Small Minds

Raping the Rewards

2010-04-20T14:45:00.000-07:00

Maybe the prosecutor in Milledgeville didn’t have the evidence necessary to prove Ben Roethlisberger guilty of sexual assault but after reviewing the records released to the media I, as an officer of the court of public opinion feel quite comfortable in offering up my verdict: Ben Roethlisberger is a rapist.

20 years ago I took a required course that was intended to introduce me to the college experience. I didn’t pay much attention but one thing that was driven home was the concept of rape. We’re not talking about the brutal first degree brand of rape that leaves women battered, bloody and in need of serious medical attention, but the subtle victimization of women that occurs when horny guys try to ply women with booze and drugs.

That’s clearly what Ben was up to when he ordered up round after round of flavorful shots commanding the women invited to hang with his posse, “Drink my shots, bitches.”

Ben’s Georgia victim didn’t even use the word rape to describe what he did even though her description includes Ben exposing himself and then following her to a bathroom and locking the door. She told him that she didn’t think it was a good idea but Ben persisted and had sex with her. Ultimately it was her friends who called the cops.

Based on the lessons learned in my college experience class I feel quite comfortable in assessing this as rape. The girl was drunk, Ben encouraged her to get drunk for the sole purpose of having sex with her. He isolated her from her friends, pressured her for intimate contact and ignored her reservations. That’s rape.

When I took this class I didn’t like the implications, but I was 18 and looking at it from the perspective of being a guy who might start making out with an equally inebriated girl of the same age and end up having sex. I didn’t like the notion that I had to judge her level of intoxication when I couldn’t see straight.

Now I realize that this type of rape isn’t about a couple of drunk college students fumbling through an ill-advised sexual encounter. It’s about guys like Ben Roethlisberger: guys who feed women alcohol until their judgment is severely impaired so they are more likely to get sex when they impose their will.

People have been yapping about Ben’s bad behavior for a while. He’s been called irresponsible, childish, disgusting, and comparisons have been drawn to unsavory animals. Everybody seems eager to condemn him but nobody is telling it like it is. Ben is a rapist. That’s says it all. He believes that women are his for the taking. Sadly, Ben, like so many other famous guys, has throngs of groupies who will eagerly do his sexual bidding without the need for coercion…why not pick one of them?

Because Ben’s a rapist. He doesn’t want sex as much as he wants to physically dominate a woman.

I don’t know what that means. Maybe his mom was a little overzealous with the rectal thermometer when he was a kid. Perhaps he had a domineering older sister who dressed him up like Strawberry Shortcake. Maybe Ben’s secretly gay and expresses his anger over being forced to hide it by abusing women. Who knows?

What we do know is that Ben Roethlisberger raped a girl in Georgia and then hired a legal team to harass the victim and any witnesses. Video evidence in the form of security footage from the club was ‘accidentally’ erased when police investigators requested it. The whole story is shady. Ultimately Ben’s accuser decided not to press charges and indicated that she did not want to testify in court for fear of being made to look bad. Ben’s legal team, which included undercover campus operatives hired by a private detective, made it clear that character assassination would be the order of the day.

So Ben got away with rape. He’ll face no criminal charges at this time and short of that it’s unlikely his hundred million dollar contract will be voided. He’ll play on and get paid handsomely for it.

If I were Ben, I’d be worried. Surely this isn’t the first time he forced himself on a woman (besides the tart in Reno who went straight for the civil suit). Eventually other women will come forward. Is there a cheerleader in high school Ben got a little rough with? Could there be some sorority sister from Miami that can recount a night where Ben wouldn’t take “no” for an answer? People who remember Ben from high school and college don’t do so fondly. Tales of Big Ben the bully and Big Ben the binge drinker out-number recollections of a humble kid living the dream.

Surely this girl in Georgia has a daddy and she might even have a brother or two. Maybe the cops didn’t have enough evidence to substantiate the accusation but dads and brothers don’t deal in reasonable doubt. Do you suppose that Ben might leave the Pittsburgh practice facility one day this summer only to have a discussion with an angry father and his tire iron?

The NFL has seen enough to take action and Ben will serve a suspension. The Steelers aren’t happy either but they don’t seem willing to part with their Super Bowl Champion quarterback just yet. There’s a lot of tough talk coming from the Rooney family but they seem content to ride out the bad press until the start of the season.

None of this is good enough but Ben manipulated the system and avoided criminal charges. Legally speaking, he’s a free man. Legally speaking, he’s done nothing wrong. Fair enough, but the court of public opinion doesn’t deal in legality. There are no technicalities. As far as this court is concerned, Ben Roethlisberger is a rapist but he’s also a victim.

I’m not suggesting we feel sorry for Ben. He’s 28 and he’s had plenty of time to put on the big boy pants and act like a man. He’s opted to behave like a spoiled teenager. He likes his fast motorcycle and doesn’t like to wear a helmet. Ben likes to get drunk and hang out with his homeboys, but he’s not a big fan of charity events. Ben believes women are his personal specimen cups and doesn’t understand the word “no”. This is all the product of our sport culture. Parents, coaches, friends and counselors treat athletic prodigies differently. Ben was a top notch athlete at a young age and he was afforded a lot of latitude. Grades were adjusted, discipline was muted and Ben was permitted to get away with acting like somebody half his age. So is it any wonder that the 28-year-old QB behaves like a 14-year-old whose parents are away on business?

Somethings got to change. It starts with not giving Ben the benefit of the doubt because he was able to use slick lawyering to undermine the criminal justice system but it ends by doing away with the double standard and treating jocks like everybody else.

Toyota Hoax

2010-03-10T08:47:00.001-08:00

There’s something fishy about James Sikes’ story. The California motorist claims his Toyota Prius suffered a malfunction that wouldn’t allow him to slow down. With the car accelerating in excess of 80 miles per hour he reached down and tried to pull the accelerator up in order to get the car under control.

He called 911 where an operator implored him to shift the car into neutral. Sikes didn’t say anything, but later claimed that he was reticent to shift into neutral for fear of “flipping” the car.

This doesn’t add up. Sikes is 61 which means he’s been driving a long time. I’m sure at some point he had to push a car and if so he would have realized that neutral is, well, neutral. It’s not another gear, nor does it feature a drive train-locking mechanism like ‘park’. If Sikes simply forgot the neutral nature of the neutral shifter position then he’s an incompetent driver who should be fined as such.

All vehicles are subject to malfunction and it is the driver’s responsibility to be prepared to deal with his vehicle in the event of such a malfunction. Sike’s betrayed the public trust betowed upon him when he was issued his license by failing to deal with his malfunctioning Toyota Prius in a calm, cool and collected manor.

Allegedly Malfunctioning.

This story is a little too convenient. Sikes claims he went to Toyota to get his accelerator fixed but was told that his car isn’t on the recall list. Shortly thereafter Sikes is on national TV reenacting a scene from Speed in his hybrid. The networks jump all over the story and Sikes has been interviewed more times than Drew Brees after the Super Bowl. It’s too perfect.

Let me be among the first to call bullshit on the whole story. Look, I don’t own a Toyota and I have no interest in their stock doing well. They screwed up and no they’re paying the price. They’re getting what they deserved.

But Sikes has gone too far. I think this is a hoax. Sikes wants his cut and he either faked the malfunction or he rigged his accelerator to fail on the highway. When the 911 operator undermined his 15 minutes with the simple solution of putting the car in neutral, Sikes panicked and simply ignored the instruction. When the instruction was repeated, he continued to ignore. After the car was finally brought to a stop, Sikes came up with the lame excuse of flipping the car as a reason not to shift out of gear.

There’s a possibility that Sikes’ Toyota went haywire. Maybe Toyota was hoping to keep its popular hybrid out of the fray and another chicken came home to roost, but Sikes’ brush with disaster was too neatly packaged.

I’m going to put myself out there and say that in three or four months, Sikes might be facing criminal charges. He’ll be tagged as a hoaxer and because he let his scam play out on a public highway, Sikes will be charged with reckless endangerment in addition to the various fraud charges the courts will throw at him.

Granted, I’ve got nothing to lose if I’m wrong so it’s pretty easy to play devil’s advocate, but there’s a lot of stink coming off of Sikes. I think he’s a fraud.

Erin Andrews in the NUDE!

2009-07-27T08:58:00.001-07:00

Just about everybody has weighed in on the plight of Erin Andrews. Fox Sport’s Jason Whitlock fired of an ill-advised racially charged column questioning why there’s a pity party for Andrews when ESPN’s Stuart Scott was caught up in a scandal involving his own privacy being violated when he sent a text message to a possible girlfriend, but mostly people are just beside themselves that some pervert pressed a camera up against the peephole in Erin’s door while she was in her room.

After a lot of searching I finally found the video and I watched it. It was disappointing. The quality of the video was just awful. It’s grainy, fuzzy and blurred. It’s like watching a Playboy video through a slice of ham. You can tell that there’s a tall, skinny blond and it looks like she’s naked but unless you’re 13 it’s not something that’s going to send you scrambling for a box of Kleenex.

The thing that I noticed in the video is that Andrews seemed to spend a lot of time naked. She was apparently getting ready to leave her room and was doing all the things that people do when they get ready. She ironed her clothes, brushed her hair and walked back and forth slowly. It seemed that she also spent a lot of time in front of this camera.

Now I’m not familiar with her room but I can only venture to guess that ESPN’s favorite tasty sideline treat doesn’t shack up at the Motel 6. My money’s on a four or five star place and I have to believe the girl had a pretty nice sized suite. So it stands to reason that most of her room would not be visible from the peephole. Somehow Erin did almost everything she needed to do right in front of the camera. She was in the middle of the frame almost the entire time!

Am I insinuating that she participated in this production? Well, consider that she supposedly thought she was alone and nobody was watching. Did she do any of the embarrassing things most of us would do in those same circumstances? No. She never picked her nose or popped a pimple. She didn’t go foraging in her butt crack or scratch her vagina. Not once did she strike an unflattering pose. Every move she made was graceful if not sensual. So what’s the real story here?

The New York Post invoked the wrath of ESPN by publishing still photos from the video. The New York Post was also quick to point out that the video had been available online for weeks but that nobody took interest until Erin Andrews and ESPN started crying foul. When Andrews took legal action she proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the video was the real thing and it sparked a frenzy. Now she’s an internet sensation.

So why would she do it? Publicity. Look, Erin Andrews is no stranger to the flesh trade. That’s why she’s working at ESPN. There are women who know more about sports, but none of them are going to make Maxim’s Hot 100. ESPN hired Erin Andrews because she looks good and Erin Andrews pursued a career covering sports for that very reason. She started off as a college cheerleader and took the next step. You don’t need to be smart to ask coaches and players how they feel about blowing a 17 point lead. You just have to be somewhat articulate and still look hot when that camera adds ten pounds.

Even though people who worship ESPN think Erin Andrews was already famous, she wasn’t universally recognized. I wouldn’t have been able to pick her out of a line up and most people would accuse me of being a sports fan. I just don’t watch that many games on ESPN. In fact, I cheat anymore. I usually skip watching sports in favor of picking up some highlights later in the evening. So sue me.

Erin Andrews probably doesn’t want the highlight of her career being a stint as eye candy on ESPN. She’s got bigger aspirations than that but perhaps not quite enough talent. At 31, she doesn’t have a lot of time to broker her good looks so she’s got to act quickly. Unfortunately she didn’t have Paris Hilton’s ovaries and she stopped short of the requisite sex tape.

So what will Erin get out of this? If she plays her cards right she can hit the harpy talk show circuit and whine about how women aren’t taken seriously because men, evil men with penises, are always objectifying them. Joy Behar will commiserate with her as if she understands.

Erin might be able to lean on ESPN and get a more prominent role. Perhaps hosting a show or at least getting a few meaty sport-oriented assignments. Maybe she’ll go right to the top and have Disney pull strings at ABC and get her a daytime talk show like Ellen, Rachel and Oprah. Unlike Paris, who went all the way to go from a prominent B-list hanger-on to top shelf celebrity tail, Erin’s got the credibility of innocence on her side. She’s not some hussy who got hamstrung by a sleazy ex-beau, Erin’s just a pretty girl who was brushing her hair.

Even if she had no knowledge of this video, I’m going to have to call BS on her being portrayed as a victim. You couldn’t tell who it was in the video. Nobody knew there was any smoke until Andrews yelled “fire”. As for her professional integrity, please. There are too many women who actually open doors with their brains to hold Andrews up as the poster girl for sexism. Andrews willfully participated in the sexism that exists in sports. When you live by the sword you’d better be ready to die by it.

Andrews knows this better than anybody and this is just her latest attempt to get more mileage out of her looks. Sorry, but real people, even good-looking people, don’t look good naked. We do ugly things and if Erin Andrews had really been the victim of a peeping tom she would have been caught doing something a lot more embarrassing than meticulously stroking her long golden locks. Give me a break.

Sarah's Solo Act

2009-07-16T12:48:00.000-07:00

Are the Republicans really going to hitch their wagon to Sarah Palin in 2012? The same Sarah Palin who ran John McCain’s campaign aground with her neoconservative platform and her vitriolic personality? Democrats must be holding out hope that they are.

It’s more likely that the Republican Party will stay its current course, which is to drift aimlessly in the doldrums until they figure out which way the wind is blowing. Will the Americans people reject Barack Obama forcefully enough to swing back to the far right, or is the moderate stance the best way to go? It’s too early to tell and while Sarah Palin’s grabbing a lot of attention right now, it’s interesting to see that she is on her own. Nobody from the GOP is eager to back her, not yet.

If the economy heats up and the Democrats are able to maintain control of the House and Senate in 2010 the Republicans might have to embrace Palin and her tired old family values act. It’s all Palin has, but it was also all Bush had. It’s all a matter of selling it. The GOP just has to figure out if that’s how they want to be defined.

The problem with Palin is that she quit the only job she ever had that mattered. Being the mayor of Watchamacallit, Alaska doesn’t even look good on a resume if you’re applying for an assistant manager position at Applebee’s and the knock on Palin’s political experience during the 2008 campaign was valid because she hadn’t been governor long enough to demonstrate an ability to see an administration through its first term. Now she’s quitting before she can stick that feather in her cap.

It’s interesting because Sarah Palin really blew her own horn with regard to her political experience. She seemed genuinely convinced that her short stint at the helm of the least populous state in the US qualified her for the top job in the country. She proudly boasted that her experience was more significant than Barack Obama’s but since she bailed on that job in order to cash in on her popularity you have to wonder what her priorities are.

Sarah Palin will probably be much more formidable this time around but they don’t make a smart pill. If they did, the GOP would have been sneaking them into W’s applesauce for the last 10 years. Palin might actually have the coaching to avoid making a fool out of herself with Katie Couric but she’ll always be one unscripted question away from talking out of her ass. It’s also important to note that she’ll be facing a lot more scrutiny if she has the audacity to take a run at the presidency.

As a VP candidate pulled straight out of left, or perhaps more accurately, right field, Palin didn’t have to endure the slings and arrows of her own party. McCain had already earned the nomination and Palin was little more than window dressing. She just had to look good, exude a little vitality and quietly pander to the religious zealots on the far right.

The problem is that Sarah Palin didn’t want to take a back seat. She dressed in expensive suits, wore jackboots and became an unrepentant media whore. Sarah Palin resented John McCain and opposed his platform. McCain’s advisors publicly expressed outrage and disgust over the way Palin conducted herself. She was a shrill conservative harpy who frightened a lot of McCain’s longtime supporters.

There are a lot of people in the GOP who don’t want to see a return to the Rovian agenda and McCain’s failure on 2008 seemed to make it clear that the time was at hand to step away from religiosity and focus on important issues like taxes, spending and a reasonable approach to security; things McCain stood for back in 2000 when he lost his party’s nomination to George W. Bush. Had the McCain of 2000 campaigned in 2008 he might have won, but the older McCain compromised his personal values by embracing the Christian zealots he once vilified. He thought he had to pander in order to win.

The problem the GOP had in the past election is that the loyal Republican base lost faith. A lot of people felt like the Republican Party had lost its way and they voted for Obama. McCain, who had once been a fierce critic of George W. Bush, rebuilt himself in Bush’s image and Sarah Palin reinforced the message. Her only attribute, aside from her relative youth and camera friendly looks, was her appeal to the far right and with McCain resorting to the fear-mongering Bush, Cheney and Rove artfully employed to silence critics it was too much for reasonable people to bear.

Palin overreacted to David Letterman’s joke about her daughter’s unplanned and unexpected pregnancy. It was a poor joke, not by way of tastefulness but simply in execution. Sarah Palin turned a typical late note groaner into a crime against her family. She milked it for publicity and as the limelight started to fade she bellied up to the podium to announce that she was going to quit her job. Palin might even be convinced that it’s for Alaska’s benefit, and given her intellectual acumen she might have a point, but the fact remains that she was elected to serve a four year term. It was the only term to which she had been elected and couldn’t even follow through on that.

She spun it to sound as though her popularity has put Alaska in a tight spot, but she isn’t the first governor to return to her post after a failed VP bid. Senators and Congressman do it all the time. It’s an accepted part of the process. The problem with Palin is that she’s not content to ride off into the Alaskan sunset and bide her time. She doesn’t want to do her job. She’s too damned important.

If she does manage to become president it’s unlikely a more prestigious gig will reveal itself but vanity plays a big enough role in politics. This country doesn’t need somebody whose only motivation is vanity. The GOP doesn’t need to waste what little credibility it has by supporting her.

Oh the humanity!

2009-06-12T11:16:00.000-07:00

The Palin family is raising holy hell over a crack David Letterman made about A-Rod knocking up their daughter. It was a quip Letterman made over a picture of the Palin clan at a Yankees game recently. The Palins made much ado over the fact that the daughter in attendance was 14 year-old Willow Palin and not her 18 year-old slutty sister Bristol.

The joke doesn’t seem exceptionally funny but with Letterman it’s often not the joke but his delivery. In fact, most jokes don’t seem funny when they’re in print. Letterman would be the first person to tell you that most of his jokes are duds. How he handles a dud is what makes him funny.

The Palins have gone on the offensive. Todd (Sarah Palin’s boy toy who doesn’t have a real job) is getting all macho about it and Sarah is hitting up all the usual suspects in the media to drum up sympathy. They’re accusing Letterman of promoting the raping of a 14 year-old girl.

Letterman made the mistake of trying to explain the joke and apologized but the Palins aren’t having any of it. Letterman even suggested that the Palins could come on his show but they won’t have that either. The Palins don’t want to help Letterman improve his ratings and, as a Palin spokesminion put it, they don’t think it’s a good idea to have Willow around Letterman.

That’s just ridiculous. I’m not saying that the Palins don’t have any reason to be upset. Even if the joke’s about Bristol, they don’t have to like it. Bristol is a valid subject when discussing Sarah Palin’s brand of morality and her stance on birth control and sexual education. She an abstinence-only advocate and Bristol drives home just how ignorant and futile that position is. If a controlling bitch like Sarah Palin can’t keep penises out of her daughter, who can?

Sarah Palin could have scored more points with me if she would have just responded to Letterman’s joke by suggesting that it was a shame that a guy who’s been in the comedy business so long can’t find a better subject. Then make fun of him for not having the sense to verify that the girl he clearly intended to make fun of wasn’t at the game. Let other people feign disgust over Willow’s age, but take the high road.

This is just another example of Sarah Palin insulating herself with her children. During the campaign she made a big deal about the media violating Bristol’s privacy when they started asking about her baby bump but it was Sarah Palin who eagerly presented herself as a devoted mother. Palin put her children on center stage because her political career lacked anything resembling substance. So when people asked her what adversity she faced she could always play the “working mom” card.

The best thing for David Letterman to do is let it slide. His fans aren’t going to buy the accusations being hurled at him by the Palins. They’ve already become so shrill that most of the right wing whack-jobs who support them are probably getting tired of the whining.

Some people are asking why Letterman isn’t making fun of Obama’s daughters, as if there’s some sort of conspiracy but the fact of the matter is Obama’s daughters aren’t being used as props. They’re far too young to be getting knocked up and while Obama has spoken of his family, he hasn’t used them as a qualification. Michelle Obama might be the smartest and most educated first lady we’ve ever had and she’s been surprisingly quiet. You’d almost think that she was a Republican first lady.

It’s also not fair to lump Letterman in with the media and fuel those “liberal media” conspiracies. Letterman is a comedian who hosts a late night talk show. He owns the production company that handles the writing and personnel for that show. CBS basically leases the show from Worldwide Pants. Letterman does not represent the CBS network and he is not a news reporter or even a pundit.

It’s really not for the Palins to say whether Letterman crossed the line. That decision is made by the public, which is an entity Palin removed herself from when she got into politics. She is now a public figure and by extension (and her conscientious decision) her family is as well. The means the entire Palin clan is fair game. They will be lampooned, critiqued and made mockeries of until the general public decides they’ve had enough.

Palin’s outrage over the Letterman joke will prove to be counterproductive. Reasonable people know that Letterman didn’t mean to insinuate anything untoward about Willow Palin and nobody believes the he endorses statutory rape, sexual abuse or pedophilia. By making a mountain out of a molehill Palin will only encourage more people to make fun of her family, not because it’s funny but because Palin’s reaction is.

What’s big deal; the age of consent in Alaska’s got to be 13 anyway.

Obama goes old school, confuses conservatives.

2009-06-05T06:57:00.001-07:00

I do my best to avoid network news. It’s garbage. I don’t blame the networks, they’re only giving the public what it wants. That’s why the focus is on the personalities that read the news rather than the news itself. Wolf Blitzer, Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, Brian Williams, these people are not news reporters at all. They are quasi-celebrities who read teleprompters that feature hard work done by real reporters who get paid much less and rarely get due credit for their work. If you watch closely you might see some names flash by the screen at the end of these so-called news shows. The real reporters and the producers who put it all together are listed there.

MSNBC has positioned itself as a liberal counterpoint to Fox News. Unfortunately MSNBC comes off as a poorly executed clone of the Daily Show. Keith Olberman’s vendetta against Bill O’Reilly notwithstanding, I find MSNBC offensive. As a self-described liberal I can honestly say that I don’t want to be associated with the nonsense that goes on there. I don’t necessarily disagree with their views but I think they lack professionalism. Don’t pawn yourself off as a serious commentator and then act like a less refined version of Jon Stewart.

Fox News is just ridiculous. They don’t even pretend to be informed or intelligent. They cater to middleclass conservatives and people who don’t want their point of views challenged. Everything is a commentary and there is a clear bias to their commentary. Even though Fox and conservative pundits insist that the rest of the media harbor a liberal bias, it’s quite clear that Fox has positioned itself as a propaganda machine for the right wing.

Case in point? Obama’s recent speech in Cairo. Obama reached out to the Muslim world in hopes of establishing a dialogue that might allow the US to resolve differences without dropping bombs and casting aspersions. Fox News and the pundits they employ jumped on the speech and accused Obama of turning his back on Israel, weakening our nation and apologizing for our actions after 9-11. Obama talked about nuclear weapons and told his audience that his ambition was to eliminate all nuclear weapons. Fox scoffed at this notion, stating that nuclear weapons are here to stay.

They’re right, of course. That genie is out of the bottle. We’re also not going to get rid of chemical and biological weapons. But Obama, by virtue of being an intelligent man, knows this. The reason he’s telling the Muslim world that he wants to eliminate all nuclear weapons is so Muslim people don’t feel like they’re being picked on when they’re told their countries can’t develop nukes. It’s a platitude, not a promise. And while it might be insincere, the gesture is more effective at building cooperation. Bush’s policy was to tell other countries they couldn’t have nukes and then wave his around singing na-nee-na-nee-boo-boo.

Obama also expressed some regret at the way the previous administration handled the aftermath of 9-11. It wasn’t an outright apology but Obama did offer that both the United States and the Muslim world shared blame for the state of the world today. That’s called diplomacy. Rather than pointing his finger at all of Islam, as George W. Bush was prone to do, Obama extended his hand and offered Muslims the opportunity to meet him halfway. President Obama simply realizes that we can’t bomb people into our way of thinking. Compromises must be made. By taking the first step, Obama has put the US in a position of power. We can dictate the nature of those compromises.

One fact Fox pointed out was a poll that reveals a very low favorability rating in the Islamic world. “These people don’t like us; why is Obama trying to woo them,” one bleach-blond bimbo asked. Of course Jon Stewart quickly countered on The Daily Show that you’re supposed to woo people who don’t like you.

You’d think that Fox and the conservative pundits are in favor of waging all out war on Islam. While there are certainly whackos on the right who see this as a holy war, most of the people criticizing Obama are simply grasping at straws. They have to object to everything he does, even if it’s the right thing to do. Obama could turn the Middle East into a utopia where people of every culture and creed embrace one another as brothers and Fox would find something to take issue with. “God wanted the Middle East to be violent,” they’d complain.

It’s too early to tell if Obama’s right. I don’t know if he’s doing a good job or not. He’s clearly not perfect but it certainly seems like he’s on the right track. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney demolished our nation’s good will around the world and that was after the entire world was in our corner after the 9-11 attacks. In all of six months Bush and Cheney managed to alienate everybody except Tony Blair and his loyalty to Bush destroyed his reputation. Before we commemorated the first anniversary of the 9-11 attacks the rest of the world was pretty much thinking that we had it coming and when we turned our attention to Iraq, we were, in the eyes of the world, the evil empire.

It seems as though Obama has mended a few fences. By simply respecting the rest of the world he is earning the respect of people around the world. The US has a chance to be a great country again and that’s because Barack Obama isn’t running around pointing fingers at other countries and using terms like “evil”, “rogue,” and “terror.” He hasn’t claimed to be on a mission from God, like some inbred version of Elwood Blues. Most importantly, he speaks clearly, forms complete sentences and uses words that are actually in the dictionary.

Perhaps 8 years of George W. Bush has conditioned the people at Fox and the idiots who watch them to expect our president to act like a professional wrestler, but back before “the man of god” overtook the White House, this is how Presidents behaved. It's old school diplomacy. Communicating with class, respect and intelligence. It takes some getting used to but it works.

Poor Little Beauty Queen

2009-04-24T13:21:00.000-07:00

For Carrie Prejean losing the Miss America Pageant could prove to be a brilliant career move. Most people can only name Vanessa Williams when they try to think of previous pageant winners and she was best know for having her title stripped when nude photos of the aspiring entertainer surfaced. While the ordeal must have been terribly humiliating at the time, Vanessa ended up getting more publicity than other winners and she parlayed that into a successful recording and acting career.

Vanessa Williams was OK as a singer cranking out a few pedestrian pop hits and she was a fairly decent actress once she stopped milking the cameo circuit and focused on the craft but her she’s best known for the Miss America debacle. Long after people have forgotten about most winners, Vanessa Williams was the center of attention.

Miss California, Carrie Prejean, didn’t win but she managed to grab all the attention by stirring up a controversy when guest celebrity judge and shameless media whore Perez Hilton asked her for an opinion on the legalization of gay marriage. Her response:

"I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land that you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage and, you know what, in my country and my family I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anyone out there but that's how I was raised and that's how I think it should be between a man and a woman.”

Besides the fact that she sounded inherently bimbish, as most beauty contest participants do—come on, they’re making a living on their looks—the statement wasn’t exactly something to call the ACLU over. The problem is that the Miss America Pageant is all about politics. Neutral politics. Fluff is the key.

Prejean has been making the rounds on all the talk shows insisting that she lost the contest because she had the courage to speak from the heart. She’s also been thumping the bible angle pretty consistently which means she’ll soon have a talk show on FOX probably bridging the time slot between Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity.

People like Perez Hilton say she’s just a dumb bitch with a bad dye job as if that distinguishes her from the rest of the pageant circuit. Those leaping to her defense talk about liberal bias and freedom of speech.

For me it’s not about liberal bias. I’m a liberal and I couldn’t care less about marriage. I suppose if two people really want to get married they should be able to, but I don’t know why they want to ruin a perfectly good relationship by wrapping it up in red tape. I also think that people who are opposed to gay marriage are, without exception, idiots. If you think gay marriage is wrong you just aren't thinking enough. That includes Carrie, but I really don't have a problem with what she said because I've accepted the fact that I have to share this country with a lot of idiots. I tolerate it because it's illegal to run around punching people in the neck just because they're ignorant.

The problem I have with Carrie’s pity party is that she has nobody to blame but herself. She has a right to speak her mind. She has a right to form an opinion. But if you opt to put those two rights together and people don’t like the result you are subject to reprisals. Freedom of speech is not free of consequences. You and your opinion are not entitled to respect. That's something you earn by being informed and expressing yourself thoughtfully.

Prejudice is wrong. It’s not fair to look at somebody and judge them based on things that are beyond their control but the manner in which you express yourself, be it through word or deed, is something that you can control. When you speak, that provides the people around with an opportunity to judge you. That's the way it's supposed to be. Martin Luther King dreamed of a world where a person would be judged, not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character. When you open your mouth you reveal the content of your character.

The trick to beauty pageants is to remember that it’s all superficial. Miss America should really be labeled Miss Future Trophy Wife. We want her to look good, demonstrate a mildly interesting talent and possess just enough intelligence to not embarrass her powerful husband when she is forced to open her mouth in social situations. When you’re asked a question at the Miss America Pageant you’re supposed to form a coherent sentence that glosses over the issue, and then bat your eyes so people remember that your real purpose in life is to be pretty.

Truly intelligent women don’t enter these pageants. Could you imagine somebody with Tina Fey’s wit being asked a question about gay marriage? I’m opposed to gay marriage because I think it’s unfair that the man of my dreams—conscientious of his looks, impeccable style, neat, polite, able to help me pick out a dress or even do my hair in a pinch—is gay. Totally not fair. Why am I stuck choosing between the chronically flatulent frat boy and the guy who wears throwback jerseys?

We’d all laugh, but she wouldn’t win because deep down beauty pageants are chauvinistic. When women are beautiful, talented and smart it threatens us. Not just men, but also other women. Nobody should have it all. That's why even the talent portion is repleat with a number of usless superficial talents. Has a Miss America contestant ever rebuilt a transmission or belched the alphabet during the talent portion? Nope. It's always sub-collegiate gymnatics, baton twirling or some average musical skill. Nothing meaningful or funny.

The ironic thing is that Miss California didn’t pull off looking smart, she just didn’t have the sense to keep her politics neutral. She didn’t pander to the crowd that controlled her destiny as a Miss America contestant, but she still pandered. Her audience was just too busy watching NASCAR at the time.

Some people are really happy with what Miss California had to say. They agree with her and she will soon become an iconic figure in their circles. She will become a conservative media darling and easily have a better career than the Barbie doll wannabe who edged her out. So it’s probably not a good idea to feel sorry for her. If she planned this, I have to give her credit for recognizing an opportunity but I suspect she’s just another dingbat regurgitating the same neo-conservative bile her dad spews at the dinner table everyday. Either way, she’s set for life.

Conservative Politics

2009-03-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

I really didn’t like George W. Bush. Not only did he make me feel shame over being an American, I honestly was disgusted that I had to share being the same species with the guy. He was awful. Without a doubt he was our worst president and his ascension to power illustrates that the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about is alive, well and capable to stripping this country of all its rights whenever it wants.

I cringed every time he opened his mouth because I knew that the rest of the world would not give me and the other half of the country who voted against Bush credit for trying to stop him. I knew that the rest of the world wasn’t going to fuss over niggling details like lost ballots and defective voting machines in battleground states like Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004. I’m convinced that fraud played a major role in both elections and I’m sure that both sides cheat on Election Day. It’s just that in 2000 and 2004 the race was so close that the fix actually worked. I can’t attest to Florida, I only know what was reported, but I live in Ohio and I know that there was something fishy going on. Globally, however, Bush was the United States. Think about that for a minute.

Through it all, I hated Bush but I opted to bide my time. I took comfort in the jokes offered by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. They got me through some pretty tough times and reminded me that this country has managed to endure lousy leadership in the past. Perhaps they weren’t as incompetent and destructive as Bush, but we were going to survive.

I enthusiastically voted for Barack Obama because he represented change. I know that was his mantra but as a candidate he was really a departure from the norm. He stuck by his words, even when they were twisted and used against him. Rather than back-tracking and pretending he didn’t say something, like his comments about embittered people in Western Pennsylvania, Obama took ownership of his statements and explained his position. He seemed to keep his head out of the muck and stayed on point. That was refreshing. McCain was a grouchy old man who was desperately trying to play everybody under the GOP’s big tent. Unfortunately at speaking engagements and rallies the ugly side of his campaign reared its ugly head. The Republican party tried to stir up a lot of fear with regard to Obama and it resulted in the real people McCain pretended to care about saying some pretty awful things. Obama didn’t waste time obsessing with it. He did a great job of staying away from the negative tactics that had stirred up such a divide in this country.

That being said I know that he’s just a man and I realize that his political experience is limited. So the political games people play in Washington DC are going to catch him off guard. I believe he really wants to bridge the gap between the parties but loyalists on either side are going to stand in his way. People like Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy have axes to grind over the way Republicans ran amuck for most of the last 10 years so Republicans are naturally going to circle their wagons and try to ride out the first two years of the Obama Administration. If Obama manages to maintain a how approval rating and Democrats hold sway, then the GOP will retool its message. They don’t want to reach across party lines just yet, not when the jury is still out on Obama the President.

And that’s OK. Nobody is going to change the game of politics overnight and the task Obama faces is monumental. He’s going to be forced to shelve a number of his ideas and make a lot of compromises. By the time the midterm elections come around, the Democrats are probably going to lose a lot of ground because 2 years isn’t enough time to plug the holes in our economy. Let alone address issues like energy independence, and upgrading our infrastructure to support alternative fuels and an efficient power grid.

The problem I have isn’t with the politics, it’s with the pundits. I don’t put much stock in what pundits from either side of the aisle have to say, but a lot of people do and it demeans the discussion. I’ve had people tell me that Jon Stewart is a liberal pundit but I don’t see it. He’s certainly liberal in his personal political beliefs but his show is all about satire. He pokes fun at Democrats and Republicans equally. During the Bush Administration most of the jokes centered on Republicans because Democrats were successfully marginalized but Stewart and his staff took shots at Democrats for being so disorganized and impotent. It was all fair. Every comic in the country confirmed that the Bush Administration wrote its own material.

Now, Stewart has found comedy gold in conservative pundits. It’s hard to pass up an opportunity to skewer Rush Limbaugh for stating that he wants Obama to fail or to overlook Glen Beck tearfully lamenting the direction this country is heading. I doubt that Limbaugh or Beck actually believe most of what they say. They have cornered an inherently stupid audience that wants to indulge prejudice and fear. So Beck and Limbaugh make lots of money selling ignorance and hatred. They do it well.

You can throw guys like Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Vanity into that discussion too, although Ann’s so crazy that most conservatives try to distance themselves from her…officially anyway. I think she’s actually lampooning the conservative point of view but Conservatives are too stupid to realize that the joke is on them. It’s like Larry the Cable Guy’s fan base. Larry went from being the punch line to a joke about rednecks to chicken-fried cult hero. Now Dan Whitney, the disc jockey who created Larry, never appears out of character. He’s become a mascot for people who lose their virginity to a sibling.

O’Reilly and Hannity seem to enjoy humiliating people who disagree with them, not by presenting an intelligent counterpoint backed up with facts but by screaming at them like spoiled children and having the technicians turn off their microphones. It’s good drama and their core audience seems to think they’re good at debating.

Conservative pundits are bullies. They deal in petty insults and when they find themselves intellectually outmatched (which is often) they resort to violent physical posturing. I’ve seen Bill O’Reilly pound his fist on the desk and scream “DON’T CALL ME A LIAR!” when a guest noted that O’Reilly presented an argument that wasn’t accurate. Glenn Beck is also a big fan of bluster and Sean Hannity does more than his share of yelling and pointing.

These guys get away with it because their behavior is so far out of line that people simply can’t respond to it. Their fans eat it up because their fans enjoy that same aspect of professional wrestling. Glenn Beck would never act the way he does to guests on his show to a stranger in a bar because he knows that he’d end up eating his meals through a straw for the next six to ten weeks. It’s easy to be a tough guy when you’re screaming at somebody who is civil and mature enough to believe that debates aren’t supposed to disintegrate into tantrums, but Limbaugh, O’Reilly and Beck aren’t tough guys. They’re soft old white guys who live in gated communities and scurry across the street when approached by somebody who hasn’t shaved in the past four hours.

That’s one thing all of these blustery conservative pundits have in common: they’re all talk. With the exception of Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter, who are haggard old men, these are pudgy little white men who haven’t done an honest day’s work in decades. Hannity and Beck might huff and puff on a treadmill three times a week to stay out of size 48 underpants and Limbaugh probably sweats when he eats but non of these jerks is tough enough to back up all that bravado. Sadly, none of them are smart enough to gain the upper hand in a conversation without stooping Randy “Macho Man” Savage tactics.

What I find extremely funny is that Jon Stewart, who gets ridiculed by these clowns because he’s a late night funnyman, can roll up his sleeves and debate the best of them. After a week of bellyaching on national TV over being the subject of Daily Show jokes, Financial Analyst Jim Cramer sat down with Jon Stewart and got bitch-slapped. Stewart clearly did his homework, on both Cramer and the financial markets, and proceeded to spend an entire show taking Cramer to task.

Stewart usually mixes a few good points in with a number of solid questions, clever jokes and comical facial expressions but when he feels so inclined he can shred an opponent in a debate. A few years ago Stewart excoriated Bill Bennett for his statements on homosexuality and he hit Mike Huckabee with a couple of sharp blows on the same subject. Stewart jokingly takes credit for Tucker Carlson’s demise on the pundit circuit when Stewart went on Tucker’s show and called him out for being a polemicist. Fortunately Tucker Carlson has enough class to avoid balling up his fists and screaming threats at people, but Carlson didn’t demonstrate a lot of brainpower either.

And maybe that’s because a lot of the pundits are playing to the crowd. Perhaps they don’t buy a word of what they say. They’re like huckster evangelists selling salvation in six easy credit card installments. It doesn’t matter whether or not they think it’s right; it’s all about what keeps the money coming in. Limbaugh and Beck are college drop outs who struggled with regular employment. Limbaugh spent plenty of time on the public dime collecting unemployment and Beck blames a tough family life for his drug and alcohol dependence early on. They’re also total hypocrites. Beck routinely contradicts himself and Limbaugh famously ducked into rehab when news of his drug addiction became public.

What’s funny to me is that conservatives will justify the likes of Beck, Limbaugh and Coulter by comparing them to people like Chris Matthews and Keith Olberman. Bill O’Reilly so loathes Olberman that he has ordered Fox security staffers to confront callers who have mentioned Olberman on his show, but I don’t get much out of guys like Olberman or Matthews. In fact, I really don’t care for their posturing either. I suppose I find them a little less offensive because they aren’t pandering to inbred bigots and theological bullies who want to impose a specific puritanical version of morality on the entire country, but I have little use for pundits on either side.

Even if my theory is correct and the pundits really are just hamming it up for a paycheck, the fact that guys like Limbaugh and Beck have no problem with their appeal to the KKK set is disturbing, and when you pull the curtain back and take a look at the inner machinations of the Republican Party you see a very unnerving relationship with the kind of people who thought the assassinations of the King, X and the Kennedys made sense at the time.

The 2008 election was a departure from lunacy. Sensible people had an alternative to partisan affiliations. Most Republicans think that their party would be better served if it would drop the abortion issue and forget about gay marriage, but the party leaders are terrified of facing a world where they can’t count on coots, hicks and rednecks. When the Democratic Party decided to turn its back on the pro-segregation Dixie-crats back in the 60s, the Republican Party was more than happy to welcome them in. Officially the party distances itself from offending people who aren’t sexist, racist and homophobic by hiding behind the issue of “States’ Rights” but everybody knows that that’s code for endorsing those very things. Reagan championed State’s Rights with a gleam in his eye as he winked at KKK Grand Wizards on his tour of the Deep South in 1980. Republicans even skirt the abortion issue by claiming that Roe vs. Wade should be overturned so the states can legislate abortion laws, but yet the Republican politicians choose where to stand on the issue based on where they need more votes.

The problem is that the handful of Republicans who try to distance themselves from the conservative pundits find themselves in hot water within their own party. Michael Steele, taking a cue from the 2008 election tried to distance the base of the party from Rush Limbaugh by marginalizing the irascible radio blabbermouth as an entertainer. Within a few days Steele was on his hands and knees trying to figure out which of Rush’s ample butt cheeks would put him back in good graces with the angry white people who steer the GOP. Newt Gingrich, who was once Rush Limbaugh’s wet dream when he was raging against Bill Clinton, picked up that baton and ran with it but Gingrich is drawing criticism from his party for dividing the base.

The people accused of being liberal pundits don’t pander to the wild-eyed extremists. The lines that have been drawn were carefully created by Conservatives who characterize anything remotely liberal as a socialist plot. Ironically it’s the liberals who want government to be less invasive. Conservatives pundits rage against issues like national healthcare and the federal government’s involvement in education but the goal isn’t to have the government dictate how people are educated or cared for, it’s to make sure that people have the same opportunities. It’s not socialist to expect that a poor kid growing up in Parkersburg, West Virginia will get the same opportunities to succeed as the rich in Orange County. Obviously, wealth is going to provide the rich kid with certain advantages but there should be a massive disparity in the basic education provided by the public school system.

It’s also ridiculous that simple medical care is becoming a luxury in this country. Finding a way to leverage the wealth and power of the people, who are represented by the federal government, against the corporate greed that fuels exorbitant costs is reasonable. Nobody wants to eliminate private medical practice. Nobody wants a truly socialized system. What we want is to make the basic procedure affordable to everybody. But there’s no middle ground with conservative pundits. There never is. It’s black and white; yes or no; with us or against us.

The problem is that it’s advantageous. Simplicity is easy to argue, and easy to defend. Most of the issues are complicated. People see the federal government investing trillions of dollars back into the economy and they wonder why the banks are getting a windfall when the average Joe is living in his car. Divy that money up for the working stiff, they cry, we’ll stimulate the economy. Then of course, conservatives will line up and rally for corporate tax cuts and more breaks for the wealthy. Trickle down economics. It’s simple.

The problem is that the economy isn’t simple. It’s complex. Most of the problems we face are. They require complex solutions, not pithy sound bites. The conservative pundits don’t care. They found an audience that doesn’t like to think. They’re the same people who think Jeff Foxworthy’s “you might be a redneck” act qualifies as intellectual humor. They find the nuances of NASCAR to be fascinating and they love professional Rasslin’. It’s because those things are simple. So it makes sense to reduce the business of government and politics to the lowest common denominator. It doesn’t even matter if it’s right or wrong, because at the end of the day it’s all about the money.

A dude writing about a dude complaining about a dude disguised as a dude playing another dude

2009-02-20T08:59:00.000-08:00

I have to admit that I was surprised when I read that Robert Downey Jr. had received an Oscar nomination for his role in Tropic Thunder. Then I thought about his turn as a “dude playing a dude disguised as another dude.” It was brilliant. The movie wasn’t, but like most of Ben Stiller’s work there were moments of crisp satire and the entire cast brought solid acting chops to the table. Part of Ben Stiller’s appeal is the manner in which he merges impressive acting skills with the totally absurd.

Tropic Thunder is a send up of popular culture. It wasn’t a spoof of action movies or 80s era Vietnam retrospectives. It was a commentary on our consumption of entertainment, disguised as a parody. And Robert Downey Jr. stole the show. His portrayal of Australian method actor Nick Lazarus not only lampooned how seriously some actors take themselves, but it took a shot at the audience for indulging these guys. It was brilliant and not the least bit insensitive to racial issues.

I’m not surprised that there was controversy. There are always people out there looking for a reason to be offended and, speaking as somebody who often finds ways to oblige them, I have to admit that it can be a lot of fun. I think that’s why Ben Stiller peppered his production with a number of jabs at the mentally challenged by using the term “retard” and he also used Jack Black as a vehicle to crack jokes at the expense of drug addicts. And perhaps the obese. Of course most of the jokes about “retards” centered around how the mentally challenged are portrayed in film and one of Ben Stiller’s closest friends is still trying to overcome a substance abuse problem so I trust that his humor wasn’t based in cruelty.

Tropic Thunder wasn’t a great movie but it made me laugh and that’s about all I expected. I didn’t even stop to think about how offended some people would be at some of the jokes. I guess that just goes to show you how stupid people can be. Satire requires a little effort on the part of the audience. You have to be smart enough to get it. I don’t think Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr. have to apologize because there are so many people who are too dense to get the whole joke.

Mel Gibson, Guy Pearce and Hugh Jackman have more business getting offended since they hail from down under…one of them might be offended if they’re actually from New Zealand and I lumped him in with all those kangaroo punchers…but Why did Stiller and Downey opt to skewer Australian actors? Clearly that’s an intentional shot at somebody. Still, there hasn’t been any word about the Aussies organizing a ban. Not that those Aussies are a particularly organized lot.

The worst aspect of the outrage is that it brings out the real racists. If you bother reading comments after articles or message board posts you’ll see plenty of crackers saying that black people now have more rights than white people and slavery was over 200 years ago. Neither of those comments is true, but that’s what they say and it validates why some black people are offended by what has been called a “blackface” performance.

Racism isn’t over and in spite of what some white people say it is not a two way street. Whites still have the power. That doesn’t make it OK for black people to indulge racial prejudice but the fact remains that white racism is far worse because white racism has a measurable impact. I don't get offended when I hear black people use terms like cracker or honky because my grandparents weren't lynched and I've never been beaten down by the cops.

Hollywood has made tremendous strides in recent years and I can’t abide the playing of the race card when it comes to movies. We all know that The Color Purple got screwed by the academy and Denzel Washington’s portrayal of Malcolm X was so spot on I don’t know how anybody could have picked Al Pacino over him, but I personally thought Clint Eastwood was the best actor that year. I also thought Denzel deserved the Oscar over Kevin Spacey in 2000, but I often don’t agree with the Academy…Just like I didn’t agree with them when he won an Oscar for his overwrought performance in Training Day.

But Denzel is one of the most respected actors in Hollywood and he deserves that esteem. He’s a brilliant performer and his charisma is even more impressive when you realize that he has transcended race. You might not have noticed it, but black actors are becoming headline stars. They’re earning roles that aren’t necessarily written with race in mind which was unheard of 20 years ago. When Denzel broke into the business, black actors played black characters. Period. Opportunities were limited and sometimes the roles were just offensive, sterotypical garbage. Like Huggy Bear from Starsky and Hutch. Now Will Smith is the most bankable star in Hollywood and he's getting good parts. He’s the Bruce Willis of the new millennium; a believable everyman with a trademark sense of humor. That’s huge.

The character of Nick Lazarus is an interesting commentary on the state of affairs in Hollywood. In a comedic way, Tropic Thunder demonstrated how things have changed. 20 years ago black actors were just happy to get parts, now they are playing characters so compelling that white actors are jealous. Nick Lazarus is a fictional character who went to an extreme no real actor would consider but the fact remains that we’re living in a moment where, at least in Hollywood, equality is within reach.

It’s too bad that people didn’t get it. It’s a shame that I had to find a deep meaning in a movie as inane as Tropic Thunder. It’s terrible that there are white people who think that a handful of black scholarships and a few affirmative action quotas have solved the problem of racism. But at least we’re getting somewhere.

Rush Limbaugh: "I'm back, baby! I'm back"

2009-01-23T07:51:00.001-08:00

Rush Limbaugh is an idiot. That’s not an opinion, mind you, it is an irrefutable fact. Water is wet, the sky is blue and Rush Limbaugh is a morbidly obese hypocrite who happens to be a complete and total idiot.

More importantly people who agree with him are idiots too. I make no apologies for saying that. Intelligent people can disagree on a number of issues but when it comes to Rush Limbaugh there is no room for discussion. You either believe that he is an idiot or you are an idiot yourself.

I’ve known this for quite sometime. I’ve actually listened to him and I was stunned by how misinformed he is. I was also taken aback by how crude and hateful his rhetoric can be. Even though I’m smart enough to realize the Rush is simply pandering to a surprisingly large segment of stupid people I still believe that Rush is an idiot because he doesn’t seem to understand where to draw the line. We all need to make a living but that doesn’t mean you should trade intelligence and decency for a paycheck.

Just when I thought my opinion of the guy couldn’t be any lower, Rush upped the ante with another gem. Now that Barack Obama is our president, Rush has conveyed his sincere desire to see Obama fail. Not only does Rush want Obama to fail, he insists that Republicans who want Obama to succeed are “drinking the Kool-Aide” and rolling over for Barack Obama. Rush goes on to lament the fact that people are supportive of the new President and feels that people want him to succeed because he is black.

Rush has proven time and time again that he is a racist. His apologists will sometimes insist that much of what he says is sarcastic and should be taken with a grain of salt but when it comes to racial issues Rush has made it very clear that he is a bigot. He’s careful not to throw around gratuitous epithets but suggesting that Obama is being given special consideration because he’s black is offensive at best. It’s not much of a stretch to characterize Limbaugh’s comments as treacherous.

This isn’t the first time Rush has forced race into a conversation in order to discuss his belief that “blacks” get treated with kid gloves. Rush famously got the boot from ESPN for insinuating that Donovan McNabb got a free pass from “The Media” because certain liberals were “desirous” of a black quarterback being successful. Never mind the fact that McNabb’s numbers indicate that he’s successful regardless of what people want. Rush is one of those cowardly racists. He finds clever ways to express his bigotry and poses obtuse questions that underscore his beliefs but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Rush doesn’t like black people.

Rush doesn’t have to like Barack Obama and he certainly doesn’t have to give Obama a free pass if Obama screws up. I’m sure there will be no shortage of venom coming from all of the conservative pundits over the next four years and since the Republican Party is definitely trending toward a more centrist platform, idiots like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter will be even more popular in their niche. In fact, they probably want Obama to be successful so they can go back to selling lies and innuendoes to the NASCAR set.

Think about it. When was Rush Limbaugh at the pinnacle of his career? During the Clinton Administration. Rush Limbaugh was on the cover of every magazine and was a special guest on every news show. He was the king of talk radio and his format spawned a number of similar acts that managed to find an audience. Rush lost a lot of ground during the Bush Administration. When it comes to his career, which is the only thing Rush really cares about, Bush was the worst thing that could have happened to him. Conversely, Obama might be the worst thing that could have happened to The Daily Show.

The sad thing is that there are some conservatives who really do want Obama to fail. Rush doesn’t mean what he says but his audience takes him at his word and believes he’s right. It’s fine if they don’t like Obama and they should feel free to criticize him at every turn, but hoping that he fails is pretty rash. If Obama fails we all go down.

Bush was a failure and I can honestly say that I hated him and everything he stood for during his campaigns as well as his presidency. After 8 years of watching him crap on the entire world I can’t begin describe how much I dislike him. It makes me sick to think that he’s going to be drawing a fat presidential pension when it’s pretty obvious he should be doing time in federal prison. He’s the worst president we’ve ever had but additionally and more importantly, he is a sorry excuse for a human being. I loathe him.

Strong words indeed, but in spite of that I never wished that he would fail. In 2000 I knew that his campaign tactics were despicable, I was concerned with his religiosity and I was unimpressed with his intelligence but I held out hope that he would rise above all of that and be successful. I wanted him to exceed my expectations and do right by this country. While I can’t say that I was surprised by his failures, I certainly didn’t want them to happen.

By 2004 I understood exactly how bad Bush could be and I knew another four years of his antics would put this country in exactly the same hole it’s in right now. The problem with Bush is that he’s not only stupid but he’s arrogant as well. I can respect stupid people when they’re smart enough to know that they aren’t smart enough, but Bush is one of those rare clods who thinks that he’s a really smart guy. Combine that with his spoiled rich boy sense of entitlement and the chip on his shoulder because Daddy didn’t love him enough and you have a tyrant on your hands. If he’d been molested by an uncle or slightly less lazy, Bush would have been a serial killer.

Even though I despised Bush in 2004 I still wanted him to do the right thing and do it well. I wanted him to see the bitter division in the country and work hard to bridge the gap. Instead of viewing his narrow reelection as a warning sign that something was amiss, he pressed on as though the American people unanimously supported him in every endeavor.

At no point did I want him to fail. Even when I knew he was embarking on another hopeless journey I held out hope that he’d prove me wrong and everything would work out in the end. I’m really sorry that it didn’t.

You see the difference between liberals like me and the sort of idiotic conservatives who worship chunky opiate addicts is that liberals would love it if conservative policies worked. The world would be a wonderful place if we could just ignore the environment, burn up our nonrenewable resources with reckless abandon and impose rigid morality on the masses without infringing upon their rights. Unfortunately the world is far too complex for simplistic conservatism. I don’t want it to fail, it just does.

I voted for Barack Obama because I believe in him. He seems to grasp the complexity of the problems this country is currently facing. I don’t want him to be successful because he’s black. I don’t want him to be successful because he’s a Democrat. I want—I need Barack Obama to succeed because it’s in the best interest of this country. Failure, while possible, is not an option.

Rush doesn’t care about this country. He cares about his ratings and, in spite of Bush’s tax cuts working in his favor, his revenue has been down over the past few years. That’s about to change and he knows it. To Rush it doesn’t matter that he has had his way for the past 8 years. It’s not important that conservatism as prescribed by the rightwing pundits was a colossal failure. Rush is right back to where he was in 1992 and he’s not going to let this dash for cash slip by without a fight. Rush might be an idiot, but when it comes to lining his pockets he’s definitely not stupid.

The Times, They are a-Changin'

2009-01-14T13:26:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama will soon be inaugurated and I’m giddy at the prospect. I know that he’s not going to solve all the world’s problems with a magical pump of his fist but for the first time since I can remember I actually respect the man who is about to take office.

I was born in 1970 and while I can’t remember anything about Richard Nixon I firmly believe that he played a major role in shaping my cynicism toward elected officials. The guy was a crook, a liar and an egomaniac. Looking back I realize that Jimmy Carter was a nice guy who made the grave mistake of being honest with the American people but the fact remains that he was not an effective president. It didn’t help his cause that Teddy Kennedy treated him with nothing but contempt. If you can’t command the respect of your own party you have no hope.

Notice how I forgot to mention Gerald Ford? Exactly.

I do remember Ronald Reagan. Growing up in Northeastern Ohio I witnessed the effects of Reagan’s economic policies. To this day the Midwest is a shell of what it once was before Reagan declared war on unions and used blue collar workers as fodder for the cannons. A lot of people hold Reagan in high esteem. I don’t know why. Rumor has it that his face will soon make its way to the dime. Fitting considering that’s about how much he valued the American worker.

The first Bush was similar to Carter in the sense that he projected weakness. Unlike Carter he was a sniveling liar who got saddled with the fallout of his predecessor’s illegal and unethical activities. Bush presided over a grim recession and demonstrated a complete inability to understand how it affected the average American. Not surprising considering he comes from a family that doesn’t ever have to worry about its finances.

Clinton was a pig. He enjoyed living the life of a celebrity and indulged in all the perks that come with it. 30 years earlier nobody would have cared about his penchant for cheap women but in the 1990s people forgot that there’s a difference between personal life and public life. Besides Bill didn’t exactly go out of his way to be discreet. Even so, Clinton managed to ramp up the economy and got a lot accomplished in spite of the fact that a Republican Congress suspended doing its job in order to undermine Clinton at every turn.

The second Bush is proof that a combination of inbreeding and money yields disturbing results. I’ve read about all of our presidents and watched documentaries on most of them. George W. Bush will be viewed as the worst and that’s just based on what we know right now. Over the next 20 years a lot of secrets are going to come out and the level of corruption that occurred over the past 8 years will be mind boggling.

Worse than that are the clods who ran against Bush. Al Gore and John Kerry are very similar in the sense that they lacked any semblance of a personality. Gore is clearly the smarter of the two and probably would have been an excellent president but he was not able to project his positive qualities publicly. Kerry simply lacked the guts to stand behind his convictions. They were cut from the same cloth as Mondale and Dukakis, two other notable failures the Democrats foisted upon us and if it had been up to the brilliant minds that favored those four, Bill Clinton wouldn’t have been his party’s nominee.

Republicans haven’t fared much better in the campaign process. Reagan was highly charismatic. Even though he lacked substance, he projected a paternal quality that made people feel like they could trust him. After Reagan the pool gets really shallow. You have to go all the way back to Ike before you find a guy who is the least bit appealing. In addition to charm, Ike had a functioning brain which is not always a prerequisite for the job. Aside from Clinton, the Democrats have to go back to JFK to find somebody worthy of respect.

The point I’m making is that in my lifetime there hasn’t been a President or a Presidential Candidate I really believed in. Granted, I think Clinton did a great job and believe he was a good president but the guy was a creep and at the time I wasn’t so sure about him. I had to step back and put his administration into context. I realize that there are some conservatives who like to say that Clinton is to blame for the current state of our economy and the instability we see around the world, but I’m far too smart to buy it. I know how the system works. I've been paying attention.

You could say that I’m jaded. I’ve seen the best and the brightest both parties have to offer and I’m unimpressed. That’s been a fairly accurate assessment of how I've felt year after year.

Until now.

Barack Obama is a very smart man. That alone makes him immensely more qualified than two thirds of anybody who has run for political office in the past 40 years. I stopped and thought about the fact that I might be judging Obama by the standard that has been set by our current President but that’ not it. Bush might very well be the dumbest man to sit in the Oval Office, but that doesn’t diminish what Obama is bringing to the table.

More than being smart, Obama is appealing. He is every bit as charismatic as Ronald Reagan which is impressive seeing as how Obama is so young. The fact that a black man with that name was able to get elected is a testament to his personality but then this guy, who was born after 1960, exudes a sense of strength and wisdom that puts everybody at ease. Most importantly, Obama seems to have enough humility to admit what he doesn’t know and surround himself with people who do. Most Americans realize that the President can't do it all, so it's nice to see a guy who is comfortable in addressing his weaknesses.

This country is facing its darkest era since the great depression and the fact that the deep recession we’re in has global influences makes the challenges ahead that much harder. How can we reinvigorate the American economy if the rest of the world is struggling? Obama and his people have been analyzing that very question and they seem to have a couple of promising ideas. Additionally, Obama has to salvage diplomatic relationships that have all but ended. We can't extricate ourselves from turmoil if our allies aren't willing to lend a hand.

It’s a tough job, but the guy has already made progress. I’ve never seen a President-elect step up and demonstrate the level of leadership Obama has shown us...and we haven’t even heard his inaugural address. I’m actually excited to see what happens after he is sworn in. I know that he’s going to make mistakes but at least he seems like the kind of guy who will make an effort to correct them. We’ve spent the last 8 years letting a spoiled rich boy ignore his messes so having a President who is willing to accept responsibility for his decisions will be refreshing.

The Salary Gripe

2008-12-17T06:53:00.000-08:00

CC Sabathia is a professional baseball player. He's a big, strong left-handed pitcher who can throw a baseball 100 miles per hour. More importantly, CC can throw that baseball accurately. So CC landed himself a huge contract that will guarantee him more than 20 million dollars per year over the next seven years.

A lot of people think that's ridiculous. Some even go so far as to say that it's unfair and believe that something should be done to limit those salaries. Then they look at Hollywood and hear about actors who make 20 million dollars per picture and say the same thing.

How can we, they lament, live in a world where a dumb jock makes millions while teachers get paid a pittance? They always bring up teachers. Well, I've met a few teachers in my life and I have to tell you that in spite of the fact that most of them were entrenched firmly in the middle of the middle class, a lot of them were overpaid. Growing up I had more teachers than I can count. You see, if so many of them hadn't been incompetent I might be able to count them, but most teachers are like most people. They do just enough to keep themselves employed and they live for the weekend. I had a couple of great teachers but I can count them on one hand. And because so many of my teachers were lousy, I actually have to count on my hands if I want to be remotely accurate.

I can see why people think actors and athletes make too much money, but the economics of entertainment dictates rates of pay and when you stop and look at how those salaries are determined you realize that they are fair. The reason CC Sabathia is going to make 23 million dollars a year for the next 7 years is because there are only one or two people in the world who can do what he does. Most people can't throw a ball 60 feet and 6 inches with any sort of accuracy let along break 90hMPH on a regular basis. CC is going to do that about 90 times every time he starts. More important he is going to be asked, not to throw the ball over the plate, but to work the edges of the plate. You see, that's the difference between a Major League Pitcher and the guy you knew in high school who spent four years playing minor league ball. You don't throw the ball through a window known as the strike zone, you throw the ball at various places on the window frame. It's not easy.

I don't even find it offensive that professional athletes are getting paid so well in spite of the economic problems we're seeing around the world. It's not like I would turn down a raise in pay or a better opportunity because other people are out of work so I'm not going to begrudge CC getting his. I do take issue with the economy of baseball but only because I think that Major League Baseball is doing its fans a disservice by making it impossible for smaller market teams to remain competitive when teams like the Yankees and the Red Sox can absorb so much payroll. But that's a different discussion for a different time.

I enjoy professional sports but I rarely spring for tickets. It's too expensive to attend games and I don't feel that I get enough entertainment out of the experience to justify the cost. So by not buying tickets I am making my point. When more people reach that squeal point teams will have to evaluate what they must do to increase ticket revenue. If they have to lower prices to sell tickets and improve volume at the gate, so be it. That's when teams will have to make adjustment in what they pay players. That's how the economy of professional sports works. It's all about ticket sales and it's fair. Sports are all about the relationship between the fans and the players. We're drawn to professional sports because those athletes do it better than we can. That's why arenas around the country sell out when LeBron James comes to town but nobody's at the Y watching the pickup basketball games.

Movies are no different. The reason certain actors and actresses make 20 million bucks to star in a movie is because they will generate that much money in ticket sales. Will Smith is a hot commodity in Hollywood right now because people buy tickets to see him. They don't care if the movie is any good. His name alone will draw an audience. After the first week the quality of the movie will dictate whether or not sales remain strong but big stars generate big money in the opening week. So production companies are willing to spend a lot of money to ensure that a big star will be attached to the picture in order to make sure that the venture makes a profit in that first week.

I'm not going to lie. I pay attention to the cast of a movie. If a movies can afford a big star they probably didn't spare any expense on the rest of the production. That doesn't always mean the movie will be good but it helps. Big stars also understand that their credibility is important so most aren't willing to risk squandering their marketability on a lousy movie just because there's a big paycheck attached to it. We've seen plenty of big stars fall from the heavens because they let themselves get cast in a couple of crappy pictures.

I'll agree with people who say that doctors are more important than actors but a doctor isn't going to draw $350 million on opening weekend. I really don't know what comparison people are trying to make here. Are they suggesting that doctors should charge more for their services, or would they rather have the government step in and dictate salaries?

There's not much in life that's fair, especially when the economy has finished circling the bowl and left streaks on the way down. Some people deserve to make more money for what they do and other people deserve less. That's the way it works. The one place salaries are fair is in the entertainment business. Those salaries are dictated by the free market and it's the one industry where a person can actually make what they are worth. It's also a place where people are actually held accountable for poor performance.

Bail Out? Not so fast...

2008-12-09T12:51:00.000-08:00

The American automotive industry isn’t in as much trouble as people think. While it’s true that the so-called “Big Three” are in serious trouble, people forget that many of the foreign makes are manufactured right here in the United States. Honda has been cranking out cars in Central Ohio since 1982 and other companies such as Toyota and Subaru build cars domestically as well.

The economy is taking a toll on all everybody but it’s the American companies that need the American consumer to float them a loan. Why is that?

Conservatives are quick to point the finger at the unions. They, the conservatives say, bled the industry dry. That’s not entirely accurate. Those executives who went to Washington to beg for money didn’t hitchhike and share a room at Motel 6; they flew in on private jets and stayed in luxurious penthouse suites. It’s likely they ate $50 steaks and drank single malt scotch by the bottle. There’s no question that UAW workers are overpaid for the simple task of working on an assembly line but somehow the corporate suits have always managed to find enough money for country club dues and six figure quarterly bonuses. Perhaps the American consumer got the shaft in the way of inferior vehicles, but everybody is getting their money.

The reason the bottom fell out of the market is because gas prices spiked and sent the economy into a tailspin. Now Americans are unemployed in record numbers and the handful of people who are in the market for a new car are still shell-shocked by the $4 per gallon prices at the pump this summer. So the demand is for smaller cars that get better mileage and that has never been something the “Big Three” was any good at.

In fact, Ford, GM and Daimler-Chrysler force-fed trucks on the American public. Trucks are simply more profitable to manufacture. Engineers don’t have to worry a much about emissions controls, fuel economy or crash safety when they build trucks so Detroit invested heavily into building bigger and flashier trucks while they farmed out the manufacture of compact and subcompact vehicles to the lowest bidder.

It was fine and dandy as long as gas prices were low. American consumers didn’t see the need to worry about getting 8 miles per gallon when gas was cheap. Then prices started to rise and when the national average went over $3, people started parking those trucks. Suddenly the demand was for hybrids and dealers couldn’t give away trucks.

Honda and Toyota offered trucks and SUVs, but they didn’t base their entire business around it. They could have stopped making high-quality compact cars and offered 30 variations on their full-sized truck, but they didn’t compromise their vision. Rather than looking for loopholes the Japanese-based companies exceeded regulatory standards and continued to offer the best vehicles they could build at a fair price.

Somehow the Japanese-based companies have also managed to avoid unions. In a stroke of brilliance, these companies actually treat their workers with respect and offer fair compensation. It took a while for the two cultures to adjust but after 26 years in Central Ohio both Honda of America and Honda employees seem to be quite happy with the arrangement. Central Ohio endured a tremendous labor shortage in the late 1990’s but s Honda managed to retain and recruit great employees.

The “Big Three” have always been at odds with their employees. Unions were formed in the early 1900s to help mistreated workers take a stand against powerful companies. As badly as unions are maligned, with conservatives comparing union labor to socialism, there’s really nothing more American than disadvantaged people standing together to effect change. That’s what unions do and to this day most unions are respectable and fair.

The problems occur when the corporation fosters an adversarial relationship with the union. For years the “Big Three” automakers worked together to undermine the United Automotive Workers union. The companies would tell the union that they couldn’t offer raises or increase medical coverage for workers only to hand their CEOs a multimillion dollar bonus when share prices increased. So the UAW fought back and eventually the corporations caved.

The same situation occurred when the steel industry hit rock bottom. Steel companies insisted that they were running out of money but the unions didn’t believe them. Finally, after years of fighting back and forth the steel companies open their books to the unions and showed them the truth. There was no money. The unions quickly agreed to roll back wages and benefits in order to keep the industry afloat but it was too little, too late. Foreign steel was too cheap, and wouldn’t you know? It was companies like Ford, General Motors, and Chysler that were all too happy to buy it. That’s greed.

The Japanese-based companies are greedy too, but not in the short-sighted manner that the “Big Three” have been. The Japanese companies operate with a global view in mind and anticipate market changes. Every elementary school student knows that oil is a non-renewable resource and that means that it is going to run out. So the Japanese-based companies didn’t balk when oil prices stayed so low in the US for so long. They understood that the market would correct itself and they were positioned to thrive in that market.

It was that sort of thinking that brought those factories to the US in the first place. It would be much cheaper to manufacture Civics and Accords in Mexico but back in 1982, when the American manufacturers were trying to find the cheapest source of labor Honda wondered who would buy their cars if Americans weren’t earning good wages. So they made a long term investment in the American consumer.

It wasn’t altruistic of them…this was not a charity case. It made good business sense in the long term. By investing more money up front, Honda would realize long term rewards. It was much more expensive to build the Marysville factory than it would have been to put that same facility in Mexico and Mexican workers would happily accept a fraction of the wages American workers required. But Honda was also able to avoid import tariffs and they brokered tax abatements to offset initial costs and in the 26 years since that plant opened Honda has become one of the most successful companies in the world.

When you contrast that with what the American automotive companies have done you have to wonder why anybody would want to give them money. What investments have they made in this country over the past 20 years?

When you look at all the facts, this country would be better off if the “Big Three” went away. In the sort term the impact of losing those companies would be severe but when you take a look at the big picture it’s hard to see what we’d be missing.

Yes, We Can.

2008-11-18T10:24:00.000-08:00

I watched the election results from a small movie theater on the north side of Columbus. It's interesting that on the day I celebrated my the 20th anniversary of my first election this country was witness to history in the making. Barack Obama won by a wide margin. He secured a lot of votes in states where Democrats don't tend to fare well and where black men don't usually get the benefit of he doubt. Even if Obama had been white the victory would have been impressive. I had a feeling that Obama's support was stronger than most polls were anticipating and boldly told a coworker that I figured McCain would take the stage for his concession speech at 11:30. Obama won thanks in large part to serious economic problems. Historically people look to Democrats to stabilize the economy, which is baffling since Republicans claims to be the champions of commerce.

But Obama didn't win because people wanted a regime change. He didn't win because people believe he's better for the economy. Obama won because people believe in him. I've watched a number of presidential elections and I've studied many of the presidencies. Barack Obama is one of the most charismatic figures we've seen elected to the presidency. He's inspiring and commanding. He's got a tremendous presence. He exudes strength and compassion and rarely seems to pander. As the campaign went on I bought into him more and more. Not just his politics, but his personality.

I liked Bill Clinton and respect a lot of what he did as a president but I didn't feel strongly enough to vote for him over a third party candidate. Similarly I was unimpressed with Al Gore so I voted for Ralph Nader in order to make a point. In 2004 I was disgusted by John Kerry but I would have happily voted for a sea monkey over George W. Bush. I thought that was going to be the case in 2008 as well. That was before Barack Obama emerged as such an intriguing candidate. For the first time in my life I voted for somebody I really believed in and I was excited to watch the election unfold on a movie screen. Nearly 100 other people were in attendance and all of them erupted into cheers whenever a state went to Obama.

People have argued that Obama doesn't have a lot of substance. They say he talks a good game but that he doesn't seem to have much of a plan. I didn't vote for a plan, I voted for a leader and his vision. I know Obama doesn't have all the answers but I believe he has the intelligence, judgment and humility to find them. I trust that he will surround himself with the sort of people who will help him solve problems rather than sweep them under the rug and hope nobody sees them. After 8 years of watching, in horror, the Bush Administration squander every last penny our nation's diplomatic currency, I am suddenly confident that the US can once again become the best country in the world. Obama's election alone raised global perception of the US and that's going to come in handy over the next several years as the US extricates itself from ill-advised endeavors.

Michelle Obama took some flack for making a comment about her sense of pride in our nation. Well, I'm not afraid to say that I've often wondered what I was supposed to be proud of. I've always been disappointed in the disparity between rhetoric and deed. What this country says it stands for and what it actually has stood for have always seemed divergent. I won't say that Obama's election has restored my pride in this country but for the first time in my life I think that we have a chance to be a nation I can take pride in.

Strike One!

2008-09-30T14:08:00.000-07:00

Most people don’t understand why the US Government should give failing financial institutions nearly a trillion dollars of taxpayers’ money. A number of those people happen to be members of the House of Representatives and the US Senate. That doesn’t mean that they’re incompetent, the economy is complicated. Just because your neighbor starts every sentences with the phrase It’s Economy 101, doesn’t mean that the basic principals taught in remedial courses at your local junior college have any impact on the market forces that move our nation’s economy. The people who came up with the idea of this massive bail out are economic scientists who have made economics their life’s work. It’s not something normally people are supposed to understand.

So politicians panicked. There’s an election coming up and 750 billion dollars is a lot of money. Voters could be upset. Polls indicate that public opinion of this bailout is low and what’s worse, George W. Bush said we needed to do it. That guy hasn’t been right about anything.

To the untrained eye it looks like a bunch of CEOs screwed up and want some free money to fix things. Millions of Americans are facing dire financial problems and nobody is there to help them. Regular folks have endured layoffs and foreclosures in addition to revolving debt and inflation. Times are tough and people are being forced to scrape by. So why should the fat cats who got us into this mess get a life line? It’s probably not fair or productive to expect the government to cover the debt of 200 million Americans but it certainly doesn’t seem fair to provide assistance to a handful of companies that simply failed to manage their businesses better. The American public doesn’t trust this proposal and given the circumstances of the past 8 years, you can’t blame them.

The Bush Administration has been consistent in one thing and one thing only: deceit. Congressional leaders have stood idly by and watched while our own version of Nero set fire to the empire. Even if this country wasn’t facing a financial crisis the mess Bush has made of our diplomatic relations, national security and our civil rights would take years to correct, but Bush and his cronies exploited their power to give big corporations a free pass to circumvent responsible business practices. It almost seems as though the plan was to let the crap hit the fan when the next president took office. It would appear that, just as they did with Iraq, Bush’s advisors “misunderestimated” the hole they were digging.

Maybe this bailout is necessary. Stabilizing the economy makes a lot of sense but where does Bush get off thinking his support of this issue is going to win us over? Most Americans are so fed up with Bush they can’t express how they feel for fear of being arrested. If you want to convince the American people that this bail out is necessary you need it presented by somebody they respect and trust more than Bush like OJ Simpson.

More importantly, you need to address the anger the American people are feeling. You don’t just ask for 750 billion and not offer up a sacrifice. Who screwed up and what are we going to do to them? Heads need to roll…first born need to be sacrificed…wives and daughters need to be sold into prostitution. We just need to know that the people who made this happen aren’t being rewarded for their incompetence. It would be a real shame if the CEOs who signed off on those bad financial practices end up eating caviar-stuffed lobster for Christmas dinner while the rest of us slurp pork and beans straight from the can.

That’s been the problem all along with Bush and his administration. Nobody gets held accountable. They haven’t even taken Bin Laden to task for 9-11 yet. Dick Cheney shot a guy in the face and didn’t even apologize. All the glaring problems, the huge mistakes, the lives lost and the money wasted but yet nobody has been punished. Now they want a trillion dollars and they don’t want us to ask where it’s going or why? No, that’s not going to stand. You’ve got to give us something.

Finally, and only because of impending Election Day accountability, elected officials listened. Most of the politicians who voted against Bush’s bail out vocally supported it, but when it came time to pass it they had to pass. They knew that their constituents wouldn’t allow it. It’s too bad the voters only matter when the election is a month away, but for once the system worked. Lincoln was right, you can fool all of the people come of the time but you at least have to try. The American people are stupid, but they’re not idiots. You have to pander to them if you want to screw them over.

Recession?

2008-09-24T07:03:00.000-07:00

We’re not in a recession.

Forget about the fact that the US Government, in debt beyond anybody’s ability to fathom, is coming up with hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out banks and insurance companies that have fallen on hard economic times.

We’re not in a recession.

Pay no mind to the cost of fuel, the loss of jobs and the stasis of wages.

We’re not in a recession.

Foreclosures? Housing crisis? Lending Crunch?

We’re not in a recession.

Apparently they covered denial in the more advanced economics courses I didn’t take in college because all of these so-called experts and politicians absolutely refuse to use the “R” word. Well I have another “R” word for them: retarded.

I’m just a regular working stiff like everybody else. I don’t know that much about the economy but I do know a thing or two about bullshit and that’s what all of these experts seem to be feeding us. For some reason they seem to believe that admitting that the economy is in dire straits will make matters worse. So they refuse to attach the word recession to our current state of affairs.

To me it’s insulting. So it’s my fault I haven’t seen a significant raise in three years? It’s my fault that I haven’t been able to build my personal savings outside of my 401(k)? There’s nothing wrong with the system, it’s me that’s broken. That’s what they’re saying, right?

All the people I know who are out of work, the realtors who haven’t seen a commission check in eight months and the people lining up outside the temporary services office are all victims of their own stupidity then. We’re just experiencing a minor “adjustment” everything is fine. Go back to work, live long and prosper.

Get real. We are in a recession and you can hang that on George W. Bush. His economic policies have stimulated greed and economic stagnation and the massive debt he is running up will make it impossible for future presidents to provide Americans with significant tax relief.

When Bill Clinton took office in the early 1990s we were in the midst of a recession. George H W Bush took the heat for the failures of Reaganomics and Clinton focused on economic change when he ran for office. He fought to have his economic policies enacted and by the time his second term began things were much improved. The economy was fantastic from the mid through the late 90s.

Things cooled off quickly when George W. Bush took over. A Republican Congress forced a deregulation bill through that effectively created the loopholes necessary for things the Enron disaster. High level executives were simply able to fudge numbers and shift assets in a manner that eventually hurt the economy. Even before the 9-11 attacks in 2001 the economy had drastically cooled because Bush’s economic plan had stymied growth in favor of greed.

Unfortunately Bush has managed to avoid being held accountable for his economic policies. He was able to hide behind 9-11 and religious values throughout his presidential career and most people bought it. Now, at the end of his term we’re seeing economic pillars topple before our eyes and Bush doesn’t have to do a thing about it. Worse, as a lame duck president he is in a position to do even more damage and leave the next president holding the bag.

You don’t have to be an economist to realize just how bad things have become. These are tough times and it looks like things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. Not calling it a recession isn’t going to change that.

Dirty Liberals

2008-09-12T05:46:00.000-07:00

Republican spin doctors don't want to make Sarah Palin available for interviews until they feel that the press can be trusted to show her respect. They believe that the liberals in the media are only going to twist her words and make her look bad. Republicans have mastered the art of turning every criticism into liberal bias. Now they're playing that card to protect their shiny new VP nominee. Why? What are they hiding? Surely in Sarah's vast experience she's mastered the art of public speaking. Oh, right.

The reality is that Sarah Palin is there for two reasons. She's a neo-conservative fascist who can rally the short-bus wing of the Republican party to McCain's ticket and she's a woman which will make the militant feminists happy. Plus she's pretty attractive so she might score a few boner votes along the way. It's worth a shot. McCain doesn't want Palin talking to the mainstream audience because she's rude and a little naive. If she is put in the cross hairs of the international media she will put her foot in her mouth, which, if done literally, could be kind of hot but we're not talking about how limber she is.

So instead, the blame is falling on the media. They'll be mean to Sarah. Pretty little Sarah with her family values, high powered firearms and relentless hunger for raw moose. Those liberals can't be trusted.

Go ahead and label me a liberal. I think that providing tax breaks to the wealthy and big corporations actually causes the economy to slow down. These practices encourage greed. When the middle and lower class have their tax burden eased they spend the extra money and everybody is better for it. This has been proven time and time again. I also believe in protecting the environment, providing sensible support for the poor and disabled, and, while I believe in the second amendment, I think gun control is necessary. Don't like it? Tough cookies.

That being said, Sarah Palin is a fraud. Not only is her experience limited, she ran campaigns based on polarizing issues. She rallied social conservatives to her cause in Podunkia, Alaska by focusing on issues that mayors have no business focusing on. In fact most of those issues nobody should focus on. Tend to the plank in your eye and all that. She used her charisma (looks) and her outlandish conservative platform to sneak in to the Governor's office and has not even completed a full term at the level. To top it all off, it would appear that she has abused her power in that short period of time. Palin is also a liar several times over with her “Bridge to Nowhere” denials.

Obama's experience is not as limited, he's more educated and he didn't kick start his career path as a beauty pageant contestant. As far as McCain's vast experience goes I have reservations about his rather limited list of accomplishments in his lengthy political tenure. He fashions himself as a maverick but he’s really just a blowhard…a fuming old man who stomps his feet and sucks on his dentures for a while before he finally toes the party line. He’s a buffoon. His military experience and years as a POW are worthy of respect but they have no bearing on his ability to lead. In fact, McCain was a legacy case who attended the Naval Academy because his father and grandfather were notable Navy officers. If anything McCain was mediocre throughout his military career.

For me this election isn’t about being a liberal. It’s about who has the country’s best interest at heart. Barack Obama is focusing on drastic changes. He wants to cultivate our international relations to find peaceful ways to improve our national security. McCain is insulting and rude. Obama has dynamic economic plans that will help this country become a major player in the changing global market; McCain wants to invest in the status quo. He believes our economy is fundamentally sound and you almost believe him until the phone rings and some telemarketer from India tries to sell you a subscription to Soldier of Fortune.

Obama’s not perfect but he’s consistent, he’s strong and he’s willing to recognize the obstacles we face as this country tries to get back on track. McCain’s been in Bush’s back pocket since the 2004 election. That’s obvious. The way I see it, McCain is an aged political hack. A grouchy old ne’er do well who lacks class and charisma. Sarah Palin is a loud-mouthed beauty contestant who only brings looks and rhetoric to the table. She’s done nothing in her career other than pay lip service to lip service issues. Beauty on the Beast…yeah, they know what’s best for America.

Atheism defined

2008-08-21T06:57:00.001-07:00

I’m an atheist. Normally I don’t go out of my way to espouse my beliefs because that’s one of the reasons I hate religion. If somebody asks, I tell them…but unlike most Christians I know I don’t get satisfaction from regaling people with what I’ve chosen to accept, which is reality. At least in my mind.

I could write a book about why I’m an atheist and I probably should. I really need to parlay my ability to write into a means of earning money but I tend to flit around on my blogs and various message boards when I have a few minutes to spare. Such is life.

The reason I’m bringing atheism up is that I was recently made aware of an event that took place in Columbus. It was a coming out party for atheists. At first blush, it doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Religion gets bludgeoned into us at an early age and even though Christians often lament the secularization of society, they still have more influence than they should. Religion, particularly when it is imposed upon people, is a bad thing. There’s nothing wrong with individual spirituality but most religions, particularly Christianity feel a need to recruit members and vilify those who reject their dogma.

Again, I don’t want to get into these gory details. George Carlin said it best: he worshipped the sun because it’s there, but he prayed to Joe Pesci because Joe’s a good actor and seems like a guy who can get things done. Honestly it makes a hell of a lot more sense than basing a religion around a guy who may or may not have walked on water 2000 years ago. The water into wine thing would have been pretty cool but until Jesus pops into my office and converts the five gallon jug in the break room into a nice shiraz, I’m going to have to question the validity of that story.

No, my beef today is with the atheists who attended this party. I take issue with the concept because one of the reasons I’m an atheist is that I don’t like conforming to somebody else’s beliefs. One thing I’ve learned in speaking to other atheists is that we all have different opinions about what we believe and reasons for believing it and that’s OK. There are atheists who feel the need to organize around a common theme. I don’t know if they realize that they’re trying to build a religion.

During this coming out party the atheists made a mockery of baptisms by conducting a de-baptism service with the so-called blow dryer of reason. That sounds funny and from a purely satirical perspective it is but the joke is on you when you go so far as to conduct de-baptisms to symbolize breaking the bond with religion. I wonder if they discussed setting up a vomitorium of ex-communion. How else can former Catholics purge themselves of the body and blood of Christ they’ve been noshing on all these years?

I might be biased but it takes courage to put yourself out there as an atheist. It makes people nervous because most religious people harbor a lot of doubt that they simply don’t like to talk about. That’s why they need to form denominations of similar theological thought. That and money, but let’s stay on point. Atheism is supposed to be the absence of theology.

It would be unfair for me to speak on behalf of all atheists but those I know seem to share a common trait. We’ve taken a long hard look at what religion has to offer and passed. Personally I’ve studied a number of different spiritual concepts and when I was engaged in that study I considered myself an agnostic. When I felt pretty comfortable that all religion was a little hokey I decided I was an atheist. There was no need for any ceremonies. I didn’t need to have my lack of faith affirmed by other atheists. The only thing I had to accept was the fact that being willing to declare myself an atheist came with certain social consequences.

People are comfortable with agnostics because agnostics tend to believe, or at least want to believe, in something. Atheists simply choose not to believe. Atheists can be spiritual in a very broad sense but they would never claim to have faith. Faith, you see, is the inherent flaw in religion. Faith can cloud reason and impair judgment. Faith has led people to join cults and take their own lives as well as the lives of others. Faith can be very dangerous.

So I have to take issue with people who call themselves atheists but seek some form of validation for their beliefs. They want their faith affirmed and that’s not what it’s all about.

The so-called atheists who attended the coming out party bandied about topics such as conversion and they whined over the fact that so many atheists seem to turn back to religion once they start families.

I’ve talked to religious people who take issue with the manner in which most churches convert people. Shameless pandering, childhood brainwashing, scare tactics, predatory psychology, name the method and somebody has put it to good use. The reason most religions recruit followers is because they want to consolidate the two things that make the world go ‘round: money and power. Ironically that’s why Jesus raised a little hell within the Jewish religion a couple thousand years ago. It’s ironic because it took people like Paul all of a few years to turn Jesus’ legacy into the very thing he railed against.

In this country people reject Christianity. It’s the most pervasive religion and while it’s not nearly as oppressive as fundamentalist Islam, Christians do a mighty fine job of forcing their beliefs on others. They also do a pretty good job of making themselves out to be the victims. Most atheists want to distance themselves from this. So why stoop the religion’s level and convert the masses?

The answer to that question also answers why so many of these atheists go back to religion. They have faith. All they’re doing is changing the object of that faith. That’s not atheism, it’s juvenile rebellion. The self-described atheists who attended the coming out party in Columbus had a lot more in common with melancholy teen-aged girls who pretend to dabble in witchcraft. There’s not really anything wrong with that but it’s a real shame when the actions of a few confused malcontents cast a shadow on everybody else.

Being an atheist doesn’t make you special. You’re not necessarily better than those who have faith in something. Atheism is just one way of looking at things. It’s just a word that describes a very broad line of thought. There’s nothing to practice, no dogma to follow, no power or presence to have faith in. Atheism is nothing more than being at peace with the fact that you have absolutely no idea what’s beyond our mortal existence. I think all atheist hope that there’s something wonderful waiting for us after we die but we just don’t see any reason to convince ourselves to have faith in what we can’t prove.

We don’t need no stinking parties.

American Idiots

2008-07-12T05:32:00.001-07:00

Foreign oil is the latest evil facing our nation. George W. Bush is using the current fuel crisis to open the door for more drilling domestically and John McCain is heeding that call making domestic oil part of his battle cry.

Of course nobody's talking about the fact the US Oil reserves are paltry compared to those in the Middle East. The much debated oil reserve under the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has been optimistically estimated to be capable of producing 3 billion barrels of oil over a period of 22 years. The United States currently consumes more than 20 million barrels of oil per day with more than 9 million barrels going to gasoline. In short, we can't pump domestic oil fast enough to meet a fraction of current demand and if we could there isn't enough oil to last more than a few years. Economists around the world agree that if the US managed to develop oil producing technology that allowed US reserves to have an impact on global prices, OPEC would simply reduce production to maintain pricing integrity.

What's funny is that people think the strategic manipulation of supplies to maintain prices is unfair in some way even though this practice has been around since the beginning of commerce. In the US farmers are paid subsidies to not plant crops in order to keep prices level. If that market manipulation backfires in the wake of floods or droughts the consumer ends up paying the price, quite literally, at the register.

The problem we have in this country is not an addiction to foreign oil. We're addicted to fossil fuels. The problem with oil and its cousin coal go beyond the environmental concerns. While drilling and mining take a tremendous toll and the problems with emissions are well documented, the real concern is the fact that dependency on these resources puts the consumer under the thumb of corporate powers that have proven themselves to be rather heartless. The nature of these industries limits competition so prices are easily set in boardrooms rather than in the open market. When alternatives such as wind and solar power are discussed proponents of coal and oil are quick to produce a litany of problems but the one they are most concerned with is how it will affect their bottom line. How dare we consider using a renewable resource that would reduce energy prices?

It's not just fuel consumption that causes problems. A considerable amount of petroleum is used in a variety of industrial applications with plastics being the most notable. Plastic consumption might be the easiest area realize meaningful reductions. Modified corn and potato starch can be used to replace most of the plastic containers we see and those products are not only biodegradable, they can be composted in your own back yard. Resusable grocery bags are becoming increasing popular and more and more people are carrying their own containers to purchase beverages such as coffee and soft drinks. Plastic packaging represents a significant area of petroleum consumption but you don't hear people talking about doing away with those 20 ounce bottles. Our presidential candidates aren't concerned about how much recyclable material is ending up in our landfills. Not caring about the environmental impact is one thing, but what about the oil? Reusing or recycling a container reduces the amount of oil used to create new containers.

You see, the problem is that Americans have nobody to blame but themselves for their dependency on oil. The rising prices we see at the pump aren't because of OPEC, India or China. The United States is the number one consumer of oil around the world. Global consumption is at 85 million barrels per day and the US consumes more than a quarter of that. Granted, we are a highly industrialized nation that represents a significant portion of the global economy but the fact remains that 5% of the world's population is using 25% of the world's oil. We can do better. And until we're willing to look ourselves in the mirror and accept that responsibility, sticking a drill in every square mile of this country is not going to help.

But Americans don't want to hear it. Parking the F-150 is not an option. People are better at finding reasons not to carpool or take public transportation than they are at overcoming the minor inconveniences associated with leaving the car at home. We don't want to recycle, or be troubled with the hassle of toting our own shopping bags around. So in November people will cast their vote for the candidate who does the best job of flattering them. Bomb Iran...open the continental shelf for drilling...stick a coal mine in the middle of the Grand Canyon...just don't ask us to take responsibility.

The Idiot's Guide to Elections.

2008-06-13T17:34:00.000-07:00

A lot of people seemed pretty upset that Barack Obama and his wife knocked knuckles before he delivered his post primary speech. OK. To an almost 40 guy who grew up in Cleveland it didn't seem like a big deal and I suspect to the pundits its not either. It is, however, a very easy thing to focus on.

When I listen to or read the opinions of conservative pundits I get the distinct impression that they think their audience is stupid. So instead of intelligently discussing the differences between McCain and Obama they reduce the argument to hateful diatribes. Before McCain became the front runner people like Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck were denouncing him as a RINO, which is a clever tag neo-conservatives hung on moderate Republicans in 200 and 2004 in order to push forceful social conservative legislation.

So now that McCain is the only option for them they have thrown their support behind him by attacking Obama. Which is fine. That's the way the game is played. The problem is that they are attacking him with ridiculous assertions. They're using his name as a link to terrorism and his connection to Jeremiah Wright makes him a racist. Of course John McCain hails from a state that doesn't recognize Martin Luther King Day and there's a possibility that he was brainwashed when he was held as a POW. I've seen the Manchurian Candidate.

Yes, it's silly. McCain's not a hypnotized sleeper waiting to destroy this country any more than Obama is a socialist. The fact is these men differ on some key issues but when you get down to it they are very similar. McCain and Obama share a desire to address Global Warming and conservation. Where they differ is in economics, taxes and the war in Iraq.

Obama believes that we need to put existing trade agreements on hold until we find out why the US seems to be getting the short end of the deal. NAFTA and GAFTA are great ideas on paper but when other countries are cheating on the pacts they stop working. Obama wants to make sure the US is getting a fair return on its investments. McCain doesn't support dismantling NAFTA. Instead he wants to train out of work laborers hit hard by free trade to find work in science and technology. The problem is that those jobs are being outsourced to places like India. McCain didn't mention what he would do to stop outsourcing.

In reference to taxes, Obama wants to eliminate tax breaks and subsidies for corporations, particularly the big oil companies. McCain feels that this would put a financial burden on the people who make jobs and that playing hardball with oil companies will only force gas prices to rise. It'sa great argument except for the fact that we've had a very business friendly administration for 8 years. Gas prices have more than doubled, wages have gone down and people are facing the hardest economic times since the mid 80s. Shifting the tax burden back to corporations and the exceedingly wealthy makes sense.

As far as Iraq goes, that's a disaster. Our military is overstressed. Nation Guard and Reserve troops have been on active status far too long and stop loss initiatives have delayed discharges for years. People aren't volunteering. The war on terror has a lot of vocal support but nobody seems interested in going beyond lip service. Everybody is willing to stick a magnetic ribbon on their car but nobody is signing up for a stint in the Army.

McCain wants to win. Obama wants to put the onus on Iraqi officials and bring our troops and our money back home. The question is which plan is better. Will Obama's plan allow fundamentalist Islam to thrive? Will McCain's commitment to seeing Iraq through weaken the US as Russia and China are building their Armies? This is what we should be arguing about.

But nobody wants to talk about the issues. Instead they want to make issues out of soundbites and knuckle knocks. Are Americans really that stupid? Or is the average voter too lazy to think?

Hillary's Army

2008-06-04T09:24:00.000-07:00

A number of women who support Hillary Clinton have expressed a lot of outrage over the way Hillary has been treated. Apparently they feel that she has been undermined by the Old Boy Network. Issues such as debate moderators referring to her as Mrs. Clinton rather than Senator Clinton and a scant smattering of jerks in the crowd who opted to express sexist comments have fueled this speculation that Hillary is being held back by a glass ceiling. Some of her supporters insist that they’ll vote for McCain to spite Obama even though Obama has conveyed nothing but the utmost respect for Hillary.

One supporter asked if not for sexism how else can one explain the hatred so many people express toward Hillary. That’s easy: She’s a Clinton. For eight years the Republican Party and all of their conservative pundits waged an all out war on the Clintons. Unfortunately for Hillary much of the dirt thrown at Bill ended up on her. She was often characterized as the brains behind the operation which is a point Hillary’s supporters never argued. Blame the venom on partisan politics not a gender bias.

Hillary’s run for the Senate was transparent. It was a poorly kept secret that Hillary had her eyes on the White House and that’s why, at least in the minds of most voters, Hillary never took Bill to task on his philandering. Her marriage was one of political convenience. Hillary could have disputed this notion but she simply refused to discuss the details of how she opted to hold Bill accountable for cheating on her. If she can’t take her husband to task for his very public affairs how can she be expected to confront world leaders?

Hillary and her supporters take a lot of pride in how many votes they secured but Hillary’s campaign seemed to pick up steam after the Mitt Romney stepped down and McCain became the Republican front runner. It’s naïve to think that the registered Republicans who voted in the Democratic primary were playing fair. A significant number of Hillary’s votes came from people who wanted to inflict harm on the Democrats by extending the battle.

The clandestine conspiracy Hillary’s supporters insist is designed to keep a woman out of the Oval Office is really just good sense on the part of party leaders who realize that there’s something fishy with this primary. Would Hillary be as popular with the rank and file Democrats if Republicans had been fighting to the bitter end?

Hillary wasn’t the victim of sexism. She was the victim of politics. Most of that was her own doing. She ran for a Senate seat in a tradition Democratic stronghold and beat a weak Republican rival. Hillary had no genuine connection to New York so her political career started off as a ploy. Then she led a very undistinguished life as a Senator. She didn’t make any waves or take any real stands. It was all about photo ops and sound bites.

It’s remarkable that Hillary was able to capture as much support as she did which is a great sign for women. If somebody as unlikeable and suspicious as Hillary can put her self in such high standing within her party you have to wonder what a truly inspirational woman could accomplish.

Shame on Hillary’s supporters who claim they won’t back Obama. That sort of rhetoric undermines everything Hillary accomplished. If her supporters are willing to spite her party that only proves that the sexists in this argument are the bitter old harpies who only supported Hillary because she was a woman.

OIL!

2008-05-21T14:21:00.000-07:00

BIG OIL.

So Congress finally decided to put the screws to the oil companies...don't hold your breath on anything coming from it.

For years Democrats pretended to wage war with the corporate executives who run the larger oil companies. The term BIG OIL is one that Big Oil companies hate because it demonizes them when all they are guilty of doing is running a successful business. By throwing them all under the same header, we hold them in the same esteem as BIG TOBACCO .

Big Oil companies maintain that they haven’t misled the consumer. If anything oil companies have brokered their buying power to keep prices at the pump low. Record profits are the product of record consumption.

To some degree that’s true. Nobody really seems overly upset that FAST FOOD has effectively conspired to fatten us up. Ronald McDonald is just as guilty as Joe Camel or the Marlboro Man when it comes to steering children down an unhealthy path but yet we still line up for BOGO Big Macs with little concern for right and wrong.

Then again, fast food franchises are struggling in the current economy. Americans have slowly been opting for healthier food and that’s put iconic chains under the gun to compete. Big oil companies don’t have any competition and they’ve been conspiring to control the market for decades. What’s more, oil companies have been receiving government subsidies. That’s right, in spite of being the only businesses to see consistent growth in what has been a chaotic economy over the past 7 years, nobody has seen fit to pull the free money our federal government has forking over.

Americans are finally feeling the sting of fuel costs and they don’t like it. But what are they going to do? Consumption is finally starting to slow down now that gasoline is at the $4.00 per gallon mark but our society is dependent on internal combustion. Most of the American workforce does not have access to reliable public transportation. Of all the major metropolitan areas in the US only a handful have the infrastructure to get people to work via rail or bus. Uncontained urban sprawl makes it impossible for late-blooming cities to accommodate transit needs.

Americans have to drive our country is built around the car. That’s been an important factor in our development as a country but now, with pollution and fuel consumption becoming problematic our dependence on individual transportation will hurt our ability to compete in the global economy. That’s thanks in large part to Big Oil.

By failing to invest government subsidies into research and development, oil companies have fallen short on the goal of producing an alternative fuel to oil. Now that prices are climbing we’re seeing half-baked ideas such as ethanol being foisted on the market. Ethanol’s been around for such a long time that we shouldn’t have so many problems with efficiency and distribution but the oil companies did just enough to appease certain benchmarks. Once an oil friendly administration assumed control those benchmarks were set aside.

The same thing happened to the Big Three automotive manufacturers. Once Bush assumed control of the White House projects such as electric cars and fuel cells took a back seat. Economy standards were set aside and Americans were buying trucks in record numbers. Now Honda and Toyota have become the automotive juggernauts, Chrysler is owned by foreign interests and Ford is dangerously close to going out of business.

Now that people are upset and questions are being asked, the American consumer is taking the blame. Big Oil is playing the role of victim in this scandal. The reality is that the American people are the victims. Our leaders failed to recognize market trends and corporate leaders gleefully held back the development of fuel efficient technology over the last 10 years. Now that people are warming up to the idea of bio diesel we realize that there aren’t any late model passenger vehicles with diesel available. Now that E-85 seems like a reasonable alternative we learn that all those flex fuel vehicles we’d been hearing about were distributed to states that required them by law, and of course there aren’t any E-85 pumps within a days drive of most consumers.

Americans might be guilty of being naïve but that doesn’t mean we weren’t led astray by people who knew better. Big Oil should be held accountable…

…but they won’t.

Big Talk.

2008-05-19T08:31:00.001-07:00

Barack Obama is the latest politician to draw the line in the sand and demand that his family be left out of the political fray. Apparently Michelle Obama left a remark out there that was turned into a sound bite that is making its rounds among conservatives.

The sound bite in question features Mrs. Obama stating that for the first time in her adult life she is proud of this country. Of course the Red State take on that comment is that Mrs. Obama has spent a solid 20 years not being proud of her country which is supposedly a bad thing. It doesn’t matter that most Americans aren’t particularly proud of their country, people in politics are supposed to beam with nationalistic pride.

The video is nothing more than a partisan bone for conservative pundits to wrestle over. It’s not going to scare away any Democrats who weren’t already frightened by the fact that Obama happens to be black. However, the fact that Mrs. Obama is now in the crosshairs of conservative critics rightfully bothers the Democratic frontrunner.

He recently issued the obligatory “hands off” ultimatum. Of course there’s nothing he can do about it. His wife is out there on the publicity tour talking to thousands of people. She’s an intelligent woman who might have political aspirations of her own someday. Michelle Obama is fair game and Barack knows it.

So why the posturing? Because that’s part of the game too. If Barack Obama doesn’t puff out his chest and defend his wife he looks weak and that could hurt him more than anything Jeremiah Wright has to say. A man who isn’t willing to go to bat for his family isn’t a man and can’t be trusted to run the country. Not even when our current president never had a real job and spent more time partying than he did parenting.

Both Bill and Hillary Clinton played that card with Chelsea, although it played better for Bill because Chelsea was a child when he was campaigning. Now Chelsea is a young woman who is out there stumping for her mother. Still, when people put her on the spot Hillary voiced her displeasure. George W. Bush drew the same line with his binge-drinking daughters. It’s become such a typical part of the process that one has to wonder if the attacks on family aren’t instigated internally.

It’s funny because there is absolutely nothing these candidates can do about it. If a columnist lambastes Michelle Obama what’s Barack going to do about it? The Constitution prevents Barack from taking legal action and the basic laws of society prohibit physical assault. Barack is powerless to defend his wife and given the fact that his wife is pretty much on her own, he shouldn’t have too.

Bill Clinton couldn’t do anything about the pundits, like Rush Limbaugh, who took shots at his daughter while he was in office and George W. Bush had more trouble keeping his daughters out if trouble and in their pants than he had with critics who wanted to hurt him by attacking them.

Political opponents loath to play that game because attacking a candidate’s family tends to backfire. George H.W. Bush tried to question Hillary Clinton’s influence over Bill and it cost him a lot of points among women. And that was Hillary, nobody likes her. So John McCain isn’t going to put Michelle Obama in his crosshairs. That’s a dangerous gamble.

It’s OK for people like Glen Beck and Ann Coulter to stir that pot; they live in the muck and have no credibility. Aside from a handful of marginally retarded fans, nobody cares what they have to say. They’ll get the mindless masses worked into a frenzy but it’s only going to reinforce votes that were already iron clad. That’s assuming there isn’t a sale on Skoal on election day.

It would have been refreshing for Obama to laugh the criticism off and dismiss it as petty but that’s something McCain would have jumped on. As silly as it is, not acting macho would have given mainstream Republicans plenty of ammunition to question Obama’s courage. People don’t have time for nuance and they don’t like to think about the big picture. Barack Obama has to take a stand and defend the honor of his wife even though she seems perfectly capable of fighting her own battles…even though there’s nothing he Obama can do about it.

Those are the rules of the game and the game is played for your enjoyment. It’s too bad that we spend so much time obsessing about these petty antics and important issues get pushed to the side.

Interest without Knowledge

2008-05-12T13:34:00.000-07:00

The previous two Presidential elections were contentious to say the least. Opinions split down party lines but no matter how you feel about the outcome you have to admit there were serious problems.

In 2000 the Supreme Court split 5-4down party lines and quashed a thorough recount of the contentious ballots. There were stories about dangling chads, combative election workers and confused old Jews who voted for Pat Buchanan. In 2004 the problems surfaced in Ohio where a the Republican Secretary of State tried to reject thousands of voter registration forms and a company whose owner was a enthusiastic Bush supporter provided electronic ballots machines that seemed to malfunction in key Democratic strongholds.

Most people don’t want to consider the possibility that these elections were rigged but the fact remains that elections are rigged all the time. It’s not just in third world countries. Daly ruled Chicago with an iron fist and maintained control with a stuffed ballot box and it happens in smaller communities all the time. If we’re being honest with ourselves we’d admit that there’s probably some sort of fix at play in every election…it’s just that the 2000 and 2004 elections were so close and the final tally came down to two states that had been massaged to skew results.

Even if you don’t believe the fix was in you have to admit that there were some issues that lend themselves to conspiracy theories. That means that there’s something wrong with the way our system works. Between the last two big elections Americans have been evaluation everything from the registration process, to voter verification. We’ve even seen people question the existence of the Electoral College.

So it’s no surprise that this years Primaries are stirring up quite a bit of controversy. Again, on the Republican side the ticket was decided a long time ago. The only thing that stood out was the way McCain and Huckabee collaborated to destroy Mitt Romney’s bid. Once Romney was out voters sided with McCain and by the time Super Tuesday was over so was the Republican race.

The Democrats were still close. Hillary seemed to have a huge advantage but Obama has a strong following and it has carried over to what people refer to as Super Delegates. Super Delegates are just party alumni who are able to vote for the candidate of their choosing, regardless of the primary results. Even in states Hillary won, these delegates threw support behind Obama.

This has people crying foul. They feel like their cotes don’t count and they’re right. What they don’t realize is that their votes don’t have to count. The parties are private entities designed to consolidate similar ideas into a specific party platform. It’s a tool voters can use to choose candidates who support an agenda they agree with and a device for politicians to help each other win their posts.

The problem with primaries is readily illustrated in, once again, Ohio where the polls were open well after Super Tuesday. With McCain comfortably in the lead Republican pundits called their minions to arms and encouraged them to vote in the Democratic primary and vote for Hillary. At the time Obama seemed poised to run away with the party nomination but he hit a snag in Ohio.

A lot of people dismissed the idea that Republicans threw the Democratic primary but now that the votes have all been counted and the forms have been examined, reports published by the AP indicate that 8% of the people who voted Democrat in switched party affiliations at the polls. The board of elections tracks party affiliation during primaries so there’s no count on the number of unofficial Republicans who made the switch and of course there’s no way to know who these former Republicans cast their cotes for but seeing as how a number of these Republicans were people holding elected office as a party member it certainly seems fair to assume that the majority of these party hoppers were following the advice of the pundits.

It’s not a matter of whether this is right or wrong. One Republican said that he didn’t break any laws and he’s absolutely correct. In the big game of politics it’s within the rules but that’s why the Democrats are willing to let the so-called Super Delegates make tough decisions and go against the popular vote.

It’s great that Americans want their voices to be heard but foolish to expect private political parties to relinquish their power. If you don’t like the candidate your preferred party chooses, then show your dissent in November. The only reason we have a two party system is because we allow ourselves to be limited to it.

American Hero

2008-04-29T09:13:00.000-07:00

Just when you thought the Roger Clemens saga was going away it hits you in the face with a steroid-laced 95 mph fastball in the form of one-time country music sensation Mindy McCready.

McCready had a hit single on the redneck charts back in 1996 and proceeded to self-destruct. Since then it’s been a made-for-TV story about drugs, alcohol, domestic violence and the subsequent stints in rehab and jail. Mindy is a train wreck and, as is the case with all train wrecks, people often wonder why…why do people who seem to have it made fall apart so completely?

Usually we don’t have a good answer. Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Tom Sizemore…they all defy explanation. Mindy McCready’s success was confined to a pretty small niche but surely people in that niche wondered why she would implode after she achieved success.

Now we have an answer: sexual abuse. Mindy McCready was involved in a sexual relationship with a 28 year-old man when she was only 15. That man? None other than Mr. Roger “I’m a good guy” Clemens. According to people close to the situation, Clemens hooked up with the teen karaoke singer back in the early 1990s. Clemens doesn’t dispute this but he insists that the relationship wasn’t sexual. McCready commented that she couldn’t refute the sexual allegations. She didn’t go into detail but that admission puts Clemens in a tight spot. He’s the one who has been clamoring about the quality of his character in the wake of the steroid scandal.

Clemens is involved in a courtroom suit/countersuit battle royale with Brian McNamee, the former trainer who implicated Clemens in the Mitchell Report. Clemens has been calling McNamee a liar ever since and he hopes to prove it in court. Now, he’s on public record denying a sexual relationship with a woman who has confirmed the story. That’s going to come back to haunt him in court. McCready will be called as a witness and Clemen’s will have his precious character called into question.

Of course Clemen’s could face even more trouble. The news of the affair will most certainly have an impact on his marriage. Clemens was married with two children when he first met McCready and if Roger’s wife has reason to believe that he betrayed her she will have a golden opportunity to put the screws to him. She could unravel every lie that he’s told and produce testimony, perhaps even evidence, that Roger has been using steroids for years.

Lost in all of this is a very serious issue: statutory rape. Clemens was a multi-millionaire professional athlete. At 28 he was the best pitcher in major league baseball. Mindy McCready was a 15 year-old girl trying to find a break in the music industry. Now it’s possible that McCready was little more than a groupie who was enamored with the superstar pitcher and Clemens, like so many other famous men, probably took advantage of more than his fair share of groupies but 15? Come on, Roger, that’s going too far. Cheating on your wife is one thing, but cheating on your wife with a teenaged girl—well, that’s something right out of Roman Polanski’s playbook…and he’s still in exile.

Not too long ago Roger and Brian sat before a Congressional Committee so elected officials could parlay the steroid scandal into some good pre-election battle face time. Roger wined and dined a number of lawmakers and it paid off during the hearing when Republicans took turns bashing Brian McNamee. Of course McNamee’s response to being called a liar by Representative DanTom Burton was to point out that he had implicated three players and two had already admitted to the committee that they did indeed use performance enhancing substances. Roger’s long time BFF, Andy Pettitte, substantiated McNamee’s story by informing the committee in a closed hearing that Roger Clemens told him he used HGH. Still, Clemens was likened to Jesus.

Clemens didn’t handle himself well. He lost his composure several times and seemed to be covering his tracks, still his Republican buddies applauded him for being a baseball hero and suffering through the humiliation of being implicated in the steroid scandal. How do they feel about Rocket now? Roger’s mantra has been that he is a man of great character, but now this character is a borderline pedophile. People go to jail for having sex with 15 year-olds. Just ask Genarlow Wilson who, at the age of 17, found himself locked up for allowing a 15 year-old to perform oral sex on him. Roger wasn’t 17.

Roger likely won’t go to jail for his relationship with McCready but the fact that she has corroborated the story pretty much proves that Roger Clemens is a dirt bag. He could face perjury charges for lying to Congress and he’s going to see a significant portion of his wealth signed away to his wife after she divorces him. He’s going to get what’s coming to him.

Before the McCready story broke there are plenty of people lined up on his side. These apologists had a litany of excuses for their hero. What do they have to say now?

Clemens is a liar, a cheater and a statutory rapist…sounds like he’s primed for a run at the Senate. He might as well... Roger’s got a better shot at getting into Congress than he does the Hall of Fame.

Schilling in the Name

2008-04-23T10:22:00.000-07:00

John Freshwater wants to be a martyr. As a middle school science teacher at a public school in Mount Vernon, Ohio Freshwater has gone out of his way to draw attention to himself and his faith. The center of the controversy seems to revolve around his decision to keep a bible on his desk. It seems innocent enough and Freshwater claims that the bible is for his own personal use. Fair enough.

Still officials put the screws to Freshwater and he enlisted the support of local religious activist Dave Daubenmire who was at the center of a controversy back in 1999 when he was sued by the ACLU for leading the football team he coached in prayer sessions before and after practices and games. His school district ended up footing the bill for an out of court settlement, but Daubenmire parlayed the ink into a cottage industry. Now he has a ministry and a website dedicated to his glory. You can even make a donation. Surprise, surprise, surprise.

It’s interesting that www.ptsalt.com seems more committed to promoting Coach Dave than it does Jesus Christ but in the wacky world of evangelicalism that’s really the name of the game. Vanity and greed. It’s not about morality it’s all about a salary. (Apologies to Kris Parker.)

As you start to delve deeper into the Freshwater saga, which you can by visiting The Columbus Dispatch, you realize that this guy was itching for a fight. He wanted to cross the line so he could be the center of a controversy (i.e. attention).

Why? Maybe he wants to start his own ministry. Perhaps Daubenmire is selling how-to guides online and Freshwater bought one. There’s also the possibility that Daubenmire put him up to it in order to drum up some publicity. That seems to be the big issue on Coach Dave’s website. Nothing brings in those donations like a big fight against Liberals and their godless agenda.

Of course the ACLU will take some flack even though the ACLU has a track record of winning cases on both sides of the issue. It’s ironic because Freshwater volunteered to monitor meetings of his school’s chapter of the Federation of Christian Athletes, an organization the ACLU has championed. What the ACLU fights against is the participation of school officials in these student led meetings. Freshwater crossed that line and not only participated but cast out demons and conducting healing sessions.

It’s amazing how Christians eat this stuff up. They believe they’re persecuted and that our society promotes atheism. The reality is that our society still promotes Christianity. It’s only recently that people have started to push back and challenge some of the conventions that allowed Christians to assume a position of power over everybody else. So now when somebody points out that the city park is a public area and shouldn’t be used to display a religious nativity scene Christians see it as an infringement when the reality is that they were the ones infringing on everybody else.

That’s what Freshwater is doing. The school has been very careful to respect Freshwater’s beliefs, the issue is that he’s using his position as a teacher to proselytize. That’s fine in a Christian school, but Freshwater chose to teach in a public school system. He’s got to follow certain rules as do all teachers.

On local blogs Christians are whining that if Freshwater had a copy of the Quran on his desk that this wouldn’t have been an issue but the issue wasn’t the fact that he had a bible on his desk. The issue was why it was there. Through his actions Freshwater made it clear that he was using that bible to influence the beliefs of his students. More succinctly he wanted to be suspended over this. The more press the better. He’ll milk it for all it’s worth and retire from his public teaching position to start his own ministry under Dave Daubenmire’s wing…the typical Christian pyramid scheme. Then Freshwater will recruit some other teacher and the cycle will start all over again.

Unfortunately most Christians, particularly those of Freshwater and Daubenmire’s ilk, simply refuse to respect the beliefs of others. When Daubenmire was leading his football team in prayer he didn’t stop to think about how kids who weren’t religious might feel. It’s ironic because Christians claim to honor the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. How would Freshwater feel about his child’s science teacher displaying a copy of Anton LaVey’s Satanic Bible? What would Daubenmire do if his son’s football coach led the team in a Buddhist chant before each game?

Christians don’t have a real answer for that question. They’ve either convinced themselves that these things happen everyday and nobody says a word or they’ll turn it around and cite dubious stories about Christians being fed to the lions.

When Christians behave like Freshwater and Daubenmire that doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.

But Obama was right!

2008-04-16T12:30:00.000-07:00

"Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter).
But -- so the questions you're most likely to get about me, 'Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What's the concrete thing?' What they wanna hear is -- so, we'll give you talking points about what we're proposing -- close tax loopholes, roll back, you know, the tax cuts for the top 1 percent. Obama's gonna give tax breaks to middle-class folks and we're gonna provide health care for every American. So we'll go down a series of talking points.
But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you'll find is, is that people of every background -- there are gonna be a mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you'll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I'd be very strong and people will just be skeptical. The important thing is that you show up and you're doing what you're doing." --Barack Obama

When I first heard about Barack Obama’s comments regarding embittered Middle Americans I was shocked. Not so much that he said it but that somebody was finally paying attention. The fact of the matter is that many of the people living in Western Pennsylvania are gun toting bible thumpers who enjoy feeling sorry for themselves. Ask any reasonable person who lives or has spent a significant amount of time in the area and they’ll confirm it. The handful of people who took offense to Obama’s statement prove his theory.

What’s funny is that most of outrage seems to be coming from people who have never heard of Latrobe, Oil City, or Washington ( PA not DC) and the only thing most politicians know about Johnstown is that there may or may not have been a big flood there. Obama’s comments appropriately describe towns in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana as well and if you’re going to talk about bitter, narrow-minded people you can throw that same lasso around West Virginia and Kentucky.

Taking Obama’s full quote into context it’s quite obvious that he feels sympathetic toward these people. I live around them and I don’t. Obama wants to help them rediscover the American dream. I’d just as soon close all the exit ramps on I-70 between Washington DC and St. Louis. Now that’s elitist.

As somebody who grew up in one of the areas Obama was talking about, I found nothing he said offensive. What I did find offensive was Hillary Clinton trotting out her Larry The Cable Guy impression in order to connect with the people she thought would be upset by Obama’s comments. Talk about out of touch. When did Scranton turn in to Birmingham? Does that country-fried drawl and stories about shooting guns with grandpappy after church really work? And then she bellied up to the bar for a shot and a beer. Nice. Next week she'll be belching the alphabet and farting on demand. Hey kid, pull my finger!

Perhaps it does work. George W. Bush managed to convince the NASCAR set that he was just a farmer from Texas and not some spoiled rich kid born with a silver spoon in his mouth that was so big the man still can’t form a sentence. Somehow, Bush managed to spin a keg party at an Alabama Armory into military service that was more honorable than John McCain’s half a decade of torture.

Of course, Bush always sounds like a hick and he’s made it quite clear that he is genuinely stupid. Perhaps not so much as the people who voted for him, but he’s definitely running on fumes. Hillary, on the other hand, seems to have multiple personalities. She becomes Butterfly McQueen quoting Reverend James Cleveland when she’s pandering to black voters and channels Loretta Lynn in front of white blue collar types.

The real Hillary Clinton grew up in a wealthy community before graduating from Yale by way of Wellesley and when she’s glad-handing for the big money you can bet that her diction and grammar are perfect. So why the buck and shuffle for the unwashed masses? Does she really think that the average American is that stupid? Maybe that was a tactic she learned at the world headquarters of poor white trash, Wal-Mart. Perhaps Sam Walton’s ability to parlay provincialism into billions of dollars convinced Hillary to patronize potential voters with ersatz folksy charm.

Who needs to talk about the issues and present solutions to problems when we can zero in on a sound bite that was taken out of context? Imagine what a wonderful presidential race this would be if everybody in it was more interested in talking about their ideas rather than waiting for the opposition to slip up. What’s frustrating is that Obama didn’t slip up. He made a valid point that should be discussed in detail.

Hypocrisy Games

2008-04-04T08:13:00.000-07:00

I’m not going to single any one person out because a lot of people are hopping on this boycott-the-opening-ceremony bandwagon. I realize that China’s record on human rights leaves quite a bit to be desired and I suppose that something should be done but skipping out on the opening ceremony is not going to change things. It’s actually a little trite. So China’s not quite evil enough to warrant a full boycott of the games, eh?

Personally I think Olympic boycotts are pretty gutless. Why should the athletes have to suffer for society’s inability to solve these problems? For the most part these are kids who, for better or worse, dedicate their lives to being the best in a particular sport. For most, since gymnasts and long distance runners seldom have professional opportunities, the Olympics is their one moment to shine. The vast majority of Olympians get one shot at the podium because the games only come around once every four years.

The International Olympic Committee had the chance to make a statement by rejecting China’s bid to host the Olympics which would have been fair because the games would have gone on but for world leaders to even consider marring the games by dragging political issues into a celebration of athletic competition and sportsmanship is a dereliction of duty. Don't hide behind the Olympics to pick a fight with China.

China’s been in the Human Rights cross hairs for decades but that hasn’t stopped countries around the world from openly and aggressively trading with China. Right here in the USA we depend on China to provide us with cheap goods and services so we can have more disposable income to spend at Applebee’s. China’s economy is growing at a remarkable rate even though that growth has been on the backs of an oppressed workforce. Where’s the outrage the other three years out of the Olympiad?

The Olympics always give me hope. Race, religion, culture and creed are put aside in the name of sport and for a few weeks every four years the rivalry between various nations becomes good natured. Why ruin that?

There are those who argue that ignoring China’s abuses to celebrate the games is betraying they who can’t defend themselves. By allowing China to preen on the global stage we are condoning brutal oppression. I say that the opposite is true. By taking a stand against China on the Olympic stage we make a mockery of those very issues. Boycotting the Opening ceremony says that we want to put on a good show of compassion but after everything is said and done we welcome a return to business as usual. That’s because we’ll be watching the Olympics on electronic devices manufactured in China.

Worse than not caring about an issue is pretending you do. Boycotting the Olympics is just a big public display that does nothing and boycotting the opening ceremonies is a little more than a wink in China’s direction. If you want to send a message, hit China where it hurts. Don't use the Olympics as a soap box.

Let it Bleed

2008-03-21T11:42:00.001-07:00

I’m glad gas prices are going up. I hope they reach $10 a gallon before Bush leaves office and we have a President who isn’t bought and paid for by Big Oil.

I know what that means: A bloodletting. The economy will collapse and millions of people will be out of work. It will make the Great Depression look like a stock market correction. Good. We have it coming.

We have it coming because people commute to white collar jobs in a one ton pickup trucks. Kids are dropped off for school in Hummers. Nobody takes the bus and few people actually carpool. To be fair, most cities don’t provide adequate public transportation. Urban sprawl forces millions of people living in urban areas to commute 10 or more miles to a job in a suburban development where busses don’t run. Things like that simply didn’t matter, gas was cheap and so were used cars. Nobody had to worry about the logistics of the daily commute.

Well now they do. Since Bush has taken office the cost of a gallon of gas has nearly tripled. His apologists will tell you that’s because of a number of economic factors but somehow domestic oil companies have enjoyed record profits. Net Profits.

Nevertheless, we still have it coming. It was only a matter of time before another, stupider version of Warren G. Harding was planted in the White House by corporate interests. Oil Companies are going to screw us as hard as they can for as long as they can, but it takes two to tango. We’re the ones who grabbed our ankles and let them do it.

There was a gas crunch in the 70s. Not only was oil expensive, it was also hard to find. OPEC cut our supply and we were crippled. That’s when Honda and Toyota proliferated the US market with compact cars. Fuel efficient vehicles gained a foothold in the US and, as Americans got creative with their commuting habits, oil prices came back down.

And they stayed down. They stayed down so long that Americans were able to stop buying those puny “rice burners” and start buying big cars again. By the end of the 1980s truck sales started to rise and by 2000 the SUV became the most common vehicle on the highway. Fuel efficiency was a joke. People were buying horsepower and getting 12 miles per gallon was fine and dandy because the average American felt safe driving a massive hunk of steel down the road. It didn’t matter if crash test surveys demonstrated that larger vehicles were less safe in a crash, Fanny F-150 liked riding high and stretching out.

Of course, the volatility of the oil market never went away. OPEC tried to manipulate supplies when Clinton and George H. W. Bush were in office but they were able to leverage diplomacy to keep supplies up and costs down. The result is that Americans didn’t pay attention to the writing on the wall. We kept on trucking oblivious to what was on the horizon.

Oil is a finite resource. There were only so many prehistoric bogs that got converted into crude and we’ve been burning it up at an exponential rate. Even if it’s cheap, the supply is limited so it makes sense to conserve it and aggressively look for renewable sources of combustible fuel. That’s why coal is a lousy answer. No matter how many mountains they level or rivers they foul Big Coal companies won’t find enough coal underground to last. Fossil fuels take hundreds of millions of years to create but only second to burn. We need to find something else. This latest oil crisis is proof of that.

Gas is well on it way to four bucks a gallon and people are still cruising around in hulking trucks and midsize sedans with big engines. They aren’t cruising as much, but they aren’t looking for alternatives either. It would seem that our squeal point is somewhere closer to the five dollar mark but before it gets there we’ll have a new Administration in Washington and prices will fall. The question is whether Americans will take the lesson they’ve learned to heart and strive to find a better way or if they’ll go right back to the SUV.

I don't think we'll learn and that's why I hope those prices keep rising.

Sex, Sex...was all I heard.

2008-03-11T10:06:00.001-07:00

The headlines were misleading. When I read that New York’s governor had been linked to a prostitution ring I thought he was some sort of pimp. I read the story thinking I would be treated to some intricate scandal where Eliot Spitzer was a key player in a multi-state prostitution scam. When I read the article I was disappointed to discover that Mr. Spitzer was only client #9. To me, that’s hardly being linked to a prostitution ring. I’m not connected to Amoco just because I bought gas this weekend. Granted I did get the sneaking suspicion I was being screwed as the price rolled past $50, but that’s different.

Nevertheless, Eliot Spitzer was caught doing wrong. He broke the law and he broke public trust. People are calling him a hypocrite because he apparently campaigned on an ethics platform but from what I could ascertain his ethical focus was within the realm of business practices. He was going to clean up Wall Street. I don’t know that he ever voiced a problem with the notion of nookie-for-hire. There’s a big difference between a conservative who foams at the mouth when speaking of family values getting caught in a nubile boy’s pants and a moderate intent on establishing economic integrity hiring a call girl to boogie on down to Washington to show him a good time.

It’s odd that we hold politician to such lofty standards in their personal lives but we don’t give much thought to the corruption that occurs in their professional world. Spitzer is going to be forced to step aside amidst this scandal when it’s got no bearing on his performance in office. Sure, somebody will argue that if his wife can’t trust him neither can we but that’s nonsense. We know that personal relationships are a separate issue, and while Spitzer broke the law, it’s a law most reasonable people feel is unnecessary.

Consenting adults almost always barter for sex. Whether it’s dinner, a movie and a nice bottle of Petite Petite (that was being saved for something special) or a cash exchange, sex is almost always a transaction. There are exceptions, especially several years into a long term relationship, but those are rare.

That’s not to excuse what Spitzer did. He knows how the game is played and he took his chances when he arranged for his favorite call girl to hook up with him in D.C. It’s a sign of reckless behavior and poor judgment. To that end, one can make a case that he is not qualified to lead. It’s just unfortunate that we don’t hold the actual performance of our elected officials to the same standards. Do we have to wait for a Democrat to book a high-end hooker or a Republican to have a guy on guy romp in an airport toilet before we question their integrity?

Look at McCain. He’s been linked to a slinky lobbyist with a reputation for flirting with geezers to get a little leverage. Rather than taking a long hard look at how this relationship might have affected public policy people are more infatuated with whether or not McCain got frisky with a hired hoochie. Is that really important? That’s why companies hire attractive women to do that sort of work in the first place. I’m not saying that all female lobbyists are eye candy but submit two resumes, one for a policy wonk who obtained a masters degree in political science from Georgetown while interning for three senators and another for a community college grad who happened to win a few beauty pageants and see who gets called first. Sex gets a point across as well as it sells. And you can bet that McCain borrowed a blue pill from somebody before he went to dinner with that cute little girl from down the hall.

People cheat on their spouses all the time. Could you lose your job if you cheated on your spouse? Not unless you work for her/him. Sometimes we in the general public will say things like, “if I pulled something like that I’d be fired” when we know it’s not true. People in the real world get fired when their performance suffers. So you can get arrested and still have a job as long as you can post bail and be back at work before you violate company policy. And you can definitely cheat on your spouse and hold down your job. That might change if you cheat with the 19 year-old intern in accounting but as long as you keep your nasty bits out of the company’s business you’ll be back at work on Monday.

There was a time when people didn’t care about a politician’s personal life. History is filled with philanderers and pederasts. James Buchanan was gay; Jefferson had illegitimate children; JFK may or may not have joined his brother and Marilyn Monroe for a threesome; LBJ ate live armadillos for breakfast; Nixon flipped lit cigarettes at his wife for fun; Ronald Reagan enjoyed urinating on Asian boys; and George H. W. Bush disciplined at least one of his children by dropping him on the head. The list goes on.

Suddenly we live an in age where sex sells and everything else is boring. John McCain might very well want to launch a dozen nuclear missiles into Vietnam if he’s elected but we’re more focused on whether or not he got freaky with a lobbyist. Mark Foley was run out of DC on a rail, proving that a live boy can still end a career even if a dead girl can’t, but the cronies who kept him on committees that are supposed to review laws that punish child abusers are unscathed. Tom DeLay basically had to dare the country to punish him before he was ousted and Ted Stevens has been playing it fast and loose for years with no accountability. Larry Craig was a crooked politician who managed to deftly avoid any legal trouble over suspicious donations and pork projects that benefited his contributors but it was a lovelorn act of desperation that put him on the hot seat.

It’s funny, we don’t seem to make a big stink over our elected officials missing votes or failing to show up for hearings but if we find out the reason they were absent is because they were having sex with somebody they weren’t married to the fur starts flying. The public might be to blame, but the headline on Spitzer’s affair proves that the media is playing a big role in fanning those flames.

We do the same thing with professional athletes. When LeBron James got ticketed for speeding it made national news. Some people were even enraged with LeBron’s glib answer to the question. He didn’t even express remorse. Colin Cowherd, a nationally syndicated idiot who takes up airspace on ESPN even characterized LeBron’s brush with a radar gun as one of the problems with the mentality of the professional athlete. Really? Speeding’s the scourge of out nation’s youth. Thanks Colin, now go back to apologizing for how awful West Coast football is.

Regular people don’t get charged with assault everyday but when some working class stiff gets a little rowdy at a bar and fists fly it’s not grounds for that guy to lose his day job but if Tracy McGrady get’s involved in a fracas outside of a night club the general public laments the fact that he’s back in the starting lineup the very next day. “If I got arrested for assault they wouldn’t let me out of jail so I could be at work the next day.” Yes, they would, all you have to do is post bond.

And ultimately the publicity of these altercations has a very negative impact on the athlete’s career. We don’t acknowledge it because he’s still shooting baskets but players like LeBron James have a lot of contracts on the side. In fact, Lebron James makes more money as a spokesman than he does as a basketball player. Let’s say LeBron got pulled over for speeding but found himself arrested for possession of narcotics, carrying a concealed weapon and driving while intoxicated. Let’s say he was in the car with four naked underage girls while all of this took place. He’s got the money to hire a savvy enough legal team to make charges disappear but his public image would have taken a huge hit and LeBron would suddenly be less marketable. Endorsements would dry up. Sprite, Bubble Yum and even Nike would exercise clauses in their contracts to drop LeBron from their payrolls. Just ask Kobe Bryant about that. His brush with the law might still be costing him millions.

Why do you think Vince Carter and Allen Iverson have seen their endorsement opportunities disappear? Part of it might be age but most of it is because the public is tired of watching them act up. So you see athletes, celebrities and even politicians actually do pay a price for getting on the wrong side of the law. Larry Craig wasn’t the only man busted for soliciting sex in the men’s room. When Joe Schmoe ties one on at B-Dub’s after work and gets ticketed for trying to score a blow job from a cop at 3:00am it doesn’t make headlines. He can call in sick the next day, plead guilty, pay a fine, go back to his life (and his wife) and nobody will be the wiser. But the people processing arrests don’t call reporters when Joe Schmoe’s name pops up.

Again, that’s the way this game is played. The stakes are higher for famous people and politicians fit into that category. The sting that nabbed Spitzer also identified other patrons but none of them were on the public’s radar. Spitzer is paying a much higher price for his illicit frolic because he’s in a higher position. It’s not fair but then again life rarely is. The irony is that the public is really cheating itself by placing emphasis on issues that have little to do with a politician’s performance. Could you imagine Thomas Jefferson being forced out of politics because of extramarital affairs?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2008-02-19T11:59:00.000-08:00

Saint Patrick’s Day is coming which means this country will engage in one of the biggest displays of hypocrisy known to man. With the pseudo-holiday falling on a Monday that means a lot of people will spend a whole weekend lying about their heritage. Some people will admit to being along for the ride but most will actually claim to have enough Irish in them to justify taking Monday off so they can start drinking early, or recover from drinking all weekend long. Irish flags will be waving and city officials will gleefully allow public waterways to be temporarily polluted with allegedly nontoxic green dye.

No protesters will line the streets to denounce this display of ethnic solidarity. Nobody will be told to go back to Ireland. You see, we’re all for ethnic pride as long as you pass the melanin test. If you’re sufficiently pale you can wave the flag of your homeland all you want but for those among you who happen to be a little on the brown side, forget it. Take pride in your African roots and you’ll be mocked for it. Wave the Mexican flag and people will call you a traitor. But get plastered by 9:00 and put on a “Kiss me I’m Irish” button and the whole country celebrates with you.

I’m told that I have a little Irish ancestry so I probably could get away with celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. My last name, Croyle, seems Irish even though it originates from France. The problem is I just don’t care. I don’t take a lot of pride in my ethnicity because it simply doesn’t define me. It's not like I earned it. I’m half Polish but aside from eating pierogi and kielbasa from time to time we never did anything to celebrate our heritage. We were non-practicing Polacks and as for the dash of Irish my dad’s side of the family contributed, it was pretty much diluted by the English, Welsh, German, Dutch and French ancestry that got thrown into that big pot of Croyle gruel over the years. We didn’t make a big deal out of what we were. It always seemed that the “who” was more important. Ethnic agnosticism.

Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t begrudge these cultural celebrations. To me it’s sad that St. Patrick’s Day has reduced being Irish to early morning drinking binges, boring parades and prolific use of the color green but when you get right down to the basic concept of understanding where you came from and keeping that history alive I think it’s great and a few people actually take the time to reflect on that during the chaotic Spring Break spectacle we’ve made out of March 17th.

Other ethnic groups celebrate their culture and heritage. We might not have a specific day for celebrating Italian lineage but there are plenty of Italian festivals around the country. Name a nationality and you’ll probably be able to find a celebration for it sometime this year. Greeks throw a big “Wrestle me I’m Greek” party every year and I know there are Hungarian, Serbian, and Yugoslavian shindigs in most of the bigger cities. Nobody seems to mind. We even embrace various Asian cultures as they engage in their celebrations throughout the year. Chinese New Year is usually a pretty big deal in various locations around the world.

Cinco de Mayo is the most notable Hispanic holiday. It’s actually Mexican Independence Day but for most Americans it’s another day to get loaded. Corona with lime, por favor. Of course in places with organized Mexican-American communities the holiday has become more of a reflection of ethnic pride and that has started to rub Americans the wrong way. It was fine when it was limited to border towns with high Latino concentrations but now that northern cities are starting to see hundreds of brown-skinned people waving Mexican flags a line had been drawn. If you want to celebrate being Mexican, you can go back to Mexico.

And it’s not just Mexicans. White people snicker at the mention of Kwanza as if it’s just some made up holiday black people came up with to feel special. Of course Kwanza doesn’t stir up hostility like festivals that promote African culture. Again, if you love Africa so much you should move back there... even though 95% of the black people living in this country were born here. In fact most African Americans come from families that have been in the US longer than most white people. Half of my ancestry hopped off a boat around 1915. The other half probably owned the ancestors of some of those people celebrating their African heritage. So these African Americans might have more of a right to celebrate where they came from than their white counterparts. Still, anything that might be labeled “Black Pride” is viewed as an example of reverse racism.

That’s a common argument tossed out by the polemicists. Why is it OK to chant “Black Power” or “Black Pride” but not OK to stand up for "White Pride"? The truth is that it would be if White Pride and White Power weren’t directly tied into hating everything that isn’t white. Aside from a very small handful of black people who make money off of racial inequality, the underlying theme of “Black Power” or “Black Pride” is to promote the positive aspects of African American culture. The underlying theme of “White Power” is hate. Black Power is saying we’re equal to you. White Power is saying no, you’re not.

That’s why celebrations of ethnicity are fair game but broad celebrations of race are, well, racist. Ethnicity is about heritage, culture and history. It’s about taking pride in where your ancestors came from and what they did. People of a particular ethnic group share similar experiences and they like to take some time to reflect on that. More importantly, they invite they rest of us along for the ride. Ethnicity is what makes this country great: People of different backgrounds finding common ground…not just respecting one another, but celebrating our differences as much as we do our similarities.

Most black people in North America don’t have a specific ethnic heritage they can trace. Slavery essentially made black an ethnic group. Our white ancestors stripped Africans, who came from different backgrounds, of their history and forced them to create a new culture from scratch. It was a covert culture hidden in field songs and locked behind the doors of black churches. So that’s why “Black Pride” isn’t racist. But that won’t change how most white people react to darker people celebrating their heritage. How dare they? Those nappy-headed Bushmen should hop on the next boat to Liberia. And any Mexican who raises a flag other than the Stars and Stripes should be sent back over the fence. If being an American isn’t good enough, get out.

But what about those red-headed Irish jerks with their stupid green beer and House of Pain mix tapes? Shouldn’t they go back to Ireland? It’s something to think about. St. Patrick’s Day is coming and we should have a plan.

Mock Congress

2008-02-05T11:32:00.000-08:00

Congress is taking a long hard look at professional sports. A few years ago several key figures in Major League Baseball were called to testify before Congress on the proliferation of steroids and other performance enhancing substances in professional baseball. Raphael Palmiero famously called Jose Canseco a liar and wagged his finger at the Senators for wasting their time pursuing such flimsy allegations. Then he tested positive for steroids a few months later.

Recently, Baseball solicited the assistance of former Senator George Mitchell to lead an in depth investigation into the use of performance enhancing substances. The result was a detailed report based on numerous law enforcement operations that connected professional athletes to steroids and human growth hormone. Names were named and media frenzy ensued.

Now Roger Clemens, who magically became a more dominant pitcher in his 40s than he was in his 20s is in the crosshairs. He was named in the report but denies the veracity of the investigation. He will face Congress under oath and answer their questions regarding the legitimacy of his baseball legacy. Somehow it seems as though this is a job for law enforcement. Clemens broke the law. He should be arrested, convicted and punished in such a manner that he reveals the names of others involved. Just like any other druggie. Congress doesn’t usually demand testimony from crack dealers, so they shouldn’t waste time with Rocket.

Meanwhile, Arlen Spector has called for a hearing into the infamous, and poorly named, Spygate controversy involving the new England Patriots getting caught violating NFL rules. Like many NFL fans, Spector believes that the NFL might have conspired to cover up a much bigger scandal than was initially reported. That’s probably true but why should Congress care? Even if the NFL rigs its games that revelation isn’t going to impact my life any more than the high cost of health insurance.

Initially I had a hard time taking issue with Congress for probing the steroid issue. Steroids are illegal and when professional athletes use them they set the standards of performance so high that aspiring players have to use steroids to have a chance at reaching that level. That forces the next level of players to use steroids. It’s a vicious cycle that doesn’t end until you have unscrupulous fathers injecting testosterone into their unborn children. Anybody who has attended a Little League game in the past 10 years knows that’s not nearly as ridiculous as it should sound. If there wasn’t a serious effort to discourage the use of steroids in the pros, how could we expect to keep it out of everything else?

However, the subsequent investigation into the steroid problem seems opportunistic. If Congress really meant business about it they would have charged Palmiero with perjury. They could have gone after Mark McGwire with more vigor or simply ordered the FBI to start making arrests. You see steroids, though not formally banned by baseball until 2003, had been illegal since 1990. Even if a player like Mark McGwire could justify his abuse of steroids by claiming a technicality he still broke federal laws by purchasing, possessing and using controlled substances. But Congress chose to let everybody off the hook. So why round two?

More perplexing is the inquest into the NFL’s actions regarding Spygate. There are no federal laws prohibiting one team from secretly taping another team’s practices. Even if the NFL swept the issue under the rug it stands to reason that it was a business decision. Most people acknowledge that this sort of cheating is rampant in football. Teams are always looking to gain an advantage. If that means deciphering an opponents defensive signals or decoding the audible indicators quarterbacks use to change plays, so be it.

Cheating takes on different forms and while ethical puritans will not stoop so low as to make a distinction between various types of cheating, there is this pesky little thing called reality. If a receiver gets away with scooping a pass off the ground or a running back recovers a fumble through illicit acts of aggression in the pile long after the whistle has blown it’s considered to be part of the game within a game. It’s not a violation of the rules unless you get caught. So players get away with holding, pass interference and cheap shots all game long. Is Congress going to investigate that?

Maybe they should. Not from the perspective of the players getting away with it but rather why officiating seems to be inconsistent. There’s a lot more at stake if an official is conspiring to influence the outcome of a game. There’s a lot of money changing hands in Vegas and even more being wagered illegally. I could see Congress wanting to know if the fix is in for certain contests, but delving into a coach trying to gain an edge over his competition seems petty. When you think about the results produced, probing the steroid issue isn’t exactly worthwhile either. These things should be delegated.

What’s frustrating about all of this is that Congress seems to have the time, money and manpower to get to the bottom of private sector entertainment but we can’t seem to draw a bead on some of the scandals involving the Bush Administration. Oil prices are through the roof, the U.S. economy is circling the drain and our soldiers are fighting a war that was supposedly over four years ago but Congress can’t get us any straight answers on why. Instead, they’re going to talk to Roger Goodell and get to the bottom of Spygate once and for all. Are you kidding me?

There’s no clearer sign that our government is completely corrupted than this. How can anybody make sports a priority over everything else this country is coping with? It’s offensive that we have elected officials who feel that solving the problem of steroids in baseball or cheating in football is more important than, well, ANYTHING ELSE FACING CONGRESS. The ketchup viscosity studies the FDA wasted money on in the 1980s might have had more social relevance than Spygate. Why are we paying these guys?

It’s not enough to run them out of office. This dereliction of duty is nothing short of criminal. With our soldiers at war you could make a case that this is a form of treason. We elect these clowns to protect and defend us from enemies foreign and domestic, not to joust the windmills of professional sports.

You know, it’s enough to make a guy move out of the country…but what good would that do? Our government gets into everybody’s business. Too bad it never tends to its own.

Freedom of Speech doesn't get you a free pass

2008-01-18T10:03:00.000-08:00

Responsibility. Liberty sets us free from the shackles of governmental control but that freedom is far from being free. The price we pay is responsibility. Failure to accept responsibility can be costly. Recently we saw yet another example of somebody in the media behaving irresponsibly. And while Kelly Tilghman has been held accountable for making racially insensitive remarks regarding Tiger Woods' dominance in golf, nobody seems willing to hold her responsible. Apparently she's the victim of this horrible PC movement. The funny thing is that the story was all about Tiger Woods even though the comments weren't. She didn't say anything disparaging about Tiger. What she did was actually worse.

I don’t know Tiger Woods so I can’t tell you whether or not he was simply taking the high road when he dismissed Kelly Tilghman’s stupid comment about young golfers needing to “lynch” Tiger in some dark alley if they wanted to succeed in golf. Maybe he really doesn’t see what all the fuss is about. As a golfer the remarks are actually flattering but as an African American they're offensive.

Of course there’s a chance that Tiger finds those remarks more than a little offensive. There’s a distinct possibility that Tiger would love to see Kelly Tilghman fired. The problem is that Tiger Woods is not just a golfer he’s a brand and an icon. Tiger has more important things on his mind. So when some idiot pops off with an off color comment he just pulls his hat down and focuses on his game.

That’s why he wins. Tiger rarely says anything. He maintains a professional distance and that's why so many people dislike him but they have to respect him. And that's what counts. By the time he's finished every other golfer in the history of the game will be a footnote. Tiger has already gone where no other golfer has gone before. He is one of the richest and most famous people in the world and he's done it without pandering to the public or branching into other businesses. Instead, he has taken over golf. Every golfer on the PGA tour has seen their earnings increase since Tiger has joined the PGA Tour. Tiger's presence at an event increases sponsorships and attendance. He might be the single most important athlete in the world. Tiger doesn't have time to worry about anything else. So when somebody throws his name into an inflammatory comment he ignores it.

Fuzzy Zoeller got a pass from Tiger Woods when he trotted out some tired old joke about fried chicken and watermelon. Like Tilghman, Zoeller claimed he was a friend of Tiger’s and didn’t mean any harm. Tiger didn’t deny a friendship but actions speak louder than words. While Fuzzy was making the rounds trying to salvage his image, Tiger kept his mouth shut and played golf. Tiger and Fuzzy aren’t exactly BFFs and you probably won't see Kelly Tilghman over Tiger's house for dinner. In fact, Tiger released his statement through his agent. The personal touch speaks volumes. Tiger let's his enemies dig their own holes.

Tiger would probably love to see this all blow over. He's got his sites set on another season and wants to crush the latest crop of pretenders who think they can challenege him. Rumor has it Phil Mickelson is healthy and ready to win a couple of majors. Tiger would like nothing more than to humilate him on Sunday. This Tilghman issue is the last thing Tiger needs.

Thanks to Al Shaprton and a shameless cover onGolf Weekly magazine the issue is refusing to go away. Malign Al Sharpton all you like but he made a great point: if somebody had made a similar comment about gassing a Jewish sports figure there would be an international fuss. Kelly Tilghman is getting a bit of a pass partly because nobody watches the Golf Chanel and partly because she’s a sexy white chick.

Some people have gone so far as to ask why the term “lynch” is so offensive. It’s not. The context in which Tilghman used it was. The word “gas” isn’t offensive either. And while it’s true that white people were lynched there is no denying the fact that far too many African Americans were hanged in this crude manner with staggering just forty years ago. It might not have been what you would call common practice but it happened often enough to make “lynch” a pretty inflammatory word. Genocide isn't funny.

And there’s little doubt in my mind that Tilghman did not mean to imply anything malicious. She might be friends with Tiger and in a closed conversation amongst mutual friends far more offensive things might be uttered in jest. Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock make very comfortable livings crafting jokes out of much more offensive commentary. The problem is that Tilghman wasn’t in familiar company and she doesn’t get paid to make jokes. In fact, she gets paid to offer insightful commentary on golf. Jokes aren't in her job description.

Should Tilghman be fired? I think so. It’s not that her remarks are that offensive but when she assumed a position in front of a camera she accepted certain responsibilities and one of them is to have her brain engaged before she runs her mouth. Sports broadcasters have been canned for similar offenses. For me it’s not even a PC issue, it’s about professionalism. People get fired for screwing up at work all the time. Little mistakes are one thing but failing at your core responsibilities is another. We have far too many washed up jocks passing themselves off as experts. Tilghman seems to fit in that category.

The real problem I have is the context of her comment. Not the racially insensitive aspect of it, but the shameless ploy at trying to be funny. I know she was joking but she was trying to rehash a joke Nick Faldo made about younger golfers ganging up on Tiger Woods to take him on. She interjected “lynch him in a back alley”. Is she a golf bimbo? It just seems liek she was reaching for an opportunity to showcase wit that simply isn't there. Clearly Kelly was hired because she has many of the same attributes your local weather girl has. If she’s allowed to return to her position, Tilghman will likely be reminded that short skirts and form-fitting tops are what she is supposed to bring to each broadcast. Other than that, stick with the script and nod when you're lost.

It doesn’t matter whether Tiger took umbrage or not. Tilghman didn’t direct her comment to Tiger, it was made about him. It’s not a personal issue. The thing that troubles me is that we all know this. When you put something out there for the world to hear the world gets to pass judgment. Everybody stands to pay a price for putting a foot in his mouth but that price isn’t consistent. If you make a living in front of a camera chances are you simply can’t afford it.

Money Ball

2008-01-09T12:23:00.000-08:00

It’s all about the money.

The NCAA crowned its national champion in football with the officially unofficial BCS Championship game. It’s unofficial because at the formerly anointed Division I-a level, bowls are not formally part of the NCAA season.

During bowl season we hear a lot of talk about student athletes. It’s designed to make us feel good about what college football represents. The NCAA would have us believe that these young men are playing football for the love of the game while they better themselves through a well-rounded college education. The reality couldn’t be further from the truth.

Nothing typifies a good thing gone bad like the two teams in the BCS Championship Game. While both Louisiana State University and The Ohio State University both excel on the field both programs leave quite a bit to be desired in the class room. An astonishing number of athletes spend more than four years on campus and yet still fail to obtain a degree and those who graduate seldom do so in a curriculum of any value. Look through the roster of either team and you’ll see a lot of players majoring in things that seem rather vague and quite impractical.

To be fair, successful programs such as Ohio State attract players who are destined to play in the NFL and many choose to leave early. While fans and educators often lament the early departure it’s hard to fault the players for being lured away. They simply want to get paid for their vocation.

You see, once you get to the collegiate level football isn’t always fun. Players are required to juggle a full academic schedule, for whatever its worth, with a full athletic schedule. Officially coaches are limited to the number of hours they can require the so-called student athletes to focus on football but unofficially the players are coerced into participating in voluntary practices and film study sessions led by team captains who report directly to the coaching staff. Even at the high school level athletes know that the term voluntary always comes with quotation marks around it.

Unlike high school, there’s money to be made at the collegiate level. Ohio State generates enough revenue to make a lot of professional franchises jealous and a big reason for the tidy profit is that the players don’t draw salaries. Like the NFL, the NCAA inks hefty television contracts and locally schools are able to negotiate radio rights. Endorsements and sponsorships roll in every year but the players take the field for free. Some equate the scholarship to a salary but when you consider the revenue generated by the NCAA a scholarship is hardly fair compensation.

That’s why the biggest and best programs cheat, and the NCAA lets them. USC encountered a shallow puddle of tepid water when stories of Reggie Bush’s financial arrangements surfaced. Officially the NCAA is investigating but anybody who has followed these investigations knows that findings aren’t always objective and the crimes are often molded to fit the punishment. The NCAA doesn’t want to disrupt its cash flow by putting the screws to a consistently profitable program and USC is the cornerstone of the NCAA’s western market. Don’t count on USC to receive much more than a firm slap on the wrist if anything.

The NCAA gave Ohio State the wink and nudge routine when Maurice Clarett encountered some trouble. Even though the paper trail led right up to Jim Tressel’s office, Ohio State was able to demonstrate plausible deniability and Clarett shouldered the blame for any and all wrong doing. Even though there were credible allegations that Clarett cheated in several classes and was violating NCAA rules when the Buckeyes beat Miami for the 2002 BCS Championship, the NCAA didn’t issue any sanctions that jeopardized the season. Was that because Ohio State was clean, or was it because Ohio State generates millions of dollars in profits for the NCAA?

Tressel, by the way, is no stranger to NCAA infractions. While coaching the Youngstown State Penguins, where he won four Division I-aa national titles, Tressel was part of a pay-to-play scandal. YSU was slapped with a minor sanction for failure to maintain institutional control over certain aspects of the program but other allegations went unexamined. The NCAA did enough to sustain the appearance of propriety.

Tressel’s not alone. Scandals have plagued big programs around the country. Bobby Bowden is notorious for looking the other way, Barry Switzer was effectively run out of the college ranks for blatantly paying his players. Dennis Erickson’s Miami teams were rife with controversy but only the most outlandish violations draw meaningful sanctions from the NCAA. It’s when schools go so far as to embarrass the NCAA that the wrath of the NCAA is felt. As long as an effort is made to maintain the image of propriety, the NCAA will skew its investigations to implicate the players and not the program.

The NCAA is a powerful monopoly. It has conspired with the NFL to prohibit players from pursuing a professional football career until they are at least three seasons removed from their graduations. While the NFL doesn’t officially require players to play three years of college football, what other choice is there?

And choice is the last thing college players have. Once a player commits to a particular school transferring to a more favorable setting is difficult. The NCAA discourages players from transferring by requiring them to sit out a full season. Some provisions make it impossible for a player to pick up a scholarship from another program. On one hand, this discourages players from behaving irrationally and transferring every time they have a problem but the NCAA doesn’t make any distinction in the reasons for transferring. The junior running back that lost his starting job to the next Barry Sanders? The pocket passer who saw the coaches who recruited him fired in favor of some yahoo with a spread offense? The linebacker who was just told to gain 50 pounds and play tackle? Too bad.

Of course the NCAA doesn’t have a problem with coaches who can’t keep commitments. Rich Rodriguez is in good standing in spite of lying about his flirtations with Michigan and then refusing to coach his team in the Fiesta Bowl. Bobby Petrino left the Louisville Cardinals in lurch to pursue an NFL job with the Falcons. Then he left the Falcons high and dry to take over the Arkansas job. If the NCAA is going to allow guys who demonstrate a track record of greed and dishonestly to continue coaching why should the players be restricted in their options. A regular student can transfer at will without penalty. A student who participates in a NCAA sanctioned sport can transfer without restriction but a football player under scholarship has to jump through hoops and sit out a year. Why?

Money. The NCAA knows that an unfettered transfer process would make it impossible for bigger programs to sit on talented players. When Troy Smith won his Heisman trophy his backup was a blue chip recruit who was considered one of the top quarterback prospects in the country. Justin Zwick patiently sat on the bench waiting for his turn and lost the starting job to Smith. The rest is history…much like Zwick’s career. If Zwick could have transferred without penalty to another Division I-a program he might have polished his game in system better suited to his skills and developed into an NFL quarterback. In the end, Zwick stayed put and faded into obscurity but you can bet Ohio State felt pretty good about having a fifth year senior riding the pine behind their star player.

And that’s not Ohio State’s fault. As an Ohio resident and a Buckeye fan I watched Zwick’s career up close. He threw a nice looking ball and had the physical attributes NFL scouts love. Maybe he was missing some of the intangibles or maybe he was mired in a program that doesn’t know how to develop great quarterbacks. Troy Smith might have won the Heisman, but he’s got a long road ahead of him in the NFL and Ohio State isn’t known for producing great signal callers at the next level.

The fact of the matter is that the last thing the NCAA cares about is the student athlete. Everything is in the best interest of money. And the players don’t see a dime. At least not officially.

So, What Next?

2007-12-10T11:47:00.001-08:00

It’s hard to say whether Michael Vick’s 23 month sentence fits the crime or not. On one hand, by legal definition, dogs are simply property. In recent years steps have been taken to enforce animal cruelty legislation but penalties are sometimes laughable. You would face more severe consequences for getting pulled over with a bong in your front seat than you would if you happened to be dragging a dog behind your car.

On one hand, Vick didn’t hurt anybody. He ran an illegal dog fighting ring. The 23 months he was sentenced to serves as punishment for breaking interstate commerce laws. The animal cruelty charges carried minor penalties. Ultimately Vick didn’t commit a crime against another person. He is not a threat to himself or others. So 23 months seems kind of steep, if you’re being objective.

Of course it’s hard to be objective. Like so many people, I too love dogs. It’s really hard for me to dismiss Vicks crimes as victimless when I think about what dog fighting entails. Even if Vick hadn’t been accused of brutally exterminating dogs that didn’t perform to his expectations I would still want to see a sentence of significant duration. Even if Vick walks the straight and narrow in prison the best he can hope for is to trim three months off his sentence. That means he’ll be in prison until the summer of 2009. That’s a long time. Long enough to drive home a powerful message.

I have no doubt that Vick’s days of dabbling in illegal enterprises are over. I have serious doubts as to whether or not I could handle nearly two years of incarceration. That’s a long time to sit in stir. Vick’s punishment, however, goes well beyond the prison sentence. He has become a pariah. He stands to loose millions of dollars while he is in prison while former employers and sponsors seek to recoup money paid to Vick in good faith that he would remain a respectable spokesman. Vick could emerge from prison carrying substantial debt with no means to earn an income sufficient to recoup his losses. The NFL is not obliged to reinstate him and even if he does get a nod from Commissioner Roger Goodell, Vick will not command a high salary.

The question is whether or not this is worthwhile. Vick’s punishment is fair provided it helps discourage the underground activity of dog fighting. If the Federal Court pursues less recognizable practitioners with similar zeal we might take a big step toward putting an end to the brutal endeavor. If the Court continues to treat low profile suspects with kid gloves then Vick’s punishment is nothing but window dressing and it will prove to be horrible unfair and arbitrarily punitive.

Michael Vick’s received his punishment. He is on his way to paying his debt to society. Now it’s time to let Michael Vick go about the business of earning a second chance. Rather than worrying about what will happen when Vick gets out of prison we need to focus on the criminal justice system. Was this just a good show for the cameras?

In the Name of God

2007-10-24T07:28:00.000-07:00

The Golden Compass is the first book in the controversial His Dark Materials trilogy, by Phillip Pullman. The film adaptation, starring Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman, will be coming to theaters this December. Even though nobody has had a chance to screen the movie conservative Christian groups such as the Catholic League have gone on the offensive. Bill Donohue, the Grand Inquisitor of the Catholic League is furious because Pullman is allegedly a “militant atheist” who penned his trilogy to encourage impressionable teens to question their faith. Even if the movie softens its content to deal with more abstract conventions, Donohue maintains that it will draw readers to the books where Pullman’s viscous agenda is unchecked by Hollywood executives.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, disagrees. He read the trilogy and met with Phillip Pullman. Dr. Williams sees the books as a direct challenge to dogmatism. While Pullman formally identifies himself as a humanist, he does not have an axe to grind with religion in general but the power structure within organized religion that utilizes fear to instill a sense of conformity and compliance. That’s actually a pretty common trait among atheists and agnostics.

In 1999, Kevin Smith released a brilliant exploration into his own religious background. Smith, a Catholic, examined his faith with a satirical eye and delved into the roots of spirituality. The result was a hilariously clever but poignant movie entitled Dogma. Before Dogma was even released Bill Donohue and his minions were out in force protesting the release of the film and demanding boycotts. Ultimately Smith’s film was not an indictment of religion so much as it was man’s ability to corrupt it. Kevin Smith rarely pulls punches with his writing, and casting Chris Rock as the voice of reason made it difficult for a lot of people to absorb the message but in the end Dogma lets God off the hook and indicts man for the flaws in religion. Of course most of the people who could keep the vulgar content of the movie in perspective and actually get the point were lost when they saw who Smith cast in the role of God.

The problem with people like Donohue is that they refuse to open their minds. It’s OK for Mel Gibson to rake in millions of dollars by cashing in on Christ but the minute somebody challenges the authority of organized religion they call for boycotts. These people behave like spoiled children, throwing monumental tantrums whenever anything doesn’t go their way. There’s no civility or respect, just pigheaded protests. Donohue sometimes goes beyond acts of civil disobedience filing lawsuits and even employing borderline criminal intimidation tactics to force people to comply with his agenda.

Ironically, Donohue is a perfect example of religion gone bad. He’s a blustering, beet-faced bully who spends so much time preaching from on high he doesn’t see the fact that he is the problem. Donohue is all about money, power and control…which is exactly what Jesus took issue with when he threw the merchants out of the temple.

Donohue doesn’t practice Christianity as defined by Jesus. He embodies the sort of imperialistic dogmatism that stigmatizes organized religion. Donohue’s Catholicism protects pedophiles from the criminal justice system because the Church must appear infallible. Donohue’s Catholicism has a high powered legal team. Donohue’s Catholicism spends more time waging a war on the way people express their holiday wishes rather than simply expressing his. Here’s an idea: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Ring a bell? Jesus approached those who denied him with open arms; Donohue, and his ilk, does it with a clenched fist.

The Golden Compass is not an attack on faith at all, it’s a critique of those who exploit faith for personal gain. For centuries religion has been used to control and oppress people. Its purpose was to consolidate power within the confines of the Church hierarchy. The reason Donohue and the Catholic League take it so personally is because no religious institution has been so corrupt for so long. That’s not an indictment of Catholics, most of whom are wonderful people; the problem is with executive branch of the Church headquartered in Rome. For more than a thousand years the Vatican has positioned itself in front of God. Critics of Catholicism believe that Catholics actually worship the Pope and for a number of years that was the case. This is why old school Catholics, like Donohue, refuse to acknowledge the fallibility in their own religion. If the Vatican is flawed so is the entire religion. It’s hard to find another religion that has been so successful at putting God’s reputed power in the hands of a few men. When it happens on a smaller scale, society calls it a cult.

That’s what makes religion dangerous. When people suspend rationality and put their faith in a dogma created by man rather than spiritual concepts they become slaves to dogmatism. That is the basis of atheism. The problem isn’t with God, it’s with man. The Golden Compass is the latest installment of an exploration into the nature of religion. It’s going to ask questions and challenge conventions. If that makes you uneasy you’re on the wrong spiritual path.

Due Process Compromised by Political Aspirations

2007-10-02T07:25:00.000-07:00

Shameless self promotion and justice don't mix.

In spite of its many flaws our criminal justice system is superior to most around the world because of the presumption of innocence. Until a person pleads or is proven guilty they are presumed to be innocent. While the court of public opinion is willing to take an arresting officer at his word the court of law cannot.

In the grand scheme of things a misdemeanor charge of solicitation is not a big deal. Greater crimes are committed every day and one could make the case that prostitution is a victimless crime that really isn’t worth fighting. Why invest all that money in vice when those crimes generally involve consenting adults?

Prostitution rarely entails jail time. Public interests simply aren’t served when tax dollars are spent feeding and housing people who buy or sell sex. These cases are of such little importance most prosecutors amend the charges to petty offenses such as disorderly conduct. Small fines are paid and people are sent on their way.

Antonio Henton is a promising young football player for the Ohio State Buckeyes. He’s a third string quarterback who has athletic ability reminiscent of Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith. Most people around the country haven’t heard of him because he doesn’t play but in the microcosm that is Columbus he is a celebrity. So when Antonio tried to solicit sex from an undercover officer late one September evening the ensuing arrest was big news.

In Columbus police often practice a catch and release tactic when it comes to vice. A wayward man will get caught trying to close a deal for a 20 dollar holler and spend 15 minutes wearing handcuffs in the back of a squad car while the police run his criminal record and humiliate him. If he’s got no priors and seems sufficiently deterred from future indiscretions they’ll let him go. No need to ruin a guy’s life over a blow job.

Not too long ago Columbus vice officers busted a full service upscale brothel just outside of downtown. Much ado was made over the operation which had been infiltrated and tracked for months. It was reported that the clients who visited the brothel were high profile businessmen and public figures in the area but prosecutors decided to drop charges against all parties except for the brothel’s owner, Tamara Flory. She was sentenced to a few months in prison and released to probation for the next several years.

So precedent has been set. Prostitution is no big deal but yet Antonio Henton was arrested and it qualified as breaking news. Local channels interrupted regular programming with a crawl that announced Henton’s arrest and temporary incarceration. He spent the night in jail and was arraigned the next morning. That’s where things took an interesting turn.

The only place a person should expect justice is in the court room. The general public will jump to conclusions, police will make mistakes and the media will sensationalize a story to draw more viewers to the 11 o’clock broadcast of the local news. The court is the only place where judgment is not passed until justice is served and the judge is the only person who can see it through. We elect judges to be fair and impartial when others are not.

Amy Salerno is the judge who presided over Antonio Henton’s arraignment. Not surprisingly Henton entered a plea of not guilty and requested bail. Instead of recording the plea and advising Henton of his obligations Salerno lambasted the young college student with an opportunistic diatribe that one can only assume she labored over until the wee hours.

"Mr. Henton: I have to tell you sir that I and many fans and graduates of Ohio State University are very disappointed to see you here today in my courtroom. Considering, sir, the fact that you are an ambassador of Ohio State University; your visibility in the community, you need to keep that in mind, sir. "As well as the fact that you need to show up at court and henceforth you need to conduct yourself and comport your actions according to your status in the community, sir. "I can tell, sir, your head is hung down and you're looking extremely sad. I know you do not wish to disappoint your team members either, sir. I will give you a $2,500 cash or surety bond or appearance bond. Gook luck, sir, both off and on the field. Thank You."

It was a fine lecture and perfectly appropriate if Henton had entered a guilty plea but given the fact that a defendant is supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, Salerno’s comments were out of line. In fact, Salerno’s comments seem prejudicial and might very well serve to compromise the prosecution’s case. How can Henton expect a fair trial when his arraigning judge opted to address him in such an inappropriate and unprecedented manner? It would not be surprising to see the case get dismissed before the trial date and if Henton is found guilty it could be overturned on appeal. Salerno should know better.

I’ve been in a courtroom. Like Henton I was arrested for a first degree misdemeanor. Unlike Henton I was able to post bond within minutes and spent only a few hours locked up where as Henton spent the night in a cell and reported to his arraignment in prison garb and handcuffs. I was able to plead not guilty in a shirt and a tie. I did not speak to a judge not did a judge address me. I entered my plea with a paralegal who handed me a paper outlining the rest of the process. While I wasn’t facing charges of soliciting I was sitting next to a man who was and he received the same treatment. So I personally think that Henton was given undue attention given the nature of the charges but I’m not a judge or an attorney so I can’t attest to it from a legal perspective. I just know my experience did not include a lecture from the judge. To be honest, I was disappointed with the assembly line manner in which everything was handled.

Even if Henton’s arraignment wasn’t out of line, the manner in which Salerno addressed him was. It resembled a closing statement after a guilty verdict. Licking County Common Pleas Judge P. Randall Knece agreed in a response to Columbus Dispatch columnist Ann Fisher’s column on the matter. The full text of his email can be read on her blog.

Salerno’s comments reveal a serious problem with our criminal justice system. Salerno is a career politician. She has been walking the streets of Columbus politics for the better part of 25 years. When she realized a prominent Ohio State athlete was on her morning docket she smelled opportunity so she loaded up those Law and Order DVDs and stayed up all night practicing her landmark statement. The only problem is that is was completely out of line for the context of that case. She laid on the heavy drama and played to the cameras, which are a rare fixture in the Franklin County Courthouse, hoping to mine that soapbox moment in November. It was a clear cut case of premature judicial ejaculation. Salerno got all excited about a high profile case and shot her legal wad all over the arraignment. Gross? You bet…a gross miscarriage of justice.

When former Ohio State superstar Maurice Clarett faced the much more severe charges of armed robbery an carrying a concealed weapon his judge didn’t go out of his way to enter a sobering statement during the arraignment. In fact, Maurice didn’t hear such strong words after he accepted a plea and faced sentencing. What compelled Salerno to make such a scene in a much less important setting?

Henton isn’t a menace to society and his crime has no victims. If Salerno sabotaged the case with her ego and Henton goes free people can still sleep at night. If Salerno’s comments end up sealing Henton’s fate and he is found guilty he’ll pay a few hundred dollars in fines and court costs and be on his merry way. The problem isn’t what Salerno did to Henton. The problem is that Salerno has made it clear that our criminal justice system is fragile and that a rogue judge with an agenda can easily compromise the one principal that sets our system apart. Can we trust a judge like Salerno to handle more serious crimes? In the end, Salerno is guilty of a much more severe crime than that which Henton is accused of. We’re fortunate the charges weren’t more severe.

Innocent until proven guilty? It’s not supposed to be conditional.

The Great Racial Divide

2007-09-28T07:39:00.000-07:00

Republican pundits often complain that minorities, particular African Americans, are tricked into believing that the Democrats have their best interests at heart. They counter that the Democratic Party has made the African American community dependent on handouts and softened standards that make it impossible for minorities to compete in the open market. It’s an interesting point, inherently flawed but undeniably interesting.

Most minority groups believe that Republicans just don’t care about their needs. Colin Powell once criticized the Republican Party for wanting to tell African Americans what they need rather than engage African American leaders in a discussion about what they want. And the truth is that the social programs Democrats have tried to implement fail because Republicans are consistently trying to dismantle them. Rather than offering some ideas on how to build upon affirmative action and use it to achieve true progress, Republican want to tear it down and let the open market dictate social progress. The problem is that we have already been there…it was called segregation.

Minority leaders insist that they are not biased against Republicans at all; the problem is that the Republican Party ignores them. This point was driven home Thursday night at the All-American Presidential Forum at Morgan State University. The debate was intended to showcase Republican candidates addressing issues important to the African American community. The top four Republican candidates declined to attend. According to moderator Tavis Smiley, some of the campaigns declined to participate because the crowd was expected to be hostile and unreceptive but the official excuse for skipping the event was scheduling conflicts.

Fred Thompson, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney were all busy raising money for their respective campaigns. Of course the six candidates who did show played to the crowd and took their shots at the front runners but Newt Gringrich even called them out stating that the invitations for the debate were sent out in March providing every candidate with ample opportunity to make proper arrangements. The four Republican front runners also skipped a forum earlier this summer hosted by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.

While everybody acknowledges that the African American community is not likely to support a Republican candidate anytime soon, the snub drives home the point that Republicans just don’t care. Former Representative J.C. Watts, a rare African American Republican, characterized the decision not to participate as stupid and said that it reinforces the belief that race is an issue with most Republican candidates. The White House even released a statement reiterating the importance of reaching out to every community.

So why would these front running candidates have the audacity to skip such an event? The simple fact of the matter is that the heart and soul of the Republican Party is the angry white male. Listen to the pundits. Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter all rail against minority groups and the programs that are designed to help them. In 2000 Karl Rove sabotaged John McCain’s campaign by calling registered Republican voters in the south and informing them that McCain was father to a biracial child. It was true that McCain had adopted a child from Asia but the implication was that McCain had a black child and McCain was slaughtered in the primaries. Republicans sell traditional values, which means life as it was before the Civil Rights movement. Yes the good old days when the blacks were at the back of the bus, the women were in the kitchen and it was perfectly legal to run queers out of town.

As much as the Republican Party wants to play up the big tent image, the money is coming from white people with white issues on their minds. Republicans don’t care about minorities. This recent snub proves it.

McNabb Exposes harsh reality of NFL

2007-09-19T07:54:00.000-07:00

Donovan McNabb struck a nerve when he admitted to Bryant Gumbel that he believes black quarterbacks face greater scrutiny than their white counterparts. The story broke before Tuesday’s broadcast of HBO’s Real Sport with Bryant Gumbel was aired but the full context of the interview won’t soften the blow. McNabb’s revelation is polarizing.

Not too long ago Rush Limbaugh took a shot at McNabb’s popularity asserting that the Eagles QB got more credit than he deserved. In what can only be described as an opiate-induced haze Limbaugh stated that the media was “desirous” that a black quarterback do well. Never mind the fact that Warren Moon had already done that. Rush was rightfully sent packing by ESPN and narrowly missed a thorough ass-kicking by NFL Primetime co commentator Tommy Jackson.

McNabb deftly avoided the issue. He chose to take the high road and play football which won the respect of many. He showed the same poise when the infectious Terrell Owens decided to take personal shots at his quarterback. Now people will see McNabb as a whiner who wants to blame racism for his recent on-field struggles.

But lost in the controversy is the fact that what McNabb is saying is true. Even if it’s not a conscientious disparity, there is no question that black quarterbacks have a much tougher row to hoe in the NFL. Gone are the days when teams overtly denied black quarterbacks an opportunity to play, but that window of opportunity seems much smaller. White quarterbacks appear to have a much greater margin of error and teams seem more willing to identify themselves with a white quarterback.

McNabb sees a league dominated by black athletes but only six teams have black starting quarterbacks. McNabb sees a league that celebrates aging white quarterbacks as warriors while black quarterbacks who lose a step are cut without a second thought. Steve McNair was unceremoniously let go by Tennessee because the Titans had questions about his durability, which had been compromised by the team’s refusal to build a quality offense around the former MVP.

McNabb is in a similar position. Like McNair he’s a true pocket passer who can extend plays with his remarkable athletic ability. Instead of scampering downfield at the first sign of pressure, McNabb moves around behind the line of scrimmage looking for an open receiver. The result can be remarkable and his ability has allowed Philadelphia to eschew traditional concerns such as shoring up the offensive line and developing a consistent rushing attack. Unfortunately this strategy results in the QB taking more punishment. McNabb has had two seasons derailed by injuries. He tried to play through a hernia in 2005 and in 2006 he sustained a severe knee injury that will haunt him throughout the 2007 season.

In spite of all he has done, the Eagles drafted a quarterback in the 2007 draft. Instead of acquiring a quality receiver, a power running back or a few solid offensive linemen the Eagles opted to send McNabb a message: his days are numbered. Unfortunately with the talent around him McNabb’s chances to succeed are limited.

McNabb knows this. He sees his white counterparts around the league getting help. A few hundred miles up the road Tom Brady threw a tantrum over the quality of his offense and Bob Kraft went out and found receivers for him. Instead of getting blamed for his teams struggles, people gave Brady a pass and agreed that his productivity was compromised by mediocre receivers. Now the Patriots look unbeatable.

McNabb is taking the blame for the failures of his team. If he complained about the talent around him people would label him a whiner and the Eagles would be eager to cut him loose. When Tom Brady goes to management and complains about the state of his team, he’s being a leader but if a black man does the same thing he’s selfish.

Nothing typifies the disparity like Brett Favre. People adore him but the Packers are terrible and Favre’s “gunslinger” antics don’t help. As likeable as he is, Favre is reckless and he’s lost more games with his questionable sense of judgment than he has won with his rocket arm. When asked if he plans to take it down a notch and play more conservatively Favre bristles at the notion and insists that he’s always going to be a gunslinger. It makes for a great story but the reality is that Favre is a mediocre quarterback who puts himself above the team. Sure he’s tough but he’s also rather stupid at times.

Imagine if Favre was black. Would the Packers have played his game in the off season? Would he still be a media darling after capitulating about retirement for an entire off season? The answer is no. The Packers would have replaced him as the starter five years ago if Favre was black.

You can’t compare McNabb to Peyton Manning but a couple of years ago Manning lambasted his offensive line after a dismal playoff performance. Even though people felt his public rant was out of line the criticism wasn’t as severe as it would have been if Manning was black. His brother Eli wasn’t characterized as a petulant prima donna when he refused to sign with the Chargers but if Eli was a few shades darker you can bet it would still be an issue and you can bet the Giants would be less inclined to work through his growing pains.

A great example of this double standard occurred during the 2007 draft. Throughout the process scouts thoroughly examined Brady Quinn and Troy Smith. Quinn was criticized for not playing exceptionally well against top-ranked teams. Smith was haunted by a humiliating performance in the BCS Championship game. Both players skipped portions of the scouting combine and dictated the audition process by holding private workouts.

Smith was often questioned about his height and reportedly got testy about the subject causing many to speculate that his attitude was the reason for his slide in the draft. Still, Brady Quinn was bigger news because he slipped from the top five to the 22nd pick. If Troy Smith had been white would he have fallen so far? Drew Brees struggled with many of the same issues but he was drafted in the second round. Smith waited until the second day.

The problem is that you can’t prove that race is involved. It could simply be coincidence but when it comes to these matters perception is reality. A white fan looks around the league and sees a different situation than a black fan. A white fans sees six black head coaches and thinks it’s a fair representation of our country’s racial balance. A black fan sees all of the black players in the league and wonders why so many are denied coaching opportunities.

Donovan McNabb stepped on a lot of toes when he spoke from the heart but if you look at it from his perspective he makes a valid point. He has been harshly criticized over the years. He led the Eagles to the Super Bowl only to have credit for that feat stolen by Terrell Owens who didn’t even suit up during the playoffs. It was McNabb who led the team to the Super Bowl and McNabb who threw for more than 300 yards but as a team the Eagles fell short. Instead of questioning Andy Reid’s game plan, mistake prone receivers and a confused defense, people focused on McNabb. They questioned his competitive spirit.

Peyton Manning endured similar questions but not to that degree. The focus on McNabb has always seemed malicious. Part of that is the idiotic nature of Philadelphia sports fans. Part of it is because for every legitimate critic there’s a racially biased moron rubbing salt on the wounds. Also, many people are racists without even knowing it. Much of the criticism might be the manifestation of latent racism. Nevertheless, the Colts didn’t demonstrate a lack of faith in Peyton Manning by spending their first pick in the draft on a promising young quarterback, the Colts went out and found people to help Manning get over that championship hump.

McNabb’s right, race is a big factor in the NFL and now that he’s gone out on a limb and said so, we’ll see just how awful it is.

Lesson of 9-11 Yet to be Learned

2007-09-11T06:52:00.000-07:00

September 11th has been dubbed "Patriot Day" in remembrance of those who lost their lives in the infamous terrorist attacks. Lost in all of the flag waving is a pragmatic look at what led to those attacks and what we have done to prevent them in the future.

First of all, the organization accused of the attacks is still in tact. Osama bin Laden appears to be as charismatic as ever and his ability to elude US forces has expanded the cult of his personality. Al Qaida has increased its reach and recruits members from all over the world. Millions of Muslims living in poverty and chaos see him as a hero. How can we honor those who died when the man believed to be responsible for those deaths is still at large, celebrating this day as his greatest accomplishment?

Second, we have not begun to address the root of the problem. Why did Osama bin Laden order such a devastating attack? Too many people have convinced themselves that these Muslim extremists simply hate our way of life but the reality is that Osama bin Laden's goal has always been the removal of western influence in Middle Eastern affairs. For hundreds of years European countries held loose control over tribal cultures, drawing arbitrary borders and creating imperialistic governments that failed to respect the rich cultural diversity of the area. The result has been decades of regional instability and global exploitation. How is it these countries that produce so much oil have so many people living in poverty while those of us who purchase that oil live in decadent comfort? This is the question that drives so many to hate the US. It's not our lifestyle but the fact that we appear to enjoy it at their expense.

Our current foreign policy typifies precisely what has bred the extremism that threatens stability throughout the region. We're trying to impose an American way of life on people who want nothing to do with it. In order to maintain control, political leaders must gain support of Islamic clerics while they fight to generate enough revenue to improve the quality of life for their citizens. Too often, the United States is perceived to be standing in the way of progress and anti-American sentiment grows.

September 11th 2007 marked the sixth year of this country's failure to address these issues. Thousands of Americans have lost their lives and there is no end in sight. Our military is overextended, our national budget is in the red, Osama bin Laden is still ranting, and the world is still a very dangerous place. Mission Accomplished?

Patriot Day. It's great that we have seen fit to honor the fallen in word but a shame that we have not done right by them in deed.

Watch what you say

2007-08-29T09:46:00.001-07:00

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The first amendment addresses all things pertaining to freedom of expression. As amendments go it seems somewhat cumbersome because it appears to have freedom of speech, press and religion all thrown together with the right to assemble and the right to petition. That does not diminish the importance of these rights. The fact of the matter is that this amendment is the cornerstone of our democratic republic. It’s sacred.

Nobody can be punished for exercising this right. People can’t be prohibited from expressing themselves. That’s why every year the KKK gets to hold rallies. There are some limits as to how one can express themselves but those limitations only apply when the rights of other people are infringed upon. When expression becomes harassment the first amendment has been abused.

However, there is no provision addressing the issue of public accountability. When you exercise your right to free expression you open yourself up to varies consequences. You can’t be imprisoned for exercising your rights but there a big difference between punishment and accountability.

In Columbus, Ohio racism doesn’t seem to be that big a problem. Mayor Mike Coleman enjoys tremendous popularity and he happens to be African American. He’s a career politician bent on climbing the political ladder so he is not nearly as effective as he should be but all things considered he is a decent mayor. He’s done a fair job and his administration’s only serious scandals have involved his alcohol dependent wife and even her struggles have been handled fairly. Nobody has passed undue judgment.

Columbus, however, is no racial utopia. Racism is alive and well. It’s practiced on a daily basis but it’s covert. White people in Columbus don’t have the guts to express their true feelings unless they believe they are in the company of like-minded people. In many ways this racism is worse than overt bigotry because it has evolved to survive the so-called politically correct era in which we live.

That’s why Susie Purtee comes as a surprise. Susie Purtee is a patrol officer for the Columbus Police Department. Recently WBNS and The Columbus Dispatch reported that Susie Purtee published some racially insensitive commentary on the internet with her sister. In this video rant Susie and her sister call themselves the “Subie Sisters” and discuss a variety of topics ranging from Jews to African Americans, to Hispanics. If there’s a problem it can be attributed to some filthy minority and the Subie Sisters explain how to make that connection with the intellectual savvy only inbred white trash can deliver. The fact that these two old war horses managed to post videos on the internet is quite a surprise. I would have pegged them as the opening act for Toby Keith.

Now Susie is a cop, a fact she believes makes her an authority on the state of affairs in the world today, which creates a public relations nightmare for the Columbus Police Department. It’s bad enough dealing with day to day complaints but now there is proof in streaming video that at least one cop on the payroll might be predisposed to prejudice. That places every case Susie Purtee has been involved with in doubt. City officials are reviewing the matter to see what action should be taken and the FOP has already stated that it supports Susie Purtee’s constitutional rights and will defend her if action is taken.

The problem is that Susie’s constitutional rights do not guarantee her continued employment. When you open your mouth you take your chances. I know that everything I publish on the internet can be reviewed by anybody at any time. I accept the fact that I can be held accountable for expressing my opinions in a public forum. That means my boss might not care for my thoughts on George W. Bush and subsequently fire me. My employment is not guaranteed under contract and even if it was there are ways to show cause. I’m a representative of my employer and my blogs could affect business if clients read them.

Police have to be held to a higher standard. They carry badges and guns. They have the ability to arrest people and enter private property. The constitutional measures that prohibit civil rights abuses by law enforcement officers are retroactive. Ultimately police are granted the authority to temporarily override the Bill of Rights. When a patrol officer asks to search your vehicle he is asking you to forfeit your rights but if you refuse he can claim exigent circumstances and conduct the search anyway. If that officer is Susie Purtee the exigent circumstances could be tied to ethnicity.

We can’t have racist cops. There’s too much at stake. A racist car salesman might not be inclined to throw in floor mats, a racist realtor might steer non-white buyers away from certain developments but a racist cop might shoot a black suspect when the similar white suspect would live to run another day. Not too long ago a warrant was served on a deranged Somali man living in Columbus. He refused to drop a knife that he was waving around and officers shot him dead. The shooting was justified but a few months later a white man was taken down with non-lethal stun guns. Race might not have been a factor but when somebody like Susie Purtee comes along you have to wonder.

Shame on the FOP for pledging support. There are too many good cops out there for the Fraternal Order to waste time defending the thugs, hooligans and bigots who besmirch the reputation of law enforcement. Instead of defending Purtee, the FOB should be lobbying to get her fired. The so-called “blue wall” is precisely why so many people lack respect for police. Americans don’t trust cops because they refuse to hold themselves to the higher standard their station demands. Susie Purtee’s rights are not being trampled.

When it comes to employment the only right we have is to pursue it. We have a right to be judged on our qualifications and our character. Potential employers aren’t supposed to allow race, gender or creed to affect the process but nobody is entitled to a job. You have to earn your living. Susie Purtee earned the privilege of working as a police officer because she passed all the tests and met all of the requirements but her continued employment is conditional. By publishing her racist views on the internet she brought shame upon her profession and betrayed the trust of the public she works for. She must be held accountable.

Vick's not worthy of NAACP support.

2007-08-22T13:17:00.000-07:00

Wow! The Atlanta NAACP has asked the NFL to refrain from banning Michael Vick. Why? The NAACP is an important organization but throwing its support behind a man who made a conscientious decision to break the law only compromises its credibility in dealing with more substantial issues.

Michael Vick is not the victim of racial discrimination. He hasn’t been singled out or treated unfairly. It’s true that this story has garnered considerable attention but that’s not because Vick happens to be black; it’s because he’s one of the most marketed players in the NFL. The world was his oyster and he had a enough money for seconds. People are fascinated because Vick chose to throw it all away.

Vicks supporters, including teammates like Fred McCrary, insist he’s a good father and a fine man but do good men associate with known criminals? People bought and sold drugs in a house Vick owned because he allowed drug dealers to live there. Do good fathers slam dogs to the ground until they stop breathing? We all make mistakes but traveling around the country to participate in the felonious act of dog fighting isn’t an indiscretion, it’s a criminal lifestyle. Good fathers don’t end up in prison.

Animal cruelty is not as serious an offense as it should be. Realistically Vick will serve less than a year behind bars. He’ll be sentenced to more but post sentencing appeals and good behavior provisions will have him out in time to start the 2008 season. Virginia is considering state charges but Vick’s attorneys will fare much better in thwarting their efforts. The real penalty will come from the NFL.

The problem the NFL faces is twofold. On one hand they have the public relations disaster Michael Vick has created. Just when Roger Goodell thought he was getting the NFL’s image restored by punishing troublemakers like Chris Henry and Pacman Jones, the Vick saga unfolds and the NFL is suddenly taking a beating. Everybody is waiting to see how Goodell handles this high profile case. Suspending Chris Henry for eight games was easy, banning Pacman for a year was understandable but Vick was an officially licensed icon. What now?

Goodell wanted to wait for the courts to determine Vick’s fate but the specter of boycotts and protests forced him to put Michael Vick on administrative leave. At the time it looked as though Vick would be mired in a high-profile trial that was scheduled to start right after Thanksgiving. It was a distraction nobody wanted so Goodell put everything on ice. Now that Vick has agreed to plead guilty to felonious criminal activities the NFL must take action. The fact that Vick has been accused of virtually torturing dogs to death makes determining the course of that action decidedly difficult.

But it might be a moot point. The NFL has never had to address the issue of dog fighting but gambling is a subject sports league commissioners know all too well. Every sport at every level has rules that spell out stiff penalties for gambling and most of them end with the words lifetime ban. Vick’s activities included illegal gambling because numerous bets were placed the dogs. It doesn’t matter how much he bet or that the betting was limited to dog fighting. The fact that Vick participated in illegal gambling might warrant a significant suspension. With the recent gambling scandal in the NBA no league can afford to take these infractions lightly. So the NFL has an easy way out.

Aside from skin color the NAACP has no basis for getting involved on Michael Vick’s behalf. Unlike Genarlow Wilson, a high school kid thrown in prison for receiving oral sex, Vick knowingly committed the crimes he is going to plead guilty to. Playing in the NFL is a privilege Michael Vick revoked when he allowed himself to become a public relations nightmare. The NFL will lose millions of dollars in revenue thanks to Vick’s decision to break the law and millions more will be lost if Vick is allowed to come back.

This isn’t about color. The NFL places a similar stake in Peyton Manning’s public appeal. Like Vick, Manning is one of the official faces of the NFL. Ladainian Tomlinson and Brian Urlacher are also go to guys when it comes to mass marketing the product that is the NFL. If any of them brought similar shame upon the league they would be facing similar circumstances. To put it in perspective OJ Simpson was found not guilty in a court of law but the NFL goes to great lengths to keep the Hall of Fame running back away from league functions. In the end it’s about money.

Racism is alive and well in this country. Genarlow Wilson is still in jail, six black kids in Louisiana are facing prison time for fighting back against racial intimidation, and somewhere somebody is being denied an opportunity because their skin is too dark. Michael Vick has his opportunity and squandered it. The NAACP should not compromise its integrity by helping him get another one. The NFL would be right to banish Vick from the league forever and the NAACP support that action.

I made you say underwear!

2007-08-15T07:15:00.000-07:00

I go out of my way to avoid Fox News. I guess I like the liberal propaganda foisted on society by all of the other media outlets. Last night, I stopped at a local pub and caught a closed caption version of John Gibson’s “My Word” rant.

Now Gibson is a professional polemicist. He is paid to be a pompous, self-righteous ass because there’s a lot of money to be had when there’s a heated argument. I don’t take people like Gibson or transsexual pundit Ann Coulter seriously. They don’t believe half of what they say. What I do take seriously are the people who subscribe to their positions.

Gibson’s latest rant was in support of a local ordinance in the little town of Mansfield, Louisiana. Apparently local officials have been so successful curing the ills of the world that they now have time to focus on the scourge of sagging pants. Effective September 15th Mansfield police officers will be able to write a $150 ticket to people who expose their underwear. It was not specified if there will be an exemption for plumbers and/or appliance repair technicians.

Gibson thinks that the community should enforce the ban until the courts rule against it. He said he might sound old but he doesn’t like sagging pants and he’s tired of seeing people like Britney Spears running around in her underwear. Of course he is, being staunch conservative he would rather see a congressional page completely naked and face down on a bed.

Forget about Gibson’s support of the ordinance or his homosexual procilivities. The issue at hand is the enactment of a law that is essentially a waste of time and a violation of civil rights. This battle has been fought time and time again to no avail. Back in the 1950’s the issue was plain white t-shirts and tight blue jeans. Small towns across the country futilely imposed rules and regulations mandating an acceptable dress code. Sagging pants and exposed boxers are no different. Sadly, many of the people carping about low riding pants are the same people who dared to wear jeans and t-shirts in public. Way to keep the faith, pops.

Below the surface it’s about race, not underwear. Clearly Mansfield is experiencing a little post-Katrina culture shock. Mansfield is not far from Shreveport and with New Orleans a long way from being repaired, former New Orleans residents are settling into nearby communities. Mansfield has probably seen an increase in African American residents which means that Hip Hop culture is more prevalent in a community that time somehow forgot. All of the sudden people woke up and the sharecroppers were lollygagging on the corner. Yes white kids do it to, but in the mind of these conservative nitwits that’s only because “negro culture” has been forced on them by the liberal conspirators.

Those who support the ban insist it’s about decency, contending that nobody wants to see another person’s underpants but how do you define underwear? What if somebody opts to wear swimming trunks or gym shorts under their sagging pants? And how can anybody take offense to boxers? I can see an objection when it comes to thongs but that objection is subjective. There are some people who shouldn’t wear thongs under any circumstance and others who should be required to wear nothing but a thong at all times.

Still, there’s no need for a law. If I happen to catch a glimpse of something I don’t like I tend to look the other way. If people want don saggy pants I have the option of ignoring their attire and the luxury of passing judgment on them. I never judge a person by the color of his skin but mix stripes with checks and court is in session. Throw on a “What Would Jesus Do” bracelet and I’ll cross the street to get out of harm’s way.

Generally I accept sagging pants as a passing fad. Like white T-shirts, flood pants and engineer boots, sagging pants make a statement. The whole idea is to piss off the old folks. A stupid ordinance is exactly what these kids want. It proves to them that adults are petty, small minded and ultimately powerless.

Hell, it stirs up my rebellious nature. Since the ban focuses on exposed underpants I’m tempted to drive down to Mansfield and put a pair of white briefs on the outside of my pants. Super hero style. I wonder if that would draw the attention of cops. We could get together and stage a million panty march to protest the ordinance.

The best way to get kids to pull up their pants is for adults to pull theirs down. Nothing kills a trend faster than adoption by old white people. Why do you think the Beatles broke up? As soon as old folks got past the mop tops and listened to the music the Beatles had to change their style and the band imploded. And look what happened to FUBU. My dad picked up a FUBU shirt at a thrift store and the entire brand lost its street cred.

Personally I’d rather see laws passed limiting how high pants can be hoisted. I find issues like camel toe far more offensive than whale tail. I’d much rather see junior’s boxers than the outline of grandpa’s nuts through a pair of chest high, sky blue sans-a-belts. Why not impose a ban on stretch pants too? While we’re at it, how about a complex ordinance outlining proper sock/shoe combinations? If we’re going to put an end to sagging pants we should also eradicate the practice of wearing black dress socks with white sneakers. And for crying out loud people, can we agree on a minimal amount of pigmentation before shorts can be worn in public?

Youth always wins. Every time the older generation has drawn a line the younger generation has rushed to cross it. We all know where this is headed. The underwear ordinance will fail and then kids will celebrate their victory by taking it to the next level. In fact, that trend has already started. Paris Hilton and her friends have been playing a game of celebrity hoo-hah for the past several years. If you didn’t like seeing underwear how will you feel about the full monty?

Dirty Work

2007-08-10T05:59:00.000-07:00

Illegal immigrants are criminals. End of story. The entire problem can be simplified to one issue: documentation.

If you believe that then the only thing that's simple in this discussion is your mind. It doesn't matter if Lou Dobbs has your back, failing to delve deeper into the subject is socially, ethically and morally irresponsible.

Illegal immigrants aren't stealing jobs. They are filling jobs that American citizens find disagreeable. If employers would improve working conditions, increase pay and offer benefits sufficient to support a modest existence people would fill these jobs. Of course that would require the American consumer to shell out more for goods and services that are provided thanks in part to cheap labor.

Much of that cheap labor comes from illegal immigrants but there are programs that allow employers to import workers from other countries. Illegal immigration is a convenient scapegoat but even if it's eliminated, we still have cheap foreign labor coming in. The primary provider of this labor is Mexico and the program is called H2B It essentially converts Mexico into a temporary labor provider. You can find H2B workers throughout the country performing work in seasonal operations such as landscaping, sanitation and roofing.

The H2B program sets a minimum wage (adverse effect wage rate) that the employers must adhere to and the available jobs must be publicly posted. The classified ads of your local newspaper are replete with H2B ads months before the effective recruiting season begins. This is clever because people seldom look for landscaping jobs in January so the recruiting effort is designed to fail. You can pick out an H2B ad by looking for jargon-laden spots that post an odd hourly wage. In Columbus the recent ads featured an hourly wage of $8.62 an hour. Several larger landscaping companies posted the same ad with the same hourly rate and they currently have Mexican work crews. Once the ad has run for a predetermined period of time the employer can request assistance from the H2B program to fill remaining openings.

The employers arrange for seasonal housing to accommodate this foreign workforce. The housing arrangements often violate local housing ordinances by crowding too many people into a single family home. In Columbus, Ohio one local lawn care company got into a little hot water when it was revealed that 12 men were living in a three bedroom home. The reason for this is that people making $8.62 an hour can't afford to rent an apartment or a home of their own. The H2B program exploits foreign workers, shipping them to the U.S. like some sort of economic militia.

Of course Lou Dobbs doesn't talk about this. He's worried about those illegal immigrants, many of whom secure documentation that looks legitimate enough to qualify for full time permanent jobs that pay a more realistic wage. The legal H2B program allows employers to keep wages below market value driving away natural born or naturalized candidates. The waiting list for the H2B program is long and it doesn't provide an actionable plan for gaining permanent residency status. This program actually makes illegal immigration more attractive thus exacerbating the problem.

But people don't want to pay $100 a pop to have their grass cut in order to bridge the wage gap. We like to blame the American worker for being too demanding and lazy but that's not it at all. The problem is $8.62 an hour. And that isn't even a real wage. The H2B workers are often 1099 employees which means they are subcontractors who must deduct their own taxes, cover their own workers' compensation and most importantly they are not entitled to overtime wages. Those H2B laborers will work 16 hours a day seven days a week until the assignment ends.

Employers who use the H2B program claim to see an increase in productivity, experience fewer complaints from the workers and of course they see a decrease in attendance problems. That's because they replace an empowered American workers with a captive labor pool. It's not quite slavery because these people volunteer and recieve compensation but it's not as if an H2B employee can quit for a better job.

The problem with the American worker is the fact that they have freedom of choice. If you don't want to work on Saturday you can quit and find another job, if an H2B employee doesn't want to work on Saturday INS will be there first thing Monday morning to escort him back to Mexico. The incentive for H2B workers is built in. Who needs whips when deportation is just a phone call away? H2B employees get no due process, they either do as they're told or they are rejected from the program. It's not fair.

The scam goes even deeper. The employer arranges for room and board and often deduct those expenses from the H2B payroll. In fact, many H2B employers purchase low cost housing and can write it off as an business expense while receiving remuneration for putting the employees up in those houses.. The employer also arranges for transportation and can deduct for that as well. If an H2B employee gets hurt or sick, they go back to Mexico. How can Americans compete with that? How can anybody? The H2B program allows employers to establish work conditions that haven't been legal since the early 1900's.

Instead of increassing pay and benefits to stimulate productivity in a highly competitive job market, employers sign up for the H2B program because it's cheaper. The process isn't easy and there are requirements that must be met but once the employer learns to navigate the red tape, the pipeline of cheap captive labor is open.

Illegal immigrants are actually better because they put most of their money back into the local economy when they pay rent, purchase food or acquire relaible trnasportation. H2B employees send most of their money back to Mexico as their living expenses are covered by the employer. Still, illegal immigrants drive wages down because their choices are limited by education and language barriers. The difference is that employers don't control those choices.

The H2B program was created to provide qualifying companies with a legal means of acquiring labor that was once only available through illegal immigrants. Instead of risking heavy fines and sanctions associated with violating INS regulations, employers can artificially drive American workers out of the market. It's becoming increasingly difficult for skilled and semi-skilled laborers to find gainful employment.

Corporate outsourcing is an extension of the same problem. Labor is cheaper overseas because those people live in conditions Americans find unacceptable but as long as those computer programs are packed five to a shanty in Bashur, the greedy senior executives who contracted them don't have to think about it. It's unfair to expect American workers to compete with people who live with a drastically reduced cost of living and the consequences of exporting jobs while we import cheap labor will be severe for everybody. How will companies make money when nobody can afford to buy their products?

Illegal immigration is a smoke screen. Spending more money to "secure" or borders fails to address the issue. Threatening resident aliens with prison time and deportation will not solve the problem. We have a serious problem but in order to solve it we need to take a long hard look at the actual value of the goods and services we depend on. Where do people get the money to purchase them? Yes, it's great to get your grass cut for $30 a week and a new roof for $2000 is a fantastic deal but what's the actual cost? What impact will your thriftiness have on your son's career? The economy is cyclical; if we allow that cycle to be broken everybody will pay a devastating price. We have already started making those payments.

Lou Dobbs can rant and rave from his anchor desk but has he ever stopped to wonder why those peaches were only 98 cents a pound? Does he think about who made his shoes or where his landscaper got his crew? Talk is cheap, Mr. Dobbs. Illegal immigrants aren't causing the problem…we need to address our greed. Before it consumes us.

Killer Coyotes Terrorize Rich People!

2007-07-31T09:37:00.000-07:00

Powell, Ohio is home to some of the wealthiest people in the greater Columbus area. Multi-million dollar homes grow like weeds in fields that were once part of small farms. Powell also lays claim to some impressive wooded lots, many of which attract those homeowners longing to escape the claustrophobic confines of urban living. But there’s trouble in those woods…trouble of the canine variety.

Coyotes have been inexplicably vilified by people for ages. For the most part the tiny Coyote, rarely tipping the scales over 40 pounds, is a skittish animal that preys upon small rodents but in some areas where habitat and natural food sources become scarce the coyote becomes an opportunistic feeder willing to rummage through trash, raid gardens and even gobble the occasional small pet. Attacks on humans are quite rare and have only occurred in extreme conditions. Pack hunting has been observed in isolated instances but the coyote, though highly social within its species, tends to hunt alone. They are timid animals that shun human contact. Rabies is a disease that can trigger dangerous behavior in any infected animal and seems to be the cause of aggressive behavior in coyotes.

This information is readily accessible today. A quick search on the web will reveal a number of websites more than happy to offer an objective view of the coyote and people in Powell most assuredly have internet access. They should be able to disseminate the truth and figure out how to live with the coyote in their midst. http://www.clemetparks.com/updates/notices/#coyote

It’s not complicated. In fact living with wildlife rarely is. All that is required is an acceptance of certain responsibilities. Responsibilities one would think a person willing to drop 3.5 million dollars on a wooded lot could readily accept. Securing garbage, protecting gardens and keeping an eye on small pets is all it takes and those are habits everybody should practice. The underlying rule is simple: don’t feed the animals. If people avoid that, contact with coyotes is minimal.

But people in Powell can’t be troubled with such monumental tasks. People in Powell want to feed the birds and the squirrels so they can enjoy nature, but they don’t want to contend with reality. Why should they be forced to invest in animal resistant trash receptacles when it would be easier for them to have somebody extirpate the offending wildlife?

Not long ago a man in Powell lamented to the editor of the Columbus Dispatch that he was regularly accosted by an aggressive deer on his way to the top of his drive to collect the morning paper. He seemed to think that the authorities needed to do something to address the issue of deer in his yard, a yard that happened to be adjacent to a large suburban park that encourages a healthy ecosystem. His story seems rather unlikely given that millions of deer encounters occur each week with the same result: the deer bounding away at amazing speed.

The coyote, however has sparked a firestorm. Self-righteous residents want action taken. At a recent meeting one woman, surprisingly inbred-looking for the esteemed village of Powell, pointed out that she lives right next to the woods and her children are at risk. Indeed they are, but more likely that risk comes from the nearby highway or the registered sex offenders in the area. The risk from coyotes is miniscule.

Even so, who put those children at risk? It’s not as if some eco-terrorist unloaded a truck of coyotes in Powell to upset the lives of the privileged and pampered. Islamic extremists in the midwest have proven to be surpisingly inept and don't generally deal with wilf animals. Coyotes have always been there. It’s just that urban sprawl has encroached on their habitat and the poor pups haven’t figured out how to handle it. Coyotes don’t get zoning notices.

Ironically people in Powell are also the fist to complain about raccoons, geese, groundhogs and squirrels; animals that have all enjoyed explosive population growth in light of a paucity of natural predators such as the coyote and its cousins the wolf and the diminutive fox. It’s the irrational fear demonstrated by the residents of Powell that virtually eliminated the predators at the top of the food chain. During the agrarian period of this country’s economic history farmers filled that role to keep their spreads flush. Now nature is making a comeback and people are getting in the way. Some of these people are collectors of animals much more dangerous than the coyote. One Powell resident is facing charges for letting an alligator escape in a local pond and not too long ago a missing boa constrictor turned up at a construction site. Sorry, but one pet alligator is infinitely more dangerous than a million wild coyotes.

It’s unfortunate to see the same sense of entitlement that rendered so many species extinct rear its ugly head in Powell. These people are the invaders. They made the choice to build expensive homes on large wooded lots. The least they could do is take it in stride and appreciate the cycle of life.

Vick's got to be punished

2007-07-18T06:49:00.000-07:00

Michael Vick has been indicted on federal charges connected to dog fighting. This has been an ongoing investigation and the indictment is the first indication that authorities have anything meaningful to connect Vick to any criminal activity. An indictment is serious business but it is still a long way from a conviction.

Even if convicted on all charges Vick won’t likely see prison walls. Animal abuse charges are minor issues and somebody with a relatively clean record will likely receive a suspended sentence, hefty fines and arduous probation. One could argue that Vick took part and murdering underperforming animals in addition to abusing those who met his expectations but the most serious component of Vick’s alleged activity is crossing state lines for the purpose of committing a crime. By federal and state standards the real problem with dog fighting is the illegal gambling that occurs around it.

Of course Vick is a rich man who can afford powerful attorneys. The odds of the charges in the indictment actually remaining intact by the time a trial begins are slim. Indictments are relatively easy to obtain because. The grand jury simply decides whether or not there is enough substance to an allegation to warrant a trial. The defense is very limited in what it can do during the grand jury proceedings but once the indictment is handed down and the trial process begins motions can be filed and charges can be amended to lesser offenses.

The most likely scenario is that Vick will use his money to squeak out of this. Somebody in his circle will fall on a sword in exchange for financial security and Vick will get off with a handful of misdemeanor charges. There simply isn’t enough meat to the indictment to really put the heat on Vick. He faces a statutory maximum of six years but with no serious legal issues in his past it would be hard for any judge to justify a significant sentence. That puts Vick in the driver’s seat when it comes to negotiating a plea agreement.

Perhaps our legal system needs to put some teeth into laws prohibiting crimes against animals. The methods with which Vick and his cohorts are accused of disposing of under-performing animals are appalling but people get away with abusing animals every day. Have you ever seen chickens transported from one place to the next via flatbed? Do you know how that Butterball Turkey came to be? Where do we draw the line?

Americans hold certain animals in higher esteem than other cultures do. In this country dogs and cats become beloved members of our families but in other parts of the world dogs and cats are beloved parts of the menu. Saint Bernard is coveted for its tender, juicy meat and raised in many Asian countries the way we raise cattle in the United States. Ultimately it’s subjective. Cows are sacred in India and delicious in Indiana.

The court of the federal government might not be able to punish Michael Vick to our satisfaction but the court of public opinion can. Michael Vick is a public figure and his livelihood depends on his marketability as much as it does his athletic ability. Sports are not all about performance. The NFL is built around money. As talented as Michael Vick is, nobody would play him if his presence on a roster had a negative impact on ticket sales. The Atlanta Falcons would cut him without hesitation if people refuse to support the team as long as Vick is on it. The NFL would suspend Vick with extreme prejudice if such an action was necessary to remain in good standing fans.

The great thing about the court of public opinion is that it doesn’t have to be fair or just. Even if Michael Vick is the innocent victim of a poor choice of friends we can hold him accountable for that. The court of public opinion doesn’t owe anybody anything. It’s totally arbitrary and decidedly cruel. There’s no due process and everything is admissible. You are either in the court’s good graces or you are not.

So while the lawyers and the reporters and commissioners all tiptoe around the legal issues the general public can render its decision and put the screws to Michael Vick. Whether the criminal charges are substantial enough to stick or not, we have enough evidence on Michael Vick to render a decision. He’s a jerk with bad judgment and he is no longer worthy of our esteem. Punish him accordingly.

Stupid is as stupid does

2007-07-16T14:54:00.000-07:00

You can tell that George W. Bush is the product of wealth and privilege. He refuses to take any responsibility for his mistakes and gets down right snotty when he is confronted with the mess he has made. Iraq has become such an obvious mess that most Republicans have gone to great lengths to distance themselves from Bush and the few who haven't publicly condemned his administration stop well short of supporting him. He's a true lame duck.

The entire country wants Bush to extract our troops from Iraq but Bush refuses. He characterizes a possible withdrawal as a defeat for the country but in reality he is simply too selfish to accept the fact that he was wrong. The defeat is all his. Pulling out of Iraq is not surrendering, it's just good sense. If the alleged government in Iraq isn't ready to stand on its own by now it never will. Perhaps it's best to let the rival factions wage war on each other to thin the field before we move troops back in. But Bush won't have it. He declared victory in Iraq four years ago and he's not about to abandon that vision. We will stay the course regardless of where that course goes.

This makes Bush a very dangerous man as his regime heads into its final throes. He's short on time. His political platform has been abandoned by his own party. The Rovian Republican era has come to an end. The 2008 election will be a departure from the neo-conservative theocracy that has ensnared this country in self-righteous nationalism and Bush will be held up as a scapegoat for the myriad problems this country will face in years to come. It's quite possible members of his administration will do time in prison before it's all said and done.

So count on Bush to leave a permanent mark on this country. One could argue that he's already done that with his Supreme Court nominations but with the power granted to him by the conservative majority on the high court Bush might very well be able to pull of the unthinkable. Even though he's struggling for approval, Bush managed to secure more power than his office was ever intended to hold and as a grateful public cheers his mandatory departure it would not be beyond the audacity of this petulant spoiled brat to spite us all. It could be a symbolic gesture such as replacing the Statue of Liberty with an oil derrick or something more devious like replacing the Bill of Rights with the Ten Commandments.

The frightening prospect of what this madman might do on his way out is precisely why he should be impeached. It's not uncommon for presidents to do things outrageous as they leave but those actions are generally limited to pardons. Bush might just do something really crazy like nuke Oregon or kick Massachusetts out of the Union. And then declare war on them.

People as pawns

2007-06-18T12:36:00.001-07:00

Mike Nifong is taking a rightful beating in the press. He violated the public trust when he refused to accept reality and proceeded to extend the now infamous Duke Lacrosse rape case. By now you know the gory details of how Nifong tried to parlay his diligent pursuit of the case into strong support from the black community in the Raleigh Durham area.

People have accused Nifong of bowing to pressure from the black community. As soon as this case was reported, people were worried that an African American stripper would see her right to justice overridden by the rich white parents of the boys who assaulted her. As it turns out, Crystal Gail Mangum was lying but since Nifong refused to call her on it nobody knows why. She should be charged but until Nifong is hung out to dry, she’ll remain on the back burner.

Most of the pressure came from the press, namely ESPN, who loved digging into a scandal involving spoiled rich white boys. Every once in a while sports reporters like to pretend to be real journalists. Following their lead the rest of the networks jumped aboard and the entire nation wanted to see heads roll. In Nifong’s defense, he had to press forward. If he made the call to drop the case in the midst of the media storm nobody would have bought it. Nifong had no choice but to wait. Sadly, he allowed himself to become too invested in winning and in the end he was guilty of pursuing what can only be described as malicious prosecution. The press even dropped the bone after DNA evidence all but exonerated the boys.

The press had egg on its face and everybody blamed Nifong. It didn’t matter that virtually every journalist who “covered” the story took the alleged victim’s side and nobody seemed to remember that the big concern was that the rich parents of the accused boys would bury justice under a big pile of legal currency. We all share part of the blame for the way everything snowballed but Nifong will take the fall. As well he should, he was the one with a legal obligation to drop the charges in spite of what the press and public might think. That doesn’t absolve the media of its ethical responsibility to not sensationalize a story.

Some outlets, particularly those with ultra-conservative leanings, have expressed great sympathy for the lacrosse players. While there’s no question they were subjected to excruciating public humiliation, they were not victims of some great social injustice. The system ultimately worked for them. They were wrongfully accused but they didn’t even have to stand trial. Yes, they endured scrutiny but that’s part of life. Let’s not forget that it was their own reckless behavior that put them in the position to be accused. The entire Lacrosse team had a bad reputation heading into this mess and it was their decision to have a raucous party complete with strippers. They may or may not have broken any laws but you don’t have to break laws to pay the consequences for your actions. If anything these kids learned a valuable lesson. At least they didn’t have to go to prison.

Most people can’t imagine being accused of a crime they didn’t commit. That’s a sentiment often expressed by the members of the pity party that has formed around the Duke Lacrosse boys. Being falsely accused is nothing compared to being wrongfully convicted. These kids didn’t even come close to enduring that. Their case didn’t even go to trial.

We have no idea how many people are wrongfully convicted every year. Nifong is nothing. Prosecuting attorneys often have political aspirations and they hand their hats on conviction rates. Prosecutors are more concerned with wins and losses than they are with justice. We’d like to think that’s not the case but it is. We know for a fact that people get sentenced to death for crimes they didn’t commit. If we can sentence the wrong person to death what’s going on with lesser crimes?

Rudy Giuliani made a name for himself as a hard-nosed prosecutor. Some people loved his stance on crime but there is some concern over his zealous pursuit of criminals, particularly the high profile cases that garnered plenty of media attention. He parlayed his tough persona into a successful bid to become mayor of New York where his administration was credited with cleaning up New York but at a steep price. The deaths of Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond seemed to be a direct result of Giuliani’s hard line style.

Another dangerous aspect of the criminal justice system is the shameless cronyism. In Columbus Ohio two men, Tim Howard and Gary Lamar James were sentenced to death for back in 1977. They were accused killing a security guard during a bank robbery. Both men were arrested when they contacted the police department to clear their names once they heard they were accused but their desire to set the record straight was not taken into account by assistant prosecutor George Ellis who clearly suspended his sense of justice.

The evidence simply didn’t hold up. Reasonable doubt is so painfully evident a modern day prosecutor would have refused to go forward and a reasonable defense attorney would have had the case dismissed. But this was Columbus, Ohio in 1977 and the defendants were two black men. It wasn’t too long ago that being black was all the evidence any jury needed to see. That didn’t stop George Ellis from withholding evidence and quite possibly suborning perjury. Activities he steadfastly denies to this day.

And where is he today? Still at the Franklin County Prosecutor’s office working for Ron O’Brien as chief legal counsel. It’s no surprise that O’Brien, who started his career at the prosecutor’s office as a legal intern in 1972, utilized taxpayer resources to prevent Centurion Ministries from getting a fair shot at justice for Howard and James. O’Brien’s got a vested interest in the continued suspension of justice.

Ultimately Howard and James were freed after spending nearly 30 years behind bars and the men responsible for putting them there were roundly chastised for the miscarriage of justice. Chastised but not punished.

Ron O’Brien wouldn’t stop there. When it came down to compensating Tim Howard and Gary Lamar James for the lifetime that had been stolen from them, O’Brien refused consider any financial reward and insisted on a wrongful incarceration trial. These men might have been found not guilty after spending 30 years in prison but if they wanted to receive any remuneration for their trouble they would have to prove themselves innocent.

Tim Howard went through the wrongful incarceration trial and was awarded $2.5 million but he died of a heart attack less than a year later. Gary Lamar James quickly settled for $1.5 million rather than endure the trial process. Surely he heard the ticking of the clock. Would you spend 30 years in prison for $1.5 million? Would Ron O’Brien?

Let’s not forget that these men were sentenced to die and would have been executed had some touchy feely liberal not managed to suspend the death penalty in Ohio. Howard and James were spared death in 1978 when their sentences were automatically commuted to life. Had they been executed nobody would have known of their innocence.

At least they got out. Of course, Tim Howard didn’t get much of a chance to make up for lost time but maybe Gary Lamar James will. Maybe. Prison has a funny way of taking an exponential number of years. You might serve six but you lose a few more on the back end. People who do time often see their life expectancies shrink much in the same was smokers and diabetics do.

But what about the people who don’t get out? Organizations like Centurion Ministries only have a fraction of the resources prosecuting attorneys around the country do and there are plenty of corrupt offices around the country where political allies take turns running for office. Let’s also bear in mind that nobody’s out there trying to overturn wrongful sentences for armed robbery or grand theft auto. If a sentence is under 10 years it’s probably not worth the effort. Unless you talk to the person doing 10 years. Compare that with prosecutors who see the criminal justice system as a mechanism for publicity. Giuliani loved to march his defendants through a gauntlet of reporters and camera men. Do you think small time politicians are more or less inclined to exploit media attention?

Ron O’Brien has never worked in the private sector. Most of his career has been in the Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office with his brief stint in the City Prosecutor’s office bridging the gap from his run as an appointed lackey to the elected position he currently holds. Voters might be able to send him a message but in the inbred world of the criminal justice system it’s hard to break the cycle. These are lawyers and they have created checks and balances that ensure that lawyers remain in control.

And Ron O’Brien is not exactly a bad guy. He was way off base in this situation but overall it seems as though his office does a decent job. That we know of. Again: how many people are serving time for crimes they didn’t commit?

The only answer is imposing stiff penalties on prosecutors who get caught pursuing these cases. Since the Duke lacrosse boys didn’t even suffer the indignity of a trial, a lengthy prison sentence for Nifong might be a little over the top but he must be held accountable to the people he was supposedly representing. He didn’t commit a crime against the accused young men but he did commit a crime against the people who elected him. In former assistant prosecutor Ellis’ case justice demands he pay a price. He stole almost 30 years from two men and he did it on behalf of the people. We should at least have a trial to determine the extent of his culpability and allow the people to determine his fate.

Elected positions generally possess great power. As citizens we trust our elected officials to be fair, honorable and just. Those elected officials must wield that trust and power responsibly. When the abuse of power, or even a lapse in judgment, results in innocent people being killed, put to death or otherwise harmed, punishment should be swift and severe. We know that we can’t trust elected officials to uphold justice but we can be certain they will look out for their best interests.

Racism where you least expect it

2007-06-05T06:55:00.001-07:00

In case you don’t know him, Gary Sheffield is a major league baseball player. He’s one of those guys who has the athletic ability to be among the best players in the history of the game but through the years he has displayed an attitude better suited for a maximum security prison. He exhibits all of the personality traits that demonstrate a great deal of insecurity.

Gary has been talking out of his ass since he came into the league. He’s a liar and a cheat (he has been linked to steroids and human growth hormone). He’s a selfish jerk obsessed with personal success even at the expense of his team. Everywhere Gary has played people have been impressed with his ability to hit a baseball and disgusted with his inability to say anything intelligent. Still, Gary’s recent comments about the dominance of Latin players are far beyond the conventional limits of stupidity.

It’s important to note that Sheffield is black. This wouldn’t be important if Gary didn’t make it such an issue. Gary’s one of those guys who would set a kitten on fire and blame the negative reaction on racial bias. Gary makes race an issue in every discussion. He realizes that people don’t like him and he assumes that it is because he is black. This is because he assumes all black people are jerks just like him. That’s probably because his friends, like Barry Bonds, are jerks too.

Some concern has been expressed over the dramatic decline of black players in major league baseball. The study began innocently enough…with Asian players making such a splash people were curious to see how the demographics of the game have changed. They were stunned to see that the percentage of African American players is almost half of what it was 25 years ago. The percentage of white players is smaller as well but not enough to cause concern. Of course the number of Hispanic players has increased.

Most people believe that the decline is because fewer African American kids are playing baseball. Cities aren’t keeping urban parks up, inner city schools aren’t offering sports, youth leagues are suffering from a lack of funds and volunteers…all of these reason make sense. It’s also possible that more black kids are drawn to sports such as basketball where financial rewards are immediate. LeBron James had a 100 million dollar shoe contract before he graduated high school while top baseball prospects have to prove themselves at the major league level before they can ink a big contract. Then you have the Nintendo effect: more and more African American kids are playing their games from the confines of the living room couch.

Gary Sheffield doesn’t buy any of that. He believes that racism is to blame. Black players are being forced out of baseball by cheaper immigrant labor.

Gary Sheffield explained that Hispanic players do what they’re told and endure more disrespect than a black player would tolerate. To hear Sheffield tell it, there are hundreds of black players with superior playing ability sitting at home because some Mexican player is willing to be humiliated and take less money. Sheffield claims that his race is not going to take such treatment. His race demands to be treated with respect and that is a concession that managers are not willing to make.

This is offensive to everybody. First of all, Hispanic players are not playing for less money. Two of the highest paid players in the league have names ending in “z” and one of them, Manny Ramirez is notorious for not following orders. He’s not necessarily a combative jerk but he’s definitely aloof and his attitude is sometimes problematic for managers. Manny gets a pass because his behavioral issues aren’t malicious. He’s just weird. Moreover, nobody’s trading performance for obedience with him; Manny’s getting paid all that money because he’s the best overall hitter in the game. Ramirez, even with his quirky behavior, is a much better player than Sheffield. Period.

When it comes to sports race is rarely an issue anymore. People want wins often at any cost. Players are paid far more than they’re worth and teams put up with more nonsense from those players than they should. Gary Sheffield’s entire career is a classic example of that. He’s one of the most overpaid players in the game and arguably the biggest jerk in the league. Nobody’s replacing him with some Hispanic player who will smile and do what he’s told. It’s ironic because if there is one black player in the league who should be replaced with a mediocre Mexican it’s Gary Sheffield.

The people who should be most offended by these comments are African Americans. Clearly Gary Sheffield believes that his behavior is typical of his race. He actually thinks that he is a positive black role model. In Gary Sheffield’s world a black man who respects authority as it relates to his job is an Uncle Tom and a black player who puts in extra effort without being paid extra money is a sell out.

Sheffield typifies the type of athlete American fans love to hate. He’s a spoiled brat who, at the age of 39 still believes that throwing tantrums and pouting is how to get his way. Sadly, because he can still hit with occasional power, it works too often. Coaches and players cater to him because he carries a career batting average of .297.

It’s unfortunate that Gary Sheffield is black because it gives him something to hide behind. As long as he looks in the mirror and sees a black face looking back at him he assumes it’s the color of his skin that people judge him by when in reality it is the content of his character.

Gary Sheffield won’t be embarrassed by his comments and if he is grilled on it he will undoubtedly claim that his words were taken out of context and blame that on some convoluted conspiracy by white journalists to impugn his credibility. Sadly, it’s Sheffield who is guilty of racism. He’s also guilty of embodying a negative stereotype unfairly associated with black athletes. Most African American baseball players don’t act like Gary Sheffield but guys like Sheffield seek out the spot light because they need to feed their massive egos. If they can’t get face time by being the best they talk the loudest and if that doesn’t work they say or do something controversial. It’s unfortunate because there are great players, like Ryan Howard, who deserve more attention.

It’s also unfortunate because Sheffield drew attention away from an important subject. We should be concerned about the declining numbers of African American baseball players and take steps to identify why this trend is developing but when a guy like Gary Sheffield claims to represent his race it’s hard to see this as a problem. Baseball doesn’t need more guys like that.

What's the fuss over Dog Fighting?

2007-05-22T07:50:00.001-07:00

Clinton Portis can’t figure out why everybody’s up in arms over Michael Vick’s dog fighting ring. The way Portis sees is the dogs belong to Vick, the house belongs to Vick so who cares? When advised that dog fighting is a felony Portis seemed surprised.

The big deal about dog fighting is that it is decidedly cruel. We’re not talking about a tussle between a couple of puppies in the front yard. Dog fighting is a brutal death sport where the losing dog is mortally wounded if not killed. Often the winning dog sustains severe injuries and it is not uncommon for both animals to be left for dead in some abandoned pole barn.

The dogs are bred to be killing machines. When they get loose they attack. A fighting dog running free will savage family pets, children and even full grown adults. These are dogs that have been mistreated to the point of murderous rage. They are raised and trained to be bigger, stronger and faster than normal members of the same breed.

Training methods include treadmills, heavy chains, tires, and regular beatings. Dogs are shocked, burned, and cut in order to deaden nerves and encourage growth of scar tissue. Perhaps the sickest training method is the practice of rendering a passive dog, often a stolen family pet, defenseless and allowing the killer in training to hone its skills. The hell holes where fighting dogs are trained often include the mauled bodies of mild mannered breeds such as retrievers, boxers, German shepherds and huskies, many with their mouths taped shut to ensure the valuable fighting dog wouldn’t fall victim to a lucky desperate chomp.

This is not some misunderstood vocation. These are not happy dogs. Certain breeds enjoy performing the tasks for which they were bred. Border collies love to herd. Anything. Sheep are great because sheep love to be herded but border collies can be seen at any dog park trying in vain to round up the other dogs. They don’t much like to play fetch but they will give chase to establish order. How dare that other dog leave the imaginary corral? It’s not cruel to put a border collie to work at a golf course to run geese off the greens. Border collies must be trained…not to herd but to stop herding on command.

Huskies like to pull. The Iditarod comes under fire from animal rights groups every year because of the risks posed to the dogs. Of the hundreds of dogs who race each year some will get hurt and on occasion one or two might die but great lengths are taken to ensure veterinary care is available along the way. The huskies, however, love every grueling mile. Huskies live to run and pulling a sled makes all of that running worthwhile. Anybody who has owned a husky or a husky mix will tell you that there isn’t much you can do to engage them…they don’t fetch or play catch…but once they have something to pull they don’t want to stop running. Huskies will run themselves to death and die happy. And on the rare occasion a husky doesn’t want to run, nobody will make him. Huskies are stubborn dogs.

Various breeds, including those used in fighting, make excellent guard dogs. These animals require more training because they aren’t inclined to play with strangers. Strangers are a threat to the pack and these dogs are committed to protecting their pack. Even though they can be trained to attack, the idea isn’t to kill but to subdue. Dogs will kill food but when they fight they fight to submission. Generally a guard dog will handle everything with a curled lip and a low growl. Often that’s enough to get the job done.

Retrievers come by their name honestly. They are working dogs too and they love to fetch things. A Retriever will work himself into a frenzied lather on a sweltering day chasing a Frisbee for hours. They’ll swim hundreds of yards to bring that stick back to the person who threw it and literally beg for it to be thrown right back in. Guide dogs, though not generally of a particular breed, enjoy their vocation and while it’s not nearly as fun as chasing a tennis a ball across a soccer field, the pack mindset makes the work enjoyable. They love feeling needed.

And that’s the problem. Dogs aren’t really made for fighting. Dogs are socially oriented. Since dogs are direct descendants from wolves they do indeed possess formidable killing skills and in certain instances they can fight quite well but fighting is reserved for protection. In the wild wolves fight with rival packs for territory and within the pack dynamic they challenge each other for dominance but it is rare for these skirmishes to be deadly. Moreover, domestic dogs have had that instinct suppressed in order to protect man from the politics of the pack. People who raise wolves have experienced the occasional challenge for dominance, an inconvenience traditional dog owners don’t endure thanks to thousands of years of breeding and training. .

Dogs aren’t murderers. It goes against their design. To instill that compulsion in a dog the trainer must utilize exceptionally cruel tactics. In many cases these tactics are counter productive. For every dog that becomes a worthy fighter, three become chronically timid. They’ll bite when approached but they won’t go on the offensive. These dogs are often sold to novice fight breeders and subsequently abandoned because they simply aren’t competitive. So most of the dogs entering this world fail to meet the standards of market value; they are expendable.

People who are drawn to the dog fighting culture are not good people. This is not a vice like high stakes poker or midnight lap dances. These are people who simply have no respect for life. People who can’t respect animals generally can’t respect other people either. Dog fighting is a sick criminal act and the people who promote it, watch it or even defend it are dangerous.

Pope misses the point

2007-05-11T08:28:00.000-07:00

The Catholic Church represents religious corruption at its worst although the current incarnation pales in comparison to the totalitarian religion that plagued Europe during what history refers to as the Dark Ages. Crusades, inquisitions and assassinations were the tools employed by the Vatican to destroy rivals and oppress the masses. Back then the Catholic Church rejected remarkable advancements achieved by the cultures that preceded the Holy Roman Empire. Concepts like sewage containment, medicine and personal hygiene were cast aside along with philosophy, art and science. People who sought enlightenment were tortured and killed.

Today the Catholic Church has stopped murdering people…at least in large numbers. Now the Catholic Church is run by impotent, beet-faced old men who scream their stifling rhetoric from ornate thrones. Although the Pope claims to speak the word of God, he and the rest of the Vatican power elite lack the faith to appear in public without armor and a highly trained security detail. Apparently God can’t be trusted to protect the Pope from those who might wish him harm. That’s your first clue that the Church believes more in power than it does in divinity. The Pope is worshipped as a demigod but he still needs to cruise the streets in an armored car. Ironic, eh?

Recently Pope Benedict dropped by to visit Brazil. South and Central America are Catholic strongholds, a holdover from the brutal manner in which Spanish and Portuguese missionaries imposed Catholicism on the indigenous people. Worship or die was the gist of the Church’s message back then. It hasn’t changed much. The church just can’t follow though on exterminating heretics anymore. They are trying to get back to that place, though. That’s why Benedict, a man with ties to the NAZI party, is there. He knows a thing or two about extermination.

Latin America struggles with overpopulation, under-education, disease, poverty and economic exploitation. Rain forests are being consumed at an alarming rate but the people are not seeing any of the financial gain. Typically American corporations like Cargil purchase huge blocks of land, slash and burn it through some local shell company and farm it until the soil is depleted. American get cheap stuff while Brazilians get the shaft.

Latin America needs protection from exploitation; they need birth control and help in educating the people to improve the quality of life. Did the Pope offer any assistance? Nope. He denounced abortion and encouraged people to devote more time to their faith. Never mind the AIDS epidemic spreading through South America; forget about the alarming number of babies born into poverty. Don’t worry about the literacy rate. Go to church and don’t forget to tithe. In order to bolster support for the Catholic Church, the Vatican opted to throw Latin America a bone and offer up a Latin American Saint. Amen. How about a clinic?

Elsewhere, particularly in places where people can read, the Catholic Church is struggling. In the U.S. the religiots flock toward evangelical denominations because they like an aggressive religion. Conservative Catholicism has all the teeth of Presbyterianism in this country. Our Bible thumpers need people to hate. The Catholic Church avoids hating people and focuses on issues. That’s why South and Central America are so important. The Catholic Church has an endless supply of ignorant people who can be molded into reliable Catholics. It’s not India, but if the church can stamp out birth control it might be soon.

However when it comes to those issues the Catholic Church is as blustery and misguided as Pat Robertson. The Vatican’s opposition to abortion is one thing. There are reasonable people who make solid arguments against abortion. It’s a genuinely debatable subject. But the Church also frowns on the use of birth control. Catholic leaders have taken foreign aid organizations to task for distributing condoms and showing people how to use them in African countries devastated by AIDS. The Catholic Church supports an abstinence only message and feels condoms are simply immoral. There’s no logical reason to oppose condoms. Perhaps the Church should think about making sex without a rubber a more severe sin than sex with one. Seven Hail Mary’s instead of five.

The Catholic Church acknowledges that people will make mistakes and sin, which would seem to provide a reason to support the use of condoms. To Catholics, sex outside of marriage is a sin but so is killing yourself. There are places in the world where sex is practically suicide, so why not deliver condoms to people with a stern message about morality? We have Catholic Priests who can’t keep it in their pants…how can we expect some 17 year-old Brazilian boy to resist temptation? Especially in Brazil!!! Have you seen the women there?

The Catholic Church limped toward progress under Pope John Paul II. He tried to fashion himself into a bit of a humanitarian. He recognized the real problems in the world and tried to create enough flexibility in the Church to address them. Mother Theresa was often criticized by Bishops and Cardinals for not promoting Catholicism aggressively enough but John Paul encouraged her to continue helping people. She might not have put butts in the seats on Sunday but she was doing a lot of good. Bishop Deamond Tutu ruffled a lot of feathers for getting caught up in political skirmishes but John Paul, although Tutu was not Catholic, went out of his way to support and praise Tutu for his efforts.

John Paul II still held to conservative views on sexuality and contraception but not to the forceful extent that Benedict does. It seemed that John Paul II wanted the Vatican to focus on the bigger picture and unify the world to promote peace. Perhaps the grandiose platform ignored the smaller issues the regular parishioner could relate to. Benedict is clearly thinking small.

It’s a dangerous time for that. The gap between the rich and the poor is expanding. The world is a hectic place and people need all the help they can get. An organization as powerful as the Catholic Church should be focused on real problems not rhetorical issues. Fire and Brimstone might sell tickets but what good is that if the audience isn’t there to buy them?

Who's Really Supporting the Troops?

2007-04-25T09:17:00.000-07:00

As public sentiment against the war grows, war hawks have escalated their assertion that protesting the war is tantamount to disrespecting our troops. They claim that our soldiers are disheartened that so many people believe they have failed. This is a cowardly tactic employed by the shameless people who have engaged this country in an unjust war.

If the soldiers feel that the public has lost faith in them it is only because these same people are telling them as much…Lying to them. Unlike Vietnam, where public resentment was projected on the men and women who served, those who oppose this war have been extraordinarily cautious in their rhetoric. Nobody wants our troops to feel disrespected.

Some of the Democrats in Congress clamored to cut funding for the war but the Bush Administration quickly characterized that as an attack on the troops. The idea of cutting funding was intended to give Bush no other option but to bring our forces home. Even though that intent was clearly explained, war hawks immediately began waving yellow ribbons. Talk about disrespectful.

Those opposed to the war haven’t lied to the American people. They didn’t stage the Jessica Lynch rescue nor did they make a mockery of Pat Tillman’s death. It’s the war hawks who have attacked individuals, like Cindy Sheehan, and made matters personal.

There are soldiers, active and retired, who are convinced that victory is the only option. They insist that withdrawing now means that the terrorists won but withdrawing forces now is not really surrendering. Sometimes withdrawing from a bad course of action to regroup and develop a more efficient plan is how to win a war. There’s a difference between battles and wars.

The notion that we can’t abandon what can only be described as a bad decision is the same imperialistic philosophy that made it possible for Colonial forces to upset the superior British military. British commanders refused to concede failure in their plan and eventually lost the war. They were trained to fight big, so the Colonists made themselves small.

Like Britain, the US has spread itself too thin to manage an unconventional war on an unfamiliar battlefield. During the Revolutionary War, Britain bolstered its forces with mercenaries from Germany known as Hessians. These soldiers were effective in traditional warfare, but as the battle wore on the Hessians lacked the passion to finish the job. They were there for the money.

In Iraq, the Bush Administration has contracted its own Hessians in the form of international security companies that employ mercenaries. Many of the mercenaries are former US soldiers who get paid 10 times the salary our regular troops receive. Furthermore, these mercenaries happily convey the disparity to our soldiers in order to help these security forms recruit more talent. That damages morale far more than people at home demanding an exit strategy.

Iraq is and, aside from the 15 years Saddam held sway, has always been a chaotic mess. The problem is the nomadic nature of the culture. Even though the tiny tribes have consolidated their power into larger units, Iraq is a fractured culture. In addition to the religious conflicts between Sunni and Shiite Muslims you also have disputes between Arabs, Persians, Kurds and Turks. Even if the religious issue is resolved, the ethnic clashes will continue. And yet, we’re still supposed to believe that victory is attainable.

Of course victory has not even been defined. Bush seems intent on fighting until we win but he has never addressed how we will know when we’ve won. Even the most passionate soldier has to be discouraged by the intangibility of Bush’s goal. As difficult as any mission would be in an area as complex as Iraq, victory anywhere is impossible if it is not specifically defined. Technically speaking, we aren’t even fighting a war right now. We aren’t even certain who are enemy is.

The public is aware of this. An Iraqi government has been installed but it clearly has no power. Extremists from all sides are able to undermine any authority the government has which makes it seem likely that this government wasn’t really approved by the people so much as it was favored by US officials. Bush has indicated that the US will stand down when the Iraqi government stands up but we have no idea when that will happen or if it is possible. The government is secular, as any government most be if it will successfully serve people of different creeds, but most of the country wants a theocracy. The problem is that those who want a theocracy can’t agree. War isn’t the answer. The fundamentalists feed on war and chaos. War frightens people and drives them to extremism.

It’s unfortunate that Bush and his cronies didn’t heed the advice of his own father. Removing a tyrant like Saddam without understanding the complicated issues haunting Iraq was a terrible idea. Many of the war hawks are resigned to agree. However, they insist that we can’t turn back the clock and our only option it to stay the course and see this thing through.

That’s ridiculous. You don’t keep paddling full force down a river if you think there might be a waterfall ahead. You don’t keep driving down the highway when you realize you’re heading into oncoming traffic. Successful military leaders throughout history have been known to withdraw from hopeless battles rather than incur too many losses, but giving up a battle doesn’t concede the war. Great leaders aren’t afraid to retreat, revise and redeploy. Unfortunately our military doesn’t promote great leaders. Advancement in our military is based on one’s ability to say yes.

Recruitment figures are down. The military has been forced to extended tours and exploit all sorts of little fine print tricks to force people into servitude. Stop loss measures have been enacted that prevent weary troops from being discharged and the inactive ready reserve has been called into action, surprising many people who had long since been discharged. National Guard forces have been thrown into heavy combat situations with inadequate training, outmoded equipment and a half-baked plan of action.

That’s where the lack of support is. Lies, half truths and sneaky contracts undermine the resolve of our soldiers. The people calling for an end to this war want to bring them home safe and sound. Unfortunately the soldiers are being told that we think they’re failures. That’s not true. The soldiers didn’t let anybody down. They failure begins and ends with the Bush Administration. Everybody else is a victim of a combination of incompetence and treachery.

Learn From Tragedy

2007-04-18T05:30:00.000-07:00

The shootings that took place on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg Virginia can only be described as awful. More than 50 people fell victim to what we can only describe as a deranged shooter and 33 people, including that shooter, ended up dead.

Leave it to the news reporters, particularly the talking heads on the networks, to guide the story into the realm of blame. With the shooter dead by his own volition, we don't have an object to project our outrage upon so the press has opted to question the actions of the university, the police and gun control laws.

Over the coming weeks we'll see the police second guessed for failing to lock down the sprawling campus. University administrators will be condemned for not beefing up security measures. Government officials will be questioned on what they are doing to protect our universities from such a terror and of course we'll have to bang on the gun control drum again. In fact much of this has already happened. Deep down inside we know that the only person to blame for this tragedy is the shooter. Life isn't safe. Bad things happen to innocent people every day. We're all going to die and not all of us by natural causes.

If we're going to start doling out blame we need to be fair. Instead of asking the campus police why they didn't lock down the campus after what appeared to be an isolated shooting we should be asking why so many people allowed themselves to become victims. Ultimately our survival depends on our abilities as individuals and as individuals we must be ready to take action to defend ourselves against those who would do us harm.

Granted this was a man who was well-armed, not a terrorist with a box cutter but still at some point you have to realize that this guy is shooting everybody in sight. We all have that fight or flight chip imbedded in our programming as does every other animal on the face of the earth. When confronted by a superior foe every living thing has the innate desire to run but if the option of fleeing has been removed the tiniest animal will bare its teeth and fight to survive.

Humans have that instinct but we program ourselves to resist it. For years the so-called experts have told us to cooperate with bad guys and wait for help to arrive. The problem is that those bad guys don't tend to follow the same rules. Women have been encouraged to resist attackers who intend to rape them because FBI studies reveal that every second of resistance increases the chances of survival by 30%. Law enforcement officials have revised their advice to potential victims. Instead of cooperating and remaining calm, people are being instructed to scream, fight or run like hell because too many cooperating victims have been rewarded with a bullet in the face. Your chances are better if you fight back.

What happened at Virginia Tech was not a rape or a mugging. This was a madman on a suicide mission, but at some point you have to realize that your best chance of surviving is to fight back. Nearly 60 people took a bullet and many more rounds were fired. At some point this shooter had to stop and reload. Why didn't somebody charge him as he changed out clips?

Maybe it's not fair to second guess the victims. Most of us would be paralyzed with fear if we faced a similar situation, but that's exactly the problem. Instead of preparing ourselves for defense we want to rely on security officers and policemen to save us from the bad men. We program ourselves to be victims hoping that we can endure being victimized long enough for a hero to rescue us.

It's time for that mentality to go. Whenever something like this happens we are soon regaled with stories of how woefully unprepared our security forces, be they police officers or unarmed security guards, are to handle such a situation. The fact of the matter is that most police are better equipped to write traffic tickets. Even though they receive training there just aren't enough opportunities to put that training to work on a daily basis. It's not that the police are incompetent; we simply set our expectations too high. Most cops aren't superheroes.

It's not practical to have a sniper hiding in every closet waiting for a rogue gunman to show up. We can't have an armed Air Marshall on every flight because some fundamentalist might try to set his shoe on fire. There's no feasible way to eliminate every dangerous situation so we have to accept risk and prepare ourselves to take ownership of our own survival.

Imus reveals deeper problem

2007-04-09T15:37:00.000-07:00

The outrage over Dom Imus is misplaced. It's no surprise the aging "shock jock" said something off color. Imus' entire career is based on his own stupidity. He's a boorish loser who couldn't hold down a job, then stumbled into radio, almost by default, and found an audience who enjoyed listening to him make an ass of himself. He got on the air and proceeded to see if he could get fired. Everything escalated from there.

Don Imus probably isn't very sincere in his apology. There is a hint of indignation in his explanation when he mentions that there are some groups who can't be made fun of. The implication is that the people who are angry simply can't take a joke. Sadly what isn't resonating with Imus is the fact that he is not funny. He really hasn't been all that funny since he decided to hijack Howard Stern's career after Stern essentially bitch slapped him in the ratings.

It's not even outrageous that Imus hasn't been fired yet. Granted, plenty of people have been shown the door for much less offensive comments, but Imus has been encouraged to push those buttons all along. Nobody called him to the carpet when he was reported as using the dreaded "N" word behind the scenes during 60 Minutes interview. Imus and his cohorts have a long history of making inexcusable comments on the air.

The outrage is that he has an audience. The problem is not that Don Imus is a racist piece of redneck garbage or that he has a cadre of cackling Klansmen inserting insightful commentary into the morning drive. Don Imus has a constitutional right to be a jerk. We all do. It's just sad when people get paid for it.

The reason he has a national radio program is because there are people who happily listen to his show. They love the racist remarks. Howard Stern has an audience that enjoys crude humor and juvenile antics; Don Imus has an audience that appreciates anger and hate.

Imus might think that he turns everything he says into a joke by laughing afterwards, but when you laugh after saying something mean you're just being cruel. Imus appeals to a cruel audience. There's a big difference between being crude and being cruel. Don Imus illustrates what happens when a burned out old drunk tries to distinguish between the two. Howard Stern's mastery of this fine line is why he can buy and sell a clod like Imus.

That's what people should be upset over. Ignorance is a part of daily life. Stupid people are everywhere. We shouldn't be shocked when a couple of bigots get together to share their racial views. What should shock us is that enough people agree with those views to keep a hack like Imus on the air. People like Don Imus should be cleaning out port-a-potties all the while complaining that Zionist conspiracies are the reason they smell like feces. He should be sitting at the corner of a broken down bar with blue hands drinking Natty Lite muttering to himself, not hosting a syndicating radio program.

Don Imus is a jerk. That's not a crime. The fact that a moron like Imus is in the position to cause such a fuss isn't the crime…The fact that Imus is a profitable business venture is. Shame on the people who listen to him.

Freedom of Speech comes at a price

2007-04-02T12:23:00.000-07:00

Freedom of speech is an inalienable right. In a country engineered to foster and protect personal civil liberty nobody should feel legally obligated to remain silent. The United States of America became a country for a number of reasons and not all of them were good. Clearly some of our revered Founding Fathers had ulterior motives for rebelling against England. Our political system was built upon a network of cronyism and a consolidation of power within the confines of an aristocratic society. To this day that consolidation of power is abundantly evident, particularly when you look at the last two presidential elections. Bush and Kerry not only attended the same expensive university (Yale) they belonged to a secret fraternity that has a long history of enlisting very rich and powerful people. The eerie possibility of a conspiracy aside, this country was still founded on some pretty important concepts that provide common people with a considerable amount of influence. The first amendment protects one of those concepts. The most important concept.

The Constitution essentially spells out the rules. It doesn’t establish the laws of the land but rather outlines the authority of the government. The Constitution doesn’t specifically address crimes but it does limit what can be interpreted as a crime. Murder is a crime because it involves one person infringing upon another’s right to life where as the issue of flag burning is widely debated because it can be argued that burning the flag is a form of expression which is an extension of the first amendment. Abortion is also a confounding subject because we have not been able to establish a legal standard to determine when a human life qualifies for constitutional rights. Everybody has an opinion but nobody has an answer.

Freedom of speech or, to be more accurate, expression is the cornerstone of liberty. If people are permitted to question and criticize their government, their government will have to address those grievances or face the consequences in the next election. This power was clearly demonstrated quite recently when the Republicans finally exhausted the patience of the voters. Without the first amendment the Bush administration could have quashed every story about Iraq, prevented public inquiries into corruption and avoided accountability for questionable actions. The great thing about the first amendment is that it applies to and empowers everybody.

The bad thing about the first amendment is that it applies to everybody regardless of sensibility. So you have gutter dwellers like Andrew Dice Clay making a career out of being a vulgar, less intelligent version of Don Rickles. Hickory, Dickory Dock… As offensive as his alleged comedy routine might be, he has a right to perform it. Fortunately the first amendment also provides puppets like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog the right to offer a much wittier version of this form of expression. It’s sad when you’re beaten at your own game by a rubber hand puppet, but Dice also has a constitutionally protected right to ignore the obvious and beat the dead horse that is his lackluster career. There is no law against being a bloated, washed up hack.

The first amendment allows people to peacefully assemble. That means that thousands of people can come together for a free concert to raise awareness for world hunger. Unfortunately it also means that the KKK can hold a rally on public property anywhere in the country. As morally corrupt as the KKK is to reasonable people, denying them the right to express themselves would be based on subjective reasoning and open the door to denying anybody that same right. There are plenty of examples where the first amendment has been compromised for good and bad intentions.

Tony Dungy recently exercised his first amendment rights when he spoke at a banquet hosted by the Indiana Family Group. IFG is an independent arm of Focus on the Family and Dungy touched a nerve when he stated that he whole-heartedly endorses the group’s position on gay marriage. Being a right wing faction of fundamentalist zealots, they are against it. Dungy later insisted he is not gay bashing, but that he believes in biblical scriptures and strongly supports the idea that a family is best served by a traditional Christian union between a man and a woman. It sparked a lot of criticism.

People countered the criticism Dungy received by citing the first amendment. Dungy has a right to express himself. So does Tim Hardaway who said that he hates gays. Dungy didn’t come out and bash gays the way Hardaway did but both men were simply exercising their right to express themselves. Dungy hit the first amendment trifecta by involving speech, press and religion. As was his right as an American.

However those who choose to criticize Dungy are also exercising their right to express themselves. Just because we are free to speak our minds doesn’t mean we are exempt for the consequences. How many coaches have lost their jobs for letting racially insensitive remarks slip? Dozens. And rightfully so. Sometimes an employee can express themselves in such a manner that the reputation of the company might suffer. This is especially true in high profile jobs. So when Howard Cosell said something about a monkey getting loose ABC had to fire him even though nobody believed Howard Cosell was a bigot.

That’s why the NBA was well within its rights to distance the league from Tim Hardaway. He’s no longer welcome in the NBA family and barred from attending events as a representative of the NBA. He might still have the right to purchase a ticket and watch the game like any other fan but he won’t be sitting in the owner’s box or appearing on television as a sanctioned member of the NBA.

Similarly the Colts would have been justified in firing Tony Dungy is they felt his comments might have a negative impact on the team. The NFL could have taken action as well. Neither organization is leaping to Dungy’s defense but both have distanced themselves from reprimanding Dungy on this matter. Dungy was speaking on behalf of Tony Dungy, not the Colts or the NFL. He made his bed.

Joe Lunchbox might not be held similarly accountable for his actions. People don’t always pay attention when the average person has something to say. So when Joe Lunchbox publishes a racially inflammatory blog he might not loose his job, but he still runs that risk. People are finding themselves in hot water over what they publish on the internet and those companies actions are being upheld in the courts. That’s why Klansmen wear sheets over their heads. They realize they are taking a socially unacceptable position and until they can convince the rest of society to embrace their views, or at least make a living spewing hate like David Duke, they remain anonymous.

Still, this right to free speech is interesting. In addition to affording people the right to express unpopular opinions while affording others the right to criticize or support those opinions, the first amendment also allows people to question the motives behind the comments. That’s more compelling. It’s not important to discuss whether or not the statement is right or wrong, opinions don’t have to be either. However it is important to consider the motivation behind those comments. Perhaps there’s more to the story and a discerning public has every right to explore it.

In Tim Hardaway’s case it’s quite likely that he is gay himself. There’s no proof of that but typically people who are so vocally homophobic are reacting to their own confused sexuality. Hardaway is probably terrified that he will be revealed as not only a homosexual, but a submissive one at that. He’s carefully tried to fashion himself as a man’s man but he knows the façade is thin. In order to overcome the fancy clothes, expensive jewelry and unaccounted for late nights with “friends”, Hardaway has to seem so overly disgusted with homosexuality nobody could believe it. Sadly, he’s too stupid to know that we’ve been on to that

Tony Dungy didn’t seem insecure about homosexuality but it’s interesting that his concern on this subject is rooted in the health and welfare of the family unit. That’s very interesting. Given the tragic loss his family recently experienced, Dungy shouldn’t present himself as an authority on what makes for a healthy family. His son, James Dungy took his own life at the age of 18. Now all public accounts characterize Dungy as a great father and a dedicated husband but anytime a teenager takes his or her own life there’s always something amiss inside the family.

Is that a low blow? No. It’s a reasonable question. Dungy put himself in that position when he questioned the impact homosexual parents might have on children. Most kids stray from the ideal path as they try their wings. Underage drinking, drug experimentation, even minor brushes with the law are common but suicide is rare. Most suicide attempts aren’t even sincere, they’re just dramatic ploys for attention and sympathy. If Tony Dungy was such a great Christian father, why did James take his own life? More importantly, what makes Dungy feel he knows what’s in the best interests of a family? Could homosexual parents do much worse?

It could be argued that Dungy did everything right. Sometimes kids just screw up. That might be true if the child dies in a stupidity induced accident. If James Dungy had gotten drunk and fallen off a cliff it would be hard to point the finger at Dungy, but this wasn’t an accident. James Dungy took his own life and it wasn’t the first time he tried. The kid was clearly in pain and couldn’t face whatever was causing that pain. Maybe he was gay and unable to talk to his devout father. Maybe he was bipolar and Tony was too busy being a coach to get his son the help he needed. We’ll never know the real answer but there’s a good chance that Tony Dungy does.

And that doesn’t matter. Tony Dungy has to face those demons on his own but when he takes that public forum and goes on record with such a strong statement he forces people to question his credibility. Given the circumstances Tony Dungy is no authority on family. If Tony had spent a little more time with his family and a little less at all of those speaking engagements James Dungy might still be alive today. Whatever the case, people probably should consider the source before putting any stock in Dungy’s opinion.

Where did America go?

2007-03-27T08:53:00.000-07:00

The United States is showing all the signs of an empire in decay. George Bush is the corrupt byproduct of possible inbreeding who has seized more control over the government than was ever intended.

The United States lulled itself into a false sense of security by aggressively building a military around the concept of détente. In amassing enough nuclear weaponry to destroy the planet 10 times over the U.S. kept its chief rival, the equally powerful Soviet Union, at bay. Meanwhile all of our military tactics were designed to fight a big army in the northern hemisphere.

Similarly the CIA was geared to exploit contacts around the world in order to gain an advantage over the Soviet Union. Our operatives are no strangers to the Islamic world, but the Middle East was always handled as a staging area to wage important battles in the Cold War. After the Reagan era passed, Republicans remained beholden to big defense contractors and money was diverted to unnecessary projects while a much needed transition was neglected.

The Clinton administration endures a lot of finger pointing from Republicans who are struggling to explain our current difficulties in the Middle East. They erroneously claim that Clinton cut defense spending and left our military out of touch with developing trends but the reality is that the Republican controlled Congress undermined Clinton’s efforts to scale back Cold War surpluses and focus on building a more efficient and mobile defense capable of adjusting to variable conditions. Such an evolution would have left Republican cronies in the defense industry, like Dick Cheney, without a steady income.

There is no denying that the events of 9-11-2001 demanded action, but the indignant posturing and self-righteous stance taken by the Bush Administration squandered international good will that the United States had carefully established through years of diplomacy. When the UN expressed concern over our tactics Bush threatened them and later appointed an ambassador who had publicly expressed disgust with the United Nations. John Bolton served this nation as a destructive force in the UN, eroding relationships and undermining the authority of the Security Council. Instead of offering ideas to help the organization, Bolton repeatedly took shots at it. John Bolton was a global slap in the face.

Now, with our military stretched so thin the Department of Defense has resorted to recalling honorably discharged soldiers in a back door draft, Bush has set his sites on Iran. It doesn’t matter that we can’t seem to extract ourselves from two active fronts. Nobody in this administration seems overly concerned that the alleged mastermind of the 9-11 attacks remains at large; China has made a few not-so-subtle moves that require consideration and the American people have clearly demonstrated their frustration with the leadership of this country. However, Bush doesn’t care. He has a sick infatuation with his power as it relates to the Middle East.

Is it religious? Does he buy into the Christian Fundamentalist theory that all Muslims are evil? If so, isn’t he guilty of the same myopic theology Osama bin Laden is associated with?

But Bush is no Christian. Like the evangelists who write sermons with dollar signs in their eyes, Bush uses religion to secure power. He’s a man of the coin, as was his father, grandfather, and great grandfather. His entire family is morally and ethically corrupt. Under his administration companies like Halliburton, Exxon and Shell have seen huge increases in profit and his relatives have reaped the rewards in the form of stock ownership. This so-called war on terror has been carefully orchestrated by Dick Cheney to provide Bush-friendly corporations with every opportunity to maximize profits. Oil prices have risen nearly 200% under Bush’s leadership. That’s no coincidence.

It’s also no coincidence that our enemies seem to be ghosts from the Reagan era. George H.W. Bush spent his single term in office cleaning up Reagan’s messes in South and Central America. George W. Bush seems to be pulling the scabs off of wounds the Reagan administration inflicted in the Middle East. Isn’t it interesting that Osama bin Laden received money, weapons and training from the CIA and US special forces units in the 1980’s? How about the fact that Saddam received help from the US in stabilizing his control over Iraq so he could focus his full attention on a bloody war with Iran?

It’s really pretty frightening. Ronald Reagan was a devious leader who was never held accountable for his actions. He was simply too charismatic. It was obvious his policies weren’t working. The American middle class endured a horrible economic situation throughout his administration while the upper class enjoyed monumental returns on investments. The gap between the rich and the poor expanded, the national debt exploded and the US left its fingerprints on economic and political strife all around the world. But Reagan was never called to the carpet. To this day he is lionized as some sort of American hero.

His cult of personality was strong enough to propel the seemingly feeble George H.W. Bush and his moronic lapdog J. Danforth Quayle into the White House but they were such weak figures that the first Bush administration, though nearly identical to Reagan’s, was blamed for 12 years worth of broken promises.

Under Clinton, the Republican party reformed itself as the great white hope. Angry pundits fueled racial and social animosity while the Republican congress spent millions of dollars, tax dollars, trying to destroy Bill Clinton and any hope the Democrats had in securing an extended period of control over US politics. Then George W. Bush emerged, ensconcing himself in all things Reagan and, like a modern day Nero, the ne’er-do-well offspring of over-privileged aristocrats assumed a position of power with no sense of responsibility. How can a man with such a concise history of utter irresponsibility be elected? Behold the power of Reagan.

Even Reagan’s ghost can’t hide the glaring problems. This administration went too far too fast. Bush seems to know his time is just about up. The right-wing venom ran dry in 2006 and Democrats seized an unthinkable majority in the Congressional election. Sadly, Bush and his advisors see it as some sort of fluke. Instead of seeing the upset as a sign that people want a change, Bush has dug in his heels and refused to discuss any type of exit from a hopeless situation in the Middle East. With Iraq continuing to spiral out of control, Afghanistan reverting back to the totalitarian rule of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden living in Pakistan, Bush has started a game of chicken with the most formidable country in the Middle East. He’s a small-minded man with too much time on his hands. A lot can happen in 18 months…with Bush in office none of it is good.

The Last Laugh

2007-02-15T12:37:00.000-08:00

The Dixie Chicks had the last laugh. After being vilified by the NASCAR set for speaking candidly about George W. Bush, the Texas trio circled their wagons and channeled their feelings into a monumentally successful hit single. The dramatic video spent the maximum number of weeks as the number one video in VH-1’s weekly countdown and just last week the girls raked in the most coveted awards at the Grammies.

The Dixie Chicks were country music mainstays who enjoyed marginal mainstream success before they denounced sharing Texas with George W. Bush. The pressure of winning back a fan base blinded by rage, tobacco juice and discount sales at Walmart nearly tore them apart but the Natalie and the girls stood strong, spoke their minds and penned a powerhouse. Millions of record sales later they were honored on their industry’s biggest night.

There are some country music fans that dismiss the success of Not Ready to Make Nice as a desperate sell out to the liberal left, but political sentiment rarely tops the pop charts. You can make some waves but eventually people get tired of being preached to. That’s why Paul McCartney topped the charts while John Lennon pontificated. Lennon was more talented and intelligent, but Paul wasn’t afraid to write marketable crap. The Dixie Chicks weren’t guaranteed any airplay. A lot of stations resisted .The fact of the matter is the song was great and it demanded an audience. The lyrics were deep, the music was well-crafted and the video was excellent.

If you want to talk about sell outs look no further than Toby “Chicken Heart” Keith who exploited indulgent nationalistic anger to sell hayseed records and fill redneck venues with inbred hicks by taking cheap shots at the Dixie Chicks. As if milking patriotism for every penny it was worth wasn’t crass enough, eh? How much money is tough-talking Toby making off those stereotypical Ford commercials? And why is a guy so verbally committed to the working man still schilling for a company currently cutting loose tens of thousands of blue collar workers? Talk about selling out.

Unlike Keith, who is an able bodied man capable of serving his country in deed rather than word, the Dixie Chicks have courage. They knew they were taking a big chance by turning their backs on the ignorant fans that make up the vast majority of the people who buy country records. Maybe there was a time Natalie wished she would have kept her opinion to herself but after standing on top of the world of music, if only for one night, she has to be pleased with the consequences of her actions. She spoke her mind, stood behind her words and eventually, after a lot of abuse, got what she deserved. If Toby stood behind his words he’d be in Iraq right now fighting for his country.

There are three lessons to be learned from all of this. The first is that country music fans are small-minded idiots. The second is that Toby Keith is a bloated, cowardly hillbilly hack and the third is that sometimes living well really is the best revenge. The Dixie Chicks could have pointed that out as they accepted their awards, but they let the moment speak for itself.

Shrubbish...

2007-01-10T18:10:00.000-08:00

After digging the Republican Party into a hole Jesus Christ couldn't climb out of, George W. Bush has taken a closer look at the mess in Iraq. He has little choice because only two years after the country gave him a mandate on the strength of a narrow margin of victory in a dubious Presidential election, the voters delivered Bush a furious rebuke by giving Democrats control of both the House and the Senate. Granted the Democrats hold a slim majority but when you consider how beleaguered the "cut-and-run welfare mongers" were through 2005 it was a huge reversal.

Now Bush has to mend fences. He is facing a legislature that will lose patience with him quickly and his own party is afraid to side with him. The expectation is that Bush will spend the next two years fixing the damage he has done here and abroad.

The key project is the war in Iraq. While those who still support the military efforts in the Middle East claim that the causalities have been minimal, this endeavor has dragged on longer than this country's involvement in World WarII. The expense has been monumental and the effort has our military stretched so thin there is reason to believe that our defenses have been weakened to a point that leaves us easy pickings for any country that might see our demise as advantageous to their long term growth. Who would do such a thing? Nobody's sure but China has a lot of people very nervous. Especially Russia who could be driven into thrid world status by a prosperus China.

The idea of Russia attacking the US to gain some sort of economic advantage in an evolving global economy might be a long shot but before World War I this country was a sprawling nation of farmers held at bay by greedy industrialists. By 1950 we had finished two global wars and started what might one day be considered the most significant conflict of all: the Cold War. If you could go back in time and describe the current balance of power to somebody in England back in 1909 they would have laughed at the ridiculous notion that the United States was the most powerful country in the world and that China and India were the most rapidly developing nations. Things change.

What's frightening is that these issues seem to elude Bush. Domestically Bush is interested in setting back our conservation and environmental policies to what we had in place back when the last great Republican president was reelected. Sadly Lincoln was assassinated before he could address anything beyond slavery and a war perpetrated by treacherous southern plantation owners who didn't like the idea of paying for labor but had he been given the time it's reasonable to believe that he might have established a national park or two.

But Bush has invested most of his energy, at least whatever is left after he clears brush on his Crawford estate, on foreign policy. Not surprisingly, for the man who thinks Chumbawumba is a country in Africa, this is his weakest skill. Unless you're the sort of world leader who might be inclined to pound on a desk with a shoe, foreign policy demands a considerable degree of diplomacy. For some reason, no matter how small a country might be, they insist on being treated with respect. Bush treats them like valets at Augusta National. That is when he's not grabbing them from behind like some 1950's CEO making a pass at his secretary.

It doesn't matter why Bush opted to invade Iraq at this point. Those dishes have already hit the floor. The problem is that this clod is still running around blind folded in the china shop. It didn't take a genius to see that ousting Saddam from power in Iraq would create unending chaos in that corner of the world. In fact, the man who first recognized those consequences was our President's father. Granted, kids do tend to defy their parents for spite but its a phase they grow out of by the time they run for elected office, usually.

Now, faced with an angry general public that has grown weary of the open-ended Iraq strategy, Bush has to bring a swift end to the futility. People have heard all the lies and watched the deception unfold with deliberate arrogance. Bush and his administration acted as though they had absolute power and made false promises about the progress being made with a wink and a nudge to the majority of the population they thought they couldn't lose. But they misjudged the stupidity of the public and squandered the benefit of the doubt their shameless manipulation of religion had gained them.

The war in Iraq has decimated global relations for the U.S. During this misguided war on sensibility, Bush has successfully alienated the entire world to the U.S. While few world leaders could condemn Bush for rapidly deploying forces after 9-11, the heavy-handed and ineffective tactics soon evoked concern. That's when Bush, like a crazed gunman, started wagging his finger and making threats. You were either with us or against us. No questions.

Now Iraq is a total mess and it is difficult to see what benefit ousting, capturing and executing Saddam Hussein has delivered. Clearly Saddam's totalitarian regime was borne at least partly out of necessity. His secular government and the mild-mannered Sunni people it favored held sway over a country of fundamentalists from numerous backgrounds including more aggressive Sunni clerics, Shiite extremists, Kurds and a number of general antagonists out to create chaos for the sake of chaos. As brutal as his tactics were, perhaps it was necessary to maintain control.

Like him or not, Saddam had control over a country that seems impossible to control. Britain tried for quite some time to no avail. In fact a significant part of the reason there is so much instability in the Middle East is thanks in large part to imperial meddling. The countries we're are now fighting with were designated by British rule and the borders were inexplicably drawn with total disregard to religious creeds. Mortal enemies were forced to share small countries with limited resources. Such was the case with Iraq. Saddam simply rose to power and succeeded in maintaining it. He couldn't have done it with out the CIA and the Reagan administration but that's another story.

For some reason, in spite of history and his father pleading otherwise, George W. Bush thinks that victory is attainable. He believes he can install a pro-American government in Iraq and that an approved democracy will prevail. Mind you, a democracy that supports Hammas or Al Qaida is unacceptable. Apparently the voice of the people will only be heard if they say what Bush wants to hear.

Instead of taking a cue from the recent election, Bush has opted to increase our presence in Iraq and essentially, to borrow a phrase from the Vietnam era, escalate our effort in order to help the precarious Iraqi government gain control over the uncontrollable. Unless this Iraqi government is willing to employ the brutal tactics Saddam was executed for, the opposing forces of fundamentalism will win. That's the problem in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East: Fundamentalists are not reasonable. For the most part they are ignorant people blinded by rage. Because they are uneducated they don't understand their anger or how to resolve it so they are easily manipulated through religion. The religious leaders are intelligentr and informed but also power-hungry and selfish. It's a cult mentality.

If Bush really wants to bring an end to terrorism and stabilize the Middle East he would be well advised to deploy diplomacy instead of the military. The lesson 9-11 should have taught us is that these are people who are not afraid to die. What good does it do to threaten them with death and destruction when they have proven a willingness to blow themselves up to further their cause. It's like throwing Br'er Rabbit in the brier patch.

Miss USA

2006-12-21T03:30:00.000-08:00

So let me get this straight, the woman who won the country's biggest beauty contest is what one might be inclined to call a slut. The woman or, more appropriately, girl who was declared the hottest chick in the US likes to get down and so does the younger winner of the Miss Tenn USA pageant. Is that supposed to disturb us?

Considering we are talking about women who want to earn a living with their hot bodies should anybody be shocked? When you consider the vanity one must have to even participate in this contest it's shocking that these so-called scandals aren't the norm.

About 20 years ago Vanessa Williams had that crown snatched off her head for posing nude in some amateur porn pics. This was before Al Gore invented the internets so we had to wait for Penthouse to publish those pictures but once they hit the market Vanessa Williams was called on the carpet and her title of Miss America was stripped leaving her doomed to a life of anonymous sex with fat business men for spare change. Nobody ever heard of her again.

Actually, losing the crown was the best thing that could have happened to her. She became an instant star landing movie roles and singing chart topping songs. She became one of the biggest names in Hollywood and it was all made possible because she received more publicity for losing her crown than she did for winning it in the first place. It also helped that she was released from any contractual obligations tied to the pageant. Actually it was the woman crowned in Vanessa's place we never heard from again.

Her counterpart Jeri Ryan is also an actress but Jeri Ryan had to slowly claw her way into the business in spite of being a runner up in the 1990 Miss America pageant. Ryan's biggest role and claim to fame came in playing a virtual dominatrix in Star Trek: Voyager. The woman who won in that same year (1990), Debye Turner, has done little of note. In fact most Miss USA winners prove to be too vapid to qualify for any real jobs so they generally end up doing local news and if they manage to read their copy without too many mistakes some get a shot at national news reading.

Sadly, for the Miss USA pageant women who pose for Playboy often prove to have more noteworthy careers. Maybe it's because society respects somebody who doesn't pretend to be something she's not. We act as though these Miss USA contestants are innocent little virgins who are unaware of how beautiful they are. In reality they represent the very worst of female sexuality. They go beyond confidence and they exude that self-centered arrogance that makes everybody hate the prom queen. Miss USA pretends its about intelligence talent and personality as much as it is physical beauty but in the end it's all about looks. That's why Pamela Anderson is more respectable. She's never pretended it wasn't about her body. Maybe she's smarter than we give her credit for. She's certainly more successful than any Miss USA winner, aside from Vanessa Williams who technically didn't win.

Interesting. It would appear that America prefers hot women who put out. I know I do.

Happy Holidays

2006-12-04T18:01:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Bill O'Reilly millions of Americans have decided to take back Christmas. Instead of politely wishing people Happy Holidays, they intended to proliferate the social landscape with blood curdling screams of Merry Christmas. Some have even declared that they intend to inflict this holiday jeer on people they know or suspect as being non-Christian. Jesus must be proud. If you say Merry Christmas but mean go to hell does that make it OK?

Ironically the expression of Happy Holidays or Seasons Greetings came about in mainstream parlance thanks to fundamentalist Christians who took umbrage that Christmas was associated with such a display of unabashed commercialism. When retailers would beckon holiday shoppers with attractive signage that wished everyone a Merry Christmas, these devout practitioners of the Christian faith would write letters and stage boycotts because they were offended that their savior was being used to boost year end sales figures. Jesus did not die on the cross for Hasbro.

Now that the flames of insecurity have been aggressively fanned be evangelists hurting for cash and pundits aching for ratings, the push is on to attach Christ to everything. Stores that refuse to specify Christmas are attacked by venomous wags and accused of waging war on Christmas and Christianity. The Nativity must be honored at all costs. Happy Holidays is what the terrorists want us to say.

It's sad because almost everything about Christmas has roots in paganism. The bright colored lights date back to solstice celebrations, the tree is rooted in Norse tradition and Santa Clause is a composite of a number of polytheistic and pagan characters. Jesus never gave anybody presents. He didn't slide down chimneys, or ride in a flying sleigh behind eight magic reindeer.

Theologians concur that Jesus wasn't born any where near the December 25th and peg his birthday in the late spring. In fact, the whole story of the Nativity appears to be a fairy tale concocted to dramatize the undocumented birth of Jesus. As the demand grew for a commemoration of this event, the Catholic Church opted to position the date to coincide with competing holy days. It's no coincidence that December is a busy month for spiritual celebrations. In the northern hemisphere it is the darkest time of the year and symbolizes the beginning of the coldest months. Instead of abolishing ancient tradition, the church decided to trump it. As it would turn out, Christ never really was in Christmas outside of a Papal decree.

Of course none of that matters. Spirituality is a personal matter and how a person chooses to celebrate their beliefs is entirely up to them. It's interesting that so many people of so many faiths choose December as a time to join family and friends to honor their personal beliefs... even if those beliefs are in holiday clearance sales and credit cards. If it brings people together it can't be that bad. Unless it's Old Spice, but then that doesn't bring people together, does it?

That's why people like Bill O'Reilly should just let it be. Why turn the Holidays into some misguided holy war? Whether praise be to Jesus, Santa, Allah, Rudolph, magic Hebrew candles, or low low prices can't we all just get along?

KKKramer's tirade

2006-11-22T08:39:00.000-08:00

Who would have guessed that Mel Gibson and Michael Richards (aka Kramer) were the charter members of Hollywood's chapter of the KKK? Mel tried to bury his bigotry with woeful tales of a life long battle with alcohol but a blood alcohol analysis revealed that Mel was not drunk enough to justify hitting on Star Jones, let alone deliver a blistering anti-semitic tantrum. Mel was just buzzed enough to be put off at being hassled by the cops. He was outraged that his popularity had waned and in the midst of his anger he allowed his deep-seated venom to spew. Jews! He wasn't drunk, he threw a pampered celebrity tizzy that escalated into Mein Kampf. Even if you give Mel a pass, the fact that his father offered an impromptu history lesson on the Holocaust reaveals that Mel comes from a long line of bigots.

Michael Richards can't hide behind the booze. The washed up doofus who stumbled into temporary super stardom on the hit sitcom Seinfeld has been desperately trying to find a market for his talent which is rather limited. The talent and the market. The iron was hot about six years ago, now the series is losing its luster in syndication. Game over, Mike.

Unlike the rest of the cast, Richards was a nobody before he got a part in a fledgling sitcom many thought would bomb. It was a side project for Jerry and an easy, no risk gig for Dreyfus and Alexander as both had established themselves as capable actors. Seinfeld might have made them rich beyond their wildest dreams but they had rubbed elbows with big stars and had solid credentials. Richards had a bit part in a Weird Al film. Even though his counterparts have struggled to capitalize on the fame their roles in the greatest sitcom ever provided, Alexander and Dreyfus have been granted numerous opportunities to carry on and seem content to call Seinfeld the pinnacle of their careers. Richards had one shot in a poorly conceived show that shamelessly tried to rehash the slapstick aspect of Kramer and nothing since.

It's ironic. The brilliant physical comedy that Richards used to propel a peripheral character into a primary role has been the bane of the actor's career since the show ended its run. Without that shtick Kramer would have been a semi-recurring character along the lines of Wayne Knight's Neuman, but Richards is forever typecast as a character who lacks the depth to carry a show.

So Richards, desperate to stay viable, opted to roll the dice and give stand up a shot. He generated genuine laughs on the show, so why not clown around on stage? The problem is that on TV the real geniuses (if the show is good) are in a back room writing the jokes and layering the comedy. Richards executed his role with brilliant comedic precision but without writers and directors to hone his performance, capturing that same magic is difficult if not impossible. For an actor who spent the better part of a decade riding a wave of enormous singular popularity, the downward spiral of anonymity is painful. Nobody wants to be a has been.

Michael Richards took the stage full of anger, resentment and desperation. He was up there trying take back his fame, laughter was secondary. When members of the audience called him out for the washed up hack he has become, Richards snapped and let loose a string of racial epithets directed at the African Americans who allegedly heckled him.

Mind you, this wasn't a Don Rickles type of rant where racial epithets are bandied about in jest. Richards seemed to lament the passing of the era where black men were hung from trees and tortured by white oppressors. Funny would have been racially-charged jokes about black people not watching Seinfeld. Funny would have been having enough cultural awareness to drop a few Martin Lawrence references. Really funny would be taking the high road and employing a little self-deprecating humor about being a one trick pony. Jon Stewart mines his less than stellar acting career for big laughs every other night.

Richards and Mel Gibson went beyond the reaches of anger and revealed an ugly side of their personalities. At least Richards has a plausible reason for launching into a racial tirade...the hecklers were black. Had he limited his outburst to a quick epithet and moved on an apology would be sufficient but Richards elaborated and revealed a social philosophy. Michael Richards doesn't like black people. That makes him a racist. There's a big difference between calling somebody a nigger and telling them that 50 years ago they would have been hanging from a tree.

Sadly, this is another example of how deep-seated the racial problem is in this country. If the guy who played Kramer is harboring such unmitigated hatred toward blacks and Mel Gibson is sitting on a powder keg of anti-Semitism we have to assume that its a rampant problem. How many business owners feel the same way?

Even if these people make an effort to suspend their bigotry in public exchanges these feelings will have an impact on their daily decisions. That means a guy like Mel Gibson is going to subconsciously find faults in a Jewish applicant while he overlooks flaws in a Christian candidate. Michael Richards will cut a white employee slack for being 10 minutes late but come down on the black one for violating the attendance policy.

There's not much we can do about it. Mel Gibson is who he is because he was raised in a culture of anti-Semitism and as an adult he has chosen to foster those feelings. Michael Richards is one of those angry white guys who sees the leveling of the playing field as an infringement on his rights. Both of these men resent the object of their rage. When Mel Gibson sees Jon Stewart and Billy Crystal hosting the Oscars he believes that it is an example of the tremendous power Jews have in Hollywood. When Michael Richards sees Dave Chappelle inking a 100 million dollar deal to perform bad sketch comedy he thinks it's because of affirmative action.

Guys like Mike and Mel see the world in US verses THEM terms. They don't want to accept that beyond race, culture and creed we are all just people and there is an extensive amount of common ground that can be exploited for personal gain in the entertainment field. Gibson could have enlisted the assistance of Hebrew theologians to consult with him on Passion. Richards could have combined comedy and his experience in Hollywood to probe the depths of racism in the casting office. While the success both have attained demonstrates that these men aren't exactly idiots, they are just ignorant enough to let their prejudice trip up their careers.

Racism is alive, well and a lot closer to home than anybody cares to admit.

What Americans Fear.

2006-11-13T18:18:00.000-08:00

Al Jazeera.

What comes to mind when you see that name? Most Americans immediately think of terrorists and raving fundamentalists. That might be because most Americans can't tell you the difference between Al Jazeera and Al Qaeda. Those who know that Al Jazeera is actually an Arab news network mistakenly characterize it as a propaganda tool of extremists. Apparently American military strategists see it as easy pickings. Al Jazeera has had its offices bombed by American forces. Twice. Oops.

Ironically it's the extremists who seem to despise Al Jazeera the most. While certain totalitarian-leaning western conservatives believe that Al Jazeera expresses a view that is sympathetic to Al Qaeda, it's the fundamentalist leaders of Islamic nations who see Al Jazeera as a serious threat to their power. Funded primarily by the progressive emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, Al Jazeera provides the Arab world unrestricted access to information, a thorn in the side of zealous leaders who relish complete control over their people. Knowledge is power and once a despot loses control of the information, he loses control of the people. Even though Al Jazeera's reporters infuriate western leaders by getting close to suspected terrorists who elude international authorities, the journalists seem motivated by a desire to offer the other side of the story. A side that most Americans don't want to hear.

Al Jazeera represents hope...the hope that the West and the Middle East aren't as divided by culture and creed as many believe. Organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda don't see themselves as terrorists but as liberators who are fighting an enemy too powerful to confront by traditional means. While no westerner in his right mind could justify the attacks perpetrated by these organizations, the fact remains that there are people in other parts of the world who can. Al Jazeera offers some insight into the circumstances people in these parts of the world face and that understanding can help us find find common ground. It's worth pointing out that it wasn't all that long ago British leaders described Colonial militants as terrorists. Our history books list those same men as patriots. Perspective is a funny thing.

Assuming that Al Qaeda is alone in despising American influence throughout the Middle East is undoubtedly erroneous but concluding that everybody in the Middle East wants all Americans dead is preposterous. We're being arrogant if we actually believe that Osama Bin Laden is out to get us because he disapproves of Desperate Housewives and bacon, the reality is that his issue is the heavy-handed manner in which the west has treated the Middle East. Al Jazeera simply communicates that point. Just because they present a side of the story we don't like doesn't mean they aren't unbiased.

Al Jazeera simply offers a global perspective that isn't readily available through domestic outlets. Even though CNN makes an effort to be worldly and the BBC has an uncanny knack for digging up hard to find news items from around the world, western networks are prone to self-aggrandizing and the story often gets lost in egos of those reporting the news. Christiane Amanpour is a prime example of an international reporter who has allowed her personality to become bigger than the news. We need a fresh perspective.

Al Jazeera recently opened up a Washington Bureau and will be launching an English language broadcast later this week. In spite of massive efforts to find outlets in the US, most cable providers have been reluctant to pick up the channel. It's ironic that a country so proud of its free press would see fit to stifle a voice simply because of ignorant misconceptions. The CEO's will offer up financial concerns as the reason they won't pick up Al Jazeera. They'll claim that there isn't enough of a market to justify offering up a channel, but with space being made for inane offerings like ESPN U and VH1 Classic, it would appear that barring Al Jazeera has more to do with good old fashioned American bigotry than it does free market economics.

Al Jazeera provides information.

What are we afraid of?

Unsympathetic Victims

2006-08-15T17:57:00.000-07:00

Maurice Clarett had the world on a string. For one brief football season he was a god worshipped by a throng of scarlet clad minions screaming his name. Then, suddenly, the cheers were replaced with boos, insults and threats. As a freshman at The Ohio State University, Maurice faced long odds of getting significant playing time. Coach Jim Tressle had a reputation for diligently standing by his veterans while only the best and brightest of the freshman class would see meaningful playing time, let alone carry most of the load. Maurice increased his chances by graduating from high school in December and enrolling at Ohio State in January. This gave him the opportunity to get some reps with the varsity squad during the spring practice session. When he got his chance he proved to be a formidable weapon.

Mind you, Maurice wasn't some nobody. He was a record setting running back out of Northeastern Ohio, one of the most competitive bastions of high school football in the country. Texas might have gotten some notoriety thanks to Friday Night Lights, but if football is a religion, Northeastern Ohio is the Vatican. That's why the Pro Football Hall of Fame sits in Canton. People had big expectations for Maurice and he exceeded them.

What makes Maurice even more remarkable is the fact that Ohio State's offense was terrible. The line didn't control scrimmage, the passing game was inefficient at best and if it were not for the explosive running of Maurice Clarett, Ohio State's offensive production would have been rated dead last among the 117 Division I A programs. Somehow Maurice managed rush for well over 1000 yards in spite of every defense in the country keying on him. He even missed a few games, but fortunately they were against weaker foes. He was a major reason Ohio State went undefeated and he made the biggest play in the Fiesta Bowl against Miami to clinch a national title. Without Maurice Ohio State wouldn't have contended for the championship let alone win it. After that Maurice fell fast and hard, always finding a way to break through the cold hard tile of one low to reach a new depth. The story is well documented.

Now Maurice is facing potential charges that could land him in prison for 35 years. While it's unlikely he'll serve more than a fraction of that time it's clear that there is something wrong. He's mentally unstable, but it's doubtful he'll be ruled incompetent to stand trial. Maurice knows the difference between right and wrong. He just can't figure out why the rules should apply to him.

A lot of people are through with him. Most Buckeye fans closed the book on him the minute he insinuated that Ohio State might be less than perfect. Common sense leads one to believe that there was a lot of truth to the accusations levied at Ohio State, but it's also clear that Maurice had a vested interest in embellishing his story. Somewhere in the middle the truth is waiting to be revealed. However, as long as Ohio State brings in hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue, the NCAA would like to leave that stone unturned. But Ohio State didn't try to rob two people this past January. Ohio State didn't lead police on a chase with loaded weapons in the car. Ohio State didn't resist arrest. Maurice is an adult and must be held accountable for his crimes.

Of course, things went sour a long time ago, when Maurice was still a kid. Former Notre Dame coach Bob Davie claims that Maurice Clarett frightened him on a recruiting visit because the then junior tailback wanted to graduate from high school after his junior year to start college early. Maurice wanted to get on the fast track to NFL money and Bob Davie smelled trouble. He refused to work with Maurice on an early admission and Clarett went elsewhere.

It's clear that Maurice did not have proper guidance as a child. He grew up in a lousy neighborhood around lousy people. His family always had their hands out, taking money from anybody willing to purchase a piece of the little kid with NFL written all over him. He was recruited to play at a high school that was not in his school district and that move helped Maurice's mom improve her standard of living, but Maurice didn't get his. Rules prohibited him from getting paid.

At Ohio State, Maurice had access to more revenue sources and, like any major football program, Ohio State was well-versed in looking the other way. Maurice landed himself a nice off campus apartment, a sweet little ride and a tidy stack of cash for playing around. While Maurice's mom might have seen a little coin back in his high school days, the story of Clarett's impoverished upbringing was all over the news. Young kid from the ghetto makes good. So why didn't anybody at Ohio State ask Clarett where the goodies were coming from? Standard Operating Procedure. Schools like Ohio State are successful because they have the resources to make sure their players are taken care of. It's off the books and the paper trail rarely implicates the coach or athletic director, but anybody who has watched the football team show up to practice knows that there's something going on. Nice cars, nice clothes, and everybody seems to becoming from a nice pad off campus.

Maurice made the mistake of getting caught. He filed a police report that detailed enough booty to make the NCAA take note. He later claimed that he filed a false report but the NCAA was already on the case and it was clear that Maurice was on the take. Even if he was dishonest about what was in the car, there was still the question of how that car was acquired. Conveniently, Ohio State was able to deny any culpability and Maurice was suspended.

That's where he really spiraled out of control. To Maurice college was just an obstacle preventing him from capitalizing on his talent. He didn't want to take some scraps in secret, his jersey was selling out in every store at over $100 a pop and he wasn't getting a dime. Maurice was single handedly generating millions of dollars and he was getting room, board and some half rate education he didn't even want. In his mind it wasn't that big a step up from being a slave. All the while his counterpart, Lebron James, was driving a Hummer to school and inking shoe contracts before he graduated. High School. Maurice had just won a national championship in one of the highest rated college bowl games in history and he was borrowing cars from a program friendly dealership. You bet he felt like a slave.

Maybe not slavery, but at least indentured servitude, and the NFL likes it that way. If players could skip college teams would draft them and eventually the NFL will have to earmark money to develop young prospects that formerly honed their skills at the college level. The players who simply went to college would have to be on the payroll which would expand rosters and that means less profits. The NFL likes the free farm system the NCAA provides and the NCAA loves the revenue it doesn't have to share with the talent. There are a lot of reach people associated with the NCAA and none of them are current players. It doesn't matter what the average fan thinks of the system. What matters is that a lot of players like Maurice Clarett don't like their choices. They don't like being subjected to arbitrary academic standards that don't apply to other students. They feel that college is a distraction from their ultimate goal.

They could be wrong. Perhaps college is a shining opportunity and they should be grateful. Maybe they should make the best of it and prepare themselves for the possibility that football is not in their future. But that's not fair. Nobody seems to discourage singers, actors and dancers from chasing their dreams. Nobody busts Bruce Springsteen's chops for not going to college. He had a dream and chose to live it. We find that trait admirable. After all, they can always go to college later. So why are we so insistent that college athletes take education seriously? Especially when there are so many non athletes on campus that don't take it seriously. Why do we want jocks to pretend they care? For a headstrong young man who doesn't like being told what to do, this system alone would be enough to push him over the edge.

But athletes face different circumstances. Guys like Maurice Clarett show tremendous talent at an early age. Instead of instilling a sense of discipline, people tend to coddle the athlete and make excuses. The more talented the athlete, the more crap people will put up with. As a society we wonder why professional athletes exhibit such irresponsible behavior, but if we look at the way we treat those young superstars we can see it. They are never held accountable. Maurice was coddled throughout his childhood. His mother was always looking for a way to make a buck off her son's ability, shuffling him from one youth team to another. The coaches catered to him and everybody tried to curry favor with a kid who needed a little guidance. In high school it was more of the same. Special treatment, limited discipline and whatever they could sneak him under the table.

It's not just Maurice, but he epitomizes what happens when a child becomes a god. We call it self destruction but it's more like sabotage. Maurice is going to face the consequences of his actions but the reason he lacks good judgment is because every adult in his life let him down. Even at college he was surrounded by advisors who told him what he wanted to hear and those who had a vested interest in Maurice staying out of trouble chose to look the other way for fear of upsetting the petulant star. That's why he couldn't make the cut with the Broncos. Maurice actually thought that the NFL was going to kiss the ground he walked on just as everybody had throughout his career. When he was treated like just another football player he withdrew and the Broncos sent him packing.

A lot of people won't even give Maurice that much. There are people who simply don't want to hear the sob story, but for every athlete we lift up we destroy another. James Brooks was a successful running back in the NFL. He played for 13 years, most of them as the featured back for the Cincinnati Bengals. A few years ago Brooks was convicted for felony nonsupport and it was revealed that he couldn't read. After a long successful career in the NFL, Brooks was trying to hold down a job as a security guard to cover his expenses. Dexter Manley was a dominate defensive end in the NFL who spent 11 years terrorizing quarterbacks. After he was suspended for failing a drug test Manley revealed that he was illiterate in spite of spending four years at Oklahoma State. Brooks spent six years at Auburn.

How does that happen? Most of us are functionally literate by fourth grade, if not earlier. How can somebody get through all those years of school and not be able to read? While Manley and Brooks both had opportunities to learn to read as adults, somebody still let them down as children. What sort of message does that send to the child? Shame on all of the people who let that happen. It's not just bad parenting, it's lousy stewardship by all the people involved in the child's welfare. Teachers, coaches, tutors, even sport agents share the blame for something so reprehensible. If basic education can be circumvented in the name of sports, is it so hard to imagine that the more intricate aspect of developing basic social skills is neglected as well?

Maurice Clarett is a jerk and he deserves what's coming to him. Sadly there are some other people who had a hand in sending him in the wrong direction who will never be held accountable. Sometimes athletes are victims and the crimes committed against them place those kids on a collision course with disaster. That's another dirty little secret in sports and it negates all of the positive things we attribute to athletic competition.

The Root of the Problem

2006-07-10T19:20:00.000-07:00

A lot of people seem eager to mitigate the transgressions of our troops and our government by contrasting some of the more mild offenses committed by our side with the brutal response of our opposition. This tactic is nothing new. It is called propaganda.

A prudent course of action in this ongoing war on terror would be to pick our battles wisely and use brute force sparingly. This would minimize our casualty rate, reduce collateral damage and win global supporters to our cause. Of course the most important element to an effective plan of action and a glaring deficiency in our current efforts is to understand the source of our enemy's rage. If we were to eliminate our enemy's motivation the war would end immediately.

The mistake we are making is believing that the so-called terrorists despise our lifestyle.Big Macs. Busty, breathless teenage sluts. Rap music. While there is no doubt that these fundamentalists disapprove of the things we enjoy, that is not the reason they readily sacrifice themselves for their cause. The motivation is not philosophical.

We have made enemies because of our economic and political influence over the Middle East. The U.S. consumes a ponderous amount of oil every year but the wealth doesn't seem to trickle down to the people who work hard to quench our thirst. In fact, our corporations and politicians have conspired to keep the money and the power in the hands of corrupt leaders who ignore the needs of their people. The fact is some of the most coveted targets of the terrorists we battle with are leaders of the very countries those terrorists call home.

In the US we think of citizens of oil producing countries as wealthy sheiks who drive expensive cars through the sweltering desert, but the majority of the people living in those countries are destitute. We don't hear about the millions of children dying of cancer because the water they drink is tainted with the byproducts of irresponsible drilling. To save a few bucks a barrel our government happily ignores these issues so Americans can continue to gas up the Excursion.

Bloody battles were waged on American streets so that our workforce could become empowered. We celebrate Labor Day because the working class united to demand a bigger share of the profits their hard work made possible. Laws were passed, regulations were enacted and wealth was shared. The result has been advantageous for everybody. We live in a nation of remarkable resources and opportunity. Unfortunately that oppressive greed that drove our workforce to gang violence wasn't eliminated, it was shifted overseas. How can we be surprised that we are now witnessing a backlash from those who have been exploited for so long?

It's time for Americans to accept some responsibility for this bloody war. The reason there is no end in sight is because we have failed to address the issues that started it. The blame for this failure falls squarely on the shoulders of a horribly under-qualified president who surrounded himself with arrogant corporate agents of greed who just don't care. The combination of ignorance and self indulgence is not only bad news for this country, but a serious problem the rest of the world will spend decades trying to recover from.

Bush ran on a values-oriented agenda. He even had the audacity to claim he was doing god's will, but a righteous man always judges himself before he attempts to scrutinize the actions of others. If Bush were truly a man of god he might have pondered such concepts as turning the other cheek or removing the plank from his own eye, but Bush tossed the bible aside in favor of John Wayne . The man of god became the cowboy when the chips were down and now that the hand is unfolding it's clear that a little patience and humility would have gone a long way. Instead were stuck in a no-win situation that we'll be paying for in years to come.

Voters need to claim power.

2006-06-27T19:40:00.000-07:00

The shell game that is American politics is more transparent than ever. Democrats scurried from the liberal moniker like rats from a burning tenement in elections past, now Republicans are scouting out new territory in the coming midterm election. Senate seats are up for grabs and battle lines have been drawn on all of the rhetorical issues but it is clear that nobody is willing to take a stand on anything critical. At least not this far away from the election.

Republicans who are safe in this election are trying to rekindle the blind sense of nationalistic pride that provided the party with victories in elections past and of course the issue of homosexuality is back in the crosshairs, but voters seem poised to think things through this time around and it has politicians, particularly those on the right very concerned. Eight years of right wing politics has destabilized a once burgeoning economy. Prices are up, wages are down and Americans are terrified that medical care might become a luxury. And then we have war. Not one of those romantic wars where the enemy is clearly defined and progress is easily measured, but a nasty little war against ambiguous foes who seem impervious to our ponderous might.

In the coming months battles will heat up. Republicans will have to decided whether or not it’s time to throw Bush under the bus and reach toward the middle to bring the ship back to even keel, or lean even further to the right and dump the whole shebang into the murky waters of ultra-conservative politics.

Democrats won’t have to stake out much of a position. Republicans have enjoyed a staggering degree of control in Washington for the better part of eight years and the results have been awful. They managed to blame Democrats for their shortcomings in 2004, but now voters aren’t buying that one. Fool me once...can’t get fooled again. While it would be an excellent time for the Democratic Party to make its move to restore credibility and honor to the maligned cause of liberalism, it’s obvious that Howard Dean is going to lay up and play it safe counting on the power of disenfranchisement to sway voters to the left.

As reasonable as such a position might be given the state of modern politics, it’s painfully obvious that this country needs a complete overhaul of the political process. The basic structure of the government is fine, but layer upon layer of cheap paint has been slapped over what was once a masterpiece of statesmanship. When you remodel an old house you don’t tear it down and rebuild it, you rip out the shag carpet, knock out a few walls and remove the old fixtures. You get rid of the junk and invest in some high quality accessories. That’s what we need to do with our government.

Sadly the two power parties aren’t rising to that challenge. They haven’t addressed anything truly patriotic or humanitarian in decades and the corruption hangs in the air like the fetid smell of black mold. For years the ruling class has worked hard to insulate its grasp of power in this country and the result has gotten us right where we are today.

This November voters can take the keys to the kingdom back and unite to vote for candidates who are brave enough to align themselves with a third party. Libertarian, Green...even communist. It’s not really about who we elect, it’s about who we shut out. Let Democrats and Republicans sit one out and see how they respond.

Rove Walks

2006-06-14T17:53:00.000-07:00

Why is Karl Rove walking away from federal charges the least bit surprising? Was there ever any question that he would be protected from any reciprocity? Haven't these scandals always left the real culprits unscathed?

From John Adams and the XYZ Affair where bribes were paid to French diplomats, to Warren Harding's Teapot Dome scandal, deep rooted corruption has always gone largely unchecked in our government. They always put the screws to some patsy, but the power mongers who orchestrate everything walk. Who got nailed for Watergate? G. Gordon Liddy, a flunky FBI agent who was more than happy to blur the lines between duty and politics and a handful of henchmen, but Nixon resigned and was pardoned. Did any heavy hitters take the fall in the Iran Contra affair? Nope. Ollie North did some time but after he got out he was rewarded by those who appreciated him taking the fall and not naming names. He ran for office, writes a column and hosts a radio show.

What is surprising in this is the fact that Karl Rove is one of those peripheral characters who is normally offered up as a sacrifice when a scandal goes public. The Plame Affair has been linked to administration heavy Dick Cheney but as of right now the only head to roll is the one belonging to Scooter Libby. The fact that Rove is getting a pass reveals that he has a much stronger hold over this administration than anybody previously thought.

The Plame affair is a big deal. Valerie Plame's position as an active CIA operative was exposed in retaliation for her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, alleging that Bush was trying to offer bogus evidence as proof of Saddam Hussein's attempts to acquire weapons grade uranium. In fact, it took only a few days for Plame's CIA affiliation to be released after Wilson commented on the evidence.

It was a childish act of retaliation, but it sets a dangerous precedent. While it seems safe to assume that Plame wasn't a deep cover operative who was dispatched to corners of the globe to assassinate enemies and sabotage plans, the fact that CIA operations could be compromised for spite by the very men elected and appointed to guard against breaches of national security is cause for concern.

Furthermore this issue has challenged our understanding of the first amendment. Instead of accepting full responsibility for the leak, the Bush Administration has allowed some blame to be shifted on the press. Now there is serious discussion about imposing criminal charges on journalists who leak issues of national security.

That's just wrong. The press doesn't take an oath to uphold national security. In fact, the very nature of the press is the exact opposite. Reporters are supposed to be terrible at keeping secrets and nobody should expect anything they tell a reporter to remain in confidence. If that changes the press becomes censored and information falls under the control of the government. That is the ultimate form of corruption. The Bush administration is using the Valerie Plame affair, a scandal they created, to attack the media and limit the power of the press.

We expect our elected officials to uphold our national security. We trust them to hire qualified people to manage our nation's secrets and pay handsomely to ensure that said security is maintained through the worst possible scenarios. Valerie Plame wasn't a major player in the intelligence game, but the fact that this Administration would compromise the integrity of the CIA's security to retaliate against a former ambassador who dared to question the Bush Administration proves that our elected officials don't take security very seriously. How far will they go to lash out at their political enemies?

At the very least Dick Cheney should resign over this, but we know better than to expect something so appropriate. After all this is the same guy who got drunk, shot a buddy and hid from the police until his BAC was under control. Why would we expect Cheney to be a stand up guy and admit that he pulled the trigger on Valerie Plame? Even though Cheney should have taken the heat over this thing, we knew it wasn't going to happen.

The bottom line is that the Bush Administration has no qualms about being wicked. They lie, cheat and steal and don't care who knows it. They have surrounded themselves with those who never question them and even have a media network that happily obfuscates the truth for them. In spite of this country's long sordid past with scandal, this current administration has taken things to a new low. These guys aren't just corrupt, they're plain dirty and they don't care who knows it.