Government shut down and Health Care

Well, it is time to set and get a few things straight. Now I know that everyone was worried about the Government shut down.  It does not look like there is going to be a government shutdown. Now, to make things clear, the government never really “shuts down”. Social Security checks still go out, and hospitals still get their Medicare and Medicaid payments, don’t let any talking heads fool you.

And the shutdown has nothing to do with the budget, not in a real sense. It is because the GOP upset that their voucher idea was turned down by the voters, are fighting the voters now to defund Obama’s new health care law. And during this mix, they have to raise the debt ceiling so we can make our payments, and not default on the bonds that we have sold to make money. By the way, the TSA employees aren’t going anywhere, because Federal Law will not let them, because they perform a job that is essential to national security.

Getting back to the point of the new health care laws, here’s a little food for thought. Have you ever wondered why every other single industrialized nation has a form of “Obama Care”? It’s simple. In America, we have an entire market system called health care insurance. Companies that sell these policies have shareholders and CEO’s to answer to if they don’t turn a profit. In the simplest of terms, there is an entire market out there dedicated to making sure people stay stick so that their they keep paying those premiums, and keep buying those pills, which funds big Pharma, which happens to be the second biggest lobbyist group next to Gun Rights activist (IE the NRA). Many of these companies fund campaign donations of conservative groups, which fight to make laws like having $5,000 vouchers for a person to spend in one year on health care. By the way, anything past that and the money comes out of the pocket of the policy holder.  Now, let’s take a quick look at pills. There are medicines that cost $5,000 alone before insurance kicks in, and pay a portion of the price. Ever wonder why a tiny little bottle cost more than some new cars? Because there is a profit to be made by these companies. Insurance, big Pharma are all for profit businesses. Relating back to what I said before: There is an entire market that needs to keep people sick in order to make a profit. Let’s repeat that, it seems very important: There is an entire industry that needs its customers to remain sick, and only get health care in nibbles and bites to be assured that it will continue to turn a profit.  There seems to be something wrong with that line of thinking.

And before you try and pull that “Well, if the government gets involved, they will tell you what doctor you can go to.” Well, that’s a crock. And not only is it a crock, the system we have now tells you what doctor you can see. There are coverage plans that a doctor may or not be a member of that particular network. Meaning that well, you’d like to see that doctor, but your insurance company will only allow you to see Doctor X. Oh, and if you need a better example of government types that want to control what medical assistance one gets, just take a look at the GOP and their drive to end abortions. They don’t care if a woman has been raped, cannot deliver due to health issues, they don’t care. They want that baby born. After the child is born, well, they lose all interest in him or her. They don’t care if their school is well funded, they really don’t care if the child gets educated enough to get a job, they just want the child educated enough to go to college, get a loan, pay high interest on the loan, which helps feed the Wall Street monster. And since there are no jobs out there (because the GOP refuses regulation that will keep companies from exporting jobs at their slightest whim), those new college graduates, many of them, take two jobs to pay off the loan they get out from under, and forget getting a job in the field they went to school for, because those jobs have already been taken.

There is nothing wrong with having a single payer system. I’m sure there are advantages to having a government funded health care system. However, what we have now, sucks, it’s shameful. Why the hell can’t we have a sound health care system that assures that everyone who is sick gets health care? Any system that allows several millions of people live without health care.  Don’t you think that if those people didn’t have to pay for health care and the crazy over the top prices they are charged, that they will have more money to grow the economy? I worked retail, which taught me a lot about the spending habits of people. Give them more free money, and they are going to spend it.

Want a nice stable economy? It’s simple, and can be done over-night! The more money the consumers have, the more they are going to spend.  This will lead to plenty of income for the counties and states in the form of sales taxes. The companies whose products are being purchased are going to make profits, which will allow them to hire more people, which will bring in a whole new slew of people who will become tax payers. You can tax these companies on their profits, which the government can spend on education, fix roads, pay of the national debt, etc.  Rich people have a smaller effect on the economy, than the right will have you think. It’s the middle class that always has, and always will drive the economy.

But that will never happen, because the system is broken, and people profit from it being broken, so it will stay that way.  That’s reality, people.

 

Syrian Food for Thought

There are people who want to bomb Syria because over 1,000 people, men, women, and children were gassed to death. And there are some who feel that it is not our business to get involved, and that it is simply a civil issue. I don’t get why we should even get involved, because hell, if we went after every nation that either gassed, or executed its citizens, well, then we’d be invading or bombing perhaps a dozen more countries that commit these acts. 

Now, if Bush was still in office, we’d already be in war. He and his cronies would have manufactured some excuse for the need to bomb Syria. Maybe Bush would have said that Syria was a new Al Qaeda stronghold. Maybe he would have said that Syria was behind 9-11 all along, and has WMDs. Who knows, but as sure as I’m sitting here, typing these words, if this had happened under Bush, we’d already have troops on the ground.

Let’s be blunt, any nation that would capriciously kill its own citizens  in that matter is run by heartless people. In some nations, they simply don’t put much value on human life. And before anyone says that America puts a high value on human life, you might want to check your facts at the door. If we really valued human life, we would not cut the legs off from the funding that goes to programs like food stamps, head start and free lunches in schools. We would not cut off funding to assist veterans returning home from war, nor would we cut off funding to help homeless people seek the help they need. Yeah, we don’t gas people, but many people sure as hell fall into the trap of class warfare in which they are forced fed the Ayn Rand philosophy of the poor being nothing more than leaches who don’t belong in society.

It feels that we’ve been down this road before. We entered Vietnam because we were told that the communist movement would spread and that we’d have another enemy.  It always seems that when something goes wrong in another country, the other nations all look at us and say “Do you job!” as if we are supposed to take the leader, do all of the dirty work, and let them come along for the ride and share the credit. We do we always have to do the dirty work? Can someone please explain why Great Britain or Russia can’t get involved and do something? But then again, the last time that Russia was involved with what was going on with a Middle East nation, President Reagan oversaw the funding and military training of a group of rebels, which included a man by the name of Osama Bin Laden. Because tensions with the Soviet Union were so high that we had to get ourselves involved in a boarder war.

I’ve heard how folks like Rush Limbaugh have been critical that Obama has surrendered the standing of the US as the number one nation to Russia, which makes no freaking sense. Listen, there is no BCS type poll that ranks every nation in the world. Every country’s citizens think their nation is better than everyone else. It’s called National pride. Anyone who says that the “US is surrendering its position as number one,” is a talking head looking to raise the ire of the people who don’t like that Obama is president.

So what, who cares if Putin talked the Syrian leaders into surrendering the chemical weapons that only 72 hours prior they claimed not to have? Shouldn’t it just matter that the task is getting done? Yeah, we have to hold our nose because the task is getting done by a man who invaded Georgia (the country, not the state) without UN approval, enacted hate laws, and imprisoned anyone who spoke against him and the country in general. We’re talking global politics, and very few of these cowboys wear white hats.  

Do I think we should get involved with what is going on in Syria, I have to say no. Right now, we have so many issues that have crippled us, that maybe it’s time we called time out, let someone else pitch hit, and use that time to get ourselves stronger. Of course, that is all going to be delayed because we have a political which has openly stated that their mission isn’t to govern, it is to stop the president from governing. And that could delay our recovery just a slight bit.

So, in closing, It’s time that we swallow a little bit of national pride, and let someone else take the credit for fixing one of the world’s ills, even if it ironically is a country led by a repressive leader looking to take the weapons out of the hands of another nation led by a repressive leader.

A Culture of Thoughts

Yeah, it’s been a while since I last blogged. It always seems that I struggle to find time as of late.  That and I always hem and haw about which topic I want to talk about.

I’ve come to the realization that I see the world a hell of a lot differently than others. I don’t allow myths and cultural prejudice dictate what I think of someone, nor do I allow some invisible super being do to the same. And now, I don’t pay much attention to a somewhat rambling book written thousands of years ago, a book that has more plot holes than a Tom Cruise action movie.

However, when I look at our media, I see that there is this little game they like to play. I use the TV show Cops as my prime example.  I used to watch this show in my teens, until something suddenly dawned on me. Why, unless they are living in a trailer park, are there hardly any white people being arrested on that show. And before someone tries to say “there were a few.” Let me point out that the overwhelming majority were either hot heads who hit their wives, drunks behind the wheel, or someone who looked like they just walked out of a Tim McGraw concert. Not to mention the occasional prostitute. However, any time there was a robbery, a B & E; it was usually a black man or a Latino man committing the crime. So after a while, I began to watch the show on more or less of an anthropological basis. It then occurred to me that a few weeks had gone by, and there wasn’t a single non-white shown committing a crime like Grand Theft, Breaking and Enter, or plain simple Robbery. I began to think about what type of cultural image this was projecting to those in the suburbs who may or may not, interact with Latinos or Blacks on a daily basis. And I came to the conclusion, stating the obvious, that it would create a negative one.

As I got older, I began to pay more and more attention to the nightly news, and the stories they covered.   Once again, the only whites they seemed to focus on would be those who decided to drive drunk, crash their car, and possibly kill someone. However, it seemed to me that there was a purposed focus on reporting inner city crimes, and once again, shifting then those in the suburbs to have a negative view point about other cultures.

Why do we do this? Do we do it because we have some stunted emotional and intellectual growth that we don’t seem to be able to grasp? Could it be in out DNA to consistently focus on what makes us different from others?  Maybe, perhaps, despite all of the technological advances our intellect has help to create, we still can’t simply before the mental task of understanding that we are, quite simply, all the same. Unless we were created in some test tub in a lab, we all arrived here in the same fashion. We all bleed the same color, need oxygen to live, and we all enter this world the same way.

Could it be that the answers that we seek are for a more complex question that we haven’t evolved to rationally ask yet? Or is the complexity of our species going to prevent us from asking those needed questions until we remove some security blank we cling to, like Linus from Peanuts?

What inspired this was my reading of an article on how gays now finally have the same marriage rights as far as taxes are concerned.  Here is an entire culture of people, who are show prejudice in a different way. It’s not because of the color of their skin, no, it’s because of some text written in some book. I can’t fathom the logic of not liking someone simply because of what a book that many hold sacred says.

I’m glad that over the last few years, gays have rapidly obtained the rights that we all take for granted way too much. And before those of you who learn towards the right complain that our rights are being taken away, ponder this. As you sit there, either reading this blog in the comfort of your home, sitting in some café using their Wi-Fi for your internet connection, there are people who don’t have it so good. There are cultures in which women are not allowed to be educated, and little girls who attend school are murdered. There are cultures in which simply writing a song to protest your government gets you thrown in jail. Not stalked, like the FBI did to John Lennon, I’m talking actual jail. Ponder that next time you complain that “Obama is taking away my freedom.”

This leads me back to my opening paragraph of this blog. In my 37 years on this planet, I have never seen a president attack like President Obama has been. Yeah, there was muckraking with Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush JR, but it all now just seems to have grown. Could it be that we have a black president, could his heritage be what is causing all of this? Think back to before, the images that we have been force fed through TV shows like cops, and what is usually reported on the nightly newscast. Could this spoon fed cultural damning be causing all of these attacks? When Bush JR was happily wiping away peoples freedoms in the name of keeping them safe, no one trembled. However, President Obama tries curbing violence by enforcing tougher guns laws, and people lose their collective minds.

I’ve tried not to draw any conclusions, I simply try to observe. However, it keeps gnawing at me, the one conclusion I’m not ready to face. Maybe, many of us just don’t want to live harmoniously with other cultures. Maybe it is a genetic flaw in our make-up, who knows.  It might take generations if this question is ever answered, if ever at all. Maybe we’ve relied on prejudice to create our entertainment for too long, just type casted once too often.

We need to figure something out, because until we do, there’s going to be more bloodshed, tears shed, and lives lost. Maybe we can do that by not living up to some predisposed image of what some of us are supposed to be.  That just might be the first step, in the right direction.

A return to the blogging world

Well, I guess I really should get back into trying to blog a little more. As you can see, it’s been a long while since I last blogged.

 

And today is pretty much going to be a free formed rant. Because there is a lot that has happened since my last blog, and well, a free flow is the form that best suits a catch up.

Enough of the royal family. I don’t care about them at all, and never will. There really is no reason for us to actually waste valuable time in the press with the coverage of the birth of their child. Murders, rapes, corporate greed, crooked politicians, all of that is better coverage than the birth of the Royal Spawn. Even the soft story of a child beating cancer would be better.  We’ve had an entire state prove they are inept when it comes to prosecuting anyone (more on that later),  an entire city go bankrupt, a whistle-blower get railroaded into leaving the country, and another one who’s stay in jail has been something from the dark ages. But no, let’s waste time reporting on the child of a royal couple from a country we rebelled against nearly 340 years ago.  I’m sure right now that john Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, and every one of the drafters of the Constitution must be doing the preverbal rolling in the grave.  And if people in this country wanted to know why the rest of the free world considers our media a joke, well, you know why now.

 

Let’s take a quick examination of Edward Snowden. I’m really tired of everyone calling for him to be deported back to the states, and stand trial, and so forth. Personally, I hope he’s never brought back to the states, and he lives the rest of his days a free man. Neither he nor Bradley Manning did anything wrong, other than serve as an unofficial watch of the watchers.  After all, isn’t that what you people want in the first place, someone overseeing the government?  And by the way, why isn’t anyone calling for Dick Cheney, the former Vice President, to be arrested and tried for leaking government secrets.  This is the man, who while in the White House, leaked the name of a CIA operative in the field, all over a feud he was having with her husband. Didn’t he put the life of the CIA agent in danger, thus possibly putting the lives of Americans stateside in danger? Don’t see the press hounding him. I don’t see any of the mindless drones on CNN or GOP asskissers on Fox News calling for his arrest. Aren’t these the same folks who’ve said that anyone who leaks top secret information should be prosecuted?  And makes Dick Cheney so special that he gets a free pass? As far as I’m concerned, nothing makes him special. If you’re going to hound Snowden, and toss Manning into a rat hole prison cell, you really should make Dick Cheney his neighbor. We need a little consistency here, folks.

 

As for Florida, Stand your Ground, George Zimmerman, and Trayvon Martin.  First off, Zimmerman had zero business getting out and following the kid around, when he could have easily remained in his car and watched him that way. Besides, wouldn’t a normal person have simply asked for the cops to show up and informed them of his concerns. After all, it’s not like Trayvon came up running to Zimmerman’s car screaming “I’m going to kill you!”.  I don’t get how Zimmerman could have felt threatened in a situation he put himself in. How can you follow someone, have said person turn around, and use “Stand your ground.” Have you not impeded on someone else’s ground? Why wasn’t this mentioned in the trial.  Now, let’s take a look at the state of Florida, which has the most inept team of prosecutors in the entire country. They screwed the pooch on the Casey Anthony case by putting their faith into a DNA abstracting process that has not, and may never be, embraced by the scientific community. Not to mention that her father also had some issues with serious emotional detachment that may have had an effect on Casey’s overall reactions after the death of her child.

They lawyer in the Casey Anthony case seemed less interested in trying to prove her guilt, and more interested in auditioning for MSNBC, CNN, or Fox as a legal analyst. As for Trayvon Martin, the prosecution’s witnesses were poorly prepped, seemed utterly clueless, and ended up being saviors for the defense. I really have to wonder how these attorneys in Florida could be so inept at their jobs, yet hold positions of high importance.  Maybe it’s time we had an examination of those in Florida charged with handling these high profile trials. Maybe Florida seriously the entire office, and replace them with better quality attorneys.

And let me close with the following. While I will admit that I enjoy Ted Nugent’s music, and he’s a great guitar player, top 20 caliber, but as a human, he’s pretty terrible. He’s tried to deflect the blame to Trayvon, and has been running his mouth to anyone willing to give this glory seeking washed up rock star a vehicle to spout out his nonsense.  Ted, who crapped his pants and faked insanity when he was called to serve his country in war, and openly admitted that he adopted a 15 year old girl to use as his sexual tool while touring in 1977, tries to come off as a badass hunter. He’s a running joke, a utter jackass, and pretty much, a jerk off. And while I admit that he’ll never see this blog (though I really, really hope he does), and I’m not saying anything in print that I wouldn’t in a face to face meeting. I don’t shield my beliefs in order to appease anyone, that’s not my style.

And that should be clear in my upcoming blogs, which I hope to do at least once a week.

Baseball Writers strike out.

Well, I’ve taken a few days, to sit back, and relax. I’ve digested the reason the baseball writers opted not to elect anyone to the major league baseball hall of fame. And as I read their reasons, I have come to the following realization:

One, every current voting members for the major league baseball hall of fame needs to be let go. That’s right, they all need to have their privilege of voting for the hall of fame revoked.

The reason is very simple. Instead of giving votes to players like Craig Biggio, who was on for the first time, or legendary pitcher Jack Morris, who is running out of chances to be elected, some voters actually submitted blank ballots. That’s right, they opted to not vote for anyone.

It’s because they have judge all players from the 1980-2000’s guilty. Doesn’t matter if they have ever taken a PED, been accused, or anything. They have judged them guilty, hence they won’t vote for anyone. And if that is going to be their stance, its simple, revoke their right to vote.  Why should former players like Tim Raines and Morris suffer, and watch their chances to get in the hall be toyed with because of a vendetta by a bunch of baseball writers? It’s not fair to them. But hey, why should the writers care? They are seeking press by making fans think they are taking a stance, when they are nothing more than cowards. Any writer who submitted a blank ballot is a coward. Anyone who won’t vote to elect a player like Barry Bonds or Roger Clemmons just doesn’t understand the hall of fame.

Now, this misguided notion that a player elected to the hall of fame has to be a moral, nearly perfect citizen. Not sure where this idea even came from, but it somehow has seeped into the thought process. Now before you clamor with the thought that “These steroid players cheated, electing them would ruin the purity of the baseball hall of fame.” Well, let’s look at some current members, and ask yourself, despite what they’ve done on the field, should we really honor these folks with immortality?

Charles Comiskey. Here is the man that helped fuel his players to take a dive in the 1919 World Series. Comiskey was an owner who liked players, and liked money, but hated to see the two mixed. A noted tightwad, Comiskey would do anything, for ordering manager Kid Gleason to sit players, or order them to be taken out of games so they would not reach certain plateaus, which in return, would assure they would not get a promised bonus for reaching that benchmark. A complete inability  to relate to his players, or pry open his wallet, lead to a revolt, and his players, some of them top stars, deciding that they needed money more than World Series rings, so they took a dive.

Tom Yawkey. Famous owner of the Boston Red Sox, even has a street named after him. He was also a bigot. Tom Yawkey fought against intergrating the Boston Red Sox. Despite having talented black ball players in the minor league system, these players never played for the Red Sox. In fact, after one player hit .325 and 37 home runs in the minors for Boston, Yawkey ordered his release from his contract, instead of calling him up to the big league roster. The Red Sox had Ben Oglivie, a talented Outfield who became a star for the Milwaulkee Brewers. Yawkey ordered Oglivie traded for a fading starter, instead of making him a starter for the Red Sox. It wasn’t until years after his death, the Red Sox began to change their ways, and groom talented players like Jim Rice, who’d had never been given a chance uner Yawkey.

Kenesaw Landis. Let’s not kid ourselves here. There was only one reason that the baseball owners elected him as czar, and that’s because the owners owed him one. In 1915, the AL and NL were challenged by a third league seeking to be a major, the Federal league. The league was filled with talented players, and could have been a contender.  The league filed suit because of the reserve clauses that AL and NL players had, which meant that a players’ career was 100% under the control of the teams’ owner. Release, trade, the player had no say on where he went. The owners of the Federal League, eyeing several ML talents, thought this was, in effect, a monopoly. Landis was the judge that was slated to rule on this case. Instead, he did nothing, and this action forced the hand of the Federal League, and thus earned him a favor by the AL and NL owners, and that was paid back after the Black Sox Scandal.

But Landis was also a raging bigot. One of the criticism that he was given during his time as a judge was the notion that white men who stood before him, and black men who stood before him in court were treated different, with black men being sentenced harsher than white men. Landis also steadfast refused to allow baseball to be integrated. He famously told a reporter “They have their league, we have ours, that’s the way it should always be.”  After a group of ML all stars were defeated three games in a roll by Negro League standout team the Kansas City Monarchs, Landis ordered the series canceled, as many felt that Landis was angered that a team of all white ball players could lose to a team of black ball players.

Which is going to bring us to Cap Anson. Perhaps there is no more vile person in the hall of fame. That’s partly because Marty Bergen was never elected, and despite having worthy number, Bergen murdered his wife and two small children because he was depressed over his performance the previous season.

Cap Anson was a proud member of the KKK, thought that lynchings were the public’s way of controlling those the federal government could not, and is the man behind major league baseball being a white’s only game for 50 years. In 1884, Anson’s team was slated to play the American Association’s Toledo Blue Stockings. The AA was the second major league,  and the first to allow women to attend games, serve beer at the game, and allow blacks and whites to play on the same squad. Seeing that Moses Fleetwood Walker was the starting catcher, Anson was enraged. He called Walker the N-word several times, and pulled his entire team off the field, refusing to play unless Walker rode the bench. Toledo’s manager refused, and told Anson to “Go to hell”. This was followed by telling Anson that he would not be paid, nor would any of his players. Only after the notion of losing money, did Anson allow the game to go on. Anson would, ten years later, stage the infamous “White Players Revolt” in which Anson conned other top stars into thinking they would all lose their jobs if black ball players were allowed to compete with them for a job. Anson stated they would start their own league, which frightened the owners. Thus was born the rule that black men could not play in the major leagues.

There you have it. A tightwad who nearly ruined the game, and three racist, one with direct ties to the KKK, are immortalized in the hall. Is this the message that we want to send? That it’s okay to nearly ruin the game, or be a racist. To deny the chance to play major leagues to men simply because of the color of their skin, is that the message, really?

So, before you say that Barry Bonds, Roger Clemmons, etc ruined the game by taking steroids, and thus shouldn’t be in the hall. Before you say that “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and Pete Rose don’t belong because they gambled, think about this. Can you sleep well at night, keeping these men out, yet keeping in racist? There is the question. That is the question that needs to be answered.

If the PED tainted players are going to be kept out, then some that are already in, including those mentioned in this blog, Must be removed from the baseball hall of fame. If that doesn’t happen, then the message if that if you took drugs to enhance your performance, that was wrong.  But the same message also gives a free pass to those who’s crime was much more vile. Dismissing another human being, simply based on the color of their skin.

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.