Young at heart

I've been thinking quite a bit lately about getting older. Well, that's not accurate, I've been thinking about growing up. I'm plenty old enough to grow up at this point. The Craig Ferguson clip is rambling nonsense mostly but he does capture something that is true about our society. We do value youth very highly, and we're much more permissive of grown-ass men acting like children. I would never be able to find a group of guys my age to take a day off work and go play paintball with back in the 1950's. It's not necessarily a bad thing, people are free more than they have been in the past to pursue their hobbies and past times and time wasters, and it's a big component of enjoying life.

The side effect though is that there isn't the same stigma to being a man-child as there used to be. I know that has had a big impact on how I have lived my life up until now and how I have managed my priorities. And now, when I want to be the man I thought I would need to be at this time in my life to be able to have all the things I want (a marriage, a house, and eventually kids), I sometimes find myself lacking. Yet I know that I'm on the right track now, and I feel good about it.

Hell, earlier today I was riding around on top of a palate cart at work maneuvering myself around by pushing off the walls until I got to the other side of the building. I still feel like I'm maturing though. At least the floor wasn't lava.

Correspondence from a crazy person #3

This correspondence came after a throw away line given at the end of what was a very good special comment from Countdown with Keith Olbermann

Yeah you probably didn't catch it but at the end he quoted Oliver Cromwell, a contentious figure in Irish-English history. It probably didn't deserve this response:

" I loved your special comment about Dick Cheney. At least until the last bit where you quoted from Oliver Cromwell. As someone from Irish heritage it infuriates me whenever someone references him as if he were a great or good man. The monster waged a religious war upon the peoples of Ireland and Scotland, burning people alive inside of churches. He was a hero to the English of Ulster in their continued violence against the Catholics of northern Ireland. I make no attempt to spare either side from their right blame in the continuance of the troubles. But to remember Cromwell as anything other than a bloodthirsty dog is to allow the truth to be dictated by the victor and not by reality. A zealot and a monster is all he ever was, who slaughtered innocent women and children refuged in the house of God.

That aside, I love your show and I wish you continued success.

God bless,
rich aycock "


This letter is particularly crazy because, well, I don't represent history entirely accurately either, and also I completely misrepresent myself as someone who is at all religious. I'm gonna stop putting my name on these.

Correspondence from a crazy person #2

In this, the second installment of me acting crotchety towards the world in general, I take offense to this political cartoon:



I would be surprised if anyone else reading this DIDN'T find the cartoon pretty offensive. It's a pretty big risk any time you go for the nuclear option and compare somebody to the Nazis. You could get an e-mail like this:

"I can imagine you probably got quite a bit of e-mail after your cartoon that not so subtly compared Pelosi to a Nazi leader. I won't even get into how offensive that is, I'll only remind you that you probably were horribly offended any time anyone compared Bush or any member of his administration to Nazis. In neither case is the comparison anything other than grossly unfair and borderline irresponsible.

Since I'm sure that point has been brought up plenty, I'd like to take issue with the content of the cartoon BEFORE the last panel. On what basis do you have Nancy Pelosi saying that certain people should be killed, and that others should (if I got the implication correct) be sterilized? If that's a criticism of any policy of hers or of anything that she or for that matter any other liberal leader has ever said, then it's one I've never heard. It seems to me it's an extension of the perceived disregard for human life that liberals have based solely on the stance that abortion should be legal. It's a ridiculous stretch, and one that I hope you don't take seriously.

The whole cartoon is a conflation of several legitimate viewpoints on debatable issues including welfare, contraception, sex education, abortion rights, and the responsibilities of government for caring for it's citizens, along with radical ideas that are held mostly only by imaginary, hedonistic, irresponsible, immoral liberals that want to practice some sort of rebirth of eugenics. It seems pretty hypocritical to me to see this cartoon when I remember the outrage you expressed in post-Katrina cartoons at the taxpayers having to help pay for the housing of people who had been so "irresponsible" as to build homes on the coast.

The message I can only infer from the cartoon was supposed to be: "We should think about the policies that are being implemented by leaders on the left and what they can lead to if we aren't careful." But all I take away is that the die-hards on the right will never understand what motivates liberals, or what we care about, and comparisons like these make me doubt if any really care to try.

I wish I could have kept more anger out of this e-mail, but the Nazi comparison always makes my blood boil. That aside I hope you're well."

-Now it's important to note that this e-mail could not be nearly as vitriolic as the one to blockbuster. This particular cartoonist is somebody that I e-mail back and forth with kinda frequently, and while his ideas may be crazy and outdated, he's always been a nice, respectful guy in our correspondence, and is amazingly good at responding to e-mail. Much better than I am in fact, and he probably gets about 20x as much. If I get his permission I'll probably put the whole of the back and forth about this cartoon on the blog.

Correspondence from a crazy person

The first in a series where I share with you the ridiculous e-mails I send to people who offend me.

Today's episode has me upset about this story:
Mexico's voodoo promo for soccer match gets sponsor

Ever since this little episode, the relationship between US and Mexican soccer fans has been a bit of a sore spot for me. As far as I'm concerned they can all go die in a fucking fire. I don't excuse their drunkenness, nor the fucked up little-brother complex that they have with the US. So I might have gone a bit overboard when I wrote this e-mail to Blockbuster:

"Before I begin I want to make sure that I am not responding to something that is an exaggeration or a prank. So I sincerely hope that this story is untrue, and I would like to receive assurance that it is not:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/6250803.html

So if the story is a fraud, then I apologize for hastily jumping to conclusions. If not though, please take the following to heart:

Are you out of your mother-fucking minds?! I cannot believe that you would sponsor such an offensive campaign. It's beyond galling that you could allow your stores to hand out voodoo dolls representing American players, representing American citizens. Your stores are actually encouraging people to stick pins into effigies of the American team! Fuck the fact that voodoo is bullshit, I'm not complaining because I'm as delusional as some of the fucking dips that hope this will in any way help their national side. It's the absolutely violent disrespect that you have shown for US citizens that enrages me. I have canceled my Blockbuster DVD rental subscription, and will not be sending back the DVDs I have out. I am going to burn them and you will never get a fucking dime from me for them. I will also make sure that none of my friends or family ever step foot in a Blockbuster store ever again. No apology or action can ever convince me to change my mind on the matter. Go to hell."

For the record, I don't have a blockbuster subscription, and I don't have any dvds of theirs. I am though putting them on the banned list, and I encourage anyone else to as well.

Three days til pitchers and catchers report!

The first benchmark of the 2009 season is almost upon us, and just a few days removed from the Bill Murray sanctioned groundhog day comes the baseball equivalent. Baseball Prospectus, the Cadillac of analytical statistic-based performance predictions, has released their projections for the 2009 season. It's surely comforting to see the Cubbies projected as run-away favorites in their division, but it's certainly not news. With Houston and St. Louis at least two years away from their prospects and rookies developing to the point that they can compete again, and Milwaukee falling apart at the seams faster than Ben Sheet's elbow, the path is pretty clear for NL Central dominance. (There have been rumblings of Cincy as a sleeper team to look out for, but that's a bigger long shot than A-Rod winning the Roberto Clemente award in 2009) So with the obvious aside let's get on to the subtle good news.

Now OF COURSE this is only a projection, but I can't deny that seeing the Cleveland Indians winning the AL Central made me smile. I've never been a fan of AL baseball, but I now have a favorite AL team, the Cleveland Indians. I've always been a defender of Kerry Wood, a man who could have abandoned Chicago a hundred times but always wanted to make sure he did something to repay the city and his fans. Certainly not a role-model (other than to the socialite, hot tub surfing crowd) but a good guy whose charitable contributions helped the city for many years. And now he's an Indian, and a team mate of the former Cub who I had a child-like hero worship for, Mark DeRosa. (I'll have to get a DeRosa #7 to hang next to my Vaughn #99) In my mind, you can't get any more respectable than a guy who played 6 different positions in a season and always managed to contribute offensively. He always did what was asked of him and more because his #1 priority was to do what was right for the team. He's the kind of guy Mike Singletary would love.

So now, I go into 2009 excited and hopeful. For the first time I'll be following two teams (You can't think of a fraction small enough to compare how much I want the Indians to succeed versus how much I want the cubbies to succeed), and the outlook for both of them is looking pretty rosy. All I have to say is, when I get 6 bleacher seats for the Cubs v Indians home series in June, who are the other 5 people who are gonna come with to be the D, e, O, S, and A?

Bless us with Anger

Yesterday* was the realization of over a year’s worth of work done by millions of Americans in an effort to right the course of their country. As 2 million Americans flooded the national mall in DC, millions more tuned in at home to witness one of the most impressive moments in our history. Like everyone else I was truly moved. Another speech though that went almost unheard was that of that of Gene Robinson, known as "the gay bishop", an openly gay preacher. The prayer he gave opened an event that was carried by HBO, but HBO did not air the prayer. While conspiracy rumors swirl around the gay blogoshphere, HBO claims it was an honest mistake. You can read the whole speech here and I encourage you to before reading the rest of the post.

As much as it was about Obama, what yesterday* also meant to me was the end of an era that inspired more anger than any since probably the days of vietnam. And yet it wasn't enough to keep anything from happening it seemed. The protests seemed to have no effect, the shoe option wasn't on the table back then... There has been so much to be angry about for so long.

For 6 long years we have been blessed with anger. Anger at the indifference to the lives of average Americans shown by our leaders. Anger at the treatment of our poor, our sick, our wounded military men and women. Anger at the lies that we have been expected to swallow.

We have been blessed with tears. Tears for our fellow citizens lost in Iraq, Afghanistan, New Orleans and New York. Tears for the lives lost in the Middle East and in Africa and elsewhere by those who do not share our heritage but for whom we must feel compassion if we are to retain our humanity.

We have been blessed not with discomfort but with horror, and with humiliation. Horror at the atrocities that have been committed in our name, in the name of a country that was for so long the biggest source of hope in the world. Humiliation that it was we who allowed our former president and his administration to deceive and distract us, to lead us into war. Humiliation that we consented to the barbaric treatment of prisoners. Humiliation that we agreed it was necessary.

And now it feels like it's finally over, the long national nightmare, the "regin of error" of George W Bush. But after the celebration is over the new fight is to stay motivated. It will be hard to stay involved, to stay indignant over the frustrations caused by Obama. But they will come, and we need to stay vigilant to keep him honest. He's not a savior by any right, he's just a better man for the job. And it's our job to keep him on the right path, even when we're most tempted to give over our trust and relax our activism. In those moments, in the words of Gene Robinson, God, bless us with anger.


*Obviously I didn't get this post finished until a week later. I've got quite a few half finished that I'll try and get posted soon.

America's back!

And I plan on being back soon too