After the bad taste following the Casey Anthony trial it has been fairly amusing for me to watch Rupert Murdoch sweat out the News of the World scandal. In case you haven’t heard, and that could only happen you’re a devoted fan of the Fair and Balanced FoxNews channel, one of Rupert Murdoch’s holdings in News Corp, the News of the World scandal rag has done an impressive job of creating its own political scandal that leads all the way to the Royal Family. The charges are that editors knew that staff were utilizing illegal hacked sources and were bribing police officials to get inside scoops on celebrities, dead British soldiers, a dead teenage girl and the Royal Family. Unfortunately, the inside info on the Royal Prince was a little too on the money thereby prompting an official hacking investigation. Of course, as the hacking charges grew in intensity so did the efforts to cover-up. To add to the carnage the British Prime Minster David Cameron hired one of the compromised editors, Andy Coulson, of the New of World as his communication officer compounding the mess.
All of this leads to Murdochs and what did they know of the scandal. Rupert did what he always does when the heat increases he acted boldly and folded the entire newspaper to kill the trail. Even so, the timing couldn’t be worse as Rupert Murdoch was busily acquiring another company to add to his communication empire: the takeover of the hugely profitable BSkyB satellite television operation.
I understand that the Murdoch’s will claim that they don’t have day to day control of their holdings and subsequently they will claim no knowledge of the hacking. That’s an understandable defense but the hacking charges are not new and with their somewhat lackadaisical control over their operations many will simply ask why should they be trusted and rewarded with the acquisition of BSKyB?
More importantly why isn’t FoxNews in the states covering the story? Surely, the folding of News of the World because of the ongoing hacking scandal qualifies as a newsworthy item, particularly because of the impact on the British PM. But no not a single word anywhere on FoxNews nor on their website. Why? Because Rupert Murdoch owns FoxNews and it’s not nice to air the bosses’ dirty laundry so the FoxNews editors got word not to breathe a word of the scandal. Go ahead and look on their web site, all you will see is business blurb regarding the close of New of the World operation. Jeez, I have seen higher journalistic editorial standards at a local high school newspaper. And if Murdoch’s has that type of control over the FoxNews editors it’s hard to believe he did not exert that same measure of control regarding News of the World. Here’s your smoking gun, let’s see if any of the politicians on Rupert Murdoch’s payroll grow a pair and take their chances away from Murdoch. I got to buy me a politician someday you know?
Update: Still nothing this morning on the FoxNews channel but there were more business entries about the scandal at the FoxNews Site. Latest word is there were attempts at getting 9/11 survivors personal information. If you recall a little while back there was neocon backlash agianst the 9/11 widows, the thinking being that the widows were getting too much sympathy and too much money from the terrorist attack that occurred duing George Bush’s watch.
Obama comments, ‘We do not have time for this kind of silliness”
Trump replies: “I’ve accomplished something nobody else was able to accomplish,” Trump said. “I’d want to look at (the birth certificate), but I hope it’s true so that we can get on to much more important matters.”
Obama “should have (released the certificate) a long, long time ago,” he said.
Well, now that Trump has accomplished something hopefully Trump and his perpetual bad hair day will exit the presidential race but we know that’s not going to happen.
Its amusing how much obsessive energy goes into questioning the birth certificate of Obama by Tea Party advocates. I didn’t vote for Obama as much out of respect for McCain as for my innate distrust of Obama’s redistribution of wealth plans. That said, I can also smell the whiff of racism in the tea-bagger birthers take back the country campaign which is really synonymous with tired, old white guys who despise Obama’s dark skin. The birther issue, much like the 9-11 conspiracy theory, was fueled as much by distrust, paranoia and wishful thinking by birthers than being based on any real factual information.
Same can be said of Tea Party zeal for going after the unions for all of the nation’s troubles. Of course, all of the fools are just spouting the words of the Rupert Murdoch funded conservative Fox News propaganda machine. You don’t hear nearly as much vitriol regarding the TARP funds and where the money went into billion dollar bonuses for fund managers and widows. The Fox News dogs heed their master fairly well and frankly nobody on either side of the political spectrum really knows what to make of the TARP mess. Like the remains at Gilgo the consequences of the TARP episode will take time to expose and by then the trail will have grown considerably colder.
However; tea part advocates need not fear about lacking appropriate family fare entertainment now that the germaphobic, people firing, liberal entremanurial publicity machine called Donald Trump announced his entry to an already colorful field of Republican presidential aspirants. And boy does he knows how to work a conservative Tea Party audience particularly by stoking this birther nonsense. I give Trump credit for taking China on and how uneven the competitive manufacturing playing field is with China but the rest of his platform borders on sheer lunacy.
Why lunacy? Well, let’s look at one of Trump’s foreign policy initiatives and you can forget about calling Trump a cowboy; his take on the Mideast oilfield strategy would make even a foreign policy cowboy like George Bush blush in its sheer audacity! To quote Donald about the Iraq oil fields, “You’re taking– we’re reimbursing ourselves– at least, at a minimum, and I say more. We’re taking back $1.5 trillion to reimburse ourselves (for the Iraq war).” Let’s see, we are going to invade and decimate your country, kill thousands of your citizens for non-existent WMDs and then charge you back for the privilege because… well we’re America and we can! What a deal and as only The Donald can pitch to a world-wide audience! This guy is a genius, I don’t care what they say about his cross-weaved combover being “an elaborate structure best left to an architecture critic”.
And is that the real problem with going off the political deep end with the Donald , we just don’t get to have the real conversation about social entitlements and how do we go about equitably cutting them back? Instead, we get more side-show snake oil entertainment from a carnival barker. Fret not however; Trump’s team of crack investigators will soon get to the bottom of the Obama birth certificate mystery, whether you gave a damn or not!
Latest News:
“Well I’ve been told very recently, Anderson, that the birth certificate is missing,” Trump told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Monday. “I’ve been told that it’s not there or it doesn’t exist. And if that’s the case it’s a big problem.”
Latest word is Trump now wants to see Obama’s college grades in addition to his birth certificate. Obama should agree but with the caveat that Trump must release a video on his hair styling techniques. Enquiring minds want to know!
BREAKING NEWS: OBAMA RELEASES LONG-FORM BIRTH CERTIFICATE! NOW WHAT WILL BIRTHERS DO!
Here’s a recent article quoting the Newtster Newt Gingrich as he went campaigning for the 2012 Presidential Election:
“I have two grandchildren: Maggie is 11; Robert is 9,” Gingrich said at Cornerstone Church here. “I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they’re my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.”
I don’t quite get the message. Is Newt Gingrich suggesting that the radical Islamists and secular atheists are teaming up to take over America? Now why Gingrich thinks atheists will join Allah-following Islamists in taking over America, well that’s just weird out of the box thinking that only the Newt can do. 7-11′s, gas stations and Starbucks aside, I just don’t see the Islamist-Atheist demographic increasing their numbers to the point of taking over the country. Is there some conspiracy whereby they’re going to inter-marry and give birth to little Islamic-Atheists? Could such a person even exist outside Salman Rushdie? And if you follow Gingrich’s thinking, does being Islamic or an atheist automatically preclude you from being an American? At least he showed a little restraint in his flamboyant commentary; he didn’t throw homosexuals into the mix but then again he probably assumes all atheists to be homosexual!
Frankly, hasn’t Gingrich read the recent census reports regarding the rise of the Hispanic population within the US mainland? Really, if you’re Protestant your biggest fear should be being swamped by the waves of Latino Catholic immigrants and not by some unholy alliance between radical Islamists and Atheists. Besides, Atheists adopting Sharia law, that will be a cold day in hell, right?
Seems this hyperbolic insight flowed as Newt Gingrich was addressing CornerStone Church, a megachurch in San Antonio, Texas, led by the Rev. John Hagee, an influential leader among American evangelicals. You might recall Hagee’s endorsement of then-presidential candidate John McCain in 2008 being plagued by instant controversy. McCain rejected the endorsement because of comments Hagee had made regarding the Holocaust, claims that Adolf Hitler had been fulfilling God’s will by hastening the return of the Jews to Israel, all of course in accordance with biblical prophecy. What crapola! Hitler as an instrument of god! Doesn’t matter; Republicans love to pander to this nutty crowd!
Needless to say, the Newt Gingrich was strangely quiet about his own martial indiscretions and numerous divorces that have made his appeal to the Bible Belt, well just a little less than appealing. His extra-marital affairs during the cancer illness of his first ex-wife were particularly insensitive and smarmy to many onlookers so it remains to be seen if he can attract a following by pandering to the Bible-Belt.
In his own defense I love this quote from the Newtster: “There’s no question at times in my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.” So that’s what causes infidelity: working too hard for one’s country? Damn it, with all of the ongoing divorce there must be a lot of patriots out there in the hinterlands. Well, something was hard but not necessarily the work and how you can say this with a straight face is beyond me. In any case, Gingrich will convert them all even if it means taking on the unholy alliance of Islamic-Atheist Un-Americans!
That said, with the Newt clearly on his game and with Donald Trump sounding more and more like a closet Birther, this presidential campaign has all the earmarks of being just as entertaining as the last one! And here’s one prediction you can bank on, as the economy goes so does Obama chances for re-election!
Not sure when it happened but I think the American Conservative movement has reached a new nadir with recent antics of the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Christine “I am not a witch but I dabbled” O’Donnell and Sarah Palin. Actually, compared to the rest of this crowd Sarah is starting to look like an erudite elder statesmen. I listened to the clip from Glenn Beck and his asinine comment about how he hasn’t seen a half-monkey half-person species yet. Hell, I didn’t know he was looking. It’s a stupid off the cuff comment that just makes you shake your head. Of course he is referring to a transition species or in the vernacular, a so-called missing link. However; his entire argument just reeks of stupidity as though he never a read biology book in his life.
So I”l try to explain this in words Glenn Beck can understand. Hey moron, for your information hominids, you know chimps and gorillas, are not monkeys and their genome is particularly close to our own since they are our genetic cousins. Eight million years ago, our relatives went their way and the chimps and gorillas went their way into the jungles. Yet we remain physically close to our cousins; hell we even got freaking AIDs from them. But of course knowing this would mean studying and understanding science which Americans now seem to have an aversion to for some moronic reason.
Yes, I understand you don’t want to believe in evolution with the dozens of key fossils and DNA information we have at our disposal but Glenn has no problem with accepting the tenants of a religion such as Mormonism which includes the wearing of magic underpants. Yes, I know the Bible contains everything you need to live a righteous moral life but it also endorses slavery, polygamy and incest as well as contains two thousand year old science. How did the Conservative movement become equated with such inspired stupidity and ignorance?
What happened to the Conservative party of George Will and William F. Buckley? I used to enjoy reading their newspaper columns since many times their opinions were often diametrically opposed to my own worldview s but they were at least challenging if not sometimes damn elegant in their arguments. They moved Conservationism away from its racist roots but then a slow downward curve began with the embrace of Reaganism. Reagan was no intellectual giant often eschewing philosophical conversation or debate for a sound bite. Now conservatism is equated with anti-intellectualism as it embraces some false egalitarianism. It’s acceleration was heightened with the Willie Horton ads and the likes of Karl Rowe stooping to the basest lowest common denominator among white voters.
Yet it’s really the American people who are to blame for the ongoing mess and they alone created the need for this neo-conservative backlash. We have become increasingly stupid while harboring misguided feelings of entitlement. We’re fight wars against terrorists with traditional armies costing trillions of dollars while we continue to move our own jobs overseas. Yet it was the American public that forced the hands of retailers and manufacturers. For the the last twenty years Americans have voted with their dollars by buying Walmart and this did not go unnoticed by Wall Street. Hell, if I can save a buck I’ll buy at Walmart, who cares if it was made with Chinese slave laborers. Who cares that the original American supplier got so squeezed by Walmart as they forced him to outsource his manufacturing to China. Screw it, I saved a buck and let’s hope it’s the other guys job that goes overseas with it.
Think again people! All of the manufacturing jobs went to China and Southeast Asia including Vietnam, what a kick in the head! So what if your good paying manufacturing job is now replaced by a crappy minimum wage position at Walmart. Don’t worry, good jobs will be created in technology and service in the next few years, right? Oops, we saved another dollar there also and moved those positions to India because you as as the American consumer didn’t want to pay American wages for technical support. So now that high paying job goes to an Indian named John when you speak to him on the phone but whose real name is more likely to be Sumesh. Oh well, that Walmart clerk job is looking damn good to you and to make up for those lost wages the wizards in Wall Street will whip a whole series of credit vehicles including exotic mortgages for you to whip up some ready cash. So what if your debt increases, you always have the rising value of your home to bail you out, right?
Ah crap, the housing market tanked as if any market was recession proof. Now you rant and rave at Obama who inherited a freaking mess from Bush and who by the way, it appears never listened to Bill Clinton. Yes, President Obama it’s the economy stupid, not health care that concerns Americans!
As to my own brand of conservatism most Tea Baggers would scuff at my conservative assertion and call me a damn liberal but not so. I am against all new taxes and having worked in the government for five years I observed how the corrupt the patronage system is for both parties, I can say you never ask the government to do anything for you; you’ll just pay double for it in sheer inefficiency! Same applies to military spending and the waste inherent with that government spending! So no government meddling and largess; that also means staying out of my bedroom. Let me believe in any god or gods or no gods for that matter that I want to believe in. And Christine O’Donnell if I want to masturbate leave me alone; at least its safe sex!
No, I don’t want a state religion including Christianity and don’t bring that crap into the classroom under the guise of intelligent design. Keep it secular! Don’t tell me who I can sleep with either; as long as they are a consenting adult it’s not the government’s business! And leave me alone regarding my choice of drugs; if i want a drink fine but don’t tell me I can’t smoke a joint because some corporation is not making a buck from my purchase. And if I want to smoke cigarettes so be it as well in my system I’ll just pay my fair share in increased health care costs to a private insurer to cover my own indiscretions. Finally, I don’t want you listening into my private life all in the name of combating terrorism. Asking the government for anything will cost you twice in money and the loss of your personal freedom. Yes, I am true conservative; I just don’t cherry pick the spots where government can meddle so just leave me alone! That’s as American as it gets!
As to Glenn Beck all I can say to that moron go read a book will ya other than the Bible.
Listen to the stupidity above and now listened to this reasoned intellectual debate between Buckley and uber-liberal Noam Chomsky about American colonialism and Vietnam. Chomksy gets the upper hand in this debate but can you imagine Sarah Palin participating in such an exchange.
Update: Conservative talk show host Sean Hannerty decided to defend Christine O’Donnell’s position on masturbation because it was consistent with her Roman Catholic faith. Unfortunately, an old 11 year old video from Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect Show indicates that while Christine has a problem with the auto-erogenous she also had a dalliance with the occult in her youth. Wonder how Sean feels about defending Christine’s advocacy of witchcraft? Got hand it to her; she is quite the flake!
That’s the problem with the conservative freaks, their criticisms are far ranging except regarding their very own. However Sean Hannerty does have a point that the left also has a nasty habit of defending Muslim fundamentalism under the guise of multiculturalism. Frankly, I never had a problem with calling out the fundamentalist freaks. Muslim extremist have hijacked their religion to push their own agenda of misogyny, anti-western and anti-Antisemitism lies all in the guise of their religion when in fact they have just hijacked the words of the prophets. What is scary is that moderate Muslims have chosen to remain silent which in turn signifies their tacit support of such extremists. Do they really want the world to become an entirely misogynistic, antisemitic and anti-christian burka shrouded existence?
From CNN:
Christine O’Donnell is the 41-year-old upset winner of Delaware’s GOP Senate primary. Christine O’Donnell, who is struggling to gain the support of GOP leaders, insists she will win the general election with or without the backing of the Republican establishment. She does have the backing of Sarah Palin however.
Politically, O’Donnell is firmly aligned with Tea Party movement, which funneled more than $150,000 to her campaign shortly before Tuesday’s primary. Largely opposed to abortion rights and gun control, she has been endorsed by two conservative populists — former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina.
Among other things, O’Donnell, a Catholic, once headed a pro-abstinence group called Saviors Alliance for Lifting the Truth.
“We need to address sexuality with young people,” she said in an interview that aired on MTV in the 1990s. “The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery. [And] you can’t masturbate without lust.” Hardly seems worth the effort without the lust?
Soory but a true conservative leaves both your wallet and your soul alone. Do we really need the government to teach masturbation abstinence to our school kids? And that’s going to work? And really, isn’t masturbation preferable to some of the other alternatives for relieving sexual tension in young adults and it definitely qualifies for most people as safe sex, right? Even Tea baggers can’t argue with that logic or can they?
In keeping with the sexual nature of this post check out this definition of a tea bagger: white Republicans who lost their business/home in the great recession, blames Obama rather than Bush or someone who rests their testicles on another person face. Never realized why the Tea Party hates the term “tea bagger”.
There have been over 200,000 downloads of Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot free ebook and podcast. What are you waiting for? Try these sites for the free Flores Girl novel download for the iPad, Kindle, Sony, BlackBerry, iPhone ebook Readers:
Christine O’Donnell is the 41-year-old upset winner of Delaware’s GOP Senate primary. Christine O’Donnell, who is struggling to gain the support of GOP leaders, insists she will win the general election with or without the backing of the Republican establishment. She does have the backing of Sarah Palin however.
Politically, O’Donnell is firmly aligned with Tea Party movement, which funneled more than $150,000 to her campaign shortly before Tuesday’s primary. Largely opposed to abortion rights and gun control, she has been endorsed by two conservative populists — former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina.
Among other things, O’Donnell, a Catholic, once headed a pro-abstinence group called Saviors Alliance for Lifting the Truth.
“We need to address sexuality with young people,” she said in an interview that aired on MTV in the 1990s. “The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery. [And] you can’t masturbate without lust.” Hardly seems worth the effort without the lust?
Soory but a true conservative leaves both your wallet and your soul alone. Do we really need the government to teach masturbation abstinence to our school kids? And that’s going to work? And really, isn’t masturbation preferable to some of the other alternatives for relieving sexual tension in young adults and it definitely qualifies for most people as safe sex, right? Even Tea baggers can’t argue with that logic or can they?
In keeping with the sexual nature of this post check out this definition of a tea bagger: white Republicans who lost their business/home in the great recession, blames Obama rather than Bush or someone who rests their testicles on another person face. Never realized why the Tea Party hates the term “tea bagger”.
There have been over 200,000 downloads of Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot free ebook and podcast. What are you waiting for? Try these sites for the free Flores Girl novel download for the iPad, Kindle, Sony, BlackBerry, iPhone ebook Readers:
(Update: The good news is that EA changes their minds after receiving a tsunami of criticism and have opted to leave the Taliban out of the game. Good idea with this war still going on and with the bodies of our soldiers still returning from Afghanistan.)
Electronic Arts isn’t wavering in its support of game developer DICE’s decision to let gamers play as Taliban members in the upcoming Medal of Honor.
“At EA we passionately believe games are an artform, and I don’t know why films and books set in Afghanistan don’t get flack, yet [games] do,” EA Games President Frank Gibeau told game developer publication Develop Online this week. “Whether it’s ‘Red Badge of Courage’ or ‘The Hurt Locker,’ the media of its time can be a platform for the people who wish to tell their stories. Games are becoming that platform.”
(Credit: DICE)
Gibeau acknowledged that allowing gamers to play as a Taliban solider is a “creative risk,” but he won’t allow media outcry to “compromise our creative vision and what we want to do.”
I have a real problem with this and it goes to the heart of the Muslim support for the Taliban in the west. Why? Because this type of role playing in Medal of Honor feeds directly into the existing pool of disaffected second-generation Muslim men in the west who are looking for any cause to believe in. Unlike their parents they don’t see the West as home because they feel so marginalized nor do they feel particularly lucky being here. Instead, they back any Anti-Western Muslim movement even one that thinks it’s okay to gas young Muslim school girls because the girls have the audacity to ask for an education. In their hateful minds collateral damage comes with the Anti-Western game.
I bet Medal of Honor is a hit with young wannabe suicide bombers recruits while at the same time the game makers are laughing all the way to the bank. If we can contemplate blocking the building of a mosque we should definitely boycott this hateful Medal of Honor Taliban recruitment game!
More bizarre thinking and this one is unintentionally from NetFlix on a movie recommendation: Fantastic Mr. Fox
because you enjoyed: Kill Bill: Vol. 2. Yikes nothing like a little family fare after some samurai carnage, huh?
Conservative talk-radio blowhard Rush Limbaugh is now yelling at Republican leaders for rushing to demand Texas Rep. Joe Barton retract his controversial apology to BP slackard CEO Tony Hayward during last week’s moronic congressional hearing. Seems like the blow hole is insulted that Americans wanted to be reimbursed for the damages caused by BP. Screw the birds and the fishing industry, big oil is about to be hurt! Way to stand with the little guy lard ass!
On his radio show Monday, Limbaugh suggested the GOP leadership likely agrees with Barton’s sentiments, but are driven by recent national polls which suggest the majority of Americans support President Barack Obama’s push for BP to set aside $20 billion for future liability claims. To date, Republicans have no desire to commit political suicide especially for an indifferent, poorly managed British petroleum firm.
“It was a shakedown pure and simple,” said Limbaugh, echoing the words for which Barton later apologized. “And somebody had the audacity to call it what it was and now everybody’s running for the hills.” That is anybody with half a brain is running for the hills as more ill wind blows from Rush.
“All you have to do is look at the polling,” Limbaugh continued. “We’re talking about Republicans inside the beltway. All you have to do is look at the polling data and media coverage and find out what they are going to do.” How about looking at the oil kicking up on the beach moron?
Barton, the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, was quickly attacked from both the right and the left after apologizing to Hayward during the BP chairman’s appearance before his committee Thursday. Amid threats he would lose his leadership post Barton retracted his stupid apology. After all, his stupid apology just didn’t play well in Peoria, or should I say Baton Rouge after the drill, baby drill comments from the same Republican knuckleheads.
“Let’s just slither away under the rock here,” Limbaugh said. “We’ll let Joe Barton get eaten by the Democrat lizards on this to protect ourselves. This is politics and this is the reason why true believers have such a problem with politics. It’s just that simple and no more complicated than that.”
Yeah, you’re right and screw the little guy losing his livelihood in Louisiana due to some oil giant lacking the foresight to foresee something going wrong on one of their rigs. Who knows? Maybe Rush is expecting a big payback from BP to cover the costs of having Elton John sing at his wedding. And why not when you consider all of the money Joe Barton has received from the oil business over the years? That’s what it’s all about for both the Republicans and Democrats: patronage, kickbacks, lobbyists and cozy revolving door relationships with the companies you are supposed to be regulating while you BS the American public.
Here’s a novel idea! May I recommend as a public service that we use Rush’s fat ass to plug for that oil hole in the ocean. It’s not a bad idea considering this would be the first public service he has done in a long time – he certainly didn’t fight for his country in Vietnam when he had the opportunity! Clearly, he is more concerned about party loyalty than being right or doing what is good for the people of the Gulf and haven’t we had enough of this behavior from both parties?
The news that Michael Vick signed with the Philadelphia Eagles left me feeling bemused and more than a bit conflicted. Clearly, Vick was punished for his crime, that can’t be debate. Michael Vick lost millions, his reputation, a chunk of his pro football career and served 18 months in prison. So in terms of payback to society one could argue Michael Vick paid his debt and I was close to forgiveness.
But then one of the ESPN commentators on the radio flamed the fires of revenge for me. We were reminded that this wasn’t just a matter of fighting dogs that were tortured and killed, as though somehow they deserved that horrific fate but we were reminded of the cruelties to everyday family pets. You know pets, those trusted loyal companions that functions as friend, family and companion. We were reminded that small fuzzy, defenseless dogs were thrown into the pits to be killed as a sort of sick warm up for the main dog fighting event. In fact, Vick had no qualms about sacrificing and killing his own family pets. As a dog and animal lover I find the behavior reprehensible and a form of betrayal belonging to a lower form of life, definitely bordering on the sub-human. How could any sentient creature be so cruel? Then I remembered, oh right, we’re talking human beings were acts of cruelty occur every day as if it was an integral part of our DNA. As we race to 7 billion being served, it’s not surprising to find that the deviants and sadists, even if they are the decided minority, are stilling teeming in absolute numbers. That’s the other cruel joke, that is when we assume global warming can be divorced from population control but I’ll save that commentary for another blog.
I remember some of the Michael Vick excuses. It was the warrior culture Vick came from that engendered his behavior but hell after a losing game I don’t recall the fans stringing and hanging up the losing quarterback by his feet like they did to inferior fighting dogs? Vick commented that this was the culture the adults in his childhood exposed him to but I’m sorry if Nazi Germany taught us anything it’s that as citizens we have a responsibility to know and do the right thing. Torturing any creature is verboten in my book as it is for most of us despite what any given authority figure might say.
So, now I am agitated and upset regarding Vick and the other cruel sadists bastards that I have to share this once pretty little planet with. Then I remember a transcendental moment a couple of years ago. I think most of us vaguely remember the sad school massacre of five Amish children back in 2006, unfortunately these horrific incidents tend to blur into one another as the public become inured to the horror. The media was all over the story talking to the Amish parents who were trying to console the family of the man who performed the hideous crime. One of the grieving mothers quoted a familiar Amish phrase, “If we don’t forgive, how can we be forgiven?” Say it quickly and it almost sounds like a trite aphorism, light and somewhat soothing when you are dealing with some small slight from another person. Say it when you daughter was just massacred because some deficient creature couldn’t get over the loss of his own daughter and it borders on sainthood. And that’s was just what the Amish were saying as they embraced the grieving family of the mass murderer.
So should we forgive Michael Vick and his transgressions? Frankly, I think Michael Vick’s remorse is as ephemeral as Don Cheney’s Vietnam war record. And then I think of those words, “If we don’t forgive, how can we be forgiven?”
Cheers,
Erik John Bertel
Vick Media Update: I listened to a few sound bites from the 60 Minutes interview and the Michael Vick mea culpa. I could not force myself to watch the whole spectacle because I knew Vick was being handled and coached. I wasn’t wrong because this morning ESPN reported that Vick has hired a media consultant team that has assembled a 42 page media crisis guide that will address the rehabilitation of Vick’s tarnished public persona. Listening to a few sound bites and reading between the scripted words he sounded more like he was sorry that he was caught rather than being truly repentant for his hideous actions in torturing dogs. When you realize that dog fighting is tied to gambling and organized crime well lets just say I’m rooting for the Giants anyway.On the plus side I don’t believe he will become a serial killer.
Try these sites for the free Flores Girl novel download:
(Credit: DICE)
