Utter Rubbish

It is offensive to the word "bad" to describe the 2008 installment of the Detroit Lions as, well, "bad."

For see, bad is not terrible. Bad is not atrocious. Bad is not "Thee worst." (And I was very much inclined to add more than two "E's" there, because it needs to be as emphasized as possible.)

Bad is the year that the Cincinnati Bengals had. Bad is the play of the St.Louis Rams all season. Bad is what the Seattle Seahawks had to endure (and "brutal" is the word for the whole sports year in the Seattle sports fan had to live in).

Bad is 6-10, 5-11, 4-12. Very bad is 3-13, 2-14, 1-15.

But "bad" or even "brutal" would not be sufficient enough to describe what was witnessed this year from the performances of the Detroit Lions. In their 75th year of existence, they performed lower than all expansions teams, then all bad teams, then even the all time losing teams of losing teams.

"Bad", "Brutal", and even "Losers" just aren't the words to label this inept amalgamation of freight.

"Utter rubbish" is what they are. "Utter rubbish" is what 0-16 is.

I could hear Dennis Green say this now:"They are not what we thought they were. And they were never let off the hook."

For the Lions though, they never even got on the hook.

In this ultimate age of parody in the National Football League, you would never expect that this could happen anymore after it transpired with Tampa Bay in 1985. The league has too many competitors, and has too many prideful individuals to have even one team go winless. That just can't happen.

But damn those "what should be's" in both life and sports, for that is why the games are played and the lives are lived. The humiliation either will happen or not, and in this rare, shocking case, it surly did happen.

From Getty Images(These bailout signs were common as the forgettable season came to a close)

Bless Ron Marinelli soul, because he may never coach again ever. Not in the NFL, not in the CFL, not even in High School All-American games. Because he tried hard to get his team that one feeling of happiness. that one feeling of relief not present at all throughout any course of the season. That relief of the misery of loss after loss after 13 more losses looked realistic.

They battled back to tie the score with Green Bay 14-14 going into the fourth quarter. It seemed that, for one day, in the last day of the season, the last chance to just be " very bad", that they would be gladly accept "very bad." How being tied heading into the final 15 minutes of the year at 0-15 was the high point of the ever changing nadirs surrounding the 2008 Lions is truly unbelievable. And it is further indicative of how memorable their futility will forever be.

Just about as baffling is how a rookie third round running back somehow became the leader of this team , as if this unit could even have leaders on its roster. And if it does have leaders, I guess having a rookie be one represents the overall makeup for those to see. (Unless it's Matt Ryan, and just to double check. Nope, it isn't).

Kevin Smith, who earlier in the week rightfully dismissed his thousand yard season as meaningless compared to the full spectrum of his first year, really tried hard to avoid 0-16 too. Bless his soul.

"This offseason won't be much hanging out for me," he said. "I'm gonna work to be the best back in the NFL and hopefully get my team on the path to the Super Bowl. We're 0-16. We made history. My eye's on the Super Bowl next."

Fitting that Smith said this,dedicating himself to being apart of a total 180 reversal for this team. Because he did one of the dumbest things ever in the history of the league. Smith decided it was in his best interest to taunt on the field in the 4th quarter. A player, on an 0-15 team, with a chance to go 0-16, taunting?

That's more idiotic than not wanting to kiss your spouse after you said, "I do."

And what do you know? That taunting led to a penalty being called on him, hurting the chances of a miracle win. On the next play, the very next play, Dan Orlovsky (blessed his soul too, because he tried as hard as he could, he really did) threw an interception to Nick Collins to basically bring out columns such as this one trying to comprehend the collage of terrible an 0-16 team can actually produce.

"It was a very bad, selfish decision," Smith said. "I let my emotions get the best of me. It was tough, but it is no excuse."

But even if it was no excuse, I guess it is the norm for a team that is "utter rubbish." I guess it is common for a team to allow not only two 100 yard rushing performances, but two 100 yard receiving performances in a single game. I guess it is the staple for a team to embarrasses its prideful and blue collar city more than its disgrace of a former mayor or its out of touch, moronic car company CEO's.

Photo from the Associated Press (One of the lone bright spots can't send any light on the darkest of seasons)

So egregious are the Lions, that their season had to be taken into political context. 1-15 teams can't even do that.

All of the bailout signs from those fans trying to find any solace in this, need I say more?

Sadly, I have to, because the disbelief of how "utterly rubbish" they are will be in the minds of all of us for a long time. If you find it shocking that there would be any leaders on this team, then the question of who the MVP is for this bunch is even scarier.

The Lions fans getting that nod? With those bailout signs and even associating themselves with this organization after what has transpired, they should be unanimous choices. But the fans don't even deserve that (though refunds is another matter). Sadly, giving the kicker this award is fitting.

That kicker, 17 year veteran Jason Hanson, please bless his soul. And then bless it some more, because he really really did try to avoid 0-16. His case is better than anyone elses.

In his 22 field goal attempts this year, he only missed one. He was 8 for 8 from over 50 yards. And for that, he is the standout performer of the 2008 Detroit Lions. He couldn't have picked a more awful time to have an All Pro like year.

"It's a bummer because I've put together one of my best years ever, but it gets lost in the season. And I understand why," Hanson said.

Then it really hit, the fact that they were more than bad, more than "very bad."

"It's surreal to be 0-16 with guys you care about; guys that I've seen work hard," he said. "I've seen years past where we've had better records and we've been way worse, but who cares? Nobody cares. All of us have our names on this."

Jason Hanson, the veteran place kicker of the 2008 Detroit Lions, the only man on this team who was nearly flawless this year , performed better than Smith, Orlovsky, Marinelli, and everyone else associated with the Detroit Lions did.

But when you are the best on a winless team, only your close ones will try and not lump you with the fact your accomplishments really mean nothing. And even they, deep inside, may feel the same.

Because there's nothing good at the end of the day for an 0-16 team. And there's nothing even bad about an 0-16 team.

For "bad" would be a massive understatement for how pitiful the 2008 Detroit Lions were this year. For only this pitiful 0-16 team can be labeled as "utter rubbish."

Photo from Getty Images (Thankfully, they won't be seen until next year)

She Ruined His Life

Mike Wooten is the state trooper who life is ruined forever, all because of his state governor(Photo from google.com)

All critics of the trainwreck joke that is Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin have nothing on what Mike Wooten has for the disgust, anger, and rational acrimony he has for her.

I don't know what was going on in the life of Wooten before he was a state trooper. I'm far from cognizant on whether the man was a good guy or a jerk before he received that job. And unless you are a member of his family or a close friend, it is virtually impossible to know what this guy was, and is, like.

Even if every report indicates that he was a law-abiding citizen who caused no problems and followed the rules of his job to the law, only the ones around the man can tell us how he is as a person.

But I have no interest on the man's personal life, because that is frankly none of my business at all. Instead, the discussion is primarily about how this man's life is ruined.

Ruined thanks to his wonderful state Governor.

His royal state governor, who doesn't give a damn about him, and doesn't care one single bit if he was found located next to a garbage can the next morning with his pulse rate at 0.

His royal state governor who is parading around the cameras all week, and how the dummies on CNN and MSNBC, outside of Olbermann and Maddow, give her the reputable attention and focus on her having a future in that pathetic, disgrace of a party that she affiliates herself with.

A future for her? Her?

A future for a power abusing governor who was voted on by a bipartisan, mostly Republican, 12-0 commission that she and her husband damaged Wooten's life and his reputation?

A future for her after sending threatening emails just because he was abiding by the law?

A future for her, huh Chris Matthews, and Wolf Blitzer, and all of you people fixated on every idiotic "Return to campaign talking points" she said this week?

What about a future for this man, what about him?

Will his future still be more death threats, no matter if he is still in Alaska or in the lower 48, or in Canada or wherever? Will it be calls probably telling him and his family to shut up or else? Will it be a life where he has to question how someone could do him so wrong, and be called out in public for it, only to see that same person literally be in contention to be sanctified throughout the country as a "hero" or "inspiration" and get away with the horror and insanity she and her thugs inflicted on him?

Oh that's right, you guys don't really give a damn either. Because if you did, he would have been front and center showing how his life won't ever be the same again.

What does this say about this country that this woman is still lampooning around (Andrea Mitchell sure as hell got this right by labeling Palin's stupidity this week as her "Victory Tour", and I'm just as much a critic of Mitchell as anyone else here) like a deity, and that this guy is still not given the time on television to liberate himself from the shackles of seclusion like he is now?

Amazing. Simply amazing. And I can't help but sometimes agree with Professor Bacevich on this campus about America Exceptionalism ending.

I guess if you can ruin people's lives by abusing your power, then you could easily hold a prominent public official chair in this land. Because that is what is derived from what Mike Wooten has experienced, and what has transpired here.

I know in these rough times with job unemployment going higher and higher that any job is a job that someone wished they had at the moment.

But Wooden has to be demoted, DEMOTED, and publicly abashed by becoming a desk clerk ? A desk clerk after being a state trooper who followed the law to stop his Governor from abusing it.

I know life isn't fair, but damn. This should leave anyone who reads that article or this post with a nasty taste in their mouths. It is another failure on our traditional television media of actually caring about the people who they bring news too. But that's not a surprise. Not on the liberal online network of networks, and not for the rationalists in this country, and throughout.

Sarah Palin lost on election day. She lost throughout her entire two month horror tour of America. And we, as a nation, lost by having to endure ourselves to her (and sadly do still).

But her "losses", and our "losses" (especially the liberals and rationalists in Alaska like mudflats and others), have nothing on even the most exiguous of ruins brought on Mike Wooten by his Governor.

Veterans' Day Tearjerker: The Story of WWII Vet Anthony Acevedo

Photo from CNN's Sara Weisfeldt

This story will make most who read this cry.

Anthony Acevedo thumbs through the worn, yellowed pages of his diary emblazoned with the words "A Wartime Log" on its cover. It's a catalog of deaths and atrocities he says were carried out on U.S. soldiers held by Nazis at a slave labor camp during World War II -- a largely forgotten legacy of the war.

It gets deeper:

He was one of 350 U.S. soldiers held at Berga an der Elster, a satellite camp of the Nazis' notorious Buchenwald concentration camp. The soldiers, working 12-hour days, were used by the German army to dig tunnels and hide equipment in the final weeks of the war. Less than half of the soldiers survived their captivity and a subsequent death march, he says.

It hits your soul:

His body shakes, and he begins sobbing. "Sorry," he says, tears rolling down his face. "I'm sorry."

And it shows how the American military failed another soldier:

It took more than 50 years, he says, before he received 100 percent disability benefits from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

With major thanks to "Laughing Vergil" for pointing this out over at the Kos, it is an anecdote that you should share with everyone that you know.

The End of Conservative Policies in America Is More Important For Me Than Voting For The First Black President

From google.com, via Dailykos.com

Being a 21 year old student at Boston University from Brooklyn, New York, and being apart of a middle class family in the ghettos of the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of that borough, I can easily say that race relations in this country has certainly played a massive role in my life.

Whether those moments were joyous occasions, or some of the most egregious episodes that I have experienced in life, I certainly understand the array of emotions when race plays a prominent factor in all of our lives.

Sometimes here in Boston (whether on this campus), in New York, and everywhere else in this country, there are people who are just simply still racist. That goes for not only one particular race, but all races, who have their individuals play apart in one of human nature's ugliest characteristics.

Here in Boston, either from fellow students or people in this town, I have sadly been subjected to the terrible feeling of being stereotyped, neglected, underestimated, and indirectly disrespected because of my race despite being a student at a renowned institution. And it hasn't come just from white students or white residents here in Boston, or in New York. I’ve felt that coolness from a variety of different races, from Asian (Southeast Asian, Indian included) to Hispanic to even, well, my own race (if that is even possible). Feeling a little sullen by this, it fuels my passion even more, without even going into full detail of his policies, into the rapture I have for these people to turn around and vote for a black man despite the fact of their egregious treatment of another black man because of my color.

Amalgamated with knowing the history of my race in this country, those modern day personal feelings lead to a sense of jubilee and satisfaction that I share with so many others on the “left online community” and throughout:

The fact that this country is about to vote for the first minority President it has ever had, and how that individual is a unifying half-black ,half-white, but still African-American that has captivated us all with this campaign and his persona.

But what if Obama wasn’t a Democrat with semi-liberal views? Would I still vote for him, because of his skin?

What if the roles were reverse and Obama, instead of John McCain (newly crowned winner of the worst campaign in American history), was in the pocket of Cheney, Bush, the oil companies, other big businesses, Fox News, and Mark Drudge? What if Obama was the one who refused to listen to General George Petarus' thoughts that he could never call Iraq a "victory" for America, just like McFool has done? What if Obama was steadfast to taxing Medicaid and Medicare, and deregulate the health care system just like the banks were done in 1999, a move that McCain and most of his party don't mind doing?

What if, in short, Obama was a conservative Republican, steadfast to the beliefs that conflict not only the ones held by the liberal community, but also a majority of his own race, just like “Uncle Toms” (yes, I went there) like Alan Keyes and Ken Blackwell?

I wouldn’t vote for Barack Obama just because he is black. I couldn’t stomach voting for him if he was representing a party where disunity and divisiveness are an integral part of why The South was The Red South in the electorate college until potentially today. I couldn’t stomach voting for him if he was supporting the party that is still subliminally racist to a majority of his own race. I couldn’t stomach voting for him if he gave tax cuts to the rich like the last eight years, or see the economic sector almost collapse again with deregulating, CEO friendly policies supported by him.

This is why the most important thing in this election, for me, is not the fact that America is voting for a black President. Amazingly enough, that tremendous revelation of the United States voting a black man for the highest office in the land, something that was inconceivable even up to NOW for some, has been trumped by the paradigm element of this campaign, and it is quite simple to look at:

How conservative policies have failed America.

Conservative policies have brought ugly division towards this country, and has basically steered the nation into a semi-faux Civi War epoch of divisiveness, nastiness, and flat out untrustworthy, mean spirited sentiments held by Americans about their fellow countrymen and women.

Conservative policies have let a majority of the affluent become apathetic about "Providing Jobs" for this nation, as "Mr. 27%" said in 2000 after he was sel.......elect......took over the Presidency .

Sadly, there is more.

Conservative policies have lead to same sex couples and gays in this nation still feeling neglected, scorned, and unloved. Conservative policies have lead to a health care system ranked in the low 30's behind a proud but nevertheless still young country in Slovakia. This, the United States of America, this great nation, behind Slovakia in health care providing for its citizens is staggering and alarming to witness.

Conservative policies have lead to us being called royal hypocrites by some in other countries, and possibly being charged with war crimes for what has taken place at Guantanamo Bay.

Conservative policies have lead to the myth of a full "liberal bias" clouting the airwaves. (And those same airwaves to panic to create fabricated “fair and balance” to make all sides happy instead of focusing solely on the truth, damaging the fabric of pure journalism.)

Conservative policies have lead to the lamentable response after Katrina and Rita hit, and how “small government” was really “invisible” or “no government” in actual reality in name.

Conservative policies have put us in a country where we have no business being in. Where the Prime Minister of the country, Nouri-al Maliki, wants us out. And yet, those who are steadfast to those same policies, want us to stay in a country where those inhabitants of the country want the opposite?

Finally, conservative policies have led to the fiscal devastation almost collapsing in this country to Great Depression levels. That's scary, and it shows how pernicious they are to all of us, rich or poor, Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern, and anyone else.

I'm not even going to get into the voter suppression tactics of 2000, 2004, and 2008, the Reaganomics of the 80's, and the vitriol spewed by right wing strategists and think tanks to show further the pitfalls of conservatism in America.

Outside of those in the left community, who know what I say here is truth, and in the next few words, it goes beyond what the Cheney Administration has done. It goes beyond the horror of a campaign ran by McCain and Palin, a semi-autocratic like governor whose reputation, no matter how hard her and her supporters try, is devastated by her abuse of power.

It even goes beyond “King Ronald, “Shining on the hill and loved by Peggy Noonan” Reagan.”
Because conservative policies can always come back to haunt this country, and that may sadly be the case in some time down the line, whether it is in the near or distant future. I just hope deeply that they stay away as long as possible, and that people in this country learn from history to see the poison that they are to the human element of life. So important and so necessary is our categorical understanding of this, the harm of conservative policies.

So important and necessary that it trumps the first black President narrative, because what if Obama was part of this deteriorating Republican Party, and yet, he was still elected. Yes, the historical nature of that moment would still be there. But for me, the essence of it all would be greatly diminished because of that (and the irony of the party that doesn't care about the broad of majority of Obama's race being the party representing the first African American President would leave a deplorable taste on my tongue.)

So important that even Obama would agree with how it equals, and if not passes, the startlingly and emotional fact that this country is voting for a minority for President of United States of America. Amidst all the blood shed and tears brought by those who fought for equal rights in this country until the day they died.

Just Show Him Some Love

The moment we all heard that Vince Young was thinking about taking himself out of this world is the moment that we all should have put everything else we thought about this man to the side, and send a prayer for him. And if you're not into doing the supplication, getting on your knees thing, then just a wave of support and a few "I got your back" quotes towards him would suffice.

What matters is nothing else, except the man's well being and just giving him the support, love, and benevolence from us at a time like this.

Instead we get egotistical blowhards like Jim Rome questioning to man’s toughness and urging him to now get help (after reprimanding him last week about not being macho enough to assume the mantle) with their “Me-First, Me-Last” commentary (if you could even call it that).

We also get stuff like Jason Whitlock’s take on Young’s stunningly dilemma, who as usual portrays this image of “Blaming his profession as a whole and then taking on this moral authority of ‘it happened to me so I fully understand’” by talking about the depression that went through his life.

Here’s a little personal confession before I get back on point: When I got suspended from The Star for two weeks in 1998 and my peers in the media were laughing at my stupidity, I rarely got out of bed for those two weeks. I was mad and embarrassed and hurt and scared. Being a successful newspaper columnist was the No. 1priority in my life, and I thought I’d blown it.
Man, was I depressed. But I was also determined when the two weeks were up. Whitlocks don’t die. We multiply. I fell back on all the life lessons my mother and father taught me the previous 29 years.
I hope someone taught Vince Young something the previous 25 years. He reminds me of too many young athletes who have been unintentionally prepared for how to mishandle athletic success.

Again, it’s Whitlock at his finest (in terms of showing his narcissistic value), raising real points and showing the temerity to mention the problems that went on in his life, but missing the big picture as he tends to sometimes do. But he certainly doesn’t miss mentioning himself and being this moral voice of reason now, does he?

And even the great and honorable Bill Rhoden of the New York Times misses the boat on this one too. Even with his tremendous character, integrity, and downright to the Earth’s core benevolence, the venerable writer got it wrong in his column as well, focusing on the intense microscope that Young has to face as a quarterback in comparison to Donovan McNabb, Warren Moon, Doug Williams, and other black QB’s in the National Football League.

No situation, whether it is about being a black quarterback in the NFL, or the Titans franchise figure in regards to being another young pampered athlete surrounded by “Yes” men and “Help me” family members, has anything to do with what needs to be look at right now in regards to one Vince Young. And that is making sure that he is loved.

None of that other stuff at all matters. None of it.
All of those things take away from the real matter at hand, all of those irrelevant things.

See, we can talk about how Young now may see what Donovan McNabb was talking about, in regards to African-American signal callers and the pressures they face unparallel to their white counterparts in the NFL, another time. We can talk about how Young has to realize the scrutiny that he will continue to face for the rest of his character, and how he will have to deal with it for, another time. We can talk about how he has to mature as a quarterback, another time.

(And at the same time, we can talk about the Titans not giving him or their team a legitimate number one receiver, another time. Because even if he develops into one, there is no way in hell Justin Gage is a top flight receiver. He probably may not be most teams number two receiver.)

We can talk about him being a leader of his team, another time. We can talk about him not understanding that thousand of players and quarterbacks in the NFL would line up as ASAP to be in the situation he’s in (prior to what has been revealed this week). A situation where, for him, long time fiscal security has a great chance of happening, and that is an accomplishment considering the sad state the economy is in now. And we can talk about him not gasping the full fact that he is a hero and a role model for some out there.

All at another time.

But that’s just “Us” focusing on what “We” feel about Vince Young’s situation and life decision making. And that’s downright selfish and insensitive.

Instead of “we”, it is all about “him”. But about “Him” in terms of his choices, but just pointing aside what we feel has transpired in his life and just being there for this man. Just dropping a letter of condolence to him instead of shaking your head asking, “What is wrong with him?” Instead of telling him “He needs help”, why don’t you say “Vince, I don’t know you, but I love you and we are with you man.”

And refusing to place him under a total cloud of doubt and untruth like many have already decided to do is what is needed right now. When I hear the likes of Keyshawn Johnson talk about how Kerry Collins would be the quarterback even when Young comes back on this team instead of primarily eyeing in on the 25 year old’s mental state, it shows how “we” can focus on “we” at a time and place when “we” should look clearly (and with an open heart) at “him.”

Whenever someone contemplates suicide, and has the utensil (or utensils) in his or her hand to do just that, looking at whether they are fit or tough enough mentally to do their jobs or just giving off advice as the first option shows how “out of touch” some of us are with each other. What’s the point of giving advice when he first needs someone to just show him support when adversity is hitting him harder than any defensive players in the league could do? It makes no sense.

The life of Vince Young is at that emergency state, and yet, we have hapless “me” figures like the Romes and Whitlocks of the world, who would rather focus on him being “tough enough” or relate their own life experiences (in regards to Whitlock, who talked about his states of depression) instead of doing what’s best for the situation. Their ability to have an outlet that allows them to alter people’s perspective on things is too important for them not to do as so. But that is just a poor and embarrassing job of not even showing the full consideration of Young’s cerebral at the moment, let alone them needing it to be told to them.


(And to cast more shame on the media in this country, we have a story coming in from the Pro Football Weekly , with no sources from what I see, indicating that Young wanted to come out of the Tennessee Titans wild care playoff game against the San Diego Chargers in January, with the Titans leading at halftime. Now, I’m not saying it isn’t true, but why release that now, especially with no sources, when the man is going through what he is going through? It is utterly distasteful and classless.)

Seriously, those that really care about Young fully aren’t going to be taking about how he is handling adversity on the sidelines last Sunday, or how he may have been caught drinking beer in a photograph at an off season party. Like he’s the only quarterback that does drink? Like he is this horrible team figure who doesn’t give a damn about the team and cares from himself, because of a slip of whatever Colt 40 or alcoholic beverage he drunk? The BS and incongruous irrational has got to stop.

Some people will say, “How the hell can this guy be love with all the things going with him in his life, with all the money that he is making? You have got to be kidding me!”
But the reason why is because he is a human being. Like you and me, no matter what person he is or what he does right now or where he is currently at.

He is still a person at the end of the day. Nothing more, nothing less.

We are fortunate that Young didn’t pull the trigger with the gun that he had that day. In fact, we are fortunate whenever anyone, and it could be happening at this very moment while you are reading this, decides to not take his or her life after seriously weight that option in their cerebellums.

Right now, Vince Young doesn’t need to hear lectures telling him “Hey buddy, you seriously need help right now.” He already knows that, and he has his mother, family, and maybe his closest friends telling him that. And though that is not here dismissing anyone that say that aforementioned advice (or wants to say that to him), because it does show a concern for the man and his well being, the fact of the matter is this: That is all secondary to what needs to be shown first to Vince Young:

Our love and support.

Leave.......For Good

Grand Old Party, Please Go Away.

All of you, please.

Please stop embarrassing your colleagues in Congress. Please stop embarrassing your states and districts you represent. Please stop embarrassing your voters. Please stop embarrassing your friends. Please stop embarrassing your families.

Please stop embarrassing yourselves. Please stop embarrassing this country.

The “maverick” who isn't maverickly enough to buck the most unpopular President in recorded Presidential history. Please go away!

The “reform hockey mom” who has scandal, after scandal, after scandal coming down the pipeline at every single moment with hypocrisy that would give the Pharisees a run for their money. Please go away!

The campaign that could get to the center of the Earth’s core and still wouldn’t reach its nadir. The one that features its main advisor, who acts like a five year little boy (and that is offensive to all little boys born in 2003, as well as girls too) whenever him or his immature clowns don’t get their way when the media does its job for a change. Who says in a campaign where the average voter of years past disinterested in politics is hurting at every second of the day, “This election is not about the issues.” Who is downright ugly, mean, and proudly impertinent. Please go away!

The party that continues to have an ex-NYC mayor who divided that city with his racist, divisive politics and continues to shame himself with his track record of adultery by coming on TV and just being a joke of a man. Please go away!

The party that features another pretentious figure far from acting his age and far from any sort of integrity. A figure head of absolute slime ball bile having a supposed friendship come in the way of putting the country in the direction of his primary beliefs? A man who in all honesty is a Republican for this, and in all honesty would suffer a worse fate than Lot’s wife if he ever looked back. He knows the damage has been done, and he is talking the gamble that will either save or shatter his now tarnished and shameful career. The latter needs to be seen. Please go away!

To all these “out of touch” fools who decide to have a party on Saturday night because they don’t really care about their fellow Americans potentially enduring another disastrous hurricane, and proudly and openly have lobbyists there like they are apart of a missionary group, please go away! I mean hell, even ABC News reported on this story. Not a liberal blog, not a supposed “angry left” site as that fright of a sight at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue said last night. ABC News.

You are the only people who could help revive the stagnant and sad careers (if you could even call them that) of Paris Hilton, Daddy Yankee and now Lindsay Lohan. We didn’t need to see more of them, but because of your mind boggling insanity, we did. Please go away!

Don’t even expatriate yourselves to another country, I wouldn’t wish that fate on anybody, probably not even our deepest enemies because it will give them another excuse for the some in the world to continue to lose faith in us. The trust that America has the world’s interest as part of their governing isn’t there anymore because of you. Heck, make it extra terrestrial. Go all the way past Pluto, because you certainly have enough money combine to do just that. Please go away!

And tonight, I don’t want to hear about that ex-mayor speak his disgusting drivel. In fact, it is bestowing a quid pro quo by calling it that, because the preferred word for what he will speak tonight can’t be uttered in these confines. Nor the Vice President nominee who goes into hiding and doesn’t even take an interview from the press outside of People’s Magazine with her new boss’ family, a fluff piece if there ever was that still has holes in it. She is hidden from our view until tonight, where she practices going over her speech written by people apart of the current administration. You know, that 28% administration. The ones that lead 80% of this country to say that we are headed on the wrong track.

Not surprisingly, that is not hard to believe when the conductors behind that train are nut cases, pathological liars, and steadfast in their partisan mindsets. I’m not saying there are some Democrats that don’t partake in the very same things, because there are. If there wasn’t, would this country be in the position it is in? Would we still have this President in the Cheney Administration, let alone this administration? Would we past a bill like FISA, even with its new amendments? And would Congress approval rating be this low, although people who vote on how Congress is so bad don’t know a damn thing about what bills were being passed and what bills were being gridlocked?

But all that lies on the unstable cerebrals of those who have an elephant as their party mascot. And sadly, they are still here. To spew their calumny and think the people are still dummies, figuring they are going to get away with it because they have nothing of substance to talk about? Talk that will actually help the proletariat, the sane, the poor, and the vastly major of Americans who need help, real bad would be great, but no, you aren’t going to hear this from the old white guys club.

Please go away, all of you! You embarrass cats, dogs, alligators, polar bars, and every other animal (unless you make them extinct because of your anti-environment ways). You embarrass the circuses with how much of a frightening show you put on. You embarrass even the vagabonds on the street who you probably don’t even give a thought on when you walk by them on the street.

You embarrass your own shadows. You embarrass oxygen for even breathing it. You embarrass everything.

Please go away. Please go away forever.

Lopez Lomong: A Symbolic Hero or a Political Puppet Used

As you watched the XXIX Olympiad’s Opening Ceremonies last night, if you didn’t know beforehand who was going to be the United States flag bearer in the “Walk of Nations”, you do now.

It wasn’t LeBron James or Kobe Bryant. It wasn’t Michael Phelps or Jenny Finch. It wasn’t Tyson Gay or Alison Felix, nor was it Misty May-Treanor or Kerri Walsh.

It was Lopepe Lopez Lomong, a “Lost Boy of Sudan.”

The third place finisher at the Olympic Trials in the 1500 meters, a race where it seemed that the pressure may have gotten to him to fulfill an unbelievable story at the time already unbelievable (and it is and will be forever unbelievable whether he didn’t qualify for this Olympics, or the one in London four years from now, or any other one). It seemed he had made his move a little too early on the last lap, and he was not as strong as Bernard Legat, another African distance runner running for the United States now, in that race. But he still finished third.

And with that, on 8-8-08, Lomong’s full story was at the world’s ears. Here, a 23 year old that was taken away from his family while he was six years old during a Catholic mass by government soldiers, blindfolded in a truck, then escaping to a Kenyan refugee camp for 10 years, becoming part of the Lost Boys of their country(ies)’s war , adopted by the upstate New York couple of Rob and Barb Rogers, was the paradigm of the 600 plus athletes representing America.

“This is the greatest day of my life,” said Lomong.

His life’s anecdote is more than a great Hollywood movie. It is an utter inspiration that just isn’t common. Everyone should be happy about him, and they should be happy about him being given this wonderful honor.

If only things were that easy. And sadly, they are not.

Because while we felicitate at Lomong’s amazing journey from horror revealed to hope fulfilled, it is hard not to look at the other side of the spectrum. That alarming other side that may have played just as much, and if not more, of a factor in Lomong’s being the flag bearer for America than his own, individual tale.

It has been reported that the captains of the U.S. sport teams voted for Lomong to be the flag waver. I definitely believe that was the case.

But seriously, I find it hard to believe that they knew Lomong before they ever touched ground in Beijing, let alone them knowing Lomong’s story by themselves compared to getting it from a second hand source. Sadly, I think the case of them being influenced by higher ups to choose this incredible person (not forced, but influenced like lobbyists on Capital Hill do) because he was originally from the Sudan is the main reason why.

Lomong, though Sudanese, is from a small town in South Sudan. The ugliness in Darfur is in West Sudan. You look at the geography.

Lomong fled Sudan at age 6. The genocide in Darfur has been reported to start in 2003.

Lomong has never voiced out vociferously in public one bit about what has happened in Sudan, and definitely not on television. Not like Bryant and James have done in the last year before they somehow have not wanted to talk about it anymore.

It is alarmingly painful to say that Lopez Lomong’s story looks like it wasn’t the only factor in him being voted to hold the American flag at the Olympic stadium. He was part of the bigger picture.

Since no athlete is going to come close to talking about Tibet, the only ways the American Olympians and the USOC will talk about anything political that could make them uncomfortable are through subliminal message like gas masks for pollution and now, sadly this story. There is no need to even get into some of the athlete’s naive hypocrisy they showed (or you would hope it was naïve, or it is another case where nationalism overrides rationalism) as their country, well, you saw how Bush was not warmly welcomed.

It would be one thing if they had a passion about Darfur like Joey Cheek, the visa stripped activist does. But they don’t. And if they did, would they be over there now?

Instead, just alone, the reasoning for Lomong selected as the flag bearer for America highlights how politics can eviscerate any pure good out of a situation. Imagined if Lomong didn’t qualify in the 1500 meters, didn’t out perform a disappointing Alan Webb and a surging William Leer for third place on the final day of the trials. Who would have been the flag waver then?

The USOC knew what was going on here, and they knew what the possible story lines that would follow. It was a win-win for them of course; Lomong’s story highlights the greatness of America while they make a political statement simultaneously. Only that the second win really shouldn’t be a win at all. It’s dishonest and shameful. He should have been the flag bearer just on his own merit.

But they aren’t going to say that because you will know how fraudulent they are. They’re not stupid.

Lopepe Lopez Lomong is a man (young man for some of you, not for me since I’m younger) whose story will never be tarnished. But the selection and choice to be America’s flag bearer maybe is so.

A Poignant Birthday Wish

On his 47th birthday yesterday, Barack Obama gave his most important, pivotal speech ever.

More so than his lauded 2004 Democratic convention speech, more so than his Iowa monologue on the third day of January this year, more so than his speech on race relations during the Rev. Wright controversy, more so than him accepting his party’s nomination in the incipient stages of June, and more so than his speech two weeks ago in Berlin.

Lansing, Michigan, the hone of Michigan State University, was the site of the Illinois Senator greatest conversation to an audience in attendance.

From the outside perspective, and from the narrative delivered by the traditional media outlets in the country (looking more for the excoriating soundbite on John McCain to paint Obama’s as practicing negative policies as the one who spews “hilarious” ads in unfunny times ), this speech was about his full energy policy for this country. But from a deeper conspicuous stand point, his comments in the capital of the Keystone state were ones directed fully to an entire nation extremely vulnerable to the difficulties and challenges this county is currently facing, and may continue to face. Especially this poignant one:

“For the sake of our security, our economy, our jobs and our planet, the age of oil must end in our time.”

It is a request, and a plea, for those from the 48 state mainland, in Hawaii and especially in the near arctic shores of Juneau. A plea where you don’t need to understand even the slightest bit of economics to know how serious the statement was from the presumptive nominee of a party, looking to push energy conservation that differs from the constant rhetoric of offshore drilling.

A stringent viewpoint that needed to even be slightly made flexible by Obama, who sees people are hurting at the pump just like he sees people hurting with their houses being taken way, their jobs being lost, and their belief in the American Dream severely tested. He is cognizant of the fact that he had to show something for those who still don’t understand that (or don’t want to understand) McCain, George Bush, and the House Republicans’ theatrical performances for drilling on the nation’s shores won’t alleviate the price at the pump in the slightest bit.

With that showing of concern to even put himself through the incongruous and idiotic label of him “changing or altering his views” or “flip-flopping” (a word the media loves to use quicker than they ever do to admit a mistake) on this, Obama however asked deep questions on his 47th birthday to us; to make the choice that could changed this country’s future forever. And for the better.

“Will we be the generation that leaves our children a planet in decline, or a world that is clean, and safe, and thriving? Will we allow ourselves to be held hostage to the whims of tyrants and dictators who control the world’s oil wells?”

“Or will we control our own energy and our own destiny?”

It is a message that won’t struggle to resonate if people understand fully how high the stakes are. If they get through the heavy hits of truth Obama delivered to the petroleum conglomerates and labeled McCain as an oil craven just like Bush, they’ll see the even bigger picture. And frankly, if you look right at the campaign team and staff of the so called “Maverick”, he surly isn’t a maverick when it comes to the 29 oil lobbyists part of his squad, isn’t he? If they get though the “analysis” of the speech from some network pundits who repeat each others talking points like they are PR people one after another, highlighting just his differences with McCain then doing their jobs and seeing who’s telling the truth and whose being “a politician.”

If they get though those things and a few more, they will clearly see and remember the sense of urgency not only Obama showed on the day where his 48th year on Earth started, but also in the current times upon us. If the former Harvard Law Review president had to convince you that “This is why this election is the most important of your lives,” then please, convince yourself now to do so. And if there is anyone that you know that hasn’t been swayed in the least bit, try your best to sway them.

Obama yesterday featured a tone that amalgamated optimistic realness with a sense of deep desire for those to wake up and see how critical it is to make the right choice now. He told us that the road was not going to be easy if he was elected president, at all. He told us that things aren’t peachy and creamy, and that when he is president, the road is going to still be a bumpy ride. In short, he gave you the “straight talk” that the Straight Talk Express can’t give you.

But he was the total obverse of pessimism at the same time, putting his trust in the nation and believing that the turn around back to economic prominence can happen if people are willing to join along in the sacrifice for our country’s amelioration. And oh, being knowledgeable and informed citizens, something we have lacked in this country for a countless number of years.

If it takes you until November 4th to choose who is your choice to lead us from the disasters of this administration, then so be it. But by then, the reasons for the right choice should be so exponential that you wouldn’t be able to raise it to another power (and that will certainly hold strong for those who liked or hated algebra).

And one of them definitely should be a real, true, and pre-energy policy, even if you aren’t well versed in that discussion as in other areas.

“When it comes to our economy, our security, and the very future of our planet, the choices we make in November and over the next few years will shape the next decade, if not the century. And central to all of these major challenges is the question of what we will do about our addiction to foreign oil.”

It is a topic worth full supplication to not only the oil companies’ practices, but also to yourself. This isn’t a request of you dumping the car you have now and be mandated to get an electrical powered car or to ride a bicycle more (because I certainly can’t ride a bike myself anymore), or you becoming fully an environmentally first individual. Senator Obama didn’t say that, and neither do I. It is a request though to acknowledge and realize what is real and what is true, that this country is painfully addicted to “Texas tea” (fitting that is where our current president is from), and its addiction can be more pestilent to us than ever before if we don’t control it.

We will wage unjust wars for it like we are doing now. We will let speculators overseas play us as greedy fools by telling us what price is best for their barrels of fuel, like these barrels are the soccer players priced at ridiculously high levels of currency and soled for those same figures. Or that those barrels are valued as high as Angelina Jolie’s and Brad Pitt’s asking price for the pictures of their two kids. We will let gas prices go up even more and prevent most families from even thinking about trips (because we are already at the stage where some can’t go them). Or have Greyhound raise the price of bus tickets by five to 10% to trips slated for New York City, or Boston, or Washington D.C., or wherever your heart yearns for. It may alarmingly get to a point where oil becomes more valuable to us than food.

Scary and crazy as the last sentence is, with the way things are going at the moment, only the imaginatively challenged will take any scenario off the table. But the New York Times best seller doesn’t see it the upcoming years that way, thankfully.

“Well that’s not the future I see for America. I will not pretend the goals I laid out today aren’t ambitious. They are. I will not pretend we can achieve them without cost, or without sacrifice, or without the contribution of almost every American citizen. But I will say that these goals are possible.”

Those goals, an increase in renewable energy and not giving sweat heart deals to the ExxonMobil’s of the world, are what was technically requested. But on his 47th birthday, Barack Obama wished for something more than those two valuable things. He requested that we, if we haven’t already, understand that our future is in own hands. And that we must make the choice, and care deeply about the consequences of that choice.

Take pride in that choice, because you never know if you’re going to have that choice again.

Unprecedentedly Overhyped

For about four months, Cable News Network has been marketing “Black in America” about as hard as Warner Brothers did “The Dark Knight” and Nike is doing the same with the U.S. men’s basketball squad.

As the days abated towards tonight’s premiere (the second part of a three part series beginning with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s assaination), the commercials became more omnipresent than political campaign ads, social activists group TV time, and those really annoying Head-ON, Active-ON spots. Driven into your mental whenever you received a break from the robotic ways of Wolf Blitzer or the “Blame everyone but offer no solution diatribes” of Lou Dobbs was the amount of time and effort put into this network event and its buildup.

You heard or saw the following describing the year long investigation that Soledad O’Brien did, even through she did specifically an 18 month investigation:

“A Landmark Mark Multimedia Event.”

“A Groundbreaking CNN Investigation.”

“You think You Know, you have no idea.”

“A story of success and struggle, pain or pride.”

“All of America will get a good perception of what it is to be black in America,” said the award winning reporter.

If you believe any or all of those statements and figure that “Black in America” is going to be something that you never saw before in television history, you are either one of two things, no matter what color you are: a person who badly needs to get the dirt, sleep crust, fairly dust, and any other pieces of debris out of their eyes, or someone who needs to explore the world (and their minds) immediately as soon as possible.

Because quite honestly, despite Facebook groups, E-mails sent, and pre-show interviews making O’Brien the informative interviewee, there is nothing distinctly different that is being said or shown in this two-night documentary that hasn’t been executed or discovered before by human beings.

Particularly (and let’s be frank here) black people who either had a good idea of the important events in American history, those located in the impoverished or economically low communities, or those so aware that everyone is not the same, are unlikely to gain a new ideology from this latest documentary from the network.

In short, there’s no need for me to watch “Black in America.” None of it at all really.

Note (because this always needs to be stated so the backlash from those who think I’m slamming this diligent work by O’Brien and CNN can see it from a reasonable standpoint), as a disclaimer, I surly don’t, won’t and never will speak for all black people. This sentiment is expressed though just me. It may be felt by others, but you get the picture already.

CNN paints this television event as something that is for everyone to watch. It doesn’t seclude anyone from it, and O’Brien intelligently says that “It’s not just a black American story, it’s an American story.”

Fine.

And this is where I defer instead to watch a New York Yankees rewind, add to my anthology with a slam poetry or music piece, read my Bible, or do some running/weight training when 9 PM hits tonight.

The problem I have with Black in America is that it is portraying itself really for someone who is so naïve and ignorant about what a black person is in America. Seriously, it is a series of programs cantered to those “Who may not have met a black person in their life, have a black friend in their life, or have any idea on whether all black people act the same or not.”

It is a cantering to an audience not astute enough in the least bit to realize how many different outlets in the world show there is no 100% congruency to one person to another in this world, no matter if both their skins colors are blacker than Snoopy or Brian Griffin’s nose. And unless you’re a little boy or girl, it really is kind of embarrassing if you had to discover at least some of the following facts by watching “Black in America”:

- Not all black people end up being married or in relationship with black people.
- Not all black people speak in just jargon and show an inability for eloquence
- Black males are incarcerated in alarming rates that other races can’t even match.
- Single parent homes in the black community have grown exponentially in the last 40 years

Now, there will be some facts in the documentary where I won’t know the specific percentages of “such and such” troubling epidemics facing the black community in this country. And some of the interviews from the regular folk (though any interview with Spike Lee, Russell Simmons, Whoopi Goldberg, and D.L. Hughley won’t put you to sleep) in O’Brien’s journey will mostly be a joy to watch if I decided to tune in.

But the basics would be understood by those who have at least the slightest understanding of these events that has transpired in the 238 year epoch of the United States in regards to African-Americans, no matter what color they are.

Really, though there are special people apart of this with their own special lives, there is nothing really special about “Black in America.” Sorry, there just isn’t in my mind.

As one website points out clearly, this documentary is “A micro look at individual African-Americans that contributes sparingly to the macro picture.”

You don’t have to be an economics major to know that this program that CNN has hyped endlessly just doesn’t get fully into the barrels of the problems in the black community, as well as the chain effects on the rest of the nation’s citizens from this select group of people.

Even more alarming is the thought that this program is lumping itself with Barack Obama’s ascendency to a possible presidency when it originally wasn’t focusing on him. At first glance, me criticizing them for choosing to do this looks absolutely stupid. But when you have questions such as “Does an Obama presidency hurt blacks?” stem from their website, stating that a number of whites are only voting for him because of the “guilt of racism” instead of the desperation for a grassroots Democrat figure after eight years of arguably the worst White House tenure in history, the ridiculousness of it all takes away any sort of top notch credibility for what “Black in America” wants to accomplish in my view.

Once again, I’m not saying you, no matter if you are Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, or Indian, won’t get anything out of watching this tonight and tomorrow night. In fact, if it changes you for the better, than bravado, “Black in America” did its job. There will be no need to not fully support O’Brien for her year and a half assiduous grind.

I’m just saying to avoid believing that this is a revolutionary television event that everyone will hail as a turning point in the way most Americans already view each other, especially if they are filled with candor and are rational. From Frederick Douglass to PBS, the plight and study of the black human being in the United States of America has been looked at before, and will be looked at again.

And unless there is something that goes more in depth into the problems instead of bring them up again and treating them like they haven’t been discussed before, CNN’s “Black in America” won’t be as historic as the late Heath Ledger acting was or how Kobe, LeBorn and the rest of team USA want to be.

The Maliki to Being Burned

The television screens and the cups of coffee in the District of Columbia on Saturday were under severe alert, and it wasn’t primarily because of the Washington Nationals this time.

They were in a surly precarious position, especially if either one of those two items were near the premises of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And you wouldn’t be thinking farfetched ideas to consider that both a venti of Starbucks and a Sony flat screen TV kissed each other like they were “Wall-E” and “E.V.E.” in the nation’s capital.

If you didn’t think that scenario was possible, then you surly lived through a multitudinous amount of “What the (fill in the apoplectic connotation) is he doing” and the now proverbial comment from a GOP strategist saying “We’re (well, yeah).”

What caused such strong and shocked reactions from George Bush and his administration, along with the rest of the conservative nation and the John McCain camp? What caused them to go into damage control like a “Code Red” warning was being issued?

It was something that Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Laura Logan, and even Barack Obama (through he came a very close second with the beginning of his trip overseas) couldn’t do: Be the prime minister of Iraq and basically have carte blanche to take the Presidential race to a level only that person could take it.

Nouri al-Maliki, what audacity of him?! Is he trying to write his own “Audacity of Hope”? He is playing politics, our figurehead that we put in charge over there? How could he tell Del Spiegel of all magazines how he feels?!

That was the feeling for those on the “right side” of the country on the wrong side of the final thing they considered their last definitive strength. The flood gates had opened, their levies had broken, and their minds were in full disorder. Because when Maliki spoke once again about a time table needing to be implemented for U.S. troops to leave his country, to make sure that the first time was no fluke of a moment, the actions of the White House and anyone involved in the Republican party was desperation at its finest.

And even more disturbing is the pathetic things that they have done to try and distort the news that they didn’t want to hear. When Maliki’s statements hit their eardrums, they didn’t just press the panic button once. They had a case of ADD with the number of times they pressed it. Instead of trying to come up with concrete ideas for the millions of problems surrounding the country that they have played a major role in, Bush & company demonstrated their mafia like tendencies that have become more of a hallmark than any greeting cards.

Overlooked in Maliki’s basic accord with Obama’s plan is the lack of coverage with how the Prime Minister of Iraq was covertly hectored by an executive office with an approval rating about as low as Verne Troyer (and his sex tape sells). The execution of their tactics was the usual level of what to expect from the former governor of Texas and his staff: a one track belief that what they do is for the good of the country, only for it to come out in a way where their very questionable backup theories (conjured up at the last moment) would be suffice enough for the people’s minds.

Which are their innuendos for saying, “Only we can tell anybody else what to do, and that is it, no matter if it doesn’t favor common sense. As long as it favors our sense. “

At first, their attempt to keep their response to Maliki’s unambiguous statement was totally laughable. If the prime minister’s statements delivered egg on their faces, then their massive blunder of leaking their reaction to the media placed an outside shell on their facades as well. They tried to make the U.S. Central Command be this beacon of journalistic integrity, issuing a rebuttal by spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh that Maliki was “misunderstood and mistranslated” by Der Spiegel. His quotes misconstrued three times, THREE times, by this German newspaper trying to cause trouble, huh?

Only for them to even have more yoke on their noses when Der Spiegel , a paper that battled Communist East Germany back in the day, confirmed what Mailik said was indeed true with no distortions. Except the ones that Bush, Dick Cheney, McCain, and anybody not favoring the Illinois Senator wanted to here. And everyone in the liberal community had a good time with the failed attempt of their adversaries’ desire to not control a beast that they never wanted out of the cage.

It was the latest gift basket given to them in the month of July, relegating Phil Gramm’s whining comments to a website that hasn’t been refreshed in the last few days.

But to look closely though at this dramatic turn of events, first off, there was no dramatic turn of events. Maliki had planted the seeds two weeks ago on requesting a timetable for US troops. He was the official voice for the Iraqi community that needed someone to fully represent how they felt about the situation.

Yet the mainstream media in this country were indeed complacent enough to let this story wither away as the Bush administration hoped it would do so. They figured that Maliki’s initial statements were just a blip on their radar of keeping any hope alive of convincing a majority of the America problem that keeping troops in Iraq was the way to go still. No matter if their reasons to stay switch faster than the tires in a Formula one race as the days past.

Even more concerning, however, than the news outlets letting Maliki’s first statements evaporate quickly, was the consistently deplorable actions of the Bush administration. To try and first belittle his understanding of the magnitude of what he was saying, and then coerce a takeback from his office after the explosive call they made overseas is typical of the shameful actions of arguably the worst cabinet in U.S history.

Their conduct here is just unbelievable, but why is it shocking in the first place? With what has transpired over the last seven years, to think they couldn’t do something like this is critical thinking in its lowest possible form.

Still, though no where near the level of Watergate of course, the plans to keep their thoughts away from the media and develop a cover up that they could make stick, only to get caught in their attempt to do so, is a failure in sneakiness that would make Henry Kissinger go back on Fareed Zakaria and talk about just this.

The damage has been done.

No vice presidential candidate can give Obama what Maliki (and a few others in the government in Baghdad) gave him this past weekend. Not Joe Biden, not Kathleen Sebellius, not Evan Bayh, not Jake Reed, not Chuck Hagel, not Howard Dean or anybody else.

And yes, that anybody else includes Hillary Clinton, plus Bill Clinton and Al Gore, as well.

He gave Obama, or rather, those still in denial, the debatable advantage now in the area of national security over McCain, who doesn’t know that the Czech Republic and Slovakia aren’t one anymore, nor that Afghanistan and not Iraq borders Pakistan.

Yes, there will be some that will continue the banal and nauseating “McCain was right, the surge has worked, and Obama was wrong on the surge” belief that has spread so bad, you wonder if anchors and reporters have lost their ability to actually do an in depth fact check on that “holy” proverb. And yes, there will be those that will continue to believe that despite his numerous horrible statements that McCain still has an advantage in this area (as well as the never debated myth of him more ensconced ina town hall debate setting than his younger competitor).

But no matter how some will try and trade their souls more times than they already have to spin this news as a victory for McCain (since they already based Maliki’s statements on the “surge”, and only the “surge”, improving “conditions on the ground”), only the delusional and sad fool would dismiss how much of a blow these agreements with Obama’s plan have done to McCain, Bush, and the Republican party. And only that fool, or select group of them, will believe that the "time horizon" that Bush has now stated had nothing to do with the impact of both Obama and Maliki's plans on him.

And how they could have also caused major injuries to fresh brews of cappuccino and plasma HD’s across the country.

The First Mistake

Contrary to misguided and corrupt media beliefs, Barack Obama has not done the following:

He hasn’t changed his position on Iraq, he hasn’t changed his position on showing how important faith is to him and some in this country. He hasn’t altered his stringent thoughts on child molesters, and even hasn’t switch on his much blasphemous move away from public financing (seriously, he said that he was going to negotiate with the McCain campaign over it instead of fully committing himself to that always questionable program).

In short, Barack Obama hasn’t transformed into a flip-flopper. Of course the same can’t be said about John McCain, whose changed positions so much that he’s not just a flip-flopper, he is “The Spatula.”

But on Wednesday morning in the Senate, no deep research or double checking (for some, it was triple and quadruple times) could really present any claims to dismiss a nearly comprehensive no-no from the Illinois Senator. Correction, it was a total “Oh no” heard not only from progressive liberals, but even some of the most enthusiastic non-extreme lefty supporters of Obama.

The Democratic nominee had caved on the latest updates on FISA, and it was far from the great moments in his run up to November 4th. In fact, it was and currently is the worst moment for him so far in the campaign.

One blemish compared to the 99 million ones committed by his hapless opponent does not make him a phony. It doesn’t make him close to one.

In fact, to blame him solely for some of the Democrats capitulating to George Bush (surrendering to Mr. 28% as Daily Kos publisher Markos Moulistas called it) and a Republican brand that is so bad now it makes Cheerios look cool is beyond stupid. It is a verbal diatribe about as dumb as castigating Kobe Bryant for not leading the Lakers past the Celtics, or for “Get Smart” bombing at the theatres thanks in part to Steve Carell.

"While you’re happy purchasing that novel version of Apple/AT&T’s I-Phone, the company formerly known as Cingular- and the new version of AT&T- maybe tapping your next call. And getting away with it."

Real irrational abomination for this bill leads people to feel real irrational ways and go with real irrational beliefs. And sometimes those beliefs can cloud one’s judgment severely. Giving the blunt of the blame on Obama for this, when he just a part of this, is letting the blood rush to the head be a little too much.

But the other could be said about not the ones willingly to give Obama a pass on this. The ones that will be so color bind with him that they would pardon him even for a mistake such as this. There are plenty of reasons to be smitten with Obama. Just certainly not this one.

For those who don’t know, or particularly care, FISA means the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act. It’s been in existence since 1978, and it’s basically wiretapping from the government in order to collect information on foreign intelligence or agents of foreign intelligence. As time and technology has evolved dramatically over the last three decades, the bill wasn’t doing the same until the new millennium.
Before 9/11, Bush and Dick Cheney had already started their push for updating or fully implementing FISA as part of their plans. Their push for the advancement of this bill came before Osama Bin Laden name popped in the heads of most in the States.

Then the bill started to change, with the infamous Patriot Act and now an even more controversial amendment that received less attention then it should, last August’s “Protect America Act”. The reason why for the anger for the last change?

No warrant required to tap anyone, at any time.

Besides the Fourth Amendment abuse of it all, it was another deflating straw in the argument for the fight against terror. Or simply, it was another way to lower the President’s record disapproval rating to numbers lower than a vagabond’s salary.

Despite those numbers, it still didn’t matter enough to 21 Democrats (you have got to be kidding if you thought it mattered to some Republicans) to stand up to Bush and Cheney for one official time in this administration’s tenure to say “nay” to FISA’s new bill on Wednesday. The same could be said to the members in the House, but it even takes a broader light in the bigger house.

The new amendments are not only updates to the President’s (and both government and telecommunications) right to wiretap without that now irrelevant warrant, but also gives immunity to any possible malpractices the same telecommunications may have done by abusing their authority.

In short to the latter, while you’re happy purchasing that novel version of Apple/AT&T’s I-Phone, the company formerly known as Cingular- and the new version of AT&T- maybe tapping your next call. And they have been doing that the last few years, probably illegally, having a field day spying on people when they have no liberation to do so.

It didn’t matter though to the likes of John Rockefeller (arguably the biggest Democrat pushing it), or Mark Pryor, or even Jim Webb, who had to back up his brilliant push for the GI bill with a comprehensive horror like his position on this. For some reason that wasn’t giving any love to the Constitution, they voted for a bill to make them look weaker than that Caveman show on ABC. All this abdication now after fighting for warrants and questioning the rights of what Bush & company wanted since last summer.

And that includes Obama.

He’s part of the crowd, along with Russ Feingold and Chris Dodd, who said he would vote “no” to any bill including telecom immunity. He said he would continue to be apart of any filibuster against the bill even if all ended up going in vain. Because seriously, unless he was in the White House now instead of potentially next year, there was no way he (along with Feingold and Dodd) were going to stop it from being passed. If millions of cries from a majority in the civil liberties crowd and justified obstinate decisions against the request of this administration couldn’t turn around this bill, nothing would have.
But no excuse can exonerate Obama from this one, especially with his astute constitutional background.

There was no reversal on anything else from him on the topics before FISA’s end game, not in the past and not in the present before it came up. Indolence and manipulation tactics from CBS to CNN to push the claims of him being a flip-flopper show the dangerous water the mainstream media is treading. Obama made an example of them this week, saying “They haven’t been paying attention” in regards to those saying he’s soften his position on Iraq. And they are the same ones that weren’t listening or doing intense study on public financing or Second Amendment talk either.

In addition, they, with the exception of MSNBC’s Countdown, haven’t even given daylight to FISA in the leas bit. But it didn’t take long for them to make this into a story to push their Kerry-esque motive on Obama, especially with Hillary Clinton voting against the amendments after failing to do so in other terror related/war bills in the last few years. Only on this topic, there was no partial truth the media could create here (unless they failed to mention that McCain, despite criticizing Obama for his final position on the amendments, wasn’t even there to vote for the thing.)

He could have done it so McCain and the Republicans can’t label him the incongruous “He’s weak on terror like a typical Democrat” anecdote that is about as tired as Mike Myers looking into the camera in his movies. He could have done it to not make Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, through he voted against the bill, look foolish. Because whether it’s the power of some phone company lobbyists or something that they didn’t want exposed by someone or somewhere out there so damaging to their political future, they folded their Pair of Aces to Bush’s pair of threes.

Even more of a punch to the gut is the disturbing fact that Feingold has brought up: that at least many senators didn’t know the full details of what they were voting.

Yes, information was reported classified to some senators.

How an issue such as this, just because it isn’t part of most Americans’ Top 5, or even Top 10, issues they are facing today, can not even be looked conspicuously by the highest public services in the land says a lot about Congress, no matter what party you back. In fact, now matter if it was a bill about Stewie Griffin not being allowed to off his mother, any bill or amendments made to one looked by anybody in Congress should have some close examination to it.

Finally, Obama’s head-scratching reasoning for his final decision to say “yea” a quarter ‘til noon on Wednesday along with 20 other Democrats may have been another possible trap McCain couldn’t place him in, since not only was McCain absence from the vote; he has displayed his “Spatula” like tendencies on this issue as well, saying “yes” one day and “no” the following. It would be the latest example of world class hypocrisy from the Arizona Senator, and it would do him no good to push another failed plan of his.

But Obama doesn’t do himself any good here either. He trapped himself for the first time on this road to Election Day. And maybe so after, because if he is President and doesn’t pursue at least criminal charges on the telecommunications companies possible wrongdoings, then he would lose a little of that integrity that has transform him from the future of the Democratic Party into being the Present of it.

Forgotten in all the gnawing of teeth for the “Donkey Party” is the fact that a majority of Senators on the Democratic slide in the Senate voted against the amendments by a total of 27-21. And when Ted Kennedy came back to help them past the Medicare bill, it was a much needed does of good news on an otherwise damaging day.

One in which Obama made his first obvious wrong decision. Not even the overblown and misconstrued "bitter" comments were anything like this.

He wasn’t the only Democrat lacking sagacity here. Rockefeller (arguably the biggest Democrat pushing it), Pryor, Webb, and many others failed to plead for the 4th as well. Whatever their motives were, it was an embarrassing moment for the supporters of them to stomach.

Including those for the party’s nominee, making the first official mistake that you really can’t defend devoutly, no matter how hard you tried.

The Thriller on the Centre Court Villa

Sometimes in sports, we sports writers over indulge in grandiloquent adjectives and ambiguous analogies like this sentence.

And at times, we have a habit at dabbling with them at the wrong moments. They make our job more difficult than it seems, and we place distraction on the readers and ourselves instead of focusing intently on what we are seeing with our eyes. We make the job more difficult than it should really be.

Instead of letting what we witness come to our minds, we fall into a trap of creating or, even more perilously, fabricating a reality that isn’t congruent to what actually happened.

In essence, it would do a total disservice to mention an element that had nothing to do with this match. In fact, even the pre-match hype and the post-match breathtaking moments to think about the glory that transpired in front our irises, retinas, and every part of our ontological perspective can’t be tied together to this 2008 Wimbledon gentleman’s final.

That match made those outside factors become irrelevant the moment that fourth set concluded, though the standard of play, coupled with the rising drama of the day, had long ago made it so.

“The thriller on the Centre Court Villa.”

It was a match that was all about itself. And nothing else.

It wasn’t about the talk of a legendary figure’s last defense of his lofty throne at his first and most precious domicile. It wasn’t about the rivalry generated from the determined brilliance of his Spanish counterpart on the other side of the net, trying to get the title precious to his soul. It wasn’t about a sixth title or a first title. A 13th Grand Slam or a 5th one. It wasn’t about whether their previous match would factor in. And it wasn’t even about what else transpired during the first 12 days of the fortnight.

It was about that last day, and with all respect to the mixed doubles final and its participants of the Bryan brothers, Samantha Stosur and Lisa Raymond, this was the final match of this tournament.

A match that was thee match on its own merit.

A duel that will equal the top duels in tennis history, probably establish itself as the greatest final in the sports’ history.

But forget the comparisons to yesteryear. This match is in its own stratosphere, its own assortment of memorable moments cased by two indelible figures. But they weren’t the only ones apart of it, because the weather certainly made sure it factored in with its great gust of wind and tears from the sky. So did those impassioned fans, who went from concerned about the match ending in straight sets to becoming rapped along in a spectacle drama. Only that was possible by both players entering a unique and near unconscious zone titled “Refuse to Lose.”

“Refuse to Lose” is a place for solely the exceptional. It’s more perfect than any worker’s utopia, more defined than just entering “The zone.” It is an area that encompasses an amalgamation of sheer will along with disciplined nerve. It can leave you breathless with how the fight to prevent one’s self can capture the human imagination. And it can capture the human soul.

“Refuse to Lose” came into inception in this match, when Roger Federer was facing a deflating three sets to love defeat in the eyes at 0-40, 3-3 in that third set, at the hands of Rafael Nadal. From that moment on, from that survival in that game to stave off that horrible feeling, to serving that clinching ace on set point to get the epic comeback belief pumping, the Swiss had joined the Spaniard in that realm.

“Refuse to Lose”, a motto both of these men enthuse to everyone tuned into their duel to the utter death. The fourth set hit your sense of euphoria if you were a neutral fan of this match. Once again, instead of harboring on things to compare the events of this match, just the description will only come close to matching the actions that inspired them:

Federer “refusing to lose” by getting out of a 0-30 jam at 3-4. Nadal “refusing to lose” not trying to give him any itch by surrendering any break points in the set. Federer “refusing to lose” his serve to force the set into a tiebreak.

The match, itself, “refusing to lose” its chance at being something to saver forever, because only it knew what was about to unfold.

The second tiebreaker of the match was an 18 point display that seemed to matter more than any other one in history.

Both players, already masters of the defense to offense and vice versa, took it to a level the game’s greats had nothing seen before. The defense to more defense in order to get that precious offense. The defense that turned out to be actual offense. The offense that ended up as the unfortunately as defense.

It was a constant mutation of who would be the puncher, who would be the counterpuncher, and who would play to their roles at the same time perfectly.

They raised the stakes by following their own formats, their own ways. “Refuse to lose” vociferated through their minds. It wavered in Nadal’s head when he was 5-2 up, two points from winning. A double fault, his last of the match, followed by a backhand into the net. The first time you ever saw signs of tension getting to Nadal.

But “refusing to lose” quickly came back to his soul immediately. Down set point, Nadal scrambled enough like always to force Federer to an easy forehand miss. Change sides, six all. Then, he coerced him into another inaccurate forehand.

First championship point.

But “The thriller on the Centre Court Villa” wouldn’t be anything if neither gentleman exited the “Refuse to lose” zone, no matter what they faced. For Federer, he was staring again at the door, trying to get pushed out by Nadal. He controlled his own destiny on the first attempt, an emphatic serve winner.

Then, came that forehand past at seven-all from Nadal. That spectacular running forehand effort that went by a stretching Federer. For most, that would have been the end of a match. A resignation of “Just too good today” or “It wasn’t meant to be for me after all” type statements. Most would have certainly left the “Refuse to lose” zone after seeing such a devastating blow hit to them.

Not this man, not this prideful champion, not like this.

Second championship point, Nadal looking for that glorious win, going for that moment with more conviction than at 5-2 and 5-3. A deep forehand with a purposeful charge to the net, playing it like the champion at Wimbledon he wanted to be, just like the man across the net. He denied that moment that Nadal wanted so badly with a one-handed backhand pass for the ages. It couldn’t be struck better, by anyone better.

8-all.

Two points of supreme aggression later, from the one on the cusp of leaving the “Refuse to lose” zone just a minute or so ago, a fifth and deciding set hits us. Hits the television cameras, the phtographers’ lenses, the irises and the retinas of those fortunate to have them properly working. It even hit the endocrine system of the man desperate to keep his coveted position, leading him to take a quick bathroom break before the famous finish unveiled itself to us.

Fifth set of “The thriller on the Centre Court Villa”, begin.

The same themes continued though the first four games, with another rain delay in between. Thoughts of whether this match would be grand enough for one day loomed larger and larger, in similar proportion to the drama it was producing. Both men clinical on serve at the resumption of play, revealing in the all court war of explosion that each inflicted on each other. The fans seemly divided into an imaginary demarcation of being on the side of one “R” or the other “R.” Both sets of supporters, whether it was Federer’s longtime girlfriend Mirka or Nadal’s parents, about as tight as their players’ headbands. It was truly a moment when you felt like holding the hand of maybe even your mortal enemy.

The rain stops, play resumes as the night beckons.

Deuce, 2-all. Federer responses with two serves, Nadal can’t touch either one of them. 3-2, then 3-3, then 4-3.

Then, it seemed like Nadal finally was feeling the effects of being so close but yet so far. He the one now placed in the teetering position, on the edge of the “Refuse to lose” door. 30-40, five points away from a lost that would feel ten times more painful than the final score would show. But like Federer, he doesn’t want to leave this place. Powerful forehand that Federer can’t handle. He holds.

4-4. Then 5-4, then 5-5.

Once again, all of a sudden. Federer is pushed to that exit door. 15-40, Federer facing two break points, Nadal five points away from victory again. His response: Another timely ace, and then a forehand that Nadal can’t control on his backhand. 6-5, pressure back on Nadal.

Just like Federer felt on that backhand past at 7-all in the fourth set tiebreak, most would have been devastated and demoralized losing two break points, losing two match points the way Nadal did. And just like Federer however, he wasn’t ready to leave that “Refuse to lose” zone. 6-6.

Pressure back on Federer, in a 0-30 hold again. He gets out of it with that clinical serve of his, 7-6. Pressure back on Nadal, pressure erased again by him. 7-7

Suddenly, it was getting to that time in the match when destiny would have to help one man usher out the other out of the “Refuse to Lose” zone. It finally had to facilitate in the dirty work of ending something near and dear to our hearts.

It had to make one made the winner, and one the loser.

0-30 down again was Federer, and then two points later, 15-40 position of woe returned. So did him stepping up to the occasion, another ace, and another aggressive dictation with his forehand. Deuce.

Two points later, a second deuce.

And then, destiny and Nadal pushed Federer one step out of the door. It caused one miss on that faithful forehand at deuce, and another one on the sixth break point of the set for Nadal.

8-7 to Nadal, one game away now on his serve, entering the 16th game of the ultimate set.

The match resumes

The forehand long from Nadal to begin the game. 0-15.

The serve and volley out of nowhere. 15-all.

“Refuse to lose.”

Another clutch serve and volley winner, the unexpected of the unexpected in a match where that is the sole measure of standard. 30-15.

Another timely, placid backhand pass from Federer. 30-all.

Nadal forcing play with an intrepid spirit to get a backhand wide from Federer.

Third championship point.

Federer once again, for the umpteenth time in a match that will be remembered for umpteen centuries, shows his intrepid spirit, producing improbable magic with a backhand return followed by several “OH MY GOODNESS” from around the world. Deuce!

He’s not ready to leave.

Does this moment not faze either of them, at all?!

Nadal steps up, somehow broken only one time in this match and still not the winner at a quarter past nine. Three match points gone, and all of them producing not a single choke job from him.

They all resulted from the guts and glory of the man on the other side of the net. Any other person would have said “This isn’t my day, it just can’t be.” But this man from Mallorca, along with this man from Gstaad, takes full residence in the “Refuse to Lose” zone.

Ball toss in the air, and two strokes after seeing another backhand go past him on a match point, Nadal had forced a fourth one. “Refuse to lose” now transformed into something different, because at this stage, no one was a “loser.” Nadal step up again, bouncing the ball with no more threats of a time violation from Pascual Maria, waiting patiently for the final cries from the fans of whomever they backed.

First serve in.

Forehand return from Federer.

Backhand cross court from Nadal.

Then, on the fourth stroke of the 413th point of this masterpiece, Roger Federer didn’t leave the “Refuse to Lose” zone, even if he hit a backhand in the net to suffer the lost of his throne at his most valued home.

Instead, Rafael Nadal entered the “I Won” zone.

Down in relief, stretched out on the ground he was after four hours and 48 minutes of tennis that was more than about tennis. It was about the brilliance of the genre we call sports. The flash bulbs were in total effect for photos, whether digital or other, will hopefully never be deleted from our minds or our cardiac muscle.

There’s no need for direct quotes or psycho-analyzing to see how happy and elated Nadal and his camp is and will be feeling. There’s no need to do the same to look into how dejected and sad Federer and his camp is and will be feeling. That’s for another time, another piece.

Because “The thriller on the Centre Court Villa” speaks only about itself. And it has ever selfish right in the world to do as so.