"judge not, lest ye be judged."
-luke 12:57
everyday, and all over los angeles and parts connected, during this celebratory and festive season, you are being asked, (prodded really,) to snitch on your neighbor. that's right. narc, blow the whistle, tattle-tale, rat, sing like a canary, etc.
the signs say, "report drunk drivers. call 911." the radio ad from the office of traffic safety suggests it is your civic responsibility to call 911 and report suspected drunk drivers. the verbiage on their website goes like this:
DUI Crackdown
How often have you seen someone driving down the road that you were pretty sure was drunk, or at least driving dangerously? Haven't you said to yourself, "I wish a police officer was here to see this and pull this guy over!"Now, you can be the one on the spot. Now, as you travel California's streets and highways, you can do something to help get drunk drivers off the road.The Office of Traffic Safety, California Highway Patrol, and local law enforcement want everyone to drive safely and responsibly. Always designate a sober driver, and if you see a drunk driver on the road, call 911. The public can use the emergency number to report and help the CHP identify drunk drivers before it is too late.
(http://www.ots.ca.gov/Media_and_Research/Campaigns/DUI_Crackdown/default.asp)
on how many levels is this a bad idea? oh, let me count the ways...
as citizens, it is not our responsibility to pass judgments on others. this is the primary problem with this idea of having us inform on one another. often we do not see the slippery slope as we step out onto it but it is here and it is real. i liken this to why we should not condone the current administration's circumventing of the fisa court in order to do warrantless wiretapping on americans. most americans think, 'i have nothing to hide-go ahead and listen to me talking to my sister about the church social she missed, if it will help stop terrorists.' similarly, when it comes to reporting drunk drivers, americans may be inclined to think, 'i do not drive after drinking and others should not do that either and so, sure, why not help out law enforcement? like the ad says, i have spotted them before and wished a police officer was around. next time, i'll call 911.'
if one thing about the united states can be pointed at as a single, major contributing factor to our success, it is our constitution. it is not that we stole the precious and valuable land of others when we arrived and throughout expansion. it is not that we enslaved an entire race and built a great deal of wealth on their backs. it is not that we effectually stole land from mexico, or that we have leveraged our wealth around the globe for decades to increase our wealth to the detriment of the societies we involved ourselves with.
those unsavory acts have resulted in a great deal of prosperity for americans but as those behaviors have unfurled, they have been followed by corrections. these corrections came about because we have the best constitution the world has ever known. we cannot go back in time and undo what has been done but because of the constitution, native americans have been given certain lands and certain rights beyond the scope of what the balance of americans can or would expect. because of the constitution african-americans have benefitted from affirmative action and other policies meant to repair in some way the damage of slavery.
the constitution is slow but effective. it does two things that have been most important: it allows for a strong central goverment and it seeks the will of the people and by that i mean, the will of the majority of people, which is to say the lower and middle classes, (without infringing on the rights of the wealthy class.) in fact, in many instances, the constitution has been the protector of the lower and middle classes from the wealthy class. in turn, protecting the constitution should be paramount to the interests of the american middle and lower classes.
just as sanctioning the administration's warrantless wiretapping is akin to contributing to the erosion of the constitution, so is informing on your fellow motorist whom you suspect of driving while intoxicated.
in orwell's 1984, big brother sees everything not because there are cameras everywhere and he is literally seeing everything, (though there are and perhaps he does,) but because the populace has been dumbed and numbed to the point of seeing themselves as unworthy of the rights they might once have otherwise taken for granted. in the totalitarian society orwell imagined, individuals exist in a state of perpetual fear of what the reader recognizes as imaginary wars. the values of questioning authority and employing critical thinking have been cast aside, likely because at some point, big brother told people there was a very dangerous war being waged in eastasia which had to be won there so it would not be fought here.
1984 is fiction but it represents real outcomes and real possibilities. (witness north korea.) how do societies like that come about? well, it starts on a small scale and it starts with the revocation of rights.
in our roots as americans we find groups of people who were on the run from fascism and intolerance. the pilgrims who departed merry old england for the new world were not the wealthy class who were most comfortable with their state of affairs. on the contrary, those who were willing to pick up and leave were those who had nothing to leave behind. they came because they believed they could procure land in the new world and work hard at it in order to better their stations in life. some fled the intolerance they encountered in response to their fundamentalist religious practices and as they all set up shop along our eastern seaboard, they came to value tolerance, the separation of church and state being the ultimate safeguard for said tolerance, and they agreed on ensuring this new country would be run by the people and for the people. it was king george's policy of taxation without representation that finally lead to the revolution nearly 200 years after the settlement of jamestown.
informing on your neighbors is a bad idea. it creates the sort of chaos and confusion that is anathema to a healthy democracy. at the same time, driving while intoxicated is dangerous and public safety must be considered. it is to us as a society to balance public safety with individual rights. we cannot expect to prevent every bad decision a person might make. for this reason, we have a penal system. to prevent drunk driving we have created stiff penalties. we have endorsed advertising campaigns to increase awareness of the problem of drunk driving and to stop it. we employ police forces to patrol our cities and highways and we empower them with the ability to conduct field sobriety tests.
insurance companies would sacrifice individual rights and personal freedoms if it meant lower costs associated with drunk driving but as citizens, we have to make the hard decisions. we can't simply consider the bottom line as our sole determining factor. we weigh all factors. and so, we agree to stiffer penalties and we hope they deter would be drunk drivers. we also value the sanctity and strength of the constitution so we stop short of sacrificing personal freedoms or becoming our brother's keepers.
it is a balancing act and it is difficult. but if and when we agree to snitch on our fellow citizens, just as if and when we agree to allow politicians to circumvent fair procedures put in place to address a similar balancing act, (maintaining our personal freedoms while allowing a court to act quickly and efficiently on solid evidence to overcome normal constraints in authorizing an otherwise unlawful search or seizure,) we do so at our own peril.
another reason it is a bad idea to endorse this policy of asking the citizenry to watchdog itself on drunk driving is because the citizenry is not trained to do the job. police officers are trained to look for the tell-tale signs. who will the would be informers inform on? will they call 911 to give the license plate number and other specifics of the mom who has two small children in the back seat and has swerved some on the road as she shuffled small treats into the backseat area of the car to pacify the restless mob of two? will they call on the sleepy salesman who is pressing on for just a couple of more hours despite his weariness to try to make it home to wife and kids in time to see them and spend a few precious moments with them before they head off to school and work? will they get the person who is slightly off kilter because they are adjusting to a new meidcation to control their epilepsy or diabetes or lupus? what about the girl who is watching a dvd or the guy who is smoking a cigarette and talking on the cell phone, (hands free,) but by distraction, seems to him who would make the call to be a drunk driver?
i want and i trust police officers to be efficient. i do not want them running around pulling over soccer moms and late night drivers. i want them responding to real incidents which require their attention and expertise.
besides, while drunk driving is a sin, in the truest sense of the word, and a mistake, it is not unforgivable. what happened to grace?
it would be great to eliminate virtually any behavior that leads to a loss of human life. it would be even better to admit our nature in all its complexity and frailty and seek to do the best we possibly can do.
drunk drivers have to be punished. drunk drivers who actually injure or kill someone have to suffer far more severe consequences, (as they do.) the former are punished for the behavior which greatly increases the odds on the possibility of loss. the latter pay the consequences of the myriad worst case scenarios.
but because humans make mistakes by nature, our current laws strike a fair balance by having a minimal amount of tolerance for this wrong behavior while intermittently displaying severity for the same.
i think when we hear a proposal like this idea that perhaps we can stop all drunk driving by making a better net, by employing the citizenry as detectives increasing the police force by thousands of percents, it sounds good on the surface. i mean, everyone is opposed to people getting killed in auto accidents by drunk people. however, when considered more thoroughly, this is easily seen as a bad idea.
would we also have the citizenry calling and informing the police departments when they see someone make an illegal u-turn? the turn is illegal because it was deemed dangerous. no one died because a motorist made the turn but this is a similar situation.
it is simply a bad idea. let us let our police forces do their job.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
crying
when is the last time you cried?
it's jimmy v week in honor of the late basketball coach over at espn and i happened to catch an airing of jimmy v giving his famous speech from 1993. (ESPN aired the speech in its entirety to kick off the week in which they will collect money for the jimmy v foundation, which was created by valvano and raises money for cancer research.) http://jimmyv.org/
in the speech, valvano suggests we should all laugh, think and cry every day. laughing made a lot of sense to me. yes, i should laugh every day. (so should you.) as for thinking, well, of course. but when valvano suggested we should all cry, every day, i was taken aback. cry? every day?
i haven't cried in months. there was a time when i cried too much. it was in my late 20s when i came to grips with my childhood. it seemed in those days i wanted to talk about it all the time, to just about anyone. and when i did, invariably i became emotional. perhaps more importantly, eventually, i got over it. i guess i considered those things enough to where i gained some understanding and some closure.
now, years removed from that time, i find i rarely cry. and i am happy about that. i feel good. i am actually happy i went through that time of sad reflection and believe it helped me to arrive at this place wherein i rarely, if ever, cry.
so i watched valvano's speech, and of course, i know the story. less than two months after making the speech on the espy's, announcing the creation of his foundation to raise money to fight cancer, jimmy v succumbed to the disease.
at one point during his speech, valvano lets everyone know that he is getting a 30 seconds warning from the teleprompter and he mocks it. he says he has tumors all over his body and implies that he simply can't be bothered by this warning to rap it up.
this revelation snuck up on me. i had never seen the entire speech before. when he said it, i gulped. and, i thought about it. i thought about this man being so stoic that he is determined to fight right up to the very last second and he has made a conscious decision to do it by raising money. i thought about him standing there, bravely telling an auditorium of mostly famous people that his body is wracked with cancer. my entire neck felt like it had cancer in that moment because it swelled up and felt thick and clotted and incapable of moving blood or saliva or anything else. i was so choked up i thought it might happen then and there. i thought i would cry.
and nowadays when i feel on the verge of crying, i think myself weak. in my late 20s when i cried so easily, i thought myself strong for crying. now i think myself strong for refusing to cry. it is a strange paradox, really.
it would not feel healthy to me anymore to cry every day. formerly, it was a part of a healing process. now, i am a man, in the sense of, i have a wife and children. i have bills and work. if i cried often, my confidence to handle the various aspects of my life would be challenged. i require a certain amount of bravado, now.
still, have you seen valvano's speech? have you ever heard someone say their body is riddled with cancerous tumors. if you ever do hear words similar to those, you will probably cry if just a little.
it's jimmy v week in honor of the late basketball coach over at espn and i happened to catch an airing of jimmy v giving his famous speech from 1993. (ESPN aired the speech in its entirety to kick off the week in which they will collect money for the jimmy v foundation, which was created by valvano and raises money for cancer research.) http://jimmyv.org/
in the speech, valvano suggests we should all laugh, think and cry every day. laughing made a lot of sense to me. yes, i should laugh every day. (so should you.) as for thinking, well, of course. but when valvano suggested we should all cry, every day, i was taken aback. cry? every day?
i haven't cried in months. there was a time when i cried too much. it was in my late 20s when i came to grips with my childhood. it seemed in those days i wanted to talk about it all the time, to just about anyone. and when i did, invariably i became emotional. perhaps more importantly, eventually, i got over it. i guess i considered those things enough to where i gained some understanding and some closure.
now, years removed from that time, i find i rarely cry. and i am happy about that. i feel good. i am actually happy i went through that time of sad reflection and believe it helped me to arrive at this place wherein i rarely, if ever, cry.
so i watched valvano's speech, and of course, i know the story. less than two months after making the speech on the espy's, announcing the creation of his foundation to raise money to fight cancer, jimmy v succumbed to the disease.
at one point during his speech, valvano lets everyone know that he is getting a 30 seconds warning from the teleprompter and he mocks it. he says he has tumors all over his body and implies that he simply can't be bothered by this warning to rap it up.
this revelation snuck up on me. i had never seen the entire speech before. when he said it, i gulped. and, i thought about it. i thought about this man being so stoic that he is determined to fight right up to the very last second and he has made a conscious decision to do it by raising money. i thought about him standing there, bravely telling an auditorium of mostly famous people that his body is wracked with cancer. my entire neck felt like it had cancer in that moment because it swelled up and felt thick and clotted and incapable of moving blood or saliva or anything else. i was so choked up i thought it might happen then and there. i thought i would cry.
and nowadays when i feel on the verge of crying, i think myself weak. in my late 20s when i cried so easily, i thought myself strong for crying. now i think myself strong for refusing to cry. it is a strange paradox, really.
it would not feel healthy to me anymore to cry every day. formerly, it was a part of a healing process. now, i am a man, in the sense of, i have a wife and children. i have bills and work. if i cried often, my confidence to handle the various aspects of my life would be challenged. i require a certain amount of bravado, now.
still, have you seen valvano's speech? have you ever heard someone say their body is riddled with cancerous tumors. if you ever do hear words similar to those, you will probably cry if just a little.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
into the wild
sean penn's into the wild is like a promise fulfilled. virtually every movie aspires to be a cohesive work of art, wherein the story, writing, cinematography, music and art come together to make up a final product of great quality and value. However, it is rare when a director actually achieves a final piece of art that stands as a whole, instead of as a sum of so many parts. it is rarer still when all parts contribute to the same affect, when the art conveys a sensibility on multiple levels and imbues the beholder with emotion and movement.
into the wild delivers on the promise of film. unlike so many movies of great style and little substance, or those that assemble a memorable soundtrack albeit detached from the film, or blockbuster hollywood films that cater primarily to the baser senses, neglecting to engage the mind, into the wild works well on virtually every level imaginable.
chris mccandless' life story proves timeless, perhaps growing more poignant in the time since he lived it. penn and emile hirsch discover a soft balance in coloring mccandless' days on earth. the man lived an amazing life because he believed so greatly, with such ardor, that life could be different, that the trappings of our utilitarian society did not represent an unchangeable sentence neither to be deviated from nor struggled against. this, in and of itself qualifies mccandless as extraordinary. that the film portrays large aspects of mccandless' life and imagines myriad details in such a way as to avoid being patronizing or sensational but rather artfully realistic, is a testament to the quality choices penn and his crew made.
into the wild delivers on the promise of film. unlike so many movies of great style and little substance, or those that assemble a memorable soundtrack albeit detached from the film, or blockbuster hollywood films that cater primarily to the baser senses, neglecting to engage the mind, into the wild works well on virtually every level imaginable.
chris mccandless' life story proves timeless, perhaps growing more poignant in the time since he lived it. penn and emile hirsch discover a soft balance in coloring mccandless' days on earth. the man lived an amazing life because he believed so greatly, with such ardor, that life could be different, that the trappings of our utilitarian society did not represent an unchangeable sentence neither to be deviated from nor struggled against. this, in and of itself qualifies mccandless as extraordinary. that the film portrays large aspects of mccandless' life and imagines myriad details in such a way as to avoid being patronizing or sensational but rather artfully realistic, is a testament to the quality choices penn and his crew made.
the story follows mccandless from his college graduation to a solitary lifestyle in the wilderness of alaska, flashing back on occasion to a typical american family life rife with so many contradictions which surely contributed to mccandless' overall sense of dissatisfaction with the status-quo. what really comes through though is not that mccandless is an insecure kid who acted irrationally or was disillusioned because he held too many illusions to begin with. rather, mccandless is seen as one of the sane few, living boldly and without pretense. this is not a cowboy movie and when mccandless is caught freeloading a train ride, he is beaten up just like would happen in the real world. despite the fact the train car was empty and the door was wide open and in no way did the train line lose money because of his ride, (he did not have the money to pay for a ride in any case,) mccandless is physically punished for freeloading, which seems ludicrous.
penn is fair, too, in his treatment of his characters. in some stories mcandless' character would be seen as irrational and irresponsible while hal holbrook's elderly retiree would be seen as safe and respectable. here we see the two characters as equals. holbrook's character has something to learn from mccandless, something about getting up and doing while one is still able, something about getting out in the world and staying busy with the business of living. mccandles in turn begins learning his own personal ultimate life lesson, the one thing he overlooked or took for granted when he was growing up in georgia, the simple fact that man is a social animal and therefore, man thrives in company and dies when cut off from it.
into the wild could easily have been an imax film. the cinematography is that breathtaking. and it's not just the footage in the alaskan wilds. yes, the views mccandless woke to every morning were sumptuous to behold on screen and the lighting guy for this production crew comes off looking like a genius, but when mccandless kayaks into mexico, or emerges from a homeless shelter to a menacing night time los angeles, or when he is seen working in the fields of the midwest aboard heavy machinery, the camera work is amazing. it takes you to these places and does not even seem to try to make it look beautiful, it just is and as the viewer, you know it.
the soundtrack for into the wild is an extension of the overall artistic endeavor. watching and listening it becomes obvious that eddie vedder was privy to a screening of the film without music because in crafting the songs, he succinctly matched them to the movie, to the characters, to the settings, to the feel of it all, and it touches the viewer listener in the heart and brain, yeah, but mostly in the gut. these songs are basic. they're that sound you make out loud or in your mind when you achieve something; "unnh." they're as simple and sparse as the alaskan wilderness and as complex and substantive as the notions of personal freedom and utilitarianism the film addresses.
Ed’s voice is unconventional and so sometimes it may not fit certain sounds or genres but it is achingly beautiful here. The recording is of a high quality as well but when his voice cracks on the front end of some words, it is fitting. it gives the song and the lyrics a crackling, hollow sort of quality that fits with a certain theme of wide open disconnection.
emile hirsch is superb as mccandless. while some may complain his performance was understated, they would be missing the point. mccandless did what he did for himself. his story is worth the telling because of how atypical he was in the choices he made, in his actions. there are no indications in jon krakaur's book nor sean penn's film that mccandless was in any self-serving. the fact that he considers writing a book about his experience later in life merely reveals the introspective nature he obviously possessed and one would expect from a writer. at times hirsh stands aside and lets the settings tell the story. at other times, he is keenly keyed in to the emotion mccandless must have felt at failing to translate what he read in books into his real life experience in the wild.
they really do not make films like this in hollywood anymore. it is complex and it embraces contradiciton, revealing it as not only the norm, but worth embracing in order to ask the appropriate questions, in order to have a full life. into the wild is perhaps edifying before it is entertaining, and as art, it satisfies at the highest aesthetic level. sean penn achieves something through this film few american directors achieve these days; art.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
texas comfort
george w bush is okay with being disliked. if there is one thing we can say with certainty about this president, it is that he does not lose sleep over people disagreeing with him or thinking ill of him.
a few years ago i saw gary trudeau interviewed on tv. trudeau went to yale with george w bush. he described the would be president as frat guy-ish, and it was clear trudeau at least did not think much of bush and possibly disliked him.
since he has taken office he has thumbed his nose at public opinion to such a degree he has reaped the worst approval ratings of any president ever, including previous criminal presidents. he hires his friends, bypassing a healthy level of nepotism choosing instead the paranoid practice of surrounding himself with yes-men, sycophants and like-minded idealogues. this practice indicates a blatant disregard for the good of our nation.
george w bush represents a blend of mediocre intelligence and egomania. it all makes sense, too. he grew up in an environment where he wanted for nothing, (though he obviously wanted for everything simultaneously.) at school, he probably got away with being a little rude, being a respecter of persons, not apologizing for his class and prestige consciousness. his father was a war hero and a major political player. he went to the best schools. his family had money and associated in elite circles. we know he had those years of drinking a lot of beer and doin' some coke. i guess it was easy to get or be lazy about study habits in his formative years, relying instead on bullying people and maintaining his lifestyle.
it has not mattered to bush when his behavior has been challenged or exposed. he just stands there and takes, or deflects, the heat. it is likely the majority of decisions in bush's administration have been made by dick cheney and karl rove. even when bush made the decision, it likely stemmed from the idealogy he learned from these two pariahs. while rove's role was to gain power, and cheney's role was to set the agenda for how to use the power, bush's role was first to use his pedigree to be electable and second, to stand there and take the heat.
when his cohorts decided it would be worth it to out the cia agent wife of the guy who dared challenge their propaganda campaign in order to send a message about how they viewed authority and how absolute they expected their power to be, bush's role was to answer questions, even if his answers were of the, "i will not comment on an ongoing investigation," ilk.
"we don't torture," bush said knowing the answer was not an answer at all and would infuriate those who knew better or expected a real answer. bush just said it though. he's the decider and this is his big skill. he is the ultimate nose-thumbing president.
who would have the nerve to tell the american people, the most educated nation on the planet, that iraq had weapons of mass destruction? someone who figured as president he had the ultimate comeback to anyone who would challenge him. bush's neocon henchmen did play their role, they did all they could to spread the propaganda and frame iraq as the threat it just could not be. they muddied all the waters, creating links between saddam hussein and osama bin laden, iraq and al qaida, that did not exist, but it was bush who had to say it to the american people to truly begin the campaign that became our phony war on terror in iraq.
jack abramoff received $82 million from indian gaming interests as he peddled influence around the capitol. he also visited the white house a number of times. bush said he did not necessarily remember abramoff. while people do not like liars or being duped in the face of a mountain of evidence, to bush it does not matter. he does not mind if people do not like him.
bush had the nerve to nominate harriet miers for the supreme court, despite her lack of credentials for the position. he appointed a horse guy in michael brown to head fema. he stood up to tremendous pressure to keep donald rumsfeld and alberto gonzalez around as long as possible. he has been the commander in chief during an era of unprecedented torture on the part of americans. from abu ghraib to gitmo to sites of extraoridinary rendition, (the horrifying details of which have yet to come to light,) around the world, bush stands above it all seemingly comfortable with being the object of derision.
many debate how intelligent this president is or how devious and evil he really is. one thing we can know for sure is that he is not bothered by being disliked or questioned or derided. he deflects this stuff if only in his own mind by making up nicknames for the white house press corps and trying to bully the occasional reporter who tries to stand up to his bully pulpit tactics.
he has no shame, whatsoever.
a few years ago i saw gary trudeau interviewed on tv. trudeau went to yale with george w bush. he described the would be president as frat guy-ish, and it was clear trudeau at least did not think much of bush and possibly disliked him.
since he has taken office he has thumbed his nose at public opinion to such a degree he has reaped the worst approval ratings of any president ever, including previous criminal presidents. he hires his friends, bypassing a healthy level of nepotism choosing instead the paranoid practice of surrounding himself with yes-men, sycophants and like-minded idealogues. this practice indicates a blatant disregard for the good of our nation.
george w bush represents a blend of mediocre intelligence and egomania. it all makes sense, too. he grew up in an environment where he wanted for nothing, (though he obviously wanted for everything simultaneously.) at school, he probably got away with being a little rude, being a respecter of persons, not apologizing for his class and prestige consciousness. his father was a war hero and a major political player. he went to the best schools. his family had money and associated in elite circles. we know he had those years of drinking a lot of beer and doin' some coke. i guess it was easy to get or be lazy about study habits in his formative years, relying instead on bullying people and maintaining his lifestyle.
it has not mattered to bush when his behavior has been challenged or exposed. he just stands there and takes, or deflects, the heat. it is likely the majority of decisions in bush's administration have been made by dick cheney and karl rove. even when bush made the decision, it likely stemmed from the idealogy he learned from these two pariahs. while rove's role was to gain power, and cheney's role was to set the agenda for how to use the power, bush's role was first to use his pedigree to be electable and second, to stand there and take the heat.
when his cohorts decided it would be worth it to out the cia agent wife of the guy who dared challenge their propaganda campaign in order to send a message about how they viewed authority and how absolute they expected their power to be, bush's role was to answer questions, even if his answers were of the, "i will not comment on an ongoing investigation," ilk.
"we don't torture," bush said knowing the answer was not an answer at all and would infuriate those who knew better or expected a real answer. bush just said it though. he's the decider and this is his big skill. he is the ultimate nose-thumbing president.
who would have the nerve to tell the american people, the most educated nation on the planet, that iraq had weapons of mass destruction? someone who figured as president he had the ultimate comeback to anyone who would challenge him. bush's neocon henchmen did play their role, they did all they could to spread the propaganda and frame iraq as the threat it just could not be. they muddied all the waters, creating links between saddam hussein and osama bin laden, iraq and al qaida, that did not exist, but it was bush who had to say it to the american people to truly begin the campaign that became our phony war on terror in iraq.
jack abramoff received $82 million from indian gaming interests as he peddled influence around the capitol. he also visited the white house a number of times. bush said he did not necessarily remember abramoff. while people do not like liars or being duped in the face of a mountain of evidence, to bush it does not matter. he does not mind if people do not like him.
bush had the nerve to nominate harriet miers for the supreme court, despite her lack of credentials for the position. he appointed a horse guy in michael brown to head fema. he stood up to tremendous pressure to keep donald rumsfeld and alberto gonzalez around as long as possible. he has been the commander in chief during an era of unprecedented torture on the part of americans. from abu ghraib to gitmo to sites of extraoridinary rendition, (the horrifying details of which have yet to come to light,) around the world, bush stands above it all seemingly comfortable with being the object of derision.
many debate how intelligent this president is or how devious and evil he really is. one thing we can know for sure is that he is not bothered by being disliked or questioned or derided. he deflects this stuff if only in his own mind by making up nicknames for the white house press corps and trying to bully the occasional reporter who tries to stand up to his bully pulpit tactics.
he has no shame, whatsoever.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
smoking
i was fortunate to be a late bloomer, so to speak, as evidenced by the fact that i never took up smoking. i've been late at everything, all of my life. there have been plenty of times when this lethargy has been painful or unpleasant, but there are also plenty of examples of my deliberate nature being fortuitous, as is the case with smoking cigarettes.
when my friends were experimenting with marlboros and camels, (around the age of 14,) i was still knee deep in baseball cards. as i turned 18 and donned a trench coat and a handful of ska buttons, i tried to smoke the clove cigarettes my friends were fond of to almost no avail. i bought a few packs of the pungent djarum cigarettes and i literally enjoyed dangling one from my bottom lip like james dean or clint eastwood, but the smoke that curled upwards into my nostrils made me cough even when i tried not to breathe it.
cigarettes are destructive. cigarettes are addictive. the cigarette industry pedals destruction and has demonstrated a willingness to act immorally. i am glad i never got into that.
when my friends were experimenting with marlboros and camels, (around the age of 14,) i was still knee deep in baseball cards. as i turned 18 and donned a trench coat and a handful of ska buttons, i tried to smoke the clove cigarettes my friends were fond of to almost no avail. i bought a few packs of the pungent djarum cigarettes and i literally enjoyed dangling one from my bottom lip like james dean or clint eastwood, but the smoke that curled upwards into my nostrils made me cough even when i tried not to breathe it.
cigarettes are destructive. cigarettes are addictive. the cigarette industry pedals destruction and has demonstrated a willingness to act immorally. i am glad i never got into that.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
asterisk
(Dateline; Milwaukee) In one day, Barry Bonds' career homerun total declined by 112. In a stunning announcement, Major League Baseball announced today the removal of the assumed asterisk by Bonds' homerun total.
Commissioner Bud Selig's office released a statement which outlined a calculation by which Bonds' homerun total has been reduced to 643 and said Selig would be available for comment at a press conference in Milwaukee at 9am (CST) Monday morning.
"Every Bonds homerun was looked at both by actual film clips and statistics from the Elias sports bureau," said JQ Publick, spokesperson for Commissioner Selig's office.
"A formula was derived for calculating the impact of steroids on Mr. Bonds' homeruns which determined the strength enhacing drugs added, on average, about seven feet to his blasts," Publick added.
By subtracting 7' from each of Bonds' homeruns, Major League Baseball determined 112 of those bases clearing hits would not have cleared the outfield wall, (without the drug enhancement.) "It is common knowledge that Bonds cheated," said a source who refused to be identified from the Elias Sports bureau. "This adjustment seeks to recognize Bonds' true status as a homerun king, while demoting him from the undeserved perch of the homerun king."
Bonds could not be reached by telephone but the San Francisco Giants released a statement which indicated Bonds' response would be tendered in a federal courtroom. The Giants' statement also suggested the organization is considering a uniform modification for the remainder of the season in protest to this decision.
Peter Gammons, of ESPN News, said he understood the decision to adjust Bonds' official homerun total involved discussion about other hitter's totals as well as game outcomes but in the end, the league had decided that in order to market this record as the greatest in all of organized sports, it would have to be responsible for protecting the sanctity of the mark. Therefore, the league has adjusted Bonds's homerun totals without affecting any other statistics whatsoever.
"The asterisk will now be up to Bonds' supporters to insert," Gammons said by phone from his home in Boston. "Certainly if he hits number 644 tomorrow, Barry Bonds' fan club may consider it number 756 on his website, with an asterisk, whether in print or imagined. "However, baseball's records will show it as 644."
According to sources from the league office, every Bonds homerun going forward will count no matter how slightly it may clear the fence. The league stands by its substance abuse policies and believes no cheaters remain in the league who can still go undetected as Bonds did for several years.
As to whether the league would adjust the career totals of other accused steroids users, that same source said it would only interfere in such a way if this record, (or another of similar magnitude,) came into jeopardy.
As to whether Bonds or Sheffield or Giambi or any of the others looks like the more prolific homerun hitter on paper when their careers are over, the league source said controversy fuels debate which is one of the most fun and interesting activities of baseball fans. "There will always be someone around who says Bonds is the greatest homerun hitter ever," the source said. "The league however and the official statistics will not support that claim. "Further, it is thought that Bonds' supporters will usually be outnumbered, lose the argument and occasionally get humiliated for supporting a cheater."
Commissioner Bud Selig's office released a statement which outlined a calculation by which Bonds' homerun total has been reduced to 643 and said Selig would be available for comment at a press conference in Milwaukee at 9am (CST) Monday morning.
"Every Bonds homerun was looked at both by actual film clips and statistics from the Elias sports bureau," said JQ Publick, spokesperson for Commissioner Selig's office.
"A formula was derived for calculating the impact of steroids on Mr. Bonds' homeruns which determined the strength enhacing drugs added, on average, about seven feet to his blasts," Publick added.
By subtracting 7' from each of Bonds' homeruns, Major League Baseball determined 112 of those bases clearing hits would not have cleared the outfield wall, (without the drug enhancement.) "It is common knowledge that Bonds cheated," said a source who refused to be identified from the Elias Sports bureau. "This adjustment seeks to recognize Bonds' true status as a homerun king, while demoting him from the undeserved perch of the homerun king."
Bonds could not be reached by telephone but the San Francisco Giants released a statement which indicated Bonds' response would be tendered in a federal courtroom. The Giants' statement also suggested the organization is considering a uniform modification for the remainder of the season in protest to this decision.
Peter Gammons, of ESPN News, said he understood the decision to adjust Bonds' official homerun total involved discussion about other hitter's totals as well as game outcomes but in the end, the league had decided that in order to market this record as the greatest in all of organized sports, it would have to be responsible for protecting the sanctity of the mark. Therefore, the league has adjusted Bonds's homerun totals without affecting any other statistics whatsoever.
"The asterisk will now be up to Bonds' supporters to insert," Gammons said by phone from his home in Boston. "Certainly if he hits number 644 tomorrow, Barry Bonds' fan club may consider it number 756 on his website, with an asterisk, whether in print or imagined. "However, baseball's records will show it as 644."
According to sources from the league office, every Bonds homerun going forward will count no matter how slightly it may clear the fence. The league stands by its substance abuse policies and believes no cheaters remain in the league who can still go undetected as Bonds did for several years.
As to whether the league would adjust the career totals of other accused steroids users, that same source said it would only interfere in such a way if this record, (or another of similar magnitude,) came into jeopardy.
As to whether Bonds or Sheffield or Giambi or any of the others looks like the more prolific homerun hitter on paper when their careers are over, the league source said controversy fuels debate which is one of the most fun and interesting activities of baseball fans. "There will always be someone around who says Bonds is the greatest homerun hitter ever," the source said. "The league however and the official statistics will not support that claim. "Further, it is thought that Bonds' supporters will usually be outnumbered, lose the argument and occasionally get humiliated for supporting a cheater."
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
first day of school
My heart feels like a sinking bag of sand, pulling downward in my liquid chest cavity. At the same time, there is a giggle inside of me I have been suppressing since this morning. It pushes in the opposite direction, upwards, sliding past self-involved organs and tapping at my esophagus, inching towards my pursed lips.
Terra started school today. Yeah. School. She’s 2.8-years-old and she is attending the Tzu Chi Great Love Pre-School where she will not be taught any sort of religious curriculum but she will receive two hours of Mandarin language instruction daily.
I got out of my truck in front of her school today and the sinking bag caught the giggle right in my throat and formed a lump the size of my neck. Suddenly I could not believe what was happening. Something deep inside of me was screaming at myself to turn back. Why was I doing this?
I definitely think I am a loon just for going to work every day instead of spending most of my time with my daughter. I rationalize it all. I am a capitalist, after all. I think I must work, more and more in fact, to provide for her as I should, as I owe her.
If it is true that the cave man spent 95% of his time at leisure, perhaps he had a great relationship with his daughter but wouldn’t he have been better served to go out and figure out how to farm?
Why would I do this to Terra? I thought about what this day represented to her. No more pajamas until 10am. No more Dragon Tails. No more walks downtown to the pet store with her Auntie Cherish. No more just being there, at home, with an Aunt as a sitter while Faith and I worked. No more.
This is the obligation of life setting in on my daughter. It will be my son’s turn next but for now, he is still hanging out with our zero-to-two baby sitter, trying to cut some teeth and learning how to crawl. Terra, on the other hand, will forever be an object in motion now. She will attend school five days per week. Later she will have after-school activities. Then college will encroach upon her and she will add labs and social events. Eventually she will join the work force. She will feel obligated, (to whatever degree,) to get up every day and go to work. She will have several jobs, some of which she will like a great deal, and some of which she will not like at all. She’ll have some bad bosses and some difficult mornings and some professional crises.
She will know fully what it is to be human. And yeah, that is a beautiful thing but it’s also a painful and ugly thing. It hurts like hell. People will die in her life. (I will die one day and she will weep.) Terra will be obliged to attend funerals. She will also visit hospitals where birth has just taken place. As much as she knows happiness and ecstasy, she will know sadness and despair. She will know them in equal proportion though hopefully not in equal portion.
And this is where it all begins. One day, you get up and go to school. The next thing you know, you’ve been going to school for as long as you can remember and it’s time to work, (though the difference will be barely perceptible.)
I feel like I could cry for all the pain that awaits my sweet little girl. She is so full of hope and energy, and she loves freely and exemplifies my world view. And the joy that awaits her too, is like a giant wave of goodness that will bathe her life in unique, interesting and thoughtful colors.
A friend from work called this the beginning of Terra's existentialist journey. I like the sound of that. Maybe I am dreaming of the realities of life encroaching on the life of my beloved daughter, or maybe I am the reality of life imagining this little man who sends his daughter to pre-school then feels melancholy about releasing her to herself.
Terra started school today. Yeah. School. She’s 2.8-years-old and she is attending the Tzu Chi Great Love Pre-School where she will not be taught any sort of religious curriculum but she will receive two hours of Mandarin language instruction daily.
I got out of my truck in front of her school today and the sinking bag caught the giggle right in my throat and formed a lump the size of my neck. Suddenly I could not believe what was happening. Something deep inside of me was screaming at myself to turn back. Why was I doing this?
I definitely think I am a loon just for going to work every day instead of spending most of my time with my daughter. I rationalize it all. I am a capitalist, after all. I think I must work, more and more in fact, to provide for her as I should, as I owe her.
If it is true that the cave man spent 95% of his time at leisure, perhaps he had a great relationship with his daughter but wouldn’t he have been better served to go out and figure out how to farm?
Why would I do this to Terra? I thought about what this day represented to her. No more pajamas until 10am. No more Dragon Tails. No more walks downtown to the pet store with her Auntie Cherish. No more just being there, at home, with an Aunt as a sitter while Faith and I worked. No more.
This is the obligation of life setting in on my daughter. It will be my son’s turn next but for now, he is still hanging out with our zero-to-two baby sitter, trying to cut some teeth and learning how to crawl. Terra, on the other hand, will forever be an object in motion now. She will attend school five days per week. Later she will have after-school activities. Then college will encroach upon her and she will add labs and social events. Eventually she will join the work force. She will feel obligated, (to whatever degree,) to get up every day and go to work. She will have several jobs, some of which she will like a great deal, and some of which she will not like at all. She’ll have some bad bosses and some difficult mornings and some professional crises.
She will know fully what it is to be human. And yeah, that is a beautiful thing but it’s also a painful and ugly thing. It hurts like hell. People will die in her life. (I will die one day and she will weep.) Terra will be obliged to attend funerals. She will also visit hospitals where birth has just taken place. As much as she knows happiness and ecstasy, she will know sadness and despair. She will know them in equal proportion though hopefully not in equal portion.
And this is where it all begins. One day, you get up and go to school. The next thing you know, you’ve been going to school for as long as you can remember and it’s time to work, (though the difference will be barely perceptible.)
I feel like I could cry for all the pain that awaits my sweet little girl. She is so full of hope and energy, and she loves freely and exemplifies my world view. And the joy that awaits her too, is like a giant wave of goodness that will bathe her life in unique, interesting and thoughtful colors.
A friend from work called this the beginning of Terra's existentialist journey. I like the sound of that. Maybe I am dreaming of the realities of life encroaching on the life of my beloved daughter, or maybe I am the reality of life imagining this little man who sends his daughter to pre-school then feels melancholy about releasing her to herself.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
thumbing his nose
by commuting the sentence of scooter libby, president bush thumbed his nose at the american people. in essence he said, "i don't give a shit about the values of the american people."
mr. tough-on-crime, the governor who presided over the executions of 111 men and 1 woman in his five years in austin, sent a clear message to the american people this time. in essence he said, "when a crime suits me, it should go unpunished."
it is important, too, to recognize the nature of this crime and where it fits in the spectrum of crimes. the average drug-related crime has one victim; the person who committed the crime. scooter libby's crime of obstructing justice in the investigation of the outing of a cia operative affects a nation, to say nothing of the iraqi and possibly iranian people who suffer bombings ordered by an administration who could have been checked had their misdeeds been uncovered.
the average drug offender receives a sentence of about 67 months and represents anywhere from 22% to 65% of state prison populations. scooter libby received a sentence of 30 months and the president said he thought that was too harsh and so, commuted his sentence guaranteeing libby of never serving a day behind bars?! what the fuck?! libby purposely obstructed justice in a huge case that speaks to the morality of our country and our elected leaders. further, he wrote ridiculously coded messages to his own pawn from the new york times, which virtually mocked the american people as well. (in certain seasons the trees all turn colors at the same time and below the surface, invisible to the american people, he should have said, their roots are interlocked.) jerk.
but you know, i am a hack writer. please, if you happen to read this, whoever you may be and for whatever reason you may have come here, go listen to what keith olbermann, a professional writer of sorts, wrote about all this. click on this link and listen to olbermann countdown the many crimes of this adminstration and expose the naked emperor.
http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?f=00&g=8dd25465-1b2b-49e5-81ff-003005828d82&p=Source_Countdown&t=c1149&rf=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19588942/&fg=
mr. tough-on-crime, the governor who presided over the executions of 111 men and 1 woman in his five years in austin, sent a clear message to the american people this time. in essence he said, "when a crime suits me, it should go unpunished."
it is important, too, to recognize the nature of this crime and where it fits in the spectrum of crimes. the average drug-related crime has one victim; the person who committed the crime. scooter libby's crime of obstructing justice in the investigation of the outing of a cia operative affects a nation, to say nothing of the iraqi and possibly iranian people who suffer bombings ordered by an administration who could have been checked had their misdeeds been uncovered.
the average drug offender receives a sentence of about 67 months and represents anywhere from 22% to 65% of state prison populations. scooter libby received a sentence of 30 months and the president said he thought that was too harsh and so, commuted his sentence guaranteeing libby of never serving a day behind bars?! what the fuck?! libby purposely obstructed justice in a huge case that speaks to the morality of our country and our elected leaders. further, he wrote ridiculously coded messages to his own pawn from the new york times, which virtually mocked the american people as well. (in certain seasons the trees all turn colors at the same time and below the surface, invisible to the american people, he should have said, their roots are interlocked.) jerk.
but you know, i am a hack writer. please, if you happen to read this, whoever you may be and for whatever reason you may have come here, go listen to what keith olbermann, a professional writer of sorts, wrote about all this. click on this link and listen to olbermann countdown the many crimes of this adminstration and expose the naked emperor.
http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?f=00&g=8dd25465-1b2b-49e5-81ff-003005828d82&p=Source_Countdown&t=c1149&rf=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19588942/&fg=
Monday, July 02, 2007
beat down
confucius recommended considering life a struggle toward perfection.
It is true that we shall not be able to reach perfection, but in our struggle toward it we shall strengthen our characters and give stability to our ideas, so that, whilst ever advancing calmly in the same direction, we shall be rendered capable of applying the faculties with which we have been gifted to the best possible account.
-confucius
i wonder what confucius considered perfect even as i know the meaning of perfection is beside the point.
i am happy to walk away from confucius' message with this thought:
try to be the best you you can be. i'll try to be the best me i can be.
It is true that we shall not be able to reach perfection, but in our struggle toward it we shall strengthen our characters and give stability to our ideas, so that, whilst ever advancing calmly in the same direction, we shall be rendered capable of applying the faculties with which we have been gifted to the best possible account.
-confucius
i wonder what confucius considered perfect even as i know the meaning of perfection is beside the point.
i am happy to walk away from confucius' message with this thought:
try to be the best you you can be. i'll try to be the best me i can be.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
free at last
dr jack kevorkian is free today. yesterday he was released from prison and today he can come and go as he pleases.
in a world without phony, imaginary creatures like the various gods dolefully worshipped by humans, noble behavior includes anything that pushes forward the envelope of human evolution. those who build up rather than tear down, those who challenge convention rather than choose the path of least resistence, those are the noblest persons among us.
the right to die is quite simply right. dr kevorkian has pushed our society closer to recognizing this truth and one day it will certainly be legal. another day this man will come to be seen in the appropriate light. he willl be seen as a hero. his courage will be lauded by future generations.
he is already my hero today and i rest easier knowing he is no longer being tortured by my society by incarceration in essentially inhumane conditions.
in a world without phony, imaginary creatures like the various gods dolefully worshipped by humans, noble behavior includes anything that pushes forward the envelope of human evolution. those who build up rather than tear down, those who challenge convention rather than choose the path of least resistence, those are the noblest persons among us.
the right to die is quite simply right. dr kevorkian has pushed our society closer to recognizing this truth and one day it will certainly be legal. another day this man will come to be seen in the appropriate light. he willl be seen as a hero. his courage will be lauded by future generations.
he is already my hero today and i rest easier knowing he is no longer being tortured by my society by incarceration in essentially inhumane conditions.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
father, the lesser
My dad(/uncle,) was fair in as much as he tough-loved us all consistently. My years venturing forth on my own was a strange time, to be sure. I had just joined the Air Force when his wife, (a mother figure to me,) passed away. I spent the next two years in japan while my dad, my sister/cousin, (his daughter,) and my brother adjusted to life at home without her. I still don’t know what happened. To this day I hear references to that time but it is all a confused blur to me.
I imagine my dad adjusted to sleeping in a bed alone after nearly 20 years of sleeping with this one woman. I guess my sister got used to the idea of not having her mother around, her best friend, her partner in crime, her kindred older self. I assume my brother, who was 15 at the time, was bewildered and came to see the world as harsh and unforgiving. I bet he was a little angry.
Two years later I returned home and found my dad had just met the woman who would become his second wife. All his attention turned to the subsequent courting. My brother had been involved in some brushes with the law while I was away and he was absorbed in the gang culture represented by his artists of choice: NWA. My sister seemed an alien in the house. She came and went randomly and when I was there, the house seemed overrun by men in contrast to the effeminate place it had once been, so tidy and laden with country décor. And this was not when the tough love began, but it may be when it flourished.
My sister and Carol, my dad’s new wife, clashed from Day 1. Soon my sister fled to her grandmother’s then later to the beaches of North San Diego County. She was always attracted to the beach culture and the expanse of the ocean somehow seemed appropriate for her. For the next 10 years she was like a corked bottle bobbing in the ocean, washed up on the sand and carried back out by the tide, here and there, untethered, alone, betwixt the blinding light of the sun above and the utter blackness of the sea below.
I was perhaps more independent than my siblings from the outset. After all, I had been eldest. It was to me to at least act as if I knew what I was doing. I feigned man of the world as obviously as the cowardly lion feigned tough guy. I was lost. Lost like a child on the side of the freeway. Lost like paralyzation. I was out in the world, at school, attending parties, playing ball and trying to speak to people, but just lost, really, like everyone else.
My dad gave me tough love. He stayed in touch, every so often. When things went bad for me, he and Carol allowed me to move back in. I borrowed perhaps $200 one time and never paid it back and it hung over my head, (whether of my doing or my dad's, I'm not really sure,) always. When he got mad at me for drinking and taking Tommy down to my school dorm room, he took my car and we did not speak for about 2-3 months.
I do not understand tough love. It is too logical and too selfish for my tastes, too indiscriminate and undiscerning.
Now I have a son and I imagine myself in my dad's shoes. I imagine Mark, like my brother Tommy, going to prison, and I feel queazy and dizzy. I imagine going to him and screaming out at the system. I imagine my eyes loosening in my skull and leaking wildly, my hands grabbing at chunks of my own chest, tanking clumps of flesh away, clumps of me, and falling to my knees and to my back. I imagine remembering, the boy as he is today, so tiny and frail and demanding and helpless, the boy as he would be in grade school, so hopeful and energetic, the boy as a teen filling in the parts of his person that laid dormant, the boy growing to fullness, in his 20s, studying and playing hard, living, loving and learning, considering, and I feel a sense of failure, the disconsolation of the void in my life's work. I imagine feeling horrified. I imagine all the blame I would place on myself and knowing I would deserve every bit of it. I imagine dying in increments every time I would think of my son imprisoned, every time I recalled any aspect of him.
To actually live with knowing your son committed a crime and went to prison deservedly, is to know failure. Still, this is not an indictment of my Father, who took my brother in to his home to raise him as his own son when the boy was six years old, out of altruism. Those six years were filled with plenty of living, too. Tommy lived with various foster families numbering in double digits. He was discovered by one foster father crying near to his fallen foster mother, who never recovered from stroke. He also had an addiction problem. (At birth.) He kicked heroin in an incubator.
So it is understandable that Tommy grew up and had some issues around living within the law. I mean, it is our nature, right? A certain percentage of us have some problems with the rules at some point in time, and, to say nothing of justice systems, at least more than half of us deserve it and there's always those who got away with it. Right? So as much as we have laws and we need laws and laws, in some respects, qualify societies, it is natural to break laws.
We strive to move forward. Right? We try to be moral and to do what is right and some times we fail and perhaps most times we succeed and when we fall down, we get back up and shake the dust and try, try again, and that is all quite natural, though we may detest the bad. Right?
So, while I won't say my Dad was perfect or that he had no ill effects on any of us kids, I will say I only mean to address what this outcome, this prison-bound son, would mean to me as a father both biologically and behaviorally.
This outcome would be proof of my failure. It would represent my own selfishness and how I did not take the time to nurture the boy and truly teach him how to live, how to make choices, what to consider, what to value.
I think I would go to him, take an apartment outside the prison grounds, build a meager life around visiting hours, apologize to him almost daily, tell him I love him, cry in front of hardened strangers, laugh at myself and maybe cry some more. I imagine the pain being like a cactus I carry in my lap, that I can't drop, that I must hunch over to carry around with me as it sticks and pricks me in the abdomen and forearms and chin and thighs and groin. I would be dead but walking. I would be asleep but writing this life out daily. I would be so sadsorry, sad-sadsorry.
My dad tough loves my brother from afar. He has visited him in a prison in another state 1,000 miles away. Once? My dad was quiet that day, reserved. He was sad and slightly emotional, while also leading with his toughness, his sense of oh well, his sense of let's keep plodding forward because this life happens to you and we're all subject to the filthy fingers of fate, stifling emotions until the last second when the facade opened a crack, as if a jack were wedged in a stone-walled damn but with so much macho pressure it can be held ajar for mere seconds, 5 or 10. No more. Then there is time for clean-up, for recuperation, for adjustment, for composure. My brother and I learned that behavior and we practice it to this day. If there is emotion to be showed, it is because the situation calls for it and it is limited. We do not act out in public or wail in any sense of the word.
My Dad spoke to Tommy occasionally when he was incarcerated. He asked about the weather, general questions about the conditions in the joint, discussed Tommy's favorite teams and how the sports world was unfolding, (so new and different from any other year.) (Please allow me that fine bit of criticism.)
I won't let Mark go to jail. I mean, I just won't raise him in such a way as he ever gets that far away from me and the values I will share with him liberally. This will not happen. It just won't. This is not a mantra repeated in order to increase odds. This is the certainty that parents are and should be responsible.
To those who were natural and full-time fathers, from the infamous fathers of killers who make their appearance on a television newsmagazine or are merely written about but who claim to be the victims of chance, to the more average who were merely absent a lot, or self-absorbed, or bad examples, I indict you. To be known for who you are, is what I want for you. Instead of being allowed to hide behind what is unknown, or behind the notion that you were respectable in tough-loving, instead of being allowed to not understand what it was like to walk in another man's shoes while retaining the personal dignity of society's upright citizen, I would you were known as the lesser.
I imagine my dad adjusted to sleeping in a bed alone after nearly 20 years of sleeping with this one woman. I guess my sister got used to the idea of not having her mother around, her best friend, her partner in crime, her kindred older self. I assume my brother, who was 15 at the time, was bewildered and came to see the world as harsh and unforgiving. I bet he was a little angry.
Two years later I returned home and found my dad had just met the woman who would become his second wife. All his attention turned to the subsequent courting. My brother had been involved in some brushes with the law while I was away and he was absorbed in the gang culture represented by his artists of choice: NWA. My sister seemed an alien in the house. She came and went randomly and when I was there, the house seemed overrun by men in contrast to the effeminate place it had once been, so tidy and laden with country décor. And this was not when the tough love began, but it may be when it flourished.
My sister and Carol, my dad’s new wife, clashed from Day 1. Soon my sister fled to her grandmother’s then later to the beaches of North San Diego County. She was always attracted to the beach culture and the expanse of the ocean somehow seemed appropriate for her. For the next 10 years she was like a corked bottle bobbing in the ocean, washed up on the sand and carried back out by the tide, here and there, untethered, alone, betwixt the blinding light of the sun above and the utter blackness of the sea below.
I was perhaps more independent than my siblings from the outset. After all, I had been eldest. It was to me to at least act as if I knew what I was doing. I feigned man of the world as obviously as the cowardly lion feigned tough guy. I was lost. Lost like a child on the side of the freeway. Lost like paralyzation. I was out in the world, at school, attending parties, playing ball and trying to speak to people, but just lost, really, like everyone else.
My dad gave me tough love. He stayed in touch, every so often. When things went bad for me, he and Carol allowed me to move back in. I borrowed perhaps $200 one time and never paid it back and it hung over my head, (whether of my doing or my dad's, I'm not really sure,) always. When he got mad at me for drinking and taking Tommy down to my school dorm room, he took my car and we did not speak for about 2-3 months.
I do not understand tough love. It is too logical and too selfish for my tastes, too indiscriminate and undiscerning.
Now I have a son and I imagine myself in my dad's shoes. I imagine Mark, like my brother Tommy, going to prison, and I feel queazy and dizzy. I imagine going to him and screaming out at the system. I imagine my eyes loosening in my skull and leaking wildly, my hands grabbing at chunks of my own chest, tanking clumps of flesh away, clumps of me, and falling to my knees and to my back. I imagine remembering, the boy as he is today, so tiny and frail and demanding and helpless, the boy as he would be in grade school, so hopeful and energetic, the boy as a teen filling in the parts of his person that laid dormant, the boy growing to fullness, in his 20s, studying and playing hard, living, loving and learning, considering, and I feel a sense of failure, the disconsolation of the void in my life's work. I imagine feeling horrified. I imagine all the blame I would place on myself and knowing I would deserve every bit of it. I imagine dying in increments every time I would think of my son imprisoned, every time I recalled any aspect of him.
To actually live with knowing your son committed a crime and went to prison deservedly, is to know failure. Still, this is not an indictment of my Father, who took my brother in to his home to raise him as his own son when the boy was six years old, out of altruism. Those six years were filled with plenty of living, too. Tommy lived with various foster families numbering in double digits. He was discovered by one foster father crying near to his fallen foster mother, who never recovered from stroke. He also had an addiction problem. (At birth.) He kicked heroin in an incubator.
So it is understandable that Tommy grew up and had some issues around living within the law. I mean, it is our nature, right? A certain percentage of us have some problems with the rules at some point in time, and, to say nothing of justice systems, at least more than half of us deserve it and there's always those who got away with it. Right? So as much as we have laws and we need laws and laws, in some respects, qualify societies, it is natural to break laws.
We strive to move forward. Right? We try to be moral and to do what is right and some times we fail and perhaps most times we succeed and when we fall down, we get back up and shake the dust and try, try again, and that is all quite natural, though we may detest the bad. Right?
So, while I won't say my Dad was perfect or that he had no ill effects on any of us kids, I will say I only mean to address what this outcome, this prison-bound son, would mean to me as a father both biologically and behaviorally.
This outcome would be proof of my failure. It would represent my own selfishness and how I did not take the time to nurture the boy and truly teach him how to live, how to make choices, what to consider, what to value.
I think I would go to him, take an apartment outside the prison grounds, build a meager life around visiting hours, apologize to him almost daily, tell him I love him, cry in front of hardened strangers, laugh at myself and maybe cry some more. I imagine the pain being like a cactus I carry in my lap, that I can't drop, that I must hunch over to carry around with me as it sticks and pricks me in the abdomen and forearms and chin and thighs and groin. I would be dead but walking. I would be asleep but writing this life out daily. I would be so sadsorry, sad-sadsorry.
My dad tough loves my brother from afar. He has visited him in a prison in another state 1,000 miles away. Once? My dad was quiet that day, reserved. He was sad and slightly emotional, while also leading with his toughness, his sense of oh well, his sense of let's keep plodding forward because this life happens to you and we're all subject to the filthy fingers of fate, stifling emotions until the last second when the facade opened a crack, as if a jack were wedged in a stone-walled damn but with so much macho pressure it can be held ajar for mere seconds, 5 or 10. No more. Then there is time for clean-up, for recuperation, for adjustment, for composure. My brother and I learned that behavior and we practice it to this day. If there is emotion to be showed, it is because the situation calls for it and it is limited. We do not act out in public or wail in any sense of the word.
My Dad spoke to Tommy occasionally when he was incarcerated. He asked about the weather, general questions about the conditions in the joint, discussed Tommy's favorite teams and how the sports world was unfolding, (so new and different from any other year.) (Please allow me that fine bit of criticism.)
I won't let Mark go to jail. I mean, I just won't raise him in such a way as he ever gets that far away from me and the values I will share with him liberally. This will not happen. It just won't. This is not a mantra repeated in order to increase odds. This is the certainty that parents are and should be responsible.
To those who were natural and full-time fathers, from the infamous fathers of killers who make their appearance on a television newsmagazine or are merely written about but who claim to be the victims of chance, to the more average who were merely absent a lot, or self-absorbed, or bad examples, I indict you. To be known for who you are, is what I want for you. Instead of being allowed to hide behind what is unknown, or behind the notion that you were respectable in tough-loving, instead of being allowed to not understand what it was like to walk in another man's shoes while retaining the personal dignity of society's upright citizen, I would you were known as the lesser.
father, the lesser.
For not taking the time to learn enough to provide your own son with whatever it took to avoid substantial jail time,
For not taking the time to learn enough to provide your own son with whatever it took to avoid substantial jail time,
father, the lesser.
For not making yourself better, by equipping yourself with the knowledge that would have freed you, and your son, literally,
For not making yourself better, by equipping yourself with the knowledge that would have freed you, and your son, literally,
father, the lesser.
For not reading,
For not reading,
father, the lesser.
For not conveying the importance of intimacy, in word and deed,
For not conveying the importance of intimacy, in word and deed,
father, the lesser.
For lying,
For lying,
father, the lesser.
For lying by directing him to be straightforward and honest in every action but again and again showing dishonesty with Mother by hiding relationships with other women. For lying by professing to be a superman but then giving into vices regularly. For lying by preaching the ten commandments but then lobbying for unfair laws and seeking loopholes to capitalize on in order to avoid one's fair share towards the common good. For lying by claiming to be of family values but really only displaying selfish values that self serve at every turn. For acting as if it is good and normal to vote for a politician based on his abortion stand, instead of how he is going to affect the masses in serving them,
father, the lesser.
For not being well enough informed about public life and how it affects a person, the son and society, for claiming instead a lack of time but having plenty of time to take in sports or drink with buddies or go to some hollow church to practice a display of self-righteousness worthy of puke, or worse still, laying around watching television,
For not being well enough informed about public life and how it affects a person, the son and society, for claiming instead a lack of time but having plenty of time to take in sports or drink with buddies or go to some hollow church to practice a display of self-righteousness worthy of puke, or worse still, laying around watching television,
father, the lesser.
For not actually wanting the best for your son, for nurturing dark feelings of jealousy in comparison to your son,
For not actually wanting the best for your son, for nurturing dark feelings of jealousy in comparison to your son,
father, the lesser.
For not intiating conversations on important topics,
For not intiating conversations on important topics,
father, the lesser.
For playing the victim, for pretending circumstances put you anywhere, ever, instead of owning the fact that you are exactly where you intended to be, (intention being based on your every action,)
father, the lesser.
For not involving a community, for pompously asserting that you knew best when you were guessing and hoping, for enthroning yourself the king of your castle and demanding affection, taxes, utter confidence and loyalty,
father, the lesser.
For thinking that just being there put you in the top 20% of fathers in and of itself when the top 20% is not even close to good enough,
father, the lesser.
For giving gifts and compliments, and for showing up, just to make yourself feel better,
father, the lesser.
For getting to the point where you actually believe you did a fine job as a Father,
father, the lesser.
For accepting gifts on Father's Day,
father, the lesser
For believing in imaginary creatures,
father, the lesser.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Thursday, February 15, 2007
I am John Amaechi
My dad asked me what I thought of tim hardaway today and I could not help but go into a near tirade. It went like this:
Tim Hardaway is the epitome of a dumb jock. I am really put off by his comments. What a jerk. I am not into it. I don’t go the gay way. But for him, a black man, to say what he said, I think he should be forced to live as a poor black man for a season so he can see what discrimination feels like again, because obviously since he made his cash he has lost touch with it. Doc rivers had a far more reasonable opinion about john Amaechi, a player I recently wondered about and whom I thought played a great brand of basketball and had a great attitude, work ethic, and he was smart, too, not a caveman like hardaway. It is what it is, right? the guy was gay. He wasn’t infecting anyone with aids or anything. He was not a lazy player, or a selfish player. I mean, seriously, I would rather hang out with a gay guy who reads literature and can hold a reasonably smart conversation than a straight dumbass jock who can’t discuss anything outside of his realm. If, like john maeche, he can play ball too, well damn, I’d be friends with that person any day.
So John Amaechi has become like Spartacus. He makes a heterosexual man, (formerly of a measure of homophobia,) like myself, want to stand up and defend the gay man. It is ironic too. When Amaechi came into the league, (or, “the association,” as my friend and favorite sports encyclopedia adam janeiro calls it,) I remember the human interest stories the network aired at halftime about his relationship with his mother and the good people of merry, old England. I remember him talking about his charitable endeavors and how he was lead to engage in those endeavors because of events from his childhood. I liked him then, both for defying stereotypes and for defying the hoops culture that is so prominent today, the culture of thump your chest and put up those horns and expose a nipple and wag a finger and say “not in my house,” and all that noise so embodied by the lesser talents.
Amaechi threw elbows only when they flew naturally because of his body contortions as he chased a rebound. He was always polite with the press, never once choked his coach, showed grace in being thankful for his opportunity to play pro ball, complimented his teammates and respected his foes, gave back to the community, both that of his club team, (Orlando,) and the community he truly called home across the pond, and all stops along the way. Further, I was impressed with how nonplussed by basketball culture and his own celebrity John Amaechi was.
John Amaechi was and is a stand up guy.
The extent of my knowledge of homosexuality begins and ends with the fact that I am not homosexual. I am lucky for that fact asI know it is a cross to carry. At the same time, I feel remiss for mentioning my heterosexuality. At this time, more than any other, I want to stand up and say, “I am John Amaechi.” And I can, because I am. I have been discriminated against or downtrodden. I have had dumbass people cast aspersions about me. In fact, you have too. You have had people say things about you that were untrue or that were meant to harm you and for no good reason. And in that way and for that reason, you too, are, or should be, Spartacus, er, John Amaechi.
Amaechi has written a book. (http://www.booksamillion.com/ncom/books?id=3682318018691&isbn=1933060190) By publishing this book and speaking to the New York Times about his sexuality and tolerance, (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/12/sports/basketball/13gay.html?ref=basketball) Amaechi, like Spartacus is standing up to an opposing army. He is surely getting support also from the enlightened and empathetic but sports is the realm of the caveman, (no offense to those geico spokesmen.) The athlete has been the singularly focused doer of daring deeds who has received a veritable pass from the public at large for small-minded acts of ignorance.
The ease with which Rafael Palmeiro lied to the public should be admonished. However, I can’t say I ever saw Tim Hardaway, nor any unimplicated MLB players save Chad Curtis, (somewhat,) come out against the obvious lie or the obvious liar. Amaechi should be lauded for his honesty.
Some have suggested Amaechi is merely trying to sell a book, which is a gross mischaracterization. Darryl Strawberry sold lousy books. Phil Jackson sold a boring one just a few years ago. Amaechi received a book deal because he had something interesting to share, namely, what it is like to be the antithesis of a jock inside of the professional sports culture. I have not yet read the book, and certainly his homosexuality would be among the most glaring examples of how he defied the expectations of the jock strap set but it should make for compelling reading to gain his perspective on how he felt on plane trips when the rest of the team huddled up to play dice or dominoes a la the firemen of Fahrenheit 451 while he might have sat up front reading a Ray Bradbury book.
Last I heard, one in ten humans is gay. Forget any traces of misogyny or aloofness or foul body odor or anything else, Tim Hardaway is content with spurning 10% of all humans right up front. And for us, those who use celebrities to cast passive judgments partially in order to exercise our moral barometers, we have to take a stand. (It’s different, and yet the same, but the last time I saw everyone stand down when they should have been speaking up and making a judgment, our great nation ended up invading a poor and nearly defenseless country on the far side of the globe.)
The point is, Tim Hardaway deserves public derision. If his current employer can terminate his employment, great, but more important is that he hear about it. His comments wreak of someone who has gay tendencies and feels threatened by them. Makes me wonder if when he looked at Mullin but passed to Richmond on the break, he wasn’t looking at Mullin because he wore his shorts tight. I wonder if when he crossed over on Darrell Armstrong, he got by him so fast because he was trying to get a look at his backside. On some level, isn’t that what homophobia is all about? Isn’t this about Timmy’s own recognition that he could just as easily kiss a man as a woman and the thought frightens him so much, because so much of his self esteem is built upon the machismo he has clung to since childhood, that he feels the need to overcompensate by making jokes and public comments to the effect of, ‘I’m so straight I can’t even keep my mouth closed publicly about how much I destest faggots.” Isn’t that it? Isn’t it pathetic? Isn’t it transparent?
As far as I’m concerned, whenever I think of Tim Hardaway or any other homophobe, I am John Amaechi. What a fine example of a man he is. I am John Amaechi.
Tim Hardaway is the epitome of a dumb jock. I am really put off by his comments. What a jerk. I am not into it. I don’t go the gay way. But for him, a black man, to say what he said, I think he should be forced to live as a poor black man for a season so he can see what discrimination feels like again, because obviously since he made his cash he has lost touch with it. Doc rivers had a far more reasonable opinion about john Amaechi, a player I recently wondered about and whom I thought played a great brand of basketball and had a great attitude, work ethic, and he was smart, too, not a caveman like hardaway. It is what it is, right? the guy was gay. He wasn’t infecting anyone with aids or anything. He was not a lazy player, or a selfish player. I mean, seriously, I would rather hang out with a gay guy who reads literature and can hold a reasonably smart conversation than a straight dumbass jock who can’t discuss anything outside of his realm. If, like john maeche, he can play ball too, well damn, I’d be friends with that person any day.
So John Amaechi has become like Spartacus. He makes a heterosexual man, (formerly of a measure of homophobia,) like myself, want to stand up and defend the gay man. It is ironic too. When Amaechi came into the league, (or, “the association,” as my friend and favorite sports encyclopedia adam janeiro calls it,) I remember the human interest stories the network aired at halftime about his relationship with his mother and the good people of merry, old England. I remember him talking about his charitable endeavors and how he was lead to engage in those endeavors because of events from his childhood. I liked him then, both for defying stereotypes and for defying the hoops culture that is so prominent today, the culture of thump your chest and put up those horns and expose a nipple and wag a finger and say “not in my house,” and all that noise so embodied by the lesser talents.
Amaechi threw elbows only when they flew naturally because of his body contortions as he chased a rebound. He was always polite with the press, never once choked his coach, showed grace in being thankful for his opportunity to play pro ball, complimented his teammates and respected his foes, gave back to the community, both that of his club team, (Orlando,) and the community he truly called home across the pond, and all stops along the way. Further, I was impressed with how nonplussed by basketball culture and his own celebrity John Amaechi was.
John Amaechi was and is a stand up guy.
The extent of my knowledge of homosexuality begins and ends with the fact that I am not homosexual. I am lucky for that fact asI know it is a cross to carry. At the same time, I feel remiss for mentioning my heterosexuality. At this time, more than any other, I want to stand up and say, “I am John Amaechi.” And I can, because I am. I have been discriminated against or downtrodden. I have had dumbass people cast aspersions about me. In fact, you have too. You have had people say things about you that were untrue or that were meant to harm you and for no good reason. And in that way and for that reason, you too, are, or should be, Spartacus, er, John Amaechi.
Amaechi has written a book. (http://www.booksamillion.com/ncom/books?id=3682318018691&isbn=1933060190) By publishing this book and speaking to the New York Times about his sexuality and tolerance, (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/12/sports/basketball/13gay.html?ref=basketball) Amaechi, like Spartacus is standing up to an opposing army. He is surely getting support also from the enlightened and empathetic but sports is the realm of the caveman, (no offense to those geico spokesmen.) The athlete has been the singularly focused doer of daring deeds who has received a veritable pass from the public at large for small-minded acts of ignorance.
The ease with which Rafael Palmeiro lied to the public should be admonished. However, I can’t say I ever saw Tim Hardaway, nor any unimplicated MLB players save Chad Curtis, (somewhat,) come out against the obvious lie or the obvious liar. Amaechi should be lauded for his honesty.
Some have suggested Amaechi is merely trying to sell a book, which is a gross mischaracterization. Darryl Strawberry sold lousy books. Phil Jackson sold a boring one just a few years ago. Amaechi received a book deal because he had something interesting to share, namely, what it is like to be the antithesis of a jock inside of the professional sports culture. I have not yet read the book, and certainly his homosexuality would be among the most glaring examples of how he defied the expectations of the jock strap set but it should make for compelling reading to gain his perspective on how he felt on plane trips when the rest of the team huddled up to play dice or dominoes a la the firemen of Fahrenheit 451 while he might have sat up front reading a Ray Bradbury book.
Last I heard, one in ten humans is gay. Forget any traces of misogyny or aloofness or foul body odor or anything else, Tim Hardaway is content with spurning 10% of all humans right up front. And for us, those who use celebrities to cast passive judgments partially in order to exercise our moral barometers, we have to take a stand. (It’s different, and yet the same, but the last time I saw everyone stand down when they should have been speaking up and making a judgment, our great nation ended up invading a poor and nearly defenseless country on the far side of the globe.)
The point is, Tim Hardaway deserves public derision. If his current employer can terminate his employment, great, but more important is that he hear about it. His comments wreak of someone who has gay tendencies and feels threatened by them. Makes me wonder if when he looked at Mullin but passed to Richmond on the break, he wasn’t looking at Mullin because he wore his shorts tight. I wonder if when he crossed over on Darrell Armstrong, he got by him so fast because he was trying to get a look at his backside. On some level, isn’t that what homophobia is all about? Isn’t this about Timmy’s own recognition that he could just as easily kiss a man as a woman and the thought frightens him so much, because so much of his self esteem is built upon the machismo he has clung to since childhood, that he feels the need to overcompensate by making jokes and public comments to the effect of, ‘I’m so straight I can’t even keep my mouth closed publicly about how much I destest faggots.” Isn’t that it? Isn’t it pathetic? Isn’t it transparent?
As far as I’m concerned, whenever I think of Tim Hardaway or any other homophobe, I am John Amaechi. What a fine example of a man he is. I am John Amaechi.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
al davis
I usually defend al davis and even still, I admit to being very fond of the guy. As a raider fan, many seasons and many Sundays, over the years, I have been pleased. But lane kiffin exposes al’s greatest weakness. Al is mortal, concerned with immortality and a little bit selfish.
Lane kiffin seems like a nice guy and he seems like someone who will succeed at some point in his career, (and despite the excellent pedigree with pete carroll’s knee included,) he is in over his head. Perhaps football coaches are one dimensional and so, life experience is overrated when compared to the will to win, the single-mindedness and focus peculiar to some of the greats, but at 31, kiffin is just too wet behind the ears to succeed in a job as demanding as the one he just accepted.
For davis, the hiring exposes the fact he is looking for some magical potion cure-all to bring the silver and black back to prominence. Especially considering his age, I don’t think he has the patience to make the right choices that will realistically take a last place team, with more head cases than a taxidermist, from worst to first. That’s a 3-6 year project. Anything quicker than that is gravy but davis can be seen through this choice to be just guessing, throwing the dart at the wall of balloons while smiling over at the wife and kids only to miss a balloon by three feet.
I guess he remembered his last success in choosing a coach, the time he had to give up all his locker room and playbook control to the brash youngster who he had to admit, oozed confidence and success. He is so far removed form his hire of jon gruden he can be felt in the cosmos hoping and praying people do not make the connection to this move as being the closing of that loop that was davis hiring him but being frustrated with his charisma and the volume of good publicity it garnered, (seemingly effortlessly,) to davis privately feuding with him but being shut up by the scoreboard weekly, (by gruden and gannon,) to davis’ own inflated confidence allowing him to trade gooden away to tampa bay for two Hershey bars and a 50-cent piece, to gruden making him pay ever so dearly with an epic beating in the biggest game in the universe, to davis avoiding the subject and riding the raiders success, despite the superbowl loss, to the ability to claim he was not bothered nor did he think the glazer’s got the better of him in that trade, to letting some time go by and firing Callahan and hiring turner then firing curly joe and hiring shem to firing art shell to this.
The 31-year-old savior of the franchise who al saw in a dream and followed a star south down interstate 5 to find in troy is going to create a robust offense by using the word “attacking,” a lot and emulating jon gruden?! Lane kiffin is going to magically turn aaron brooks into daryle lamonica, randy moss into a model teammate and hard worker, lamont Jordan into a true starting running back in the nfl, all while patrolling the Oakland sidelines?! (maybe with monkeys flying out of his ass?)
As a raider fan, I wish kiffin luck. It would be refreshing to be wrong about this. But all that stuff everyone’s been saying about al davis’ ego these many years, is sadly true. Davis is hoping to catch lightning in a bottle without considering the odds. He is looking for the quick fix. He wants to be admired as a football genius. Maybe that’s not so bad considering his age, but that doesn’t make his choice any better.
Lane kiffin seems like a nice guy and he seems like someone who will succeed at some point in his career, (and despite the excellent pedigree with pete carroll’s knee included,) he is in over his head. Perhaps football coaches are one dimensional and so, life experience is overrated when compared to the will to win, the single-mindedness and focus peculiar to some of the greats, but at 31, kiffin is just too wet behind the ears to succeed in a job as demanding as the one he just accepted.
For davis, the hiring exposes the fact he is looking for some magical potion cure-all to bring the silver and black back to prominence. Especially considering his age, I don’t think he has the patience to make the right choices that will realistically take a last place team, with more head cases than a taxidermist, from worst to first. That’s a 3-6 year project. Anything quicker than that is gravy but davis can be seen through this choice to be just guessing, throwing the dart at the wall of balloons while smiling over at the wife and kids only to miss a balloon by three feet.
I guess he remembered his last success in choosing a coach, the time he had to give up all his locker room and playbook control to the brash youngster who he had to admit, oozed confidence and success. He is so far removed form his hire of jon gruden he can be felt in the cosmos hoping and praying people do not make the connection to this move as being the closing of that loop that was davis hiring him but being frustrated with his charisma and the volume of good publicity it garnered, (seemingly effortlessly,) to davis privately feuding with him but being shut up by the scoreboard weekly, (by gruden and gannon,) to davis’ own inflated confidence allowing him to trade gooden away to tampa bay for two Hershey bars and a 50-cent piece, to gruden making him pay ever so dearly with an epic beating in the biggest game in the universe, to davis avoiding the subject and riding the raiders success, despite the superbowl loss, to the ability to claim he was not bothered nor did he think the glazer’s got the better of him in that trade, to letting some time go by and firing Callahan and hiring turner then firing curly joe and hiring shem to firing art shell to this.
The 31-year-old savior of the franchise who al saw in a dream and followed a star south down interstate 5 to find in troy is going to create a robust offense by using the word “attacking,” a lot and emulating jon gruden?! Lane kiffin is going to magically turn aaron brooks into daryle lamonica, randy moss into a model teammate and hard worker, lamont Jordan into a true starting running back in the nfl, all while patrolling the Oakland sidelines?! (maybe with monkeys flying out of his ass?)
As a raider fan, I wish kiffin luck. It would be refreshing to be wrong about this. But all that stuff everyone’s been saying about al davis’ ego these many years, is sadly true. Davis is hoping to catch lightning in a bottle without considering the odds. He is looking for the quick fix. He wants to be admired as a football genius. Maybe that’s not so bad considering his age, but that doesn’t make his choice any better.
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