A Little Bit of This…

Well, fall is finally in the air.  Football season is under way, the NHL is playing exhibition games, the temps are falling, and there are political ads out the wazoo.  What more can you ask for?  Got a few things to talk about this week.  Hope you’re interested enough to hear me out.  Gonna end on a positive note this week, too.  So try to stick around if you can.  Promise you’ll enjoy the last snippet.  With that being said, let’s get ready to reeeeaaaaaddddddddddd:

• Not gonna be able to run in Birmingham’s Susan G. Komen, a great and wonderful cause, 5K run this year.  Was able to run a 5K here a couple weeks ago.  Was sponsored by Time Warner Cable and $5 of every entry fee went towards breast cancer awareness, whatever that means.  Have had a tough time running in both races.  Get to thinking about my grandmama and mother both beating breast cancer.  Also think about my Aunt Trisha losing her battle with it.  Well, she always figured she was going to win either way.  She was either gonna beat the cancer or get to meet Jesus face-to-face.  Will always admire the attitude she had during her fight.  Never really care about my time or what place I come in during these races, it’s more about the cause to me.  Highly encourage each and every one of you to be sure to check yourself for lumps on a regular basis.  That includes you, too, men.  If you think men can’t get it, just look up Ace Frehley on the internet one day.  Might be surprised.  And, women you should also be sure to get a mammogram whenever you get a chance.  It’s been proven over and over again they detect cancer at its earliest stages, which is the best time to beat it;
• Ain’t political ads fun to watch?  They’re usually more about the lies the other guy has told than what the politician it’s about is  gonna do.  Think the best one I’ve seen is one about a politician who stopped a crime from being committed.  Sounds like he got beat up pretty bad in the process.  There’s an ad for him that talks about how this shows he has great character.  I think it’s great that he stepped in and saved the day.  But, part of me also thinks, if he had such great character, he wouldn’t be trying to use this to his advantage in an election.  But, in his defense, there’s no “I’m so-and-so and I approve of this ad” statement at the end.  So, it could be some his supporters have put this ad out and not him.  (Just for the record, though, his wife speaks in the ad.)  However, have noticed he sports a very obvious, bright white bandage on his hand in the ads he does approve of.  Sad thing is, I can’t even tell you what office he or his opponent are running for.  In my defense, it is an ad for a politician in a state other than the one I live in.  Only pay about half attention to those ads in my home state.  Pay about half of that in someone else’s state.  At least they’re trying to talk about his positives.  Have said it once, and will say it again:  if all you got to brag about is you’re not your opponent, you ain’t got much to offer, either;
• Been hearing a lot of yapping bout folks being disappointed that Obama ain’t solved the world’s problems in two years.  Now, ain’t a fan of the man nor his policies, but anyone who thought he’d cure everything in two years should probably not be allowed to vote again, ever.  Well, not really, but it does show the short-sightedness of the American electorate.  In case you ain’t been paying attention, this is a world-wide economic downturn.  We are so dependent on the world economy, there’s only so much we can do as a country to improve things.  Reckon we’ll just keep overturning our elected officials until things finally straighten out.  Our economy has always gone through cycles.  We are currently on a downturn.  Part of me thinks some of the problem is we’ve basically legislated out the depression phase of it.  Great prosperity has always followed a depression whether we want to admit it or not.  Ain’t wishing a depression on us, but my point is eventually the economy will cycle through this downturn and things will get better.  None of the legislation passed during the 1930’s brought us out of the Great Depression.  But, it gave Americans hope, which goes a longer way than just about anything else.  Most of the hope was created by creating jobs.  Can’t say any of the legislation passed in the last four years or so has given folks much hope.  Reckon that’s why President Obama is in such trouble, if you believe the polls, anyway.  Imagine it ain’t a coincidence they just announced the recession has supposedly been over since June…2009.  Not really sure how they come to figure that out now.  But, will say it’s mighty convenient it was announced right before the mid-term elections when the Dems are supposedly trailing badly in many races.  Maybe I’m just being overly suspicious, though…;
• See where Lady Gaga has gotten involved in the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” debate.  Think a majority of Americans (including our elected officials on both sides of the aisle) support doing away with this silly policy.  The problem is the language which does away with it is wrapped into other stuff which ain’t so good.  This is the problem most of the time.  Kind of like the debate which said the Pubs were agin extending unemployment benefits a while back.  They weren’t agin extending the benefits, they were agin the way they were going to be funded.  There’s usually more to a story than most Americans want to dig into.  Not sure why this is not just a bill in and of itself.  Would pass with flying colors.  Anyway, at least Ms. Gaga appears to be taking the issue seriously, unlike Stephen Colbert when he was called to testify about illegal immigration.  Read Congress will sometimes call celebrities to bring attention to a particular cause.  Not sure what knucklehead thought calling Colbert was a good idea.  First of all, they had to know he wasn’t going to take it seriously.  Second, this is a pretty hot topic right now so tricks shouldn’t have been needed to draw attention to this subject.  Nice to know our elected officials are taking things so seriously right now;
• Been lots of brouhaha about Katy Perry and her duet with Elmo.  Saw the video.  Think it’s much ado bout nothin myself.  Seems like the kids on lots of kid’s shows dress a lot racier than she did.  The Sesame Street folks have been doing this a long time.  Would think people would trust their judgment by now.  But, some folks nowadays just like to complain bout everything.  By her standards, her dress was pretty tame.  In just about every picture I’ve ever seen of her, she usually has a very low cut top on with a push-up bra shoving those things halfway up to Canada.  To me, it’s hard to tell she has any cleavage in the offending outfit.  But, in the long run, Sesame Street is getting a lot of publicity out this whole thing.  Proving once again that any pub is good pub;
• Heard an interesting debate the other day bout whether golf has lost it’s mainstream status now that Tigger’s struggling.  My man TK Stack Money (that’s Tony Kornheiser to most folks) was saying golf never has been a mainstream sport, especially in comparison to the other sports.  As much as it pains me to say this, have to agree with that statement.  Think Tigger has been mainstream, but not golf itself, least not at the pro level.  (Lot more people play golf than watch it on TV.)  Lot of people today don’t watch for the golf.  They watch to see what Tigger is doing.  Supposedly, TV ratings go way down when he’s either not in contention or not playing in the tournament at all.  Just proves they ain’t golf fans, they’re Tigger fans.  Such a shame, too.  Many people complain about the it’s-all-about-me attitude of many professional athletes these days.  Pro golfers are just about as polar opposite of this that you can imagine.  That’s both the men and the women, by the way.  I actually prefer to watch the LPGA cuz they show their personalities a lot more while they are playing.  It’s a real shame more folks don’t watch them.  Anyway, if you want to watch a sport where the players have honesty and integrity, take a little while to watch some golf on the telly.  It’s actually kind of relaxing;
• OK, here’s the positive ending I promised.  Ever heard of Ike Ditzenberger?  Well, you are about to.  He’s a 17 year old boy with Down Syndrome.  He goes to Snohomish High School out in Washington.  He also happens to be on the football team.  The coach promised Ike he will play in practice as long as he keeps his shoulder pads on and his mouthpiece in.  Every time he does, Coach Mark Perry closes practices with The Ike Special, a play where Ike gets to carry the ball for a touchdown.  Ike’s dream has been to score in an actual game.  Last Friday night in a game against Lake Stevens High School, Coach Perry called The Ike Special on the final play of the game.  Ike ran it 51 yards for the touchdown!  Now, Lake Stevens was in on it, and they let him score.  But, the defenders added touches of realism by “trying” to tackle him, even diving and missing several times.  Lake Stevens won the game on paper 35-6, but in my opinion, both teams won that game.  My hat is off to both coaches.  This is what sports should be all about if you ask me.  If you want to read the story and/or see the play, just follow this here link to see The Ike Special.  You won’t regret it.

Well, that’s all I got for now.  Appreciate you hanging in here with me, and hope you’re having a great week.

I’m out!

Are You Serious?

Every now and then, you read a story that just makes you want to say, “Are you serious?”  Sometimes it’s cuz you can’t believe what you just read.  Sometimes it’s cuz you have to wonder why is this a story in the first place?  Well, have seen a few of those this week that I feel the need to comment on.  So, if you’re curious what makes me say, “Are you serious,” here we go:

• Bunch of folks were commenting on Twitter and Facebook about the dad-blamed Video Music Awards.  Ain’t exactly sure why, either.  First of all, they are on a channel called Music Television, which don’t even play music anymore, much less music videos.  Second of all, seems like there’s some sort of award show on every other week.  Feel like we are in award show overload.  To me, the only purpose for most of ‘em is for the artists to pat themselves on the back about what great artists they think they are.  Third, the artists feel like they have to get more and more extreme every year so people will pay attention to them.  (Reckon you probably heard about Lady Gaga’s meat dress or Cher’s plastic body whether you wanted to or not)  Guess mostly just can’t figure out why folks make such a big deal about the awards when MTV has nowhere near the influence on music and culture that it used to.  Hoping someone will explain it to me;
  
• From the “Only in Alabama” department, some lady tried to set a roller skating rink on fire and to blow up the house of a roller derby coach apparently cuz her roommate and the coach were having some sort of dispute.  There’s barely any legitimate reasons to do something like that, much less over some stupid game.  That’s just plain nuts.  Hate to think what she would try against any opposing teams if they won against the team.  Imagine it will eventually come out she’s got some sort of mental deficiency (duh).  At least I sort of hope so.  Hate to think someone would have such little regard for human life to do something like this without some sort of mental defect.  Unbelievable.  And, all of this cuz of roller derby.  Roller derby?  Are you kidding me? Now, if she’d been upset over an Alabama or Auburn game…Just kidding, but sadly more Alabamians would understand why she did it;
  
• If you’re gonna wear your britches around your knees while packing heat, try not to get busted for selling marijuana.  Dude in Minnesota was arrested for selling pot outside of a local restaurant.  During the process of the arrest, his baggy pants fell on the ground.  The female officer reached down to pull them up and felt a pistol in one of the pockets.  The suspect tried to claim it was an illegal search and seizure and pled it all the way up to the MN State Supreme Court.  The Court disagreed and now he’ll spend some extra time in the pokey cuz of his baggy britches.  Well, in all honesty, sure the officer would have found the pistol eventually and am sure the court probably took that into consideration.  But, still, sort of lends credence to the old saying, “Drugs will make you stupid.”  Just glad the court had some smarts about ‘em…for a change;
  
• From the “Your Government Dollars at Work” category, read an article about how some of the stimulus money has been spent.  Apparently $823,200 went to a scientist at UCLA so he could study the effects of washing genitals after sex in South Africa.  Supposed to be about AIDS prevention.  Now, I’m about as much of a “big picture” person as you’ll probably ever find, but am having a hard time trying to figure out: A. what AIDS prevention in South Africa has to do with anything in the US; and, B. how this is supposed to stimulate the US economy and create jobs.  Guess you can argue preventing AIDS in Africa might eventually help prevent AIDS in the US.  And reckon the money did create (sort of) jobs for the scientist and his assistants.  But, still, don’t make much sense on the surface when that money could have gone towards creating jobs for people who have no kind of job at all.  After all, that’s what the stimulus bill was supposed to be all about.  And politicians wonder why the citizens have little to no confidence in their abilities…;
  
• Am glad the preacher in Florida decided not to have the Koran burning after all.  The better angels of my nature would like to think they never really intended to go through with it all along.  Reckon we’ll never know, though.  Did see a poll on CNN.com this week asking if they had the right to burn it in the first place.  Can’t believe this is actually debatable.  Of course they have the right to burn it.  But, as I’ve said before, just cuz you have the right to do something don’t make it right to do that something.  But, what really struck me about this question was the attempt to grossly oversimplify the whole situation.  This whole story was about ignorance, censorship, intolerance, and attention-grabbing more than anything else.  That’s one of the downsides of our freedoms: the media is a big part of the problem in these matters.  The preacher became addicted to the attention and the media just kept fueling him on with it’s continuous coverage.  But, if the press ain’t free, we ain’t free so reckon we have to put up with the bad so we can have the good.  Still don’t make their question make any more sense to me, though;
  
• Every time I got in the car today, the folks on ESPN radio were talking about something Derek Jeter did that was just so egregious they couldn’t believe he did it.  Irritating thing was they never would say what he did.  So, when I got in, had to look it up.  Folks, here’s what he did that was so bad:  he faked getting hit by a pitch.  Holy cow!  Stop the presses!  A player tried to get an advantage in a game!  Oh, the humanity!!!!  Turns out the pitcher threw inside and hit the knob of the bat (Jeter admitted after the game he had not been hit).  The umpire asked him if he got hit and he started flopping his arm around like Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack.  The Yankees were trailing at the time and he was doing anything he could to get on base, which is his job.  The next dude happen to hit a home run.  Yankees still lost the game, though.  Now, no-way, no-how am I anything close to a Yankees fan, but have to applaud the man for what he did.  Even the opposing manager, who got thrown out of the game for arguing Jeter didn’t get hit by the pitch, said he didn’t think Jeter did anything wrong and would encourage his own players to do the same thing.  The real rub to the media is Jeter’s a real media golden boy and they now feel betrayed cuz he’s just a competitor trying to win at all costs just like everyone else in the world.  Well, I say, get over it!  It’s called taking advantage of baseball’s stupid decision not to use replay more.  Nobody would be complaining if he had leaned into the pitch to get hit.  They’d be praising him for “taking one for the team.”  Not much difference in my mind.  It’s debatable whether either one is ethical, and getting hit intentionally is agin the rules, too.  So, chill out, Baseball Media.  You’re making a big deal out of absolutely nothin’;
  
• Finally, in case you don’t know, marijuana for medicinal purposes is legal out in California.  Well, for those folks who want the effect from the HTC but don’t want to inhale, they now have marijuana-flavored ice cream.  Article I read says every pint is the equivalent of about eight joints.  Said it is literally flying off the shelves of the places that can legally sell it.  If you build a better mousetrap…  Now, never had a hankering for mary jane myself, but have seen and heard about the mythical “munchies” the stuff can cause.  Reckon having weed mixed in with your ice cream might solve that little dilemma.  As the great Briscoe Darling, Jr., used to say, “More power to ya…”   

Well, reckon that’s enough for now.  Appreciate ya making it to the end of the mumbo-jumbo that are my thoughts, if you want to call them that.  As always, all comments are welcome whether you’re fer me or agin me.

I’m out!

Do What?

Been some things in the news lately which just make me want to scratch my head and say, “Do what?”  So, thought I’d share them and maybe you can help them make more sense to me.  So, if you’re ready and willing, as the late great Jackie Gleason used to say, “And awaayyyy we go”:

• See where Steven Slater has parted ways with his now former employer.  You may be asking who he is.  He’s the Jet Blue flight attendant who cursed a passenger, grabbed a beer, and went down the emergency chute as the plane was coming up to the gate.  People were calling him a hero.  Got no idea why, though.  Wonder how many people missed their connections because of that yahbo?  Figure they couldn’t let people get off the plane after that.  Were people celebrating the fact he treated one of his customers like *$&)?  Unless he was physically in danger, it shouldn’t matter what the passenger said to set him off in the first place.  Were they celebrating that the goober was telling his employer to take their job and shove it?  Isn’t that nice in these times where about 1 out of 10 people are out of work right now?  It just never ceases to amaze me how and why some folks suddenly become folk heroes for acting like idi-ahts.  Maybe somebody out there can tell me;
• A headline the other day said some cleric over in Iran says the Holocaust is nothing more than a “superstition,” whatever that’s supposed to mean.  Well, reckon it means he doesn’t believe it really happened.  Have never understood how people can deny the Holocaust.  Guess they’re idi-ahts, too.  Know it’s hard to imagine 6 million people being killed for nothing more than the religion they were born into, especially over such a relatively short period of time.  Met a man once who told me he was one of the first Americans to go into one of those camps.  The old codger started crying while he was trying to tell me about what he saw.  This was in the mid-90’s, almost 50 years after he’d been there.  Ain’t no way I’ll ever doubt it happened, not that I really doubted it in the first place.  Anyway, not really sure what prompted the cleric to talk about the Holocaust, but it’s hard to imagine a man of God/Allah could really be so dense.  Which leads me to my next “do what?” moment…;
• There’s a preacher down in Florida somewhere trying to organize a Quran/Koran burning.  Talk about something that makes no sense at all.  Even General Patraeus (you know, the big chief of our armed forces in Afghanistan) is talking about how stupid this idea is.  He’s got enough on his plate to worry about without having to think about something like this.  But, I digress.  One thing I’ve never really understood is how some people proclaiming to be Christians can be so intolerant of others.  The Bible is pretty clear that Jesus preached a lot about tolerance of others, don’t avoid sinners or non-believers, and love one another whether they are your friend or your enemy.  As a Christian, it just boggles my mind how some Christian “leaders” can’t see that they are more like a Pharisee than than a disciple.  Does God want us to spread His word and brings others to Christ?  Absolutely.  No doubt about it.  But, God gave us free will because He knows forced love ain’t love at all.  We are supposed to bring others to Christ through love and compassion, not hate and condemnation.  Maybe it’s like a quote I saw on Twitter the other day, “To some Christians, the Bible is like the terms of agreement, everyone checks the box but few actually read it.”  Certainly hope these folks change their mind and don’t go through with it.  Of course, that would imply their brains are working in the first place (Yeah, yeah, I realize the irony in the fact I am judging them…);
• Glad to see Hurricane Earl turned out to be a bunch of nothing.  But, the downside is all the media hype leading to nothing will make people block some of the hype out each time it turns into nothing.  Then, when the big one really does hit, it will be Katrina all over again and folks will get killed cuz they think it’s just a bunch of nothing again.  Reckon it’s a double-edged sword, though. They have to use the hype so folks will pay attention nowadays, which leads to overstimulation of the senses, which turns it into white noise, which leads to even more hype to get people to pay attention again.   Just a vicious never-ending cycle.  I always follow the storms on-line, usually on wunderground.com or the National Hurricane Center websites.  Dr. Jeff Masters has a great blog on wunderground.com, too.  Also use intellicast.com to watch the Atlantic satellite pictures so I can see which systems I think will develop.  The best thing about following things on-line is I can choose how much information to look at and believe.  So, if that kind of stuff interests you, check ‘em out;
• Well, football (yes, football, not footy, for any non-Americans reading this) season is finally here!  Glad it’s finally time for the games, too.  Had our usual Favre saga this year.  The dude I talked about last time finally signed, too.  Hope all we have to yak about now are awesome games.  Saw where Matt Leinart was cut by the Cardinals the other day.  Remember when he was drafted, all the so-called “experts” were talking about what a “can’t miss” prospect he was.  Same thing with Reggie Bush.  Ain’t neither one of ‘em had the kind of career people yammered on and on about.  Just goes to show how tough it is evaluate talent sometimes.  Always thought they were kind of overrated myself.  Could be a little biased about that, though, since I’m such a big SEC fan.  If the Boise State/Virginia Tech game is a sign of things to come, will be a great season this year!;

Well, that’s all I got this time.  Thanks as always for trying to follow my rambling thoughts.  Hope you are doing well, and, as always, am interested in your opinion, too.

Ya’ll have a good one!