It’s a little sad that today’s youth don’t get to experience a red rubber dodgeball to the face like we did back in the day. – Unknown

Happy 2020! The Western Word is back! I missed you crazy people!

There’s no better place to start 2020 with than Caught My Eye (CME).

If you are a first-time visitor, welcome! CME is the once a week column that is posted here every Friday morning. This is when I take a look at some of the stories I did not have time to write about during the week. There may be some sarcasm and pointed independent commentary so be warned!

Here are the topics that “Caught My Eye” over the holiday break:

• Stapleton
• New Year’s Eve
• Trump Tweets
• College Football
• One More Thing

STAPLETON:

Like many people, I received the newsletter from Montana Secretary of State Corey Stapleton. It was in my inbox when I checked my phone at night, so I read it.

The title of the newsletter was “We Were Here First.”

It did not make sense, but I figured it was because I was half asleep when I read it. I re-read it the next day and it still did not make sense and I kind of thought he might want a do-over.

Stapleton tried to tie the issue with the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians just getting federally recognized with a trip he took to Israel and the Jewish people and the Palestinians.

The Great Falls Tribune reported the following:

The chair of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians said he was not upset, but was rather surprised to see his name in Montana Secretary of State Corey Stapleton’s newsletter after running into him while Christmas shopping.

“I wish he would have asked me before mentioning my name in it,” Gerald Gray said.

The Billings Gazette posted an editorial in which they called Stapleton “Montana’s own human gaffe machine” and said that Stapleton owes the Chippewa and Montana an apology for his dreadful comparison.

Stapleton is running for the U.S. House after just being elected Montana Secretary of State. He can’t win the GOP primary for the House race. He has until March to decide which office he should run if any. With this latest blunder, Stapleton might want to call it quits at the end of 2020.

Someone who Stapleton trusts should tell him he can’t win.

NEW YEAR’S EVE:

The city of Great Falls allows fireworks to be discharged on December 31, from 10:00 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. on January 1. The city even has a handy dandy “Safety Tips and Reminders” for New Year’s Eve posted on their website.

My favorite part of the tips and reminders was the section that told readers to “Discharge Outdoors.”

The interesting thing on New Year’s Eve 2019 was the wind was blowing about 30-40 miles per hour. One would think something like this would stop the good people of Great Falls from shooting fireworks, but no. Great Falls has its share of dumbasses and many were shooting off their fireworks every few minutes.

I figure one of these years the city will ban fireworks altogether. If we can’t count on people to use good judgment, that might be the logical next step.

TRUMP TWEETS:

Like a good little blogger, I decided to take some time off from blogging over the holidays. I set my Twitter account (@TheWesternWord) to notify me if the President tweeted something, thinking that he would be playing golf and eating Christmas cookies at Mar-a-Lago.

I was very wrong.

My phone was dinging like a pinball machine on Christmas. Some of the stuff the senior citizen was tweeting was not true. It reminded me of some of the old people on my personal Facebook timeline.

Finally, I responded to the President with:

It’s Christmas – stop attacking people for 24 hours. PLEASE

It seems that Nancy Pelosi has gotten under the President’s skin.

I decided to turn off notifications for @RealDonaldTrump.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL:

Wow – there are a lot of Bowl games. I was able to watch many of them. Here are some observations:

• There was a bad call in the Oregon/Wisconsin game that probably cost Wisconsin the game.

• The beating that Oklahoma received from LSU was epic. Oklahoma is from the Big 12 conference. LSU is from the SEC. The SEC is known for being tough and the Big 12 not so much. The final score was 63-28. The Big 12 has a Bowl record this season of 1-5. The SEC is 7-2.

• You can check out the Conference bowl record HERE.

• LSU and Clemson will play for the FBS National Championship on January 13. I will be posting a poll about that game next week.

• As for FCS, North Dakota State and James Madison play for the 2019 FCS national championship game on Jan. 11, 2020. Kickoff is 12 p.m. ET and the game will air on ABC. (NCAA)

ONE MORE THING:

With 2020 being a big year in politics, you should Like/Follow The Western Word on Twitter @TheWesternWord and on Facebook. You can also join the hundreds who subscribe to this blog.

Let’s go!

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