At the end of December, I bought a new 47" HDTV and I was jazzed that I was going to be able to watch the Super Bowl with a huge screen and surround sound...Up until about 5 days ago when it dawned on me I'm working days that weekend.
I get to sit in my crappy office with a 13" POS TV with lousy speakers having to scoot in and out to deal with the facility.
Had a great time in Phoenix. My friend is not a political junkie like me, so we didn't discuss much politics, and the few things I brought up, we agreed on, which made for short conversations on those subjects.
ME: "Congress is screwing this country royal!"
Friend: "Yep."
ME: "Yep. Need another beer?"
When I got home, I still had five days off and I was in a good mood, so I avoided the news and just skimmed blogs for the next week.
Back to work was night shift...long, boring and cold, then 4 days off and the depression of being alone for Thanksgiving set in. My Mom and brother in Oregon, the wife in Montana and my boy in Korea. There was something good to lift my spirit, my neighbor made me a nice pumpkin pie, which I scarfed in one sitting. (Thank you Alexa!!)
Chris did actually call me on Thanksgiving, the first time I've heard his voice since he left, but I was paranoid of how much it cost him to call, so I kind of cut him short. He wants to come home for a friends wedding in May, and even though I'll probably only get to see him a few hours, I want him to have the cash to make the trip.
I'm getting no joy from football (again) this year. My Raiders...suck, ASU...sucks, any team I decided to root for, just to pick a side, they choose that game to play their worst.
This imbecility out of (surprise) Joy Behar,s mouth got me wound up:
While Whoopi was funny, I couldn't believe that none of them (at least in this clip, and NO! I don't watch The View) really didn't understand that this weekend, the "start" of the Christmas shopping insanity, is the point where stores start to make their profit...going from Red ink (loss) to black ink (profit).
The fact that Behar didn't know what it meant and "ASSUMED" it had some deep racial connotation to it just shows this woman knows nothing about bookkeeping or economics.
Damn near 11 months of running a store and you only make profit on that last month of the year. Working around the Christmas holiday and having to open up your business at 4AM to draw in that extra sale to make the rest of the year worth while.
I just wish the damn liberals could grasp the fact that "Black" can mean something other than a racial pejorative. Most of the time "black" is just a color.
I was thrilled that my team was going to be on TV today...until the game started. Down 31-7 at halftime, that was the end of my hopes for anything close to a descent season, and I guess CBS agreed as they switched to a different game.
It's going to be another loooong season.
The other thing with football that bothered me today was regarding the news that Rush Limbaugh was interested in partnering in ownership of the Rams. The Players Union voted that they were against his owning a team.
Word that Rush Limbaugh is interested in buying the St. Louis Rams has some African American football players swearing off any future employment with the team.
New York Giants defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka and New York Jets linebacker Bart Scott say they would never play for the Rams if Limbaugh owned the team.
Kiwanuka told the New York Daily News, "I don't want anything to do with a team that he has any part of. He can do whatever he wants, it is a free country. But if it goes through, I can tell you where I am not going to play." Scott said, "He could offer me whatever he wanted, I wouldn't play for him. . . . I wouldn't play for Rush Limbaugh. My principles are greater and I can't be bought." Just what the hapless Rams need: Quality players who refuse to play for them.
I'm working graveyard and it's literally freezing at night and the site is running smooth, so rounds are exceptionally quick. Gives me lots of time for bouncing round the web.
Found these last night:
Video - Political Correctness Vs. Freedom Of Thought via FOUNDING BLOGGERS
A man's life just about destroyed with no hearing and damn near no recourse. If FIRE hadn't gotten involved Mr. Sampson would have had to deal with being branded a racist for reading a book (available in the college's library) about the Klan being driven out of Illinois.
I wonder if I could file racial harassment charges for finding someone reading a Malcolm X book near me?
“But I’ve come to believe conservatives are right. They do love America more. Sure, we liberals claim that our love is deeper because we seek to improve the United States by pointing out its flaws. But calling your wife fat isn’t love. True love is the blind belief that your child is the smartest, cutest, most charming person in the world, one you would gladly die for. I’m more in ‘like’ with my country."
Real love is not blindly believing the object of your affection is perfect, but know the flaws and still care deeply anyway. I love my country, without question! Flaws and all. I know we always strive to be better.
I wish I felt such certainty. Sure, it makes life less interesting and nuanced, and absolute conviction can lead to dangerous extremism, but I suspect it makes people happier. I'll never experience the joy of Hannity-level patriotism. I'm the type who always wonders if some other idea or place or system is better and I'm missing out. And, as I figured out shortly after meeting my wife, that is no way to love.
Will Stein change his love of country? I doubt it.
Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.
This is coming from someone who grew up in Africa.
Whenever we entered a territory worked by missionaries, we had to acknowledge that something changed in the faces of the people we passed and spoke to: something in their eyes, the way they approached you direct, man-to-man, without looking down or away. They had not become more deferential towards strangers - in some ways less so - but more open.
Like Stein above, I have to wonder if Parris after having an epiphany, will change?
No, I don't. They will continue to look for a new way to express love of country or that religion hasn't a proven message that should be heeded. They will go through life unsatisfied. Always feeling that there is an answer just around the corner that will allow them to prove they were right by rejecting the basic ideals that drug mankind into enlightenment. We aren't perfect, never will be, but we strive forward, looking to the past for where we screwed up, so as not to repeat the mistake, but also to remember the things we did that were right and good.
We'll finish this up on a lighter note.
I love hockey....BUT....when they had the lockout, they lost me. I've got football (a post coming on why no football posts this year at the end of the season) which takes up enough of the year, but I stumbled into this video. If there are going to be more plays like this, I may consider getting out my Kings jersey again.
I use to be a big basketball fan. Then it became thug ball and I left.
I've watched a few games over the last few years, but just couldn't generate any team spirit or enthusiasm with most of the players shooting 38% from the free throw line.
Having gotten by the Shaq/Kobe years, the Laker's are back in the play offs, so I watched a few of the games and have kinda enjoyed B-ball again.
(As usual the above isn't the reason for my post.)
At half time, they did a "up close and personal" story of Leon Powe of the Celtics.
The man has a lot to speak for his character. He was the oldest of seven children growing up in the hellhole of Oakland, Ca. He talked about his mother giving up food so that her children could have something to eat and that he gave up food so that his mother and siblings could eat. He got good grades and according to his teachers, chased them down to find out how to do better. He had a natural ability to play basketball, but worked as hard as that as he did at academics.
His Mom died at (I think they said 42, just as he graduated HS)and his dad left when he was two. The house they lived in burned down when he was seven and they were homeless.
His Mom got arrested for shoplifting, which I can understand her motivation, not condoning it, but...if I'd needed to feed my kids. All the kids ended up in foster care.
Powe worked to keep the family together. This is a man.
The thing that was not mentioned in the story is where is his dad? There was one kid, and I guess probably another on the way, so did he just decided to cut out?
Now Mom had one, maybe two, kids by daddy one, where the hell did the other five come from? I know a few people from many ethnic groups, but I can't think of another that has SEVEN fucking children with no father around.
I'll say Powe is 100 times the man his father was...but what is it in our society that overlooks the lack of a father in the life of children and celebrates the fact that in this one case there was a gifted child that was able to pull his family out of that death spiral of welfare?
If dad had still been there, Powe would have had his innate talent and would have gone to great things anyway. I'm just sorry he had to fight his way up to the elite of American sports.
