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.