Still, someone has to hold up our side and this week that someone is me.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to The Hunger Games, to the AP's Delegate Tracker, to the Supreme Court's document on the questions they will consider, and to the MULLINGS following my last appearance on the Bill Maher show.

Also one of the great license plate Mullfotos all the way from California and an interesting Catchy Caption of the Day.

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