Skattershooting about things having nothing to do with Christmas:

• Coca Cola threatens to remove all advertising from UPN's wrestling show (aptly named WWF Smackdown) unless the violence and sexual overtones are toned down. This is censorship that we can all live with: the free market, and not government, regulating the quality of television.
• ABC's George Will stated that had he been given the same "pop test" on foreign affairs that George W. Bush had been ambushed with, he would have faired no better. Hey, if George Will can't do it, I don't expect my president to pass it either.
• Disturbing numbers: (1) the fire in Massachusetts that killed 6 firefighters left 17 children without fathers. (2) Texas has executed 34 people this year alone.
• A report from the National Academy of Sciences came out last week reporting that as many as 98,000 people a year die from medical mistakes. In response, President Clinton ordered a federal task force to come up with recommendations within "60 days to find ways to reduce medical errors and increase patient safety." Heck, if the task force is that good I say give them 30 more days and maybe they'll find a cure for cancer.
• Call me a skeptic, but after every tragedy (A&M bonfire, Wedgewood Church shooting), aren't we inundated with reports that the public should provide blood since it is in short supply? Can twenty people in need of blood really cause a shortage when I suspect hundreds of surgeries requiring blood occur every day? Or is it just a good opportunity for the blood banks to make their pitch?
• Why in the world is the Dallas City Council voting on whether they should recommend to Congress that the United States pay reparations for the past sin of slavery. Aren't there some streets that need to be fixed somewhere?
• Charles Shultz has announced his retirement after 50 years of drawing the Peanuts/Charlie Brown comic strip. Not to dog the guy, but for the past ten years my only reaction from reading the comic strip was to have a huge question mark form above my head in response to trying to figure out if he was trying to be funny.
• The News With Brian Williams (CNBC and MSNBC) may be the best news show on television, and Fox's Fox and Friends is the best kept secret at 6:00 in the morning.
• Actor Jim Carrey is to the 90s what Jerry Lewis was to the 60s . . . and that's not necessarily a good thing.