The Daily Heard

Oh, you're an expert, then you must be right

2012-01-19T12:18:00.000-08:00

I am so sick and tired of people saying that something is true because there is an expert that agrees with their point of view. Or that there is some “official person” that has declared their position valid. It upsets me even more when people think that something is true or use in an argument that the majority of people all agree or conform to some idea. Geez, group consensus, that has never been wrong before. There have been countless instances throughout our history where the majority of people believed something that was later proved to be incorrect. These are just a few examples in the long list of fallacies the majority of the world used to believe true that have been proven wrong: Jesus being the son of God (according to the Jews), gravity, the world being flat, the Greeks and Romans believing in mount Olympus, one race being superior or inferior to other races (and it wasn’t just the Nazis), wearing hats causes baldness, and that frozen yogurt is good for you. Just because and expert says so, or everyone believes the same thing doesn’t mean it’s the truth.
How many of us have seen on TV the introduction of some new “miracle product” advertised that is going to relieve this or be a cure all for that? Then to give their product validity, an expert wearing a lab coat looking very official with the moniker Dr. in front of their name who is acting as their “expert," endorses the product. Who gives a shit? There has been a long-standing joke about this profession. Do you know what they call the guy who finishes dead last in his medical school class? Doctor. Meaning that anyone, whether they are a deserving or not, can still be called a doctor just by graduating. Just like with lawyers, accountants, scientist, and any other profession that requires more years of college. All you have to do is finish the race so to speak and graduate. I’ve watched the Boston Marathon; the guy who finishes the race in 1st place is a lot different then the guy who finishes the race 10 hours later in last. It is impressive to just go out there and do it, but I’m not getting running advice from the last place guy. Just like I am not listening to someone because they are a so-called expert. Colleges and universities are cranking out “experts” on a daily basis based on the amount of money they have spent to obtain their degrees.I also have a problem with polls that are supposed to determine the “pulse of America.” Those polls are no closer to telling me how the rest of America thinks than eating a bag of Skittles is going to let me taste a rainbow. A poll can make a claim just like a bag of candy does, but it doesn’t make it the truth. You don’t know anything about the people being questioned, where they are at, what has transpired to them recently, and the religious, ethnic and economic breakdown of the people being polled. It is as ridiculous as asking 1,500 Americans which color they like better, giving them only 5 colors to choose from, and then wording the findings something like this: “The majority of Americans think yellow is the most offensive color.” First of all the idea of “offensive” was never brought up. Just because people picked yellow the least, doesn’t mean they don’t like it. It means that their favorite is something else. Yellow could just have easily been their second choice, or they could like a multitude of colors that aren’t on the list, plus the survey said to pick their favorite color, not to pick the one they despised the most. But reports based on surveys like this happen all the time. And they are about things that are far more important than favorite colors in an attempt to mislead the public, drum up interest in a story, or to support false claims in order to sway the public over to one opinion from another.Another common fallacy is the use of statistics. The statistics that news organizations print or televise can be so easily manipulated that I don’t understand how anyone can back anything they claim with a straight face and maintain that it has any validity. I just read a report on CNN that had the headline saying that joblessness rates have slowed down. So I clicked the link to enquire within and read the whole article. Well apparently because less people have reported this year that they are jobless to the government, the rate has gone down. Umm, no. That is just faulty thinking. It may be true that less people are reporting to the government that they are jobless this year, but it can be any number of reasons why they aren’t reporting it as frequently. One major reason could be because their unemployment benefits have run out. So they are no longer reporting it, because they can’t make any more claims. Just because the rater of reporting is down, doesn’t mean the rate of joblessness has slowed. That is equivalent to saying that because less people are going to the hospital sickness and accidents resulting in injury are down. Well it could be that, or it could be that people are looking for home remedies or are just battling through their illnesses because the hospitals are too expensive and they can’t afford to go. It also matters about who is funding these experts. Money is what makes the world go round. It is the lifeblood of the country, and as you can see the 1% have made the rest of us pretty anemic. If we have learned anything from the recent GOP circus that has come to town, it is that we live in the United States of Capitalism where money is G-O-D, and capitalism is the sacred cow that must not be touched. Well if money is everything, then the ones with money can buy anything, and they do. How else can you explain the cigarette companies that have hundreds of scientists on their payroll claiming that they there is no empirical evidence that smoking causes cancer? Are you kidding me.?! Okay,sure that sounds about right. Oh yeah, and bullets shot from guns don’t kill people either. It’s the holes that are opened up in their bodies after the bullets go through them that are the cause. Common sense should dictate what the truth is, but have we become so lazy that we will not allow our eyes to see the truth for themselves. Are we going to continue to let these so-called experts piss in our faces with false information only to tell us that it is rain? I’m not claiming to know everything, the origin of man, the vast unknown of space, what women are thinking, or even what happens to the “other” sock in the dryer. I just know that I can think for myself, and that I am smart enough to not be spoon fed shit and told to enjoy it because it was crapped out of an expert.

And of course there are people like Sarah Palin who claim that just being in the vicinity of something makes you an expert. She claimed her expertise on foreign affairs was bolstered by the fact that she could see Russia from Alaska. Hmm, well by that rationale, I am an expert on porcelain because of that time I got food poisoning at Mimi’s Café and spent two days on and kneeling over a toilet. And since toilets are made of porcelain, guess who’s an expert?!

Green, with envy

2012-01-17T13:59:00.000-08:00

I woke up early this morning to go for a run when I noticed a chicken crossing the road. Don’t worry, this is not an elaborate set up on the old “chicken crossing the road” joke. No, I really saw a chicken crossing the road. It was so bizarre that is caught me off guard, it was actually fascinating to me since I live in a suburb, not on a farm, near a farm, by a farm, on a street with farm in its name, and there was a chicken crossing the street. I felt like I was in a living Hilights magazine page, you know the little kids magazine with the, “Which of these things doesn’t belong” game. Anyway, I kind of just stood there focused on this chicken, oblivious to everything else happening around me, which wasn’t very much since it was 6 in the morning, and waited to see where it was going. I think the chicken was also out for a morning constitutional around the block, since it kind of just walked accross the street and back. Then it slowly made its way to back to my neighbor's house, who lives 3 doors down from me, and disappeared between the bars in his backyard fence. What the hell man!? Why does my neighbor have a freaking chicken as a pet? Then it dawned on me, he doesn’t have a chicken as a pet, he probably has that hen laying eggs for him in his backyard. That is actually a cool idea, fresh eggs every morning. It’s so much more healthy and humane to do it that way. He is controlling what the chicken is eating thus controlling the nutrients that are going into the eggs he will be consuming. Not to mention he can control how the chicken itself is treated. And, he is saving money and helping out the population of chickens that are abused in these huge industrial chicken factories. That got me really thinking, “What else is this guy doing that is helping out the environment, and helping to reduce his carbon footprint?” I actually didn’t truly care what he was up to, per se, I was actually more concerned about what it was I could be doing to reduce my carbon footprint. Its all fine and good to say that you are going to do something, or to have the knowledge that something needs to be done, but to actually go out and do it, putting your money where your mouth is, well, that is the step I have been needing to take.

So I went on line to do some research to find out exactly what I could do to put up or shut up. I wanted to find out information and find out what was fact and what was fiction about going “green.” And what I discovered is that there are a lot of easy things I can do, besides owning a Prius that can help limit the carbon footprint I am leaving. I want to help the environment, my fellow man, and of course myself to thrive in this overpopulated, over polluted world that we keep trashing. I came up with a list of things that I could do and could easily. I read this quote and it just makes good sense, “Being environmentally-friendly is just good economics”

•Own your own chickens-if you have a back yard or the room on the roof, or space anywhere, you can build a chicken coop, and have hens lay you fresh eggs daily.
•Get to know my local farmers- Find out about community gardens, or you can join a co-op and have local organic produce delivered to your house. Attend farmers markets
•Compost heap-follow the link bellow to help you understand why having one is a good idea, and how easy it can be to make.
http://simplemom.net/how-to-make-a-compost-bin/
•Recycle-take the time to separate your garbage. Try not to throw everything away in one bin and hope that someone else will separate it. A few seconds separating can save a few hundred years of decomposition.
•Plant and sustain a garden-Once you have your compost heap going you can use that soil to help plant your fruit and veggies. If you don’t have a lot of space you can start small and grow your own herbs. Even grow small flowers to brighten up your living spaces. Gardening can be very therapeutic.
•No more bottled water-Do you know how many bottles are in our oceans and in our land fills that will be there long after we are dead? Use a thermos or a reusable bottle. Get a filtration system, or simply use a Brita water filter pitcher. Let’s get rid of the bottle craze. Sure they are convenient now, but when we are suffocating on all the waste, it will not have seemed like such a good idea.
•Dishtowels not paper towels-Buy dishtowels and use them in the kitchen. When they get dirty, you wash them. Every little bit helps, not to mention the money you save on paper towels.
•Buy quality items, not cheap and disposable
•Carry your own grocery bags, reusable-I love my grocery bag, it carries so much more than you would think. And they make ones for your hot and cold items. They carry them at most stores and they cost a buck or maybe 2. What a bargain.
•Natural light-Use your windows for what they were made for, to let light into your house
•Repurpose paper from your printer- Instead of throwing out those sheets that are misprints, or rough drafts (students), you can just flip them over and use the other side as note pads, or doodle pads for you or the kids
•Donate your old clothes, or repurpose them-There are people out there that need our clothes. If you want, do a garage sell. I am lazy and I routinely donate clothes I no longer wear or that don’t fit, stupid tacos, to Goodwill industries. You can turn old towels or t-shirts in to rags for cleaning, or to wash your car. There are all kinds of things you can do.
•Learn to sew-This is for men and women. Learn to repair your clothes. Our generation is the “throw away” generation. When something breaks, or stops working, it somehow finds its way in the trash, instead of trying to fix it. There is nothing wrong with sewing a patch in a pair of ripped jeans, pajamas, or shirts. Maybe it will become trendy again to do that. Who knows? But you are saving money, and saving an old comfy pair of pants that you might yet be willing to part with.

Together we can make the world a better place. Also, stay informed about different bills and proposition that are on the ballot. You should know both the economic, social, and the environmental impact of what you are voting on. Knowledge truly is power. The old TV commercial tag ling is correct, “The more you know…. the farther the Earth will go.” We only have one planet, and you have a choice, so choose wisely.

Happy Birtday Dr. King

2012-01-16T11:55:00.000-08:00

My Favorite quotes from a legendary man

“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”

“Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.”

“Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.”

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically... Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.”

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and consciencious stupidity.”

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.”

“Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' But conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but because conscience tells one it is right.”

“It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.”

“Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.”

“Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.”

“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.”

“We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools”
“Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.”

“In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

Happy Birthday Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Thank you for your strength, for your love, for your compassion, and for your good will so that we may all enjoy a brighter future together. If there is a promise land, I know that you are there. Your sacrifice did not go unnoticed. Your actions will echo in eternity.

The Greatest Mystery Known to Man

2012-01-14T16:40:00.000-08:00

Black holes, the discovery of all the species on the planet, the origin of man, proof of a deity; the explanations for all of these things are easier to figure out than to figure out what women are thinking. Rationality would have us believe that men and women’s thought patterns are very closely related to one another. I mean its weird because we are only separated by a single chromosome in the beginning. Yet the idea that there is anything rational about how a woman thinks is faulty in and of itself. Arguably the smartest man on the planet, Steven Hawkins, recently made the claim that women continue to be the universe’s greatest mystery. And that man is a genius. Like when people say, “Well, he’s smart but he’s no rocket scientist.” Yeah, yeah he is, this guy is smarter than rocket scientists, and HE doesn’t understand women.

It reminds me of a joke I heard a while back that demonstrates the irrationality of female thinking. This guy is walking along the beach and he stumbles over something buried in the sand. After he picks himself up, he digs down into the sand to see what caused his tumble. He picks up what appears to be a bottle of some sort, but when he goes to brush the sand away to get a better look at it, the bottle begins to shake violently and without warning smoke starts erupting from all of its orifices. And “POOF,” a genie pops out. The genie declares in a booming voice “You have awoken the most powerful genie in all the world, and as such you have been granted 3 wishes. What will they be?” The guy thinks about it for about a second and then blurts out, “I want a billion dollars.” Poof! But nothing happened. The guy looks around, but sees nothing. The genie instructs him to check his smart phone, and when he does in his bank account is a billion dollars. His next wish is that he is surrounded by lots of hot chicks that are all into him. Poof! There are beautiful bikini clad vixens swarming all over him like he is in a real life AXE commercial. The genie then instructs him to ask for his final wish. The man thinks and thinks and finally says, “You know what, I have always wanted to go to Hawaii, but I am afraid of flying and I hate boats, so what I want you to do is I want you to make me a road from California to Hawaii, so I can travel there whenever I want.” The genie looks at the man and shakes his head, and once again in a deep booming voice bellows, “It is true I am the most powerful genie in all the world, but to take on a feat of that breadth would be near impossible. I would have to secure pylons stretching to the ocean floor that would have to reach miles. The pressure they would be under from the depth of the water is incalculable. The weather in that part of the ocean is unpredictable and waves and currents will constantly threaten to destroy the bridge. Not to mention the amount of concrete necessary to complete a project of that magnitude would be....you know what, just wish for something else.” The man sits down and thinks and thinks and finally says, “Fine, then I’ve always wanted to know what women are thinking.” The genie looks at the man and asks, “Will that be 2 lanes or 4?”

Women have been making headlines recently for doing the crazy shit that women do, which is kind of redundant to say. The most notable headline was Tiger’s ex, once media victim, now eccentric headcase Elin Woods, bought a beach front mansion and had it torn down. Did I mention she paid $12 million dollars for this mansion in Florida. Yep, she definitely deserves money because how can she provide a life for herself and kids without the ability to do frivolous shit like this. Our archaic legal system’s results in action. She claims that there was a termite infestation that required her to demolish the entire house. Well, I think we can take 3 things away from this story. Number one, apparently they don’t make fumigation tents big enough to cover mansions. Second, she is an idiot for spending 12 million dollars on a house that was infested with termites. You might want to do a little legwork before you throw around Tiger’s, err, your money. And third, no matter how much of Tiger’s money she spends, she will never be able to hurt him, she is only making herself seem like a foolish, bitter, scorned woman. I wish her the best of luck, but she has moved from being a victim to one crazy ass bitch who doesn’t’ know the value of money since she didn’t earn one scent of that 200+ million dollars she now has. Dave Chapelle was right when he joked, “Suck a dick [ladies], there’s a future in it.”

Then if that wasn’t enough, this insane mom upstages her son on national television during his press release. Landon Collins who is one of the most sought after defensive back prospects was declaring publicly which school had won his services for the next 4 years. His choices were Alabama and LSU. Well apparently the Tigers boosters promised mom more of what she wanted, because her 18 year old son, made the choice to attend Alabama. And right afterwards mom told the reporters they were still going to talk go Tigers. Your son is now a man lady. If you want him to act like a man and make his own decisions, and respect the women in his life, then you have to stop second guessing him. Rap and the hip-hop lifestyle isn’t what causes misogynistic tendencies in male athletes, it’s the trifling women in their lives starting with their own mothers. It's true that you made him, you gave him life, and raised him. But it's time to let him show you and the world that he learned the lesson you taught him and that he can now make up his own mind and be a man.

I guess it can all be summed up in Jack Nicholson’s famous response in the movie As Good as it Gets when he is asked how he is able to write for his female leads so convincingly and so closely mimic how women think. His answer, “I think about a man, and then take away reason and accountability.” True, concise, poignant. It’s not misogyny, its reality.

Do you see what I see?

2012-01-13T15:19:00.000-08:00

When you gaze upon something, do you see it for what it is or for what it could be? Are you looking for what something truly is or are you looking at what that object means to you? We all guilty of looking at the world through our own rose-colored glasses. We assign different meanings to what we see around us according to how they affect us. It is part of the human condition to look at the world through our own preconceived filters. We decipher those sights by adding meanings where there are none, and assigning importance to things that have very little. We are all prejudice even if we think we are not. Our prejudice notions are based upon our experiences, our spiritual belief system, our foundation of knowledge, our upbringing, and the actual physical sights we see. You pour all of that craziness into our mental shakers, give it a good shake, strain it out over a chilled glass, and what you are left with is our perception of the world.

To a Samurai, his sword is an extension of himself, of his ability to dole out justice, it is an instrument to protect the weak and punish the guilty. To the unfortunate adversary of this samurai warrior the sword is an instrument of death. It is an uncompromising biter of flesh, and an ender of life. Both people know that the sword is just a sword, but the meaning we assign to people, objects, and feelings can differ with the way one looks upon it or how it will affect that person. A barking dog can be a warning that someone bad has entered your yard or it could be a constant annoyance to a sleeping neighbor. It could mean the dog it under duress or that the mailman is just making his rounds. To all of these individuals that are present, including the dog itself, the perception for his barking is different.

Perception is the key to understanding what reality and life all about. It is how we see ourselves, others, and the things that we value that are instrumental in creating the idea of who we actually are. If I were to look at new sports car I might see, women, speed, fun, and sex. Where if my mom were to look at the same car she would see frivolous spending, speeding tickets, injury, and possible death. If my friends were to look upon the same thing they might see pompousness, flash, jealousy, or someone trying to impress others. Where as a stranger might see it as a meal ticket, a sweet ride, a person with too much money, or a way to compensate for something I am lacking. No one perception is right or wrong, which is precisely the point. They are all right and they are all wrong, in accordance to whom is doing the looking. One can no more be right about that than if they were to say that the color red is a pretty, or that Coke tastes better than Pepsi.

We all see ourselves differently than how the world perceives us. But it is how we present ourselves to the world that allows for that perception to be altered. If you think you are cool or stylish and carry yourself in that manner, you will eventually be cool and stylish. If you slouch and slump and look like you lack confidence, even if you are a confident individual the world will only see a slumping, slouching loser. Norton Jester offers a more succinct explanation of this phenomenon in his book The Phantom Tollbooth. The main character of the story, Milo meets an interesting man who claims to be the tallest midget, the shortest giant, the skinniest fat person, and the fattest skinny man. When Milo inquires as to how he can be all of these things, the man replies that it is all in the perception of who is viewing you.

Excuse me officer

2012-01-10T23:40:00.001-08:00

The police are a welcomed necessity of life in a civilized society. They are charged with keeping order, making sure everyone follows the "rules," and dolling out justice evenly and fairly when people break those rules. Unfortunately for the minorities in America, the police don't seem to do that last thing very often. They rely on their preconceived ideas and prejudices to do their jobs. Couple that with that the fact that a lot of these police officers are assholes or bullies in the first place, and you have a recipe for a volatile situation whenever police and civilians collide. Luckily for us, there is another reality television program that showcases the blatant differences in the way Blacks and Whites are treated by law enforcement. I have been watching this show on G4 called Campus PD, which is like COPS, but a lighter version. I'd compare it to drinking Coke Zero, all the taste, none of the calories. I'm trying to get corporate sponsorship. It kind of reminds me of a version of COPS made for Nickteens. It just shows a bunch of college aged kids and their interactions with the fuzz. These over privileged whiners find themselves in a variety of compromising situations ranging from out of control parties, to drunken bar fights, to underage drinking, drunk in public, drunk driving, and of course drug possession.

You should hear the way these kids talk to the cops. The old adage “a little bit of knowledge is a bad thing” has never been more evident then on this show. They cuss, they bitch, they complain, they quote half known truths about laws, and all the while they are being filmed completely intoxicated and out of control. There is the occasional cool kid, who hooks up with the cool cop, and everything goes smooth and just warnings are issued. But more often than not, the kids turn a mild situation into a full-fledged scene and force these cops to arrest someone who would have otherwise received a situation.
But that is not the issue I have with the show. The problem I have with the show is how minorities are treated. Most of the unwilling participants on the show are students of Caucasian persuasion. And they are the most vocal, the most disrespectful, and get the most passes from the officers. I have seen them underaged, falling down drunk, mouthy, in possession of drugs, and released or just given a citation. Then you have an occasional Black or Hispanic male on the show and the cops lose their freagin minds. Any misspoken word or the slightest infraction is met with the full brunt of the law. It is completely and totally obvious what is going on, and even though there is video proof of the disparity of how Whites and Blacks are treated by the police, no one is willing to admit that there is this discrepancy.

White people live in a bubble where they think they are above the law, while their minority counterparts are afraid of the law. This is not because White people are delusional and minorities are paranoid, it is because it is the truth. It is how the system works. There is a difference in the treatment of people in the eyes of the law. Just as women are treated different than men during a traffic stop. The idea that there are no consequences for their actions is what drives most White people to be so cavalier as to continually do dangerous illegal things like drinking and driving, acting up in front of cops, and using and distributing drugs, while their Black counterparts are going to jail in record numbers because of the bigotry and mistreatment by law enforcement agencies. It is kind of a perceived self-fulfilling prophecy. The cops think that minorities are doing illegal things and busting them for it whether they are or they aren’t. Then once they are in the system, they eventually end up committing these crimes because they now know how and are already guilty of it in the eyes of the law. Jail has turned into college for criminals. I am not advocating don't send people to jail, just make sure they are criminals. Because the truth is that we are turning good people into criminals, and that is the sad reality of what is happening out there.

I think all of this racial profiling is stupid because criminals exist whether they are Black, White, Middle Eastern or Asian. Crime doesn't care what race you are or what God you pray to, and police need to be aware of that and lock up the bad guys and protect the innocent. If they aren't going to be part of the solution, they will continue to be part of the problem.

And justice for all...

2012-01-10T23:25:00.000-08:00

The idea that justice is the end result of utilizing the judicial system is a complete and utter fallacy. The truth of the matter is that justice does not exist even in a perfect world. How can one hope to get back a loved one that someone has killed, or how can you replace items that hold emotional, and not monetary value that have been stolen or destroyed? You can’t. All you can hope for is that the guilty party is stopped before they have a chance to do it again. But even that result can’t be guaranteed by the system we have in place. How often do the guilty go free while the innocent become helpless victims of a broken legal system? The guilty in this country run amuck in our justice system. The slick defense attorneys, the defendants, the overworked and under-funded district attorney’s office, the pompous judges, and the laws themselves are all guilty of destroying a system that, like religion could work if it weren’t for man’s ineptitude and corruptibility. But they all play their role in making what seems like a fair and just system on the surface a corrupt and callous bureaucracy that has a blatant disregard for common sense.

There are so many flaws that illustrate the problems inherent to our justice system that to list them all would be an exercise in futility. But there is one shinning example that showcases an egregious error in the reasoning of the judicial system. That is when the bailiff approaches the defendant with a bible and asks him or her to hold their hand on it and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Yeah, that’s going to happen, they are on trial for brutally slaying 3 people, or rapping 5 small children, or killing a family of 4 while driving intoxicated, and in the face of those charges they are really going to tell the truth. Did the architects of the judicial framework really believe that by a person holding their hand on a "book" that it would compel criminals to own up to what they have done? Or better yet, these huge corporations that are systematically on trial for cutting corners and as a result, thousands of people are injured and hundreds more left dead. Are they expected to tell the truth when they had already decided that being sued for 20 million was worth the lives lost because the recall would have cost more? These people are criminals. They don’t play by the rules, yet the judicial system makes the assumption that people will be honest and adhere to the honor system. WTF!!? It didn’t work in the third grade, its not going to work in the real world. These people have no scruples. There is no level of depravity that they won’t stoop to in order to come out on top. And to think that they will now take responsibility for whatever atrocities they have committed is beyond asinine.

I have recently had to deal with the justiceless system and have had my chance to see first hand how the atrocities and violations that pervert the system are able to prevail, while glad handing happens behind closed doors that effects the outcome of the trial. And what is worse is that there are supposed to be laws that govern the system that are supposed to protect me from these atrocities. Yet those same laws also allow a judge to do nothing for fear of political retribution. The one thing I have discovered through this whole cumbersome process is that the judicial system doesn’t work. Lawyers are a joke, first and foremost. They exist to pervert the law so that they can charge exorbitant fees to argue over antiquated and some times made up laws. Second, the law only seems to work for those who are constantly in the legal machine. People that are “guilty” of actually doing something wrong and who are committing crimes are the ones who benefit from this ass backwards-legal system that prevails in this country. This is the legal system that found OJ not guilty of killing his wife because a glove didn’t fit. All you have to do is go to any club in LA and you can see thousands of people wearing stuff that doesn’t fit. The innocent people in this world are chewed up and spit out of the legal system more harmed than they were when they entered it.

Here is another example of how the justice system doesn’t work. Haley Barbour the outgoing GOP Mississippi governor pardoned 4 men who were all found guilty of murder as one of his last acts as governor. None of these men were in trials where the convictions were the result of egregious errors. Neither were they all in trials where there was evidence that they were possibly not the guilty party. The only thing these four criminals have in common is that they all used to “work” at the governors mansion. That is right, these four criminals all used to work at the governors mansion. The GOP might as well double as the Catholic clergy. It doesn’t take a genius to read between the lines here, this guy was silencing his former lovers, I mean victims, err, employees. This is a travesty not just to the justice system, but to the victims and their surviving family members as well. There is no justification for these pardons and there is nothing this governor can say that can remedy the betrayal that all of these victims are being shown by these murderers’ release.

Living well in the New Year

2012-01-10T13:41:00.000-08:00

As unrealistic, self-imposed expectations in the form of New Year’s resolutions loom over you in this, the second week of the New Year, there is no reason you shouldn’t be able to accomplish at least one of the goals you’ve set out to achieve. It’s the same goal you set for yourself every year, and every year by the third week you have already started cheating, are in the process of giving up, and differing it until next year. Well there is no need for you to be disappointed in yourself anymore. If you take the time to gain the knowledge and adhere to the principals of awareness needed to achieve your goals, you will have that healthier, tighter, stronger, sexier body that you wanted for the New Year. You must be vigilant, be mentally determined, and stay aware of what you consume, when you consume it, and the quantity of what you put into your body. If you can do that, your goal of shaping a new you in the New Year will be that much closer to becoming a reality.

Principals:

Know the big three: Fats, Proteins, and Carbs
Your diet should be comprised of all three of these components. You need carbohydrates for energy and nutrients, you need protein to build and maintain muscle development, and you need fats to ensure proper digestion and lubrication of essential joints in your body. Your in take ratio should be somewhere in the 55-35-10 ratio, the biggest being protein and the smallest being fats. You want to make sure you are eating lean proteins, fish, chicken, and even lean pork. You want to eat complex carbohydrates more than simple carbs. You will have to do a little research to discover the differences between the two, but generally, fruits are simple, green veggies, oats, and brown rice are complex. Stay way from white carbs, and try substituting a sweet potato or yam for a regular potato or rice. This doesn’t’ mean don’t eat fruit; just eat them in moderation and never before bedtime. And as far as fats go, stick to avocados, cooking with extra virgin olive oil, nuts, and unsweetened peanut butter. Try to avoid cheese, in fact if you can avoid all cheeses for the first couple of months it will be for the best.

Interval eating: Avoid big meals
You want to eat in moderation and in intervals of 90 mins to 2 hours. You should try to eat small 350 to 500 calorie meals, with 100-calorie snacks in between. You need to abandon the notion that eating to get full is how your body operates at its best, and should eat enough to maintain your energy level. Your body is a machine and it functions best when it has fuel, but is not oversaturated. If you eat small meals often your body’s metabolism will constantly be working burning the calories you want to get rid of. If you don’t the extra energy you are consuming will be saved in your body as deposits of fat, and fat is what you are trying to get rid of.

Fish, it’s what you want to eat.
I have eaten a lot of chicken and although I do love me some chicken it can get a little monotonous after a while. Its good to have a protein you can substitute in, that tastes good, and is good for you. Fish is a wonderful source of good fats and proteins and can and should be eaten at least 3 times a week if possible. There have been reports that eating a lot of fish is bad for you because of contaminants such as mercury and parasites that occur in the fish farming process. That is true. The daunting question then becomes, what are some good healthy fish you should eat? When determining what fish you want to eat there are several things you should keep in mind; you want to eat a fish that is healthy for you, that is sustainable, and that are usually wild caught. There are many websites that have up to date listing of what fish you should be eating. I like to stick to wild caught salmon, tilapia, shrimp, crab, sardines, and trout. They are all wonderful, healthy and sustainable fish you should try to work into your diet. Check out the following website to find out what fish is good for you to eat, but there are many you can use.
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/mobile/sfw/SeafoodGuide.aspx?region_id=1#good

Exercise-It’s unavoidable
Despite what you see in the commercials in weight loss ads and get fit quick claims, there are no short cuts to a healthier, fitter, sexier you. You will have to get in the gym or on the road, or on the courts if you want to achieve that beach body of your dreams. Exercise is essential for just maintaining a healthy body and an active lifestyle. There is no need to over due it either. Just remember that if it were easy we would all look like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Well that and genetics. When doing cardio you want to adhere to the 30-minute rule. If you are not doing at least 30 mins of cardio, you are not burning any stored fat. You will want to do around 30 to 45 mins and mix it up. 25 mins on treadmill, 20 mins on the elliptical, or any variation of cardio 3 times a week. The last 15 mins are when the most amount of fat is being burned, so push on through to the end. It doesn’t mater how you get there, just as long as you do. As you become fitter you can add to your routine, exercise more frequently, or do more outdoor activities. You will discover that the endorphins created while exercising will be on par with the high you feel from drinking and eating bad foods. In fact the feeling will be even better because you are making your body healthy in the process. And you will be swelling with confidence.

Childish games

2012-01-08T09:47:00.000-08:00

You would think that people would remember how the games they played as children worked. Simple, easy things to remember like the phrases, “Tag you’re it”, or “Pass GO, collect $200,” and who can forget, “paper beats rock, rock beats scissors.” Yet as I am noticing when I am driving my car people can’t seem to recall an easy one like “car beats flesh.” If a car is coming at your overly rotund body, I don’t care how much extra fat you are carrying, the car smashing into you is going to win the collision 10 times out of 10. Yet people walk across intersection, parking lots, driveways, so cavalier its like they are almost taunting me to run their stupid ass over. At least in the 80’s commercials warning against this, little Timmy was chasing a red ball across the street to account for him getting plowed over by a car. But people are so self-absorbed in their phone calls, conversations, air of importance, phone games, or just have their heads so far up their asses that they don’t seem to notice my 2 ton car driving when they brazenly just step out in front of it. Maybe running them over is part of natural selection. It’s almost as if we are on an episode of National Geographic and I am a giant bear or better yet a lion on the Serengeti bearing down on a 3-legged zebra. I am doing nature a favor, I am clearing the weak, trimming the fat so to speak, and strengthening the herd by ensuring survival of the fittest.
There was this story that my mom would read to me as a child that I used to love called “Stone Soup.” The premise of “Stone Soup” was that there was this man who lived in a village where everyone was very poor and each had only a little bit of food. He had a brilliant idea to bring everyone together to feed them, so he invited the entire village over to his house for some stone soup. He put a pot of water on his fire and put a stone in the cauldron. As his guests arrived he would stir the pot, inviting each of them to have a taste of what he was making. Naturally it was bland since there was nothing in it, needing ingredients and spices. One by one each guest would taste it and suggest that what was missing from it they could provide. After determining the missing ingredient they would run off to their home and return with their own contribution to the soup. And after a while, and once all of his guest have arrived and contributed something, they sat down to eat this flavorful and bountiful soup that they all had a part in making. By having each person bring something and adding their own personal flare to it, they had created something wonderful for all. That is how I always envisioned my friends and our friendship. We all brought our own unique flavor and sense of style to the table and it made it better and more enjoyable for everyone.
Unfortunately, what tends to happen is that people start taking more for themselves and contributing less and less to the pot and eventually you are left with a “soup” you have contributed to that everyone else is eating. It becomes a friendship where you are doing all of the work, and everyone else is just taking advantage. Even worse are the so-called friends in your life that still choose to play games. On the surface it looks like they are adding to the friendship, when reality all they do is take take take. And when they are caught, they act like they are unclear about what they have done wrong, or attempt to twist their selfishness into ignorance. They claim that they didn’t know any better or that if they had known, their actions would have been different. But the truth is, that their actions reflect who they truly are inside. They knew all along what they were doing. If anything their actions reflect how they view you in accordance to their lives. It is about respect and common sense. You must respect others and yourself. And if they don’t have the common sense to see what they are doing to the friendship or if you don’t have the common sense to see that they are not respecting you, then there is no friendship there worth salvaging. The soup has been ruined by neglect and selfishness.

But then it isn’t just about common sense that is to blame. It would appear that the whole world has lost their minds and cast sense, common or otherwise, aside. I can’t seem to wrap my head around it. Is it me or it is them? Which makes me start to question reality. Am I the one having an issue with everyone else changing who they are and what they are doing, or is it that my perception that has shifted and they have remained the same? I am very unclear on where the truth lies at this point. It might be some hybrid of the two. But what I do know is that my friends are disappointing me by showing their true selfish nature, their self-destructive tendencies that I am slowly sucked into because I am hanging around and associating with them.
However the truth of the matter is sadly this, everyone in your life will eventually disappoint you. It is a tragic and bleak outlook on life, but it is the truth. This is just how we are wired as human beings. We ultimately care about our own self-interests and self-preservation and will do whatever it takes to survive. Sometimes it will be with a handshake and a smile or it will be completely subversive and you won’t see it coming. But rest assured, that a knife in your back will be planted by someone you know and trust. Whether it be calculated and cold or whimsical and fleeting, most of the time it will be done for no other reason than their own selfish nature. The worse part to me is that the perpetrator of these actions never quite sees the extent of their betrayal. In the end however, you are left with two ways to respond to this. You can be bitter and upset at the reality of the situation, hiding yourself away from the atrocities of others and resolve yourself to being a hermit. Or you can realize the score, focus on the positives in life, and choose to play the game with your head up and alert, and hope that you find others that value friendship as much as you do. I choose the latter.

Drill baby drill!

2012-01-07T14:31:00.000-08:00

How can anything that Sarah Palin endorses be bad? I think we should all just say fuck the environment, kick puppies, sock kittens in the face, and club baby harp seals. What good are they anyway when there is good oil under the areas where they live? Why do we even need national parks for that matter? That is just a bunch of vacant land that is waiting to be commercialized. Think of all the money we are losing by letting it just sit there, not being used. And of course by we, I mean the few moguls that will sell that land off and probably pay no taxes to the government while turning a monstrous profit. But there are mountains everywhere, and the last time I checked there are forests full of trees everywhere. So why don’t we just rip through every national park, cut down the trees and make something useful out of them? Its not like they serve any other purpose other than taking up space. How many houses can be built and jobs created by logging these “protected” forests. And what is the delay with getting this Keystone XL pipeline built? It will be transporting some of the dirtiest oil known to man from Canada to the Gulf cutting a path through the middle of the continental United States. If it were to spill, it would be a catastrophe of epic proportions polluting and contaminating those areas completely. But no one really lives in that part of the country, and the areas that are populated are pretty messed up anyway.

And furthermore, the way we are managing our resources on this planet we are all going to be out of food, space, and drinkable water in about 100 years anyway, so why preserve our environment? Global warming is just something made up by people with advance degrees in climate studies, people who have dedicated their lives to studying the impact of deforestation and drilling on our planet, and lead field research teams on expeditions into regions that have been devastated by these effects. What do they know? They are only interested in creating some controversy so they can continue to get funding. Who should Americans believe, people that are smart and who are vying for more money to “study” the effects of pollution or the fine people at the oil companies who are trying to keep America safe and strong? I mean really, who could be more trustworthy than the people at the oil companies or heading the logging industries? They have spent millions of dollars ensuring that the areas they are drilling in and deforesting are done so in a safe and responsible manner. They wouldn’t risk billions of dollars of their money only to have an accident happen that could catastrophically alter our planet. That would be unheard of and completely uncharacteristic of companies such as Exxon and British Petroleum (BP). These companies value human and animal life equally and don’t care to see accidents happen. Besides if oil leaked or spilled out of the pipes or oil rigs that they use to drill or transport it, then the spilled oil is money they can’t profit from. Like they would do that. C’mon. SMH They care just as much about the health of the environment and the planet as the tobacco companies care about protecting the consumers who use their products. They sat in front of a Congressional committee and said so themselves behind their troop of lawyers, and we all know that no one lies to Congress.

I for one am on board for drilling, pumping and spilling all over the place. I mean why not, if it will create hundreds of jobs and make a few men billions of dollars, then why not? Let’s spend the collective money of hundreds of millions of taxpayers on a project that will only benefit a few. That is the Capitalistic way. Animals have had the Earth long enough, and what have they done with it? Nothing. All they do is eat all of the food and shit all over the place. It is high time for humans to show what it is we can do with the patches of land that are good for making money and turning a profit. These are not homes for cute little chipmunks and furry foxes, they are oil fields and areas with stockpiles of wood in the form of trees.

The spills and accidents just this past year in the US and Canada at Yellowstone River pipeline, Peace River Rainbow, Barataria Bay, Talmadge Creek, Red Butte Creek, Great Alaskan Pipeline only spilled a combined total of a little over 8,600 tones of oil. So that isn’t that bad. Especially when you compare it with the over 600,000 tones of oil that leaked into the Gulf 2 years ago, that is barely even a dent. The Earth has been around for thousands of years, and if the fate of the dinosaurs is any indication of how resilient life is on this planet, then we will all be fine.

Why not call them the Nebraska Negroes?!

2012-01-06T15:40:00.000-08:00

I love this time of year, not because it is a new year with new promise, or because we get the opportunity to reinvent ourselves with resolutions that will be broken faster than we can even post them as our updates on FB. No, I love it because of football. It is college football bowl season, as well as the NFL playoffs, and of course the impending national title game and Super Bowl DXCXIIM, I don’t speak Greek, so number 46 looming on February 5th. This is of course cause for celebration since these games are good to watch, and an even better as an excuse to have a party to watch them with friends. As we gear up for these playoffs I can’t help but notice the wonderful pageantry and tradition that takes place with all of these teams. The Oregon Ducks, the UCLA Bruins, the Virginia Tech Hookies, the LSU Tigers, the Wisconsin Badgers, and a score of other teams that showcase their mascots on their uniforms, in their fight songs, on the field in costume, and pretty much everywhere else they can. But then when we get to the professional teams I notice that there are some mascots that seem out of date, offensive, and borderline racist. I am of course speaking about the Washington Redskins, and the Kansas City Chiefs.

Why is it that Washington’s football team, the Redskins, are still called the Redskins? Or for that matter Kansas City’s football team, the Chiefs, still going by that derogatory name? No one has gotten around to changing the names yet because they are too busy? Why does this country insist that we are the most tolerant and accepting people on the planet when we are probably the most racist country in the world? Sure there are other countries where atrocities are levied against groups of people based on race and religious preferences. But at least they know what they are doing and who they are after. This country doesn’t even understand the depths of its racial depravity. They insist that there is equality, acceptance, understanding, but behind every snide remark, and guarded quip people are teeming with racist antiquated notions about one another. And if there is one place we can put an end to it, it can be in the mascots adorning the uniforms and merchandise that these football and other sporting teams parade around in on national television.

I have heard people make the argument that the names are not meant to be derogatory or hate-filled, but are reflections of a period in time when those were acceptable nicknames. Yes, they were, but they were nicknames that were used to incite fear, violence, and racist sentiment toward that group of people. It is like when one of my White friends says that they don’t understand why the "n word" is offensive since he can be called a cracker and that isn’t viewed to be equally offensive. It is more than just the word. It is what the term means and the history behind what the word has meant. Its utterance brings along with it all the vitriol, the lynchings, the hangings, the false imprisonments, the fear, the hate mongering, and all of the other atrocities that were levied against the negro since the inception and proliferation of that vile word. It wasn’t meant to be a fun nickname given to a group of people as a joke. It was meant to belittle, to disenfranchise, and to degrade people so that when they heard it, it was not only an insult to the person it was being said to, but also a labeling so that all people who heard it would know that the recipient of that title was trash. It is a despicable word and whomever utters it; regardless of race is revealing to the world their ignorance and disdain for themselves and the plight of the negro people.

Unfortunately, racism doesn't have the same bite to it when it is reversed and levied against the dominant race. If that were the case I think we might see teams like the Colorado Crackers, the Indiana Inbreeders, or the West Virginia Red necks. I know there was a movement some time ago from some basketball players at the University of Northern Colorado wanting to call themselves the Fighting Whities as their way to protest the racism inherent in mascots. They were attempting to use wit and sarcasm as a way to bring attention to the perceived injustices that was prevalent in the use of ethnic stereotypes in team names. It was met with some interest, but was mostly dismissed by the major media outlets as just “college kids, being college kids.” Which was an unfortunate dismissal of their ideas, because what these boys were attempting to do was right on point whether or not their intentions were the result of youth or not. There has been too much racial stereotyping, hurtful language, and derogatory titles in this country that only further perpetuates the hate-filled sentiment that names like “redskin” or “chief” conveys.

If the team names are truly meant to represent or pay homage to a community of Native Americans, like the Utah Utes have done or the Florida State Seminoles have attempted to do commemorating their respective native American tribes in their areas, then that is reasonable and just. It is acceptable only if the people who share that ancestry believe that it is being done in a historical way and not an exploitative manner. I did a little research and it turns out that the Piscataway Tribe was native to the Washington DC area before they were exterminated. That would be a good way to remember the people massacred and bring a certain sense of history, knowledge, and a show of healing to the area by renaming the team the Washington Piscataways. In Kansas City there were a number of tribes prevalent in that area including the Cherokee, Chippewa, Shawnee, Pawnee, and Kickapoo. Any of these tribes would be a better name than the Chiefs. I think that the name the Kansas City Cherokees has a good ring to it. Just so long as we can somehow put behind us the name-calling and derogatory symbols that continue to perpetuate ignorance, stupidity, racial rhetoric, and intolerance of others. If anything, as Americans one thing we all share throughout our great nation’s tumultuous formation is that we all have been shit on. Some more than others. But we have all had to overcome our share of racism and intolerance. Instead of looking for further ways to perpetuate that sentiment, let’s find a way to use it to form one cohesive, UNITED group of people, The American Patriots!

Why the GOP Doesn't Like Dick

2012-01-05T14:47:00.000-08:00

In a move that has angered Republicans, President Barack Obama on Wednesday announced he's making a recess appointment of Richard Cordray to be the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, sidestepping the Senate confirmation process. I’m so happy that Obama has finally grown a sack and is doing what he sees is best for the country. The Senate has shown that they will continue to play party line politics to gridlock policy decisions and decision-making, and have attempted to mire the president in bureaucracy from being able to do his job that the American people hired him to do. So in doing what was best for the average man, President Obama gave a big F U to the Senate and went with the man who was best for the job.

So who is Richard Cordray? He is a 52 year old former attorney general of Ohio, a politician, a lawyer, a husband, and father of 2. He attended Michigan State University and then did his grad school at Oxford University where he was a Marshall Scholar, a program named after the George C. Marshal, creator of the WWII era Marshal Plan, it is a scholarship program that grants Americans the chance to study at Oxford, Cambridge, or the London school of Economics. He was later the editor in chief of the law review when he attended the University of Chicago Law School. He also was a 5-day undefeated champion on Jeopardy in 1987. He ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the House of Representatives, and Senate. But was elected as solicitor for Ohio state where he argued several cases in front of the Supreme Court (where he clerked in law school). He then went into private practice for several years, before throwing his hat back into the political ring in 1998 when he ran for Ohio attorney general and state Senator in 2000. Both times he was defeated. He finally was elected to State Treasurer in 2006, and later Attorney General for Ohio in 2009.

In December 15, 2010, Special Advisor to President Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren appointed Richard Cordray to lead the enforcement arm of the newly created United States Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Then on July 17, 2011 Cordray was selected over Warren as the head of the entire CFPB. However, his nomination was immediately in jeopardy because 44 Senate Republicans had previously vowed to derail any nominee in order to push for a decentralized structure to the organization. This was part of a pattern of conflict between Republicans in the Senate and the Obama administration that had led to record numbers of blocked and failed nominations (Wikipedia).

What does this mean for us? Well hopefully it means that we as consumers are finally going to have someone who actually cares about us in a position to do something. As head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or the CFPB Cordray will educate, inform, and study what financial institutions are doing for and or to the consumer. I am not sure how much bite this watch dog agency will have, but hopefully Barack will be doing his best impersonation of the Baha Men and will be singing “Who let the dogs out?” from the oval office. Visit their website to find out more information. http://www.consumerfinance.gov/the-bureau/

Why is what Obama did garnering so much controversy? I asked my self that same question, and the answer is quite simple. The Senate thought they had scared him after the way they handled the tax-cuts at the end of the year. When really all they did was embolden him. What Obama did with this appointment was that he showed that he has a clear understanding of the powers of the Executive Office and what the Constitution says are within his rights as president. What Obama used a clause in the Constitution known as a recess appointment, which merely allows the president to fill a vacancy in a position if the Senate in recess, which they are until the end of the month. This is not a permanent filling of the position and the House must approve Condray by the end of the next session. But the message of what Obama is doing is clearly sent to the Senate, “If you will not get on board with what I am trying to do to better this country, then I will just circumvent you.” And a second message is also being sent to the American people. While Congress is enjoying its vacation, I am in the White House busting my ass to make sure this country is as strong as it once was.

So all in all this is one Dick the Senate will have to get used to, even if he came in through the back door.

Let my love open the door, to your heart

2011-12-31T12:07:00.000-08:00

On the eve of the new year with the impending threat of death, doom, and destruction looming over 2012, it is important to remember the real reason we are all here on this blue marble of a planet. And that reason is simple, love. Everybody wants to be loved. They want to feel love, fall in love, and have love’s warming grace flow through, around, and all over them. I don’t care who you are or where you are from, we all have the same desire to be loved. People that are the happiest are happy because they have found love. Some find it in the food they eat, in the money they have, the things they own, the people they’re with, in the god that they chose to worship, romantics find it in their mates, and bubbly people find it in everything that they do. The sad fact is that people who are assholes, criminals, and douche bags are the way they are because they lack love. They want love just as much as the next person, but for some reason they don’t know how to open up their hearts to accept love in. They weren’t shown how to love, or are incapable of experiencing it. Thus, they have taken the path that leads to the antithesis of love. But everyone wants love to touch their lives. And the funny thing is that it is there, always present, to be experienced by all. Even just hearing the words said to you, “I love you,” brings a smile to your face and warmth to your heart. It is like you just received a verbal hug. It feels good for the person hearing it as well as the person saying it.

Love is all around us. It is in the wind, in the sun, in the stars, in the flowers, in the laugh of a child, in the touch of a lover, it’s in a parent’s hug, or even a strangers greeting. It can be as big as the ocean or as small as a snowflake, but love no matter the size, makes you feel like you can climb any mountain and conquer any obstacle. But, you have to have your eyes and your heart open so it can find its way in. There are many ways to experience love. I’m not going to get into the many way one can let it in, or the many different forms that love can take. But one way of letting love into your life is by doing good things for yourself or good deeds for others. I try to be a good guy, I live by the principle of paying it forward. I do things not because I am afraid of being judged by anyone, including a higher power, but because it is the right thing to do or because I would want someone to treat me in that manner. In the comment section below I want you to share something you did this past year that brought love into your life or into someone else’s. Or something that you plan on do this upcoming year that will spread a lot more love into the world and help curtail the spread of hate.

It’s hard to be smart in a world full of simpletons

2011-12-30T14:45:00.000-08:00

I am in purgatory forced to wander this world amongst a bevy of buffoons and blunderers. Am I the only one on this planet who possesses any kind of sense, common or otherwise, and can use it? The people I have to deal with on a day-to-day basis are either part of some elaborate ruse to prank me, or are truly the dumbest, dimwitted, dolts I have ever had the misfortune of dealing with. I mean we are not talking about jobs that require you to have the knowledge and know how of a rocket scientist or nuclear physicist here. I am talking about people who work as tellers at a bank, who operate your dry cleaners, the grocery store checkout person, your food server, well be careful how you act to these people, the secretaries anywhere, or any other host of menial task providers. It seems as if my teachers in school were right when they warned/threatened us that if we didn’t pay attention and slacked off in school we would be forced to flip burgers at McDonalds, or be the speaker of the House of Representatives. Either one really, because both are bonafide, bumbling, bozos with no clue about how to do their jobs.

Earlier today I attempted to renew a library book that I had borrowed last week, but hadn’t had a chance to finish reading. So I went to the library’s website to renew the book, but the site required a login name and a password that I had never set up, and there was no way to set it up on the website. In lieu of using the website to renew the library book which I figured is one of the major reasons they had the website in the first place, I called in so that I wouldn’t be charged a late fee. When I spoke with the first woman she was moderately helpful and tried to setup my username and password over the phone for my account. With my laptop in my lap of all places, I began to type in the log in name and password she gave me, it didn’t work. She continued to give me a series of numbers and letters, which I diligently typed in, and continued to tell her that they did not work. This little back and forth went on for about 10 minutes until she told me she was going to transfer me to library information and that they would fix the login name and password snafu. But before she could waste any more of my time I asked her if she could just renew the book over the phone and leave the password stuff for another time. I could here her type 3 clicks on her keyboard and then she said, “Ohhhhhh, someone requested this book, so you can’t renew it.” What?! I told her that I am still reading the book, so who cares who requested it. I’m going to finish the book, so just let me renew it or I’m just going to bring it back late. This of course confused her. She explained to me how it wouldn’t be fair if I were allowed to keep the book after this person had made a request for it. I told her that I didn’t care if the prophet Mohammad himself requested the book, I’m not returning it until I have finished reading it. So she could either renew it or I will pay the late fees, but this person’s request for the book would have no bearing on my decision to return it. She then explained that it was the system and that she would love to renew it for me, but she doesn’t have the clearance. But maybe the people at information would have the secret password to do it. These were her words, not mine. To which I replied, “Clearance?? Secret passwords?!?! You work in a public library, not for the state department! Okay, who can help me with this renewal who is not you?” She of course said that the information desk would be able to help me. “Cool, transfer me over please, and thank you for your help Louise.” The woman at the information desk was even less helpful than Louise, and barely spoke enough English to be intelligible. Why do they always do this? The person who is the supervisor, or the public liaison, or the holder of the pertinent information always has a limited ability to communicate. I’m telling you its part of some crazy ongoing conspiracy, but back to the action. She pretty much parroted everything that Louise had said. So I explained to her that I would not be brining the book back until I was finished with it, and I just wanted to know if there was another option besides having to pay the late fees. She of course said that it wouldn’t be fair to the person who requested it and that she would have to contact them to let them know the book would not be back on the scheduled date of return. SMH, of course you are not going to call the person, this is part of the hazard of borrowing books from a library. The book comes back when the book comes back. A hold is to hold the book so that when it comes back it doesn’t go out again. To which she responded that this man had paid a dollar to hold the book. Wow, a fucking dollar! So I said, “What if I had not called and had brought the book back a month later and just paid the late fees, would you give the guy his dollar back? She of course said no. So I said, “Then I guess he and I are both fucked, because the book isn’t coming back until I am done, an he isn’t getting the book or his dollar back for it not being there on time. So, you can either work with me or against me, but either way, I’m finishing that book.” To which she replied, “Okay, well this one time I will renew the book for you. But just this one time.” FUCK! “Why didn’t you just do that in the first place?!?!” Jesus fucking Christ, why, and more importantly how do these people exist?

Unfortunately, these weren’t the only imbeciles I dealt with in a 24-hour period. Last night a friend and I attempted to rent a movie from BlockBuster. If anyone doesn’t understand why Blockbuster went out of business, I can tell them why. It’s because no one there has any clue on how to do their job. More importantly the people there don’t want to do their jobs. They are sad, simple, simians that can care less about doing a good job and more about collecting a paycheck (reason number 1). I used to work at BB when I was 16, and I was awesome. I love movies, and have a thorough understanding of why others enjoy movies too. I also posses a pantheon of knowledge about movies from every genre and am able to recommend movies that the customers would enjoy viewing. And I got people in and out of the store in a quick yet tactful manner so that they could go about their evening and enjoy the movies they rented. But the service these people provided was light-years from the kind of service I provided. We left my friends house at 7:30 in the PM. The trip that should have taken all of about 15 minutes, instead turned into a 55-minute mish. We walked in, grabbed the movie we wanted, btw the movies were not in alphabetical order (reason number 2), and stood in a 3-person line waiting to rent our movie. This is where we lost 30 minutes of our lives that we will never get back waiting for the CSR’s (customer service representative, it should stand for cock-sucking retards) to rent us the movie. The line wasn’t moving. We had this one jack ass doing the worst Arnold Schwarzenberger impression “Come get me, I’m right here” and the other one chatting up some old bird who obviously had made this Thursday night trip to BB her night out. All the while an entire line of paying customers with things to do were waiting, impatiently I might add, as this veritable vaudevillian of verbose venting vermin performed their dance before us. I don’t know what it is, but I am big into the alliterations today. Needless to say we were finally able to rent the movie, after this unnecessary intermission in our evening. It took us all of about 30 seconds from counter to payment to door, to complete our transaction. We left laughing at how idiotic the two employees were and how blatantly bad Blockbusters business was doing.

Calgon, take me away!

My Resolutions and Wishes for 2012

2011-12-29T06:58:00.000-08:00

My first wish is for Katherine Hiegel to stop making movies. I don’t understand how this woman is a star. She isn’t pretty, she isn’t a good actress, her body is quite non descript, she is just an average talentless, blonde chick. I guess there is a draw for that, how else could you explain Drew Barrymore’s success. But her movies are just dreadful. Starting from the beginning when she played Casey Rybek’s niece in Under Siege 2 up until she played opposite Ashton Kutcher in the horribly executed, unfunny movie Killers. They killed it all right. The movie stunk up the screen like a dead body.

In 2012 I am also hoping for an uprising that begins in the voting booths across America and ends with the ousting of the majority of the Republican criminals that are in Congress. That’s it. I just want Americans to say “Enough!” and they can do that in the voting booths in November.

I hope in 2012 we can all live in a Kardashian-free world. I can’t assert this enough, there is no reason on Earth Kim or any one in the family should be famous. I don’t understand how a whore who was in a sex video became a celebrity? She wasn’t even a good lay in the homemade sex film. This whole family, with the exception of the 2 outsiders, Lamar Odom and Bruce Jenner, needs to be dropped into the deepest, darkest trench at the bottom of the ocean.

I want to watch a television show without it being interrupted in the middle of a scene by one of those stupid pop-up commercials for whatever is playing on the network later that night. I am in the middle of watching something on your network already, let me enjoy the show, dicks. When they first started doing this with the small little emblems in the corner of the channel, I thought to myself, “Wow, this is mildly annoying. I hope it doesn’t progress further than this.” But now they have full on commercials occupying the majority of the screen while the other show continues to play. WTF networks, isn’t that why there are commercial breaks?! This is partly what is wrong with America. We have no attention span or follow through. I want to finish watching what I started watching. That is all. The showing of the rest of their TV lineup for the night interrupting and making me miss what I am currently watching is equivalent to Pizza Hut delivering and forcing me to eat a slice of pizza right after I have taken a bite of my Double Double (what? I have corporate sponsorship too). And then when I give into eating the slice of pizza, a taco truck shows up forcing me to eat that instead of the pizza. I mean, for Christ’s sake, let me finish what I started before you try to shove something else down my throat. I’m not Jay Z. I’m not “On to the next one.”

I resolve to no longer shake my head in disbelief, my mouth agape in shock, and restraining myself from boiling over into a rage filled tirade when someone does something stupid on the road. I should know better and expect that everyone is so preoccupied in their own self-indulgent worlds to care about the safety of those around them or to follow proper road etiquette. Instead of losing any more years of my life from stress caused as a result of vehicular stupidity, I will just accept that everyone in America has about as much a chance of driving courteously and safely that J Lo’s fat ass has of fitting into a size 0 pair of jeans.

I want an end to the East coast bias in college sports. We can start by devising some kind of new ranking system that doesn’t allow for all the teams in the SEC or ACC to be ranked in the top 25 preseason. That seems to happen every year, and when it does these teams never seem to fall too far out of their high rankings when they lose. Second, coaches and writers need to stay up and watch the west coast games. How are they going to vote for something they haven’t actually witnessed themselves? Letting a 30 second hi-light on Sports Center be your guide for voting is an asinine process for ranking teams. It would be like if the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for Acting didn’t watch all of the movies and performances before handing out the Oscars. Oops, they don’t, bad example. I just want the sacrifice these kids make in the gym, on the field, and in the classroom to count for something whether they are playing on the East coast or West coast, in a mid-major or in a major conference. The best deserve to play the best, and the fans deserve to watch those games.

I would like UCLA to recruit and sign a quarterback who knows how to play the position of quarterback. We thankfully have a new coach at UCLA in Jim Mora and with him, new hope on the horizon. The Neuhiesel experiment finally came to its conclusion at the end of the season when he was fired for his dismal performance for his dreadful 4-year stint in Westwood. I only hope that the cupboard wasn’t left too bare for Mora to rebuild and revitalize a program with a rich history and a great tradition. Gooooooo Bruins!

I resolve that in the new year I will only eat foods that are made from, include in them, look like, or taste like bacon. I think that there is not enough bacon in all of our diets. Why must bacon be tied to one meal time, breakfast? Bacon can accentuate any dish, at any time, with any set of ingredients. A burger is good. Add some bacon to it, bam, now it’s great. Fix a salad. Sprinkle some bacon on it. Snap, instantly delicious. Plate of bacon. Put some more bacon on that plate. POW! It’s now a masterpiece. It’s even great in a beverage. I have been secretly experimenting with a bacon-flavored cocktail, but alas the test results were less than stellar. But I will not let that failure deter my quest for a complete and total bacon diet. Buck up campers, there is hope. I have heard tell of a bacon bloody Mary beverage, and I am working on some sort of hybrid of the drink since I don’t particularly care for bloody Marys.

My final wish would be for the world around me to return back to its normal disfuncitonality. The people around me lately have lost their mother fucking minds. Everyone seems to have ordered a double shot of crazy juice. It is definitely a sign of the impending apocalypse if I am the voice of reason. Which, I have had to be many times over with my friends, family, and even with complete strangers. I hope that the Mayans were wrong about the end coming in 2012, because I still have a lot of living left to do. But if people don’t get their shit together, if fools like the Kardashians are still who we look to for celebrity and fashion, and if GOP bigots like Cantor, Gingrich, and Boehner continue to choke the life out of working class Americans, then maybe we should look forward to the doom and gloom the Mayans predicted. But then what the hell did they know? They couldn’t even predict how their dealings with the Spanish were going to turn out. “Si-fo-lis you say?!? Hmm, sounds great. Where can we get some?”

The Top 10 Worst Events in 2011, part 2

2011-12-28T15:00:00.000-08:00

5. NASA’s Budget is Cut

I guess the expression “shoot for the stars” is only gong to be applicable if you are super wealthy or in private enterprise, because the United States of America has decided to end space exploration as we know it. Which is probably for the best when you think about it, because even if we did find life on another planet we would either try to set up a McDonald's and a Starbucks on their world, or we would just wind up going to war with them. Either scenario seems pretty futile in my opinion. We will spend countless resources on military operations, expeditions to find oil, or bailing out corporations that purposely ran themselves into the ground, but can’t spend money to ensure we will still be able to reach for the stars. I wonder what kind of world we will leave for our children. Will they still dream, will they still be inspired to seek out the unknown and explore the cosmos with their bodies and their imaginations?

4. Guns, Guns, and More Guns

What is it going to take to stop people from abusing the Second Amendment? Why does anyone in America need the weaponry that they are allowed to buy? It seems like only innocent people and unsuspecting animals are the ones that pay the penalty for small minded, impotent men who need to feel important by killing everyone around them. And luckily they are able to pick up the necessary arsenal at their local K-mart or Big 5 Sporting goods.
Gabrielle Gifford in Arizona was gun downed in a parking lot of an Albertsons along with six others who died and wounding 13 other bystanders during a meeting with constituents in January of this year. Miraculously she survived a gunshot wound to the head and her condition is continuing to improve.
The next tragedy happened in July in Norway. A man elaborately set up an ambush at the capitol in Oslo using a car bomb killing 10 and critically wounding 8 others, so that the authorities would focus on that location, then traveled to an island where teens were having a cultural unity retreat opened fire on them with automatic machine guns massacring 93 peace loving juveniles and leaving about the same number injured. A 32-year-old Norwegian right-wing extremist was charged for carrying out both attacks.
In October of 2011, a dejected lover came into his ex-partner’s hair salon in Seal Beach, California and opened fire killing 8 people in another example of misguided rage mixed with legal weaponry.
This is only scratching the surface with the amount of tragedies that happen because of gun violence each year, here in America and abroad. The sad truth is that these incidents can be stopped. These people did not have to die. But it is partly due to a flaw in our human nature, and partly because people have access to weaponry they shouldn’t have. I am sad and hope the families of the people that were touched by all of these tragedies are able to regroup and heal in the upcoming New Year.

3. Washington Can’t Hide Its Big Boner

I guess the idea of a government for the people by the people is just a pipe dream. In 2011 the GOP continued its admonishment of President Obama attempting to thwart every plan he had at fixing our ailing economy and righting the ship that the same party had run aground on the shores of private enterprise and capitalistic interests. Instead of being a helpful tool for the president in Congress, people like Eric Cantor and chiefly John Boehner have continued to hijack the vote in the House of Representatives based solely on party-line politics and not on what is best for the people in his district he is supposed to represent. Not only is he doing a disservice to his constituents, he is also holding the rest of the United States hostage by not allowing the democratic process to happen. There is a line in the movie V for Vendetta that is quite apropos for this particular game that the GOP headed by Boehner is playing.

“And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, [recession]. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, [John Boehner]. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent.”

And the masses are no longer remaining silent. The occupy movement is the first wave of the disgruntled masses. I look forward to see who else besides the occupiers are going to raise their voice against the tyranny that has become prevalent in Congress in 2012.

2. Earthquakes

The Earth we live on is comprised of land floating on tectonic plates that shift and buckle as our Earth continually creates and destroys them. When that shifting happens the inhabitants on the surface feel the prodigious Earth’s shaking might. Unfortunately, the structures we build, the natural wonders that leave us in awe, and the lives that are being lived on the surface can not hold up to the tremendous force the Earth creates as it tosses and turns, and as a result buildings, bridges, factories, and lives are destroyed in the wake of the chaos that ensues during an earthquake and its aftermath. 2011 was no different.
An earthquake measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale hit Japan in March causing dozens of deaths, more than 80 fires, and a 10-meter (33-ft) tsunami along parts of the country's coastline. Thousands were left homeless, and millions were left in fear of their lives from the nuclear meltdown that happened along the coast at of Tokyo at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. at Okuma, Fukushima prefecture, in northern Japan. The world can only wait, watch, and collectively hold their breaths as we wait to find out the extent of the environmental damage that occurred because of this accident.
And in Christchurch, New Zealand, hundreds of tremors have been occurring all year causing countless deaths, and the destruction to homes and businesses. The earthquakes have ranged in size from as small as 5.5 to as large as 7.1. As a result of the constant tremors a reported 35% of the population has made a mass exodus from the area. Hopefully the quakes will stop soon and the people are able to rebuild.
Places like Chile, Kyrgyzstan/Uzbekistan, China, Myanmar, Spain, Turkey, Eritrea, Indonesia, Mexico, Guatemala, and a host of other countries all experienced the death and destruction that comes with an earthquake in 2011.

1. Penn State and Syracuse Abuse Scandals

2011 has been a tumultuous and a wonderful year, yin and yang if you will. For every great thing that has happened something terrible had to occur as well. The great balancing scales of life. However what came to light in 2011 and had been occurring in happy valley at Penn State for over 2 decades is one of the sickest stories I have heard. Boys were being sexually and physically assaulted by coach Jerry Sandusky in and around the campus of Penn State. What makes this already disturbing story that much more appalling is that the powers that be not only knew about this sycophants lewd acts, but they also helped cover it up to protect him. Of all the cowardly disgusting, slimy, inhumane things that can and do occur on this planet, this pedophiles balls should be slowly and painfully ripped off his gelatinous old rotting body and shoved down his throat until he chokes on the bile that is forming in the pit of my soul as I am even thinking about what this freak did to those boys.
And as if that wasn’t enough another story comes out at another prominent school, Syracuse in New York about assistant coach Bernie Fine molesting boys there. The two stories are not connected, and the facts and situations in them are quite different. But one thing remains the same and that is the sexual abuse of these monsters forcing themselves on these boys. People like these sicken me and should not even have the option to breath the same air we do.
We of course have to wait for the justice system to do its job, but since I put little faith in the court system to do anything correctly or objectively who knows what will happen. But these men, and I use the term loosely should be put down like a rabid dog or at least locked up for the rest of the natural lives with some guys that are going to make them feel how they made those boys feel day in and day out.

The Top 10 Worst Events in 2011, part 1

2011-12-27T10:12:00.000-08:00

10. Our Economy

People are finally seeing the extent of what the Bush W. era has done to America. The economy is fucked 18 ways from next Thursday. Some want to blame is on Obama, which is fine with me. They are only letting the world know how stupid they are by making those statements. It is like that scene from Tommy Boy where Chris breaks David spades car door, then puts it back on the hinges so that when he opens the door and it breaks he can say, “oh no, what did you do?” But the blame game is only going to waste more time and energy. Lets fix the problem. Along the way we can make sure that the people responsible, the republicans and to a lesser extent the dems for doing nothing to stop them, for creating more loopholes for the rich, for making more and more exemptions for the wealthy, and allowing the market meltdowns of the last few years to occur. Now the taxpayers have to spend what little money we have to bail our country out. And the people who benefited the most are complaining about having to pitch in and help. Fuck you! Stores that people love and shop at and are staples of their communities are going under. Borders bookstore had to close all of its stores; Sears and Kmart are closing stores 100s of locations. Many of these stores are anchors for the strip malls or shopping malls they are in which is going to trigger more out of business signs in the future for the stores on the periphery. And in the midst of all of this the Kardashians are making a million and millions of dollars. Why are people supporting these morons? I am pretty sure that the Kardashians’ continued fame and success is one of the seven signs of the apocalypse.

9. Death of an era

Death is a part of life, and this year is no different. We lost some people that were near and dear to us all. Some were actors, others were inventors, sports stars, pioneers, entertainers, doctors, reporters, friends, but all of them were dreamers. All the people that were lost this year will be missed, so I am truly sorry if I leave someone special to you out.
“We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.”

We tip our hat and bid a fond farewell to the following people in 2011:
Steve Jobs, Heavy D, Joe Frazier, Elizabeth Taylor, Warren Christopher, Gil Scott-Heron, Al Davis, Peter Faulkner, Geraldine Ferraro, Betty Ford, Jack Kevorkian, Amy Winehouse, Harry Morgan, Andy Rooney, Macho Man Randy Savage, Patrice Oneal, Dan Wheldon, Peter Falk, Ryan Dunn, Harmon Killabrew, Nick Ashford, and Nate Dogg

“Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.”

8. The Court System doing the job we need it to

The guilty that aren’t found guilty. It happens everyday, but in these three high profile cases the more than guilty party was able to skate around the justice system and get off scott free. Showing once again that a jury of our peers is more like a box full of idiots.

Rupert Murdoch
He was not held accountable for his part in his newspapers hacking scandal that was discovered this year, but had been talking place for a number of years. The man obviously knew what his subordinates were doing but I am sure ordered them to take part in illegal acts so that he could scoop other newspapers, find out exclusive information, and profit by printing information no one else was able to obtain. He made millions, if not billions using unethical, illegal means, and escaped without so much as a second thought to the lives he has ruined and laid waste to. The wealthy 1, justice 0.

Dominick Strauss-Kahn
Here we have the head of the IMF literally raping his African chamber maid. I mean a cartoonist drawing for the Washington post couldn’t have dreamed up this scenario better. But like all powerful men he claimed that she had thrown herself at him and that he did nothing wrong other than engage in consntual rape, I mean sex. A few months passed, the general public grew weary of the story, information about the womn was leaked to the press in a clear attempt to discredit her or atlest cast a shadow of doubt on her story (which worked), and he was subsequently released. Wealthy 2, justice 0.

Casey Anthony
The woman who killed her baby Cayley, and disposed of her remains in the nearby woods was found not guilty by a jury of her peers on July 5, 2011 in Florida. Apparently, her peers are murderous, moronic, imbeciles, because there is no way on God’s green Earth this woman could have been found not guilty. It is true that the DA overreached by trying to go for the death penalty and murder 1, but one life deserves another and if she killed her baby on accident or if it were premeditated, she deserves to be punished, and punished severely. But of course that can’t happen when you ask lay people to make legal decisions that they are not qualified to make. In fact these people shouldn’t be asked to figure out what color to paint your dining room. Murderers 1, Justice 0.

7. Wisconsin ends union rights

Governor Scott Walker, R, of Wisconsin repealed union rights so that employees would no longer be able to collectively bargain. Are you kidding me? He was doing his best to set workers back hundreds of years of fighting, clawing, and scratching their way to the brink of humane working conditions and rights by signing into law a bill that restricted public workers from bargaining on March of this year. Of course the people didn’t take this lying down, and stormed the capitol building in Madison to demand he repeal the bill. They even went as far as to have a recount. But I guess the people that were protesting were to busy having their voices heard and didn’t vote, because somehow he did not got recalled and the bill is now a law. Fishy politics at its best. If there are 200 thousand citizens that don’t like a bill in a town of 250 thousand, I would think that the official elected by the people to do their bidding would, well, uh, do their bidding. Hmmm, scratch my head, lady liberties dress falls that much more.

6. Syrian death squads killing innocent protesters

In the midst of the Arab Spring uprising Syrian president and despotic ruler Bashir al-Assad does not want to lose control of his strangle hold that he has on the people of Syria. While the neighboring countries were able to protest and win their freedom from their tyrannical rulers, this tyrant is showing he is there for the long haul. He has been firing on, bombing, and assassinating all who have been protesting him. All the while telling the West that he is outraged that this kind of behavior is going on and that it must be the work of terrorist. Even though there is video evidence of this subversive behavior, he still claims that neither he, nor anyone affiliated with his government is responsible for the protesters coming under attack. And like the hypocrites we are as the main member of the UN, we nod our head and agree with his continued bullying and extermination of his opposition by doing nothing and accepting his lies. Its like we are an old Irish cop at the station when a woman comes in all beaten and bruised to file a report against her abusive husband Seamus. But when we go to the house to arrest him, he tells us that she ran into the door and fell down the stairs. So we share a couple of shots of whiskey with him, tear up the report, and put her back in the same abusive position. I guess its only abuse if they person doing the abusing has something we want to steal, or we don’t need them for some other purpose. Sorry Syrians, you are on your own. My advice to you, stop falling down the stairs and running into doors you clumsy bitch!

The Top 10 movies of 2011

2011-12-26T15:52:00.000-08:00

Well this is a little embarrassing. Here I was already to create my list of the top 10 movies of 2011 and as I was composing it realized that there aren’t 10 movies that I thought could be put on this list. Hollywood should be embarrassed. The normal fluff that would be shipped to the shelves of your local Wal*Mart directly instead of flopping on the big screen have somehow found their way to the theatres screen. Which pretty much showed me that there is no place for me in a chair at the movies when they charge 15 bucks to watch this nonsensical drivel. Instead of receiving a refund and an apology from the movie studios this year, which is what we all deserve, I have instead decided to create my own awards post for the handful of movies that I found watchable in 2011.

On a side note, the best thing I can recommend to everyone that is the must see of 2011 was not in the theatres, but rather made for the little screen. It was a series on HBO called Game of Thrones. Spectacular, breathtaking, well acted, and riveting down to the very last scene in the finale of the season. HBO hits a homerun again. But I digress, this is supposed to be about movies, and without further ado, the winners of the first ever Heardies are as follows:

Best Indie movie of the year: Win-Win

Paul Giammati gives a heart-felt performance in this very obscure independent film. Not a lot of explosions, big bold beautiful scenery, or big budget actors, but it makes up for with its enormous amount of heart. Just a warm, well thought out movie that gives you a look at people just trying to make it in this world. If you enjoyed this movie, you will also like Cedar Rapids and Everything Must Go.

Best Remake: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

I usually hate prequels but this was such a well made, smart, and witty reboot of a movie that was pretty lack-luster for this sci-fi fan. James Franco and Jon Lithgow give strong performances, but it was the silent acting of Andy Serkis as Caesar who steals the show. Once again he gives a performance masked by a CGI creation that is filled with melancholy, strength, heart, and fear all without uttering a word.

Best comic book movie: Captain America

Everyone is making a comic book movie these days, but there is only one Chris Evans and there is only one Captain America. Joe Johnston did a great job casting Chris Evans as CA and Hugo Weaving as the villainous mastermind behind hydra the Red Skull. If you liked this movie you will also enjoy X-men: First Class, Kevin Bacon gives an enjoyable performance.

Best adrenaline shot: Battle Los Angeles

I was all set to not like this obvious copy of ID4 and Skyline, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. It definitely stands alone. This movie starts off a little slow, about 10 minutes of story, the nerve of some people, but then once it grabs a hold of you, it doesn’t let go. It is non-stop action filled ride in this adrenaline raising, fast paced adventure flick.

Best comedy of the year: Horrible Bosses

From beginning to end, this movie had me rolling on the ground laughing. The dry, uncaring, crass, insensitive, and inappropriate bosses portrayed by Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, and Collin Farrell captured the insidiousness that all of us have had in at least one of our bosses over our lifetime. You will want to make sure you know where your rewind button on your remote control is when you watch this movie because you will be laughing so hard you will miss some of the next comedic lines.

Best Romantic Comedy: Crazy, Stupid, Love

Just a fun movie that makes you feel happy that you are in a relationship or will make you want to be in a relationship. It is fun, sad, witty, clever, and funny. Everyone gives a really good performance, but no one is exceptional. It is a movie that you should grab that special someone in your life, a pint of your favorite Haagen Daaz, and a blanket curl up on the sofa and have a great stay at home night.

Best action drama: Hannah

A stylistic, deep, and harrowing film about a young woman’s exploration of a world that she has been kept isolated from, who also happens to be a blossoming assassin. Very strong performances from Eric Bana, Cate Blanchett, and newcomer Saoirse Ronan. An action movie with heart, a lot of darkness, and some bizarre characters, and in the middle of it all is a confused girl trying to discover her place in the world of murder, espionage, and puberty. The score was utilized quite well and the direction helped tell a story that keeps you interested in how it’s going to draw to its tragic conclusion. If you liked this movie, Drive would also be worth your while to watch.

Best special effects: (tie) Sucker Punch/Tranformers 3

I couldn’t believe how beautiful I thought the CGI in Sucker Punch was. It helped that I saw it on a digital projection and that I was super excited to see this movie, but the movie unfortunately sucked and actually made me feel dirty and gross. Although Zach Snyder’s visions in the past have been magnificent when transferred to film (300, Watchmen) but this was a resounding failure. It was just not a good movie to watch, but the backdrops for the stories that Babydoll would take the girls and audience into via her dancing antics were awe-inspiring. I wanted to like it, but it was just not a good movie. A swing and a miss.

Transfomers 3

I also saw this in digital, the only way a big budget action movie should be viewed, and was saddened that this was a giant special effect masquerading as a movie. The best special effect that has been in all of the movies is that Shia Lebof is dating drop dead gorgeous leading ladies. But truthfully, the integration of these giant transforming robots in this movie was so seamless that I secretly hoped that Decepticons and Autobots actually did crash land on our planet and moon many millennia ago. Stop making these movies Michael Bay.
Unfortunately, neither of these movies are worth the ticket I paid to see them, however, they are, worth renting just to see how visually stunning they were.

Best cinematography: Sanctum

A beautifully shot movie showing the beauty and inherent danger that can be found in underwater cave diving. The movie is filled with actors from Australia since it was filmed on the gold Coast of Eastern Australia, this movie has beautiful shots of caves as they are explored by the spelunkers that call these rock prisons their homes away from home. But if there was one thing I learned from watching this movie, it’s that I am never going diving in a cave. You know what, just never going into a cave, period.

Best animated: Rango

There weren’t many animated movies to choose from this year, but I think Rango was the clear-cut winner. This movie was funny, quirky, bizarre, and voiced wonderfully by Johnny Depp. The animation was very stylish, the story line was both kid and adult friendly, and it had a good message to entire movie.

Best movie of the year: 50/50

Never can a movie be fun to watch when the main character has to deal with dying from cancer, but this movie makes you cheer, cry, laugh, and sigh in this look at a 30something young man deal with the ups and downs of being diagnosed with cancer. I have soured on Seth Rogen as of late, but his performance in this movie was exactly what it needed adding the needed bit of awkward levity acting opposite Joseph Gordon-Levitt. This movie was just a pleasure to watch, and makes you take stock of the things and people that you truly value in your life.

I hope you have had the opportunity to see all of these movies on my list, they really are worth seeing. If you haven’t seen them, go out and do so at once, I wouldn’t steer you wrong. For those of you that don’t agree with my picks, I have two things to say to you. First, opinions are like assholes, so kiss mine, and second, if you don’t like the list, make your own.

The Top 10 events of 2011 part 2

2011-12-22T11:29:00.000-08:00

5. The Death of Osama Bin Laden and Kim Jong Il
We told you Osama that you your time would come. Who knew it would be 10 years later and you would be hiding in a million dollar compound in Pakistan, but we got you. What happened to all of that “I will be in cave hiding with my brethren, the soldiers of faith who will rain terror on the infidel Americans?” It looked to me as if your “cave” was filled with modern amenities; in fact, you were basking in the lap of luxury from the money your Saudi family had been giving you. With the resources you had, one would have thought you could have been able to afford better porn. But in the end our special forces made short work of you and ended your hate filled life by showing your brains the light of day. I do not like to speak ill of the dead, but in your case I will make an exception. Good-bye and good riddance, you will not be missed.

Kim Jong Il
I guess you are a not a God after all. You made your entire country suffer so that you could make yourself feel important. You ruled through terror, propaganda, and misinformation. You single handedly kept your countrymen from experiencing the 21st century. I hope that what you have done does not have a lasting affect upon the country. Korea is a wonderful place that has been divided for no other reason than people like you that are warmongers and terrorists. I don’t believe in hell, but if there is one I hope you burn in it for eternity.

4. Arab Spring
And I thought Twitter was a waste of time posting needless information from self-important people who seem to think that anyone other than themselves cares what they are doing or what they are thinking. Hmm, you would think I would be an advocate for it. But the truth of the matter is social networking sites like twitter were responsible for helping topple governments in Northern Africa and cause uprising in the Middle East. The sad fact is that these people have been oppressed by dictators and despots for countless decades and with the dissemination of information in the communication age made it possible for the yearning for freedom that the people of these countries desired, became more of a reality and less of a dream. They were able to oust their evil despotic rulers, a few of which met a sticky fate. There is no remorse given to these leaders who met their ends at the hands of the very people they oppressed. For that is the nature of the beast.

Tunisia-This is the starting point, ground zero for everything. This uprising actually started in December of 2010 and sparked the fuse that set off this powder keg of uprisings in the region. They ousted Zine al Abidine Ben Ali and are working toward putting a stable government in place.

Egypt-Was able to dispose of Hosni Mubarak and are currently trying to ensure they have rights for all people men and women in this area.

Libya-Muammar Gadaffi was beaten and stabbed to death by his disgruntled former subjects. I guess a recall is out of the question.

Yemen-This is kind of an ongoing battle. From their uprising and protests they were able to get Ali Abdullah Selleh to resign from his 33 years of rule.

There are of course other nations still fighting for their freedom; Syria, Algeria, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Morocco, Oman, and of course Israel. I wish the people lots of luck in the upcoming years, it will be tumultuous path lined with blood and sacrifice, but there can be no price to great to pay for freedom.

3. The GOP Candidates for 2012

Thank God that there is still not a serious contender to challenge Obama. Although I am a staunch supporter of the Obama administration and what he represents, like most Americans who voted for him, I am ready for him to stop being a pussy. He needs to stand up to the GOP and stop being so agreeable and worried about his image with the Republicans. He needs to wrestle America back from the stranglehold that the corporations have on our politicians whose greed is choking the life from the populace. But the GOP has its head so far up its ass, that when Caesar calls for them to present their champion to fight the Black Knight Obama, all they have to offer is this paltry showing of incompetents, racists, morons, and half-wits. Oh, and a great Libertarian RhINO.

Michelle Bachman-We can’t have a president that is talking to foreign dignitaries in one room and looking at people in another. I had to get braces when I was younger because my teeth were crooked, I’d advise her to seek what ever remedy there is for a wandering eye. This is a person who thinks being a homosexual is a choice that can be cured by prayer and her husband's gentle touch, and that autism is caused by inoculation shots. Awesome, she is going to represent us in the world. We traded a MILF for a Moron when we went from Palin to Bachman.

Rick Perry-Well there are 3 things I want to tell you about Rick Perry. First, he has a hunting lodge called Niggerhead! Uh oh, watch out Obama. If he invites you over to go for a friendly hunt, I don’t think you two will be on the same side. It is obvious what this guy likes to mount in his hunting lodge. The second, he is so clear and impressive with articulating his thoughts. And third, umm, uh, its that one thing about him….you know? Uhh. What I find funny is you can actually see the text bubble above his head, and its empty.

Herman Cain*-Is about as insane a candidate as there can be. His 9-9-9 plan might have been preceded with a 6 before each one of those nines. I am not sure if he is the one what we needed to fix our country, but I am sure he would be willing to run his hand up lady liberty’s dress and see what she has to offer.
*unfortunately Cain will no longer be running for president. I guess the book he wrote ending with him assuming the mantle of President-elect of the USA was just as fictional as the last book in the Inheritance Cycle series I am finishing.

Mitt Romney-Who is this guy? He flip-flops and waffles so much I thought he might have been the tycoon who owned the IHOP franchise. He is willing to take whatever position is popular at the time. He’s that kid who shows up to school sporting all the latest trends thinking it will make him cool, when all it does is show us that he is a fool.

Ron Paul-He is like the alcoholic uncle that comes over during thanksgiving, and amidst the family scuffles, shares profound advice that that everyone ignores. He has great ideas to fix the economy, is a fair and reasonable man, and is quite intelligent. Unfortunately, or fortunately for the Democrats, no one in his party takes him seriously. His foreign policy strategies leave a lot to be desired, but if there was a man I would want in the cabinet of Obama, this would be the man.

Newt Gingrich-Is a complete and total racist, and I can see why he is the front-runner for their party. The man stops short of burning crosses on people’s lawns, spews racist inciteful rhetoric, and is I think a grand dragon of the Georgia KKK. I have no facts to back that last claim up other than what he says, how he acts and his general attitude toward anyone not white and rich.

2. The New Look Clippers and The Improved California Angels
The Clippers in a surprise move, sign Caron butler, pick up Chauncey Billups off of waivers, and traded for Chris Paul to make the Clippers an instant contender for the playoffs and probably the most exciting team in a league that boasts dream teams of Lebron, Wade, and Bosh in Miami, and the human high light reel Derek Rose in Chicago.

Artie Moreno decided to make waves for the Angels and rocking the entire baseball world signing slugger Albert Pujols to a 10 year $254 million dollar contract. Along with that he stole local Leftie CJ Wilson from our division rival Rangers, to make the Angels once again a contender to win the West and have a legitimate shot at its second World Series in a decade. Southern California is sitting pretty in the professional sports world.

And number 1-My Niece
The birth of my niece, Tabitha Louise Szczesny, on September 22, 2009 at 2:59PM in a hospital in Seattle Washington. And she is the cutest, fattest, most adorable thing in the world and the BEST thing to happen in 2011. She will be giving us great memories for years to come.

The Best 10 Events from 2011

2011-12-22T11:26:00.000-08:00

10. Harry Potter Movie Series Reaches its Conclusion

The Harry Potter movie series finally came to an end and just in time too, because Hollywood was kicking around the idea of Harry Potter, the Geriatric Years, which would have required little to no special effects for the actors involved. In fact, I think a handful of actors who acted in the first movie of the series died before the conclusion of the 7th (8 if you count the split finale) movie being released. I am a huge fan of the books, and the movies added their own little bit of charm to the series that now billionaire writer JK Rowling created, but the series was milked for as much money as was possible, and it has finally reached its conclusion. So Ron, Hermione, and Harry good luck, and see you in a few years on Celebrity rehab, as a panel guest on Chelsea Lately, or a mug shot on TMZ.

9. USA Women’s Soccer
The women’s soccer team might not have won the World Cup, but they won something even more important than that, they won the hearts and captured the imagination and patriotism of the majority of Americans. It has been a long time since any sport was as polarizing as this event that had every American glued to their seats with anticipation to catch an American international sporting competition. It made it even more spectacular that it was soccer, and even that much more fantastic that it was WOMEN’S soccer. They lost in a finals match with Japan that came down to an amazing play and a team with tremendous heart winning in overtime. However, everyone on the pitch that day came away a winner. I hope the support and attention this event garnered means that women’s sports are finally going to get the recognition they deserve.

8. The Occupy Movement
The youth of America has had enough and they are using their constitutional right to protest and petition. I was hoping that their veracity would serve as a wake up call to the GOP and the corrupt politicians who work for the corporations that their time had come. But after Boehner, Cantor and cohorts continue to pull stunts like they did with avoiding the pay roll tax vote, I think they have not learned their lesson quite yet. I hope it doesn’t lead to the same kind of protest and coup that our Arab neighbors experienced this year. But I have faith once again in America that I am not the only one that is fed up with the blatant disregard for the people who are the true Americans these politicians are supposed to represent.

7. Cardinals v Rangers
Best World Series in the last 20 years! The Cardinals back-doored their way into the post season by an epic meltdown by Atlanta. Then they beat the surging Brewers and played a series against the Rangers that was exciting as a heavy weight fight. There were comebacks, homeruns, saves, pitching duels, bad play, questionable coaching, and amazing play by each team. Albert Pujols of the Cardinals and his big bad bat added even more hyperbole to his legend. And Mike Napoli showed why he was such an important acquisition for the Rangers and how instrumental he had been behind the plate and at it. Definitely one for the ages.

6. Tiger, Tiger Woods Y’all!
Even though all he did was win a non-tour event, the Chevron World Tour, and it was his own sponsored event, it marked his first victory in any tournament since 2009 when the story first broke about his infidelity and divorce. Ever since the Tiger that we have come to know, love, admire, and revere fell to the lowest of lows and was unable to find victory on or off the course. But this year started a new chapter in the much-maligned life of Tiger Woods. He finishes 3rd in the Australian open, helps America win the President’s Cup, and then wins this tournament in dramatic fashion. His victory is hopefully a sign of things to come in the upcoming 2012 golf season. And hopefully signals some kind of calm in his personal life. He is good for the sport, a hero to young golfers everywhere, and the only reason any one cares about grown ass men chasing a little white all around a park.

The top 5 will be available in tomorrow's post.

Home for the holidays

2011-12-21T09:48:00.000-08:00

Just in time for the holidays, the troops come home from Iraq and are out of the sticky quagmire that was created after America invaded the wrong country as a reprisal act for the attacks on 9/11. I am sure that many families are happy for the chance to see their loved ones again. It was the right time for the men and women that valiantly served our country so diligently by ousting an oppressive leader and attempting to establish a democratic government so that the people of Iraq could govern themselves. I can’t say that I agree with all of the policies that led to us being there in the first place, but there is definitely something to said about how our country said it was going to kick the shit out of the Hussein dictatorship, and then found him cowering away in a hole in the ground, only to return him to a different hole in the ground, this time deader than a bucket of fried chicken.

But after our mission was accomplished, why did we stay another 8 years? We accomplished what we set out to do. We captured the dictator, tried, and sentenced him. We toppled the fascist regime that had ruled Iraq and leveled half the country in the process. “Mission accomplished,” announced a flight suit wearing George W. Bush, flight helmet in hand, from the deck of the Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003. But what mission was he speaking of? The United States blew up an entire country for blowing up 2 of our buildings. But only 3 of the 19 terrorists that were involved in that attack were even from Iraq. What mission was accomplished? Ahh, the mission of establishing a contract for rebuilding Iraq for Halliburton and securing the Iraqi oil reserves for private American interests. So American troops risked their lives, American taxpayers footed the bill, and private enterprise profited from all of that death and destruction. “America, home of the free, land of the brave, and for the right price, profiteering mercenaries for hire.” The latest in a long line of American slogans. It has a nice rhythm, but not sure if I can dance to it. Eight years later President Obama said enough is enough, no longer wanting to support this profiteering invasion, he pulled the last remaining troops out of Iraq. Thank you Mr. President.

There are many in Iraq that are happy we are gone. There are also some, mainly the Sunni minority, who would like us to stay because they fear harm from the Shiite majority that has control of the government right now. As much as I feel for these people and any people around the world that are in political turmoil, put under undue duress, and threatened with physical harm by their government, the truth is, that this is not our problem. We took out a dictator who forced his totalitarian rule on the people by killing and savaging his own people. “You’re welcome.” Of course in the process we destroyed half the country, the other half was already pretty crappy when we got there. But we did the world a favor and now it is time for our troops to come home. There is no reason that another American should lose their life over in Iraq because this exercise in political annexation has reached its conclusion. Democracy was never the true goal of our invasion to begin with, nor will it be reached by forcing it on the people. The idea that it would be is against the entire concept of a democracy in the first place. Iraq is in its infancy as a developing country, it needs to be watched and nurtured, but be allowed to develop on its own and at its own rate. But make no mistake, we are not the de facto parents and the obligation to “baby” the world is not in our best interest. We are more the concerned adult at the store who sees an unruly child smacking things off of the shelves and stop him, admonish him, and take him back to his parents.

We are not in the protecting the world from each other business, we are in the making the world safe for us business. Sometimes unfortunately it does mean that we need to invade sovereign countries when they pose an immediate threat to our safety, you are on notice China, Iran, and yes, Russia again, but we can not be responsible for everyone on this planet. Especially if it is at the costly expense of our own country. We have an economy that is stalling right now, families without their mommies and daddies that have been serving 3 or 4 back to back tours, there are politicians in Congress that think that they are untouchable like these dictators thought, and populace that is tired of our own “democratic” dictatorship. Our troops need to come home, we need to stop financing this war, and we need time to heal internally before we wind up becoming like Russia in the 1980’s, over extended, corrupt with greedy politicians and businessmen, and collapsing in due to our own over indulgent nature.

So to the people of Iraq and its surrounding community, I say, well, I will let Cartman say it for me as only he can:

Screw you guys, im going home

Welcome home troops. Thank you for a job well done!

Just to put a smile on your faces

2011-12-20T22:17:00.000-08:00

I promised I would take a break from commenting on all of the negativity that is currently occurring in the world. Since it is the holiday season, I thought it would be fun to put up some quotes that always seem to put a smile on my face. I didn’t come up with these, nor am I taking credit for any of them, I just find them comical and entertaining. I hope you do too. Enjoy.

Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself

After twelve years of therapy my psychiatrist said something that brought tears to my eyes. He said, "No hablo ingles."

Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky and I thought to myself, where the heck is the ceiling.

The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the average man can see better than he can think.

A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.

Girls are like phones. They love to be held, talked too but if you press the wrong button you'll be disconnected!

Everybody wants to go to heaven; but nobody wants to die.

Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died

I told the doctor I broke my leg in two places. He told me to quit going to those places

I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants.

If we're not supposed to eat animals, how come they're made out of meat?

Guys: No Shirt, No Service - Gals: No Shirt, No Charge

Everyone needs to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer.

Worst excuse for not turning in homework: I couldn't find anyone to copy it from

Men are like bank accounts. Without a lot of money they don't generate a lot of interest

Wear short sleeves! Support your right to bare arms!

Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?

I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers

I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

It is better to be beautiful than to be good, but it is better to be good than to be ugly.

The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure

Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes. (that one is for Billy)

Santa Claus has the right idea: visit people once a year

These are from my main man George W.
One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures.

I have opinions of my own -- strong opinions -- but I don't always agree with them
I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub

You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.

It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas.

The thing that's wrong with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur

Well, I think if you say you're going to do something and don't do it, that's trustworthiness

I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace.

There's an old saying in Tennessee –or is it Texas, probably Tennessee...that says, fool me once, shame on...shame on you. Fool me...you can't get fooled again.

And I would have to say that this last one embodies everything I think about everyone else’s opinion…

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.

Happy holidays everyone….and for you capitalist out there Merry Christmas!

A call to arms to the people of Ohio

2011-12-19T09:46:00.000-08:00

If the Egyptians were able to oust Mubarak, the Libyans Gaddafi, and the Tunisians President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, then surely the people of Ohio can put an end to Boehner’s reign of terror. What’s funny is that I have been to Ohio and the people there didn’t appear to be ultra rich conservatives, white supremacists, or slow, simple imbeciles. But to keep electing this guy, well, they obviously must be. Boehner is the Antichrist, Hitler, and the dark lord of the Sith all rolled into one overly tanned, deceitful politician. He is single handedly heading the fight to stop all legislation that is attempting to help this country. Never before have I seen a politician so brazenly oppose the president as he attempts to thwart every policy he enacts simply to be adversarial. No matter how the legislation or policy will affect the people, he will purposely come down on the other side of it solely based on party line politics. He is just being contrite to policy because it comes from Barrack Obama’s administration. He has clearly made it his mission to ensure that this administration fails and along with it, America. His policy stances and his articulated conjecture have not even been close to supporting the general American populace. People of Ohio, it is time to take up arms and stop this guy. All you have to do is elect ANYONE else who is running for his position. Anyone at all. I mean who is running against this guy that keeps losing?

Well, if it really is this guy, I think they are going to the same tanning salon.

America 2011 has truly turned into the same kind of political atmosphere that was present when or forefathers in 1775 mutinied against the British under the mantra “no taxation without representation.” And as history often does, it is repeating itself, and happening the same way again. The government is not working for the people right now, it is working for the corporations. It is working for the supposed “job creators” who don’t seem to be creating any jobs other than ones for each other. But I don’t blame the politicians, the charlatans, or the swindlers in office for what they are doing. I blame the American people. If they don’t have sense enough to realize that these guys are playing them, well then they are just as foolish as these marks they are taking you as. They believe if they use a few choice words here and there, threaten your “safety” or “sensibility” that you will fall in line with what ever they are saying. They know most people don’t want to fall outside their comfort zones, or don’t want to take responsibility for their actions, so they easily allow the blame to be placed elsewhere even though they themselves are the perpetrators of the crimes alleged. If it weren’t so sad and infuriating, it would be quite comical.

This whole situation reminds me of the scene in Casablanca at Rick's when the police chief comes in to raid the place for illegal gambling, and then collects his winnings for his bets at the same time.

The issue at hand today is the continued payroll tax cut. No one in their right mind would want to have the payroll tax cuts and budget for that matter extended for only 2 months, but the Republicans have painted the Democrats into a corner and would only agree to that long of a budget. Then they have the audacity to then come back and say they want a year-long budget because that is what’s best for the people, and along with it are adding all of these provisions that are terrible for the people, the working class, the environment, but wonderful for their true constituents the corporations, and are trying to look like the saviors of America. Stand for something America, or risk falling for anything.

Money, decisions, tax cuts, and our federal government

2011-12-17T16:12:00.000-08:00

So the government finally broke its incessant stalemate over whether or not to continue the payroll tax cuts. They finally agreed to pass it so that the country can continue its attempt to rebuild after the tailspin the Bush-era decisions and policies put us in. Oops, nope, that is not exactly what happened. The government did again what it does best, it dropped the ball. It says to the public that we are doing our best when in reality they are doing their best to do as little as possible. The Senate passed a two-month “band-aid” so that they can feel like they reached some kind of an accord before they go on their winter break. A winter break that is funded by, “We the people.” It seems a bit odd that the people that pay these men and women to do a job unfulfilled, are the same people they continue to screw over time and time again. But as they slide into their private transports and are whisked away to their holiday compounds they don’t have to worry about the American people because they have done as much for us as they could while keeping to their party lines. Whew, I am indeed relieved that these guys don’t have to worry anymore.

And in another surprise move Congress breathes a sigh of relief as they passed along a bill that they had been threatening to veto because they were sure that the under worked and underutilized court system will find this bill to be unconstitutional, unintelligible, or anything that relieves them from having to do their job. Besides the guy at the bank who cashes their paychecks they fastidiously collect every month, does anyone in Washington have to actually do the job they were hired to do? Either way, they no longer have to worry about whether the American people will be satisfied with the job that they have done this year, since they fulfilled their duties of passing the buck. And can head into this holiday season for their much deserved and needed 3-week vacation unobstructed by work related worries.

What is wrong with us America? Why do we idly sit by and allow this kind of crap to continue in our government. This is a government for the people by the people. Not a government to control the people and curtail the people. They are stealing from us, they are giving our hard earned money to the banks, to the corporations, to the special interests groups who they truly represent. Then blame it on this current administration. They are shitting in our faces and telling us that it is good for the skin. Or maybe we have our heads so far up our own asses that the shit we smell is our own. Because there is no way that anyone in their right mind (no pun intended) can believe that this is not a case of right wing agenda politics attempting to pull a heist on this country by continuing to make special considerations for the wealthy while the rest of us are left footing the bill.

It is time we stopped allowing this to happen. Stop being mindless lemming consumers and take an active role in our electoral process. Find out what it means to gerrymander a district, take the time to read about the issues that are on the ballot, stop believing everything you see on TV, most of the news that is out there nowadays is biased opinion and not fact based reporting, commercials exist to get you to buy or buy into something, of course they are true and fair. Find out why your congressmen and senators abstain from voting, or better yet find out what they are voting for. These people are supposed to represent our interests, not the interest of being reelected. They are no supposed to be in office so they can promise their donors that they will make sure the laws favor them. The laws are supposed to favor the people who live and bleed red, white, and blue. These are the people who work everyday and just want the same protection and assurances that are afforded to everyone else. It shouldn’t be that in order for a company to make a dollar 20 people have to lose their dollar.

Harrison's Hard Helmet-to-Helmet Hit

2011-12-16T15:26:00.000-08:00

James Harrison, DL for the Pittsburg Steelers makes his living eating up opposing teams’ quarterbacks. He does his job so prolifically and proficiently that the next time they feel him closing in on them, they would rather run the ball out of bounds or throw it before their receiver has had a chance to run their routes. He is viscous, tenacious, menacing, monstrous, and a formidable force on the defensive line just like it says in his job description. And now he is being penalized for doing his job too well. If Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers throws too many touchdowns, does the media criticize them for being to flashy, being too opulent, for being unsportsmanlike? Of course not, because what they do is pretty. What Harrison and guys like him do is not pretty. They are in the trenches fighting the tough battle, they are meat in a grinder and the tougher, stronger, and meaner they are, the more successful they are on the field. It is like the different branches of the military. These guys are like the Marines, they are first in the mud and the first to draw blood. They are visceral beasts. The QB’s are like the Air Force, so far removed and above the fray that they have the luxury of dropping bombs on the enemy without putting themselves in too much danger. But as soon as they are on the ground with the troops, all bets are off. It is kill or be killed, and these defensive players are like hungry lions and tigers, and in this league it is feast or famine. And they are too hungry not to eat.

Reverend Reggie White, Deacon Jones, Mike Ditka, LT (the original), Ronnie Lott, Mean Joe Green, Bruce Smith, Ray Ray, Brian Urlacher, and a whole slew of other defensive juggernauts have lived in infamy for being down right nasty on the football field. But now the NFL is saying that they want to protect players and make sure there are not injuries sustained that are life threatening. Why does this privilege of not getting hurt only apply to quarterbacks and not the rest of the players on the field? It is not just a full contact sport anymore, it is a collision-based sport where colliding colossal giants slam into one another with enough force to make us at home on the sofa feel it. I have seen receivers, tight ends, and running backs brutalized, beat up, and sustaining season ending hits time and time again and rarely are there penalties called against the perpetrators. But if a QB, who is not Mike Vick, is touched anywhere on their body it’s a 15 yard penalty and a league review for possible fines.

People complain about the “dirty” players and how they hit the hardest, but these are also the people that everyone wants on their side. You want people willing to do the dirty work, you just don’t want to see it, so you don’t have to feel like you are getting your hands dirty. The rules are set up to protect a QB in the pocket, but as soon as he steps outside of the pocket he turns into a running back and all bets are off. Mike Vick gets helmet-to-helmet hits inside of the pocket, and he still doesn’t’ get the call. Maybe its bad officiating, maybe its racially based, maybe it is residual backlash from his dog fighting. Whatever the case may be, he doesn’t get the calls. But if we are to hold the NFL and Roger Goodell to their story of why he doesn’t get the calls, which is that when he leaves the pocket he is perceived as a runner, then we have to apply that same logic to the Harrison/McCoy hit. If you watch the footage Colt McCoy is clearly out of the pocket and running, as soon as he does this, Harrison bears down on him and crushes him. They teach these guys to aim at a spot 2 inches behind their target and explode through them like they are trying to break them into a million little pieces. With that kind of brutality on the field of course people are going to get hurt. But that is why these guys make the amount of money they do. Was it helmet to helmet? Yes. Was it intentional? No. It was incidental contact and should have resulted in the penalty, just not the fine or the suspension. This is absolutely a case of a rule that is not fair, a punishment that was levied biasly against a particular player with prejudice, and the league taking away what little credibility it has left. If anyone should be suspended it should be the coaching staff for putting McCoy back out on the field after this brutal hit.

Newt Gingrich, White eye, for the Black guy

2011-12-15T14:09:00.000-08:00

I for one am ecstatic that there is finally a Republican front-runner with the vision, drive, and the capacity to get things done in Washington. A man with a plan and a road map he can follow to help fix our deteriorating America. His message is clear, simple, and as plain as the Black skin on the back of my hand, “Stop helping the Black man who is weighing America down.” Thank goodness someone is willing to take a stand. It feels so good to finally say it and get it out there. Whew! That is it, Black people are the root of all the economic woes in our country. I’m just happy that this movement can finally leave the back hills of the south and the mayors office in Costa Mesa and get out into the main stream. No longer will crosses be burned in the darkness of night or newsletters riddled with truth-filled hate be sent in secret. The Aryan Nation, white supremacists, and the KKK can finally feel vindicated that their messages have been correct for all these years, and can now feel free to spread their hate filled rhetoric in the light of day. I only wish he would have jumped on the bandwagon earlier. He could have really learned something from the powers that be in the SAUSD because they have apparently known this for years. They started weeding out all those lazy black teachers, principals, service people, and classified workers years ago realizing that they were the reasons why the kids were doing so poorly on standardized tests. Like a Black educator is the same as their Caucasian counter part!? Please!

We all know that Black people have no roll models in their communities. They are all taught from an early age that they don’t need to work. They have no work ethic and frankly wont do the job that they are paid to do when they can gain employment. Their laziness is a learned trait or it might even be a genetic defect. Either way, these “working poor” as the media calls them have never worked a day in their lives. They need to repay the money they are draining out of our society by actually contributing. I will let Newt sum it all up as he does so eloquently in this little video clip.

I am glad that Newt Gingrich came up with a plan to deal with the poverty that has stricken our inner cities. No longer will they get to take advantage of the American Dream that all of us as Americans hope to achieve. If they think they can skate by because their ancestry was the main reason the United States was able to become a super power from hundreds of years of forced brutal slavery they have another thing coming. No, they will have to earn their keep. No more free education, if they want to learn a skill to better themselves, then they will have to clean up their own shit. Literally. Put them to work as janitors, as service providers, and as food servers. This is good training for later in life, since they will be the laborers that provide service for the rest of us civilized people. Thank goodness Newt is here to help teach black people what job is. He clearly states it in this video, how a job works. When you do work, you get money in return. I, along with the rest of the black community had no idea that that was how jobs worked.

Thanks Newt, I didn’t want to have to become a pimp. That is a lot of hard work trying to keep my bitches in check. I might have even needed to get Wayne Brady to choke a bitch for me.

The word for today is loyalty

2011-12-14T17:01:00.001-08:00

What does is mean to be loyal? Loyalty as described in the dictionary is a faithful adherence to responsibility, obligation, and commitment. That does seem to sum up pretty coherently what it means to be loyal. I have had to find out the hard way that loyalty is one of the most important traits that all humans should exhibit. It is supposed to be a quality present in the people that we hold dear to us and should exhibit this trait time and time again. Yet what I have found to be the truth is that the only things people are loyal to are themselves and their own personal interests. No one seems able to adhere to their responsibilities and commitments. We see examples of the lack of loyalty everyday in relationships between men and women, companies and employees, sports teams and athletes, governments and their constituents. No one seems to really want to honor this social contractual bond that is formed when people interact with one another. Why is that?

I envision a world where people love one another and speak to one another as if they were equals instead of just trying to get as much as they can from the situation while exerting as little effort as possible. I see my daily interactions with people as an attempt to have fun and enjoy the interaction rather than trying to hustle or take advantage of others. But then I realize that that kind of a society just isn’t possible. I was in the store buying some oatmeal when I looked around and realized that we are all just selfish untrustworthy beings. It is in our DNA to be self-serving and treacherous as much as it is for us to want to take a breath, blink our eyes, or desire to reproduce. We can’t shut it off. For those of you who are skeptics, all you have to do is look around. While I was in the grocery store I could see the sensors on the different items in the store, the shopping carts that have locks on them, the expensive bottles of alcohol are locked up in a cage, the store is equipped with cameras, there have to be dates and stamps guaranteeing the safety of the consumer on the meats and dairy products, and countless other precautions. Why do you think that is? Because people will try to steal, rob, pilfer, and lie in order to get what they need or to turn a profit. And if all of that isn’t telling enough there is a security guard at the door just to catch anyone who manages to slip through the “safety nets” that are set up.

Left to their own devices the people around you will and probably already have disappointed you. Apologies and acknowledgements of their transgressions just aren’t enough for me to absolve them for their breach of confidence. Trusting someone is very easy to do, gaining someone’s trust once it has been lost is near impossible. I always want to believe the best of people. I want to believe that if you give someone an opportunity to shine they will rise to the occasion. But that belief is just as crazy as world peace, the cessation of world hunger, or economic equality. The truth of the matter is that laws, rules, fences, barriers, all exist because people can’t stop themselves from wanting to take what is not theirs. They want do what is best for their own personal interest and that comes as a complete and total contradiction to what it means to be loyal. So the next time you hear a TV personality, an athlete, an owner, a politician, a loved one, a friend, a boss, or a fellow employee mention loyalty, remember that they are only loyal to themselves ad will stab you in the back, screw you over, and take advantage of your nativity when it best suits them.

There are no more heroes in sports

2011-12-13T12:48:00.000-08:00

Coming off the most exciting World Series I can remember in recent history, besides the Angels winning it against the Giants in ’02 of course, but I’m biased since I am a life long, diehard Angels fan, MLB looked poised to regain its title and once again take up the mantle for being the true past time of America. But unfortunately for MLB a few days ago it was reported that Major Leagues Baseball’s reigning NL MVP, Ryan Braun, tested positive for PEDs, and all the hoopla and fanfare came to a screeching halt as another hero falls by the way side. The small market, clean cut, good natured poster child for what was supposed to be the new post-PED era in baseball tested positive. And like that, all the hype and hope were gone. It almost invokes memories of the little dirt-streaked faced boy saying to shoeless Joe Jackson in the midst of the Black Sox scandal, “Say it ain’t so Joe, say it ain’t so.”

What sucks most for Braun is that he is guilty now whether he is or isn’t. Once the media got a hold of the story he will forever have an asterisk next to his name as an MVP who got there by cheating. But there are even more questions I think need to be asked. If his positive test was garnered during the playoffs why did the World Anti-Doping Association-accredited lab in Montreal, where Braun's test was tested, wait so long to report it? If a guy is cheating at a casino, they don’t wait for him to walk out the door with their money before they report it. No, they bust his ass right there and get their money back. This is proof that none of these major league sports care about the product they are endorsing as long as they get the money from the fans and then later report violations and misappropriate conduct.

What is happening to all of our heroes? Phelps tests positive for drugs after winning 8 gold medals in Beijing, Barry Bonds being busted for steroids even though he never tested positive, Lance Armstrong constantly being accused of doping, the man has one testicle and survived cancer, c’mon, or what about anyone of our US track stars getting busted for doping? What’s next, are we going to find out that Shaun White isn’t really a redhead? “He’s been dyeing for the last 3 years”….the crowd weeps. So on one hand we have heroes tearing themselves down, and on the other we have the media and owners doing it. Either way these heroes and role models are being set up to fail.

The problem isn’t just in what they do, it is also in the perception of how a “hero” should act. Apparently, in the NBA the players were greedy for holding out for more money and abandoning the small market teams that supported them. The owners who were doing the exact same thing were seen as the victims. I guess we have no more heroes to be found there either. The owners claim that they are treating their teams like a business when they trade away their talented stars or don’t make a push to attain talent so they can be formidable. They are happy with advertising “come watch the other stars come to town and beat up on our team,” so that they can continue to make money for themselves at the expense of the players and the fans. But when the players, our heroes do the same thing or make decisions that are based in business they are demonized, demoralized, and sent down a river of media attacks questioning their character and loyalty. So I guess what is good for the goose isn’t good for the gander. America has lost sight of what it means to have heroes. If we are going to elevate these people to the highest of highs, pay them absurd amounts of money and then scrutinize every little thing they do then of course we are going to find cracks and blemishes in their veneer.

Lebron James was crucified in the media for being a nice wholesome wonderful human being because he chose to leave his small-market hometown for the glitz and glamour of South Beach. Of course he waited 6 years and gave the Cavs everything he had, but they chose not to spend the money and draft intelligently to put the pieces around him that he needed to win, so he left leaving money on the table in order to win. That sounds like a business decision to me. But the media crucified another hero because he was seen to be greedy, callous, juvenile, and selfish. And what about what just happened to Lamar Odom? The man sacrifices money, playing time, and basically marketability, which translates to off the court money, so that his Lakers would have a chance to win. He does everything the team asks him to do, he hustled and sacrificed, and got the attention of the league by earning the 6th man of the year award, and still the Lakers trade him for a pick and a bag full of magic beans. Its not that these guys don’t want to be heroes, we are not allowing them to live up to the Paul Bunyan-size shoes we expect them to fill. When the difference between $50,000 a year and $50 million a year is a second here, a higher vertical, a stronger chest to block with, more power to run with, or a few extra home runs, can you blame these guys for doing what they do?

The guys on Wall Street are constantly cheating and what they do lacks the skill and excitement of doing it in the public eye that these athletes do, so we can cheer or boo as we see fit. Yet when they cheat they get a slap on the wrist a book deal and to keep the money they pilfered. Maybe it’s a race or a class stigma that one form of cheating is frowned upon, where the other isn’t. I don’t know. But what I do know is that the old saying, “If you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying” has become the mantra for the 21st century in America. I prefer living by the adage, “I would even prefer to fail with honor than to win by cheating.” But then that’s why maybe I’m the antithesis of Charlie Sheen and people of his ilk, because I’m not “winning” the way they are because I value honor and integrity.

Annie get your gun

2011-12-11T11:47:00.000-08:00

America is a wonderful country filled with people that enjoy the freedoms that our ancestors fought tooth and nail for. We are THE land of opportunity where we have the freedom to make whatever we can dream a reality. Anyone can do anything and become whomever they choose to be. The thing that makes all of this possible is that we enjoy a prodigious amount of freedoms, and those freedoms translate into opportunities. Those opportunities are protected by rules and inalienable rights set forth in the Bill of Rights of our Constitution. Among them being the freedom of speech, the freedom from undue search and seizure and of course the most debated freedom, the right to bear arms. Now I think all of the amendments outlined in the Bill of Rights are equally important, but some have become outdated, antiquated, and a few defunct since the time and era in which we live does not call for them anymore, namely the 3rd amendment (stop being so lazy and look it up). It is time that we ratified the second amendment to capitulate to the era in which we live.

Why is it that someone can buy a grenade launcher, a bazooka, or an assault rifle like an M-16 or an AR-35? The word assault is right there in the description of the weapon. What would those be used for other than the killing of other humans? If one is looking to protect themselves, and a firearm is what they would like to use, then by all means they should be able to buy one, but a handgun (a revolver) should suffice. You don’t need a handgun that can hold a 15+1 clip and is capable of automatic fire. If your desire is hunting and not protection, then you should be able to buy a rifle, but high-powered scopes and ACOG sights are not necessary to hunt deer and wild boar. Iron sights should be enough for you if it is truly hunting for sport. If you really are trying to put down a big game animal and you require a scope then we should rig that animal with missiles, lasers, and other weaponry to make it a fair fight. Because the fact that the animal doesn’t know that it is participating in your “sport” makes it less of a sport and more of a inhuman murder. And I don’t see any reason to make it easier and give any more of an advantage to the one wearing camouflage, yellow glasses, and touting the 12-round high powered rifle.

But the real problem arises when people who are mentally unstable get hold of weapons, lose what little bit of their minds they have left, and start killing people. The ability to commit murder is just too accessible to people that seem to have limited options for how they can vent their frustrations. There was a shooting recently in Seal Beach in which 8 people were killed, there was the shooting of Senator Gifford last year in Arizona where 8 more people were killed, there was the shooting at Virginia Tech last week where 2 people died, there was the man who committed SBC (suicide by cop) in downtown LA this weekend. There are countless stories of people taking their weapons into situations where innocent people become murder victims because we protect their right to have these guns. I have a right to run with scissors or boil water in a paper cup, but I don’t do it because the result would be very, very bad. Here we have a common sense issue. An issue that if people could sit down and reasonably talk about how to curtail gun violence, a solution could be reached. Unfortunately, the proponents of gun ownership want the general public to believe that if we limit gun hoarding that the federal government is going to come into our homes and declare Marshal Law. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

I am all for protecting one’s self, but there needs to be a line drawn where a gun needed for protection or sport crosses into the stockpiling of guns for purposes of violence or of building a militia. There are countless instances of people who are armed to the teeth killing countless others when there is no justification for why they needed or had access to such weaponry. Columbine, Waco, the original V Tech, Carthage, N.C., McLendon in Alabama, Kazmierczak at NIU, Jenkins in Omaha, and the list goes on and on and on of instances where people kill scores of people because they are armed to the teeth. The amendment needs to be amended. There is no more room for debate. We must take a stand and say enough is enough.

Psycho shooting up down town LA
http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/10/us/california-hollywood-shooting/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Virginia tech shooter
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/08/reports-of-shots-fired-at-virginia-tech/?iref=allsearch

Popcorn and Twizzlers

2011-12-10T11:35:00.000-08:00

We are all witness at this theatre of complacency as we sit idly by gorging ourselves with conspicuous consumption as we gaze upon our freedoms and rights being stripped away. Most of us not even willing to leave our comfort zones, move off our sofas, or even budge from our aptly named Lazyboys to raise our voices and shake our fists in protest to the destruction of our beloved democracy. And when it all comes crashing down it won’t be the Middle Eastern terrorists, the communist Chinese, the irradiated Iranians, or even aliens from distant planets who we’ve been indoctrinated to believe hold the keys to our destruction. No, the culprits will be the same capitalistic, money-driven, morally corrupt politicians, cannibalistic businessman, and deceitful lobbyist that are building a wall of inequality. They have proven to be the ultimate shysters and magicians, because they are doing it right in front of our faces. They waive one hand over here telling us one thing, while their other hand performs the “slight of hand” maneuvering over there to accomplish their sinister agendas. They have levied bold faced lies on TV, in the halls of the Senate and House, and to the American people guaranteeing that the decisions they make are for the betterment of this country and the people who are citizens of it. They each have a culpable hand placed on our Constitution as it is gnashed in the teeth of the “shredder” of deregulation, nontransparent legislation, unjustified detention, and a decaying adherence to social and civil rights.

And yet we do nothing. We do nothing as program after program is created to dole out money to these institutions that swear they are on the precipice of collapse, then turn around and have the audacity to charge their saviors 20 to 30% interest on the very money they just lent them. The same people who foreclose on 3-bedroom houses of hard working families because they’ve missed a few payments, and then give their CEOs hundreds of millions of dollars for helping increase their bottom line. And when the boiling point has been reached, the people can no longer stomach the atrocities that are being committed in plain sight, and they attempt to say that they have had enough, that the corruption in congress, and the corruption in the boardrooms needs to stop, who does the law protect? Not the people it was designed to. No, it will protect those in power and you will be asking the people who are committing the crimes to regulate themselves.

What about the protesters occupying Wall Street, city government, or their college campuses? “Sorry kids you are not allowed to protest a corrupt system anymore.” I know what it says in the constitution about lawful assembly, but that was only when it didn’t annoy or bother us. These rights are inalienable rights, and should be protected at all cost. In fact, the only people that seem to even care about their rights are the people that have taken up arms and who are protesting. The 60’s protests weren’t that long ago, and the powers that be learned what they did wrong to ultimately lose against a bunch of hippies and colored civil rights activist. They incorrectly used force. They lost. They lost because of the TV age they were newly thrust into and the perception of their violent actions in response to a peaceful protest. But they paid attention to their mistakes and they learned.

They passed legislation to ensure that they now had rights against protesters. They created legislation to “legally” deal with protesters who in essence are protesting against them. Violence is not the answer, however, violence unfortunately is still in our DNA and unfortunately some officers recently did react in a violent manner. However for the most part, the politicians of yesteryear helped remedy he solution by circumventing our freedoms. The new legislation still “allows” for peaceful assembly, but now they have created “protest zones.” So if you want to protest let’s say the Citibank head quarters, you would have to do so, but in the designated zone, which could be up to one mile away. How the, what the? That is correct, there are designated zones to protest in that have been created with public safety and disturbance in mind. And these zones are nowhere even close to where the people want to protest. The whole point of protesting is to be disruptive so that people will pay attention to what is going on. It is the legislative way of curtailing protesting. It is a way to circumvent our constitutional right to peaceful assembly, and they are doing so without so much as a whimper of protest from the masses. Its only a matter of time until the rights being violated wont be that of some peaceful arm linked college kid getting sprayed in the face with copious amounts of pepper spray by some (over aggressive) cop, it will be you. And then who will come to your aid? Who will take up arms to protect whatever freedoms have been stripped from you and ensure they are returned?

There is a line in Usual Suspects that best sums up what is going on with our government in terms of us asking for our rights and the protection afforded in the Constitution. A cop says to Gabriel Byrnes’ character, “What, you think you’re in the restaurant business? Nah, from now on you’re in the getting fucked by us business”

Mafia on the hardwood

2011-12-09T11:32:00.000-08:00

David Stern must think we are a bunch of mooks and morons. His shenanigans llast month allowed the NBA and its owners to strong arm the NBA players into aquiescing into a collective bargaining agreement that helps neither the players nor the fans, stuffing even more of the absurd amounts of money the league generates into the owners’ already bulging pockets. All the while manipulating and sometimes blatantly lying in the media to make the owners seem like the wronged party and garnering public sympathy. And now he is attempting again to manipulate perception by trying to say that the now defunct trade between the Lakers, New Orleans, and Houston fell apart without any of his doing. Nothing in the league happens with out Geppetto’s hands working the strings, least of all something like this. And this is just one more example of how the rules that apply to many don't apply to all.

Why would David Stern want to block this trade? What would be his ultimate motive? Well, just as the big 3 in Miami were accused of colluding to make a super team, so have the owners of the teams and David Stern himself colluded to create an East Coast dominant league once again. He would like the owner of the New Jersey Nets to acquire center Dwight Howard and to allow the New York Knickerbockers to acquire point guard Chris Paul. By blocking the trade to the Lakers, Stern curtailed what would have been a 2 part trade by the Lakers sending Bynum to the Magic for Howard, and then the afore mentioned vetoed trade between Paul (Lakers), Lamar (New Orleans), and Gasol (Houston). Everyone in this trade would have benefited. In fact the Lakers were paying a hefty price to get Chris Paul and in the short term would be the worse affected team. But this move cleared the way for the Lakers to pull the trigger on the next trade for Howard, so Stern had to step in and stop it before it messed up his plans.

The league is comprised of 30 elite owners. 30 men who have more money and influence than anyone gives them credit for. If they want something, they get it. They are part of a fraternity that is very elite, and very protective. They have hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, and they like our public government, are not going to let rules and the idea of fair play get in the way of what they desire. The West has been dominant since the collapse of the Bulls and Jordan. There is a lot of money in the East, a lot of influence, and a lot of ego. We can see the bias ever so present in the college ranks with the over glorification of the South Eastern Conference.

Owners around the league have copious amounts of money at their disposal. And with that incalculable amount of money comes power and a sense of entitlement. Partner with that the fact that all of these guys are megalomaniacs and are used to getting their way, well they often do things they aren’t supposed to. Does anyone really think that when the Orlando Magic first became a franchise they were able to legitimately get the number one pick two years in a row by chance? It was almost statistically impossible for that to happen, but it did. Apparently when money is involved miracles do happen. And what about Cleveland landing Lebron James? Dan Gilbert is a billionaire. That is billion with a b. When Lebron came out, I am sure he made a huge push for why small market teams need super stars. Not to mention the check he pushed in front of Stern to ensure they got the pick.

At the end of the day it is important to remember that the NBA is first a business and second a form of entertainment. The only time we hear about how a team is an integral part of the community is when that team wants something from the public. They attempt to tug at our heartstrings, while claiming devotion to the city, and playing the loyalty card. But where is the loyalty to a city when teams decide to relocate? Where is it when the profits from the new stadium aren’t shared, but the cost of building it was split with the taxpayers? Where was it when the teams were on lockout and the people that depended on jobs in the NBA arenas and the jobs on the periphery of the business were affected? Not one of these owners cares about anything other than their own egos, the money they make, and bragging about their teams. All they care about is how well the “slaves” they own can either dribble, throw, hit a ball or slap a puck did based on “their” ownership and expertise. Nothing has changed in thousands of years of ownership and serfdom. These players exist to serve their paying masters. And the fans, like feeble-minded children not only lap it up, but pay top dollar to witness more of this elite pissing contest.

Chris Rock said it best when he mused in a comedy special “Do you know what the difference between rich and wealthy is? Well Shaq’s $110 million dollar contract makes him rich. The guy who signs that check is wealthy”

It is dark and hell is hot...

2011-12-08T15:45:00.000-08:00

I'm quoting DMX since both he and I have experienced the purgatory that is the emptiness of betrayal, deceit, and the unknowing of who to trust. But despite my harrowing journey, I have ventured back from the abyss that I seemed to have fallen off into to once again take up the helm as the voice of reason in this complicated yet hilarious world in which we reside. I can’t really get into the reasons why my writing stopped, but I had been asked to stop my blogging for the time being while my lawyers did some lawyering. Little did I know that the little bit of lawyering they were going to do was going to be very little in scope and in effectiveness. And while I am discussing the effectiveness of the legal system, the judge or actually in my case the ALJ turned out to be a coward and did what most of the ineffectual people we have making decisions in our country do, passed his responsibility on to someone else. Dragging this out even longer than it needs to be. Instead of making a decision using the law to justify a decision, he used the ambiguity of the law in order to hide behind not having to make a decision. That is a coward if ever I have heard of one. But enough about me and why I was no longer sharing my opinions with my peeps. I have a voice, and if they don’t want to hear it, then I will just have to fall back on the old adage of, “Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.“

I picked the wrong time to stop writing too. So many funny things have happened since I have been gone. The Republican Party offered countless months of comedy with their parade of sideshow freak jobs in Michele Bachman, Rick Perry, and most notably Herman Cain. If there is anything I have learned after hearing these three speak, it that now we have proof that the American education system does not work. I mean these people are so stupid and their ideas so far off to the right that it makes the new front runner Newt Gingrich appear centralized and reasonable. If I had uttered those words just a year ago you would think I was insane. Hmm, maybe the GOP isn’t as stupid as I am making them out to be?

I’m not going to get into the allegations against Jerry Sandusky and Bernie Fine. If the allegations are true, which it seems that they are, these two are vile and reprehensible human beings. Suffice it to say, however, that sports and money make people lose sight of what is right and what is wrong. And the people around these two should have intervened before these allegations came to light. There is no way in my mind that this could have gone on and no one knew. I have nothing funny to say about this because there is nothing funny about it. It is a sad day for America and it is a sad day for the state of being human.

The occupy movement has become something of a cultural phenomenon. I know a lot of people want to trace its origins to the movement in the 60s but I would argue that it was the Arab Dawn, the up rising in Northern Africa that gave rise to the disenfranchised and economically struggling youth of America to take action and go to the streets. There is something to be said about that. The American dream is no longer limited to Americans. The rich and powerful in our country keep warning us about how this is class warfare and that is bad thing. It IS class warfare, and the people on the bottom are not going to take it anymore. The “1%ers” have stacked the deck in their favor, they have changed the rules and taken advantage of a system that they have corrupted and manipulated to ensure their dominance and continued success. This was a system that was designed to let the hard working, smart, and motivated entrepreneurs make money. But the system needs to be fair, just, and regulated. Not the fraudulent and tainted system that is has become. The politicians in office have been bought and paid for by special interest groups and the wealthy, and unless they are going to be held to a higher standard and do their job of representing the people, I hope that the occupy movement turns into a revolution and not just a bunch of frustrated and motivated kids beating drums and urinating on public fixtures.

I have so much more to say about what is happening in the world, what has happened, and just random thoughts on everything in between. I hope my loyal fans will come back and continue to read the Daily Heard and any new readers, welcome.

C'mon Black people

2011-08-18T19:42:00.000-07:00

The world is an unfair, uncompromising, bitter place, filled with racist, rude, despicable people that would almost rather spit in your face then help you. At any given time, life will hit you harder than you ever have been hit before, drop you to your knees, and keep you there. The only thing that prevents us from staying down when that happens is our will. Our desire to get back up when we've been knocked down is what drives us. Knowing that if you can stand up again after taking life's best shot, then you have already won and are just waiting to be on your two feet again. Well, my fellow Black Americans, what the fuck are you waiting for?!? Our ancestors, whose backs this country was built upon, were beaten, spit on, lynched, burned, hung, and faced far greater perils than we do today, and they kept on fighting. Some took to religion, some took to peaceful demonstrations, and others employed a more militant approach, but all of them worked toward building a better tomorrow for Black Americans. And what have we done with their sacrifices?

I am tired of hearing that “the man is keeping us down.” The man is keeping everyone down. We need to stop making excuses, stop robbing and killing each other, stop perverting our selves and our music and our culture to make a few of us rich. School is cool. Respecting women is advantageous, not to just our women, but for our men as well. Having strong nuclear families are important. We need to get off of the drugs, stay out of the jails, get caught up with current events, and stop patting our selves on the back saying, “Woe is me.” We need to stop waiting for someone else to help us. We have to help ourselves. I know it is tough out there. I am a young black man who grew up in Orange County. I practically knew every Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley police officer by name. They harassed me, chastised me, and illegally detained me every chance they got. But I didn’t let it get me down. I knew they were trying to provoke me, but I wouldn’t let them. I knew what they were up to. They were just waiting for me to give them an excuse to mess me up, and more importantly my future plans. But I didn’t give them that pleasure. It sucked, but I never said it was going to be easy. It took me being a better man. I also am a realist and know that being the bigger man won’t always work in our favor. I think the people of Fullerton know damn well that a cop is going to do what a cop is going to do.

I know it seems unfair. The system has fucked us every chance it has gotten. But I am tired of all the boo hooing. Life is unfair, bad things happen, and just when you think you are getting a leg up, life comes along and kicks you in the other leg so it all comes crashing down. That is just life. It’s not what happens to you in life that makes you, it is how you respond to those things when they do happen. It is important to plan for these occurrences. Asians do, Jews do. We can learn something from the strength of their communities. This is why you don’t burn your bridges. This is why you create strong family networks and have good friends, so that when the times get tough, you have a community behind you to rely on. But if we are scared of each other, and cant trust our friends and neighbors, then we are fighting ourselves as well as the world.

I know it seems that we have been wronged in the past so many times it would almost be laughable if it wasn’t true, painful, and sad. But, we need to just get over it. Develop a thicker skin, know that it will always be like this, and move on. I know it is unfair. I know that exacting revenge is the more attractive play, but we will ultimately lose. I have had bad things happen to me. But I got over them. I remember in 4th grade I had the biggest crush on this girl in my class. And she not only didn’t care about me, but crushed my heart into a million pieces. I was devastated. It really hurt, I was very sad, but I moved on, and I am stronger for it. It is something that happens in every young man’s life. I am not going to use that occurrence or occurrences like that one to shape the relationships I have with women. And neither should we use what has happened in the past to shape how we act now or let it sabotage our future. We should learn from it and keep moving forward. Oh, by the way, Harmony French, Go fuck yourself. I said I moved on, I didn’t say I don’t hold grudges.

We can all glean something useful from the line Al Pacino’s character in the Godfather made famous, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” You don’t have to like everyone you meet and work with. God knows they probably don’t like you. But you need to get along with them because you are there to get a paycheck. And don’t go crying that you have a responsibility of being a man, so you have to defend your honor. You are right, you do have a responsibility as a man. And that responsibility is to provide your family with a house, a car, food, a safe environment, and a good husband or father. And you get all of that by keeping your job.

Praying isn't going to do it either. I am happy that a lot of the Black community has found Jesus. But it doesn't appear he wanted us to be the ones to find him. Lest I remind you that the White slave owners forced Christianity onto our people as a way to placate us, stop us from organizing and rebelling against our slave masters, and to make us more docile workers. They used the Christian religion to brainwash us and strip away our African culture and heritage. And after 300 years they were successful. If anything we should resent the Christan religion as an emotional and spiritual yoke still binding us to our slavery days. But i digress, it is a reality in the black community and it gives a lot of people hope. But instead of being so worried about the next life, we need to be concerned about this one. We can't wish and hope our problems away. Religion is a good tool to use for building a stronger community, or keeping one's faith in humanity, but as far as our problems go, we need to be the one's to do something about it. If you do believe in God, then believe he gave you the tools you need to rise up and change your life now. You are what is keeping you down. You need to realize that you have the power to lift yourself up, or to push yourself down.

We need to stop all of this nonsense now. We need to heal as a Black community. It was more likely that I was going to end up in prison than with a degree from a university. White people have washed their hands of us. Our movement has come to an end. That is the problem with a movement; it has a beginning and an end. Rosa Parks can be credited with starting it, and now President Obama is the finish line. But he isn’t for me, and he shouldn’t be for you either. We have much to offer this country, our community, our families, and ourselves. We need to educate, reevaluate, and heal our communities before we go the way of the mastodon or the saber-toothed tiger. Two giants in North America history, extinct now and hardly ever thought about. I refuse to let that happen to us. And what is the most ironic part of all of this, is that it will not be from the hands of White America that Black Americans' futures are destroyed. We are doing a fine job of it ourselves.

Let's all send a mesage

2011-08-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

Gil Scott-Heron was correct when he so famously professed in his poem that the “revolution will not be televised.” And the people who will be fighting it will not be on the front lines the way they once were. The revolution in America is made up of armchair soldiers and Internet insurgents. The way this revolution will unfold will be different than those of the past, but a revolution nonetheless is on the horizon. Our apathy about what transpires in Washington has gone on for far to long, we have been impotent in our ability to taper the reckless and brazen behavior of our elected officials. The politicians have decided to play chicken with our future, our jobs, and our money while they selfishly jockey for political position and fight based on party line politics. This behavior can no longer be tolerated and go on unchecked. It is time we stand up and take back what is ours. And I know just the way that we can do it.

It is an idea born from the same patriotism that started this revolution of ours in the 1700’s and birthed the greatest country the world has ever known. This idea involves everyone that considers himself or herself an American, regardless of ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual preference, social stratification, or political affiliation. In order to work, it will need the support of all nationalistic individuals to work in unison and then in November, when our ballots are cast, our will shall be done. The plan is simple. We will vote every single incumbent congressional member, Republican and Democrat, out of office.

That is right, I said everyone. I am instantly brought back to the scene in The Professional where Gary Oldman tells his henchman to call in the reinforcements. And when he is questioned about it he says again, even more emphatically to send “EVERYONE!”

That is what I am advocating, this is what needs to be done. Every last one of them needs to go. I think it will send a message that will resonate throughout history as the single greatest moment in civil society. It will mark the day when the populace stood in solidarity and declared, “No more. No longer will we sit idly by and let you perfidious pompous political pariahs play with our lives, ruin our economy, mortgage our futures so that you can gain more influence with the companies that bribe you, or allow you to hold your position of power for another two, four or six years.” By voting them all out, we will be raising our voices in unison and let them know that this is unacceptable. Our actions are rooted in benevolence and in heroics. We are laying to rest a rabid dog. We are putting down a beast that has become so feral that is has not only bit its master’s hand, it has gone straight for our carotid artery, it has shit in our bed, chewed up all of our furniture, and has tried to put its the leash on to us. It is heroic because for us to take on this Goliath sized dog, when we feel like we are David in stature has never been fathomed. Something of this magnitude has never been attempted. Not since the creation of our country has something this far reaching been considered. We are the patriots who are attempting to save this country from the people who have lost sight of their jobs and responsibilities to us and to this nation. We are the protectors of America.

But in order to do this, we all have to register to vote. You need to get the word out to your friends, family, coworkers, strangers, anyone and everyone you know. Do not sit in your safe, non-confrontational bubble and just allow this to happen because you don’t know what you can do. I know all politics seems overwhelming. I know that it seems that we are impotent to do anything against such a large mechanism known as government. But we can, and we will. I know it seems like one person, one voice, one vote won’t make a difference. But you are wrong. You do matter! Your vote matters! You are the life-blood of this country. There is no United States without the blood, sweat, and tears that the individuals of this nation shed in order to make it strong. We can do this if we work together. We can make the corruption, manipulation, and duplicitous acts in government stop with a single, unified shout of remonstration.

Be careful what you ask for

2011-08-16T16:59:00.000-07:00

I have been disturbed by what I have been reading in the media lately. Well to be honest, its not just one thing that disturbs me, but this one thing in particular has been aggravating me for some time now, so I have to get this off my chest. The mantra “End big government” has become the mating call of the Republican Party. The Tea Baggers, who claim to be for the people and who have inadvertently become the hit men for the GOP are pushing it more than most. My question is why is everyone repeating this stupid phrase? Do they know what they are asking for, or like most followers are they just repeating what they are being told, mindlessly and without any kind of thought? If you have ever been to Mexico, Vietnam, the Philippines, Peru, or any other 3rd world country you would know that a “small” government or a limited government is the worst thing possible. Those places suck. We go there because they are so cheap and our dollar, which is abysmal everywhere else, actually still has some credibility in those places. But as far as the cities themselves, they are god-awful.

Our government is big because our country is big and our needs are ever greater. I like having my trash picked up every week, the streets cleaned, clean parks, street lights, a working sewer system, freeways that go as far as the eye can see, correctional institutions for bad guys, running water, bridges, paved roads, damns, government regulatory agencies, policemen, fireman, teachers, clean water, mail service, and any and every other thing our government does for us. And now these fuckwads have the audacity to say that they have had enough of government interference? Let me tell you what is really going on. The Republican Party has become the lapdog of private enterprise. They want to privatize everything. Well unfortunately, the common man doesn’t seem to realize what this means, or the impact it will have on his life. So allow me to give you a demonstration.

I have had every phone carrier known to man, and through it all Verizon has been the best service, and they know it. They charge an arm and a leg because they know they have the most comprehensive coverage in the land. But God forbid you ever have a problem and you need to speak to customer service representative. Well, I had to once and they took the attitude of, “If you don’t like it, leave,” because they know they have the only game on the block that is worth playing. That is what happens in private enterprise. They don’t care about you, there are no “regulations” for what they can and cant do, and they can charge you an exorbitant amount because there is nothing you can do about it. Need another example? Blockbuster just shut the doors on 85% of their store locations. As a result Netflix brought their prices up. Why, why would they do this? Because they know that you have limited options and are forced to rent from them. If you don’t like it and don’t want to pay, well then, you don’t get to rent movies. They are now the gatekeepers. That is what private industry does, and that is what they want.

Why do you think the Republican Party has been killing education, has been at the core of EPA failure, and is doing everything they can to end regulatory bodies with all of their legislation in the last couple of decades? They are trying to pave the way for private enterprise to take over. This is a game of chess to them. First, you position your pieces around the board where you want them. So they are attempting to make all of these government agencies look like failures. Then when they have their pieces where they want them, they attack. Now that everything is falling apart, they blame an inefficient government, show us how private industry would do the job better, we then end the government programs, and “BAM” they have a monopoly, and we are at their mercy. I can’t believe the average American is this stupid as not to see what is happening. These people didn’t rise to power because they are stupid, have scruples, or morals. They are extremely manipulative, careful planners, and methodical in all of their maneuvering. They have goals they want to achieve, they could care less about you or me, and their decision-making isn’t the lackadaisical “fly by the cuff” manner that most Americans employ. They are classically trained, have studied both history and strategy, and want power and money. And more importantly are playing by a set of rules that you and I are not privy too.

I almost hope that “Big government” does disappear. See what happens to the quality of food you eat with out a government agency regulating quality control. Do you really think that in order to make money companies won’t ship and sell contaminated food? They do it now, even though there are government regulatory agencies in place. But they know that they are so overworked and understaffed that they can’t catch every discrepancy and malfeasance. So they gamble with our lives for their profit. And what happens when someone breaks into your house? Try calling your friend Tim to come help you, see what happens then. Do you really think Tim, who wouldn’t even drive you to the airport is going to come to your house in the middle of the night when you tell him armed intruders have broken into your house? If you think so, you are even more delusional than I assumed. And what happens when your house catches on fire? Do you really think your neighbors are going to risk life and limb to come save you? These are the same neighbors whose dog shits on your pristine lawn and they don’t even have the decency or etiquette to scoop that hot load up. Yeah, big government is your enemy all right.

There is a reason we have a government. They provide us with resources and fulfill needs that we all use. We might not use them on a daily, weekly, or even yearly basis, but they are there to make our nation, states, and communities a better safer place. We rely on our government, who is actually in our employ from the collective pooling of our tax dollars, to provide services for us without trying to profit from it. If we get rid of our “big” government, we are going to be like every other shitty country on this planet. We have a good thing going here. I like our national parks, our free education system, our police and fire departments, our roads and assorted infrastructure, and yes the fact that our government provides help for people that can’t help themselves. Our country may have its problems that need to be fixed, but realize that the people causing the problems are also the ones trying to get rid of the agencies they complain about. We are fighting ourselves on two fronts. While we still have the power to vote, and our voices be heard, get these people out of office. NOW!

A call to arms

2011-08-13T14:54:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been extremely outspoken about calling my fellow Americans to arms. Some have accused me of being a bit dramatic, while others claim I am being overly pessimistic. I don’t feel I am being either, I am just stating an opinion of how I see our country. Our government, any government, screwing the people, doing as it pleases, creating a warring class that leaves us as the grunts that bear the burden of their quest for power as the elite get by unscathed is nothing new. Our system however is at a crossroads, and a very dangerous and provocative one. We are now armed with more intelligence, faster ways of communicating, and are able to organize on the fly. As we have bared witness in Northern Africa social networking has led to many a toppled despot.

But I digress, because that will never happen in America. We are never going to do anything other than complain, shake our hands in the air, and put our heads back down and go about our dreary existences. In order to do something that actually matters requires people to do something they hat, take responsibility. We have based our entire existence in America so that we would not have to take responsibility for our actions, I do not see that changing in the near future. In order for people to want change, they have to be wiling to change. They are not. They want the system to change without having to really inconvenience themselves or their lifestyle. Its like a fat person complaining about their fatness. They don’t want to take the time to shop for healthier food, eat smaller portions, study about proper nutrients and vitamins found in foods, and they don’t want to get that fat asses into the gym. It is hard work to change, but everyone wants a fast acting do nothing, pill or procedure that does all the work for them.

What have I done to illicit some of this change I speak of? I vote every election. It’s weird to think something that seems so singly innocuous as voting is so very important but it is. And what is even more mind-boggling is how many people had to give their lives so that blacks, women, poor, and all the other races other than rich white men could vote, and yet no one treats it with the reverence it deserves. I also try to inform people about the gross malfeasances of our government, local, state, and federal, and I encourage people, even with differing view points than mine, to read up and learn about what they are voting for. I challenge people to debate what they believe in, for surely if they feel so strongly about something they must have justification for it rooted in something more than just second hand hearsay, rhetoric, and prejudice. Alas, most times they don’t, and that is part of the problem. People don’t want to actually have to take the time out of their busy lives to have to take accountability for their decisions. They would rather, like little children or sheep, have decisions made for them, and then just follow out their orders.

Where we are weak, they are strong. They, being the politicians of course. They know that no one really wants to do anything or act in any way on their own behalf. They just wan the appearance of justice, the appearance of fair play, the appearance of democracy, and that is exactly what they give us. The system is set up in their favor. The games that they play are governed by the rules that they create. Even when they lose they win. They understand that it is not about creating a system that works, it is about creating a system that works well enough for them to glean enough from us that they can.

Our role in America is analogous to those of the humans in the machine world of the Matrix, or the beasts of burden in Orwell’s Animal Farm. We serve a purpose like the cow that produces milk for the farmer’s consumption or the hens that lay his eggs. We do not benefit from our labor, we do not profit from our toiling. We are placated and pacified with the allure of riches and fame, of becoming their equals, but it is just an illusion, a mirage. Until we actually decide that they are not better than us, that we want what this nation has promised and can provide, then maybe we will get closer to where we want to be. But it will take a concerted effort from everyone. If we allow race and religion and sexual preference to continue to divide us, then we are playing right into their hands. If we continue to let ignorance, indifference, and laziness marshal our actions then we are no better than what they take us for, a mindless mob of workers to be exploited, used up, and cast away when done.

Justice has been served

2011-08-11T17:59:00.000-07:00

I can’t believe I am doing this, but I am about to defend the devil. I just recently read that the state of Florida is going after Casey Anthony again to hold her responsible for the death of her infant. Unfortunately for the state of Florida, and well people everywhere, they already had this opportunity and blew it. She was found guilty of negligible death and sentenced to 3 years which she didn't have to do because of time served. So, for them to attempt to try her again violates her constitutional rights. First it falls into the category of double jeopardy, meaning one can not be tried twice for committing the same crime if they have been tried for it already. I know they are changing the charges, so that it doesn’t “really” fall under the double jeopardy provisions, but the spirit of the law is being perverted so that they can do this. Just because they didn't like the outcome of the first trial does not mean they get a second crack at her. The law is very specific in this regard. Second, if we are to believe that are justice system works, which we are all, myself included, very cynical about, then we have to stand by the findings of the jury down in Florida. It doesn’t matter if we think she is guilty, if the court system says she isn’t, then she isn’t.

This is not just about Casey Anthony. I think she is a vile, reprehensible human being and quite possibly proof that demons do exist on Earth. That being said, if this perversion of justice is allowed to transpire, then we might as well rally in the streets like they are doing in London and burn this country down. Everyone who is an American citizen has rights guaranteed in the Constitution and protected by the laws that govern our great nation. If we allow them to change laws and manipulate the system any time one desires, as we have with every other part of our society, then we might as well stop lying to the world and ourselves that our system works, because it doesn’t. We give the outward appearance of a fair, vigilant, incorruptible justice system, but when we don’t like an outcome we will change it. That is not justice, that is not equality, and it is not a country that can claim to uphold the rules and laws that govern it. If we continue to allow these kinds of perversions to happen, we are no better than any dictatorship or monarchy that exists in the world today.

The legal system in this country DOES NOT WORK. Like every other agency in America, Wall Street, our education system, Congress, welfare, insert government agency here, it has become tainted by corruption and ceases to function in the manner it was originally created to. If anything should come from the outrageous verdict in the Casey Anthony case, it should be a deafening call to overhaul our court system. But to retry her in the manner they are attempting goes against everything I believe in, what this country stands for, and what the American public should accept. In no way does finding her guilty now mark any kind of justice. Things need to change in America. We have had warning after warning, sign after sign, and yet no one pays them any mind.

If my favorite author Mark Twain were alive today he would liken our false veneer of a successful America to the false sense of prosperity that the South boasted leading up to the Civil War. Our system was laughable even in his day. "We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read." We are just one more major malady away from collapsing in on ourselves. It is time we were mad enough to do something about it. But to do so within the system that is in place. I still believe America is worth saving from itself.

What happened to our dream, has it been deferred?

2011-08-10T15:09:00.000-07:00

Langston Hughes wrote a poem that eloquently and profoundly mused about what would happen if we deferred our dreams, stopped being creative, and allowed our imaginations to wither. Unfortunately, Americans did not heed his warnings. Judging by the lack of production in America, the cessation of our space program with the shelving of NASA, the fact that our colleges and universities are brimming with foreign students, and a whole host of other tell-tale signs, it seems that the American Dream has morphed into the search for the next American Dancing Apprentice Jersey Shore Real World Biggest Loser. No one wants to do anything other than be rich and famous without having to do anything to get there. We have lost our passion to create. We have lost our ability to dream. And much to John Lennon’s chagrin, we have given up our desire to imagine. We have in essence deferred our dreams much to the angst of Hughes.

Sure, people still dream. They dream of a world where they can get the maximum amount of benefits, while exuding the minimal amount of effort. They want all the advantages of wealth and none of the work associated with earning it. That is what they dream about. I had a dream once. I wanted to be a marine biologist. But I was talked out of it, quite easily I might add, when I found out that there was no money to be made in that profession. I let go of my dream because I couldn't cash in on it. I equated success in life with monetary compensation. Little did I know then that the two are mutually exclusive. And not only is it not wise, but it is pretty much detrimental to measure your happiness with a monetary ruler. I traded in my dreams so I could make money, and then wound up eventually getting into a career where there was even less money associated with it than marine biology. I allowed my dreams to be compromised, because of the allure of wealth and fame.

America used to be a bastion of creativity. You were encouraged to be different, to make something new, to (and I hate this phrase) think “outside the box.“ Now everyone is all about conformity. Individuality and personal expression are seen as a detriment. No one wants to stray to far from the herd. The act of being creative is not valued. I went to a movie a few days back, and no less than half of the movies playing and movies “coming soon” were remakes of earlier movies. I see the attack on creativity in the standardized testing that goes on in schools, the elimination of art, theater, and musical departments, and uniform way society expects everyone to look and act. How are kids supposed to be creative if you take away all the venues where creation happens? I see it when I look at the cookie cutter houses that are popping up all over the once gorgeous landscape of southern California like acne on the face of 13-year old boy hitting puberty. Creativity is on the back of milk cartoon like so many missing kids.

I imagine a world where we can all get along. Where Blacks, Whites, Asians, Hispanics, and Middle Easterners can all come together despite their differing views on outward appearance, religion, and culture. But it can’t happen. It will never happen because of our intrinsic human desires to want to dominate one another. Because of our desires to impress and show off, our inadequacies that make us put others down to feel better about ourselves, and our greed, our gluttony, our inability to share resources, that now because of technology allows everyone on the planet to enjoy equally. But it will never happen, because no one wants to share. Sure people will sit around in a hazy apartment with Bob Marley playing in the background talking about how they want equality, justice, and system where all can benefit. But see what happens when the doorbell rings and the Domino’s guy is looking for payment. See how much “equality” of payment happens then. In theory everything works, but in practice our human nature corrupts it. But if we could hold on to that idealized world, imagine a place where we can all get along, then maybe we would have a chance.

I remember a time in my life when the most beautiful things worth seeing were the most incredible creations that man could imagine. Where people told them it was impossible, their responses were, "You are only saying that, because no one had ever done it." The reason why skateboarding, punk music, hip-hop, and everything that used to be counter culture were so beautiful was because they were one of the last stimulating arenas being pushed by creativity and innovation. I still sometimes catch glimpses of it in restaurants I eat in, artistic creations I view in exhibits I attend, and architecture I see. But viewing and tasting these things are out of reach of most Americans because they are so expensive.

Author Chuck Palahniuk said it best when he intimated, “On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops down to zero.” So no matter what happens to us, we are all eventually going to die. We have a choice as to what we are going to do with the time we have between birth and our impending death. If we stop dreaming, if we give up our goals and desires, then we are like that sore that is festering. We are giving up our chance to truly live. And I, for one, will not make that mistake again. Live your dreams, imagine, create, and fill your life with love, so that you will love your life.

Make love not war

2011-08-09T01:36:00.000-07:00

I turned on my computer and saw that 30 soldiers died when their helicopter was shot down by Afghan soldiers as they were attempting a rescue mission. Some were SEAL team members, some were regular soldiers, but all of them were American heroes giving their lives for a country they believe in. But does this country believe in them is the question that begs asking. Why are we still fighting? More importantly what are we fighting for? Are we afraid of big bad Afghanistan? I have seen pictures of Afghanistan and the poorest places in Mexico are like, “Things are bad here, but at least we don’t live in Afghanistan!”

I understood why the two wars were waged initially in Iraq and Afghanistan. And although I didn’t believe in them, that is just what countries do, they attack and invade each other. Why should we be any different? This is a country founded on the backs of slave labor, shady real estate deals, Native American genocide, and a whole host of other atrocities, it's not like we have all of a sudden grown a conscious. I am in no way condoning the actions of the policy makers of this country, I am just saying I understand. Part of the reason we were there was as basic as wanting revenge or mounting a reprisal attack, as it is more diplomatically known, for the events that took place on 9/11, even though these people had little to do with those attacks. But the real reasons we were there was that the president at the time wanted to continue the pursuit of his daddy’s tormentor in Iraq, we had an insatiable desire to control Iraq’s oil fields, we wanted to control Afghanistan's flow of natural gas, and we wanted to control a place that serves as a strategic area to have our troops positioned in an unstable spot in the world.

However, it's been a decade, the man we were after is dead, WMD were never found, the profit from the stolen oil from Iraq is not flowing into our country's pockets and more importantly is not part of our revenue stream, and Haliburton sure as hell didn’t share any of their profits they made in Iraq with America. If we are going to pay for the war, we should at least profit from it. "To the victor goes the spoils." If we have all of the costs associated with the war and none of the benefit, then the argument could be made that we are a mercenary force clearing the way for private enterprise. But if you don't want to go down that road, then answer the following question; why are we still there? If we leave those countries, as tumultuous and unstable as they are, they have no way to reach our shores. They can't wage a reprisal attack against us. And they wouldn't even if they could. They are sovereign nations with their own customs and leaders, and are suffering from their own problems that they need to deal with.

We too are a country in turmoil. We are on the doorstep of collapse, and we seem to be emphatically ringing the doorbell with the policy decisions we keep making. Our environment is irrevocably being destroyed, our infrastructure is slowly crumbling, our job market is void of jobs, we are no longer creators but consumers, the banks and the corporations blatantly lie to Congress and the courts and face no repercussions for their actions. The American public is no help either. They are so easily distracted and satiated with fictitious stories about falsified birth certificates and Muslim beliefs that were fabricated to smear our president and occupy their attention. Instead of focusing on the transgressions that were taking place in banks, in Congress, on Wall Street, and with our money and jobs. It was as if they were audience members at a magic show, sitting and watching wide-eyed as the magician waved his "left" hand drawing the attention away from his "right" hand that was unhooking your watch and snatching the wallet out of your pocket. They were so easily duped that they couldn’t see through their own mob-like mentality and desire to watch Obama fail, that they sat idly by as their country was being torn asunder from within.

We need to focus on ourselves. The time for being the world’s police is over. They don’t want, need, or deserve our help. We need to help ourselves. Instead of joining the Peace Corp and heading to Africa, Bosnia, or India, head to Detroit, Cleveland, and Fontana and take care of those people. These people also need your help and share your nationality. We need to get over the racial and social barriers that have ignorantly separated us and kept us blind to what is actually going on around us. We need to unite against the banks, barons, and politicians that are readily for sale, and take back what we can while we still can.

We have become the laughing stock of the world. We are a country with a multitude of problems telling everyone else what is wrong with them. We are the rich, White, drunk socialite wife at a party gossiping about everyone else’s problems, while our philandering husband molests the help, our gallivanting daughters spreads her legs like butter on toast, our miscreant son steals from his classmates, all while deluding ourselves with a fifth of scotch and fighting off old age with a fake orange tan, silicone boobs, and shots of botox. We are a joke, a caricature of our former selves. And we are capturing it on “reality TV” for the prosperity of anthropologists to see what a country looks like right before it implodes.

Teachers are getting detention

2011-08-08T16:20:00.000-07:00

Just recently I read an article about a group of teachers who were turned in by a fellow teacher because their students' test scores skyrocketed, and thus their job performance reviews did likewise. She was upset and partially jealous, that her students' scores seemed to have plateaued while her teaching counterparts' students' scores continued to show growth. So many things can be said about the way she reacted. She was jealous of these teachers, she was being vindictive, she should be focusing on honing her own teaching skills, or any number of criticisms could be heaped onto this teacher. But as it turned out, she was right, they had been cheating. But do the means justify the ends? What if they hadn't been guilty, what was all this hoopla and hollering for?

The problem is that school districts and our nation are using test scores on standardized tests to gauge student achievement and effectiveness of teachers. She could have been fired because her students were not performing or could have received numerous teaching awards had they done really well. This makes no sense what-so-ever. None of the teachers in this story are guilty of anything other than trying to save their jobs, both the tattle teller and the one's guilty of cheating. It is the system that is guilty. A faulty system that ends up forcing people to do this to save their jobs.

All of these teachers, administrators, and politicians should be held accountable for their falsified test scores, for trying to deceive the public, and for benefiting from their fabricated results. However, as much as I find their actions reprehensible, for I was once a teacher, and cheating was never part of my repertoire of teaching, I don't think they are bad people. The truth is that test scores are used not to track how the kids are doing, but secretly how well the teachers are doing. Politicians have tried to tie the funding that schools receive to the results of students on standardized tests, and use them as a measuring stick of the quality of teacher that the students have. This rationale is fundamentally flawed and results only in the further stratification based on ethnic, social, and economic lines.

Much to all my principals’ chagrin the my students' test scores did little to affect how I felt about myself as a teacher. I knew and still know that these tests are only one way to interpret student success in the classroom. I gave very little credence to the results of those tests in how well a student actually was performing in class and would perform later in life. Unfortunately, these scores are used to “reflect” on how teachers are viewed as educators by our superiors and used by the general public to measure our teaching prowess. What people don’t understand is that standardized tests are flawed. They are not testing what a student learned in class. They are not designed that way. They are designed to test general knowledge. It would be like me watching a random episode of Jeopardy and then based on how I fared on that show determining how smart I was based on my knowledge of the potpourri of questions asked. And then to take it one step further, judging Alex Trebek based on my results to determine his ability to host a game show. They are all separate issues.

Another problem with standardized testing is that there is no such thing as a standardized kid. I might have Billy who showed up in my 6th grade class reading at a 2nd grade level. And when he completes my class he is reading at a 5th grade level. Well, he is going to still test low, but in the span of one year, I caught him up 3 grade levels, Not to mention for himself, he now has more self confidence, and desire to purse schooling. But then you show him that he failed on their test and that he is “far bellow average,” you have not only stripped him of his self confidence, you are reinforcing the idea that he is stupid and he then starts to hate school creating a whole litany of other problems. They then use the results to tell me I don’t know how to teach students effectively and the administrators, school board and general public are outraged and calling for my termination. It did not reflect my ability to teach, or the effectiveness of my lessons. Nor did it show his growth as a student, his ability to learn, or his desire to succeed. This is all hypothetical, but given those circumstances, I can see why a teacher would be tempted to falsify or outright cheat on these standardized tests.

The make up of the class is also important. If I have the highest achieving kids in my class, then my scores will reflect that. It does not mean that I am a good teacher because they scored well. I can be the crappiest teacher on the planet and they will still score well for a multitude of different reasons. It could be any combination of outside factors that lead to that student performing well. I could be that they have parents who spend time with them, take them places, and enlighten them outside of school. They may be naturally smart students who can just perform well on tests or they can be high achieving students who are driven by themselves to do well. The converse can also be true. Students could have tumultuous family lives, they just might not be the brightest of kids, or they could have no desire or motivation regardless of what their parents or their teachers say or do, and are going to perform poorly on these tests.

These tests are yet another example of how a viable American system will eventually be subverted by a group of scheming policy makers who are more inclined to do what is right for their benefactors rather than their country. I believe this is the intentional design of these tests. I do not believe that it is mixture of stupidity and inexperience that led to these tests being given this much emphasis. Once it was proven to be a faulty measure of student and teacher performance, the fact that it had been broadened in scope and given more importance, is clear that it is being used as a tool to lay waste to our public school system. Standardized tests are the wrong way to measures effectiveness, intelligence, and ability of both teacher and student. You can’t blame a teacher for trying to survive in a system that has been manipulated to make them and the students they teach fail.

Congress is doing us dirty

2011-08-08T16:19:00.000-07:00

Politicians don’t care about us. I am sure at some level they do care, but not really. They are drunk on power, over indulgent, and delusions of their own self-worth. They decided that it would be better as a republican party to push for the near collapse of our economic structure not once, not twice but three times in the last 5 years in order to ensure that their lobbyist continue to feed on our hard working bodies. They are like giant mosquitoes trying to suck the last droplets of blood from their host. Yet they have grown greedy and foolish, because once they suck those last remaining droplets they will have killed us off. Never to feed again.

Voting totally on party lines should be illegal. They are not voting for what is right for their constituents, they are voting for what is right for their party. And unless I have missed something, this is exactly the same thing that these very people accuse unions of doing. They no longer exist as a tool used to protect people from the greedy corporations; they exist only to protect the entity itself. Unions and politicians alike have become corrupt in this regard. But it is the politicians who are supposed to pass policy to protect us from these kinds of inappropriate imprudence that have marred the halls of congress for far too long. These obvious disregard for playing by the rules that govern the political process is so egregiously against the “American” way that it is no wonder no one can tell right from wrong anymore. This is not good for the people, the politicians longevity, our economic future, and is in no way in the best interest of America. The republican party was willing to allow America to suffer, for all Americans 99% of us to tragically lose our savings, rights, investments, so that they can take over the white house again in 2012. What the hell? The two parties should have a healthy adversarial relationship. They should not be so eager and callously willing to destroy the office of presidency and the country itself in order to win. This is a blatant disregard for the country they represent, the people they speak for, and demonstrates their lack of understanding of history of powerful countries.

Anthony Bordain said one of the most apropos statements of the year on Bill Maher’s show Real Time the other night. He said that the only people that seem to realize the American dream anymore are the Chinese, Indians, and Mexicans. He couldn’t be more correct. Based on the fact that they have had the opportunity to have nothing, and realize how fortunate they are in America to have the ability to make something of themselves and their lives. But the unwillingness to do the menial jobs, to have to work hard long hours, and to struggle in order to achieve it is holding our youth back. The generations that have come after the Baby Boomers in America have a false sense of entitlement that if not put in check will result in decline and eventual demise of this country. Sure it will still exist, but it will be a tarnished and torn version of America. Where once we were the shinning beacon of hope and the measure of success that the world looked to, we will be an inconsequential speed bump in the annals of history. I refuse to let this happen on my watch.

It is time we collectively and resoundingly say, “No” to these corporations, corrupt politicians, injudicious judges, and malicious media outlets for allowing this to happen. We need to come together and unite much like the parties have done and surreptitiously vote every single one of these incumbents out of office. Make them accountable for their actions and have them fear the reprisal from their constituents more than not having the money they receive as “contributions” form their lobbyist. We need to do this now while we still can, while there is still an America left to save. When it is too late, it will be just that, Too Late!

And for my critics out there, who think I am being overdramatic, pick up a history book. We weren’t always number one. We have barely even been a country. And for those countries that have existed for thousands of years, they want nothing more than to be dominant once again, and have the framework, discipline, and ability to wear us down, corrupt us, and eventually conquer us as they have in the past. But we can’t win if we are fighting ourselves. Don’t let money be the only factor in making decisions; our nationalistic identity and propagation should be our primary concern. Vote, write your congressmen, do something, anything to let your voice be heard. Because the truth is that they can’t hear you from your living room, from your sofa, or from your empty hallways. Don’t be fooled by voting Democrat or Republican. Neither side has taken an interest in protecting our rights. Don’t let gay marriage, abortion, stem cell research or any other number of social issues cloud your judgment. Stop being placated with boldfaced lies, and empty promises. Support your duly elected president regardless of his political affiliation and protect your country. The rest of the world is laughing at us, and they have every right to do so.

Take off the blinders

2011-08-08T13:57:00.000-07:00

All I hear around me is contempt for a government that has taken us to the edge of a treacherous abyss, teetering perilously close to an impending economic collapse and yet little in response as to what these naysayers are going to do about it. I've listened to countless complaints about how "they" have screwed us again (pick a side) and when asked about what they shall do as a result I am met with shrugs of capitulation. No one I have spoken to has any clue as to what is going on. They all just want to want to play the blame game, have someone else solve it, and are willing to do nothing about it themselves. It does seem overwhelming to many as to what they can do. And yes, it is definitely true that both sides share in the blame. They are both guilty as sin. But the time to point fingers is over, and the time to take action is now.

It was almost as if both parties were reenacting one of those 1950’s cinematic tough guy "chicken" contests where they raced their cars toward the edge of a cliff, daring the other side to jump out of their car first before it plummets over the side. Unfortunately for us, both sides took it too far, and the two cars that ended up careening over the side of the cliff crashing in a fiery heap at the bottom of the ravine is our country's economy. But they are not the true culprits in my mind. We are. We are the fans cheering them on, hyping them up, standing on the sidelines doing nothing, waiting, and wanting to see something happen. Instead of walking over and taking the “keys” from the two sides and not allowing them to play this game of chicken with our “cars.”

You can’t say you care about what happens and then in the same breath tell me that is why you don’t vote. I can’t believe how stupid everyone is in this country. It used to be a privilege to be able to vote. People are fighting and dying literally all over the world to have the opportunity to vote. And Americans can’t be bothered to go to the polls and cast their ballot because they are so upset that the system doesn’t work, that their plan on fixing it is to not do anything. Wide-eyed staring followed by empty blinks. I can’t believe this is the case. We have a crisis on our hands. We are no longer democrats and republicans, tree huggers and tea baggers, right and left. We need to put those fallacies away and polarize as a group of people that want to save this country. We are after all Americans. Or have we forgotten what that means?

Well to me it means that we are willing to do whatever it takes to survive and thrive, because at the end of the day we have an opportunity to make anything we want of ourselves. But laziness, self-entitlement, and a blatant disregard for our political freedoms have made us lose sight of the rights that our ancestors, recent I might add, had fought and died to receive. It is time that we take back our country. There is no quick fix. If we attempt to do that instead of looking for one that will carry us into the future, we will ultimately destroy ourselves. Blame Bush, blame Obama, blame Congress, but realize the longer we play the blame game the longer our country plummets toward demise. Put the labels away for 5 minutes and proudly unite under the banner of nationalism. We are Americans. Our fight is not against each other. If we don’t heal now as a country, we will die apart as individuals.

The problem with being smart

2011-07-31T13:47:00.001-07:00

Why is it that people in my life, people I consider to be intellectual giants in their fields have opinions on social issues that would rival a 1st or 2nd graders understanding of said issues? It befuddles the mind and confounds the soul that people can be so narrow minded on topics that analytically they should know better than. Yet they do not. Why? This phenomenon can’t be explained away by these people belonging to a specific race, gender, or social strata either. This query has permeated all levels of human consciousness. It is an enigma from which there is no simple answer. Or is there? Maybe it is not how smart one is or how well versed they are in any academic arena, it is the result of something much broader in scope, yet singular in application. Their intelligence hinders them from seeing the true culprit behind their ineptness in understanding basic social and scientific facts.

I know it doesn’t seem like there would be a problem with being smart. In fact who wouldn’t want to have the problems associated with intelligence? However, I also believe the truth behind the statement that, “Ignorance is bliss.” If you are dumb, I am guessing you are probably unaware that you are a moron and therefore happy with what life puts in front of you. There is a certain charm and appeal to that. However, the real conundrum comes from people who are smart, educated, and are well spoken, but are still quite stupid despite these attributes. I call them the intellectual morons. Now that would be plagiarism if I didn’t reference Daniel Flynn, who is actually the person who coined that phrase in his book by the same name Intellectual Morons. But it is true. There are many people who are brilliant or at least intelligent, yet somehow can’t seem to wrap their heads around very basic ideas. And the reason why, as I eluded to above, is actually quite easier to pinpoint than I originally thought.

It all comes down to one thing, ideological beliefs. People’s ideological beliefs stop them from being able to use their analytical skills and basic common sense to see to the hearts of matters such as economic strife, political asylum, homosexuality, environmental human impact, imperialism, deregulation, religious tolerance, race relations, and any number of hot button issues that politicians and religious clerics have used to divide us. They plant the seeds of intolerance and then allow us based on our individual ideological pedagogy to sow our own biases based on a structured belief system set forth in the ideas we subscribe to before we have even had a chance to think about the issues. That was a jumble of words I know, so let me clarify. They, meaning the politicians (the American version of kings queens, and aristocrats) and religious leaders use our devotion to the political parties and the religious hierarchy to get us to feel, not think, a certain way about issues that we should be able to freely decide on our own.

Our ideas stop us from being able to think clearly on subjects that should be pretty straightforward. The worse thing anyone can do in my opinion is use statistical data as empirical evidence to support your idea. Statistics can be manipulated so easily and can be made to support any argument. Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Gaddafi, Pinochet, Castro, Kim Jong Ill, Regan, and many others have used ideological beliefs and statistical data to back their outrageous claims and create global strife using people that should know better. They didn’t do anything themselves, they allowed the people around them to do it for them. They used their own belief system and ideas against them. Do not fall into the same trap. Don’t allow your ideological beliefs to hinder you from using your brain. Think, analyze, and process information for yourself without the hindrance of your own biases. The channels of debate and discussion should be open to allow the free flow of true ideas.

Nigeria is the new Iraq

2011-07-31T13:46:00.002-07:00

Once upon a time Nigeria was a struggling country mired in centuries of strife and dereliction from European colonialism. The misappropriation of resources, the blatant disregard for human life from constant civil and tribal warfare, slavery and exploitation left Nigeria a shell of a country. But that was the past. Now Nigeria is on the precipice of being the most highly fueled economy on the African continent. How was such a war-torn chaotic country able to create success where there only should have been failure? Well the lifeblood of all of modern society is now a resource that they can proudly call their own, oil. And when a country has oil, it is only a matter of time before it becomes a hotbed for imperialistic strife. China’s growing middle class, as well as India’s burgeoning population, mixed with America’s insatiable appetite for all things oil will make Nigeria the site for a very tumultuous landscape in the near future.

Unfortunately, for the people of Nigeria what was probably seen as a blessing to help stimulate their economy and bring social and political stability will end up being the device that causes more death and destruction than peace and prosperity. As much as one can want to believe that the “economic partners” that are being created in this country have altruistic motives driving their desire to “help” this country, the truth is that they are all just jockeying for position to see who can get the rights to this precious resource. And it has been my experience that when people don’t get what they want through politically diplomatic channels, the diplomacy of violence is then utilized to get what they want. Subversive tactics, illicit threats, bribes, corruption, and murder will mar the political landscape of this nation. The truly sad part of this whole episode will be that the people of Nigeria will be the ones to suffer. They will see none of the profit from this resource, yet they will drown in the destructive wake of the storm of interest this resource has created.

Do not look for the mass media to report on this issue. They will not. Although the US has become increasingly more brazen with their actions domestically and abroad, they still realize that bad press will cause just enough of a headache to give an edge to a competing country. And they do not want that. There are billions of dollars on the line. However it is not too late for his nation. If we really are serious about breaking our dependence on oil, saving our environment, ending wars abroad, and stifling the funding of terrorist regimes, then we have to kick this habit. We can ill-afford to continue the life of an addict who slips on and off the wagon only to wind up with in a dilapidated house, in the company of a putrid lover, and questionable alliances to whomever is willing to give us our next “hit” of oil. We all have to do our part; vote for alternative energy bills, drive environmentally friendly cars, frequent places that utilize alternative energy, and make sure that you stay aware of what the politicians around you are doing. They represent your wishes and desires, not the interests of the companies they have become beholden to. If you do nothing but complain, you have nothing to complain about other than your inaction.

Checkmate

2011-07-29T14:41:00.000-07:00

I was recently out with the fellas in a hot spot in LALA land and apparently made a major faux pas with some ladies. This actually isn’t surprising because I have very strong viewpoints and often like to let them be known. And with the already limited filter I have on my mouth, when drinks are added it seems to disappear all together. But this time I felt like I had not done anything wrong. We were talking to a group of young ladies, obviously part of this new crop of women that are becoming prevalent in America, and I told them that I like a woman that is a little more domesticated. Holy shit! You would have thought I called them all bitches, spit in their faces, and muff punched them or something. They went off on me.

“Oh you probably want us bare foot and pregnant in the kitchen and waiting for you with your slippers and a martini too?!” Well actually, no. First off, I am not really a martini drinker, I need my vodka with some tonic and a lime in it. Second, I don’t really recommend being shoeless in the kitchen, it can be a dangerous place and household accidents are avoidable. But most importantly, I wouldn’t dream of putting my seed in you because that would just dumb down my good stock. But let’s focus on the topic at hand. There is nothing wrong with a woman that is domesticated. I am not talking about putting a collar on them or keeping them in the house all day. I am just saying a woman that knows how to do things and likes to contribute around the house.

When did knowing how to cook, sew, clean, and garden become enslavement instead of contributions made to living in a happy household? These are not chores that have been given to women to subjugate and demean them. They are skills that women need in order to fulfill their partnership with the man they choose to marry. Just as men should be well versed in small home repairs and menial maintenance of their homes and automobiles, women have a job to do as well. This does not make them weaker than men, it makes them part of a team that is in charge of a household. Part of the problem that people face today is the break down of gender roles when talking about building an American nuclear family. There are specific roles for men and women. Being in a relationship requires work. It is not an easy task, and running a household takes perseverance, patience, sacrifice, and yes, WORK! The fact that these skills are being forsaken by both men and women because they find them to be gender identifying and undignified is absurd and disheartening in my opinion.

A lot of women see a relationship as the finish line in the “race” of finding a mate. But it is not, it is the starting line of an even longer more important race. This race is more of an obstacle course because there are going to be all kinds of blockers and deterrents to slow you down. Some of them might even stop your progress all together. And it is vital to the relationship that you can rely on your partner in order to overcome these hurdles. You need to pull the other up when they fall, help them over the high walls when they can’t lift themselves, and to encourage each other to keep going even when it seems impossible. Part of that teamwork requires cooking, cleaning, sewing, and other household chores. American women need to understand that this is why you are losing American men to foreign women. It’s not because they are subservient or don’t talk back, they’re still women after all. It is that they embrace the gender roles. They know how to use their femininity to their advantage. They do not use being a woman as an excuse for why they can’t do things, and they enjoy having the power of being the master of the domicile. So learn to cook ladies. Learn to sew. Learn to run a household. If you do all those things you will be surprised by the outcome. A well-fed man rarely strays.

I once was blind, but now I can see

2011-07-27T10:29:00.000-07:00

How the fuck did I ever get along without the internet? I mean seriously, I can’t even remember the last time I actually had to know something off the top of my head. I can always just pull out my smart phone, grab my tablet, or fire up my laptop and whoosh, information comes streaming to me from around the world with the push of a button. When I was in high school and in college I spent countless hours in the libraries researching, fact checking, and looking up credible published sources to corroborate my many different claims and view points. Now it seems that the libraries are as archaic as the once popular Dewey Decimal System that was used to catalogue them.

I wonder what would happen if I were to take young person into a library today? I bet their little “now-generation” heads would explode when they saw how we used to store information. When I explained to them how I would have to go through journal after journal, pour over mountainous stacks of books and periodicals for sometimes just one article to give my research validity, they would look at me like I used to my dad when he would relay the story of walking to school in the snow, in one sock, uphill both ways, for 10 miles to get to school. The idea that we would actually "waste" our time looking things up would seem so foreign to them. It's like explaining tapes, Velcro, the moonwalk, or the allure of Alf to them. Information being true, facts being checked, and the people reporting them having to take responsibility for the claims they make seems to be a way of the past. Having to actually back up the claims we make is as dead as disco. What has happened to truth? Is it a bad thing to actually require proof of evidence for the claims people make?

Books, journals, magazines, and other periodicals are filled with credentialed authors writing for credible publications and are held to a different level of skepticism than internet authors. Half of the information on the internet is so obviously fabricated in some demented person’s bruised-melon head that it doesn’t even warrant the space used to display it. Yet many people think that because it exists on line that it must be true. We used to be a skeptical people, wanting proof, evidence, and corroboration of information before we believed it. But in our laziness and with the ease of the flow of information, we have decided to become susceptible to the lies that are propagated by anyone who has access to electricity, can connect to the internet, and knows how to use a keyboard. Even the network media has gone the route of the Enquirer and the Star by printing, saying, and showing, things that have as much basis in truth and reality as the existence of Puff the Magic Dragon or the little Lucky Charms Leprechaun guy.

The internet isn’t bad. I love it. I use it. I need it, and think of it as an intricate part of my life. But to whole-heartedly believe everything you read and see on there is ridiculous. It is a great way for the flow of information to disseminate to the people. It has helped sparked revolutions, organize protests, and topple governments. But like every great invention, guns, fire, television, carne asada burritos, it has a dangerous side as well. It needs to be revered, dealt with caution, and used as a tool to access information and not as a bearer of knowledge. Knowledge is what you build as you take information you learn, process it, practice it, test it, and filter out the truth from the crap.

Knock it off China

2011-07-27T10:27:00.001-07:00

Just when you thought I couldn’t talk about China any more, they go and do something so utterly ridiculous that I have to drop everything and write about them, again. China has become a spoiled, rich brat of a country that is governed by a set of laws that are at odds with everyone they deal with. They have become the Paris Hilton of countries. They make policies, allow atrocities to transpire, and perpetrate such callous acts that are so brazen and appalling that you are left wondering if they are doing it for attention, or because they truly believe they can get away with it. We here in America are no stranger to the fact that the Chinese are the champions of the knock off. They are responsible for so much counterfeit merchandise that people get upset if their “knockoffs” come from one of their rival Asian competitors of the likes of Vietnam or Korea. But this latest transgression of counterfeiting is so mind blowing that it defies logic. They counterfeited an entire Apple store.

Yep, you read that correctly, they faked an Apple store. How ridiculous is that? It’s not that some of the merchandise is fake, or that they are not a licensed Apple dealer legally allowed to sell Apple products. Nope that would be run of the mill, normal everyday behavior for China. I am talking about the ENTIRE store is a complete fabrication. They look like Apple products, they have the familiar Apple logo, the employees are wearing the same outfits that say Apple, their store looks like an Apple store, but everything in the store including the store itself is fake. From the counterfeit ipads, to the fake name badges reminiscent of back stage passes, to the laptop and desktop computers. The whole store is a knock off. To believe that the government, the local authorities, and any other Chinese regulatory agencies aren’t aware of an entire pirated store is asinine. We need to hold governments that condone these fraudulent companies responsible. The money that is profited by these fake stores pays for the Chinese government to prosper, while the money stolen away from American companies leaves America in the financial crisis we find ourselves in now.

How are we supposed to compete with a country that doesn’t play by the rules? There is a reason why China is kicking our ass at everything. They steal it all from everybody else. They have cars that look exactly like Mercedes and BMWs, they make the original for the company that orders it and then turns around and uses the same patterns and materials to make knock offs that they flood the market with and garner the same amount of money as the originals. They know they are in clear violation of international copyright laws. But they don’t care, because they can’t be enforced in their country. They are creating their own black market, yet it is not only allowed but encouraged by their government. But this is a step too far. To have the gumption to knock off entire stores. A fake Apple store selling fake Apple products is just the tip of the iceberg. They aren't even trying to hide it. It is like they are spitting in the faces of all the people that play by the rules and believe in the system. If they are willing to do this, break laws, lie to their people, lie to us, and take advantage of a system that has made them wealth beyond belief, then we have to be willing to say no. These people are not our friends. they are a wolves in sheep clothing and need to be dealt with as such. When people like, cheat, steal and do it to your face, you need to be willing to go to the mattresses with them. Because they have forced your hand and chosen how you will respond, you should feel no guilt in doing the same in kind to them. Without rules we are just monkeys wearing clothes.

Looking backwards to walk forward part 2

2011-07-26T13:22:00.000-07:00

Hobbes theories included the belief that in a state of nature man is an “emotional creature, driven by their desires and physical appetites, and all of his actions spring from two basic motives for his actions, desires and aversions.” If this is true, then man is an impulsive creature first, and a methodical creature second. In order to achieve one’s goals, which are egocentric and self-satisfying in nature, man is capable of perpetrating anything in order to reach the end that benefits him most. Meaning that lying, cheating, stealing, and killing are all within the realm of possibilities when trying to quench those desires. This is why in our civil society laws have to be created, an organization to uphold these laws must be formed, and the perpetrators who break these laws need to be held accountable. His aversion to death and his desire for life and the comforts provided therein are what motivates his actions.

It must be remembered that both Locke and Hobbes wrote during times of strife inside of their respective lands, one with a despotic ruler and one with a civil war ravaging the land where anarchy reigned. Their ideologies differed, but their theories converged on two important points. First, that man left unto his own devices would do what it takes to further his own self-interests, so in order to form a civil society (i.e. to have a peaceful existence) one must give up some personal freedoms. The second is that in order to be governed man must make a “covenant” to voluntarily give up "total freedom" in order to belong to a peaceful society where fear of an untimely death is eliminated, thus allowing him the "freedom" to pursue his desires and further his own interests without the looming threat of death.

Locke was more concerned with making sure that there was a distribution of power at the top to ensure there was not an abuse of power. When power all resides with one entity, that entity will become tyrannical and abuse said power. This is true if the power all resides with one position or if one group or party holds complete dominance over a position like the Republicans are doing in Congress today. When they all act in accordance to party lines instead of individual consciousness they are in essence circumventing the fail-safes constructed by the framers of our nation in order to carry out their despotic will. It is a dangerous side effect of the democratic checks and balance system that is in place in the legislature and needs to be amended. However, only those who are in power have the ability to amend it. And unfortunately they will not clip their own wings. That is analogous to having a prisoner set his own parameters for his incarceration. Of course they are going to choose what is most favorable for themselves. Their concern is not with the people they represent, but with maintaining their own power.

Rousseau thoughts on civil society can be clearly demonstrated in his “discourse on inequality.” He rejects the idea that Hobbes and Locke set forth that in a state of nature man is evil and self-serving. That the fear of an impending death does not drive his desires to conquer and control the resources necessary for his survival, because the concept of death to natural man is too abstract of an idea. Rousseau believed that the act of creating private property itself is what corrupts man, causes discourse, strife, war, and the "impending death" that man so fears.

The theories about man and his place within civil society that all three of these political philosophers subscribed to, along with a few others would eventually shape the political landscape of today’s America. Using the methods that America has already employed with the original drafting of our DOI and Constitution, we take from each of these political theoretical tinkerers the best and most desirable theories to create a truly democratic rule, and cast aside their ideas that are no longer of any need or pertinent to today’s dynamic society. Cast aside is the wrong phrase, because only a great fool would not take heed of the advice and pitfalls of other failed governments. It is like getting lost while driving. Once you have turned down the muddy road at night and gotten stuck, lost, turned around, and utterly confused, you have probably learned your lesson and will not make that mistake again. However it would not behoove you when making directions for someone else to not caution them about not turning down muddy roads. It is a quagmire you must heed, but just not give as much credence to as before.

That is the mindset that we must have if we are to continue to succeed here in America. We have a very tumultuous past that is not at all something we should be immensely proud of, but we should not be shamed by it either. Slavery, internment, genocide, exploitation, war, child labor have all marred our country's past, but also helped propagate our freedoms and dominance we enjoy in the world today. Only relatively recently in our history, in the last few decades realistically, have we truly been headed toward the democracy that our founders had anticipated for us. The hardest, most treacherous part of our journey lay behind us and we owe it to ourselves, our children and the people who sacrificed, died, and were persecuted to ensure our future, to stand once again united in the fight for our country. The problems that lay in front of us are indeed daunting, but not insurmountable. This is the country that moved mountains, connected oceans, and put men on the moon, impossible is not in our lexicon. The problems we are facing now are different than those of the past, but not any less perilous. Do not let the mistakes of the past ruin our future. We know what we have to do. We know how to do it. Now it is time to do what is right for all Americans and not what is right for the individual.

The debt ceiling...why is this even a debate?!

2011-07-26T03:27:00.000-07:00

Last night President Obama addressed the nation in what seemed to me to be his sincere effort to plead with the American public to hold politicians accountable for their inaction in order to advert the latest GOP created crisis. His speech was on point. He explained to Americans what was happening in Congress and on Capitol Hill and let it be known that he as their elected president is doing all he can to fix this problem before it becomes a catastrophe. It took all of 15 minutes. But then the craziest thing happened, the speaker of the house, the man responsible for the stale mate occurring in Congress that has the ability to not only knee-cap America, but cripple the entire world's economy, gave a speech too. Did I miss something? What the hell is happening in Washington? Is Obama president or isn’t he? Do we really have a system set up where the speaker of the house deserves the same treatment as the president?

Whereas President Obama's speech was meant to inform and convey a message of assurances and hope, Boehner speech was filled with rhetoric, finger-pointing, and vitriol. And in an ironic, done-in-conservative-fashion conclusion, he finished his speech with a, ”...but this isn’t about Obama and Congress” conjecture even though he spent the first 10 minutes of his 12-minute speech slamming and blaming Obama and taking ZERO blame for his part in the US coming precariously close to financial devastation. Wow, I can’t believe how dumb he must think we are as Americans. Or maybe I can. He is so brazen as to blatantly lie to America because he knows we will do nothing to him when he does. So many Americans were ready to believe that the president wasn't an American citizen, or how he wasn't a Christian, or whatever lie the right could fabricate to undermine his presidency. So why not believe this?

These right-wing, self-proclaimed “champions of the people” have created a fictional stalemate in Congress preventing the raising of the debt ceiling claiming that it is a "financially irresponsible act" for them to make. This is coming from a Congress that has raised the debt ceiling 33 times in the last 31 years. THIRTY THREE TIMES. And 29 of those occasions it was done under the reign of a Republican president. But now, for some reason, when Obama is in office and has handled every one of the tumultuous quagmires that Bush left for America as admirably and without complaint as one could do, Congress has decided that they can no longer do this. Really? Obama's plans have been met with blatant bipartisan gridlock and out right lies by the right in an attempt to blackmail the president by holding the country hostage so that he will do their bidding.

Under the incorruptible watchful eye of a Republican led Executive, the very wealthiest people in this country had enjoyed tax breaks and were allowed to exploit loopholes in the tax code making them even wealthier for the last decade. Now that times are tough, they are trying to use their vast political clout to influence the Republican Party to do their bidding to ensure that they continue to prosper while the rest of us tighten our belts and push our way through this financial crisis. Yes, government is big, and provides many services private industry would love to try to control. Yes, Obama bailed out Wall Street because the legislature removed all restrictions and regulations that were in place to prevent this crisis in the first place. Yes, Medicare is draining our economy and needs to overhauled, but eliminating it now, removing even more people from the workforce by eliminating government jobs is not the way to handle this crisis. It is time that the people that can afford to take the hit do so. It is time to contribute money to the collective pool of people that have helped you enjoy the silver spoon in your mouth. In fact we are not talking about taking a silver spoon and turning it to wood. These tax increases would just be removing the diamond studs from the already bejeweled platinum spoon.

Do not be fooled by the rhetoric and deliberate fabrications that have been spewing from the forked-tongued mouths of Republican politicians who are showing their true allegiance to the wealthy constituents who they truly represent. Their deceptive tales of how "Joe Public" is being held hostage by big government and how tax cuts will benefit the little man is almost as laughable as the job the attorney in Florida did in trying Casey Anthony. It is up to us to make sure that another travesty of justice is not perpetrated on our watch. Listen Republicans, you were fooled once by electing Bush to a second term. You were fooled once again by giving your blind support to Sarah Palin, who couldn't navigate her way out of a paper bag. Please be smart now and let your pocket book lead you to a smarter decision this time around. Don't believe so blindly what Boehner is telling you. Support your president and hold these traitorous Republican charlatans accountable for playing chicken with our livelihoods, our money, and our country.

Looking backwards to walk forward part 1

2011-07-22T15:43:00.000-07:00

Looking backwards to walk forward

Today more than ever it is important for the people that we choose to represent and lead us have a grasp on the pulse of the nation and a firm understanding of who we are. They need to be literate in the technologies of today, the free flowing ideas and cultures that we have immersed ourselves in, and a vision of how America can help spread the idea of cooperation and acceptance around the globe. But whom are our leaders going to look to today to help guide them down the tumultuous path that has become our interconnected future?

Our leaders need to ask themselves 2 things, 1) What is a governments essential function, and 2) what kind of government can achieve that aim most effectively for its people. The concept of government for people is relatively a new idea. Most rulers, despots really, claim to have had their power preordained tracing their lineage back to biblical times, some even to the gods that they worship in their respective lands. This bloodline is what they base their political sovereignty on. In the beginning of mans organization into city-states and then nations I guess this form of government was acceptable. But as man became more and more educated he realized that the rulers can not rule without the power and benediction of the ruled. So the power actually started from the bottom of the pyramid up. The leadership did not like this and as a result revolutions, civil strife, wars, and kingdoms rising and falling occurred with a frequency of shifting tides in the ocean today.

America is a great nation, a nation founded on the belief of equality. However the equality that is spoken of in the DOI or the Constitution is an antiquated 3-century-old freedom. That freedom was meant to extend to wealthy White men, and to open up the ability for middle class White men to “take advantage” of the bountiful harvest that the Native America and poorer Americans provided. It was never meant to be a doctrine proclaiming equality for all. Our founding fathers forged documents with a broad swath of a bloodied sword. The facts and history books change the verbage to revise a history that is more acceptable for our delicate and sensitive palates. But America is based on exploitation, war, violence, and the continued use of force to establish our way of life. The reality of the situation is that it is a necessary evil. The world is a tumultuous place. There are a finite amount of resources that all of mankind is struggling to control. This puts us at a natural competition with others. In order for us to enjoy our way of life, someone else can’t. That is what competition means. It means only the strong survive.

By examining the political thinkers Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau I will be able to give you a better understanding of the reasoning behind the creation of our current form of government, the need for our continued vigilance in the shaping of it, why we need to maintain a constantly dynamic shifting view of the role of our government in our lives, and where it is headed to best address the needs and concerns of the people it is there to represent. Tune in tomorrow to read more about these ideas and thoughts that will benefit you in your decision for who should lead us into the future.

Champions aren't always made on the field

2011-07-07T05:12:00.000-07:00

At a charity basketball free throw shooting event in Compton, Alan Guei won $40,000 dollars to use for college expenses by winning the contest. He beat out 8 other competitors to take the top prize. But what he did next was what showed the true charity in this kid’s heart. He gave the money away. He gave the $40 thousand to the other contestants to help make their educational dreams come true. When asked why he did it, he said in an interview, “I have a free ride to college next year on a basketball scholarship. I’ve been blessed, now I can help these kids realize their academic dreams too.”

Apparently a champion is not just made on the field. He is made at home, in church, in the classroom, at the dinner table, in the library, and on a daily basis by the people he surrounds himself with. This is not the action a child who doesn’t know any better, or a young adult naïve to the world. They are the actions of a youthful person with love and generosity in his heart. He had enough intelligence, perception, and awareness to realize that he is not alone in the world. Alan knew that even though he is just one person, his actions make a difference in the world and impact the lives of those around him. This is truly one of the most pure, selfless acts I have been witness to in a very long time.

I am always so quick to judge our society today. To say that our youth is misguided, that they run amuck with the instant gratification bug. Instant messaging, instant updates, instant weather, instant traffic, even instant noodles. The youth today has so much at their fingertips now that they have forgotten what it is like to go without. Well here is a person who can teach us all a little something about humanity. He reminds us that the word humanity is comprised of the word human, which the word Earth is filled with. Perhaps this can cause people to put down their weapons, to holster their guns, and sheath their knives, cast aside their sticks and their stones and try to get along. Perhaps the idea that we can share the resources that are around us instead of fighting over them will prevail. Perhaps the idea that there is a God that exists, even though its in different books and answers to different names, but would still want us to get along despite these differences. Perhaps there is hope after all.

The article thought it was important to mention where this young man was from. He was from Compton, which is a notoriously poor, gang-ridden city in the LA area. At first I was skeptical that the reporter felt the need to include this fact in the article. It smacked of racial undertones. But in the spirit of the article, I decided to put the reporters intention on the higher road. I hope that he was doing it to show that it wasn’t a spoiled rich kid that was donating the money and to emphasize the benevolence of Alan’s act. This boy’s actions have inspired not only the people in his community, the 8 kids who benefited from his generosity, but this writer as well. Good luck to you Allan, and I hope there are more youths like you.

Beat down your bully

2011-07-07T01:06:00.000-07:00

I think it goes without saying that no one likes being bullied. I am sure at one time or another everyone in his or her life has been bullied. No one likes to admit it, but being picked on sucks. Being called names, pushed down, made fun of, talked about, having your feelings hurt, or your being body hurt, give it any name you want, it’s all bullying. Even the bullies themselves at one point in time were victims of bullying, which is probably what turned them into bullies in the first place. Some bullies are just assholes and well, couple that with being victimized in their developmental years, they really never had a chance. All bullies might be assholes, but not all assholes are bullies, I think I am living proof of that, “Now give me your lunch money!” Nah, I’m just playing, unless you get a lot for lunch money.

Let me get to the point of this blog. I recently watched a marathon of a series on MTV, and with the exception of Iron Chef America, Bully Beatdown is the best show on TV. Who wouldn’t love a show that pits bullies, and I mean real narcissistic douche bags who have been preying on smaller individuals, against a professional MMA fighter. Why would said douche bags get in the ring you ask. Besides the temptation of being on TV, which is a draw for most of these young bucks trying to be the next Spencer Pratt, they also dangle in front of them the chance to receive 10 thousand dollars for doing it. The bad news for the bully however, but the good news for us and their victims is that they have to survive the fight in order to get the money. And with the exception of one crazy Russian guy that was too stupid to tap out, all of the bullies have lost, bad.

The best part of the show, or so I thought, was how these moronic bullies would run their mouths before the fight. Incessantly talking about how they were not only going to survive, but they were going to prevail. These guys just wouldn’t shut up about how much ass they were going to kick. They figured, incorrectly of course that since they had been acting like enforcers around their neighborhood and that they had successfully bullied weaker people than themselves that they would do the same to these fighters. They strut around like peacocks sticking out their over-inflated chests and egos hoping their bravado is going to save them in the ring. When asked what their fighting style is like, they all say the same thing. “Yeah, ya know, when I get in the ring and I see him, I’m gonna surprise him with my natural ability.” Yep, your natural ability to get knocked the f#@k out.

I think they truly believe in their delusional, Neanderthal minds that they could actually beat these MMA guys up. Apparently none of these guys understand what it means to be a MMA fighter, a professional, and have never been taught not to taunt a caged animal. MMA fighters get paid a lot of money to beat the crap out of each other. And normally these fight don’t end until someone gets KO’d or they have to stop the fight because someone is about to lose a limb. Being a professional MMA fighter means that they successfully beat the crap out of other guys enough times to make a decent living doing it. That means that they are good at what they do. None of these guys stands a chance. And once they step into the ring and the bell is rung, their bell gets rung.

But the best part of the show comes at the end. After these guys get there ass handed to them. And there have been some brutal knockouts, tap outs, arm bars, standing guillotines, and my favorite when the guys get punched and hit so hard that they puke after the fights. But even that couldn’t prepare me, and I would wager the creators of the show a by-product and probably the most meaningful part of the show. At the end of the show the bully needs to hand the money that could have been theirs to the victim, and along with it comes a usually heart felt apology. These guys just got owned on cable television, embarrassed for the whole world to see, and somehow all those blows to the head and kicks to the body loosened some of the asshole from them and made them remember they are human. They deliver heart-felt apologies that seem very genuine and most of them parrot the same utterance at the end, “I had no idea it felt like this to be bullied. I’m sorry.” Most of them hug it out, the ones that don’t there is no chance they will ever evolve. But for the one that do, this show successfully beat the bully out of them.

Judicial Revision

2011-07-06T16:52:00.000-07:00

Just as the framers of the constitution felt that a newly revised republic needed to be designed to fit the needs and to fulfill the desires of the populace then, so do our laws and justice system need to be revised and amended today to reflect the nation that America has become since its inception. It is ridiculous to think that some of the antiquated notions that our country was founded on needs to prevail today. Just as one would not expect a teenager to still wear the clothes that he did when he was an infant, nor can you expect a nation as grown up and mature as America has become to still don the same rules, laws, and governance that it did during its inaugural years.

Cases like the OJ Simpson verdict, the Casey Anthony verdict, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, the right for a 16 year child to be able to purchase a Mac-10 with extended banana clip, gay marriage, re-hearing of abortion, basic humane conditions for workers, the stripping of union’s rights, and every other ridiculous thing our nations courts have bungled and blundered and come to the wrong conclusion with should be the subject of public scrutiny. People need to throw up their arms and take to their keyboards and demand from our politicians a change that reflects the desires of the people for which these rulings affect.

When it is apparent to the general public with shows like Judge Judy, Judge Joe Brown, and other such travesties that are supposed to highlight the low lights of the circuit courts that have become a three ring circus and freak show, and have made a mockery of the American justice system. For too long these morons have set on high and handed out what they feel is their version of justice. Well who in the hell are they? Did we forget that behind their condescending speeches, gavels and black robes that they are just people too. They should be held accountable for their rulings, their corny sentences they hand down, and the perversion of justice that happens on a daily basis inside their courtrooms.

What is it going to take before people realize that we need to change this system? And more importantly it is our right and duty to do so? The courtroom should not be a place where the innocents' rights get trampled on, a place where the guilty know how to successfully navigate the system, and a place where the people who preside over them have free reign to do whatever it is that they want. Have we learned nothing from the debacle with the Catholic Church with all of their priests running amuck? Are we doing the whole, "head in the sand" thing and pretending that it is not happening? Because on a daily basis the court system is ramming us in the ass as if we were a 10 year old altar boy before morning mass. By the way, what has happened to any of those priests? Proof yet again that our justice system is seriously diverged from its original purpose. It is time for a change.

Waiting on the 400

2011-07-03T19:31:00.001-07:00

We all have boundaries. We have lines that we don’t want crossed, things we don’t find acceptable to discuss, and topics that are almost impossible to bring up without offending others. But how we react when these boundaries are crossed is what separates us from the culprits that have violated our boundaries. We have a duty to make sure that we allow lines of communication to be open and then are responsible for the utterances that come from our mouths.

Luckily for the readers of the Daily Heard, I don’t share those boundaries. I invite people to leap over people’s boundaries. The problem society has, well one of the problems society has, is that we are too worried about offending people. Why? Don’t we live in a democracy? A place where there should be free flowing ideas and opinions? There are words, ideas, concepts, and beliefs worth being discussed. We should open up lines of communication so that people know how to discus, debate, and ultimately decide how they feel about something. We should have an open mind. Maybe you felt one way about a certain topic or issue ten years ago that now, when you look at it anew with ten more years of life experience and perspective your view may have shifted. It is okay to change your mind. People need to be able to voice their opinions to one another and in form with the Socratic method, inquire and debate each other with opposing viewpoints that should stimulate critical thinking and illuminate ideas. These ideas, points and counter points should be brought up using evidence, observations, and experiences to further each others understanding of the topic. If people could do that, or at least practiced doing that on a daily basis, maybe we wouldn’t have such a closed minded populace and a even more close minded government representing us.

Just because I believe in gay marriage doesn’t mean I am going to run out and marry a gay, unless it’s Brad Pitt. Just kidding, I’d rather he and Angelina adopt me, then I wouldn’t have to work anymore I could go back to breast feeding, for the nutrients of course. But the idea that I have this opinion and would like to debate it with someone who doesn’t shouldn’t’ lead us to a name calling bout, a personal attack, or a fist fight because that person doesn’t know how to debate a topic of controversy. I say grow up America. Religion, politics, and race should be discussed ad nauseum, because they affect our every day lives. These are the issues that should be discussed, not our latest grande latte enema or how not eating meat is going to help save the environment. Get your head out of your asses vegans, we are omnivores. Nature intended us to eat meat. Jump into a lion’s cage or a shark tank, see if they share your same food proclivities.

I was just at dinner for a friend’s birthday. Which by the way is always an awkward proposition, because you are at a table that is 10 chairs on one side and 10 on the other so you are basically trapped with the people right next to you, shitty service (because you’re in a party of 20), and conversation that never seems to go anywhere. I had the good fortune of sitting next to a super pissed off, no sense of humor having woman from a foreign country whose idea of a good time was the continued brow beating of her upbeat husband. I am already a few drinks in by the time we show up, a little lubrication to help with the hilarity that I was sure would ensue that evening, and to make the awkwardness of the forced dining experience go a little smoother. This piece of work next to me is little miss sunshine. Showed up with the cold “I hate the world” scowl that seems to adorn the face of every from that section of the world. I’ll save you the awkward conversation that ensued, but suffice it to say she kept trying to get out of it and I wouldn’t let her, like a polish marlin on the end of a drunken overly tanned verbose sailor’s line. This little fishy wasn’t getting away. She kept trying to swim to the safety of her hubby, but to her bewildered amazement, he thought I was hilarious and kept throwing her back in. I finally let up when the food arrived, so that I could reenergize and continue the witty banter later. But then that is when it happened, what happened next was an unexpected roundhouse that sent me reeling.

The food arrived at the table, it was nothing exotic mostly pizzas or salads that were ordered. She had a Neapolitan, I had a Thai chicken. I dug in, the pizza was mildly adequate, but for the price I paid I was expecting something a little more memorable. I was mid bite when I realized she was eating her pizza with a knife and fork. Now this wouldn’t be such a big deal, except the pizza was thin crust and the toppings were not very plentiful. It was a hand eating pizza if ever there was a hand eating pizza. I watched, my mouth agape as she continued to eat like this. This was not a fine dining establishment, it was a place to go out to be seen for sure, but everyone was using their hands, her husband included. I asked her what was up with her eating habits. It was pizza, you eat it with your hands. I compared it to fried chicken, you wouldn’t eat fried chicken with a knife and fork. She tried to tell me that, “this was the way” that pizza should be eaten. I don’t think so. Then she told me that she was uncomfortable with the conversation. WHAT? Listen sweetheart, and all of you primadonnas out there, if you eat pizza with a knife and fork, people are going to comment. More importantly, I’m going to comment. You don’t get a reprieve, you need to answer for your actions. Is it as bad as women who carry little dogs in purses, or people that talk loudly and are animated when talking on their Bluetooth headsets in public? No. But it’s pretty close. You don’t get to pull the boundary card because you don’t know how to eat pizza. You need to step up to the plate, no pun intended, and eat like a person who has been there before. I don’t know how they eat pizza in Poland, but this is the real world lady, use your hands.

Boundaries are good, boundaries are needed. But boundaries should not be so big and insurmountable that we are trapped inside our own diluted little bubbles with no chance of ever changing our point of views. Discussion, debate, discourse, and discomfort should all be a part of everyone’s social repertoire of verbal interaction. We are all hopefully working toward becoming more enlightened, well-rounded, experienced, and interconnected beings, capable of understanding, even if you are unapproving of the differences that make us unique and our world an exciting place to live. I guess we are all in a way, waiting for the 400.

Manners matter

2011-07-01T06:46:00.000-07:00

A woman in England was put on blast by her future daughter-in-law for sending her a letter addressing the concerns she had with her behavior toward her son, their family, and decorum in general. Instead of taking the letter in stride the young lady in question decided to display the letter on the Internet where it has gone viral. Her actions only further emphasize the points that the mother-in-law was making by sending the letter in the first place giving credence to her claim that the future daughter-in-law is classless, lacks basic manners, and common sense. Not only did her plan to piss off her mother-in-law and exact revenge fail, she has now put her own family on blast, driven a wedge between herself and her future in-laws, and made her husband choose between her or his family. This is exactly the kind of childish, selfish behavior that she accused her of displaying. Behavior like this is not isolated to this one woman either. Her behavior is an echo of the barrage of egocentric, overindulgent, self-centered women who make men lament their commitment to them and are helping to destroy the institution of marriage.

Marriage is already in dire straights and on the chopping block in western society. Well, at least the idea of a monogamous marriage is. Women wonder why men "dine and ditch" in the relationship department, this is part of the reason why. It is the sense of entitlement you feel. The idea that life is supposed to provide for you the way fairy tales foretold of prince charming rescuing you from the doldrums to have a princess caliber life. But that is not how life works. And believing this fallacy, you have grown up without the skills required to sustain a mutually aggregated relationship, where both partners are required to pay due diligence to the union.

The truth of the matter is that the majority of you are broken. You have watched too many episodes of Sex in the City and Keeping up with the Kardashians. You believe life is going to be easy and handed to you on a silver tray. We can not all be Mr. Big. And let’s face it, if we were, we wouldn’t date you anyway. That show was a joke, because Big would have never gone for that anteater-faced Carrie. He would have had a different young piece of ass in every city he went to. Men like that don’t want a partner, they want someone to adorn their arms. And when you have passed your prime of eye candy status, which is usually around age 25-26, you are no longer needed. You are expendable. Do you really think you are all going to marry a billionaire who is going to sweep you off your feet and solve all of your problems? Really, do ya? Hmmm. First off, there aren’t that many billionaires in the world to begin with. Second, the ones that are mega wealthy and powerful are Mr. Big in name only. Third, and most importantly there are a lot more beautiful women than you in the world. Not just that, but more interesting women, more driven women, just more women period. So the question becomes, what do you have to offer me?

What is going to set you apart and make us want to buy the cow and not just get the milk for free is that you need to possess some other redeeming qualities. You need to learn again to be a lady. Learn to cook, learn to sew. It does not make you inferior or subservient to wash some dishes, vacuum the house, do some laundry, or wash your own car. If you are part of a loving, carrying relationship you should both take turns taking care of each others’ basic needs and the needs of your property. We would all love to have servants, butlers, maids and valets, but it’s not in the cards for all of us. And if you really desire them that badly, have children, they’re nature’s reluctant servants. Basic, simple, common sense manners is all that is required. Know who you are, what you have, and what you are capable of fiscally, and it will make so many of your problems go away. Whether you live in a trailer park or in a mansion, if you show respect to people, they will in turn show you respect.

What this woman did was not unreasonable. She did what she thought was appropriate for her son. She was not trying to alienate the girl. She tried to approach her in a private adult level putting them on equal footing. She laid out examples of her behavior that was undesirable, and explained how she could rectify it. As their benefactor for their wedding, it is my belief that the mother-in-law can say, do, act anyway she’d like. And if the future daughter-in-law doesn’t like it, don’t accept the money.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/odd/a/-/odd/9763462/posh-mother-in-law-lays-out-her-demands/1/date/asc/1274950/#comments

Das German

2011-06-30T04:08:00.000-07:00

The 2010-11 NBA season ended with a championship caliber championship series capping what can only be described as the best regular season and playoffs in the last decade of basketball. Stars that had already made a name for themselves continued to add to their legacy. Kobe held it down in Los Angeles, Durantula showed us that we need to pay attention to the Thunder in OKC, Howard and his shoulders man-handled every ball that came off the rim, and Amare threw it down in the Big Carmelo Apple. Then we had teams surprising the hell out of us. There were the "past-their-prime" Spurs who took the regular season with the best record in the West, the upstart Bulls led by a blossoming Rose who bulled their way through the Eastern Conference and finished with the best record in basketball, the holy trinity of Bron-bron, Wade, and Bosh in Miami showing that they could almost walk on water, and the Lucky Charmed Bostonians, ummm, well at least they got a Stanley Cup title. Sorry guys, you’re about to be in rebuilding mode for a few years. There was the emergence of stars like Blake Griffin, Kevin Love, Brandon Jennings, and Lamarcus Aldridge. These guys played as to say to the super stars, "We're coming for you." But the star that shone the brightest in the NBA this season was from the team in the state aptly nicknamed the “Lone Star State” because Dirk “Diggler” Nowitzki’s star out shined everyone else's in the playoffs by putting on a performance for the ages.

The Dallas Mavericks were finally able to overcome the biggest obstacle that stood in their way to win the NBA championship this year, themselves. Mark Cuban finally shut his mouth and let his coaches coach and his players play. And he was not disappointed with the end result, which was the Larry O'Brien NBA Championship Trophy. A golden trophy with a golden basketball adorning the top acknowledging that your team was the greatest team in basketball that year. But the man who did the most to ensure that they were able to achieve that success was a 7-foot, German born, can’t miss shooter of the decade, Dirk Nowitski. This guy has always taken it on the chin as a basketball player in the NBA from critics and fans alike. “Sure he can shoot, but he fades away a the end of the game and doesn’t play D” or “He’s a good shooter, but he is no Larry Bird.” You are right, he isn’t a great defender, but he is good enough at stopping shots in the middle and making it difficult for opposing players to get in the lane. And he isn’t Larry Bird, he is a whole lot better of a shooter than he was. I will pause there so all the gasping non-believers can catch their breaths and continue reading. I think all the criticism about this lumbering giant, can now be put to rest. The man is automatic. The man is a machine. He is a baller worthy of the NBA stardom he has received. The man can just flat out shoot. He was burying shots with everything the Heat, the Thunder, The Lakers, and the Blazers could throw at him. And he never backed down.

But against the Heat he proved exactly how tough he was. He was like a basketball shooting Terminator sent back from the future to bury shot upon shot in Miami defenders’ eyes. The man wouldn’t miss. He couldn’t miss. He played sick, he played hurt, he played with the burden of knowing that he was in this position once before and had one of the all-time most infamous meltdowns in NBA finals basketball history and he still persevered. The game plan for Miami was to slow him down but let him get his, and stop the rest of the team. They didn’t do a very good job of stopping the rest of his teammates who stepped up in their roles, but boy did he get his. He averaged just under 10 rebounds, 26 points, 2 assists, .8 blocks, and shot 97.8% percent from the free-throw line converting 45 of 46 in those 6 games versus the Heat. The man was an ATM, and no Alain, not the kind you are thinking of you dirty birdie, but he was cash money. He was automatic, and coach Carlisle kept going to him even after he had reached his daily limit. And it is good thing he did, because ze German Deutsche Marks were trading high that day.

For all the disappointment that has befallen this gargantuan German, the best thing that could have happened to him was winning a championship coached by Rick Carlisle with a supporting cast consisting of Jason Kidd, Jason Terry, DeShawn Stevenson, Jose Barerra, “the Matrix” Shawn Marion, and Tyson Chandler. He has proven his worth as a top tier player, as a dutiful teammate, as a hero, and now as a champion. My hat is off to you, Mr. Dirk Nowitzki. You are truly this years champion!

China, China, China

2011-06-29T23:43:00.000-07:00

When I was 6 years old, the word China referred to the beautifully ornate “never to be touched” dishes that were off limits to me that resided in the dining room cabinet of the same name. As I got older I realized that China was actually a country, a large country in Asia, which was home to the most people populating any one country in the world. When I was a teenager I discovered that this country had a brutal, warring past marred by tribal feuds and megalomaniac emperors set on world domination. I knew that many beautiful textiles originated from China, such as silk, jade, and Ming dynasty vases. That it is home to exotic and majestic animals like the golden monkey, Siberian tigers, and of course the giant panda that can only be found in that section of the world. I also learned that many innovations in science were developed in China, such as the earliest recorded irrigation systems, gun powder, and of course paper money to name a few. China is a land of many beautiful and terrifying things, but none more so than the people themselves.

It wasn’t until much later in my schooling did I realize that the people that rule China conspire for world domination on a level that is comparable to Bobby Fisher or Barry Kasparov that are considered the worlds most formidable chess strategists. Like these previously mentioned chess grandmasters, they have played the entire game in their heads and beaten you before you have even had the chance to make more than three moves. They make plans, contingency plans, and then contingencies for those contingencies. They plan on levels that are way beyond our comprehension. And the Chinese aren’t playing a game. They realize one important factor that Americans have yet to grasp, that there is a 4th dimension to planning, time. And that time is critical and crucial to developing and carrying out an all-encompassing plan. It is normal for the Chinese to make plans that can take 50 to 100 years before coming to fruition. Americans can sparsely wait a year before they jump off the bandwagon and onto some new yo-yo diet-style plan. The Chinese have had the benefit of coming from a culture that is thousands of years old and they have had many millennia to perfect their techniques. With a population of 1.6 billion people, it is no wonder they feel they are the chosen people that should be the rulers of the world. For every 5 people in the world, one of them is Chinese.

Just because America is on top in 2011 does not mean that we will stay there. It especially doesn’t mean that other countries are looking to help us stay there either. They all want to be in the same or similar position we find ourselves in. We have only existed as a nation for a relatively short amount of time, and have been in power for an even shorter period of time. Our so-called allies are only our allies as long as it is desirable to be. The global community is like a world nations’ version of Beverly Hills 90210. The prettiest girl in school is perceived to be a major bitch and has to act the part because every guy wants to fuck her and every girl wants to be her. To her face everyone is nice and sweet and polite. They pretend to be her friend and do nice things for her while secretly plotting behind her back to betray her trust, spread rumors about her, or attempt to sleep with her. The girls do it because they are jealous and want what she has, they want to see her suffer, and all because they don’t posses the qualities that made her top dog in the first place. The boys all want to take from her what she has because they desire her “goods and services” but will cast her aside once that have gotten what they are after.

China is acting like a both the male and the female in the above analogy. It is after our “goods” but is also very jealous of our attributes. Actually, China has a different agenda for us all together. It doesn’t want to date us, nor does it want to be us, it wants to pimp us out for its own benefit. We are both consumers and providers. China wants to put us to work for them, and then feel the elation of having destroyed something that it was once jealous of, while also benefiting from our hard work. All I am saying is it is time to put away our petty and trivial differences that separate us Americans and unite before we become an endangered nationality that can be attributed to Chinese development and imperialism.

Fear the reaper

2011-06-27T17:57:00.000-07:00

I really don’t like always being the bearer of bad news. It’s the whole Rosencrantz and Guildenstern thing about killing the messenger, but it looks like I am the only one who has volunteered to play the role of town crier, so here it goes. As I look at man today, I would have to bear witness to the fact that we have become more pathetic than each of the generations that have preceded us. I am looking out across the square that I am sitting in observing the people gathered and walking around, reflecting back on some of the random thoughts left in the comment sections of the blogs I read, or the fact that there are such things as blogs, and it becomes clearly evident to me that with each successive generation some kind of visceral masculinity is lost among us men. The ability for us to actually build and fashion things, to manipulate our surroundings, and to survive seem to be slowly dissipating from our bodies.

There was a show on TV called Lost that made people believe that they would survive if stranded on a deserted island. Well, I guess we can go back even further and blame, the professor and Mary-Anne “...here on Gilligan’s Island” for all the confusion. The fact of the matter is that if a large group of people were stranded on a deserted island somewhere in the Pacific, it would first look like a scene out of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, then quickly turn into the treasure diorama from the Disneyland ride Pirates of the Caribbean. We would just be a bunch of skeletons wearing clothes, because no one would survive. We would first break down into some kind of maniacal anarchy where the rule of the desert, OTSS would apply. And then the remaining people would have nowhere to plug in their iphones or Blackberrys making it impossible for them to actually cope with the reality of the situation. People would eat poisoned berries, fall victim to the elements or any natural predators on the island, and the rest would subcome to their own insanity. The show Lost would be renamed, Dead, and Gilligan’s Island along with it.

But all joking aside, the degradation in our manly abilities is the result a fundamental breakdown in the conditioning, education, and rearing of our youth. No longer can people be patient and wait for results. The Black Eyed Peas were correct when they sang about who we have become. We are the Now Generation. We have all fallen victim to the manifestation of instantaneous gratification. If it can't be had now, we don’t want it. If it isn’t instantly available, it’s not worth having. Perseverance, determination, sacrifice, and grit used to be admirable characteristics. Nowadays, if results are not seen immediately, then you have failed. Even failure is seen as a waste of time. Yet failure is what allows us to succeed; it is not the first step to ruin, but the last stop on the road to success.

We have all become self-neutered dependent metrosexual men. We have become so reliant on our machines, devices and gadgets that make our lives easier that we have forgotten how to actually live our lives as men. Our preprogrammed alarm clock wakes us up, which leads us to our already made preset coffee maker, which is consumed as we program our destination into our car’s navigation, as we tweet about this mornings thought of the day. Forget getting stranded on an island, if there was a power outage we would be Lost.

Don't talk to strangers

2011-06-27T17:13:00.000-07:00

I am no longer five years old. I may act the part both emotionally and mentally, but physically I have outgrown my Under Roos. If a person I do not know comes up to me and engages me, I know longer blow my whistle and stomp around in a circle yelling “Stranger Danger, Stranger Danger!” But I fail to see how in today’s society it is that from age 5 till now we seem to have lost that little nugget of knowledge about not trusting strangers. I know that before we met any of our friends they were strangers. If we were to just holistically stop all contact with people we didn’t know, it would make for a bitter society. But the rules that people adhere to in their day to day “real” lives seems to be quite different than the ones they follow in their nightly social networking lives. The equivalent of “friending” someone on Facebook, Linkedin, or whatever social site you use is like me walking up to a stranger and handing him my wallet, all my photo albums, my journal, the keys to my house, and pretty much any pertinent information they might need on how to break any of my passwords and safety protocols on my secure internet sites. We have essentially decided to ride the internet bareback down the dirt road.

It isn’t too much to consider that safety should be our first and foremost concern. When we turn on the internet and open a browser we are opening a window into a virtual world. A world inhabited by other people looking to wander around the social highways and biways that cyberspace allows us to travel. From that window people can gain access to our lives same as we can gain access to theirs. We need to make sure that we secure those windows so that a multitude of visitors can not “drop by” whenever they choose. Being vigilant with our security is not a bad thing. It is a necessary evil, like fire or water, both deadly when used incorrectly, but both essential and beneficial to sustaining life. Maybe the internet doesn’t quench my thirst, cook my food, or keep me warm at night but it does nourish my brain, my curiosity, and makes life much more convenient and fun.

All I am saying is stop the running account of your daily lives on line. The boring nonsensical dribble that spews out of these social sites on an hourly basis is more information than your stalker would probably want or need. Make sure you “friend” your actual friends on line. Follow the same rules you would use in your daily life in your cyber one, and live a happier safer life.

Conspiracy theorists conspire

2011-06-26T22:38:00.000-07:00

“The worst thing people can do is to find a connection where there is none. Sometimes a coincidence is just that, a coincidence.”

We live in a world veiled by a thin veneer of seemingly peaceful antics and benevolent actions orchestrated by the very people who would have us revert back to the war mongering and ritualistic human sacrifices of our barbaric ancestors. I know it seems a bit extreme to say that presidents, kings, queens and emperors still behave in this manner, but I contend that they absolutely do. The weapons have changed, but the tactics have remained the same. The blind devotion to antiquated concepts that only provide those who wield them with any real power still exists. The stakes are higher, the weapons of choice are more modern, thus deadlier, and the altar on which the offerings of sacrifice are being made is called democracy.

Just like the terrorists who refuse to meet and fight on the field of battle, instead choosing to attack civilian targets, so are these aristocratic elite afraid to play a game where the rules are even. To ensure their dominance, they must create rules for us to follow, and then disregard and even break those rules when it comes to their actions and tactics. They are essentially terrorists themselves. They employ the same tools that terrorists do. Deciding who is and who isn’t a terrorist is a game of semantics anyway. Fear is the tool that terrorists employ liberally. By making you afraid, they gain power. Our rulers do much the same. They ingrain in us through religion and political rhetoric that the absence of their rule will lead to chaos and anarchy. They use our fears to bolster their role as our leaders. The people that control the game of course do not want to give up their place as champions. They must use fear in order to maintain order. And the order they want to keep is their status on top, and the rest as their serfs. Whether it be through the use of economic, political, societal, or environmental fears that they evoke. They must make us believe that their existence in their role of dominant power is crucial to our survival.

History is riddled with factual accounts of conspiracies, assassinations, espionage, and political/military coups. The idea that they would cease to happen in today’s society because we have reached a more sophisticated, civil plateau as a species is just as ridiculous as you think I am for thinking that they do exist. I truly do not know why it is so hard for people to fathom that our government would lie to us. That the idea that politicians, policemen, priests, kings, or anyone really in any position of power would misuse it. It is in our human nature to do what is best for our own survival. Even in a civil society the first thing that must be established are laws and then a group of people to enforce them. Because if not, people will seek out ways to manipulate and take advantage of each other. We are at all times the un-evolved, hedonistic Neanderthals that used to drag our knuckles and inhabit caves. As long as we allow them to pacify us with rules that they don’t even adhere to in the name of a democracy that they truly don’t believe in themselves, we will continue to fall victim to their subterfuge.

Think about this, how easily are we placated by what our government says? We hear about a dangerous outbreak of E coli in our lettuce crop and stop eating it. Then, three days later the government says the problem is contained and that it’s okay to eat it again. Why? How? Are we supposed to believe them? I don’t think so, but we don’t want our lives disrupted so we convince ourselves that our government wouldn’t do anything to hurt us. Why are we so happy to get a thousand dollars back from the government come tax time? What about the billions of dollars banks and companies like GM got from us? Where is that money? I can’t get a loan from a bank with great credit, but these companies can borrow billions of dollars at a time after having lost billions more? But as long as our government officials tell us its okay, we carry on like happy docile little sheep.

Not all secrets should be shared

2011-06-26T22:37:00.000-07:00

We live in the century of information dissemination. The concepts of anonymity and privacy no longer exist, and based on social networks and public sharing forums people seem to have voluntarily given up these rights. But some of the secrets that are out there need to be kept. There is a scene from the movie Men in Black, where Will Smith discharges a weapon know as the Cricket. Only the Cricket does not share the characteristics of its namesake. It causes a huge explosion and a thunderous noise when he shoots it at the escaping alien. When Tommy Lee Jones’ character admonishes him for shooting it in public, he fires back that he needed to because “There is a space cruiser on the edge of the solar system about to blow up the planet.” To which Jones replies, “There is always a ship about to blow up the Earth. The only way life can continue to happen on this planet is that these people (pointing to the general populace) have no idea that it is happening.”

Our government is charged with protecting our borders, the American people, and our interests overseas and at home. They are responsible for making sure that the American way of life and the democracy and freedoms we enjoy continue to exist for generations to come. They must operate on the status that we are constantly at war, which essentially we are. They need to assess, address, engage, and be ready to impede all threats foreign and domestic rapidly and out of the "all seeing eye" of the public. These operations need to be secretive. For their own good, the American people should be kept in the dark about the majority of these operations. That is why they are called clandestine operations. We don't need terrorists cells turning on FOX News or CNN and finding out our military maneuvers or our politicians' travel itineraries. If we knew everything that was going on at all times, life would not be as free and as enjoyable as it is inside of America. We would constantly be worried about all of the threats and cataclysmic incidents that our governmental agencies need to prevent.

The truth is that the world is a dangerous place. An ally is a friend that finds it more beneficial to befriend you rather than attack you. But make no mistake about it, they will turn on us in heartbeat when it best serves their interest. As a nation, we are the Breakfast Club, the jock, the rocker, the nerd, and the prom queen all rolled into one. No one wants to be friends with the kid who sits in the corner and wets his pants. They all want to be friends with the jock for protection, with the hot girl for perception, the nerd for his education and the rocker for his power of improvisation. If you serve no purpose, there is usually no cause for a friendship. Thus inciting an enemy to attack. Fear, jealousy, a sense of weakness, or any host of other factors cause allies to become enemies.

Being the lone super power in the world today is like protecting a giant tree in the Amazon rain forest. The forest has been around a long tome, but right now we are the protectors of the tree, and there are forces at work that want to destroy that tree for a myriad of reasons. Many that want to destroy the tree want to because they are jealous that we are the current protectors of the tree, some just want the tree felled because its in the way, others want it torn down because they once had control of the tree and don’t like having lost control of it, and still more are just bullies who want to fight whoever lives in the tree. We have to protect it at all times from a host of threats, all the while ensuring the survival of the organisms that inhabit the tree as well as the tree itself. It is a tough arduous task that our government must at times perform in secrecy.

Slaves without chains

2011-06-26T22:35:00.000-07:00

“Heavy is the yoke of oppression borne on the back of the middle and lower classes”

How can we not all fall victim to envy of the glamorous and desirous lifestyle portrayed in movies and music videos of the wealthy? Who would not want to vacation in the tropics, have a closet filled with more French and Italian names than the Norton/Simon, or live the life of a jet setter as you zoom around the globe on your private plane from Singapore to Morocco to Monte Carlo where beautiful strangers escort you from your custom Bugatti to your high-limit table complete with scantily clad Playmate croupier and dubious player donning a sinister eye patch? But the reality of the situation is this, no one, not even the people that do those things can afford them. The tragedy is that we all pretend to be able to live these lifestyles made famous in “reality” shows and music videos in order to keep up the modern “Sex in the City” appearance of success and happiness. It is a vicious circle of spend, spend, spend, as we rapidly incur a huge volume of debt and slowly fit ourselves with a financial yoke that will reside around our necks for decades to come. The spending of today will basically ensure that we will be working till we are dead just to pay off the debt we have incurred.

This is not a unique enterprise that only happens in the US. It is something that has occurred for thousands of years and will continue to exist well into this new millennium if we don’t do something about it. It is a form of financial slavery which ties people to their jobs and has them working to pay for things they could never have afforded in the first place. This new age slavery has a name, and that name is debt bondage. The thousand dollars spent on a guy/girls trip to Vegas 2 years ago has now translated to triple that and you still are only paying the interest of it off. What is happening in America happens all over the world. Maybe not to the opulent extent that it does here, but it does occur on levels that are more subtle. People needing to buy a mule to plow their field, money needed to pay for an irrigation system to bring clean water to their farm, or even money needed to pay for a house. Debt bondage has many names, faces, and forms, but they all share one thing in common, and that is the exploitation of the people by a financial establishment that is built upon the concept of serf and lord; where one “master” benefits from the labor of his loyal “subjects.”

That is not to say that some people do not find themselves in the precarious positions they do because of their own greed and stupidity. But most people that are caught up in this relentless and unyielding cycle of debt bondage find themselves there because they were just trying to survive. They are not trying to mimic the jet setters and the celebrities they idolize. No, they are just trying to put a roof over their heads, gas in their cars, and food on the table. They are trying to live the American Dream, but that dream has been rendered into a nightmare based on the malicious acts of banks and credit card companies with their lending practices. They set up the stakes and create an environment where the average person will ultimately be mired down in the bog of debt bondage.

Slavery is a violation of a person’s most basic human right, to benefit from one’s own labor--the right to own and control one’s body, to use and control he rewards of their labor and make and act on their own decisions—Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Someone has to pay the piper

2011-06-26T22:11:00.000-07:00

I am sick and tired of all of the Barrack Obama detractors. Listen up Americans, I am going to say it one more time, “He is your president come hell or high water. You might not have voted for him, but if you are an American citizen you need to support him.” You have done so much to undermine his presidency from questioning his citizenry ad nauseum, to his religion, which shouldn’t matter anyway since the whole Constitution, bill of rights freedom of religion thing. Of course I have a feeling that was all just rhetoric and conjecture same as the idea that his race is not the reason for all of this scrutiny and perfunctory skepticism. America didn’t prove in the 2008 election that they were no longer racists by electing him, they proved that sexism reigns supreme in this grand land of ours. In the hierarchy of “isms” in the world, sexism trumps racism every time. Thank goodness the male ego is so fragile. Or we might be under the mighty and wise reign of Palin the conqueror. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

The best way to explain what is happening with our current presidency is to use the following analogy. George Bush was the child who was told to clean his room, his room being America. Instead of living up to his responsibilities, he decided to shirk his duties and throw all of our shit in the closet pretending that the room was clean. The American people are the over indulgent fat lazy mom who popped her head into the room and took a quick cursory look around and congratulated him on a job well done. While all the while the mess is bulging out of the closet about to burst out. When he finally leaves the room and the dad walks in to open the door and see what all the creaking and cracking is, the closet explodes and all of his mess comes cascading down. Now the dad is forced to clean up the mess, and since mom already told little Georgie to go outside and play, and doesn’t want to help clean up the mess herself, leaves it to the dad to tidy up. Well dad in this case is Obama and his administration. They are doing all they can to mend the mistakes of the previous administration and to help move this “household” into a successful and bright tomorrow.

The detractors, nay sayers, right-wing kooks and mudslingers need to get on board with this presidency and essentially this nation. America is in a place we haven’t found ourselves in since we became the lone super power on this planet, and that is on the precipice of our demise at our own hands. We don’t have to worry about terrorists from other nations, we need to be concerned about the people in this country that could care less about the American public and are more interested in their own self interests. This happened once before in our history and it took a Civil War to bring us out of it. I hope that we have learned something from our own history and decide to come together as a nation and put away our differences and allow our duly-elected leader to do his job, which is to lead us.

Don't put your Weiner away

2011-06-26T21:51:00.000-07:00

In today’s fast moving world of smart phones, GPS, instant news updates, social messaging, and the wildly dynamic political landscape domestic and abroad, it is no wonder that so many people have fallen victim to the ever present pitfalls of this, the age of “Information Overload.” Musicians, cinematic stars, bored drugged out heiresses, C-list celebrities, and of course politicians have all been ensnared in the proliferation of stupidity that is social networking and broadcasting on the Internet. They use of instantaneous updates, tweeting for twits, and constant updates of people's daily routines seems like the favorable medium of choice for this new era. They, like so many of us, are reaching out to the public because the positions that we as a society have exalted them to, makes them want to embrace their pseudo-celebrity-ism. So can we really be too surprised when they get caught up in quagmires of their own vices of interaction with us, their public?

Anthony Weiner is not the poster child for modesty. He is absolutely in no way my ideal for what I would have my politicians do with their personal lives. But then again, who am I really to judge what someone does with their personal life? If we were to look at what doctors, lawyers, judges, garbage men, dry cleaners, or anyone for that matter, do with their personal time I think we would find that none of us measure up to the imaginary yard stick of propriety that the conservative media employs every time there is an unseemliness in the liberal governance. What I find most intriguing about all of the hoopla and hollering is that none of it has anything to do with them not doing their jobs or committing a crime. It is not like the head of the anti-gay rights church group was caught with a paid same sex escort. And it’s not as if it were the actions of a public official committing salacious acts with a minor. Nor is it the president of the USA who admits to lying in order to wage 2 wars and openly bragged about torturing prisoners contrary to articles in the Geneva Convention. No, what those all have in common is that these examples are all real, that they are all crimes that should have been prosecuted, and that they were all committed by members of the “conservative” GOP party.

People are going to do what they are going to do with their personal lives. Was Bill Clinton wrong for cheating on Hilary? Hell yes. That is not what a married man should do. But did a hummer from Ms. Lewinsky in anyway affect his ability to do his job as president? No, no it didn’t. It did serve to distract the public when the conservative right used this one misstep to try to defile what turned out to be a great 8-year presidency. I don’t care what your political affiliation is, the 8 years he was president of the United States the economy, the US’s image abroad and domestic, and the United States as a whole were stellar. Even though most loyal GOPist want to give credit to Regan era policies coming to fruition. But then everything with Republicans is Regan. Wiener was absolutely wrong for doing what he did as far as his marriage goes. Or maybe he wasn’t. I don’t know what kind of arrangement he and his wife have. That is between them, not us. But seeing as how he didn’t break a law, nor did this have any bearing on how well he was able to do his job, I don’t think people should have been so quick to crucify the man’s career. Of all the crimes that are committed by politicians that actually have to do with deceiving the public, taking bribes, passing legislation that benefits their lobbyist and not their constituents, lying to the public, misappropriation of government funds, and a whole litany of other atrocities, adultery ranks pretty low on the “not able to perform their job” scale.

It isn't that I do not expect people that are in positions of power to hold themselves to a higher moral standard than the rest of us. It is that I expect people to understand that these people are in fact just that, people. We expect our heroes, stars, and idols to act admirably even though we like them for doing just the opposite. Men and women in government have a responsibility to the people that they represent to act in a way that is appropriate to the position they hold. But their job is not synonymous with their actions. If they know the laws and are able to articulate what their citizens need, then they have accomplished what they are elected for. But their private lives are still their private lives. In order to be a politician, one must be a huge megalomaniac. The ones that commit crimes should be prosecuted regardless of party affiliation, but the ones that like to have sex out of wedlock with a legally-aged-whomever, should be left alone. Their wives, the court system, and their wives' attorneys will make sure they PAY for what they have done. Until then, let them put their weiners wherever they want, as long as they put our best interests first.

Into everyone's life a little rain must fall

2011-06-17T06:38:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while you meet someone who is so emotionally, physically, or mentally disturbed that you can't believe if they are really that way or just acting. Most times when you see someone exhibiting these characteristics, they are mumbling to themselves on the bus, drooling on themselves in the corner at the mall, being led around by a caregiver doing the inverted foot shuffle, or alone in the their house of 40+ cats, rocking on a chair, combing their ankle-length hair. You assume that a functioning, walking, talking, person who suffered from any of these ailments would be instantly recognizable. You talk to them, you eat dinner with them, you think to yourself, "This person is normal or at least as close to normal as one can be." Never in a million years would I think I would be living with one of these walking, talking, functioning tards.

I recently moved into a 2 bedroom apartment with this seemingly normal, yet socially awkward, Hungarian couple in Maroubra Beach. Things seemed a little off right away, but I figured it was because they were from an Eastern block country and hadn't grasped all the nuances of the western culture. I first started noticing the warning signs by the way she walked around as if her shit didn't stink. Only it did, bad, like all of ours does. She would talk down to her husband, try to one-up anything you said, and would stand over you and tell you how to do everything. She didn't really get all over my radar until she was complaining about how I used the pot she claimed she paid $400 for. No, it is not that kind of pot we are talking about either. I am talking about a standard run of the mill $40 1 qt pot that she claimed was the most expensive and delicate piece of cooking equipment she owned. I of course failed to mention that my first night in the house she burned a glass casserole pan so bad that she couldn't even scrape the char off of it. She has no clue about how to cook or the proper use of cooking instruments, whatever that means, let alone how to advise other people how to cook. Besides, how do you use a pot wrong? Was I running around wearing it on my head, banging it with a wooden spoon singing, "I wanna be an air born ranger?" No I wasn't. It was just sitting on the back burner steaming my rice.

Then while I was watching Master Chef in the living room, she walked in, grabbed the remote, and turned the channel. I looked at her with a look of disbelief on my face. I assumed she was just pranking me. Nope. I was done watching the show, but thought it a bit rude. She had just walked in and said that she wanted to watch her TV program. Not wanting to rock the boat, I let it slide. But when it happened again a few nights later, where she actually took the remote from my hand, I asked her what the hell she thought she was doing. If she had been a man, my foot would have been finding a new home in her ass. She claimed since their room was smaller than ours that the living room (the sofa, TV, and coffee table) was theirs. I told her half the apartment is being paid for by me, so, no. She insisted that she could do what she wanted because it was her TV, and if she wanted to grab the controller from my hands and change the channel, she could. Her place, her stuff, her rules. And I was a fool to think otherwise. Yeah, that's it, I'm the one fooling myself. This little Injun was completely off the reservation.

Every night, I had been waking up wheezing, my eyes burning, almost like pink eye, and patches of red itchiness on my eyes and my arms. I looked for every causation of my newly developed allergies. The only thing allowing me any relief from the puffy eyes, scratchy throat, and itchines were the little white Clariton pills. I vacuumed, I cleaned, I rewashed all of the sheets, I did everything conceivable. Then one night while I was eating dinner, my roommate came home sick, coughing all over the kitchen and living room which is next to the dining room and started to light an oil burner filled with eucalyptus oil. Almost immediately all of the symptoms came at once. I asked her what she was burning. She told me what it was and that she used it in all of her cleaning products and on everything in the house because, "It kills all germs and prevents you from getting sick." I told her that this was the cause of my allergies and that she needed to stop burning it post haste. She told me, and I quote "You can't be allergic to it, because it is natural." Did I mention that she is studying to get her doctorate in Botany. She's currently in her 10th year at the uni. First I asked if she was serious, because no one with any science background is this stupid. I explained to her millions upon millions of people are allergic to grass, and grass is pretty natural. Nope, she wouldn't be dissuaded. I went into my room and she lit it again anyway. Needless to say I didn't sleep again that night. This was 12 days into our living together, and I decided it was going to be the last.

When I confronted her with all of this, she of course denied it all. Said that I had damaged her pot, that it was only fair that the living room which is supposed to be communal was theirs since it was their apartment, and that she didn't think I was trustworthy as a roommate because I expected to use "their" things. Apparently this woman has never had a roommate. When I first moved in she told me stories about a German roommate who tried to stab her, another roommate who had slept with her boyfriend at the time, how one couple wouldn't interact with them, and how other roommates she's had didn't really like talking to her. She said it was because she was Hungarian. No lady, it's because you're a horrible person and a poor excuse for a human being. This wasn't all by coincidence. Obviously she doesn't seem to understand that being a spoiled, childish, selfish, bat-shit crazy bitch doesn't win the loyalty or friendship of a lot of people. My last order of business with her was to tell her all of this before I left. She almost burst into tears and her husband, who is a buck fifty soaking wet did nothing because I would have made change out of his ass.

The moral to the story kids, is to trust your instincts. I could feel there was something off about this chick when I moved in, but the allure of living at the beach overrode my sensibility. Oh, and only a freaking idiot pays $400 dollars for a pot.

Intellect by association

2011-06-15T14:33:00.000-07:00

I watched a few episodes of the show Big Bang Theory last night to see what all the hype was about. All it did was to strengthen my assertion that there are no good shows on network television any more. The droll humor, the off-putting tone and delivery of their dialogue intended to convey the level of their intelligence, and the overall disdain for everyone but their nerd brethren made me sad to have an IQ over 90. If I were like the rest of the audience, I would be too stupid to realize they are making fun of them. The audience believes that because since they are able to follow the dialogue and the humor of the characters in the show that they are as smart as the people the actors are portraying. But, they are not the characters they are watching. They share none of their characteristics other than their awkward social skills, their desire to stay in rather than go out, and their misguided belief that they are some how superior to the masses. They are actually the stupid people they are referencing in the show. It is the delusion that by watching a show about super smart nerds and finding it funny that they are smart too that I find the most humorous about it.

I understand that people watch TV to escape. They want to kick back with a cold one, a slice of pizza, and turn the brain off for a few hours while they recharge their batteries after a hard day's work. But escape to a place better than this. This is analogous to jumping out of the frying pan and into, umm, a child sized room with the lamest, most socially inept people that you know. And, that room is on fire. Actually that is a bad analogy, because in it your pain and suffering subside faster than the 30 minutes it takes for an episode of BBT to play out. The more accolades that this show racks up, the more seasons it's going to stay on TV vicariously allowing people to think they too are as smart as the witless dialogue being uttered by these characters on BBT. Which, I might mention, is aptly named since through out the episodes I watched, I was hoping that the universe would once again "expand" at an exponential rate creating temperatures in excess of 1 billion (10 to the 9th power)degrees Kelvin, so hot in fact that atoms couldn't even form, thus ending the torture that was watching this show.

This apparent "intellect by association" or better yet observation is laughable. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are just as dumb as they have always been. The main purpose for watching this show, well, any show for that matter, is still to be fodder for the advertising executives who so desperately want you to sit and stare at the TV as long as you can. And then after they have inundated you with enough subliminal and repetitive product placement, they wait for you to run out and buy their products.

The people that watch this show are the same kind of people that thought the pedantic haughty humor of Frasier was lined with sophistication and wit. It wasn’t and this show isn't either. Sure, it had some funny one-liners and some well-timed banter, but mostly it was pompous and smug, same as Big Bang Theory. The idea that people get their self-worth and measure their intellect based on a TV show only goes to lower my already dwindling opinion of human beings. Once again the network that brings us this little gem lives up to its name since we all get to CBS.

They truly are masterly debating

2011-06-14T00:51:00.000-07:00

The political debates for the 7 front runners vying for the GOP nomination to run against Obama in 2012 were held last night in New Hampshire and did exactly what this awful platform of meeting the candidates does. The focus of these debates should have been, an introduction of the political candidates themselves, how they plan on bolstering the power of the executive office, and what they would do if elected to help find effective change for policies that are not to their liking, while continuing to have the American people in mind. Instead they used this time not to debate the issues, but to demoralize, discredit, and disparage the person who holds that current office because of his political affiliation. They are attacking Obama, the person as an extension of the policies he has implemented to fix the current quagmire America finds itself in. Instead of offering suggestions that aren’t generic rhetoric on how to amend what they don’t like, they are offering up slanderous accusations and preposterous hyperbole to diminish the job that he has done as president. When this happens, they are not just showing how low political debates have fallen, but they are in essence chipping away at the very foundation of the American political system, and at America as well.

The fact that we are in different political parties does not mean we are at war with one another. We are not enemies, we are in fact the same soldiers, fighting the same war, but have different ideas on how to reach our objectives. At least, that is what it should be. Never should one soldier purposely sabotage another. What our political party system is, however, is as far from one filled with cooperation and mutual effort as it can be. With the system as it is today political opposition means that there are two separate objectives being fought over, instead of one goal with two pathways to reach it.

What should happen once party lines are drawn and issues are debated is that the policies enacted should help build a stronger America, no matter how the consensus is reached. The goal being that the reason issues are fiercely debated, policies scrupulously dissected and redisected, and decisions meticulously analyzed by political pundits is for the sake of the American people getting the best from their judicious government. The government should not be the playground of a few political puppets vying for position in office to effect policy on behalf of their benefactors in order to help whatever corporation is the puppeteer pulling their strings. Equally as bad are the politicians that are doing it solely for the ego boost and status that they think the position of being a political official gives them.

It’s okay to criticize the current presidential administration. In fact it is important and the right and duty of every American to criticize every elected official. Remember, they hold the position they do because it is their job to represent us, the people. If we don’t like what they are saying on our behalf then it is our responsibility to get rid of them. Somewhere in the last century the idea of publicly elected official elected to serve the common good has bastardized itself into some kind of neo-oligarchical rule where the elected officials have taken to the notion that they belong to some elevated strata of aristocracy that gives them carte blanche to do and say whatever they damn well please. Well this is one American who is absolutely fed up with this misuse of power. I am mad at them, but I hold the whole of America in contempt, because when it comes time to make these people pay you would rather sit on your ass and let someone else deal with it than to actually take the time from your busy schedule to do a little research and select the candidate that will best represent you. People spend more time deliberating over which picture to make their profile photo on Facebook than they do looking at which candidates are running for office, which judges will preside in their jurisdiction, and the measures and propositions that keep squeezing more and more money from their pockets.

It is time that we join the debate of who should run our country. We should take an interest in who should represent us in Washington, in our courtrooms, in our cities, and in our towns. We can ill afford to have another 8 years like the ones that proceeded Obama where lies became our governments platform for communicating with us and for us in the world. “We the people of the United States,” are a team, and if we don’t pull together to heal the wounds of political differences and economic striation, we are going to unravel as individuals of a divided nation.

Leave King james Alone

2011-06-13T19:50:00.000-07:00

Since when did it become the American way to always cheer for the under dog? Why can’t we cheer for the guy who is dominant, is he not worthy of our adoration? Why is it that the ones with the most talent are always vilified, the guys with the nicest cars, that date the prettiest women, the women with the best bodies, or the prettiest voices, why is it that we cheer for them to fail, and once they have, then and only then can cheer we for them when they have become pariahs?

Remember those videos of the African Savannah that they used to show on PBS or in your high school biology class of the pride of lionesses chasing the gazelles? They run into the pack in a triangle formation trying to startle and separate the weakest from the rest of the pack. From there it is a game of chase and dodge until either a gazelle is dead or the pride goes hungry. There are some excellent shots in slow motion of the gazelle narrowly escaping a swat from one of the lioness’s paws and a spray of dirt is kicked up into the air as they so deftly change directions seemingly in one move, and you exhale a sigh of relief and hold onto your hopeful notion that the gazelle might actually get away. Not me. I seemed to be the only one cheering for the lions. They are beautiful graceful creatures. Of course they are also deadly killing machines that have evolved and honed their skills over hundreds of thousands of years. And now their sleek, agile forms must hunt for survival. They deserve to be praised and admired because of all the animals in the jungle, they made it to the top. It is not like the NBA or NFL where the loser goes home and has another shot next year. Nope. The winners survive and thrive, and the losers become extinct.

Do you think you have what it takes to be a lion? Of course you don’t. Think of that gazelle as a quarter-pounder with cheese. A quarter-pounder that can outrun your fat ass any day of the week. And then where would you be? Hungry eating vegetables or any other thing you could gather, because in this society most of us are not hunters. You know, McDonalds should probably implement a program where you have to chase your food. That way maybe you will have actually worked off the 800-calorie burger you are about to shove into your fat, gluttonous face, then wash it down with a 1200-calorie shake. That way you don’t end up on the Biggest Loser blaming society, genetics, and your busy schedule for your high blood pressure, your saggy man tits, and your size equator jeans.

The truth of the matter is that the meek shall not inherit the Earth. The strong take what they want, because there is no one to stop them. However they should do so only enough to quench their appetites. They should not thin the herd so much as to cause a food shortage. Perhaps there is much we can learn from lions. I believe it was a lion that explained to a young Simba this delicate balance in nature of consume and restore when he told him of the “Circle of Life.” The lion truly is king. And “It’s good to be the King.”

Putting the human back into humanity

2011-06-11T17:13:00.000-07:00

Just when I thought there was no hope left for human kind, when all that was nice and decent was gone, zapped out of us by our own myopic design, our self indulged internet whoring of our daily schedules and thoughts, and our bloated, gluttonous self worth and contempt for others, a story like this reminds me that maybe there is a glimmer of hope left for humanity after all. Johnathan Taylor, a college baseball player from the Georgia Bulldogs, was drafted by the Texas Rangers in this year’s draft. Why, you may ask is a player being drafted by a professional team an inspiring, uplifting story? Well, the reason why this story inspires hope is because the young man in question was paralyzed after breaking his neck earlier this year when he collided with a teammate going for a fly ball.

On the fateful afternoon in March, his chances of playing in the professional league diminished from highly probable to absolute zero. His focus went from being able to play in the big leagues to being able to move his body again. The prospect of him being able play baseball again was the furthest thing from his mind when he was informed in his physical therapy that the Rangers selected him. With the 37th overall pick Zach Cone, the teammate that he collided with, was selected by the Texas Rangers. Then in the 33rd round the Texas Rangers selected Taylor. Kip Fagg, the Rangers scout who had been scouting Taylor before the accident, said that he had the potential to be a top prospect for the club, it was unfortunate about his accident, and they thought that he deserved this honor. I couldn’t agree more. The 33rd round is pretty much the dredges for teams selecting baseball talent, but to use it to help lift the spirits of a young man who had dedicated his life to baseball and suffered a freak accident, is truly the greatest use of any of their picks.

The Rangers are in the AL West, which makes them direct rivals of my California Angels. But in the future I will holdout a little bit of cheering for this very thoughtful, inspiring organization. Whomever is running this team, thank you for doing what you have done to spread a little bit of hope to this young man and give him some support as he travels down a very difficult road in this part of his life. You are setting the example for major league teams demonstrating how the actions of a major organization in sports can make a difference in people’s lives.

Monopoly isn’t just a game, it’s the American way of life

2011-06-10T16:01:00.000-07:00

What does it take for the American people to sit up and take notice that the major companies in our country are pitting us against one another while they rob us blind? It has been the way of kings, sultans, emperors, and dictators for millennia to create rifts between the people so that they focus on combating each other rather than on the corrupt shenanigans that their leaders were committing against them. But now the power structure has shifted. It is no longer the kings, emperors, and presidents, as we know them, with the power, it is their financiers that have all the clout. They are using policy makers, politicians, lobby groups, and of course the media to delude us with false information, while they blatantly lie to our faces and audaciously break our laws to reach the ends they want.

There is no such thing as racism, communism, religious persecution, or gay marriage as real political platforms to be debated. These have all been creations of kings and depots hoping to divide the proletariat and plebeians they fear from rising up and taking what is rightfully all of ours to share. These have always just been ploys used to divert our attention away from what is really happening. And our country is no different. I say our country because it is the fact that this country is filled with the diverse, eclectic, freedom seeking, idealist, fearless millions of people that give us our strength.

If you don’t believe me that this is happening, all you have to do is look in the news at what is going on lately. One unconcealed example of this rampant corruption is Meredith Baker. She was the president of the FCC, the commission that is supposed to protect us from companies engaging in unfair mergers and acquisitions and forming monopolies. Well she became very outspoken about not only allowing, but in expediting the rapid merger of Comcast and NBC, which would give them an unfair, almost monopoly-type share of the broadcasting world. Then she resigned from the FCC to become the president and CEO of that very company. Coincidence? No. Unethical? Yes. Illegal? Well, it should be, but she is laughing it up all the way to the bank. And this is not an isolated incident.

So is this what a free market looks like, corruption of government agencies to do as one pleases? Is this what freedom means to the corporations that are pushing for less governmental interference? That is not a free market. A free market is never truly free because there are still rules and regulations. The people that are supporters of a free market economy and that sing its praises are the ones that want rules removed that limit their ability to manipulate an already corrupt system. Every company wants to eliminate its competition and have the entire market to themselves for their respective product. Then they are left to set the prices themselves thus eliminating the true price setting curves of a competitive free market system. They want to have a monopoly so that they, in essence, can become the market and set prices. It is every business’s goal to reach this point. This is what the holy grail of every business’s 20-year projection should be. They all want to have complete and total control of the market for their product. As the heads of companies, that is what their job should be. Just as it is the necessary duty of the government to curtail their attempted domination. These companies are like a hungry baby or a newborn puppy. Left to their own devices their desire to feed and nourish themselves will not be quenched until they have consumed so much that they have caused injury to themselves or to the teat from which they are sucking. They must be forced to stop since they can and will not do so on their own recognizance. And that is where the government should step in. Unfortunately, they have decided that there is room for them as well on the teat, and we as the tax payers and consumers are being sucked dry.

Home of the free, land of the nihilistic

2011-06-09T04:02:00.000-07:00

Americans want to believe that the government should not take away the freedoms set forth in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and it’s Bill of Rights, which are the pillars of justice upon which this great nation of ours is built. They want to enjoy the protection of a government that gives them the freedom to do what they want without the restrictiveness of an oppressive government telling them what they can and cannot do. However, our system of government only works when we concede some of our “freedoms” to ensure that the unalienable rights of all are granted and protected. The idea of true freedom, of true self-reliance goes against the concept of forming a democratic government in the first place.

What is freedom and how does one define it? True freedom is lawlessness. It is anarchy. In my youth the idea of anarchy that was prevalent in the rebellious punk rock songs and counter culture sentiment I subscribed to seemed like a good idea. Raging against the machine, going against the establishment, sticking it to the man, and fighting for the rights to do as we pleased. But if we were to believe the old adage, “Beware what you wish for because you just might get it,” we will see that asking for something and getting it are entirely two different things. If we wanted to see a preview of what true freedom looks like in a real world setting all we would have to do is look at what is happening currently in places like Africa, the Middle East, and parts of southern Asia. Those countries are experiencing true freedom from government, and look how wonderful their lives are. If we want to revert back to a state of nature, then we should absolutely restrict governmental controls. Stop the government from protecting its people. More people are hurt in America and in most civilized countries by the pen being wielded by greedy corporations than despots wielding guns in the third world. Actually when you think about it they might just be the same people, just wearing different uniforms and going by different names.

The beauty of truth, is whether it's good or bad, it's liberating