tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62138154822357968932024-02-20T21:12:24.601-06:00A beast, an angel and a madmanAlbert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.comBlogger162125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-24081753301107852052012-12-15T11:24:00.004-06:002012-12-15T11:26:42.447-06:00"...and I'm gonna get the guns."<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Facebook was on fire yesterday with sympathy and support for the families who have been affected by this horrible tragedy in Connecticut. And unfortunately, influenced by the news channels, a lot of the comments I saw were about guns and gun control and the right to bear arms.<br />
Here are two of the typical ideas I saw, paraphrased:<br />
<br />
"If we had better gun laws, this wouldn't keep happening!"<br />
<br />
"If all teachers were armed, this wouldn't keep happening!"<br />
<br />
People keep saying this tragedy brings the gun issue into focus and that in it's aftermath, it is NOW the time to DO something. That's silly, of course. This isn't an easy problem to solve. Guns have been part of the American culture since their invention. We used them to kill off the Native Americans we found here. We used them to fight off our enemies and even each other when we disagreed. At various points in our history, we needed our guns to survive and to keep our families safe. Many still believe that they do. Historically speaking, in our country, it's hard to argue with them.<br />
The problem is that right now, those who oppose guns are feeling self-righteous. The problem is that right now those who advocate their right to own guns feel cornered and vilified. <br />
<br />
And the big problem is that politicians are involved which means instead of dealing on this issue from common ground, we deal with it from polarized strongholds.<br />
<br />
The thing is: I honestly don't think that the majority of gun-owners would have a problem with legislation that made sense as long it also re-certified their rights, both currently and moving forward. I don't think that gun-owners want those with mental disabilities owning guns. I don't think gun advocates, outside of a the extremists, feel that there's a need for semi-automatic or automatic weapons being legal. <br />
We have to start with this understanding. Guns aren't going to disappear. It's great that so many countries don't have guns and that they have such a small amount of violence. Our own country is still too new and guns are too much of a part of our identity for that to happen here. <br />
<br />
What we need to do is very simple. Anti-gun people need to step back from the ridiculous idea that getting all guns off the streets is possible. They need to concede and recognize the right of our citizens to have guns. Then gun-owners, who don't feel threatened anymore and don't feel like giving and inch will take a mile from them, can concede to some reform that makes sense and makes things better.<br />
<br />
There are very few issues that are cut and dried. The idea that the only win is a total win is one that infects our country and our political system like cancer. There is common ground among the people. It's the politicians and activists who are so divided. They are the ones who want a complete win and want to destroy the opposition. For the sake of our country though, we need to take this issue away from them. We can't vilify people for wanting to own guns and wanting to retain their rights to do so. Just because we don't agree with them doesn't make them wrong. More importantly, it doesn't make us right.<br />
There is common ground out there. Fear keeps the two sides from finding it though. Fear of each other and fear of the consequences of compromising even a little bit.<br />
<br />
This morning, ever parent in the country has reason, once again, to consider where they stand on the issue of guns and gun control. People who normally never even think about the issue, are suddenly in the middle of it. And that is where I advise them to stay. In the middle. This isn't an issue of right and wrong. It's not an issue that needs to be resolved by going left or right. It's an issue that needs to be resolved by those in the middle. It's one where common ground exists but is simply ignored.<br />
<br />
No one. NO ONE wants to see images of 5 year old kids running out of a school that's just been shot up by some lunatic. And we can't just eliminate the possibility of it ever happening. We can't. We're far too ingrained in our personal beliefs on the issue. But we can come together with the intention of uniting on the middle ground that does exist and making real, actual and immediate change that would make things better now. We can make it harder for things like this to happen even if we can't stop them altogether.<br />
<br />
You can call this idea wishy-washy if you want. You can say that the fight has to go on until one side or the other wins and if you think the possibility exists that one side can convince the other that they are right quickly enough to help save the next bunch of kids at the next school, which could easily be the one your own children attend, then I suppose you just carry on and continue the stalemate. If, however, you understand that there will always be danger to kids--in one form or another--you may want to consider the fact that making your kids as safe as you can make them is the best you can do. And to allow anything less is a failure.<br />
<br />
The gun issue is currently populated by those on one side of the issue or the other. It needs to be populated by us all. We need to find common ground and common sense. We don't live in a world that offers absolute safety to anyone. We could live in a safer world though. That goal is out there. It's attainable. If we can get the polarized nuts from each side out of it, if we can get the politicians who are swayed by their lobbyists and special interest money instead of their constituents out of it. If all the parents who cared about their kids and wanted to make them safer came together with the goal of not even trying to decide the gun issue, but instead using common sense to bring about real change, possible change that makes kids more safe, then we could actually make them safer--not safe, never safe, not in this world--but safer.<br />
<br />
Safer. More safe. Wouldn't that be better? Or, should we all meet back here in a few months to cry over dead children again?<br />
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Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-7606890636799346842012-12-05T12:44:00.000-06:002012-12-05T12:44:47.211-06:00The Illusion of "The Media"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A dear friend recently wrote an article in which it was
concluded that the media objectifies and holds certain portions of society
back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The article was written from
a feminist slant, but it just as easily could have been written from the
perspective of the rich, the poor, minorities, the majority or any segment of
society you’d care to name.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
fact, after I’d read that first article I read another, this one from a woman
who is deeply conservative/Republican sees a climate of fear and despair
everywhere she goes because of the recent travesty of the re-election of our
President.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our opinions are
colored by our perspective; our perspective is colored by our experience and
our experience is colored by how we define ourselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, it’s very difficult to separate ourselves
and our experiences and the way we perceive them from the way others may.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I should also confess that I’m currently re-reading
Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five and my own perspective is currently clouded with
humanist thoughts and ideas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
through that lens that I am currently seeing the world around me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I say that because it would be
extremely arrogant (okay, that wouldn’t be entirely out of character, would
it?) to sit here and say that other’s opinions are clouded while my own is
clear and true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We all think our
opinions are clear and true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re
all right about that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re also
all wrong about it.</div>
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<br /></div>
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And perhaps that’s what’s so troubling to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We live in such a world of
absolutes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our opinions are so
black and white.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those are such
scary colors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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One thing we can all seem to agree upon though is the
ironclad fact that the media is at least partly to blame, which leads me to the
real question and topic I want to talk about today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is there still such a thing as the media?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s a poor question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course the media exists because the media is simply this
and nothing more, it’s a means of communication and we live in a world that it
inundated with more means of communication than can possibly be good for us.</div>
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<br /></div>
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However, for the sake of our argument, let’s look at “the
media.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And by “the media,” of
course, we mean the mainstream channels of communication we have available to
us such as newspapers, magazines and news programming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We still pretend that such things exist
in the form that we came to understand them in the past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the idea that they do exist in that
previous form that encompassed journalistic integrity is absurd, is it not?</div>
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<br /></div>
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The newspaper business is a dying one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the age of the internet, we want our
news now, not a day later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
reporting of facts in newsprint is laughable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the time our morning paper arrives, we very likely know
the facts it contains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, papers
started reporting fewer facts and focused more on commentary about those facts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a natural progression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, when you enter the area
of commentary and steer away from a straight out reporting of the facts, you
get into the area of perception of those facts and the opinions they
spawn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so we read opinions in
newspapers that we associate with being fact delivery systems and walk away
misperceiving what we’ve read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Television news is even worse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the advent of the 24 hours news cycle came the burden
of filling it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And with newspapers
and television news both it becomes necessary to sell the advertising to
support it making “the media” a business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A business has a bottom line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A business has a responsibility to make a profit and then to maximize
that profit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fact that there
are so many news outlets available, each trying to make a profit has forced
those news outlets to cater to specifically targeted demographics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They tailor their news to fit that
demographic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They tell them the
things they want to hear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you think you have a completely unbiased,
journalistically reliable source of news you are deluded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somewhere along the way those stopped
existing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It didn’t happen with a
bang, so it’s hard to point to the exact spot where it occurred, but it’s safe
to say it’s in our rear view mirror, yet our perception of “the media” and
journalism remains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Have you ever tried watching the news on a conservative news
station and then followed it up by watching the news on a liberal one?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’d think that you were listening to
news on two entirely different dimensions where good and evil, right and wrong,
truth and lie were entirely reversed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In one dimension, there is an evil, tyrannical dictator named Obama who
is trying to ruin a leading country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the other there is a benevolent leader of the same name who is beset
on all sides by evil men and women who, despite his best efforts, are trying to
destroy that country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Ask most people and they take a side on this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have one viewpoint or the
other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If they say they don’t, you
shouldn’t be offended.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not
you they are lying to, it’s themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Just ask them for a political opinion and observe which newscast’s
talking points they parrot.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The idea of “the media” as we once understood it is
extinct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The media” is now nothing
more or less than a loosely affiliated group of businesses whose primary aim is
profit through the dissemination of opinions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Let that sink in for a moment.</div>
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<br /></div>
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If you own a conservative based newspaper there is no profit
in reporting news with anything but a completely conservative slanted set of
opinions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you own a liberal
based news network you must always appease your advertisers who determine
whether or not your business is profitable and you keep your job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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And still, we perceive what we read and what we see as “news.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We still perceive “the media” as having
journalistic integrity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Take a
moment to laugh at the absurdity of that concept—journalistic integrity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you believe in it perhaps you’d like
to go unicorn hunting with me sometime?</div>
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<br /></div>
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The problem comes when we start blaming “the media” for this
or that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How can you blame people
for having opinions?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Opinions,
it’s famously said, are like assholes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Everyone has one and they usually stink.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order to believe that “the media” is to blame for
anything you have to first believe in the idea that “the media” exists as more
than some mythical ideal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You may
as well believe in unicorns that fart glittery rainbows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The media” isn’t a thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It probably never truly was but in this
day and age, it clearly only exists in our minds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We perceive the opinions that please us as news.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Facts are jokes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can make facts of lies as easily as
you can make piles of shit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You
can make a survey say whatever you’d like it to say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can make people believe whatever you want them to
believe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We live in a sales and
marketing world and believe in the facts that get us to buy what they are
selling if they target us properly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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So, how can we possibly blame the unicorns for all that ails
us?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve done it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s an easy thing to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We want to believe in “the media.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We want to believe in journalistic
integrity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wake up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your doctor’s primary business is
making money, not making you healthy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Your priest’s primary business is getting butts in seats and donations
in the baskets, not helping you get to heaven.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And “the media” exists to sell you things, not to report the
news.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you read a magazine with offensive articles and
advertisements you can’t blame the magazine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They simply cater to a targeted demographic that has
statistically proven to buy whatever they are selling in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have to blame the people who read
that magazine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People don’t read
those things and look at those ads despite the fact that they exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They read them because they exist.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Adam Levine, the lead singer of the group Maroon 5 recently
said this about the television show, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, “Seriously,
Honey Boo Boo is the DECAY of Western civilization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just because so many people watch the show doesn’t mean it’s
good. So many people witness atrocities and can’t take their eyes away
from them, but that doesn’t mean they’re good...”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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“That show is literally The. Worst. Thing. That’s. Ever.
Happened. It’s complete f****g ignorance and the most despicable way to
treat your kids. “F*** those people. You can put that in the magazine: F***
those idiots. They’re just the worst. Sorry, I’m so sensitive to
that — like, I don’t know, man, it’s upsetting. Just to clarify, I said,
‘F*** THOSE PEOPLE.’”</div>
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<br /></div>
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I’m sure many of us feel that way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And still, every week, people tune in to watch it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If they didn’t it wouldn’t exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That show depends on advertising revenue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without it, the show would be
cancelled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s profitable to
televise that show, as it’s profitable to televise the show were Adam Levine
sits in judgment of the talent of other people, because people want to watch
and advertisers will pay to advertise on shows that people watch.</div>
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<br /></div>
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It’s not the show’s fault.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not the network’s fault.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not the advertiser’s fault.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the fault of those who watch the show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We reap what we sow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That show is broadcast on The Learning
Channel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t even begin to
understand what it is we’re supposed to be learning?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suppose it’s that an audience exists for this show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s that television shows that feature
people going on to see the results of paternity tests have an audience.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I think of the Russell Crowe line in the movie
Gladiator.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Are you not
entertained?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He says that line
after killing another man in the name of entertainment for a crowd.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The contest was put on by an emperor
who did it to keep the common folk happy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was part of a celebration of their nation’s power and
prominence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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It’s silly, I think, to blame the media for anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are simply giving us what we
want.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we didn’t want to see,
hear, read, watch whatever it is they are putting out, we wouldn’t and the
advertising for it would dry up and then it wouldn’t exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We find “the media” to be so abominable
not because of what it puts out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We simply hate what it says about us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We hate that it is nothing more than a mirror and it shows
us something very ugly—something we’d rather not see and certainly don’t want
to acknowledge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Nothing exists without our consent and nothing lasts without
our approval.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-10889351504718852492012-10-09T10:42:00.000-05:002012-10-09T10:42:25.471-05:00ESPN is the Devil.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I quit ESPN.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>No, that’s not entirely accurate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It might be more accurate to say that I stepped away from ESPN for a
while.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I took a little vacation
from ESPN.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was driving me
crazy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had to do it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And now that I have, I’m so glad that I
did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ESPN was slowly driving me
insane.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I should start by saying that I was an ESPN junkie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could easily take in 3
SportsCenter’s, an Outside the Lines, Around the Horn and Pardon The
Interruption in a single day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sometimes it was more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Maybe it’s not really meant to be watched that much?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s certainly not healthy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The problem became that I started loathing certain
people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It began with Brett Favre,
it continued to LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Jerry Sandusky and of course, Tim
Tebow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hate them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hate all with a mighty passion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sandusky, clearly deserves my hatred,
but the others?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What have they
done?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brett Favre should be
someone I hate as a lifelong Bears fan, but until ESPN ruined him, what I had
was a grudging respect for him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
was a warrior on the field and I wished that he could have played for my
team.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was a class act and fun
to watch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, I get the anger
shakes the second someone mentions his name and if I ever see Rachel Nichols
reporting live from a high school in Favre’s home town again I cannot be held
responsible for whatever it is I do next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I will plead ESPN-induced insanity and no judge in the country would
lock me up.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s not easy filling a 24-hour news cycle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or, perhaps it’s that ESPN tries to
make it easy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead of finding
the best stories out there from the many professional athletes available for
study, ESPN finds a story, makes it bigger than it needs to be, inundates us
and saturates us with so much of the story that we start to resent the person
it’s about because we grow tired of them and then bleeds the story of every
last drop of blood it can give.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
ESPN is a vampire.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Take Tim Tebow as an example.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There isn’t any reason to hate him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>None.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is a good guy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I could do without the, “All praise to Jesus Christ, my Lord and
Savior,” stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus didn’t help
you win the game Tim.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He doesn’t
care about football.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trust me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He also doesn’t want to be in a
sentence that’s butted up against another where you praise your rotund,
loud-mouthed coach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think Jesus
prefers to remain as separate as possible from Rex Ryan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that’s it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s my only complaint about
him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll give him this much,
Tebow walks the walk too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
reaches out to the poor, to prisoners, to children suffering across the
globe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He doesn’t say bad things
about his teammates or the other team.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He plays hard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He gives his
all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There really isn’t anything to
dislike about him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But, I hate him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hate Tim
Tebow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why do I hate Tim
Tebow?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because every time he
brushes his teeth ESPN puts together a panel of former players to discuss how
he did it, if he did it good enough and if he should be allowed to continue to
do it—or if he should be made to let his teeth rot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, that Tebow hasn’t snapped and choked a sideline
reporter to death is yet another reason to like the man, but I am so sick of
even hearing his name that I could find out tomorrow that he’s the Second
Coming and I’d wind up converting to Judaism.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And these former players!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ESPN hires all of these former players to do commentary and
I hate most of them too!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tim
Hasselbeck?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tim Hasselbeck is
going to sit on that fancy set and criticize professional football players?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tim Hasselbeck once had a 0.0% passer
rating in game against the Dallas Cowboys!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He threw 6 completions and 4 interceptions in that
game!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He may quite possibly be one
of the worst players to ever play his position but that doesn’t stop him for a
moment from spewing absolute venom at current players.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least Mark Schlereth had a notable
career and achieved some success as a player, but it’s hard listening to him
talk too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Angry and loud, that’s what ESPN seems to coach their
analysts to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then they pair
them up on a set and let them scream at each other about how horrible today’s
players are and how tough it was back when they played.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ESPN has become a retirement community
filled with angry, grumpy, retired old men who sit around and bitch about how
easy these young fellers have it these days and how they ought better
appreciate the struggles they went through to give them the opportunity they
have today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can only hope that
ESPN hires one hell of an Arts & Crafts director to help get these guys
blood pressure down after doing all of their rant sessions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was during a Tim Hasselbeck rant that I finally lost all
patience and started flipping channels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I came across The Dan Patrick Show, which, in addition to being a sports
radio show, is now also broadcast on television.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Patrick, a former SportsCenter host who did his share to put
ESPN on the map, is now more like the anti-ESPN.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When his producer mentions Tim Tebow, Patrick actually,
physically cringes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was no
yelling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one was
screaming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The former athletes
that he had on as guests gave insightful opinions and when they went astray,
Patrick reeled them back in—or at very least offered contrast to outrageous
opinions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I had an epiphany.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I needed to give up ESPN.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
was in deep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was an addict, but
I needed to give it up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ESPN, the
“Worldwide Leader In Sports” was making me…hate sports.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, I did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
gave up ESPN, with one exception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I still DVR Pardon The Interruption every day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I enjoy Wilbon & Kornheiser.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wilbon, in particular, seems to be leery himself of the
over-hype and over-saturation of some players, teams and stories that ESPN
pounds home with the relentlessness of Fox News crafting story lines for the
Republican base.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it was with
that analogy that I understood exactly what had been done to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I came looking for news and got sucked
into a deliberate and crafted narrative that was aimed at getting me riled up,
getting me to hate certain sports figures, getting me to be angry and most
importantly, getting me to keep coming back for more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I had to get away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And get away, I did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
not easy though.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I love
sports.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I love talking about
sports, I love thinking about sports, I love hearing about sports and I love
watching sports.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But aside from
PTI, I have made myself a promise to only use ESPN for the latter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll use ESPN.com for news and stay up
to date with the goings on and scores.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’ll watch PTI because I enjoy the banter of two old friends who, at
their hearts, are sports journalists and not rally men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll watch Monday Night Football or a
college game, but I’m done with all other ESPN programming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Enough is enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t like being manipulated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sports are interesting enough that you don’t need to
manipulate anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are
enough compelling characters to choose from that you don’t need to create new
ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m tired of angry old men, has-beens
and never-weres, howling at the moon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m tried of hating people whose greatest crime is being mentioned every
2 seconds on SportsCenter.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ll miss the reasoned, intelligent discourse by people like
Jay Bilas and Kirk Herbstreit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>ESPN doesn’t always get it wrong when they hire former players to talk
about they games they played, but my sanity was on the line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are amazing at sucking you in,
keeping you and not letting you go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s good business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
it’s bad for sports and it’s bad for me and it’s bad for you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
ESPN is the devil. Don’t believe me?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ask, Tim Tebow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-71766659296192753392012-05-09T10:12:00.000-05:002012-05-09T10:12:06.681-05:00Gay Marriage: Giving to Caesar<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, the big news here is the State of North Carolina passing
an amendment to their state constitution declaring that marriage is between a
man and a woman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The amendment is
stated in affirmative language, a technicality, which to some means it’s not
discriminating, but rather affirming of what already is the law.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, by stating that marriage is
between a man and woman, of course, that precludes gay marriage from being
possible.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gay marriage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The subject kind of pisses me off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I mean no offense to those who are deeply effected by this issue, it’s
just that it doesn’t effect the majority of us—and yet so many people get their
panties in a bunch over it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
idea of preserving the sanctity of marriage is a joke—we had a married
President of the United States get a blowjob from a lusty wench in a blue dress
after he flavored up his cigar by dipping it in her honey pot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The divorce rates are through the
roof.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Marriage is a joke.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It really fucking is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems to me that if we want to
protect the sanctity of it, we might spend some time working on making the
houses we live in from something stronger than glass.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s an issue that politicians love to fight about
though.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It raises passions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gay people just want equal rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know—the very spirit of the
founding of our country?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
people against gay marriage play to a largely religious base and make them feel
like it’s something of which they should be afraid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it’s a grand issue for election season.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think that’s the part people don’t
get.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re rolling around to a
presidential election and if you think this is about the issue itself, you’re a
fool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even though this is state
issue, not a national one, it is an issue that is a hot button and serves to
galvanize groups of people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A Republican Party with a candidate who doesn’t have a shot
in hell of winning the presidency tries to stir the pot to make people afraid
of what they don’t know or understand and in doing so, put heat on the
incumbent president and try to trip him up and organize a vote against
him—rather than FOR their candidate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Or, a Democrat Party who, after winning the White House and then losing
Congress fears the Republican candidate without a chance and wants to make sure
they get a second term so they stir a debate that will rally the youth vote
that was so important to electing their guy in the first place.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Pawns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re
pawns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The issue is a pawn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you really think, at the end of the
day, that this is truly about gay marriage, you have the wool pulled over your
eyes, or you’re one of the people who is too closely involved in the issue to
feel the puppet masters pulling strings.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Please don’t misunderstand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not that this issue isn’t important.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To those who are fighting for the
simple freedom of equality, it means the world—and should.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s just that this issue doesn’t
impact the lives of most of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
appreciate and applaud those who fight for equality and for basic human rights
and taken as a general subject, we should all support it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My point is simply that statistically,
the number of people who are impacted by this issue directly is very
small.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whenever that’s the case,
and an issue blows up like this one has, it’s time to look beyond the immediate
players and understand the people moving the chess pieces around the board.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The other sign that this is one thing masquerading as
another is how very simple the solution is for both sides.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The government of our country needs to
get out of the marriage business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Period.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The word marriage
should be removed from all governmental files.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As far as the government is concerned there should be no
such thing as marriage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All tax
advantages and other perks of being married should be removed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our current system discriminates not
only against gay people, but single people as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Take marriage out of the equation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no need for it to be anything but a
religious/sociological function.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If there is need for some documentation of legal couplings
then let’s call all of those pairings Civil Unions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s let marriage be a kind of civil union—a religious
kind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let each religion decide who
can get married for themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
my religion says no and yours says yes then that’s fine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you practice my religion but can’t
get married by their rules, start your own sect of the religion with only that
one change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If your spouse is
dying in the hospital and you want the rights to make decisions on their behalf
and any other legal benefits, get your marriage licensed as a civil union.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When you talk about the sanctity of
marriage you’re talking about the sacredness or holiness of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those ideas aren’t a part of government
or the rights it bestows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Government is about legalities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Religion is about spirituality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A civil union is legality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A marriage is a spiritual concept.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The government that supposedly separates church and state
needs to take spiritual unions and couplings out of it’s equation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We all should be equal, but the word marriage, the buzz
word, needs to be taken out of this debate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our government should not recognize any marriage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not gay, not straight, not any.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our government, for the few small—yet
important—spousal rights should see coupling/pairing/legal bonding as a purely
legal issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the only rights
or privileges a legally bonded couple should get that the rest of us don’t have
are the ability to make decisions for one and other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There should be no legal, economic or other benefit based on
the choice to be paired with someone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There’s no sanctity to protect in a civil union.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s legality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no sanctity in legality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is nothing to protect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let the various religions protect
sanctity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is their job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is their right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is their place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If a religion feels that marriage is
between only a man and woman, that is their right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If a religion feels that a marriage is between a man and a
man or a woman and woman, then that’s their right too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The state shouldn’t give a flying shit
what the religions consider a marriage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If a couple wants to make their marriage legal in the eyes of the state,
they should apply for a civil union license—not a marriage license. All legal
marriages should be changed to civil unions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Marriage should not exist in the eyes of the state, except
and unless it’s been registered as a legal civil union.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of the Pharisees once tried to trip Jesus up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was trying to get Him to say that
people shouldn’t pay their taxes and thereby have a reason to lock him up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus very wisely asked the Pharisee
who was depicted on the coins that the tax collectors took.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The answer, of course, was Caesar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Jesus said, “’Render unto Caesar
what is Caesar’s and God the things that are God’s.’ And they marveled at Him.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let God deal with God’s business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let the government deal with what’s their business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s simple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one gets hurt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Everyone gets what they want.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>No one forces your religion to accept gay marriage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You worship as you please.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The government gives people the rights
that any human who chooses to couple should have—and no additional rights or
benefits that those who remain single are precluded from having.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s your equality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s your sanctity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s no reason why Caesar, God and
all the rest of us can’t all be happy, and equal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-48992024231808669572012-04-13T10:13:00.000-05:002012-04-13T10:15:35.736-05:00Trayvon Martin: Reality News Show<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>I love when I get requests.
I got once recently asking what my take on the whole Trayvon Martin
situation might be. Well, here it
is:</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">My take on the whole Trayvon Martin situation is…well…to tell the
truth, what I know about the case I only about in the periphery. I mean, you can’t turn a television on,
you can’t read a newspaper, you can’t go clicky-clicky on the interwebs without
running into bits and pieces of it, so I know the basics but it’s not a story
I’m actively following. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I’ll tell you why: This
story feels very contrived to me.
Please don’t misunderstand.
I think it’s horrible that this poor kid got shot. I think it’s horrible that this man
shot him and that Florida seems to have laws that make it a gray area as to
whether or not shooting an unarmed boy is legal or not. It is unquestionably a tragedy. One life lost, one life probably
ruined, many other lives forever changed—this is going to reverberate. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It feels contrived to me though because you can almost feel the hand of
the media wherever you turn in this story and frankly, I’m starting to wonder
if perhaps this is how the media in Florida rolls? First, let me dispel any notion that I’m ignorant of the
FACT that the media contrives all of the “news” we hear today. They do. News used to be about gathering and disseminating facts. Now, news is a business and it has been
for some time now. Now, news is
about the story, the narrative and about entertaining the audience.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Here are some cold, hard truths:
People get killed in tragic circumstances every single day. Kids are gunned down by adults every
single day. A lot of them look
like what Obama’s son might look like.
A lot of them are wearing hoodies when they die. A lot of mothers kill their kids. It’s sad. It’s true. So,
what’s so important about THESE specific cases that they seem to warrant
national media attention and the inundation of every television, radio,
computer, phone and conversation? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both of these stories originate
in Florida. I don’t think it’s a
coincidence that the Trayvon Martin story comes so closely on the heels of the
conclusion of Casey Anthony being every day news. When Casey Anthony was flogged to death as a story, a vacuum
came into existence and demanded that SOMETHING fill it. Let’s play Big Shot News Executive for
a moment. Your ratings go through
the roof during the Casey Anthony story and trial. You make such a story of it that it gets national attention,
which fuels and feeds the local stories even more. The constant attention it gets almost forces everyone to
have an opinion and having opinions leads to argument and further attention on
the story and then our basic need and desire to be “right” keeps us
riveted. The results? Higher ratings, increased ad revenue,
professional notoriety—in short, the result is financial and professional
success for all involved in the telling of the story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Then it goes away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Ratings go back down to more normal numbers. Fickle advertisers come and go with more regularity. You go from being a professional
success to being yesterday’s news.
In short, the financial and professional success you saw rise begins to
fade away. You can almost see the
board room filled with stuffy suits and everyone with an opinion on what can be
done to get things back to good.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And it’s not just the board rooms. Writers, reporters, cameramen, editors, all of the people
who had a connection to fame for a moment feel the void and the emptiness and
they all want it back. It was like
a drug and now… Now, they feel
like they’re in withdrawal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It sets up an environment where everyone feels pressure to make things
as good as they were before. So,
whether it’s conscious (as I feel it is) or not, instead of looking for news
stories, these news agencies start looking for characters. They report what they must, but they
keep their eyes open because they are casting for the next big thing. They are looking for compelling
characters for the next Reality News Show.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Enter Trayvon Martin.
Enter George Zimmerman.
Enter (bless his heart) Geraldo Rivera. Enter President Obama.
Enter The Miami Heat. Stir
it up, add some chocolate chips, bake for 3-5 months at 451 degrees Fahrenheit
and all that financial and personal and professional success comes back in the
pre-packaged, delicious treat that makes mouths water.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">What I think about the Trayvon Martin situation is that it’s an example
of mass manipulation. I think it’s
a local news story that’s gotten national attention because of great casting
and excellent production. Is
Trayvon Martin the angel that he seems he must be in so many of the pictures
that have been released? Or, is he a hoodie-wearing thug with a gangster
limp? Is George Zimmerman a
concerned citizen trying to protect his family and the families of those in his
beloved neighborhood or is he a racist, trigger-happy killer who saw an
opportunity to kill a human being and get away with it? Is this a race thing? Is it a Second Amendment issue? Is this controversial Florida Law about
using firearms just? The answers
are irrelevant, that fact that there’s so much to talk about, so many story
lines for the producers to exploit as this Reality News Show goes on is all
that matters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">What do I think about the Trayvon Martin situation? I think the shooting occurred on
February 26<sup>th</sup>. I think
that the Nielson Winter Sweeps period where ratings are established for shows,
often deciding how much ad revenue will be earned for a quarter ran from
February 2<sup>nd</sup> through February 29<sup>th</sup>. In other words, if the ratings for the
various news shows were down—it was the final week, the final few days to turn
those numbers around before advertisers starting considering other options.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">THAT is what I think about the Trayvon Martin situation. I think it’s a local story that became
a national story because the Florida media knows how to cast and produce a
Reality Show. I think they have
practice at it. I think they were
desperate to fill the void left by the conclusion of the final season of The
Casey Anthony Show. I feel like
the sad reality is that kids get killed all too often and I notice that not all
of them become national news sensations—in fact, few do. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I feel manipulated. Say
what you will about Snooki, The Situation and the rest of the Jersey Shore
gang, but at least with them, what you see is what you get. With the news—THE NEWS—we are told that
we are getting journalism, but what we truly get it Must-See TV. No thanks. I’ve got better things to do with my time. </span></div>
</div>Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-29008399025155186032012-03-28T12:47:00.000-05:002012-03-28T12:47:36.254-05:00To Everyone: Turn, Turn, Turn...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Tahoma; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Your car can make a 45-degree turn. Trust me. Please? If you don’t, you’re going to kill someone. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Tahoma; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Tahoma; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">People have driven like idiots since the day Henry Ford started churning cars off his assembly lines and Herbert Hoover put a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. It only stands to reason. People are idiots. Drivers are people. I’m no math genius, but I’m fairly certain that conclusively proves that drivers are idiots too. And the way people drive has been a sore subject for me for many years. The seeming inability of people to grasp the four-way stop sign, tailgating, how drivers turn into “instant idiots” any time you add water (frozen or liquid form), I could go on for days about the long list of sins I have committed against me daily.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Tahoma; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Tahoma; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This, however, is a new one. It’s not that it’s never happened to me before, I’m sure we’ve all experienced it, in fact. What’s new is the frequency with which it’s happening lately. I’m starting to worry that it’s actually being taught this way. I’m speaking, of course, about the people’s propensity to veer left before making a right hand turn, or veer right before making a left turn.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Tahoma; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Tahoma; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I’ll repeat again, because it’s worth a little redundancy, YOUR CAR IS CAPABLE OF MAKING A 45-DEGREE TURN—especially when it’s already moving forward. You do not need to veer into my lane before making your turn. I promise. Just turn. It’ll be okay and I won’t need to have a heart attack and that’s just a win-win situation if I’ve ever heard one, okay?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Tahoma; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Tahoma; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It seems like everywhere I go now I’m coming across these idiots who can’t even execute a proper turn. Next to going straight, turning left or right is probably the easiest thing about driving, but lately, it’s like people can’t even do that anymore.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Tahoma; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Tahoma; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The worst part is that these people, when they veer into my lane, so they can make their turn, are doing it without even looking. It’s like they think that when they drive somewhere, it’s everyone else’s responsibility to get out of their way. Oops! Sorry I was driving my car in my lane! I should have realized you might need to turn and that would require the use of half of my lane. My bad! Have a nice day! I hope my existence didn’t inconvenience you in any way!</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Tahoma; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Tahoma; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So: I just wanted to get this out there. Consider it public service. Maybe you don’t realize the full and amazing capabilities of your automobile. You can trust me on this one though. Even a box truck, like your local FedEx or UPS delivery man drives, doesn’t need to veer into my lane in order to execute a simple turn at an intersection. I think it’s safe to assume your Prius is even more agile than those bulky boxes with wheels so go ahead. Give it a try! Just turn, baby! Just turn the wheel until your car is pointing in the direction you want to go. It’ll work. I promise. You can practice in the parking lot of your local grocery store if you want. But…the next time you’re out in the world driving, especially if you’re anywhere near me, please, for the love of all that’s good and right, STAY THE FUCK OUT OF MY LANE WHEN TURNING OR I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND PUNCH YOU IN THE THROAT!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Tahoma; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Thank you.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
</div>Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-2949093772414442412012-03-26T10:44:00.001-05:002012-03-26T10:46:00.969-05:00The Mirage by Matt Ruff: A Book ReviewI need to introduce you to my friend Matt. Okay, so he’s not my friend, he’s an author whose books I enjoy, but still…you need to get to know him, if you don’t already. For googling purposes, his full name is Matt Ruff.<br /><br />I first met Matt one day when I was walking around in Borders. I saw a book with a bright yellow cover—and what seemed from a distance to be a Darth Vader helmet, though upon closer inspection it was a monkey—and I picked it up, read it over, put it back down and walked away. It wasn’t that the book didn’t interest me; it just wasn’t what I was in the mood to start reading that day. As often happened back in the day of the actual book store, I spent a good hour walking around picking up books, reading the back covers, sampling the first pages and moving on to see what else might strike my fancy.<br /><br />I kept coming back to the Matt Ruff book. I sampled it like an old woman in a grocery store inspecting the fruit. I remember not liking the shape of the book (yes, I’m THAT picky). It was a trade paperback, but it was narrower that I felt it should have been. And who was this Matt Ruff guy? I’d never heard of him before.<br /><br />In the end though, I came back one final time and after an hour of searching and not finding what I was in the mood to read, the numerous re-reads of the back cover and first few pages of Ruff’s book Bad Monkeys finally convinced me to pull the trigger and take it home with me.<br /><br />It didn’t take very long at all before I found myself very much in the mood to his book though. To say it hooked me is a vast understatement. Bad Monkeys is a fast paced, smart, witty and fun read. It’s one of those rare books that keeps jerking you back and forth, constantly diverting your attention until you can no longer tell which cup the red ball is hiding underneath. <br /><br />The next time I read a Matt Ruff book was approximately 30 minutes after I finished Bad Monkeys. If immediately driving to the book store to find another book by an author doesn’t tell you all you need to know about how much I liked the first book of his I read then—well, you’re stupid. Stop it.<br /><br />I was skeptical about the second book. It had a few words in the title that no man wants to read and never wants to be seen holding. I dreaded the question, “So, what are you reading?” Fortunately though, Set This House In Order, A Romance of Souls was my second Matt Ruff book. I wouldn’t have chosen it if my book store had had another of his books in stock, but like the way Bad Monkeys kept calling me back, this books seemed destined to find it’s way into my hands as well. Once again, I was very much surprised and pleased.<br /><br />The thing about Matt Ruff that you can’t help but enjoy is the complexity of his stories and his characters while neither ever actually overwhelms the reader. There are lots of complex characters but after a while you lose them or worse, you lose your personal connection to them because they are inaccessible to you. And complex plots—well, nothing fails bigger than a complex plot gone wrong. So often, an author obviously writes a story with a complex plot without first outlining it and the result is that they wind up getting lost somewhere in the middle and then rush to conclude it in the end, in a way that leaves you feeling dissatisfied.<br /><br />Matt Ruff’s books, conversely, read like a season of LOST, only with a more satisfying finish. He doesn’t try to outfox his readers. He’s confident enough in his storytelling that he wants you to get it all. He wants you see every clue and every red herring and then he turns it all in ways you didn’t think of and always seem like a surprise when you read them. He keeps you on your toes, but more importantly, he keeps you involved. He doesn’t inundate you with information to hide his clues. He says, look, here’s a clue! You make the logical conclusion about where it will go, and then he proves you wrong.<br /><br /><br />***<br /><br /><br />When I heard the premise of Ruff’s latest book, I was, once again, skeptical. It had been some time since I’d read his books and while I remembered his ability to turn a story on it’s ear, something about the premise of the new book just made me think it wasn’t going to work. Predictably, in my experience with Matt Ruff books by now, I was wrong.<br /><br />The Mirage is his latest title. It almost defies explanation. In an alternate reality, the United States does not exist; worse, we are a backward, third world grouping of countries. Christian Fundamentalists, in opposition to the constant involvement of the United Arab States—a world Superpower—in the affairs of their world, hijack four airliners on 11/9 and crash them into twin towers in Bagdad, another into a government building and, of course, the final airliner was taken back by it’s passengers before crashing.<br /><br />The UAS has no choice but to declare a War on Terror. Rumors of Weapons of Mass Destructions in North America cannot be ignored. <br /><br />The story revolves around three UAS Homeland Security Agents. In the course of their duties, they break up a terrorist plot and arrest one of its conspirators. Before the prisoner is disappeared into one of the secret prisons, he tells the investigators of The Mirage. <br />The Mirage, he explains, is the wool that’s been pulled over the eyes of the world. Everything is backwards. The USA is the world Superpower. The Arab states are backwater, third world countries. It was Muslim Fundamentalists who started a War of Terror against America.<br /><br />The agents, obviously, think their prisoner is delusional, but they find an artifact amongst the prisoner’s things: A newspaper called the New York Times, printed on 9/12, a day after airliners were flown into two twin towers there.<br /><br />Obviously, a fake; but Homeland Security must stay up to date on these terrorist myths so the investigation goes on, and when more artifacts begin showing up they raise question after question without an intelligent answer. Could The Mirage be true?<br /><br />This book ties history into knots and then slowly untangles them again. In typical Matt Ruff fashion, up is often down, left is often right and the lines between good and bad, altruistic and evil get brilliantly blurred. <br /><br />Along the way, you’ll meet alternate versions of characters you already know: Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Tariq Aziz, Donald Rumsfeld, “The Quail Hunter,” Timothy McVeigh, David Koresh and a father and son with the same name—one called H, the other W.<br /><br />The most interesting of these characters is Osama bin Laden. It is said only about him and repeatedly so that, “an evil prince in one world is an evil prince in any world.” Though, by a continuation of that logic it can, of course, be said of all the “real world” characters we meet, which greatly indicts “The Quail Hunter,” and Mr. Rumsfeld.<br /><br />Since finishing this book I’ve read some criticism that it doesn’t take sides. What’s given to you isn’t the work of an author with an agenda. He’s not telling you what to think. He’s asking you to think about it in a different way that you previously had. And in that, I find the criticism unfounded. Not all books are meant to tell you what to think—or to even tell you what the writer thinks. Some books are simply written to make you think. The conclusions are left for you to draw on your own. The implications are such that it leaves many different interpretations. Ruff isn’t interested in telling anyone that they are wrong. He isn’t interested in telling anyone that he is right. He very simply retells history in a way that makes you walk a mile in a different pair of shoes. How you feel about the information when it’s presented in a new way is up to you.<br /><br />It was an ambitious undertaking and one that could have gone wrong in so many different ways. Ruff’s skilled writing and storytelling skills, along with what must have been exhaustive and extensive research culminate in an extremely well written, interesting and thought-provoking book. And like Luke Skywalker in the cave on Dagobah, what waits inside is only what you bring with you. Your weapons…you will not need them. What you face inside is yourself and if you’re honest and true, you just might come away with a different point of view.Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-12007205603368910912012-03-03T10:22:00.001-06:002012-03-03T10:24:12.432-06:00Rush Limbaugh: Undercover DemocratI think the time has finally come to consider a conspiracy theory. There was a time when this would have seemed preposterous, but now? I have to wonder. Is Rush Limbaugh on the payroll of President Obama and the Democratic Party?<br /><br />Ridiculous! Right?<br /><br />Limbaugh makes a living howling at the moon about how Obama is the devil and our country is going straight to hell under his leadership and he seemingly offers up the Republican Party as the only possible way to save the country, the American way of life and our mortal souls. How could he possibly be playing for the other team?<br /><br />Then you think about it though. For better or worse, the Republicans have had the spotlight now, in terms of the upcoming presidential election, for a few months. They’ve had the chance to set the table, pick the issues, and pound away at the job President Obama has done for the past 4 years. And, let’s face it, the job he has done is a far from the “Change we [could] believe in!” You can point out, all day long, that it’s been the Republicans of Congress who have stood in Obama’s way of enacting that CHANGE all you want, but Obama’s pre-election rhetoric never took the tone of, “Change you can believe in (if the Republicans do what I tell them to in complete opposition to the trend of polarized politics that has our country in it’s grip.” It’s also worth pointing out that while Obama did have the majority in Congress, he chose to prioritize his health care reform over the economy which led to the congressional purge that placed the Republicans in power there.<br /><br />In short, had the Republicans fielded a charismatic, intelligent, level-headed candidate for the presidency, he or she may have actually had a chance. Instead, they fielded a cast from Clown College and Ron Paul who never had a chance in the first place. So, things were looking good for the president. Still, they say that any publicity is good publicity and the final few candidates who have survived the reality show-like eliminations have been front and center.<br /><br />And the debate has turned to contraception. Sex sells. The Republicans have drawn a line in the sand. It’s a brilliant move because surely the youth and moderates will flock to this Republican effort, right? College kids hardly ever have sex and when they do it’s only for the purpose of procreation. Moderates with high-school and college-aged kids are so eager to be grandparents that they will, obviously, side with the Republicans on any issue that will help take them remove easy access of contraception to more kids. Nothing fills the parent of a kid away at college with more pride than announcing that little Betty is dropping out to have the baby of some guy whose name she thinks was Pete at the frat party a few weekends ago!<br /><br />Only a Republican can understand the logic behind a move that only solidifies their already hard-core base and alienates the majority of the rest of us, but we’ll let the strategy slide, and the actual issue, which only involves the health care of religious institutions slide because those things are only background to the point at hand. Let’s get back to President Obama’s secret weapon: Rush Limbaugh.<br /><br />Between Obama’s not living up to his promise of Change and the Republican’s seemingly poor strategy of alienating large portions of the votes they need to win the upcoming election this presidential race could have been an interesting one. Enter Rush Limbaugh. Leave it to Rush to truly offer President Obama the best opportunity he’s had to remind the youth and women voters that he is the only choice for them. Rush went on the radio and called a woman, who spoke before Congress on the issue, “a slut.” He suggested that if we had to pay for her contraception that she was essentially a sex worker and that we were entitled to see a video tape of all the fun stuff.<br /><br />Let’s look at that another way: A seemingly intelligent, articulate, young woman who works for and spoke with the support of a faith-based employer who would be affected by this legislation spoke her mind before her elected officials to offer evidence on behalf of others in her situation and our friend Rush, who is, as I understand, a big proponent of the First Amendment, calls her a slut for doing so. He didn’t call her a great American for participating in the political process. He didn’t laud her for her courage and conviction. He called her a slut. He suggested that his tax dollars being involved entitled him to see a tape of her having sex. He objectified women. He disrespected them. He singled out this one woman in particular and called her a name that women voters will not forget.<br /><br />Say what you will, but while it may only be a very loud, very vocal segment of Republicans that Rush speaks for—the perception (which is much more important than the reality) is that he is the voice of the party, to those outside of the party. Some of those people outside the party might even be referred to as moderates or the swing vote and now, they have, perhaps reluctantly, slid themselves firmly back into President Obama’s pocket because, let’s face it, the alternative is the party that calls women’s who express their opinions in the manner of a good American, as sluts.<br /><br />President Obama has reached out to the woman in question and spoken to her by phone, thanking her for her bravery and intelligence and offering to be of aid to her in any way he can. It’s almost reminiscent of a cowboy in a white hat coming to the defense of the picked upon woman. You can almost hear the collective swoon of women voters.<br /><br />You can also, almost hear the collective eye-roll of the Republican candidates who must now stay true to their base while backtracking against the idea that any woman who uses contraception is a slut. It doesn’t matter if their opinion on the subject is right or wrong now, what matters is that they have to fight for what they believe in from a defensive standpoint. President Obama gets to fight for what he believes in from the role of gentlemanly hero.<br /><br />President Obama’s next call should have been to Rush Limbaugh, just to say thank you. <br /><br />The Republicans, through their strategy, have seemingly decided that Obama has done a poor enough job that the presidency can be won by simply solidifying the base. They felt that the youth and moderate votes that swung things President Obama’s way in the last election were going to stay home this time around, be it due to complacency or disappointment. They’ve only touched on issues that appeal to their own base. They’ve felt no need to venture out to get the votes of those in the middle. They thought it would be an election of us versus them and that the majority of us, the disillusioned middle, would stay out of it.<br /><br />At the start of World War II, after the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Admiral responsible for that attack, Isoroku Yamamoto famously said, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." When the Republicans look back at this election and try to figure out why they lost—not only the White House, but at least a part of their power in Congress as well—they would do well to remember the efforts of party cheerleader, Rush Limbaugh, who helped to wake the sleeping giant that hadn’t planned on taking sides, until he decided to be a bully and call a woman, exercising her right as an American, a slut.<br /><br />It was such an obvious, boneheaded move on Rush’s part, you almost have to wonder if it was purposeful? I mean, no one could possibly be THAT stupid. Could they?Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-79998509020165611132012-02-28T11:47:00.001-06:002012-02-28T11:48:57.969-06:00Sham-Wow! The Ryan Braun StoryIt’s amazing what being well spoken can do for a person. Don’t believe me? Ask Ryan Braun. The Milwaukee Brewers’ star, left fielder, was suspended by Major League Baseball for testing positive on a drug test. His test allegedly came back with a hormone testosterone to hormone epitestosterone level of 20:1. It should be 1:1. Yours is 1:1. Mine is 1:1. Braun’s was 20:1. <br /><br />A funny thing happened on the way to his suspension though. A few days back an independent panel of arbitrators revoked it and reinstated Braun immediately. Even though Braun’s test showed higher levels than any other player in the history of testing, the suspension was overturned.<br /><br />It begs the question, why? Even more so, it begs the question, why is the media letting him off so easy, even though the arbitrators have done so?<br /><br />The first question is simple to answer. The 3-person panel of arbitrators was made up of one person representing the interests of MLB, one person representing the interests of the MLB Players Union and one person who was truly independent. In other words, the vote was tied 1-1 before any evidence was presented. The MLB rep certainly wanted to uphold the decision made by MLB. The MLB Players Union rep certainly wanted to overturn it in favor of it’s constituent. That left one person with an impartial vote.<br /><br />That vote was cast in favor of Braun after facts about improper protocol being followed for the sending of the test sample to the lab where the testing was to be done. It’s actually a simple thing. The protocol exists to protect the players rights. It wasn’t followed. The arbitrator with the only vote that counted obviously felt this was important. Braun gets off.<br /><br />The real question is why the media is letting him get off that easy? Why isn’t ESPN camping out at the Brewers training facility and reporting every time Ryan Braun coughs, scratches or blinks? After all, this is how the media typically operates these days. And for someone who has gotten off on a technicality, it seems tormenting him would be a fun way for the 24-hour a day sports media to spend their time.<br /><br />The answer to that is that while Ryan Braun is a cheat, he’s a very smart one. And he has something that many professional athletes lack. He is well spoken. Many athletes are charismatic. Many are fun-loving and entertaining. Few, however, are well spoken. Ryan Braun is though and for him, it’s made all the difference. A good orator can convince even intelligent people that the sky is green, grass is purple and that everyone HAS to have a Sham-Wow! <br /><br />Among the things that Ryan Braun convinced people of when he gave an impassioned and moving speech after the overturning of his suspension were these gems: He convinced us that the fact that he tested higher than any other player in the history of testing means that there was a flaw in the test. The reasonable conclusion from a high test might be that he was a more frequent user or possibly that he had just injected himself before the random test was sprung on him. Braun used his degree of guilt as a reason for innocence. He stated it well. We bought it.<br /><br />Without coming right out and saying there was a conspiracy, he led us to that very conclusion repeatedly. He actually listed every FedEx location that his sample could have been taken to by the tester so that it would have been in accordance with the MLB testing protocol. He repeatedly stated that he didn’t know why the sample wasn’t immediately taken to one of those locations. He neglected to mention that while the protocol was violated—ensuring his suspension would be lifted—that the sample container was tamper-proof, that the lapse in time before the sample was sent in no way would change the results and that while he offered to take subsequent tests to make sure the sample was really his sample that there was no reason to do so because whose sample it was isn’t something that was ever in doubt.<br /><br />And in his best piece of rhetoric, Braun made it about mom’s apple pie and Chevrolet’s. He challenged the Americanism of a policy that goes against the democratic principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty. In the case of MLB drug testing, once you test positive, you are presumed guilty unless you can prove yourself innocent. It sounds harsh until you think about it. First, this isn’t his liberty being challenged. He isn’t going to prison. His boss is suspending him from work. And he’s only doing so AFTER the person tests guilty for having done something that is against company policy. Does your job work on the principles of democracy? When your boss penalizes you for not showing up on time for your shift as shown by your time cards do you cry about it being un-American?<br /><br />Of course not. <br /><br />Braun also offered the fact that he didn’t get one degree faster, one degree stronger, one degree better as proof that he is innocent. He forgot to mention that with his sample testing as high as it did, perhaps we should be taking a wider view of his metrics than just in the aftermath of the testing. If he’d been on something for a while, he may have been juicing since the day after his last test. I’ll buy the fact that post-test, Braun didn’t get any faster or stronger, even though the only people measuring those facts is his own team who has an interest in keeping him on the field. I’ll also point out that Ryan Braun had his best year as a professional athlete last year. Overall, his numbers were up. He went from being in the top 20 players in the game to being the MVP of the league. I’d say that’s a significant jump in the metrics. Braun painted it differently though.<br /><br />Two types of people proclaim innocence after being accused of a crime or indiscretion, the innocent and the guilty. In the aftermath of his press conference, all anyone could talk about was how convincing he was in his statement; how assured of his innocence he was and how directly he challenged his accusers. Player after player was interviewed and all of them spoke about how “stand-up” Braun had been. The talking heads echoed that sentiment. The legal experts spoke of only one thing though: The test was invalid because of the improper following of the MLB testing protocol.<br /><br />Braun was brilliant. He got off on a technicality, but didn’t settle for that. He pressed the issue. He wanted his name back and he used his skills with speech to get it. It worked. It’s a dead issue. ESPN hasn’t mentioned it in days. Masses of articles aren’t being written about it. Braun spun the technicality into a presumption of innocence despite the fact that he still failed the test.<br /><br />In the aftermath of his speech, several of the sharper talking heads noted how smart it was of Braun to constantly defend and protect MLB throughout his speech. He mentioned his love of the game and his need to protect that game and to place the game above himself repeatedly throughout his speech. Look for no further proof of the manipulative nature of everything he said than that fact. This man hinted at a conspiracy, he questioned protocol, he insinuated witch-hunt and persecution but above all, he wants to protect the conspirators and persecutors. He isn’t angry. He doesn’t want to crusade against the system. He doesn’t want to take the man down. He wants to protect the system that he feels acted improperly.<br /><br />Does that seem right to you? Does that ring true? Or does it, perhaps, seem like a very strategic thing to say? Does it seem, perhaps, like he’s taking the high road, while actually putting MLB in a very difficult position if they wanted to pursue things further? Does it seem, just maybe, like a calculated move by Braun to step out of the corner where he was trapped and put MLB into it?<br /><br />To pursue this further now, the already “un-American” MLB who presumes guilt until innocence is proven would come off as a bully. Well played, Mr. Braun. Well played.<br /><br />Of course, if that much of his speech was obviously calculated and manipulative then how much of the rest of it was folks? How “stand up” was Braun really being? Maybe he was just saying the things that he needed to say to solicit the reaction that he wanted. Judging by the fact that we live in a 24 hour news cycle and Braun is already a non-story, I’d say he got the exact reaction he wanted. Wouldn’t you?<br /><br />Now, just for fun, imagine a Latin-born player had been in this position and in broken English had tried to present this same argument. Imagine an inner city athlete had been in this position and he wasn’t capable of using words to so subtly and thoroughly move us. What would happen then? If those athletes had stood up for themselves they would meet a much different reaction. Some would say it was racial and cultural that it would be so. It’s not. It’s all very simple in the end. Words are weapons. Ryan Braun is well armed. And Sham-Wow should be his next big endorsement deal.Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-83743193317610525662011-09-28T11:26:00.002-05:002011-09-28T11:41:40.879-05:00Giving Hell: A Cubs Fan's Reaction to ESPN's "Catching Hell"Last night, ESPN played one of their 30for30 documentaries and this one was called Catching Hell. It was about the infamous Steve Bartman and how he changed the course of history and the 2003 Cubs and how they choked away a chance to beat the Yankees in the World Series.<br /><br />If you get a chance, I recommend watching one of it’s 8 million replays. It made for compelling television but like most documentaries these days, it failed to tell the whole truth—or, the truth was told from a certain point of view to hammer home an underlying point. <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">“You’ll find that a great many of the truths we cling to depend greatly upon our own point of view.” –Obi Wan Kenobi, Jedi Master</span><br /><br />The point of this documentary was to show the classic theme, man’s inhumanity toward man. It opened with the hatred Bill Buckner experienced after missing a grounder between his legs in 1986 that cemented a World Series collapse and continued the Red Sox futility to win it all. It focused, however, on the incident in 2003, with the Cubs in Game 6 of the best-of-seven series with the Marlins. A Cubs win that day meant that the Cubs, after not having achieved the World Series since 1945, were going back to the World Series once again.<br /><br />The Cubs were winning that game 3-0. We had our best pitcher on the mound and he was dealing and practically unhittable. Wrigley Field was JAM PACKED and Cubs fans who just wanted to be there filled the streets around the stadium so they could say that they were there and a part of the celebration. The city was abuzz—but that doesn’t do the state of the city accurately. Unless you live here, unless you’re a Cubs fan, unless you experienced it, you can’t possibly fathom what it felt like.<br /><br />Just 5 outs away from a trip to the World Series, a foul ball was hit down the third base line. Moises Alou leaped to make a catch that replays show he almost certainly would have made. A fan named Steve Bartman (and many other fans in the area) reached out to catch the ball as a souvenir. Bartman’s hands were the ones that hit the ball though. He deflected it away from Alou and instead of having 2 outs in the inning the Marlins had new life.<br /><br />Again, we get to one of those moments where, unless you were here, unless you were a Cubs fan, unless you truly understand what that entails you can’t possibly understand the aftermath of that fateful event. Cubs fans were waiting—just WAITING—for whatever was going to happen to pull the carpet out from under our dream. Cubs fans are Charlie Brown and Bartman was Lucy pulling the football away at the last second ensuring that once again, we wound up on our asses, covered in mud, laughed at, foolish and beaten.<br /><br />The documentary showed the reaction of 40,000 people inside Wrigley and another 20,000 outside the walls—all of whom felt like they were on their asses, covered in mud, laughed at, foolish and beaten. They lashed out. Their target was this poor dork named Steve Bartman. He didn’t do anything that most other fans would have done in his situation. He didn’t do anything that other fans right next to him weren’t trying to do. His hands were the ones that hit the ball though. He was the one who changed the trajectory of the ball. And so, he became the symbol for changing the trajectory of our team. <br /><br />Moises Alou threw a tantrum. Instead of handling it like a veteran player, he handled it like a toddler, told it’s time to go to bed. His antics exacerbated the situation. If he’d walked back to his position and played ball, none of this would matter. He didn’t. He acted like a child. The city deflated in that instant. We had a knowing feeling in the pit of our stomachs. We were Charlie Brown, in that final millisecond when his foot has started forward and it’s too late to stop and he recognizes that the ball is being pulled away. <br /><br />We met the girl of our dreams and some dorky looking guy in a green turtleneck stole her away the day of our wedding. It was heartbreak.<br /><br />Now, there were significant events that happened after that. There was still one out in the inning and the next play was an easy grounder to shortstop Alex Gonzalez that should have been a routine double play. He booted it. He kicked it. He flubbed it. If he’d made that play, like he’d made dozens of times that season the Cubs would still have made it to the World Series. That play, more than anything was the defining moment when it all went south. <br /><br />Manager Dusty Baker sat on his ass and did nothing. He had a rattled team and he didn’t do anything to calm them down. A manager in baseball has so few things he needs to do but this was a moment when he truly could have felt the pulse of the situation, realized that everyone needed to take a deep breath and gone out to the mound to settle everyone down. He failed. The Marlins went on to score 9 runs.<br /><br />It was over. The burden of not having won, the pressure of winning not only for that team, but all the teams and players and fans that came before them proved to be too much. The 7th game was lost as well. The Cubs, only 5 outs away from the Promised Land, had failed once again.<br /><br />The documentary makes the Cubs fans look cruel and unfairly casts them in a poor light. Their immediate treatment of Bartman certainly warrants that and there was no excuse for the treatment he got from surrounding fans, but it’s greatest shortcoming as a documentary was the failure to place it all in the proper context. <br /><br />It used the idea of the curse as context. It made the reaction of the fans out to be a reaction based on a curse. Make no mistake about it, Cubs fans feel snake-bitten, unlucky, unfortunate and like fate is against them, but the idea of the Curse of the Billy Goat is just kind of a fun, cute way to encapsulate that feeling. The curse is something that only a very small portion of Cubs fandom takes seriously. More than anything else, it’s part of a tradition. It’s something to talk about and joke about as a means of explaining the unexplainable. It’s hearing a bump in the night and telling your wife that it must be a ghost as a means of breaking the tension and the immediate feeling of fear that might accompany it before realizing it was just the dog.<br /><br />It made it out to seem as if all Cubs fans placed blame on Bartman. That was never true. The fans were angry that night and looking to lash out and they did. There is no excuse for that. Ask ANY Cubs fan to this day where it all went wrong and just like with the curse, they’ll make the joke that it was Bartman because he is the symbol. But any real Cubs fan will go on to lay the true blame at the feet of one of three people: Moises Alou, Alex Gonzalez or Dusty Baker and most likely, all of them. Bartman was the symbol. Alou, Gonzalez and Baker were the ones who collectively failed. There’s no real debate about that here in Chicago. It’s the reason Baker gets booed every trip he makes back to Wrigley Field managing other teams. It’s the reason you don’t see Alou or Gonzalez making any appearances in a city that LOVES it’s former greats. <br /><br />The documentary makes it seem like Cubs fans ignored the true culprits and focused all attention and energy and hatred on Steve Bartman. That is false. The media focused all the attention and energy and hatred on Steve Bartman. And as sure as extremist political opinions on “news” channels incite angry people to false and idiotic points of view, so did the way the media grabbed this story, held on to it and kept after it help to draw out the loud and unintelligent who always need someone to blame. <br /><br />The Cubs choked, after it seemed that it was finally going to be the year. Steve Bartman was just the punchline to the joke. And even that was and continues to be unfair—no doubt about it, but I promise you that any Cubs fan, when asked about Bartman, will immediately talk about the groundball hit to Gonzalez. That’s a fact. It’s a fact that wasn’t pointed out in Catching Hell. <br /><br />In fact, Catching Hell seemed to go out of its way to protect the media. Oh, it placed a piece of the pie at their feet but it was a small slice and the underlying tone was always that while it was unfortunate, they were just being responsible journalists and doing their jobs with as much integrity as they could. In fact, Steve Bartman was salt that the media got to use to throw into the gaping wound of a dispirited and disappointed city who had come to believe only to be let down once again. <br /><br />Cubs fans don’t feel any animosity toward Steve Bartman today. He is and forever will be part of the lore and part of the punch line the same way the Billy Goat Curse is but the man lives and works in Chicago to this day. His reclusiveness and his exile are self-imposed. It’s perfectly understandable that he would choose to do so, he was treated HORRIBLY that night by the worst of the Cubs fans. But the people who threw beer at him weren’t the ones sitting next to him. They were the whack jobs who came from all over the park, drunk and stupid as fans often are at sporting events. <br /><br />The newspapers, the local news shows, the national media all focused on Bartman. Alex Gonzalez’s error wasn’t the leading story anywhere. No one thought that it was a good idea to publish Gonzalez’s address in a newspaper. They had no such issues with releasing Steve Bartman’s address though. If the media had focused on the actual news, Bartman would be a footnote. There’s no romance, intrigue and excitement in that though. Players make errors every day. Managers fail to do their jobs and players throw tantrums all the time. That’s a one-day story. Bartman offered the media a chance to run with something for weeks. They took it. The play itself incited the idiots in the crowd. The media incited all the rest of the idiots in the third largest city in the U.S.<br /><br />And they were convincing. They got a lot of us. They incited a lot of anger and it was easy to blame Steve Bartman, it was easy to make him the symbol of failure. <br /><br />Catching Hell seemed to want to show the dark side of man. It wanted to show how cruel fans could be. It made the city of Chicago and it’s people out to be small and petty. It failed to make it’s audience understand what that trip to the World Series would have meant to us. It failed to give an accurate account of the silent majority. It further amplified the voice of a loud minority and it left the media virtually blameless and in many ways, even reluctant and noble. <br /><br />That’s not what happened. That’s not how it went down. That’s what happens when a Boston Red Sox fan makes a documentary about the Chicago Cubs. Make no mistake, Steve Bartman is a tragic and unfortunate scapegoat. He has suffered pointlessly and cruelly. But if you think you got the whole story from watching Catching Hell, you’re wrong. You got a biased and uneducated version from someone who applied what he knew—the situation with Bill Buckner in Boston, to something he didn’t know—the situation with the 2003 Cubs and while there are similarities, it just wasn’t the same. The situations are not the same and they never were. The perspective of Catching Hell was clouded by a Red Sox fan’s perspective and point of view. And that is why it failed. It made for great television. It was very compelling. It just wasn’t very accurate and that’s sad because the real story is one worth telling.Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-38803941667100149382011-08-17T16:00:00.002-05:002011-08-17T16:11:17.860-05:00Warren Buffett & The War on BillionairesI know what you’re up to Warren Buffett. You don’t fool me for a second. You may think you’re slick—but you are not, sir.
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<br />By now, most of us have read the article in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html">N.Y. Times</a> written by Buffett where he chides us not to coddle the super-wealthy, like himself, and supports higher taxes for those in the top echelon of the tax bracket. I’m sorry. I’m not buying it though. Something smells fishy and I think I’ve figured it out.
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<br />Buffett is scared. And he has good reason to be.
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<br />The 2012 election is rapidly approaching and the Yes-We-Can Man that Buffett supported the last time around has become the Well-I-Tried-Really-Hard-But-The-Other-Guys-Are-Really-Mean Guy and he’s in danger of not being elected for a second term. And I don’t know if you’ve taken a good look at any of the Republican Party hopefuls but the group as a whole is crazier than a guy trying to do cartwheels up a flight of stairs.
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<br />And here are the facts: We’re in debt—big time. And the Repubs—well, they all like low taxes and starting wars. They’ve learned from the last dummy and this time around when they start lowering taxes they know they’ll need to climb out of debt somehow and no matter how many programs they cut, they’ll never do it that way which leaves one, fairly obvious plan.
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<br />Declare war on Billionaires.
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<br />Let’s face it. The groundwork has been set. The days of having to declare war on countries is OVER. We can now declare wars on groups of people. The Terrorists came first, but the War on Terror came about when our problem was being afraid. We needed to beat somebody up so we could feel better, tougher, safer and less afraid. Mission accomplished. Just a decade removed from the horrors of 9/11 we do nothing but whine and complain about long lines at airport security checkpoints. We’re positively arrogant, once again, in the face of terrorism.
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<br />The new problem is money. We don’t have any. And we don’t do or make anything here anymore. We’re a country full of people with desks, laptops and chairs with good lumbar support. The only thing we actually make are spreadsheets and power point presentations. We fill both of those things with information skewed to prove this point or that one. We talk about metrics and forecasts and synergy. We learned one thing really quick when the economy failed. The majority of the workforce is superfluous. A business owner can fire half of his or her employees and the only difference is less meetings to attend where people try to prove to one and other how smart and important they are and fewer spreadsheets to read.
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<br />So, what does this all mean for the future? Well, there’s a good chance that Crazy-Eyes Malone or Maverick McGee is going to be our next president and when they’re in charge there’s really only one possible course of action to take: The War on Billionaires.
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<br />It’s a win-win proposition.
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<br />These silly bastards have amassed their billions of dollars without ever having built personal armies or allocating vast portions of their wealth to defense! They’re practically helpless! We can invade Warren Buffett’s estate or Bill Gates’ mansion with virtually zero resistance! This is exactly what the GOP needs, a war without a single casualty and no need for an exit strategy! Hell, I’m sure the troops won’t mind occupying the Gates Mansion for a couple years anyway!
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<br />We kick guys like Buffett out of their homes, take all of their money and let them live on the streets so their bleeding heart liberal friends can feed them with foodstamps and in the process, we amass enough money to buy our way out of debt and probably even have a little surplus when it’s all said and done! So what if we make 600 former billionaire’s upset in the process? As long as we take care of the millionaires and those making six-figure salaries the Repub base will remain strong.
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<br />Oh, they won’t run on this platform of course, but if you pay attention, you can see it forming already. Warren Buffett has certainly seen the writing on the wall. It’s actually pretty comical that he thinks he can volunteer to pay a little bit more in taxes and somehow avoid the inevitability of The War on Billionaires.
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<br />It’s too late, I’m afraid. Barrack Obama will be a one-term president. He said he could, but it turns out he couldn’t. There isn’t a single good leader in the entire group of Republican candidates and even if there was, it would be impossible to tell because they all get their talking points from the same place. No, it’s inevitable now. President Palin will be running the show soon and The War on Billionaires will commence. She’ll be posing for pictures in a flight suit after flying onto an aircraft carrier anchored on the slip for Bill Gate’s yacht before you know it.
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<br />Debt resolved. Crisis averted. Problem solved. The billionaires may as well adopt a moose with a bad limp as their logo. You had a good run Mr. Buffett and this last gasp effort with the equal tax thing really was a nice try. I hope you make a mean spreadsheet.
<br />Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-13963154017839659092011-08-07T15:33:00.001-05:002011-08-07T15:34:53.084-05:00Not Quite Ready for Prime TimeDeion Sanders is a Hall of Famer now, enshrined with the other NFL greats in Canton, Ohio. It’s an honor he has certainly earned. His play, on the field, over his 14-year career, spoke for itself. His mouth and his “Prime Time” persona, however, left many divided on two-sport star though. <br /><br />I’ve always rooted against Prime Time. Those who self-aggrandize themselves are the ones I want to see fall. I wasn’t alone in that. Deion isn’t shy about calling out “the haters.” These days he does it while praising the Lord, yet another big mouth in the sporting world giving praise to Jesus on the inhale and screaming “look at me!” on the exhale of every breath.<br /><br />My issue isn’t with the hypocrisy with which he throws the Lord’s name around though. That can stay between he and Jesus and I trust it’ll get worked out just right. My issue is with Prime Time’s speech and more specifically the message it contained and that it was directed at a bunch of kids in a corporately sponsored tee shirts. <br /><br />In his speech he says: “I never told you, Mama, I played for a youth team called the Fort Myers Rebels. Everybody on that team, their parents were doctors or chiefs of police. Me and my friend were the only African-American kids on that team. I was ashamed of my Mama. My Mama worked in a hospital. She pushed a cart in a hospital. I was ashamed of my Mama, who sacrificed everything for me to make sure I was best-dressed in school.<br />One of my friends in high school saw her pushing a cart and clowned me because of my Mama. So I made a pledge to myself that I don't care what it takes, I'm not gonna do anything illegal, but my Mama would never have to work another day of her life.”<br /><br />I forgive you, Deion, for being ashamed of your mother, as a kid, in that situation. And I understand how something like that can motivate a kid—as it apparently did in Sanders’ case to achieve more. Kids are foolish and stupid and don’t understand what’s truly important in life. What’s unacceptable is that Prime Time doesn’t seem to truly understand that what his mom did for him is real. He fails to appreciate that there was honor in pushing that cart. There was honor in sacrificing so that he could be, “best-dressed in school.” <br /><br />Deion, you gave your mom more money than she’s ever probably known what to do with, but you didn’t save her. She didn’t need saving. It sounds like she had honor and integrity and a strong work ethic and life may not have been easy for her, life may not have been a piece of cake, but she was managing and doing the best she could. Deion said that he had been ashamed of her. He never said that he stopped being ashamed. He talked about how he tackled every bill she was sent after he turned Pro. <br /><br />He went on to say that he created the Prime Time persona as a way of seeing to it that cornerbacks got paid more in an NFL where a premium wasn’t really placed on that position. He thinks that he’s the reason why they do now, though pass-happy offensive guru Mike Martz, in attendance in support of Marshall Faulk who was also enshrined, probably had more to do with that than Prime Time ever did. He said that he did it all for his mama. Everything was for his mama.<br /><br />I’m sorry, Deion. I’m just not buying it. The honest part of what he said was that he was ashamed of her. That shame certainly motivated him. He has, unquestionably, provided for his mother and given her a luxurious second half to her life. It wasn’t all for her though. It was because he didn’t want to push a cart in a hospital. It was because he still doesn’t see the honor in pushing that cart.<br /><br />He went on to say later in his speech: “What are we doing with this platform? Are we just walking around with these gold jackets? Let's provoke change. Truth family, I love you. We are raising your kids to be CEOs, not employees, leaders, not followers.”<br /><br />I’ve got some news for you Prime Time. CEOs sit around in boardrooms and talk but their subordinates are the ones who get things done. And every General in the history of war will tell you that it was the soldiers, not themselves who won the battles that shaped the world we live in. Success isn’t the money in your bank accounts, it’s not the number of celebrity friends who come to watch you give a speech, it’s not a matter of whether people see you as a shot caller or a follower. Success is about being the best you can be.<br /><br />Your mom was a success long before you gave her cars and jewelry and a big fancy house. She wasn’t a leader; she was a follower. She wasn’t a CEO; she was an employee. She was a woman with a kid who wanted the world and she provided him with the opportunity to take it. She provided that opportunity by pushing a cart. She provided that opportunity by cleaning up after people who probably didn’t appreciate what she did. She provided that opportunity because it was the right thing to do. It wasn’t about getting respect for her. It was about putting food on the table. <br /><br />There’s dignity in pushing a cart, Deion. There’s honor in cleaning up after others. There are important people in this world who will never hold a press conference or fly in a private jet. Prime Time was never about your mother. Prime Time, like everything else in your career, was all about you. <br /><br />There’s a Hall of Fame for people though, Prime Time. I know that you know all about it because you’re big on praising Jesus. When it comes time for induction into that hallowed hall, I think you may be surprised to find that all the first ballot inductees to that sacred place are the people like your mom who pushed the carts because they cared about others, more than they ever cared about themselves.Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-53857621986711397902011-07-16T10:56:00.001-05:002011-07-16T10:58:18.592-05:00Harry Potter and the Failed FinaleThe Harry Potter movie series ended this weekend with a resounding thud, but you may not have heard it. You may have been there in the theater cheering and clapping and crying and under the assumption that you’d just seen a great movie and a very satisfying ending to the franchise. I propose that you’ve been cleverly bamboozled.<br /><br />Let’s start with the basics. This movie wasn’t bad. On many levels it was even good. One thing it did particularly well was use a number of touchstones from the books that, often with just a single shot, (instead of a well-played scene) stirred great emotions. There were quite a few times when a well-placed image caused the waterworks to start for people around me in the theater. However, it wasn’t so much the movie they were crying at as it was the memory of a scene in the books. It’s a clever ploy, but it’s entirely dependant upon the book. I’m guessing that people who have never read the books came away with a much different experience than those who did. Of course, you’ll say that anyone who didn’t read the books isn’t a real Potterphile and that’s why they didn’t get as emotional as you may have, but in fact—the movie didn’t inspire the emotion, the memory of the emotion the book stirred was simply referenced to bring it back to the forefront of your mind.<br /><br />You could almost excuse the director for this tactic if he was trying to cram the very robust book into a single movie, but he took two movies up telling the final story and his failure to nail the emotional scenes leaves this series with a very empty ending.<br /><br /><br />***<br /><br /><br /><br />Another sour note, and this one quite literally, was the musical score of the final movie which failed miserably, and as much could have been predicted when it was announced that legendary composer John Williams wasn’t going to return for the final installment. Williams, of course, composed the famous Harry Potter theme and did the score for the first three Potter movies. He’s also responsible for a few other little ditties you may have heard such as the theme music and scores for movies like Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Jaws, Indiana Jones, E.T., and Superman. Do you know what all of those movies—and their sequels have in common? You left the theater with those songs in your head and feeling magical because of it. <br /><br />Since Williams stopped doing the scores for the Potter movies, that hasn’t been true of those films and certainly wasn’t true of the final chapter. In fact, the main theme, the music written by Williams for the original movies, the song that IMMEDIATELY comes to mind when you think of Harry Potter and even plays in your mind as you read the books now was entirely absent until the actors were off screen and the movie had faded to black. It certainly wasn’t on my mind after I’d left the theater. <br /><br />It will be argued, of course, that the movies took on a darker, more ominous tone than was apparent in the first three movies and that the original themes did not fit. This couldn’t be further from the truth of course. Over the years, Williams has proven to be a genius at adapting his own, light and grand themes into dark and permeating ones. Through the use of different instruments, different parts of his orchestra and different accompaniment to his base tune, he could have stapled the theme all over this movie, as he did with the various themes in Star Wars. <br /><br />Want proof that the musical scoring has been screwed up since Williams left? I’ll make it simple. Can you hum the Darth Vader theme? How about the Voldemort theme? The former is the most famous bad-guy music in the world. The latter does not exist because Voldemort doesn’t become an actual character until after Williams stopped doing the composing for the movies.<br /><br />One final point on the music is this one: When I read the book, I remember being most moved by the scene where Harry makes the long march to confront his fate at the hands of Voldemort accompanied by all those he’s lost. It was an emotional and heartrending scene. I remember thinking that the music during the march could literally make or break the movie version. I knew it had to be a version of the famous Harry Potter theme. I knew it needed to start timid and afraid and it needed to work its way up as Harry gained courage from those with him and by the end of his trek, it had to be at it’s crescendo and I imagined this amazing brass baseline staccato with a powerful snare drumline making the theme into an actual march. I knew that if they got the music in that scene right they’d nail the movie.<br /><br />Of course, that never became realized in the movie. In fact, that fantastic scene was truncated and the music didn’t play much part in it at all. What a shame and a waste.<br /><br /><br />***<br /><br /><br /><br />If you’re making a book into a movie, there are certain things that need to be changed and they can’t be helped. It’s the reason why people almost always say that the book is better than the movie. So, it’s reasonable and understandable that certain parts of the book needed to be changed in order to bring it to the big screen. The most egregious changes were the ones that didn’t need to be made at all. The above-mentioned scene where Harry marches into the woods to meet his fate is cut down to a quick pow-wow and a, “okay, I’m here” scene. That one of the most powerful chapters in the final book was cut to shreds even though the director had two movies to get it all in is an absolute shame. That scene was THE tear jerker scene in the book. It’s the perfect example of the director just showing a quick glimpse of something that readers know means much more. So, did the lovers of the book get choked up at that scene? Probably. Was it because of the movie? No. <br /><br />Even more inexplicable were some of the changes that seem to have been made for the change’s sake alone. For the entire series we’ve seen that memories, extracted by wand and put into a vial are what you pour into a Pensieve allowing others to see your memories. All the sudden, for no reason, and without any explanation, the scene is changed so that Harry collects Snape’s tears to use in the pensieve? Why? Why change it? Was that supposed to make it more emotional for us? Was that designed to jerk a few tears? All it did for me was confuse things and make me wonder why a book with so many emotional scenes for a director to choose from was changed so that some of the most touching scenes were skipped over with unemotional scenes changed to stir sentiment up in the audience. <br /><br /><br />***<br /><br /><br /><br />This movie franchise captured our hearts and minds in a way similar to the books. Seeing Diagon Alley brought to life for the first time was amazing. Getting to see Quidditch actually being played was truly very cool. The early movies in this series gave a depth to the books and forever associated certain images in our minds. You know it was done well because as we went back to books as they were released our own perceptions of those places and things had been forever changed—and not in a bad way. Books are all about imagination and the reader’s interaction with author to jointly create the scenes and characters. Movies steal that from us. They say THIS is what the characters look like. THIS is what this place looks like. The participation of the viewer is much less than that of the reader. However, so brilliantly were the early movies cast, imagined and shot that very few people I’ve ever encountered have challenged them.<br /><br />I’m happy with my image of the three main characters being that of the actors who play them. I’m happy with my image of Hogwarts being the one shown in the movies. Any and every detail they might have gotten wrong could have been a major issue for the readers of the books, but they did such a fantastic job in the early movies in imagining the world and staying true to what J.K. Rowling had written that it seemed to almost magically fit into all of our own imaginings.<br /><br />Then things took a turn for the worse. John Williams absence can’t be understated, but more than that, as the movies took on the books increasingly darkening subject matter they lost the sense of magic that propelled us in the beginning. The humorous moments in the final installment were so out of place that they seemed entirely forced when they came. The final three movies (from the final two books) failed miserably. And somehow, they still managed to be well received. I think it’s more the fact that they could have been so much more than they were than that they were bad. I think it’s more that they took short cuts and relied on their audience knowing the books in order to bring on emotion and feeling than doing it in the movie itself that most disappoints. <br /><br />There was wild applause at the end of the movie in the theater where I saw it. Quite a few people walked out with tears in their eyes. I’m willing to bet they had all read the books. And the people who walked out looking slightly confused were the ones who didn’t read them. Every review I’ve read has been positive. Every opinion I’ve heard has been good. I’ve read a lot of Facebook status messages talking about people who had a good two hour cry after the movie, but I’ll be surprised, upon further reflection, and down the road if this ending is so universally liked. I think the cheap tricks used to stir emotion won’t hold up to multiple viewings. I think the lack of that magical feeling will be missed and when people look down at their box set of DVDs of the whole movie franchise, I bet it’s the early movies they tend to pick out to watch, not the later ones and rarely, if ever, the finale.<br /><br />With all of this said, I didn’t dislike the movie. I didn’t hate it. The problem was that I didn’t love it and after years of being a fan, years of going to see the movies, years of following along online I felt I was entitled to an ending that I could love and I think the director, David Yeats and the producers failed to deliver that to me. And I suspect, when the smoke clears and you see through the clever misdirection, you’ll come to find that this movie was a bit more empty than you first thought it was too.Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-86967651439548480232011-06-23T15:39:00.002-05:002011-06-23T16:16:41.459-05:00Pottermore: A Whole New BallgameIn sports, it’s called a game-changer. It’s that play, that moment, that person who shakes everything up and changes forever the course of a game. Recently, J.K. Rowling has decided to be a game-changer in the publishing industry and where this may lead, no one knows. Ms. Rowling has announced the launch of Pottermore, a website from which she will exclusively sell her famous Harry Potter book series in digital format. <br /><br />Until now, if you wanted to read any of the Potter books you’ve had to do it the old fashioned way and actually buy or borrow an honest-to-goodness, book of printed word on bound paper. But starting with the release of the Pottermore site on Harry’s birthday, July 31st, you’ll be able to pay for and download the e-book version of each of the seven bestsellers over a wide number of platforms. <br /><br />Yesterday, publishing companies were cutting book stores out of the loop by shifting sales to e-book and online-related merchandise and today, just like that, in one fell swoop, Rowling has eliminated the need for publishers by skipping them in the process. The question is what does this mean for the future?<br /><br />Initially, it means very little. J.K. Rowling has power that very few other authors do and that is the power to make the buyer come to her. The Potter books are a proven commodity, they are books that draw people in not just to read once, but to re-read multiple times, like visiting old friends. They are also collectible in that parents want to have them for their own kids to read someday (and to help explain why they might have a tattoo of a Hippogriff on their chest). To tech savvy young parents that means collecting them digitally, not on some dusty old shelf. In other words, Rowling can confidently set up her Pottermore website, announce it to the world and fully expect the buyers to come to her.<br /><br />She doesn’t need the book resellers. She doesn’t need a publishing house. She doesn’t need Amazon or anyone else. All she has to do is ring the dinner bell and wait for the crowds to come running. In doing so, she deprives resellers and the publishing industry of millions, if not billions of dollars—all of which they would have gladly taken for doing what actually amounts to very little. If Rowling had announced that she was simply releasing the books in an e-reader compliant version and gone through traditional channels, it would have been seen as a boon to the entire industry. Instead what they receive is a harsh wake up call.<br /><br />Fortunately for publishers, it doesn’t mean much more than the loss of some free revenue in the short term--the U.S. & U.K. Publishers are only receiving a small percentage of the earnings with Pottermore Publishing receiving the lion's share. J.K. Rowling may have the power, influence and product to be able to step out on her own and cut out all the greedy little hands grabbing at percentages of her work, but few other writers do. Even writers as prolific as Stephen King would have trouble, drawing customers to a site, which sold only his works. Cult favorites like Stephanie Meyer may be taking notice though. <br /><br />Looking ahead, you can almost map out the strategies for the publishing giants. They will insist on total control from new writers. They will squeeze even more than they already do from writers who are desperate to make their way into the business. That strategy is as flawed as is it is obvious the direction they will take. It reminds me of a line from Star Wars when Princess Leia says: “The more you tighten your grip…the more star systems will slip through your fingers.” Substitute dollars for star systems and you can see the murky future of book publishers and retailers.<br /><br />What writers are going to start to do is to take a good look at what exactly they get from their publishers. Do they offer marketing support in line with the percentage of revenue and rights they demand? The answer for most writers will be, simply, “no.” By pushing the publishing industry toward the e-reader and sales through online platforms, they have essentially made themselves obsolete.<br /><br />Do you think the people at Amazon aren’t taking notice of this event? What they have to be asking themselves is what is it exactly that the publishing houses offer them? Amazon is the unquestioned king of online retail and marketing. As we steer closer to a paper-free world, why wouldn’t a company like that approach recognizable authors and tempt them to sell directly and only through their company? The publishing giants have made themselves irrelevant middlemen in the process. <br /><br />Authors have to ask what a publisher truly does for them now? They demand much, that’s for certain. But what do they provide? Do you think the online outlets will stop selling the works of best-selling authors simply because they are no longer attached to publishers? Of course not. Do the publishers manage the distribution of the product to stores around the world? Not anymore they don’t. Do the publishers market books to the world in a way that creates excitement and generates sales? No. The marketing arm of the publishing industry is as impotent as old men before Viagra and as creative as a 4th grade math teacher. <br /><br />The answer, plain and simple is that the publishing industry, which is going to demand more and more, is capable of providing less and less. The tighter they squeeze, the more writers and dollars will slip through their fingers. Self-published books have been something of a joke until now, but in the blink of an eye they have become so much more. Every author in the world is questioning his or her relationship with their publisher today. Every one of them is asking themselves, besides stifle creativity, sap financially and control draconically—what does my publishing house do for me?<br /><br />The next question they’ll ask is who can do it better? Who can do it for less, allowing me to earn more for the work that I have done? The weeks of touring cities and doing book signings will become a single sit down for a live webinar marketed to millions. It will be twice as effective, take a fraction of the time and allow the writers to more quickly get back to what they do best—write.<br /><br />The launch of Pottermore is historic one. It won’t be overnight, but this is the beginning of the end for book publishers. They worked to usher in the next age, forsaking trusted, long-term partners and now they will pay the price for their lack of vision. They have made themselves obsolete. J.K. Rowling is just the first in what is sure to be a long line of defectors. The game has changed and nothing will ever be the same again. The switch to e-reading platforms is now solidified and the need for publisher is gone. The online giants will take over now. Here’s hoping they take better care of literature than their forbearers have.Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-24796891470832365562011-01-20T11:25:00.001-06:002011-01-20T11:27:24.026-06:00We All Want To Be AppreciatedI know that it wasn’t meant to be, but Facebook has become something of an interesting sociology study for those of us who care to pay attention. It’s amazing you learn about your friends and about people in general by watching the various status updates they post. I’m sure it would be much different if I was 15 years younger—I’d spend my time reading about which parties were fun and who hooked up with whom. My social circle, on the whole, is a bit past that though. My friends are living for the weekend so that they can spend time with family and get things done around the house. It’s pretty boring really.<br /><br />Some people (okay, maybe me) try to be funny in their posts, others are constantly trying to help the rest of us find Jesus (apparently he’s lost). Some post pictures of kids and vacations. Some are on crusades to end child abuse by changing their profile picture to a cartoon character from their own childhood (no one has been able to explain to me exactly how that works though). If you pay attention to all of this you can really learn a lot about the people you supposedly already know. <br /><br />By far though, the most commonly repeated status sentiment is that people want to be appreciated. On any given day, I can sign in and see that a teacher, police officer, firefighter, active military personnel, military wife, veteran or nurse is feeling neglected and take the opportunity to remind the rest of the world that we are lucky that they do what they do for us.<br /><br />I don’t dispute this. We are lucky. There’s a good chance you owe quite a bit of appreciation to any or all of these people. I know I do. <br /><br />I suppose where I have a difference in opinion is the part where I am supposed to acknowledge and leave a note, re-post it if I agree or “like” this status—or the sentiment behind it. And granted, I certainly have the right to just pass it by if I so choose but these things really start to bug me after a while.<br /><br />The idea that these certain professions are of greater nobility than others is the part that irritates me. Last I checked, all of the people I listed above—directly or indirectly, are getting paid for what they do. With the exception of the military personnel and veterans, the people who do these jobs are doing it for the paycheck. This isn’t to say that it’s not a calling for some of them and that they don’t devote their entire being to doing it well. What I’m saying is that I’ve had more bad teachers than I’ve had good ones. I’ve been treated rudely by more nurses than those by whom I’ve felt truly cared for; I’ve witnessed police and fire professionals using their jobs to gain free food and tickets to the game. I’ve been pulled over and given tickets by police officers who have treated me like I was the scum of the Earth for going five miles an hour over the speed limit—no matter how respectful I was of them.<br /><br />Now my friends are my friends because I believe them to be good people. I have no doubt that they do their jobs and do them well for reasons that go far above and beyond the paycheck. Still though, I have a problem universally appreciating their professions. A police officer will tell you that we should appreciate them because they keep us safe. True enough. Without construction workers we’d have no homes to live in or roads to drive on though. I’ve never seen any of my friends who work construction asking to be appreciated. A nurse will tell you that they are on the front lines, taking care of you when you are sick. They certainly are. You’re more likely to see the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause tap-dancing down the halls than you are to see your doctor more than once a day while you’re in the hospital. Of course, you’d starve if not for the people down in the kitchen making your food.<br /><br />The point isn’t that we shouldn’t appreciate nurses and cops and firefighters. We should! The idea that we should appreciate them because they somehow live a higher calling than the rest of us is bullshit though. We all make the world a better place in whatever way we can. We all deserve to be appreciated for that. The customer service representative who helps you fix some problem, the mechanic who gets your car running, the person behind the deli counter who slices your lunchmeat extra thin the way you like it. Appreciation should be given for how you do your job not just because of the job itself.<br /><br />A good teacher imparts a value that cannot be repaid in a lifetime. The difference between a good nurse and a bad one can mean life and death. Police officers and firefighters often have to put themselves into harm’s way so that we can be safe. Our Soldiers, Marines, Airmen, Seamen and Guardsmen selflessly fight for principles most of us have long forgotten and take for granted every day. Their spouses are forced to raise families on low income and too often on their own. These people deserve appreciation but are any of these people truly more noble than a single mother who works three low-wage jobs waiting tables to support her kids? I say no.<br /><br />You deserve appreciation because of who you are and what you do, not for the job you hold. And we all want and need to feel appreciated. We all do the best we can. We all try to make the world a better place in our own way. And though appreciation is always nice, the people who truly make a difference in the world don’t do so for the appreciation. The joy of service isn’t in the thank you, it’s in the difference you make in the world around you. The truly noble don’t pander for appreciation, it’s nice, but it’s not the high they get from simply doing good, doing right and not allowing all of the shit in the world to drag them down to it’s level.<br /><br />If you take anything away from this take the reminder that we all need and deserve to be appreciated. We can all use a reminder that the things we do make a difference in the lives of others. If the smile on the face of the barista at your local coffee shop is infectious and starts you off in a good mood—tell them so. If someone holds a door open for you, look them in the eye and say thank you. If you know a single parent who struggles to get by it’s okay to let them know that you admire them. And yes, when your life is touched by any of the people I’ve talked about through this piece, don’t just take what they do for you for granted. Let them know how much it means to you. <br /><br />We all want to be appreciated. We all want to feel important. We all want to know that the things we do to make a difference are noticed by others and that we are valued and respected for them. And the next time you feel the urge to post a plea for that appreciation, for that value and respect, show that you are truly a noble person by choosing instead to give some thought to those people in your own life who might feel underappreciated and take the opportunity to make them feel valued instead.<br /><br /><br />“And I hear them saying you’ll never change things<br />And no matter what you do it’s still the same thing<br />But it’s not the world that I am changing<br />I do this so this world will know<br />That it will not change me.” -Garth Brooks, The ChangeAlbert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-29700785574111121082010-11-02T17:35:00.000-05:002010-11-02T17:36:47.856-05:00Why I VoteI went to vote today and in every single case, I voted for the person whom I thought would be lesser of two evils. I don’t support a single candidate. When the results are announced, I will be completely ambivalent about the results because I fully believe this was a damned if you do, damned if you don’t election. There simply were no good choices. Each and every candidate has major, glaring flaws that make me uncomfortable with the option of them being responsible for running of our government.<br /><br />I know a lot of people who are choosing not to vote for this very reason. Me? This is the exact reason why I felt I had to vote. It goes beyond my patriotic belief that my vote is sacred. I would vote, and always have voted, for no other reason than the many lives that were sacrificed so that I may have the right to do so. I would vote for no other reason that my great appreciation for all of those who have served, bled and given of themselves for the defense of that right. Those reasons stand the test of time and should be enough to always compel each and every one of us to vote, but the worse things get, the worse my options are for these positions of power in our government, the more I vote so that above all, I can simply be counted.<br /><br />My vote isn’t going to swing things one way or the other. My vote isn’t going to decide any particular race. My vote, while as educated a vote I could make it, wasn’t as educated as it should or could have been. But when the polls close and they tally the number of people who did come out to vote today, I want to stand up and be counted among them. Today, I voted not for any particular candidate, but rather to stand up and not be pushed away by the inadequacies I found in each of them. <br /><br />Since I reached voting age, the average number of people who have voted is under 50% of the eligible voters. Often, the number of voters has been around 30%. I want to be counted because I know that things are bad. I know that the choices between these candidates is even worse. The problem with that is that all of these bad candidates, these bad choices, are sadly going to keep people from going out and voting. I want to be counted because I know that until we do turn out in numbers, nothing will change. I’d rather pick between two poor choices than not choose at all because not choosing is a choice for the status quo.<br /><br />Politicians are like children and we are their parents. Right now, we are like parents who leave their children to do whatever they choose without consequence over half of the time. We are, very literally, absentee parents. We only have bullies, brats, the self-absorbed and the corrupt to choose from because we have ignored them, we have let them get out of control. They do not respect us. They do not listen to us. They have never known any kind of discipline and that is why they act with impunity. <br /><br />We are a country run by naughty little children because we have allowed them become so and when all the little children are poorly behaved, we have nothing else from which to choose. We must choose the lesser of two evils because we allow them to perpetuate in their jobs.<br /><br />Think about exactly who is voting when the turnout is poor. It’s the extremists from each side who make up those numbers. It’s the wildly liberal. It’s the staunchly conservative. Despite what all of the 24/7 news channels would have you believe, those people do not make up our majority as a nation. They do make up a large percentage of the people who do actually vote though. Is it any wonder why those elected feel little need to do anything but thwart the agenda of other side? Is it any wonder why our government is so polarized?<br /><br />We elect petulant children who either get their way or scream, rant, rave and cry. We’ve been poor parents to them. We have allowed them to act this way. Imagine for just a second how things would be the voter turnout was 70%? 80%? 90%? Imagine if each of those people voted for an independent candidate just to send a message? Imagine what change could occur if we put the fear of God into them the way our parents used to with us?<br /><br />What if we said to them: We see you. We know what you’re doing. We don’t like it. Shape up or you’re going to be grounded. What if we let them know that we were there and we weren’t going anywhere? What if we put them on notice? Shape up or ship out! What if we put an end to this Lord of the Flies government?<br /><br />It doesn’t matter for whom you vote. It matters that you do vote. It matters that you too stand up and be counted. It matters because even if you choose between the lesser of two evils today, the fact that you chose will not go unnoticed. It doesn’t matter whether or not you have an opinion on every topic. It doesn’t matter if you have to vote for a candidate who believes something different from what you do on some issues. At the end of the day, with your vote or without it, someone is going to be elected. Your vote does not constitute your approval of any candidate, it lets them know that they work for you.<br /><br />Abraham Lincoln once said: “You can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time” I voted today because the more of us do, the closer our politicians will have to heed the warning inherent in that quote. It’s easy to fool the polarized portions of our nation. Each side tries to make its constituents fear everything the other side does. It’s easy to make people with harshly contrasting opinions afraid of each other. If those of us who aren’t afraid just chose to vote then fear alone would no longer win elections. Negative campaigning only appeals to the most base of us. What if enough of us voted that they had to earn their jobs instead of getting them because they made you fear someone else more? I vote because I want them know I’m out there. I want them to know I care. I want them to know I’m watching. If you don’t vote, you’re not just part of the problem, you ARE the problem. No matter how ignorant you may when it comes to politics, no matter how little you know of each candidate, no matter how much you may dislike each and every person running, when you fail to vote, you appease the very process which allows those people to be running in the first place. Your vote does count. It counts toward more than the tally for any particular candidate. It matters because the first rule of being a good parent is showing up. Every parent makes mistakes along the way raising a child, but those who always try, those who are always there, those who are always vigilant seem to always wind up with the best behaved children.<br /><br />Your vote does count. Stop neglecting these petulant children we’ve raised. It’s time to put them over our knee. The children don’t run this house. We do.<br /><br />Vote.Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-38826661284905142752010-10-21T13:15:00.000-05:002010-10-21T13:16:37.442-05:00Bullying the Bullies.Bullying. Bullying is big news now. Everyone wants to stop bullying. Everyone is very concerned about bullying. Bullies are evil. Bullying is bad. The victims of bullying are brave people. Bullying should be met with zero tolerance by schools and organizations. No bullying allowed! Get it?<br /><br />I’ve never been very much of a politically correct mind. Maybe I’m alone in this sentiment, but I’m getting a little tired of all the whining and crying about people being bullied. People have been getting bullied since the dawn of man. The problem today isn’t that bullying is more common, it’s not that there are more bullies or that their methods of bullying are more brutal. The problem is that the bullied are bigger wusses than at any point ever before.<br /><br />We used to think of being bullied as a right of passage. Stand up to the bully and you learn a valuable lesson about life! Stand up for yourself and learn that respect must be demanded, not hoped and wished for. We don’t see it that way anymore though. Today, we see the bullied as victims. And they are victims, but not simply victims of bullying, but victims of their own spinelessness.<br /><br />Bullying becomes big news every time some poor kid kills him or herself after being bullied. It’s such a tragedy! Well, yes. It is a tragedy when a kid feels like they have no alternative to killing themselves, but the tragedy isn’t in the fact that the kid was bullied, it’s in the fact that they felt they were helpless to do anything about it. <br /><br />I’m not making excuses for bullies. I just think that targeting bullies is a stupid way to solve the problem. There will always be bullies. Eliminating bullies is like eliminating lying. It can’t happen. You can all join hand and sing Kumbaya til the cows come home, but there will always be bullies. As long as some kids are bigger than others, as long as some kids are jealous of others, as long as some kids are so desperate to conform that they are willing to ridicule and prey upon those who don’t there will be bullying. There have always been bullies and there will always be bullies.<br /><br />What’s changed isn’t the bully, it’s the victim. <br /><br />Think about it. Think about how we raise our children. We don’t keep score at their tee-ball and soccer games. Everybody wins! Everybody gets a trophy! Equal playing time for all! No one ever loses. No one ever learns how to lose. And for that matter, no one gets to learn how to win graciously either. If a child is falling behind in the classroom, the class slows down so that the student doesn’t get left behind.<br /><br />Excuses are made. Parents appease their children. Now, more than ever before, parents shield, guard and protect their children from the slightest hint of harm, unhappiness or the mere idea that they aren’t as good, as smart, as athletic, as talented, as gifted as the kid next door. Everyone is equal. Of course, that’s not the reality of it. We’re not all equal. Some of us are smarter than others. Some of us are more athletic than others. Some of us are big, some of us are small, some of us are cool, some of us are dorks. We are all different. That’s the thing that makes us special. Parents, though, want their kids to be special just like everyone else’s kids. Every parent wants his or her kid to be the starting quarterback or the homecoming queen. <br /><br />Every parent wants their kid to be liked, to be popular, to be smart, to get into the best college, to find the perfect boyfriend or girlfriend. Parents have idealized how their kids lives should be. So, is it any wonder that when life doesn’t turn out like the parents expect it to, that the kids feel like they have nowhere to turn?<br /><br />If little Timmy likes to draw and spends hours drawing the things he imagines in his mind, why don’t we celebrate that? If he grows up to become a well-paid graphic designer it’s certainly okay, but as a child the kid who keeps to himself and draws centaurs is somehow less than what a parent thinks he should be. He should have more friends. He should have a girlfriend. He should play soccer. <br /><br />If little Susie likes other girls and dreams of a wedding where she is standing next to another woman, we don’t celebrate that. We call it a phase. We know she’ll grow out of it. She’s just rebelling. Even if her parents do “accept” her, very few actually do support her for her for what she is, do they?<br /><br />No. The problem isn’t the bullies. The problem is the parents. Parents have this idealized vision of what their kids should be. Parents isolate kids from pain and failure and loss because they think a strong ego is what’s necessary to make it in this world. They are wrong. Childhood is difficult. It is the fire in which we are tempered. It is the proving ground where we earn the right to someday be called adults.<br /><br />The problem isn’t the bullies. The problem is that kids don’t understand how to stand up to them. We live in a world more connected than at any time in our history. If you’re being picked on because you’re a nerd, there are tens of thousands of nerds only a few clicks away. You are not alone. If you are gay and living in small town and feel the full weight of how different you are, you are only a few clicks from being with people just like you who truly understand what you are going through. Strange then, that people feel more alone than they ever have before.<br /><br />I don’t blame the bullies. I blame the parents of the bullied. I blame the culture in which they raise kids. I blame the parents for not teaching their kids to stand up for themselves. I blame the parents for sheltering their kids from hurt and pain and naively thinking that it’s a good thing. I blame the parents robbing their kids the lessons that are only learned in defeat. I blame the people who try to make everything fair. Life isn’t fair. Why should childhood be? A fair childhood only leads to an unrealistic ability to deal with real life and the completely unfair curves it throws. <br /><br />We have raised a generation of children who are incapable of coping with unfairness because they never learned to do so as kids because they never had to because mommy and daddy were always there to make sure everything was equal and balanced and fair and right and good. We live in a Capitalist nation where competition is everything and we raise our kids on the concepts of Socialism where everything is balanced and fair and equal and as they leave the nest, is it any wonder why now, more than ever, bullies band together and find strength in their own conformity? Is it any wonder how those don’t conform, whether by their own choice or not, are so lost? <br /><br />Ironic, isn’t it, that the same parents who so poorly prepared their kids for the realities of the world and how hard life can be, now choose to blame the bullies? Let’s not look inward. Let’s not accept any blame ourselves. It’s the bullies fault. We must band together against them. We are the adults after all! They are just children. We can band together and…bully them into being nice.<br /><br />Right?Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-79273241672849186142010-10-07T13:55:00.001-05:002010-10-07T13:56:31.798-05:00Common Sense ReliefAh, the Fall! The air is crisp, the weather cool, the leaves are turning and the candidates are attacking. That’s right, it’s election time too and just in time for Halloween it seems there’s even a witch running for office! It’s the same old thing really. The Democrats are begging for time and saying that it takes time to crawl out of the hole the Republicans dug. The Republicans are saying that the Democrats are only making things worse and putting our grandchildren’s grandchildren in debt.<br /><br />Of course taxes and tax cuts are hot button issues, so I find it just a bit more than ironic when my television switches from Democrat attack ad to Republican attack ad to…something called American Tax Relief. Have you seen this commercial? It features a bevy of smiling, happy couples who say things like: “We owed $3,000,000 in taxes but thanks to American Tax Relief, we only wound up paying less than $1,000,000!” Or, “We owed $60,000 in taxes and we only paid $300! Thanks American Tax Relief!”<br /><br />My question is this: When did the IRS start bending over like that? <br /><br />Would you like to know how much I paid in taxes last year? If you guessed every bit that I owed, you’d be right! That’s how taxes work. Isn’t it? You, or your accountant, figure out what you owe and then you pay it. Apparently, if you don’t pay it though and you wait a few years and then go to American Tax Relief they can settle with the IRS so that you pay only a fraction of what you actually owe.<br /><br />It makes me wonder why any of us actually pay our taxes at all? Why not just hold out, spend that money and then settle for a significantly smaller amount at some point in the future? Does anyone else find it kind of insulting that the politicians keep blaming each other for all of our problems and meanwhile there’s some company out there who’s entire purpose is to help people not pay the taxes that they owe? <br /><br />We do have a deficit don’t we?<br /><br />“We owed $400,000 in taxes, but thanks to American Tax Relief, we only paid $60,000!”<br /><br />Is it any wonder why we have a deficit? I understand its better to collect something than nothing but if the settlement amounts being reported on these commercials are true, we the people are getting screwed!<br /><br />Then I watch some more of these political attack ad commercials and I listen to the “issues” they talk about. I can’t help but wonder why or how we ever expect things to get better when we keep electing officials based on issues that don’t really matter. Gay marriage isn’t going to get us out of debt. Abortion isn’t going to fix our foreign policy or win any wars. Whether or not someone used to be a witch doesn’t have any bearing on the unemployment figures. Maybe we the people aren’t so different from the IRS after all. We’re owed great things from our government and we accept a parade of clown college rejects. I wonder if American Tax Relief brokers elections too?Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-50102756379070720552010-08-30T16:31:00.001-05:002010-08-30T16:32:36.495-05:00The Hunger Games Trilogy: Books on Fire!Into the void left when J.K. Rowling concluded her Harry Potter series has emerged an amazing new series that sadly, has now too concluded with the third installment, which was released just this month. I’m speaking, of course, about Suzanne Collins young adult themed Hunger Games series which begins with The Hunger Games, continues with Catching Fire and concludes with Mockingjay. <br /><br />As I did with the Harry Potter novels, I allowed others to test drive the series before I chose to involve myself and as the hype regarding the final installment intensified, I found myself unable to resist the lure and I’m very happy for that particular weakness. The Hunger Games Trilogy was simply amazing. <br /><br />The books tell the story of Katniss Everdeen who lives in the post-apocalyptic remnants of the United States called Panem. The country is divided up into 12 poverty-stricken districts and controlled under the tight fist of the extravagant Capitol. Each year, as a remind of the Capitol’s absolute control and as punishment for the rebellion of the now-destroyed 13th District many years ago, two children between the ages of 12 and 18 are chosen in The Reaping from every district and those reaped are placed into a wilderness arena where they must either kill or be killed until at last, only one remains.<br /><br />The Hunger Games are televised and mandatory viewing for the people in each district and they must watch as the slaughter goes on. When Katniss’ sister is chosen, knowing that she could never survive the games, Katniss chooses to volunteer herself in her place.<br /><br />To say more would to be to ruin the fun for those of you who haven’t yet read this series, but rest assured that while the first book deals almost exclusively with the games, the second two take on a much deeper and more political and allegorical theme. The stories are so well written and the suspension of disbelief so aptly achieved that many in the young adult target audience will likely miss many of the political messages in this series, but those who know their history will surely see a clearly defined anti-big government, anti-socialist, anti-big brother stance taken by the author. <br /><br />At one point, she seemingly takes aim at our lives here in the U.S. today when she has one character relate to another the latin phrase, “panem et circenses” or “bread and circuses” and goes on to teach her that if you keep people’s belly’s full of bread and entertain them, they will take no interest in government and therefore corruption can take hold. <br /><br />The characters are rich and enigmatic. This is not just a lesson on politics and history, in fact it’s much more an adventure and a love story. It offers the kind of fast paced action that the video game era kids need to keep them occupied and it is tempered with a dramatic love triangle that will have you picking sides like it’s a Burger King commercial. <br /><br />And that is, perhaps, the The Hunger Games Trilogy’s most amazing asset, it is everything that the other heir apparent to the Harry Potter throne is not. At no point, while reading The Hunger Games, will you feel like you’re in the hands of an amateur writer as you most certainly must when reading Twilight. While people either seem to love or hate Stephanie Meyer’s series, The Hunger Games delivers in such a way that it clearly triumphs over Twilight. It offers substance, it’s amazingly well written, fast paced, thought provoking and poignant. It is everything that Twilight is not. Meyer gives you sparkly vampires, Collins counters with a girl on fire.<br /><br />This is a series of unassuming heroes who rise to challenges they should never have to face. It is a series of truly evil villains—some who are easily recognizable and some who are hiding in plain sight. It is a lesson about what happens when a people becomes disinterested in their government. It is a testament to man’s inhumanity toward man. It borrows themes from sources as old as ancient Greece and as contemporary as today’s latest headlines. <br /><br />My only complaint is the context in which many of the young adults, who are the target audience for these books, have with which to understand the themes. The book speaks out against socialism and paints a picture of a socialist state similar to the former Soviet Union, however these kids are bombarded with the term socialism at every turn in today’s media and the opportunity to misunderstand Collins’ thoughts and ideas are rampant. Considering the great lengths at which she went to take shots at the media and the propaganda they spew, I don’t believe she purposefully left out that proper context, but it’s omission is sad in that will allow some to use her books for purposes which I do not believe she meant them.<br /><br />Simply put, to miss out on this series would be a mistake. You could wait for the movies, which will be coming out over the next few years, but I’m afraid you’d miss the rich tapestry, underlying themes and be left with only the action and romance if you do. Pick them up. Read them. You won’t regret it.Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-27096370312291634512010-08-24T15:34:00.001-05:002010-08-24T15:37:37.946-05:00Mosque Near Ground ZeroEveryone has their underwear in a bunch over the proposed plan to build a mosque only 600 feet from ground zero in New York where the World Trade Center once stood. Some are protesting the plan, saying that it would be a disgrace to those who died on 9/11 to have a mosque built so close to where they died. Some are fighting the protesters saying that our country was actually founded on some arcane principle known as the freedom of religion.<br /><br />For my part, I don’t really care where any mosques are built. Maybe I’m a fool, but I don’t think all Islamic people are terrorists. Oh, and I don’t think that those who are would ever set up shop in a huge building that used to house a Burlington Coat Factory only 600 feet from their last big target. I tend to think the bad guys will probably try to stay on the down low. At very worst, if they do try to hide in plain sight, then maybe that’s not such a bad thing. I have to imagine that even our inept intelligence community can keep track of the terrorists if they all congregate in a well-known place.<br /><br />I’ll leave the arguing to those more passionate than I though. The more I hear about the situation though, the more I’m drawn to our country’s past and I can’t help but be a little proud of how far we’ve come. It may not seem like a natural time for pride, but compared to our history, those of Middle-eastern decent are getting a pretty good shake. Don’t be naïve, this isn’t an easy time for people who have immigrated to this country from that region, but ask any Japanese American who was alive during World War II if they’d rather get dirty looks at the airport and have protests over where they worship, or if they’d rather get locked up in internment camps and I’m guessing they’ll say the former.<br /><br />We have a history of hatred and a track record for treating those we hate pretty poorly. The Japanese and some Germans were imprisoned when we hated them. So were the Africans who arguably got the worst of our hate. Of course the Native Americans might argue that point. When the Irish first came to our shores during the Potato Famine we gave them a case to make and the Chinese who came to build our railroads were little more than slaves themselves. <br /><br />We’re flat out mean to the people du jour who we hate. We always have been. It’s in our blood. We’re good at it. We look at them as less than human because it helps us rationalize them. We call them savages, niggers, micks, the yellow peril, Japs and slant-eyes. We have believed them to be less than human and then we proceed to treat them as such. We’ve put them in chains, given them blankets infected with small pox, we’ve locked them in prisons and placed them in ghettos. <br /><br />That could have happened after 9/11. In fact, if 9/11 had happened earlier in our history it certainly would have. We’d have locked the “ay-rabs” up in camps. We’d have torn down all of their mosques. But that’s not who we are anymore, at least not all of us. We can’t expect the world to change at the drop of a hat or in the blink of an eye and we can’t cure centuries of ignorance overnight. I’m certainly not arguing that we’ve acted in a Christ-like manner in the way we’ve treated Middle-Easterners but I do think, we’ve treated them less in the way of the devil than our own ancestors would have. <br /><br />It’s easy to pick sides in this current debate. It’s easy to be mad at one side or the other. It’s easy to be outraged by obvious insensitivity or appalled by the ignorance to our founding principles but when you take a step back and you look at it all from a distance, I think you can’t help but see how times have changed. Tempers are flaring, sides are standing opposed and the argument rages on, but arguments are better than chains, better than prisons, better than viewing a people as sub-human. Because while some would support those very thoughts in a heartbeat most of us would never stand for it.<br /><br />It’s an interesting point in history. The unenlightened are still loud and garner a great deal of attention in their ignorance and hate, but somewhere along the way, we’ve moved past the days of old. We’ve chosen a new way. It’s far from perfect. We have a long way to go. Make no mistake though, we have come so very far from who we were at our worst. <br /><br />I went into a convenience store today and there was a WWII veteran at the lottery counter sporting his Navy hat commemorating the ship he served on during the war. He was chatting with the man behind the counter, a man of Middle-eastern heritage. They spoke like they were old friends and maybe they are just that. They weren’t talking about mosques or wars or rights or freedoms. They were talking about their grandchildren. Perhaps the future for those grandchildren isn’t as dim as it looks. Maybe all it takes is a clearer perspective to see that even if we take one step back for every two steps forward, we’re still getting somewhere. Maybe the idea of America isn’t quite dead yet.Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-45453213285471348312010-08-20T12:54:00.000-05:002010-08-20T12:55:03.612-05:00Attn: Tony Fucking DungyWhat I’d like to know is who died and make Tony Dungy into God all of the sudden? Apparently he’s not satisfied with being an analyst on NBC’s Sunday Night Football studio because his name is just about everywhere in the NFL. I didn’t mind so much when he was taking wayward athletes under his wings and trying to instill a bit of class and dignity in them. His work with Michael Vick and others has been admirable. His books have touched many and his mentoring programs have been very successful. By all indications, this is a good man. <br /><br />There comes that point though when good men cross the line and start to get a little too full of themselves and a little too sanctimonious. Dungy’s latest crusade has me wondering if perhaps he’s at that point? He expressed concern over NY Jets coach Rex Ryan’s use of foul language in practices as shown on HBO’s documentary series Hard Knocks.<br /><br />Now, in my day, I was called things by coaches that would make sailor’s cringe and that was by coaches who actually liked me, so I have to wonder what sport Tony Dungy was a part of in which curse words offend his delicate sensibilities? Swearing and sports are like peanut butter and chocolate, they just seem to be made for each other and that’s the way it’s been for as long as sports have dominated our culture.<br /><br />That wasn’t Tony Dungy’s way though. And that’s fine. If he’s a man who chooses not to use curse words then that is his prerogative, but when he starts casting stones at others who do, that’s when I have a problem. Dungy seems to feel that his way is the right way and that other coaches should adopt it. He feels curse words are undignified and uncouth.<br /><br />Well, I say: Fuck that.<br /><br />Dungy is a devout Christian, so let me try to explain this to him in a way he can understand. Mr. Dungy, by speaking out against curse words you are sinning. I think you should confess to your preacher before you’re damned to hell for your trespasses, sir. Allow me to explain:<br /><br />We all get angry. We all get upset. We all emote displeasure, dissatisfaction and anger verbally. We all use certain words for emphasis. We use tone and volume to the same end. It’s a basic human characteristic. No one—except perhaps the British—gets burned by fire and politely observes that it’s quite painful, indeed. <br /><br />Our speech is what separates us from the animals. Part of that speech; in every language, in ever culture, in every corner of the world, it’s people who stub their toes crying out loudly and angrily and harshly and they express themselves and their great displeasure with having suffered that particular injury. It’s human nature. My point is that while it may be possible to control your emotions in that situation, it’s not likely. Verbalizing your pain and frustration at that point is a very human thing to do. And since we’re all human and none of us perfect, I have to assume that’s okay.<br /><br />But you don’t like curse words. You’d prefer we cry out “dang it!” instead of “dammit!” You’d prefer “fudge” to “fuck.” And here’s where you become a sinner Mr. Dungy. In every Bible I’ve ever seen it was the first Commandment: “I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods besides Me.” <br /><br />Wait. Follow me here! <br /><br />So, if we accept that expressing ourselves vocally, our pleasure, our pain, our joy our sorrow is a human thing to do, and God made us human then there must be a reason for that, which means that the base emotion itself is an okay thing. However, by giving certain words more power than others, don’t you, in a way, deify them? If you and I each stub our toe, and you yell “fudge” and I yell “fuck” but we both feel the same pain, the same frustration and are each trying to express the exact same thing, does it really matter what word we choose?<br /><br />You use fudge, I use fuck. If the emotion in each of our hearts is the same, then it should be wrong, no matter how we choose to express it. I’ve watched you coach football games Mr. Dungy. You remained calm quite a bit, but not always. You got upset. You got angry. You became frustrated. Are those emotions wrong? Are they too undignified and uncouth? Moreover, should someone have called you out every time you spoke tersely to a player? Should someone have told you that your angry stare was not in the best interests of the NFL?<br /><br />See what I mean about those without sins casting the first stone there, big guy? It boils down to one thing or the other. Either the emotion itself is wrong—that the emoting of any negative feeling is bad and we should never, in any way, express anything but positive sounds, noises and looks; or, you’re picking and choosing certain words that you personally don’t like and giving those words power over others. <br /><br />Yes. You give words power. Every time you stub your toe and specifically choose to substitute “fudge” while meaning—like I say it—“fuck” you are giving the word “fuck” power. Every time you call someone out for using words that you don’t like, you give them power. And giving a word power is blasphemy. It’s a sin. Christianity is based on Judaism where the only unsayable word was the name of God. Think about that next time before you speak up about other people not using certain words.<br /><br />As for the idea that the expression of anger or sadness or any other negative emotion is bad, I think any good psychologist will tell you that’s just not true. In fact, it’s much healthier for us to express them and get them out of our systems than it is to hold them inside. <br /><br />So my question is simple: If the emotion is natural and expressing it cathartic and if no word has more power than any other word, then what’s the big deal? Why is Rex Ryan disgracing the NFL because he swears? Who put you in charge of deciding what people can and can’t—should and shouldn’t say? Who chose you to be spokesman for the language police? And by whose authority does the language police operate? <br /><br />I respect your right to not use curse words. That’s the American and Christian thing to do. Don’t stand there and be so sanctimonious as to suggest that only your way is the right way. Your choices are yours and they do not make you better than me, Rex Ryan or Don Rickles. Remember, sir: Judge fucking not, lest you be fucking judged.Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-26470272972056276222010-08-19T14:04:00.000-05:002010-08-19T14:06:14.107-05:00Doomed to RepeatThe last U.S. Combat Brigade has left Iraq and…well, it’s been a little anti-climatic. I think of the thousands of people who stopped traffic on Lake Shore Drive and Michigan Avenue here in Chicago to protest the war in Iraq and I wonder where all those people are now? You’d think they’d be…I dunno? Excited? Happy? Triumphant? <br /><br />But no. Those people have mostly moved on to other causes I suppose. Or, maybe they wised up a bit when their hero the Super O told them what the previous administration did: That you just can’t pick up and leave—that the consequences to that would be worse than the consequences to our staying there.<br /><br />Americans are a bit spoiled in that we’ve never had war brought to our shores aside from 9/11 and a few isolated incidents during WWII. War is a video game to us, or a movie. That’s our reference point. So, ending a war seems like a simple enough thing to do. Choose a few face saving words of bravery, save that last little child, board the waiting chopper and take off looking back at the war torn land you’re leaving as the credits roll. Done. Right?<br /><br />Not so. <br /><br />Back when people were lining the major streets of our cities and the mother of a soldier who was killed in Iraq was camping out just outside the Bush ranch in Texas all people could talk about was how this was a war for oil. And make no mistake, there were people in our president’s ear who had personal financial gain on their minds when they applauded his choice to take war to Iraq, but it was never a war for oil. It was a war for revenge. <br /><br />The question is who had the revenge right of way? From the point of view of most Americans, we did. They flew planes into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon! Of course, they saw it differently. They felt like revenge was their right because 20 years earlier we used them to fight a war against the Russians—a war they won for us and then once it was over, we left them to rot in the war torn wasteland where they won. Sons grew up without fathers. Life was hard. Sure, they could have blamed the enemy—the Russians, but that’s the enemy! The bad guys! They are supposed to be evil! <br /><br />So, it was their “friends” who they chose to blame. That would be us. And our evil is fact. We used them and left them to suffer the consequences. That didn’t give them the right to do what they did. Attacking civilians is wrong and cowardly, but even that distinction is open to interpretation. During the war in Afghanistan against the Russians, bombs were left that resembled toys so that children would pick them up and be killed. During that war, there was no such thing as a civilian. <br /><br />In fact, Afghanistan was so thoroughly destroyed that 20 years later when the fatherless sons of that war struck out for vengeance, their country wasn’t recovered enough to fight back against. We needed a figurehead. We needed someone we could fight. Iraq was in up to their necks—but behind the scenes, like the CIA in the war between Afghanistan and Russia. We chose them as our target. They were a public relations target more than anything. Sadaam was someone we could bring down. Oedipus could be satisfied when Georgie Jr. proved to his mommy that he was a bigger man that daddy. There was an actual country there that we could liberate—and they did need liberating. <br /><br />It was a win-win proposition. The American people, too ignorant of their own history, just wanted some blood. We wanted to believe in WMD’s and all the rest. Of course, the problem was that after Shocked and Awed the hell out of them, beat their army, took their evil leader prisoner and later executed him that our original enemy entered the vacuum to fill the space that the Iraqi government had previously occupied.<br /><br />We found ourselves fighting the very people we trained to defeat the Russians, on their turf, the very same turf that the USSR couldn’t defeat them on—only it was worse. At least the USSR could leave bombs for kids to set off and target people—military or civilian—indiscriminately. We had to fight our war on television. We had to win hearts and minds. It was a no-win situation. <br /><br />The political pressure that ensued led to our electing a president who promised to get our troops out of Iraq. It’s taken him a year and a half to do it. And here’s the rub: We’ve left a power vacuum once again. The fledgling Iraqi government is too corrupt and too weak and too divided to stand. It will fail. Power will fall into the hands of the most ruthless and evil. Fear will be their weapon. No American President will do anything about it, because the American people want no part of Iraq and to do so would be political suicide.<br /><br />And so the fatherless sons of this war will rise up and strike out at our own children. Here’s hoping that before they act, before they take to the streets to protest, that they understand their history and they know the truth of what has transpired.Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-28121423409759025462010-07-09T11:50:00.001-05:002010-07-09T11:52:32.701-05:00YES. We ARE All Witnesses.I stopped watching NBA games over a decade ago. A league without rules, or more specifically, certain rules for certain players and teams is really no better or interesting for me to watch than the “wrestling” in the WWE. At least the WWE now acknowledges that it is “entertainment” not sport. To me, the NBA is no different. I feel that the league and the officials conspire to market first, stay true the sport—well, that’s got to be 7th or 8th on the list.<br /><br />With that frame of mind, I didn’t think I’d really care either way about LeBron James’ “Decision” about where he’d be playing the next few years of his career. I honestly hoped that he wasn’t going to come to my home town of Chicago. I get that he’s a superstar, but he’s always rubbed me the wrong way. My rooting interest was for him to remain in Cleveland. I’ve felt bad for them ever since Michael Jordan hit “the shot” over Craig Ehlo. As a fellow Midwesterner, I understand the draw of the home town kid whose made good. <br /><br />So, with only that casual rooting interest, I was surprised at how deep and visceral my reaction was when the announcement came that Mr. James was taking his game to Long Beach. I had a feeling for him that literally bordered on hatred. Watching such blatant narcissism at the expense of and in the face of a home-town city, which had treated him like the “king” he claimed to be was literally painful. <br /><br />I’ve heard people talk about how uncomfortable he looked up on that stage, but I have a hard time feeling sorry for him when it was his choice to be there. It’s ridiculous to believe that his decision was made just that morning. James has been a member of the Heat for two years now in all but uniform. How does “King” James choose to tell his loyal “witnesses?” He hides behind some kids from the Boys & Girls Club in a town in Connecticut.<br /><br />But that wasn’t all. He spoke in third person. And perhaps most cruelly of all, he chose Miami without saying much positive at all about Cleveland. Oh, he pointed out that he played hard for them, he acknowledged all he brought to that team and the city, but all he said about Cleveland or the Cavaliers was that he had much respect for them.<br /><br />Much respect. So. That’s nice. Huh?<br /><br />That word has become a joke. Respect. When you respect a city, it’s people and it’s team, you don’t go on television, on an hour-long program glorifying yourself when you know your decision will hurt all those you leave behind. When you respect the fans and the team and the city, even if you do decide to leave, you cancel the show, you release a heartfelt press-release explaining your decision and begging the forgiveness of the people you supposedly respected.<br /><br />You don’t make a spectacle. You don’t rub in an entire city—an entire state’s face just to appease your own narcissistic needs. Is anyone else tired of celebrities and superstars feeding and fueling their own narcissism in these kinds of spectacles and expecting us to be okay with it simply because they donate the proceeds to some charity? Congratulations Boys & Girls Clubs, you’re whores. And if I was dying of thirst, I’d crawl into the afterlife parched before drinking a Vitamin Water. <br /><br />Your Nike commercials say it best LeBron. We are all witnesses. We witness not only your play on the court, but the way in which you comport yourself off it. We are not fooled by a pittance given to a charity, we know what this was about. It was all about you. It was one of the most gross and painful to watch displays I’ve ever seen. <br /><br />And I can’t help but draw parallels. I remember back to when I did watch the NBA and I remember my childhood hero, Michael Jordan. Mr. James will never live up to that mantle. He’ll never reach the standards of excellence set either on or off the court by MJ. As witnessed by his induction speech into the Hall of Fame, Jordan obviously had that same narcissism, but throughout his career, he managed it, he kept it inside. He took challengers as affronts to his supremacy and he dispatched them like a cold-blooded assassin. <br /><br />By all accounts, James has done nothing but choke in the playoffs. Instead of taking challengers as slights to your supremacy and vanquishing them, James chose to partner with at least one player who is arguably his equal or even his better. I learned all I’ll ever need to know about LeBron James last night. The Air is rare in the echelon where the masters reside and the King will never breath it.<br /><br />And we’re all witnesses.Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-47683039634111361002010-05-24T13:15:00.001-05:002010-05-24T13:17:04.840-05:00LOST: More than everI’m not sure how to feel about last night’s series finale of LOST. Judging by the early scuttlebutt on the interwebs, there are a lot of people out there who are pretty confused about just exactly how they should feel too. The problem is that last night’s episode was amazing. It was a great episode. It gave you all the happy, sad and triumphant moments you wanted and needed as a fan. It was perfect—except for that one pesky little problem. <br /><br />Don’t confuse that empty feeling in your gut with a sense of LOST being over. That empty feeling is a six year investment with no clear cut payoff. The season that promised to answer all, instead chose to answer little. It’s supposed to be artistic. We’re supposed to be thrilled that we get to choose our own interpretation of it all. I call bullshit. Writing is about making choices and the failure to choose is the sign of a cowardly writer. The writers of LOST failed to choose.<br /><br />Oh, they made some choices and they even ended things with an important choice. The famed “flash sideways” portions of this season were shown to be a purgatory-like existence where the castaways were not enlightened to the fact that they were dead until they came into contact with a fellow castaway and in a flash got their enlightenment.<br /><br />The last one on board was Doc Jack, of course. He of little faith refused to give in until he touched the empty coffin of his dearly departed dad Christian Shepherd (yes, Kate…Christian Shepherd, really). Now don’t get me wrong. This was brilliant. It was a great way to end...a season. That’s why it was so satisfying to so many. The problem isn’t with what we got, the problem is with what we didn’t get.<br /><br />What IS the island? What IS the light? Who put Jacob’s momma in charge of guarding it? Why? WHY???? What difference would it make if the island had sunk into the ocean years ago, before Jacob and Smokey were even born? What was the point of the Dharma Initiative? Why were they brought to the island? What happened to Walt? Why were women unable to have babies on the island for so long—couldn’t Jake and Smoke’s REAL mom have uttered a curse before she croaked to wrap that one up at least?<br /><br />What irritates me most is the audacity of the writers to come on in the pre-show special and almost foreshadow the fact that they were cowards by suddenly saying that it’s not about the island, it’s about the characters. Oh! Well thank you! The island was just coincidental to the six years of buildup huh? All along, it’s all been about the characters? I call bullshit again. <br /><br />I don’t disagree that the show was about the characters. I do. However, they made the island a living, breathing thing, they gave it life. They made the island a character in this show and not just a minor character. I’m not sated by a little Anna Lucia cameo to end the show with, I want to know about this character! I want to know why it can jump through time? I want to know about the light that sustained it and needed protecting. It’s all fine and well that the time spent on the island was the ultimate test for Jack and all the others that allowed them to reunite in their own little heaven after they died, but what about the island itself? Islands don’t jump through time! Islands don’t evade detection by the uninvited. <br /><br />If a LOST fan tries to explain it all away to you today as this having always been a character driven show and tell you that what the island might be is only peripheral and beside the point, slap them in their pretentious faces. They are sheep and were herded into that opinion by the cowardly producers who pulled off an amazing bait and switch last night. And somehow, they got us to take what we didn’t want and think it was the greatest thing since sliced bread—or Dharma peanut butter. <br /><br />No. Look at last night for what it was my friends, a brilliant and amazing season finale, and a disappointing and cowardly series finale. From one point of view, it was an amazing accomplishment; on the other, it was an unparalleled disaster. For all of the great buzz about last night’s finale that’s out there today, eventually, it’ll come around and people will realize that they were cheated, bamboozled once again, and this time it’s permanent…well, until/unless the movie comes out in a few years.<br /><br />For six years, LOST has left me and fans around the world, hanging. We were left to hang after each episode and after each season and we loved it because it propelled us to what came next. It’s what gave the series constant new life and energy and made it so unpredictable. They could have chosen to tie it all up and make it all pay off, but they didn’t. They left us hanging again. <br /><br />They say that its not about the destination, it’s about the journey. Well, the journey way amazing, right up to the very last scene, but the problem is that after over 120 hours of viewing, our journey, it turns out, had no destination. It was just a bunch of aimless wandering. Jack said, “it all matters.” I hate to disagree Doc, but that’s not true. I could have missed an episode or two and it wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference. It wouldn’t have mattered at all.<br /><br />In the end, none of it mattered.Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6213815482235796893.post-58942652570983230062010-04-21T16:34:00.000-05:002010-04-21T16:35:20.267-05:00LabelsI always get a kick out of people who are willing to allow themselves to be labeled. As an Aquarian male, I’ve been told that stars predetermined my own anathema to labels but to me it’s just a sign of intelligence to not want to be classified. I can’t think of a single group or label that I identify with completely. I don’t want to be one of you and agree with everything you have to say. I want to pick and choose. I’m a buffet kind of guy.<br /><br />Politics is a great example of the label phenomenon. Here in the U.S. everyone seems gung-ho to label themselves as a Democrat or a Republican. To me, taking on one of those tags is equivalent to choosing between being labeled as a child molester and a serial killer. Neither choice is a good one and willingly associating yourself with being either one is outright foolish.<br /><br />Stop. Think. How can one side ALWAYS be right? Does that happen anywhere else in your life? Of course not. In terms of politics though, everyone has to choose a team and in most urban areas the youth tends to start their careers off as Democrats because they see the world in terms of good and bad. They see the world in terms of social issues. From their perspective, it’s hard not to see the Republicans as the evil empire and the Democrats as the peace-loving Rebellion.<br /><br />Nowhere is this more obvious than on the internet. After the Bush years, Republican hating became sport. Truthfully, some of that anger should have been directed at the Democrats too. If they’d had anyone better than Gore or Kerry, Bush never would have happened. Regardless of that fact though, the term “young Republican” has become something of a joke outside of the rural parts of the country. With a hip, tuned-in, new black President, it’s safe to say that the youth is firmly on the side of the Democrats.<br /><br />The youth of our country have much less of a problem with gay rights, abortion, bigotry and other social issues. To their credit, they are a tolerant, accepting, loving group of people. To the youth, politics is all about social issues and so, place them firmly in the pockets of those who wear the label of Democrat.<br /><br />For my part, I’m pretty liberal-minded on social issues too. I don’t understand the religious right. My Jesus was accepting and loving; he sought out those who society mocked, ridiculed and persecuted and made certain they knew there was a place for them in His kingdom. He was pretty specific about us not judging one and other too. That works for me.<br /><br />So if I’m lined up with them on social issues, why am I not a Democrat? Well, there’s the little problem of fiscal politics. That’s money for those of you who took the short bus hyperlink to this blog post. And after this long-winded, meandering rant that brings me to the point and purpose of this post. I saw in today’s Chicago Sun Times that our governor, a Democrat, wants to start an iTax here in Illinois. An iTax would mean that every download of every song, every album, every podcast, every video and every movie would be subject to a tax. It’s hard to be a member of today’s youth and not notice if all the sudden your iTunes charges start going up.<br /><br />Now, I’ll skip how colossally stupid it is for a governor to alienate an entire generation that he currently has in his pocket because what I’m interested in is the labels. This seems like a nice little lesson for all of those noobie Democrats, swept up in the fervor of Obamamania about the way Democrats operate from a fiscal perspective. Now without a label of my own when it comes to political parties, I can happily claim to be fiscally conservative even though I’m socially liberal. I don’t want my iTunes taxed. I just discovered the joy of downloading music. Don’t jack my prices up! You’re already getting my on my cigars and my beer!<br /><br />Still, from a sociological experimentation point of view, a part of me really hopes that this goes through and the iTax is imposed. All of the sudden, the line between good and evil will become awfully blurry for the Bush-hating, gay-loving, healthcare for all bunch. Nothing makes you forget how much you hate the former President like someone taking money from you on a daily basis. It makes hating that person taking your money much easier is what it does.<br /><br />I wonder, if when this happens, the labels our youth have taken on will change? Will taking candy from the babies turn them against the Democrats? Will their passion for social change outweigh the irritation they experience over money coming from their own pockets?<br /><br />Sadly, it probably won’t occur to them. In fact, this iTax has already happened in more than a dozen states and the uproar has been—nonexistent. But let this be a lesson to anyone who still believes in a two-party system and to anyone who accepts the label of either Democrat or Republican. By taking on the label, you walk into a restaurant and get whatever they are serving—no more, no less. By choosing a side, you rob yourselves of options. You may be allergic to peas, but if that’s what’s on the menu, that’s what you get.<br /><br />Is it just me or does that sound awfully un-American? It makes the buffet a much better choice doesn’t it? It makes you wonder how much gray area there really is in EVERY issue? It makes you wonder how much could actually be accomplished if it wasn’t one thing or the other all the time? As I understand it, that’s what America was supposed to be. What happened? Is your label really worth the forfeiture of your choices?Albert Riehlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962103922332119364noreply@blogger.com4