I just finished reading the Time Magazine article on Global Warming and it chilled me to the bone. What’s happening to our planet is really scary. And it made me think of the glory days of the environmental movement and the ecoterrorists. Remember ecoterrorism? I do. Folks blowing up logging sites, putting nails in trees to screw with the saws, blowing up congressman’s offices and all kind of fun stuff.
There seems to be a new form of ecoterrorist in our midst and they are the very people who have put terror right in the front of our consciousness. Of that I am speaking of George Bush, Dick Cheney and our beloved Senate. Isn’t it amazing how these people so concerned with saving our freedom are also more than happy to kill our planet? What’s freedom going to look like in a world with no drinking water, no energy, flooded cities and rampant famine? Maybe Halliburton can get a contract to take care of us all.
It’s been pretty obvious that Mr. Bush isn’t interested in dealing with the world’s climate issues. It’s his contention that profit is more important that melting ice caps. And it’s his contention that the data that has been compiled has been taken out of context. He believes that there are conflicting ways of looking at the results of the research and that in his mind the conclusions are muddled. Sounds like his response was written for him by one of his old employees in the oil business. What a tool.
The reality is that we are killing our planet and our president and our senate and our hard-core conservative base doesn’t want to do anything about it. I’ll tell you what’s happening here: somehow it became the will of the right to not give a crap about anything or anyone that veers away from their ideas. Anything that stops us from being the richest most powerful nation on earth is seen as worthless and lacking in “The God Factor”.
Maybe that can change. Maybe GWB will finally listen to his most powerful of constituencies that there is something that needs to be done about this global warming thing. The Evangelicals are finally starting to realize that you can’t have your Jesus and an Escalade too. If a hard-nosed conservative like Richard Lugar can get it then maybe there is hope for Bushman, especially if money is involved.
How did the religious right ever reconcile their greed with the works of Jesus? How did getting’ rich become a bible teaching. How did the destruction of our planet fall into the teachings of the Christian Right? it's like they just don't want to admit anyone is right about anything.
I love it here, on Earth. I love the way the sky looks and the way the grass smells. It’s probably a good idea to not destroy it. Learning to accept that we have screwed things will help us. Trying to blame the problem on everything but the truth is going to turn this into a tragedy. There are a number of conservatives who see the global warming issue as so much left-wing mambo. They go so far as to call it "junk science". How do you like that?
The dealdy sin of greed is the one that is going to do us in. Making money is priority number one in this country for seculars and theocrats alike. And it is that greed that makes us look at the melthing ice caps and dying polar bears and say, "it's not me". How the Christian Right was able to work the ideas of get rich, take the west, clear the countyside into Jesus' teachings is beyond me. Maybe that can change. I hope so, for the sake of their immortal souls and our children having a place to live would be nice also.
Monday, March 27, 2006
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Barry Bonds
Sucks. There, I said it a mere thirteen years after he left my beloved Pirates for his beloved San Francisco Giants. That was one of the lowest days I had back then, and there were some real heartbreak days. But now I think I can forgive him.
There's been some talk about the guy amongst my friends and it's been pretty nasty. The talk about Bonds and steroids is a sports maniacs dream. It's got moral and ethical questions, involves the history of the game and a man's legacy measured against Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and scores of other legendary figures. And man does it bring up a lot for me.
What I've come to realize after reading the SI article taken from the book, is the that Barry Bonds is an asshole. Watching him on telelvision he has always come across as aloof and arrogant, but he also was being poked and prodded more than most. Listen, I don't think that as a public figure you owe me a certain number of smiles per day and an insight into your deepest darkest mortal soul. Just win the games I need you to win by the points I've designated and all is good.
But Barry Bonds has crossed a line with me. He is not just arrogant, he's a mean-spirited misongynist who cares about one person and that is BB. He manipulates everyone around him, he lies and cheats and he threatens the life of women. He really gives being a man a bad name.
Did he use steroids and increase his muscle mass? Probably. To me, that's not the worst thing in the world. His sport didn't seem to care until last year. A lot of guys were doing it, and, to me, the ability to hit a big league breaking ball or off-speed pitch is something you get from God. And with or without steroids that boy can hit.
I just think he's a scum bag in the way that Ty Cobb was a scumbag. And to me he is the worst kind of athlete, one who thinks that eveyrone else owes him something because he can hit a baseball. As far as I'm concerned he should be banned from the sport because he's a jackass not because he's a dumbass.
There's been some talk about the guy amongst my friends and it's been pretty nasty. The talk about Bonds and steroids is a sports maniacs dream. It's got moral and ethical questions, involves the history of the game and a man's legacy measured against Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and scores of other legendary figures. And man does it bring up a lot for me.
What I've come to realize after reading the SI article taken from the book, is the that Barry Bonds is an asshole. Watching him on telelvision he has always come across as aloof and arrogant, but he also was being poked and prodded more than most. Listen, I don't think that as a public figure you owe me a certain number of smiles per day and an insight into your deepest darkest mortal soul. Just win the games I need you to win by the points I've designated and all is good.
But Barry Bonds has crossed a line with me. He is not just arrogant, he's a mean-spirited misongynist who cares about one person and that is BB. He manipulates everyone around him, he lies and cheats and he threatens the life of women. He really gives being a man a bad name.
Did he use steroids and increase his muscle mass? Probably. To me, that's not the worst thing in the world. His sport didn't seem to care until last year. A lot of guys were doing it, and, to me, the ability to hit a big league breaking ball or off-speed pitch is something you get from God. And with or without steroids that boy can hit.
I just think he's a scum bag in the way that Ty Cobb was a scumbag. And to me he is the worst kind of athlete, one who thinks that eveyrone else owes him something because he can hit a baseball. As far as I'm concerned he should be banned from the sport because he's a jackass not because he's a dumbass.
Monday, March 13, 2006
I Will Follow...
This whole censoring the president thing has me all in a tizzy. Senator Feingold you are one wacky cat. It’s really amazing that we are so willing to get away from the truth. What ever happened to the truth? When did we get so scared of the truth that we feel better getting everything as spin from a special interest group?
I remember when we would turn to the press to tell us exactly what was going on and why. Even the smallest newspaper in my very rural hometown had the responsibility to tell the truth. Here’s what’s going on out in those cornfields and cow pastures and now go and do something about it.
Now I feel like I’m being sold a bill of goods by everyone. No one can just tell me the truth, just the facts. They have to spin it for me, explain it to me, show me why believing it the way they do will save me from a horrible fate of having to make up my own mind. I think what bums me out the most is that I’m being treated like I just don’t get the world at all. Jesus, guy, don’t you see how dangerous it is to question the President in any way?!
Oh well. I guess the reality is that I need more time to download music, watch American Idol, and figure out just how in the hell am I going to make enough money to donate to the politician that everyone says is the best for me. At least that’s what they told me on Fox News.
I remember when we would turn to the press to tell us exactly what was going on and why. Even the smallest newspaper in my very rural hometown had the responsibility to tell the truth. Here’s what’s going on out in those cornfields and cow pastures and now go and do something about it.
Now I feel like I’m being sold a bill of goods by everyone. No one can just tell me the truth, just the facts. They have to spin it for me, explain it to me, show me why believing it the way they do will save me from a horrible fate of having to make up my own mind. I think what bums me out the most is that I’m being treated like I just don’t get the world at all. Jesus, guy, don’t you see how dangerous it is to question the President in any way?!
Oh well. I guess the reality is that I need more time to download music, watch American Idol, and figure out just how in the hell am I going to make enough money to donate to the politician that everyone says is the best for me. At least that’s what they told me on Fox News.
Friday, March 10, 2006
Bush Unplugged
Now so many years removed from his most defining moment our president stands stripped bare of his trappings of power. He stands before as he probably always was, a self-serving, uninspired, diletant that we can now say that we really don’t like very much. He’s an arrogant little crap with an unyielding sense that we all just don’t get it like he does.
September 11, 2001 has been his Teflon shield for five years now. The defining moment of a presidency that was on the shakiest of moral ground to begin with. Not since FDR had the Gods of War stepped in to help a presidency ascend to greater heights. Overshadowing his weak ideas on the economy, health-care, deficit reduction and all things international was his perceived strength in the face of the evil doers.
That one tragic act allowed him to redefine a presidency that in it’s beginning was floundering. He and his people were able to grab the right elements of the event and start building a shield between themselves and reality. Mr. Bush took the flag and wrapped himself in it. Forget all the rest of the stuff he told us, I will keep you safe. I will keep these turbaned wild men out of your shopping malls, office buildings, schools and bedrooms. And while I’m at it I’ll get rid of these liberals and gays and anyone else that can upset your apple cart.
But what we weren’t looking at was that smug face that sat there lecturing us. Don’t you get it, he would say? We would watch these self-satisfied dogmatists like Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz, and Pearl telling us that we just needed to shut and listen, they would do the heavy lifting and put “freedom” first and “safety” would be the natural progression.
But it was a house of cards seen through a rose-colored window. We weren’t being made safer, we were being lied to about what was going on. This administration was actually taking us back to a time when Richard Nixon used his presidential power like a ball-peen hammer to smack away at the rights and liberties of anyone who seemed out of line.
Ego, turned to disdain, gave the President the willingness to lie to us. And that is the greatest crime anyone of his stature can commit. The worst part is that his lies have cost so many lives. The dead men and women in Afghanistan, Iraq and even in the streets of New Orleans came from his ability to lie right to our faces. His contempt for our government allows him appoint incompetence into every office of his administration. And his lack of true compassion, I feel his greatest lie of all, have led to an atmosphere in this country totally counter to what we should be about: understanding and co-operation.
Arrogance is the one character flaw that Americans have never, ever tolerated in politics. It’s what dogged Bill Clinton, it killed Al Gore, and it is now destroying George Bush. His lack of leadership during Katrina; his secret deal with Dubai, knowing that America would never go for it; his stewardship of these false wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, his willingness to gamble our futures both financially and environmentally, show that this is a man who really doesn’t care about anything more than making he and his friends rich.
September 11, 2001 has been his Teflon shield for five years now. The defining moment of a presidency that was on the shakiest of moral ground to begin with. Not since FDR had the Gods of War stepped in to help a presidency ascend to greater heights. Overshadowing his weak ideas on the economy, health-care, deficit reduction and all things international was his perceived strength in the face of the evil doers.
That one tragic act allowed him to redefine a presidency that in it’s beginning was floundering. He and his people were able to grab the right elements of the event and start building a shield between themselves and reality. Mr. Bush took the flag and wrapped himself in it. Forget all the rest of the stuff he told us, I will keep you safe. I will keep these turbaned wild men out of your shopping malls, office buildings, schools and bedrooms. And while I’m at it I’ll get rid of these liberals and gays and anyone else that can upset your apple cart.
But what we weren’t looking at was that smug face that sat there lecturing us. Don’t you get it, he would say? We would watch these self-satisfied dogmatists like Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz, and Pearl telling us that we just needed to shut and listen, they would do the heavy lifting and put “freedom” first and “safety” would be the natural progression.
But it was a house of cards seen through a rose-colored window. We weren’t being made safer, we were being lied to about what was going on. This administration was actually taking us back to a time when Richard Nixon used his presidential power like a ball-peen hammer to smack away at the rights and liberties of anyone who seemed out of line.
Ego, turned to disdain, gave the President the willingness to lie to us. And that is the greatest crime anyone of his stature can commit. The worst part is that his lies have cost so many lives. The dead men and women in Afghanistan, Iraq and even in the streets of New Orleans came from his ability to lie right to our faces. His contempt for our government allows him appoint incompetence into every office of his administration. And his lack of true compassion, I feel his greatest lie of all, have led to an atmosphere in this country totally counter to what we should be about: understanding and co-operation.
Arrogance is the one character flaw that Americans have never, ever tolerated in politics. It’s what dogged Bill Clinton, it killed Al Gore, and it is now destroying George Bush. His lack of leadership during Katrina; his secret deal with Dubai, knowing that America would never go for it; his stewardship of these false wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, his willingness to gamble our futures both financially and environmentally, show that this is a man who really doesn’t care about anything more than making he and his friends rich.
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