WOW - long time no waste time...

...been a while since I wrote last. I suppose that has to do with having to actually do things like work and videogames as opposed to boondoggling here.

I kid...

In all honesty, I have been almost AVOIDING the news lately, so I really have not had much to say about anything in the world that does not directly affect me.

With that said, I hope that the media is happy. They have successfully emasculated Barry Bonds home runs record (most home runs by a left-handed batter in history) and reduced Mr. Bonds to cameos on Hollywood Squares later in life...

And to be honest, that is certainly sad. Whether Bonds used steroids or not is really not worth anything as the reality is that the drug wasn't even illegal in baseball until 2003 (oddly, MLB thought it would be good to ban them AFTER they saw Bonds hit 72 homers in the prior season - no motivation to do it after McGwire hit 70 though). As far as ANYONE should be concerned, Bonds' numbers are legit and unless someone has PROOF that Bonds was juicing after the 2002 season - again, when steroids actually became illegal - the scrutiny that Bonds is under is nothing more than a bullshit stunt to discredit yet another black player who has surpassed the "Mighty Whitey" Babe Ruth...

Yeah, I said it.

The problem in baseball is the SAME problem that is affecting all American sports, namely, there has been a massive paradigm shift in the amount of people that watch and play these sports. Baseball is predominantly played, both in the stadiums and in the playgrounds, by minorities. However, the group of people that most regularly watches these games is still the typical corn-fed white American.

This is a problem as the question invariably gets asked "What happened to the white players?" Compounding the issue in baseball is the large amount of Latin American players that have made their way into the league in the last decade, as well as the reality that Asian players are also having an impact on the league.

For pure fans, all of this amounts to the MLB being the best league in the world, and it is a cetain boon to the game having the best players...

...however, for a good deal many more fans (of which there is a certain percentage that is still mad that blacks can sit anywhere on a bus) they want to see their kids playing for the Yankees and not Mariano Rivera or Hideki Matsui. These are the people that refuse to acknowledge that while Hank Aaron holds the MLB record for home runs, Sadohara Oh holds the record for lifetime home runs in ANY league having hit nearly 100 MORE HRs than Aaron (ironically, these people will also be the ones that debate the point that Aaron had more at-bats than Ruth, and that Ruth is still the best home run hitter ever).

This is the same issue that has recently surfaced in the NBA. David Stern has made every effort to remove the "hip-hop" element from basketball in an effort to sell more tickets at games. Dress codes, Andrea Bocelli, et. al. have all been an effort to get more people into the seats at games.

The answer to all of this is simple - "red" Americans need to grow the fuck up. These two leagues are the two BEST leagues in the world. Here in the United States we have the BEST to view, which means that we are not always going to have teams full of white guys - get over it!

There is always minor league baseball and college baseball if people want to watch white players - but based on the attendance of these games, I would have to argue that maybe people are not as concerned about the color of the skin of a player when they consider the value of the entertainment...

I like Bill Maher, but...

He and the rest of these "on the fence" people need to land on one side already.

In the case of Maher, I am so sick of his "rooting for the win" stance that it borders on insanity. The reality is that while winning is always good, it is counter productive to the environmental issues that Maher champions, and I think that he is too smart to not know that.

Which begs the question of whether he is full of shit when he talks about the environment. The reality is that a win in Iraq means that the U.S. has a fast track to oil in that country and a big ol' middle finger to the resto of the Middle East and OPEC.

You see, Michael Moore DID bring to light one thing that is wholly accurate in his film/rant on George W. and that was the issue of oil. Afghanistan's importance was always known and that is why we helped the mujihadeen in the late 70s and 80s fend off the Soviets. Yeah, it was a big win in the Cold War (and many would argue that it was THE win in the Cold War that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall), but it was a bigger win in the U.S.' quest to find another source of oil.

Many people forget that the 70s marked an era of soaring fuel prices in this country - the likes of which we only now have been reminded of. The Soviets more than likely had the same problem, and isn't it funny that they made an effort to go into Afghanistan and tired hard to push their influence in the Middle East as well? The Iraqi Air Force has MiG fighter jets, which aren't made in the U.S....

The troubles in the Middle East and our involvement in the said troubles ALWAYS have stemmed from oil. If I were more of a pessimist, I would argue that the only reason why Israel exists is to keep a country that is on our side in the mix of things over there - but I am not that pessimisitc.

Mr. Maher has made some very serious and well thought arguments in regard to the environment, and I think he is right about them. When he says that global warming is a national security issue, I am like "Right on, man!". But then, how could we support a war for more fossil fuels that only serve to help destroy our environment?

But Bill is the least of the people that should be chided for this... what about the whole Democratic party? Are they supposed to be more "eco-friendly" than the Republican dinosaurs in Washington? While I respect that they are the absolute minority in Congress, I know that guys like Malcom X and Martin Luther King. Jr. affected change and they were in a REAL minority fighting a tougher fight.

First off, why is John Edwards the only Democrat who can find his balls long enough to make a mea culpa? I feel like Howard Dean was made chairman of the party to help keep him quiet, as the Democrats have somehow managed to remain spineless on both the war and the environment.

So, Bill Maher, if you actually read my blog ever in the next couple of years (because we all know that the war will still be raging on then) do me a favor and understand that a war for oil can not work in concert with your pleas for the government to clean up the environment...

Genocide...

This morning as I watched the Today show in a quite hurried fashion, I happened to catch the following revellation:

There is a genocide going on in Dharfur...

Interesting.

Well I am here to tell you to be a little cynical of this. Crazy huh - being a cynic about something so serious. But let us all step back from the emotion for a second and understand ONE thing - there can't be good guys without bad guys. The United States has romanticized its role on the planet since the Manifest Destiny, and has continued to do so via men like Jackson, Sherman, Grant, Roosevelt (x2), Wilson, Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, and right on up through Colin Powell, and Stormin' Norman. When we did not have the hero in politics and war, we have had John Wayne play the part on television.

America loves the good guy.

So in order for us to play this part, we need a villian. We need a Slobodan Milosovic. We need a Hitler, a Hussein. Without these chumps, we would simply be another group of jerkoffs that think our country is the best - we have to PROVE we are the best.

In this light consider what is going on in Sudan. The information that has been disseminated about the conflict has been somewhat sparse, and in most cases as been presented as the "bad guys" going into villages and killing the men and raping the women...

...which is a sad story, and I have no doubt that it is happening. But, it is very akin to the story of Serbia, is it not? Oddly, that was ALSO sold to us as genocide, when in FACT it was not at all genocide.

Consider the definition of the word:

"The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group."

The problem in Serbia was that Milosovic was engaged in a WAR with Bosnia, and then a civil war of its own. By its very nature, one side is trying to eliminate the other in war - so the question begs to be raised, "Is war genocide?"

The answer is no.

Genocide is lacing blankets with small pox and giving them to freezing Native Americans in the Plains...

Genocide is taking people from their homes in Africa and making them work fields on another continent some 5 thousand miles away...

Genocide is taking people from their homes in the middle of the night and placing them in camps where they work to death and have their body parts used in household items...

What happened in Bosnia and Serbia was the result of a civil war. In all of this media bullshit, everyone somehow forgot that Yugoslavia is not even on the map anymore. It was no accident - and these wars were no accident either.

Why is it that no one said "genocide" when we did the EXACT same thing to the Vietnamese in the late sixties and early seventies? Is it not genocide to drop more bombs on Hanoi and North Vietnam than were dropped in ALL of World War Two by the United States?

My feeling is that there is a war going on in Sudan, and as a result the use of the word genocide is a bit of a stretch. I believe that the media wants us to be the good guy again, and based on their success in the former Yugoslavia, think that they can get another story in East Africa. I hope that they are wrong, because sacrificing American men and women for battles that need not be fought is FAR from heroic, and makes OUR government the villian...

What is Bill Cosby on?

http://www.waxy.org/archive/2006/03/03/litigati.shtml

The above link is what motivated this rant...

I grew up watching the Cosby show, and until recently I had never realized what the show was on a sociological level, and that Bill Cosby had an agenda.

Y'see, Bill has since gone on to buy the rights to shows like The Little Rascals and take them out of circulation as he views them as bad for Black America. In his view, characters like Stymie and Buckwheat are not what Black America should be subjected to, and that The Little Rascals was actually racist in its nature...

...let's forget that the show depicted young black AND white kids playing together with NO racial strife between them. The show ROUTINELY showed kids getting into trouble and doing things that kids simply do no matter what color they are, and the show NEVER played the race card with regard to the children.

Instead of focusing on that, we are going to focus on the historically accurate depiction of what Stymie and Buckwheat's parents did for a living - you know because in the roaring twenties, every Black in America was Joe Louis, or Duke Ellington, and they all lived in swinging Harlem. Cosby needs a reality check on that...

Which brings me to the Cosby Show itself. While entertaining, I think that many people missed the point that Cosby was driving at with the show:

Cosby's depiction of his television family represented his ideal of Blacks living like Whites...

Which is NOT a bad thing. Though, the reality is that not every Black is a doctor, and such a lifestyle for Blacks in America is not an easy goal to set.

I think that Bill forgets that he has a GED (he dropped out of High School), and that he eventually got an ATHLETIC scholarship to Temple University through serendipity and the Navy. Has Bill Cosby ever considered his life hinges on a lot of CHANCE? Has he considered that he lucked out, and that many Black families do not?

I agree with his view that only the Blacks in this country can do anything to help the situation, but for him to act like hundreds of years of discrimination have not played a role in the situation that many Blacks find themselves in America, is at best a view that is not sensitive to the realities of life for many people.

But I do not think that he is a Civil Rights Leader or anything along that line. I think that the lawsuit that I pointed to in the beginning shows Bill's true colors. Bill Cosby is simply about Bill Cosby. If you recall his career, Cosby was damn near an Uncle Tom until recently - which I am sure has nothing to do with his books and movies that he is writing.

No one sees the irony of him writing the Fat Albert script for the 2004 movie, and the fact that he has taken The Little Rascals off television? You know because it is better to show poor Black kids hanging around a junkyard with other poor black kids... thinking back to the little I saw of that AWFUL movie, I do not recall to many parts played by White folk - so what is Bill telling us?

Bill Cosby needs to go away and let America grow on its own. While Cosby has made some interesting points about race, I believe that they are self-serving at best and no one is listening one way or another. The fact that he would sue to have a parody of him removed from a website demonstrates what is important to Bill Cosby.

He will always be remembered as a brilliant actor, and perhaps he should consider that before his next PR stunt...

This week's assholes...

I figure that for the few, if any people out there that are going to read my musings, I should offer some continuity...

...each Wednesday, I am going to offer to you my listing of assholes for the week. Now I want to put out there what an asshole is, for those who may think that they know what an asshole is. An asshole is someone is more than capable of knowing better, and in many cases does know better, and regardless of this does something assinine. The guy making the right from the left lane is not always an asshole - though more often than not they are...

Anyway, let's get started with the assholes for this week...

Bode Miller - look, I have said this before and I will say it again, we all KNEW this guy was an asshole before the Olympics, but his parting words from Torino solidfied his spot in asshole lore.

You went to the Olympic games to "rock"? What the fuck? People spend their whole lives trying to make the Olympics, you actually make it, and your only goal is to "rock"? And people wonder why Americans are viewed as arrogant throughout the world...

George W. Bush - where to start? Gee, I don't know, how about saying that there is nothing wrong with the United Arab Emirates running our ports? Are we daring the terrorists with this one?

But that is not what makes him an asshole. The likelihood that Bush is getting something under the table for this shit is what makes him an asshole - you are willing to spy on every American's phone calls, and then you turn around and allow an Arab nation to run our ports? Yeah, REAL smart...

Michelle Kwan - who once more out did Miller as the biggest jerk off of this year's Winter Games. You can go back to my post earlier to find out why I think she is a schmuck, but to add insult to supposed injury, she is now going to be part of a skating tour that is going across America in the next month or so.

Recap, got a free pass to the Olympics at the cost of another QUALIFIED skater, pulled out because of an injury, and now is inked for a skating tour around the country...

Major Asshole.

Howard Stern - who this week has been slapped with a 1/2 billion dollar lawsuit by CBS who alledges that Stern breached their contract by hyping his move to Sirius Radio...

Stern's response is that CBS is trying to bully him. Yeah, that worked in 1985 when NBC was trying their hardest to stifle your creativity, and we all felt for you, then. This is different because as some one who actually listens to your show, I know that you spent the last year berating Clear Channel (whom I believe is CBS' radio affiliate) as trying to hold you down, and the same shit we have heard for twenty years.

The victim schtick is old - REAL old.

Howard, you are an asshole because you have failed to look beyond that schnoz of yours and see the bigger picture in this instance. It is not necessarily your job to care about CBS, and the fact that K-Rock SUCKS in NYC now, but is there any reason in the world why you needed to beat the shit out of them as you left? Did you REALLY need to advertise repeatedly that you were going to Sirius, which was free advertising for Sirius via the station that you were leaving?

What you did would be the equivalent of spending company time on writing a resume and interviewing, and then LEAVING and taking all of the said company's accounts with you. You are an asshole by virtue of the fact that you have no sense of humility. You won out when you inked that deal, and then you screwed CBS harder by advertising the competition.

You are wrong this time, but I am sure that the court will bail you out of this one, as 1/2 billion dollars is somewhat insane...

Anna Nicole Smith, et. al. - the son of the old coot that Smith married is a millionaire unto himself, and Smith is making money that I will never see in my lifetime. Watching these two fight it out is the most aggravating experience I have ever endured.

You two are BOTH assholes - split the money and shut the fuck up already...

Martha Stewart - I HATE "the Donald", but he is dead on with what he did, and he is spot on with being indignant about it. Martha Stewart should be counting every blessing in the world that she is even able to be on television and make money after what she did with her stock. Now, when asked about her show tanking, she blames someone else?

And I guess I should not be surprised based on her legal defense last year.

The reality is that Stewart is fucking boring - REALLY boring. Like the library teacher most everyone had in elementary school. The advertising for her daytime show manages to bore me in the 20 seconds it lasts - who on Earth would want to watch her on prime time television?

Martha, sometimes it is YOUR fault in life, you asshole...


And that about does it for this week. Thankfully, there is never a deficientcy of assholes on the planet, so I am sure I will have content for this next week...

Deep Thought...

This issue of abortion is now going to become a real big deal with the appointment of Sam Alito to the Supreme Court and the line now forming to contest Roe v. Wade.

While most young people agree that abortion is a right of the woman, I am not so sure anymore. While I respect that the woman's health is in immediate danger when she conceives a child, I am not so sure that the right to abortion is something that should be so free.

At the center of my concern is the fact that the male that did his part to help create a life has no legal standing in the decision to end this life if the woman chooses to do so. A man could clearly state that he wishes for a child to be born and wants the opportunity to be a father, and the woman can still have an abortion - and similarly so, a man could want the woman to have an abortion, and she could have the child. Now, I know that the child is being carried by the woman, and as such women have the greater burden in the birth process, clearly. With that said, however, in terms of the legal issues here, why is it ignored that the male is legally obligated to support the child once it is born? Granted the man SHOULD pay for his child, and I do not condone behavior contrary to that.

But is it fair that the man is made exclusively responsible for the child when the woman is equally responsible for the creation of the child? Further, is it fair that the man carries the financial responsibility for a child with no say in the abortion issue?

What is really at issue here, is the fact that men have allowed themselves to be pissed on legally in regard to reproductive rights, among other things.

In an effort to get laid, men have allowed themselves to become soft on many issues, and as a result, MY generation, and the generations to follow are going to pay for our fathers' pussification. Whether it is the complete disregard for the fact that it takes a woman AND A MAN to make a child and they BOTH should be allowed to have a legal standing in the birth and financial support; or the fact that men are legally obligated to pay out divorce settlements as long as it can't be legally proven that the woman was unfaithful - men are getting shit on by the courts in this country.

In my opinion, and I am a liberal, I am happy to see that MEN are playing a big role in limiting Roe v. Wade. Thank you, my fellow males for FINALLY growing a spine and finally using the testicles that God gave us. It is complete bullshit that women are given the right exclusively to decide over the life of an unborn child.

If two consenting adults create a child, then two consenting adults should decide its fate - and marriage is not what the right should be limited to. Two people in their twenties who have created a child should be on equal footing in the decision of its fate - while a woman endures the pain of child birth (which I won't say is bullshit, but it is now possible to have a child and not have to squeeze it out of a vagina thanks to modern medicine), the man has the enduring responsibility of PAYING for the child for 18 years.

Likewise, if the two consenting individuals are NOT adults - which certainly happens - there OUGHT to be parental notification of BOTH sets of parents.

I don't think that the right to an abortion will ever be terminated, and in the bigger scheme of things it shouldn't. However, it should not be as simple as a woman deciding, hey, I don't want this child, and I don't HAVE to have it...

...and thanks to this "stepping out of line" I can think of at least one woman who is going to be a little pissy with me, and I am wondering now if maybe our fathers' knew exactly why it was better to just shut up, bend over, and take the legal screwing...

So I think that blogging is kind of corny, but...

... the Winter Olympics has motivated me to once more attempt to put my thoughts to words.

What is the deal with this stuff anyway?

1. Why should I care about the Olympics?

As far as I see it, the Winter Games are a bunch of sports that I have never played, will never play, or cannot afford to play more than a few times in my entire life. Granted, this doesn't mean that they are not fun to watch - but why the hell is NBC cutting out my Law & Order for this crap? Curling? Ice Dancing? The Skeleton Run?

Listen - I am sure people care about these things, but Law & Order has been on for 16 season for a reason, and the Winter Games are once every four years for a reason - food for thought...

2. Are all of these people even athletes?

I used to sweep at my job in Pizza Hut (ed. I no longer work at Pizza Hut.). Had I known that I could be in the Olympics doing that I would have worked a lot more hours perfecting the craft.

Honestly, there is nothing athletic about Curling, so much so that none of the people that I saw engaged in this blantantly lame activity even LOOKED like athletes.

While on the subject, the luge has to go, too. Aside from the fact that there aren't many more homoerotic activities out there for people to engage in than that two man luge, the fact is that these guys run for all of, what, five seconds and then pray to God they don't kill themselves for another two minutes... I guess the athleticism comes from pointing the toes...

The Bobsleigh is close as well, though, at least there is something TEAM oriented in that as everyone plays a part in the control of the sled of death...

3. Ego? What ego?

Toss up: who is more of an ego freak? Michelle Kwan, with her groin injury that went away long enough for her to march in the opening ceremony, and attend all the festivities that Emily Hughes missed, or Bode Miller, who has yet to even MEDAL in an event, let alone win the supposed FIVE golds that he was hyping himself to be able to do.

My winner, by a gate-straddled ski is... Michelle Kwan. Sure, Bode Miller is all about Bode Miller, and he has the Nike contract to go along with that attitude, but we all KNEW that. And while he did hype himself to oblivion by speaking candidly, and then "apologizing", he actually IS one of the best American skiers we have.

Kwan is another breed. After suffering a serious injury to her groin - love to know how that happened - she tried to be ready for qualifying for the Olympics and fell short.

BUT, never fear! The U.S. decided that she should get a "private" tryout for the team, and in a demonstration that was not televised and VERY few saw, she "qualified" for the Olympics - leaving Emily Hughes to sit at home.

Then she gets to go to Turin, and party like its 1999 - until of course, she is then expected to actually SKATE. All of a sudden, the injury that merely a week prior was supposedly a non-issue, became an issue and she withdrew from the games...

As a Olympian TWICE prior, and as an athlete, no one knows Michelle Kwan's body like Michelle Kwan. She should have known that she was not going to be able to compete. From personal experience as an athlete myself, it is easy to know if you are completely healed from an injury and whether you are ready to compete at your best.

My belief is that Kwan got what she wanted out of these games, and that was the party and fanfare. As an athlete that tends to go unnoticed for four years, she wanted to be seen and heard, and the competition was never really what was in her focus - at least Bode Miller has competed.

If nothing else, Kwan took away from Emily Hughes what Hughes had earned - the party and fanfare that she will have to wait another four years for that comes with the Opening Ceremony. Here's to hoping that Hughes gets to take in all of that in 2010...

4. Racism

This one actually hurts to talk about, as it has shades of Hank Aaron chasing Ruth all over it. Shawnee Davis...

I am sure that the story around this is well-known enough for me to not go into all of it, so I am just going to go right into the commentary:

Chad Hendricks is a douche bag.

The bottomline on what has gone down is that Shawnee Davis did a couple things that were true milestones, and have been forgotten. First, he won a gold AND a silver, which if you have not noticed, is not something the U.S. has had a lot of at these games (not that they haven't won golds, but when you consider the amount of events we have not medalled in AT ALL, a gold and silver are a big deal). Second, he is the first black athlete to win a gold medal in an individual event - which is a MAJOR LEAGUE accomplishment.

But the media has had little air time about that. Consider if Michelle Kwan HAD competed and HAD won gold, what the media would have done for that. Now consider that the story around Shawnee Davis is whether he is a good team player.

For the record, Davis had NEVER agreed to be on the relay... ever.

My take, is that no one aspires to go to the Olympics to be on a relay. Anyone who has been an athlete and had aspirations of going someplace in an event KNOWS that the goal is always a gold in your discipline - the exemption being team sports like Baseball, Basketball, et. al. Davis' goal was to win a gold in his event, not to help Hendricks get ANOTHER gold for his mantle. Perhaps that is selfish in some ways, but in respect to what he had worked for, is it not his right to be a bit selfish? If I had worked for years to do one thing and someone (who is NOT a person in charge of anything really) wanted me to do another, I would tell them where to go...

The shame in this is that Davis was not able to relish his historic moment in a manner he should have been able to. Like Aaron, who was being sent death threats as he chased the Babe, Davis could not really take in the moment in the way that people do when they win a medal. Winning a medal should not be bittersweet...

5. In closing, thank God this only happens once every four years...