Never thought I would spend half my time on this blog smoking out Nazis in modern society. I came across this story on the web and couldn't pass it up.
http://www.kmov.com/topstories/stories/kmov_localnews_080121_majerus.45f5820f.html
Nutshell: the new coach of the Saint Louis University (jesuit school) basketball team had the gall, the unmitigated audacity, to verbally support Hillary Clinton, Pro-Choice, and Stem Cell Research. Archbishop Burke of St. Louis, a prelate with a history of interfering with other people's lives, has decided that because of expressing those opinions he is unfit to coach at the University.
Once again we have the wonderful combination of cassocks and jackboots. Hey Burke! This is America! Just because your boss is a Nazi doesn't mean you have to try and one-up him! This absolutely fries me. He has no right to strongarm the University that way, nor to control the freedom of expression of its basketball coach. You don't have to surrender your conscience when you take a job and you don't have to wear a gag because a religious leader decides he doesn't like what you think. He wants to punish the coach for his remarks and probably will want to deny him the sacraments (he pulled that stunt a few years ago with John Kerry).
So far the University has remained sane and its position is that Majerus doesn't speak for the school on such matters. Lets all hope their saner heads prevail and Burke doesn't excommunicate him or some such.
Hmmm. Let's look at the Archbishop's actions with Kerry a moment. By his lights, if he denies the sacraments he puts the guy outside the pale, spiritually speaking. What happens if he just up and dies? In theological theory, if he dies whilst unshriven and with no last rites is his soul condemned? If so does that make the Archbishop guilty of something far worse than killing the meat body? Could he be arraigned for attempted soul-icide?
I can't believe Catholics aren't embarassed by this Nazi joker.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Blah-Blah-Blog
I spent a while surfing blogs this evening. It's damn hard to actually find one I want to read. When I read blogs I want compelling voices sharing their vision. I want drollery, profundity, wit, wisdom. I don't want product advertising, if I want porn all I have to do is stop avoiding it any time I'm online, and I don't read any language other than English (except a smattering of German). Right there I've removed about fifty percent of the candidates from consideration. Next, it sounds harsh, but I don't care about the daily minutiae and the diligently photographed cute moments of other people's families. Yeah, I know, they're not out there for me anyway but I still have to wade through them when I've gone walkabout in the blogosphere. Here's a revelation: pretending it's your infant children writing the blog is not nearly as cute as you think it is. Sorry. Neither is posting endless pictures of your cat's latest antics. Nor putting a soundtrack to your blog. Nor stamping/scrapbooking. There went another forty percent or so.
If you don't like those opinions or if you yourself are perpetrating a blog described above, oh well. You can just go straight to the 'next blog' button and never return. No skin off my nose.
If you don't like those opinions or if you yourself are perpetrating a blog described above, oh well. You can just go straight to the 'next blog' button and never return. No skin off my nose.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Baseball-ocks
I came back to baseball at the end of college after a decade of not caring. I spent the nineties playing Rotisserie, knowing which team had the best fourth outfielder, the best set-up man. I remember Hank Aaron breaking the Babe's record, I remember Big Mac breaking Maris'. When it comes to baseball I am old-school, somewhere to the right of Bob Costas. I can't stand the DH or the wildcard, I look down on the American League as a whole, and I loathe the Yankees and the Red Sox almost equally.
I also really hate cheating.
Baseball is a different game. It's a team sport but one where the individual contributions stand out more than the team's efforts in many cases. The other major sports don't have this strange distortion. Collective accomplishments echo through history; the Whiz Kids, Murderer's Row, The Gashouse Gang, but no other sport worships its individual excellence the way baseball does. Year by year, career by career, baseball history is built of an ever-growing mountain of numbers put up by single players.
This is why football players can get caught using steroids, get suspended for four games or whatever, and it just blows over, but baseball players can't. Every point of batting average, every dinger, every K a pitcher throws matters because it gets built into the flying buttresses of the cathedral of baseball. It ornaments it as well as supporting it.
Here is what I think:
Barry Bonds is a cheating scumbag. Raphael Palmeiro is a cheating scumbag. Andy Petitte is a cheating scumbag, as is Jason Giambi. Rumors were floating around about Roger Clemens years before the Mitchell report came out. Is he a cheating scumbag? I'm fairly confident that he is, but that's opinion. I think Mark McGuire was a cheating scumbag. I think the record should be Maris'. I think the Mitchell report is the tip of the iceberg.
So what do we do about that?
I have been hearing lately that the prevalence of steroids in baseball means we should just throw up our hands, ignore it, and move on. Like it's not an uneven playing field, its just differently even. Don't asterisk any records, don't keep anybody out of the Hall of Fame, just wink and move on.
Bullshit.
One of the big arguments for this position is that how can you punish some and not others? Fine. Punish 'em all. No records count from the steroid era, nobody gets in the hall of fame (except maybe Tony Gwynn, don't try to tell me HE was on the juice...). Does this punish innocent players? Yeah, it does. So what? They were part of the culture, as far as I'm concerned they let it happen.
Too much of baseball is its history. Too much of its mystique is the trail of numbers disappearing into the past.
These cheaters have damaged baseball. I am drifting farther and farther away from a game that I used to really love.
I also really hate cheating.
Baseball is a different game. It's a team sport but one where the individual contributions stand out more than the team's efforts in many cases. The other major sports don't have this strange distortion. Collective accomplishments echo through history; the Whiz Kids, Murderer's Row, The Gashouse Gang, but no other sport worships its individual excellence the way baseball does. Year by year, career by career, baseball history is built of an ever-growing mountain of numbers put up by single players.
This is why football players can get caught using steroids, get suspended for four games or whatever, and it just blows over, but baseball players can't. Every point of batting average, every dinger, every K a pitcher throws matters because it gets built into the flying buttresses of the cathedral of baseball. It ornaments it as well as supporting it.
Here is what I think:
Barry Bonds is a cheating scumbag. Raphael Palmeiro is a cheating scumbag. Andy Petitte is a cheating scumbag, as is Jason Giambi. Rumors were floating around about Roger Clemens years before the Mitchell report came out. Is he a cheating scumbag? I'm fairly confident that he is, but that's opinion. I think Mark McGuire was a cheating scumbag. I think the record should be Maris'. I think the Mitchell report is the tip of the iceberg.
So what do we do about that?
I have been hearing lately that the prevalence of steroids in baseball means we should just throw up our hands, ignore it, and move on. Like it's not an uneven playing field, its just differently even. Don't asterisk any records, don't keep anybody out of the Hall of Fame, just wink and move on.
Bullshit.
One of the big arguments for this position is that how can you punish some and not others? Fine. Punish 'em all. No records count from the steroid era, nobody gets in the hall of fame (except maybe Tony Gwynn, don't try to tell me HE was on the juice...). Does this punish innocent players? Yeah, it does. So what? They were part of the culture, as far as I'm concerned they let it happen.
Too much of baseball is its history. Too much of its mystique is the trail of numbers disappearing into the past.
These cheaters have damaged baseball. I am drifting farther and farther away from a game that I used to really love.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Happy New (Election) Year
You know, for a while I thought it was just George Bush that I couldn't stand (and believe me I loathe that moronic self-righteous puppet). But it's not just him. Politicians seem to be assholes by design and party seems to make no difference. The only person fit to be president in this race from a human standpoint is Obama, and the flame of his integrity is already fluttering desperately in the gale of the machine of American politics. Hillary doesn't bear thinking about and neither do the scurrying sanctimonious hordes of GOP jackals.
I am pretty non-dogmatic in my political thoughts if you can call them that. The current regime makes me nauseous and that includes the executive and the recently shifted legislative divisions. Nancy Pelosi is a simp. Karl Rove is the anti-Christ. Until the Republicans overhaul their social platform I will never support them (fucking Nazis). The Democrats on the other hand make me tired. The Libertarians go too far. So what is an irritated cynic to do?
Some might argue with me about the various economic platforms but I won't argue back. There's a reason I'm reading "Economics For Dummies".
So what to take from all this? Democracy is stupid and corrupt. It's only saving grace is that all the other options are MORE stupid and MORE corrupt.
I am pretty non-dogmatic in my political thoughts if you can call them that. The current regime makes me nauseous and that includes the executive and the recently shifted legislative divisions. Nancy Pelosi is a simp. Karl Rove is the anti-Christ. Until the Republicans overhaul their social platform I will never support them (fucking Nazis). The Democrats on the other hand make me tired. The Libertarians go too far. So what is an irritated cynic to do?
Some might argue with me about the various economic platforms but I won't argue back. There's a reason I'm reading "Economics For Dummies".
So what to take from all this? Democracy is stupid and corrupt. It's only saving grace is that all the other options are MORE stupid and MORE corrupt.
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