My.One.Talent
I'm good at nothing of value. But one of the things I am good at is colating randome bits of information in, I think, a fun way. Here's an example of something I wrote on March 24, 2002 in respose to news that there was possiblity still an American POW from HW Bush's Iraq War. The source article – now lost to the Internet rubbish bin – was from the not-exactly-trustworthy Washington Times.
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The Washington Times reported that Iraq may have an American POW, previously thought to have been killed in action in the Gulf War. How would you like to be this guy? He survives an air-to-air missile attack only to be held prisoner without the knowledge of his native country for 10 1/2 years! Think of everything he missed: George Bush's post-war job-approval/popular-opinion free-fall. Magic Johnson's retirement because of HIV; and his short-lived comeback. Chernobyl. Dahmer. Ross Perot. The 'comeback' election of Bill Clinton - and the related early scandals. The Tonight Show war. The rise of CNN, and the rest of cable news (MSNBC, FOX News, Bloomberg). The Rodney King beating and subsequent LA riots. The spate of black church burnings. The February 26, 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. The Frisco earthquake. Hillary's not-so-successful health care plan. The Waco whackos. All but one of the Chicago Bulls championships - and both Michael Jordan comebacks. The Connie Chung-Dan Rather co-anchor debacle. Jackie O and Dick Nixon's deaths. The cessation of Major League play in the 1994 season - including the first missed World Series in 90 years. The Republican near-sweep in the '94 elections; and the related rise and fall of Newt Gingrich. Rudy Giuliani. The OJ trial. Too many great movies to even mention. The sudden -- if too long in coming -- popularity of Seinfeld and its finale. The entire run of Friends. The Spice Girls and their equally-totally-crappy knockoffs; Britney and her ilk. The Unabomber's capture. Clinton's reelection. Diana's death. Hale-Bopp. The endlessly expanding Whitewater investigation. Lewinsky. Clinton's impeachment. The resultant strong Democratic showing in 1998. The many homeruns. Astronaut John Glenn redux. John John's death. The money-backed rise of George W. All the fun that came from President Gore's election and subsequent defeat. Senator Clinton. The many school-shootings. Of course, the attacks of September 11th. Enron's collapse -- the largest corporate collapse in history. Our right-wing shadow government. The Internet!
And those are just domestic happenings! He also missed the final break-up of the Soviet Union (and maybe the August coup). Hubbell Space Telescope's Deep Field View. Mars Pathfinder. The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. The Yugoslav civil war, and breakup. The fighting in Kosovo. The reversal of British politics, from Conservative to Labour. Shumaker-Levi 9. Yeltsin's rise and fall in Russia. The Olympics in Barcelona, Albertville, Lillehammer, Atlanta, Nagano, Sydney, and Salt Lake City. The attacks on American interests abroad. The International Space Station. The ongoing post-Camp David intifada in Israel/Palestine. The War on Terrorism.
And all the events I didn't mention.
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Of course all of this presuposed that he had no access to news at all – and that he ever actually existed. Since no further reporting on him ever came, it's safe to say he probably didn't – as a long-held POW, at least.
Update: I'm good at one other thing: recalling long blocks of spoken text.