Has there ever been a Super Bowl so eagerly anticipated?

Will President Donald Trump drop a bombshell in his pre-game interview with Bill O’Reilly?

And what glitzy blitz will Lady Gaga launch during her halftime show? Will the “Born This Way” diva go high or low as she tries to blow away the game-changing president?

And by the way, Fox says it’s going to wedge an NFL football game into the Sunday spectacle.


San Diego may have been jilted by the League, but on this national TV day we can sit back with friends, savor eccentrically flavored chips, and throw these North County-raised roses at the screen.

A rose — the Off the Beach award — to Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, for his rock-jawed opposition to storing spent nuclear fuel at San Onofre for, well, forever.

If Issa can’t put the beachfront storage plan on ice, North County will be on the radioactive bubble from here to eternity.

Maybe I haven’t paid enough attention, but it seems that the nine-term congressman is paying more attention to his own backyard following a close shave in the last election — and the distinct possibility that he’ll be tested in the next one.


District 49 ain’t so safe anymore.

Who cares why Issa is on patrol. In this nuclear war, outcomes are all that matter.

North County stands to gain if Issa’s attention to his grass roots leads to an order to move the storage casks away from San Onofre.

On another front, environmentalists have challenged the California Coastal Commission’s permit approval of the storage plan, filing a lawsuit that will be heard in the spring.


The 8 million people who live within 50 miles of the closed Southern California Edison plant don’t care which blocking scheme works.

They just want out of catastrophic harm’s way.

A self-serving rose — the Junk Yard Watchdog award — to Union-Tribune reporter Jeff McDonald for his dedicated coverage of the 5-year-old San Onofre saga.

Keep an eye out for McDonald’s stripped-down review of the five San Onofre story lines still playing out: the criminal investigation of the California Public Utilities Commission, the body that stuck ratepayers with the lion’s share of the bill for the San Onofre collapse; the readjustment of that outrageous bill, a welcome response to the apparent corruption McDonald uncovered; the progress of CPUC reform in Sacramento, a no-brainer for good government; Edison’s multi-billion-dollar arbitration with Mitsubishi, the steam generator manufacturer at the heart of San Onofre’s shutdown; and the efforts of Issa and enviros to move the spent fuel from San Onofre.


If there were a Pulitzer for marathon reporting, McDonald, a tireless reporter of an epic scandal, would be running at the head of the pack.

A rose — the It’s Always That Way award — to the month of January for delivering something like three-quarters of a year’s rainfall/snow in one month. Reservoirs are filling up, the drought is receding into dusty memory banks, we’re relaxing after years of drought.

Reminds me of one of the classic quotes about California’s eternal cycling between feast and famine.

In “East of Eden,” John Steinbeck writes: “And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.”


California has made strides to lock in water supplies, notably with reservoirs, reduced personal use, our Carlsbad desalination plant as well as sewage purification programs.

Now, thanks to the heavens, we’re swimming in water and, against our better judgments, the pressure to preserve does not seem too intense.

It’s always that way.

A posthumous rose — the California’s Homer award — to the recently departed Kevin Starr, the historian emeritus of the Golden State.


I heard the great man speak several times and read his indispensable series of California histories. By every scholarly measure, he was a redwood who towered over rough-draft historians like me.

Nevertheless, I will always remember Starr for a mistake, a real howler.

In 1999, I was reading Starr’s “The Dream Endures: California Enters the 1940s.”

On page 96, he wrote, “Wyatt Earp was Jewish.”


I almost spit out my sesame bagel.

The ruthless lawman, survivor of the legendary gunfight at the OK Corral, the hardtack model of machismo. Jewish?

Wait until my wife tells her friends at Chabad, I thought.

Well, they always say in journalism school that if your mother says she loves you, check it out.


I knew if Starr wrote it, it must be true. But I still checked it out.

Earp, who hung around San Diego in his sunset years, was buried in a Jewish cemetery with his Jewish wife, Josephine, but he was, like me, a gentile who married into the faith. He wasn’t Jewish.

I couldn’t resist. I called Starr, told him of the mistake and did my best to convey that I thought no less of him.

“Even Homer nods,” I said.


He laughed good-naturedly.

He handled a million colorful facts over the course of his career. So he blew one, a beaut. The way it goes.

Ever since that conversation, whenever I commit an error in print that makes my brain burn with shame and self-loathing, I think of Starr.

He helped me, and countless others, understand the character of this great state, but just as important, he showed me how to cope with my own (and your) fallible humanity.


You just have to laugh.

logan.jenkins@sduniontribune.com