Saturday, November 29, 2008

Its Been Ten Years

Hard to believe that it has been ten years since this game came out. I was reminded of that fact in a show I normally to called Radio Free Nintendo. In it my normally cynical on air friends went back in time to what made this game a true landmark for anyone who calls themselves a fan of videogames. I admit, it took me a few months to get my copy since I was occupied by what in my eyes back then was an excellent title in it's own right Turok 2. Anyway I finished Zelda Ocarina of Time once (absorbed me for at least two months) and I have started it several times since. I last played it seriously last year till other titles came in. Listening to the lads describe it I feel like picking it up again. No matter what anyone says I truly appreciated the N64. The game is currently housed in my Wii and I have a feeling I will return to it soon. I recommend this to anybody who plays videogames unless you are of the type who will seldom stray from the Madden/ Basketball/ Halo genres. Right Quito?

Ed

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/podcastArt.cfm?artid=17249 ( podcast playing tribute to ten year anniversary )

http://www.gamespot.com/n64/adventure/legendofzeldaoot/review.html ( perfect review)





Vatican Rejects Obama Ally

As all of you bask in the Obama honeymoon there are some who see it differently. When you find yourself trying to make sense of things, your values should ultimately be a reference point. The Catholic Church is by no means perfect but does not mean Obama has a better grip on morality than what they have taught us for years. If some of you believe that as in many in my family do, that's your right as is mine to go against it. Based on the history I read here, Kmiec is such a sell out to that smooth talker. One of those fair weathered friend types. More opportunistic than principled and loyal. Goes where the wind blows instead of being rooted. Not too many people here in Multiply not drinking the Obama Kool Aid but I feel better having read this.

Ed


http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=14437

Vatican
A Vatican official's case against Kmiec
Why Kmiec will not become the new Vatican Ambassador

Prof. Douglas Kmiec

Vatican City, Nov 25, 2008 / 03:22 pm (CNA).- An official from the Vatican's Secretary of State department has reacted to the recent suggestion that Pepperdine professor Douglas Kmiec should become the U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican by saying, "it will never happen."

On November 23, America Magazine published a blog entry from Michael Sean Winters describing Professor Douglas Kmiec, the former Republican pro-lifer who became Obama’s top Catholic apologist during the presidential campaign, as "the perfect candidate" to become U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See.

In his piece, Winters argues that Kmiec is the perfect candidate because "He is a lifelong pro-life legal scholar who served as head of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Departments of both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He was Dean of the Catholic University Law School and now teaches law at Pepperdine. His published works evidence a find (sic) legal mind and thorough familiarity with the natural law tradition that has been the dominant lens for Catholic social thought. Kmiec would be well known to prominent American churchmen in the Eternal City and a jewel in the crown of the intellectual milieu that surrounds the Holy See."

Winters also argues that "Kmiec’s pro-life credentials, despite some carping from the far right political fringe, are impeccable. Indeed, given that the American bishops have chosen opposition to FOCA as their greeting to the new president, Kmiec gives the bishops some satisfaction since he testified against the measure at its inception in the 1980s."

CNA presented Winters' arguments to an official of the Secretary of State, who offered his reaction on a strict condition of anonymity. His answer at Kmiec’s chances of becoming an Ambassador: "It will never happen."

The official noted that prominent American Catholics at the Vatican -such as Cardinal James Francis Stafford or Archbishop Raymond Burke- look at Kmiec as a "traitor," and "their opinion will certainly count heavily."

But most importantly, the official said, is that the Holy See will not risk alienating vital U.S. Catholic organizations like the Knights of Columbus or the American branch of the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher, "whose role in the life of the universal Church is decisive, and who have already expressed publicly their disappointment with Kmiec's role in the recent elections."

The official also explained that the Vatican is "obviously interested in having a good relationship with the greatest power in the world," but such relationships usually flow "through different parallel channels and not only the Embassy."

"Despite the importance of a good relationship with the U.S.," the official explained to CNA, "the Secretary of State privileges the relationship with nations with which it has concordats," that is to say, international agreements that provide some recognition and support to the public presence of the Catholic Church, such as state support for religious education.

"If the office [the Vatican's Secretary of State] withholds the 'placet' –the official acceptance—from the appointees from Argentina and France, it could easily do the same [to Kmiec]" because "[we] would not risk alienating many U.S. Catholic organizations."

The Secretary of State official was referring to the recent Vatican decisions to deny the ‘placet’ to a French Ambassador to the Vatican because he was openly homosexual and to an Argentinean because he was divorced and remarried.

"Of course Mr. Kmiec is in neither of those situations, but for the Secretary of State it is far more important to maintain a good relationship with, say, Mr. Anderson (the Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus,) who is an active member of several Vatican dicasteries, than to please Mr. Kmiec and his friends in the new administration."

"Those who the article refers so disrespectfully as 'extremists on the right,' or 'the far right political fringe,' are the serious, loyal Catholics [the Vatican] precisely takes into account, because they are the ones who are there when the Church needs them," the official also explained.

Finally, regarding Winters’ claim that "Kmiec could do for the Democratic administration what (Mary Ann) Glendon has done for its predecessor," the official told CNA: "to be charitable, I will just say that I seriously doubt it."

I totally agree with him


With Charles Barkley. Warning for fans of basketball and loyalty only. Some people just see it for what it is. Download the November 25th show of the Herd. Colin calls the interaction between Lebron and NYC a love in. To be so indifferent of a city that pays your salary shows what a selfish goof this fool is. Sports has always been about the fan. Everybody knows about Lebron's desire to be a billionaire. Nothing wrong with that as long as he does not believe he has to trample on the people who love him as an icon and as a local son to get to his goal. But that is what he is doing. That's why it is silly to put too much of yourself into people that occupy the laundry of whatever team? They are not there for you. They are there for a variety of reasons like coercion, circumstance, fit, salary cap, draft, injury etc. They rarely choose your community for the reasons you are attached to your community. Lebron is an Ohio native and look at what he does. You can't tell me it's about the love, OK you can tell me it's about self love.

Ed

http://blog.cleveland.com/tribetracker/2007/10/say_it_aint_so_lebron_taunts_t.html

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=Aod9sQdhGfdO8sPyoysb.Pc5nYcB?slug=ap-lebron-barkley&prov=ap&type=lgns

LeBron James blasts Charles Barkley

CLEVELAND (AP)—LeBron James reacted strongly to Charles Barkley’s comments that the Cavaliers star isn’t showing respect for Cleveland fans and his teammates by discussing his possible free agency following the 2010 season.

“He’s stupid. That’s all I’ve got to say about that,” James said Friday night before the Cavaliers’ game against Golden State.

Barkley made the comments on TNT’s NBA studio show and Dan Patrick’s radio show.

“If I was LeBron James, I would shut the hell up,” the Hall of Famer said on Patrick’s show. “I’m a big LeBron fan. He’s a stud. You gotta give him his props. I’m getting so annoyed he’s talking about what he’s going to do in two years. I think it’s disrespectful to the game. I think it’s disrespectful to the Cavaliers.”

James, under contract for two more seasons, was bombarded with questions about his future when the Cavaliers visited New York to play the Knicks on Tuesday night.

The Cavaliers can offer him an extension as early as July 1, 2009. There has long been speculation James will eventually end up in one of the NBA’s larger markets and the Knicks have cleared salary-cap space in anticipation of the 2010 free-agent class.

“I think July 1, 2010, is a very big day,” James said when the Cavaliers were in New York. “It’s probably going to be one of the biggest days in free-agent history in the NBA. So a lot of teams are gearing up to try to prepare themselves to be able to put themselves in position to get one of the big free-agent market guys.”
Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Basketball '08. Get off the bench and register today.

Stupid Text Shortcuts

Hands up to those of you who get drained trying to decipher text and email messages of those who can't bother to spell words properly and assume their phonetic vision is universal. I know someone who at first thought the act of text messages was stupid then when they finally had to resort it never strayed past the jeepney driver level of text application. Using multitap and the shortcuts that just make my head spin. These people more often than not use the same shortcut for two or three different words. The weird part is messages with a dictionary are faster to make, easier to make and easier to read than doing all the work yourself. Cell phones come with a dictionary and if they are too lazy to use it or they are too lazy to put in enough letters to make sense then we should also be too lazy to decode it.

I got this idea from :

http://onlydancesforyou.multiply.com/photos/album/141/Wer_na_u_Hir_na_me_Uh._No._Please.#

And it really struck a chord with me. If you click the link you will see through the use of signs in public exactly what we mean about the decline of literacy in this so called high tech world. It maybe happened once or twice but this even happened at work when I got an incident report as if it was texted by a jeepney driver. Bottom line if you know anyone who throws all grammar to the wind just because they have a cell phone in their hands, forward them the link above .

Ed









Thursday, November 27, 2008

Alternate view about the economic crisis

Again this is a point of view you are seldom going to see on conventional news. Let me at least suggest that a lot of people's perceptions of current events are shaped by about two billion dollars worth of campaigning. This guy may be wrong and all the news stories you have read are right. But if he is not wrong. I love the election story everybody bought that the economy is the fault of the Republicans yet you will see this nice quote by Bill Clinton who when I last looked was never a Republican the last 16 years Anyway for those who might believe that conventional wisdom may not always be wisdom.

Ed

http://www.businessandmedia.org/commentary/2008/20081126112730.aspx

Commentary


Media Fail to Connect Dots on Bailouts
Journalists blind to how government is chief cause of many industry problems.

By Dan Kennedy
Business & Media Institute

11/26/2008 11:28:17 AM


Have you noticed that the media largely fail to connect the dots between related events?

In all the reporting on the auto industry’s ills, little is said about the government as the chief cause. Politicians holler at auto executives in hearings and beat their chests in interviews, but never mention Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) mileage standards. Just like unaffordable union contracts, incredibly mentioned often by the same politicians who now wish to give the unions expanded, unchecked power to wreak the same destruction in other industries via the Employee Free Choice Act (which steals away free choice).

In all their reporting of how the sub-prime mortgage meltdown purportedly triggered the financial industry collapse (as a child’s sneeze might topple a meticulously constructed, floor to ceiling house of cards), they uttered hardly a word uttered about Barney Frank and Gang’s push for financial institutions to provide mortgages to the woefully unqualified. Nobody mentioned the he Clinton administration’s pushing for home ownership as a God-given right to be facilitated at any cost, let alone the years of criminal conspiracy and obscene executive compensation at Fannie and Freddie.

The next big mess in the making, where the dots are not being connected, is the attack on the fast food industry, intended to cripple its growth, slash its size and certain to eliminate millions of entry level jobs for which there are no horizontal equivalents.

On Nov. 20, MSNBC reported on a new scientific study, stating that a ban on fast food restaurants’ TV advertising could reduce obesity in pre-teen children by 18 percent.

Unless we have an unreported epidemic of 12-year-old car thieves driving themselves to McDonalds, I have different statistical voodoo. Mine suggests that responsible parenting could reduce childhood obesity by 100 percent. But that’s not my point.

This is another in a series of political and media attacks on this industry, laying the groundwork for successful class action lawsuits by state governments and consumers. It’s an exact replication of the assault on the tobacco industry, which made so many lobbyists and lawyers rich, got so many politicians so much time in the spotlight, and accomplished absolutely nothing with regard to public health.

The fast food industry is looking like Custer surrounded by Indians. You can see over there, the ban on trans fats; over there, new menu laws, intended as prejudicial toward and damaging to the fast food chains; over there, the Employee Free Choice Act; over there, silly science; and over there, the media constantly blaming the industry for everything from childhood obesity to adult diabetes to out of control health care costs.

Opening new fast food restaurants has even been outlawed in parts of Los Angeles on the grounds of they contribute to childhood obesity. (Outlawing sitting for endless hours on an ever widening posterior while playing video games and eating mountains of junk food supplied by parents is not considered politically attractive.)

These are neither accidental nor unrelated incidents. To think so is hopelessly naïve. If you go back and carefully examine the build-up to the full-fledged war on tobacco, you will see the parallels, step by step. It is deja vu, all over again.

This train is now just leaving the station, coal being shoveled into its furnace, steam and power building. It will gain speed and strength, cross the point of no return, and slam into this giant industry unless de-railed early. The destruction: skyrocketing prices at the surviving chains (a tax on the poor and middle class), the shuttering of thousands if not tens of thousands of outlets, the loss of millions of jobs in the food industry, an epic loss of property and sales tax revenues to communities, the loss of ad revenues to media (which in turn provide tax revenue and jobs), and untold damage to franchising – a major force in guiding people, including veterans and minorities, into business for themselves. Of course, zero real impact on public health.

The impending wreck is another of too many examples of government not just picking but creating winners and losers in business. And it is part of an even bigger tabletop of puzzle pieces the media views and reports as separate and unrelated when, in reality, they are all strategically connected to expansion of government control of business.

Maybe it will bring the fast food industry to the federal table for its multi-billion dollar bailout before it is all over. Super-size my bailout, please.

Dan Kennedy is a serial entrepreneur, adviser to business owners, sought-after speaker and author of 13 books. More information about Dan can be found at

www.NoBSBooks.com, and a free collection of his business resources including newsletters and webinars at www.DanKennedy.com.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

And those of us with ravaged faces lacking in the social graces

I came across this song, that is really worth listening to if you have never heard it or listen to it again if you had. It is beautiful and melancholy at the same time. She sings it with such subtle emotion that you can relate regardless of your high school experience. As the title I picked states taken from the lyrics of the song, not everyone was a poster girl in high school. How did they feel? Was it their fault they were not in the in crowd? Reminds me of the classic movie Heathers. Those of you have never heard the song and take the time to listen, please tell me how it made you feel. Music is about feeling. For those of you who do not see the youtube video clink the word "link".

Ed

Link

ARTIST: Janis Ian
TITLE: At Seventeen
Lyrics and Chords


I learned the truth at seventeen
That love was meant for beauty queens
And high school girls with clear skinned smiles
Who married young and then retired
The valentines I never knew
The Friday night charades of youth
Were spent on one more beautiful
At seventeen I learned the truth

/ C - / Dm - / G7 - / C - / :

And those of us with ravaged faces
Lacking in the social graces
Desperately remained at home
Inventing lovers on the phone
Who called to say, "come dance with me"
And murmur vague obscenities
It isn't all it seems at seventeen

/ Eb - / Dm7 G7 / Cm7 Fm7 / /
/ Ab G7 / Cm7 Fm7 / Dm7 - G7 - /

A brown eyed girl in hand-me-downs
Whose name I never could pronounce said
Pity, please, the ones who serve
They only get what they deserve
The rich-relationed home-town queen
Marries into what she needs
With a guarantee of company and haven for the elderly

Remember those who win the game
Lose the love they sought to gain
In debentures of quality
And dubious integrity
Their small town eyes will gape at you in
Dull surprise when payment due
Exceeds accounts received at seventeen

To those of us who knew the pain
Of valentines that never came
And those whose names were never called
When choosing sides for basketball
It was long ago and far away
The world was younger than today
And dreams were all they gave for free
To ugly duckling girls like me

We all play the game and when we dare
To cheat ourselves at solitaire
Inventing lovers on the phone
Repenting other lives unknown
That call and say, "come dance with me"
And murmur vague obscenities
At ugly girls like me, at seventeen

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Opening Scene from Shaft

I honor of Doughboy / Borat being in town , showing you a clip of his twin brother.

For more info on the clip click here.

Ed

Honesty Integrity Would you have done it? Plus Pinocchio


For the original story and files click here. Honesty Integrity Would you have done it? Plus Pinocchio



This story really struck me. J.P. Hayes shows in this one move integrity that you don't see every year. Now, 29 years after I first heard Billy Joel's Honesty do the lyrics really resonate with me. The line "Honesty is such a lonely word". Hayes talks about living with himself if he had cheated and that is a lonely feeling.

This is not a sports story or a golf story. This is a story about doing the right thing and playing by the rules. Even if you yourself are the arbiter. Jimney Cricket was right. (see video below)

I took the time to edit two files for you. One is the discussion of exactly what he did, why he did not have to do it and why he did it anyway. And what it cost him.Some people are not even honest when it costs them nothing. He is honest when it costs him a lot. Second file is is actually J.P. saying that's it's no big deal since others would have done it. He makes himself out to be doing what anyone else in golf would do. Listen to his voice and at least I believe him. Listen to him.


That's what it is , discussion. Not every blogger gives you that . He gives credit to his dad . Listen to his voice, since I am giving you the opportunity. Listen to the voice of honesty.

Maybe I showcase a lot of figures from sports to show what is good in humans. Show some examples of good public behavior that can lead to a better society. For that I will make no apology. I will tell you this, you can't do it with Filipino politicians and TV stars since no one seems to be doing it.

I believe that I can't really use myself as an example of behavior worth copying. The only thing I can do is fuse the worlds of golf and Pinocchio.

Ed

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/danpatrick/blog/25061/

Golfer J.P. Hayes disqualified himself from the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament for accidently using a ball that hasn't been approved. He had his spot on the tour all wrapped up, went back to his hotel room, and then realized he used an illegal ball.

Hayes tells Dan that most golfers are honest and would have done the same thing. Hayes says this kind of thing happens throughout the year, and doesn't usually get this kind of attention.

Hayes said he realized he screwed up two days later. He looked down at a ball on the hotel room floor and saw a ball that made him realize he used a "non-conforming ball."

Hayes had gotten a test ball from Titleist and accidentally used it. But -- and this is a big but -- the ball didn't help him at all. He actually made a bogey with it in the tournament.

Hayes said that he first called Titleist, hoping it had been approved. It hadn't. Then Hayes called a PGA official, who couldn't give Hayes any good news. The next day Hayes found out he was disqualified.

Hayes said if he had lied, he would have made himself sick.

*******************************************

http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/news/story?id=3712372

http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=3712861&name=golf&action=login&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fespn%2fblog%2findex%3fentryID%3d3712861%26name%3dgolf





Hayes turns himself in for using wrong ball, DQ'd from PGA qualifier

E





On ESPN Radio's "Mike & Mike In The Morning," Greeny, Golic and Jay Bilas talk about honesty and integrity in sports after J.P. Hayes, left, DQ'd himself from the PGA Tour qualifying tournament. Listen
J.P. Hayes says anyone else on the PGA Tour in his situation "would have done the same thing."

During the second stage of the PGA Tour qualifying tournament last week in Texas, Hayes discovered that on two shots on one hole, he had unwittingly used a prototype golf ball not approved for competition by the United States Golf Association.

No one would have known. And a full-time spot on the PGA Tour in 2009 was on the line. But Hayes, honoring the tradition of a game where the players police themselves, turned himself in and was disqualified.

"It's extremely disappointing," Hayes said, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "I keep thinking I'm going to wake up and this is going to be a bad nightmare."

It happened a week ago, at Deerwood Country Club in Kingwood, Texas.

On his 12th hole of the first round, Hayes' caddie reached into his golf bag and tossed a ball to Hayes, who played two shots -- a tee and a chip onto the green -- and marked his ball. At that point he realized the ball he was playing was not the same model with which he started the round -- by rule, a two-stroke penalty.

SportsNation

"I realized there was a penalty and I called an official over," Hayes said, according to the newspaper. "He said the penalty was two shots and that I had to finish the hole with that ball and then change back to the original ball."

Hayes shot a 74 Wednesday and a 71 on Thursday, putting him in good shape to finish in the top 20 and advance to the final qualifying stage in December.

But on Thursday night in his hotel room, Hayes realized that the errant golf ball might not have been on the approved list.

"It was a Titleist prototype, and somehow it had gotten into my bag," he said, according to the Journal Sentinel. "It had been four weeks since Titleist gave me some prototype balls and I tested them. I have no idea how or why it was still in there."

Hayes had a choice: He could have said nothing and kept playing, with no one aware of his mistake. Or he could turn himself in and let his mistake cost him a 2009 PGA Tour card.

He chose the latter.

Jason Sobel:
Don't Cry For Hayes
When J.P. Hayes disqualified himself for inadvertantly using an illegal ball, it didn't come as surprise in the golf world, where similar acts of integrity are part of the game. But Hayes will still get to play on tour in 2009 -- and he just might find that the game will pay him back, writes Jason Sobel. Blog
"I called an official in Houston that night and said, 'I think I may have a problem,'" Hayes said. "He said they'd call Titleist the next day. I pretty much knew at that point I was going to be disqualified."

As for his decision to turn himself in?

"I would say everybody out here [on the PGA Tour] would have done the same thing," Hayes said, according to the report.

Hayes, 43, is refusing to blame his caddie for the error, saying he should have spotted the errant ball because it did not have a model name on the seam.

"[The caddie] kind of wanted to take some of the blame, but he knows I'm anal about my equipment," Hayes said, according to the report. "I go through my bag every night. I want to know what's in there. It's almost therapeutic for me."

[+] Enlarge
J.P. Hayes

David Matin/Getty Images

J.P. Hayes, pictured earlier this year, accepted the consequences for using an unapproved golf ball during Q-school last week.
According to the report, Hayes said that if the hole had been a par-4 or a par-5, he would have known he had the wrong ball right away, because he uses the label to help him align his driver on tee shots.

"But it was a par-3 and I don't use the label to line up on par-3s," he said, according to the Journal Sentinel. "It was my mistake. I had no choice but to take my medicine."

Hayes has two career PGA Tour victories, his last coming in 2002. He was playing in the second stage of the tour's Q-school tourney because he finished outside of the top 150 on the money list in 2008.

He earned $312,152 this season, making just seven cuts in 26 events. He was 176th on the money list -- the worst showing of his career.

But Hayes has more than $7 million in career earnings. He expects he still will be able to play 10 to 12 lesser tournaments in 2009, thanks to his status as a veteran player and past tourney champion, as well as sponsors' exemptions, according to the report.

"I'm kind of at a point in my career where if I have a light year, it might be a good thing," he said, according to the Journal Sentinel. "I'm looking forward to playing less and spending more time with my family.

"It's not the end of the world. It will be fine. It is fine."
Related Topics: Golf, J.P. Hayes


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Friday, November 21, 2008

He Chose To See The Glass 1.492% Full


You may notice that I like to back up my claims with links. I guess all those papers I wrote up in S.F.U. did teach me something. The following though I could back no matter how much I googled and yahooed. You will just have to take my word for it.I either read it in my local paper or in Sports Illustrated .Still for me one of the funniest quotes ever. The title I chose I hope is mathematically correct .

March 28, 1990 - Michael Jordan scored his career high 69 points . Rookie guard B.J. Armstrong out of Iowa was able to get a point off the bench. After the game he was quoted as saying something to the effect of "I will never forget this night that Michael Jordan and I combined for seventy points".

Ed






This Post Inspired by you Chrissy

Originally titled Mr. Met goes under the knife. What's an Ed Post if it's not related to sports? Below is the real Mr. Met for those of you who have not seen him. Thanks for the daily funny comics and being a loyal reader for many months now. For Maricris' comics (she has compiled about 26 of them by now) you may go here.

I took the picture from (http://pushpull.wordpress.com/2008/11/20/mr-met-goes-under-the-knife/) One of many blogs I follow. Now made easier using Google dashboard.

Ed

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Thursday, November 20, 2008

Cardinal Stafford Future With Obama Is Gethsemane

Yes this is the backlash of the Obama love in. Too many people around me just totally drink the Kool Aid. It's like a lot of the media lost any of their critical thinking skills if they had any to begin with. A story is only as good as it's source. The source of this is the Catholic News Agency. We all pay attention to CNN but at some level subtle or obvious it takes on the agenda of Ted "proud to be atheist" Turner. In case you are not familiar with his history and attitude, you may click here, here , here and here. Anyway one thing you will not get from me is the same old stuff you get anywhere else. Lately people have been all too proud to be liberal and left wing. I said this before and I will say it again, Obama gives a voice to everyone except the unborn. I rather swim against the Obama Euphoria and speak for those who can't speak for themselves. If what I say bugs you or not , you can at least agree that you rarely hear that point of view lately. Obama should have been aborted.

Ed

http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=92253

18-November-2008 -- Catholic News Agency

Cardinal Stafford Criticizes Obama as "Aggressive, Disruptive and Apocalyptic"

Washington DC, Nov 17, 2008 (CNA).- Cardinal James Francis Stafford, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary of the Holy See, delivered a lecture on Thursday saying that the future under President-elect Obama will echo Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane. Criticizing Obama as "aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic," he went on to speak about a decline in respect for human life and the need for Catholics to return to the values of marriage and human dignity.

Delivered at the Catholic University of America, the cardinal’s lecture was titled "Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II: Being True in Body and Soul," the student university paper The Tower reports. Hosted by the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, his words focused upon Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae, whose fortieth anniversary is marked this year.

Commenting on the results of the recent presidential election, Cardinal Stafford said on Election Day "America suffered a cultural earthquake." The cardinal argued that President-elect Obama had campaigned on an "extremist anti-life platform" and predicted that the near future would be a time of trial.

"If 1968 was the year of America’s ‘suicide attempt,’ 2008 is the year of America’s exhaustion," he said, contrasting the year of Humane Vitae’s promulgation with this election year.

"For the next few years, Gethsemane will not be marginal. We will know that garden," Cardinal Stafford told his audience. Catholics who weep the "hot, angry tears of betrayal" should try to identify with Jesus, who during his agony in the garden was "sick because of love."

The cardinal attributed America’s decline to the Supreme Court’s decisions such as the 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, which imposed permissive abortion laws nationwide.

"Its scrupulous meanness has had catastrophic effects upon the unity and integrity of the American republic," Cardinal Stafford commented, according to The Tower.

His theological remarks centered upon man’s relationship with God and man’s place in society.

"Man is a sacred element of secular life," he said, arguing that therefore "man should not be held to a supreme power of state, and a person’s life cannot ultimately be controlled by government."

Cardinal Stafford also touched on the state of the family, saying that the truest reflection of the relationship between the believer and God is the relationship between husband and wife, and that contraceptive use does not fit within that relationship.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Alternate Point of View Traditional Journalism Dead since March 2008

In all this Obama Euphoria . Take from it what you will. I doubt you have heard much of this as he says "since March". I look forward to reading more of his stuff. He already comes on Dennis Miller's radio show which I listen to.

Ed



http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/thoughts-on-past-and-future/

November 17th, 2008 8:40 pm
Thoughts, Past and Future
Support Pajamas Media; Visit Our Advertisers

As I wrote in the past, the real issue is no longer whether one has confidence that Obama will prove a gifted leader, but rather to hope that he does. I think most readers wish well for our country—and thus for our President-elect. Here are some more observations on problems ahead.

1) There has to be an end to these serial bailouts—financial, the insurance companies, now cars, next cities and states, and soon mortgage holders (we will de facto punish those who struggle to pay their mortgages on time on homes with negative equity, but reward with reductions those who are late or don’t?).

Aside from the fact we are broke and are $10 trillion in debt (a large aside), there is an existential problem here. Without a concept of failure, there can be no success. If we always offer the excuse “too big to fail” to save corporations and firms that were run into the ground by greedy or stupid CEOs, brokers, and traders, or that defaulters always were victims rather than occasionally foolish or even sly (e.g., 2nd and 3rd mortgages taken out for consumer purchases, or as efforts to flip houses), then nothing changes. Learning, as Aeschylus says, comes from pain. All our childhood admonitions from “failure breeds to success” to “try, try again” are rendered null and void. We don’t want to live in a T-ball limbo where there is neither success nor failure, but just an endless slog in between.

2) There is now no journalism as we knew it. It died during the campaign. And so we have no mainstream media audit of politics other than the vestigial shrill warnings about the last three months of the dangerous Bush administration. From the New York Times, NPR, PBS, or Newsweek, we will hear little whether Obama is choosing a good or bad team, or said silly things or contradicts what he promised. They simply have lost all credibility and now the republic is left largely with bloggers, talk radio, and a few newspapers as mostly partisan auditors. This puts the mainstream media in a terrible bind. If Gitmo is not closed immediately, are the victimized detainees there suddenly redefined as terrible killers who can’t be let out? If adhered to, does the Petraeus-Bush withdrawal plan to leave Iraq by 2011, suddenly become sober and judicious? If not tampered with, do FISA and the Patriotic Act morph into reasonable measures? Does the economy suddenly improve on January 21, and Afghanistan become stable? Will anyone believe a Katie Couric, Chris Matthews, the front page of the New York Times, or listen to Andrea Mitchell when they speak of Obama? The media has bet that there was no efficacy to Guantánamo, the Patriot Act and similar provisions, and Iraq. But the fact is in the same period we were not attacked. If there were a connection between the two (and many of us think that there was), then shutting down Gitmo, repealing the Patriot Act, and getting quickly out of Iraq could be done within the first year easily and without risk. But will it happen, and if so, what would be the reaction following another 9/11-like attack?

This is not my concern, but rather what advisors to Obama are currently mulling out. Again, traditional journalism as we knew it —the big dailies, the weekly news magazines, the networks, public radio and TV—no longer exists. Death by suicide. RIP—around March, 2008.

3) I am still baffled about the exact role of race in the past election and the new Obama Presidency. Like everyone, I am pleased to see that race has been proven to be no bar to the highest office. But is the real triumph simply that the first African-American is a man of the Left? Few cared about the path-breaking career of Clarence Thomas other than to demonize him. Harry Belafonte called the first African-American Secretary of State “a house slave.” No one really praised Sec. Rice’s unprecedented career. She, unlike Obama, was an African-American with a long familial history of racial struggle; Obama in contrast is half-white, and the son of an African national and did not grow up with the vestigial racism in the South. His success is remarkable, but why did other landmark careers go unnoticed? The answer seems to be not race per se, or being African-American even (given that Obama is of half African ancestry)—but that apparently someone of mixed racial ancestry was elected President from the Left (accomplishing what no other northern liberal Senator had done since JFK). That is all I can come up with. Had Colin Powell run and won in 1996, defeating Clinton, Inc., I don’t think he would have enjoyed anything akin to the present worship.

Thoughts on a recession

I remember the recession of the early 1980s well and it was not pretty. In 1979 I applied for an academic job and was told there were 4 tenure-track openings nationwide in my field and 150 active candidates with Classics PhDs competing for them. When I then turned to farming, the first crop loan I co-signed on was in fall 1980 and taken out at an interest rate of 16%. By 1983 the price of raisins had fallen from $1,400 a ton to $480 in a single year. The local raisin cooperative went broke, and renounced their capital debt to their own members (we lost $70,000) whose vineyards had just plunged in value from $15,000 an acre to $4,000.

Things, in other words, when one measures inflation, interest rates, and unemployment, were far worse then than now. I used to wonder why my grandfather had saved two barrels of used, rusted bent and worthless vineyard staples in the back of the barn amid rat nests and spider webs, salvaged from an old vineyard that was uprooted in the 1950s. By 1983 I was reusing them all to mend vineyard wire. We may get to that, but so far we are not in such a mess yet, despite the Great Depression/FDR rhetoric.

But even more importantly, there are already self-correcting mechanisms under way. Oil has crashed like no period in history. Gas is below $2 a gallon and getting even cheaper. The country is already saving over $1 billion a day in imported fuel costs from its former highs and that affects everything from transportation to manufacturing.

Talk about stimuluses—if such a $2 gallon savings from previous highs continues, the average commuter may save $1500 a year. That not only saves consumers billions, but means our enemies and rivals in Iran, Middle East, Russia, and Venezuela suddenly have billions less to spend on terrorism, new weapons systems, and general mischief. (They may become more desperate and adventuresome, but will still have less wherewithal).

Housing prices for young people in states like California are suddenly affordable for the first time in decades. The war in Iraq is less dangerous for Americans than are neighborhoods in our major cities. Not all is doom and gloom as we read. Capitalism is no more dead than it was supposedly in 1980, 1991 or 2001. The world is less dangerous now than in 1979. There was a reason we were not attacked in the seven years after 9/11—though it will take a decade from now for most to fathom why.

Why blame the Mormons?

All the exit polls suggest that the notion of gay marriage was rejected in California, largely by huge Hispanic and African-American majorities, enhanced by recent Obama voter registration drives. Why then do activists picket churches, when the larger anti-gay marriage constituency could be found in East Palo Alto, South Central Los Angeles or Parlier? Wouldn’t it be better to bus gay activists into those communities to do teach-ins and public demonstrations?

Mail

Many cited Ann Coulter and others as proof of right-wing hatred. Two points: first, as polemicists they are balanced by and in the same business as Michael Moore or a Keith Olbermann et al. But my drift was altogether different. I was talking about a mainstream culture, not polemicists—publishers like Knopf issuing a book about killing Bush, Hollywood losing billions on serial movies about supposed American criminality in Iraq, documentaries about shooting Bush, etc.

Second, the vast majority of scholars and academics is on the left. Polls, surveys of campaign donations, interviews—they all reflect the reality that professors are far more predictably partisan than are hedge fund directors or Wall Street investors.

Voicing doubts about Obama by an historian is only controversial in the sense I was not voicing doubts about Bush (and I have in the past on issues like first Fallujah, failing to cite the congressional 23 writs of October 11-12 to go into Iraq, illegal immigration, excessive spending, etc.).

When scholars critique Bush, they are “engaged,” and “seeking to shed light from the past on contemporary issues”; when one questions Obama, one apparently becomes a hack. I note another difference: when I get paleo-right criticism on the war, for example, usually it is differentiated and not so ad hominem; but the Obama supporters tend to send in pro forma “you’re a hack” puerile groupthink. Throughout this campaign, almost every column that expressed worry about Obama was within 24 swarmed by Obama partisans, all either beginning and ending with ‘you’re a ———————.

PS. I wrote a version of the following the other day for the NRO corner, and I think it sums up this dilemma for the new Obama administration discussed above:

For much of the last few years, and especially the last few months of the campaign, we have heard a familiar narrative. Guantánamo was a virtual Stalig, where far more innocents than terrorists were unjustly incarcerated. Given that this gulag served no useful purpose, it should be summarily shut down, and the unfairly detained suspects at last returned to their families back home. The FISA laws and Patriot Act were aimed more at bogeymen than jihadists, and what little advantage they gave us was not worth the shredding of the Constitution.

The ‘fly-paper’ theory of Iraq—thousands of belligerents flocked to Iraq, were killed and defeated, discredited radical Islam, and, their loss of face, coupled with a constitutional Iraq, made the region and the U.S. safer–is a puerile reductive fiction. What bellicosity we experienced with supposedly rogue terrorist-sponsoring states such as Syria and Iran was largely due to George Bush’s juvenile cowboy rhetoric—‘bring ‘em on’, ‘smoke ‘em out, ‘dead or alive’—and his refusal to defuse tensions and misunderstandings through reasoned diplomacy.

The promotion of democracy was a neocon pipedream, in which partly through violence, partly through cultural arrogance, we tried to clumsily project our values on deeply religious, traditional, tribal—and in the end, deeply different—societies, whose own alternate politics cannot be so crudely dismissed by our rather arbitrary standards.

American unpopularity in the Middle East had nothing to do with globalization, westernization, age-old envy or the newfound ability via instant communications to see how much worse life was in an autocratic Arab world than in a free West, but was largely a phenomenon of George Bush’s Iraq War and his neocon advisors’ crude tilt toward the Zionists. “The War On Terror” was largely a construct to wage perennial war, impugn the patriotism of critics, and scare the American people, through false consciousness, into voting against their real economic interests.

I think that is a fair enough appraisal of the opposition’s view of the Bush anti-terror philosophy. And as is true of all theories, we will soon perhaps see the extent to which it proves the more accurate in the real world of the next administration.

So the closing of Guantánamo, repeal of the Bush anti-terrorism legislation, rapid withdrawal from Iraq (though we are already past Obama’s original target date of March 2008 for withdrawal of all combat troops), cessation of pressure to democratize and the end of hectoring against Arab authoritarianism, soothing rhetoric from a new Chief Executive, renewed diplomatic reaching out to Teheran and Damascus, more even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian problem, and rejection of the notion we are in some sort of war, much less one of a “global” nature, should ensure greater American popularity, win-over our critics, defuse tensions with Iran and Syria, and ensure another seven years of safety from a major terrorist attack at home.

So come late January and beyond we shall see, and we all should genuinely wish the Obama administration well in their promised radical departure from the past, since the stakes are high for us all.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

All actor politicians not created equal Schwarzenegger

I was reading somewhere in the blogosphere, someone making fun of California that they had Arnold as their Gubenator. I think (though I am not 100% sure ) that the person in question typecast Arnie's profession and juxtaposed it with their experience of local actors in significant political roles like Bong Revilla, Joseph Estrada ,Jinggoy Estrada, FPJ, Vic Sotto, Richard Gomez etc.

I won't bother Googling all those guys I mentioned but how many of them finished college and/or high school? Arnold has an MBA unlike Erap who can't even spell MBA.

Not sure how well versed you may be with 20th century U.S. Politics but the Kennedy clan is as significant a family the Democrats have. Regardless of the eternal rumor that the patriarch was a bootlegger during Prohibition. Arnold who has always been vocally Republican well before his Governor gig married into that family. Think about that one for a sec. Maybe not in the scale of the Montagues and the Capulets or the Jets and the Sharks or an active member of the IRA marrying into the Royal Family but I hope you get the picture. The guy campaigned for George Bush in 1988 uttering the famous line "When it comes to the American Future Michael Dukakis will be the real Terminator!". Next time you see me I will gladly do my impression of it, since it's the only one I can do.

Anyway if any of you doubt my claim (of his competence compared to Pinoy actor politicians) even one iota. I have included an interview of the Gubenator taken from a current news show I listen weekly. It's twenty minutes long. It just came out three days ago so topics included the recent concluded Presidential election and what lies next for the challenge that the US faces.

Like me, once you get over the fact that those articulate answers were said in the same accent and voice as the following lines you will be fine:

  • You know what I like about bedrooms? You almost always find a bed in there.
  • Amber: [after Richards cut Buzzsaw in half with a chain saw] What happened to Buzzsaw?
    Ben Richards
    : He had to split.
  • You should not drink and bake!
  • Because of you a lot of people are dead and now, it's your turn!
  • Ben Richards: I live to see you eat that contract, but I hope you leave enough room for my fist because I'm going to ram it into your stomach and break your god-damn spine!
  • Max, if you're the best there is, the wheel would never have been invented.
  • You should be reading stories about bears that go shopping!
  • You're a funny man, Sully, I like you. That's why I'm going to kill you last.
  • Cindy: Can you tell me what this is all about?
    Matrix: Yeah, a guy I trusted for years wants me dead.
    Cindy: That’s understandable. I've only known you for five minutes and I want you dead, too.
  • [Comes out from hidden place] Come on Bennett, throw away the chicken s**t gun, you don't just want to pull the trigger, you want to put the knife in me, and look me in the eye, and see whats going on in there when you turn it, thats what you want to do, right?
  • Harry Tasker: First I'm gonna use you as a human shield, then I gonna kill this guard over there, with the Patterson trocar on the table. Then I was thinking about breaking your neck.

Ed

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3131155.stm

http://www.netkushi.com/hollywood/arnold-schwarzenegger.php

http://mbagladiator.blogspot.com/2008/04/arnold-schwarzenegger-and-yale.html

http://gov.ca.gov/about/arnold

http://www.nga.org/portal/site/nga/menuitem.29fab9fb4add37305ddcbeeb501010a0/?vgnextoid=1dac224971c81010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAU4AOu7Hvs

Monday, November 17, 2008

Little Did We Know How Influential the Cosby Show Was


I think the article below makes sense. Or at least makes you think. Cosby show was a juggernaut in the mid 80's. But for me it was the lightweight of that killer Thursday Night Lineup NBC had. Cheers and Family Ties were more my thing. Somebody said that Cosby show was TV for people who did not watch TV. Maybe a polite way of saying least common denominator.
Having said all that , I will still believe the Cosby Show could be interpreted as the gateway of Obamacceptance. I will say something that can be misunderstood but I will say it anyway. I don't perceive either as "black" . I don't perceive Obama the same way I perceive the Reverend Al Sharpton. I don't perceive Cliff and Clair as George and Wheezy. Little side story, ran into Sherman Helmsley one time. In a record store. I did not say anything, I'm sure he just wanted to browse his music in peace. But I digress.
There are a lot of kids in the blogosphere who were not even when born when Cosby was really really King. Give you an idea. Simpsons showed a lot of bravado moving their show from Sunday Night to Thursday Night to try and unseat the Cosbys. Really daring move but it worked out in the end.

Obama and the Huxtables are black without being black. For me culture and projection are more important than skin pigmentation. One unexpected pleasure reading the article the below was the mention of Sut Jhally , a professor of mine 18 years ago and a lot of memories came flooding back. Communication 215 if I recall. Such a cool accent. Great analytical mind. I really really enjoyed that course. I have not thought about him in years. A lot of his stuff is youtube and I intend to browse them. With technology you can too.

Ed




Before Obama, There Was Bill Cosby




By TIM ARANGO


Published: November 7, 2008


Some theorists argue that political and social change is preceded by shifts in popular culture. So it's not surprising that the debate has heated up over who, or what, in arts and entertainment presaged Barack Obama's election as president.




NBC


Bill Cosby with Tempestt Bledsoe, left, and Keshia Knight Pulliam as his daughters in a 1986 episode of "The Cosby Show."


Many ideas have ricocheted around academia and the blogosphere — from Oprah Winfrey to Tiger Woods to Will Smith to "The West Wing," to the many actors who have played black presidents, among them Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock (although not that many people actually saw Mr. Rock's film "Head of State").



But one idea seems to be gaining traction, and improbably it has Bill Cosby and Karl Rove in agreement: "The Cosby Show," which began on NBC in 1984 and depicted the Huxtables, an upwardly mobile black family — a departure from the dysfunction and bickering that had characterized some previous shows about black families — had succeeded in changing racial attitudes enough to make an Obama candidacy possible.



On election night Mr. Rove, the former Bush strategist, said on Fox News: "We've had an African-American first family for many years in different forms. When 'The Cosby Show' was on, that was America's family. It wasn't a black family. It was America's family."



Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint, a psychiatrist at the Jude Baker Children's Center in Boston and a professor at Harvard Medical School who was a script consultant on "The Cosby Show," said in an interview that "there were a lot of young people who were watching that show who are now of voting age."



Dr. Poussaint added: "When 'The Cosby Show' first came on, it was a professional, middle-class family. And they said, 'That's not a black family.' We heard it from blacks and whites. I think that's why Karl Rove calls it postracial, because it was universal."



In an interview on Thursday Mr. Cosby praised Mr. Obama and his campaign operation as "the architects of the almost perfect run for, and winning of, the office." He added, "This isn't something that happened just because of a TV show."



But Mr. Cosby strongly suggested that his series, which ended in 1992, had a lasting effect on America's racial views. Its legacy, he said, might have played a role in the country's embrace of Mr. Obama and his family.



"I would not be surprised with the comfort level of people looking at a family and not being afraid of them, and not holding them to some strange old thoughts of a nation," he said. "It's what people have done with themselves by watching that show and believing in it."



Mr. Cosby said that he had met Mr. Obama, but that the two did not discuss the show.


"The Cosby Show," one of the most popular series in television history, is still shown in syndication in the United States and abroad. In 1994 Sut Jhally, a professor of communications at the University of Massachusetts — Mr. Cosby's alma mater — persuaded Mr. Cosby to donate $16,000 for research on why the show was so popular among white as well as black audiences. (Mr. Cosby himself had no influence on the study, according to Professor Jhally, and the book that came out of the research, "Enlightened Racism: The Cosby Show, Audiences, and the Myth of the American Dream," was critical of the show.)



"After Obama won the other night, and listening to the reactions from both the white Americans and the black Americans, it was like a rerun of research we did on 'The Cosby Show,' " Professor Jhally said. "Black families we interviewed were incredibly proud and incredibly grateful that finally there were images that were dignified, and they were represented as human. White Americans would say, 'Here is an intact black family.' "



During the campaign many Democrats worried that the so-called Bradley effect — the theory that white voters will express support for black candidates in polls but not in the voting booth — would work against their candidate. So did the Huxtable effect counteract Bradley?



The term Huxtable effect was coined by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, a novelist and blogger who often writes about how pop culture portrays minorities.


Last Saturday Ms. Valdes-Rodriguez was in line for early voting on the campus of the University of New Mexico. As she waited about 35 minutes to cast her ballot, she said, she overheard a conversation between two graduate students, neither of whom were black.



"They started to talk about their families and how they wished they were part of the Huxtable family," she said.


Ms. Valdes-Rodriguez, a former journalist who covered culture and the arts and who is the daughter of a sociology professor, cited the Harlem Renaissance in literature and art, which came about 30 years before the civil rights movement, as an example of pop culture's anticipating political change.



For a certain generation of young voters, she said, "It's not Ward Cleaver who was the all-American dad; it was Cliff Huxtable."


Tom Werner, who was an executive producer of "The Cosby Show," called the series groundbreaking in its effect on audiences. "Bill depicted the Huxtables as an American family that happened to be black, rather than as an African-American family," he said. "For Bill, family was more important than race."



Interestingly, the parameters of the show turned out very differently from Mr. Cosby's original idea. Rather than having Cliff Huxtable be a doctor, and his wife, Clair, a lawyer, he said, his idea was for the husband to be a limousine driver and the wife to be a carpenter.



Because race was largely beside the point in the show, its supposed impact on the culture has not always been obvious. "I think it's had more of an effect than I appreciated," Dr. Poussaint said. "I wasn't making that connection because I kept forgetting that kids were raised on that show, and people are still watching it."



"And I think we have had a carry-over effect to people responding very positively to Obama," he added. "It changed some attitudes and perceptions that I think served Obama well in his candidacy."




--
http://edrlopez.blogspot.com/









Sunday, November 16, 2008

Counter test

free hit counter

hit counter

Now I just have to figure out what it is counting.

Got it from


http://www.freeweblogger.com/thankyou.php?username=1226842397&style=7seg

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Desperate Housewives and Filipinos as Moral Beacons Update

I have many thoughts on this issue. As a primer please read my earlier thoughts if you have not read them already.

One

Two

Three

Four

On a search for something else I ran into a piece written by William Esposito which pretty much said what I said only better.


In fact, in typical Filipino fashion, we’ve over-reacted once again over what can be considered as nothing more than one issue in long line of misinformed racial slurs that are commonplace on US television. I say over-reaction because why should we be so enraged and incensed over a one-line put-down in a TV fiction-drama when we can be so quiet about the high crimes that are being committed on our people by our own elite and political leaders?

Our over-reaction over Teri Hatcher’s line is no different from a Nazi SS officer in the early 1940s vehemently reacting to an allegation that German SS officers are aloof and snobbish when, in fact and in truth, they were, at the time, committing genocide on Jews and Eastern Europeans. Being aloof and snobbish should be the least of the concerns of one who is into genocide.

For the whole thing read here. He truly looks at this situation critically. He asks to define damage. He asks who is really doing damage? Why do we take a sitcom so seriously ? Half a billion dollars is a lot of money for one line in a sitcom. The Eagles are correct when their song says "So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains and we never even know we have the key." I don't feel so alone anymore.

Ed

Mistaken Identity

I swear this is the one of the funniest stories I have ever heard. Back in the early nineties my friend Greg was a baseball announcer in the Canadian town of Lethbridge , Alberta.

He was given the starting lineup of the visiting team and he was told that a player was the nephew of Roger Craig.

Roger Craig was the manager of the San Francisco Giants at the time.

I just remember the basic story and have to fill in some minor details . So I imagined the lineup announcement went something like this. "Starting at left field for the Tornadoes nephew of SF Giants manager Roger Craig, Alan Craig!!!" .

You know the expression nothing ever goes as planned? Well the player comes out and he is black. I don't blame Greg for making the assumption since he is a worse encyclopedia than I am. He was part of a baseball team so he bridged the natural gap. Connected the dots.

You see. The Bay Area had another Roger Craig at the time as in the running back for the SF 49ers.

That team should hire a better publicist.

Ed

Sometimes You Can't Defend The Philippines

Sometimes I wonder why I always start my blog entries with the word "sometimes". Sometimes you read someone else's stuff and you think of things to reply that could up a blog entry on it's own. In this person's blog I said :
That's the problem. You seem too smart to be appreciated and voted in by the electorate. I hate to be blunt but if its true that 's why I am saying it- to be president in this country , the last thing and the worst thing you can do is appeal to people's intellect. Our voters either don't have it or do not use it. For me the intellect of our country men is blatantly displayed weekdays at noon time on so called "free tv" . That is why some of us have pessimistic feelings about where this country is and where it's going. We all want to be proud but if you guys ever read my blog http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal I constantly talk about people taking pride in the wrong things and not valuing the right things. I have no idea why this country stops functioning and hoops and hollers over a Filipino who 3 times a year flies to Las Vegas and beats up on some Mexican when they take pride in voting in and supporting politicians who rob everybody blind. Bob Dylan once sang "Steal a little and they put you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king".
To read the whole thing in context plus other people's comments go to the source.
http://neusdadt.multiply.com/links/item/10/Why_I_Hate_Our_Country...?replies_read=35
The title may sound inflammatory but it actually isn't. The author seems to make the point that he would rather the person's claims be false but the country has not given him much to work with. He does tell us to keep in mind the date of the piece. Who was president then? Oh yeah , the same guy depicted in the comic at the top of the page.
They say you can tell a person by who defends them. Well let me give you an example of who defends and supports Erap
For years now I have the fundamental belief that Richard Gomez represents everything that is wrong with the Philippines. His values, the people who value him , his over estimation of his superiority. Well tonight I am pleased I find someone out there in the blogosphere who believes this more than I do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJiyoKOCyWw (with an endorsement like this, how can he go wrong?)
I can honestly say either I am not crazy since someone else sees what I see or this someone else is just meeting me at my level. However sublime that is.
Ed

Its so easy to do when everyone is watching

This looks like a football post but it's not really.Read the tags below if you doubt me. Please read on. Josh Morgan is a wide receiver for the San Francisco 49ers. Take a look at him here which is about the one minute mark and tell me if you see what I see. Right after he catches the ball.Video does not take long . Less than ninety seconds.

Yes he makes the sign of the cross. It brought me back to the early 80's watching football with my dad on TV. Somebody made a similar gesture after a score. I'm sure if any of my siblings are reading this they will be surprised I can't name the player, the teams playing or the date it happened. Well I can't. I just remember the gesture.

My dad at the time appreciated the player that did that. I can't remember the adjective he used. Now here is something else I can't remember. If I told him at the time or I just thought to myself. My thought at the time and it's the same twenty plus years later: it's so easy to do when everybody is watching. But it would impress me more if he did it when no one was watching.

Yes I am from the school that you should be sincere in your actions and in your beliefs that you don't have to wear them on your sleeve. So easy to do when everybody is watching. But better to do it on your own when there is no Public Relations factor. At least that's my point of view.

If you want to spin it the other way, it may be fair to say that Josh is trying to impress to all the youngsters and some oldsters that it's ok to give thanks to the Lord in a football game. That it's cool. Maybe Josh believes that. I will never know.

When we played softball in a Catholic league. I never prayed for victory. There really are better things to pray for. Like no one gets injured. Bobby Knight who as far as I know is an atheist says "God does not care about sports. And if he did would he care about a team I am coaching".

Ed

Friday, November 14, 2008

Dan Wetzel and possible personal reasons for some bias

It's no secret that I really have enjoyed his work over the years. I read his books on Jerry Tarkanian and the 1966 Championship Texas Western Miners and Coach Don Haskins. His columns over the years in Yahoo Sports have pretty much provided for me alI I could reasonably expect from sports writing. Things like depth, motivation, sympathy, perspective, tragedy and triumph . He covers a multitude of topics because his articles do not break down the 2-3 zone or the Shotgun offense . Wetzel looks for the story and makes it appealing whether or not you are familiar with the sport in question.As long as you are interested in human behavior. I quote some here from time to time.

Short biography and latest columns.

Full Disclosure:

I am a little biased because of

this

and

this.

(read carefully)

Ed

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=dw-sprt05bestof&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

http://sports.yahoo.com/top/news;_ylc=X3oDMTBpcmc2NWVyBF9TAzI1NjY0ODI1BHNlYwNvZQ--?slug=dw-peoplesvoice101304&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=1997445 (Sanford and Son Bonds Article)