Weekend News Recap

Hats off to the Tampa Bay Lightning. After only existing for 12 years, they have broken the Southern Conference curse and taken home the Stanley Cup. I for one don't believe the conspiracy theorists who say that the NHL deliberately kept Calgary from winning in game 6, but I will say that there was a bad call made. Calgary had scored the go ahead goal and it should have been reviewed instead of being called off as it was. Despite that, Calgary can't blame anyone but themselves for poor use of personnel which lead to their demise in game 7. They were too tired to skate with Tampa for the full game and they lost as a result. But for now we will doff our hats to Tampa and hail them as kings of hockey, possibly for longer than normal.

Detroit won game 1 of the NBA finals and maybe they'll be able to run with the Lakers for the full 7 games. I'll believe it when I see it, and tonight's game will go a long way in telling me whether Detroit is an actual threat or just a speed bump.

Of course, dominating the news is the remembrance of the D-Day landing and the passing of Ronald Reagan. I myself have mixed feelings about Reagan's death. On the one hand, I'm sorry he's gone, if for no other than the selfish reason that he's the president I remember from my childhood and it makes me feel old. But on the other hand, I know what a horrible thing he was going through and, in truth, he is much better off now that he has passed on. We'll revisit this topic in August during the Republican National Convention.

Then there is D-Day. Unlike many people, I don't have the ties to WWII that most people have. Both my grandfathers were too young to enter the war (serving their military service time in the late 40's and early 50's). Now, Mrs. X does have ties as both her grandfather's fought in the war. But one was in the Pacific and the other came into the war too late to be involved in the D-Day landings. As such, it moves me a little less than some other people, but I still appreciate it. However, I do question our overwhelming use of D-Day as the WWII remembrance. To me it snubs the thousands of Americans who fought and died in the Pacific and all those other brave soldiers who fought in Europe and North Africa, but were not part of the landings. If we choose to make a large issue of celebrating one day to remember the men and women of WWII, I suggest that we pick a day when all may be remembered, not just those who made the landing at Normandy. To continue to do so, slights the rest and even those who made the landings would not want that.