Month: January 2016
Celebrating pretenders
Ready or not, here comes the season of the over-hyped celebrity. The time of year when we can’t get enough award shows that honor people who live in an alternate reality… a fantasy world, where thinking’s not allowed, where everything is scripted. Unless it’s not, then it’s called ad libbing and embraced as masterful shrewdness.
Now imagine that we don’t know the names of actors. The names of people who pretend to be other people. Who pretend to be cops, teachers, mail carriers, nurses, and plumbers.
Then imagine we honored those who’s every movement is unscripted and ad libbed. Imagine if we knew the names of those who actually serve us, like cops, teachers, mail carriers, nurses and plumbers.
A military that’s brought to its knees
The detention of US military personnel and the pictures of our own fighting force on their knees in front of Iranian captors is an image that sums up the Obama legacy quite well.
…a country, once strong and proud, now forced to its knees.
These sailors ended up in Iranian territorial waters leading to confrontation, capture and subsequent release. It certainly could have gone worse, and for that we’re thankful, but the circumstance plus the images paint a picture for the world to see of a country, once strong and proud, now forced to its knees. A Navy that could once boast of having 6,768 ships, down to 272. A history of US Presidents portraying strength as Commanders in Chief, now a President that grovels to dictators, monarchs, and emperors. A US President who’s arrogant to his own citizens while at the same time capitulating to oppressive rulers.
A country that once had the respect around the globe, now being dictated to by an Iranian government.
Forcing an issue to be black and white
For some things there’s a benefit to seeing them as either black or white. No gray means there’s little ambiguity; something either is or it isn’t. The Sunday, January 10, 2016, edition of The Washington Post produced a piece by Donald Yee, a partner with a company that represents professional athletes. In fact, Tom Brady is one of their clients. The piece is titled, “The color of money in the NCAA” and paints a black and white picture that should have many shades of gray. This is obvious to anyone who even causally reads the piece.
Yee points out the disparaging monetary gain between university administrators and college athletes. Since administrators are mostly white and over half of college basketball and football players are black (64% and 57%, respectively as reported by Yee), his focus hones in on the black players and the white administrators. That makes for a nice black-white issue so that any differences between athletes and administrators can now be conveniently lumped into the grossly oversimplified picture of injustice against black players.
“college sports exploits unpaid black players while white administrators get rich.”
Apparently The Washington Post will jump at anything that hints at racism by looking for issues related to skin color at every turn to further this narrative. The article encapsulates the issue by stating “college sports exploits unpaid black players while white administrators get rich.”
What’s lost in this story are all of the other athletes. Why are they different than the black athlete? They get “paid” the exact same as the black players. I feel for athletes of all colors, but let’s just lump them into the single category called athletes, without the race baiting. It seems borderline racist for Yee to focus on the color of the athletes skin when athletes of all races share in the same compensation disparity. All athletes should at the very least get a stipend; perhaps a set amount of money for each game. If Yee wanted to have a stronger racist story, he should have focused the article on the administrators being mostly white in a heavily mixed race environment. That’s likely a worthy cause but Yee only gives it a secondary thought.
Yee does point out an historical and uplifting turning point that opened up opportunities for black athletes in 1966. Coach Don Haskins took Texas Western to the college basketball championship game with all black starters and beat the all white University of Kentucky powerhouse lead by coach Adolph Rupp. The movie, Glory Road is an excellent sports movie that captures their championship drive and the extreme hardships along the way.
That game was black and white.
The Government saving us from ourselves.
Whenever we hear things like “you can’t be too careful” or from Obama when he tweeted “if there’s one life we can save-we’ve got an obligation to try”, our immediate reaction is to consider those to be noble sentiments. That was his logic – or fear mongering – that he’s been using to convince us the time is always right for more gun control directives. So he literally means if he can take an action to save one life, he will. He’s also shown that it doesn’t matter if it over steps his authority to do so. Although he’s not likely to admit he’s exceeding his limited authority to encroach upon our rights, to him it’s more of a duty.
“if there’s one life we can save-we’ve got an obligation to try” – Barack Obama
Now let’s think about actions that could be taken to save lives. Each day we take personal risks at home, on the road, at work and in our leisure activities. You almost can’t avoid the opportunity for death particularly if you bring your level of concern down to the one in 300 million possibility. That’s Obama’s target, one life saved out of a population of 300 million. Imagine the activities that present a hazard with that slim probability. We’re guessing that using a toothbrush incorrectly probably has that level of risk, let alone all the other voluntary risks we take everyday including driving a car, walking or running for exercise, not walking or running for exercise, stepping into a bathtub, and even the act of eating is hazardous. Perhaps the government should require personal food chewers so we don’t risk choking. After all, almost 3000 people die each year from airway obstruction while eating. And don’t get us started on the dangers of popcorn! Food chewers would simultaneously help save us from ourselves and get people back to work. Not to mention our resulting loss of appetite and an immediate cure for obesity. And if we refuse that government assistance, then we can just be fined, um…, taxed.
Now consider that the recent rash of Obama actions on gun control would have had no impact on the mass shootings we’ve recently experienced, and that was a primary motivating factor in this latest wave of directives. In spite of that, he’s managed to fire up the fear and sell his snake oil for whatever ails you as long as he gets added control on your Second Amendment rights. All in the name of protecting us from ourselves. Personally we’d rather see a cure for a bloated government. Hands off our guns….and popcorn.
Confederacy of Drones 