Silly Saturday

Keith Olberman has a segment called the worst person in the world on Countdown in which he has the worse, worser and worst people each day. Taking off on that, each Saturday I will list my candidates for the silly, sillier and silliest person of the week.

The silly award this week goes to Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco and to the city Recreation and Park Department for their proposal to increase fees to use the cities tennis courts, elevator rides to the top of Coit Tower and admission to the Japanese Tea Garden as well as other increases. Residents pay taxes to support many of the items scheduled for a fee increase by Parks Department and paying an additional fee to utilize a tennis court is nothing more than an additional tax.


The Sillier person this week is King Abdullah and the Saudi Interior Ministry for jailing Fouad al-Farhan, a Saudi Arabian blogger for four months. Farhan, 33, was detained Dec. 10 after authorities warned him about his online support of an activist group. At the time of his arrest, the Interior Ministry said only that his violations were not related to state security. Farhan had used his blog to criticize corruption and call for political reform in Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy.


And the Silliest person of the week is none other than the beloved and so called leader of the free world George Walker Bush. In his latest comment on the economic stimulus package that in his estimate will revive the downtrodden economy, the President is now claiming that the package will also help Americans cope with lofty energy and food prices. The President did not elaborate on his claim but he was willing to admit that the economy "...may be in a slowdown."