Thoughts on todays school shooting

You know, I've spent the last hour thinking about if I was going to post a blog about the shootings in Newton today. I've thought a thousand times about what I was going to say.

I want to start off by offering my condolences to everyone in Newton today. As I write this, I feel completely sick to my stomach. This feels like something out of a TV drama, but alas, its all too real.

I want to add that I watched the coverage today, and we all know that Fox News is pure trash that tried to steer the issue away from gun control, and place 100% of the blame for what happened today at the feet of makers of "violent" video games. But then again, why would Fox News put any of the blame at the NRA, because we all know that the GOP and the NRA are spooning each other.

I would also like to add that I'm disgusted with CNN. Whereas the anchors at MSNBC actually showed emotion, Wolf Blitzer and the walking dead at CNN did not. In fact, Wolf Blitzer said the words "Children dead." with the same emotion you or I would have reading our shopping list. I switched the channel to MSNBC after growing weary of the cold, heartless reporting from CNN.

President Obama gave one of the most human speeches I've ever seen. Never before had I witnessed a president actually get choked up, and wipe away tears during a live press conference. This is not a knock on presidents of the past. They are supposed to be Stoic,  they are supposed to have an aire of confidence. That's been an unwritten rule, rule that was broken when President Obama had a human moment.

I watched one of the anchors actually break down into near tears as she interviewed a doctor about the psychological damage that events today could do to a child. Something those zombies and robots over at CNN could never do.

I've been on twitter for the past few hours, and continue to be as I pen this blog, wondering what thoughts are going to come next. I can just hear the NRA supporters crying foul over the call for greater gun control. Even though gun control is needed in this country, and some guns, like some of the semi automatics out there serve no purpose. Some of them are complaining that even mentioning gun control is to make a "Political" issue out of this.

I think back to a confrontation between Cenk Uyger of the Young Turks and member of the NRA brain trust. Whereas the NRA representative kept saying that guns make people feel safe, etc, you know the rhetoric. Cenk was on him like Charlie Sheen on an 8 ball. And Cenk put him rightfully in his place.

When its all said and done, 20 children are dead. 20 sets of parents will remember this holiday season with a heavy heart. 20 children who did nothing, nothing to warrant being shot while they sat in a classroom. It takes a special kind of monster to do this, harm little children. Also today, a man walked into a school in china, armed with a knife. No one dead, just a deranged man who got his ass kicked.

More guns don't make people safer, it never has, and never will. There was a time, in which it was common place for everyone to carry a gun. It happened here in America, and we got one of the most violent times in our history. I'm talking of course of the Old West. A time in where outlaws like Billy the Kid, and Jesse James carried guns, as did every day folks. All this did was lead to high body counts. Maybe some folks just haven't gotten over romanticizing that era of US history.

I can't understand why people would want us to remain stunted in that logic. that the only way to be safe is to carry a gun. I guess I'll never understand the logic of these people. Guns, for the most part, are used as weapons of fear. They are a modern day bogeyman, with the notion that every bad guy out there has a gun, and willingly use it on anyone. That's just not the truth.

The truth is that showing a gun to someone that already has a gun is just going to bring a causation of the other person using their weapon. They are doing it out of survival mode. There blows the "its safer if everyone has a gun" logic.

As I sit here, thinking of how to bring this blog to a close, I harken back to the thought that there are scores of children who may very well forever link school and death. There are parents who, instead of celebrating this holiday with their children, will be mourning their loss. And there will be another school that will now join the sad fraternity of schools marred by shootings. Though it feels of wishful thinking, one can only hope that finally, there will be no new members, and this school will be the last admitted.

As for the shooters motives, I really don't give a shit. They mean nothing to me. Nothing can justify walking into a school, an elementary school, and shooting young children. Shooting teachers and others who dedicated their lives to educating young lives. The motives don't out weight the loss of life. Those who don't learn from history, are doomed to repeat it. I hope we've finally learned our lesson.

Steriod era players? I'd elected them, and here's why.

Okay, I know it’s been a really long time since I last blogged, but sharing something as personal as I did takes a lot out of you. And one needs to find the proper follow up, and I have, and it just might piss a few folks off. Or it could very well educate them.

 I have, what I feel, is an irrefutable argument as to why players with confirmed ties, or alleged ties to steroids and PED’s belong in the baseball hall of fame. Now I know what you are saying. These players cheated, they took drugs to give themselves an edge. The impaired the sanctity of the game, its forever tainted. These sins, they can never be enshrined into the Hall.

Well, let’s not act like the baseball hall of fame is a place for angels, okay. In fact, there are several members who while they may have not taken drugs to give themselves an edge, they have done things much worse, including two men who committed a crime  so atorusous, that if the general public knew of their crimes, they would hold protest in Cooperstown demanding they be expunged from the hall of fame.  But before we get to them, let’s take a look at some of the other folks that are in the hall, even though they weren’t exactly upstanding citizens.

Ty Cobb, let’s take a look at him. Yes, I’ll concede that he used his wealth to help the disadvantaged, and maybe Ty was bi-polar. How else could you explain a person who later in life was so kind, you during his playing days, was a walking, talking iceberg. Cobb did beat the hell out of a black elevator operator because the man allegedly talks to Cobb in an “Uppity” manner.  And when the security guard, who was also black, tried to pull Cobb off the man, Cobb repaid him with a stab to the gut. The case was later settled out of court. And there were stories of Cobb also being abusive towards women as well. Despite being pretty much a prick off the field, Cobb was a star on the field, and his off field exploits were overlooked.

 Charles Comiskey, the man who set the standard for tightwad owner. He managed his payroll to the point that he would often order that players be sat so they wouldn’t reach certain performance bonuses, or he’d simply cheap out in other areas. And it was this that led to the revolt that would be the basis for members of the White Sox to throw the 1919 World Series.

However, those men are small potatoes compared to two men who should be expunged from the hall, should major league baseball really care about the sacredness of the hall. And if sports writers really cared, they’d pitch a fit that these men are even in the hall to begin with.

Let’s look first at Kennesaw Mountain Landis. The man who threw out the dirty Black Sox players who threw the 1919 World Series, who was going to remove the gambling element out of the game. See, when Landis was a sitting Chicago judge, he had a slight (cue sarcasm) reputation for giving white criminals  softer sentences, while imposing extremely harsh ones on those who weren’t Anglo-Saxon. And he didn’t really care if a person had a disease and wouldn’t see the end of their sentence, Landis once told an elderly man who posed his concern that “You sure can go ahead and try.”  The only reason he was appointed as commissioner of major league baseball was payback. Years before, he ruled in favor of the American and National League in their case against the Federal League, an outlaw circuit that raided the rosters of both leagues, in an attempt to become the third “Major Baseball League”

But Landis was also the man who fought tooth and nail to keep baseball a “White’s Only” game, following his belief with such thoughts are “They have their league, and we have ours” and “The best Negro boy can’t compete on the same level as the worst white ball player.”  It’s no coincidence that Jackie Robinson didn’t make his debut until after Landis was dead and buried. And for keeping the game segregated, Landis was rewarded with a special election to the baseball hall of fame. Yeah, you read that right, Landis was rewarded for keeping blacks out of the major leagues by election to the hall of fame. And I’m sure his ruling on the Black Sox scandal, and in the Federal League case played a role, but hey, we can’t forget, this fought to keep baseball a white’s only game. As I write this, I am reminded of a famous story in which Brooklyn had been scouting Josh Gibson, a power hitting catcher often called “The Black Babe Ruth”. Brooklyn was threatened with expulsion from the major leagues if Negro league scouting continued.

Now we come to the mastermind behind keeping baseball a “White’s” only game. Elected in 1939, we have the worst offender in the major league baseball hall of fame. A man that has now, and had then, clear ties to the KKK. Former Chicago Cubs First  baseman Cap Anson. Now to tell the story, we travel back to the 1880’s, when the Anson’s team was set to play Toledo of the American Association. The AA was the second major league at the time, and it actually allowed integration of the rosters. When Anson learned that Toledo had a catcher named Moses Fleetwood Walker, who was black, Anson took his team off the field, and refused to play. He had been successful doing a stunt like this, years before, and the Toledo manager wasn’t going to have it. Whereas Anson stated under “No circumstances” he’d share a ball field with an n-word, he would relent, mainly because he was threatened with no payment. The game went on, and both Anson and Walker played, even though Anson would call Walker names like “Monkey” other insults, many that are way too vulgar to print here.

In 1894, Anson, tired of seeing white ball players lose jobs to black ball players, started his own revolution, called the “White Players revolt”. It was a general strike, in which Anson and some of the era’s top stars (and gate draws) would refuse to play ball as long as blacks were allowed to play alongside whites. The owners, not wanting to lose many, caved, and thus, major league baseball was no longer integrated, and would remain as such until after World War II.

Now I get the argument that some of you might want to make, that these folks, their transgression occurred off the field, and not on. They didn’t take drugs, etc. Well, that’s a nice argument, for about five minutes. Then you introduce logic, and you see the flaws of the argument. If you are going to argue that taking drugs to have an edge is a lower crime than that of racism, then I pity you. I don’t want to hear any discussion about protecting the legacy of the hall. The undisputable fact remains that while players who took drugs to get an edge, but ones who out and out engaged in racist acts are allowed in is flat out disgusting. So, unless you can sit there, and come up with a valid argument that taking drugs is worse than racism, I will not back off my view point.  

 If I could vote, I’d vote Roger Clemmons, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire all into the hall of fame. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with cheating to get an advantage, but in the grand scheme of things, what they did really wasn’t wrong. Mike Schimdt is one of the very few hall of famers who has no issue with these players getting in. He even admitted that players in the 70’s and 80’s often would take uppers for a game. As Schimdt has so wisely stated, Uppers enhanced the player’s game, so shouldn’t uppers be considered a PED? And if so, that would exclude a whole slew of players.

As I wind this up, I’m just going to restate my main point. I don’t want to hear about that sanctity of the major league baseball hall of fame. I don’t want to hear how electing players with ties to steroids and PED’s is going to taint it. Especially as long as the hall continues to house a certain two men who fought to keep baseball a game for whites only.